Cali

I am notoriously terrible at keeping secrets.  Literally, if you don't someone to know something please don't tell me.  But I absolutely love giving people surprises I just ruin it myself.  I had planned a trip back in July for Evan.  Didn't really have a reason why to do a surprise, it was just because.  (Side note, I am literally OBSESSED with giving Evan surprises, I like seeing if I actually can surprise him.  Sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn't.  Refer to the beginning of this post).  So, to keep myself from telling Evan I would tell certain people.  About all of my friends knew, a good portion of Evan's friends, also my parents and his parents.  I figured if I told someone, I wouldn't ruin it.  Last Monday, Evan was having a terrible day.  I had been trying to figure out a way to tell him, whether it be the night before or over dinner and seeing him that day at lunch just broke my heart so I had hid them in my glove box and his face after seeing the Dodger tickets made my whole year.  That's the entire reason why I love giving gifts to people, especially when it's something that totally catches them off guard.  We headed to LA on Friday morning, and came back Sunday afternoon.  It really was a nice trip to just relax and eat crappy food, (not bad food, but bad for you food), see where Evan grew up, and of course go to Evan's favorite team in the whole wide world the Dodgers.  I love going on trips with Ev, it's always fun and we always come home more appreciative of where we live.  Ps, I could never live in California.  The pollution, traffic, prices, nope no thanks.  I like my cheap, clean air, awesome weather Utah.  Needless to say the Dodgers got killed, 19-3.  Set the record for the most runs ever scored at Dodger Stadium.  Hey, at least we were apart of history?  Also, I got KILLER tickets.  We were field level, so we could see the players and could almost catch the balls from the players when they would run into the dug out.  Really fun trip, with a really awesome amazing guy.  Much needed before the chaos of winter hits.

Had such great food the entire trip

View from the top of Dodger Stadium

Our seats!  They were so so good

Officially Moved

After 7 months, 5 extensions, and moving 4 times we officially are moved into our house.  We have managed to paint about 80% of our house in the last 3 weeks so we are off to a good start.  I have absolutely LOVED living in Heber.  Yes you read that correct.  Who would've thought right?  The dogs love having a huge yard, and our house is literally the same layout as the house I grew up in.  It's been really fun doing all these "busy" work projects and slowly but surely turning it into home.  Also, it's been wonderful having the inside track on everything.  Thank you Josue and Caitlyn!  Nothing but amazing recommendations from you two and nothing has disappointed that you told us to try.

Our driveway is super steep, so sorry this is the best picture I could get of the front without falling off the front.  The views from our deck are awesome, and every run I've been on I try to stop myself from taking pictures because it's something pretty everytime!

Yes those are hot air balloons with the mountains as a background.  Very hard to beat as a view.

This is the view literally out our front door.

Basically the most blurry picture I've ever taken, but this handsome guy did a tri two weekends ago.  He did awesome like always, I have way better pictures of the whole event that will need to be posted.  Yay Evan!

Thankful

I am so thankful for our friends.  We are always doing stuff with them, and it makes situations (such as our crappy home buying/selling) seem frivolous.   I especially love our REAL group.  Even when it's a late weekday game, and I have to be up at 5:30am.  Makes it all worth it.

The Group (*missing Jen and AJ*)

I'm MOST thankful for this wonderful guy

Last Week

It's the end of an era, we move this week.  Pretty crazy, we will actually have a yard, garage, and twice the square footage.  I literally CAN'T wait.  The whole buying/selling process has been beyond frustrating, anyone that knows us pretty well knows the whole background story of the mess we've been dealing with.  But, it has finally been straightened out and this is the magical week.  We were sitting around this weekend, and Evan was getting a bit stir crazy because he didn't have any home improvement projects to do.  Yes, you read that correctly.  We both are very type A personalities about doing projects and flipping something.  It might be our hidden calling.

In other news, I sprained my back last Monday so this whole week has been positively awful.  I missed about 3 days of work, between full and half days.  Needless to say, my work and co-workers have been wonderful and extremely understanding.  The joys of picking up heavy objects right?  I'm hoping it's back to normal for this week though since we are moving.  It's frustrating having a bad back since I'm only 27, and I don't have the luxury like my sister does of having a husband who is a sports medicine doctor on hand.  She gets regular adjustments the second something happens...SUPER JEALOUS.

Other then that, we had little Kiki for a couple of hours on Sunday.  Alta loves her.  Photo evidence

I did go to Vegas last weekend for a bachelorette party for my good friend Rachel, I didn't take hardly any pictures.  But here is one as proof I was there, Kiera you were missed!!!

