New Job

I have a new job here in Tucson. Im going to be nannying again :) This time for 2 little boys, 3 and almost 2! It should be pretty fun. Im excited but nervous because i'll be going to school as well and still manning things around the house! Just hope I can still have time to make dinner for Josh and keep the apartment liveable.

I'll update on Christmas later, I'm too tired, yet its 12:20 am, church is at 9 am and Im still up. gross.

1 WHOLE YEAR!

The sizes are all screwed up, sorry, but i give up on trying to change them!

Josh and I have been married for one whole year as of Sunday! :) SO exciting! We decided not to do presents this year because we are trying to save for a down payment on a house by APRIL :) (anyway thats another story!) It was my turn to plan because Josh planned for our 6 month anniversary, which we celebrate bigger because its hard to celebrate big with my birthday (btw Im 21 now, happy birthday to me!) and Christmas with in the week of our anniversary.

I wanted to plan something super fun for Josh that he would really enjoy and that we wouldnt always necessarily spend money on. Well after searching online for quite a while I FINALLY found what I was looking for!!

An Indoor Shooting Range
(where we got a discount because he is law enforcement and where we could rent 2 of the guns we were thinking about buying! SWEET!)

So I was going to try and suprise Josh on Friday and just go with out him knowing we were going

BUT

I cannot just take his gun...duh, we had no ammo and I didnt even know if I could buy it, and I needed him to bring the eye wear and ear plug things..as you can see I had multiple problems to overcome.

So I did, Thursday night we were laying in bed and I said, "you wanna know what we're doing tomorrow?" He said, "sure." me, "Do you really wanna know?" him, "yeah." me, "Ok we're going to an indoor shooting range! I found one!" him, "sweet, I knew it!" with a cute little smirk on his face! What a punk. I then went on to ramble about how I couldnt do it with out telling him.

We slept in, something he rarely gets to do, and then left for the shooting range, it was kind of hard to find tucked away in a corner so we passed it once. Once we found it we could hear the gun shots from out side and I got REALLY nervous.

(I havent shot a gun since i was like 14 at girls camp and basically can't even remember it!)

But i went in none the less. We got to the counter and I expected Josh to take over but he did not say a word! Ah, I dont know what to say. So the guy comes up and the conversation goes something like this:

(also if you can picture this the guy definitely looks like a retired scuffy cop and everyone in the store working has at least one gun on their hip)

Guy: Hey, what can I do for you guys?
me: silence
Josh: silence
silence
me: uh uh uh we want to shoot guns.
silence.
Uh, we need ammo too though, and we want to rent guns to shoot too. And my husband has a gun too. uh, yeah. Oh and dont you have classes? I want to sign up for the womens basic hand gun class.

Guy: OK, um well wait do you guys have a gun?
me: yes (i said that right? haha hadnt quite realized that i completely rambled and mumbled so everything would have to be repeated)
Then we get on to papers and buying stuff. Anyway, it was...a good experience??

We walked into the area where the shooting lanes are. We pick our lane and then all of a sudden

BOOM!

I jumped so high, my head hit the ceiling. (not really). but I felt SO dumb, of course there is going to be loud booms, im at a shooting range. DUH. I got used to it.

Josh has a glock 22 that is his duty gun and we want to get one that can stay in the house for me and one that will be concealed. So we tried a glock 27 for the concealed one because its smaller but shoots the same size bullet as the 22. It was pretty good. It has a good amount of kick but so does the 22. Then we tried the glock 21 and it uses size 45 bullets which dont seem that much bigger but LOOK so much bigger than the 40. That was my favorite gun, it scared me at first because it makes a much louder boom and you actually see the fire coming oout when you shoot! CRAZY! but AWESOME!

Anyway so we shot for a couple hours, had an awesome time. Josh loved it and he is SO good :) It was pretty hot to watch my hubby shoot a gun! Oh baby :)

Then that night we went and saw Have you Heard about the Morgans?
We had free tickets thanks to Kamry and Tyler! It was a pretty good movie, a lot better than I expected and pretty funny! Josh had to remind me there were other people in the theater, im kind of an all out laugher, just really loud :)

Then Saturday Josh went and did Shop with a Cop where he got to take little kids and their families around a target here and shop with them and let them pick out $100 worth of toys :) So cute, while he was there i was making cupcakes for our Happy Birthay Jesus party we were throwing for our CTR 5 class.

Then the rest of the day we were sick. icky. Didnt do anything, go out of the house, we barely moved. It was like some kind of crazy cold that knocked us out until Monday. So basically the rest of our "anniversary weekend" consisted of sleeping and laying in bed. I did make us a nice dinner on Sunday, Filet mignon, yummy corn, and stuffed baked potatoes. It was a good weekend even though we were sick!


Happy Anniversary Baby!!
We called it a sickiversary all weekend :)

Wonderful Weekend!

Basically the weekend consisted of non stop nothingness fun :) We didn't do a whole lot but it was fun to relax and just spend time together! (These are some highlights!)

First on Thursday i made Josh a yummy pie!

