New job, New beginnings

Once again I can't seem to maintain this blog, but I'm trying to get better. The only problem I have is that I don't believe that my life is very exciting so....let's see if my words will make it seem more interesting.

Here we go...

I became an aunt again on May 18th to Prestin Grimm Peterson. He is a very handsome little boy that is the exact opposite of his older brother. Prestin is dark haired with what looks like will be brown eyes (he's still too young to know for sure) and Rylee (older brother who will be 3 in August) is very towheaded with very light blue eyes. I was able to fly back to Utah (thanks to my grandparents giving me frequent flyer miles) and help my sister and brother-in-law juggle settling into a new house (they had just moved in when Prestin arrived) a toddler, and driving back and forth to the hospital to do feeding since Prestin decided to come two months early. Let me tell you keeping up with a toddler is very challenging when you aren't used to it and I assume when you are used to it. I am in awe of mothers of toddlers. How do they do it?

Rylee and Prestin

After a week of chasing a toddler and painting said toddler's bedroom for purple with Disney princess banner to bright orange accent wall and closet and gray wall I was exhausted and missing my hubby something terrible. I did have the good fortune to see one of my very close friends from my days at UVU. I had missed girl talk and catching up...

I did get the job I had interview for before I left to Utah. It's a Certified Nursing Assistant position at Life Care Center of Cheyenne. I have done two rotations of clinicals at this facility and it is hands down one of the best facilities I have been in. I start with orientation tomorrow which will be a very long 9 hours of sitting and learning facility policies and ways of the trade. Wish me luck? I'm sure now that I will be working with the elderly I might have funny anecdotes to share.

Valentine's Day

Valentine Day

noun

February 14, observed in honor of St. Valentine as a day for the exchange of valentines and other tokens of affection.

Jalen and I don't really celebrate Valentine's Day. We believe that you should show that love to the people you care about all throughout the year, not just on one day. However, I like getting new shiny things so we exchanged gifts anyway. 

My gorgeous diamond necklace from my wonderful husband

For Jalen's gift I allowed him to get new parts for one of his guns. 

Of course I decorated the house for Valentine's Day. It isn't anything crazy or elaborate but subtle. 

I'm excited for March so that I can decorate for St. Patrick's Day which is my favorite holiday. :)

Apparently I lied

I said in my last post that I vowed to do better on updating this blog consistently, well..I lied apparently.

Let me make up for the time missed.

Jalen and I bought a house just shortly after the Tough Mudder in October. It's a three bedroom, two and a half bath house with an unfinished basement. We weren't originally looking to buy a house, but we were at the mall getting a new set of tires put on my car, just killing time and the mall has a booth of a bunch of house flyers. So of course I wanted to look at them for fun. I found the flyer for our house; I turned to Jalen and asked if we could go look at it as a joke. Jalen surprised me by saying yes. Long story short...we made the appointment to look at it that day, we loved it, and two days later we made an offer that was accepted.

Sorry for the mess in the closet and laundry room. These were taken just after we moved in and I hadn't finished putting everything where it was suppose to go.


We moved in on November 16th so that we could be moved in by Thanksgiving. My parents were coming up for Thanksgiving and they didn't know we bought a house. We kept it a secret so that we could surprise them. How did we surprise them, you ask. Well I told my mom to text me when she was on her way to the apartment because we were going to "breakfast". We really just needed to know when they were on their way so we could meet them there. So that went as planned; we met them at the apartment, told them we had a surprise and to follow us. When we got the house they had caught on and were very proud and happy for us. I know, not much of a story....

Thanksgiving went really well for it being the first Thanksgiving that I had to cook.

Christmas was spent with just me and Jalen and our cats. I made ham, mashed potatoes, rolls, and vegetable after Jalen and I had spoiled each other with presents.

I decorated with everything blue and silver. It turned out really well but I'm still trying to get rid of all the glitter from the decorations though.

More later...

I'm really bad at maintaining this blog. I vow to try better and try to post more from now on. Therefore, I'm going to start with what Jalen and I did at the beginning of this month.

Jalen was able to get about ten days leave and during that time we took a vacation to Utah and Las Vegas. I was glad to spend a couple of days in Utah with my family. Then on to Las Vegas for the TOUGH MUDDER!!!

The Tough Mudder is a 10 mile "race" full of 20 obstacles designed by military professionals. Some of the obstacles include but aren't limited to below freezing water, mud, and electricity. It is said to be the hardest run to complete. The key to it is teamwork.

This year Jalen and five of his siblings participated in this run in the middle of the desert about two hours from Las Vegas. My in-laws and I had the privilege to watch these six amazing individuals work together and complete the entire run without skipping any obstacles on the way.

 

TEAM H2O!

 

 

 

Together before the race

 

Taking the plunge

 

Trying not to get wetter

 

Monkey Bars

 

Electrical Wires

 

VICTORY!!

 

I'm very proud of my siblings and next year it's my turn to earn my headband and spiffy t-shirt by finishing the race with this amazing team and even more team mates.

 

 

More later...

 

Sorry I haven't posted something new for a very long time. So this new post will be a sum up on everything that has gone on since my last post.

After BMT graduation and I went back to Utah life went on like it had been for the previous two months except that Jalen got his cell phone back and I could actually talk to him every night and we changed the wedding date from May 17, 2012 to December 23, 2011. That was three weeks away from when I got back to Utah. At the time our families were skeptical about the drastic change, but we made the decision that was best for us. Jalen and I realized that there was no way that he could definitely come home in May but we knew he would be home for Christmas exodus, so we decided to change the date instead of hope he would make in home in May.

