I'm a slacker... I KNOW!!!

It has been a VERY long time since I've updated my blog (shame on me) and as I was sitting here in front of the computer today, I decided I should just DO IT. So here I am. I'm going to try to update you on everything Sean and I have been up to since July... (deep breath... this could take a while!)

Early August: We closed on our house in Bloomington Hills. It's a cute little starter home. 4 bedroom, 2 bath, big back yard with lots of grass and fruit trees, and an awesome neighborhood. Sean and I fell in love with it as soon as we walked in the door for the first time. I think we visited it everyday (ok... maybe not EVERY day but a couple times a week) once our offer was accepted. We knew where the keys were so we would just go in there, lay on the carpet (it was brand new carpet, clean and sanitary) and talk about all our dreams for it.

Late August: Our family took a vacation to Oceanside (annual tradition for our family). It was so fun! We stayed for a whole week. It's been years since I was able to stay for a whole week and I really enjoyed it! Here is a picture we took there.

September: Labor Day weekend we found out that we were pregnant!! We were thrilled!! Our due date is May 15, 2010.

November: We celebrated our first year anniversary on the 8th. A couple weeks later we went to Barcelona, Spain (as an anniversary trip). It was my first time to Europe and it was amazing!! Both Sean and I still work for Skywest Airlines so flying to Spain was really cheap and we were even able to fly first class (which is an experience all by itself! If you ever get the chance, do it!). We stayed there for 4 days, it doesn't seem like a lot but it was the perfect amount of time. We got to tour all the major attractions of the city and enjoy the ethnicity of Spain. The people there were really nice. It was a great experience. Here are a few pictures we captured there.

December: I was at work on the 9th, when I first felt the baby kick! It was a very exciting moment! On the 22nd we had an ultrasound and found out that our baby is a GIRL! Yay! We're super excited. Can't wait to welcome the little bundle into our lives!

Christmas was great this year! Sean and I woke up at 5:30 in the morning to have our Christmas at home, and then we headed up to my parents to have the family Christmas at 7:00 am. It was early, but rewarding! We spent most the day at my parents and then headed over to Sean's sister's house for Christmas dinner with his family. It was a great day. I love Christmas!

Well... I think that about sums it up! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas too, and now we get to look forward to New Years!!!

So You Think You Can Dance!

I just have to say that I LOVE this show!!! It's so fun to watch all the creativity and the talent. And this dance was AMAZING! I can't get over it. I can't even count how many times I've watched it... (haha I know... I'm a dork!) but it's so funny and so creative. AMAZING! haha. Just check it out. And if you've never seen the show before, you are MISSING OUT! It's awesome! That's all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCjh1rKTwIM

Blessed

I just have to say that I have been so blessed lately. Everything in my life has just fallen into place and I feel so blessed and loved. My marriage is so beautiful and special and I thank my Father in Heaven everyday for sending such a wonderful man to be by my side. I can't even express how perfect he is for me, and I'm so thankful for his support and love. My photography business is up and running and I want to thank all of those people who have been rooting for me and lending their support. It has been a journey but I've really enjoyed it and I know it will only get better from here. My family is so amazing. I love them so much! I'm especially thankful to my parents, my brother Jake and my sister Kylee. Jake has always been so level-headed and fun to be around, I'm grateful for his calming spirit. He always makes me happy. My relationship with Kylee has grown so much over the last year, I want her to know how special she is to me. She is turning into a beautiful little lady and I'm proud of her.

Well, I'm starting to babble now! Haha, sorry! I've just been in a really sentimental mood lately, I can't help it! But I'm done now. Thanks again to everyone who has helped and supported me!

My Brother's Wedding

My brother's wedding was this weekend, May 16. The weather was nice, even though it was SUPER hot in the sun. There was a slight breeze most of the time so that cooled it off a bit. The ceremony was very special. They were so happy and in love. They left Sunday for Alabama to board their cruise to the Caribbean. They were originally supposed to cruise to Mexico but then changed their minds when all this "swine flu" business came out. The cruiseline was gracious enough to let them switch.

They're very happy. And I wish them the best. Congrats guys!

I posted more pictures on my photography blog here. Check it out!! And please leave comments, I love them!

Graduation!!

This post is to congratulate my wonderful husband on graduating with his Bachelor's in Accounting this semester! He's been so busy and stressed but he made it through and I'm so proud of him. Now he's got one year left for his Master's and he'll be COMPLETELY done! I know he's excited to be out for the summer. The poor man had a tough semester. It's not all fun and games though, he has to take his GMAT test this month in order to make it into the Master's program. He'll do fine though. I have faith in him :) He's really good with numbers, I don't think he could have chosen a better field. He's perfect for it. Well, I guess that's enough for now.

