Friday, December 30, 2011

Sad to Say Good-Bye

2011 was probably the most stressful, life changing- yet amazing year of my life.
This year I don't think there was an aspect of my life that went unchanged, and it all happened in the last 6 months of it. I have hit my emotional highest and lowest- never felt so loved, and at the same time never felt so alone.
So here is the events of my life 2011- I'll try and do this in order, but my memories come as they will so probably won't be.


  1. Gavin and I moved into our 1st house (its a rental) but still it is just the two of us and we love it! We went out on a limb and moved to SLC even without jobs there. We have made it work and love where we are!

  2. Yurika came to visit for our wedding! She is the best!

  3. I graduated college! YAY!! and in the same week ...

  4. WE GOT MARRIED! Best day of my life! We were so blessed to have so many family and friends there to support us, I would have never imagined our day would turn out so perfect! Our friends and family that helped with the wedding are all so amazing, and everyone that came will always have a special place in our hearts!

  5. Julious moved to Texas... :( sad day

  6. My Grandma had her heart valve replaced, very scary and stressful. But, she has recovered so well!! I can't believe how strong she is.

  7. Family Drama!!! Why can't people just get along???.. and thats all i care to say about that

  8. Went from one brother and one sister-inlaw to 23 TOTAL SIBLILINGS!!

  9. Also I am now the proud Aunt of 30+ nieces and nephews... if someone knows the exact number please share in the comment section below.

  10. Two of my bestest friends had the cutest babies! Ella-Ray(Ashley's) and Jaxson(Bryton's)!! I Love them tons!

  11. Was offered my first real "Big Girl" full time job! Which by the way I took :P. I am working at Trolley Square for Unico as the Tenant Services Coordinator!

  12. We puppy-sat my brothers dog Cashis aka Darby for a few months. I feel in love with the dog and he also became Bugsly (our dogs) best friend! Shortly after his return home he ran away :( but was found a week later! Lucky us!

  13. Gavin and I felt that after Darby left, our home was not complete, there was something missing... so, we bought a new puppy! Her name is Daisy and she is a beautiful Sheltie puppy!

  14. Puppies are alot of work p.s. we will not be having kids anytime soon! Our dogs are our kids! :)

  15. We just had our 1st Christmas together as our cute little family that we are!

2011 was a year of change, growing and learning for me. It gave me a lot of challenges, but also made me a much stronger person! I am sad to see it leave, because I can't imagine a year getting any better than this! Thats my challenge to 2012; give me more than you think I can handle. It will only make me stronger.

Monday, December 26, 2011

Locked out..

Today started out so wonderful.I slept in and woke up to sweet puppy kisses from miss daisy! I then played with the dogs fed them and put them outside to potty.
At this point I realized I was hungry, but there was no food in the house (none that sounded good at least), so I grabbed the "car keys"and headed out for some fast food, because really the problem was I felt too lazy to cook.
When I returned home I reached for my house keys only to realize I never grabbed them in the first place. Hmmm
So now here I sit in my car blogging about my morning stupitity, while waiting for Gavin and Ray to come save me from Ogden (an hr drive away!)....
I have learned a valuable lesson though.. Making breakfast would have been much faster!! Someone remind me of this next time..
I'm still optimistic for the day, how can a holiday paid day off ever be bad?
I have nothing more to post about this lovely situation, but because of my current lack of anything better to do, I will keep on posting my thoughts. Starting with posting via swype text is hella hard! Every two seconds I have to change what the lovely technology of predict text thought I should have said. I don't recommend blogging this way, this takes forever, but I am just trying to make the time pass.
Gavin and Ray are so nice to take the time from their work day to come save me! If you don't know who Ray
is, well he is gavs boss, and one of the nicest men ever!
They just arrived, so in the house I go!

