May Birthday

Its been a busy month. My sweet husband is doing an excellent job at juggling school, work and of course me. (i'm very needy I don't know how he does it!) 

I have to brag for a second. Michael has made a couple of large accomplishments lately. I could just burst I am so proud of him. 

1. He was nominated by his supervisor at work to be star of the month or something.. It sounds a little lame I think personally.. it kinda reminds me of grade school but don't let the cheesy name fool you. Its a big deal. Well he won it. So! Out of all the many workers at Melaluca Michael was chosen! They even made him to go a studio to get a professional photo taken to display at the office. He gets a gift card and this cool little start pin to go on his lanyard. 

2. Speaking of his lanyard, he was just upgraded from a blue one to a red one, which means he is a supervisor now :) It was a pretty lengthy interview process. If I remember right there were 16 people interviewing for this position, they chose 4 out of the 16 to meet with the manager and then down to 2 and Michael got the job! I'm super excited for him. He deserves it for sure. So.. I made him no bake cookies. 

That leads me to my next thought, we have these super cool neighbors (she lent me cocoa powder to make the cookies.. in case you were wondering why the thought of cookies was related to my neighbors) Anyway we had a party with them a couple weekends ago. We lit a fire right outside their door and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Then the boys played video games while we watched random wedding videos online. They are just the perfect friends to have next door. We were sad that our friends Kalee and Dan weren't there, but it was still so fun :) 

Last weekend we went to our hometown for my nephews baptism. 

It was great :) He couldn't stop smiling all day it was so cute. I wish I could write about the feeling in that room, it was a really special event. Everyone that spoke did a really good job and Michael and I got to sing When I am Baptized. I was proud of him. We are so lucky to be a forever family.

Generally my family celebrates my birthday Memorial day weekend, so naturally we did that on Sunday. We used to always have a picnic at Ross Park and then go to the zoo, but we just did at home this year. My nephew Abram brought me a crown to wear because I was a princess, I thought it was very sweet. 

I feel really blessed to have the family that I do. I am incredibly lucky. As cheesy as this sounds for as long as I can remember I used to always use my birthday wish to wish that I would marry the most perfect man for me when I grew up. I guess I was always a romantic and wanted to find my other half. Now that he is mine I don't know what to wish for. It was the same wish for so long. 

So, I wasn't to disappointed when I failed to blow out the 22 candle.

                           

We said our "see you laters" the next day which is always so so sad. We only have to wait till August to see them again and then we will be with our whole family for our first ever Quinn Family reunion! I just cant wait. 

Happy Birthday to all those who share May 30th with me :) 

And Happy Anniversary (tomorrow) to Michael and Marsha! Its been a short 10 years.

 love you guys :) 

thunder storm

Since I was on last we has an anniversary! We went to Idaho Falls for the evening, stayed at Destinations Inn.  

That place is awesome by the way! Highly recommend. It was super cute we stayed in the cheapest room, Alaska. I was not at all disappointed. Loved it. 

We went to dinner at Olive Garden and spend way to much money.. but it was so good. Then we went to Walmart to buy cherry pie filling to put on our cheesecake that destinations provided. Haha I know that is so ridiculous, but cheesecake is just better with fruit. My husband is so sweet to go along with all the crazy things I insist upon. I'm pretty lucky :) 

Our actual anniversary was on conference Sunday. We spent the day cuddling and watching conference. I LOVED Elder L. Whitney Clayton's talk on marriage. It was amazing. It kinda felt like a little anniversary gift to us :) One of the sweetest talks I have ever heard. 

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/04/marriage-watch-and-learn?lang=eng

Side note: the best talk I have ever heard was Elder Scott's talk that he gave on February 5th 2010 in Pocatello. I wish I could somehow have that talk in writing. I waited for Michael because of something that he said. Elder Scott is a huge hero of mine. 

On the day this sweet picture was taken one of Michael's dreams came true.. Ha. 

He has been begging me for a TV ever since we got married.. I've been pretty against it but we finally got one. Our anniversary gift to us I guess :) 

Its kinda ghetto we just have it sitting on a desk until we figure out a better plan. But its fine :) He loves it :) Its a 40 in Samsung for anyone who may be interested. Oh! the night we got it we watched Here Comes the Boom. Holy cow I was really surprised how much I liked that movie. I'm not a fan of watching fighting so I didn't like most of that.. however it was an incredibly sweet movie. I cried..

Michael and I both got new callings! I'm scared out of my mind but I will be teaching Relief Society.. If anyone has any tips feel free to share! I start getting that stage fright feeling just thinking about teaching. Michael is also teaching.. but of course he is completely chill about it because he is amazing at everything he does. Lucky.. 

