Successful Vacation

Zak & I just got back from a wonderful, week-long vacation in L.A. with my extended family.  And it went over very well, despite the sunburns and some drama.  But that's just how it goes.  I can't pick one favorite moment from the trip, so I will list some of them below.

-We got to play with all of my little cousins (ranging from 1 year to almost 7, 6 kids in total).  The little one year old girls, Julia & Iris were so adorable!  They had the cutest outfits and I got to hold them once or twice.  The older kids were just as cute, but more exhausting.  One night we were all on a walk and Zak & I were leading the pack.  Zak taunted the kids (Weston, 6; Madalynn, almost 7; Audri almost 5) by saying we were winning.  I guess Jenna & Allie didn't help, and we soon heard running little footsteps coming our way.  They ran ahead of us, and I had to use my bribery skills to get them to stop running away from us.  I told them they could have a treat if they stayed with me and Zak, however!, they had to talk to their mommies and have them decide when they could have their treat (because I am not going to let them have sugar at 9 PM and have my cousins get mad at me).  For the most part, they were very well behaved, just very energetic.  Little Audri rode on Zak's shoulders most of the time, while I talked to Weston & Madalynn about everything under the sun.  They are sweet kids, but we are only more resolved to not be parents anytime soon.  Oh, and the kids loved calling Zak "Sunburned Man".

We loved having the kids (and their lightsabers) play with us.

Caleb and Zak seemed matched in silliness and energy.

Julia was intrigued by Zak, as most babies are.

-All 32 of us went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner and was it yummy!  Zak had steak and I got fish and it was great.  I had the new red velvet cheesecake (drool), Zak had the banana cream one.  It was definitely chaotic, but we had a good time.

-Our trip to Disneyland was great.  I was worried that Zak would crash early, but he did his best and stayed happy until the end or so.  My family goes from park opening to closing and we make the most out of it.  Zak hadn't been to Disneyland since he was like 8 or 9, and just isn't a Disney person, so I was worried he'd think we were all crazy.  But he had a really good time, from what I can tell.  It was a bit more crowded than the last year or so, and hotter, too!  But we went through Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion a few times to cool down.  Zak and I ate by ourselves at the River Belle Terrace place by Indiana Jones.  I've never been there, but it was pretty good!  Zak had BBQ pulled pork and I had a big roast beef sandwich.  It was nice to have some time alone together before regrouping with everyone.  Zak loved the Soarin' over California ride in California Adventure (it's a really great one), and I love the new California Screamin' in C.A. land as well.  There were some testy moments with the family (per usual), but I think everything went over well.  We left the park beat, with some sweets as souvenirs.

 

I am clearly the champion.

Zak got a turkey leg, and was as excited as I was when I got mine a few years ago.

-I got to see one of my old college roommates from two years ago and her cute little baby, Emma (and mother-in-law).  Emma's almost a year old and was so adorable.  It was her first time at the beach and she loved eating the sand.  Ali (her mom) would wipe her hands and mouth off clean, only to have Emma dig deep a few seconds later for more delicious sand.  She and Zak had a fun time together as well.  It was great so great seeing Ali after two years!

Ali with her almost one year-old, Emma

-Although Zak got sunburned a few times (and me as well), being on the beach was fun.  We got to play with the kids and swim for a bit.  I normally don't go in the ocean, but Zak likes swimming, so I went in to be with him.  The day I went in, the water wasn't as cold, so I enjoyed myself.  We also went swimming a few times in the motel's pool.  I used to be a mermaid, practically, with all the swimming I did when I was younger.  It was nice to play in the water with Zak, Jenna, and the little kids now and then.

 Jenna as a turtle and Zak ready to go to the beach!

Somebody got sunburned!

-My parents took us to see Toy Story 3, which was very fun and clever.  It was an impromptu outing, and it was nice to be together with just our little family.

-We went to the Getty Villa, which was awesome.  Their exhibit was about the Aztec Empire, which was pretty fascinating.  I also enjoyed seeing the old Roman and Greek statues, but my favorite room was of the old coins, gems and jewelry.  The grounds at the Villa were breathtaking and so peaceful.  We had a great time walking around and admiring the beauty of the Villa.

inner courtyard

Pretty Jenna in the gardens

So it was a very successful trip.  It was great seeing my whole family (minus only a few) again.  We really would love to go again next year, but we'll have to see if it can work out.  Hopefully it can because I love being down there!  Thank you to everyone who fed and took care of us, we had a great time!

the beautiful sunset over the pier :)

Another completed project!