So we got our families on board and started planning a wedding in three weeks. Luckily, I already had my dress and the maid of honor dress. Jalen's older sister Brita offered to do a dutch oven dinner for the wedding. We did fake flowers for my bouquet and my maid of honor's bouquet. My maid of honor was my sister of course and Jalen's best man was his older brother Jake. The biggest obstacle for me to overcome when we made the decision to change the wedding was that I thought the rest of Jalen's siblings wouldn't be able to come. Luckily all of the were at the wedding; it was the first time all seven had been together in one place at the same time for five years I think. Anyways...going along with the fact that the wedding was in December we used fake Christmas trees and poinsettas as decorations for where we stood during the ceremony and snowglobes for the centerpieces. Once we got all the wedding plans set all Jalen had to worry about was getting home on time. That was where tragedy hit. Jalen was scheduled to fly in on the 20th but on his flight home another passenger had some sort of anxiety attack and the plane had to make an emergency landing making it so Jalen missed his connection in Denver. He had to stay in Denver for the night and hope to get on the first flight home the next morning. I was only a little worried. To make a long story short, he got on the next flight home in the morning and the wedding with on without a hitch. Brita did my hair, our pictures, and the luncheon after the ceremony. Everything was perfect.

After about two weeks of being a newly wed couple that actually got to be together, Jalen went back to Texas to finish his Tech School; which was going to take until March and I went back to school full time and working at the campus library part time. We spent three months without seeing each other. We bought a car together; which was a huge pain because he had to sign the loan papers and I got about an hour phone call to ask him if he thought this car was a good buy and how much we could put down for a down payment. We bought an orange Subaru Impreza. The auto body shop we bought it from thought it was a 2008 but it turned out to be a 2009. They found that out after we had already made the deal so we got the car for a steal, probably about three thousand dollars cheaper.  When Jalen finished Tech School he moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming where he got based. A week after he got there my parents and I drove up to see him (and to drop off the new car so he had a way to get from our apartment to base). I spent five amazing days with my husband most of which I spent looking for a place to live because the housing office told us it would be 30-60 days before we could get housing on base. After finding an apartment, buying a new couch, and leaving Jalen to sleep in an apartment with no furniture for a month I went back to Utah for finish my semester.

In April I finished my semester, packed up our stuff and moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming. Eight hours from our families we started our lives together. Now June the apartment is finally settled with all of our stuff. Jalen has actually started working instead of sitting in a classroom and for the first time in years I actually had a summer break; which is about to end. I am going back to school Monday to get my CNA here in Wyoming and in August I'm taking Anatomy and applying for the Nursing program at Laramie County Community College. I just have to take a test that is similar to the ACT/SAT and hope that my application is good enough to start the program in the Spring semester.

Our chaotic lives of being a military family has started and I'm loving every minute of it. I miss the mountains and my friends and family but I'm happy to finally be with my husband. I can't wait for everything else to fall into place. I'm taking a deep breath and plunging head first into my new life. Here we go!

BMT Graduation

This was taken the first day that I saw Jalen after two months. It was Thanksgiving Day in San Antonio, Texas. I was absolutely jumping with joy, of course you can't tell if he was happy or not because he never smiled in like any of the pictures that were taken while we were there. However, the fact that he was in uniform in public and I couldn't hold his hand was driving me insane, so I stood as close as I could without actually touching him.

I was trying really really really hard not to turn around and never let go of him ever again. See the control...we stood like that for a good 45 minutes before we were seating in the resturant. I swear nobody in San Antonio cooks.

To make a long story short I spent the best four days of my life with my now amazing husband (he was my fiance at the time). San Antonio is beautiful and I would love to go back if I ever get the chance. However, I would rather be there when Jalen could be out of uniform so that I would be able to hold his hand, hug him, and kiss him without him potentially getting in trouble with his superiors. 

The Count Down Continues

16 DAYS LEFT!!!! It's getting so close to seeing my amazing man again that I can almost smell him (in a good way). :) That probably seemed weird to read. I guess I should inform you that I love the way he smells and that was one of the first things that I noticed about him. Even when he's not wearing cologne I love the way he smells, pure man, ugh!

So an update on what has been happening while Jalen has been gone. School, work, homework, stir, and repeat. I haven't done much stuff due to the fact that I have a ton of homework all the time. But, this past weekend I officially found people who really understand what I'm going through right now. They are the girls of the USAFGF facebook group. All of these girls are either dealing with their boyfriends/husbands being deployed or just at basic training like Jalen. Actually there are five us that have guys graduating the same week, so we'll hopefully get to meet. :) Also, because I don't fly in until Wednesday night, missing all of the first days events, the amazing ladies going the same weekend have agreed to be my messenger. They have agreed to carry part of a 4 part letter to Jalen, give him a huge hug for me, and let him know that he's really not alone even if his family and I aren't there. Each girl has been sent a letter showing my appreciation and another sealed envelope with the part of the letter they're responsible for. Each part of the letter expresses my regret of not being there, how proud of Jalen I am, my love for him, and how excited I am to see him the next morning. Hopefully, these letters and hugs makes him feel better about not seeing me... I wish him luck, and I hope all the letters make it to him safely. :) The count down continues....