Future

These photos basically sum up what I have been feeling and thinking lately...

Don't get me wrong, I am SO grateful to be back in school.  But being done with school and able to start my career is SO close yet SO far away.  And the idea of a career, a house (and out of teeny tiny, noisy apartments) and not being poor college students anymore sounds pretty much amazing right about now!

But I know that time has been going by so quickly lately and that that will all be here before we know it!  It's all about finding joy in the journey and as much as dreaming about the future is fun, I really am grateful for everyday that I get to spend with my wonderful husband and attend ASU and learn what I need to learn to be a great teacher in a couple years! 

Anyway, we have both been trucking right along with school.  We are already almost done with week 3 of the semester.  Dev is taking chemistry, math and English so he has a lot of work cut out for him this semester but I know that he will do awesome!  I am taking several classes as well but mine aren't extremely difficult, just time consuming.  I am starting an internship in a kindergarten classroom on Friday and I am really excited for that.  

I am still working at DownEast but not as many hours now that I am in school.  And Dev just got hired at the new DownEast Home Store that they opened down here.  The home store is huge and a totally different dynamic than the store that I work at.  He's not exactly loving it so far but it's a job and we're grateful for that.  

Other than that, not much else is going on with the Peterson's!  Oh, I did get Instagram but I'm not sure how I feel about it so I may just use it to take photos and just keep my blog updated with the photos instead of my profile on there.  Here are a couple!  

Christmas has probably been over for way too long for me to be posting a picture of our Christmas tree but I'm going to do it anyways :)  I never posted any pictures of our FIRST Christmas tree so I just wanted to have it documented somewhere.  I miss it already!

It has been so gorgeous here!  The past three days it has gotten up to 80 degrees.  I LOVE Arizona!

I buzzed Dev's head!  He had been talking about wanting something new and talked about buzzing it so I said Let's Do it!! He was surprised that I was okay with it because last time he brought it up I said no way.  But I think it looks really good on him!!

I have been wanting something new too but I'm not sure what!  I was thinking either straight bangs or doing the Ombre thing to it.  Dev says no way to straight bangs so that's kind of out.  So I'm thinking ombre...

Yes??

 

Welcome 2013!

Happy New Year! I'm sure like most people, I have been thinking back about all that has happened in 2012. And it has been the best year of my life!! Just to name a few of the amazing things that we've been blessed with:

• We got engaged one year ago today!
• We both accomplished a lot in school, moving toward our end goal of elementary teacher and physical therapist
• I moved to Arizona and I love it here 
• We became Mr. & Mrs. Devin Peterson :)
• We moved to a new city and into our first "own" place.
• We got to spend Thanksgiving with the Peterson side of our family.
• And Christmas with the Flood side.
• We have been happily married for 8 months now and fall more in love with each other everyday!

2013 is going to be a very busy year for both of us as we both are going to be going to school full time and trying to work as much as possible to start some savings. We don't really have any big plans yet for the year but I'm sure lots of great things will come up as the days and weeks and months continue to fly right on by.  I have never really done New Year resolutions before but this year I decided to make a list of goals for myself.  So I look forward to start working towards some of those things.  

We hope that you all had a fabulous holiday season this year and wish you the best in 2013!

Time Flys When Your Having Fun

It's been over 5 months since I have blogged!  Oops...  We've been busy, busy with work and school and time is going by faster than ever.  I feel like everyday I say something along the lines of "I can't believe it's already been a week since ...." or "Today is Friday? Where did Wednesday and Thursday go?!"  So let me just add to that and say, I can't believe we have been in Mesa for over 4 months!  

We moved to Mesa in August and we are loving it here.  When we first moved here it was so, so hot!  But now it's a perfect temperature most days and gets pretty chilly actually on others.  

We call our apartment our "hotel room" because it is so teeny but it is pretty nice so we can't complain too much.  We got our first Christmas tree up last week and it takes up about half of our living room but it makes our home feel really festive so I love it! 

We moved down here to the valley with neither of us having jobs so we basically just took a leap of faith that something would work out and it did!  I got a job the day after we moved down here.. talk about a huge blessing!  I got hired at DownEast Basics and it's such a great job.  For anyone who hasn't heard of it before, look it up, it's pretty decently priced and super cute!  You'll love it!  

Devin just finished his first semester at Scottsdale Community College last week.  He also just got hired for the holidays at Aeropostale and is working part time there.  He did awesome in school this semester and we will both be starting up classes at the beginning of January again. Well, we are keeping our fingers crossed that I can start in January.  I submitted my residency papers a couple weeks ago so we are waiting to hear back about that.  That whole process was a total nightmare but hopefully it will pay off and I can start up at ASU and FINALLY get finished with school!  I have about 2 years left and I just want to get finished and get my career started. 

We went to Snowflake for Thanksgiving and had such a great time with our family there.  It is always so fun to spend time with Dev's huge family!  We are worn out by the end of our stay because it is always so busy with all the kids and everyone around, but so fun and we love it. 

