COVE: the long-awaited post of ages

Hey! How've you been? We've been excellent, and far too busy to tell you about it. But I'm here now, because Jesse is hunting and I don't want to clean the kitchen. Sorry. I mean, I'm here now, because I love you and deeply care about your well-being and I know that is dependent upon this blog. Was that better?

So, since I last posted, we moved to Cove, Oregon, and changed pretty much literally everything in our lives. New jobs, new house, new ward, new state, new cat. It was a little crazy actually. I was kind of worried because we moved to a place where we knew absolutely no one, and also because the whole thing happened SO FAST and there wasn't time to think or decide really. It was just, Jesse got a job in Idaho and Eastern Oregon, and we picked here because...well, because it's Oregon vs Idaho, can you blame us?

So, Jesse has been teaching history at La Grande High School, and I have been a paraeducator in Willow Elementary. I am essentially an assistant teacher in a kindergarten class (well, 2 classes because they do half-day kindergarten). And the kids are SO cute and I love it, even though it is 100% exhausting, 100% of the time. Also, my legs hurt from sitting criss-cross-applesauce multiple times per day. 

I think Jesse likes his job. He claims he does, but he has general rage towards the not-completing-of-assignments, which is something teenagers do. So there's that. 

We also have a house now. Jesse's parents own it and the 17 acres of land it is on. Whenever I tell people this, they instantly assume it is a very nice house and that we are living rent-free. If so, you clearly have never met the Wrights (who I love very much). Let me disabuse you of this notion: it is a small, 100-year-old farmhouse that Jesse's parents intended to tear down, and we pay the same rent as the renters before us. There is electricity 90% of the time, internet 80% of the time, and cell phone service 70% of the time. There are also an absurd amount of flies lying dead in all of my windowsills as we speak. There is not a dishwasher, heat or air conditioning (we have a wood and a propane stove), or a garbage disposal, and we have an airplane-size bathroom. But still, it's a house, and because Jesse's parents are probably going to tear it down, we can do whatever we want to it. Including: paint! Which was VERY GOOD, because the previous color scheme includes the following:

• rusty peach-colored walls mixed with weird muddy tan ceilings
• maroon and gray faux-wood paneling with matching maroon trim
• weird dogs painted on the ceiling upstairs (I am not even joking)
• wallpaper applied so badly that the bedroom looks like that house in Sia's Chandelier music video 

So, we rescued the peach-and-mud kitchen and living room immediately. This is the AMAZING result. My before pictures are somewhere, but not here, so one day I'll show you a before-and-after photo. For now, though, here is the AFTER!

 Jesse's parents bought this place for the land it is on, which is amazing. Here are some photos taken in our backyard a few weeks ago.

I'm SUPER proud of that red door. And this is the front of the house.

 We also live pretty far out in the country (Cove has about 500 people in it) and very near the mountains. On Tuesday we took a 4-wheeler ride up the nearest one to the peak. It was amazing, but there was also 6 inches of snow and it was colder than I had ever anticipated. Basically, it felt like we climbed Everest and we are very, very cold in these photos. But totally worth it. Overall, we are loving this new adventure and chapter in our lives, though I do miss having my family so close by.

And finally, here's our kitten, Midget. She's about 4 months old now, and that face is super dangerous. It means that over the next ten to thirty minutes, she is going to slowly go into a crouch and lift her butt higher and higher into the air, until she suddenly runs headfirst straight into your shin. Then, she will be momentarily dazed, and then try to run away while arching her back as high as possible, which I affectionately refer to as butt-running, because it's like her butt is trying to propel the rest of her body forward.

 And with that, I bid you adieu! Said Midget is crying because she got on top of the water heater and can't get down.