*OUR NEW ADDITION*

PATCHES

No No this isn't some way of annoucing we're having a baby ;) he he, but we are adding a member to our family for a while. We got a little beagle/benji mix. He is the cutest little thing, but boy is he a handful. I haven't taken care of a puppy for about 2 years and I had totally forgotten how much work they are!

We decided on this breed because when James was little he grew up next to a dog just like him. And his name was patches, so thats also why we decided to call him Patches jr.

He is a good dog but just like any puppy, he makes his good share of mistakes. When I trained my other dog I had crate trained him and that was SUPER easy! Its been a challenge with patches because when he was born up until the time he bought him he had been training with a doggy door. So needless to say we've had quite a bit of accidents by the door. He's really good at telling us he need to go but by the time we get to the door since there is no doggy door he goes ;( he also HATED his crate! This was a HUGE issue when we first got him, he is such a loving dog and he always wants to be around you that when we have to go and we have to put him in his cage, he stresses out and almost always pees in his cage. I was actually watching the dog whisperer( go figure....I wish I was like him...he's amazing) and he gave me the best tip ever! I wouldn't think something so simple and easy could just patches behavior. All I had to do was start feeding him in his crate and put a comfortable bed in his crate and he would never have another accident.....and guess what it WORKED! its amazing! everyone else was telling me that his cage was too big and I had to crame him into a smaller cage big enough for him to barely move....I felt bad....I guess all he needed was a bigger, nicer cage!

But needless to say its been quite an adventure with him....he does the silliest things and its really made me realize something.....WE ARE SOOO NOT READY FOR A CHILD! he he he ......having a puppy is like having a baby.....its a full time responsibility and its been hard for us! I am definatly not use to getting up in the middle of the night when he is whinning to take him to go potty,......but we love em any! he's a smart dog, which makes it harder for us to train him( you'd think it be easier, but he's too smart to be tricked into things he he) We'll see how everything turns out.....hopefully we'll have a well behaved caring dog at the end of all this.....

First day at our Home

Halloween ;) as a cowboy

Another Halloween outfit...devil and angel

He Loves playing FETCH he he he

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

So Halloween has got to be one of our favorite holidays! Its the only time people are allowed to run around dressed up like freaks and stuff their faces with sweets and get away with it ;) Unforntunatly this year we're not prepared! It seemed Halloween snuck up on us way to fast! Halloween is today and I don't even have a costume ha ha ;( I tried to get a costume last night at walmart...ha ha...wow that was a joke....I guess the whole world is in the same boat I am in. I actually found a really cute costume and some chick seriously just took it right out of my hands....I honestly didn't want to fight over a costume, but let me tell ya, people were fighting for their lives....it was pretty funny! I can't wait to see what Christmas is like! YIKES!

So since we didn't have time to be creative and get a costumes, we had to hurry and throw things together..... James decided to use his new 3 piece suit I got him for his birthday and a fidora and be a 1930's gangter....He looks cute! I wanted to be a cute little flapper girl that would match with what he was wearing, but someone stole the costume from me at walmart! he he....so I went through some of my old boxes and found some devil horns and a tail and decided to be a devil girl??? Not crazy about it, but what makes it cute is I was able to snag a little devil custome for our little beagle patches, so he makes my outfit complete! its adorable! But he HATES the thing! Its funny most dogs would sit there and try to take it off or shake it off, but he just sits there and whines! Its kinda cute but sad...he looks up at me like...why are you doing this to me!

I realized Holidays can be a lot more exciting when you are a kid! I mean for halloween you get to go trick or treating ( not saying adults can't...but well you get the point) When you are young Christmas is better because you still believe in Santa....It just makes me think how much fun I am going to have with my kids one day during the holidays.....For now we will steal our nieces and nephews and have fun with them!

I would totally post pictures of our lame halloween customes, but we just realized we lost our battery charger for our camera in Ireland! How LAME!!!

ANYWHO HAPPY HALLOWEEN! BE SAFE!

SURPRISE BIRTHDAY!