My Mom and Dad are coming to Mesa for Christmas and I am so excited for them to get here!  They get in on Christmas Eve and will stay until the Friday after Christmas.  I miss my family so much and I hate being so far away from them so I am really looking forward to have some time to spend with them during the Holidays!

I love blogging because as I sit here thinking of all that has happened in our lives the past few months and what is to come in the next few weeks, I am reminded of all of our many blessings.  It is so easy to get caught up in our day to day activities and forget how awesome life really is!

Hot means HOT here in AZ! This was a couple days after we moved here. It was 113 the day we moved in. All I can say is thank goodness we are on the first floor!

We went to a 3d movie and out for ice cream for my 22nd birthday!  

When we were in Snowflake for Thanksgiving, we went up to a ski resort that had their lifts open for rides to look at the fall colors. It was beautiful!  I love this photo and no, Devin is not strangling her. ha

She said her neck hurt so he was massaging it for her. Sweet guy :)

Braelynn (my youngest sister in law) and I at Thanksgiving dinner.

Our first Thanksgiving as hubby and wifey

We played Pictionary as a family after dinner and it was so fun.  And this was Devin's drawing of a frog... clearly! ;)

Getting caught up!

Finally caught up from all the wedding craziness!!  Only took two months. :)  We have been so busy since we got married.  Devin is still working at the well drilling company until the end of July.  I am working as a cashier at the grocery store that my father in law owns.  Definitely not a long term job that I would ever want but it is money and something to do while Devin is at work for 8+ hours a day and I am very grateful to have a job when a lot of people don't.  I haven't been as good at taking pictures as I should lately but I've taken a couple of random things that we've been up too!  I think pictures and bullet points are the best way to get caught up :)

• I attempted homemade pizza one day (with the help of my cutie sister-in-law:) and was really proud of myself because they turned out really good!  I make a homemade wheat crust which is really good and a lot healthier than anything you can buy.  I topped it with healthy stuff :) We really like turkey bacon (I was skeptical at first but it's actually really good as long as it's crispy!) so we use turkey bacon as our meat instead of nasty pepperoni or sausage, mushrooms, green and red peppers, sweet onion, green onion, olives, spinach and cheese and pizza sauce of course!  Here's the recipe if you're interested:
• 2 cups water
• 1 packet yeast
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 4 cups (give or take a little bit) whole-wheat flour

1.  Combine water, yeast and sugar in a bowl and let yeast dissolve.  2.  Once yeast is dissolved, add salt and flour and mix with fork/hand until it is the consistency of dough.  3.  Round into a ball and cover and let rise for about 15 minutes.  4.  Knead about 10-15 times and then dough should be ready to roll out into crust.  5.  Top with sauce and toppings of your choice.  6.  Bake at 400 for 12-15 minutes depending on the size and thickness of your pizza.  Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

• Devin is playing city-league softball and it has been really fun going to his games!  He's such a stud ;)

My handsome hubby in the dug out!

• I love, love, love having all of our nieces and nephews around!  They are all so stinking cute and they help keep my "baby hungeryness" under control ;) ha

• Goofy picture, but I went to work with Dev one day so I had to get a picture!  He works for a well drilling company with one of his friends so they go out and fix peoples wells.  When he first started the job, I didn't even know people used wells anymore because when I thought of a well, I pictured a hole in the ground with a bucket on a string... but they are a little more high tech than that now a days! haha

• Devin and I have both taken on projects lately!  Devin got an old .22 rifle from his dad and decided to refinish it.  I should have taken a picture of it finished but it turned out great!  Unfortunately, it is such an old gun that it is hard to find parts for it so I doesn't work at the moment... but it looks pretty!

We got an old table from Devin's brother (not the cutest thing but it was free and we like free! ha) and it had some paint splatters and marks on it so we figured that if we sanded it and re stained it, it probably wouldn't look too bad! So I took on that project while Dev worked on his gun.

• As most people would assume, its super dry here in AZ!  They don't get very much rain at all but the last few weeks it has rained a couple times.  My brother and two sister in-laws decided to go jump on the trampoline in the rain because it was still hot outside so I joined them for a few minutes. :) 

• Our ONLY picture from the 4th of July!  I don't know what I was thinking :(  but at least we got this one!  This was after we finished running our 10k race that morning.  Devin got first place in his age group and third place overall for the men! Woohoo!

• My in-laws went to California last week so we took advantage of the empty house and camped out in their living room and watched movies on their big tv.  I love the saying "Marriage means getting to have a slumber party every night with your best friend!" because its so true!  Married life is the best :)

• We are both in the process of registering and getting ready for school.  It has been an ABSOLUTE nightmare trying to get transferred but hopefully it'll be figured out soon!  We are both ready to be back in school (suprisingly!)
• I have been eating really healthy and working out hard since we got married!  I set a goal on our honeymoon to loose 20 pounds by my birthday (beginning of October) and so far I've lost.... 11 pounds!!!  I have been sick twice since we got married (throw-up-all-night-long-sick) so that has helped in losing at little bit I think but I feel great and have really gotten into good eating and working out habits!  Thanks to my hubby for being my hard core personal trainer, I love you! :)
• We get our apartment in Mesa tomorrow!  Yay!  We are so excited to finally get a place that we can call our own (right now we are "renting" a house from some family friends and it is all furnished and decorated with their things so it doesn't at all feel like "our" place.  We are definitely grateful to be able to stay there but are ready for our own place.)  We won't move in until the beginning of August but we sign our lease tomorrow because that's the only unit they had available around this time.  Pictures to come soon :)

 

Honeymoon

Better late than never! I never put any of our honeymoon pictures up so here are a couple of my favorites!  We took a road trip to Oregon and took 4 days to drive there so we stopped each night and did fun things along the way :)

Just leaving home!

