6 years!

Happy 6th Anniversary to us!

Thanksgiving

This year we decided to stay in the warmth of Vegas and host Thanksgiving at our house.  It was a little late because Dane had to work on the actual day but it was delicious none the less!  We even had some visitors for this festive occasion.  Keri and my parents came down for a visit and realized how great (and warm) Vegas is around Thanksgiving.  Rob & Eric even came over and cooked our Turkey in Rob's new roaster, it was so good!

 (yes, sitting in the backyard watching the turkey cook without coats.  Glorious!)

A Little Jealous

Remember that one time when I started grad school and updating my blog went to pot? :)  Well this little update will be short and sweet but we have to commemorate Dane's attendance at his first ever NFL game!  He was able to go to the Ravens vs Seahawks game on Sunday (lame that the Ravens lost) but not only did he get to enjoy that, he got to meet none other then Haloti Ngata!

 

It's nice to have a brother in-law in high places :)

(PS-Did I mention that I was a little jealous!?!)

Hot Diggity

Maybe it's because it is smoking hot outside in Vegas but this made me smile so I thought I would share:

PS-This made my dad laugh out loud when he read it so maybe it's the Stanfield humor in us :)

Turks & Caicos!

Dane and I recently took a completely unplanned trip to the island of Turks & Caicos and by unplanned I mean, Dane planned the entire thing while I was laying on the couch completely out of it after my surgery and then just asked me if that sounded good and I said, a nice relaxing vacation to a tropical destination, sign me up!  (honestly, I didn't think Dane was serious so I didn't let my hopes get too high but then he booked the hotel so I knew it was a done deal!)  Since I had packed for my surgery recovery and not for a tropical destination, Dane actually had to fly home for a few days and get the things we needed (like some swimsuits and our passports) then we were on our way.  We first planned to fly to Atlanta then from Atlanta down to the island but we ended up having some difficulty with that plan and we missed the flight to the island so we ended up spending the first night of our vacation in Atlanta.  Since we were there for the afternoon so we decided to at least check some things out and we were torn between the aquarium (which Dane had been to) and Stone Mountain.  After talking to a few of the locals we decided on Stone Mountain.  We were a little nervous to venture to an outdoor park because there was a heat wave going on but we decided to go for it anyway and I guess it is good we live in hot Vegas cause it wasn't too bad.  We walked around the park for awhile (I can't believe how much there is to do there!) then we took the tram up the 'mountain' so we could look out over the city.  I don't know if it is because I live in a desert now but looking out across an entire city of green with the occasionally gap for a neighborhood, was absolutely beautiful!  When the sun goes down at the park they put on a laser show on the side of the mountain and that was really fun to watch!  We tried to get some video of it but it just didn't turn out.  Here's a few pictures from our day in Atlanta:

The next morning we headed out for the island of Turks & Caicos.  For those of you who don't know where it is (like myself) here is a map:

 

On our way to our hotel in the taxi, the driver was telling us all the secrets of the island while singing Fergie's "Big Girls Don't Cry", he told us the number one rule was no levis on the beach!  The locals will nail you as a tourist so in order to fit in leave the levis packed in your bag.  Another rule was to try the islands famous White Chocolate Bread.  I thought it was a little weird sounding but just thought ok whatever.  We arrived at our hotel right at lunch time so they took us into the restaurant to eat.  After dishing up my plate I saw an entire table set up with breads of all kinds.  I saw the White Chocolate Bread so I grabbed a piece and headed to the table.  Well needless to say after Dane and I tried a bite we proceeded to have a piece (or two) at every meal while we were there!  It was so delicious!

The rest of our time we laid on the beach and relaxed!  I have never been to the Caribean before so I don't know if other islands are like this but it was really beautiful.  The sand was pure white and that included all the sea-shells we found.  The ocean was also not huge crashing waves like I think when I think of the ocean, it was really calm, almost like Bearlake in the early morning but it was all day.  The water was not only calm, it was the prettiest turquoise color I have ever seen and so clear that you could see your toes no matter how deep you got.

We saved the last day for snorkeling just in case my eye didn't like it but all was well and it was really cool.  We had a great tour guide/boat driver that not only took us to three spots to snorkel but also took us to a giant sandbar to find cool sea-shells and sand dollars and then drove us past Oprah's ginormous vacation house she has there and informed us Bruce Willis also has a house on the island.

We decided our vacation wasn't long enough and I think I have officially converted Dane to tropical destination vacations :)  We had lots of pictures so I put some of them in a slide-show below.

