Temple Open House...

We had the opportunity to go the Brigham City Temple open house with the young men and women in our ward.  It was pretty cool to walk through it and see everything, even if we have already been in several temples.  It's very exciting to have a temple opening close by, I just wish the Ogden temple would hurry up!  I think it was cool for the youth to be able to see it as well, they were quite impressed by all the decor and everything past the baptism room that they don't get to see.

Happy Side Note:  We had just gotten to the temple grounds and someone tapped me on the shoulder...it was my best friend Stacie and her family.  It was fun running into them, especially when she lives in Missouri and had gotten to town a few days earlier.  Love that girl!

Girl Time...

I had the chance to see some of my favorite people today.  Briele came and hung out with me in the morning while her mom & dad were busy.  She came straight into the house, marched into the sunroom, handed me the TV remote, cuddled up with her sippy and the giant bear, whom she loves, and said "mouse".  This girl knows exactly what she wants!  Her little morning ritual includes Mickey Mouse and that is what she got! She was playing on the giant bear and collided with my coffee table and got what I believe to be her first fat lip. Yeah, I feel like a jerk.  It was funny to watch her reaction though.  She hit the table, looked at me, the bear and then table and had this expression of "What the heck just happened?" and then she went right back to playing.  She sucked down an otter-pop which helped with the swelling but I still feel like a shmuck!

That night we went to Steve & Jodi's house where we had some delicious french dip subs, the boys headed off golfing and us girls+Tanner went to the splash pad.  We then played and played and played til they were all exhausted!  The picture of me and the girls on the couch is the only time in 4+hours that they all stopped moving for 30 seconds!  I love to sit and snuggle Tanner, he is so content with being held and rocked!  He is so tiny...like I worry I will break him tiny!  It's kinda surreal to think that we will have a new baby, who we are certain will never be THAT tiny, coming soon.  Makes us real nervous yet excited!

Madison was cracking me up, she came sat by me on the couch, crossed her legs, folded her arms and got cozy to enjoy a conversation.  She turned to me and said "So...are your nervous?"  I asked her what I was supposed to be nervous for and she responded "for a new baby, are you ready?".  Haha!  You can tell she heard her mom be asked that question several times in recent months!  She is getting so grown up!  Then she proceeded to tell me that we picked a good name, very cute, and discussed what things needed to be bought for the new baby!  Oh I love these girls, they are so fun!

The boys had a great time golfing, although they reported, "We aren't very good but oh well!'

Kiosk Time...

We had another fun night working at the Newgate Mall installing a newly re-furbished kiosk that Raymond has put lots of time and effort into.  The men, who all look surprisingly busy, got it all set up.  Although I don't have any pictures of the completed kiosk, it looks great.  They did such a good job! It was a long night but I know they are all very happy it is in and done with!

My New Job...

I started a new job at Davis Hospital Behavioral Health Unit. I never, ever, imagined I would work on Psych.

My first week was pretty rough for several reasons...

1. I haven't worked graveyards in over 3 years and really love my sleep.  I am a crappy sleeper at night and turns out I am even worse at sleeping during the day which equals no sleep most of the time.
2. I worked 4-13 hours shifts in one week after not working for nearly 4 months.  I handled quite well, Raymond was surprised, but migraines that have progressively gotten worse with this pregnancy got really bad this week.
3. Every night I was there we had to call security at least once to help restrain a patient that was being abusive to themselves, staff and/or property so that we could give them an injection of "calm the hell down!"
4. Crazy people are just fine.  I don't however like Mean Crazy people.  They make me insanely tense and uneasy.
5. The unit has not used the seclusion room or restraints as much in the last year as they did my first week at work. Yay, go me. They keep telling me it isn't usually like that but we shall see.

On the plus side...

1. I have a job.  A much needed job, you know with a baby coming, bills to pay, house to remodel, food to buy.  I needed a job.
2. I am eligible for insurance!  Hallelujah! Our price for medical & dental insurance for our family will be less than we currently pay for just me to have so-so medical insurance. So happy about this and the main reason I took this job.
3. I seem to interact well with the patients.  I learned that not everyone there is...appropriate for the environment and end up making the already irritable and labile patients more irritable.  I had a patient that did great with me and another nurse would not leave them alone and thus we ended up calling security for assistance to restrain the patient while we could medicate him.  Truth be told, I would have rather medicated the nurse.

My plus side list is smaller but the perks of the job (insurance and money) really are all that I am currently needing but I would like to have a job that I like again but I will keep giving it a try. I like being a nice nurse that really cares about my patients condition and progress but everyone else that works there is ornery and mean and don't like "nice nurses".  I won't let them change me into a mean nurse but it's not the best environment to work in.  Oh well, so goes the grown up life.

