Let the Wild Rumpus Begin

I started by writing out a long explanation of all of the crazy happenings in our lives right now. Then deleted it and realized I just can't right now... Until then, in short, I wish I was still here...

Love to all.

1 Year

There has been so much going on in our lives as of late. I promise I will catch up on all of that soon but I couldn't let today pass by with out a post. Today is our one year anniversary! 

One Year ago today I married the most wonderful man in the world. 

 He loves my family and treats them like his own. 

 He pushes me to be spontaneous and has a contagious happiness.

He lets me express my feelings and is honest when I'm being unreasonable. 

He is a hard worker. 

 He is the best friend I could ever ask for. 

At a wedding we were at this weekend (post to come) I was able to dwell on all the great moments of our wedding. A few highlights were:

I could literally just go on and on! 

One year ago today we committed to forever and I could not be more pleased with this decision. As I look back on this year I could not be more thankful for the many blessings we have had. I'm so thankful for the support we felt one year ago and for the adventures we have ahead. 

The Nest

This past weekend PJ and I headed off to big sur. Peej asked for an adventure for Christmas. I excepted the challenge but asked him if he wouldn't mind it taking place in June. What was his gift? A two night stay in the Human Nest at Treebones Resort. It was a ton of fun and came with complimentary breakfast. The rest of the resort is really all fancy pants yurts so it makes for a funny group of people. They did have the most amazing fancy restaurant at the lodge as well. We spent a lot of time relaxing, reading, swimming, and adventuring. Also on the top of our list of fun activities was taking pics in the nest. Here is a glimpse of our trip!

The Polls

After 6ish crazy months the campaign for county supervisor is over. Candace won by an amazing percentage and we are all so happy! We finished off the campaign with a party on Tuesday night were we stayed up way too late. Then Wednesday when it was all official we got to go to her new office! We are so excited for her to be starting this new adventure. I'm so proud of everything Peej did for his mom. He is such a wonderful and amazing man! Now we are off for a weekend adventure, hurray!

How to Get a Job

Step 1: Get interview and text your mom two outfit options frantically at the last minute 

 Decide on outfit number one.

Step 2: Start driving an hour before you are supposed to. Hit traffic and make it with 10 minutes to spare, but luckily they're 20 minutes behind.

Step 3: Get a second interview. Text mom and sister with three outfits. Talk to both of them on the phone about it.

Decide on outfit number 2.

Step 4: Destroy your house with papers making 'take-away packets' to prove awesomeness.

Step 5: Get in the car an hour later than you wanted too. Be completely panicked, but realize you have the best husband ever.

Step 6: Wait and wait and finally get the call that your in!

Step 7: Have your husband spoil you with all the little things you want from anthro!

That's right I got a job!!! I'll be working next year in the Los Altos School District in a third grade classroom. I am beyond excited. Now we just have 8 weeks to find a place to live and move. I also will have to stay at my parents a few nights a week right after we move because all of my summer work is in Danville. On to a new adventure we go!

Jaicy's Little Bundle on the Way

On Saturday we had a beautiful baby shower for Jaicy and her little baby girl belly. It was such a wonderful shower. Great food, great friends, and tons of beautiful gifts for the new mommy. 

Guests were greeted with these lovely favors. Since it was a nesting theme we decided eggs with irish moss would be more that perfect! 

The invitation was displayed with a real birds nest outside the door.

We Wanted the room to reflect Jaicy and look beautiful and ruffly. I mean it's a little girl on the way! 

There were so many yummy treats I must have ate a weeks worth of sugar over the few hours we were there. Mollie, Aubrey, My mom and I made some of the best treats and way way way too many of them! I guess we over estimated the intake of our crowd.

We had such a wonderful group of loving people and look at that stack of pink and purple gifts!

We all socialized and watched Jaicy open some of the cutest presents I have ever seen!

One of the definite highlights of the event was that I got to get together with all of these lovely ladies! It is so rare these days to have a bunch of us in the same place and it was so wonderful for us all to get to celebrate Jaicy's beautiful blessing!

Ps. If you are interested in some of the things created for this shower stay tuned to my other blog here.

Things that bug..

Many of you may not know that there are two types of car stickers that drive me insane. The first are those "Baby on Board" ones. To me they say "Hey, I see you are a reckless driver and I know that this will cause you to rethink that". Does that mean I should hit people who don't have baby's or if I loose control of my car I should direct it in some other way?

The other thing type that gets on my nerves are the ones with all of the children pictured, particularly when they have the names underneath. I have complained for years that its asking someone to kidnap your child. Apparently, I'm not the only person who thinks about that because my friend Katie DeFrisco (knowing my annoyance) told me their was a Dexter episode where the killer picked his target that way! Your kids name is just not something you should be blasting to the strangers of the world.

Anyways today when I got out of my car at target I looked to the car next to me and saw one of my worst fears realized.... the two stickers were combined! check it out I can't believe my eyes!

Ponderable

A couple weeks ago PJ and I headed down to SLO for the weekend. It was tons of fun and I loved catching up with so many dear friends! I truly miss them more than I can communicate it.

While we were there, some interesting topics came up in discussion that have been on my mind. One in particular was giving to the Homeless. You may be thinking "random court?" but there are a crazy amount of homeless people in SLO. They have really good services there and think they may actually attract more people there because of it.

So while we were getting sandwiches on Sunday my dear friend brought up her struggle with giving and wanting to be Christ like but not knowing what exactly she should do about it. She said she had come to the conclusion that she should at least treat everyone like a son or daughter of God in attitude by not shying away when she wasn't going to give. I agreed with her that yes we do need to be smiling and warm to the homeless but I had been reading with PJ in Mosaih in the Book of Mormon just a few months ago and this verse had literally been playing in my head.

