Jobs for everyone!

Employment has been a bit of an issue lately for Brandon and I, as well as for other members of my family. However, within a week of each other, Brandon, my mom and I all got jobs!

Bran got a job first! He has been lucky enough to not have to work the entire time we've been here in Utah, and he wanted to get a job this summer to keep himself busy. Well, he wanted to get a job at BYU so that he could continue working during school and they would work with his schedule. So, he got a job cleaning stone floors from 4-8 am! It's a bit of an adjustment for the both of us, but it's building character...and bags under our eyes.

Next, was my turn. I had interviewed at several schools and was beginning to lose hope. I desperately needed a full time contract for next school year and I ended up getting my first choice. I will be moving out to Vista Heights Middle School next year. It's in Saratoga Springs, which is a bit farther than what I'm used to (about a 30 minute drive) but it won't be so bad! I'm really excited because it's a brand new school and the entire staff is pretty young.

Then, my mom got a job at a dental office. She's been wanting to get back into the dental field since she moved here and interviewed at a few places. Finally, an office hired her on and she really likes it!

Ketchup

Well, we've been busy for the past few months and blogging usually falls to the bottom of my priority list! So to our devoted fans, we are sorry for our lengthy absence. So let me catch everyone up...

November:
-HARRY POTTER!!!!!!!! A-M-A-Z-I-N-G
-I cooked my first thanksgiving dinner and it went very well! Although getting the turkey ready was a bit strange at first...


December:
-We had our first Christmas here in Utah (in our own home!), away from our families. It was definitely a different experience for us...we didn't have to rush around to so many places, but we missed seeing our families in person. Google Video Chat was a life saver that day though.
-The Heat beat the Lakers on Christmas day...it was glorious. We watched it several times afterwards.
-We got a Kinect for Christmas (thanks Mom and Jeff) and it is so awesome!
-We got a bunch of gift cards for our favorite restaurants from Dad and Theresa and they made for some good date nights!
-Started keeping score for the boys and girls bball games at school...it was a lot of fun!
-On a school note: I had a student tell me to take my clothes off (in spanish), had another teacher make a comment to several students that I was dating a student (ewwww) and a perverted dirty basketball ref made a really inappropriate comment to me....it was a rough week.


January:
-At the end of the month, Brandon flew back to St. Louis to help my mom drive out here. She moved in with us for a few weeks before she could close on her house.


February:
-Mom and Jeff moved into their house!
-I attempted snowboarding again and had a pretty rough time. I had some pretty hard falls and had high and low moments all day. I get so frustrated because I'm terrible, but I'm not ready to give up yet. I think I should take a class...Bran said I should give up and find a new hobby. He says this simply because he knows I'm a whiner and a pretty big wimp.
-We went to our first NBA game! We went to a Jazz game and they played the Celtics...it was pretty awesome because I really like the Celtics (they're not my favorite of course!) We sat in the very top row (not kidding) and the players were tiny, but it was awesome!


March:
-Bran and I celebrated 10 years together!
-Cooper had his 1st birthday! I had the day off school and we let him do some of his favorite things that day: rip up paper, eat treats all day, play with his girlfriend Baylee, etc.
-Celebrated 1 year in our home!
-Sold our truck:( I loved our truck, but it just wasn't financially responsible to keep it!
-We got a 2nd dog! More to come on that!

Halloween!

Our halloween fun started with pumpkin carving. Cooper got a paw, I got an M for Mizzou, and Brandon's pumpkin rotted, so he didn't get anything except for a smelly pumpkin! I asked Brandon to draw the M on my pumpkin before carving it and he got to work, only when he showed it to me, it was a Y! Ew. I told him to fix it, and he put a B and a U on there! Finally he just carved the M free hand but you could still see the other letters on there a little. Brat.


And these are the owl cupcakes that I made for my secretaries and custodians at school. They were fun to make and they were super cute!

Nik and Katie brought the kiddos down and they were so adorable! As you can see, they were the gang from the Wizard of Oz, and it was perfect for them! They went to our church's trunk or treat and they had the best costumes, by far! Then we went out and went trick or treating in a nearby neighborhood and the kids scored some good treats!





Oh, I was Hermione Granger and I even dyed my hair for the part! I had my friend Becca help me and it turned out great. The box was not the most accurate so it came out more red than brown, but I like it still! Then I made Bran dress as Ron Weasley again, but he wasn't feeling well (we've both been sick, but he's got the worst of it) so he didn't feel like playing the part all that much.

