Congrats to Nat-Nat!

May has been a fun month but a month that has made me feel rather old. My little sister is 5 years younger than me and so after my own high school graduation I felt like it would be ages before it would be her turn, but low and behold "ages" has come. In ways it has flown right by and in other ways it has felt like more than 5 years, but either way I feel a little old. She's seriously going to be joining me at school next year. We're planning on taking a few classes together which seems so strange to me, because the last time we went to the same school, she was in Kindergarten and here she is, all grown up and graduated! I've been joking that she'll probably graduate college before me and it really is pretty possible. She's much smarter than me and got lots of college credits while she was in high school. I'm so proud of her for graduating and can't wait to see what the future holds for her. Today as I sat and watched her graduate I had to fight back emotions (another sign of my old age, as a youngster I had no emotions). I didn't feel the slightest bit emotional at my own graduation and certainly didn't think I'd want to get all emotional today, but knowing what it has taken Nattie to get to today brought up this overwhelming sense of pride. She has endured more in the last 2+ years than any high school student should ever have to. Her sophomore year went very well for her, but come junior year her health took a dive and she's really never recovered from it. She has struggled with quite a few different health issues for years (also something no young person should ever have to have) but last year they just simply got out of control and she had to miss a lot of school which meant for a lot of make up work for her...and by make up work, I mean entire terms of work. This year was slightly better but still a challenge and her health still made it really difficult for her to be at school and drag herself out of bed everyday, but after lots of sacrifices, tears, and hard work, she made it and I couldn't be more proud of her! Way to go Nat-Nat!

Seminary Graduation (last week)

Graduation Lunch at Riverside

A Few Pre-Graduation Pictures

Post Grad Pictures

Memorial Day Twenty.Twelve.

I had to work this memorial day, which is nothing new for me, but usually I am lucky enough to only have to work a few hours and still get most of the day to play. This year I wasn't so lucky, but I still made the best of it. Tyler and I woke up early and headed to Pleasant Grove to go to my Grandparents' graves. I still feel their loss daily and so I love memorial day and the chance it gives to reflect on their lives again. It makes me sad knowing that my kids and Tyler will never know how sweet my grandma was or hear her cute little giggle, but I'm sure grateful for what she taught me and that I knew her. I will forever cherish the moments I had with her just before she got sick. She told me all about the day she got the call that she was getting my dad and how neat it was to bring him home. They'll also never know my grandpa and how funny he could be or know his love of music and they may never know what happens when you say "Grandpa, I'm your friend." I'm glad though that even though it won't be the same, I can tell them stories about the wonderful people they were.

I also feel very lucky that I knew so many of my great grandparents. We didn't have enough to go to the Springville cemetary, but thankfully we did get to visit my Grandma and Grandpa Bullock's grave too (they're buried right next to my Grandma and Grandpa Schaefer). I don't have a lot of detailed memories of them being that they died when I was in the 1st grade, but I do remember going over there house frequently, after dance and on Sunday. They had the funnest closet to play in and a fun tree swing in the backyard. They were so kind and loving...its no question where my Grandma got it from. My grandpa was and still is, no doubt, my Dad's hero. We still hear stories from him about time he spent with his grandpa and how he never went over there and didn't work. He always said, "If you don't work, you don't eat." Its sure great to know where you come from and how lucky we are to have known such great people!

Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day too!

Sharing the covers? No thanks.

Ever since Tyler started his new job I have secretly enjoyed our bed all to myself. I am not a deep sleeper at all and its basically impossible for me to make it through an entire night without waking up. I struggle falling asleep, I struggle to get comfortable, and my temperature is never what I want it to be. I am always burning up or freezing cold and therefore I wake up what seems like 100 times in the night (slight exaggeration of course). When you add another person to the bed to snore, steal the covers (I married a major blanket hog), and adjust constantly, it only makes matters worse although I never noticed all this until recently. Ever since Tyler started his job I have slept like a rock. It's been amazing. As soon as I am out...I am out cold. No waking up for me until around 7 as I am anticipating Tyler get home. I seriously can sleep however I want and no one is there to disturb me. Don't get me wrong I love it when he is home at night. I am much happier knowing that he is here with me. However my tossing turning body seriously misses the nights when I have the place all to myself. Seriously...how to get the best of both worlds?