Date Night...

Life is busy.  So sometimes you have to improvise.  We were in desperate need of some 1:1 time. The following was what we got.

What you don't notice is that we are sitting on a roof at 9:30 pm eating sticky fingers that I had just picked up from our favorite, Winger's.  We got about 7 minutes of sitting together while we ate. Then we were back to roofing.  Not ideal, but hey that is better than what we had for several days-weeks prior to this.  I am so glad Raymond's parents roof is done.  Raymond and his brother Jim did it pretty much by themselves in 2 weeks, working only after work hours.  Celeste and I were the helpers, which with me nearly 6 months pregnant was not the ideal choice but we worked with what we had.

The first picture was blurry and he was too hungry and short on time to stop eating for a second picture...funny man!

Bowling...

Lexi arranged a bowling date...Our phone call went like the following....

Me: Hello

Lexi: Hi, How are you?

Me: Good, how are you?

Lexi: Good, I was just wondering if you would like to go bowling with me and dad tonight?

Me: That sounds fun, what time?

Lexi: (Can hear her asking her dad) Oh just whenever, so what do you think?

Me: I would love to! Just let me know what time, ok?

Lexi: Ok, talk to you later!

Haha! I love talking to her on the phone!  She emphasizes each of her words so much you can just see her chewing on them as they come out!  Oh I love it!

We had a blast bowling! It was Briele's first time and she thought it was hilarious!  She would wave "bye" to the ball as it went and occasionally blew it kisses! Lexi is a seasoned bowler and has quite the routine of knock of the ball, hug the ball, rub the ball, then push the ball!  She is a nut to watch!

The best part of the night was when the lights turned down, the music was cranked and the disco lights started going!  Lexi and Briele were in dance heaven!  They rocked it out hardcore!  They even got all of us up dancing!  It was so fun!  Love my family!

Happy Anniversary...

We have been married for 6 years!! Crazy how fast time goes!! We have been so crazy busy that a get-away sounded heavenly but was in no way an option because there was no time for it!  So instead we kept it pretty low-key!  We had a wedding cake that we delivered to Snowbasin resort on Saturday morning...I love how it turned out!  Usually we don't arrange the flowers on it but we were quite surprised at how easy it was and I was so happy to see the end result!  Raymond is quite the floral arranger!  So our anniversary started off with surprise treats for Raymond, then a romantic gondola ride for 2! We had delicious Iggy's for lunch, we love this place yet hardly ever go!  You get really good service when your the first ones through the door for the day!  Then we went home and took a 4 hour nap...yes, 4 hours!  Oh I think we both agree it was a highlight of the day! We wandered around the Weber County fair for a little bit and shared a delicious piece of grilled corn on the cob, some funnel fries dipped in a scoop of ice cream and grabbed some candied almonds for later!  We enjoyed Timbermine for dinner which was AMAZING!  It was only our 2nd time there and oh it was superb!  Raymond was in serious heaven with his steak!!  We grabbed a couple movies and headed home to snuggle it up!  We made the bottom cake in between movies and proved to ourselves we ARE NOT kids anymore!  We were up til 3 am and were dead the following morning!

Our anniversary was chill, we slept and ate, but I loved it! It had been way too many days since Raymond and I got to enjoy a dinner together, spent more time than it takes to drive to Brigham together,  and basically had the time to talk!  Life has been so crazy that the best gift was just being together!  I love this man of mine so much, I can't believe how much more I love him today than 6 years ago!  I thought our love could never be greater than the day we wed but oh how young and naive I was! He is such a great man and I am so lucky he has chosen to stay by me through all the thick and thin!

We attended my Grandma Stapel's surprise birthday party on Sunday which included attending sacrement with her and dinner/dessert afterwards!  All 11 of my aunts & uncles were in attendance and a good majority of the grandkids so it was really fun!  Our midnight cake turned out pretty good (we really liked the ribbons so we figured we would make a repeat just on a smaller scale)! It was a good weekend and we are sad to return to our busy life but so be it!

Splash Pad...

My mom, Jess, Briele and I went on a fun picnic to the Harrisville Park & Splash Pad!  It was nice to get out for a minute and enjoy the good company!  This little gal thought she was in buffet heaven and would  keep asking for everyone to pass her a bite of their food followed by the sweetest little "thank you"!  She was a little apprehensive about the splash pad because it was pretty big fountains and such but she still had a blast! She was walking across the grass back to our blanket and she squatted down, pee'd and then just kept on going!  It was hilarious! I just can't get enough of my nieces, they rock my world!

Our Big News...Announced...

 

This is how we announced our exciting news to various people...kind of fun I thought!