Suzie and Ryan

Valentine's Day

2012-02-14T18:39:00.000-08:00

This morning I went out to my car and found that Ryan had written "I love You's and Happy Valentine's Days" all over the windows of my car :) He's good at surprising me. It was nice that he went through that trouble at like 6am this morning.

While I was at work, my Team Lead came over to my desk and was surprised to see that there were no flowers on my desk (because Ryan has already sent me two bouquets of flowers since I've worked there and she's commented on how awesome she thinks my husband is that he surprises me a lot) so she said, "Your husband didn't send you flower's today?"

I told her that he didn't, but I told her that he wrote on my windows and she thought that was so cute!

Little did I know that an hour later I would get a bouquet of Tulips and chocolates :)

My Team Leader came by later that day and was surprised and said "Well I guess I spoke too soon! You're husband really is awesome!"

And yes, I do know that my husband is awesome! He's very good at surprising me and showing that he loves me :)

The Tulips are inside the wrapping, the rules for Tulips are to keep them in that wrapping for the first few hours so the tulips can drink first and then support themselves once they've had some water. I'll take a picture tomorrow to see what they actually look like!

What the Tulips looked like today! So pretty!

What I got Ryan for Valentine's Day?

Shrek Operation, Smurfs Trouble, Jumpin Monkeys and Let's Go Fishin' with two big tubs of Cotton Candy!

He was pretty excited :)

And how we are spending our official Valentine's Day?

Ryan is at school til 8pm and I'm catching up on some shows on TV.

We knew we wouldn't have much time together today, so yesterday we celebrated by going to Texas Roadhouse and then going to see the new Mission Impossible, which was pretty awesome! We had a great time!

I hope everyone's Valentine's Day was enjoyable, or what single people call Valentine's Day= Single Awareness Day

Busy weekend!

2012-02-12T18:48:00.000-08:00

Friday night we helped Max, Erik and Kyle move into their house in Orem. They are renting a 5 bedroom house and it is pretty awesome! I don't have any pictures from that night because Ryan and I went straight from work to help them. It was a night full of helping them move in, going to Astro Burger and showing the guys Macy's Ice Cream Kong Kones.

Saturday was a pretty busy day. I went to my sister-in-law, Chelsie's baby shower that was up in Brigham City, so it was a whole day event of leaving the house at 11:15am and getting home at 5pm, I hadn't really realized how long of a drive it is. It was a nice baby shower and nice getting together with family.

She's having a boy and his name is going to be Ty! So cute!

Val had put together a easy craft to do for little Ty, we made some fabric designs then ironed them onto onesie's. I made this one!

Later that night we went to a Surprise Birthday Party for my cousin Casey! Surprise parties never seem to go the way that you plan them to go, but it all worked out! Kimber and Casey went to get some free birthday stuff while we set up the party. We ate some food and played some games and had a lot of fun! Happy Birthday Casey!

Kimber put a sparkler on top, it was really cute! Casey couldn't blow it out though, it will just continue to burn until it's out :)

Today we went to Whittney's Homecoming! She went to the Utica, New York Mission and it's so good to have her back! She gave a great talk and then we all went to her house for some breakfast!

Me, Whitt and Ashley!

Welcome home Whitt!

Did you know?

2012-02-03T14:16:00.000-08:00

That Ryan is awesome?

I feel like I'm always bragging about him on the blog, but when I look back at my posts, it might only mention a little thing that he will do. Well, as I've been sick at home the past few days it has made me think about how amazing my husband really is.

Ryan is not only working full time, but he is also going to school full time right now and he is kicking butt at it! Since he has gone back to school he has been doing even more amazing at eBay. He's been in the top of his department since like August with 100% Resolution most months, which if you have ever worked at eBay, you know how hard that is to achieve! He's been getting bonus' right and left and I'm so proud of all the hard work he does!

He's not only doing amazing at work, but he has been getting A's in his classes as well! He works really hard to get those grades and I don't get to spend as much time with him as I want, but he's getting so much done! I'm really appreciative of the school that he's going to because he doesn't have to drive to SLC everyday to go to classes and only has to go into school once a week and the school is in the same parking lot as eBay, so it's super convenient! It's perfect for his schedule and I'm so glad! So thank you Ryan for being amazing as usual!

Madre

2012-02-01T17:56:00.000-08:00

My Mom was in town for a few days last week so we had a lot of family time this weekend! My Mom stayed at our place and on Saturday Jen and the boys came over for dinner and games! Then on Sunday they came over again for different dinner and games, it was a lot of fun spending time together!

Ryan and Rob enjoying getting their picture taken

Chandler, Tate, Mom, Ryan and Rob

We played Wits and Wagers!

Then the boys started a game of Settlers:Cities and Knights, they started it way too late so Jen went home and me and my Mom went to bed. They apparently didn't get done til 11:30pm

On Sunday my Mom joined us for church and came into our Nursery class. Now she see's what Ryan and I go through every Sunday. With 12 kinds, and 4-5 of them crying/screaming off and on most of the time, it's pretty exhausting. I really do love it, just some days are harder than others. Luckily we had 4 adults in there, but when you have 5 screaming kids and only 4 adults...what do you do? haha Thank goodness for the other 6-7 kids that weren't screaming on Sunday. Hopefully next Sunday will be better for some of the kids!

After Church my Mom made her amazing potato rolls because they are so dang good that everytime she comes here, she has to make them. She felt bad for Ryan not being able to have them, that she made a totally different kind of roll as well so Ryan could experience rolls too. She's so nice :)

Making the Potato Rolls!

Making the other non potato infested rolls

The ones that are cooked already are the potato ones and the ones shes rolling out are the other ones!

Ryan, Mom, Jen and Rob playing a cute game called Dweebies!

Playing Phase Ten Twist!

Ryan playing Blokus with Lincoln

On Monday Ryan and my Mom went shopping for a few things and then met up with me during my lunch break! Mom and Richard bought us a house warming gift so we can actually reach high places in our house. A little Giant Ladder, which when it's as big as it can get goes 15 feet! Thanks again Mom and Richard!!

That night for dinner we were going to do leftovers when Ryan and I found out that my Mom hadn't had sushi before. She said that she's had California Rolls from grocery stores, but that's not reeeeal sushi. So we went to our favorite cheap sushi place, Won Won Wok and bought some sushi so my Mom can experience some sushi!

My Mom trying a Citrus Roll

Ryan being a Walrus :)

Trying a U.S. Roll which was a Tempura fried California Roll

She had some difficulties eating with chopsticks, so she resulted to eating with a fork haha love you Mom! And she was eating the Fantasy Roll, which is the best thing ever!

While we were there, I saw a look a like for my friend Max. No joke, I kept staring at this dude and had to take pictures of him because it looked so much like him. For those of you who know Max, doesn't this totally look like him?! I sent it to B, who is Max's girlfriend and she was totally tripped out by it, he even stands like max and has the same shoes and pants! Crazy!

Trippy huh?

So that was this past weekends adventures and Max, Kyle and Erik should arrive at my house any second now to stay here for a few days to look for a place to live and to find some jobs up here! Yay!!

The Melting Pot

2012-01-26T17:25:00.000-08:00

That's right! I said The Melting Pot! If you don't know what the Melting Pot is, you can look here, but the thing to know about this place is that it's ridiculously expensive hence why I've only been there once before last night.

I went last night as a "Girl's Night Out" special that they were doing with my sister Jen and her two friends. Rob called me sometime last week and wanted to thank me and Jen's two friends for helping with Jennie's surprise birthday party last month by taking us out to the real thing at The Melting Pot. Of course I told him that he didn't have to do that and that I was happy to help with the party, but then he pretty much said that he was going to do it anyways, so I figured I might as well join in the fun!

So last night was awesome! I didn't take a lot of pictures, and the steam from the pots made the pictures weird but whatev

Jen and her friend Rachel

Me and Jen laughing at something. Which another thing that Girls Night Out brings is a lot of laughs! We had so much fun!

Rachel and Kami they are seriously awesome, my sister can find some good friends :)

The meat course! We had two broth pots and they gave us, 2 different kinds of steaks, chicken and shrimp!

The meat! And before the meat course we had salads and the cheese course which we had bread and veggies to dip in them!

We had 2 different chocolates and this was called the Ying and Yang which was amazing! It was dark chocolate and white chocolate, soooo good!

This was a dark chocolate cookies and cream that was lit on fire before!

The four of us

The things to dip in the dessert!

It was soooo good!

Thanks again Jen and Rob for "thanking me" haha I love my family!

Hearing

2012-01-24T18:23:00.000-08:00

I love where I work! It's stressful at times and I'm always busy, but I love it!

So a quick explanation of what I do is help people get Social Security Disability Benefits. There are two different things you can apply for:

SSI=Supplemental Security Income is basically for those who haven't worked or haven't worked long enough to pay into the "system" (this is the welfare option) also, when children have disabilities they can only apply for SSI because they obviously haven't paid into the system...

DIB= Disability Insurance Benefits is for people who have worked for a certain amount of time or earned enough "work credits" to get help from the government once they become disabled.

Some people qualify for both, but usually it's one of the other.

Anyways, I help before it goes to a hearing, which the only reason someone would have a hearing is if they are denied twice, or for my clients in NY, if you're denied once they automatically skip you to the hearing stage...I think I'm getting too detailed in what I'm trying to say, so the reason I was talking about work was because I went to a hearing in SLC today.

A few weeks ago my Manger said that he wanted all of us in our department to go to a hearing to better help our clients to explain what happens during a hearing.

The awesome part was that I got paid the whole time! Which I ended up being out of the office for about 3 hours, so that was pretty cool!

I clocked into work at 7am, I left the office by 7:30am to get into SLC by 8:30am for the 9am hearing. The hearing went really fast compared to other hearings (apparently the judge we had is really awesome and gets it done fast) it was only 30 mins when usually it can take an hour and a half or more! So I went in there with the attorney and observed the hearing, it was pretty cool! Plus at the end of the hearing, the judge announced that the woman does qualify for disability and will be getting benefits! That rarely happens, usually you have to wait a few months to even find out if you've been denied or not, so it was pretty cool that he said that she was approved.

It's nice to be involved with a company that truly tries to better the lives of people. I have clients that have some serious disabilities, that have worked their whole life and feel so helpless that their bodies no longer allow them to work, weather it's physical disabilities or mental ones, it disables them from working and it's nice being able to help them!

I know this isn't an interesting post, but with my memory I want to be able to remember what I did for work when I look back at these books in 10 or 20 years.

Depew's Wedding!

