Our summer's been pretty fun. We've made a few trips up north for some family and friend fun. We were able to go up for the Fourth of July weekend and spend time with all of Ryan's immediate family. I amazingly got that weekend off, so it was even more special. We also got to see some of Ryan's high school friends.
We also went up for my friend Karen's wedding. One of my closest friends from Iowa got married in the Draper Temple and we were lucky enough to spend that day with her.
It was so neat seeing that experience and meeting her new husband. We're so happy for her and for their new life together.
Ryan's been more than busy with his new job. He's been traveling a lot to different satellite offices all over Southern Utah and he's now adding Vegas to his itinerary for a few months. He's doing great and his boss only has positive things to say about him (like I'm surprised). He's learned so much and has grown so much in his clinical skills in just a few short months. We've been happy with the experience he's getting, even though he's been putting in some long, long days.
As for Wal-Mart, they have finally taken pity on us poor Assistant Managers. They've been testing out a new schedule for management in other markets and they've discovered that Assistant Managers actually like having a life outside of Wal-Mart. So, at the beginning of this month we started a new rotation of schedules. I now work 3, 12 hour days, followed by 3 days off. It's been really nice during the days off. I actually have time to do other things and have now taken up new craft projects. The 3 days on are a little more stressful than I would prefer, but we're still all getting used to our routines. The cool thing about this schedule is that I can plan out the whole next year or so. I actually get Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve off. (Even though I'm still a little skeptical that something is going to change so I don't.) Either way, I feel like it's about time they revamped our scheduling. They were using us for too many things and taking advantage of being salaried. I'm enjoying my store just fine. I feel like I got a lot more respect right off the bat here than I did at my previous store. And I also feel a lot more appreciated. That's been a really nice transition.
My newest craft project was an idea I got off TV and thought I'd try it. I think it turned out pretty good. Let me know what you think. It's just a simple picture frame where you place ribbon where the glass goes. Then you can just slide pictures throughout the ribbon. It's a fun new way to display photos. The picture don't quite do it justice.
As most people know, we're moving to St. George, Utah next month. In March, we took a week off during Ryan's spring break to visit family and find a place to live. We took our trip up slowly and stopped to see two of my brothers and their families on our way up to St. George. That was a lot of fun and we're so happy we were able to spend time with them. Our time in St. George was super stressful, but we found a place to rent for a year. We're really excited about it. It's a 3 bedroom/2 bath town home with a 2 car garage. We can't wait to actually have some space to live. We figured after living in a one-bedroom apartment since we've been married, we can spoil ourselves and upgrade. And we're hoping to have space so we can have lots of visitors. Consider this a standing invitation! After our time in St. George we decided to rush up to Utah County to see some more family. Plus, we hadn't been to Utah since Oct. 2007, so we were excited to go back. We got to spend time with one of Ryan's sisters and her family and Ryan's mom. We also saw the rest of my brothers and their families (except one brother was missing, but his family wasn't). All in all, it was a successful, fun trip.
We are so excited to get back to Utah, be closer to family and still have warm weather. Sorry if those pictures frightened anyone. Boy George was especially scary, that's why we chose him.
We wish we could have been with family, but we had a blast with just the two of us. We enjoyed a nice Arby's dinner for Christmas Eve. We were going to cook a roast, but got too lazy that night, so Arby's was our solution. I promise I'm not that bad of a wife usually. Christmas day we slept in, opened presents and saw the movie Doubt.
We really liked the movie and even got free movie passes from it because of technical difficulties during the film. For Christmas dinner we grilled steak and shrimp (that's become our Christmas tradition). Hopefully in the next few years we'll be able to host Christmas at our house.
We watched a free-fly bird show- meaning there were wild hawks flying above us and swooping at us. If you look closely at this picture of Ryan, you can see the bird in the background. This was not my favorite part of the day. As you can see, Ryan was ecstatic. He loves the zoo.
This is the group Ryan went down with. Thankfully, none of them got shot. (There have been over 100 murders in Nogales this year and multiple shoot-outs in the streets.)