A few updates

I turned 22 this summer on July 17th, and I think my body is already feeling the age difference, haha. So something funny about my b-day was that we don't own any candles so look closely...

we used matches to make the other 2! It made for a good laugh. For my birthday I got some cute new clothes thanks to mom's, gramma and Dallin.

This summer went by too quickly, we only went swimming once, and only got to be in the sun a few times... pretty disappointing I think. But the few times we did spend in the sun were well spent. We went to the ropes course with some family and friends and had a really great time.

 As you can see, I'm not the biggest fan of heights!

 ....Will hopefully post more soon, lots to tell about new jobs, 2nd anniversary trip and other fun adventures.

2nd Year Pictures

Dal and I went up Manti canyon a few weeks ago with Jake, Becca and their boys and we took turns taking each others family pictures and they turned out so great! I'm really happy with how good they turned out, and of course Dal and I can't ever be serious so there are some silly ones too.

 The flowers up the canyon were so pretty!

 I love how good these turned out, thanks Becca and Jake for taking them for us!

Update for June

We started out the month of June with a trip to St. George with Dallin's family for a last hoorah before Dray leaves on his mission. It was so warm and beautiful there. Dal and the boys all went golfing, while the girls got manicures and pedicures. It was my first mani and pedi ever, and I absolutely loved it! Too bad I couldn't get one weekly...

On June 11 my family had a big yard sale during the day that we helped with, and then that night Dal and I went to Provo to hang out with our friends Braden and Lyndsey. It has been so long since we have seen them and we miss them lots! We were so excited we got to finally get together with them. They took us out to dinner then they took us to Provo Beach, it was a really fun kinda "high class" arcade. It was a blast. We played croquet and I kicked some serious butt at it, who knew I was such a pro at croquet! We love Braden and Lyndsey very much and are very glad we got to spend some time with them.

For all of April, May and the beginning of June Dal has been studying and I have been stressing over his LPN boards that he has to take in June to get his LPN license. So finally the day came, June 15 was his test, it was at 8am in Draper, so he went up the night before and stayed at his sister's house so he only had to drive 10 mins to his test instead of 2 hours. We are very grateful that Des and Kel let him stay the night at their house. All the meanwhile I was at home stressing and not sleeping over this test. I don't know why I was so stressed, probably because the test cost $300 and because it determined whether he got his license or not. So Dal took his test and passed with flying colors! It was a quick process, we were able to see his license online at dopl.com 2 days after his test, and we received the license in the mail 3 days after his test. Quick huh! So he has his LPN license and hopefully he can find an LPN job soon so he can start to make a little more money. I am very proud of him and how hard he has studied for this test, and very proud that he passed it! So now he will work all summer and then take classes in the fall for his prerequisites for the RN and Bachelor's program.

I got another nephew, Keaton Russell Dettinger on June 19th and he is an adorable, sweet little baby and we are very excited that we live within 10 minutes so that we can see him quite often.

On June 22nd we said goodbye to Drayson as he entered the MTC to serve his mission. We are so proud of him for the choice he has made to serve a mission, the people in Mexico will be very blessed for his efforts.

 Me, Dal and his brother Dray at Dray's farewell.

 Dal's family- last photo of the whole family for 2 years.

 Right to Left-Dal, his dad, and his brothers Dray and Devin.

  Saying goodbye.

We will miss Dray very much, but we are very proud of him!

 So this month has been full of a lot of ups and downs... Probably one of the two worst downs would be my parents moving! I have never lived farther than 15 mins from them my whole life... My mom has always been here and now she will be in Tennessee for the rest of the summer and then she, my dad and Matthew will live in Milford. It's not so much that she is going to be over 2 hours away, its just that she won't be living in our home that we grew up in anymore, and I know that is really hard on her. She is very tough though and loves my dad very much, so she and Matthew will be living with him this year in Milford and I am very happy about that! And it will be fun to go visit them down there. It's bitter-sweet, mom, dad and Matthew won't be here anymore, but I am really excited to have my brother Jake and his family so close to us now! We love them all very much and are very grateful for how close my family is! It was just really hard saying goodbye to them, I will not see them until September and that seems so far away.

