~Help~

Ok...so I'm totally bored with my blog and am in need of a major change. So...those of you who have super cute customized blogs....Help me! I don't know how to do a custom blog so any info you can give me on how to do it would be fantastic. I'd like to do something with pictures of Randy and I scrapbook like...well..I'm not sure, but any ideas would be appreciated! :)

~Temple Lights~

So...I don't get out much around the holidays. Mostly because I like to go do things with my best friend/husband and since he's on social hiatus during December, that usually means so am I. However, this year...I dragged Randy out of the house. And it was totally worth it. Some of my friends and I planned this for a couple of weeks and of course I didn't tell Randy until the day before, not like it matters because he doesn't remember anyway. haha! So Randy got off on Friday night and we headed down town. It was fun. I love seeing the lights during Christmas, there's nothing better to get you in the mood for the season. This was the first time that we got down town when the new temple model was there. It was awesome. I love it. I so want one in my house. haha! After we walked around temple square for a while, some of us decided food was a good idea so we went to crown burger. It was delicious! And a good date night. Here's some pictures of our good time...

I so love this guy!


Me & Randy

Steph, Kiel & Kelsi


Scott & Manda

Marc, Mindy, & Gavin

Nick & Lacey

~Life as We Know It~

Ok...so as time goes on...I'm getting worse and worse at this blogging on a consistent basis. But I guess that's what happens when you don't have a job that you're sitting around for hours on end with nothing to do. Of course I wouldn't be complaining at all. I am loving the fact that I'm hardly ever bored these days. haha. So...as you can probably tell, Randy and I have been working like crazy, which doesn't leave much time for anything else. But here's an update. Randy had a birthday...hooray! I love celebrating my husband and giving him stuff. I think I could do that ever day if I had the money. We had a gift card to La Calle so we went there for his birthday with his sister and brother-in-law. It was in one word...amazing! Ridiculously expensive (hence the only reason we went was because of the gift card) but the food was SO good! I'm pretty sure I've never had food that was that good in my life. Everything melted in your mouth...I'm salivating just thinking about it. ha! Randy's dad and mom were in town so we headed up to park city to spend some time with them. We absolutely love spending time with them and wish they lived here so we could see them more often. That same week was Thanksgiving so we headed up to Randy's sister's house to have dinner with the family. It was fun. But like every year, thanksgiving day went by way too quick and then came the dreaded black friday weekend. So I pretty much just expect that after Randy's birthday I'm not going to see him until January...which is pretty close to accurate. So...I've decided that I'm just going to completely max out in my job and do everything I can so Randy never has to work another black friday again. ha! So my job has been absolutely amazing lately. I love it. There are parts I hate about it, but in a weird way the reason's I hate it are the reason's I love it as well. I've been super busy with that but it has all been worth it. I know that I'm supposed to be with this company and I love their message and how much we are able to help people. I can seriously go on for hours about it. :) But anyway...things are going great around here, just pluggin along. Oh...so I totally found our next project. It's going to be a while before we can get started, but I'm super excited about it and it's going to be absolutely awesome! For any of you who are thinking about starting home projects...just remember that once you start, it becomes an addiction...and is super hard to stop. But I find these dumb little projects so therapeutic so I will continue to do them until I have my house completely how I want it (let's see if that ever happens...). Anyway...I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving and is enjoying the season! Oh...and I'm really bad at taking pictures, so I'll have to get better at that so I can post some.

~Tests~

Ok...so there has been kind of a neglect when it comes to my blog lately. Well...there is a reason for that. Four weeks ago, my application finally got approved to get my securities license (I first applied in July...so it took much longer then I wanted it to). As soon as I got approved, I knew I was no where near ready, so I took some time off work, and started cramming! It was super stressful because there was so much information that was new, not to mention that the product knowledge that I had to know for the test was very different then the product knowledge that I have learned so far...so trying to keep those straight was a challenge. My first test was on the 22nd of October, and it went really well. This was the test that had the most information so I pretty much spend 3 weeks just studying for it. The test went super well, I pretty much knew the whole time I was taking it that I was going to pass. My second test was on the 29th, the day before all the halloween festivities started. I figured it'd be good to get it out of the way before the holidays. So I spent a week studying for it, which I thought was enough time. But when I went into take the test, I realized how much information was on the test that was not in the reading. It was by far the absolute worst test I've ever taken in my life. I knew that out of the 60 questions, I only had 3 that were for sure right. The rest were pretty much just guesses. Luckily, I'm a pretty good guesser and by some miracle, still passed, but it was aweful! I'm so glad that I never have to take that test again. But, it was all worth it, because now I can sale some absolutely amazing products (and what's more...I don't have to tell people that I can't tell them about something that I know) which is going to be awesome! All in all, it's a relief to be done and to move on with life.

