Straws are a Luxury: August 2012

Nothing too exciting has happened since our last post. As I was sitting in class dosing off today I realized that I haven't blogged in some time and since tonight is a slow night I will try to get this done! Joe and I wanted to do one last fun thing before summer ended so we were finally able to do an overnight camping trip up at Yankee Meadow. We packed up really quick and got a couple necessities at the grocery store and headed up the mountain. We set up camp and then we started cooking dinner. We cooked hot dogs over an open fire with some delicious buns from Lin's. That is my kind of camp-out meal! We roasted some marshmallows and then got ready for bed before the rain storm got bad. Our power converter ended up not working so we weren't able to blow up the air mattresses... It was a long, long night. We both tossed and turned from the hard ground and somehow we managed to stay dry during a pretty intense thunder storm. We woke up pretty early and headed to the lake to do some fishing. After about an hour with not even a bite we left. We were both so tired and so we just headed home. I took a nap for another 3 hours because I was closing that night and needed to get some actual rest. Overall, it was a super fun trip and I loved being able to get away just me and Joe.
I've just been working a lot lately. I was able to have a couple good weekends which was much needed after purchasing textbooks for both Joe and I. We spend about $500 for the both of us this semester and we even rented ALL of our books! Boy, it's turning out to be harder and harder for us to make it on our own. Hopefully one day...
One of Joe's really good friends returned from his mission a few weeks back.. oh by the way it was Mack. It made for a super fun weekend with McKay and his wife Ashley coming down and we all just hung out. We really had a fun time. On the other hand Justin and Stephanie moved up north to go to school. I especially miss Steph... I'm working on being a little more social and outgoing with the girls at work, school, and church. I need some girl friends sometimes ;)
After meeting with my professor last Friday I found out some super news! I am going to graduate next semester (of course if I pass all classes) I decided to not complete the education portion of the physical education degree for a couple of reasons. 1. Since Joe and I will probably be moving next summer there would be reason to certify here in Utah because I would have to redo it anyway. 2. Getting the BA in PE will transfer much easier if I just finish the core options and then go back to school to certify to teach. All-in-all? Awesome. Both Joe and I will be graduating next semester... finger's crossed!!
School started on Monday. Joe's semester is absolutely ridiculous. His books alone would make a grown man cry at the sight! I just want to cry after spending 4 straight hours in same classroom for 4 different classes on MWF. It stinks... mucho. But heck, if I'm going to graduate I think I'll manage!
Joe has been training for his triathlon since summer started and has been researching road bikes for months. Today, he got an early birthday/Christmas present. We went 50/50 with his parents he had a band new bike waiting at home for him today. He's super excited to finally have his own bike!!

Joe's new bike!

This is the aftermath of a volunteer event Joe attended with his work. All of that is chalk!

A family feast at Sonny Boy's with the gang!

This is cowboy AJ. He was Weston's toy that I found on my driveway.

I held him captive for Oreo's, pencil's and a water-gun.

Then Weston moved away. hahaha!

Don't those look tasty?

Mmmmm... He's tasty lookin' too!