The other thing that is really hard is that Dal has 2 jobs right now, one is where he is an adviser at a boys home in Wales and the other is at the hospital in Mt. Pleasant. So remember in my last post how I mentioned that I am really excited that now that Dal is done studying for the summer that I am so excited to get to spend lots of time with him. Well poo, that sure went out the window! Ha well listen to how our past few weeks have been going, Dal worked at the hospitalfrom 10 pm til 6 am then crawled into bed at 6:30 as I was waking up for work, so I went to work all day, and he went to work at the boys home at 3pm til 11pm then drove straight to the hospital to work til 6:30 am then went straight back to the boys home at 7am til 10:30 pm then drove straight to the hospital and worked til 6:30 am then he Finally got to sleep for 2 hours but then we had to leave to drop off Dray at the MTC, we got home at 2 pm, he slept for a half hour then went to the boys home by 3pm and worked til 10:30 pm then went straight to the hospital to work all night again. So just repeat the all work, no sleep, never see his wife process for 2 weeks straight and what does that equal... an EXTREMELY exhausted husband.... and a Very Sad and Lonely wife!! I slept an entire week by myself without ever seeing Dallin. It was so weird, and I hated it. It was really hard not to see him, and I feel so bad for him. I have no clue how he even did it. He got less than 7 hours of sleep in an entire week! Poor guy, one of the very few times I have seen him this month was like this...

...Thrashed on the couch. Poor thing, he is such a sweet boy for working so hard for us, and I am very grateful for all that he does for me. I just wish that I could see him a little more often! Eating dinner and sleeping alone gets lonely, and I don't like it, it's hard that he is gone all the time. But July should be less busy and we should be able to spend some quality time together, I can't wait!! July should bring happier times that I can spend with my hubby!

So this post is Way past due, sorry everyone, I have been slacking on our blog!
So let me catch everyone up on the past 2 months.....

April

In April I was able to participate in a 5k run for a fundraiser to help raise money for a family in need in our community. I ran it with aunt J. and a lot of my family participated as well. It was a great turn out, and I am grateful that I could be a part of it.

 Notice the hand brace... ha I decided to develop tendinitis in my right wrist and thumb for about 3 weeks in April, which became quite a hindrance with most things. It made me realize that I am not very ambidextrous!

 Rachel and Becca

Dad, Jake, Taylor and James

Dallin's Graduation

Also in April Dallin finished his LPN school year and had a really nice graduation ceremony for it on April 29th.

 LPN students. Dal is second row from the top, in the purple, you can't miss that handsome man!

 Dallin's class reciting the Florence Nightingale Pledge

 I'm so Proud of you babe, Congratulations!

 Thank you to both sides of the family for supporting us through Dal's LPN year.

Here is the giant stack of assignments and papers Dal had to do this year.... Yikes!! We used the toaster to compare how big the stack was. Poor guy, he spent every single day and every free hour studying for his classes, I am really proud of him, and also really glad this school year is over. Glad to spend some quality time this summer together!

Also in April, Josh and Kelly gave us my first niece on my side of the family, Marissa! :) And she is very beautiful, sadly we will not get to meet her until maybe Christmas time.... I hope we will get to meet her then! But we get weekly updates of Marissa on their family blog, which we look forward to seeing every week. So that makes our niece total of 2, and nephew total of 8 and 2 more nephews on the way.

May

In May, I started the first practices for Drill Team. I am the assistant Drill Team adviser for Gunnison's High School drill team, the G-Gettes, and I am very excited about it! This is going to be a fun year, and I'm excited to work with the girls.

Dal took a week long IV class that he successfully passed. He had to practice doing IV's on someone for it though, and gratefully his brother Devin practiced on Dal when he was taking the class. So Dal practiced on Devin for his class. Payback!

Thank you Devin for letting him poke you, glad it wasn't me! :)

Good Job Dal, I'm very proud of you! You are going to be a wonderful Nurse and you will help and touch the lives of many, love you!

May also brings many graduations, Jess graduated from Seminary and High School and Matthew graduated from 2 Pre-schools, and Taylor graduated from Pre-school as well. They all worked so hard and we are very proud of you three!

We had a really neat opportunity and were able to go through the temple with all of Dallin's family for his brother Drayson to receive his Endowments. It was really neat to have all of Dal's family in the temple together. (We also took some family pictures, as soon as I get some I will post them.) Dray is preparing to serve a mission, he leaves June 22nd for the MTC, he will be serving in the Merida, Mexico mission, and we are all so excited for him! But of course we will miss him and can't wait to write him and support his service in Mexico.

So now we are caught up for April and May. Mostly anyways, obviously the down fall for not keeping up our blog is that we forget lots of memories... But I will do better this month, so we can look back someday and read about all of our memories. It's nice to have a fun, picture blog/journal so that we can share our lives and adventures with our family and friends, and that we can read theirs as well.