Wednesday, November 23, 2011

THANKful

So I am sitting here at work, after working a twelve hour shift.. going on thirteen. I began to feel cranky and sooo done with the day. Then a rosy cheeked client came in, who had walked here from about 8 miles away, gave me the biggest smile and said "HAPPY THANKSGIVING TOMORROW!!" It immediately brightened my day and asked her what she was doing for Thanksgiving. She said that she hadn't seen her daughter in 12 years and she got to see her and her three little kids tomorrow.... HOLY COW was THAT a wake-up call?? YES! I feel so sad that it took talking to a person who basically has nothing and still lives and loves their life to the fullest to remind me how WONDERFUL my life is. Especially the fact that I GET to work a thirteen hour shift when so many people are unemployed right now. I am one incredibly blessed girl! In spirit of the season and in spirit of having a wonderful experience tonight I was to list off just a few of the MILLION blessings that I have that I am thankful for. 1. My incredibly, amazing, practically perfect in every way, husband who I love with ALL OF MY HEART and I keep falling in love with every day. Man oh man I love him. I could go on for days about this but to save you the trouble today... I will save that for another day :)
2. My incredible mom. I know.. I know favoritism :) she is extra special because she gets her own number. This year has brought me so close to my mom. She is my best friend (Besides my sweet AJ of course) and I honestly do not know what I woud do without her. She is the BEST, most incredible example to me and I love her with all of my heart.
3. My brothers and my dad! I love those boys with all of my heart. They provide constant laughter and I can not picture my life without them. Especially Ty. I LOVE that boy, he brightens my day every time I see him.
4. My AMAZING in laws. Man I love them!! I am one seriously blessed girl. I don't think it is possible for anyone to love their in-laws as much as I love them. Seriously, if you think you do I will gladly battle you to prove you wrong :). They do so much for us and I love being with them so much! I dont know how I ever lived 19 years without them in my life. OF COURSE in this category includes my ADORABLE sister in-laws. Mandi, Ashlee, and Court. I have grown so close to them and they are constantly serving me and brightening my day. It would be impossible to name the times that they have helped me or served me. It has been a year full of lots of tears (of many kinds) and they have been there with me through the best and the worst. I LOVE THEM!!!!
4. Since I am talking about my sweet sister in laws.. Our Thursday craft nights. I love these nights, I always leave there feeling closer to each of them, not to mention LOTS of adorable crafts. This especially help with my not so crafty- AT ALL- self :).
5. AJ's new found job at APPLE!!!  YAY YAY YAY YAYYYYYY!!!!!!!!! One of the greatest blessings ever.
6. My cute town-home.
7. My JOB!!! I love it.
8. Dental assising school. This new experience that I just fell in love with.
9. Being able to go back to BYU in January and finish my degree so I can teach sweet babies!!! :) I really hope I don't sound creepy here. I swear I just love kids!! So much.
10. Food... I think I am a little TOO Thankful for this. haha
11. My car. I don't even care that there is crack across the windshield and that I have to get it fixed like every month. I AM SO BLESSED TO HAVE A CAR!!!!! I don't know how I would get along without it. Man I am spoiled. Thank you mom and dad :).
12. My CUTE nephews!! Gosh, I swear I am the luckies aunt alive because I have THE cutest nephews on the face of this earth. I love those boys with all of my heart. They will turn ANY frown upside down. I just wish they would stop growing up. I hope that I can be half the mothers that Mandi and Ash are. They have the best boys on this earth.
13. I am so so thankful that I will have a niece in March!!! I can not even wait to hold her. She will be aboslutely perfect. I am so thankful for Candice for already being such a sweet mom to this little girl. She has such a great attitude about being sick and tired all the time... please teach me how to be like that when I am pregnant?? :)
14. MY CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS!!!!! I am Mrs. Clause... seriously. My sweet husband let me put the decorations up a little earlier than we planned this year. I am so blessed that he deals with my Christmas obsession. Once again I LOVE HIM!!!! I am also so blessed because we got almost all of our decorations for free. My parents, AJ's parents and my Grandma have pretty much provided our whole house with CUTENESS for Christmas. I love it!!! I am so so so beyond grateful for those decorations.
I know that I am missing out on millions and millions of blessings to be thankful for but that was just a few of the ones that bless my life on a daily basis. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!! gobble gobble... :)

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Hollyyyy 10 Months!