Crumb Topped Apple Pie
(picture from ourbestbites.com so yummy recipes)

It was SO yummy, even though I burnt the top a little.

(We're having issues in our kitchen with the oven, everytime I use it the fire alarm goes off, even if nothing is burning, so I have to use our toaster oven, which is fine but things bake and brown a lot faster in that then in a regular oven so Im till getting used to it!)

On Friday we went and saw

It was such a GOOD movie! We both enjoyed it (me a little more!) and I would LOVE to see it again. This will definitely be something we buy!

On Saturday we had decided we were going to watch the Ultimate Fighter Finale!

(This is a bad quality picture but its the best I could find!)


It ended up being REALLY good! We couldn't believe that Roy knocked out Brendan! We have been following the season from the beginning and Josh has seen almost every season since they started.

I havent always been into UFC, in highschool I had friends who would watch it and I could NOT stand it. When I found out Josh watched it, I said ok you can watch whatever you want. (Just not rated R). Then when we got married I said fine you can watch it but OUR KIDS will NEVER watch it. Its awful and bloody and violent.

THEN

I watched Season 9 of the Ultimate Fighter show.

It was USA v. UK. Dan Henderson v. Michael Bisbing and their teams.

It ended up being SO good! I learned that UFC is actually a sport, there are rules, you can't just go in and do whatever you want to win. Also most fighters ALMOST always hug after the fights because it truly is a sport! Now that I understand a lot of the technical elements of mixed martial arts I completely love it!

ANYWAY, The Ultimate Fighter finale started at 10 pm our time so we had a lot of evening to kill before then! We decided to go to the park near our apartment and bring the camera.

Oh it was a blast!

We walked around, took pictures in trees and on the workout gym thing.

And i uploaded the pictures last...cuz i suck :) SO they are all the way at the top! Anyway, thats life! It was a blast! We then headed over to this gelato shop on our way home!! It was SO YUMMY!

(The pictures again are on the top! All out of order! :) sorry)

Blog going private!

Due to the nature of Josh's career, we have been advised not to have things where people can search and find out information about us. SOOO that means this blog is going private, so if you want(and we want you too! whats a blog with out readers!!) to continue to read and catch up with us we need your email address! Thanks :)

Its Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

I know its not that great of a picture of our 3 foot tree but i like that you can tell its lit up :)

This is our Kitchen table with a nativity scene and some vases i arranged with white orchids and velvet cherry blossoms, a vanilla candle and red gem rock things. It was really fun to try and be creative!

This is our front window with the little cling on stickers :) I thought they were fun (and only a dollar! haha)

I knew that because of our apartment size we would not be able to have a full size Christmas tree and i used to have a cute small fiber optic one but i believe i left in an old apartment in Provo (sad) but this gave me an opportunity to go to the store and see what fun Christmas decorations i could find! It was a blast, let me tell you that!

(Even though as soon as I got there my pants ripped down the back of my leg and I just kept shopping for about an hour pretending like i didnt care and hadn't noticed haha)

Walmart was crowded with people buying Christmas decorations so it was hard getting through all the aisles but i managed to find more than enough for our cute little apartment! I waited for Josh to get home to decorate the tree with me while we listened to Josh Groban's NOEL :) **Thanks Kamry**

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Christmas!!
(pretty sure its my favorite holiday)

It will be interesting spending the holiday this year just us two, with out other family around. I know we will miss our families a lot but it will be nice to try and start our own traditions. We still haven't figured out exactly what we're going to do.

Maybe we'll bake cookies for Santa in hopes that he'll bring us a house :)

Being real, I am looking forward to reading about the birth of our Savior and his ministries :) Eating some yummy food (hopefully finding someone to share it with) and then going to see Christmas lights. It will be a nice and relaxing holiday weekend.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

A very Disney Thanksgiving!

Josh and I after going on Thunder Mountain!


My mom and Dan (waiting in line for Haunted Mansion)


Waiting in line for Haunted Mansion (night before Christmas style!)


Fun at lunch :)

We left for Anaheim on Wednesday at 7pm (right after Josh got home and took a quick shower). The drive went pretty smooth and we got to the hotel about 2 am, went straight to bed and woke up Thanksgiving morning and headed over to DISNEYLAND! We did a lot of rides and the lines really were not bad at all! We watched them light the tree and the castle and then left the park. I had a pretty bad headache so we went back to the hotel, rested a bit then headed over to Kaptain Kidds for a thanksgiving buffet! It was pretty yummy and had some traditional food (turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie) and some not so traditional (chinese food, spaghetti, enchiladas)! The three days at Disneyland and California Adventure went by SO fast! We got to do everything we wanted to do (more than a couple times for the most part). I think the favorites of the group were Space Mountain, california screamin, tower of terror and grizzly river rapids! We went on all of them multiple times (except for tower of terror which Josh and i didnt go on, but Dan, brent and my mom loved it!)

