Real Life

Recent events have got me thinking lately about "real life" opposed to "blog life." I've noticed that all of my post have been about fun, exciting, or new things that have happened in Andrew and I's life. What I've left out a lot of is the hard struggles that happen, which is apart of life as well. This post is going to be about "real life." The stuff that people don't necessarily want to read about, but it's the hard things that make us human and not seem like EVERYTHING is just picture perfect.
I have been having a huge struggle these past few years with my employers. I absolutely love what I do and I have thoroughly enjoyed working on my patients and getting to know them. I've had some tell me that I know more about them than some of their own family. I value their confidence in me. However, my employers have not made my experience there a happy one. So, last Wednesday, on our anniversary, I got fired from my job. I am proud to say that I got fired, because of what I got fired over. They wanted me to sign an office policy (that they just sprang on us) that I couldn't follow. I didn't feel right about signing it and breaking a contract even though they probably wouldn't ever even know that I was breaking it. They told me they wouldn't make exceptions for me and that I couldn't have employment there. I told them ok and was done.
This experience has been a life altering experience for us and has made me really kick it into high gear. It's pushed me to get out on my own and do something that I've been wanting to do for a long time, but have been in a comfort zone that I didn't want to get out of. Change is a good thing and I'm excited for this new adventure. I am going to be renting an awesome space at Liberty Square that is in Ammon to do my massage business. I am so grateful to my brother Trent for doing a lot of the leg work for me. I wouldn't have had this opportunity if it wasn't for him. He's introduced me to an awesome business man that can see my same vision in what I want to do. It's refreshing to finally be working with great people!
I see loosing my job as not a bad thing, but as something that was supposed to happen so I'll learn and progress. I know that we have struggles so that we get stronger and so we can turn around and help others along their way. So in a way I feel like I should thank my previous employers for helping me break that chain of monotony, because I'm going to be better because of it!

Already 3 years!

It seriously doesn't seem like Andrew and I have been married 3 years. We have had so many fun experiences together it's just flown. We've definitely had our ups and downs, but that's how we've grown to love each other more and more. I appreciate Andrew more now for sure than when we started 3 years ago. I couldn't picture myself with anyone more perfect for me than him. How I got so lucky I don't know, but I am so grateful to have him in my life.
We decided when we got married that we would try to do something fun on or around our anniversary. We really wanted to celebrate being together. We also decided that each year we would have one of us in charge of our anniversary.

Andrew was in charge of our honeymoon. With the help of Andrew's parents in offering a week of their time share and my parents in paying for my plane ticket, we went to St. Maarten for our honeymoon. It was such a blast!

At Matilda's pub. We ate there a lot. . . unfortunately it shows.

On the French side of the island eating, imagine that.

For our 1st anniversary I was in charge. Not very much pressure, compared to our honeymoon. A girl from my work told me about this and I quote "quaint" hotel in Preston, Idaho. I should have know when she told me Preston. However, I decided to go through with it because it was really cheap and I trusted her judgement. Wow was I wrong! I surprised Andrew by packing all of our stuff and taking him on a drive. When we got past Pocatello he was really wondering where we were going. We finally drove into Preston and got to our "quaint" hotel. Long story short the room we were supposed to have was not made up and it was all dirty and the bed wasn't made. The whole time Andrew thought I was joking by bringing him there. I really wish that I was. After deciding to not stay there (it wasn't a real tough choice) I called my mom and asked her what we should do. She told us that we should drive to Logan and stay at the Anniversary Suites. She looked up the number and basically saved our whole trip. That's what mom's are for! We did end up salvaging our first anniversary together and stayed in the Swiss Family Robinson room it was a lot of fun! The next day we went shopping and then drove home.

We saved our wedding cake. It was pretty good.

Our room had a huge tree going through it. We didn't realize how entertaining a room could be!

For our 2nd anniversary Andrew was in charge and he was so excited about his idea that he had to let me in on it before we went. It was weird because I was thinking that we should go skydiving for our anniversary too. We were on the same page on that one. We went down to Ogden to do it. I have always wanted to skydive and I had it on my list of things to do before I die. I decided that if I died doing it at least I accomplished a goal I had written down. Andrew has also always wanted to skydive. So we're a bunch of adrenaline junkies. We decided that we should do something crazy like this before we had kids too. We had an absolute blast and Andrew wants to do it for every anniversary or every year which ever comes first. I, however, think we have already defied death once and we shouldn't take too many chances messing with it. But really it is pretty safe and we will probably do it again. . . but not this year.