So I was having a girls craft night with my cute mom and my cute sister in laws! When my newest sister Courtney asked about starting a blog (its a must for newly married cuties I am convinced!)... Well I felt like the biggest slacker EVER because I started a blog but I haven't done a dang thing with it since after our honeymoon. So here we go! Round two and this time I WILL post about our life... I swear.
      But since I haven't posted anything for months I am going to give a short synopsis of how our past 9 months have gone... bare with me! So as most of you know AJ and I moved up to Logan after we got married. One word... BRRRRR. Logan was great! We were both at Utah State, AJ was working for Monavie and I was working for The Seasons at the Riter Mansion, a manager-ish of all of their events there and such.
     In February I had the BEST Valentines day of my life. AJ and I decided to not go to school and have a fun first Valentines day together. We cleaned (haha we really enjoy cleaning and organizing.. call us weird we know :) and then AJ took me to dinner at my FAV restaurant in Logan called the Beehive Grill... go there, so amazing.
 This is us at the grand opening of Chuck-a-rama in Logan :) We love food haha.

 The BEAUTIFUL Logan temple...oh yeah and us lovin eachother :)



     Then March came!! One of my most favorite months because it is my birth month AND it is supposed to get warmer in March. However, the warmer part did NOT happen this year, my birthday still did though and to make everything even better my cute sister in law Candice got married!!!! IN Vegas I must add. It was such a fun trip to be able to go see her and Izzy get married and party it up in Vegas! She SUCH a beautiful bride. I know I am going to get ahead of myself here but it is necessary... Now she is in Georgia and I honestly miss her every day especially because she is having a baby girl!!! They are due in March (maybe me and this sweet baby will have the same birthday, I could only hope! It would be the best Birthday present ever.)
 This is such a pretty picture of them!! I love it.

 The ultra sound of their cute baby girl due this upcoming March!!

 AJ and I with the beautiful bride!

 My first time in Vegas!

     Okay back to April! My family has this really fun tradition of having family night together once a month and because everyone is married now, except for cute little Ty, we rotate who hosts every month. Well April was our turn to host and we did it Easter weekend. It was so so fun! Everyone came up and stayed in the rooms at the Riter Mansion (where we lived and I worked) and we did our other favorite tradition One Eyed Willie! Yes we have a pirate come to us on Easter, you heard me haha. It was such a blast to have my whole family up there together (except for Court, we missed you. SO glad you will be there next year).


 OOOOOHHHH!!!! I love these babies!

 One of the awesome One Eyed Willie clues. It seriously is a work of art!
 CUTE family!!
 This picture sums up very well how that whole day went haha.

 Love my pirate man :)
 I love this Ty!! He is the best little brother ever. 