2012-01-23T18:02:00.000-08:00

Depew's Married! Ryan had a great time in Georgia and was really happy to be there for Depew's wedding, and here are a few pictures from that day!

First of all, Depew's parents house and land is gorgeous! I wish I could have been there

So pretty!

Depew so happy on his wedding day!

The cute couple!

A really cute pic of them and her flowers!

The brides cake!

The groom's cheesecakes!

The best man!

Ryan didn't take a real camera with him so all the pictures are only from his phone, so they aren't the best quality, but he did a pretty good job! I'm glad Ryan is now home!

Ryan's fun in Georgia

2012-01-19T18:18:00.000-08:00

Ryan is in Georgia for the next few days for his best friend Depew's wedding. Ryan has never left me to go on a trip, I've left him a few times, but it's weird the other way around. Luckily Bethany has been staying over with me so I'm not completely alone, it's pretty awesome.

So since Ryan is in Georgia, I asked him to take pictures of what he's doing so I can see what Georgia looks like! So I asked him to take some pictures and this is what he sends...

A picture of Costco...He was definitely messing with me because I've obviously seen Costco, but his next pictures were much better!

A view of the city

The high school Ryan went to

This is Melissa, Depew's future wife!

Some of Depew's family's land

Ryan feeding a horse :)

This is the house that Ryan grew-up/lived in during his High School years

I was talking to Ryan today and I asked him to try to find pictures of him and Depew together because we don't have any pictures of the two of them. He found Depew's yearbook so he sent these! But so far he hasn't found any pictures of the two of them. Hopefully he will find some good pictures soon!

Ryan's Sophomore picture in High School

Depew's Sophomore picture! And that is the soon-to-be husband on Saturday!

It's weird having Ryan gone, but he seems to be having a blast in Georgia with Depew, I just wish I could be there too and not have to work! I love you and miss you Ryan, but I am having fun with Bethany! Some of the stuff from tonight with Bethany, we put on face masks and bakes blueberry muffins while watching Friends of course!

Yay for masks!

The best blueberry muffins, but I cooked them too long so they weren't as good as they should have been

Trying to eat the muffins with the masks on were not very easy, we could barely open our mouths

The Quarry

2012-01-15T12:49:00.000-08:00

Last night we celebrated George's 23rd Birthday by having some cake and ice cream and then going to The Quarry for some rock climbing! I took a lot of pictures and it was a lot of fun!

Me and George

George turned 23 today, but they only had a 2 and a 1 so it worked!

At the Quarry with Heather, Bethany, Mitch, his date, Ryan and George

George and Ryan

Heather and her sister Bethany

Learning how to Belay

Bethany and George climbing

Coming back down

My hott hubby :)

Heather and Ryan

Weekend Visitors!

2012-01-10T19:55:00.000-08:00

Max and Kyle came up from Cali this weekend to look for places to rent! We had a pretty good time, it's always fun having a weekend full of friends and craziness!

Max and B

We ate at Smash Burger

This is Max Planking on the ball. If you don't know what planking is...it's basically doing this...I guess

Here's Heather Planking

Max was trying it the other way, but he had to have help from George

Kyle Planking

And that was Georges attempt at Planking

Then on Sunday I had my cousin's over and Jacie for some dinner and games! We played some pretty awesome games and I was laughing so hard that I was crying at some points, it was a great night!

Here's Kammy and Rob's little boy Jake "Planking" hahaha

My cousin Casey trying to plank...

Then he got really good at it

And even better at it

And Ryan's attempt

And Shane's attempt

It was a really fun night and we definitely need to do it again soon!

January Family Dinner!

2012-01-02T19:27:00.000-08:00

Now that our church is from 9am-12pm, we can get together with my siblings on Sunday evenings on a regular basis. So to start the year off right, we had our Family dinner on January 1st. We had Ryan's homemade Chili and played some games together. I'm really glad that we have family so close that we can get together as often as possible. I love family!

New Year's Eve Eve

2011-12-31T19:02:00.000-08:00

The night before New Year's Eve Nathalie and Eddie were in town from California so we got together for some fun and games. Then for New Year's Eve we hung out at Lish and Ricky's again for a mini fondu night and we celebrated New Years early and were home by 9:30pm. Yes, I know that is way lame, but Ryan had to work the next morning, so we had to make it an early night. It was still a ton of fun and a great way to bring in the new year!

Ryan and Josh

Ria and Josh dancing

Eddie and Josh dancing

Nathalie and Josh dancing

Lish

Josh, Annabelle and Abbie had fun dancing too

Christmas!

2011-12-27T17:25:00.000-08:00

Christmas was a lot of fun! Ryan woke me up before 6am to see what we got in our stockings and to open our presents! We got a lot of fun stuff and then went over to Brig and Michelle's house for some games and Christmas Dinner!

Ryan got me a FRIENDS Decal for my car :)

And a Weezer decal too!

Ryan playing with the kids

The girls got an awesome Barbie Dream house thing for Christmas! So jealous! haha

Brig, Tanner and Ryan played a few Wii games

We played Pictureka, the card version

Sierra was enjoying the cupcakes that Ryan made

Christmas Eve

2011-12-26T19:43:00.000-08:00

We spent Christmas Eve over at Jeremy and Kara's. We made Gingerbread Houses, had homemade pizza and pizza balls and played games and had a lot of fun!

Jeremy's House!

Curtis and Kara working on their Graham Cracker House

Curtis and Kara's house!

I made a huge mess with the frosting and it spilled all over my hands and the table, so I did some finger frosting for our house.

Ryan working on our House


This was our attempt of the Draper Temple, not too horrible for graham crackers

Ryan and Addi

Curtis being excited about something

We sang some Christmas songs

And Jeremy read the Christmas story and Curtis had hand puppets, he wore the wise men on his feet at one point haha

After all the fun at Jeremy and Kara's we went home and opened our Christmas PJs. Ryan got Iron Man PJ Bottoms

I got some cute owl PJ bottoms that my sister Jennie bought for me! Thanks Jen!

Temple Square

2011-12-23T14:34:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday a few of us on Ryan's side of the family went out to dinner and then went to see the lights at Temple Square. It was way busy and really cold but I had a lot of fun. We ate some really good Hawaiian Bar-B-Q and then walked around Temple Square and it even snowed while we were there which made some of the pictures even better! I definitely think we should make it a tradition to go to Temple Square when they have all the lights up because it was really pretty!

Addison and Jeremy at L & L Hawaiian Bar-B-Q

Kara and Addi

Addi again, she's just too cute not to take a ton of pictures of her!

Jeremy and Tammy

As we were driving to the Temple, I think we drove down Main Street and all the lamp posts had these at the top of them and Ryan was jumping up and down going crazy over them. I'm sure he wants to have one in our house someday...

The Salt Lake City Temple! I used a setting on my camera that said "Snow" and it made some of the pictures really cool!

Jeremy and Curtis

Jeremy and Tammy

Me and Ryan

All of us that went that night!

Curtis saying "Cheeeese"

Jeremy, Kara, Curtis and Addi, but it didn't come out very well. That's as good as it could get :(

Jeremy and Tammy

McCorristin Christmas

2011-12-23T14:20:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday all of Ryan's family got together and we celebrated Christmas and exchanged our gifts for each other. We played Ticket to Ride, had yummy food and exchanged our gifts. It was a lot of fun!

We had Sarah and Chance for the exchange so this is what we got them with stuff inside of course.

Most of December in 1 post

2011-12-18T09:31:00.000-08:00

I've realized why I haven't been updating our blog much lately. With Ryan in school, he is always on the computer working on homework, so if I have time to update the blog, I can't because he's always working on the computer, so there's my little excuse for being a slacker for the past month. Oh and Ryan is done with this semester so yay for having a little time with the computer!

Here goes the mass blog update:

It's the Christmas Season!

Tate had a Musical Express performance and he played the Tinman for one of their songs!

We went to eBay's Company Christmas Party! It was at The Rail Center in SLC and it was pretty cool!

My sister Tammy and her family came to town from Tennessee and stayed for a few days! It was great being able to see them and spend time together, we hadn't seen them for over a year! We made a gingerbread house together and had a cousin dinner with the Woodruff side of our family! It's always fun getting together with family!

Jacie and Bethany came over to see Tam and the kids one night, this is a really bad picture, but why not?

Ryan and I went to my company's Christmas Party! It was at the UVU Ballroom and they had really good food and it was a lot of fun!

We had a Surprise Birthday Party for my sister Jennie's Birthday! Rob and I had been planning this for almost 2 months and it was a blast! We did a big fondu night with a lot of Jennie's friends and then played games afterwards, it was a lot of fun!

Every year we get a new ornament and this is our new ornament because we bought our first home this year!

Max was in town for a bit so this past Friday a bunch of us went out to all you can eat sushi and then to a Comedy Sportz Match!

Last night we got together with George, Heather, Max, Bethany and Kyle and went to Texas Roadhouse! It was a lot of fun!

Gobble Gobble

2011-11-22T20:32:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday was eBay's Turkey Bowl (AKA Football Tournament) so Ryan took the day off and spent it playing football. eBay was giving away some prizes and Ryan won a free 12 pound turkey! Yay for free meat!

After the Turkey Bowl Ryan and I babysat Brig's kids while Brig and Michelle celebrated their anniversary. We had some fun playing games, feeding them dinner, and then watching Thumbalina while eating popcorn and hot chocolate. It's definitely different going from no kids to 4 ranging in ages from I think 9 to almost 2 years old. It was a lot of fun!

On Sunday I made our own little version of a Thanksgiving meal. We had Turkey, stuffing, gravy, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes for me (which I found a brand of potatoes that are small and don't have to be peeled, so Ryan didn't have an allergic reaction because I didn't have to peel them! Yay!) and Ryan had some rice pilaf since he couldn't have the potatoes. It was a great meal!

I took this Turkey...

And turned it into this! It was nice and juicy and not too bad for doing it all on my own. I feel so old.

Tonight was my oldest nephews Eagle Scout Project. Yes, I said nephew, it's crazy how they grow up so fast! But Chandler did part of his project tonight where he is helping a local school with their reading program. Tonight there were about 45 people that showed up to help him put together desks and cubicles for Lakeview Academy's STAR program which is a program that helps kids with their reading skills if they're behind. My sister Jennie actually works there now and helps with the program so she definitely knew that there was a need for help. There was a great turn out and everything was done within an hour an a half! I didn't take a lot of pictures with my camera because I was taking pictures for Jen, but here's two that I have of people helping put together desks!

They put together 19 desks and 3 cubicle parts

There were so many people helping that people had to move into the hallway for space!

It really was a lot of fun and I'm way proud of Chandler almost completing his Eagle Scout and he's only 13, way to go Chandler!