A few months ago, I was looking at the pictures I took in Europe and I got an idea.  I wanted to get some frames that I could put several pictures in, and do a frame for each country I had been to.  I carefully selected the most 'artistic' and distinct pictures from each place I went to, but our move and graduation put the project on hold.  Once things had calmed down, I went on a search to find the frames that I wanted for the project.  Unfortunately, we didn't have enough money to buy 5 or 6 $15 frames.  Well, that and the fact that there wasn't an exact frame that I liked well enough to consider sinking a ton of money in. 

Then I got one of those e-mails from Kodak Gallery with good deals for Father's Day and decided to play around with some of their projects.  I found a collage-maker thing that I could plug in pictures with and edit them.  After playing with it for a few days, I had some projects that I was pleased with and ordered them on the sale price.  I was lucky enough to find some inexpensive frames that would work and I put them together last week.

And there they stayed on the floor for a week, because Zak & I were pretty pooped the last few days after work.  Yesterday, Zak had a day off and when I got off work, he hung up the pictures, with some direction from me.  I originally envisioned the frames in a straight line, but Zak thought it would look better the way they are now.  But I like it a lot and am so happy about them!  A big thank you to Zak for hanging them up and giving me his creative input.  Below are the pictures of the pictures.

All six frames together above the couch

England: London & Canterbury

France: Paris

Italy: Rome

Italy: Siena, Florence & Verona

Austria: Vienna & Salzburg

Germany: Munich & Berchtesgaden

And yes, I did take every one of these pictures!  I'm so proud! :)

More crafts

A few weeks ago I cleaned up and organized some of the cabinets in the kitchen.  For the last several months, we have had our huge quantity of tea bags in ziplock bags that were getting on my nerves.  I decided to take them out, organize them and move them from the pantry to the kitchen in the hopes that we would use them more often, since we have only a gazillion of them.  I found some inexpensive boxes at Michael's that I figured would work for them.  As I wandered the aisles, hoping to get some creative revelation, I came upon some mod podge decoupage.  After I made my purchases, I came home and starting going through a bunch of old magazines that I had saved for some reason.

Two weeks later and I finally got around to completing my artistic vision.  And they, more or less, turned out the way I had hoped.  I did cut out a bunch of letters in case I decided to write the different types of tea on the boxes, but that idea didn't pan out.  I might write on them with sharpie or make some kind of removable sign, but for now they will work.  I'm pretty happy with them and hope you enjoy!

box #1

inside view

one side

other side

fruit, mint, green & oolong (I'm not sure why we have it, but eh) teas live here!

box #2

 inside

one side

other side

chai & breakfast teas

box #3

 inside

one side

other side

packets we use for iced tea & bergmot as well (they came in a sampler I got for Zak, we're not sure if we'll keep them or not)

all three in their cabinet

Which one's your favorite? I love the top of the second one & the inside of the first one, especially :)

Work Rock Stars

I just wanted to write a post about how great Zak is!  At his job at Harry Ritchie's, he is still in his kind of 'probationary' period, but he's gone through training and can now open and close the store on his own.  He has a 'rookie' goal, which is a little bit lower than the people who've been working there for awhile.  I believe the goal period lasts for about a month, and if he makes his goal on time, he gets an extra $100.  If he reaches 120% of his goal, he gets an additional $20, and from there, each percentage he gets over (I think), he gets an extra couple bucks.  So if he sells 200% over his goal, he could get a fair amount of extra change.

Well it just so happens that Zak reached his goal this week.  Yep, he reached his $4,000 goal within two weeks of the goal period and will definitely get at least $100 extra at the end of July.  Not too shabby!  He has had a few big sales this week, including an older couple who walked in and dropped about a grand for a men's band and a women's chocolate diamond ring.  And I believe that couple will be in a few more times to buy stuff from Zak.  Oh, and he has been in the top 3% of the new rookies throughout all 30 or so stores. 

