Girls Weekend

Let's just say our weekend get away to Vegas was amazing.

Haylee Caplin, Ashley Shelton, and I have talked about a girls weekend for months.

We then decided to quit talking and start doing.

Haylee and I carpooled down to Vegas and Ashley met us there on Friday.

We shopped, talked, walked, talked, laughed, and stayed up way too late talking some more.

Saturday we did more of the same.

But we added Phantom of the Opera that evening.

It seriously blew our minds!

What an AMAZING show!

It gave me chills. 

And I already want to see it again.

It was such a therapeutic trip, 

especially after such a crazy semester of school.

The highlights include:

Phantom of the Opera (Obviously)

Staying up WAY too late talking

Shopping  

Jumping on the bed

And funny conversations  including:

Ashley: "What is your favorite flavor of M&Ms?"

Danielle: "Teal"

(At PF Changs)

Server: "What would you like to drink?"

Danielle: "Water"

Server: "Are you 21?"

Danielle: "Do I have to be 21 to drink water?"

Server: "No. You have to be 21 to sit at the bar." 

Danielle: "Ohhhhhh....."

He then hesitated before he asked Haylee or Ashley if they were 21.

I then learned that I'm the only one of the 3 of us who gets told on a consistent basis

 that I look like I'm about 18. Sad.

This also happened after I had this conversation with the Orange Julius lady early that day:

(I say lady but she couldn't have been any older than I am.)

Or so I think. What do I know?

OJ lady/girl: "Is that a baby bag?" (referring to my purse)
Me: "No. It's just my purse"

OJ  lady/girl: "Oh. Do you have a baby?"

Me: "No."

OJ lady/girl: "Oh good. You look way too young to have a baby."

What the heck? Does that happen to anyone else???

I swear random people tell me all the time I look like I'm about 18 or too young for something.

I'm sure I'll appreciate it someday.

Well and honestly I don't mind it THAT much now I suppose.

I just always want to say "Well guess how long I've been married"

See how they respond to that!

And notice that I am the only one who says dumb things. 

Maybe that's my problem.

Ashley and Haylee must say "age appropriate" things!

I did catch myself telling my in-laws when I got home that I usually think without speaking 

(Instead of what I actually do of speaking without thinking!) haha.

So there you go.  I guess I'm just awesome.

Or strange. One or the other.

The "pre" picture always has to look a little ugly right?

It cracks me up how alike these pictures are. 

We took these at different times in different places.

 This is where I decided my head looked too small.

 And this is when I tried to make my head look bigger. haha.

 Maybe these are the culprits for the next pictures?

Although I can hardly blame my caffeine free sprite....

 

 And this is what happens when you try to have 3 people jump with a self timer! haha.

 And then we tried just 2 of us. It didn't get much better!

 Nor with just 1 of me!

 We were exhausted by the end but didn't want to leave.

Thanks for such a fun weekend girls!

It was absolutely perfect.

Maybe if we start planning the next one now

 it will happen sometime next year!

4th Anniversary

Wow. Has it really been 4 years since we were married? 

Time has a funny way of playing tricks on us. 

I cannot believe it has ALREADY been 4 years but at the same time 

I have a hard time believing it has ONLY been 4 years.

Either way I love it!

Even though Jesse and I were apart for our Anniversary 

he always has a way of melting my heart.

I had a busy day at work and spent some time volunteering

and I didn't get home until about 9pm 

but I walked in and saw flowers from my man.

I'm so lucky.

The best part is that I get to see him in the flesh

TOMORROW!

Our 8 weeks apart have been tolerable (for the most part)

 but we're most definitely ready to be together again.

How I feel right now

The end of this semester has been long anticipated. Fortunately it's only a short 4 weeks away!

I've accomplished a lot this semester but there's still many things to do.

-Apply for graduation. Check.

-Pick up cap and gown. Check.

-Do an insanely large amount of homework. Check.

-Write a 15+ page Sr. Project paper. Half check until I got the call from my teacher telling me it wouldn't work. Now nearly back to square one to revamp my project so it will work. (Grrrrr)

-Finish Clinical hours. Getting closer. Yay!

-Blog about all my clinical hours this semester. Nowhere close.

-Assemble a professional portfolio to make me appear awesome. Need to get cracking.

