Corned Beef

In the spirit of St. Patrick's Day I made Corned beef.  It's not very nice to look at but it sure does taste good!

Corned Beef, Potatoes, Carrots, and Sparkling Grape Juice

Happy St. Patty's Day!

The First Bite

Mmmmmmm

Answer to Prayer

Back in seventh grade I had a friend that had many struggles with drugs and alcohol, he cleaned himself up for a couple of months but then got back into them, when I asked him why he replied that maybe this was what he was supposed to be, maybe he was supposed to fail, that it was already in God's plan for him.  As a 13 year old I had no idea what to say except that the God that I believed in didn't work like that.  Ever since then I have prayed to know what I should have said to him or what I could say if faced with a similar question in the future and I've gotten lots of advice from friends and family but none of the answers seemed satisfactory to me.  But today after almost 10 years of pondering my prayer was answered as I sat in church today.

Christ payed for me (and my friend) through the atonement, he suffered and bled so that my best would be good enough.  That means that as long as we never give up we cannot fail.  If Christ is our rock then we will succeed. I wish I could have told him that even if he struggled with this his whole life that as long as he didn't give up and he kept trying that it would be enough.  God did not put any one of His children here to fail, He gave us the gift of the atonement so that each one of His children would have a way back to Him.

 It's not a new concept, it is something that I've been taught my whole life I just felt it so strongly today.  As much as I wish I would have had this answer 10 years ago it's nice to know that God is listening.  He listens and He does answer prayers.  Keep praying and keep believing He is there and He hears you!

Learning To Share

Garrett and I have been so blessed to have my family so close to us throughout our marriage and they have always been so willing to help us with our needs.  I mean my parents let us live in their basement for the first year and a half of our marriage (and would have let us stay longer if that is what we had chosen.)  The last few weeks we have been spoiled by my parents once again as they let us borrow their truck.  It was so nice to have two cars and not have to worry about who needed the car and when, but now it is Rachel and Brian's turn with the truck we are having to learn how to share all over again.  As hard as it is to have to make extra trips and try and figure out how I'm going to fit in three more Brainworks students and still be back in Provo in time to pick Garrett up from BYU I think it's secretly a blessing.  We had to really communicate this week just to get each other to work/ school on time and that opened channels of communication which, as anyone who's ever been in a relationship knows, is the key to a good relationship.  I knew I loved him before and I knew he loved me but this was just one of those weeks that really reminded me of how amazing we are for each other.  Sharing the car has taught us, and will hopefully continue to teach us: Communication as we work together to figure our who needs rides when, patience as we wait for the other person to pick us up, thoughtfulness as we are reminded that the other person is just as crazy busy as we are, and gratitude for each other and for a car that runs!

I love this man!

New Skills and Realizations

This Wednesday when I was at early morning Zumba, just as I have faithfully done for over a year now, I was looking in the mirror at my spandex covered body as I was shaking it and I thought, 'wow!  I am jiggly!' And I couldn't get over it, it started making me feel all gross and slightly hideous and song after song I was feeling worse and worse about myself until it hit me.... I was at Zumba, getting a great workout, and I was missing out on so much fun because of my bad attitude!  So I stopped worrying about it and started focusing on having a good time and you know what I realized? I realized that it didn't matter if I was jiggly!  I am trying to be healthy and let's face it I'm Gorgeous!.... or at least I'm trying to convince myself of that.  Honestly I have no reason to feel ugly or fat, besides who has time to be worrying about things like that when there is so much work to be done!

Thursday was Valentines Day, as you all know, and it was a great day!  Garrett and I went out for dinner and ate steak and pie, then we went to the movies and saw Warm Bodies, which I really liked, but honestly the best thing about it all was how happy and loved I felt!

