So it's been a while.  I'm a slacker.  But lots of exciting things have been happening!  Most importantly, I got a promotion at work!  Woo hoo!  I've now moved from collections to a department called portfolio review.  Its pretty complicated, but basically what we do there is take adverse action on accounts and review it when people call in because they are way mad that we did it.  We will lower lines of credit, suspend accounts, or completely revoke accounts (which pretty much never happens).  Its all very interesting and I've learned a whole lot about credit reports, credit cards, and mortgages. Mortgages mostly because the guy I sit by in my class used to be a mortgage broker and knows everything there is to know about them and I pick his brain, but we also had to do a five hour training on all the different types of mortgages.  Yah, that was exciting.  But I now know all about what mortgages not to get.  People did some really creative things to get financed.  My trainer calls it the people who got in the McMansions on a Happy Meal budget.  Anyhoo, that's been super fun, and I'm way happy to be out of collections.  =)

Cory started working again, which is awesome for morale and our bank accounts.  Looks like they are going to have a busy season if the weather would quit getting crappy on us.  I know that rain is all important in the spring, but snow?  Yes I've lived here all my life and yes I know it snows pretty much until May sometimes.  But I am going to complain about it because its spring.  And I am very excited for summer.  Sitting by the pool, drinking a lemonade, driving around with the top off the jeep.  Ah.  Its going to be grand.

Early Merry Christmas to Us!

We have been searching for a new couch for a while. The couch we have been using is older than both of us, and while very comfy, just not big enough or what we needed. So Thanksgiving rolls around, and Cory and I were looking at ads with my mom. She points out an excellent deal on a set of couches at RC Willey. They are awesome, but there are only 15 at each store, and you know how those Black Friday shoppers can get. But my mom offered to give them to us for Christmas, and they were just too good to pass up. So four o'clock Friday morning, Cory and I bundle up, grab some hot chocolate and blankets and go set up camp in front of RC Willey with all the other crazy people. Although my toes got so cold it took an hour in the store to stop tingling, it was so worth it!
They take up more room than we thought, so we had to do some rearranging of the TV, but they are SO comfy and wonderful!
Back in that corner we put the coffee table as an end table. Its low enough that you can't see it here, but I'm planning on putting a lamp there, and maybe a plant or two to make it look more full. HOORAY FOR COUCHES! Thanks Mom! ;)

After 10 months.....

....I decided it would be a good idea to get my wedding pictures. And what kind of person would I be if I didn't share them with the world?
Still the best wedding cake I have ever had. Seriously. Cory and I are so excited that it's almost our first anniversary, not because we are celebrating our marriage, but because we get to eat the top! :)
I'm trying to remember if this is before or after I started turning purple. 16 degrees people! That's cold!
First dance!
I kept thinking it was a good thing my dress was ivory or I would have blended right in with the snow!

The winds of change turned out to be a tornado...

It all started with health insurance. With me not being covered by BYU anymore, it became essential for me to find a job with benefits. So it was with a heavy heart that I started looking for other places to earn my keep. You'd be surprised at how hard I had to look. Since I had never before applied to a job I didn't get, it was quite a different experience for me. But finally, I got an interview at Discover Card. It was the longest interview process of my life. Three hours. Not joking. But finally, I got an offer for Cardmember Assistance aka Collections. They just call it cardmember assistance to make it sound nicer. But hey, they pay me lots and have amazingly awesome benefits.

So I gave my two weeks to Maple Lake and started to get ready to start a new job. Living in Provo, the commute was going to be over an hour, since Discover is up by the airport, just off Bangerter. Therefore, we also started looking for apartments. We quickly found one we loved at Allegro Apartments right by Ikea, and put our Provo apartment up for rent. Not five minutes after we put it up on KSL, this guy calls and wants to see it. Um, okay. Way to be on top of things. But it turned out he came, he saw, he wanted. YAY! But he would like to move in on the first. Even bigger YAY! But we found this out Friday at five and the only day we had to move between then and the first was Saturday. Not so yay. Thanks to all the help we had from family, mainly Annika for packing up the kitchen and my mom for helping me know how to pack for reals, we were able to do it. After 15 hours of packing and moving non-stop (and I mean non-stop, we didn't even stop to eat until 9 that night) we were done. Whew.