Saying Thank You

I think the value of saying Thank you is greatly underestimated. I just realized this when someone I knew said Thank you in a blog post for an anonymous thoughtful gift was given to them over a year ago. It made me think about saying thank you and how much simple things people do can mean so much to the receiver yet sometimes the person that did them never realizes what it meant. I know i need to work on saying Thank you more and making sure those who do great things for me know how much i appreciate them. :)

I know I already posted about thanksgiving, but during this time and all year Thank you really means a lot. In primary this month the kids were taught a song that said thank you in MANY different languages. I love the song!

Children All Over the World

All over the world at the end of day,
Heav’nly Father’s children kneel down and pray,
Each saying thank you in his own special way,
Saying thank you, thank you in his own special way.
“Gracias.” “M¯al¯o.” “Wir danken dir.”
All over the world tender voices hear.
Some say “tak,” others “merci,”
“Kansha shimasu,” we thank thee.
Our Heavenly Father hears them;
He understands each tongue.
Our Heav’nly Father knows them;
He loves them, loves them, ev’ry one.

Just thought i'd share :)

In the Spirit of Thanksgiving

Where has chivalry gone?

Maybe it's because I got used to Provo, or because I expect my husband to be chivalrous, not just towards me but towards anyone we come in contact with, but it seems as if chivalry has pretty much disappeared.

Today after grocery shopping for groceries for the rest of the month (Thats a pretty good amount), I came home parked the car and there were two guys just chatting in the parking lot. I had to park on the other side of the parking lot, lug my groceries across and then up the stairs to our apartment.

They just watched.

Why would they just watch me make multiple trips to and from my car without bothering to help?

Boy do i miss Provo (sometimes), my husband (always), and days that I wasn't even alive for back when people helped each other just because it was a nice thing to do (how can i miss them? not sure, but movies and grandma stories sure make it sound nice)

Just an FYI, im not mad, its normal now i guess, just thought i would blog about it.

Weekend!

Saturday night Josh and I went on a wonderfully fun date to PF Changs for his birthday. We asked for a table outside so we were seated super fast and the weather was PERFECT out there, thank you Arizona! (btw for anyone not here in AZ its still been in the 80's and even the 90's last week!) We got this great dinner for two where we could get a whole 4 course meal for a good price :) It was Josh's first time at PF Changs and he liked it a lot! It was a nice romantic evening and so great to just relax, talk, and not be preoccupied with everything going on at the academy. Its funny because we always talk about how every day is a date or FHE because its just us two all of the time but i think this weekend I realized its really not, we still need to take the time to get away from normal life. We're definitely going to be trying harder to have dates that let us relax :)

Josh and I were called to be Primary Teachers for the CTR 5 class :) Yesterday was our first time in the classroom :) We team teach with another couple because the class has a hard time with reverence. haha Of course they're 5! Anyway, it was super fun and we are teaching the lesson next week about how in serving others we serve Christ. I'm so excited to learn all the fun songs and lessons because I never got to be in primary and I've always felt that i was missing out on all the songs and memorization that people would refer to, Im so excited for this opportunity to learn and teach, plus the kids are super cute!!

Also yesterday, Josh and I went over to Kamry and Tyler's to play games with them and 2 other couples, Alyssa and Briggs and Elna and Michael. It was tons of fun, we love scene it and turbo cranium. It also gave me an excuse to make more twinkies :) with my new twinkie pan. I found a recipe for some cream similar to what usually goes in real twinkies. I made chocolate twinkies half with peanut butter filling and half with the cream. They turned out pretty yummy, I think they are more fun to make than to eat though!! Kamry also made some yummy Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, which are SOOOO good :) mmmm. And Elna and Michael brought some candy, all in all it was a pretty good sugar buzz...hahahaha

Melt it Off!

So I got this new work out program called Melt it off!

I tried it yesterday and it was KILLER! I can barely walk today! haha It was pretty interesting and I had read reviews that said the instructor guy was too happy and all that but i really thought he wasn't too intense. I liked it a lot and i'll definitely do it again tomorrow!

btw, I have lost about 4 pounds to date! Its a good start, im excited and only 6 more until i get my hair done!! yeah!!

Happy Birthday Josh!!

Today is my wonderful husbands 24th birthday! :) He's getting so old!! I got him a new MP3 player, it looks like an ipod nano but he didnt want an actual nano, so that saved us a little bit of money :) I wanted him to have it for work so on Sunday I hid it under his pillow wrapped in the wrapping it came in because we did not have any wrapping paper. It took him FOREVER to find it but it was fun when he did becasue he just laughed and then got all joshy on me and opened it up, played with it and figured out every little detail about it :) He's funny like that.

Have you ever heard of Funnybones?? They look like this

And they are josh's favorite snack of all time. So Im making my own today for him! I got a twinkie pan

and now i'll be making devils food twinkies and filling it with a peanut butter mixture :) and drizzling chocolate over it! Im so excited for him to see that i made them for him!