If you take the day off...

2011-11-15T20:07:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I took the day off so Ryan and I could go to the Temple for my friend Ashley receiving her endowments for the first time! It was a great excuse to request the day off and Ryan always has Mondays off so it was perfect! We met at the Provo Temple for the 10:20am session and had a great time. I had never been to the Provo Temple before and it was quite pretty, and it has a great view!

I've known Ashley for almost as long as I've lived in Utah and shortly after becoming friends, we became roommates and by roommates, I mean we shared a room together. It was awesome! I couldn't have asked for a better "Roomie". I wish we would get together more, but with our different schedules, it doesn't happen as much as I would like, but I l still consider her one of my best friends and she's like a sister to me. It was great to be a part of Ashley going through the Temple and I'm so proud of all that she's accomplished! You're amazing Ash!

Me and Ash at Lagoon I think in 2008?

Ash and I on a road trip up to Idaho, the date in the bottom right is not correct, cuz I didn't move up to Utah til 2007, but I think this was 2008

Us at the Stadium of Fire for 2008? Man, we were so tan, I miss those days haha

Jake and Ashley

Me, Ash and Ryan at the Temple

Provo Temple

It was a gorgeous view!

After the temple Ryan and I ran a few errands and then decided to stop at a dealership to START looking into buying a car by the end of the year. Well, we found the car we wanted and the price we were looking for, so we ended up driving home with a new car! It was the biggest most spur of the moment purchase I've ever done, but it felt right and it still does the day after haha thank goodness!

Here's our (MY) new car!

2012 Nissan Versa

The price was right and what really sold me was the MPG, which is anywhere from 30-45 MPG which is great for a non-hybrid car. It's got blank interior and if you were wondering how many children could fit in the trunk, my nephews Chandler, Tate and Lincoln all fit comfortably in it. I don't know why they decided to get in the trunk last night, but they did, it was pretty awesome and made me think of High School when I would fit 10+ people in my car...I mean...I never did that ;) I wonder if my Mom ever reads this...anyways. I'm so excited for it and it still doesn't feel like my car yet, it's too nice and new to actually be mine, but I think I'll get used to it :) So that was our very exciting and eventful Monday. I don't think another Monday can top it, if so I'd like to see how.

Sleepover!

2011-11-15T19:37:00.000-08:00

Friday night was a girls night out in Provo! It was a lot of fun, going out for dinner, watching chick flicks, doing facial peels and mud masks, staying up late (til 11pm which was the earliest that I've ever gone to bed during a sleepover) and waking up early (6:30am) We had girl talk and just relaxed and were bums all day, it was great!

Zink, Nancy, Jacie, Ria and Bethany (I'm taking the picture) at Pizza Pie Cafe

Doing Facial Peels, it made your face feel so smooth

Jacie starting her mud mask, she could pull of facial hair if she wanted haha just kidding jacie

Nancy with her Mud Mask

The 4 of us that did the masks, Ria's skin is too sensitive for this stuff so she was able to watch us as our faces started to tighten up as they dried

B looks like a creeper

All of them trying to be a creeper but Jacie laughed at the last second

All creepers :)

It really was a blast just hanging out and doing nothing. We watched Adventures In Babysitting, Sydney White, 17 Again and Crazy Stupid Love which were perfect for a girls sleepover. It was a ton of fun and we really need to do it more often!

Foggin Up the Windows

2011-11-05T18:54:00.000-07:00

Last night Ryan and I went to a Utah Basketball game in Salt Lake.

It was snowing on our way home and this normally wouldn't be a problem, but our heater/air/blower went out in our car so when it gets cold it's bad. The windows fog up really bad and normally you would have to turn on your defroster to make it so you can see outside...well we didn't have anything that would be able to "de-fog" our windows, so from Salt Lake to Eagle Mountain, we had to drive in the 30 degree weather with our back windows down and our front windows down a little as well as it's snowing pretty hard just to be able to kind of see outside. It was not enjoyable. It made me think back on the cars that I grew up on. The cars I grew up on had more things wrong with them than they had right with them, so last night definitely brought back memories. We were able to make it home safe by using a roll of toilet paper from our glove compartment and every few minutes, Ryan would have to wipe the inside of his side of the windshield so he could kind of see outside, it was pretty scary. I wanted to take pictures of what it looked like with the fogged up windows and the snow and everything, but Ryan had the camera in his pocket and was too focused on trying to see out the window and not kill us :)

Today we had my siblings that live in Utah over for dinner and to hang out. Every month we get together with Ryan's side of the family and it's nice to see everyone. It's kind of sad that me, my sister Jennie and her family and my brother Brig and his family live so close to us, yet we rarely get together. So we are planning on getting together at least once a month to do dinner together and tonight was our first night! It was a lot of fun! We had everyone over to our place which made it a total of 13 people and we had Paninis on my new Panini maker! (Ryan got me a Panini maker for my b-day :) ) The kids were having some fun hanging out with eachother and it was nice getting together to hang out and play games. We even went outside and the guys and the kids tossed the football around, it was freezing outside, but they had fun! For dessert we had "Hot as Summer, Cold as Winter" which is basically stove cooked chocolate pudding served over vanilla ice cream it's amazing and I haven't had it since I was a kid. It was really good and brought back good memories. I'm excited that we're going to be getting together more often. I love family, I just wished all my siblings lived this close!

Making the panini's

Making the "Hot as Summer, Cold as Winter"

Party!

2011-10-30T11:53:00.000-07:00

Last night we got together with some of our friends and went to Cornbelly's to go through the corn maze and to enjoy the other attractions that they have. My friend Max even surprised me and was able to be in town this weekend! He's of course here to see his girlfriend, but they all kept it a secret to surprise me, it was very fun and nice to see him :) The Corn Maze was a little disappointing, but it was still fun hanging with friends. Ryan and I bought the passes to go into the "Insanity Point" scary attractions, but i chickened out and didn't want to go in them, so we cut my wristband off and put it on Max with gum so he could enjoy the scary stuff with Ryan, George and Heather. Ryan said that he screamed like a little girl at points, and if he was scared, I would have died so I'm glad I didn't go in the scary stuff. As they were enjoying the scary attractions, the rest of us were enjoying ourselves around a fire watching some of Ghostbusters and the Thriller music video.

After Cornbelly's we headed back to our place for hot chocolate, cider, treats, games and a cupcake cake to celebrate mine and Nancy's Birthdays. It was a lot of fun!

Ricky, Lish and Josh

Rachelle and Abbie

The corn maze we went through

Me and Nancy!

Ryan and I

George, Max and B

Ryan and I before the pig races!

Heather and George

Max and B

Jacie and Shane

Lish, Ria and B

Ria and Josh

Me and Max!

Max and B, I love this picture!

Max and B!

Nancy and Ria

Zombie/Mummy cupcake cake!

Pumpkin Carving

2011-10-29T06:40:00.000-07:00

Ryan and I went over to his parents to carve pumpkins on Monday night.

Ryan carving out his Transformer

Here's Judy's Pumpkin

Chubbs' Pumpkin, he did Iron Man and it turned out really cool!

Chubbs' in the light

Mine, Friends, of course


Ryan's Transformer finished, he still needs to hollow out the middle more so it can be seen as a Jack-O-Lantern

All of them! Mine, Ryan's, Chubbs' and Judy's

An early birthday present Ryan gave me this morning! I heart zombies shirt :)

Footloose and FOOD!

2011-10-23T11:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Bethany, Jacie and I got together to eat lunch and go see Footloose. It was a lot of fun just hanging out and catching up with just the three of us. Footloose was pretty good for a remake movie and it was a lot of fun!

We got to theatre just in time for the previews, but we wanted to take a quick picture before. This was the result of no flash and me spilling a full cup of ice water on Bethany as I moved in to take the picture. I can't help but laugh everytime I see this picture!

Me and B

Sheepies!

The weather was perfect outside! So pretty!


Ok, why do I have such gorgeous friends? Their hair is blowing in the wind and they look like models, and I'm just in the middle haha I love them!

After hanging out with them Ryan came and picked me up to head to Tucanos for my Free Birthday Meal! It's one of my favorite times of the year where we get to go to Tucanos and pig out on delicious meat! This time we went with Jeremy and Kara and the kids because Jeremy's Birthday is also in October so we were able to go together! It was a lot of fun and the kids are growing up so fast. With my old job I would usually see Kara once a week and go to her place for one of my lunch breaks, but now that I have a normal job with normal hours, that doesn't happen :( But it was great spending time with them and they got to see how much meat I really do eat when I go to Tucanos (a little embarrassing, but whatevs)

Kara, Addi and Curtis (I think Jeremy was at the Salad bar when I took this pic)

Kara and Addi, she's getting so big!

This picture makes her look like she's got huge cheeks, but she doesn't, but her blue eyes are so gorgeous!

Me and Ryan

It was a great Saturday! Fun with friends, family and good food, can't ask for more!

Peruvian Lilies

2011-10-21T20:51:00.000-07:00

Since my birthday is just around the corner, Ryan decided to surprise me early and send 100 Peruvian Lilies to me at work!

They're so pretty!

Thanks for the early Birthday Present and surprise Ryan! I love you!

Shake your groove thang!

2011-10-21T20:46:00.000-07:00

On Monday night Ryan and I had dinner with Jen and the boys and then headed to Chandlers High School (That's right! High School! My oldest nephew is a freshman is high school, they grow up so fast!!) and went to Chandlers Choir Show. It was a 70's theme and it was way cute! I think there were over 200 students in it! In Chandlers Choir class alone, there were 75 of them and that was only 1 of the 4 or 5 classes/groups! It was way cute and they sounded really good!

Plus, I was totally envious of his high school and his theatre. The High School I went to was like 100+years old or something and Chandlers High School was built last year or the year before, it is amazing! Plus their theatre actually has seats that don't move and probably seats a few thousand people. So jealous!

Lincoln and Tate eating the homemade Oreo Truffles that Ryan had made for dessert!

Ryan and I at the performance

Chandler is the one sitting in the middle with the purple vest! His outfit was awesome! A glittery purple vest, a peace sign scarf with rainbow flared bell-bottoms. The awesomeness of thrift stores!

Chandler is really good at getting into the songs and having fun with it!

My nephew's a pretty cool kid :)

It was a lot of fun seeing him perform and to see that my nephews have an interest in the things that I did in high school.

I don't want to grow up

2011-10-11T18:38:00.000-07:00

Some things never change.

I think I'm all grown up with being married, having a mortgage and paying bills, but then it comes to going to the dentist. I hate it!

