My heart is sad

I found out last night that a very good friend of mine that I've known since high school died. Some of you out in bloggerland may remember some close friends of mine, Shane and Timbra, and it's Shane's younger sister. I've been good friends with their whole family since '93 and this is the first time someone (other than family) has passed away that I was so close to and who was young and not sick.

I'm so sad for the family and for what they're going through. She had been missing for 6 weeks before her body was found. Six weeks of not knowing where their sister, daughter, wife, mother had been. I can't imagine going through that. I don't like to "dwell" on the bad stuff in life, and I usually try to see the best side of things when something bad happens, that I can't understand. But a lot of the time it's easier because it's happening to someone else, not impacting me directly. But in this case I feel a personal loss over this because she was such a good friend. I saw her last April when my sister threw me a bridal shower in Boise, and before that it had been some time since I had seen her. But I always felt close to the whole family and if I saw one of them I always wanted to know how she was doing and how they all were doing. So to have her gone is so sad to me. And I hurt over how much they are hurting.

When my mom's mom passed away a couple years ago I was really sad. But I was mostly sad for my mom, because she had lost her mom. And that's how I feel now. I'm so so sad that she is gone but feel so much sadder for her family because they don't have her anymore. She has 3 young kids and a stepson, and her husband is now a single dad. Luckily her siblings and parents are all within a close proximity so hopefully that will make it easier for him raising their children. I hope they will always remember what a great woman their mom was.

She would have been 30 today.

Heather I will miss you and will treasure our friendship.

The Gift of Giving...

Thanksgiving was a blast. We had a really good time hanging out with my sister, getting the T-day dinner ready, hanging out with my parents, and then on Friday getting to visit with some cousins and extended family that we haven't seen for a long long time. My mom wasn't feeling too good on Friday, so she wasn't able to hang out with everyone, and so we only got to see her on Thurs, but it was good quality time with her. And on a random sidenote, whenever I'm in Boise I always look around for people I know. Even though the chance of me really running into anyone is so slim, I just always kind of hope to see someone I know. Rarely do, but I'm always on the lookout.

And now Christmas is almost here, and I have no idea what to get anyone for gifts. Any random ideas out there in bloggerland? I don't like doing gift cards cause it's really impersonal, but when I can't think of anything personal then I default to gift cards. Sometimes I've done more homemade gifts like a few years ago I did a photo calendar and a fleece throw for Dave's family, but I can't keep making them throws :) and although I'm very picture-y, I don't know how many mugs people will want with pictures, or mouse pads, or photo books full of pictures of me :) and this last year I haven't been taking nearly as many pics as normal. Granted my camera did lose the most critical button, which is the picture taking button, but Dave has a perfectly good camera that I could be using, but rarely have. So the pic idea might be out cause it's not like I have taken a lot of new pics this year. And probably can only recycle the same old pics so many times :)

So I'm open to gift ideas.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner

I'm really excited that we'll be able to spend Thanksgiving with family this year. Last year we opted to stay home vs paying outrageous ticket prices. So we had our Thanksgiving dinner together, just us. But it was a good spread! This is the first year our immediate family has kind of broken off from the extended family. I'm a little saddened by it, because any other time I haven't spent Thanksgiving with the whole family was due to not being able to go out of town period. I'm also looking forward to spending more individual time with my parents and sister. But I will miss seeing the cousins and aunts, uncles and my grandma. Ticket prices were cheaper this year to fly into Boise, which is unusual, and we're staying in Boise the whole trip. Also unusual. We typically try to drive up to Poky to visit friends and tie in seeing them with seeing family. But we won't be doing that this year, either. We just didn't have as many days on this trip, and want to spend more immediate time with my parents and sister.

I'll still be able to see some cousins and aunt and uncle that live in the Boise area, and I'm very excited about that, too. Last time I saw these cousins was one in 08, one in 07 and probably the other not since 05. And two of them have new babies, so it will be fun to see them all.

I'm also just excited to have a few days off work again. I'll probably be hating it when I get back, but I'll put that off and deal with that next Monday.

My sister and I are doing the Thanksgiving dinner, which is kind of a first for us. She does a similar Christmas Eve dinner, and she's pretty much a pro with that, but for me it will be the first real time. I'm going to try to make my mother-in-law's awesome homemade mac 'n cheese, we'll see if I come anywhere close to her culinary skill with that. But since my parents and sis haven't had it, they won't know if it's not as good. Just my husband will be able to tell :) But he loves me anyway and will probably let it slide. We're also changing up the tradition just a little bit by having Thanksgiving at my sister's place. Normally my parents house would be the hosting home, but this year it will be at her place. I think it's sweet she offered. And she's giving up her house key and room so we can stay there and have full run of the place while she's at work.

We fly out tonight, and I'm excited. I've always really liked Thanksgiving, and am looking forward to this time off work and time with family.

You are never going to believe this!

I'm posting! Considering it's been 9 months, I guess that means it's about time.

Changes/Updates/News

- May 24 we got married!! 4 months already. In fact today is our 4 month anniversary. Happy 4 Month Anniversary Boo!! It was a great wedding, and we were able to spend a wonderful day with friends and family.

- We're still in MN. The plan to move to ID is still in the back of our minds, but there hasn't been any drastic improvement to the housing market to allow us to sell our house yet, so we're here until that happens.