On the go

We had quite the exciting weekend.  Never a dull moment at our house.  Shannon, one of my closest friends, decided to text spur of the moment and ask if we wanted to run a half marathon.  Of course, Evan said we should.  So a week and a half before the race, we decided to do a last minute training and go for it.  Shannon killed it, it was her very first half marathon and the course was a beast.  You basically run through a golf course, and it was EXTREMELY hilly.  And for 13 miles, to constantly go up hills was a huge bummer.  Let's just say records aren't made on this course.  And I still can't find my chip time anywhere on their site.  Still a great experience, Evan was his usual perky self and feeding me shock blocks.  At one point he yelled at me 10 mile jelly!  And the ladies behind us started laughing and saying they wished they had someone feeding them jellys at mile 10.  I have to say I am super lucky to have him go super slow with me, when I know he can fly through these things.

Shannon and I before the race started

After the race with Evan.  He is much happier then I was at that point :)

After the race we headed to lunch with my parents, then ran home, showered, and headed up to Snowbird for our work ski day.  It was such a pretty day up there, and totally worth going up.  Great snow, sunshine, and fantastic company.  We work with amazing people that are so fun to be around.

Slow motion trick, great picture. (Thanks Vanessa!)

This was probably two runs before his accident.  We all took a group picture, then took off one by one, with me bringing up the back.  And I saw Evan had double ejected out of his skis.  Normally this doesn't concern me, but since we were spring skiing he didn't have gloves on (none of us did), or a ski jacket, or helmet.  No one thinks twice about any of this, because it's spring skiing, so not exactly pushing yourself.  So when you fall, you are at the mercy of the snow.  Evan popped up and was shaking his hands a bit, got back in his skis and kept on skiing.  I didn't think anything of it.  We stopped before the last run and his face was pretty white and he was complaining about his arm hurting.  So he lifted up his sweatshirt to find this disgusting gash in his arm. At that point, he went completely white and said he wasn't feeling too great.  We skied down, and I high tailed our skis back to the truck, got him in the car and off to instacare we went.  He was not feeling good, and I felt so terrible for him.  We got to instacare, and the Dr. told him the gash was really deep.  We still have no clue what hit him, pole or ski, but it did quite the number on him.  He had to get 3 stitches deep inside his arm, then 4 or 5 on the outside.  On top of it all, he tore some ligaments in his hand so had to get a brace. Overall, he wasn't feeling too great when we left.

Right when we got there, so sad

This was the gash in his arm

And the brace he has to wear for the torn ligaments

And his favorite thing in the whole world, calf compression sleeves

Overall, we did have a good day minus Evan getting pretty hurt.  He has some huge bruises down his legs too and some what looks like road rash on his side.  He got pretty beat up.  But true to Evan form was still happy and not grumpy the whole day and we still did go to the REAL game.  I'm just thankful that he wasn't seriously injured, ski accidents can get pretty scary.  Hope everyone else had a great weekend!

Before/After

Well, we have officially sold our townhome.  It's actually extremely exciting since we were only on the market for 10 days.  I was looking at the before and after pictures last night, and I feel like hardly anything looks the same.  See for yourself!  Keep in mind, the afters were taken by a professional photographer, but hey they look a ton better that way!

As a side note....these before pictures were taken literally after we moved in.  Hence, no blinds and no furniture.  It may or may not have been that way for about 3 weeks, but isn't that the fun of being newly married and moving into a new place?  We've come a long way needless to say.

Family Room Before

Family Room Before



Family Room After

Family Room After

Master Bedroom Before

Master Bedroom Before

Master Bedroom After

This is the guest room, we didn't have a before of it.

Second bathroom before

Second bathroom after 

Master bathroom before

Master bathroom before

Master bath after

Dining Area before

Dining Area after

Kitchen before

Kitchen before

Kitchen after

Kitchen after

A special thanks to both of our parents, for all the jobs we suckered them into doing with us.  Also to Evan, he has learned so quickly how to do basically everything and it's been incredible.  Couldn't have done all of this without them.

Moving

We are officially moving.  It's been a long process, and our townhome still isn't sold quite yet but I feel positive about the whole ordeal.  We have bought a house in Heber, which means our commute will be cute in half.  Actually more then half, it will take us 13 minutes to get to work rather then 40.  It's been a huge debate for us to move that far away from family and friends, but at the end of the day we are only a 45 minute drive away.  Not too terrible.