Us with the people we trusted our lives with. My guy looks like a nerd, but he did a really good job in making me feel safe. Andrew's guy "fell asleep" and then said that he was praying. . . comforting, I don't know?

Andrew was the first to bail. He did a full flip.

I'm sure I was thinking "what the crap did I get myself into" and also thinking "oh well, it's too late now!"

This picture is funny because you can barely see Andrew's gum on the corner of his lip. In his video you can see it fly out. It's hilarious!

You are falling so fast it sucks your cheeks back. Very attractive.

Over the past 4 years that I've known Andrew I have come to love him more and more every day. We have made it a goal to do things for one another so we'll be this happy 50 plus years down the road. Happy Anniversary Andrew! I love your guts!

44 hours!

Andrew has been home for a little over a week and I am absolutely loving it! It's so nice. However, getting him here wasn't the funnest or most comfortable thing to do. We started on our "trek" across the United States Sunday August 30th at 9:30 a.m. I really don't know what else to say other than we drove, and drove, and drove. I had to be to work at 9:00 Tuesday so we were in a bit of a time crunch. We did find time to make a few pit stops. We decided that we would stop in Georgia to get home grown Georgia peaches and make jam when we got home. We could have got them in Idaho, but it was the whole sentimental thing we were going for. We didn't know where to get them, but there were signs along the freeway saying that there were peaches. We went past one exit and thought it would be our last chance to get them so we turned around and got off and made quite a bit of a detour to get them. Come to find out there were peach exits clear till the end of the state, but we got our peaches and ended up making "Georgia Peach Jam" with Andrew's parents. Thanks Todd and Loretta for all your help!
Georgia ended up being a really long state for some reason, but we finally got out and started west. We ended up stopping and sleeping some place for 3 hours in a parking lot. It was so uncomfortable because we couldn't put the seats back with all the stuff in the cab. I think that's why we only lasted 3 hours. Basically that was our only stop other than gasing up. We finally rolled into our house at 3:00 a.m. Tuesday morning. It was a welcomed sight. We figured that we each drove 22 hours total in the 2 days. Not very healthy :) We really had fun though being together talking and laughing. It will be a memorable trip that we wont forget for sure!

Andrew saying bye to Florida

Us starting the drive all happy. . .and showered!

Our 3 hour sleep. All I gotta say is it was quality sleep for sure :)

Entertaining ourselves

I had to get a picture of this! And we thought we were packed!

Middle of the night or not we had to get a picture. A very welcomed sight. . . and not just for Andrew!

My ticker's wrong. . .

I would love to be blogging about Andrew getting home and returning to a normal life, but not the case. Andrew ended up extending another week so he would hit his goals. What's dumb, but good, about APX is that once you hit your goals you can get your full pay scale. It can be kind of confusing really. But it was worth it in the long run because he hit his goal last Wednesday. We were celebrating over the phone all day :) These last few weeks have been pretty stressful so it was a really big day for us. Now he's trying to stay motivated and busy. We have been SO blessed and watched out for this summer.
I wasn't planning on riding back with Andrew, but we had some cute little angels that insisted that I go fly out and ride back. So I got my plane ticket paid for! They are so sweet and we love and appreciate them so much. I fly out of Idaho Falls tomorrow after work and get there around 11:30 p.m. Then we get to wake up bright and early and start the journey back. We have to do it pretty fast with no scenic stops, because I have to be back to work on Tuesday. Basically I'm going to be pretty worthless. Even though we'll be driving straight through for 3 days I'm sure we'll make it fun and interesting with lots of good memories!

Almost done!

I just got back from my last and final trip to Florida! Yeah I'm pretty excited to be done traveling and being away from Andrew. He starts the grueling 2600 mile drive back home 2 weeks from Sunday.
While I was there we were able to go to Universal Studios. It was a ton of fun. I've never been to Disney land or anything like that so it was a good experience to finally do it at age 24 :) We didn't take too many pictures cuz we were going, going, going. But here's some that we managed to take while we were there.

