A LaFeber Christmas

Ever since Josh and I started dating, Christmas was always spent in Nevada with my family. Well, we decided to break that cycle and spend it with his family this year, and it

was great! Not only did we get to spend lots of time with our cutie-bug nieces and nephews, but we also got to spend some quality time alone on Christmas morning together which was really nice :).

Here is our first tree! It's a baby one, but it was beautiful and we loved it. When you travel for the holidays you miss out on fun things like getting a tree and decorating it. I'm starting to think we might stay home for Christmas more often!

Here we are on Christmas morning. We got to sleep in (another thing that wouldn't have happened if we had gone to Nevada) and then we opened all of our presents. We scored a lot of good stuff! Thanks family for all the fun packages! We loved all the stuff you sent!

Josh spoiled me with candy and jewelry (yes, that is a pink watch....believe it!). I also got more movies to add to our ever growing collection, the Breaking Dawn sound-track, and a ton of makeup from Sephora!

Josh wanted some sports outfits (as if he doesn't already have a whole closet full) so he got some Alabama gear to get him ready to cheer them on in the National Championship! He also got Madden, a really nice new coat, cologne, and a gift card to Best Buy.

As you can see, it was a candy overload this year. It's a good thing we have gym passes!

Christmas was definitely good to us this year. We have so much to be grateful for and on the top of that list is family. We love both of our families so much. They are always the first people who call in the mornings, and the last people we hang up with at night. I can't imagine life without family, which means we must have a pretty good one! We are also grateful for the birth of the Savior. The fact that he was willing to come to Earth to die for us means he loves us more than we could ever truly understand. And what is life if there is not love? We hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas full of love and fun! Here's to another great new year!

Soooo tired, but soooo excited!

Well, it's my first day off this week, and although I've only worked 4 days in a row, it feels like 10! I am sooooo NOT a morning person and so this job has been challenging in that department. My typical day goes as follows:

1) get up at 4 am and quickly get ready in time to be out the door by 4:30 so I can be at work by 5 am.

2) Spend all day working....this can be a great day or a terrible day depending on how my patients feel that day.

3) Come home by 6:30 (again it depends on the day) and immediately shower. I am such a germ-aphobe.

4) Kiss my adorable husband hello when he walks in the door, eat some dinner, and head to bed by 8:30 pm.

Yes, you could say we are lame....and I would probably have to agree with you! My mom called the other night and asked what we were doing for our 1 1/2 year anniversary and I told her we were watching Charlie Brown's Christmas and eating Captain Crunch for dinner and she totally laughed at me. I started laughing too once I realized how lame that sounded hahaha.

On a happier note, I am so excited for this weekend! We have decided this weekend is going to be our Christmas decorating, hot chocolate sipping, gingerbread house making weekend! Yayy!! I wanted to start decorating a long time ago but we moved last weekend to Bountiful and that kinda put a damper on things. However, we are all moved in and ready to go now! I still haven't begun decorating our apartment so it looks more like a bachelor pad than a home Ashly would live in lol, but I'm too tired to care.

CATCH UP:

I'm pretty behind on things so let me catch up a bit. For thanksgiving we went down to Nevada to see my family. We had a ton of fun eating, going rock climbing at Valley of Fire, feeding the fish at Lake Mead, checking out the Hoover Dam (I hadn't seen it since before the new bridge had been completed), and playing/laughing with family. We didn't want to go home that Sunday....especially because we knew how stressful the following week would be. We both worked, packed, and moved by the following Saturday and it was CRAZY! So glad that part is over.

Josh and I at the Hoover Dam

The girls :)

Things I'm Loving Right Now

I would have to say the first thing on this list would be my husband! He is so adorable and he tries so hard. For example, I came home last Friday from my first day at work and he had bought me pink, yellow, and purple roses and a Halloween bowl full of goodies! Some of the things in that bowl were more random/odd than others (the random Nutcracker soldier guy for example) but it totally made me laugh and that is why I married Josh.

Next on the list is my new job! I love it!!! My coworkers are so awesome and so are my patients. Getting up at 4 in the morning (soon to be 3:30 when we move to Bountiful) has been challenging but it's also nice to only have to go into work 3 days a week. Thanks Mari! I totally owe you one!

I have also been loving the beautiful fall weather we've been having here in Utah. I LOVE LOVE LOVE to go on walks for hours just thinking and looking at the beautiful leaves changing colors. Sadly, it got really cold suddenly and I'm thinking my walking days might be over for the season :(.

