CALIFORNIA & UPDATES!!

Well our summer has just been flying by out here in Cali.... I can't believe it's going to be coming to an end soon. We have been way busy with work out here..... but it's been a blast. In between our time off of work.... we have been hanging out with friends.... visiting the beach and having BBQs. The weather over here has been gorgeous!! And up until this past week.... it has been pretty dang chilly over here. It's starting to warm up alot this week though- It's been nice tho being able to wear alot of my sweatshirts over here.


Our apartment out here is a little smaller than last year... but we are like 1 min away from our office for work so that's amazing.

Here is our living/family room...


Our kitchen.... we have a gas stove.... not sure if I am a fan


Our balcony over looking the street.... and a church is straight across the street.... so we get to hear the church bells.... every morning.... they never miss a morning.... didn't think churchs still rang bells..... but they DEFINITELY do!


I had to stack our movies.... there was no place to put them...haha!


Anyways- so in other news over here.... we sold Josh's truck about a month ago..... farewell to the giant blue beast... and hello to our new mustang. We thought it was a good idea to "downsize". Now we have cheaper tires and better gas mileage with the stang. It was a little sad for Josh when we said goodbye to his truck... he loved it so much.... but he is loving his new stang.

Farewell to the truck.....


Hello new stang.....


He has been pulled over twice over here acually...... but it was not for speeding..... Cali has a law that you are not allowed to talk on your cell phone while you are driving.... which is fine I guess....(safer drivers.... fewer accidents) but.... when you are not used to having that law...... when your phone rings...... your first instinct is to pick up. The first time was when he was driving over here to Cali- and the the 2nd time happened about 2 weeks and he luckily got out of it the 2nd time. Still kinda lame tho!

We did have some visitors for the 4th of the July. My two sisters Savanna and Ciera came over with our Friends Brad and Forrest. They stayed the weekend with us and we went to the beach and saw fireworks. It was great to spend the weekend with them.

We spent a day at the beach..... I got so sunburned....


Me with Savanna and Ciera....... and Ciera had a lovely tan on her legs...haha!


We played some beach volleyball... good times!


We bought the volleyball when we first got out here.... it is just like the one from Cast Away... with the bloody hand print.... and yes....... we refer to it as Wilson. Josh takes him everywhere.....haah! ok not really.... but he does keep it in his car so he always has it....haha!


We got this pizza here last year..... so we had to get it again when our visitors were here.... it's the biggest pizza I have ever seen.... and soooo good! The little one is just a normal size pizza..... that's how big it was.... it was awesome!



Josh works some long hours out here... He starts at 8:30 and doesn't get home til about 10pm at night sometimes.... So when he gets home.... he's pretty exhausted.... this is what happened one night.............




On Friday nights a few of us wives have been getting together and having cooking nights. The guys get home so late that we make lots for them when they get home. We have a good time! Aleece, Me and Chandee.....


The first time we made our own homemade pizza.... even the dough....(Chandee made it and it was amazing)



The pizzas were def a success!!




We have had lots of visits to the beach this summer.....

Chandee and Dawna with sweet Aiden..... relaxing in the sun.


Me Chandee and Aiden...



There was one night where a bunch of us went out to the beach when the guys got off work... so like 10 oclock.... and a bunch of them were acutally boogie boarding.... the beach was awesome at night..... a little scary but still way sweet. I was ofcourse freezing...... but Josh was having a ball with the boogie board....




Dawna me and Aleece.... staying close to keep warm.....




Well I think this may be the longest post I have ever done.....But there are some pics of our summer.... we have been having a blast! I can't believe it's almost over. Josh will be here another month....but I am actually coming home to AZ in about 2 weeks. The summer has seriously flown by.... I can't believe we'll be starting back up at school about a month. Crazy!! Anyways- farewell for now....... hope everyone has been having a great summer!

Finals... Packing... Moving....