Mosaih 4:16 "And also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish."

I don't know about you but I have made and heard so many excuses not to give. Number one on the list being "I would give them money but I know what they will spend it on and I don't want to support that" After thinking and praying about it I have felt a sense of guilt over this thought. No where in the Bible or the Book of Mormon does it say give only when you know their intentions or only things they can't turn into money for drugs.

Sure, if I can be prepared with granola bars or things like that they are great to give but if not I don't think I should turn away my "succor."If I am thinking about it in terms of Matthew who am I to look at his mote of affliction. I should be focused on my beam of being unwilling to share and forget the judgement in the rest.

I think that's my conclusion I need to be more giving and focus on that part of it. At least that's my resolution.

A Get Away

We are hitting the road this afternoon! I am so excited to be heading back to SLO I can hardly stand it. It is so beautiful and I am giddy at the thought of a weekend there!!! Can't wait to give ya'll a recap on our return.

Q&A

My beloved sister tagged me in a post over here  and it seemed like a perfect way to get back in the posting game over here. You see I have been spending a fair amount of time creating and blogging about it over here and kind of got off track posting about us.  So not only is this great to get me back to this blog but it also will get me in the mood for this journal I just bought.

It has a question for each day and a space for 5 years of recording. I'm so excited to see how my answers change and stay the same! Now for the 11 questions to get me prepared! 

1. Blogging.Why?

I started blogging as a way to keep a nice record of my/our life. I loved reading all of my friends blogs. I am notoriously bad at calling people but a blog is a sort of mass shout out of "hey we did this" and "how about you". More recently though it has been a way to track productivity. I'm not ashamed to say that I have been unreasonably bummed at times over my sporadic job situation this year. Starting the craft blog for me was a way to say hey Courtney your working on some skills this time isn't waisted. 

2.If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?

This one is a tough one... I dunno I try really hard to be comfortable and confident with who I am but I would like to be less concerned with small things. I have a tendency to worry too much about the little bumps that don't really matter in the grand scheme and i would like to get over that. 

3.Chocolate or Vanilla? Think about it.

If we are talking ice cream I am a vanilla but other than that I'm a Chocolate girl. I practically have the entire Sees stock memorized by appearance (and personally rated by awesomeness).

4. Your favorite movie genre?

I am a sucker for romantic comedies and musicals so this one is a bit tough. If pressed I would invent my own genre called romantic musicals! It would feature such movies as Enchanted, Hairspray, and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (A guilty pleasure of mine from my childhood).

5.What/Who inspires you?

The list is sooooo long. But I would have to say My mom. It may sound cheesy but she is a strong pillar in our family.  She was always so honest with us about everything. I never had to wonder or question about her reasoning. I knew when she gave me advice that she had the experience to back it up, even if she wasn't too proud of it.  She has always thought for her self and has gained one of the most beautiful and moving testimonies. I aspire to be like her in soooo many ways.

 6. The greatest lesson you have learned in the last year?

Never underestimate the trial of PATIENCE. It is easy to feel lost when all you are asked to do is wait. I need the faith to be able to withstand whatever time the Lord needs me too and understand it's not all on my perfect plan timeline. 

7.Gun to your head.Have you pick just one.favorite movie? Just one.

Easy! PRIDE AND PREJUDICE! and not the new one the old (I have it on 6 VHS tapes) one. It is magnificent. I never get tired of the story and interesting medley of characters. I watch it every time I'm sick, packing, sad, or really anytime Peej will tolerate!

8. Where do you see yourself if five years?

O goodness, considering #6 I've decided I really don't know anything. However, if i'm hoping ... I'll be 28 and Peej will be 31. I will have taught for 2 or 3 years and quit to have a baby. We may have another or one on the way. We will be living locally or in Peru or Spain. We will hopefully be looking into buying a house in the bay no matter where we are. 

9. Dream travel spot?

Right now I really want to explore more of Europe. We LOVED our trip there last summer and I am dying to go back and to new locations. I think Ireland is at the top of my list. I have always wanted to go and we hope to couple a trip their with one to Norway and Denmark some day as a mini heritage trip. We also have Madrid, Morocco, Portugal, Verona, Peru, and really anywhere else we can afford to!

One off the bucket list!

10. Random fact about yourself?

When PJ is out of town on Business trips I sleep with a Maglight next to me just incase I hear a scary noise or need to beat up an intruder. I know its weird and paranoid but it truly makes me feel safer and I know it could be an effective weapon because I saw it on an episode of murder she wrote :)

11.Favorite way to relax?

Well I wish I could end up on a beach somewhere every time I wanted to relax (one reason I really miss SLO). Most of the time though, my relaxation looks like me in PJ's sweats, watching a movie I've seem a million times, eating Dryers peanut butter cup chocolate ice cream. 

Team Haircuts

I realized a bit ago that I hadn't blogged since Halloween. There have been so many things I thought to blog but then took to long and realized they were out dated. This cycle happened again so today when a post popped into my head I knew I couldn't dilly dally. And now to the substance....

Today I went to the park with the kids I nanny once a week. Aubrey and Theo came to meet us and as we were sitting there talking and watching them play when we realized something about the group of kids. They had a team haircut! Like a jersey or a mascot a team haircut can help unify and identify a team. Some team haircuts are a sign of your generational identity, like the bowl cut of the 90's or this check out this one from the 80's :

 This blossoming generations team hair cut seems to be a shaggy blonde shoulder length do as you can see from the pic I snapped today!