Oh Baby!

Say Hello to Our Little Peanut!!


"Peanut" is due February 19, 2011...two days before my 21st birthday. Some birthday present, huh? :)

Great Quotes!

"When faced with a challenge, look for a way, not a way out."
---David Weatherford

"Things will happen in your life that you can't stop, but that's no reason to shut out the world. There's a purpose for the good and for the bad."
---"Crazy Pete" Sims (Walter Sparrow), Now and Then

"Consult not your fears but your hopes and dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what is still possible for you to do."
---Pope John XXIII

"The odds are very good that worrying is a waste of time. And besides, worrying won't change what happens anyway, will it?"
---A Whisper in the Night by Judie Angell

"When you feel like nothing is there but pain and hurt and great despair, that is when we know we need to not give up, whatever it is we're going through."
---Unknown

"Anxiety weighs down the human heart, but a good word cheers it up."
---Proverbs 12: 15


I've just been having a rough morning and needed some good thoughts to keep me going. Hope you guys enjoyed these.

Otter Pops

Otter Pops

Red are the best, hands down. But eventually, all the red ones are gone.

Orange comes second. Sometimes a little too much orange but they'll work in a pinch.

Next comes green. Every now and then, green gets to go in front of red.

Purple. Doesn't usually hit the spot but that's okay.

Yellow. A little weird, but I'm weird.

Blue. Last resort, every time.

This is how I eat my Otter Pops,
just in case anyone wondered.
I hope you are all enlightened.

One May Go A Long Way After One Is Tired

Let's just face it. The month of May was horrible! We had no money, we knew that rent for June would be late, and there just seemed to be no end in sight. But now, only weeks later, everything has worked out, or is heading that way. Things only continue to get better. While I am incredibly overwhelmed right now, for several reasons, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and it's coming up fast. July will be here before you know it, and I can't wait! We have some amazing things planned for the upcoming months and I can't wait to share all of our journeys with you guys.

On another note, Jayson loves his new job! He is working at Inovar, a company here in Logan and he is testing computer boards/components for military projects such as the spy planes. Inovar does many things; they make house arrest bracelets, general computer boards for regular computers, and many more projects. Jayson right now is testing the computer components for the military spy planes. He said he sometimes get sick of sitting all day but it's definitely better than standing all day! The hours are better too. At his old job, he was working 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. on the weekends. I was starting to worry we wouldn't be able to do anything this summer, like fireworks and such because he would be at work at nights. But now, he is working 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This is great because we have the nights off together and we won't have to worry about parties at night in July. Oh the simple things in life. :)

Jayson and I have never been happier than we are right now, even if there are still bumps in the road. But isn't that the key to everything? Continuing to smile when you would rather cry? There were many times I did cry, and many times I wanted to give up over the last couple months but, now, with everything that has changed this past week, I'm SO glad we didn't quit, even for a minute. Thanks to all my friends and family who supported us through one of our worst times. And especially thanks to Jayson for keeping me smiling when I would have much rather cried. I love you Jayson. ♥

Long Couple of Weeks

So Jayson hasn't been able to work for almost 5 weeks now. We depleted what little amount we had in savings, was unable to pay our rent, we are down to one car, and have almost no food. Needless to say, it has been a very long couple weeks. While I had faith that is was all going to work out in the long run, I just didn't know how much longer I could keep running. It has been very scary because every job that Jayson has applied for, we never heard anything about it. Cache Valley is still in a slump as far as employment goes and this "lay-off" came at the absolute worst time (but when is it ever a good time to get laid off, right?).

Finally, after much praying, crying, worrying, and sometimes even arguing with Jayson, our luck is finally starting to turn around. Thanks to a wonderful friend I went to school with, Jayson starts a new job tomorrow. It's at a company called Inovar and he will be testing the unarmed aircraft vehicles (like spy-crafts, etc) that the military uses to make sure they are up to code and ready to go. Jayson is pretty excited about starting a new job, one with a reputation of never laying anyone off, even when the economy was at it's worst. I couldn't be happier; Jayson will be working again, we will be able to pay our bills, and Jayson is actually really excited to start working with this company. We are finally going to get back on our feet and everything will work out, just like always. Even though I cried a LOT over the last couple weeks, I am stronger than I thought I would be. I managed to remain positive most of the time and I'm just glad it is all working out. Now, if we could only sell that truck...oh, that's too much to ask for in one day :)

Up A Creek in Logan

For Memorial Day, we just stayed close to home and spent the day up Logan Canyon. The weather was nice, not perfect, but nice and it was fun to spend some time with the babies outside. Our dog Annie learned to somewhat play in the water and Jayson learned he wasn't as sure footed as he thought (that's right, he fell in the water, but I didn't!!)

