Family Pictures

A couple weeks ago we asked Holly Beck to take family pictures for us. She just got a new camera (one of the really nice ones that real photographers use.) and she is still learning how to use it. She was more than happy to use us as practice. She did an amazing job. She has also been taking pictures at the hockey games, and she always does an awesome job. Anyway, just thought I post a few of the pictures and publicly announce how awesome she is.
Yes ... we love our puppy!.

BYU Football

I have to talk about BYU football, and let out my frustration...because frankly, our defense blows.
It's funny that 3 years ago I would have said, "First down...what?" But now I find myself going to every home game, yelling at the refs, doing my cougar call and singing along to the fight song. Jon has taught me about the joys of football. Which is actually a good thing since he wants to be a high school football coach.
We had such a good start to the season, and our defense looked so promising...but between playing 'away games' and our defense going on vacation it is clear to see that we just might be over rated. Please don't get me wrong, I am a huge cougar fan and I will stay TRUE BLUE no matter what happens. We still only have 1 loss under our belt, which is awesome, but I am so scared for the BYU-UTAH game, and I am extremely jealous that I will not be able to go.

My Projects

Since I work for the State I got to benefit from Govoner Huntsman's 4-day work week. It makes for long days, but I love it on Friday. Even before I got Friday's off I found myself putting together a long list of project for me to complete (cleaning my closets & pantry, painting my kitchen, painting my table & chairs, start scrapbooking...etc) and the list continues to grow. So far I have organized my closets and pantry, I painted my table & chairs, and I even started scrapbooking.
*Before the vaneer was removed
I was looking forward most to redoing my table. It took me a lot longer than I planned, but only because I got lazy and the weather wasn't helping. The top of the table is vaneer (I think) so I used my hair dryer and a wet cloth to to losen the glue

and then I just used a flat screw driver to pry the vaneer off the table. I was surprised at how easily it came off.
After the top was off I sanded the legs and the top. Unfortunately, I think the top is just ply- wood so no matter how much I
sanded it still had the same texture. I finally got it smooth enough to prime. I just got a regular spray paint primer, and I only primed the top where the paint would soak
After the vaneer was removed
After priming it the weather got really cold for a few weeks so I didn't paint it until last week. I just got some cheap black spray paint from walmart, but after doing 1 coat the paint had completely soaked in. I went and got a better spray paint and it worked perfectly! After doing 1 1/2 coats I sprayed it with a glossy spray to make sure the paint doesn't rub off when I wash it.
For the chairs I just spray painted them. I didn't care too much about getting the dings out, I just wanted them painted.

And so ... here you have it, My Final Product!!!
Don't look too closely at the chairs because I ran out of paint to finish off the 2nd coat. You can't really tell with inside lighting, but maybe someday that will be put back on my list as a project to do. Until then, I am really happy with my new table and chairs!!!

2 YEARS OF BLISS

On August 25, 2008 we celebrated

two beautiful years of marriage.

Even though its taken a couple of weeks to post our amazing weekend I wanted to let everyone know how wonderful the past two years have been for us. We have been blessed in countless ways, but our biggest blessing comes from our marriage and the love that we share between each other. Ok...sorry I wont bore you with all the sappy love stuff and I will tell you about my wonderful surprise for Jon!
On our wedding day Jon's sister told us to take turns planning our anniversarys. Jon planned our first anniversary and so it was my turn to plan this year.
Ok so a little back ground. For hockey Jon bought some really old hockey skates for $15, and they were slowly falling apart. One evening while I was watching Jon's hockey game I was wishing that I could just surprise Jon with brand new skates, but we didn't have the money...and for me to really surprise him I would have to secretly save money. So I did! I started taking $20 our of every paycheck and hiding it in my drawer. I also would take any other cash I received and stash it away. By the time Aug 25th came I had a really good chunck of change. I took Jon to the Players Bench in Murry and totally surprised him! He had no idea that I had an envelope of cash ready to pay for whatever pair of skates he wanted. He found a really good pair of rebok 5k skates. It was awesome, and I was so excited that I was able to pull it off.


