Our Sanpete Adventures

While home in Sanpete, we had the opportunity to go to the Mormon Miracle Pageant performed on Temple Hill. If you have not been, you really should go. It is AMAZING. My family has been apart of the cast for years now. And although it is performed each year, and we go each year, there's always something new to learn or to realize. I love it. It strengthens my testimony that much more. Here are a few pictures:

We were able to go up again on June 29th because the next day was my grandparents 50th anniversary. They are such amazing example to me. I hope that someday Ray and I can follow in their footsteps and share our 50th anniversary with each other and have our whole family surround us. We had over 100 people in attendance - everyone of them making up their posterity. We had this blessed event at the Heritage park in Salt Lake. It was a pretty long drive, but it wasn't too bad, seeing how we slept most of the way. It was so gorgeous. Mady had such a fun time with the little kids park they had. Here's a few pictures of the fun things they had:At the park they had a little village of old pioneer houses, it was so fun to go around and walk into some of the houses. This church was one of my favorites: There was also this gorgeous orchard with a cute fence. My mom took some pictures for us, I felt like we were taking engagement pictures again. Ray looked amazing. I fell in love with him all over again.





This is one of my favorites:

We also got to spend the 4th of July with my family. We spent the day in Manti having fun with all the festivities that were going on. We got to ride the train:We rode some horses, which Mady loved:We did an egg toss - which got all over me:We then went back to my grandparents house to eat some delicious food and wait for the parade to start. While we waited, we played some cards:And slept:
After eating a delicious meal, my mom took the kids and Mady to the parade.

When it was late enough, we headed over to Temple hill to watch the fireworks. I was surprised at how well Mady took the loud noises. She loved it. The next day we celebrated mine and Ray's birthday's by going to Palisades and eating some yummy cakes!

My parents gave us some awesome gifts! Ray got a lot of his favorite snacks along with $100. I was given some cake decorating supplies, $100 snacks, and a wonderful surprise - My American Girl Doll, Molly. All brand new. When I was baptized, my grandmother gave me Molly. She has had a hard life, so it was quite a surprise when my Mom gave her to me all brand new. She will be kept safe to pass down to my daughter. Overall it was such a great trip. We loved spending time with my family and enjoying the fun things Sanpete has to offer. Thanks for letting us come stay! We love you!

Madelynn Turns 1!

Madelynn turned 1 on March 26, 2011. Its so crazy to think I have a toddler now. We celebrated her birthday on the 2nd of April. All of Ray's family and mine came down for the event and also to watch conference with us. I had this huge idea planned for her party. Her colors were pink and green and I did a polka-dot theme. Although at times it was really stressful, it was a lot of fun doing the decorations and the food. My really good friend and next door neighbor, Ada Munk, helped me so much with everything. If it wasn't for her, it wouldn't have turned out as amazing as it did. Here are some of the decorations:

POM POMs: Have you seen these? They're the new thing. And the best part is that they are super easy to make! Go HERE if you want to learn how.

The credit for this cute birthday banner goes to KayLa and my sister Kimberly. KayLa cut out the letters with her cricut. Super cute, eh? Kimberly is the one who put it all together. Pretty much amazing.
These took a lot longer than I had planned. Ray helped a lot in putting them up and hanging them from the ceiling. I blew over 100 balloons about a week before the party. I'm pretty happy they didn't shrink until after the party.The food turned out amazing. It was super good! My mother-in-law made those cute popcorn balls in the white basket. My mother made the yummy frappe stuff - oh its sooo good. People mostly serve it at a wedding. The cake and cupcakes turned out ok. I'm excited to make Ray's cake soon so I can try my hand again at fondant. We'll see how that works out.
Ada made those yummy bruschettas. I think I ate like half a plate. Oh they were so good. And then the dark red pan is little smokies. I wanted to give you all the recipes to these amazingly delicious food, but the way I make them are very different from the recipes online. So if you want a recipe, just ask.
The last item of food was fondue. We had milk and white chocolate. Super good!
We had quite the house full of people. During present time, Mady just sat not really knowing what to do.
We appreciate everyone for giving her such cute cute gifts! Barb, my mother-in-law, actually made Mady this cute lamb. Isn't it amazing! She loves it!My mother-in-law also had a cute idea of making Mady a quilt, and have everyone write on a quilt block something sweet for Mady. Here's what some of them look like:
And of course we can't forget some cake pictures! Mady just kinda sat there looking at the cake, not knowing what to do. So we had to help her a little bit. But then after tasting it, she dived right in! We are so blessed to have Mady! She always lifts my spirits when I'm down and makes us laugh all the time at the new things she is learning. We love her so much. Happy birthday Mady!

UGH........

Today is one of those days - where everything is just ugh. Not only is it Monday, but I'm having awful that time of the month pains, I'm lacking motivation in all areas.......Maybe I'm just overly excited and anxious to go home to see my family on Wednesday.

All I know is that I want five things right this second:

1. My Bed
2. Chocolate in every form - mostly these - they're my favorite
3. Rice Bags
4. A Movie - I'm craving action, love...a little bit of everything
5. But mostly I just want this guy to hold me like this and make everything better

What do you do when you have no internet?