We stayed at the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas our first night of the trip!

We had a coupon in our room when we got there for 2 for 1 tickets to Cirque de Soleil so Devin called to see how much it would be.  One ticket was $100 for the absolute last row!!  No thanks!  ha

The view from our room

We went to this volcano fire show thing in front of one of the hotels on the strip and it was actually pretty cool!  We were standing at the closest point that you can stand at to watch and it was SO hot!  It almost hurt each time that the volcano erupted or the little torches in the water went off! 

Waiting for the tram to take us back to our hotel after walking the strip.  We were both so hot and sweaty and just feeling yucky because it was really hot outside and the strip is just kind of a yucky place ha. It was fun to experience it but its definitely not a destination that I would choose to go to for fun again!  We loved our hotel for that reason though because the Trump doesn't have a casino so it isn't smoky and loud and totally crazy like all the other hotels in Vegas.  It was nice! 

Day 2!  No idea where we were, somewhere between Vegas and Reno :)

Our second night we stayed at the Silver Legacy Hotel in Reno.  We told them we were honeymooning when we checked in and a little while later they brought us some sparkling cider and a card saying congratulations!  I even got Devin to drink some with me:) (For those that know him, he doesn't drink soda or sugary drinks. Ever!! ha)

The next morning, we went to the Reno Temple before getting back on the road.  It's such a pretty little temple and it was in a really great area of Reno that Devin and I both really liked!  We drove around a little bit and both agreed that we wouldn't mind living in that area if for some reason we ever ended up in Nevada!

Last picture in the hotel before hitting the road for day 3!  We really liked Reno.  It was a nicer, slower paced, cleaner version of Vegas haha. 

Haha, I love this picture!

One of the two times that I drove on the entire trip. ha 44 hours of driving and I think I probably drove for about 4 of them ;)  What a great husband I have to drive all that way!

Finally made it to Oregon!  This is in Grants Pass, one of Devin's favorite areas of his mission.  This is Sunshine Foods, a total hippy, organic restaurant/health food store, that Devin went to all the time.  They make really good food and smoothies!  And he calls ME the hippy! ;)    (We stayed in Medford, OR the third night and then drove to Florence the next day.)

We took Devin's parents to the tide pools up north of Florence one of the days that we were there.  The weather was SO great the whole time that we were in Oregon, it was wonderful!! 

All the good tide pools were on the other side of this little creek.  I really wanted to get over there so Devin tried to jump across and made it but then slipped and soaked his socks and shoes so since he was already wet he got back in and made me a bridge with this huge branch so I could get across.  What a guy :)

We walked along the beach every morning while we were there and found shells and rocks to bring back to Arizona with us!

This was the weirdest little thing!  Devin spotted this little crab while we were walking along.  The poor little thing was upside down and couldn't flip itself over so we flipped it over and all of a sudden it was gone in the sand!  Dev dug in with a shell and pulled him out and he burrowed himself in again each time that we pulled him out.  I had never seen a sand crab like that before.  Fun little discovery!

So beautiful!

Day 1 on the way home!  We stopped in Ashland, OR because Dev had gone there a couple times on his mission and always told me about the Lithia Water fountains there.  You may be able to read the photo but the Lithia water is mineral water that is supposed to be really good for you.  They have these water fountains right in the middle of downtown that are constantly running.  It is the worst tasting water that I've ever tasted though!!  It's really sulfur-y tasting.  But had to try it once!

Ok, LOOK at this picture!  It is not zoomed in or cropped or anything.  We were literally 3 inches away from this tiger!  There was a window on one side of the tigers habitat area with a ledge on the tigers side where he could stand or lay.  We were looking through the window at him and I had just got done telling Devin how I wanted the tiger to come up on the ledge because he would be super close to us.  Not more than two minutes later the tiger comes walking over and jumps up on the ledge right in front of us!  I probably sound like such a weirdo but I was so excited!  The glare made it so I couldn't take a very good picture but you can still tell how close he was.  SO cool! ha. For our whole trip, Devin and I really wanted to go to a zoo and we are such goof's because we were both really excited to go!  We tried to go to one on the way to Oregon but it didn't work out so we decided to stay in Sacramento on our way home and go to the Sacramento Zoo while we were there! 

How many people do you know that would choose to go to a zoo on their honeymoon?  Not many. haha!  We're two of a kind :)