After getting the skates I took Jon to lunch at Tucanos in Salt Lake. It was sooooo good!!! We stuffed ourselves and then went to a castle where we spent the night!
This place was awesome! We stayed at the Castle Creek Inn in South Jordan. http://www.castleutah.com/ All the rooms in the castle were different, but really nice. We stayed in the palace royale room. Beautiful bed with posts, TV, jetted tub, and unlimited snacks. Outside there is a beautiful little water fall and trail to enjoy. Not to mention the breakfast that they made for us the next morning. The decor was awesome, and very well done. I highly recommend this place to anyone looking for a nice little gettaway! I just can't say enough about how much fun it was.

The next day we stopped by the Timpanogos temple (where we got married) to do sealings. We had been there for about an hour enjoying ourselves and the sweet spirit when all of a sudden I started feeling...um...not normal. I started getting a little hot, and my vision turned blury. I could feel that I was about to pass out, so I figured it would be better to stand up and interupt than to pass out and interupt. It was actually really funny.
It was an awesome weekend, and we both enjoyed being able to spend time together and remember the sacred promises that we made 2 years ago.

Another month...come and gone!

I cannot believe how quickly this summer has gone by, it is already August!!!

HOCKEY IS OVER!!! We are excited for the ending of this season because that brings the happy news of another season, with a better team, and the hope of a much better season. Jon's team ended the season with 2 wins and 8 losses. The great thing about this season is that Jon was able to move around to different positions and he also had the opportunity to play goalie for other teams. Hockey will always be Jon's 2nd love, which means ... it is mine as well ;)

I am still enjoying my job ... and like always there are more changes to adjust to, but it makes for an exciting day. They have assigned me to be one of the two the financial specialists for the office. I am pretty excited about it. I have worked with financial cases for a while and the customers are a little more...um...'needy' but they are also in sad situations where they truly need the assistance. However, I must say, when customers bother me TOO much, it makes me want to postpone the benefits that they will receive, just to show them that I have control. Unfortunatly, I am too chicken to even try something like that...but I think it often.

Jon is almost done with the summer semester and he is so excited to finish with this class. He is especially excited because he is learning statistics. He was not expecting to learn statistics when he started political science, but here he is...I suppose there is value to it, but I can relate to his hatred of the subject.

Summer Life

Summer life has consisted of the same life as winter life (except we die in the heat instead of the cold). Jon started hockey for the summer, but I haven't had a desire to write about it because, frankly, his team sucks. Don't mistake this team for the Cheifs, it is just a tempory hockey fix until everyone on the Cheifs team gets back for school. There are a lot of good players but they fail to play as a team. They would all rather have personal glory instead of team glory. Which seems a bit ironic because their personal glory is not going to be recognized unless their team has glory as well. I think in the last 5 games they won once. Jon has had some good opportunities to play forward and center, but his preference is still defence. Last week we lost (no surprise) but Jon made the only 2 goals that our team had. He has been getting really good, but unfortunatly he has lower back problems so we are working on getting his muscles strengthend and stretched to prevent a bad case of the hockey back every night.
Well, that is really all...I just wanted to report that we are still alive and loving life!

Nothing to Say :)

I felt like posting some awesome news or cute pictures, but the only pictures we have are of ourselves and those aren't so cute and the cute ones that we have of Caesar are already posted.
Life is same-ol-same-ol...
Everyday I go to work and try to keep people happy by giving them food stamps. Everyday Jon goes to school and then to work where he tries to keep people happy by putting them in nice cars.
Jon is buff--Rachel is Hot

GRADUATION AND MORE

I am official!!! I walked across a stage, shook someone's hand and moved my tassel from the left to the right all while wearing heals ;) It was an awesome weekend and I was very excited to celebrate and have some acknowledgment for my acheivment. At the commencement on Thursday Elder Bednar spoke which was really awesome for me because when I started college at BYU-I he was the president there and he spoke to us (group of freshmen) during our orientation. I also had the opportunity to have family home evening with him. So I thought it was very nice to have such an inspiring man, and a prophet of God bookend my college experience. The convocation on Friday was really nice and short. After that everyone was so nice to come by our new apartment and eat baked potatoes and chilli (one of my favorite meals) to celebrate with me. Thank you everyone for your love and support and for celebrating this time of my life with me.