Also, on his last birthday I wrote him 23 reasons why I love him :) so this birthday i'll write 24:
1. He works his tail off to support us.
2. He wakes up early so he can spend 15 minutes before work cuddling with me.
3. He is SUPER handsome!
4. He wants to have lots of babies, just like I do.
5. He is a tough guy, but not tough at the same time.
6. He has some of the best stories I have ever heard!
7. He tells me he loves me all of the time.
8. He loves to cuddle.
9. He is amazing with kids, they always like him more than me :)
10. He is an amazing big brother.
11. He has a really strong testimony and shows it through his actions.
12. He is always willing to do service for others.
13. The first thing he does when he walks through the door is hug me! (actually he puts his stuff down so he can hug me. lol)
14. He makes the best scrambled eggs in the world, anything breakfast actually.
15. He makes me feel very protected and secure.
16. He knows so much about everything, he's super smart!
17. He's so good at cooking meat!
18. He works hard in everything he does.
19. He always kills the bugs.
20. He helps do laundry, dishes, and cleaning the house when he has time and doesn't complain about it!
21. He is a very good teacher and explainer.
22. He taught me some MMA stuff that we enjoy together now!
23. He eats everything I make him and always says he likes it, but I can ALWAYS tell whether he really likes it :)
24. He can always make me laugh, and i know he would do anything to make me happy. :)

Happy Birthday Babe! I love you!
haha love this picture :)

DISNEYLAND!

Here I was thinking this Thanksgiving was just going to be me and Josh because family is so far away...and then i have this brilliant plan to tell my mom that Josh and I should meet them at Disneyland for Thanksgiving. Miraculously, We plan it and everything works out!! We will be going to Disneyland and California Adventure from the Thursday of Thanksgiving until Sunday! WOOO! I havent been to Disneyland since i was in 8th grade!! :)

This Thanksgiving we were originally going to try and visit Josh's family in PA. We looked at tickets and tried so hard to make things work, but tickets were just too expensive and didn't work with the time schedule we were allotted through Josh's work. He doesn't get much time off (and wont for quite a while) so the 4 day weekend we are getting for thanksgiving is miraculous and we are grateful to be taking advantage of it by going to Disneyland and still getting to spend Thanksgiving (even if not in a traditional way) with some family. We know its going to be packed there but we're still excited anyway!!

Because I want my hair done :)

Last Summer, right before Josh and I got engaged I lost about 15 pounds, its not a lot but I was feeling pretty good in my skin, ya know? I was comfortable with my body. Well around October of last year I started on birth control and started gaining weight. Im not going to blame my massive weight gain on birth control, although I think it was part of the reason I gained so much. From October ish to May of this year I gained about 40 pounds, yeah, not good. SO i gained back the 15 plus MORE. ick. Since getting off of birth control I have maintained weight (better than gaining right?) However, I really want to lose weight. It's an easy feat for some, however, for me its not. I get discouraged, i like food, it takes too long. The list could go on and on. However, there will be no list this time. I am going to do it even if it takes forever (and i guess technically it will take forever because im going to make a lifestyle change, just hopefully not forever to lose the weight i gained!), I will be healthy and I will exercise. [I feel like if I say it to people (ok, not really people just on a blog that anyone may or may not read) I will be held more accountable, hence why im stating it here.]

I have many motivations for this:

health in general (the whole not dying too young thing is pretty appealing to me.)

My husband. I want to look good next to him. My husband is a pretty thin guy, i feel like a big blob next to him, it would be nice not to feel that way :) Also, although he tells me Im beautiful and trust me there is still attraction, romance, and passion :) between us, I want to look hot for him too :)

My future children. I want to be a mom that can play, run, and show her kids how to live a healthy life.

Also getting pregnant in general is easier/more likely if you are healthy. (also having a cute baby bump would be nice, so that people could actually tell that im pregnant when i get there lol)

Playing sports. I want to always have the ability to get down and dirty on the softball field (or any field for that matter. Im pretty competetive)

Feeling good about myself. This one is really important. All the others are too, but this one will help all the others. I want to look in the mirror and like what I see, or at least be satisfied with it and know that I am healthy. I honestly am not going to try and be "skinny." I never have been and never will be skinny, its just not for me, but I CAN be healthy.

And my most inconsequential but very motivating reward is I want to get my hair done! :) Josh and I agreed that once i get started on this, I can get my hair done. Most likely when I lose about 10 pounds...however long that may be...

Im excited and Im going to read this post every time I feel discouraged!

CAKE-ING :)

For the past couple months (basically since my parents decided to learn to cake decorating so they could make my cake instead of buying one) I have been obsessed with learning how myself. I wanted to take the classes when we were at BYU but never had the time, so finally I technically have the time but the only classes here are at night and Josh gets home around 630 or 7 (when the classes start) so i would rather just teach myself. I have had the books for a while and have tried a bit but I really just wanted to try fondant so thats what I have done in the past for the most part. However, This week I decided to FINALLY try buttercream decorating!

I went through the book, practiced, and decided I wanted to try everything on a cake! I found a great website with yummy filling recipes so that was part of the reason I wanted to bake a cake as well :) SO this is my cake, it was fun but frustrating! I'll keep practicing and hopefully get better!

This is a devils food chocolate cake with banana cream filling

OH AND>>>

We got cable and Internet! Its a BIG DEAL!

We had to go to the lodge at our apartment building anytime we wanted to do internet (including watching our favorite shows online!)