St. George Trip

A couple weeks ago, we headed down to St. George to meet up with Bran's parents. We were only gone about 30 hours, but it was a good trip. Above is the St. George temple, where Brandon's parents were married.

Before we hit St. George, we stopped off at Aunt Kelley's house. She's got a cool little farm and orchard! This is the view from her front yard.







Squirrel!

This is her horse, I can't remember her name, but I got to ride her! Without a saddle and without reins!


They have 3 cows and they really wanted to get close, they probably thought I had food.


And chickens and chicks too. I got to pet this one!

Here's my horse ride...it was really tough with no saddle and nothing to hold onto except the horse's hair!

The horse was eating from the orchard and decided to walk through the trees with me on her back! I nearly fell off!


Feeding the horse was fun, she at a ton of apples!




And this mountain is called "Molly's Nipple" but I'm not sure why?!?! Poor Molly.

Birthdays and Home Improvement

For our birthdays this year, we kept it simple. Bran got Halo Reach and he got me 90 bulbs to plant in our garden. We went to Nickel City for his bday with some friends and I got a sweet wig. We had good cake and Brandon had a Halo party with his friends. Pretty low key, but we were satisfied.

Here's us at Nickel City with the awesome wig that I won.

We decided to go ahead and take control of our front garden. Technically, the HOA is supposed to take care of it, but they are just about the worst HOA on the planet and they don't do anything, so we took out the ugly bushes that used to be there (they were ugly, needed to be trimmed and covered our window) and we put in 2 little ones that we bought. Then we planted 87 of the bulbs in the front, covering the rest of the area. These are just pictures of what it looks like now, but it will be filled with pink, blue and white flowers in the spring!

Cooper updates

Well, our little boy is growing up so fast! He is almost 8 months old now and is nearly fully grown. He is mostly housebroken, but still has accidents. He got fixed on September 10th and had to wear a cone for 10 days! Most dogs hate their cones, but he grew to love his! When we took it off, he wanted it back!

He has a few best friends that he loves to play with when he gets a chance: Frank the black lab, Koa the blue heeler, and Bailey the little tiny Pomeranian/something else I can't remember mix. Bailey is a fourth of Cooper's size, but loves to be slobbered on by him! He also likes "Kitty" the outdoor cat that isn't afraid of Cooper. He has yet to get close enough to actually smell the cat though, but I think he is still trying to figure out what cats are exactly. Aside from playing with his friends, he loves to cuddle, eat ice cubes and peanut butter, take walks, chew on sticks and look out the windows.

Cooper also loves to eat and destroy anything he can. Recently, his accomplishments include: tearing up and eating part of a $10 bill, eating part of a mouse pad, eating and completely destroying our headphones, shattering Bri's glasses (they were plastic lenses), lots and lots of toilet paper (which is kind of funny sometimes), our remote buttons, Brandon's phone is in really bad shape, he ate his puppy teeth ( I had them on my dresser and he got up there and ate them), magazines, and I'm sure there are lots of others! It sounds like we don't watch him, but we do and he will grab something as fast as he can and run off with it! He is really fast and good at running around the couch to the point where it takes both of us to catch him!

Discipline is really tricky for us, well for me actually. Cooper is so good around Brandon...he just sleeps and relaxes all day because he feeds off of Bran's calm energy. And he listens to Brandon when he tells him to stop doing something. He just has to say "hey" and hold up a finger and Cooper stops immediately. When I'm around though, he is really hyper because he feeds off my "constantly on-the-go" energy. And when he is doing something he's not supposed to and I hold a finger up like Bran does, he jumps up to bite it! Totally different worlds!

Here he is post surgery. The day of his surgery he just laid around and was really sad, but then the next day, he was back to his normal self, just with a cone on his head!



And here is a little sweatshirt that I made for him from a sweatshirt I cut up. He seemed to enjoy it for a little while.

Retirement

Today, I made a very difficult decision and decided to retire my favorite pillowcase. This pillowcase is actually an old shirt of Brandon's that his mom made into a case and he gave it to me as a gift when we graduated from high school. It is so special to me because he was wearing this shirt on the day that he asked me to be his girlfriend and our journey together began. However, it has become very frail over the years and within the last few weeks, has sustained some attacks from Cooper. Well, maybe it wasn't all Cooper, but it ripped so easily and it was just old. So, I will be sleeping with a normal pillowcase now...unless I can find my Miss Piggy pillowcase that I used to love!

In memory of Pillowcase, June 2004-October 2, 2010