In the Wild

July 23rd - 24th David & I went camping!! We registered for a tent and the Tarwater's gave it to us at our wedding :) So we got all the other supplies this month and planned a FUN weekend out in the desert! We didn't realize that all the places we wanted to go were going to be booked for the Utah holiday. We found that Spanish Fork, the Diamond Fork Canyon had some walk-in spots, so there we went.

We packed up the car, bought all the food, wood & ice - and headed out. After I drove around trying to find the camp that I went to before, we at least found another spot that was our spot. We unpacked, put up the tent, and started the fire. We had tinfoil dinners under the stars - it was very yummy! We also had marshmallows with Keebler cookies and starbursts. It got dark and cooler so we headed to bed. I was very proud of us - we kept all the food in the car (I found out afterwards that David saw signs about bears around the area, but he didn't tell me, probably good!) so we kept the food away and were very clean with wipes and making sure the bugs and dirt didn't get in our tent. Our tent is pretty cool with some extra flaps on the front for a sort of patio covering! I was a bit cool starting to sleep but actually slept well with the bed pads we brought. I took two, gave David one, and he sacrificed a bit more by sleeping on the bumps and I didn't know until the morning. The sun woke us up early for a Saturday and started warming up real quick. We had hot chocolate but it was too hot to have any. We had bagels and smores again :) And then packed up to head home. Short and sweet but a great trip!

 

It was a lot of fun to try and camp ourselves for the first time. Lots of funny memories to remember:

• Not finding Diamond Fork because our GPS didn't have the dirt road programed and we only had the coordinates of the canyon, took like an extra 30 min.
• David letting me go back and forth between different sites till we found the one we liked the most
• Taking 1000 trips to the bathroom together so that I wouldn't have to get up during the night
• Having a tarp that was like 20x too large, we folded it just so it would fit under our tent, so funny since we thought the tarp may have been too small
• Hearing all the mice or whatever it was in all of the bushes
• Figuring out how to pay the "overnight" camping fee
• David sleeping on rocks and not telling me! And also knowing about possible bears and not telling me.

I'm sure there were lots more, but at least those were some funny ones. We hope to go at least once more this summer :)

Twenty Six

I'm 26 years old now!!!

(not sure why exclamations since it does mean I'm getting older)

Yep, 26! And first birthday as a wife! So, that was extra special and fun. I woke up to David with french toast in bed. Yum! And I totally spilled syrup on our sheets, oh well. :) Then I headed to work where I had my desk decorated and a lunch out to Mimi's Cafe. I knew David was planning something that night, but we kept it a surprise... so I think I was extra excited all night. I got home and we headed on a drive to who knows where :) David took me to RUBY'S DINER in the Immigration Canyon by the U of U. Really, it's a few miles into the canyon off the side of the highway - so pretty, green, sunny, and in the mountains. It's been around since like 1928 or something like that. Thursday nights were the BBQ nights - we ordered ribs, chicken and pork on the patio behind the diner and listened to the 2 guitarists playing for the evening.

It was a very special time going together and making more fun memories! Next up David took me home and pulled out my laptop to show me my other possible presents. He's so sweet - he's been researching a few things that I've been wanting/needing and wanted to get my opinion before he bought them. First were slippers - lots of cute slippers, some with Yoshi's head, but I just told him to pick. Second I've been looking for these certain shoes that I have since they are falling apart - and David looked all over for them and had a bunch of options to choose between. Isn't he so cute? He said present #3 wasn't ready yet, but soon. And for present 4 David took me to one of our favorite dating parks in Midvale. He pulled out a laptop and a movie he bought for me - one I've been asking to rent for months - All About Steve with Sandra Bullock. We watched that together outside and laughed a ton.

What a great day! I got a lot of texts from friends & family which was fun to get. And a few cards arrived from those people too...so celebrations lasted all weekend. We went camping - more to come on that one - and then Sunday David's family had a party for me. It was really sweet because they asked for my favorite meal (I picked Hawaiian haystacks), cake (Funfetti) and jello flavors even - all the kids do this every birthday - so it was very special for me.