The kids were so cute. We roasted marshmallows for 'smores, chased the dogs around the campground and enjoyed the fresh air. Jayson and I finally got some new pictures of us that weren't special occasions....




I think the biggest accomplishment of the day was Tristan's. The kids have only been potty trained for about 4 months and on the way out into the "wilderness", Mom made the comment it would be interesting to see how the kids handled, peeing outside with no toilet. Tristan had it down in no time! He was so VERY, VERY proud of himself, I just had to take a cute picture. Kaycee held hers until we were home, quite the feat for a 3 year old.



Have a safe Memorial Day everyone; and let's remember the reason we celebrate this holiday! Thanks to all of our men and women who, throughout history, have paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country!!!

Graduation!

Just some quick pics of graduation. I will write more later! :)

New Opportunities

Well this past week has been great! The weather has been amazing, I have been able to spend more time with Jayson and my brother and sister, Tristan & Kaycee, and I started a new job! That's right, I'm not even technically a college graduate yet and I already have a job. I am working at an ophthalmology clinic in Logan and it is great! I have only been there for a week and both my boss/doctor and the patients have remarked how quickly I am picking up the trade. Not bad for barely covering ophthalmology in school right? I'm not trying to brag but I am very pleased with myself.

Since I have started a new job, I will be able to quit my other one shortly and it can't come quick enough. Lately, there hasn't been much work and we (both Jayson and me) have been sent home early at least once a week. That has been really rough on our finances but we have been through worse and we'll just keep on trucking until it changes around. Once I get my first paycheck from my new job, we should be just fine.

On the same note of new jobs, Jayson has an interview at another company here in Logan on Thursday called Schreiber's. They manufacture and package cheese, as well as bottled smoothies and yogurts. It is still a production job, which is what we are at now, but it pays a LOT better and has "regular" hours...no more of this working weekends until 5 in the morning. He will either be on days or swings so he will have the weekends off, which will be great for this summer! We have so many things we want to do since we couldn't do them last year.

We are down to five days before I officially graduate! I'm not really sure how I feel about this. While it will be nice to be done for now, I don't plan on just staying as an MA; I will start nursing school sometime next year, provided I get accepted into Dixie State.

Anyhoo, that's about all I had to say for this post. I am trying to post once a week to keep everyone "in the loop", so to speak but who knows how long I will be able to keep that up! I hope you are all doing great and enjoying the beginning of the summer wherever you are!

Wow!!

Oh my gosh! It has been a super long time since my last post. Sorry about that guys!

So, we have finally moved out of our apartment and we have been living in Richmond for just over a month now. I still haven't taken pictures of our new place (mostly because I still have finished decorating the inside and it's not worth taking pictures yet!) so you'll all just have to wait :) We both LOVE our new place. It's bigger than our apartment was and, as a perk to me, it's right across the street from my mom so I can see my little brother and sister pretty much whenever I want. My mom really likes the fact she can be a "Marie Barone" too, haha! I think the best thing about our new place is we aren't sharing walls with anyone!!!! I can drop something on the floor and not worry if I am making my neighbors mad or not. It's been great! We finally got a washer and dryer, courtesy of Jayson's sister Jen and her husband Derek. I love being able to do my laundry whenever I want. The whole first week we were in our new place, I did laundry every day just to do laundry. It was great; oh the simple pleasures in life.

Another awesome update: I graduate from my first college degree in 17 days!!!! I am almost finished with my internship, only about 40 more hours to go. I am working in a pediatrics clinic which is the best! It is so much fun working with all these young kids and babies. We don't "practice" on kids while we are in school so it definitely changed my perspective on things and you have to learn a lot of neat tricks to handle those little ones quickly! But, working with little newborn babies all day has also changed my perspective on some things as well...maybe it's time for us to start a family.....hahahaha....However, because I work 40+ hours at the clinic and I still have my part time job with Jayson, I have been working 60+ hours a week and have been exhausted. Thankfully, I have such an amazing husband that the house work hasn't suffered (in one day, 4 loads of laundry were washed, dried and put away; dishes were done, the bathroom was cleaned, the carpets vacuumed and dinner and desert were made before I got home) so I haven't completely lost my mind. Close, but thanks to Jayson, not completely.

Since I am so close to graduation, it was time for me to start looking for a "real" job and so far, so good. I have two job interviews tomorrow so hopefully, one of them will pan out. It would be great to have a job set up right as I finish my internship. I will probably keep working at my other job part time just to have some extra cash. Maybe...it depends on my schedule and how much I will be making at my new job. One step at a time right? Right...one step at a time has never been style.