This is going to be the post of all post's! So many crazy things have happened to Joe and I over the past couple of weeks... I just hope I can remember everything. Let's start with the beach! Joe and I drove our own car but caravan-ed down with Doug, Fiona and the Cash kids. We arrived at Cush's house in Corona later that evening and met up with Megan, Brady and little baby Jude! This was the first time all of us had seen Jude since his surgery earlier the week before to hopefully fix the nerve damage done when he was born. That poor kid was wrapped up in the most uncomfortable looking cast. We stayed the night at Grandma's and then Joe, Doug and I did a little sightseeing of Corona. We were able to walk through West Coast Customs and saw some pretty awesome cars just in the parking lot! The Hatch's met up with us and then we all headed out to Oceanside... but until we had lunch at Panera! Can you say YUM?! We had enough time to unload our car before Joe and I drove down to San Diego to pick Kathryn up from the airport. Joe and Kat were pretty hungry for dinner so we found the closest Rubio's and stopped for dinner. It just so happens that we managed to stop at the very first Rubio's ever! It was pretty awesome. We spent the next four days spending some quality time at the beach! It was a little chilly the first couple days but it started to warm up and made for some perfect beach weather! Day 2 at the beach ended with a bit of a scare. When Joe and I were walking down to the beach that day I noticed that I still had my wedding ring on.. I didn't want to loose it while we were soakin' up some sun so Joe and I put both our rings in the Zip Loc bag that was keeping his Iphone and keys safe. We were in charge of making dinner that night so left the beach a little bit early to get cleaned up. When we got back to the Condo I asked Joe to grab our rings and his response was priceless... "Um...I only have one ring..." I walked over to see which ring that would be and mine was not in his hand. Instant panic kicked in! I started looking anxiously through the beach bag, towels, whatever I could find. My only thought was that if it fell out at the beach we would never find it. We started to make the trip back down to the beach scanning and retracing our steps. Luckily the family was still at the beach so we instantly started sifting through sand. At this point I just starting crying. I headed back to the Condo because I just couldn't handle the fact that I had lost my ring. Poor Joe was looking so fervently trying to find that dang thing and felt that awful. He was all over the place trying to deal with an emotional "me" and creating a search party to find the ring. Doug and Fiona were at the Condo searching when I got there and about 5 minutes later they got a call saying Brian found it! Relief. Brian was so sweet and said that he was NOT leaving that beach until they found my ring. I couldn't help but thank him by saying owe him the honor of naming our firstborn after him. Hahaha that may have been a mistake but he loved it! I think he told everyone within a matter of minutes.Joe and I were so grateful that we found my ring! I love my ring... a lot! Needless to say that made for a super eventful evening!
We ate some sort of mexican food practically every day... whether it be Rubio's, Jonhny Manana's, Cush's famous tacos, or homemade quessadilla's. It was soooo yummy but man I was missing the light food i'm used to eating. Oh! I got a slurpee one night too. I miss those tasty treats! Joe and I stashed some wedding money a while back and that's how we were able to pay for some of the fun. We each got a $100 to spend on whatever we wanted! I got a pair of new super comfy athletic shoes and Joe got a pair of super sweet Dragon sunglasses! The '12 Summer Olympics have started the weekend we got to California so when we weren't at the beach or pool we were inside watching some amazing Olympic events! We really had a great time at the beach. It was super fun to be able to spend time with all our family and just relax. We are so grateful for Doug and his love and ambition to have family get together's because we love them so much!
Joe and I left early Friday morning to get back to Cedar in time for my 6:00 shift. We made really good time switching off driving and resting. I worked the next three days straight and Joe worked Saturday morning too. We headed over to dinner at my parents after I got off work on Sunday. My mom can make a mean Costa Vida salad and boy was that super tasty. We played a couple games with them and even got to skype a little bit with Chad and kelly.
Starting off this week we went hiking early Monday morning with AJ, Weston, a girl named Amanda who has a crush on AJ and Matt. It was a new hike in the Kolob Canyon part of Zion's. It was nice to get out and be with our friends since we've dedicated most of our time to family the past month. I hadn't really had a chance to recuperate since the vacation so I came home and slept for quite a few hours because I was honestly exhausted on all accounts. Zoe decided to stay a couple extra days to get spoiled by her Nana and Papa so that night we all went to Tuachan to watch Aladdin!! It was a super awesome! I worked lunch on Tuesday and afterwards Joe and I ran errands in town. We sent a birthday present to Kathryn, shopped at Walmart and even got some hair dye for me! Joe played frisbee that night while I got called in to work for half an hour to help a little and get paid $6... whoopie. Afterwards all the guys came over to help move the huge big screen tv that has been taking up loads of room in the basement. It took 4 guys plus Justin to get that thing on the trailer to take to DI. AJ then invited all of us to go hot tubing in his apartment complex's clubhouse. Joe and I headed over a little late but got plenty of hot tub time in.
That next morning Joe noticed that he couldn't find his wallet... we figured it was just around the house and we'd find it eventually. NOT THE CASE. Thursday we found some lovely charges on Joe's Debit Card at a Shell gas station in town and on Saturday I found $500 worth of charges on his credit card. Luckily we had cancelled the credit card in time but we'll probably take the hit on the debit card charges. Joe rushed over to the our bank to figure out what to do and trying to tell the lady that his wife did in fact NOT have his card. We filed a police report since his wallet was stolen out of our car while we were at AJ's. We're sorta just leaving it up to the police to see if they'll do anything about it... while is probably unlikely. We spent Friday trying to replace everything that we could like his school ID and driver's license. Poor Joe had a pretty rough week with all of this happening. I took him out on a little date on Thursday to help brighten up his day. We went to a new little restaurant in town and then to Krave afterwards. I'm pretty sure we could have skipped dinner and just went to Krave... man we love that place... a lot... hahah! We had our friends over that night to play some games and watch the Olympics too. OH! I forgot one super important event of the week!! I died my hair... brown!! Okay, it's more of an ashy brunette but I am no longer a blonde!! It's so different and the people at work keep thinking i'm Stephanie so it's taking some time getting used to. But Joe loves it! He loves it even more than my blonde hair. Did I mention Joe was the one who died my hair? Yeah, he's probably the most supportive and amazing husband. We ended the week just as we always do... working and hanging out with friends. I got this whole Sunday off and what a blessing it is to be able to spend some quality time with Joe. We're watching the RM while I blog this.... Ohhh what a great movie!