Way to go Sean!!

30 Days!!

Some of you might remember my earlier post about Power 90... well we've made it 30 days!! Hurray! This is our first big landmark in the whole 90 day process, we're 1/3 of the way done! I've never stuck with a workout that long... I guess I just get bored. I give all the credit to my wonderful husband, he has great motivating power over me. In 30 days my thighs have grown a 1/2 inch (of muscle of course, they're already looking more toned) and my arms and stomach have gained a little definition... not as much and I would like, but hey it's only been 30 days. Sean's arms have grown 1/2 an inch and he's way more toned! I have noticed the most change in how I feel though. The workouts are getting easier and easier every time we do them, and I have more energy. It's been a good lifestyle change. Probably the hardest thing for me is being patient with my body. I just want to workout once and have major changes, I don't want to wait! But I'm hoping the next 60 days brings me a whole new body! I guess we'll see.

Touch of Life Photography

I'm finally up and running!! The blog isn't perfect yet, and eventually I will create a real website... but for now it works. You can check it out here. I will update the posts soon with photo shoots that I've done so you can see some of my work. And I will continue to post as I do more photo shoots. I'm really excited!!! I'm taking a photography class from my boss Rex Winterton, it's a blast. He gives us a topic to take a picture of (this week was WISDOM) and we get to be as creative as we want! He also covers a lot of tips and tricks we can use when at work. He's very knowledgable, it's fun to learn from him in a classroom setting!

Well I guess that's all I have to say on the subject for now... I'm super excited and I'd love to hear any comments you have!

What a day!!

It's official. Sean and I have horrible luck. Just when we think we'll be able to pull ahead financially, fate steps in and decides there are different plans for us. We had to take our car into the shop two days ago because something funky was happening. Just to name a few: the sensor on the driver's side door wasn't working right so to the car it was as if the door was open, which meant the car wouldn't lock and the window control panel wouldn't work, and the clock wouldn't display. Then, every time we started the car all the dials would jump all over the place and the trip odometer would reset. So of course, we called Bruce Neilson (our mechanic) and we brought it in to him on Tuesday. He fixed it right up and it worked fine.... until today. Sean and I walked out to the car, ready to leave work for the night and the car wouldn't unlock with the clicker. Logic set in and we unlocked it with the key (we had to go waaaay back in time for that), but when we tried to start the car the alarm went off and wouldn't stop unless we pulled the key out of the ignition. Yes, uh oh is right.

We tried everything: unlocking and relocking the car (with the key of course), pulling the remote apart to see if it needed a new battery, we even read the whole manual... to no avail. We talked to Sean's boss (who I think is also a mechanic?) and he said it probably had something to do with the key, that the chip in the key went bad and we needed a new one. We then called Stephen Wade Honda and talked to a tech there who said our key would probably need to be reprogrammed. The only problem was how do we get the car there if the alarm is going off? Answer: drive it while the alarm is blaring. That's not embarrassing at all... (right). I didn't even know that was an option! But lo and behold, as soon as we turned the key, it started right up. So we drove it to Stephen Wade with the annoying alarm announcing our arrival. I've never had so many people look at me with disgust as I did tonight.

Unfortunately, the guy working didn't have a clue about anything. After doing his own 2 minute assessment, he told us that it would be at least an hour before a tech could look at it and it would be a minimum $85 just for the diagnostic. We asked the guy if it could possibly be the key and he said "I don't know." We asked him if it could be a fuse, his reply? "I don't know." So we opted to take it back to Bruce, he's always fair. And the Stephen Wade guy? Not a happy camper. The best part is that we got to drive it AGAIN with the alarm sounding. Yesssss!!!

We got it to Bruce's place (he was gracious enough to wait for us) and he took a quick look at the fuses and at the driver door sensor because as we were driving it to Bruce's, we discovered that the same problems that made us take the car in two days ago were happenening again (dials going funky, trip odometer resetting, clock not displaying, etc). He looked at it for about 5 minutes and decided it wasn't a quick fix and he needed to keep it for the night.

Thus began our trek home. That Honda is our only car and we couldn't get a hold of the in-laws to come pick us up. So we walked and walked and walked. Luckily the shop is only about a mile away from our house. And all this time, Sean was trying to figure out how he would get to his softball games (he plays on the city league with his buddies) at 7:00 (it was now 6:45). His friend Josh volunteered to be the taxi and picked us up while we were still walking, he took me home and gave Sean about 2 minutes to change and be back in the car. And guess what? Sean's parents were home this whole time but neither of them answered their cell phones or home phone, however they drove right by us when we were walking down the street. They didn't even look! Man... what luck.