Just had to let EVERYONE know!

The Happenings

Well, actually not much is happening (for me). Josh started the academy this week. It is so crazy and intense for him, but he comes home happier (even though his whole body hurts everyday) than I have seen him in a while. We both know that he is going to love his job, especially if he enjoys the academy which is like boot camp on steriods (at least thats what they say). We get up at about 5 every morning and I make him breakfast and pack his lunch (with a cute little note) before he goes to work. He didn't ask me to do this or anything, just letting you know, so anyone who reads this doesn't think he's some meanie who just wants his wife to fix his breakfast early because he has to get up early. He's not. He thinks I'm crazy for wanting to get up and fix him breakfast so early, but I want to support him and I know if I don't fix him a good breakfast (usually just eggs and toast) he won't get a good one. I want him to have some energy because the first thing they do in the academy usually is Physical Training(PT). Anyway, so he gets his stuff together gives me some love and takes off at about 550 am. He doesn't get home until 630 at the earliest, it varies though. It's been kind of hard for me this week because he has been gone so much and then we go to bed about 9, so we don't get to spend too much time together, at least compared to our last month of 24/7 because neither of us worked or had school, luckily I have made some pretty great friends here in Tucson who let me hang out with them all day :) [Thanks Brianna and Kamry!]

For those who really know me this is a BIG DEAL >>I also have been doing a really good job keeping the house clean, doing dishes, etc and cooking dinner (real dinner) almost every night! [only missed one so far because Josh and I both got home at the same time] I'm trying new recipes and found out that we love Rhodes Rolls and our Aunt Maryann gave us a Rhodes Rolls recipe book that has amazing recipes! mmmm! SO GOOD! Everyone should try them!

Fridays Josh doesn't have academy so we get to spend all of today together! Hooray! We are going to the cheap theater here to see the Proposal! It's going to be a GOOD day!

Sidenote: New background and banner, you can see the picture under the banner but im too lazy to fix it now, sorry!

Tucson!

I am so bad at updating this thing. Sorry.

Im sure i'll get better being that I don't have a job and Josh will start working October 1st! Speaking of October 1st, Josh got the job with the Tucson Police Department, He is OFFICIALLY a Police Officer Recruit!! We actually just got the final say this Tuesday after already moving to Tucson on the 31st, but we were pretty sure then and felt that it was the right thing for us to do, whether he got the job or not (so thank goodness he got the job otherwise we would be clueless!!)

Life has been good here, pretty slow though, I haven't found a job yet. I have to admit I'm being kind of picky though. I dont want a job that I'll need to commit to unless its working with kids as a parapro or teacher assistant at a preschool or daycare. I want something thats in my field or that is ok if Im not around for all that long (like walmart, albertsons, grocery stores, book stores, something with high turnover). It seems like NO WHERE is hiring here. I have applied to more places i can remember or count and have not gotten one single call or email since I have been here. It's alright though because Josh will definitely be making enough money come october 1st, its just the in between time (all of September) that we are having to really be careful with money and count our blessings. It's been really tough and I think I can honestly say that I know what its like to be poor, to not know if you'll make rent and to pay tithe and pray that Heavenly Father will help you and open doors for you. So I can say that and I have learned a lot and appreciate the things I have, however, I do not ever want to be in a situation like this again.

So over the past month we have gotten settled into our nice tiny apartment and we actually really like it. It so cozy and we can see the whole thing when we walk in the door. :) Its a bit old, smells like a cheap hotel, and the bathroom makes some funny noises when you flush the toilet but it has carpet, real carpet and that is wonderful to have! Josh and I have been swimming and working out almost everyday of the week because we both don't have work. Its kind of like vacation except you cant spend any money! which is not that bad right now because we have a pool and free internet at the office here. We also started going to our new ward, which is like a breath of fresh air compared to our last! We did not really fit into our last ward, but we already love this new ward! We have met lots of new people already and they seem really great! Im sure we'll get to be good friends with them.

Josh has academy orientation Saturday and tucson city orientation next thursday and friday, then starts the next monday! YAY!

I learned how to make my own LAUNDRY DETERGENT! How awesome is that?!? and i learned couponing at our first enrichment!

Hooray for a good start!

Vegas!

This past weekend we had the wonderful opportunity to attend a family reunion with my Dad's side of the family in Las Vegas, NV (as if anyone doesn't know where Vegas is. ha) We stayed with my Uncle Pat and Aunt Jamie and their two adorable twin daughters Madison and Mallory! They were so sweet to us and we had a blast! Saturday, the day of the reunion, we met at this great park that had fountains to play in and a covered playground! (all parks should have these covered playgrounds so that the slides arent too hot!) We got to see and visit with tons of family and eat lots of good food!! (port of subs sandwiches are REALLY good!) We thought we werent going to end up staying at the park very long so we didnt wear clothes to get wet...altho josh got ambushed by water balloons anyway! :) After being there for quite a while and enduring the heat (which honestly could have been worse) we went back to pat and jamies and changed and rested until laters activity of bowling in this casino! It was pretty fun, i actually didnt bowl, just watched and chatted! But it was all in all a great time! I love that part of my family and hope to get to know them better over the years!
Sunday we went to church with my Granny. It was great to go to church again, it feels like forever even though its only been like a week ish but it was great to go with some family. We drove home that day with Monica and Megan two of my cousins who are going to EFY in Provo this week. They are cute girls! Anyway! Great trip, Vegas was awesome, maybe next time we'll go see some sites! :)

Tucson and Snowflake!