Hello all! I know I have been terrible with updating my blog lately...but now that I'm out of school.... I'm hoping that will change. So a little update of what's been going on... Josh and I survived our finals. I will say barely survived because the week before finals... Josh pulled about 3 all nighters throughout the week. I felt like I barely saw him that week. He studied his face off for his 2 Chemistry classes. Apparently when we apply for dental schools... it's really important to have really good grades in all of the science classes... ESPECIALLY Chemistry. So Josh had lots of pressure to make sure and get his A's. After the hardest semester of his life... (so far) he spent hours and hours and hours studying for Chemistry and doing the labs. After all the stress and tears(the tears which were mine..haha!) All of his hard work paid off.... He did it... He got his A's! It was a joyous day when his grades finally posted. Now no more Chemistry..... he's done with MCC and moving onto ASU in the fall. Which he is very excited about. He decided to walk at MCC's graduation (mainly because his mom and I wanted him too...but he was glad he did) He got 2 associates degrees... an AA in Arts and an AA in General Studies. Here are some pics....

My side of the family. They were all so sweet to come!


Josh and his sweet little sister Jaycee


Josh's Dad and little bro!


Josh and his parents.... I took the pic a little late..


So proud of him! He's about 1/4 of the way done with school.... still got a ways to go... But he's ready for it and he def kicked butt this semester!



During the week of finals.... we also had to start packing up our apartment. It was not a pleasant experience either. Last summer we kept our apartment here... while we were in Cali... but this year we decided to pack it all up and just put everything in a storage unit for the summer. It was a bigger project than we thought.... We moved out all of our big stuff.... like bookshelf.. bed.. coffee table, end tables, ect.. at the beginning of the week... And we have some awesome friends that saved us last minute in moving all that stuff out. Thanks again!!

This is what our apartment looked like this past week.... Our TV looked pretty weird on our card table...



At one point... we were packing and after awhile... we both looked around and said I think that it's gotten worse.... packing was miserable.... and I still have to go back over and finish things up...ugh!! Like I said....."Never ending process"




My wonderful mother in law was a huge help in packing up our decorations.. dishes and all of the "fragile" stuff. She was such a great help with everything! I couldn't have done it without her. Thanks again Mom!

So our adventure to Cali has "kind of" began.... Mainly for Josh right now..... He drove over there this past weekend... made it safe and sound. I'm still in AZ right now... and I'll be joining him in about a week in a half.....looking forward to getting over to gorgeous San Diego. He was gone not even a day and I was already missing him like crazy..... So I'm a little nervous for this next week in a half. Since our apartment is pretty much all packed up I'm staying with my lovely sister and her husband, Shasta and Tanner til I leave. It was so nice of them to let me stay with them.

And Josh started work over there today and is already doing awesome! I can't wait to get over there. We are really looking forward to the summer! (and ditching the AZ summer heat here)
So I am planning on doing more updates a lot more often while we are over there.... hopefully with pictures too....but right now my charger for my camera won't charge the battery... so I have no camera(I had to borrow my sister Molly's camera this past weekend.. thanks molls!)
Anyways.... that will be it for now... but more updates to come... soon from Cali! Hope everyone has a great week!

Updates!!

Ya..... I know it's been so long since I've posted anything. My poor blog..... So I thought I would post some updates of what's been going on around here.....

January:
We got our first niece...Megan Ruth Stradling... and she is soooo precious!
We sold my car to my sister and got me a new...... 2008 Hyndia Sonata. And seriously love it!
(I never want to go through the process of buying a new car again...... I hate car salesmen)

February:
Niece Megan spent a few days in the hospital because she had RSV. She's doing great now, but still really scary!
Josh and I got terribly sick with a miserable cold/congestion thing. Terrible! Tissues were overflowing in our apartment. (ok not really... but almost)
My family discovered the game "Just Dance" for the wii.... and it is AMAZING! (Highly recommend it if you have never played it.) We've played it with friends and it is awesome!!
I got to go the Mary Poppins play at Gammage with Josh's family and it was soo fun! Practically Perfect in every way!

