Been busy

Its been a while since I blogged, so I figured I better get on it. I changed positions at my work, so I've been working like crazy trying to figure out what I am doing! Also, we moved from an apartment into a house we're renting, so between the moving and unpacking, and not having internet for a while, I figure that's all good excuses, right?
We've been trying to get out to the lake more, too. Rob finally was able to wakeboard for the first time this summer. Poor guy, he's been so anxious to go, and I know he wishes he could go every day. I face planted so hard last year, that I've been so chicken since then to go much, or even cross the wake. I haven't gone this summer yet, I've been waiting for the water to warm up. I'll be SO SORE when I finally go!
There's been a lot of running around going on, and hopefully life will calm down a little for us.
A few weeks ago we found out that my step-dad's mom has cancer. That was kind of a shocker for us all. We're just hoping that the surgery did a lot of good, and that chemo will take care of the rest. It makes you realize even more that you need to let people know how you feel about them before its too late.
I also found out something the other day about my grandpa, who passed away about 7 years ago. He was in a care center for a few years before he passed away, and unfortunately I only got to see him twice in that time. It was hard to see him, because he had Alzheimer's and I couldn't understand him when he tried to talk to me. The only thing I understood was when I said, "I love you" he said, "I love you too". That meant a lot to me. Well, my cousin told us that some staff would steal from my grandpa at the care center. That really hit me and bothered me a lot! Maybe a lot of it is because I now work at a care center and I can't imagine someone doing that to one of our residents. It doesn't matter if they know what's going on or not. Now I know how the family would feel. I felt so upset. A few weeks ago I said to Rob, "I wonder if my grandpa was someone's favorite resident", because I have a few favorites. And Rob said, "I know he was." Rob's so sweet. And although some of the staff weren't respectful, I sure hope that he was someone's favorite.

Tagged.....8 things......

8 Things I'm Passionate About..........
1. ROB
2. Family
3. Beleifs
4. Love
5. Friends
6. Music
7. a home
8. Traveling


Music I Can Listen To Over and Over Again.....
1. Pink Floyd
2. Pinback
3. Duncan Sheik
4. Death Cab For Cutie
5. 80's
6. Panic! at the disco
7. Red Hot Chili Peppers
8. The music played at my wedding!


The past 8 books I have read.....
1. Forever Odd (reading now)
2. Odd Thomas
3. Conquering your own Goliaths
4. WebTop Training for Taleo (for a new program at work)
5. The DaVinci Code
6. You Are Special
7. Various books to my niece and nephews
8. Magazines: Bridal ones, and Cosmo

8 Things I Say Often.......
1. Sup Yo
2. ...In your pants
3. poop
4. You want a treat?
5. I love you
6. Wanna play me?
7. uh-huh-uh
8. hi frog


8 Things that attract me to a friend.....
1. Good personality
2. Beliefs
3. easy conversation
4. Laid back
5. common interests
6. good sense of humor
7. niceness
8. they want to be friends with ME


8 Random Things About Me....
1. I want a dog
2. I'm trying to de-clutter
3. I LOVE scary movies!
4. I now have BANGS (again)!! (14 years after I grew them out)
5. I have screws in my jaw
6. I have a bad knee
7. I want kids
8. I have a bad back


8 Things I Want to Do Before I Die....
1. Have kids
2. Get sealed in the temple
3. Go back to England
4. Renew our vows on the beach somewhere
5. Go to Hawaii
6. Make sure my family knows how much I love them!
7. Go on more road trips with the ones I love.
8. See my kids have kids.

8 Things I Have Learned this Past Year....
1. We have a lot of work to do before we'll ever have a house! :(
2. Rob is WONDERFUL!
3. I cannot live without my amazing family!
4. Cruises are awesome!
5. Working at a care center is great!
6. Losing people sucks, but hopefully I have had a positive effect on their lives.
7. Rent is too expensive, we need to move.
8. Rock band is SUPER FUN!



If you're reading this and you haven't done this, I TAG YOU!!!!

in the end....

