.. meet the graduate ..

alright so i am like 3 weeks behind on this. i suck as a wife sometimes. right now is one of them. lame. i have been updating my food / diet / gym / whatever blog (click here if you want to take a peek) almost everyday and i forgot that i had another two blogs to update. wow. alright. so on april 28th my hot hunk of a husband walked across the stage and got his diploma. it was definitely a family affair and he loved it every single minute of it. here are a few pictures from that day.. 

{the front door that i decorated for him }

{cody and his dad and brother}

{cody and i}

{ cody and his aunt donna }                                                                  

{cody and his mom and step dad, don't mind that she looks upset, she had just finished crying.}

{cody with my brother and parents and me }

{cody and his grandma ruth}

                  {girl sandwich anyone?}

he looked so great and his department was fantastic. they gave all the pilots a set of wings to put on his stol, you can see it in the picture with his grandma, and they gave him the dr. seuss book oh the places you"ll go. and of course an empty leather folder for when they mail his diploma to us. ha ha. 

congrats cody on your big day. i was so proud of you, i might have even misted a bit. MAYBE. i am so proud of you making a choice to be great at something and doing it. hopefully our kids will get those genes. congrats graduate. 

now that he is graduated i am sure you are all wondering what he will do. or maybe you don't care, but i am going to tell you anyway. HA!

he is still doing a few more flights before he is officially done, only about a month or so. after finishing this off he is going to do his CFI training (certified flight instructor) and start taking on students. since the industry requires 1500 - 2000 hours of flight time before considering you for a job, we got a long way to go. when he is done with his personal training he will have 250 hours. ba ha ha, we will be in school forever. he plans on working there with students building hours and still working at delta on the weekends. then he is going to apply for the air force job again next spring in hopes to fly the kc-135 next year, if not then we will try and get a job with an airline. we got a while to go, but it will be amazing and i know he will do grand at it. 

.. my rant ..

alright here we go. before i start this i want everyone who reads this to know.. a. i don't mean to offend anyone, if you get offended it was not meant to be that way. b. i am not fishing for compliments or suggestions, i just want to get it out. c. hopefully this post will not only help me but maybe you?

lately i have been really thinking about my weight, body shape, body type, workouts, diet and etc. i am a typical girl, who compares herself to every other girl i see. such as, 'that girl is so pretty and skinny, i want to be her', ' i wish my hair would look like that', 'how on earth can i look like that'... i think it might qualify as a disease. if that was the case we would have a major epidemic on our hands. i suffered in high school with anorexia. i fought my body a lot. i didn't fit in to what i believe the standards are. i worked hard at that and just decided to be alright with who i am. which for the most part to this day i am. since graduating high school my body has been on a roller coaster. i was pretty fit my freshman and sophmore years, i actually lost weight instead of gaining the freshman 15. then i moved home. i started to have access to foods, sugary foods fatty foods all sorts of yucky foods all the time. i started to pack it on. the day i got married i was at my all time heaviest. sad but true. this is why, i don't ever post pictures of my wedding day. i don't like to look at myself. after cody and i moved into our own place i found myself eating much healthier. i didn't have bags of candies or sodas at our apartment, quite frankly they are too expensive and not worth the money when i could use it else where. i started to drop the pounds. then i was diagnosed with food allergies, and lost 30. it was great, in a weight loss perspective, really sucky in a eating one. after a year and a half on our own we moved in with my parents to explore a job opportunity and it has since turned into a 3 year stint. it was never in the cards to live here this long, just between school and losing jobs it was too much to afford normal rent and my parents were willing to work with us. well, if you can see the trend.. i was back around sugary yucky foods and sodas. and walah. i started packing it back on. sadly. a great fear of mine has always been that i will be huge like an elephant and the person that everyone stares at. i NEVER want to be that. so about a year ago i made the choice to start working out on a regular basis and watch somewhat what i eat. i got a trainer, actually 3 (not all at once), and have renewed my efforts to try.

i can tell a difference in my body, i feel good i am less stressed and way happier. i like working out now. one thing that has always been a struggle for me is the diet part. i work 40 hours a week and between that, workouts, family time, appointments, and working with the youth in my church i rely on my family to cook my meals. not a good thing. don't get me wrong the food is great and delicious, i love it. but a lot of the things aren't healthy. so.. i talked to my trainer about it. we discussed a new diet plan. and it scares me. it is so limited. i have been reading a lot on blogs and what not about girls in my same shoes that just changed to eating clean and that it made all the difference. that there was no calorie counting just being healthy, watch what you eat and don't eat high fats or processed foods. i think this might be a good solution. so with that, i am going to try it out. i set a goal with my trainer to be down 8 pounds by the end of may. Yep. 31 days. about 1.5 pounds a week. first thing on my list to cut out is diet coke. i love it but it is killing me. it does nothing for me. now, i am sure that no one wants to hear about my workouts, food battles and who knows what else.. so i am going to start another blog here, that i will try and update often with pictures and workouts and what kinds of things i am trying to eat. if you want to follow it, check it out, ignore it or join in, feel free. the more the merrier.

the end.