March: Spring Break
We finally made it to Spring Break! This semester has been insanely busy with school. With Josh taking 2 Chemistry classes... (that includes 2 labs) and me taking 18 credits... school has taken over our lives.....haha! But we made it to Spring Break which we were so happy for. Josh went to Mexico to go fishing with his dad, bro, grandpa and a few of his dad's buddies. He caught a 9lb fish (which is really really big) so he was soooo excited about that. Before he left on his trip he said that if he catches a big one he wants to mount it on our wall.... and I agreed to this. So... prob at the end of the year(cuz it takes a long time for them to put the fish together to mount) We will be mounting a fish on our wall......we'll see how that goes.haha! Anyways-It's been a relaxing week and I'm hoping I will get back into "school mode" by next week.

And then we have only like 6 more weeks til summer.... til we get to leave for sweet San Diego!! We move there for the summer for Josh's job and we cannot wait to see our sweet friends again over there!

I will try and be better about posting... the past few months have been so busy I haven't had time... but for now that's what has been going on. Hope everyone is doing great and enjoying their Spring Break!

First Anniversary!

So last weekend was our 1 year anniversary! I can't believe it's already been a year. Everyone says that the first year is the hardest... but I must say that this past year has been soooo fun! We have had so many fun times! Even though we are both so busy with school and work, we still find time with each other.
Last week Josh's sister got married over in San Diego... (sweet times)and we got home really late Friday night, so on Saturday we slept in and spent a very relaxing day at home. Then that night, we went to dinner and saw a movie. We were gonna go see The Blind Side, but it was sold out by the time we got there, so we saw Sherlock Holmes. VERY GOOD by the way if you haven't seen it.
Then we came home and busted out the bottle of Martinellis, that was given to us for our wedding.... and my mom had kept the top layer of our wedding cake in her freezer... so we got that out as well. Neither of us are huge cake fans.... so we just had a small bite of the cake, it wasn't to bad for being in the freezer....but after one bite....we were done.haha! We had a great first anniversary and looking forward to another year!



Us at the movies.......great movie!


Our Marinellies and our frozen cake. Our wine glasses have our names and our wedding date on them. We used them at our luncheon. Love them!!


Made a toast to each other and topped it off with a kiss! Happy 1 year!


1 year ago at our wedding....


Happiest day of my life!







We are both looking forward to the new year!!

Holiday Fun!

So we have had a pretty crazy past few weeks. With finals ending and everything with the holidays.... we have been super busy...but it's been good times! To start the holiday season off right... we went out and bought our very first Christmas tree! This is our first Christmas married... It was so fun to decorate it together...(actually the night that we started decorating it... Josh was putting the lights on the tree, and we fell asleep before we put any decorations on it, and this was the weekend before finals... so we went for almost a week with just lights on our tree...so when the lights were off, it looked like a "bare" tree.) So we finally got it all decorated and bought something to go on top. We went with a pretty red bow. And we love it. We had to rearrange our furniture just a little to make room for the tree....but it's so worth it!

Pictures below are of our a couple parties. We have had so many, I can't post them all. So here are a few. We had a friends Christmas party that was themed "ugly sweater"...good stuff! And then my side of the family had a Christmas party that was way fun as well. It has been so fun to see family and friends and enjoy this time of the year. We are absolutely loving it! Hope everyone else is having a great holiday season as well!


This is our tree when we first put it up so BEFORE......

And.......... AFTER


So pretty! We love it!!


Ok... so this is a really random picture. Last week we went Josh's work party and it was at this nice restaurant and everything. There was great food and we had a great time. Well, right before we were about to leave.... I needed to go to the bathroom.... So I run in there and this is what I see. It literally scared the crap out of me. It was pretty life-like.... and I was a little scared. I almost didn't make it into the stall because it scared me so bad.haha! Ok that's not true. But I found it really weird to be in the restrooms.


So this is at our friends "Ugly Sweater" Christmas party where we had a "gag" gift exchange. And yes... that is a male unrinal. Enough said. It was halarious!


My sister Savanna opened a gift that was Ronald Mcdonald shoes... they were huge. And along with them came a Mcdonald's bag.... with 2 apple pies from Mcdonalds. People got pretty creative with the gifts.