Now we are just trying to settle back into the groove of things. We love love love our new ward, and we are really happy with where we live. Its close to the freeway, Bangerter, and of course, the parentals. Which is really nice for Sunday dinner. :)

After weeks of searching....

.....I found a beach that wants me. :) YIPPEE! My mom called with a surprise opportunity to go to San Diego with the family a week from Friday. Well of course I said yes! Who wouldn't? So Cory and I are going to spend a week on the beaches of Mission Bay, doing all those fun beach things. I'm super excited. This is also going to be a great photo op, so expect great amounts of pictures soon! In the meantime, I'll be packing, planning, driving, swimming, sunning, eating, more sunning, shopping, more swimming, and maybe Sea World-ing. We shall see!

Who put ME in charge here?

Really quick news.....

I got a promotion at my work.  YAY!  I'm now an assistant supervisor on my shift.  Mostly it means that I get my own set of keys and they leave me in charge every once in a while.  Scary.  Honestly, I think the part I was most excited about is the keys.  Now I don't have to worry about ending up with the set that gets stuck in the lock every time you use it, even if I do only end up with that set about 10% of the time.  Still.  Now I just have my very own.  

So next week my supervisor (Elena) is leaving me in charge because she thinks she should go out of town for her anniversary or something.  Whatever.  Mostly I'm just jealous that she's going on vacation.  But that means that I will be in charge all next week at work.  I'm super nervous.  I really hope everyone is wonderful and there are no crisis situations.  Hey, I can hope, right?  :)

Camping Adventures

Finals are over, we had the weekend off from work, what else were we to do?  We went camping!  Hooray!!  Most of the up-the-canyon campsites are still closed due to the fact there is still snow on the ground, so we chose to go to Antelope Island which is conveniently open all year round.  We got all packed up, made sure we had everything we could possibly need, and took the drive up to Syracuse aka the gateway to the island.  What could go wrong?

We soon found out.  After getting there about 5:00, we found our campsite without a problem.  It was a great spot, right by the west beach.  Perfect for watching sunsets.  When we got out of the Jeep, however, we were attacked.  To put it lightly.  There were swarms of little biting brine flies everywhere!  We couldn't believe it!  And of course, after all our careful planning and organizing, neither of us thought to bring bug spray.  Uh-oh.  Well, we thought, they'll go away after a while.  Maybe a fire will help, to kind of smoke them out.  So before the tent is even up, we started a fire.  Didn't help.  And we're not talking a minor irritation here.  We're talking biting, crawling in your ears, nose, hair, etc, making you want to run away screaming little buggers.  We got the tent up and started getting all situated, putting up the air mattress, etc.  And we brought the air mattress with a hole.  Of course we did.  No bug spray and a faulty mattress can mean only one thing.  Emergency trip to Wal-Mart!  I'm pretty sure the guy at the gate was laughing at us as we drove by in a mad rush.  Anyways, we got what we needed, doused ourselves in bug spray (100% deet and everything) and headed back.  I'm pretty sure that the bug spray didn't really help, but luckily the sun was going down and that seemed to be the brine fly cure.  We spent that night playing Uno (which I dominated) and sitting by the fire watching our dutch oven season.

It wasn't too cold either, which I thought was a bonus.  After a very windy night, we woke up to a very cold and slightly rainy outside, but we got up and started to make the infamous mountain man breakfast in the dutch oven.
It turned out super yummy!  I was so proud.  My very first dutch oven meal.  True, all I had to do was throw everything in and stir, but still.  We ended up heading back in the tent after breakfast because it was rainy and cold, played more Uno and took a nap.  We then went in a search for things to do.  And that's when it happened.  The bugs came back.  We don't want to seem like camping wusses or anything, but you have no idea.  It was bad.  So what ended up happening was we took a short hike to the top of a little mountain....
.....saw some antelope (on Antelope Island?  No way.....)......

.....took some pictures, got eaten some more by the bugs, I felt like I had lice, realized we really just wanted to go to a movie, packed up, and went home.  But before you judge, you must understand.  I had little red dots all over my hairline on my forehead and Cory's legs look like he had the chicken pox.  After we went home and showered a few dozen times, we went to the Wolverine movie (which is excellent by the way) and spent the rest of our weekend bug free.  So our three day camping trip was really only one and a half, but we've learned our lesson.  Don't go to Antelope Island in the spring.  The brine flies will eat you.  Seriously.