~The Fire~

I'm not going to lie...I find it slightly amusing that my next post is about this, when the last post was about how beautiful the city I live in is. But, it was a pretty big event here and it changed a lot on how I think about things, and what's really important in life. So the sunday before last, Randy and I went to dinner at my parents house. Everything was pretty normal, but we found that it was pretty smoky in the area. Not really thinking too much of it, we left to eat some food. Down by my parents house, the smoke was like 10 times worse then it was by our house, but we didn't really think too much of it, until of course, we began our drive home. We hit about 11400 south and at that point, we saw a lot of smoke, and some orange shading just at the mountain top. By the time we hit 12600 South the flames were visible. At this point, we realized that this fire was way worse then we thought it was. When we got home, we couldn't see the flames anymore, but there was still a definite orange glow just above the mountain top. Randy and I decided to walk around the neighborhood and see if we could see the fire any better. Around 8pm, the flames came above the mountain top and began to jump down the mountain. It moved pretty quick. Around 9pm the fire department evacuated the neighborhood just to the south of us, about 3 streets, and a lot of the people in our ward. At this point, Randy and I thought it was inevitable. We were going to be evacuated, we just didn't know how long it would take. We came home and began to pack some stuff. Obviously we took all our pictures and tried to get everything that couldn't be replaced. I have to tell you...trying to pack up your entire life in 1 car is not the easiest thing I've ever done. Randy kept telling me that I should take what I could and that everything else was being condemed to burn. Like that made it any easier. After we were done packing, we went around the neighborhood and asked everyone that we saw if they needed help getting out. Most were already packed, or weren't planning on taking anything so that made things easy. Around 11pm, the flames had reached just above the bottom of the hill (just a few blocks from us) and we decided that it was better for us to leave rather then get woken up at 3am with a mandatory evac. I have to tell you...leaving our house was like the hardest thing ever. I had no idea whether or not I was going to be able to ever go home again. With the flames as close as they were when we left, anything was possible. We got to my parents house for a very rough night of sleep...it's pretty hard to sleep when every time you close your eyes you see your house burning to the ground. I woke up around 4am, after not getting to bed until about 1am...and couldn't get back to sleep. Then Randy's family started calling around 5am, so that made things even harder to sleep. Now obviously our house didn't burn down, but we both mentally prepared ourselves for that reality. In the end, we really had everything that we needed. We had our memories, and each other. If we would've had to start over from scratch, it wouldn't have been the worse thing in the world. I am very grateful that we didn't have to go down that road, and even more grateful that I have a husband who can always remind me that as long as we have eachother, we're at home, no matter where we are. Ok...since you are all waiting...here's some pictures. We stopped taking them after about 8:00 so when it got really close, we didn't get any pictures of that.

From our bedroom window


Down the street, just as the flames came over top of the mountain side


The Flames...

~Herriman...Oh how I love thee~

Ever since I have moved up to this area, I have absolutely loved it. I know to some people it seems to be out in the middle of no-where...but I love the small town feel right by the big city. Not to mention to amazing views, morning and night. The other day Randy and I were going out to dinner when we saw this...And you wonder why I love this city so much!

~Pride~

I have mentioned this before, but I pretty much use this blog as my journal so...whenever I have a thought or something that I feel needs to be written down, I blog. Lately I have found myself in a rut, I feel like I go to church and am "mormon" on sundays, but I find that during the week, I don't spend much time studying my religion, or drawing closer to my savior, who has given me everything. I made it a goal this week to change that, and to spend at least a half hour every day studying the gospel, and learning as much as I can about it. This includes reading the Book of Mormon, but also relating it to my life today. My posts in the past have not been overly religious, but I feel that religion is such a big part of my life, and that I shouldn't be afraid to share my beliefs with others. While I was reading today, there was a verse that struck me. I was in 1st Nephi, reading about when Nephi asked to see what his father had seen in his dream, and to understand more fully what that dream meant. The spirit asks him questions about the great and spacious building, and Nephi see's the building fall, and how great the fall of that building was. Nephi finds out that the great and spacious building represents the pride of the world. And this particular verse says "Thus shall be the destruction of all nations, kindreds, tougues, and people, that shall fight against the twelve apostles of the Lamb." This struck me as I began thinking about where our country is heading, the direction and how everyday we seem to get further and further away from what is really important. Trying to take God out of schools, and allowing ourselves to be so caught up in the things of the world, that we forget about our God, and in essence, turn against the 12 apostles of the Lamb. I wonder if this is not a direct prophesy of which way our country is headed. As a country, we are very prideful, we know that we are the powerhouse of the world, yet we forget that the reason for that is becuase of our faith in God. As we strengthen our belief that we got where we are on our own, the Lord will stop blessing us. We have already taken a huge blow as far as our economy goes, every day it seems to get worse, and not better. Every day more and more people loose their jobs and are finding themselves in financial hardship because they didn't listen to the prophets when they were told to get out of debt, and to make sure they were working on their food storage. I can't say I'm not one of them. I am working really hard to get out of debt (almost there), but as for the food storage, other things have taken precedence. So I wonder how much better of a situation I would be in if I gave up some of the worldly things to follow the prophet more fully. I find it amazing when I read a book that was written thousands of years ago and yet the messages in them are still so relevant for today!