I love watching The Office! I always thought it was such a stupid show but then Josh made me start watching it from the beginning and now I am hooked! The best part of my day is when Josh comes home and we make dinner and watch a bunch of episodes while we cuddle on the Love Sac and laugh our heads off.

I am in love with this Green Tea HP drink I bought from the mall. It gives me energy and helps curve hunger! I just get a water bottle and pour in the little packet and off I go! My favorite lately has been the Hot Apple Cider flavor. It's perfect with this weather!

I also love my friends. Nursing school, college room-mates, high school, elementary school, you all know who you are! I adore you all and I wish we all had more time to see each other and catch up.

Life is good :).

Another Round of Updates!

Okay, here it goes. This has been our life over the past few weeks. Some days have been better than others, but overall, it has been one big party!!

1) I've been working as an Immunizations Nurse for a private company called Mollen Immunizations. It has been a good job that has helped bring in money until the long-term career appears.

2) AND IT APPEARED!!! I am now a Nephrology Nurse for Wasatch Dialysis!!!! I start on Friday and I am sooooooooooo excited! It has taken me 6 months to finally land a permanent job which is ridiculous (don't believe anyone who tells you that nursing is where the jobs are at). I have had a rough time trying to be okay with things not turning out the way I had planned as far as my career goes. It has been a good lesson learning time for me and I have learned a lot about myself and what I could do to make my faith stronger....because I'm not going to lie, it has been pretty weak lately. Josh has been amazing through it all and I am very grateful to have such a patient husband.

3) We took a trip to Virginia Beach right after we went to Florida. Josh had a job interview there and we decided to make a vacation out of it! It was absolutely beautiful and we had lots of fun in the water!

4) I have become addicted to Pinterest. It is such an awesome website! I love all the cute ideas and yummy recipes that I am constantly finding! If you haven't checked it out yet, hop to it! You won't regret it, I promise :).

5) Josh turned 27 this weekend! I've teased him a ton about being "SO OLD" but I guess pretty soon I will be up there too! I don't feel 23 and I definitely don't want to turn 24! Life is just zooming by. I surprised him on Friday with a trip to Wendover on the Fun Bus. It really was a blast! We got free buffet passes and they gave us each 10 dollars to gamble with! I ended up winning money by playing roulette (much smarter than playing the slot machines). The next day we went to Rodizzio Grill to celebrate his birthday and my getting a job. We then did some shopping where my amazing hubby bought me a pair of cute $90 high heels that were on sale for $35! Gotta love Nordstrom Rack :). On Sunday we went to my brother in law's house and ate homemade chicken parmesan and cupcakes! It was quite the birthday celebration.

6) We have decided to move to Bountiful in December. Josh's dad offered his basement apartment to us and it worked out perfectly because our lease ends in December! That will save us lots of money and hopefully help us pay off my student loans faster.

7) I've been doing really good with my work-out goals and I am starting to feel great! Since I will be working 3 days a week (12-14 hours a day) with my new job, that will leave me with at least 2 days during the week to hit the gym and we will see if I have the drive to go on the weekends. . . that's always really hard. Once we move to Bountiful, Josh and I are going to get gym passes to Gold's Gym! I am so excited!!! I can't wait to try out their aerobics, pilates, yoga, dance classes, etc. That's one part of college I've really missed. I always took a fun exercise class each semester.

That's about all I can think of right now. Life has been really busy but that always makes it fun. I would much rather be busy than bored. I hope you are all doing great as well!

Florida...lots of fun in the sun!

I realize I am about three weeks behind in posting this, but that's actually pretty good for me. After the stress of life and trying to find a job, and then getting jobs and having to decline them, Josh and I decided we needed a vacation. So we flew to Orlando, FL for 5 days over Labor Day weekend and it was incredible! We got to go to Disney World, and Universal Studios Islands of Adventure. My feet have never hurt so bad after spending days standing in lines and walking around HUGE theme parks but it was totally worth it :). Florida is extremely humid so basically in every picture we are either sweaty or our hair looks funny. I didn't even bother trying to straighten my hair or put my bangs down because I knew as soon as we walked out of our hotel room the result would be disastrous.

Here is the resort that we stayed at. It was so nice! We got our own villa which is a fancy word for apartment. My only complaint was that the neighbors decided that it would be cool to throw "kegger parties" every night. It made me realize what an old person I have become. Kinda sad.... there was once a time in my life when I would have probably gone and joined them.... ok probably not but the younger me definitely wouldn't have been as annoyed and angry as the older me was about it lol.

