And here we are..

Well I started this post in mid January but never got around to posting it because I couldn't figure out how to post pictures from my iPad... I am not the most tech savvy person but I sat down tonight determined to figure it out and two and a half hours later, here we are :) 

Here is what I wrote in January.
Happy New Year!  I can't believe that it is 2014!  I have made a few resolutions this year and one of them is being better at documenting our busy, crazy, wonderful life.  I recently went back through all of my old posts and even though it's only been two (ish) years since I began this blog, there are so many little details that I have forgotten about different things that have happened.  Also, our computer crashed a few months back and we lost all of our pictures! :( Luckily, I have posted most of our good photos over the past few years on here so we didn't totally lose them.  

Several friends of mine do 'family yearbooks' and I am in love with that idea.  I will eventually start something like that but for now this works great. :)

We had a great and extremely busy 2013.  I seriously can't believe how fast time is going.  Even the days lately seem to fly by!  We sometimes find ourselves wishing for this stage of life to be over with  because being poor, in school, having 'we-are-only-doing-this-to-pay-the-bills' type jobs and being so busy that we only see each other for a few hours most days is really not a whole lot of fun.  But as each day, week, month passes I realize that I need to just enjoy this time because it really is passing by quicker than we realize.  Not going to deny that I dream of the day that we both have careers and our feet on the ground but this time is pretty special too.  We are building our life together and as corny as that sounds, it's true and we are so blessed to even have the opportunity to get an education and have jobs to support us.  And have each other.  I sure do love my amazing husband. :)

The last time I updated out blog was in July and shortly after that I began the Elementary Education program at ASU and have been incredibly busy!  That is a huge reason why I haven't posted anything in so long.  The first semester of the program (which is four semester total) was an absolute nightmare.  I have never been so busy or stressed or tired in my life.  Luckily, my Christmas break was five weeks long and that was a much needed break after finishing up the semester.  All my hard work paid off though and I ended the semester with a GPA of 4.05!!!!!! For those of you that think that being an Elementary Ed major is easy, think again.  While obviously the course work is not as difficult as someone's who is studying to become a doctor or something, there is just SO much of it!  It is difficult because there is so much to do for each class and it is all really time consuming, not necessarily hard.  But I absolutely love being a teacher and the days that I student teach are the days that I look forward and keep me going each week.  This semester is a lot more laid back than last semester was so that has been nice.  AND this is my last semester of classes!!!!  I have 8 weeks left of classes and 10 months of student teaching until graduation!!! Let the countdown begin :)
Devin has been working so hard for the last few months!  Since I'm not able to really work while I am doing student teaching and this crazy schooling, he has been working full time and is taking time off from school until I'm done.  He actually just applied, got an interview and got hired on the spot for a new, better job last week! We are so excited! He starts that next week and it will be really good for him and for our family right now.  I am so, so grateful to have a husband who loves me enough to put his goals on the back burner for a little while so that I can pursue mine.  It has been really difficult at times but each day we are a little bit closer to where we want to be and that makes it all worth it!

I haven't taken a ton of picture over the last few months only because we haven't really done much that has been worth taking pictures of, haha. But here are a few of the things we've been up to since my last post. 

July 2013

We went to a Diamond Backs game with my wonderful in-laws!  It was so much fun!  Having such a huge family, we don't usually get to spend time with just us and them so it was really fun to go to the game with just the four of us.

We were in the 6th ROW! So fun!

Pioneer Celebration Rodeo in Snowflake

I have the cutest nephew :)

One of my very best friends and her husband came to visit and it was so great to see them!  

We love the temple :)

October 2013

Happy Halloween!

November 2013

My first turkey!

December 2013

Mesa Temple Lights

My parents came to visit for a few days and we loved having them here!  I hate living so far away from them so we really enjoy the time we have when they come visit.  And hopefully it won't be too much longer until we are closer again :)

How cute is this Shepard costume? :)

My nephew (on Dev's side) with my dad.  Reading Shrek :)

Our Christmas Tree 2013

We became Apple people this Christmas!

The aftermath...and we don't even have kids, ha!

January 2014

We love spending time in Snowflake with these cute girls

Melt my heart!  She laid in his arms and they just smiled and talked to each other :)

Can't wait to see him be a daddy someday

February 2014

We love green smoothies!  This particular one turned out to be disgusting but most of the time they are delicious, ha!

A friend of ours has a bunch of orange trees so we've been making fresh squeezed OJ and oh my heck is it good!

Back at it!

Hello there!  It's been a couple months now since I have posted anything on our blog because from day to day, I feel like we don't do much outside of our "normal" routine.  But now looking back on the last few months and looking at all the pictures that we've taken, we've been quite busy doing lots of different things!  I guess that proves that I need to be better at focusing on all of the fun and exciting things that we are so fortunate to be able to do!  I definitely get way to caught up in everyday struggles and need to take more time to be grateful for all that I am blessed with.  There's my new goal. :)

My heart is definitely full today though.  I love Sundays and the special companionship that I feel with the Holy Ghost on the Sabbath.  I was reading the blog of a lady in our old ward whose four year old daughter past away last week after battling cancer for the past two and a half years.  It broke my heart to see that she had past away and I feel so sad for her family but her mother's amazing faith really touched me and reminded me that this mortal life is only a small portion of the "bigger picture" and that they will be with their sweet little girl again.  I am so grateful for the gospel and for the comfort that it brings me to know that families can be together forever.  (If you are interested, click here to learn more about what we believe :)

Here is a quick overview (and picture overload!!) of the past few months:

End of April:

After much thought, we decided to get Dev a motorcycle to save money on gas.  I was originally that one who wanted to get one just for fun but once we actually got serious about it, I wasn't so sure anymore because I've heard WAY too many horror stories about motorcycle accidents.  But after contemplating it for a while we decided to go for it!  It's been really fun and Dev loves it so, so far so good!  We got him all the best (better be the best for what we paid for it :/ ha) gear to protect him as best as you can be protected on a motorcycle.  And cost wise it has definitely been worth it!!