We had a small disaster happen this week. On Tuesday we had this random downpour happen in Rexburg. It was amazing I love the rain. I opened the door, leaving the screen door closed to block the rain, and just listened to the hail and rain hit the ground while I read one of my favorite books. It was like a magical moment! I had planned on having a great evening and then about an hour after that Michael noticed that our kitchen rug was soaked.. he was confused and started looking around.. We found a small lake covering the back wall of our apartment. Water was pooling out from underneath all our appliances. We'll I didn't assume it was from the rain because.. why would I? We had never had a leak from the rain before. It just didn't really make sense. We started looking for the cause of the leak by pulling out the washer and dryer, then the fridge, then checking by the water heater. We couldn't be sure where it was coming but we called the land lord. 

Michael had to go to work. It took an hour and a half to get the plumber over here. He is like the nicest guy ever.. His name is Randy. Such a great name :) When he reached the conclusion that it was not a plumbing problem he still stayed to try to figure out what it was. Odds pointed to some freak accident due to the rain.. The rain gutters were full so I guess there was just a water fall going down the walls and somehow finding its way inside. Everything was finally clean and put back together by 11ish. It was hard work!Kinda ruined my night but oh well. I had a couple of breakdowns.. I cried because I was hungry but unable to cook my planned dinner because my awesome green stove was in the middle of floor. Then I felt like I couldn't save my kitchen rug from the water damage. If I would have been able to save it myself I am sure.. But I was starving.. and for those of you that know me well you know that when my 4 hours are up I get pretty emotional. So my mind wasn't working as well as I would like it to, I lost my temper and threw it away. 

My greatest hero got off work at 10. He told me he was proud of me for handling this problem so well without him. I really didn't handle it that well, but it was nice of him to noticed that I tried. He went outside and dug my rug that I love out of the garbage and saved it. It is now perfectly clean and looks like new back where it belongs on my kitchen floor :) I don't know what I would do without him :) 

One more thing :) Something kinda huge happened last month. I have NEVER been able to run.. I just hate it and people always said that if I trained really hard I could eventually run for longer then 30 seconds.. getting up to 5 min was a huge accomplishment. Well fitness has become a pretty big part of my life since I made some goals and started working at curves and.. I CAN RUN A MILE NOW!! AHH! I know right.. its amazing. Haha Its so huge for me. I ran my first mile ever and almost cried. I'm now very close to being able to run 2. So! If you think you are a person that just isn't good at running, it is possible. If I can do it I am sure anyone can :) 

Enjoy Mothers day everyone! And Happy Mothers day to all the sweet mothers in my family :) 

Gwen

Lisa 

Michelle

Julie 

Cindy

Amy

Marcy

Melissa 

Angela

Sarah 

Marsha 

and last but not least

my beautiful mom 

I love you 

love love love

Almost one year ago I married my darling husband. He is my very best friend and I could not be more lucky to have him. Michael and I can honestly say that the first year of marriage has been easy for us. We love it! Before getting married we often heard that the first year of marriage is the hardest. That is just really hard to for me to believe after living it. Living in Rexburg was hard for me.. but the being married part is cheesecake :) 

I'm not really quite sure why this happens but we both get asked fairly often about relationship advice. So I thought I'd share some of our secrets for anyone who may be interested. 

First of all, I am so lucky to be married to Michael. He is ridiculously positive and happy ALL the time. He is always selfless, he works hard and he never complains. He truly cares about my feelings and would do anything to make me happy. So.. find a guy like that to marry and then the desire to be a happy married couple becomes a reality every day without having to work to hard :) 

Secret 1: Communicate. About everything.

 Here is an example.. Girl wants flowers for Valentines day, boy doesn't care for gifts so he doesn't think about it. Valentines day rolls around and girl is sad that there are no flowers. The whole day girl has hurt feelings. Because she is a girl she doesn't want to tell boy why her feelings are hurt. So boy tries to figure out why she is upset, and fails. And the couple has an awful 

Valentines day.

OR

Girl says "boy, its important to me that you give me flowers on Valentines day." Boy thinks.. wow, I am glad she said that because otherwise I would not have thought of that. Boy gets girl flowers, girl is happy. Happy Valentines day. 

Now, lets say girl didn't tell him he wanted flowers and there is no flowers and her feelings are hurt but she doesn't want to talk about it because it sounds stupid and she is emotional over it. Suck it up and tell him. Cry and feel stupid if you have to. It really doesn't matter because he will still love you. And then he can explain that he didn't know that you wanted flowers! You feel better, you go buy flowers together.. Happy Valentines day. 

simple right? 

one more example, boy doesn't like it when girl says the word crap. Boy says "please don't say that word I don't like it." Girl says "forget you I love that word." Boy is hut that she isn't considerate of his feelings. In return, he becomes inconsiderate about her feelings. And because of that one small thing, more and more feelings are hurt until it builds us and they feel unhappy with eachother way to often.