Happy Birthday to me!!!

4th of July

07-04-2010

David let me have this holiday for my family events, yay!  I think I asked if I could claim this holiday before we were even married.  He's too good to me.  I just always want to be at the Murray parade with my relatives...just a tradition I guess.  Back when Richard did the announcing of the floats, I would help turn the pages and make sure he was saying the right float.  This time we just sat and watched as well has candy pelted at us as front row-ers.  It was fun.  Very cool for being July, not the normal hot day.  Afterwards David studied a bit and we headed over to Richard and Jans, I made brownies with strawberries on top (American Festive) and we had lunch, played pool and just chatted.  My mom was in town too and spent some time with me earlier that week and stayed between Steph's and Rich's.  That evening we met up with everyone again at Murray Park and watched the fireworks.  David and I realized that last year we both were at this event too - just at different ends of the park.  It's fun to see where we were and how close we really were to each other a year ago.

This is a really cool photo below if it's full screen....

Work Stress

Lately I've been LOVING my job. I really haven't written much about work since I got married... wonder why :) But I've still been working as usual and liking it more and more each day. Work has actually changed a lot in the last few months. I'm not sure all that I've reviewed but here are some highlights and possibly stories:

• One of our team went out on maternity leave so I moved into her role more dealing more with benefits and compensation as well as my whole job too. She left unexpectedly and I had a whole huge merit project as well as learning benefits on my plate. I did it, except really couldn't do 2 jobs. Our boss let us find a temp to come in for at least the 3 months and maybe permanently. So, I interviewed with my boss and we finally found someone that would fit our team great. My boss said that the person we found sounded a lot like me 2 years ago. That was still a complement to me because this girl we found is like me and we wanted to hire her. She's started and helped out a whole ton! I gave her lots and trained her a lot and really took over her first few months by helping her and giving her all she needed to do, more like her side manager. Anyway, she's still here and it's been great to see all the changes we've been able to make as well as how she's grown.
• Selling our company - our company is still up for being sold. We were told in January and are still waiting to find the best buyer... the hard part is just that we're in uncertainty and it's hard to hire, keep employees, and just help our current employees feel good about where they are. But the good part about our company branching out is that we have a lot, TONS of say in all our HR processes. Before we were more told what we could do and now we have a chance to really make more of a difference.
• Manager Training!!! So, for over a month we've been putting together a training for our managers. It sort of just evolved and our boss let us run with it. I also evolved to being the project manager. I'm not sure I wanted the role, but i just felt like I didn't have a choice, nothing would get done without me pushing, seriously pushing every day. I learned a ton about being a team lead. We documented all our processes and put them into a binder for our manager. We had about 50 pages to have a printing company put together. All covering how to hire, interview, new hire orientation, HR processes, performance reviews, etc. Once now that the binder is done, we've been having a 1/2 day training for all managers (about 80). We've had 4 classes so far with about 15 managers. There are 3 of us that take about 1.5 hours each. I also looked up some Office clips and have played those as well as ordered food, set up the room, put the binders that were printed together, and did the presentation! Yikes... training takes a lot of work. I'm pretty behind in regular work since we have this a few times a week. I do love presenting and talking to the managers though. I was nervous but now it's fun and if the class is silly it's just so entertaining.
• Awards Program - we're finally rolling out a new awards program. I have re-done this program at least 2 times, and this last time we are finally going with it. I'm proud to have helped develop the program... basically though it's pretty similar with a new name and hopefully will help our employees know a bit more of what they can submit awards for.
• New Hire Orientation - we've also 'upgraded' this class where now I'm teaching 1 hour and an executive stafff member teaches one hour about the company. I share benefits and payroll info with lots of questions. It's fun being in front and now we only have the class every two weeks and they get a nice cute LANDesk bag and stuff too. But it's just a lot of preparation still. But if it makes it an enjoyable entry into the company, we're successful.
• Compensation - I've learned a lot about compensation with one staff member being gone. I also learned about how some things that are said to be done and right really aren't. There was a lot to fix regarding bonuses and merit increases back in March, but I think it was good for me to jump into the fire even though I was lost for a bit.
• Future projects include fixing our Performance Evaluations for the end of the year, re-creating our intranet, employee directory on-line, starting a newsletter, and a lot of database trainings as well. We're still in limbo but soon to find out who will buy us probably. There will be more changes after that. I'm sure learning how to cope with the changes or how to be proactive at changing.