We couldn't get an un-blurry picture for the life of us.  This was the night that we bought it and we did about 200 circles around our parking lot haha.

Pretty!

Haha, my helmet makes my body look miniature!

May:

We celebrated our 1st year anniversary on May 4th!  I can't believe we have already been married for a year (well, now it's been almost a year and three months... what?!)  We went to our favorite restaurant, Outback Steakhouse for dinner and then out to a movie.  That's pretty much our "go-to" date night and we love it!

Happy Birthday, babe!! Dev turned 24 on May 5th.  It's a busy couple days for us with our anni and his bday back to back.  Perfect excuse to always celebrate big :)  This was his birthday breakfast in bed (actually on the couch ha;) that included bagels and lox (smoked salmon with cream cheese on a bagel) cantaloupe, pineapple and OJ.

That right there is 24 candles on a "SinDawg", Dev's favorite dessert.  It's a "healthy" version of a cinnamon roll and it's actually pretty good.  He discovered Dave's Killer Bread on his mission which is an organic bread company (thank you, Oregon) and they make this cinnamon roll so that's what I got for his birthday "cake".

Birthday dinner: fresh salmon, rice and gravy and brussel sprouts.  Yum!

Another birthday dessert :)

Since our finals week was the week after our anniversary and Dev's birthday, we decided not to do too much that weekend so that we could focus on finals.  We were both done with finals on Wednesday so we took Thursday thru Sunday off from work to "celebrate" our anniversary by relaxing and just doing whatever came up.  It was so nice!  We went to the Zoo one day which was so fun!  We love the Zoo :)

We loved the little baby zebra

I cut my hair!  It was a spur-of-the-moment decision but I like how it turned out!

June:

We love warm, Sunday evenings at the temple.  So peaceful and beautiful on the temple grounds.

If you know my husband at all, you know that he LOVES Superman.  We had been waiting and looking forward to the Man of Steel movie pretty much our entire marriage haha.  And it didn't let us down!  We saw it in IMAX 3D which was pretty awesome!

July:

Happy 4th of July!  All my firework pictures turned out pretty lame but here's one anyway ;)

My camera wasn't wanting to cooperate..

So we tried again when we got home.  Love our red, white and blue!

We got caught in a monsoon the other day.  We went into the mall and it wasn't raining at all, were in there for about twenty minutes and when we came out it had rained several inches all ready!  Growing up in Oregon, rain was an everyday occurrence but I'm not sure that I have ever really seen it rain as hard as it did this day!  We got completely soaked and we were only out in it for about 30 seconds..and weirdest part was that it was still about 105 outside!  Crazy!

Sad day.  Two motorcycles in the parking lot got totally smashed by this tree that fell because of the wind!

Feels and looks like home! I miss the Oregon weather sometimes :)

Well, that is a snapshot of our lives the past few months.  We have both been working full-time which has taken up most of our time during the week.  I start school again in about a month and I am finally in the education program! Yay!  That means that I have 4 semesters left (2 semesters of normal classes and an internship; then 2 semesters of full-time student teaching) until I FINALLY graduate!  Hallelujah!
Devin got a promotion at work and officially becomes the furniture backroom manager next week which was a huge blessing since I won't be able to work more than one day a week until I graduate.  He will just be taking one class per semester and working full-time until I get a job (keeping our fingers crossed that I can find a teaching job a soon as I graduate!!) and then he will get back into school full-time to continue working toward becoming a physical therapist!  That's the plan right now anyways!

It's a crazy road ahead but I'm excited to see what it brings! :)

Life...

for us has been way too boring for a blog post lately so that's why I haven't posted anything in a few months!  By boring, I don't mean bad!  Things have been going good but our day to day routine hasn't changed up AT ALL lately so we've had nothing too exciting to blog about.  If we aren't at school for classes... then we are at school for the library.  And if we aren't at school for whatever reason, we are at work.  We get about 2 hours a day typically to be together and that is usually either after 10pm or before 9am.  We are busy, busy, busy!  Luckily, we have had a couple chances to fit a fun date night or two into our crazy schedule which is always MUCH needed. :)

Valentine's day, dinner and a movie!

We love Sunday walks down the canal to feed the ducks.  Who needs kids to feed ducks? :)

Movies are our weakness!  We spend WAY too much on movies, either renting or going out.  Oops :)

Dev has been wanting a motorcycle for a while now and after figuring the numbers, we decided that we would actually save a lot by having one since we wouldn't have to be filling up two cars.  We have been looking around for a couple months and things kept falling through, but I think he found a keeper!  We are supposed to go get it tomorrow night so if all goes as planned, I'll update the blog with some hubby-motorcycle pics :) 

Have a great day everyone!