.. it's here ..

well, we finally made it people. we made it the the end of april. tomorrow cody graduates from uvu. he is amazing. i am so proud at how hard he works. he is one of the hardest working people i know. he has studied hard and done homework for hours for this day. tomorrow morning he gets to put on his cute gown and hat and his bright orange tassel and walk across a stage and get recognized for his efforts. i wanted to invite you all, so here is an announcement..

thanks for all your support and maybe we will see you there!

.. interview, its pretty much a big deal ..

so as you know, cody is reaching the end of his schooling days. woot woot! during these last few months we have been making a game plan for what we would do when he graduates, like where to live, jobs and income stuff.

at school recently one of cody's instructors told him there was a job opening with the air national guard flying a kc 135.

{ the refueler jet, aka kc 135, aka the plane with a tail.. he he}

he said it was open to all graduating seniors and that they should try to apply. he warned him there would be a lot to do, but could pay off.

over the next few weeks cody gathered all the papers they needed and took two military tests. one was a air force officer qualifying test (AFOQT - it sounds like a swear word to me..) and the TBAS which is a flight simulator test. he did alright on the AFOQT, he had a tad rough patch in the word association portion but did alright. he did great in the TBAS, scoring an 84. which i guess is VERY competitive, according to his professor. so he mailed all his stuff off to the base and started the waiting game. we were told that there was a very likely chance that he wouldn't get called, but that it could happen. and that they were hiring only 2 pilots.

so we waited.

and waited.

and finally on monday, we got a call. monday night we were chatting with cody's parents and attempting to have jet be friends with his mom's cats {tracks and luce}, it didn't go well by the way, when cody's phone rang. he answered and started talking excitedly. he had been one of the lucky candidates to get an interview. he was told over 100 people applied for the job and they chose 9 to interview. WHAT?!? that is nuts like .09%. his interview is today at 2pm. he is nervous and excited all at once. we had his suit dry cleaned and his shirt pressed, and even got a new tie so he would look super sharp. we will see what happens, it will most likely take a few weeks, but at the least we can be proud that he got an interview.

so now, we wait..

.. happy 'legal' birthday ..

this post is dedicated to my sister k*. today is her 21st birthday, yep she is finally legal.

this girl is beautiful and amazing. so in honor of her, here is a list of 21 things i like / love / funny stories about her.

1. i LOVE her smile, it is so pretty

2. she always dresses so fashionable, wish i had her style sense

3. she can sew - i wish i had pushed myself for this skill more, but i admire her ability to do that.

4. she is very dedicated student, she never once is late on homework and always studies for tests.

5. she is an all around beautiful girl, honestly GORGEOUS {even if she doesn't think so, it's my list remember..}

6. she has a awesome laugh, i love giggling with her. especially when she gets in her laughing fits and can't stop it is so fun to watch.

7. she can eat a milkshake faster than anyone i know. serious.

8. once a lady called for my mom, only her and i were at home. we didn't want to answer so we let it go to the machine. she felt bad so she picked up the phone and called her back, she didn't answer this time. so k* left like a 10 minute message in which she repeated herself at least twice and stuttered quite a few times. after she hung up she turned and looked at me and we both were in a state of "what was that" and then spent the next 20 minutes laughing about how ridiculous she sounded.

9. she loves the church and makes the best effort to do her best in it

10. when we were younger we would jump on the trampoline to music. i was in my MJ phase and listened to him non-stop. i always would play thriller and it would freak her out, to the point she thought wolves were under the tramp.

11. she twirls her hair, constantly. when she was little she used to get her finger stuck in her hair by twirling.

12. she makes the best cinnamon rolls, yum!

13. she can be kind of ditsy sometimes, but i love it

14. our speed walks. about a year ago i decided i wanted to start speed walking since i can't run. i wanted to be able to do it fast enough that i could do a 5k and be somewhat competitive. so we started walking together. we would walk about 3 miles a day, the first 1/4 mile was straight uphill. we would walk hard and fast and chat to the half way mark and then on the way back we would do things like, tighten your butt muscles the whole way back or walk like a mall walking grandma every other block. we would laugh hysterically at how retarded we looked, especially her with her butt clenched. once we would reach the down hill we would both turn our ipods to the same song, usually Chris Brown forever and have a dance party the whole way down the hill singing loudly.

15. she loves unconditionally.

16. on a trip to California to watch her cheer at nationals, we had a fun experience. we were driving to the beach as a family and we passed a flower shop, she quickly was like oh look enhanced flowers, we all busted up. the name of the store was enchanted flowers. still to this day we laugh about it.

17. she is passionate about her education and job

18. she loves her family

19. she is always working out and taking care of her body, she looks so good

20. when she was younger and we had first moved to Utah, she stuck a purple skittle up her nose. we had to call 911 and ask them to send someone to help us cause she couldn't breathe out of one nostril. the hazmat truck showed up at our house and the proceeded to pull it out with a pair of very long tweezers. we laughed so hard, for the next few days every time she would blow her nose, her snot was a magenta pink.