Just One Reason I Love Summer

I look forward for months to flower season and was soo excited this year to plant my flowers. Monday was my day off so I did! Here is the new pot I added this year!

Mothers Day 2012

This Mother's Day weekend has been a great one. Last night we celebrated with Tyler's family. It was so nice to have his Grandma Thornock around this year. We both are loving that we get to see his grandparents a little more now that they're here in Utah! We went to dinner at Joe Banditos with everyone and it was so fun. The only downside was that I felt like we only got to talk to half the family because the table was so long! Today we went to see my mom and as the Schaefer tradition goes, Mama Schaef didn't do any cooking. Gold stars for Papa Schaef and the Schaefer children! Tyler had to go home a little after dinner to rest up so he was ready for work but the rest of us went and saw my Nana and enjoyed her company (and her ice cream pie) for a while! I am sooo grateful for all the wonderful mother's in my life. I'm going to have pretty high expectations for myself when I become a mother because of the amazing examples I have had! I am sooo grateful for my own mother and all she has done for me. I am also so glad that Tyler had such a good mom too that taught him how he ought to be. And I am also grateful for grandmother's and the love they have pshown me and for the examples they are! I have learned (and still learning) so much from my own grandmothers and am again so glad that Tyler's grandma lives closer so we can learn from her too! Mothers are the best!!!

Better Late Than Never!

Its only been a month or so...haha, but I'm finally going to post a little about my trip with my family to St. George. My mom took Nattie and Nate at the beginning of the week but I had school so I waited and went down with my dad on a Wednesday. It was fun just to have several hours of driving and one on one time with him. Funniest moment with him was definitely when we stopped to fill up his truck in Cedar City. He was getting kind of hungry and thirsty so he sent me in to get us some snacks and drinks. I came out a couple minutes later and hopped back in the truck, but I guess he didn't see me or hear me (it was windy and raining). I played on my phone as I waited for him to finish up, but after another 5 minutes or so, I glanced out to see what was taking so long, because it doesn't take 10 minutes to fill up. He was gone. I figured maybe he had gone in to use the restroom or something but then I realized the truck doors were locked and I hadn't locked them when I got in. Made me wonder if he really was aware that I had come back? After a couple more minutes I decided I'd better go back inside. Well, in my attempt I set the truck alarm off! Oops! Since he'd locked it from the outside and I attempted to get out without unlocking all the doors first I triggered the alarm. I had everyone around starring at me,  it was kind of embarrassing and I even considered waving to everyone....haha. I decided though, that alarm would send the message to my dad if he wasn't sure where I was. So I stayed in the truck. Only to have the alarm go off 3 more times before he came out. Even funnier, he came out with another drink. He thought I was in the bathroom and hadn't bought any of the stuff yet. Needless to say, we had a good laugh.

The weather in St. George wasn't the greatest so we didn't get to do all the normal outside stuff and didn't lay out or anything which was a bummer, but we made up for it in shopping and eating! I seriously think I ate more food in those 5 days than I do in a month. I was stuffed 24/7.  We also did something we've never done down there before which was 4-wheeling! My mom and Nathan didn't want to go so it was just my dad, Natalie, and me. We took 2 machines down with us, but one of them totally died 10 minutes in, so we didn't stay as long as planned and had to take turns going out, but it was still way fun and now we know where to go and what trails are fun for next time and I got my first towing experience in :)

Here are a bunch of random pictures from the trip

Courtesy of Instagram of course!

It was a really great little trip! I'm so happy I got to go and spend some time having fun with some of my family before I had to come back to reality and start working again.

I already can't wait for the next trip!

A Year of Change is Right!

I've mentioned several times that I thought 2012 was going to be full of change and I wasn't kidding! I started a new job 3 weeks ago and Tyler has been working at his new job for a month or so now. Little did I know our jobs would GREATLY change how much we see each other. Basically, we're lucky to see each other for an hour straight, no lie. Last night we had a whole 15 minutes where we were together and tonight we didn't overlap at all. We don't even sleep at the same time. We were really lucky before to have very similar work hours and had a lot of time together, up until last semester in school we even had school the same night so we were only away from each other the one night a week and we actually in the same building! The time away has been alright, but I'd love to have a few hours straight to spend with Tyler! It would sure be nice! I even work Saturdays, which is his only day off. I've had my moments when I get super frustrated by our schedules but then I realize that this too shall pass and so then I just see all the humor in our craziness and laugh!