Normal 6 month check-ups are ok cuz they don't have to drill and they make your teeth so clean, but the follow-up appointments to fill cavities suck! Another reason why I hate going to the dentist is because I take care of my teeth, yet almost every time I have a check-up, I have cavities (dang you genetics!) Every time Ryan goes to the dentist, 0 cavities! What the heck? Ryan literally eats pure sugar and has never had a cavity! That's just wrong!

I had my 6 month check up in July and found out that I had 4 cavities :(

So I scheduled an appointment for sometime in August but I happened to get a new job, so I couldn't make my appointment :)

I re-scheduled my appointment for September and it happened to be when I got a promotion, so I couldn't make it :)

I rescheduled for today, and no miracles happened, so I had to go. Right before having to go to the dentist, I complained and whined to Ryan asking him if I really had to go, he said I did :(

So I went and now my mouth is all numb and puffy :(

To add to the suckiness, Ryan is at a Foo Fighters Concert tonight :( I'm jealous.

The only awesome part about it is that I was able to walk home from the dentist because Ryan had the car. We live a block away from our Dentist, actually I wouldn't even call it a block away, it's across the street from us, which made tonight's arrangements quite convenient.

I love Eagle Mountain!

Conference Weekend

2011-10-09T14:30:00.000-07:00

Conference weekend was last week, but I never blogged about it and it was a pretty awesome weekend! It started with my friend Max (who recently got home from his mission) his brother Kyle and his mom Shawna coming up on Friday night to stay for the weekend! It was great seeing them all. They arrived around 11pm on Friday, and they spent the night at our place, as well as Bethany. It was our first time having a lot of people sleepover and use the guest room as well as both of our couches. It probably wasn't the most comfortable, but it worked out well!

Friday night!

Max and B :)

Saturday morning, Ryan went off to work and Bethany had some stuff to get done, so Max, Kyle, Shawna and I stayed home and watched the Saturday morning session of conference. It was pretty cool. First of all, Max, Kyle and Shawna are all converts.

We first met Max Sophomore year of high school and his conversion was a very different process than others. Surprisingly, Max started going to early morning Seminary before ever going to church! He would wake up and go with us at 6:30 in the morning to Seminary, who does that?! The incentive was that our Seminary class was going to be doing "Comedy Sportz Improv" stuff and that there would be doughnuts, so he came. The first day he came, we happened to not get to the Comedy Sportz stuff, so he kept coming that week and eventually he just kept coming. He did that for a year with us before we finally asked/encouraged him to come to church (I mean, at least church doesn't start at 6:30 in the morning!) After a little while he finally took the discussions and was baptized our Senior year of high school. It was a really great experience during the whole process. Anyways, Max decided to go on a mission and while he was on his mission, his Mom and his brother Kyle were both baptized and became members of the church! Max is such a great example!

So, for watching a Saturday morning session with Max, Kyle and his Mom was an extremely awesome experience! We watched the second session as well and then Max and Kyle headed to Salt Lake to go to the Priesthood session while all of us girls went to our 8th Semi-Annual Fondue Night! I didn't get a lot of pictures from Fondue Night but we had a lot of fun and ate a lot of good food!

Nancy with our version of a Fondue Cheeseburger! So good!

Me, Jacie and Bethany

On Sunday morning, Max, Kyle, Shawna and Bethany went to Salt Lake to see the Sunday morning session and headed back to California right after that session. It was a quick trip for them, but it was great seeing them all!

Another one of our Conference Weekend Traditions is to get together and have a big pot-luck breakfast and watch conference. This year was a much smaller group, but that helped us to be able to focus more on the conference talks, so it worked out great! We always have Lish's homemade Cinnamon Rolls and have other great breakfast treats! This year, Ryan made amazing omlettes for everyone with mushrooms, tomatoes and onions and we had a ton of bacon! It was a great weekend!

Ricky and Lish doing the bacon and cinnamon rolls!

Josh is getting so big and keeps getting cuter and cuter everyday!

Mmm cinnamon rolls!

Ryan playing with the ball pump with Josh and Annabelle

The weekend was jam-packed but a ton of fun!

Spur of the moment craft!

2011-10-06T18:46:00.000-07:00

I was looking at status updates on Facebook tonight and I saw some cute Halloween blocks that a friend of mine had made. I saw them them and said, "I can totally make those!" So I went to our office closet and got out my headband rubbermaid and got to work! Surprisingly, I didn't have to go to the store for anything! I had blocks, fabric, scissors, glue and a black marker and that's all I needed!

Frankenstein, A mummy and a Pumpkin!

They turned out pretty cute for doing a craft right on the spot! And now I have more Halloween decorations! I love Halloween!!

Ian's Blessing!

2011-10-01T07:57:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday was Ian's (our nephew on Ryan's side) baby blessing! We all went to the blessing and then had some good food and fun at a park. Here's some pictures from the day!

Ian Maximus McCorristin

Ryan had fun with Jeremy pushing him on the swing haha

Josh was in charge of pushing all the girls on the swings.

Grandma McCorristin and Ian

I thought this was a funny picture, it looks like Ian's crying but it was really just a yawn, by the next picture on my camera he was doing this...

It looks like he was waving to the camera and sticking his tounge out at the same time! So cute!

Forget-me-not

2011-09-25T08:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my sister Jennie and I were able to go to the General Relief Society Meeting and it was great! Jennie happened to get two tickets for the meeting so we were able to go together. We decided to go eat before then park in Sandy and ride Trax up to Temple Square, surprisingly, it was more packed getting into SLC than leaving after the meeting. But it was a lot of fun "people watching" while riding on Trax, you definitely see a lot of people from different tracks of life. We had great seats and were on the floor level of the conference center. The choir that sang for the meeting were a combination of women from Eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs area! It was cool seeing people in the choir that I had been in wards with or had performed with in the Saratoga Springs Stake Music Program!

The speakers were amazing and I really enjoyed President Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk last night.

Here's his talk:

“No matter how dark your days may seem, no matter how insignificant you may feel, no matter how overshadowed you think you may be, your Heavenly Father has not forgotten you. In fact, He loves you, with an infinite love.”

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, gave this loving reminder during the General Relief Society Meeting on September 24, 2011.

Using the forget-me-not flower as a metaphor for his remarks, President Uchtdorf noted that although the flower is small in size, and easily unnoticed among larger flowers, it is still beautiful and vibrant.

President Uchtdorf tied the five petals of the forget-me-not flower to five things women should not forget.

Forget-me-not flowers

Forget not to be patient with yourself:

President Uchtdorf reminded women that everyone has strengths and weaknesses—that no one is perfect, even those who may seem so.

“God wants to help us eventually turn all of our weaknesses into strengths, but He knows that this is a long-term goal,” President Uchtdorf said. “It is OK that you are not quite there yet. Keep working on it but stop punishing yourself. “

“Dear sisters, many of you are endlessly compassionate and patient with the weaknesses of others,” he added. “Please remember also to be compassionate and patient with yourself.”

Forget not the difference between a good sacrifice and a foolish sacrifice:

President Uchtdorf defined an acceptable sacrifice as giving up “something good for something of far greater worth.”

“Dedicating some of our time to studying the scriptures or preparing to teach a lesson is a good sacrifice. Spending many hours stitching the title of the lesson into homemade potholders for each member of your class may not be.”

President Uchtdorf noted that every situation is different, and suggested asking, “Am I committing my time and energies to the things that matter most?” in order to distinguish between good and foolish sacrifices.

Forget not the happiness that surrounds you:

Using an example from the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, President Uchtdorf described how one of the characters, Willy Wonka, hid golden tickets within chocolate bars, promising to reveal wonders to five people who discovered the tickets.

“In their anxiousness, people began to forget the simple joy they used to find in a candy bar. The candy bar itself becomes an utter disappointment if it does not contain a golden ticket,” President Uchtdorf said. Whatever a “golden ticket” may represent to each person, President Uchtdorf warned Relief Society sisters to not put their happiness on hold as they wait for a future event, or golden ticket, to appear.

“The lesson here,” he said,” is that if we spend our days waiting for fabulous roses, we could miss the beauty and wonder of the tiny forget-me-nots that are all around us.”

Forget not the “why” of the gospel:

President Uchtdorf said that sometimes, in the routines of daily life, the vital aspects of the gospel of Jesus Christ are unintentionally overlooked. “We sometimes see the gospel as a long list of tasks that we must add to our already impossibly long “to do” lists. We focus on what the Lord wants us to do and how we might do it, but we sometimes forget why.”

President Uchtdorf reminded the sisters that the gospel is not an obligation, but a pathway leading to happiness and peace in this life and “glory and inexpressible fulfillment” in the life to come.

Forget not that the Lord loves you:

In closing, President Uchtdorf said, “Just think of it: You are known and remembered by the most majestic, powerful, and glorious being in the universe! You are loved by the King of infinite space and everlasting time.”

“You may at times feel a little like the forget-me-not—insignificant, small, or tiny in comparison with others,” he said, noting: “I hope (the forget-me-not) will be a symbol of the little things that make your lives joyful and sweet.”

I had a really good time and it was nice to be able to spend some time with Jennie. Afterwards we went out for some soft-serve ice cream and had a great time!

Movin' on Up!

2011-09-21T19:32:00.000-07:00

I've been at my new job now for 6 weeks and I was promoted yesterday! Woot woot!

I was working in the DLC which was basically a legal call center to help people start the process of filing for disability. It was fun, but did get monotonous after a few weeks, but it was still enjoyable. Yesterday I was called into the HR office and was offered a "Case Manager" position, which includes a little raise and different job duties, of couse, I accepted!

So starting yesterday afternoon, I started a week long training to learn all the responsibilities and duties of a Case Manager. Bascially, I'm going to be in charge of about 600 different disability claims! That's a whole lot of claims!! And there's a whole lot of responsibilities, but I'm so excited! There's so much more to learn and I'll definitely be a pro with helping people with disability claims :) Of course, hopefully none of my family or friends will ever need to get help filing disability, but if they do, I'll be able to help answer questions!

On a random note:

How many of you have read this book?

If you give a mouse a cookie!

I don't know how many times I have said to Ryan, "You know, it's kind of like the, If you give a mouse a cookie book", and every time I've said that Ryan has been like, "Uh, I've never heard of that book". First of all, WHO HASN'T READ THIS BOOK?! If I'VE heard and read this book, EVERYONE has had to of read this book (referring back to my childhood of never reading/having books around) Anyways, Ryan has never read this book, therefore, never understood what I meant when I would say, It's like giving a mouse a cookie. So, getting to my point, this book has been mentioned maybe 3 or 4 times since we've been married and yesterday, we get a package in the mail, and Ryan had bought "If you give a mouse a cookie" off of eBay!!