21. i love her

happy birthday k* i hope your day is magical

.. jet ..

well with much anticipated wait on your side (at least i am guessing so..) we would like you to meet our puppy. we decided to name him Jet. he is adorable, and literally so fluffy i could die.

we had a fun quick trip picking him up and had fun along the way. we flew to oklahoma city on wednesday march 30th, on the 8pm flight. we landed in oklahoma at 11:30. the airport was pretty much dead, no one was really there. we called our hotel and got a shuttle and found out that our hotel was about 2 minutes from the airport. talk about fast service. we got our room and cody decided he was hungry. so we called the front desk and found out that room service was closed, but the nice shuttle guy offered to take him into town and get him some grub. so i stayed behind and they headed to taco bell. we watched speed on tv and spent about an hour talking about how excited we were and what things needed to happen the next day. i honest to goodness think cody and i only slept like 3 hours we were so excited about the little bugger.

the next morning we got up around 7 and hustled to get ready and out of there on time to be on the road no later than 8:30. Jet's foster home was about 1 1/2 hours from the airport. so we left the hotel and off to the airport to pick up our rocking rental car. we got a red mazda 6. big pimpin. we hurried and found food, at the local 7-11 and jumped on the freeway. we drove for what seemed forever and finally pulled off. the city is called kellyville, and is exactly what i pictured oklahoma. we drove through the town, wondering where on earth google maps was taking us and ended up out in the country. he lived at a house that was in the middle of a huge field / forest. it was nice. we rang the doorbell a tad nervous and somewhat excited, and were greeted by Jet and his foster mom. he was handed to us and we cuddled for a few, and then he wanted down to tear off after his liter mate Seth who was also there. we got to meet all the puppies she was fostering, so adorable including Dixie. she was all about us. it was hilarious.

{ cody with all the foster pups, jet is sniffing cody's hand. Dixie is the full grown dog, she wanted all the attention }

cody took jet outside to go potty while i filled out the paperwork and paid his adoption fee. and then we were off. he was SO nervous and would only sit if we let him cuddle up in my neck or on cody's lap. it was cute. we drove the hour and a half back to the airport and unloaded the car. we walked around outside in attempts to get him to go pee but he wouldn't go. so we just went in. we walked through security, every person saying hello and how cute he was. we got to the other side and got him to eat and drink a bit, but still no potty.

{jet outside the airport}

we got to the gate and laid down a blanket and let him play with his toys. he played hard as we waited. when it came time to get on the plane we discovered the flight only had one seat left. we talked about it, and after a few decided that i would take jet and go and cody would come on the later flight. i boarded with jet in his carrier and cody called my dad. i was so nervous. but he was a trooper. he had to stay under the seat in front of me for take off but after that i held him on my lap in his carrier. he slept almost the whole flight and did great. we landed in salt lake and hurried out to meet my dad. cody made it on the next flight and met us at home about 3 hours later.

he is a squishy love. he LOVES to cuddle. he is very fond of sleeping in your neck and on your arms. he loves playing with daisy, my mom's dog, they chase each other around for at least 2-3 hours a day. we are working on potty training, he hasn't quite mastered it all the way but we are making great progress.

we sure love him.

.. new start ..

as i am sure most of you know out there.. we lost our dog Tyke in january of 2010 to cancer. since then we have always known that we wanted another dog, just weren't quite sure when it would be right. every time we talked about getting one, we were always kind of tentative and not 100 percent with the idea. we would always kind of look and we always knew we wanted another bulldog of some sort. every once and a while we would find a dog that looked cute and then both of us would feel like it wasn't the right one or time. so we would just carry on.

last week we were looking on petfinder.com and found him. instantly we both felt a connection, i loved his wrinkles and cody loved his sly demeanor. we emailed the lady and asked about him. we didn't have any information other than he was 8 weeks old, and was healthy. when she emailed back there was a whole story on him. apparently he, and his liter mates, had been saved from a puppy broker who sells purebred pups for dirt cheap and if they aren't purchased then they are put in a puppy mill to have more liters. this rescue site saved him from being turned into a stud at a puppy mill. my heart melted and so did cody's. he was the one we needed after tyke. so we started to go through their adoption process. we filled out a 4 page questionnaire and had all our vets and family members called. the next day we got a call saying we were approved and he was ours. we were so excited. and following policies we are required to pick him up within 7 days of approval. so.. we get to pick him up on thursday.

{just if you were wondering.. he is a french bulldog.}

we don't have a name yet, hence me calling him puppy and just him.. but could use everyone's help on this one. we have had a ton of nominees for names, the top two have been Zeus and Hercules. (we were thinking of following suit with this pup like with Tyke. Tyke was a greek god of light and endearment it actually spelled Tyche, but we changed the spelling. so we were trying to think of greek, roman, etruscan, egyptian or whatever mythology god to follow what we did with Tyke.)

SO.. if you could leave a vote or a new nomination for his name that would be great! And as soon as we pick this little cuteness up, i will post more pictures!