Friday, December 23, 2011

CRAZINESS

This week has been none stop! between shopping,job 1 holiday activities, job 2, puppy sitting.. o and lets not forget training a new puppy.. I have had absolutely no time to do anything. I was up at the store shopping at 6:30 this morning to get last min things for Gavin finished before work. Still didn't find everything i needed. Luckily my Mom is awesome and came to my work, where I then gave her my list of things along with my card for shopping and off she went to finish my list of to dos... She is the best! But with all that said after 5pm tonight I start my 3 day weekend and I am looking forward to all the fun family time, but even more importantly(at least to me in this moment) I'm looking sleeping in until I wake up tomorrow so I can have lots of energy to enjoy holiday traditions with both Gavin's and my family! Also, so much needed puppy love time. I feel bad for my kids, they have not been receiving the attention they deserve this week and I plan to make up every sec of that!
So, this is the schedule of events for our 1st Christmas as a Married Couple! :)
Friday, Temple Lights with Gavin's awesome brother Cameron and Family!(Brenda, Dbl-Z, and Ninjamen) I will then finish the evening by wrapping all the fun gift to be given this weekend from us!
Sat, Sleep in as long as I possibly can. Do not try and call me.. I won't answer! :P Followed by taking all the dogs (Busgly & Daisy (ours) Rado & Tripod (Melody's)) to the dog park which I'm sure will just be one BIG adventure trying to watch all the dogs, but still fun!) That evening we will start by driving to Gavin's parents for traditions, dinner and gift. Afterwards we will head over to my Grandmas for x-mas gifts and fun! Finally, I will put Gavin to bed and wait for Santa to arrive at our house!
Sun, Wake up to gifts from Santa! :) My family will then join us at our house for a nice small Christmas Breakfast!. Afternoon will be spent with family enjoy company and playing games. We will end the night at my Grandmas for a wonderful Christmas dinner!!!

I love our families, they are the best. The variety of people is so fun and amazing!

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

New Job, Old Me

So, I got a new job!! I'm the tenant services coordinator for trolley square, although I technically work for UNICO a property management company! Yay! And, with the new job I finally started feeling like myself again. I am up and going by 6:30 and don't stop till i crawl back into bed at night. AND I FEEL GREAT! No more couch potatoe for me! I'm also starting my new work out program tonight!! It feels great to be out of the house and living life again. :D

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Post Wedding Blues

No one tells you when you get married that you can become depressed afterwards. Feelings of emptiness of whats left to do? Where do I go from here, what are my goals and what direction should I take my life now. I didn't say anything about these feelings until recently when I happened to bring it up with a stranger who was also recently married, guess what she feels the same way. So I thought I would ask another person, and same thing. I believe it is caused by the relief of stress. For so long my life has been crazy busy. School, work, cheer and planning a wedding. Plus not to mention all the unexpected little things that happen on a day to day base. But now, I'm graduated married and only working part time, and I have no idea what to do or even worry about!!! At first I thought o I'll give myself a week and things will calm down and I'll be back to my normal full pace at all times self. But it has been over a month and I'm still not there...I keep waiting to wake up and feel like myself again and it's just not happening. I am so happy to be married and so in love with Gavin, I think I just need to find a new goal to motivate myself again and I know once I find it there is no stopping me! :D

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Married, Graduated... now what?







We are finally married!! and so happy and in love!!!!

The last month of my life has been a roller coaster. Days before our wedding my Grandma was put in the hospital with heart problems, can you say bad timing? But, my Grandma means the world to me and her health is my 1st priority right now. So the Dr scheduled her surgery ( a heart valve replacement) for 2 weeks after the wedding. She was released on Friday night and made it to my wedding on Saturday. I was so happy, it just wouldn't have been the same without her there.
It was also finals week for the summer semester and not that I wasn't stressed enough with wedding and Grandma, but I finished my classes and became a college graduate and a married women in the same week!!
The wedding was everything I could have ever wanted and more. We stunted we danced we played and most of all we were in love (and still are). Gavin is such an amazing person. He has the most gentle and calm personality of anyone I have ever met. I have only heard him raise his voice once in the 6 years I've known him. It was in traffic and he missed his exit 3 times and ended up 30min away from where we needed to be. I think anyone would have freaked a little at this point lol.
So back to my grandma. She had her surgery last Tuesday morning and was released to go home today. I am so happy she is doing so well for her circumstances. She has a long recovery process ahead of her, but she is so independent and driven I don't see her struggling at all. That is as long as people let her rest, and not give her unnecessary things to stress over!
Now, I'm in a bla funk stage of life, and I am not totally sure what I am going to do next. Once everything settles down a little bit more and I focus on myself better I'll figure out my next great adventure!!

Friday, June 10, 2011

THE BIG MOVE!