Jon and I had been wanting to get memberships to Golds Gym since it is right across the street from us. So after all the graduation excitment we went over and signed up with a pretty good deal. Since that day we have gone 5-6 times a week. Yesterday we met with a personal trainer...this is a free one time opportunity that everyone gets when they sign up. For me, it was ok, I liked having someone tell me how to really work out...but for Jon, he loved it. Especially since Jon has an actual goal in mind and he is trying to bulk up and get in shape so he can be better at hockey. Unfortunatly the membership has run us dry and we don't have the money to pay for a personal trainer, but we are both having trouble moving around the house because our muscles are so sore.

This summer Jon is working 20 hrs/wk and taking a Bio 100. We are both excited because he is going to start hockey this week. I am still working hard and there never seems to be enough time in the day to help everyone, but I still love my job. I actually am going to start taking Spanish classes and my work is paying for it. I have a few Spanish cases right now so it will help if I can start to understand the language even a little bit. Plus I have always wanted to learn more Spanish so this looked like a good opportunity.

A NEW PLACE TO LIVE

After searching for a pet friendly apartment without bugs for three months, I finally found a 2 bedroom basement apartment. It's located on 560 North 900ish East...by the Golds Gym. This apartment has the kitchen in a seperate room from the living room. There is even a pantry with a door so Caesar won't beable to eat our food anymore. The greatest part is we only have to pay a little more than what we are already paying. We are extremely excited to move out of our ant and cockroach infested apartment.
We will be able to move in the beginning of April. I will keep you posted with how the move goes.

LIFE IS GOOD!!!

We don't have the most exciting life to report on but I thought I would post an update anyways. I have finally finished training at the Department of Workforce Services. After 2 months of training I was grateful to get my own case load. I have 43 cases, and I love what I do.

Jon is enjoying school (except for his history teacher). He is also working hard at Enterprise-Rent-A-Car. He just got promoted from a wash boy to a customer service rep. That meanst that he gets to wear a shirt and tie and he wont have to wash cars in the snow.

HOCKEY!!!

My hockey update will not be as detailed and interesting as Jon's will, but I have to mention how great he is doing and that his team is number one in the league for the second season in a row. This is a picture of his team from last season after they one the last game and claimed the Provo Stanley Cup. I think there are only been a few additions to the team for this current season.

His games are always a lot of fun to watch.

Hockey Season is Here!

I had my first hockey game of the season last wednesday. We beat the Ninjas (a new team) 6-3 after a few scrums and a lot of taunting. I got an assist and had a breakaway where I ended up jumping over a diving defender...i missed the shot however. I ended the night with 4 shots, 1 assist. Our next game is against the MythBusters (another new team) on wednesday. I'll continue to post the progress of the Chiefs. If anyone has a Facebook account, the team has a team page on facebook. You can contact me for info on that if you'd like.

Here we go!!!

Here we are along with our current updates!!!

Rachel - After many long years I am proud to say that I have finally graduated from BYU with a BS (Bull S***) degree in Marriage Family and Human Development. It was a good time and I learned a few things, but mostly I am glad that I am done. In December I was offered a position with the State Department of Workforce Services as and eligibility worker. So basically I determine if people can receive government benefits such as foodstamps, medicaid, financial assistance, or child care. I have two months of training to go through and I am only on my second week, but it is going by fast and I am really enjoying what I am learning.

Jon - The greatest thing about writing last is that I can look back on what Rachel says and tease her about it so that I have something interesting to say in my part of the blog. I am in my fifth semester at BYU and am dealing with a wopping 16.5 credits and 20 hours of work a week. Most of my classes are GE's and are not very interesting, but I am enjoying my coaching football class where I will be able to meet the coaches at BYU and learn from different game plans and techniques. I am probably most excited about my Book of Mormon class where I will be writing a research paper on the rise of the Gadianton Robbers and the political unrest caused by their existence.
Hockey season is about to start. January 16 is when our team (the Chiefs) will get together for our second season. We are planning on switching around a couple of guys so there is a possibility that I will move from defense to being a center or winger. We'll keep you posted.

Caesar - He is our cute little baby!!! Last April we went to the Humane society in Murray. We were trying to decide between our little Caese and a little old chiuaua. After taking Caesar (who was Chico at the time) for a walk we fell in love with his tear drop shapped little body and decided to take him home with us. Ceasar immediately became attached (and I mean very attached) to the two of us, especially Rachel. He is a good little boy, he does his peepee and poopoo outside and we can even take him for a walk without a leash.