Backstreet's Back Alright!

Last Wednesday a few friends from work and I went to the Backstreet Boys concert at the Energy Solutions Arena. It...was....EPIC! I saw N'SYNC in concert back in the day but never had the opportunity to see the BSB. Well FINALLY I was able to fulfill my lifelong dream. Here's a picture recap of this spectacular event:

Just Cruisin’

Boarding the Ship!

A few weeks ago we enjoyed some relaxing time on a Carnival cruise to Catalina and Ensenada, Mexico. We went with our friends Jeff and Holli Chambers and Doug and Leslie Weiler. We had been planning this trip for a year now and I can't believe it came so fast!

The cruise left out of Long Beach, California so we decided to make it a road trip. We first drove down to St. George Saturday and stayed at Doug's grandparents home for two nights (thanks guys for providing a place to stay. Tell your grandparents thank you too:) ) While there, we swam and then Jeff formulated some obsession with wanting to float something down this decorative canal thing down Main street. So while shopping for treats for the road, we found a pack of 3 plastic fish....we HAD to have them and decided they were perfect to float down the canal. Each couple got one and we named them and had a race. We felt our fish were family so they even popped into most of our cruise pics :)

Flounder, Fast Fish, Dr. Fury

Our first day on the water was kind of rocky. We were to port at Catalina the next day (Tuesday) but they made an announcement that morning stating that we could not port because the winds were too strong and created a safety issue with the tenders that would take us to the island so they made it a day at sea. We ended up pretty much circling Catalina. It was a nice, relaxing day. We were able to get some sun...me a little too much because I forgot to have Carson get my back :(

The Boys enjoyed the water slide

We competed against each other in Shuffleboard

Wednesday we were finally able to go to Catalina where we kayaked to Frog Rock. We walked around the island a little. Little did we know, while discovering the island, there were tons of crabs crawling around near our feet! They blended right into the rocks! It sort of creeped me out when one of our guides pointed them out. Doug decided to show his manliness or something and picked one up. It got him with it's pincher and was dangling from his finger. We all laughed. Then to our surprise, I guess in a defense mechanism, it broke it's own arm off! It fell to the ground and scurried away, leaving it's arm still attached to Doug. All the girls screamed! haha it was quite interesting. Holli was pretty brave and picked one up too....I opted out of touching the things.

kayaking in Catalina

I had quite an interesting thing happen to me while taking the tender back from Catalina to our ship. There was a group of drunks on the tender with us. While stepping up the ladder from the tender into the ship, a drunk guy reached in between Carson and I and grabbed my toosh! Quite a scene....Carson was quick to push the guy. We kinda wished he would've pushed him out of the boat! Would've been better but I was quite proud of Carson. Never seen him so upset. That's my boy! haha

Thursday we arrived at Ensenada, Mexico where we just strolled the streets and haggled with some locals. I got some jewelry and Carson got a pretty sweet scorpion belt buckle. Looks good with his white trash tank top he purchased there too :)

Friday we disembarked and headed back to Utah. It was so sad to go. We had such a GREAT time! It was nice going for our honeymoon just ourselves but it's SO much better with great friends to share the experience.

The whole gang

There's a light......

For those who haven't heard, I was accepted into my Master's program last week. I will begin studying for my MISM(Master's of Information Systems Management) in the fall. This is a convenient program as it replaces my final year of my undergrad and therefore, gives me my Master's Degree in, technically, one year. It is also nice because I only have to pay one years worth of BYU graduate tuition, which is dirt cheap in comparison to anywhere else.

It's nice to finally have a solid graduation plan and know that I'll be completely done with school in 2 years!

There's some direction

As some of you may know, I have desperately been trying to get into Weber's Radiology program for quite some time now. They have a Provo campus at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center so I have been trying to get into that one initially because of convenience purposes since I live within walking distance from the hospital.

There are only three schools in Utah that offer the Radiology program, they are: Weber (as mentioned), Salt Lake Community College, and Dixie. SLCC's program was a waiting list and last I checked it was a three year wait! :S what a waste of time! I didn't really have much of a desire to go down to Dixie so my main option was Weber especially because it had that option for the Provo campus.

They only accept once a year so last January I applied. I applied mainly because I was eligible but with how scholarly competitive it is I had my doubts of getting in. I knew my grades could use some work. Sure enough I did not get accepted but since I applied they give you extra points if you stick with them and apply again.

