Old Wives Tales

I had to work my first full day (9-6) of the year today. I've been dreading it for 6 months. I told everyone last week at work that I'm pregnant and some reactions were awesome, and most all the rest were awkward. It seems now that everyone has advice to give me. I really appreciate the advice, but today I got some interesting advice that made me paranoid for a couple of hours and then with some help it was deemed as an old wives tale that people I work with still think is true.

I was working the drive up this morning when an hour after opening a co-worker came up to me and told me that I shouldn't be working in the drive up because I have to reach for the tubes. Supposedly when you're pregnant and you reach above your head your baby's umbilical cord can lose circulation and cause a miscarriage... I was freaked out at first because when she said this a couple of other girls confirmed that it was true and then told me to quit doing the tubes. I sat down working the drawer instead, and I decided to email my sisters and Casey so they could find out for me. My first thought was that it was false, however, they were so adamant about it that I thought maybe there could be some truth to it. A while later I felt dumb because I got definite "it's an old wives tale" answers from Casey and the sisters. I felt dumb afterwards because it doesn't make ANY logical sense to be true. Even with my physiological/anatomical knowledge I couldn't come up with why that could be an issue.

Now I'm just glad that I can keep working in the drive up!

Engagment Anniversary

On Sunday (May 25th) it was our engagement anniversary so I wanted to write a little bit about our engagement story. After attempting to plan stuff for our wedding but not being "officially" engaged for a month I was ready to get a ring and be officially engaged (My parent's said planning was off limits until he gave me a ring). We had been looking for rings since the first of May but I didn't know when Casey was going to propose. He was leaving for the Kohl's internship on May 26th, and I was thinking he would propose before then, but as time got closer and closer to when he was going to leave I lost hope. He would confuse me by saying, "It wouldn't be that bad if you had to wait to get a ring until the 4th of July, right?" (He was coming back to visit for my sister's wedding that weekend).

The week before he was going to leave we had stuff planned to do before he left, and one of them was to take a hike to Stuart Falls the night before he left to Milwaukee. I wasn't planning to get engaged before he left because he kept acting like my ring wouldn't be ready in time etc. Little did I know that he had hiked up to Stuart Falls three times the night and the morning before to scope out the place and get things ready. The hike takes about one hour up and one hour back so when we got to the falls I was pretty tired. Casey said he needed to go to the bathroom really bad so he'd go find a place in some bushes. I waited for a few minutes hoping I wouldn't be able to hear him pee. I finally heard him walking back out and I turned around and he was carrying a dozen roses! He said, "they have really pretty flowers up here huh." I knew something was up. He wrote me the sweetest poem, and said it to me memorized, and then he knelt down and proposed. It was very surreal.

The next morning I went to his apartment really early to see him before he left to Milwaukee. It was so sad knowing I wouldn't see him for six weeks. He drove off and I didn't stop crying for a week. I'm sure my family hated being around me! It was so sad to be engaged but not be able to see my fiance! It was great to be able to see him for a couple of days in July, but then he was off for five more weeks after that. Although being away from each other was horrible, I felt like it was a time that we grew closer together because we were able to talk to each other so much. Instead of just hanging out watching a movie, we were actually talking about important things.

On our way up to Stuart Falls!

I didn't have any idea what was going on. Good thing I didn't fall off that rock and ruin everything!

We're engaged now!

Tagged!

Tagged!

Four jobs I have had:
1. Baskin Robbins
2. Lifeguard at Seven Peaks
3. Jamba Juice
4. Educator's Credit Union

Four movies I have watched more than once:
1. Clueless
2. Pride and Prejudice
3. Indiana Jones and The Raiders of the Lost Ark (never gets boring)
4. Gladiator (one of Casey's favorites)

Four places I have lived:
1. 4074 Devonshire Dr. Provo
2. My family lived in a condo down the street for 5 months after our house caught on fire
3. 440 Wymount Terrace, Provo
4. Now Milwaukee, WI

Four TV shows I watch:
1. Birth Day on TLC
2. 10 years younger on TLC (and pretty much every other show on TLC)
3. The Bachelor
4. The Office

Four places I have been:
1. Japan (Tokyo, Osaka and Hiroshima)
2. Europe (England, The Netherlands, Austria, France, Monaco, Greece, Vatican City, Iceland, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and Liechtenstein)
3. Hawaii
4. Cancun

Four people who I email regularly (I don't actually email too often)
1. My Mom and Dad
2. My sisters
3. Casey
4. I can't think of anyone else I email regularly

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Mexican Food, especially Bajio/Cafe Rio/ Costa Vida
2. Soups
3. Pizza (especially Papa Johns)
4. Crepes

Four places I would like to visit:
1. S. Korea (Casey has told me so much about it!)
2. Egypt
3. Hong Kong
4. Everywhere in the S. Pacific (Fiji, Samoa, Tahiti, Tonga)

Four things I am looking forward to in the coming year:
1. Having a baby!
2. Graduation in August, and finally being done with school!
3. Celebrating my 2 year anniversary with my WONDERFUL husband
4. My birthday in a week :)

Four friends I am tagging:
1. Anyone who wants to be tagged!
2.
3.
4.