Yesterday was one of those days where our internet wasn't working until 10:00 at night. This may or may not have been detrimental to some, but for me....it was. Having 5 classes I'm taking over the summer, facebooking, hulu, netflix, blogging.....I NEED internet. Its so sad that I have become so dependent upon it. So I found other things to do. Oh, did I also mention that I am husbandless this weekend? Ray works 40 hours just this weekend. Horrible isn't it. So he works for 16 + hours, comes home and sleeps for 6 hours and then does it all over again. Poor guy. I love him so much. He does so much just to provide for us. Thanks babe.

So Mady and I played outside for awhile. It didn't last as long as usual due to the stupid wind. So we came back in. I looked around my house, it was quite messy. So I decided to turn on some music and clean. Our computer isn't working so I tried using our mp3 player and hook it up to speakers. I started adding the songs I wanted to listen to (since Ray has over 300 artists - it takes a while to get the songs you want). I had one more artist I wanted to add, when I clicked the wrong button and deleted all my songs I had queued up. I was frustrated and gave up. So then I decided to put on a chick flick and maybe get around to cleaning.

About half way through I decided to get cleaning. I was putting some stuff away in my room when I got an idea. I should rearrange our room! It hasn't been rearranged since we moved in, but every other room has. So I started moving. I didn't think about taking before and after pictures till I was half way done. So here's a drawing of what our room used to look like:The house looked like a wreck while I was moving things around. I'm glad no one came over during my move. Here's the "during" pictures:After moving all the furniture around I was sweating so bad. I didn't think that one through. I sat down and ate a whole bunch of watermelon. Yum it was so good!But I like how it looks now. Lets just hope Ray does too. Here's the finishing touches:We'll see what happens next time our internet is out for the day.

What do you do when you don't have internet? I want to know!

My New Job

So this is a little late. But I thought I'd blog about it anyways. In the profession that I have chosen, in order to get hired by a firm, most of the time you must have experience. For the past six months, I have been desperately looking for a job - anything to do with accounting, auditing, bookkeeping...anything. Its been super hard. I thought it would get better once we decided if we would be living up in Orem for the summer or staying here in Cedar. Since there are more opportunities up north.

A couple weeks before school got out, I found the perfect job. It was an internship up in Salt Lake paying $17 an hour. I was super excited. They wanted 4 students in their senior year. I had a pretty good chance I thought. We still hadn't decided if we were moving or not, but we did decide that we would move if I got the job.

We waited and waited and I still didn't hear anything. There was one other person who applied for the job that I knew of and he hadn't heard either so I felt ok about it. Two of my good friends told me about a job here at the school that they had both applied for working as an internal auditor. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity for me to interview, seeing how I have never had a real interview before. And I could get ready for the job up north.

With studying for finals, I completely forgot about handing in my resume for the audit job. Both my friends told me they heard back and were told that they had put off doing interviews for two weeks and would let them know. So I decided that I would just go hand in my resume and hope that they will consider it. The guy I was supposed to hand it in to, now my boss, wasn't in his office so I didn't get to explain why it was late. So I hoped it would be ok, and if not then oh well at least I tried.

I was so happy when I got the email that since there were only 4 people who applied that everyone would have interviews. In the email we were also told that this was an informal interview and to just set up a time we would like to come in and chat. I was a little put out since the whole reason I applied was to get experience. So I decided I would treat it as a real interview anyways and hope for the best.

The interview went well. I found that the man hiring, Doug, had family who was from Sanpete. I felt like I had connected and it was a very relaxed conversation. I felt good leaving, although I wish it had been more formal. But I was happy that I didn't get nervous and stutter like I usually do when in stressful situations.

I still hadn't heard back from the job up north. I was getting nervous. We still hadn't decided whether we were going to move or not. We had been praying continually to receive an answer, but didn't feel a pull towards any which way. I felt like we just needed to make the decision and then pray to know if that's right. So we did and decided to fast about it as well. We decided to move up north.

Ray was so happy. He wanted to move back and live with his family. His little brother received his mission call and was leaving June 22nd. Ray and him are very close, and Ray wanted that time with him. Ray also had a job set up, working with people he liked and making good money. I, however, was still unsure. Especially when we heard that Ray's sister, Jemma, and her husband were moving back as well.

I then decided that we should stay. I had been stressing for weeks about this and when I decided I felt peace about it. I wasn't stressed anymore. When I told Ray, he was so put out. After I told him, I had a wave of doubt rush over me. But that all went away when I received an email from Doug saying that I had gotten the internal audit job at SUU. I was so excited!

This job was so much more ideal than I had first realized. I would be able to keep this job until I graduate. They are willing to work with my hecktic schedule - with both Ray and I taking classes, having a child, and Ray working as well. And this would give me great experience as well. I felt bad though, because my other friend had not gotten the job. It was hard to tell her and see the betrayal wash over her face. She tried to be happy for me, but I knew how hard it was for her.