It may not sound like a big deal, but I was just telling Andrea (my friend that does my hair) how considerate Ryan is and how I can mention a little thing one day and sooner than I know it, Ryan remembers and either gets it off of eBay or finds it for me, he's just great at remembering things and being considerate and thinking, "I know Suzie will appreciate this" so he does it. The little things totally add up, it's not like he's buying flowers every week (even though he is still good at buying me flowers every once in a while) but he's always finding something or someway to make my day or week. So, again, I'm very blessed! I don't know how I got so lucky to have an amazing husband like him, but I did. Now I need to keep trying to be better and keep up with his amazingness, it's going to be difficult, because he's so good at being selfless and considerate! So thank you Ryan! I love you more and more everyday!

I'll get better someday...

2011-09-19T18:24:00.000-07:00

I somehow got behind on updating, so here's another mass update! Sorry.

Ryan and I were able to go see My Chemical Romance and Blink 182, thanks to Jeremy (Ryan's bro, who won tickets) he couldn't go so we were the lucky ones that were able to go!

We had a blast at the concert!

Blink 182!!

I threw a baby shower for my cousin Kammy who's having a little boy in a week!

Ryan and I broke a world record for being a part of the Largest Dodgeball game!

We got these cool free shirts! We were of course on the Red team for "Utah"

That line of red and blue things are all the balls they had, I think it was 1000 balls for the game!

Dodgeball! Dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge!!

Red Vs. Blue!! Red was out numbered 3 to 1 so Blue won, but it was still a lot of fun!

We had a few couples over for dinner and games!


My friend Max came home from his mission 2 weeks ago and had his mission homecoming talk yesterday! I wasn't able to make it down to Cali for it, but my Mom was able to go and told me how amazing it was! We're so happy that he served a mission and is now home to start the next phase of his life!

I know there's a few events that I missed, but unfortunately I didn't take pictures of them, such as our new niece Addison's baby blessing and family Labor Day Picnic and I'm sure others that I'm forgetting! Let's see if I can get better at updating...

Good timing

2011-09-01T20:17:00.000-07:00

We had two functioning cars three weeks ago. The week I started my new job our "ghetto-mobile" started over-heating and is no longer with us :( Rest in peace ghetto-mobile.

Luckily and thankfully, our schedules work PERFECTLY to be able to carpool with each other, that is definitely a HUGE blessing for us right now. Even though I have to wake up by like 5:45 in the morning, I'm glad that we are able to carpool if it means that I only have to wake up early.

So our new driving schedule has us leaving the house by 6:00am we drive out to Draper, I drop Ryan off by 6:30am and then I take the car and drive to American Fork to where I work to be there by 7am. Ryan then gets off work at 3:00pm and he works out at work for an hour until I get off work at 4:00pm to come and pick him up.

It's been a big adjustment waking up that early, but it is totally worth it! I love my new job and am doing pretty well at it, yay!

It's kind of funny, the first day Ryan and I started carpooling together, Ryan told me that he was talking with a co-worker the day before (apparently his co-worker had gotten his identity stolen and had to deal with getting his credit fixed and all that stuff) and while Ryan was hearing his co-worker talking about that, Ryan thought to himself,

"Wow, Suzie and I are doing really well right now, we're where we need to be financially and we're really where we need to be"

After Ryan told me that, I told him that he TOTALLY JINXED US! Hahaha I thought it was hilarious, the second he thinks "hey, we're doing ok" the next day one of our car dies...Irony? I think so. Gotta love it!

Now that I wrote down really boring info about mine and Ryan's schedules, on to a lot of pictures that I haven't uploaded from the past month. Be prepared for pictures from the month of August, they are in order of when they happened, but that's all in regards to exact time frame for these.

The HUGE slip-n-slid from my family reunion picnic!

Sierra and my Mom

The pretty cool space that we had for our reunion picnic!

We had a surprise Birthday Party for Ria!

Josh looking cute!

Annabelle doing a funny face!

We played volleyball...

Had a Pinata!

Ria looking Beautiful!

Ria with her cake!

We had Ryan's parents over for his Mom's birthday and we made a fruit pizza cake for her

I went to Ali's Bridal Shower!

Jennie and I canned tomatoes from her garden!

They taste delicious!

We played games over at Jeremy and Kara's and Ryan actually held Addison this time

Ryan made Oreo Cupcakes for a Primary Teacher Activity that we had. They tasted awesome!

Ryan made a U for Utah out of those little tiny bead things that you melt with an iron at Jen and Robs house

They had a good time playing with Lincoln's toys :)

Hopefully I'll be better and update the blog faster so I don't have to mass blog about our life.

Quick Reminder

2011-08-15T18:21:00.000-07:00

I came home from my first day of work at my new job to find this on the kitchen table...

I'm pretty sure I'm the most spoiled wife in the world, just saying :)

With a gorgeous bouquet of roses.

I don't post this stuff to brag, it's our family journal and if I don't document it, I won't remember it.

The first day of work went great! Lots of training and lots of things to learn about Social Security and Disability Claims, but I'm excited to learn new information!

I'm a little behind on some posts, so I might have a couple random picture posts coming up soon.

Change is good!

2011-08-10T22:02:00.000-07:00

Today I...

Dropped off a baby shower gift for a girl in our ward.

Went to work.

Went to a job interview on my lunch break.

Was offered the new job at that interview!

Went back to work, quit and said goodbye to those I worked with.

I am now...

Soooo excited! :)

I have been so grateful to have a job during this really bad economy, but I have not been happy with where I have been working, it's a sales position and commission based and I was not making what I would have liked to. So, I interviewed at Myler Disability during lunch, had a great interview and was offered the job on the spot! How awesome is that?! I was pretty stoked. So I went back to work, spoke with my supervisor, and said goodbye to my team. PMI is a great company and I have met a lot of great people there, but it was time for me to move on to something better for me.

So, I start Monday at Myler Disability as a Legal Assistant. It's full time, Mon-Fri. and the hours are 7am-4pm or 8am-5pm, so I'm even more excited because the hours are almost exactly the same as Ryan's schedule so we will be able to see each other more!

Mi Madre

2011-08-04T12:04:00.000-07:00

My Mom planned a 2 week long trip up here in Utah and has been spending a few days at all of our houses and Monday and Tuesday were my days to spend with her! She was finally able to see our new place and helped us with a few projects while she was here! I had to work both days, so I pretty much was only able to see her during my lunch breaks and after work, but it was still a lot of fun!

I put my Mom to work with making some curtains for our living room and guest room!

She also helped me figure out how to use my sewing machine that used to be my Granny's. We also figured out that it's a little broken and only sews in reverse...

Ryan putting up the rods for the curtains.

Some simple curtains for the living room.

My Mom also recovered our throw pillows for our couches so they match the new curtains.

The guest bedroom window before...

and after! My sister Jennie helped with the design of this one and helped find all the cute fabric for the curtains.


Close up of the fabric and cute ribbons! I think they turned out so cute!

The night before my Mom left, she made my Granny's famous Potato Rolls! They are sooooo good!

I've tried to make these rolls a few times and have failed every time, I can never get them to rise and they are so much better when my Mom makes them!

My Mom :)

The perfect rolls!

It was a lot of fun being able to spend some time with my Mom and appreciate all the projects she did to help make our condo a little more home-y. Thanks Mom! I love you!

Last minute

2011-08-04T11:40:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I found out that one of my old roommates, Kristie, was visiting from Australia, so last minute we had people over to visit and play games! We ended up playing Warewolf the whole time, and it was a lot of fun!

Kristie and Nancy, they were both my roommates before I got married.

Ryan explaining the game.

Everyone!

High School Reunion

2011-07-29T20:51:00.000-07:00

Spontaneous activity of the week: Going to a concert last minute to be able to see my friend Zach and his wife who live in Idaho.

I've known Zach since 7th Grade and became really good friends with him during High School, I hadn't seen him since before his mission, so it had been about 3 years. Zach and Kelsey were going to be down here for one night to see a band called Tally Hall, so we decided to meet up with them!

This is the only picture on FB that I could find from high school that has Zach, Bethany, Jacie and I in it.

Me, Jacie, Bethany and Zach

Just to kind of explain the other pictures that we took that night, for some reason, we like to take "special" pictures, where you shake your head and relax your face and take a picture of what you look like, here's an old one of Zach and I the last time we saw each other...

Us shaking our heads and looking really weird...why do we do it? I don't know, because it's funny to see your face look weird.

Zach was the only one that had a good weird face in this one.

Me looking weird

Self explainitory

Jacie shaking her face

Zach

Ryan

Kelsey

Bethany

Me again and Zach looking like a creeper in the back.

The band that we saw, which didn't start playing until 10:45pm or 11pm, which for Ryan and I, that was way late, we are in bed by 10pm at the latest most nights.

It was a really fun night, we reminisced, had some laughs and it turned out to be a fun quick visit with an old friend.

Addison makes 20!

2011-07-29T20:26:00.000-07:00

We have a new niece! My sister-in-law Kara had her little girl Wednesday morning and Ryan and I went to go see them in the hospital later that evening.

Here's Addison Ciel McCorristin, she's such a cutie!

Kara, Curtis and his new little sister Addison!

Now that Addison is born, Ryan and I have 20 nieces and nephews between both of our families and there will definitely be more to come!

2 Years!

2011-07-29T20:20:00.000-07:00

On Monday, we celebrated our 2 Year Anniversary! I took the day off and Ryan always has Monday's off, so we were able to spend the whole day together! We went to Tucanos for lunch which was delicious and even more delicious because we only had to pay for one meal, thanks to my sister-in-law Kara, who wasn't going to use her Tucano's Free Birthday Meal, so she graciously gave it to us to use for our Anniversary! Thanks again Kara, I love getting a good deal!

My hot hubby!

After having Tucanos, we went to see Captain America, which was really good. I'd say it's definitely better than Green Lantern and Thor, so I would recommend it! Now I'm way excited to see The Avengers next May (wow, I'm turning into a nerd)

We then spent the rest of the day relaxing and ended up making Cheese Fondue for dinner, which basically meant that we ate bread and cheese...mmm...it was good! It was a very enjoyable day and I love Ryan even more now than I did when I married him! I love you Ryan!

A small family gathering...

2011-07-24T17:13:00.000-07:00

On Friday night we got together with my side of the family while my Aunt Wendy and Uncle Blaine were in town for their individual family reunion. We got together at my cousin Lorin and Debbies house, which they pretty much have the best backyard ever!

Everyone that was able to make it that night.