One more little thing....so a few weeks ago, my mom's car died. Completely and totally died. She has had a really rough couple of months, just one thing after another. Her car dying was sort of the last straw. Since she didn't have a steady enough income to get a loan for a car, she was looking at ones that would die a week later anyway and I just didn't want to see that happen. So Jayson and I talked about it and decided we would get a car in our name and she would just make the payments to us. It wasn't much but it's the newest car she has ever had and hopefully, this will turn things in the right direction for her. I will post some pictures of it soon but that just happened to be her Mother's Day present this year (and probably for a few years!) and she is SO happy. It's been great to help her out and I really hope this will be the thing she needs to get back on her feet.

Alright, so now that I am pretty much up to date, I am going to get my portfolio ready for my job interviews tomorrow. Wish me luck!!

The Holidays

So I figured today would be a good day to write a little bit about Christmas. Jayson is at school and I home, bored out of my mind. I could do the dishes, but I don't really want to get up.

So Christmas was tons of fun!! I set up my camcorder to record the whole thing to keep and I took pictures as well. My grandma made us a beautiful blanket to match our couch and living room colors; she is very gifted. It looks great and is really warm!

Jayson was a bit apprehensive about this Christmas because I had been telling him for weeks we just couldn't afford what he wanted (a PS3) for Christmas and I would get him one after January, so I could tell he was trying not to get his hopes up too high for Christmas. He was cute. I couldn't decide if I wanted him to open his "big" present first or one of the little ones; if he opened a little one, he would know instantly what the big one was. I just decided to give in and let him have the "big" one. Jayson very slowly tore open the wrapping paper but it opened to the back side of the box. As he tore the paper around the side and the words PS3 became visible, he just stopped! He was completely dumbfounded. It was great!!! He started to say something (I believe it was going to be along the lines of "You stink!" but I'm not sure, haha) but he couldn't find his words.

After he was done unwrapping the whole thing, he just held it close to him and smiled. He told me I was the best, and that's all I was going for! :)

I bought him 3 games to go with it (just some typical war ones for my silly soldier) and an extra controller, in case I ever get the itch to play with the thing.

Jayson didn't do too bad buying gifts for me either. Apparently, me asking for a foot rub every other night inspired him. I got a foot spa and a foot massager as well as a neck massager. They feel great; Jayson said he was being smart so he didn't have to rub my feet or my neck anymore! Oh and did I mention the diamond and sapphire necklace?!?! It is absolutely beautiful!! It matches my wedding ring, which I love and it looks great.


Jayson did a wonderful job and I love all my gifts. That being said, the best gift was just having him here, right next to me, for Christmas this year, instead of halfway across the world.

New Year's was fun; we spent the night with Jayson's sister Jen and her husband, Derek, as well as Jayson's dad, Jay. We watched the movie Paranormal Activity, which I might add was WAY better in theaters--watching it at the theater was awesome because you got to listen to everyone else "ooo" and "ahh" and scream which added to the whole feeling--at home, it was pretty lame. We didn't watch the ball drop which kinda stunk; I really like that part, but it was okay. I wasn't feeling very good and was just tired. The next day (New Year's Day), I got really sick and spent the entire day home. I think I had food poisoning from the Dairy Queen we ate at on the way home from Cedar City; it sucked, to say the least. I recovered but I still get queasy so I'm wondering if it was a mild case of the flu.

That brings us to January...and let me tell you how excited I am this month is here...NOT! Jayson and I are scheduled to work everyday this month. While we will have a couple of days they don't have work for us, we generally will be working everyday from four to midnight. It wouldn't be so bad if the job was actually stimulating for the mind. All we pretty much do is collect mail from a belt and put it in the correct corresponding tray...for eight hours...everyday... I shouldn't complain though; the pay is pretty good and with the economy still low, I am lucky to have a job at all. I am thankful for it, don't get me wrong, it is just a pretty boring job. All of our bills are going to get caught up this month which will be nice; I just have to make it to the end of the month. Starting in February, we switch shifts and we will work Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m.-this will be my first time working a graveyard shift so it should be interesting; I don't function to well on little sleep. Oh well, I will cross that bridge when we come to it.

Anyway, I think that about covers it. The holidays were very interesting and instigated quite a few changes in my family but it looks like they are mostly for the good. Now we are in 2010 and I can't wait to see what this New Year will bring! (besides Jayson being on his PS3 every chance he gets!)