-Apply for jobs in TX so I can actually put my degree and license to good use. Two checks but I'm sure I need about 100 more.

-Buy plane tickets so Jesse can come back to Utah for a few days and we can officially move out to Texas. Nope. Probably need to do that.

-Pray really hard that I can somehow get through everything I have to do and not fail any portion of school so I really can graduate. Check, check, and check.

My Heart is in Texas

Well since I'm an awful blogger, most of you probably are already aware that we are moving. Actually, half of us has already moved.

And I'm missing him like crazy.

Fortunately, I was able to take some days off work and skip a day of class to make the 3 day journey to Dallas, TX and stay for a week to get my cute hubby set up for the next 2 months.

Mr. Rich was made the manager of the Noah's building that just recently opened in Irving, Texas. I am one proud wife. He has worked really hard to get to this point and we are really excited for this opportunity.

Our adventure began on Wednesday February 22 when we began our drive.

We tried to look like this on the outside.

But on the inside we felt a little more like this.

A mixture of excitement and a little fear.

We stopped at the library to get some books on cd because we figured that would help pass the time.

I put disc one of our book into the car's cd player and it got stuck. Not far enough in to play the disc and in just far enough that I couldn't quite get it back out.Grrr. There was a little grumbling at this point, after all we had only been on the road for about a half hour and we had about 19.5 more hours to go. Luckily I am practically Macgyver and was able to dislodge the cd with a piece of paper.

I decided that I did not want to risk trying again with a library disc so we threw in one of our cds that we had laying around labeled Christmas. It went in fine. And surprisingly enough, turned out to be Brian Regan! That was a pleasant surprise. So we decided to listen to that cd and once it was done we tried again with the library book. Low and behold, it got stuck again. I don't know what it is about library books but the little Alero's cd player just cannot handle them. So after using more of my skills I retrieved that disc as well.

At this point I decided I would NOT be dumb enough to stick another disc in the player. So instead we pulled out the laptop and figured we could listen through that. It was after a little bit of using the laptop that we realized we couldn't find the power cord. Well after pulling over and searching frantically, we discovered we had left the power cord in Provo. Awesome. This was going to be a LONG trip.

Luckily the scenery was gorgeous so that helped.

I had also been telling Jesse about this place called "Hole in the Rock" that I had stopped at one time as a kid. I didn't remember much about it or where it even was but I remember the name so I figured it must have been awesome enough to leave that lasting impression.

Well not too long after this conversation, I saw this sign for "Hole in the Rock":

Of course we had to stop. And I insisted we take the tour.

But only after I told Jesse to "jump" into my picture so I wasn't taking a picture of just a sign.

He's pretty awesome.

It was a neat stop. If you're ever heading on whatever road we were on towards Blanding, Albuquerque, or Monticello, you should probably stop.You'll be glad you saw the randomness that is The Hole in the Rock.

We were feeling pretty good the first day of driving so we decided to drive as far as we could.

Randomly enough, this is Shiprock, New Mexico.

We ended up driving clear to Albuquerque, NM on the first day (about 10 hours of driving) and stayed the night.

The next morning we hit the road again (stopping first at Walmart to buy a cd player that we could use to listen to our books of course) and headed about 6 hours towards Childress, TX.

We were pretty happy to make it to Texas.

We stayed the night in Childress, and the next morning, there was no doubt we were in Texas!

We arrived at our apartment complex in Irving on Friday after just a short 4 or so hours of drive time and we signed all the necessary paperwork to get our keys and our cube of belongings arrived just about an hour after we did.

I still cannot get over how tiny it is! It is mind blowing that we were able to fit everything into this thing. A BIG shout out to Haylee and Justin for helping us pack, clean, and load up our cube. Their engineering skills are why were were able to get as much to fit as we did! And while I'm doing shout outs, there needs to be a huge thanks to Jesse's family for helping clean and pack our apartment. We were so unprepared to move but they stepped in and were able to help us pack and clean our entire apartment in a couple of days. They were so great to have around. Thanks again guys, we REALLY appreciate it!

We sold, threw away, gave back, and gave away a lot of things but included in this cube is our bed, washer & dryer, a dresser, a keyboard piano, and an exercise bike as well as lots of boxes of pretty much everything else we own.