This weekend has had it's ups and downs and it's really been quite rough on me but it's given me time to reflect and I've decided that the problem is I'm so worried about not being "good enough" that I don't let the good sink in.  I rarely enjoy my successes but I feel my weaknesses as serious failures.  And honestly I just can't do that anymore.  I resolve here and how to celebrate the good more, to let every success sink in and feel like a win for team April and for team April Garrett.  No more pushing away the joy and holding in the pain, from now on I will focus on holding onto the joy so that there is no room for the pain to stay.  I have a loving husband, family, friends, and most importantly my Savior on my side, so I know that I can do it!

As for the new skills mentioned in the post title I can now curl my hair with my straightener in under 30 minutes!

Front View

Right Side

Left Side

Back to the Real World

Wow, that was a rough week.  The kids at the preschool and the kids I work with at brainworks were so hung over from Christmas break that it was like pulling teeth to get them to listen and participate  but I made it and I'm optimistic for the week to come.

Garrett started school this week, which was stressful. Why was it so stressful you may ask?  Well that's because at the beginning of the week we weren't even sure what classes he would be taking as the classes he needed were full when he had tried to register for them.  Heavenly Father must be looking out for us though because he is in the classes he needs now and with a schedule that works out with us sharing the car.  If that's not a miracle I don't know what is!

Alright so I need a haircut (just a trim) so that my hair can start growing again instead of just breaking off and I'm not sure what to do with my bangs.  Leave a comment and let me know what you think: No bangs, Swoopy bangs, or all the way across bangs?  Because I had to resort to the piggy tail braids yesterday and I can't get away with the Pocahontas look (As seen below) very many more times.

Here's to 2013 and blogging once again!

Alright, I'm going to try blogging again.  Let's see if I can do better than I have been.... That means posting more than once every year and a half!

For Christmas we enjoyed having our friends Zac and Suzzie over.  We had a sleep over and opened presents together in the morning then spent the day lazying around playing pick up sticks and with our other new Christmas toys.  It was nice to share in the fun together! 

New Years Eve we had a few friends over and a whole lot of amazing food including our now practically perfected bbq chicken fingers!  We bought a deep fat fryer (Gross right!) but it makes food taste soooo good!  So far we've made sweet potato fries, empanadas, apple turnovers, and of course the sticky fingers. Yummmmmmm.

We enjoyed playing with friends and we spent most of our time snowed in just enjoying our time together.  But now it's back to the real world where Garrett goes to school full time and works as the Artist for WestPro and I go to work teaching (yes, for those who didn't know at the preschool, Brainworks, and Piano where the time we see each other is spent just trying to recover from the events of the day!  It's a busy life but it is oh so good!

The intense Battle that we call Pick Up Sticks!

Garrett's Christmas Bounty!

Bringing in the New Year with Martinellis!

Check out those Sticky Fingers!

The Last 6 Months!

Ok so Garrett and I have been married for about 6 months now and things have been pretty exciting. We've gone on many adventures such as Christmas in Reno as well as Bryan and Melanie's wedding in Reno. We have had some fun dates and we've hosted a lot of game nights. Yesterday we went to the festival of colors (as you can see from facebook) and had an absolute blast! I went crowd surfing and we danced, sang, and got covered in colored powder! EPIC!

We have also had adventures in work and school. I got my AS in Early Childhood Education in the end of December and so since then I've been working full time while Garrett goes to school full time. He is working towards getting into the animation program at BYU and can't wait to be in more art classes. I now work at Myler Disability (a law firm that deals with social security disability claims) I've worked there for just about 7 weeks in their DLC department (basically a call center) and this last Tuesday I was promoted to be a Hearing Manager. This means a raise and an all around better job. Once I am trained I will get my own clients to work on their specific cases getting everything ready for the attorney. This includes getting medical records, speaking with the social security administration, and about a million other responsibilities. It's a big leap from my last position but I'm pretty excited about it all!

So Garrett has a blog, not too much posted on it right now but he has a lot of things he's working on so they should be up soon. If you want to check out some of his work you can go to http://ghamon.blogspot.com/ and then post a comment about what you think!

Also Garrett is looking for a few side jobs so if you know anyone who needs a wedding invitation or business cards or anything like that then let us know because he is good at what he does.