So basically, Zak is kicking butt and taking names, and I'm proud of him.  As much as I complain how unfair it is that he gets to sit all day while I am running around with old ladies and whatnot, he has earned this job and deserves it.  And he's good at it, too!  Good job, Zakky!

I also wanted to share that I've been doing pretty well this past week at work also.  Well, first some bad news.  My manager, Jacob, pulled me into his office on Thursday to talk.  On Wednesday we had what is called 'deep dive', where all the fancy executives come to the store and tell everyone what's wrong & right with everything, blah blah.  I have been fortunate to miss the last two, because I don't typically work Wednesdays.  Well, Jacob's bosses pointed out that my monthly scorecard for May wasn't so hot (it was much worse than anticipated), and told him he needed to talk to me to see what could be done.  Jacob is a great guy and manager and told me even though my numbers weren't so great, he was still proud of the work I've been doing, considering that I'm still new and there was a ton of drama last month (which is what I'm sure helped my numbers be less than stellar).  But we talked about some things I could do to improve my numbers, etc. 

And then I left the office and a made a $737.90 sale.  Boo-yah.  This lady with two small girls bought a TON of stuff.  I had been helping her before my talk with Jacob and had carried three big armfuls of clothes into the handicapped stall for her.  And she bought about 3/4 of what I put in there.  Oh and she bought $600+ worth of children's clothing a few hours earlier.  So yeah, take that, big execs in Portland!  So that sale was more than my entire daily goal and I was at 195% over it, so I just rang for my co-worker to get her to her goal. 

And then on Friday I reached my goal by 12:30 and rang for another co-worker, because I'd rather have everyone else reach their goal than have me be at 300%.  And I got a customer to sign up for a Macy's card (when we do that [we're supposed to get at least 2 a week], we get 'Macy's money', and points for the scorecard as well) And yesterday, while I was unable to reach my goal, I signed up two people for a card.  And Jacob gave me a bonus because I rang up a card for the last person who needed to get a card for the week in his department, so that way all the people he manages got at least one card this week. 

So Zak & I have been rock stars this past week, no big deal! 

Strawberries

Thanks to the lady who lived in our place before us, we have cute, little strawberries!  She also planted a whole bunch of beautiful tulips, chives, sage and a few others, so we are quite enjoying our little garden.  Our tomato and red bell pepper plants that we planted are still looking good, so hopefully soon they will start growing food for us.  Last week I harvested the strawberries, and took some pictures to show.  Today it looks like I need to do another one, we are constantly getting new ones, hooray!

mmmmmmmmm!

Diamond daze

I am a very lucky girl.  Zak has given me some very nice jewelry over the last few years, due to his jewelry connected jobs.  I am very well aware that I wouldn't have some of the things I treasure were it not for his job at Good Ole Tom's in CT.  He was able to get some very good prices on everything, including my engagement ring and wedding band.  So I am a very lucky girl and I love everything he has given me and try my best to express my appreciation for all my sparkly things.

Zak bought my engagement ring about 6 months before he proposed, and without too much input from me.  I told him I wanted something simple, with a round cut diamond and figured he would be able to find something.  He found something that I don't know if I would've picked out myself if I saw it, but I immediately fell in love with it.  It's an antique setting and ring and was just perfect.  I remember on my trip to Europe, every girl thought my ring was so unique and beautiful, and I was proud to tell them that Zak picked it out all by himself!

 the night we got engaged

Zak says that he knew it was a pretty decent diamond in the ring, but we didn't find out until the last few weeks how really nice the diamond is.  It is a quarter carat, which is big enough for my skinny piano playing fingers.  And we had assumed it was an Old European cut, but after awhile under the gem-scope at Harry Ritchie's, Zak & his co-worker Mat determined it's most likely an older version of the modern brilliant cut*.  The modern brilliant cut was invented in the 1920s and gain popularity and perfection in the 1930s and 1940s.  So the boys figure my ring was probably made in the 1920s or 1930s.  Their reasoning is that the culet (the hole on the bottom of the diamond; today's diamonds have a small, tiny one) is larger, meaning it was hand cut.