     April Showers bring May flowers... NOT!!! It was still cold, no flowers haha. I am not bitter. May was a crazy month. Finals in school and LOTS of weddings at the Inn kept us very busy. Not to mention mothers day. I just need to give a little shout out to the mothers in my life. I love my mom with all of my heart. I honestly don't know what I would do without her. She is one of the strongest women that I know and one of the best moms anyone could ask for. I am so blessed to have her in my life. I have TWO moms that are absolutely amazing! I don't know what I would do without my sweet mom in law Jennifer also! She seriously makes me laugh constantly and she does so much for AJ and I. I have such great examples to look up to.
     June.... completely changed our lives. AJ got called into work and they informed him that they had to let him go. DANG ECONOMY!!!! They didn't have a big enough Chinese market to keep two people working there and the other Chinese speaker is a lady who has been there for like 15 years. SO... our search began. It wasn't long before my awesome brother Sy told AJ to come into his office and interview with his boss. They offered him a job on the spot! How awesome is that?? We felt so so incredibly blessed to have such great family who looks after us. The only problem is that the job was in Bluffdale and we were living in Logan. We would have to move. After LOTS of time on our knees, a trip to the temple and a diet coke or two (one of our favorite things) we felt like it was very important for us to move back down to Provo. WHAT?? We had just moved to Logan 5 months earlier because we felt very impressed to move THERE. Heavenly Father definitely knows us way better then we know ourselves and he has a lot more in store for us then we are even aware. So we packed up, found a cute little townhouse in Provo (thanks to my amazing sister in law Mandi, I honestly do not know what I would do without her), and with our heads spinning we were in Provo in less than a week. AJ had a job but that left me searching. I applied for 19 jobs, yes 19! haha I was a little over zealous. AJ and I decided to call one of his best friends, and now one of my best friends, Jill, to let her know that we had just barely moved down to Provo and we wanted to see her! I mentioned that I was looking for a job and she said she didn't know of anything right then. Then about a week later she called me up saying that her work was hiring! She works for Wasatch Mental Health as a secretary and that was EXACTLY the type of work I love to do. So I applied as fast as I could. I got an interview about a week later, then a second interview a couple days after that and then after a LONG weekend of waiting. I got the JOB!!!!!! I felt so so so incredibly blessed to get that job! Now I never want to leave. I honestly love where I work so much. I couldn't ask for better people to work with. They are so kind and such a great company who is organized and on the ball. I LOVE it there!
We decided that hiking was one of our new favorite activities! So we started hiking a couple times a week. SO fun!
My man at a park right by our house in Provo haha there are some cool monuments there!
Oh sweet Owie made my life at the Bees game when he gave me a little snuggle. BEST EVER.
Us at Bryce and Mandis house. They have some AWESOME fake facial hair!
The amazing view from the Y!

June came and went, before we knew it July was here!! July was one of the best months! AJ and I celebrated our 6 month anniversary!! Neither of us could believe it had already been 6 months. I guess time flies when you are having the TIME OF YOUR LIFE! I am the luckiest girl alive. THEN Lloyd, my brother, and Courtney Hales got engaged!!! I honestly do not think I could be happier for two people. EVER. They are abslutely perfect for each other in every way and there is NO way on this earth that Lloyd would have found someone better than Courtney, because there is no one better. I love them both so much! Then my whole family took a trip to Disney Land!!! THE happiest place on earth, and yes as usual, it did NOT disappoint. I loved every second of it... except when I got the stomach flu, good thing it was on the last day of the trip so I didn't have to miss out on all of the fun. Almost my whole family got it afterwards... so not fun. Good thing we are past that now! haha. I hate the stomach flu with the passion of a thousand suns.









 August! So I honestly can't think of anything too exciting happening in August except that we had our one year anniversary of getting engaged on August 9th!!! Yes, in your first year you celebrate EVERY anniversary haha. My sweet AJ took me back to the park that he proposed at and we took some more pictures and just walked around. It was the first time either of us had been back since we got engaged, it was so special! We also went and ate at little America afterwards, they have DELICIOUS food :).