Jesse was nervous about our apartment because he picked it out when he came to Dallas on a business trip in January without me seeing it. I didn't have any doubts and knew he would pick us a great place, and he did! I absolutely love our new apartment!

We were lucky enough to have my mom fly out and help us get settled quickly. She was such a blessing to have around. She unpacked tons of boxes, organized our belongings, helped furniture shop, cooked us dinner, and provided valuable input from her few more years of experience. My mom is the best. I don't know what I would do without her.

Here are some pictures of the preliminary speedy set up so I'll have to do some more when we actually have living room furniture (it should be arriving in the next few weeks!), pictures on the walls, and all of the boxes unpacked.

I love him.

I had a really hard time coming back to Provo after spending a week in Irving. The weather was beautiful in the 70s, it smells like a tropical vacation, there are loads of restaurants nearby (it's going to take some serious self-control to not eat out for every meal), Kohls, Walmart, and Target are all within 10 minutes which is a big selling point for me :) and of course my love is there.

I almost couldn't even look at my sweet husband without tearing up the afternoon that I was flying home. We recognize that it is very temporary and that the two months that we'll be apart will fly by but it is still hard to leave your sweetheart 1200 miles away. After lots of hugs, kisses, and tears at the airport, I finally left the arms of my hubby and caught my flight.

The man I sat next to on the flight asked if I was coming home or going elsewhere and I didn't even know how to answer. I told him that it used to be home just a short week before but that I had just moved my husband to Dallas so now that is where my heart is.

I honestly am so excited to start this new chapter of our lives. I'm anxious to finish school, move to Irving to be with Jesse, find an RN job, get involved in our ward, make some new friends, find out what there is to do in Dallas, hopefully entertain some visitors (hint hint), and just dive into life in Texas.

Christmas & New Years

Well this is better late than never I suppose. I've had this post started for a couple of months now but have gotten busy with life, so here it goes!

Christmas was spent with the Doriuses in St. George this year. We had so much fun! We were blessed to have Jesse with us for a good chunk of time since he often times has to work a lot during the holidays so that was such a treat.

We ate sticky buns.

Kadin got two lizards and Kylie got a couple of hamsters.

London for whatever reason was obsessed with the hamsters. She was so cute would love to sit and watch them play. If they were in our hands she had to be sitting right by us with her nose to their nose sniffing them and trying to figure them out. I think she thought it was fun to have something smaller than her around the house. She was always very gentle and mostly just looked until the time (I think) she tried to pet one of them in my hands. I figure she saw us petting them and she wanted to try it too. It was so funny to watch her!

I got this darling scarf that Santa so cleverly wrapped around my stocking!

Dad got some really "classy" ties. The snowman one is pretty awesome!

Kylie loved getting I Love Lucy.

Honestly, who doesn't love that show? It's hilarious!

My mom and Kylie were very sneaky and got me a couple of necklaces that I had been drooling over for a month or two. I was so excited.

Jesse of course always has to get something to increase his database of random facts.

And the highlight of our Christmas by far was getting to talk to Elder Dorius! We talked to him on our Christmas Eve (His Christmas afternoon) and it was so much fun! That two hour phone call from Brad from around the world really made our Christmas special. He sounded like he was doing great, he told us some about the culture, his companions, their investigators, food, and had some funny stories. My favorite was when he and his companion saw a person wearing some mittens and Brad couldn't quite remember the name of them, but he turned to his companion and said "We need to get some muffins like those." and then thought, "Wait, not muffins, mittens!" haha. So I guess that means he's learning a little bit of Korean if he's forgetting English words!

(So in case you can't tell, this is the family gathered around the phone that we had on speaker so we could all talk and listen to Brad.) Having a missionary out is the BEST!

This is Jesse and I enjoying the phone conversation.

Isn't my man cute!? :)

New Years was spent up in Salt Lake with the rest of the Doriuses as usual. We're a random bunch but we sure have fun together!

My sweetheart and I as we welcomed the new year.

At these New Years Dorius gatherings we always have the privilege of doing a talent show. Some years we are more prepared than other years. This was one of those other years, as in we picked out duets while we were together over Christmas and did not play them together until this mini performance. It was kind of hilarious!