~The Remodel~

So...my kitchen is finally back together, except for the baseboards, which we still haven't done, but that's ok. It's been a fun project and every time I come down the stairs in the morning, I'm so glad that we actually did this. It looks so good and I'm so excited to make the rest of my house look as good. When they say that home improvement projects are never ending, they're not lying! :)

The Before Pictures...

Kitchen

Dining Room

The Demolition


Dexter...what a good helper!

Finally ready to start the tile


First tiles laid

Kitchen tiles are finally down...

Dining room waiting to be grouted!

Dexter chilling while we do the front entry way

The Finished product...except for the baseboards of course :)

~Tile~

Oh my gosh...we're finally done! Anyone who is looking to tile themselves, just remember things. 1...it's going to take a lot more tile then you expect. Even if you bring in the measurements to Home Depot, and they get you with their tile expert...they're wrong...you'll probably need twice that. In our case, 3 times that. 2...take the amount of time that you think it's going to take you...and double or triple that as well. ha! Everytime that we tried to start actually laying down the tile, we realized that there was more prep work to be done. Even after we laid most of the tile, we realized there was still more stuff to be done. 3...when people tell you that walls are never straight, don't dispute it. Even if the walls look perfectly straight to your eye...they are not! The faster you accept this, the less headache you'll have. I've suffered enough headaches for all of you. :) Overall...it was a TON of work, but it looks fantastic! And I mean...FANTASTIC! I love it! the only downside is that now I want to do more stuff to my home...like carpet, kitchen cabinets, etc...but that will have to wait. For now, we're taking a break on the home inprovements and just resting...possibly for a while. But we'll see. I'll post pics in a bit, but since I don't have my camera with me, they will have to wait.

~Vegas Baby~

Yes..I'm alive, Still as busy as ever, but I figured that this last week was worth blogging about. Ever since I started with World Financial Group, I've been told by everyone that I absolutely have to go to Convention. I never really understood why, but after hearing all the great things about it, I couldn't help but get excited to experience it myself. Randy, however, was not so much enthuse (probably because he didn't realize that he'd actually be going to the workshops with me, he thought he'd just be able to read a book by the pool all day...yup..he was wrong!). But, my excitement for the week was high, and I couldn't wait to go. So Tuesday night we made the trip down to Vegas. It was a great drive, we drove at dusk so we were able to watch the sunset, which we haven't done together in WAY too long. Wednesday started the festivities, and it was non stop running since the start. But...it far surpassed my expectation. The speakers were absolutely amazing. Even Randy was getting excited about it. We were both exhausted from the trip down, and not really getting any sleep while we were there, but I think it was impossible to fall asleep listening to these people. The convention was 3 days and amazing doesn't even begin to describe it. Friday night, though, we decided to skip out on a part of it (mostly because we planned things before the convention schedule was up) and went to see O. If you haven't seen this show...it is a MUST see! It was absolutely phenominal! My parents were in town because they were coming back from vacation so they went with us. Saturday, we went to breakfast, and then met up with my brother and his friends (who were down there as well) and went to lunch. I found it pretty amusing that we all planned a trip to vegas at the same time, and didn't really know about it. Anyway, it was a great week and I'm so glad that Randy was able to be there with me.

~Too Busy to Blog~

Mostly the name to this post pretty much sums it up. Right now I'm actually at work...blogging in between phone calls and other stuff. I know...riduculous...and it's about to get worse...as far as the busy-ness goes anyway. But I'm alive and well. Extremely busy but loving every minute of it. And there's some pretty exciting stuff to post when it's done. It's what I want to spend All of my time doing right now, but I must contain myself and get my work done first. Hopefully it will be done by the end of the month and then I'll post pictures of our newest adventures.

