Visiting Brody in Kansas!

As most of you know, Brody is out selling alarm systems during the months of May and June for Vivint (which used to be APX).  His team was originally supposed to sell in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but OK is one of the few states that requires a permit to sell door-to-door.  The permits are hard to obtain, so in the meantime, the team is in Wichita, Kansas and will then move to OK when everything is squared away.

I'm really bummed that I wasn't able to go out with him for the whole two months, but I have to be back in Utah for follow-up appointments for the foot surgery I just had, to throw a big surprise party for my mom's 50th birthday that I've been planning since February, oh and I also got a job in Logan (at Hamilton's) that starts June 1.  However, I am very happy I was at least able to go out and visit him for a few weeks.

I drove out with Lindsey and her girls (since her husband is out there selling as well) and then I flew home at the end of the trip (since she is staying all summer).  It was nice to save a little bit of money and the 16 hour drive wasn't too bad!  We stayed the night in Denver, which was halfway, and the girls were good to just watch movies the whole time, while me and Linny had some great conversations.  

A road trip wouldn't be complete without a good music jamming session!  

(and what better music to jam out to than Phantom of the Opera! That's little Lydia's (age 2) favorite music!  Not some lame little-kid music... Phantom of the Opera.  I just think that is so awesome.

It was so great being together with Brody again!!  I'm just so much more happy when we're together.  We were able to hang out in the mornings until about 2, at night when he got home at 9 and all day on Sunday.  When he was gone, I had fun just relaxing and hanging out with Lindsey & her girls, and some of the other wives out here.

Hanging out at the pool

When the weather was good, we would spend hours out by the pool-- chatting, reading books and just soaking up the sun.  

I could never get too much of that!

Playing games

A few nights a week, we gathered in the lobby area of the hotel and played games with a bunch of other Vivint couples.  The people we met and hung out with were all so cool and we always had a great time!

BBQ night with the whole team

The first Sunday I was there, the team met their goal for the week, so Vivint provided a super yummy meal for everyone.

Hanging out with the Bundy's
We had dinner with the Bundy's a few times and I watched some of my favorite old school Disney movies with Emma & Lydia during the day.

Selling door-to-door with Brody

I did get a little bored during the day from time to time, so when that happened, I just drove out to where Brody was selling and walked around with him for a little while.  It was very interesting to see how this door-to-door sales thing works and see how people respond.

Crazy mid-west thunderstorm 
I was surprised that during my first visit (ever) to the midwest, I was able to experience a severe thunderstorm with tornado warnings!!  Luckily, nothing happened in our area, but I quite enjoyed the storm nonetheless!  Especially when Brody came home early because of it ;)

I had a great time visiting Kansas and hanging out with Brody for a few weeks.  He'll come back to Utah for a few days around the 4th of July before he heads to Africa, so hopefully I can stay busy until then!

First 2 weeks back in Logan

Well, we've been back in Utah for 2 weeks now, and we've done a lot of fun things during that time.

The first week, while Brody was still here, we hung out with Brad and Jessica as much as we could since they are leaving for the summer too and since we haven't hung out with them at all since they got married.  We had a lot of fun and will miss having them around this summer.

**Family Pictures**

My mom made sure to fit in a family photo shoot during the small window that we were all together so we could officially add Brad to the family :)  Here are some of my favorites:

The whole family

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               Cam & Jake                           Mom & Dad                          Jess & Brad

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The siblings

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Me and Brody

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**BBQ and trampoline games**

One night we had a BBQ in the backyard and had fun playing on the trampoline.  We played all the classic trampoline games (tricks, crack the egg etc.) and even made up a new one involving our dog Salomon.  This one was the best.  Here's how it's played:  One person stands at the other end of the yard (opposite from the trampoline) and holds Sal.  Another person stands in between Sal and the tramp and when the person holding Sal lets go of him, the other person has to sprint for their life to the tramp before Sal catches up and bites their leg off (ha ha not really, but it gets kind of scary and exciting anyway).  We also took some silly/dorky pictures, which is how we get when we're all together and we decided that we might be getting a little too big for all 6 of us to stand on the trampoline at the same time.... it was getting pretty close to the ground and we weren't even jumping!

Here's Brody getting ready to run.....

......And he made it!

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**Mother's Day**

On Sunday, Mother's Day I took Brody to the airport in the morning and sent him off to Oklahoma to sell alarm systems.  :( :( :(  I wasn't too sad though, because knew I would be visiting him exactly 12 days later, but we'll see how I do AFTER my visit....  I spent the rest of the day with my family at my grandma's house.  It was a good day and I love being able to celebrate the greatness of mom's! 

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**New Niece**

On Thursday, when I came back from my little surgery adventure in SLC, I went to visit Brody's sister Brittney in the hospital with their new baby girl, Devyn.  Yep, I am an aunt to 2 now!!  Hurray!  Dylan and now baby Devyn.  She is so adorable and I'm so glad I made it back just in time to see her on her day of birth!

Me and aunt Berg

She is so adorable and so perfect!

Big brother Dylan with his new sister

Well, that's it for now... I leave on Thursday to visit Brody in Oklahoma!!  I can't wait!!!  Stay tuned for details on my trip.

A very long and boring 3 days

For the last 3 full days, I have been here, in this blasted bed:

Because of a surgery I just had here:

I am partaking in a research study where they perform Bunion Removal Surgery and then test a new pain killer drug on me afterwards.