Andrew wishes he caught Jaws

I had a car in high school that I named after this here model. . . He didn't last too long. Doc, rest in peace.

After we rode on Popeye (a water ride) Perfect time to take a picture :)

At one of Andrew's job we talked to a customer that was telling us about Florida's rates for residents at Universal Studios. To make a long story short we were able to get the resident's rate and save over $60! It was somewhat worth Andrew living there for 4 months. We also bought an express pass that let us skip to the front of the line. Let me tell ya, well worth the money. We figured we save almost 4 hours of standing in line. Although we did get some pretty nasty looks :) All and all it was a fun thing to do to end the summer. Next fun thing will be seeing Andrew pull up in front of our house!

Oh the summer nights!

My mom, Kinz and I all decided that we weren't too old to sleep outside on my parent's front lawn so we did last night. It was of course one of my mom's genius ideas. She's the best at coming up with things like that. We started getting it ready pretty late and didn't get in bed till like after 1:00. It was so cute, Andrew had me "document" every step that we were doing to get ready for our "camp out". He said that it made him feel like he was there with us and has a reminder in his phone that we are going to do the same thing the first Saturday that he's back. I feel bad for the guy I think he gets pretty lonely :(
Here's some pictures of the "camp out"

What's funny about our tent is that it's really not a tent. It's a play hut. It did the trick however!

Getting ready. My mom and I slept on the air mattress.

All set up. It looks small, but if fit all three of us. . . and there's room for you too Andrew!

So funny!

All ready for bed in our "camp out clothes"

After we were all in there for the night and we were just talking. My mom told us to think of something fun that we remembered about summer. I told this FUNNY STORY to them and I want to post it on here because some that read my blog will remember it and get a good laugh!

I wont disclose the names to protect the innocent :) (you know who you are though.) When I was in 8th grade there were 5 of us, I think, that went up to my friend's cabin in Island Park. They have a cabin right by the lake. We decided that we were going to go skinny dipping one of the nights. We planned it and decided how we were going to do it and then stayed up late one night after everyone (my friend's family) was a sleep and went down to the dock in our towels. We decided that we would all jump in together and promised that we wouldn't look at each other. So we all stood in a line at the end of the dock and dropped our towels and held hands. We all were laughing really hard because we didn't want to jump in cuz we knew the water was sooo cold! And I don't know what made this happen, maybe it was the ever so slight sloshing of the water on the dock, but we got laughing and a couple of us uncontrollably started peeing on the dock! It was so funny cuz one started and then another started and so on. We sounded like a herd of jersey cows peeing all at once. Then that escalated the laughter! Finally, after we all got the courage, and stopped peeing, counted and we all jumped in. When we all came up we were gasping like crazy! We also decided to have a order that we would get out because some of us were scared to be in the water. . . that didn't last long we all swam to the dock. Let's just say there was more than one full moon that night!

That story is something that I'll always remember and I'm thankful to my mom for encouraging me to reminisce about the fun things of summer. I'm grateful that I had great friends through school that kept me out of trouble. . . somewhat :) I'm also thankful for a great family that is so spontaneous and isn't afraid to do anything. Thanks mom and Kinz for a great memory to add to the bank. I'm so blessed to have such awesome people in my life!

Now it's summer!

I finally went boating for the first time this summer on Friday and Saturday. We use to be total die hard boaters and would go out like at the end of May wind storm or not. Whenever we would go out for the first time that made summer official it seemed like. So since I just went out, summer is for real now! I love boating and we have so much fun with our family when we go. We've had some really good memories that we still bring up. Here's some pictures of the fun weekend.

My cousin Lacey, Kinz, and Me

It's a good thing I work for a chiropractor!

Cousin Kelsie. . . Just got off the tube. . . I love the hair :)

My mom was driving. . . her nick name is Satina

Wipe out!

Brielle, my cousin, we start em off young

Em and Trent. . . showing their diving skills and cooling off

It's been so nice and hot lately it was a great day to go out. On Saturday Andrew's parents invited me to go along with Dave, Jamie and the kids to Blacktail. When we got up there we ended up waiting at the top of the hill for like 40 minutes before we could go down the hill. They would send a boat down when another one would come out. It was crazy I've never seen it like that before. I didn't get any pictures, but we had a lot of fun and it was so nice up there too. We're so grateful that we have such good family that will take us boating and share some good memories. Thanks again!