My cousin wrote a post that got me thinking. It really is important to let the people around you know how you feel about them, because you never know if it is the last time you'll see them in this life. I work at a care center, and I have grown to love the people there. Yes, I do have a small handful of favorites. One of them passed away friday. We were all pretty shocked because he was only 62. He's been at the care center for about 5 months. He quickly formed the habit of coming to my office EVERY morning to say hi and see how I was doing (unfortunately it was after he had been a witness of a VERY bad day for me (see post from Feb 22nd "Dang it")
He was such a nice guy, and I looked forward to his daily visits. When I got to work on monday this week, I hadn't heard that he had passed. All I knew is that he went to the ICU on friday. I went down to his room to see how he was, if he was back. I was stopped at his door by Darrick, my co-worker. He had a nervous look on his face. He knew this guy was one of my favorites. He told me that he had passed away on friday. WOW. Not what I expected to hear. It was hard. A couple of my co-workers asked if I was ok, and said "the first is the hardest, not that it gets a whole lot easier, but this is hard". One of my other favorites, was his friend. So I had to check on him. Around noon, I caught him in the hall. He said, "How can someone be there one minute, and then the next, be gone?" I didnt know what to tell him. All I can say is now this wonderful man is in heaven, able to do the things he could no longer do easily here. He's with family who've gone before him....fishing...and listening to Lynard Skynard and the Eagles. Good-bye...since I wasn't able to say it before!

Children

It’s so sweet how innocent children are. I think of things that I believed when I was little, and it makes me laugh. So I thought of a few to share with you:

One of my babysitters when I was little told my brother and I that if you died in a dream that you’d die in real life. That had me scared out of my mind!! All my life I have had very vivid, crazy dreams. And I once had a dream that I died…..yet I am still here! ;)


Someone once also told us that if you ate a pickle before you went to bed that you’d have nightmares. Well, my brother and I were sick, twisted kids, and we’d always try to eat pickles before bedtime because we wanted to have a nightmare.

My paternal grandparents lived next to some railroad tracks when I was young and my brother loved to go see the train when it came by, so they began to call my grandparents “Grandma and Grandpa Choo-Choo”. I remember for YEARS thinking that was their real last name! “Choo-Choo”


I grew up in a SMALL town in eastern Washington, (Chewelah). My brother and I would run around all summer barefoot. I remember MANY times stepping on a bee and getting stung. I think my mom would get so sick of my whining and crying, she’d shove an Otter Pop in my mouth. It seemed like that was the only time I got one, so FOREVER I thought that it was medicine for a bee sting.
There are more, I just have to try and recall them.
Funny times....

Appreciation

Happy Teacher Appreciation Day to all the teachers!!!!!
If you are a teacher, either by job, or not, you do an amazing job!!!

Non-Cruise Excursion

It's taken me forever to blog about this, but I was thinking about it again, and it made me laugh. On the cruise ships they can plan excursions for you to do on shore, but they are all so expensive, so we decided to do one that was not on the
ship. The lady was at this booth for ATV and dune buggies. So we
thought that looked fun. So she sent us to the main shop a block away. It
looked like the start of a horror film.



Very rundown place, beat-down dog in front, mexicans welding buggies back together, broken down cars all
over, and a New Yorker running the place, his hair in a ponytail. Just
seemed sketchy. I said "Rob, I dont have a good feeling about this"
especially when were the only ones there. Then another group of 8
Americans came and felt the same way, and were glad we were there too. But it
ended up being fun! We rode through the streets to some dirt roads. Got
to see a lot of Puerto Vallerta that you dont normally see.

Our ATV was squirting oil out the left side, right at our legs....OUCH! So, once
we got half way through, we told them, and they switched us ATVs. We
stopped at a tiny Tequila factory, which was pretty interesting.

There was a cute little puppy there that followed us around the whole time.

The other group with us was from Wisconsin, and we had to laugh at their
accents. They were pretty cool, until they decided that we were too
clean on our ATV (they were all driving dune buggies) and when we went
through water they tried to drench us, but Rob drove fast and we avoided
the mud. SO it wasn't a horror film ending. The guys that took us spoke
really good english and were hilarious. But they seemed scared of the
New Yorker owner......maybe it'll really be a horror film.

And the wedding was...