I've had a bunion on both feet for as long as I can remember.  It's not painful (yet, although people have told me it will be later in life) but it's definitely not attractive!  It happens because the bone in the big toe has too much pressure on the bone in the rest of the foot, so it pushes the bone outwards, or something like that, as shown here:

Gross huh?  So what they do, is they go in, re-align the bones and shave off anything extra.  It's pretty painful and it's not going to be fun to be in this huge boot for a month (I still can't figure out why it needs to go all the way up to my knee, when the surgery was clear down on my toe!!!) but the most annoying part of this whole thing is that I've had to stay in their clinic for 4 days and 3 nights, so they could have plenty of time to see how I react to the drug (which, if it didn't work, they would have given me something that did, but it's been working great so far!).  The double bummer is that I can't have any visitors (in case they try to sneak in some outside medication, I guess ??) and I have very limited mobility.  I haven't seen the outdoors for 72 hours!!  It's killing me and I'm pretty bored out of my mind...... (I've been watching a lot of cake decorating shows-- as seen in the second picture above-- and HGTV).  Good thing it's been rainy outside the last 3 days.

But, the HUGE bonus to all this, is I GET PAID!!!  About $1,400 when all is said and done (I have to come back for a few follow up appointments as well).  Plus, my foot will look somewhat normal now.  I hope it's all worth it in the end!

Graduation activities and fun with the fam

THURSDAY, APRIL 28--  The night before graduation, we had a big graduation party for Brody and 3 other guys from our ward who started and ended at Thunderbird the same time as us.  It was a lot of fun putting it together with the 3 wives and I thought it turned out pretty good!

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Dessert and Chocolate fountain bar...

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Sparkling cider (it's not a special occasion without this stuff!!)....

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Huge cake (store bought-- it was easier that way)...

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The guests...

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The girls/wives/hosts...
Rachel, Aubree, Meghann, Me

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The graduating boys...
Brody, Dan, Jeremy, Scott

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All of us!...

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FRIDAY APRIL 29--  After graduation the next day, we went out to lunch with both our families at a yummy pizza place in downtown Glendale.

Then, we all went to a movie, the girls did a little shoppping, and then we all met back up for a Diamondbacks baseball game.

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 All 9 of us...

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After the game, we went back to our apartment for a cake I made for Brody and ice cream.

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SATURDAY APRIL 30--  The next day, we sort of split up and did our own things with our own families.  Brody went to lunch with his mom and her husband, and then went to a festival with his dad.  I went down to Mesa with my family to go to the temple and visit our friends and family members down there.

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It was a fun few days and we feel very lucky that our families were able to celebrate this big day with us!

Saying goodbye... forever

It was VERY weird saying goodbye to everyone and leaving our life in Arizona.  This was our first 'home-away-from-home' and we had become close with our friends, ward members and other Thunderbird students while living there.  It was especially weird knowing we probably won't see most of these people ever again!

On my last day of work, my department was kind enough to take me out to lunch and send me off with a bag full of Thunderbird goodies.  Here are the people I spent most of my days with for the last 9 months.  I love these girls!

Vanessa, Stella, Monica, Paula, Me, Felicia

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We wanted to take a picture of us with Dan and Meghann because we all had the same Thunderbird hoodie (there was only one to choose from... ha ha!) but I had already packed Brody's, so we took the picture in 2 parts and I tried to photoshop them together, but it didn't work out, so they'll just have to be separate....

We will miss our dear friends Dan and Meghann very much, but we hope we'll be able to get together with them often in the future.

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All loaded up and ready to leave Arizona... never to return... SO WEIRD!!!

We had a wonderful time living in Arizona for the last 2 years, and we'll never forget all the wonderful memories we made there!!  Now, on to the next adventure!

Brody's Graduation!!

Last Friday, Brody graduated from Thunderbird School of Global Management with his MBA!!!

We were lucky to have both our families come to town for the big day.  We had a lot of fun with them and very much appreciate all their support (more on that to come later).  The graduation ceremony was very cool, though a little long (but aren't they all???)  Brody looked so great in his cap and gown and it was fun to see him and all his friends he's made in the last 2 years receive their diploma.

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Receiving his diploma and shaking hands with the 
President of the School

Since I've been working at Thunderbird for the past school year, I was able to get front row seats at graduation!!  It was very convenient.

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We took lots of pictures afterwards....

Me and Brody

Brody with his dad and mom

Brody with my family (mom, dad, sister and brother-in-law)

Brody with his good friends Brad and Dan

Wives added

Other classmate friends

I am so proud of Brody for all his hard work over the last 2 years and for his motivation and ambition!!  I know he will do great things in his life and this was just one step along the way!

Busy times!!!

We have been extremely busy for the last week and I finally got a chance today to go through some of our pictures.  I have LOTS to post about, but it'll have to come little by little.  For now, here's a look at our life and current situation....

Thursday (a week ago)--  Last day of work for me, families came into town, graduation reception and party

Friday--  Graduation!

Saturday--  Hanging out with the fams

Sunday--  Packing/loading the moving truck, saying goodbye to friends in Arizona, driving to Utah

Monday--  More driving (we drove from 7:00 PM Sunday to 12:00 PM the next day, with only a 2 hour sleeping break!! That Uhaul is SLOWWW!), unloading stuff into storage in Logan, catching up on sleep


--- Future Plans ---

Brody leaves for Oklahoma on Sunday (May 8) to sell alarm systems for 2 months while I stay in Logan (living with the fam).

The reason for staying behind is I am having foot surgery (bunion removal) on Monday (May 9) as part of a research study to test a new pain reliever medication.... should be interesting!!!  I'm getting paid for it though, so that helps.

Since I'll be off my foot for about 4 weeks, I will go visit Brody for 2 of those weeks (from May 19-May 31) but have to be back for follow up appointments, so I can't stay with him the whole time... blah :(

I start my summer job on June 1 working at Hamilton's helping with weddings and other large events

Brody comes home for 2 days during the 4th of July, then heads to Africa for 6 weeks!!

I still stay in Logan.

Then we'll leave for Colorado in August (not sure of the exact date) to start our new life there!