Well I'm home now, thank goodness and hopefully our car will be fixed soon! We need date night!!!

Power 90

Sean and I decided to invest in our health and physical fitness (finally). We borrowed a work out DVD from a lady that Sean works with because according to her, it was the best. We had been talking about getting into shape but neither of us were very motivated. We started running a few nights a week around the golf course by our house, but I'm just not that into running. Actually I cringe every time we talk about doing it. Anyway, so this lady said "I have the solution!" and she brought this DVD to work and we thought eh, why not? Well it sat on our dresser for at least a month until one day we decided we should either use it or just give it back, so we used it. And boy was it AWESOME! And wouldn't you know it? We were all gung-ho and excited about doing this DVD everyday after work when the NEXT DAY she asked for it back! Ha! So I insisted we just buy our own copy and after reading the reviews and all the success stories (even though I don't really know how truthful they are) I was even more gung-ho! It turns out the DVD is part of this 90 day system that's supposed to "totally transform your body" and don't just take my word for it, check it out! It's pretty cool!
I ordered it last week and it finally got here today! I'm so excited to start my "body transformation!" haha I don't really know how much of a transformation I'll make but anything is better than nothing right? Right! Our goal is to start Monday and to track our progress through the whole 90 days and take "before" and "after" pictures and the whole deal. It should be pretty fun. Wish me luck!

St. Patty's Day

Sean and I took Monday and Tuesday off work . The original plan was to go somewhere, anywhere just to get away and enjoy some time off. But then his accident happened and we're expecting a big bill from the ER so we decided to just stay home. It turned out wonderful! We've been trying to catch up on LOST from the beginning, so not having to go to work all day meant we could spend the hours wasting away in front of the computer watching the show develop. It's been fun!

Well some of you know that I wanted to lighten my hair. I haven't been a "blonde" since my high school days (almost 5 years ago! Eeek!) and I wanted to go back to that. Just for a change. Well it's a harder process than I thought. I went to the salon about 2 and 1/2 weeks ago and bleached my hair. It turned out puky orange uck! And I had to live with that for 2 and 1/2 weeks! I was so ugly. I hated every second of it (just ask Sean!). I didn't want to be seen by anyone and wouldn't you know it... I saw more people in the last 2 weeks than I ever have. People that I haven't seen in years! So now they have a wonderful memory of me with orange "oopsy" hair. Joy.

Anyway, so since I had the day off work I decided to go to the salon again yesterday and get the next phase over with. And again, it turned out puky orange, but lighter... almost strawberry but UGLY! I almost started crying! I'm so sick of having ugly hair! Luckily Sean was there (he was wanting to get his hair cut) and he spoke up for me. He told my stylist that I didn't like it and to do something else. So we discussed our options and bought some new hair color. 5 hours later and this is what we came up with. I'm still not sure if I love it but it's a heck of a lot better than it was! And Sean thinks so too.

Hospital...

This news is almost a week old now, but I just have to post it. Sean plays on a city league softball team with a bunch of his friends and we play every Thursday night. Last Thursday Sean had a little boo-boo. He usually plays shortstop but "for fun" he switched with an outfield guy for ONE inning. That would be our luck...


So he gets out there, we're into the inning maybe 5 minutes and someone hits a slugger right in Sean's direction. He's hauling for it, sure he's going to get it. Everyone is watching enthralled hoping he catches up to it fast enough because we could use the easy out. And then WHAM all of a sudden he's down on the ground and he's not getting up. He ran straight into the chain-link fence. The ironic thing? It's green, not silver, and it blends right into the background especially when the sun is already set, so no one saw him heading right for it. Not even the other outfielders cheering him on. My first thought was "is his nose broken? is he ok?" Nobody really knew what happened, but they slowly started to clue in. A few people from our team trickled over to check him out. Then a few more... then the whole other team. Then the ump. And what happened next? The ump RUNS away from him. I thought he was going to call an ambulance. And all this time, Sean was still laying on the ground.


I decided this was my cue to go out and see for myself if he was ok. As I'm running out there, all I see is a whole crowd around him and one of his friends looks up and gives me 2 thumbs up. That's good news right? Right. I take one look at Sean and my heart dropped. His nose was bleeding all over the place, he has blood in his mouth and he was shaking. He kept saying he was ok but I didn't believe him.


After filling out some papers for the softball field (for legality reasons?) I made Sean go to the Emergency Room. And the first thing Sean said to me when he saw me picking up all the blankets and my keys was "we're leaving?" uhhhh YA!! You're bleeding all over the place.