Ah, the wedding.... I wanted to wait until I had a little more time to
blog about this EXTREMELY special event. The last 2 days before the
wedding we were all so busy trying to get everything ready for the
wedding, that it hadn't really set in that I was getting married. Even the
morning of the wedding, we were all running around town and around my
in-laws house decorating and getting last minute things done. The wind
kept blowing table linens and tulle around. DANG WIND!! As I was showering
and getting packed, I was hounding Rob to finish editing the song I
was walking down the aisle to. Of course he had to wait until this last
minute to finish it! I was ready to leave to his parents to finish
getting ready, and I needed the song on my ipod. Sharise and Kriss were
waiting patiently for me, and he finally gets it done and I dash out the
door. As my mom did my hair I wrote down the list of songs and when to
play them, so that I could make Sharise's husband, Chris, be my own
personal D.J. (Which he did VERY well, and I appreciate him SOO MUCH).
Sharise and Kriss (my bestest buds since high school) helped me get into my
dress and finish getting ready.
I had seen some amazing photography that my cousin, Jason, had done. So
we roped him into coming to take pictures. I haven't seen this guy in
like 16 years, and he just walks in and starts getting ready to take
pictures. I'm like "HELLO!! Give me a hug, geek!!" I was SOOOO happy that
he drove down from Provo with his sister Shawna to take pictures. (And
Shawna was an amazing help to calm me down when I started getting
nervous!) I got to see these pictures last night. OH MY GOSH!! Can I say
AMAZING?! He has a talent for unique shots. I'd love to post every single
one, but I'll post my FAVORITE one of me that BLEW ME AWAY!
And my favorite of Rob and I.



Rob and I both were a lot more nervous than we thought we'd be. Then my
mom and sister came to hug me before the ceremony, and both started
crying, so I had to try not to. They told me it was safe to come
downstairs to get ready to go down the aisle. It was still windy....so I said
a prayer. The wind stopped for the entire ceremony! I couldn't believe
it. I tried not to cry as I walked down the aisle. And I could tell Rob
was trying not to cry. The ceremony was wonderful, and went smooth.
And I'm so grateful that my SUPER friend, Jared, was there to videotape
the whole event! (He's leaving soon for an internship for camera
operation with the NFL! So I'm glad he was still here for the wedding). So
many people came to the reception, so that made me happy! Even two of
Rob's high school buddies made it out! YAY! Friends I hadn't seen in a
while, and friends that I wish I could see more often were there. Some of
my old posse from Wells Fargo was there. The candy table was a hit. I
wasn't extremely happy with my cake, it didn't turn out how I wanted,
but people still said they liked it.....so hey, what can I do...it could
have been worse! The wind still blew a little, we had to change our
décor a little, but other than that, it was amazing. My best friend from
middle school, Robyn, lives in Montana and couldn't make it, so her
wonderful mother came and kept shooting pictures with her phone and
texting them to her. Poor Robyn was just sitting home crying cause she
couldn't make it! She's so cute!
Everyone that helped get this put together was so wonderful. My
adorable sister and neice made the most beautiful flower girls EVER!! My
brother and nephews were amazingly handsome and well-behaved ring-bearers!
My wonderful brother, Josh, and Rob's brother, Danny, were the
groomsmen. My sister April, sister-in-law, Jalee, and Rob's sister, Michelle,
were my gorgeous bridesmaids! They put together such a cute bridal shower
for me and helped out in SO many other ways, I am eternally grateful
for. I was so happy that my dad actually made it down to walk me down
the aisle and sing for me. Both my parents and Rob's parents sacrificed
so much time and energy to put everything all together, and I can never
repay them for making our wedding such an amazing day for us. My mom
and dad both picked the perfect songs to sing for us.
We were playing music at the end of the reception and I was jamming out
with my friends, I didn't want to leave, I didn't want this to end!
But everyone kept saying "Hello! The bride and groom are supposed to be
GONE!!" so I reluctantly changed into my post-wedding-gear,

and we left in my adorably decorated car (Thanks, girls!).


As Rob and I drove to Vegas we reflected on how amazing everything had
turned out. The next day we left on our cruise ship to Mexico. That was
such a fun trip! It was a first cruise for both of us, and we loved
every minute of it. It was an awesome way to start out our life as
husband and wife.


Thanks to EVERYONE involved in helping make it such a wonderful
memory!!! I love you all!