On the 8th of July, We traveled down to tucson AZ, it was such a long trip! and right when we were only 20 miles from our hotel it started pouring down rain! It was so crazy and bad enough that we had to get off of the freeway because we could not see at all, really like inches thick of water in just like 20 minutes! Anyway so we got to our hotel, which was amazing :)-- ((thank you hotwire))-- the next day we took the day to swim and enjoy, well nothingness, until that evening when we went to the Tucson police recruiting seminar. It was really informative and has definitely helped us to better prepare. They started out trying to scare the applicants and families out of applying, which is understandable there were over 500 applicants but we considered the things that they told us long before Josh applied. Anyway, on to happier things. There was a cute lady there who i became friends with because both of our husbands were applying. yay for nice people. Hopefully they made it through the first cut.

The morning after going to the seminar we headed up to snowflake, AZ to visit my grandparents and my grandpas siblings. They were sos hospitable and nice! It was nice to relax with them and learn more about my older extended family. I got to visit a lot with my grandma who helped raise me, she is the best! I love her so much and hope she'll get to visit us someday too! After leaving Snowflake on Sunday with a car loaded full of goodies for the road from everyone we finally ended our long(ish) trip and were glad to be sleeping in our own bed again!

:) So on the next monday an email was supposed to go out to those applicants who made the first cut through background checks and resumes and all that inviting them to the testing next weekend (the 25th) and it took all day (until like 6 pm) of waiting and worrying for the email finally to come. Josh had tricked me once by saying it came so while i was making dinner he got the email and came in and hugged me from behind and said so nonchalantly that he got it so i thought he was lying, it took like 15 minutes to convince me! :) but it came!!! so we'll be going down to tucson again on friday!! Wish us luck and PRAY for us! PLEASE!!

Since then and Big Changes...

Well, since PA we've just been living life, going to school and working. Im still nannying and i love it. I forgot to mention that Josh lost his job after we went to california because there are SO many people here in Provo who need jobs on campus and off so thats been difficult but he finally got some hours at the MTC so that is WONDERFUL! Spring term just ended. Josh did well in Calc this time around and i did well in my Developmentally Appropriate Practice Foundations class and Humanities. We've also been making some big changes in our lives.

We (Josh mainly but i prayed about it too and support him) decided that Josh is going to go into Law enforcement. BIG CHANGE> from him going to Med school and becoming an orthopedist. We decided this basically through prayer and going to the temple so its kind of a leap of faith. He has applied to the Tucson AZ police department. They have a police academy starting in October and we hopefully will get in. We looked into the Orem and Provo PDs but they require you to do training on your own (including paying for it) and we just think its kind of silly to pay a lot of money for what we could get paid for somewhere else. Also Orem only hires like 1 recruit a year or even two..so those odds are a bit low for our liking. We are traveling to tucson around the 9th to go to an informational meeting so that we can get as much info as we can. Then hopefully Josh will be invited back for physical and written testing and then oral around July 25th. He's already applied and so now we are just in limbo waiting..waiting..and waiting. We were supposed to be taking classes this summer but due to the amount of traveling we are holding off.
If josh does get this job then we will probably move there in sept and i will do BYU independent study for fall and then in winter attend a community college there to get my associates in early childhood development and then transfer to university of tucson as a resident so tuition doesnt take away our whole pay check :) Josh will continue classes as well considering that we still both would like him to get a bachelors degree at least. Also it will benefit him as a police officer (and to get promotions). Well this is basically our life right now, limbo and preparing physically. We are grateful to have this opportunity and are so grateful to all those who are serving in law enforcement right now, this new decision and the education we are receiving about it has greatly changed my view of those in the blue uniform. Thanks so much to all the officers out there for their sacrifices and their families as well.

(also side note: i know some people have negative views of police officers but just remember that they are not all bad and its a tough job so cut them a little slack. They are trying to make your city, state, and country a safer place.)

Pennsylvania :)

This is Jonathan and me :) we had fun together. Josh got jealous hahahha

This is Jared, Josh, Jonathan and Joe with their weapons. These boys are hilarious :)
This is my Mom-in-law on stage when they called her name :) she is such a star!!


About 3 weeks after our trip to California we had the opportunity to go to Pennsylvania to visit Josh's family :) I was SO excited because the last and first time i had met them was two days before Josh and I were married so this time i was able to get to know them a lot better and to spend more time with them. The reason for the visit, aside from the fact that we wanted to see them all, was that Josh's mom was graduating from Nursing School, which is absolutely amazing :) yay! Go Gina! So we were there from the 15th until the 21st and had a great time. I got to know everyone who was there a lot better :) we went to Gina's graduation on the 20th and then her Dad who was visiting for it as well took everyone out to dinner!