OR

Girl loves him enough to stop saying it. Boy appreciates it and gives her lots of kisses. Couple is happy. 

Which brings me to my next secret..

Secret 2: This may not be the case for every couple.. but physical touch is one of our strongest love languages. So we hold hands whenever possible, we cuddle in our sleep, and we kiss.. Even if people tell us we're gross.

Secret 3: We treat each other well in private & in public.We are often made fun of for the way we talk to each other & for the way we treat each other . I don't really understand why its a problem for us to be kind to each other in front of other people.. but I guess some people get annoyed by it. Ignore them. Your spouse is more important. So bring your wife a drink of water for no reason other then you think she might want some.. And wife, say "thank you sweetheart! that was so sweet and thoughtful of you!" no matter how much everyone around may cringe or make fun of you. Its worth it to make your spouse happy. 

Secret 4: We say "I love you" over and over all day long. 

Secret 5: Never talk bad about your spouse, to anyone. 

Secret 6: appreciate one another. Always tell your spouse how much he/she means to you. Always notices the small and simple things he/she does for you, and thank them. 

 I could keep going for a long time.. but 7 is my favorite number so I'll stop at 7.. 

Secret 7: We have a sign hanging in our kitchen with a popular primary song lyric on it. 

We live by it. 

By the way, this was given to us a year ago at our reception. And this gift, like several other gifts was separated from its card.. I have no idea who gave this to us. So if whoever gave it to us happens to be reading this, THANK YOU!!!! I love it :)

Having love in the home welcomes the spirit. You want the spirit in your home! I don't believe in yelling. I don't think love can be expressed through anger. David O. McKay once said "let the husband and wife never speak in loud tones to each other, unless the house is on fire."

I LOVE THAT! Why yell? Nothing good comes from yelling. Going back to secret number one.. any problem can be solved with communication. Disagreements aren't an excuse to fight. 

One more popular song lyric.. 

As I have loved you, love one another. 

It really is that simple. 

I feel so lucky to have Michael, I truly want everyone to feel the happiness that I have felt over the last year. Marriage is such a blessing :) I am so thankful that we are sealed for eternity. Its the best feeling ever.

I have been looking at our lovely wedding photos today and reminiscing.. so of course I will throw a few on here :)

By the way.. I adore our wedding photographer.
Here is the link to his website in case your interested
http://www.izlas.com/

Happy conference weekend everyone!! :) 

its been awhile

Last week we went to go stay with my sister and her family in Nevada. 

loved it. 

Michael and I really enjoy road trips. I used to HATE being stuck in the car but with him its really enjoyable. We got there the day after my sisters birthday and she waited a day to do some celebrating with us. Which I thought was sweet :) We ate a Quinn family favorite cake and played with her awesome new zebra snuggie! We also ate like amazing food for dinner. Well actually we ate amazing food like the whole time we were there.. honestly. Marsha is amazing. Sometimes I think I can cook.. and then we go to Marsha's house. She is so good. 

I need to get more pictures from my sisters camera! I am just now realizing I don't have as many pictures as I thought I did.. so there may be more to come. 

We were there Thursday night through Monday afternoon. shortest trip ever. Time always goes by to quickly when we are with them. 

 

Other then Marsha's birthday party we got to do lots of our favorite things

swim center

Reno for shopping and to see the children museum there.

pizza party & Gonzaga game

 made homemade pasta (best ever)

 Sunday walk

 Modern Family and milkshakes

waffle party 

pick-nick 

skate park 

The only thing missing was a beach day. It was still a bit to cold for that. Next time :) 

On Monday evening Michael and I said our teary eyed goodbye and went to Reno for the night. Actually I think I was the only one with teary eyes but that's not the point. We stayed at a huge casino resort place. It was really not smart but I took hardly any pictures. It was pretty nice they had some really cool stuff. Like this glass elevator that went very high pretty quickly and made Michael sick. You can watch outside while you get higher. Kinda cool, we only used that one once ha. The pool area was super awesome. I just had some complaints about the place I probably wouldn't want to stay there again. For instance.. the pool was awesome like I just said, but they closed it early so we didn't actually use it. It was very smoky on the bottom floor but that is to be expected. But it was fun for a one night thing. 

We ate at the Macaroni Grill that night. Highly recommend. 

The next morning we drove back to reality. 

But good news :) Reality has recently gotten better for us. I officially have a job!! I work at Curves now :) Thanks to my friend Kalee. I think its going to be a good one!! Its no Farrs of course.. but we are very excited :) :) 

Ok I promise after this last thing I will be done! The most exciting thing just happened! My darling nephew Abram had his first lose tooth while we were there. Very exciting. I just barley got a text from my sister and....

YAY!!! To exciting not to share :)