My Parents are Coming!!!

WOOHOO!!! My parents are on their way this very minute to come and visit Derek and I!! It's going to be so much fun!! I have planned some fun things to go out and do.... but honestly, the thing I can't wait for is to just be able to see them!!! It's super hard living 900 miles away from my family, and I am just so grateful that my parents are going to be able to come down and see us. It will be fun to show them our apartment and catch up on all the things going on in life. I seriously have the best family in the world and I love them to pieces!! I'm sad that Julia and Karl couldn't come with my parents, but I'm grateful that at least my parents can make this trip!!!
Things you should know about my parents are:
1. They are pretty much the funniest people in the world, and I almost pee my pants from laughing whenever my parents get on their kicks.

2. They make an amazing team. They've shown me how a marriage should be, and they balance each other out perfectly. My parents are best friends and they are so happy together.

3. They've taught me everything I know. My parents taught me to be the person I am today, and I'm so grateful for the mannerisms and the love that they showed me to have for others. It seems like many kids these days do not show respect or love, and I am so grateful for my knowledge of this importance, and I will someday teach my own children to have love and respect for others.

4. They are supportive and loving of their children.

5. They are super smart and very hard working!!!!

6. They taught me to have my own testimony, and because of them I have the firm foundation that I have in the gospel and with my beliefs.

Basically, I could go on and on about my wonderful parents.... but I won't!! I can't wait to see them, we are going to have so much fun!!!!

♥ Happy V-Day ♥

Happy Valentines Day everyone!!! I love V-day b/c you get to share it with the ones you love, and it gives you a reason to celebrate without spending too much money! I hope everyone is having a great weekend with the ones they love!!! V-day is the best!!
Last night Derek and I celebrated by going out to eat sushi at a place called RA sushi. The sushi was amazing and it was a pretty fun atmosphere, but.... the only thing I would change is for them to turn down their music. They have their music blaring SOO loud that you can barely carry on a conversation. Other than that, it's a great place with amazing food!!
RA sushi has happy hour from 3-7 where a select choice from their menu is half off. I LOVE happy hour!! We got 4 rolls of sushi for about 12 bucks. Not too shabby at all!! B/c we went during happy hour it was a little crowded so there was a small wait. The manager came out and told us that b/c we were first timers and b/c of the wait he was going to get us free dessert. So for our dessert we had fried bananas with caramel and rasberry drizzled on top, and a side bowl of chocolate ice cream. It was my first experience with fried bananas... it was probably my last too... but Derek was a fan so that is good!! I hope you are all having a great Valentines, love you all!!

Here is a picture of our fried banana. I took a picture when we were halfway done eating... my bad!!


This were the cool decorations that were dangling from the ceiling. It was dim lighting but it set the mood very nicely!


This was our to go bag. Haha I thought that the little saying "Take me I'm yours" sounded like a Valentine... so again... it set the mood quite nicely haha.


It was a bummer that I forgot to take a picture of our sushi... but dang was it good!! Here we are happy as can be waiting for our food to come out. I loved the decorations and the background of our booth that we were sitting at. We could NOT take a picture for the lives of us!! haha our camera blurs so easily, and when our camera kept flashing in the dimly lit room, everyone kept staring at us. Therefore... we didn't attempt to take too many picture b/c we felt silly... so here is the least blurry I could get for you bloggers!! Sorry folks!

Update

Well, I'm not gonna lie, not too much is new on our end of things. We are both working full time and going to school part time. We are super busy and we don't have a whole lot more going on for us.
But you know what? For this I am grateful. I am grateful that we are not struggling right now. No one is sick or hurt. There is no drama, and there is no bad news or something completely out of the ordinary to share with you guys. I am so grateful for Derek and for all of his hard work that he does for us!! He is amazing, and I love him to pieces!!!
2 weeks ago we went to a little tiny town called Eagar which is about 20 min from the New Mexico border. We went with our friends Tim and Tori to visit their families and play in the snow! I wish we would have taken pictures the day we pulled each other on sleds behind the Artic Cat b/c that was so much fun!!! Haha while I was being pulled on the sled, a giant obese dog tackled me and and pushed me off of my sled and then started humping me! HAHA it was out of control and I couldn't get this massive dog off of me!! Tim had to tackle the dog to the ground for me and then he pulled the dog inside so that he wouldn't take advantage of me again. Hahaha that dog was out of control but it definately made for some good laughs over the trip. Tori had her baby shower so the girls went to that while the guys went out coyote hunting. Too bad they got stuck in the mud for 2 hours and didn't even get to hunt but they still came back with great stories to share! It was so relaxing just sitting around the fireplace every night laughing and telling stories, and staying up late playing games. We are so grateful for Tim and Tori, and we are sure going to miss them because they are moving to California this week! :( Here are some pictures that we took on the way home. These pictures were all taken at the Salt River Canyon.
Timmy!!!

I guess I never really stop dancing....

Lovers

Right before we left to come back home

Raylon had a birthday last week!!! We went to Cheesecake Factory for dinner last Thursday night to have a birthday party for Raylon, and a goodbye party for my mother-in-law. She has been down here for 2 months staying with my sister-in-law who is prego. She has been super sick so my mother in law came down to help her out!! It was fun to have my mother in law down here and we will sure miss her!!
On Saturday night Raylon threw a big ol' birthday party!! We went to his friend's house and hired a d.j. We had a fun time dancing and pigging out with a bunch of friends!! It was definately a great night! Love and miss you all!! Hope everything is going well for you!!

Christmas!!!

Derek and I had our first Christmas this year without snow!! I am not going to lie, we actually really missed it! One day I was doing homework and Derek was pulling stuff out of the closet and got into all of our snowboarding stuff. Trying to set the mood and get into the christmas spirit, this is what happened.