We got to the ER at about 8:20 and were there until almost 11:00... ugh. I hate the ER. But the damages were a huge gash on the bridge of Sean's nose, one is his lower gums and another one on his upper lip. His knees were all banged up. He had to get a tetnis shot. The toenail on his left big toe was bent half back and bleeding all over. It took him about an hour before he finally felt the pain from everything and then he was in agony. The PA on duty decided to stitch up his nose and lip but not his gums, it wasn't big enough. He had to have numbing shots in the wounds before they could stitch them and Sean says that was the worst part of everything. He was gripping my hand while they were numbing him and I thought my hand would have to be amputated afterward. Poor guy. That was not a pleasant experience. Luckily, after they numbed his whole big toe the PA was checking around to see what he would need to do (clip some of the nail, cut the whole thing off, etc.), and when he touched it it just snapped back into place. So they just bandaged it up and moved on. Sean was happy about that.

Anyway, long story. He's ok now, healing really well. His lips are no longer swollen but his gums still hurt. He'll get the stitches out on Thursday so all we'll have left to deal with are the huge bruises on his knees. I took a few pictures but I'm not going to post all of them because I'm sure no one wants to see the gruesome stuff.

My poor husband... :(

American Idol

I'm watching American Idol right now and I just have to say that Kara What-ever-the-heck-her-last-name-is is just DUMB. She's very obnoxious and all of her comments are annoying. I researched her today and I found out that she's some renowned singer/songwriter. All of her songs have been hits and she's written for a bunch of different major pop stars. WHAT??? I would NEVER have guessed! I thought she was a nobody coming to take over Paula's spot or something? And you'd think that someone who was so knowledgeable about music and hit singers would be... well... cooler?? I don't know. She's just absolutely annoying. However, I will say that the competition seems to be pretty good this season. I like a lot of people this year, but I'm still waiting for that one singer to steal my heart.

Well this seems like a waste of a post... but oh well. I just had to say it. Kara sucks.

Excited!

Ok so Sean and I have been trying for a while now to come up with a plan for the future and decide when we can get some of the things we've been wanting. Originally we were going to try to go to BYU this fall but that kind of flew out the window (neither one of us ended up applying... we didn't feel right about it). Sooo, now the plan is to buy a home before December 1st so we can qualify for the new stimulus package just passed by Obama ($8000 tax credit that you DON'T have to pay back to the government. I know, it's pretty awesome! It's like Obama is paying me to buy a house!). Also, I want to get a camera, a Canon 50D to be exact so I can start my photography business. PLUS, we want to have a baby (this is not announcement, I'm not pregnant, I just realllly want to be).
Anyway, so we've been scouting out houses seeing what the general market is right now and what type of house we can afford, etc. I found this beautiful house on craiglist (best website ever for all your buying/selling needs). It's 3 bd/2ba with a landscaped backyard and even a little playhouse (it can be converted to guestroom/craftroom whatever. It's got a phone line and air conditioning!) and even some nut and fruit trees! I LOVE this house! The best part: it's only $137000! We could totally afford that!
Also... Sean said we could afford to get my camera by MAY!!!!!!!!!!! Yay!!! I'm so excited!!! He's also going to hook me up with Photoshop and everything to get me going! It's going to be fun, I've been dreaming of this forever. Our brother-in-law is a hairstylist and he's been asking me when I'm going to take pictures of all his hairstyles. He wants to create a portfolio. And the payment? Free haircuts/color forEVER!! Heck yes, I'll go for that!
As for a baby, we're not trying yet. But soon hopefully!

That is all for now. :)

Valentine's Day

Saturday was our first Valentine's day together. Sean was so sweet, he made sure he got me a dozen roses and took me out for a special evening. He and his friends set up a private dinner for all of us girls at Shroomies (I'm sure most of you have heard of this place by now, they normally only serve soups and sandwiches and stuff like that, really good food). The cook Ry Ry wants to break into the catering business and we were his guinea pigs. He served some yummy food and delicious dessert (chocolate covered stawberries... perfect for lover's day) and we even got to drink sparkling apple cider! Yum!! The tables were all decorated with rose petals and candles... totally romantic. There were only 4 couples there, Sean and me, Sean's brother Rick and his wife Traci, Jeff Clark and his wife Jessica and Josh Peterson and his girlfriend Aimee. It was a blast! Ry Ry did a good job of taking care of us. And the best part.... no wait and no big crowds! We got right in, sat right down and had a private dinner in a romantic setting. That's the way I like it!