- Dave's job has been going great. He's still able to do that from MN, and it hasn't been an issue at all with his bosses. He does travel quite a bit, but there are a lot of short trips and then a long span at home that help make up for it. And when he is at home, he works from the house, so we get to both be at the house working and that really makes a difference.

- My job hasn't changed. I'm still in the same job and working for 4 people instead of 2. For a while it was very touch and go there, to the point where almost every month I didn't know if I would have a job the following month. But it's worked out and I'm still here. If we move to Boise soon, it would be great to still be able to do this job from Boise.

That's pretty much all the news and updates. I'll try to start posting my normal rambling thoughts again soon. Not promising, but am hopeful :)

For now enjoy some photos you may have already seen from varios events, trips, etc.



From our wedding:

From our trip to SC for Dave's cousin's wedding:

It was a hot, windy day at the beach in Charleston, SC

Moving Plans, Wedding Plans, Job Plans; an update

It's been awhile, I shouldn't have left you. Without a dope blog to read to... wait...

Well it really has been awhile. And there are a few updates. Well not update updates so much as lack of updates. That to certain people will serve as an update. We are still planning on moving to Idaho. We haven't listed our house yet, partly because I've been so busy at work that I don't have time or energy after work to keep packing up the house. There are boxes strewn about, some packed up and taped, others waiting to be filled and others set to be donation boxes. We've sold a few things on craigslist which has helped to lighten the load, but still have a few large items we'd like to get rid of and hopefully make some money off of. The cost of the moving truck will be based on the weight and the mileage. The mileage we can't do anything about, but the weight we can try to slim down here and there and not having to take a 200 lb sleeper sofa is in our favor!

Regarding our wedding plans we were tossing the idea around of just getting married now and having a reception in May to limit some of the cost, planning and for a job benefit for Dave's new job. However we think it would be best to just stick to the original plan of getting married in May and having the reception on the boat. We really like that idea, and if it turns out we're in Idaho already, we'll just fly back to MN for the wedding like everyone else. I'm actually going to go try on a wedding dress today. That's something I've only had in the back of my mind latetly, not making it as much as a priority, because if we did get married early and had only the reception in May then I wouldn't need a wedding dress. But if we're sticking to the original plan then I will need one, so I'm going to start looking again.

Regarding our job plans, they aren't plans so much as Dave loves his new job. He has had to travel a lot in Dec for a week of training, shadowing at events and learning the ropes. He'll have to travel again every weekend in Jan and the first week of Feb. It should slow down though by the mid of Feb. Most schools and organizations have their main annual events in Jan and Feb and then slow way down. He'll be in Albequerque, Boise, Twin Falls, Las Vegas, back to Boise and then a week in Phoenix. But then he'll be home again for a little while. And he'll be home in between the trips, there will just be a lot of them. And he'll be racking up airline miles and hotel points so that will help. He does have to go to Seattle in Feb over Valentines Day and he's taking me with him, so that will be fun way to spend V-Day. He really does like his job. He's a Regional Member Benefits Rep and covers ID, NV, MT and parts of CA. So he does have to live in one of the states he covers. And he will travel throughout the states and a few more as well for various events. He will be doing a lot of presentations to NEA members and mans tables at event fairs. He has always had a flair for speaking and presenting. And that has even improved from his time spent in Toastmasters. So this job is really right up his ally. Once we move to ID he should be able to travel a little closer to home and visit various NEA chapters throughout Idaho. For now though, it's a lot of travel to various events he needs to attend so he can shadow other NEA MB reps. One thing that is really cool is that he does work for a union, and they had already arranged through the contract that everyone would be given paid time off from Christmas Eve through Jan 5 without it counting from their actual paid days off. They just got the time. So I matched my pto that I had stored up so we were both off from Christmas through Jan 5. I had been saving my days off because I thought I was losing my job and wanted to stockpile as much time off for them to pay me out when my job ended. As it turns out I'm around at least another month so all of a sudden I had to use my pto or else I would lose it. So I'm using it all baby!!!

Anyway these are pretty much all the non updates :) The house will be our biggest agenda item. As soon as we can get it sold we'll be in a position to be moving and buying and shaking and rolling. And we'll still plan on the wedding in May. So start watching for tickets to come to our MN wedding!!!!

A few more pics

These are my dad's pics from my mom's birthday dinner at Chili's. Yummy birthday dessert!

Trip to Idaho

We're home from our trip to Idaho, and it was a great trip. We did a lot of driving, since we flew into SLC and then drove up to Boise, and then on the way home drove to Pocatello and stayed the night there so our return trip didn't have to be all the way back to SLC from BOI in one shot. But we had a great trip, good time with family and got to see a friend from high school. Dave had never been to Boise or Fruitland before, because every other time he's come to Thanksgiving with me we're in Riverton, UT and then drive up to Pocatello. So this time I got to show him around where I grew up, we stayed at my parents house, and we got to eat some yummy food!! Now I'm just tired and not ready to be back at work, but back at work I will be! It was nice to see my grandma again, and I hadn't been to her house in like 3 years, so that was nice. And I saw my cousin Kim for the first time in a few years. She came with us to a bridal shop for a wedding dress appointment I had. My mom had called her and it worked out that she was able to meet us. That was fun, because it had been a long time since I had seen her. I should've taken a picture with her, but I was all caught up in trying on dresses, so missed that boat. But we found each other on Facebook, so it's all good :)