Dirty laundry

I spent my morning off today at the laundromat. I thought I would never have to go to a laundromat again after we moved away from Wymount, but I was wrong. I tried washing our rug in our washing machine a few days ago and I guess it was a bad idea because it broke it. It started emitting burning smells and smoke. The maintenance lady came over to take a look at it and after an hour of swearing under her breath she said she couldn't fix it and we would have to get a new one. Apparently a lot of these old washing machines have been breaking down. I was so happy she said that because now we get a brand new one! Our broken one was pretty old and extremely loud, so what better time to get a new one (especially since we're not paying for it). We're thinking it as another resigning bonus!

I got pretty attached to the laundromat this morning though. I love getting four loads of laundry done in the time it takes to do one. I also love the front loading washing machines, and the turbo dryers that take 20 minutes to dry everything perfectly. However you do lose some peace of mind knowing that random people have washed their underwear in the machine you're washing your sheets in...

Haircuts

As soon as Casey and I got married I took the place of Buffy at Regis Salon as Casey's hair stylist. Before we were married I refused to cut his hair because I was afraid he'd hate the cut and then not want to marry me or something. We got a haircutting kit for our wedding and a couple weeks later I started cutting his hair. I started out taking about two hours to do everything, and I am now down to 30 minutes (partly because Casey can't sit for longer than that unless I cut his hair in the middle of our living room so he can watch Sports Center). The cuts have improved, and now he even lets me wax his eyebrows-he asks me to wax them. I am so proud that Casey is so easy going and trusting to let me develop my talents on him! I love my husband!

Breaking the news

Today was the first day in 3.5 months that I actually felt like eating a hamburger, ate one, and then felt fine afterwards. I'm not sure if this is a good thing because now I'll just want to eat unhealthy things. Before now I could only get myself to eat soup, fruit, and occasionally desserts, but now my world is opened to foods that I haven't eaten in what seems like forever. Casey is thrilled because now I'll start making food again.

I finally decided to tell people at work that I'm pregnant on Thursday. Now that I'm 14 weeks I feel a little better telling people. However, I've felt kind of awkward telling people because I don't want to just go up to someone and say, "guess what. I'm pregnant." I've been waiting for them to maybe notice and then say something. But girls are always complaining at work that people ask that if they're pregnant a lot when they're not so I think people will just think I'm getting fat. I've been trying to think of a way that wouldn't be awkward to tell them. If anyone has any ideas let me know.

c'est fini

This weekend was so relaxing. I finally finished my UWM class on Thursday and now I'm ready to graduate in August! Casey and I celebrated with Cold Stone and a movie. Casey and I went to see Baby Mama at the IPIC theater at Bayshore on Saturday. If anyone hasn't been there GO. It is the nicest theater I've ever been to and the seats are huge. They're like lazy boys. The customer service is awesome too.

The Jamba secrets are out

I bet some of you are aware that there are "secret" Jamba Juice smoothies. For those of you who aren't, I'll let you in on the secrets of Jamba Juice. I don't work at Jamba Juice anymore so I feel alright divulging. These "secret" smoothies are called underground smoothies and they aren't advertised and they're only made when you ask for them. Some locations don't know how to make some of the underground smoothies so I'll only include the most popular and well known underground smoothies.

White Gummi Bear The most popular of underground smoothies is the White Gummi Bear. Freshman at BYU thought they were cool for ordering this one. People have told me that employees at Jamba Juice won't tell them what's in this one to keep it more secret. I think that's dumb. It has mangoes, one scoop of every sherbet (raspberry, orange, lime and pineapple), soy milk and peach juice. The White Gummi Bear tastes freakishly like a white gummi bear (I personally don't think that's a good thing). The color the smoothie comes out looking gross so beware. Also available is the Red Gummi Bear which is probably the least popular underground smoothie. Instead of mangoes it has strawberries, and instead of peach juice it has raspberry juice.

Strawberry Shortcake My favorite of the underground smoothies is the Strawberry Shortcake. It is very sweet but tastes like strawberry shortcake so you can't go wrong "secretly" ordering this one.