September was a blast! AJ and I continued to have a blast in Provo. Because I have the sweetest, most near-perfect husband on the planet, he surprised me with Rascal Flatts tickets on Sept 9. He bought me Rascal Flatts tickets last year when they went to California.. and YES we traveled to California with his two cute sisters Candice and Karlie so that we could see them in concert but they got sick so the concert was canceled. I was so so sad, and he was too so we tried for round two when they came here! It was one of the funnest nights of my life! I am so blessed to have such an incredible husband. AJ started school at UVU and I started dental assisting school at my cute father in laws Dental office. I LOVE IT!!!!! The way he has his program set up is incredible. I was in a classroom type setting for two weeks and at the beginning of the third week they had us up in the office shadowing the other assistants and learning everything in the Lab. It is such an amazing program. My sweet mom had her Birthday!!! It was so fun celebrating with her! She is such an incredible mom. However, the MOST important thing that happened in September was Lloyd and Courts wedding!!!! AHHHH!!!! It was such an incredible day and Courtney was a BEAUTIFUL bride!! They are just so perfect together.  I loved being able to be in the temple with them. It was by far the highlight of my day :). I am beyond happy to have Court as my sister!! She is so fun and she makes our family complete. I can't even imagine us without her. I love that girl!!!Oh and I almost forgot to mention my ankle mishap happened this month :(. About two weeks before Lloyd and Courts wedding I was running and I tripped off a curb and chipped my bone in my ankle. It took me 5 weeks to finally be able to run again and I was on crutches at the wedding... HOW EMBARRASSING! haha.
Us at the concert, so excited!!


It was HUGE

AJ and I at Lloyd and Courts wedding, Court had the CUTEST bridesmaid dresses ever.
Their first dance :)

October finally arrived!!! The beginning of our first married Holiday season AND AJ's first married birthday! I had been waiting for this month a long time. I had such a fun time planning his birthday weekend and getting him some birthday presents :). Since his birthday was on a Sunday we decided to celebrate mostly on Friday and Saturday because there isn't too much you can do to celebrate on Sunday. On Friday we went to dinner at Tucanos and then I surprised him with tickets to a Haunted Bus tour through Salt Lake City. It was so much fun!! Definitely different than I expected but anything is fun when you are with your best friend. I have never been a HUGE Halloween fan, I always liked it but I have always been all about Christmas... starting in September :) haha. But this year was totally different. Part of AJ's birthday was celebrating Halloween with him because that is his favorite Holiday and I can honestly say that I LOVE Halloween now. I have never had so much fun through October in my life. We decorated our pumpkins that my parents grew in their yard, we decorated our house and put lights up outside. We went to Cornbellys (part of his Birthday celebration) and watched scary movies with my cute family. It was all pure bliss :).
This was right before the haunted bus tour. We are trying to look scared... haha

Our cute little house!!




This is the candy bar poster I made him haha sorry it is sideways.

Our "BOO" plates!! They were the cutest.


The ADORABLE pillows that we made at craft night! I seriously fell in love with these!

This is THE cutest little mummy guy, he dances to thriller :)

Our cute little Scarecrow that my sweet mom gave to us!

One of the things I gave him was the Office: Season 7... he was stoked! haha

Now November is here and I am making an early new years resolution to post more often!! Like AT LEAST twice a month so that I don't ever have to cram ALL of this into one post again! haha. To start off November I just want to say that I have already had the best Christmas of my life and it hasn't even started yet. AJ is the SWEETEST husband alive. As I mentioned before, I am a Christmas nut and he is definitely NOT a scrooge but he is like most people and likes to start Christmas after Thanksgiving. However, I seriously start in September most years. This year I held off... for the most part :) for him until after Halloween. So at midnight on Halloween night he pulls out Justin Beibers new Christmas song "Mistletoe" (its a MUST listen to if you haven't already and I can promise you I am not a crazy Justin Bieber fan, its just a good song!!) and listened to it with me. It was one of the most precious and memorable moments of our marriage and I fell even deeper in love with him, which I keep swearing isn't even possible! It was just so amazing to see how sweet he is to do something he has never done before, for me, because he knows how much that would mean to me. Man I love being married :). November has also already brought Birthday Celebrations! We got to celebrate Karlies 20th Birthday!! And we also got to celebrate cute Ty's 10th Birthday with the whole family and it was such a blast. I love that boy so much and I can not even believe he is already 10!! Now thanks to my mom I have a CUTE Thanksgiving wreath too!!Thank you for reading!! I am so so so sorry it was so long. I swear I will post more often. Also, please excuse the horrible grammar and spelling errors. English has NEVER been my strong point :).

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!