But working here has opened up more doors. I found out about another job with the assistant finance guy, Mitch. I got her an interview and she got the job!!! I am so excited for her. We are both majoring in accounting and this will help her so much with the experience we need to get jobs. We will also be working together - well in the same office area and everything. It will be fun.

Here's a shout out to you, KayLa! Congrats on getting the job! I am so super happy for you!!

Growing Up

Remember when you were a little kid and all you could think about was what you were going to be when you grew up? I do. I think I changed my mind a couple hundred times. The first thing I remember wanted to be was a veterinarian. I LOVED animals. Then I remember going through the phase a wanting to be a singer. My mom has a gorgeous voice (if you haven't heard her, you should. A-Maz-Ing), so I totally thought I did too. Well as it turns out, that gene was never passed to me. But unfortunately, I didn't find that out until high school. As every kid, I also wanted to be an actress. I always was acting something out, thinking I was that Hollywood star that they found in a little po-dunk town. But that dream was given too.

Needless to say, my mind changed a lot growing up. And then in high school, I took some business classes. I LOVED it. But I wasn't in a very healthy relationship. And I wanted something I could do that wouldn't have me be in school. I was planning on living with this guy and moving all over the place. So I decided I would be cosmetologist. Easy, simple, enjoyable. I could do that. So I didn't put much effort into my schooling. All because I would do anything for this guy. I didn't need to have an education. Well that changed as well.

I came to SUU and took some more business classes. I fell in LOVE with my accounting class. It wasn't all numbers like everyone says. It was fun. And now here I am, one more semester until I graduate with my bachelors in accounting. And one more year after that until I graduate with my masters in accounting and in business administration. One more year until I am done with school. Maybe not with studying, as I want to become a CPA, but I will be done with classes.

I love the profession I chose. Although some days I wish I had gone into something like Physical Ed. Then I could wear this all day:

But no. I chose the profession where I have to wear clothes like this all day:With my new job I have to wear clothes like this everyday. And well, needless to say most of my clothes looked more like the other picture. So I have done some major shopping and de-junking. I have gotten rid of so many things. My closet is getting smaller and smaller. It will take some time before I have a suitable closet for my job, or future jobs.

I have found that dressing professional makes me feel wonderful. I am also finding how much Ray likes it too. I mean he never was upset when I went to places in t-shirts and sweat pants. But now that I dress like this everyday, he always makes sure to compliment me. Which makes me like to dress like this more. Although right when I come home from my 8-9 hours of work, I immediately undress into my comfy clothes.

So now that I have a career, I will have degrees, I work as an internal auditor, I dress in business clothes.....am I grown up?

Can we go back to Sunday?

Sunday was AH-MAZ-ING. It was the first time in ....... say two months that we were able to attend Sunday school, Relief Society, and Priesthood and actually get something out of it. We are Nursery leaders once a month so that cuts one Sunday out. All the others, call us sluffers, but we will opt out of the last two hours of church due to Mady. Church is right during her nap time and man she is cranky. We don't get anything out of the lesson so we'll just head home. We REALLY need to work on that.

But this Sunday was so perfect. Fast and testimony meeting was so touching. The spirit was so strong. Ray bore such a profound testimony. Don't tell anyone, but I'm pretty sure I'm in love with that guy. Oh, he makes my heart melt. And to have such a wonderful example around me each day.....how did I get so lucky!? Thank you Barb and Joe for raising such an amazing man. Ray was also sick that day, so his voice was extra deep and sexy. Mhmm hmmm, I love that man.

Relief Society was amazing. We talked about changing our perspective. As we talked about it, I have realized how my perspective had changed so much in the past 5 years. Rewind 5 years ago, and you would have found a girl who didn't care much about a temple marriage, who didn't see the wrong in living with someone, how church was not important to me, I didn't care about an education.....the list goes on. That was this girl:But then rewind only 3 years ago, a temple marriage was important to me, I wanted to come back to the church, I wanted to get an education, I wanted to be a worthy daughter of God again. Which was this girl:
And now we come to the future. I am all those things I yearned for. I have been endowed and sealed in the Holy Temple of God with a worthy priesthood holding man. We have made covenants to our Heavenly Father. I am going to school and am determined to get two masters degrees by the end of 2012. I have been blessed with the most beautiful girl God could give me. I feel so loved and complete. Which is this girl: My whole perspective has done a 180 (or is it a 360...). Even though I would not want to go through what I did 5 years ago, and hurt all those people I loved so dearly, I am thankful for those experiences. Because they have made me into the person I am today. I have learned from those experiences and am better for it. It may have take me longer than some, but I am on the path God has set before us. And despite whatever trial you have to overcome, the Lord will provide a way. I promise.

Ok, now that I have wasted 30 minutes of studying.. haha. I must get back.

But on a side note - I know what I want for mother's day (Ray - hint hint) If you have not read this book, I seriously recommend it! I remember loaning it out to someone and I don't think I ever got it back....or maybe I did and I just misplaced it. Oh well. If anyone has seen my book, it has writing on the front cover - saying something like I love you and something something..... love always Gail Hyde. Or something like that. Yea...its been awhile. Anyways I NEED this book! (cough, Ray, cough) No but seriously. Read it.