The dinner table, equipped with rose petals and a candle

The group (from the left): Jessica and Jeff Clark, Josh Peterson and his girlfriend Aimee, Sean and I, Sean's brother Rick and his wife Traci.

I've been tagged!

10 Years ago I was...

1. In 7th grade
2. 13 years old
3. Clueless about soooo many things... haha
4. Wishing my mom would let me wear makeup
5. Hormonal...

5 Things on today's "To Do" list...

1. Go to work
2. Go to interview for Benefits job
3. Watch LOST
4. Make dinner
5. Go to bed

5 Things I would do if I were a Millionaire...

1. Buy a house
2. Put Sean through school, whichever one he wanted
3. Travel
4. Buy a new car
5. Save the rest, or turn it over to Sean so he could make the most of it!

5 Places I have lived...

1. Walnut, CA
2. Murrieta, CA
3. Bloomington (St George), UT
4. Winchester (St George), UT
5. St George

5 Jobs I have had...

1. House cleaner/babysitter
2. Albertsons
3. The Leavitt Group
4. Skywest Airlines
5. Marriott

Disneyland

Yesterday was Sean's birthday and we had previously planned to go to Disneyland to take advantage of their "free admission on your birthday" deal. However, Sean was sick all weekend and it was looking as if he wasn't going to be able to go. He kept getting fevers and he had a horrible cough. Luckily, he pulled through and we went anyway! He wasn't in his best health but he felt well enough to enjoy the thrilling rides at the "place where dreams come true!" Our adventure began at 5:00 am when the alarm went off (blah... I hate waking up that early). We got ready and made it to the St George airport at 6:20 to make the 7:00 flight. We landed in LAX at about 8:00, ran around for a few minutes until we found out that the ghetto place we rented a car from didn't have a regular shuttle service and we had to proceed to the LAX shuttle service to parking Lot C and someone would pick us up there or so said the girl on the other end of the phone who apparently had bronchitis because I couldn't hear a dang thing she was saying as all the buses, cars and trucks zoomed by me.

ANYWAY.... so we get to the rental car place which is called ACE Rent A Car (word to the wise, NEVER rent from them no matter how much money you save. Their walls were peeling and they probably have a mice problem and their shuttle driver smells like onions and listens to Muslim talk radio) and we sign the deathly papers stating that our card will be automatically charged if anything happens to their car. Great. They don't even have a "card machine," they've only got one of those really OLD card machines that imprints your information on a piece of paper. Easily accessible by anyone. Needless to say, I was glad to get out of that place!

We made it to Anaheim by about 9:00 and decided to just get Mickey D's for breakfast to save time... what a bad choice that was. The place was being "remodeled." There was no place to sit and they didn't even have bathrooms! We ended up having to eat in the car. Happy birthday husband, sorry this is nothing like breakfast-in-bed!

That's about where the negativity ends because we got to the ticket gates right as the park was opening and a friend of ours was able to get us both in free! Cha-ching! The lines were small and the crowds were few. Most rides we were able to just walk right on! One of them being Space Mountain, which is always packed! Lucky us! Sean was given a "Happy Birthday" button that we pinned on his pants and people were wishing him happy birthday left and right. Mmmmm and we got some rainbow sherbert at the ice cream shop... so delicious! Disneyland was a blast.

We left the park at about 5:30, got dinner at Tony Roma's and drove back to the dingy car rental place where we sat for a half hour waiting our turn to return the car, all the while listening to some poor guy who was stranded in LA and couldn't rent a car because he didn't have a credit card. Tough luck. We finally got back to the airport and made our flight home.

All together I think the day was great! We had a fun time at Disneyland. Happy Birthday Sean!

Update!

So I was kindly informed that I deperately need to update my blog! I guess I just haven't gotten the hang of this yet! :) But let's see, Christmas was great. It was mine and Sean's first Christmas together and we had a wonderful time. I love presents! And I couldn't believe all the snow!! I've lived in St George for 12 years now and I have NEVER seen a white Christmas! Then New Years was great. We had a good time with our friends ringing in the New Year, playing games and enjoying ourselves. My brother Dean returned from his mission on January 2nd and it was awesome to welcome him home! He served in Jacksonville, Florida for the past 2 years. It's fun to have him home once again. Our family is complete. And he was finally able to meet my husband (we got married while he was gone.... oops!). Oh ya, and then my birthday was on January 11th... the big 23! Although that's really nothing exciting... after 21 it's all over. haha. Dean's homecoming was the weekend of my birthday so we had a lot of family and friends over to celebrate with. It was fun!

Well I think that's all folks.... (for now of course). I'll try to be better about updating my blog! Maybe I'll do it once a week? That will be a new resolution!