~Item Crossed off the Bucket List~

So for a while now I've had a list of things that I wanted to do before I die...some of these have fallen into the bucket list of doing before we have kids. These are the ones that are probably more dangerous, or time consuming. On the top of this list was what I was able to do on Wednesday. Yup...SKYDIVING! When we lost the baby, I told Randy that it was a must for us to go before we tried to get pregnant again...so...we got back from Mexico, and our friends told us that they were going a week later. I asked them to put us on the list to go with them...and luckily things worked out and we were able to go. And can I just say...it was AMAZING!!! I don't think I've ever done something so exhilarating in my life. 12,000 ft fall...about 7000 of that was a complete free fall. Oh my gosh...it was SO awesome!!! I'm not going to lie...the ride up to the drop point was rather nerve racking. I was nervous and arguing with myself about it the whole time. I knew I wasn't going to chicken out, but I had to keep telling myself that it would be worth it. And let me tell you...it so was! When the plane leveled out, the doors opened, and out we went. I was the last one out of the plane, there were like 10 people jumping before me, and by the time everyone else jumped, I wasn't even thinking about it. I got to the doors, looked down, but I'm pretty sure my mind couldn't comprehend that I would be falling towards the ground. And then, Chris (my tandem jumper) pushed me out the door. 60 seconds of free falling, and I seriously felt like Superman. I have never experience anything like it...and it was fantastic! My childhood dream when I was younger was that I could fly, and this was the closest thing to it. When we hit 4000 feet, we pulled the parachute and about 10 minutes later, we were on the ground. My landing was pretty easy, but after I landed, I saw Randy coming down, and his guide missed the spot he was supposed to land, and I heard Randy hit the ground...pretty hard. He bruised his tailbone pretty bad, but he said that the dive was worth it. I'm sure we will go again, so if you'd like to join us...it's totally worth it!!! Best thing on my bucket list so far.

Me, Randy, Randy, and Marc right after we landed

~Withdraws~

So remember how freaked out I was about scuba diving? Well...it's becoming an addiction. I blame the fact that I had to certify for the 3 weeks prior to going on vacation. This means that for 5 weeks in a row, I was scuba diving at least twice a week, sometimes 4 times a week...just depending on what needed to be done. It has now been 2 full weeks without being in the water with scuba gear on...and let's just say...I don't like it that much! I find myself hanging out poolside (our pool finally opened this weekend and we were there like every day) but it's just not the same. I fear that this is going to become a pretty expensive hobby (especially considering the fact that the in-laws are already planning a trip to the other side of Mexico in October which I'm pretty excited about!). But...for all of you who are considering trying it..DO IT! But be aware that when you don't go...you may just go through withdraws!

~Adventures of Mexico~

Ok...one word...AMAZING! This vacation was so needed and it was great. We spent most of our time between Cancun and Playa del Carmen, (that's where our hotel was). Our hotel was amazing! it was so pretty and right on the beach. We left on the 23rd and got to Mexico around 4PM. It was so warm it was great! Friday was pretty much a relaxing day, we checked into the hotel, met up with Randy's parents, had dinner, and just relaxed. While we were there, we ended up doing 2 days of diving, (we thought 3 might be a little too much) and then we spent 2 days doing the Mayan Ruins. The first one we went to was Chichen-Itza, which is probably the most popular of the Mayan Ruins, and the amount of people that were there proved it. The ruins themselves were really cool, but the place was packed with vendors all trying to get you to buy their stuff. I know they're just trying to make money...but it was pretty annoying. We also got to swim in a cenote (and underground cave) which was pretty cool. I was really looking forward to dive one, but Heidi doesn't really like enclosed spaces, and after she told me why...I agreed with her. Monday was our first day of diving...and it was really cool. They had us flip off the boat backwards (which I really didn't like...but it's better then just walking into the water), and then we went down. Since it was my first open dive, I pretty much freaked out. I got about 2 feet under the water and started to freak out...I almost went back up to the top, but everyone was waiting for me at the bottom. It's really good that I had gone deeper in my class, otherwise I don't think I would've been able to talk myself into going down. Once I hit the bottom I was fine, so that was good. I think it was a combo of flipping off the boat backward and being in such an open space. The second dive we did that day was so much better. I didn't feel the anxiety at all, which is good, and flipping off the back of the boat was MUCH easier! The next day was pretty much a lounge day, we went and got massages in the morning and then laid by the pool in the afternoon. It was so relaxing. Wednesday we went to another Mayan Ruin called Tulum. It was awesome! And...there were NO vendors! My new favorite place! ha! We had a great guide who has a master's in Anthropology and specialized in physical proof that the Book of Mormon is true. We asked her to do an LDS tour (you can get them either way), and it was amazing to hear her testimony of the gospel and all the proof that was found in the ruins. The spirit that was felt there was just more of a testimony to me that the church is true. It was amazing to see the symbolism that was there, and how similar it is to my beliefs. And these ruins have been there for hundreds of years. It was amazing! The next day was our last couple of dives, which we had to take a ferry ride to Cozumel to do. This was by far my favorite set of dives, although I really liked the dive guide in Playa a TON better...he was just so helpful with it being my first open water dive. The guide in Cozumel seemed to be annoyed that he was diving with "beginners." This dive was way deeper, 60 feet instead of 35 like the first one, and it was a drift dive. It had a pretty strong current so you had to really pay attention otherwise you'd miss things. The water was crystal clear...visibility was probably close to 100 feet, which is huge underwater. The reef was so pretty and so much bigger then the one in Playa. Friday we came home, which I really didn't want to, we hit the dallas airport and saw the weather, and almost turned around cuz it was so cold here. But we had to come home, but it was a fantastic trip and I can wait to dive some other places!