Tate and Caitlin on the tire swing

Ryan was having fun on the helicopter teeter-totter!

And seconds later our nieces and nephews joined in on the fun!

How awesome is this backyard?! There is sooo much space, on this side they have the teeter-totter, a jungle gym and some open grass area...

And on the other side is a half basketball court, trampoline and another jungle gym. This backyard is a child"s wonderland!

They played a lot of lightning as well!

All of the 2nd cousins? What's it called when it's your cousin's children to your own children? Anyone? Are they second cousin's to each other, because I have no idea.

Cute kids!

It was really nice being able to see some family that we usually don't see that often and to just hang out!

Baby Shower #2

2011-07-24T16:50:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was my SIL Val's Baby Shower! She has two girls already and is now having a boy!

Lots of blue stuff!

Brooke definitely enjoyed the frosting on this cookie!

Brooke also helped her Mom open some of her presents.

Val was excited not to see a ton of pink when she opened the gifts!


An elephant towel for the little guy!

It was a fun and relaxing baby shower, now all we have to do is wait to see the soon to be babies that will be added to our extended family soon!

Zombie Love

2011-07-12T19:39:00.000-07:00

I love Zombie Movies, I have for a long time and have a fascination with anything Zombie, so Ryan surprised me with this AWESOME shirt that he found on eBay.

The shirt is a play off of Subway's slogan, "eat fresh".

I love it! I wore it to work today and people thought it was pretty awesome too!

Thanks for the shirt Ryan! You know me so well!

Sunday

2011-07-10T20:39:00.000-07:00

Today we had Breakfast at my brother, Brigham's before church because my Mom was driving through. We had some yummy breakfast and chatted for a bit before church and then my Mom, Richard and Sebastian were on the road back to Cali. It was a short visit, but it was fun spending time with family.

My Mom, Brig and Me

My Mom and I

The kids loved having Uncle Ryan play with them, as always :)


He's always willing to play games with them.

Sacrament Meeting was fun because we were able to color, play a few games of tick-tack-toe, the "draw lines and make boxes out of dots game" (does anyone know what I'm talking about? My sister and I would play that game all the time in church. You draw a lot of dots, and then take turns drawing lines and when you fill in a square you get a point? Anybody?) Either way, it was fun!

On a side note: I finally made a book out of our blog from 2009-2010! It turned out way nice too! It was bigger than I expected and I was surprised that it turned out to be 133 pages! Hopefully I will keep it up with creating a book for each year to come! If anyone else wants to make their blog a book, I would recomend blog2print.com, I signed up with them a while ago, and got a coupon in my email for 15% off, so that definitely helped on the price, because depending on how much you blog, it can get pretty pricey. But I totally recommend it!

Babies!

2011-06-26T19:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Kara's(my SIL) Baby Shower! They already have a boy, but she's currently pregnant with a little baby girl, so that gives us all reason to celebrate and get her some girl stuff! I took a ton of pictures yesterday, but apparently I suck at taking pictures, because pretty much all of them were blurry...so here are a few pictures from the shower.

Kara! And yes, this is a blurry picture, but it's the best one that I took.

Tammy had some games planned, this one we tried to guess how big Kara's belly was with string and we also had a game where we had to guess what was in baby food jars.


Some of the people at the party and a picture of all the fun presents that she got!

And sadly, those are the only O.K. pictures, epic fail on my part. :(

As for today, Ryan and I were called to be Nursery Teachers!!

We found out this morning and when they told us about being called to Nursery, I think both of us were surprised. Neither of us have taught Nursery before, but it will be a fun adventure. Today we sat in with another Nursery class to kind of get the gist of what to do, it was actually pretty fun! This Ward is way organized and has specific things to every 20 mins. or so, to help the kids stay entertained, which will make our jobs easier! The ages of kids for Nursery are 18 months to 4 years old, and Ryan and I will be teaching the youngest! hahaha so we'll have the "fun" part of children transitioning into Nursery(a part that I'm not too excited about) but the kids are sooooo dang cute! The class we were in today had 1 or 2 of the kids that will be in our class and they are adorable! Our ward already has 4 Nursery classes and our class will be the 5th! Our class with start out with 4 or 5 kids, but by the end of the year we should have 11 or 12...crazy! Church will be very different from now on, spending an hour in Sacrament and then 2 hours with some toddlers. We're excited/scared and hopeful that we'll do well with this calling. If anything, people always say that teaching in Nursery is a good "birth control", I guess we'll find out!

Today was also the monthly McCorristin family dinner and Ryan and I were "in charge" of this months dinner, so we decided to do a Breakfast Pajama Dinner. So we dressed in Pajamas and all did Breakfast foods! We had pancakes, eggs, hasbrowns, sausage and bacon, orange juice and homemade cinnamon rolls for dessert! There were a lot of people missing tonight, so it was a smaller group, but it was still pretty fun! We also played Wacky Six and had a pretty chill night!

Slip N Slide!

2011-06-19T11:42:00.000-07:00

For Josh's First Birthday Party they did a water party.

Josh enjoyed destroying his cake!

It was a lot of fun, for the kids there was a little kiddy pool and some sprinkler toys and once we had all eaten and the kids were down for naps or inside, the "bigger" kids got to play on the Slip N Slide! We did this a few summers ago and it was a lot of fun so they decided to do it again. Ryan was excited to show off his "jumping over people while sliding" skills. It was a pretty relaxing day with BarBQing, a little bit of volleyball, Slip N Sliding, water balloon fights and hanging with friends.

Ryan jumping over Zink.

Bethany tried to jump over Rhett but it didn't work out so well, she should have asked how Ryan was doing it before she tried to do it.

Rhett tried as well, but used his knees instead of using his arms to propel himself forward.

Bethany and Ria posing for the camera.

Ria and Ricky sliding together.

Bethany trying to surf down but fell after a second.

Ryan jumping over Bethany...

Ryan jumping over Bethany and Ria...

And Ryan jumping over Bethany, Ria and Rhett!

After having some fun with friends, Ryan and I went to go see The Green Lantern. Ryan loved it of course and I thought it was really good, but the bad guy is really scary. And I know the bad guys are supposed to be bad, but the villains were really dark and scary for a comic book movie. I don't know, I liked it but it wasn't my most favorite. We had a lot of fun though and I'm glad that it's finally starting to look like summer, well, kind of. Yesterday it was really gloomy and looked like it was going to rain at one point, but then the sun came out so people could enjoy the water games!

It's about freakin time!

2011-06-19T10:51:00.000-07:00

Looong story short...We finally have internet! We have been dealing with our HOA, the builder, the internet company for the past month to figure out why our fiber optics in our whole building wasn't working and it was finally fixed! Thank goodness! I feel so out of the loop, but now I can start catching up on a lot of things. I have too many things that I haven't blogged about the last month or so and I don't remember all of them, so I'll only update on stuff that I have pictures of, here we go!

Bethany and I made a countdown chain for when our friend Max gets home from his mission!

I got some bar-stools from a yard sale for FREE!

They needed a little TLC so I recovered them, spray painted and added a few screws. They were pretty much falling apart when I got them, that's why the lady just gave them to me.

The finished product!

A darker fabric that hopefully won't show as much stains. Not too bad for getting them for free!

Ryan's brother Jeremy graduated from PT School and we celebrated his and Kara's hard work!

And Jeremy passed his exam to become a Physical Therapist, so now he's officially a Doctor! Congrats Jeremy!

Ryan had a Guys Game Night with some of his brothers. They had a lot of fun!

A lot more happened within the last month but if I don't have a picture for it, I usually don't remember! But we also had our nephew Sawyers First Birthday Party that we went to up in Ogden and our niece Emma's First Birthday Party as well within the last few weeks. I'm sure there's a lot more that has happened, but I have forgotten.

On a side note: I love our new washer and dryer. We were without a washer and dryer for a month and it was too long!

Our First Home :)

2011-05-08T14:33:00.000-07:00

We have been in our place for a week now and have pretty much unpacked everything, so I figured I could take some pictures so family and friends outside of Utah can see our first home that we get to pay a mortgage on! Yay for growing up and having a mortgage!

Here's a few pictures of our Condo in Eagle Mountain!

Living Room, dinning room and some of the kitchen.

Closer pic of the dinning room/kitchen.

Our Kitchen!

A little cove in front of our front door and above the kitchen sink.

More of the Kitchen...

We are loving all the space and the new Whirlpool appliances!

Our huge living room, and yes, Friends is on in the background, what else would be on?

Different angle of the living room, our walls are still bare because we haven't decided where to put all our pictures.

The Master Bedroom!

More of the Master

Master Bath with a deep slanted tub, I don't know the technical name for the tub.

The Office, which is the messiest room right now.

The new computer that we bought, so we can actually use the internet.


A fuzzy picture of the guest bath.

The guest bedroom. It's pretty empty right now, but if anyone wants/needs to visit, we will have a bed by the time you come!

Well that's basically our place, minus a picture of our Laundry Room and the Closets. But we are loving it in our new place and we're excited for the many years to come in this home. Plus we won't have to move for so many years now! Yay! No more moving!

So fast!

2011-04-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

We are closing on our condo this Thursday! As in 3 days!

They origianlly told us that it would be May 13 that we would close on it, but apparently we didn't have any problems with the loan and we will be moving in this Saturday! We are so excited! I hate moving, but the fact that after this move, we won't be moving for years and years, excites me!

If any of you guys are feeling generous and would like to help us move this Saturday, please do! Plus, you can see where we are going to live! Can you tell that I'm excited? I think I've used an exclamation point at the end of every sentence! Yay!

I have a problem.

2011-04-13T14:02:00.000-07:00

If I don't do something the second I remember to do it, or put a reminder in my phone Calendar, I forget about it and don't do it. I blame it on my horrible memory.

Example:

Calling people back.

If I don't have time to call people back when they call, I will forget to call them and then they think I'm ignoring them. If this has happened to you, I promise, I'm not ignoring you, I just didn't have the time to talk when you called and have forgotten about it. Sorry.

Right now I'm at work and have a few minutes to update. So here's a few updates:

We are still under contract with a Condo and we should have the Loan approved by mid May. We are way excited to have our "first place" that we own and can do whatever we want to it. May really can't come fast enough!

Other than that, life is great! Ryan and I are both workin hard and are constantly keeping busy, or at least think we are?

Wow, I really do forget about what we've done the last month if I don't blog about it right away. Oh! If you guys want to see some cool pictures from a Murder Mystery Party that my cousin Kimber put together for all of the "Utah Woodruff Cousins", take a look at her blog, HERE, Kimber is awesome about updating and she took a lot of fun pictures from last Friday!