This is what the boys did most of the time...sorry i narrated a bit..and im loud and obnoxious :) oh well. This is josh and his littlest brother Jonathan.

California Visit

So josh isnt in the picture below because he is driving but you can see his shoulder...yay :)


So its definitely been a while, Ashley, Matt, Josh and I went to California two weeks after Easter to visit family and take a little vacation. We had a lot of fun visiting family and friends and going to the ocean. We went to santa cruz and it was SO windy! The sand pelted us while we layed out, so that did not last very long, but we swam in the ocean a little bit, i have to say that i was the biggest wimp about getting into the freezing cold water! but i went in far enough to say i got wet :) haha. We got some awesome pizza from pizza my heart and all got matching shirts..i just realized we should have taken pictures with them, that would have been awesome. We went to my parents softball and soccer games (they do more sports than i did when i was at home! crazy!) We met up with Sarah and Mikey who are engaged :) how fun! :) and went to Johns incredible pizza with them. It was wayy good. Josh went there a ton on his mission and we have said so many times that we were going to go and we finally went :) yay! We got to visit with lots of my family, my cousins and aunt came over for a little BBQ which was great to be able to catch up with them. Oh how i miss lots of family. It would be so nice to live in the middle of josh's family and mine so that we could see them both all of the time, but who knows where we'll end up. We also got to visit the Wadmans :) which was a blast, Josh had tons of fun keeping all the kids entertained while i got to visit with jaimee and then we all went outside and played. so fun :) That was our last day and we headed back to BYU for Spring term where josh and i were both taking classes.

first Easter as our own little family

Ok so its not Easter yet, tomorrow is but we decided to dye eggs and make our own little basket. We took a trip to Walmart, good but bad idea. It was CRAZY! we bought dye and fixins for a cute little basket. While we boiled eggs we started making our basket. We got a yellow basket to share because it was a neutral color. Then we bought little plastic eggs and some candy to put inside. So we tried to make the basket look full and pretty using flowers as well as the eggs and the green and pink grass we bought but it just didnt work out to well. :) but we tried thats what counts.

Josh has NEVER dyed Easter eggs before. Can you believe that?! It was a lot of fun tho because he had no idea how to do any of it..i mean its not that complicated so it wasnt hard to figure it out but it was a riot. I started writing on an egg with the white crayon thing and he was like uh, what are you doing? That was pretty great. Heres some pictures :)

Josh thinks its awkward im documenting the event. Oh boy.

Then he smiled :)

Our basket

The first eggs we did. mine is the blue and pinkish and josh's is the green. Mine says Josh and Chantell 2009
His says Inhalation will cause death. haha

He got super into decorating those eggs :)

The end result, all of our pretty Easter eggs :)

Manti Temple, The Bunces endowment and sealing

So i havent posted in a little while, its seemed like there hasnt been much to say :)


Friday night Josh and I had the great opportunity to go to the Manti temple here in Utah for our friends Brittni and Tyler's endowment session and sealing. It was absolutely amazing :) The ride there was great, it was about an hour and a half away so it was fun to get to be in such close quarters with only Josh :) And we saw some beautiful mountains. We don't really want to live in Utah much longer than we have to but these mountains here are SO beautiful. I took some pictures while driving :) just a disclaimer:they don't do the mountains justice.


We got to the temple at about 10 to 5. We were told to be there at five so we really thought we were going to be late for the session. We ran and rushed...only to be relieved that it started at 530. Thank goodness. We ended up being the witness couple which turned out being pretty neat, we got to sit by brittni and tyler :) After the endowment session Brittni and Tyler were sealed to each other and then to their beautiful baby girl lydia. It was such a great experience to witness a family being sealed and promising forever. Witnessing another sealing also helped josh and i to remember those covenants that we made to each other. It was an amazing experience to feel the spirit in that room during their sealing. I am so grateful for temples, the opportunity to be sealed forever and create eternal families, and for my savior who lived, died and was resurrected so that i might live again with my family in my Heavenly Fathers presence.

Oh and I forgot...

My wonderful husband had these pretty peach colored roses in a vase on the kitchen table for me when i got home from work :) Oh i love him :)

First day of Nannying :)

Today was my first day nannying :) It was a pretty fun day. Whitney is absolutely adorable and definitely in the independent she can do everything herself stage! Today was basically just a play day, we played outside, read books, and made a track for little race cars :) Oh and we cooked with Dora the Explorer! Whits brothers came home about 3:30 and started playing basketball in the playroom while whit and I played with play dough, then we went into Jaxons room and they played bball some more. Whit was SO tired by this time. She wanted gum and end up kind of laying on the floor, then the soft ball Jaxon was throwing hit her :( She cried..a lot. Poor girl, she probably would have gotten over it fast if she wasnt completely exhausted..So anyway basically that ended my first day. It was fun tho. Oh and I forgot it got off to a late start because i went to get my hair cut at like 10 and didnt get done until noon! when i was supposed to arrive at their house! ah! But anyway thats ok :) Kim forgave me lol. So thats my short little blog today, also i'll post pictures of my new hair cut soon :) its SO short. Josh doesnt like that back haha Poor husband :)

Draper Temple Open House and Cleaning Date :)

On Thursday we had the opportunity to go to the Draper Temple Open house with Josh's Aunt Maryann :) It was a lot of fun and brought back memories of going to the Sacramento Open house! The draper temple is SO beautiful! Its not a huge temple but its definitely not small. I wish i had some pictures to post..our camera that has a broken screen but we decided to bring anyway ended up not having any battery left. Oh gosh. sorry. So that was a great experience and a nice way to forget about school and all of the other things we were supposed to be doing.