Part 1 and Part 2

PART 1: One big Celebration!

Andrew and I have been having a lot of fun this summer. I'm just sad and happy that it's going by so fast! I headed down to Florida for my 2nd trip and a lot of things changed. They decided to move offices and so I got into Fort Myers and the next day we traveled to Miami. We got Andrew all unpacked and settled and then when I left for home the next day they asked if Andrew would help out another office that is in Tampa. So he's been packing and moving a lot! Tilda (Andrew's car) has been holding up well too. Hopefully Tampa is the last destination till he gets home.

We had a lot of celebrating this last trip. I got to spend my birthday there with him, then the 4th of July, then we celebrated Andrew's birthday on the 7th since I wasn't going to be there on his real birthday the 9th. It's so fun being a week apart with our birthdays cuz we always celebrate together. We went shopping and we had this huge rain storm that was flooding the parking lot and the water was up to some car's doors. You can't really see it too well, but the water was up to Andrew's ankles. We went to the movies and that was taken before and when we got out it was all gone. They have some pretty high tech stuff for water drainage. Umbrellas are a necessity there. You could get completely soaked without one!

After the movie we went to a restaurant called Houston's. We took this picture by the water with Miami in the background. I'm so weird I love blurred night pictures like that. I think they're cool. It was a fun birthday! Thanks Andrew for making it so special.
It was "bring your wife to work" the whole time I was there :) so I got to put on a shirt and be on the jobs with Andrew. We spent a ton of time together and it was awesome!

I just hate having to leave, that's the worst part. I actually had a heck of a time getting home this time. We had to drive back to the Fort Myer's airport and had to do some errands there. Needless to say I was somewhat pushing it to get to the airport. I ended up getting there only like 45 minutes in advance which is kinda risky. I got my boarding pass and noticed on there that my plane was boarding now. Which was 40 minutes earlier than I thought we were leaving. So I rushed through security and got to my gate in no time. I looked on my ticket to see my zone and it said "standby". So I went to the desk and they said they would call standby tickets and he was going to brush me off, but I was like I bought a ticket. So he looked at it and he was like "you're not Stephen Johnson. He's our crew member." I was like how in the heck did I get through security? I told him that I guess I'm their secret shopper and they didn't pass. He didn't think that was too funny however. . . So he showed me the gate I was supposed to be at and said that they'd print me out a new boarding pass there. There was a HUGE long line cuz my flight was delayed and everyone was missing their connections. I stayed in line and while I was there the thought came to me that my luggage was probably going to Detroit. Sure enough it did. Delay after delay I ended up getting to Salt Lake at like 12:45 a.m. and then drove home bag less. I had to pull over 2 times cuz I was SO tired with the time change and traveling. I got to my house around 6:45 a.m. It was a long day of traveling! I just barely got my luggage today after work that had my camera in it and my Internet was down too so I couldn't blog at all yesterday either. I really wanted to do a blog for Andrew on his birthday so that's why there is Part 2 :)




Part 2: Happy 26th Andrew! (yesterday :)

I really wanted to write some tidbits about Andrew so I'll always remember them and he'll know some of the things that I love about him!


***I think one of the number 1 things I love is how much fun we have together. I think that will sum up this whole list one way or another. I love being with him doing anything at all. Whether it's watching t.v. or playing a game or driving across country. We don't have to be doing anything at all for me to enjoy our time. We always call ourselves boring, home bodies but that's just fine with me!

***I love that he goes along with silly games that we come up with. For example we drove down to Key Largo in Florida and it was kind of a long drive so I said let's do this. "Picture yourself living down here. What job would you have? Where would we live, where would we go grocery shopping, where would we work?" So every time we went past something we'd say that's where our realtor's office is, that's where we'd go grocery shopping, that's the hospital we'd go to (always a must to know where the hospital is fake living place or not with Andrew :). What was so hilarious about the whole thing is Andrew picked his job to be a Nampa Auto Parts runner/parts salesman. The whole time we were driving I kept on asking Andrew to work at the hospital so we could get benefits or work as a mailman, but he insisted that be his job and he wasn't changing. I picked an apartment that I wanted to live in along the way and he said that we'd have to see if he could transfer stores that was maybe closer so he wouldn't have a long commute. It was just so funny! We went on for a long time and even through out the day we'd bring up little things that we wanted to add. You'd really have had to been there to appreciate the humor!

