Crazy Holidaze

So, no, I didn't spell the word holidays wrong. That is how I am feeling about this whole season. It all starts with Black Friday. My sister & I went out to Shopko for my parents this year to get a chair for my niece and nephew. It is really cute and was like a third the price, so well worth it. Anyways, I woke up at 3:30am or so to get ready to be to my sister's house by 4am. I got there early, so we made it to Shopko by 3:45am. The doors weren't going to open til 5am. It wasn't the coldest it's ever been when we've gone out before, but it was still pretty cold. We started chatting with the girl in front of us. She couldn't believe we were only there for one thing. The crew at Shopko brought out warm cocoa and cider for everyone. So I told Laci, as she was fighting to keep the lady that was lined up behind us to stay behind us, that at 10 mins to 5, people were going to be coming up acting like they are getting cider and cocoa, just so they can sneak in the line. Sure enough, that is what happened. Those of us in line weren't going to have it though, so we all started yelling at them to go to the back of the line, and they stopped. Unlucky for them, the line was wrapped all the way around the store. So, I think our crazy black friday madness is over, since that is when most of the tramplings occur, but I was wrong. While waiting for my sister to grab a movie, some lady rammed me with her cart and took off. Seriously? Could Shopko could have possibly had anything that exciting that she couldn't have gone around me? She had to go over me? Oh the joys, yet....I continue to go, so I guess in a way I'm asking for it.

Evan and I have most of our Christmas shopping done, thank goodness! I pretty much just have him left to shop for, but that shouldn't be too hard.

Some exciting news, Evan got sustained an Elder at Stake Conference today. He will be ordained next Sunday during Elder's Quorum. I'm so proud of him! As a little family of just the two of us, we have made lots of progress in this almost 3 months of marriage. Today is a year from our first date. It has been a great year. Lots of challenges, but I wouldn't change it for anything.

I'm not sure if I'll be on here again before Christmas, so I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Employment

So, what do you know, I finally got a job. Not exactly one that I thought I would ever have, but I'm pretty excited about it. I am going to be working for Winco. In the deli. I've never done anything like this before, but I think it will be pretty fun and.......it's a job. They are going to be opening about 8 more stores during this next year, so I'll be able to move to a different position if I don't like deli. I'm thinking cashier or something like that. The only problem and struggle that we are going to have is that our schedules may be different on some days and we only have one car. We'll have to save up so that we can find one soon.

We also got to have a date night last Friday. You never realize how much you miss time alone together until you have none. So we went to dinner at the Olive Garden. Then we went to a Grizzlies game. The Grizzlies got killed, but it was so much fun to have some time away with my husband. I am looking forward to having more of those nights in the future.

I hope everyone is doing well. Take care!

Happy Halloween

Remember when you were a kid and it seemed like the biggest holiday next to Christmas was Halloween. You got to dress up and stay out late and get TONS of candy....from strangers! It was the best. And it didn't matter if it was cold or not, raining, snowing...didn't matter. We trick o' treated till we hit every house in the neighborhood and the neighborhoods next to us. It was the best!

Now that I'm older and don't have kids, it has lost it's appeal to me. I love to decorate, so I put the Halloween decorations up as soon as I could, but beyond that, it's not that exciting. I do love seeing the little kids that come to the door and their costumes, but I also hate having to get up every 3 seconds to answer it. However, on this Halloween night, my husband is at work and the nephews and niece are out, so it's just me and the in-laws. (They have door duty) but believe it or not, we have not had a single trick o' treater. Not one! We are on a pretty quiet street with very few kids, so that could have something to do with it, but what are we going to do with all the candy we bought. There is no way it can all go to the niece and nephews...they'll have their own goody stash. Oh well, there are worse things right. While I was on facebook tonight, they had a application that you can alter a picture to make a halloween pic. It was hilarious. I made myself into a pumpkin which I did not save for some reason, but I did save Evan's. It's great

Isn't it freakin hilarious? I'm not sure how much he'll appreciate it, but I thought it was great! Anyways, I hope everyone enjoys a safe happy halloween! And don't forget! It's daylight savings time again. Clocks back one hour! Yea for extra sleep!

Our Wedding Day

Okay, so I am finally going to put some pictures on here. All the pictures I have though currently are our wedding pictures, so that's what I'll share.

Evan and I decided on September 12th to get married. We got the building reserved and had all of our plans under way. We had a bishop in mind that we wanted to perform the ceremony, but when we went to meet with him, he was no longer the bishop, so we asked the new bishop in that ward (which was Evan's old ward), if he would do it. He said that he would love to and would email Evan when he could look into it some more. We then got an email from him stating that because he was niether Evan's or my current bishop, he would have to get permission from the first presidency to marry us and he didn't know how long that would take. So we decided that we would ask the new bishop in Evan's current ward. He had only been bishop for just over a month, but he jumped at the chance to be able to do it. We were relieved because we were only about a month away from our wedding day.