We spent one of our days in Orlando enjoying all the fun activities the resort had to offer. Josh ended up beating me at miniature-golf (barely).

Naturally, after a hard game of golf, the next thing to do is climb into a giant swan and paddle around the lake! The life jackets were a joke but there was no getting around it. Heaven forbid some retarded person might fall out of their swan....hahaha.

Islands of Adventure was so cool! Possibly even more cool than Disney World (except the lines were much longer). They actually had a Harry Potter land! I was so excited! They had recreated everything exactly as you see it in the movies. We got to go inside Hogwarts (way awesome), visit the different shops in Hogsmeade, and of course, have a true wizard dinner at the Boars Head Pub where I got to have real butterbeer!!! I've always wondered what it tasted like and I can attest to you that it was sooo yummy :).

Another awesome part of that park was Jurassic Park land. As you can tell, it was pretty realistic and just like the movie. It was like wandering around in the real Jurassic Park! They had a really fun water ride that we went on over and over. Right before the T-Rex eats you, the boat you are in suddenly drops off the edge of a waterfall and you literally can't even scream because it catches you so off guard!!

They also had a pretty cool dinosaur museum where, again, everything was just like the movie. FYI, those eggs had dinosaurs inside them and while we were there we watched one of them hatch! Of course they were robots, but still, pretty cool! Right after this picture was taken, one of the eggs started moving and it freaked me out and I jumped and dropped it.....That happened on our honeymoon too while I was holding a sea cucumber.... classic Ashly moment I guess :).

So all in all, it was a really great trip and we would recommend it to anyone! Next time we go down there we plan on going inside the EPCOT Center and going to the other Universal Studios park. It was just too much to do in one week! Hope this wasn't too long of a blog. Trust me, there was a lot more where that came from!

 

Updates

1) This has been such a great week simply because it is the 24th of August and I'm not doing homework! For the past 18 years, school has been a huge part of my life and now it is finally sinking into my head that I am free!!!!!!!!


2) I have decided to be more crafty. I don't have school to worry about anymore, so why not pick up some fun hobbies? I'm always seeing these crafty blogs that awesome women are coming up with and I get kinda jealous because I want to do it too! So today I decided to start. For my first attempt, I decided to make a wreath for our door. I must say, I am rather proud :).

3) Josh and I have concluded that we are due for another vacation......so why not Florida? Next week we are flying first class (thanks to his dad's retirement benefits after working for Delta Airlines) to Orlando, FL where we will let the partying begin! We are going to spend every day at a different theme park. I am so excited, it is going to be so great! What better way to spend your Labor Day weekend? Pics to come!

4) Back to the gym. I've been trying to increase my cardio to an hour instead of 30 minutes in hopes that I will see results faster.....we shall see! I've noticed that being home all day doesn't do much for your figure. This isn't good news for the future when we decide to have kids.

5) Josh got an amazing management job offer in California and we were totally pumped and ready to move! But then we saw how expensive it is to have health insurance there and that basically killed it for us. By the time we paid 6,000 dollars a year for health insurance, there wouldn't be much money left! And that was the cheapest package they had! We're talking horrible coverage that didn't include dental or maternity. Once you have a child the rates increase to 12,000 dollars a year!! So it was either move to California and kiss having children good-bye, or stay in Utah and tough it out. After much debate, we decided on the second one and Josh had to tell them "Thank you, but no." That was rough and I hope we made the right decision. I guess we will see. Like they say, Hindsight is always 20/20.

Summer Fun

This summer has definitely been a busy one. I took the NCLEX (aka the worst test of my life) and PASSED!!! So I am officially a Registered Nurse now. Next on the agenda is to find a job, which sadly has been a tricky task to accomplish. Until then, I have been having a very relaxing summer full of days at the pool, workouts at the gym, and hours of catching up on all my Desperate Housewives and Gilmore Girls episodes :). We also got to go home to Nevada for a few days and spend time with my step-brothers. We don't get to see them very often so this was probably the best part of my whole summer. It's amazing how big they've gotten and how small I've become when I stand next to them. Of course they reminded me of this every time they beat me up (payback I guess haha). We've actually spent a lot of time in Vegas this summer. For our graduation trip we spent almost a week there at the Wynn Resort. It was a vacation much needed after all the hard work of school was over. We went to a show called Le Reve which was so amazing, you all have to see it! The rest of our days were spent lounging by the pool, hanging out in our HUGE hotel room, or walking the strip. Yes, you could say it's been the perfect summer.