Boring

2011-03-17T13:20:00.000-07:00

I feel like a total slacker for not updating my blog more, but then I try to think about what we've done recently and there hasn't been much to blog about anyways.

Our whole house has been sick for the past 2 weeks or so and most of us are still trying to get better, so that has limited our amount of hanging out and doing stuff, so I blame that.

Also, I'm an old lady and Lish reminds me of that every night when I say "Goodnight" and it's only 8:30pm-9:00pm. But honestly, I get tired soooo easily and I have no other responsibilities other than work. I have no idea how I'm gonna be with motherhood, who knows.

Our laptop is broken...AGAIN! So, even when I do get home, I can't use our laptop anyways to update our blog, which brings me to my next thing...Ryan bought a smart phone. He has been up for an upgrade for about a month now, so he got a really good deal on a Droid, only $50 bucks, so he obviously couldn't pass up that deal. So with the laptop being broken, we have still been able to read email and blogs and everything, which is nice. Since the laptop is broken, I am updating my blog at work during my lunch break. Aren't I so devoted?? haha actually my team went out to lunch together and we got back early, so I figured, what the hay, I guess I'll update my blog.

Within the past week I have been having daily reminders of how blessed and grateful I am for so many things in my life. Life is good and I can't express it enough, but sometimes things come into your life that throw you a curve ball or 20 and makes me realize that things can change within a blink of an eye. I'm so grateful for family, friends and this gospel. I've been a slacker the last few months and I realy need/will change that.

Work is hard, like, really really hard, but I am soooo grateful for having a job, even if it's hard or not, I am grateful for it and grateful for Ryan having a job too.

This could turn into a whole post about being grateful and everything, but I won't go there.

Thanks for reading, sorry for being scatter-brained.

Excited/Scared/Anxious

2011-03-03T19:27:00.000-08:00

I've wanted to update our blog a few times within the last two weeks, but every time I would type something out, I would delete it after a few paragraphs. I don't really know why, and as I sit here writing, I can't even tell you the things that I was going to write those few times before, but then again, I guess they weren't important enough to blog about.

And as I write now, I still don't know exactly what I'm trying to say. I am excited for a lot of opportunities and possibilities that are to come, maybe? There's a lot of things "up in the air" right now and I would hate to write specifically about them all because I would hate to jinx any of them. But at this point, if I find out more details about any of them or if any of them progress, then I will for sure blog about them more in detail.

Sorry if you're reading this and have no idea what I'm talking about. Oh, but for any family or friends that are wondering, NO we are not pregnant and that is not one of the things "up in the air" right now.

Ryan and I are happy to be making progress on so many things right now. 2010 was filled with so many difficulties and hardships, but I am grateful for them. They say "Love doesn't pay the rent" and that's true, but it sure is helpful to have the love of your life next to you during the journey of financial hardships. If Ryan and I could make it through the past year and still love each other more than ever, then there's nothing that we can't handle. Of course there will be many more trials and difficulties throughout the rest of our lives, but I'm so grateful for the trials and blessings that we receive everyday.

One thing that isn't too specific is that we are looking into buying a home sometime this year. We're in the process of talking to Lenders and Realtors to see what's in our price range and starting to look for a home of our own. It's very exciting and scary and we have no idea how long this process may take, but that's one of the things that we're looking into right now. It's such an adult thing, buying a house, but I guess Ryan and I are growin up!

Happy Birthday Ryan!

2011-02-19T23:03:00.000-08:00

Ryan turned 24 today!

Here are some pictures of what happened today!

Ryan received a "U" Lanyard to use for work...

and a new shirt!

He also got this awesome Popcorn Machine! He's been wanting one for the longest time, so now he finally has one!

We had some people over to play games and hang out, and we had some of Ryan's favorite foods, fruit snacks, Swedish fish, Laffy Taffy, Pink Lemonade and of course Popcorn from the new machine!

Ryan's cool Batman Cupcake Cake!

Ryan and our niece Emma.

Ryan blowing out his candles.

We had a lot of fun playing Warewolf and some other games and now Ryan is off playing some video games with Greg, Derek and Ricky. So I think I would say that Ryan has had a pretty good Birthday today, at least I hope he did! I love you Ryan and can't wait for the years to come!

Valentine's Day!

2011-02-16T18:33:00.000-08:00

For Valentine's Day I woke up to go to work to find that Ryan had washed my car before I woke up, that in itself was a great way to start out the day!

Later that morning, Ryan sent me flowers to work and they were very pretty!

Ryan and I were able to have lunch during my lunch break and after work we headed to Tucanos for a nice Valentine's dinner. There were sooo many people there and the wait time was 2 hours, luckily Ryan and I had made reservations. When they seated us, we sat down and 30 seconds later, a couple came back from the salad bar to sit down where the waitress had just seated us, at their table. It was kind of awkward for a second, the couple was like, "Uh, what the? uh, where do we go now?" And they went to get a waitress, and they had to find a different spot for them. That's how busy it was, that the second someone got up from a table or I guess both of them, they thought that they were gone and gave the table to someone else, kinda funny.

We had the usual Tucanos meal plus some specialty items that they served for Valentine's Day and some Chocolate covered strawberries, it was way good!

Besides Ryan getting me Flowers and cleaning the car, he also surprised me with a new camera, I know, I'm way spoiled. I was so surprised that he had gotten a camera and told him that it wasn't an even Valentine's at all. I had litterally gotten him a HUGE box of Laffy Taffy from Costco, which has like 200 pieces of candy in it and that was it. I told him that we could only spend $10 on each other, and what does he do? Buy a camera. Eh, I'm not complaining though, I've been complaining about our lame camera forever and I'm happy that we finally have a camera that will take pictures and not eat AAA batteries every day (no joke, we replaced the batteries everytime we used it, the camera obviously didn't want to work anymore) Now we have a new Black Canon PowerShot Camera. Yay!

So this Valentine's Day was awesome, to say the least! In the words of Katy Perry, I'm glad that "Every February, You'll be my Valentine!" I love you Ryan!

P.S.-Since Ryan did outshine me with stuff this Valentine's Day, I did end up getting him Quelf during my lunch break, now we have to break in our new game and play it with people! Yay for new games!

Dang you Jacie :)

2011-02-09T22:21:00.000-08:00

Apparently I was "tagged" on my friend Jacie's Blog to do 15 interesting things about yourself in your next blog post, so here I go!

1. All my life, I've always had a fan blowing on me at night. Growing up, I shared a room with my sisters and I would always have the "swamp cooler" on, even if it blew dead and alive bugs into our room/on our bed. Ryan gets cold and hates having the fan on, but after a year and a half of being married, he's finally realized that I'm not gonna change and switch off the fan, even if it's below 0 outside.

2. My dad is an identical twin and he and my uncle played little ricky on "I love Lucy" from the age of 6 months to 4 years old.

I'm pretty sure my Dad is the one on the right.

3. Growing up, I had a big trampoline that was dug into the ground and we pilled up the dirt around it and covered it was ghetto carpet to make hills to jump onto the tramp. My brothers also made a pretty sweet volleyball court with nice sand in it and we got a few years out of it, until the wasps decided to make their nests in the sand. Good times.

4. My senior year of high school, I practically lived at my friend Max's house (also Nicole's, Dylan's and Bethany's) for days/weeks at a time, not because of family issues, just because it was closer to school once we moved to Baldwin Park.

5. I had a full head of dark black hair when I was born.

6. My favorite Band has always been Weezer because it makes me think of my brothers Brigham and Serge blasting Weezer's Blue Album during Volleyball/Trampoline Parties.

7. I have the worst memory in the world, but I can remember everything about April 18, 2008 like it was yesterday, that was the day that one of my best friends was killed by a drunk driver.

8. I never change in front of people. I've had friends since forever, and they still haven't really ever seen me change in front of them, I'm just weird like that.

9. Whenever I hear the song, "God Be With You Til We Meet Again", I think of funerals and it makes me want to cry.

10. I've always been attracted to the bigger, muscular, Football type of guy and for some reason Samoan's, but lets just say, Ryan's not Samoan, but I wouldn't have it any other way :)

11. When I was younger, I used to hate being in a pool alone because I thought that a shark was gonna get me, so if I was ever the last one in the pool I would always run out as fast as I could. Oh man, I just typed that and laughed out loud, how ridiculous hahaha

12. This is kind of similar to Jacie's straw thing, but whenever I go back home and eat at this hole in the wall, Mexican Restaurant, Patty's, I fold my number stub the exact same way. Fold it in half, and half again, but then unfold them and fold it into a triangle (if that makes sense...)

13. I never in a million years thought that I would be married by the age of 20, and before a lot of my other friends growing up.

14. I'm pretty sure that I've only said 5 bad words in my whole life and every time I did say a bad word, it never sounded right coming out of my mouth.

15. I love singing Alto. I'm not the best at it and if I don't know a song, I can't really site read too well, but I love singing Alto and don't think I could sing the Soprano part of any song even if I tried.

Ok, well apparently I get to choose some people to do this on their blog, if they dare to. It was actually pretty hard thinking of 15 things, but I challenge Nicole, Alyssa, Kammy, Kimber and pretty much anyone else who reads this blog to do the same thing on your next blog post it was fun trying to think of different things.

Movin' on Up!

2011-02-07T19:18:00.000-08:00

Training was annoying, hard, exhausting, stressful, frustrating, long, trying, emotional and so much more, but it is finally over! I moved up to the second floor and onto a team today! Woot woot!

That means that I have to start learning a COMPLETELY different script, (why they don't teach us the actual script during training is beyond me) but it's progress! I had a little meeting with my Team Leader and he was saying that my Trainer told him that he sees the most potential in me out of anyone that has come out of training the last month. Which I'm way flattered, and surprised, mainly because my trainer hasn't said anything nice to me or about me this whole time during training, but I guess he treats the ones with the most potential the worst? haha I don't know how that makes sense, but that's how they roll. So, I'm excited to start the next "phase" of this job.

On a side note, I get home from work tonight to find Ryan had made Homemade Chicken Alfredo (which was AMAZING!) and he made a Valentine's Cake, just because. How lucky am I? Extremely. The little things can really go a long way.

Getting behind

2011-02-04T18:26:00.000-08:00

Long story short, our laptop screen got cracked by this cutie!

He's growing up so fast! He's not even my kid, but he seriously is growing up too fast!

Anyways, so the laptop has been in the shop for the last few days, so I haven't been able to check anything online for the last few days. I don't really care about my email or Facebook, but I hate getting behind on ready blogs! It's only been a few days and I'm way behind on some people's blogs, lame!!