Eye Update

It has now been 3 weeks since my surgery and my eye looks great!  If you were to see me now you would have no idea I even had surgery.  I still have some stitches that haven't dissolved so it is pretty itchy but I have been keeping the drops in so it doesn't itch too bad.  Also, today was my first day back to work and I can't believe how tired my eye got.  I thought after three weeks, I wouldn't notice but at least it is getting better.  I tried to take a picture of my eye every day so I could watch the healing but I did miss some days, I am going to post some  pictures so please skip now if you get grossed out easily :)

Right before the surgery - I was freezing if you can't tell :)

Right after the surgery, I got to wear that styling patch for 24 hours then just at night for about a week

Arrrrg Matey!

In a few short hours from now I will be having surgery to remove a Pterygium (pronounced ter-ridge-ium) from my eye.  For those who don't know what it is...
"A pterygium is a wedge-shaped benign growth of the cunjunctiva (the surface tissue of the white of the eye) that extends onto the cornea." (Thank you, Dr Wolsey)
I'm also told that one of the main causes is being exposed to dry, dusty climates for long periods of time and I am not really sure how this relates to me.  I do love the sun and being outside but no more than the normal person and I wouldn't say Riverton is that dry and dusty of a climate.  Vegas, yes but I had this thing long before Vegas.  Maybe it goes back to the time(s) of being left in a sand storm at Bearlake.  For example, one time the wind started to pick up so we (Lindsay, Andrea, erin and I) quickly gathered everything on the beach and bundled it down so it wouldn't blow away then Lindsay and Andrea said they were going to go up to the cabin with a load and would be back down to help us.  Well, erin and I stayed huddled on the beach between two collapsed lawn chairs trying to keep the sand from whipping us waiting....and waiting....and waiting....
Just when we were deciding what we were going to do we heard an engine and we peeked out to see our neighbor in their mini-van pull up and ask if we needed some help.  We hurried and loaded everything into the van and they drove us up to the cabin safe and sound.  Needless to say, Lindsay and Andrea were there comfy and cozy in the cabin (probably showering and reapplying makeup for the cute boys they were going to meet that night)
Anyway, back to the reason of this post, normally if these appear in your eye they will just watch them and as long as they don't grow you are good.  Sadly, mine started growing and is now slightly over my pupil which is affecting my vision - especially at night so under the knife I go.  During the surgery they will cut away the growth then will do a graft on my eye where they will cut away some of the white from the top of my eyeball and sew it onto the side where the growth was to prevent recurrence.  Below is an up close picture of my eye and I will show you the after pictures too, cause I know you will love to look at a gross goopy eye.  They said the worst part of the surgery is the recovery and that I will look pretty beat up right after and my eye will be red and irritated for about eight weeks.  I was going to post a video of the surgery from youtube but honestly I started watching one the other day and when they pulled out the scissors and started cutting the eyeball, I had to stop it so feel free to watch the video on your own time if you would like :)

(this closeup, you can really see the wrinkles under my eye - how embarrassing!)

California!

At the beginning of May we headed off on a little road trip to California (for me it was little, for everyone else, it was kind of long especially with two kids :) )  We decided to head to Disneyland first on Monday/Tuesday we figured it wouldn't be super crowded and then we could relax the rest of the week.  The weather was perfect, the park was perfect and little did we know the premier of the new Pirates was going on!

 

After riding all the rides during the day we decided to check out the new show in California Adventure, it was so cool!  If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.  I tried to post a video but blogger didn't like it for some reason, I will try again later and see if I can get it to work.

Day 3, we headed to Oceanside and had a nice relaxing day at the beach!  It was so nice, I'm ready to go back to the beach already!  Dane also was able to meet up with us on this day so on Friday we headed to Disneyland again so Dane could have some Disney fun

We had so much fun!  Here is the last picture of the whole group (minus Dane)!

Easters

This year for Easter, I planned on staying home and dying eggs with some friends but then Dane got called to be in SLC for work over the weekend so I got on a plane and headed up to spend Easter with the whole family!  We started off dying eggs with Lindsay and Haydn so the Easter Bunny would have something to hide the next morning.  It was pretty fun and Zoie loved it!  When we poured in the water to make the dye she thought it was the coolest thing to see the water change into a color.

 

Then on Easter Sunday we headed to my mom's for an Easter Egg hunt in the backyard and a delicious dinner on the BBQ!  It was so fun to see all the kids and to have everyone together!

Zoie even taught Bryce a few dance moves...

A rough beginning to the week...