So, Gavin and I have been debating over the past couple weeks if we should stay in Ogden or move to Salt Lake. Both options have pros and cons, but after really thinking about it the only reason for staying in Ogden was because we both work here. Now, I know that's a pretty big reason but after i finish my summer internship I will start applying for jobs in my field and there are a lot more opportunity for jobs in SLC than Ogden! I put my notice in at The Pie yesterday, and my good friend Tyrel helped me get a job at Ruby River one block from our house in SLC so that will work out great. i'll start applying for jobs in my field in August, but as optimistic as I am, I also must be realistic and know that landing my dream job will probably not happen over night, and I'm happy to just have a job! Gavin will continue working in Ogden with Ray, and coaching at night. To save on gas and wear on the car we are going to leave one car in Ogden and he will take the Front-runner up for work.
As, you can probably tell this is not our ideal situation, but no one started out having everything the way they want, and we are willing to work to get there and enjoy the journey. We are really excited to start our lives together, even though we have been living together for a year it'll be a new experience to be together with no roommates (for the exception of Julious who will be living with us until he leaves for Texas in August)
Now for the PROS!! Living in SLC we will be so much closer to both of our families! We are really excited about this because we both feel that we don't spend enough time with both sides of the family and are really looking forward to being closer to them. The house we are renting is on the corner of 600 S & 700E. Right next to Trolley Square, we actually are renting the house from Trolley Square! The location is great, far enough from down town but still within walking distance to everything we need! I'm super excited to live right next to Whole Foods Market! I love that store! Also, I can walk to work! And, we are so close to some great night life including Wise Guys, Gavin and I love wiseguys!
Wedding details are coming along, working on finishing up the invitations. We had our first consultation with our DJ and she is so much fun, and I am super excited for her at the wedding I know all of you are going to love her too! We picked our wedding cake and received our wedding topper in the mail.. if you are planning a wedding check out weddingstar.com, they have some awesome stuff! We had our engagement pictures taken o and we also ordered our bar napkins, i still need to pick our cute ones for the cake though. The center pieces have been picked out, along with the suits and bridesmaids shoes. Lastly, MY DRESS IS DONE! ALL THE ALTERATIONS TURNED OUT BEAUTIFUL! Fantasy Bridal did amazing work and provided me with everything I needed including wonderful customer service! So, next is taking my bridals! Yay!...
As you might can tell we are going through a lot of changes in our lives and it's very stressful but we are enjoying it all the same! Until next time
Smiles, Mandy :D

Monday, March 21, 2011

Needed Update!

Well, wedding plans are coming along rather smoothly. Largely because of my Wonderful Mom and Aunt Linda!! They are crazy ladies and run me around from store to store, but i love them for it. A couple of weeks ago one of my bridesmaids (April) met up with my in SLC to go bridesmaids dress shopping and i'm supper excited for the dress we found.

I'd like to see you find a dress that fits a yellow and white daisy themed wedding!! lol.. but we had a great day. We also went out to camp williams and checked out the venue, we also practiced getting married, because hey i'm new at this!

My awesome cousin Jeniffer designed my save the dates, so we will be finishing those and getting them in the mail soon(ish) :D

In other news, we leave for cheer nationals two from tomorrow!! Crazy.. this semester has just flown by. But i'm excited to spend a week on a beach, and i'm super excited to compete, because hey Weber Cheer is AWESOME!

P.S
Gavin and I have been dating for 3 years and 3 months, and tomorrow is our 1yr engagement anniversary..lol

Sunday, January 9, 2011

DJ!!

So, my family and I went to the bridal fair yesterday at the Salt Palace. It was a great day, (cake tasting was AMAZING) I wasn't planning on booking anything or making any final decisions without talking to Gavin though. ( he is in Vegas working so he could not come with me to the fair) Then I came across the Laughing Gravy DJ service booth i feel in love with this girl Vanessa whom was explaining to me their services. She was so bubbling and full of life and personality. She gave me the run down and I moved on to the next booth. But I kept thinking about her, so I had to go back because I needed her to DJ my wedding. The Laughing Gravy services are awesome, but Vanessa more than anything else sold me on it. So I paid the deposit and requested her for my wedding and its now set. She even said she would wear a cheer uniform to my wedding if i wanted her to. I doubt i'll have her do that, but its great that she would. I'm really excited to have her emcee our special day, i can't imagine anyone else now that i have met her. Sounds like I should just marry her while i'm at it. Lol.. but seriously I am very happy with my choice and Gavin was way cool that i went ahead and did that, so YAY!!

Also, my friend Justin from work offered to do a stand up comedy set for 5-10min at the wedding :D that will also be a lot of fun :D... Things are really starting to come together for our wedding and i couldn't be happier about it....

I probably need to start gathering peoples addresses for invitations soon, any suggestions for a fast effective way to gather this, without leaving anyone out? Also, any song requests or song you really don't want to hear at the wedding?