Evan has been nothing short of incredible through all of this.  We have had non-stop home improvement projects, which both of us are up until midnight most nights just cleaning, painting, and adding finishing touches so our place will appear perfect to whichever potential buyer might want it.  It's been incredibly stressful.  Did I mention it's stressful?  I think I either have ulcers, or will develop hair loss soon.  Not to mention I have acne of a 14 year old again.  Overall, I think I'm stressed to the max.  On top of it all, we live next door to some interesting people.  We have an HOA, you wouldn't know it though.  I have called probably 20 times to inform them there is garbage (empty dresser, couch, clothing, lamps, etc) in their car port.  According to the HOA, this isn't allowed.  Yet, it has been there since the day these people moved in (that was in August).  Needless to say, I haven't been happy with the amount of help the HOA has done, or continues to do.  We pay $210 dollars a month to something, that literally in a nut shell, does nothing.  It's an incredibly frustrating situation.  Since we weren't getting ANY help from the HOA, Evan decided to walk over and talk to the neighbors about their garbage.  After 5 minutes of being over there, I watch him walk out to their car port and start throwing THEIR garbage away.  Did I mention I married an amazing man?  Not only did he talk to them, instead of waiting for them to fix it, he just fixed it himself.  He didn't complain, or throw a fit like I probably would have.  He just calmly moved all of their garbage, and handled the situation.  There are so many instances of Evan being so amazing like this, but this was the cherry on my sundae.  This has been a constant issue of frustration for us, and I am beyond frustrated with our HOA at the moment that this was never handled.  We have had 3 showings in the last 24 hours, and that's only with 3 pictures listed on the MLS.  So hopefully after the photographer comes in today, that means more showings.  And now the showings won't have this overshadowing issue of garbage from our neighbors.  I will be posting before and after pictures of our townhouse, because I honestly think it's night and day how it look from when we moved in until now.  Here's to hoping we sell it!

Winter

With the winter wrapping up, I figured I would show some pictures from our latest excursion.  It's been a FANTASTIC winter.  Not as good as 10-11, but I can't really complain with the powder mornings we have had so far.

Evan loves tuning his skis, seriously he does

Evan has started touring, is it dangerous?  Of course so, am I happy?  Of course not.  BUT, he has bought everything to keep him safe.  There are some things that I give up playing the devils advocate.  So if anyone wants to take over and text Evan the dangers of back country skiing, I will owe you big time.

All in all, we've had a great winter.  Plus it's been wonderful having him home for the whole season too.  Which means I actually went skiing a lot.  With spring literally happening this week, it will be a fun packed summer as well!

Valentines

The hubs scored again with Valentines day.  He never ceases to amaze me on these days.  We aren't a real romantic couple, yes sure, we can act cheesy and be over the top.  But for the most part "big days" like today, where every woman in America posts what she got from her significant other on Facebook, we are more laid back.  Last Valentines day was our ideal day, alot of junk food.  And this Valentines day has already been stellar.

Please excuse the mess that is my desk.  But I found this special little present on my desk this morning when I got here.  It followed with a special home date of Sonic coney dogs and onion rings.

I honestly feel like on Valentines day, we need to appreciate our other half.  You have chosen each other because they fill a void, or complete you.  Evan and I have many examples of how we even each other out.

1- We are having to completely overhaul our home, that means painting every inch of wall and doing every project you try to put off as long as you can just because it isn't fun.  I...freak out.  Evan, just gets to it and tells me to do one thing at a time.  I'm a list person, I need a list and then prioritize what I think needs to get done etc.  Evan is more of a bigger picture person.  This is how we even each other out, sometimes the lists don't work for him, but he sees the end result which sometimes I can't see.

2- I have quick reactions, emotions, etc.  Numerous people have asked if it is hard to work together.  If anything it has made us stronger.  He knows when I'm having a moment, or when I've just been chewed a new one by a complete stranger over the phone.  He is the voice of reason in those situations and helps me realize not to take it personally, that the person was just frustrated and not dwell on it.  On the other hand, Evan isn't vocal.  So sometimes, I think, it's nice for me to be quiet so he can unload after a long day.  Plus we have quite the commute home so we can unwind.

3- I'm completely OCD with cleaning.  I get in some weird trends of certain things that need to be cleaned constantly.  Which in turn means other things might be neglected.  Such as laundry.  I do laundry, don't get me wrong.  But if I'm going on one of my kicks, Evan will just quietly grab some laundry and throw it in.  Helping me out alot.

I know these were just quick examples, but I think on Valentines we need to appreciate the one we're with rather then getting mad you didn't get the gift you wanted.  I think Valentines is a special day to do what both people want to do, and what makes you the happiest.

New Years

Needless to say 2012 was quite the eventful month for us.

January through April- Evan traveled about 3 weeks of every month while I figured out being a single person again.