Friday Josh and I decided to have a cleaning date. We started them just after we got married, so its only been almost 3 months :) but they have ended up being about every other week :) We take a friday night and get our apartment clean. We try and do it as fast as we can but still make sure that everything gets done. Its actually fun, well as fun as cleaning can be. Then once we are done we go out to hello yogurt or have ice cream and relax in our nice clean apartment. Its SO great. I love it when its clean. This time we decided to stay at home and have some neopalitan ice cream sandwiches made with vanilla wafers :) Oh deliciousness :) After we cleaned i decided to take some pictures of our living room so that people can see its actually somewhat lived in and we do have some furniture! yay!! :) its kind of sparse but i love it :) especially our curtains and monster sac! :)

yes that is NCIS in the background on our TV. we are addicted to it :)And thats our apartment well the living room at least :)

I GOT A JOB!

Yes, I thought the title of this post definitely needed to be in capital letters.

I have been looking for a job since Josh and I got married. I had one all lined up for when we got back from California after Christmas (signed the hiring and benefits paperwork and everything) and then it fell through. Its been so tough interviewing, not even get emails back from applying, just everything. This job was the last job applied for and the one I wanted most so basically I wasn't holding my breath. I had planned to call the MTC today and get a schedule starting for me so that I could be working again. Thanks goodness Kim, the woman I will be working for called this morning and told me she hoped I had not found another job yet :) I am going to be nannying for this cute family here in Provo. The mom, Kim is going back to school to get her bachelors degree in Nursing. So while she is at school and studying for about 4 hours a day I will be at her house playing with, teaching and caring for her cute little 2 1/2 year old daughter Whitney and then two of her older sons Jackson and Colson after they come home from school. I am so excited and so grateful to have this job! I hope it works out well :) Also thanks to Jaimee and Natasha who were great references for me :) She said she heard all she needed to hear from you guys to know I would be great for the job. Im so excited to have a job and one that I will like nonetheless :) hooray! Life is so good. Now I just have to figure out school and working again. haha. It is going to be weird not having all the time in the world to do stuff anymore.

First Blog

Well I decided to do what a lot of other people are doing, I got a blog. I think it could be pretty fun. Things have changed a lot since Josh and I got married. Its been absolutely wonderful. I still haven't really found a job yet...I'm waiting to see if i got the nanny position I applied for, i'll find out today. If not or if we decide its better I'll probably just end up at the MTC again. It is good pay but bad hours for me, but it will be nice to have two incomes again/we need two incomes. lol. Well we made our new apartment a little home. We like it a lot, aside from the ghetto neighborhood we live in. I'll have to take some pictures and then add them :) We also are now planning a trip to Antelope either Easter Weekend or right after April 22 when the semester ends. I am taking 8 credits during Spring and 8.5 during summer and Josh is taking 4 and 4. So we'll definitely still be working and living here in Provo. Not very much time for vacation and relaxing but we are trying to put something together for the end of August before school starts again. We have a free cruise we could go on, but getting to where it takes off from (Florida) is a problem. We would love to go on another but eh we dont really want to spend that much, so we also have 3 nights 4 days at a hotel in LA or San Diego which is driveable so we'll probably end up doing that :) Gosh just writing about it makes me want to leave now. i miss the sun.

We went to Baby Lydia's Blessing yesterday! It was wonderful :) Josh got to participate in the blessing as well which was really awesome. I love seeing my husband doing stuff like that. Oh gosh :) Could really feel the Spirit, Its amazing how much babies themselves are blessings. So wonderful :) We got to spend the day with Brittni, Tyler, and some of her friends. It was fun to hang out with another married couple for a little bit. They are so sweet.

Today is grocery shopping day :) I love it...I know I'm crazy but I do! We usually plan to buy all our groceries for two weeks. We plan out all our meals so we know what to buy, but since life is getting kind of unpredictable we weren't eating what we thought when we thought so now we're going to try and do just one week at a time, still plan out the meals tho! I like the planning part and we love making new recipes so if anyone has any good ones, you should share! We have made so many of the ones people have given us already :) At my bridal shower one of the games we played (well kind of a game) was everyone writes down their favorite recipe on a note card and then Ash and Lead put them in a folder thing for me. Its great! So that is definitely something everyone should do at their bridal shower. I had never heard of it before, but it was fun and useful!

So Anyway, I think im going to like this blog thing. :)