The beach our Hotel was on

Pool side view


The family at Chichen-Itza


Outside of the Cenotes


Randy jumping into the Cenote...it was super cold!


More Cenote


Ruins at Tulum...this is a carving of a face, one side is perfect, the other is imperfect.


The view from the Ruins...can you say awesome!


All the different ruins of Tulum


Mark and Heidi on the 1st dive


Randy and I standing on the ocean floor


A sting-ray


A school of Fish


Mark Swimming through the school of fish


Cozumel...the 2nd dive


Me and Randy on the last dive


The Mountain of Clouds on the ride home

~Officially Certified~

Oh my gosh!!! I'm so glad that I'm finally done...ha! Yesterday I got my official certification (of course I had to go with a temporary one since I leave in 3 days...yes...3...I'm so excited!) Since it takes about a week to get the actual card, all I have is an 8X10 paper saying that I'm good to go. But as long as I don't have to do the hotel certification, I'm down. This weekend was pretty much exhausting. I had 4 dives that had to be done in order to be certified, these dives ranged anywhere from 30 to 40 feet. We had to do all the things that we learned in class, but in much deeper water. The CESA assent was pretty sweet. You start at 20 or so feet, take in 3 breaths, and have to assend to the top breathing out the whole time. You have to assend slowly, so it takes about 30 seconds or so to get to the top, and the crazy thing is, you don't run out of air. Because of the pressure difference, at 20 feet the air in your lungs is compressed, and when you assend, it expands, so the closer to the surface you get, the more air you have. So weird...but it was awesome! I also had to do alot of things that I don't like, but hopefully I will never have to do them again. The crater was awesome but I'm not a huge fan of confined spaces...which is why we're doing the cave dives after the open water stuff. We also bought Randy some good fins yesterday, since that was the thing that was missing from his essential gear. So now we're already to go. We found the dive sites that we're going to do yesterday as well...and they are freakin sweet! This trip has pretty much turned into a diving trip, we are diving 3 out of the 6 days we're there. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be exhausted and run out of room on my camera, but I think it will be worth it. Here's a small preview of what we're going to be doing...and then you'll understand why I'm so excited for this dive!!

~Anniversary~

So today is officially our second anniversary. I cannot believe how quickly time has flown. It seems like just yesterday that we were getting married, but at the same time, it feels like we've been together for a lifetime. Since we have our trip next week, we weren't able to take the weekend off and do anything to extravagant. I had to go up to midway in the morning to complete my certification for diving. I actually dove to 40 feet, which was pretty freakin amazing! Randy had to work in the day, but when he got home we decided to go to dinner at the cheesecake factory. We actually went there last year as well, so perhaps this will become our anniversary tradition. :) The food was good, and the cheesecake was even better! It was nice to spend an evening with just me and him and no interruptions. This year has by far been harder then the first year, but I think we have grown a lot closer because of the trials that we've faced. I'm excited for the future though. I'm so glad that I'm married to my best friend. I don't know what I'd do without him!

~Peter Pan~

Remember a while back when I posted about our trip to Disneyland and how disappointed I was when I found out my favorite ride was closed? Well...Randy and I bought a tribute to my all time favorite ride and after almost a year...I finally had it framed. And it looks awesome! I so love Peter Pan and I'm glad that now I can have a room that I can call Neverland. By the way...the picture doesn't really do it justice. But I love it!!