April- We owed the IRS money

May- Celebrated my birthday, had a surprise at the Grand America for the night

June- Ragnar, broke my foot

July- Attended numerous RSL games with our season tickets

August- Had weddings to attend and Lake Powell.  Hike Mt. Timp

September- Headed to Mexico

October- Celebrated the big 27 for Evan's birthday

November- Evan started traveling for literally the whole month

I ran Vegas Ragnar

Went to Oregon for Thanksgiving with my family

December- RAMP exploded in sales and production

Christmas and New Years

On paper, it doesn't look that busy.  But I swear every weekend we were out doing something.  2012 treated us very well.  We learned to save and pay off debt.  I can finally say we are down to one car loan and that is all the debt we owe (well besides our house).  But being 26 and only having one car loan, and no credit cards I'm pretty proud of ourselves.  We are looking forward to this year of being able to move into a single family home, not being attached to neighbors, and having a yard and garage. It even sounds dreamy.  I haven't had a garage ever since I started driving.  I'm not familiar with the feeling of getting up into a WARM car.  I think the day that happens I might cry tears of happiness.  RAMP everyday is getting bigger and bigger.  Since I handle all the customer service I talk to people constantly about ordering our skis and having them stocked in various businesses.  It's a very exciting time to be in a start up watching your hard work pay off.  Also having such an incredible boss.  Working here is like a little family, we all support each other and it's so nice to have such an amazing boss like Mike.  He said he was paying for our anniversary dinner as a gift.  Now who can say their boss does that for them?!?!?!  Like I said our boss is hands down AMAZING.

With the New Year, I do like to set resolutions.  Unfortunately I'm TERRIBLE at keeping them.  As Evan put it I go in phases of things I'm passionate about.  It's never new things, they just go in phases.  Like running, I haven't been in a month and a half (Kerry I'm slacking), and that's nuts!  Just seeing that written down has floored me.  So I do need to keep up on that.  I was going to try to eat less meat.  We unfortunately watched a documentary on being vegan, and the way they treat animals in slaughter houses just breaks my heart.  Evan and I are those people trying to pick up the stray animals (we literally did do this, after a movie we were running around after this little kitty that was so little and cold, but after half an hour we did give up.  It clearly didn't want to be caught).  I hate seeing bad treatment of animals.  So knowing the food I'm eating this is how the animals are being treated just digusts me.  Maybe I'll be vegetarian or maybe I will opt for organic/kosher meat the environments and treatment are better on those.  It is a huge issue for me, and eating too much meat honestly isn't good for you.  There is a reason the US is the most unhealthy.  Also exercising our dogs more.  They are kept inside all day, which I think they prefer, but Torre is an Australian Shepherd and they are the most active dogs out there.  That is high on my list of resolutions as well.  Overall I think resolutions are hard to keep, because it is a lifestyle change.  But hopefully these stick!

3 Years

Three years ago today, Rachel and I got married in a beautiful Italian restaurant called Tuscany. To say it was a perfect day would be an understatement. The venue was beautiful. The bride was beautiful and the food was incredible. The groom wasn't too bad looking either. This won't be a typical anniversary post to gain points in the bedroom later. It's a true explanation of how Rachel has changed my life from the day we met to three years after we said "I do". Before Rachel and I met I was going to school at the University of Utah. All I was doing was showing up to each class and waiting to cross it off the list of ones I HAD to take. I had no direction and wasn't even sure my major was what I wanted. School was just a habit at this point so I kept going. I worked at TKJ in a job I loved because I was helping others. I could also drink every night, and I had mornings off to ski every morning. It was the best job for me at the time because it gave me the ability to do whatever I wanted and enjoy life. After Rachel and I met I instantly began to figure things out. I found interest in social work and started to actually enjoy some of the classes I was taking. I wanted to learn more, and the more I learned the more curious I got. I applied for a job with Valley Mental Health and loved working at CORE. I felt like I directly impacted people's lives and pulled people out of some of the darkest times in their life. After a few years I started to get a little worn out. I was around sadness 4 days a week and the 5 day something great would happen that would make me enjoy my job again. Rachel noticed what I was going through and told me I had to find something that made me happy. Something that I could bloom in and experience a career rather then just a job. That's when we took a gamble with Ramp. I now do something I love and look forward to on Monday morning. Rachel and I have traveled to some of the most amazing places in the world and finally feel like I have found things I want to do for the rest of my life. Like I said before, to say Rachel has changed my life would be an understatement. Anyone can see that Rachel will dedicate herself to something and wont stop until she knows she has excelled or improved. Watching her at work I have now seen how she does it. She will see a problem and find a way to fix it optimize it and have it continue to run at peak performance. Just like She did with me when we first met. Now I understand I was just another project in her life.

Evan