We spent the 4th of July in Park City eating BBQ and watching the parade with Josh's Dad! it was a lot of fun and sure to become a tradition!

Josh has been getting lots of job offers but he keeps rejecting them. This is frustrating but I can see his point. It's better to wait until the job you actually want comes around because it is something you have to do everyday for the rest of your life so you better make sure it's what you really want to do. He is such a hard worker (despite how many times he's been screwed over at his current job) and I am so proud of him and how much patience and tolerance he has shown. I definitely wouldn't have handled things as well as he has, but I think I'm the more quick-tempered of the two of us.

Josh's Brother's family from Texas have been here for the past month and we have had a lot of fun with them. We've gone on hikes, had BBQ's, and played card games until late at night. Their kids are so adorable, we love them so much! Almost enough to want to have some of our own......almost lol. Yes, it is tempting to want kids since I really don't have much to do around the house and having babies seems to be a common trend nowadays. But hopefully I'll get a job soon and that will take care of that!

I hope you are all having a wonderful summer as well!

Ashly

Year One

Yesterday Josh and I celebrated our first anniversary. I can't believe how fast this year has flown by! So many things have happend and we have both changed in so many ways (for the better of course). Marriage seems to do that to you...I guess that's why God said to get married!! Over this past year we have both moved, graduated, taken road trips, had tons of family parties and fun get-together's with friends, and enjoyed the simple pleasures of having the constant companionship of the one you love. Life is famous for throwing curve-balls at us everytime we turn around, but I am confident that with a relationship like ours, and the amazing blessings we receive from our Heavenly Father, there is nothing we can't do. Happy Anniversary Josh, you mean the world to me and I am so excited to see what this next year has in store!

We celebrated our Anniversary a week early while we were in Vegas and spent the evening dining at the Eiffel Tower Restaurant because that's where we went the night Josh Proposed. It was beautiful, the food was exquisite, and I even got a long stemmed rose :).

Good-Bye College, Hello Freedom!

We are finally done with school, and we couldn't have had a better celebration! My family came up for both of our graduations, and between our two families, it was a blast! After my graduation on Thursday (May 5th) we went to THE PIE to celebrate the same way that we did when I got into nursing school. I have to admit, this is a pretty great tradition because you can't get better pizza anywhwere else! Then, later on that night, Josh and I went country dancing with my sister, her boyfriend, and Wrandi. As always, that was a ton of fun and we were very worn out by midnight.

The next day was a sister day. Briana and I went shopping and of course had to stop by the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for a Chocolate covered frozen cheesecake (to die for). Later that night we went to The Olive Garden with both of our families and basically had a whole section of the restaurant to ourselves because our group was so big! It was fun eating and laughing with all the people we love...good times. Then, to add to the eating, we went to my Aunt and Uncles house in West Jordan because they had bought us a graduation cake! It was so nice to relax and talk. I've really missed my family and I loved every minute of them being here.

Saturday (May 7th) was Josh's official graduation day. So we got up early and headed over to the Maverick Center where we continued with the endless array of pictures. There was some confusion with the location, but luckily everyone made it and we had a really great time. Yes, one graduation is boring and two makes it painful, but I am so proud of Josh and we were all so happy to be there celebrating his huge achievement. On our way home some guy rear ended us but luckily it's not too noticeable and there weren't any injuries. The weather was beautiful that day so we made a picnic and ate our lunch outside on the grass in front of our apartment. That relaxing moment was very short lived, however, because within the next hour we were all onto our next adventure..... Ice Skating! We had so much fun and I was surprised at how well we all picked up on it after not going ice skating in years. Sadly, this must have been the day of bad luck because my mom ended up falling and seriously hurting her knee. They're still trying to figure out what's wrong, so for now, she's on crutches. What a great way to practice my nursing skills eh?!

Sunday was mothers day and we had a big breakfast for all the moms at my Aunt and Uncle's house. Surprisingly the food was really good because it was prepared by all the men and you just never know what you're going to get when that happens. Then we said goodbye and everyone headed back to Nevada :(. I couldn't have asked for a better Graduation celebration and I am so grateful that I have such a wonderful family who loves us and is always there for support and a good time :). THANKS EVERYONE!!!