As far as everything else goes, work is good/bad. It's the hardest most simple job I've had, but it is definitely emotionally draining some days. I'm getting better, which is good, but I've got a long way to go. We went from a training group of 25 to having only 14 people left on week 4 (people have quit). Yesterday they told one girl that she isn't cut out for this job and her last day is tomorrow (kinda intense).

My Assistant Trainer, who is a woman (which in this company there are only like maybe 20 woman doing this job, so it's a man's world) has been helping me one-on-one for the last two days and has even taken time out of her schedule to record herself, so I can listen to how she does the script, which is pretty cool. It's nice to know that she believes in me with this line of work, but in some ways, I wish I wasn't cut out for it, cuz it is so difficult. But she's told me a few times already that she knows I'm gonna do well with this, I've just got to stick with it. So that's a little update on work.

An update on everything else...

Earlier this week I was able to go to Kara and Jeremy's during my lunch break to hang out with Kara cuz they live like 1 mile away from where I work. We had some fun talking and watching "19 Kids and Counting". Hopefully it will become a weekly thing being able to hang out with her, definitely mixes things up!

Random note:
Here are some pictures of my newest nephew Coal! He was born January 18, 2011.

A day after he was born...

He's only 2 and a half weeks old now, and he already looks so big! What a cutie!

Hopefully everyone else is doing awesome and hopefully I'll be able to catch up on reading people's blogs soon!

Wreath

2011-01-23T09:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I got together with my friends Alyssa and Jacie and we all made cute wreaths! Jacie saw a cute wreath on this site so we figured we would all try it! I of course forgot my camera, so I don't have pictures of their wreaths yet, but here's my end result:

Red Burlap Wreath

The thing that's great about this wreath is that it can work for a ton of holidays/events. It not only works for Valentines day, but all I have to do is add a White "U" to it and it could work for Utah games, add an American Flag for 4th of July, something Christmas-y for Christmas or just a plain red wreath for all year round.

Now it's a Valentine's Wreath!

If you're wanting to do the wreath, it takes forever! It was a lot of fun because we were all doing it together and could catch up with each other, but if you do it alone, be prepared to have at least 3 hours to do it from start to finish. Oh and if you use a hot glue gun, make sure it's a low temperature glue gun; the high temperature ones will take you even longer to make the wreath.

They all turned out way cute and we had a lot of fun! Hopefully there will be some more cute crafts to come!

Very Blessed.

2011-01-20T20:45:00.000-08:00

Now that I'm working full-time, all I do is sleep, wake up, go to work, come home and sleep (repeat 6 days a week)

My amazing husband.

This is only my second week, but Ryan is already picking up all my slack! Since Ryan is the first one home (he gets off at 2:30pm) he has started making dinner for everyone, which we all appreciate. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I work late til 8pm so my work feeds us (which is a pretty awesome perk! On Tuesdays our Team Leader pays for whatever dinner they buy us and on Thursdays the whole company gets catered and the company that caters for us is Andrea's family's business, kind of cool) so on those days I don't eat at home with everyone else, so they can make stuff with disgusting onions and stuff, so they're happy about that.

On top of Ryan making dinner, he has also helped me out a ton with Laundry. Tonight I got home and found Ryan in our room folding laundry (Boy do I love that guy!) I've always hated doing laundry, but Ryan has apparently hated doing it even more, so I've always been the one doing it, but thankfully Ryan helped me out with not only doing laundry this week, but folding it all too. It's nice to come home after a long day of hard work to an amazing husband. Aren't I spoiled?

On a side note of other blessings: My sister Tammy gave birth to my nephew, Coal Smithson Flake this past Tuesday Night. Coal is perfectly healthy and weighed 9 lbs 2 oz and 22 inches long and he's doing great. After giving birth, Tammy couldn't stop bleeding. They did 4 D&C's and the bleeding still wouldn't stop. They finally had to give her a blood transfusion and "plug" her up with a lot of gauze to see if that would help stop the bleeding and if that didn't work, she would have to have a hysterectomy. Lets just say, we were all freaking out that night, not knowing what was going to happen. With lots of prayers and good doctors, the bleeding stopped and they didn't have to do a hysterectomy. Tammy has almost fully recovered and her and Coal were discharged from the hospital today.

I'm so relieved that there weren't any further complications and it really makes me think. Ryan and I want to have a family someday, not now, but someday, and there are so many things that can go wrong with pregnancy. We don't even know if I will be able to get pregnant or have children, but even when that does happen, there are so many things that can go wrong, and who knows, maybe I'll have an issue with bleeding as well. I don't know, I guess I'm just grateful for the fact that as long as I have faith in knowing that what happens is the way it's meant to be, then I'll be fine. Does that make sense? Maybe not, but I'm so grateful for my amazing husband and family. I love having more nieces and nephews added to the family and can't wait to have children of my own someday if that's what's in the cards for us.

Lots of Cake!

2011-01-17T18:42:00.000-08:00

With my new job, I work 6 days a week (I'm not complaining, I'm grateful for a job, it will just be an adjustment) so from now on the weekends will go way too fast, so why not pack as much stuff into them as possible? So that's exactly what we did this weekend!

So this weekend started off with my friend George's Birthday Party on Friday night. Sadly I didn't get pictures, but we had a lot of fun catching up with friends and hanging out and eating some yummy Funfetti cake and Ice Cream!

Saturday consisted of both of us working and then going over to Ryan's parents for lasagna! We then went home and finally watched Inception.

We were originally Triple Booked on Sunday, but we moved the dinner with Ryan's Parents to Saturday, but we were still double booked on Sunday, which just makes the day even more fun!

My cousins on my Mom's side that live in Utah like to try to get together for dinner and games every few months, and it just happened to be this Sunday.

Me asking Ryan to smile...

We usually meet at one of my cousin's houses, but this time we met at a nice Reception Hall (pretty fancy, I know).

Fancy pants!

Some of the family from the second floor.

This place really is gorgeous!

We met there because it's owned by one of my cousin's family, so we would have lot of space. There ended up being about 24 people there, maybe more if we include the babies. But we had a lot of fun hanging out and catching up with some family members. Ryan and I brought a Red Velvet cake for dessert, making that cake number 2 for the weekend.

Me and my niece Sierra

Parker trying to shove slobbery bread into Aunt Kammy's mouth. Sick!

Bailey, Tanner, Brooklyn and Caitlin playing upstairs

Bailey and Sarah

After dinner, we headed home to celebrate Ricky's Birthday with a bunch of friends. A friend brought over his Kinect game so we had a lot of dance offs goin on. It was quite enjoyable to watch. I recorded a ton of videos, but it takes way to long to upload them, so that's not gonna happen. And ending the cake count at 3, was Ricky's awesome German Chocolate Birthday Cake.

Happy Birthday Ricky!

We definitely had our cake and ate it too this weekend!

More Free Stuff!

2011-01-11T19:47:00.000-08:00

The free 5x7 picture book came today! I love it! Especially since it was FREE!

We now have a book about our Thanksgiving Trip!

The book turned out way cute! Gotta love good deals!

On a side note: Training is going great! I have a lot to learn when it comes to sales, but it will be good information to learn! We love having two cars and are excited to finally progress towards our goals!

Kinect

2011-01-09T15:19:00.000-08:00

After watching a really bad Zombie movie last night, we went over to our friend Greg's to play Kinect. Kinect is the new video gaming system that doesn't need controllers, it senses your body, so the games are a lot more interactive! It was a ton of fun! Here are a few pictures!

Ryan having fun!

Lish and Greg trying to plug holes in an underwater glass cage that sea creatures kept breaking into.

Ryan jumping all over the place playing an adventure game!

Ryan playing the bean bag toss, which he got more of Greg's bags in the hole than his own.

On a random note: I got a free 16'x20' Calendar Poster! I became a fan of "Savvy Shopper Deals" on Facebook, and one of the deals this past week was getting a free Calendar Poster! Well it came in the mail yesterday and we love it! Especially since we got it for free! I also ordered a free 5'x7' Photo Book, and I should get that any day now. I love free stuff!!

What we got!

This is a bad picture, but the pictures all came out amazing! Plus, at the end of the year, we can cut the pictures up and frame them! Woot woot!

Hyper :)

2011-01-07T20:48:00.000-08:00

Today was a long day which ended with me and my friend Lish being extremely hyper due to sugar rush, tiredness and who knows, maybe the punch was spiked?

The day started off with Lish and I heading to our friend Bill's Sealing at the Mt. Timpanogos Temple.

The happy couple! Bill and Cassi

Cassi was pretty cold, but she had reasons to be!

After the wedding and a few pictures out in the 20 degree weather, we ran a few errands and went to the Luncheon at Golden Corral. That was my first time going to Golden Corral, and it was pretty dang tasty! Very enjoyable when it's good food and friends! We then headed to Lish's sister's to hang out. I was able to read a few good books like, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", "The Giving Tree", "Everybody Poops"-Which I learned a lot from haha, and "The Cat in the Hat"-Which I personally found it to be too chaotic for me.

My favorite one of the day!

Ryan then met us at Katie's house and we headed over to the Reception where we signed the guest book, said hello to the couple again, ate some yummy desserts and got really hyper. Lish and I made up some games at the table, including; "How many rocks can you fit in your hand?" (by the way, there were cute rocks that were surrounding the vases on the tables) and "Lets see if Suzie can feel it if I throw rocks at her arm." Lets just say, we had a LOT of fun!

Them cutting their cake!

On a randomish note: We got a car!

It's a 1994 Chevrolet Cavalier RS, and we have decided to name it AQUAMAN!

We bought it from my former roommate Hannah and her Hubby who had an extra car that they didn't need. So now Ryan and I won't have to carpool! Woot woot! It may not be fancy, but it will get us from point A to point B!

I got a job!

2011-01-06T19:13:00.000-08:00

After a year of looking for work (yes it's been a whole year) I've finally gotten a job!

I'm pretty happy about it!

Actually, I'm more like...

Freakishly excited about it!

I know that everything happens for a reason. Even though life would have been easier getting a job sooner than now, Ryan and I have survived. We have been humbled immensely this past year and are grateful for all of our challenges. We've gone from having our own apartment, to living in an unfinished basement, to renting a room from friends-and we have appreciated everyone's help through these hard times. We wouldn't have survived without friends and family, thank you! We're not out of the woods yet, but this is definitely a huge step towards getting there!

I start training on Monday at PMI (Professional Marketing International) in their sales department. It's located right by Thanksgiving Point, so it's way close. Ryan and I are in the process of purchasing a friends car so I will be able to get to and from work without having any issues trying to carpool with Ryan. I'm kind of scared about doing sales because I haven't done it before, but it will be an adventure!