So last Saturday (Oct. 25th) was James' 23rd birthday! I decided I would try to give him the Ultimate surprise.....I planned a week trip to Ireland behind his back and surprised him for his birthday! Believe me this was NOT easy! I am SOOO horrible at keeping secrets so this was soo hard for me! So a couple of weeks agoI called his boss and told her I was trying to plan a trip to Ireland and I asked her if she could give him the week off. She was soo amazign about it, and was able to approve the week off for james! At this point James had NO IDEA what was going on. I talked to Deborah and we both planned out the week in Ireland....we would be staying in Allen and Vi's Guesthouse!!! So I bought the tickets and told james that the weekend before his birthday we would be taking a weekend trip to New York because I found a killer deal on a hotel. His boss told him she couldn't give him any days off for his birhtday because he had not earned enought vacation hours :) he he so he was all bummed that we couldn't go anywhere big for his birthday like we had planned. So on Fri( oct 17th) I packed his bags and picked him up from the work and headed to the airport. This whole time James thought he was going to New York...and we did...we flew from Salt Lake to New York and arrived there Saturday Morning. We toured around New york, Went to manhatten, Serendipity and did all the touristy stuff. While we were at the M&M store I found a perfect opportunity to tell him where we were really going. There in the store was a disply of all the different flags in the world...there was a bag full of green, white and orange M&ms ( the colors of the flag of Ireland) with a little sign that said Ireland.







I pointed it out to James and told him I would love to go there sometime with him.




He sighed and said " oh yeah how cool would it be if we could go there....someday"




Then I said "SUPRISE!" Thats where we are going!" He thought I was joking ! It took a little bit of time to convince him! He was soo shocked!







So that night we boarded our flight to go to Ireland...we actually just got back yesturday! And can I just say IT WAS AMAZING! We stayed with deborah's parent-in-laws at their beautiful Guesthouse in Northern Ireland...they were soo good to us! and Ireland is such an amazing place! I feel in love with it! I''ll post pictures a little later on...we're still trying to settle down ;)

Slacker!

So I knew there was a reason why we've never started a blog....WE ARE SUCH SLACKERS! Man I don't know how you all do it! But kudos to those who are blogging daily! or weekly! or even monthly! You all are doing a heck of a lot better than us ;)

So work is getting super slow and I finally have time to recap and start "blogging"...I feel like such a nerd! But I Love being able to keep in touch with everyone and find out how life has been!
So here are some highlights of the past year or so..........

So We obviously got married! July 19 2007... I couldn't ask for a more perfect day! Everything up to that point had been so stressful, but the minute I stepped foot in the temple everything just felt so peaceful! The weather was perfect, the ceremony was perfect, and the reception seemed to have runned smoothly! I am so grateful that we were able to be sealed in the temple. I cannot explain the feeling I got when I knew we would be together forever!

As for the reception, I loved it! We had it at the Woods on Ninth!I want to thank everyone that made it sooo amazing! James and I are very unique and we wanted our reception to reflect our "unique" personalities :) ! I think my mom did an amazing job helping that happen! It was beautiful! We didn't have a line and everyone just seemed to be mingeling! It was very laid back and thats exactly how we wanted it! that is until the music came on! I have to thanks Sugs for being our DJ! Best dance ever ha ha! Here are some pics ;)

My aunt Luli...she made this amazing cake! THANK YOU

This is the other cake Connie made for us! I LOVED IT!!! We were lucky enough to have two beautiful cakes! Since what we served was cake and snow cones;)

WHO serves snow cones at a wedding?? Oh yeah, we do ;)

Center pieces ...pink and green gerber daisy

What the fellas wore ;) my Danny is a stud

Our First dance....Bachata...yes a little different

James and His Dance Group performing at the reception

The Crazyness of a Colombian Wedding ;)

So I realized if I went through all of the exciting things that happened these past two years, I would be blogging forever! So here are the top 8 ha ha......

2007-2008

1. We Got Married! YAY! its been amazing!

2. Angela had her first baby! An adorable little girl! I am officially an aunt! ( well from my side of the family...from james' I became an aunt of 21 nieces and nephews! wow-zer!

3. we both got new jobs....whats new for me ;) but I've been with Jetblue for almost a year! James started with US Bank and is doing really well!

4.Our First Christmas married!