Our photographer was great! She did my bridal photo's about two weeks before the wedding. All the pictures that I'll post are pictures she took. (Don't worry, I have copyright permission to use them.) I think I'll just start posting and make comments as needed.

This was one of the first pictures the photographer took. She had him put my wedding band on his finger and place it over his heart.

I LOVE this picture! These are all of our groomsmen. They looked so nice! This is definitely one of our favorite pictures. Sorry single ladies, all of them are married, except Nicholas and Brock, but they are a little too young.

These were our gorgeouse bridesmaids. Not that many guys will be looking at this blog, but if they are, fellas, there are some single girls in this pic!

The Hyler Family

The Oliver Family

It was a great day! The best day of my life! Things went just as I planned they would. Here are a couple more of our favorite pics.

The crazy groomsmen!

Me with my brothers!

Our cute flower girls and handsome ring bearer.

Me with all the handsome guys!
Evan with all the cute girls.

Albertson's made our wedding cake. Our florist provided the flowers. We had our cake topper engraved at Walmart.

This is a lamp post that the decorator brought. She had a name plate engraved with our names and wedding date on it. It was a great day!

I finally figured it out!

Yea! I finally got enough help to figure out how to make my blog cute. It's about time. Thanks to everyone who helped. This whole blogging thing hasn't been as bad as I thought. I actually look forward to blogging regularly. My next step is to add some pictures. Maybe when I have some more time to blog I'll figure it out. I have to go now, but I'll be blogging again soon.

Unemployment

I've gotta tell ya, I HATE not working. It makes me so depressed! I feel worthless even though my day is filled with all sorts of things, I don't feel like I get anything done. To top it off, I feel like I have placed a huge burden on Evan. He will never say that, but I can't help but feel that way. I have been pretty steadily employed for at least the last 10 years. I love working! My parents have engrained in me the importance of work and working hard. I can't help but feel I made a mistake when I decided to stop teaching, but at the same time, I do not miss it. I almost cringe when I think about going back. My hours and pay would be cut, no benefits, and the clincher...only one paycheck a month. I don't know how many people out there only get one paycheck a month, but I don't know how you do it.
I also prefer to stay at a job for as long as possible because I HATE interviews. That reason alone should have kept me teaching. I obviously was not thinking it all through because I would have remembered this little detail and I would have quickly decided that teaching was for me. Forever.
I had an interview with a company and went all the way through the process, which is a lot harder and intense now than the last interview I had, only to be told that I wasn't qualified. Ha! You would think that they would figure out if you were qualified or not in the 5 steps before your interview with a manager. Go figure.
I have another interview tomorrow. Am I looking forward to it? Not at all. I wish all interviews were a series of competency tests. Then there is no question if you are qualified for that position or not. It's either pass or fail.
As much as I hate interviews, I am praying that the one tomorrow is the last one I have to go through, at least until I forget about the whole process and decide to change careers again. If things don't work out, then I will work my way from interview to interview until I am qualified enough for the position.
Until then, I will probably continue to be depressed and complain about the whole situation although I know subconciously that I put myself in this position. And if it isn't hard enough to find a suitable job period, I had to decide to find one during the lowest economic employment period.
Oh the joys of adulthood! And to think that when I was in school, I couldn't wait to be an adult. It's funny how things work out like that. What I'd give to go back in time and smack myself til reality kicked in. LOL
Anyway, off I go into this part of life that is turning out to be a life interview, I sure hope I'm qualified! LOL Wish me luck!

Families

Okay, so here's the skinny on our families.



Evan is one of three. He is the only boy and the middle kid. His parents are Bill & Sara. His sister's are Heidi and Kristina. Heidi is married to Ruben and they have 3 adorable kids, Ruben Nicholas, Juan Diego, & Grace Marie. They are a lot of fun. Kristina is dating a guy named Jeremy. We'll see how things work out with them. His Grandma Hyler is his only living grandparent and we just love her. She is so cute.

I am one of five kids. Well, 3 really. I have a half brother and sister. The oldest is Amy. She doesn't really care for us, so I never see her and have no idea what's going on in her life. The next in line is Jeremy. He is married to Shauna & they have 5 kids. Jaden, Tyler, Kylee, Brianna, & Jake. Next is Laci. She is dating Scott and will hopefully be taking that next step soon. Then it's me, followed by Jason. He is married to Angie & they have 2 kids, Chloe & Brock. My parents are Chuck and Linda.

We both have great families that we love. For the most part, everyone is doing well. Evan's dad has some pretty serious health problems. It's hard when no one is able to help him or tell him what he needs to be doing to get better. Since July 2008, he has had 3 heart attacks and is now having several small strokes that we fear are going to lead to a big one. It's pretty scary and we are all hoping the doctors will find out the reason for them. But, we thank Heavenly Father everyday that he is still with us. We want to keep him around as long as we can.