Work has been great. Hard to cover all that has been going on, but that was a brief summary. As for the DRAMA at work, of course, there's always TONS. I'm not usually in it totally, but there have been days that I just want to go home because I have to do too much reminding people, or fixing problems that I asked to be fixed, or just the drama. It's hard with girl teams sometimes and feelings hurt and mean things people say. I just don't get too involved hopefully unless they drive me crazy and I just ignore them... David gets to hear all about it. He also tells me that sometimes I come home from work in the "work mode" - yeah probably. I either have energy to get projects done, or start bossing him around and giving him projects just because I do that so often at work...haha... Glad he can put up with it. I'm still lucky that I don't work on nights or weekends unless I see an e-mail that needs addressing. So, work is just fine.

Everyone's gettin hitched...

Yep, we've had 3 family weddings so far this year! I think we started a trend or something in our immediate family. And we were able to attend them both!

March 12, 2010, yep, exactly 1 month after ours David's sister, Amber Clark & Brandon Morrell were married in the SLC Temple. They had a luncheon at the Lion House and then the reception was at Regency Garden in the Sandy area. Their main color was PURPLE... I felt like I was at my wedding but that the RED color I had just changed to purple. We had the same family there, and a lot of the same ideas and traditions... it was a beautiful day for them. It was so fun to sit in the temple thinking that just 1 month ago I was doing that very same thing. What a great way to celebrate our 1 month huh?!?! I have to document a funny experience. While waiting outside the temple I noticed this guy and had a total blank out moment - who is he? I think I know him right? Hmm... - So like 30 seconds of this... and finally... Oh...my...gosh!! I know! It's the previous guy I dated, not like years ago, but just the last guy before I fell in love with David. WOW - he obviously totally left my mind. After dating him I never thought about him again, I didn't have a chance since I quickly fell for my David. I've decided that it was actually really telling and good that I forgot that man. Anyway, it was a funny moment for me. Back to the wedding - David & I had fun being more in the background at this event and during breaks we took the kids to the museum on Temple Square and just hung out. Of course we took lots of pictures of the events of the day:

May 29, 2010, my brother Eric Everts & Amanda Cox were sealed in the Mesa Arizona Temple. Yes, we flew down for the weekend and had a blast hanging out with family the night before the wedding at my dads house and then the day of at the Mesa Temple. I flew down with Grandma Ginny and Steph & Tony and David came a few hours later. We visited both of my families while we were there. Being in the temple on Saturday was a special experience for me because half of the people we were surrounded by again were the ones who attended our wedding and now we were on the other side of it all. And still very happily married. It was deathly hot outside so that was the downer of watching the pictures. And then we had about 6 hours to kill till the reception, so we went to lunch with my Evans family and then watched a movie even. Weird to have such a break! So then the reception was fun and I liked dancing at the end and just re-chatting with a few familes in the ward that I like.... all the questions of "how's married life" :) And then Sunday we spent at Dads and went to his church and had dinner with them and they took us to the airport the next morning. You could tell that my brother had found his mate - they even sang a duet together and you could just see it. I'm glad they are married and so happy. He and I always tend to do things at the same time: mission, marriage :) Love you bro!

SO.... who's next? My family got them all done in 6 months... :)

Benihana

You know one of our favorite places to eat??? Benihana.... yum!!! This was taken right after we got engaged... a family tradition for David that we are going to share together too :)