5. We've been traveling around the world thanks to Jetblue ;) We've been able to go to Cozumel, MX, Chicago, San Diego, San Fran, Sacramento, Cancun, MX, St. Maarten, New York, Washington D.C, Vegas and Ireland.

6. We got our first addition to our family ( no i'm not having a baby) but we got a little beagle/benji mix....his name is patches and he is insane just like us!

7. We got called as Guest Service Missionaries at Temple Square! Thats been such an amazing opportunity and blessing!

8. Hey we're still married! ha ha I guess now and days thats quite the accomplishment!

*ABOUT US*

What better way of starting this blogging shinanigins than letting you all know a little bit about ourselves.....Well that picture pretty much speaks for itself, we are a spunky, crazy, weird couple that loves to live life to the fullest. Right now we are living in Sandy Freaking Utah where we are both going to school and working. James works for US Bank as a personal banker and is going to LDS Business College where he's trying to get his business degree and I am working from home for Jetblue Airways and going to school at Salt lake community college to get my degree in psychology. We've been married for a whole freaking year now and we are loving every minute of it! We don't have any kids right now, but hope to have some in the future, er, the far future ;) We love to travel, spend time with family, watch sports together, play xbox and just relax at home, or watch movies. Well, thats pretty much us in a nutshell, anything else you want to know, and your pretty much being too nosey :) jk

How we met and our Engagement

*HOW WE MET*

I wish I could say we met in a really cute and romatic way, but truth is we didn't..It all began at a little place we call Olive Garden, I am not sure if you've heard of it :) But we met back in 2003 while we were both working there. We were best friends for about a year, and itwasn't until the end of the summer in 2004 that we both relized we were in trouble ;) We dated up until James left on his mission.(oct. 17th 2004) We wrote each other throughout the two years. I never thought I would be one of those girls to wait for a missionary, but it was definatly worth the wait. James got back in Dec. of 06 and it was like he never left! We immediatly knew we would be together the rest of our lives!

*OUR ENGAGEMENT*

We got engaged on Saturday February 10th 2007 at the San Diego Temple. James was very VERY sneaky when he planned the whole trip out. He spoke to my boss at work to get the days off so we could go to Cali. He also talked to my best friend and her husband to have them go with us. All he says to me is that I need a vacation and he's worked everything out so I can leave the next day. So the four of us drive to Cali...we spend the night at Vegas ( Thanks to Jeff we got to stay in a killer hotel!) After spending a couple of hours at the Vegas Temple we head of to Disneyland! After I saw that James was taking me to disneyland I was SURE he was going to propose....I remember standing there in front of the Castle after the fireworks holding eachother thinking...."ah this is it!"...wow was I ever wrong...i waited and waited and NOTHING! I was so sure he was going to! he had been dropping hints all day! :) needless to say he didn't propose that night. Saturday was the day we were driving back home, but before then we decided to stop by the San Diego Temple ( my FAVORITE temple) to do baptisims. Once we were done and we were turning in all of our stuff, one of the sister asked me if I was forgetting something, I thought she was insane and all I could think of was gettign outside to meet up with james. Then she looks at me and says are you SURE you didn't forget anything? As she was saying that she pulls out a small white box, my heart dropped! She said a tall handsome man left it for me. This was it! I opened the box to find...NOTHING! just a small piece of paper...on that paper was a sweet note about our relationship and on the back of the note was ," Here's to the FUTURE....come and find me outside..." So I start running out of the temple like a crazy woman, I ran around the left side of the temple to find absolutly nothing! (Apparently I had gone to the wrong side) I was thinking at this point it was all a sick joke when rachael found me and pointed me to the right direction. There I saw my prince charming waiting for me infront of the temple. He knelt down on one knee ( at this point I was already in tears) and looked up at me and said, you've been my princess now let me make you my eternal queen and take you to the temple....then he asked me to marry me ( there was a little more that was said, but you get the gest of it.) I obviously said yes....and well the rest it history!

My Beautiful Ring :)

In front of the San Diego Temple

At Disneyland.....with my prince Charming :)

DisneyLand!!!

James and I with freakin mickey...this was before we got engaged

Being weird in VEGAS...

Last three pics are us goofin around in disnland