Here is Josh and I with our "ugly sweaters"... the day before I went to goodwill and picked out the sweater vest for me that was like 4 sizes to big. And.... when I first found Josh's sweater... (It has a picture of duck up in the corner if you can't tell) I thought it was perfect.... ugly right?? Well, that night he put it on.... and it actually looked pretty good on him. He even wore it over to his parents house before our party and his mom complimented him on how nice it looked, and said it looked like he got at Cabellas. We then told her that I picked it up at goodwill for about $2 for our party. Pretty funny!


Janessa, Savanna, Me and cute pregnant Chandra!


The guys started a wrestling match...





At one of our many family Christmas parties. We had a great time. Great food, and a sweet gift exchange where Josh got a Sonic giftcard and I got a giftcard to Costa Vida, and a football! Great game!


All the ladies....(well not all, mom and heather would not get in.) But the rest of us are all there! Lots of gorgeous girls! We have a great time with eachother!

Happy Holidays everyone!!!

Dogs and Cats

Ok.......So I read this on a friends blog, and could not stop laughing. So I decided to copy it and put it on mine!! Even though I'm not really a dog person or a cat person...........but either way......... I still thought it was halarious!! Enjoy!!

d

Excerpts from a Dog's Diary...
8:00 am - Dog food! My favorite thing!

9:30 am - A car ride! My favorite thing!

9:40 am - A walk in the park! My favorite thing!

10:30 am - Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!

12:00 PM - Lunch! My favorite thing!

1:00 PM - Played in the yard! My favorite thing!

3:00 PM - Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!

5:00 PM - Milk bones! My favorite thing!

7:00 PM - Got to play ball! My favorite thing!

8:00 PM - Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favorite thing!

11:00 PM - Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!

g

Excerpts from a Cat's Diary…
Day 983 of my captivity. My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects.
f

They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength.

f

The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape. In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on the carpet.

g

Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates what I am capable of. However, they merely made condescending comments about what a 'good little hunter' I am. Jerks.

g

There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my confinement was due to the power of 'allergies.' I must learn what this means and how to use it to my advantage...

g

Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow -- but at the top of the stairs.

g

I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches. The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released - and seems to be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded.

g
The bird has got to be an informant. I observe him communicating with the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move. My captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell, so he is safe. For now.........



If any of you watch Family Guy.....The cat reminded me a little of Stewie! Love it!

HaLLoWeeN FuN!!!

So the Halloween weekend was lots of fun! You won't see Josh in any of these pictures tho because he was gone.... hunting allllll weekend long. He did get his deer tho, so that is very exciting!! And it was still a fabulous weekend!
It began Friday evening.... all of my sisters went over to my sister Shasta's house to frost cookies and watch Garfield Halloween. (I'm not sure if any of you ever used to watch Garfield.... well we did when we were younger... and loved it!) The nephews came to and we had a great time!!



Starting the Garfield Halloween! candy, candy, candy, candy....


Shasta and Laci making the cookies! (I'm not a huge fan of sugar cookies...but they were very good!)




And the frosting begins.......


There was Frankenstein, cat, and I think bat cookies!


After all that was done. My 4 younger sisters came back to my our apartment to stay the night with me, so I wouldn't have to be there all by myself. We made up their beds and all of us were out with in a few minutes. We have this round chair... it's called a "papa'sjohn" chair... or something like that... and Jenna called that right away to be her bed.

She got all snuggled up in it.


My other sister Bria was going to try to sleep in our leather recliner.... but after a few minutes..she decided to go down to the floor.


Then Saturday night, I went back over to Shasta's because my little sisters were going trick or treating in her neighborhood. Molly was showing off her cute pajamas....Bria is the lovely green M&M...and Jenna is a sweet little witch. They looked great! And got lots of candy!



After that, I went and met up with our friends who were finishing getting their costumes on. My friend Bobbie is a vampire...and that is her boyfriend Sam who is the Joker.....she kept trying to bight him all night..haha! They looked awesome!!




This is Tara, Bobbie and Me....... I wasn't sure if I was going to dress up til the last minute.. and by that time I didn't have anything.... so I supported the Cardinals for Halloween.haha! (It was simple and not to complicated....which worked for me.)
Overall the weekend was a ton of fun! Hope everyone had a great Halloween weekend as well!