Our view from our fake Key Largo home

***I love that we do stupid stuff like have an entire conversation with rhyming words. We laugh so hard at some of the stuff we come up with.


***I love laying in bed talking late into the night and waking up dancing??? Yes Andrew and I have actually acted like we were dancing some tango thing laying in bed. It was so funny!


***I love how he texts me, calls me, leaves me random notes, and will simply talk to me about everything and anything. (Our bedroom door with love notes)

***I honestly believe that he would swim through shark infested waters just to bring me a glass of lemonade.

***I love how he treats me. I know that I am a priority in his life and I always want him to know that he is in mine as well.

(his B-day cake)

***I love that he makes me "projects" that involve coconuts. That was our theme this trip. Hehehe! (you're awesome Andrew!)

***I love that he has a passion. Which is hunting. I give him slack about that sometimes, but I also envy him that he has something that he loves to do so much!

***I love that he speaks another language! The night that he spoke to me in Spanish is when I told him I loved him for the first time. (This is a picture of him watching the Spanish channel. . . the cartoon Spanish channel :)

***I love that he wants to be a daddy someday. . . and is constantly reminding me that we need to have kids so he isn't an "old dad"

***I love that he honors his priesthood and his knowledge of the gospel

***I love that he's not afraid to show his emotions and is sensitive

***I love how his strengths balance my weaknesses

Basically I am so thankful that I have Andrew in my life! He is definitely my other half. I feel safe, appreciated, loved, and complete with him. I am so thankful that I will get to spend forever with him and sometimes I don't think that will be enough. I hope I can always be appreciative of the great guy that I have, because I don't know what I did to get so lucky to get such a great catch. I love you Andrew!

My cute beach bum!

There's no place like HOME!

I can't believe that it's been so long since I've posted. My sister keeps on telling me that I have to update my blog cuz she's sick of seeing the "Dangers of Fishing". I've been so busy and feel like I've been in another world for awhile. It took me like several hours to get caught up on everyone's life as well :)
So, Em and I left for Florida a week and a half ago and had so much fun there! We had an interesting time traveling with some really different people on our flights. At one point Emily was crying. It was so funny! (that could be a post in itself :) While we were in Florida we basically just hung out, made dinner, cleaned the apartment, did laundry, and were there when Andrew and Trent got home. It was awesome! Em and I did try to run a couple of times, but it was not a good experience. They have a walking path that goes around all of the apartments with a big, huge pond in the middle and we figured one lap around is like a half a mile. It's big! So we were running and we felt like there was a warm, annoying humidifier following us the whole way. It was so HOT and this was at like 9:00 at night. We got into the apartment and I don't know what I swallowed, ran into, or breathed in, but my throat started swelling up on one side. It was so weird. So we had to go to Walgreens and get some allergy medicine. That did the trick, but I thought I was going to die :)
The next time I went running it was raining all day so I thought it would be nice, yeah the weather was nice, but not the scenery. I was making my way along the path and after 2 laps I happened upon a stupid, sneaky, black, snake! I am deathly afraid of snakes and so after that experience Em and I decided that we weren't supposed to work out. We had so much fun there minus the near death experiences that I had :) I get to go back in a couple more weeks and I can't wait! Here's some pictures of some of the fun we had.

We went to a cool miniature golf place

We carved our initials into the little hut there

We went to this little ice cream joint after

and this was painted on the outside

-notice Andrew's cheesy grin. I love it!-

Us at the beach. . .

. . . Andrew after. He's too cool for sunscreen!

Right after my trip I came home and went straight to playing mom. This family that I know asked me to watch their boys while they went out of town for 10 days. I've done it before and they're really good kids so it's not as bad as it sounds. However, it really wakes me up every time I do it to what it's going to be like when I finally have a family. I really appreciate the time I have to do what I want and when I want. It's been nice to be home for a little bit, but I'm getting ready again to go back to hot, humid, Florida and see my cute Andrew!