After some more inspection, they determined my diamond is probably a VVSI, or Very Very Slightly Included.  [FL is Flawless, IF is Internally Flawless, and VVSI is the next step down--only those who are trained to look for inclusions can find them under a heavy microscope.]  I was not expecting that!  Mat said their store doesn't carry VVSI diamonds because they are pretty expensive.  And to add to the surprise, the color of the diamond is in the realm of F - H (D is Colorless, J is the lowest of the Near Colorless).

They appraised my ring for a large amount of money that I totally was not expecting, definitely not anywhere near to the price Zak paid for it!  So it turns out that I have a very beautiful, near perfect diamond sitting happily on my ring finger.  I always knew it was a nice diamond, but holy cow! 

And finally, a few weeks ago, the store had a 're-mount' day, where they had a lot of gems and stones that could be somewhat custom-made for customers.  Zak had the jeweler solder my engagement and wedding rings together, so now I have one happy ring!  In short: Zak has been very good to me in the jewelry department and I know it!  Thank you, honey! :)

 

soldered together

my pretty diamonds (the ones in the wedding band are also very nice)

the cool antique setting

*Update as of 7/1: We have come across some material stating that my diamond is most likely the actual European cut.  Zak's co-worker has a big diamond manager training book and he was reading about it yesterday.  The picture in the book looks almost exactly like what my diamond looked like under the scope!

More updates

We have been fairly busy around these parts, working almost every day.  This week I picked up two extra shifts and boy, is my body paying me back for it.  About two weeks ago, I woke up with my lower right back in absolute pain, it was worse than the pain I've had in the last few years.  I did go to work (gotta get that paycheck), but it was a rough day.  The next day I called out of a four-hour shift and stayed home with Zak, who introduced me to kundalini yoga stuff.  I started doing 10-15 minutes every night and morning (and sometimes more, if needed) of a few stretching back exercises, and that helped.  Every day I was still in pain, but it was lessening every day.

Fast forward to this week, where the pain is definitely smaller, but now it seems to have moved to my upper back, across the shoulder blades area.  I've been sleeping flat on my back with a pillow under my legs, since sleeping on my side seemed to only make the pain more intense.  So I have been trying and doing my best, but sometimes, I just gotta load up on Excederin.  Most days after work I don't notice the pain, and I think standing and moving helped that, but now my feet are so burned out.  I haven't picked up any extra shifts for the next few weeks, due to my body being angry at me, and because there weren't any that would really fit our schedule.

Zak has been working a lot, as well.  He has some pretty chill co-workers, which is good.  Especially since they don't care if I spend my breaks and lunches over there--it's never super busy, so they don't mind.  It's nice to have lunch dates with Zak almost every day-we try to make it work out.

Zak has been super productive the last few days.  We noticed about 4 or 5 days ago that our betta, Richard, was looking kind of sad and sick.  Zak took him out of the fish tank and put him back in the vase, and we noticed he had a kind of fungus on his tail.  It was very sad.  Zak bought some medicine for him, and so far he's been improving, but now we are thinking he might need a different medicine.  Apparently the fish tank's water was fairly dirty, since we have forgotten about changing the filters, but Zak took care of that and bought like, 10 little snails for $1, to eat the algae and plaque that's been growing on the tank.  We hope to return Richard to the warm tank in the next day or two.

Last week we used a gift card we had to Sears on a grill and I picked it up on Friday.  It's a BBQ-Pro and charcoal powered.  It took Zak a bit to set up, but he did it and we had homemade burgers that night.  It was my first time making burgers, so they were a bit small, but they were yummy!  We are looking forward to grilling this summer! :)

Also this week my computer decided to stop working.  It had something to do with a corrupted file and it wouldn't boot up properly, despite the tricks Zak tried.  Luckily, my dad had some of the Windows CD-Roms and sent them to us and Zak was able to get it all figured out last night.  It's lucky I married him, huh?  What a smart guy I have!  I would never have known what to do, especially now that my warranty's run out.  The next step is to fix my external hard drive, which might be a pain.

We are looking forward to our L.A. vacation very much, it is in less than two weeks!!  We are also looking forward to coming back to Moscow and not to Rexburg, after an awful 4.5 bus ride from Salt Lake.  I'm super excited to see my family and get tan again and not be on my feet all day!

That's about all I have for now; just wanted to let you guys know that we are alive and doing well.