I don't know why I feel the need to embarrass myself even more by sharing my embarrassing stories for everyone to read but I just keep laughing about both of these I feel like they are too good not to share.  As anyone who has been to Vegas knows that any weather that happens down here is wind and sometimes the wind can be quite powerful as it was yesterday afternoon.  As part of my job I go to the post office each night to drop off any out going mail.  We had quite a bit of mail so rather then reaching across the front seat, I decided to walk around to the passenger side and get it so I didn't drop any.  As I walked around the car I noticed the wind had really picked up but didn't really think anything of it so I opened the door and leaned over to reach the mail, well as I reached down the door of the car blew into me and knocked me a little so I dropped some of the mail on the ground.  I then leaned over to pick up what had fallen when a rather powerful gust of wind came along and picked up the back of the skirt I was wearing and then felt a nice breeze on my bum.  I reached around to see why my bum felt so exposed and I noticed it was exposed because the back of my skirt was now up my back, meaning that I had just mooned one of the busiest streets in Vegas at the five o'clock rush hour!  I can honestly say it has been awhile since I have mooned anyone and I think in the past it had always been on purpose.

Just when I thought my embarrassing moments were over, at least for a little while, today happened.  I work with a girl who was a dancer her entire life and now that she is no longer dancing professionally she still is very much in shape and does yoga regularly so she is very long and lean.  Today she told me she is cleaning out her closest and she has some clothes that still have the tags on that she thinks will fit me and wanted to know if I wanted to try them.  I told her of course (hello! free clothes) I will definitely try them but I am not sure if they will fit and she proceeded to say that she thinks they will because she bought them when she was pregnant with her twins.  Apparently my jiggly parts that I thought had just gotten a tad jigglier since I have moved to Vegas have become quite a bit jigglier!  I better dust off that elliptical!

A much needed update...

I keep checking other people's blogs and I am a little jealous how on top of it everybody is (minus my sister).  Well our lives have been a little chaotic these past few months.  Dane has been working crazy and is never really home anymore (that has kind of been the story of our marriage though so we are getting used to it :) )  For those who don't know he is based in Fresno so between the commute back and forth and being the second to the lowest on the totem pole of pilots his schedule has been crazy and he is only home for a day or two at a time.  He is loving it though and it is nice for him to be at a company that he feels has some stability and security for him and will help his career immensely.
As for me, I survived my first tax season working in an accounting office.  It actually was kind of nice being so busy because I was working late and would be pooped when I got home so I didn't really notice when Dane was gone.  I also have applied for both UNLV and USC's MSW program and I am hoping to hear something soon from either one.  UNLV has the program on the 'possible' chopping block and they are set to vote on it in May, they notified me that they won't make any application decisions until the end of May because of that so I am just waiting...Now that tax season is over and I am back to working normal hours, I am excited to get started on my many projects.  #1 is finish Dane's stocking (What?! It isn't normal to work on a stocking for five years?!)  #2 is to get our photos in books by year - this is going to be a bit of a project but I figure if I start now and attempt to stay on top of it each year it might not be too bad.  After that I have many more things I want to do so we will see how it goes...

PS - We are headed to Disneyland in 17 days and we are SUPER excited!

Introducing...

Dane and I have had a lot of craziness in the last year so we decided to add to this crazy life we live...

INTRODUCING...

We are due Oct 28th so we are looking forward to a fun little Halloween baby!

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APRIL FOOLS!!

(This was a shout out to my aunty Jane who has always taught me this April Fool's Day trick can never go wrong :) )

Our Last Vision Hoorah...

After Dane quit Vision, we realized how silly it was that I had never been on a flight with him and that I have never been to the Grand Canyon when he was going on a daily basis.  So, his last weekend working we decided I was going to tag along on one of his flights to the South Rim.  As the weekend got closer my parents decided they were coming down to visit and bask in our warm weather so they were able to come with us.  We had a really fun time but it was freezing and to prove it there are some pictures with snow on the ground.  I've been getting used to 70's in January so this was quite the change. 

(Dane and I switched computers and I don't have Picasa so get ready for an onslaught of pictures rather than a collage)

 

Moving on Up....

It's official!  Dane's last day at Vision Airlines was on Friday!  Luckily for us, airlines are starting to open their doors and are hiring again (yes, the economy must be turning around a bit)  Dane interviewed at two separate jobs in January and was lucky to be hired at both so we ultimately had to make a decision which would be best for his career and for us.  As of today, Dane is now an official employee of...

We are super excited and wanted to share the good news with everyone!