So I worked hard for a year to chisel some grades and take extra classes and I started job shadowing there at UVRMC and met some important people :) Then the time came for me to apply again. This time I was prepared. Weber's program, as I mentioned before, is very hard to get into.

First when they get the applications they weed out all the scholarly weak and rank all the others. I was told I was pretty high on the list (haha not to brag....ok I don't care, I'll brag. I worked hard). Then they hold an interview with a panel of six people on one side of the table and the applicant on the other. Very excruciating. I was SO nervous! I walked away from my interview feeling very upset and that I had bombed it. I called Carson immediately after and vented my frustration. That was last week and seriously ALL week I have been super stressed and kinda mopey. I have even had some bad dreams about not getting in where I cry hysterically! Today I got the letter. My stomach churned as I opened it and.....it was an acceptance letter! I thought for sure I'd get a rejection letter! I will start this Fall.

My heart is full right now. I am so grateful that we live in this country where we can get a good education. I'm grateful for those who saw something in me that I did not. I can't wait to get started and feel that there is now some direction in my life education wise. And I'm grateful for those who stood beside me through all the late nights of studying, the tears because of the bad grades, and the excitement because of the good grades.

We're Moving!

The time has come for us to move on to bigger and better. We are currently in an apartment complex in Provo near BYU. It's a one bedroom maybe like 700 sq. feet. We have lived here just about two years now and have really liked it. We will really miss it. We have been thinking the last probably like 6 months about moving. We want a two bedroom place...you know...to expand :) (not any time real soon) There hasn't been a major need to move so we haven't been desperately looking or anything. We just figured we'd keep our options open and maybe something would come up. Well, Carson got a calling in our ward a few months ago as Executive Secretary so we kinda felt that we should stay in the ward. The ward is amazing though so we didn't want to leave anyway but that really limited us to where we could move. We live close to the hospital and they own a bunch of cute old starter houses that are in our ward. We've been wanting to move into one of those but they go SO fast it's nearly impossible to get one. We have looked at a few and have come so close to maybe getting a couple but they pretty much get snatched out from under our noses. With the help of some friends that live in one, we were able to keep in contact with someone from management and on Wed. she set us up to see one just as soon as they got word the current tenants were planning on moving. I attached pictures that were on the website and it looks ok but seriously they don't do it justice at all. Based on the pictures, we apprehensively went to see it and were blown away. It's super cute. It's 1100 sq ft. We'll have a yard and the two bedrooms we want. We'll have to put up our own pics later when we move in to combat the other ones shown here. We are excited to make this our new home. We will move in at the beginning of May.

A Taste of Parenthood

No, not really. Last week we "babysat" the Slikker girls (Carson's 3 cousins) for 4 nights at their house in Saratoga Springs. It was far from babysitting. The oldest is 15 and the youngest is almost 8 so really it was a matter of having someone there at night and in the morning to get them off to school. So it was essentially just hanging out with them. We had fun. The first night was Sunday so we just picked them up from their aunt's and pretty much went home and went to bed. The next night we got pizza and rented a movie. The third night Emma (the middle one- 11) had a great idea to make oreo truffles. They were pretty yummy! The last night I had one of my usual cravings...McDonalds fries. So we loaded up and went to the Saratoga Springs Micky D's for random stuff like fries and shakes. This was quite the McDonalds...it had a "fireplace" in it AND my favorite, a talking garbage can! Here's a clip of it...not sure if you can really hear it but it thanks you! Then it tells you "Recycling" haha right...

Well We Made It Yet Another Year!

2 years ago on the date of December 29th 2007 I married my dream guy. Just a warning, this is gonna be gushy...but hey it's an anniversary post it's expected, right? Though we only dated for a short time, I knew almost instantly that he was the one for me and the timing couldn't have been better. 2 years have gone by so fast and they have been wonderful! I am looking forward to many more years to come with my sweetheart! Here are some reasons why I love Carson:

• He puts me to bed when I fall asleep on the couch
• He lets me spend money
• He makes me laugh
• He's willing to hold my hair back when I hurl :)
• He works hard whether it's school, work, church callings etc.
• He's smart
• He enjoys pillow talk (or at least I like to think he does)
• He makes me a killer grilled cheese samich