Pink Starburst Close next in popularity to the White Gummi Bear is the Pink Starburst (or Pink Star for people who frequently get it). This smoothie tastes EXACTLY like a pink starburst. It has strawberries, lemonade, soymilk and frozen yogurt in it.

If anyone wants the exact recipes for these let me know. I have the exact ounces and scoops ingrained in my mind after working there for 3 years! The only problem about making them at home is that Jamba Juice has really good sherbet and juices, and you can't buy these at the store without them tasting pretty different. I've tried making some at home and they come out kind of the same but they end up costing too much to buy all the separate ingredients.

Mother's Day

This was the best Mother's Day yet. Probably because this is the first Mother's Day where I've actually gotten something. I didn't expect to get anything since I'm not officially a mom yet but Casey was extremely sweet and got me some surprises and treated me like a princess anyway.

I love plants so Casey got me a hanging plant for our deck, and a Peony plant. I especially love Peonies so I'm very excited to have an actual Peony plant that will bloom a few times and hopefully live for a while! I love being able to plant and grow things too so it was fun to plant the Peony in a big terracotta pot. I'll post a picture of it once it blooms, probably in a week or so, for now you can just see a picture of what is should look like.

It was sad being away from my mom on Mother's Day. I love my mom so much. She is amazing.

... and this week I finish my class at UWM! I found out that if I fail the final I will still get a B in the class. Hopefully I won't fail the final, but it's nice to know that nothing will keep me from graduating now!

Summer excitement

A couple days ago I got tickets to go home for my friend's wedding and my graduation! Casey and I have a lot of frequent flier miles saved up but of course any of the days we want to go we can't use our miles. I was feeling a little bummed spending money to fly home when I knew I had frequent flier miles until I found a sweet deal with Northwest! I heard through the grapevine that Delta and Northwest merged so now flights are way cheaper from MKE to SLC. I am so excited! I'll be in P-Town for almost three weeks hanging out with my family. Casey will only come for the last five days because of work/scout camp but I decided to stay longer. Last year I was unable to go to Provo all summer and I missed so many things about Provo summers including:

-Sunday picnics in the canyon
-Swimming at Seven Peaks (I'll pass on getting in a swimming suit this summer)
-Frequent trips to Cafe Rio, Jamba Juice, and the Snowie at Days
-Shopping with my mom and sisters
-Biweekly trips to Costco
-Homemade root beer, ice cream and jam compliments of my mom
-My dad's fun "projects" around my parents house/yard. He's always making something cool!
-Seeing my friends, and lil' Buff Quincy

To top things off my sister Brooke who has usually lived away from Provo in Pennsylvania or Colorado for graduate school and post doc is moving to Provo this June! My brother-in-law Brad got a job as a professor at BYU! He gets to teach and research in the microbiology department. It will be fun to be able to see them and their cute kids whenever Casey and I go back to visit in Utah.

I ♥ Panera

Nobody told me how good Panera is! I got a Panera gift card from my boss a month ago and I never felt like trying it out. Ever since I've have this all day sickness going on I haven't felt like eating out at all. Recently I've been feeling a lot better so last Monday I finally decided to go to Panera after work to use my gift card. I decided to be safe and get some soup. It was so good! I've been craving it ever since then, and I've been back four times since then to get it. Now I absolutely love Panera. Now I just need to get Casey to love it too! Go if you haven't been before.

Recent Happenings

This past week was pretty hectic. Casey got a new calling as the Scoutmaster of our ward and I have been busy either taking finals or writing papers. I know Casey will be an awesome Scoutmaster. I'm really excited for him. He is amazing with knowing how to communicate with kids and teenagers. It will be sad having him gone one weekend out of every month on campouts though! I don't know if I feel worse for him or myself though.

I found out last week that one of my best friends is getting married on July 31st! I am so excited for her! I've only been to one of Casey's friend's weddings so it will be awesome to be able to go to one of my own friend's weddings. I am planning to go home to Provo for three weeks for her wedding and my graduation. Now I just have to wait until the end of July!


Another recent happening was a weird Hello Kitty experience. Last weekend I went to a Relief Society conference and I was looking at a Hello Kitty quilt with another girl. I told her that I love Hello Kitty, and she replied, "That's because you are so young, Hello Kitty became popular when I was in college, so you were probably in elementary." First of all I'm 21.92 not 13, and second of all when did I become juvenile for liking Hello Kitty? I doubt this girl is 10 years older than I am if not even 5 years older than I am so why the dissing? I love being my age! And I'm pretty sure there are older people out there that like Hello Kitty too.