Evan has had no serious health problems. He has some pretty bad knees that he's had repaired, but looks like he needs it again. Other than that, just asthma and allergies. He's allergic to bees, thankfully the bee season is coming to a quick end.

I am doing well. I had my gallbladder taken out in 2008, but have been pretty healthy ever since. I have polycystic ovarian syndrome, which is the number one leading cause of infertility in women, so my chances of having children aren't that high, but lots of women with this condition have children, so I plan on being optimistic and we'll see what's in the plans for us when we decide to start a family of our own.

In the meantime, we will continue to look out and care for each other, try to spend as little time in the ER as we can, and hope our flu shots do their job and keep us fairly healthy this winter.

Introducing...

Okay, so I'm going to attempt this blogging thing. Hopefully it'll work out. I'll start by introducing myself and my husband Evan.
I am Stephanie, I'm 28 years old. My husband is Evan, he's 26 years old. (I know...cradle robber) We met online through LDS Chat. I had just recently started looking at dating online and met Evan in November. He asked for my number right away, which I wasn't planning on doing, but after we had talked for awhile, I decided, what the heck, and gave him my number. We talked a few times on the phone before deciding to meet. We had planned on going to temple square to look at the lights, but he had just finished a night at work and didn't feel like walking around, so I invited him over to my friend Liz's house to watch a movie and play games. So, we met on December 6th, 2008. It was a great night. We had a lot of fun. It seemed to me that he wasn't really interested. I had a few night classes that I was taking and we talked a lot on the phone, but I wasn't sure how things were going exactly. Then one night, we were talking and I told him that if we ever got to the point of saying I love you, it would be a big deal for me because I had never said that to anyone before. He asked me if I thought that things were going that way. I told him that I hoped so. Then he told me that he could already say it. He told me that he knew the minute he saw me on that first date that he loved me. I think it was only a couple days later before I told him that I loved him. We saw each other much more. I got to know his family pretty well. Then, we started talking about marriage.
Feb. 14th, 2009, Evan made me close my eyes as he drove me around town. When I opened my eyes, we were downtown across from Temple Square. It was snowing of course that day, but we ran over to the side of the Salt Lake Temple where some sister missionaries were. He asked them to take some pictures of us. As I walked to the fence, Evan told me to turn around. He was on his knee and asked me to marry him. Even though I knew it was coming, it was such a great experience. I think the sister missionaries were more in awe than I was, but it was awesome. I will never forget it. Then he took me back to his parents where we announced that we were engaged and went to lunch at the spagetti factory.
We set our date for Sept. 12th. Long engagement, but we needed all the time would could have to plan. We bought my dress at Modest by Design for less than $300. We also got the groomsmans ties there. We decided on simple outfits for our wedding party. Blouses, skirts, & sashes for the bridesmaids. White shirts, black pants, and ties for the groomsmen. Our colors were brown and light blue. Our flowers were our accent colors, bright orange and pink.
We hired a decorator, who was fabulous!!!! And for the reception we had Leatherby's cater. My mom did our engagement pictures at Murray Park. Then we found Michelle to be our photographer. She did such an amazing job. She took the pictures for our ceremony as well as my bridals.
Dum Dum Dum Dum...Sept. 12,2009 arrives. I was totally calm that day. One of our groomsmen called 2 hours before the wedding and said he had to work, which I thought should make me panic...nope. Totally calm. It worked out by moving a few people around. Kari did my hair, which was beautiful! The waiting for everything to start was the hardest part and when it came, it seemed to go by so fast, but it definitely was the happiest day of my life.
I never knew that I would fall so completely in love with someone. If you had told me that I would fall in love so quickly, I would have laughed at you, but it happened. That seems to be the way it works in my family. My mom and dad were engaged after only 3 weeks. My brother wasn't much longer than that I believe. If it's meant to be, it's meant to be I guess. I always hoped to find someone like Evan, but didn't believe he really existed. I love him so much!
Anyway, back to the story. Our reception was from 4-6:30pm, which I would suggest to anyone...it was awesome. We headed from there to a hotel in Salt Lake for the night, then off to Vegas!!!! We stayed at a Holiday Inn in Henderson, about 9 miles from the strip. It was so much fun, but you have to pack some good walking shoes. Lots and lots of walking. We didn't make it all the way through the strip, but we had a lot of fun. We had one of those artist guys sketch us...it was pretty funny. I look like a beaver, Evan looks like a white Tiger Woods. I'll try to scan it somehow to post.
But, we are now, back in Utah, living in his parents basement while we save up some money, starting our lives as a married couple. We are excited. We have a lot to look forward to.