Now, it is time to start preparing for the NCLEX (Licensing Exam) and begin finding a job. Both will be very difficult but I am so happy that this time has finally come! I keep telling myself I'm done with school but it still doesn't seem real or even possible. There were so many days when I felt like the torment was never going to end and now, suddenly, it's over! As for Josh, he is still working for the University of Phoenix and trying to decide what direction he wants to take next. He got a job offer in Phoenix two days ago but he ended up turning it down. We really want to stay in Utah if at all possible so we are crossing our fingers that "the perfect job" will appear.

Seizures...

I've always wondered what it would be like to actually be the person in that hospital bed and not the person running around it all the time. Well, I got my chance. Two days ago, I wasn't feeling exactly normal all day (I don't know how to better describe that) and Josh and I decided to go to bed early to get some much needed sleep (supposing that was the problem). Well, the next thing I know, I'm waking up in an ambulance. I don't remember anything leading up to that point and Josh says that my eyes were open but I was totally non-responsive. I had had a seizure while we were sleeping. It was beyond scary being in the back of an ambulance with men I didn't know and having no clue how I got there or why I was even there! I kept asking where Josh was and they told me he was following behind the ambulance so that gave me a little peace of mind. After that, my memory is a complete blur of doctors, CT Scan, lab tests, Urinalysis, and anything else they could do to poke and prod me. I was beyond relieved to have Josh right there by my side because I still had no clue why I was there. Later, the doctor came in and told me that the labs showed that I had definately had a seizure and they were putting me on medication to keep it from happening again and some Zofran to keep the nausea at a minimum. This was all such a shock to me. How in the world could I have had a seizure? ME?!!! I'm always the healthy one! We spent the rest of the night in the hospital and I was discharged later the next afternoon. There's still a lot more testing that has to happen before they can officially diagnose me with Epilepsy or not and until then, my driving priviledges have been taken away and I am one sad, dizzy little person. This medication causes the dizziness and it's no fun. So that's the story. I must say that being the nurse is a million times better than being the patient and I will never doubt that again! I just hope and pray that they figure everything out soon so that I can drive again. You don't know how nice it is to have freedom until it's taken away from you.

And The Countdown Begins

I am not going to even try and hide my joy that we are down to the last 5 weeks of school! I have officially finished my 225 hours of Capstone at Primary Children's Hospital and as incredible of an experience it was to be independently working as a nurse, the fact that I was doing another persons job and not getting paid for it made it really hard to keep getting up at five in the morning and not coming home until 8:30 at night. However, I learned more than I have ever learned in any other clinical setting and I am so glad that I chose Infant Med/Surg as my Capstone. Now, what am I to do with myself now that I actually have free time?! My list begins with:

1. Establish a regular exercise routine again (Marriage + Too tired to care = Excess poundage that I would rather not see during swimsuit season).


2. Study, Study, Study!! (My comprehensive ATI exam is next week and I was supposed to have been studying all semester for it......I'm sure you can guess what I was really doing. Plus finals are coming up and so is the NCLEX).


3. Deep clean our apartment. (I've always been big on spring cleaning and now I'm just waiting for the weather to realize that it should be spring!).


4. Socialize and find my friends again! (Nursing school really kills your social life).

That is just the beginning of the list. I'll stick with those things and see how it goes. As you can probably tell, I'm having a really hard time wanting to study when the end is so close! I'm still in awe that I've made it this far. It has been quite the adventure!

My 23rd Birthday Bash!

I had such a great birthday this year. It started a little early with Josh taking me out to the movies the night before and then giving me a nice back massage. Then on the morning of my birthday we decided to go out for breakfast which ended up being a great idea because Denny's gave me my meal for free! Next, we went to the temple for our friend Ryan's wedding. It was such a beautiful day and the temple was the perfect place to spend part of my birthday! I loved every minute of it and I am so excited for Ryan and his new beautiful bride! After that, Josh took me out to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. The food was Amazing as always and they even sang to me and decorated a cheesecake with confetti for us lol. After we had eaten every bite of that amazing cheesecake, we headed home to get ready for some friends to come over and play! Josh had bought a massive cake from Costco so I ate my second piece of cake for the day while we had a blast talking and playing games. It was so much fun and I feel so lucky to have so many people who love and care about me. Thanks everybody for making my birthday so great with all of your phone calls, facebook messages, gifts, and especially thank you Josh for being so wonderful. I love you all!

Linkin Park!

It's not a party without lots of Red Bull!

This was the best picture I could get because my camera wasn't working well with all the noise

We had really great seats right in front of the stage

The Concert was a blast! It was by far the best concert I have ever been to. They are just as good live as they are on CD! My camera had a hard time taking a clear picture because it was soooo loud!