For my work, I volunteered to work with the Physical Therapists for the Nutcraker, and I had a lot of fun getting to work with some of the ballerinas. Because I did volunteer work they gave us free tickets to go to he show, and we had a lot of fun!! My little neices got to come as well and they LOVED it!!
After we went to the Nutcracker, Derek and I went to the temple to look at all the beautiful Christmas lights! We had so much fun!! There were choirs singing and missionaries were everywhere spreading the gospel. It was such a fun night!
Both of us in front of the temple lights.

Derek in front of the lights.



Another fun thing to do here during the Christmas season is to go downtown! They have a 40 foot tall Christmas tree made entirely of tumble weed.

Me in front of the Christmas shed.

Chrismas Eve we didn't have any plans, so Raylon's friend invited us over to his house. We ate homemade chicken noodle soup, played spoons, and we acted out the Nativity Scene, and we even went caroling. we didn't do any ordinary caroling, we sucked helium and went caroling. Hahaha it was so much fun, but all of us just about passed out in the middle of the song!! haha another funny thing that happened was that 2 of the grandkids refused to act out the nativity scene, so they made me dress up as a wise man b/c i was the only adult who would fit into the costume. I did not live that down, Derek and Raylon made fun of me the ENTIRE time!

Christmas morning we woke up and opened all of our presents!! My dear sweet mom sent us quite a load of presents!! Thanks to her we had a christmas this year!! We are so grateful for my mom for helping us out and doing that for us!! I about cried when she sent a load of presents b/c we only had 2 presents under the tree until then! We didn't know what any of our presents were this year, so we felt like little kids all over again!! Derek can not handle surprises haha so he struggled waiting until Christmas to open them up. After we opened gifts Derek attempted to make my mom's Christmas breakfast to help me with my homesickness. Haha it did not taste like my mom's, but it was so adorable of him to do that!! After breakfast we went out to Maricopa and spent the rest of the day with Derek's sister and her kiddos. It was so much fun seeing how happy they all were and how excited they were to show us all of their presents!!
This Christmas was such an amazing Christmas!! It was SOOO hard being away from my family, and I was super homesick, but it was OUR first Christmas together. This will always be a very special Christmas to us!
For New Years Even we spent it with our good friends Brock and Tara Greer! We had loads of fun!! I don't have those few pictures uploaded yet, and my camera just died so I will have to post about it next time!!! Love you all lots and lots! Hope you all had a great holiday season!
Derek sportin' his awesome new sweater my sister bought him! He wore this sweater the day we had to give talks b/c he wanted to distract the audience from his talk. haha

Catch up time and pictures

WOw, it has been a while since I've last posted. We ended up going home to Idaho for Thanksgiving and we loved every second of it!! There was so many people to see, and we still didn't get to see them all!! It was so hard turning around and leaving them all to come back to Arizona. Derek's birthday fell on Thanksgiving Day this year, so we made sure to get him a cake and not just pumpkin pie! :) Here are some fun pictures we took while in Idaho. Most of the pictures we took only when we were with our friends Ryan and Syd.

Syd "jumping" in the picture! (baha)

Derek and Ry guy



The cutest Birthday boy ever!!!

Me at Derek's grandma's house

Our cute little neice Taysia. I love her BIG brown eyes!

Derek with our nephew Jarom at Derek's grandma's the night before we left.

Mine and Sydni's engagement photo!! HAHA I love this girl!

Dawson's and the Pasley's just "hangin" out. Baha


Also... something really awesome that just happened to Derek and I is Derek got a job!!!!! YAHOOO!!!!! Finally, a huge stress has been taken off of our load!! Derek actually got the job through one of my patient's. Someohow one of my pateints figured out I was LDS, and he is a convert. The more we started talking, we figured out that we are in the same stake and associate with some of the same people. About 2 months of working with him he asked me if my husband was looking for work b/c they were looking to hire someone.... Anyways, after 2 interviews and a drug test, they called Derek today at 8:30 in the morning and asked him to start at 9. As you can see we are ecstatic that he has a job now!! We are so blessed, this is the best Christmas present we could have ever asked for!!!!

Halloween Fun!!

This Halloween we had loads of fun!! We went to a pre Halloween party on Friday night at some people's house.... haha i have no idea who these people were, but they had about 200 people at their house!! We had a lot of fun dancing and Derek and I dressed up as twins this night.
Saturday I had class, and afterwards we all went to get a massage at the college. We went with 2 of our friends Josh and Perry. I FINALLY had a good experience with getting a massage so I was pretty happy about it!! After our massages, we got all dressed up and went to an awesome dance party at the Chandler Airport. IT was so much fun b/c we had a HUGE dance in an airplane hanger! I dressed up as an 80's dancer, Raylon was a gangster, and Derek was dead... Haha he ended up looking like the dad from the Adam's Family (Gomez. After derek got all dressed up he changed his costume last minute to being a gangster, but I didn't get any pictures of it. It was so hilarious, b/c our friend Perry dressed up as a banana, and Josh dressed up as Lil' Wayne. HAHA the best part of it was that Josh painted himself with Brown face paint and he had a ligit wig, so he SERIOUSLY looked black!! hahaha, there was a black guy who came up to Josh during the dance and asked him if he was really black or not. haha anyways Halloween was a success and we all had a blast!! Here are some pics... enjoy!!


Perry the banana man, and Josh our black friend Lil' Wayne!


Raylon the gangsta gangsta!!!


My 80's girl comin out!!


Made in the 80's.


Derek my dead husband!!

Blogging Inadequacy

I am not going to lie.... but I don't know how to put this video on my page.... but I love this contemporary dance from last season on SYTYCD!! If you want to take the time, you should definately check it out! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szUJ9yo2CpU