Trash the dress

Last summer Jeniece introduced me to 'trashing the dress'. Which essentially means that you go to a location and take pictures that have the potential to ruin your wedding dress, but provide a setting for some amazing pictures.

These pictures are from the International Peace Gardens down the street from my house. I love the umbrella that Jeniece brought with us.

The second set was at the Great Salt Lake. We started on the beach and moved into the water. You'd be surprised how long the walk to the water was. I do have to give Jeniece kudos on the second shot and I even remembered to point my toes. =)

Walking into the water, I had to pass a lot of gross flies an I was worried that they were going to ruin the shots somehow. Jeniece had brought a stool with us to help set up some great shots. It was so hard to stay on that stool and I kept slipping off.

The last one was our 'artistic' shot. We had bough a pair of cheap sunglasses and spray painted them silver and found some foil stuff that was fun. I don't know that it turned out that great, but it was defiantly a lot of fun.

Bang, Bang baby

Okay, so while Jeniece and Taylor were out having fun in California, I went out shooting with some friends from work.
It's the second time that I've gone with them, and I have to say that I feel pretty tough when I go. Mostly because guns are dangerous and if you act stupid bad things can happen. Luckily, the guys that I go with are REALLY big on the not being stupid part.

I wasn't the only girl there though. One of my co workers, Danny, was there with his girlfriend and Nate's fresh RM's girlfriend was there too.

I kept making Eva (eh-vah) try and shoot different types of guns. And Ellen is tough stuff. She was willing to shoot one of the guns that scare me.

She shot the WWII rifle that Nate brought. It can hold either two or eight bullets, is heavy, looks like it kicks like a mule, and after the final bullet is shot the clip pops out.




The 'kick' everyone thought was so smooth. Are you kidding me?

Ellen shocked when the clip popped out after her last shot.

It was amazing fun and makes me consider taking the concealed weapons permit class, but I think that there are still some things that I need to consider before doing that.

Getting things together

I don't know how anyone does it. You seem to have all of the time in the world to work and play during high school. You even seem to find time to spend hours on end with the your boyfriend or girlfriend. Everything changes when you get married though. You seem to have more things that need to be done than hours in they day. I'd like to say that I have it all under control, but every so often it sneaks away from me and I end up stressed by things that are my 'to do' list.
Fielding and I are both working on getting back to school. I'm in my second semester back at school and have found that it is no easy task to balance work, school, and personal time. I think that I'm going to have to cut back on credits next semester so that I can accommodate some work courses.
Fielding in the meantime is trying out one class to see how it goes. I don't know what the plans are yet, but I guess we'll just have to figure out where to go when we get closer.
Outside of school, we're getting really excited about our summer vacation in Havasupai. There are so many things that we are excited for.We bough me an AWESOME new internally framed hiking backpack. It is my favorite color -ORANGE!
Granted to say that there are some other items that we want to buy for the trip (camera lens and shoes), there is one major thing that we need to work on before we go...FITNESS. We have to make it through a twelve mile hike before we get to our campsite. We're trying to eat healthier and Fielding is hitting the gym. It's killing me! Not because I don't wan to be healthy, but because I like food.
Oh well, I guess that that is everything. If you're interested in joining us for the trip, just let me know. =)

International Peace Gardens 2008

Thanks Jeniece!!

Christmas time = Family time

Every year since I have memories Thanksgiving and Christmas have been a huge part of my family's traditions. It gets tricky though when you get married. You don't just have one person's traditions to worry about any more. Instead you have two inlaws to worry about and develop new ones for your family. I remember that Fielding and my first Christmas was a bust in comparison to the Christmases I'd had in the past. We had a pathetically small Christmas tree that I borrowed from my parents with ornaments that I got from another friend, a couple gifts for Fielding and none for me. I know, every time someone hears about it they can't believe I didn't get anything. I have to give Fielding credit though. He hates the mall and had spent three or four hours wandering the mall trying to find the perfect gift with no success. Instead he came home empty handed. Last year he had me pick out some shoes for me, but this year I told him that I wanted to be surprised. He found exactly what I wanted. I have been telling Fielding for the longest time that I needed a another Fielding to cuddle with when I went to bed. (He has a weird sleep pattern.) So he got me a giant stuffed reindeer. It's awesome and I love it. It is perfect and makes me feel like a little kid when I move it because it is taller than me.
Thank you for a very merry Christmas Fielding!

Giving up or giving in

These past two weeks have been crazy. We had our six month surveillance audit from LRQA.

I've helped prep for an audit before, but I've never had to do it on my own before.

I inherited the Quality System at work last May with no real exerience on how to run or maintain the system.

Work, school, and life

I don't know how anyone keeps up with these posts. My last post was clear back in June and I've just barely gotten on to write a second one.
Work is just as crazy as it always seems to be. We are prepping for our first ISO audit since our recertification in April. There is so much that needs to get done. We have to review our processes, update all of our corrective actions, and get our audits done before the auditor shows up in three weeks. This wouldn't be too bad except that there is a ton of other stuff that I am working on too.
I just recently got back to school this semester. I figured that I'd try to finish up my Associates degree in one swoop since I only needed 17 credits to graduate. 4 of the credits were computer classes that deal with things I do every day for work. I figured that it wouldn't be that difficult. I was a bit wrong. I don't know that I would say it is difficult, but more the fact that there aren't enough hours in the day for me to finish my work, homework, and live life. Math has been a little tricky for me since I haven't really seen it for the past five years. I'm doing alright at remembering it though.
The real kicker is my English class. The same problem that has gotten in my way is the same thing that I'm running into now. I have an unwarranted issue with writing a boring paper. I think that it is a waste of paper and thought, if you don't think that it will be interesting to your audience. I'm trying to work through it. I'm still hopping to finish the paper and the class though.
Outside of school and work, there is life. That as also been crazy. My husband worked at a psych ward and was recently diagnosed with PTSD from some incidents that occured at work. That is where all of my stress really resides. It has been the most stressful situation that we've ever had to deal with. It has effected every aspect of our life.
I think that I've said everything that I can think of for now. Hopefully I'll write again soon.