Especially when I forgot to do the repeat of a section and finished my portion 2 lines before Kadin. That was awesome.

The duet with Kylie went a little better. Her part was awesome at least. My part may have been lacking a few notes. Oh well.

It was a wonderful Christmas & New Years. We felt so blessed to be able to spend so much time with family especially since we knew we'd be moving soon after and won't be able to get together nearly as often.

(we also spent time with Jesse's family but I am pretty sure I didn't have a camera. It was fun though too!)

Change

I know I have been absent from the blogging world for awhile which I apologize for. Our lives are just absolutely crazy right now and I can't seem to squeeze in one more thing. The reason for my abrupt resurfacing is because I have to blog for one of my classes this semester and I thought this topic of change was very fitting for our lives right now so I decided to copy and paste my entry into our personal blog. I recognize that I am not the most accomplished writer and it is a lot of words and no pictures so I understand if you don't care to read it but it was rather therapeutic to write so I thought I would share.

Change:

I've always heard that the only thing you can count on in life is change. Rarely does anything stay the same whether it is the town you live in, technology, your favorite TV show, clothing styles, or even the people in your life.

I have always thought of change as a good thing. Something that can make me become better and gives me more opportunities. My first big change in life came the summer before my 8th grade year when i moved from a small town in Idaho to St. George, Utah. The picture I formulated in my mind included palm trees, lots of sun, nice people, and lots of friends. Unfortunately some of these things were not evident immediately. Sure there were lots of palm trees, sun, swimming pools, and beautiful stucco homes, but I could not seem to find a friend. I felt like no one liked me, that they weren't friendly, and that my family had made the worst decision ever because I had left a whole bunch of friends back in Idaho.

I came home one day and cried to my mom about how awful it was in St. George and how I had no friends and no one liked me. We spent a minute feeling sorry for ourselves as we tried to adjust to our new life. Then one day my dad had a talk with me that changed my view on the situation as well as how I've interacted with others since that time. He told me that I could not just sit by the sidelines and expect people to flock to me wanting to be my friend. Instead, I needed to get outside my comfort zone and talk to them and introduce myself. I was not very comfortable doing that but after a few days i got up the courage to ask a nice girl in my class to have lunch with me. She told me that she already had a group of people that she ate lunch with. This instantly crushed me until she continued on telling me that I was more than welcome to join them. It was then that I suddenly had a whole table of friends. I decided to be bold and I introduced myself to all these girls, got to know them, and ended up sitting with them at lunch for the rest of the year. These girls became some of my best friends throughout my high school career and still are today.

Once I took my dad's advice to be more outgoing and started looking for ways to make this new place better, I started to adapt better to change. I have since had several changes, both big and small, and have been able to adapt more easily to each one. I have come to love and appreciate the differences that change brings and I work towards making it great and an experience I can learn from.

Jesse and I are currently in the process of making a big change in our lives. We are moving to Texas next week which is far away from both of our families, our friends, and everything we know and are comfortable with. While it is a little nerve-wracking to be moving so far away from home I feel that this change will be good for us. It will provide us opportunities that we otherwise would not have and allows us to go outside our comfort zones to get to know new people, new areas, find new jobs, and make new friends. While sometimes it feels like almost too much change at once while we're moving states, about to graduate from college, and getting new jobs, I feel ready and able to dive in head first and embrace the change that I know will come.

Ultimately, I know that change is hard but I feel that it is important because it makes me evaluate myself and become better. It gives me opportunities to reach out to new people and learn new things. It helps me be flexible and teaches me to adjust my actions to make the most of my situation. I can only do my best with what I am given and that is what I intend to do today, tomorrow, and for the rest of my life because I know that the only constant in my life is change.

Senioritis

I have a serious case of senioritis right now. I have about a bazillion things I could be working on and instead I just want to waste time looking at blogs, cruising facebook, finding fun projects to work on someday, etc. It just all seems so much more fun than writing papers, taking quizzes, finding articles, and coming up with a senior project. UGH!

I do need to catch up on blogging Christmas and New Years, hopefully have a "2011 recap" and of course a "looking forward to in 2012" list. So hopefully I can stay focused enough this week to get my homework done in a timely fashion and be able to post at least Christmas & New Years before we creep into Feb! Yikes! Where has January gone?!?!