December, Yay!

There are a few reason's why I'm happy right now:

1. It's December, and that means Christmas is fast approaching. And Christmas means family time!
2. I got laid off from my awful job. I tried not to be happy about it, but I am.
3. It snowed a bunch today...again.

As I wrote a couple months ago, Rexburg stayed unusually warm all the way into October. Conference weekend was over 80 degrees! Then the temperatures dropped drastically in November and we've been having blizzards for the last two weeks. Students around here have been complaining, probably because they have to walk around campus in it, but not me, (of course I'm not a student). I'm loving all the snow and extreme weather conditions. Fall is such a boring time of year. Granted, when the leaves change colors it is beautiful, but then they quickly fall and it's ugly and cold out. Fall this year lasted about one month and it was like a dream come true.

I got new tires on my 4-Runner in the spring and they are bigger and much more hardcore than my last set ;). They work wonderfully in the snow, (along with the 4 wheel drive). I'm having fun plowing through town while the little cars spin their tires at every stop sign/light. I haven't taken any pics of the crazy amounts of snow, but it looks something like this...



I have a feeling it's going to be a crazy winter.

If My Life Were A Movie...

I'm Ann. My boss is Meryl. I can't wait for Thanksgiving break.

Which Addendum?!

I haven't blogged lately mainly because my life is really boring right now. Also, I've been completely stressed about a new job. You heard me. I finally got a job. I'm half way through my second week and I'm starting to feel more comfortable, but the first week was awful!

About a month ago I went in for an interview with a real estate company to be an office assistant. I went in with a cocky...I mean confident attitude. I can file paper work easy! After all, I do have my bachelors degree. Well, they called me a week or so later informing me they hired someone who was going to be around longer than a year. Two weeks after that call and almost two months of me searching for work, they called back and offered me the job. Apparently, the other girl "didn't work out"...I haven't asked for specifics.



Anyway, my first day was a series of me following orders and not know a single reason why or what I was doing. Let's just say the broker/agent/office manager/owner wasn't the best trainer to someone who has no real estate experience. After a lot of stress, confusion, and communication I'm feeling much better. My first day I was told I was hired to run the whole office, to take over as office manager. I freaked when I realized how much I didn't know and how confusing everything seemed to be. The beginning of this week I was told they want me to have everything down by the end of December. What a relief!!! I thought I had to have it all down in two weeks...silly me.

P.S. If you are wondering about my blog title...there are all sorts of different kinds of addendum's in real estate, especially for bank owned properties...which my office specializes in.

Called To Serve

We had our records brought back to our BYU-Idaho "Family Ward" about a month ago, so we knew this day was coming. We both got a calling on Sunday.....we were called to serve in the nursery! Our ward actually has so many kids that there are two nurseries. We were assigned the younger ones, which start at the very young age of 18 months! I'm sure it will be a challenge for us, especially at first, but we can't help but be excited.



We're hoping to not have to deal with five of these every week:





P.S. Hope for the best mom, or this might be the best birth control yet ;)

Help Wanted? Anyone?

I've been desperately looking for a job since I got back to Rexburg the end of August. My job search is turning into a nightmare! I'm sure I've applied for nearly 100 jobs, have gotten over half a dozen interviews, but NO job. :(

I've heard: "You're over qualified." "You're under qualified." "You're not going to be here long enough." And most of all, "We just finished hiring." What's a girl to do?

I wish I had something more exciting to post, but besides looking for a job I haven't being doing much. Tyler has been studying like crazy this semester and he's getting good grades to show for it. I've read a couple books in my down time. So far, all good. Check them out:


This is a young adult book, but had some stuff I didn't think was appropriate for young reader's. But I admit that I really liked it. Very funny and heart warming.

Loved the whole series.

It's sad, but I am just now reading this series. Only read the first one so far.

I'm actually in the middle of this book, but I really like it so far. Very interesting and a little sad...I like sad books.



P.S. You might have noticed I just put like a trillion pictures on the side of my blog. It's in case friends or family find my blog they can get a quick update on what we've been up to the last three years...I thought it was a good idea anyway.

Happily Waiting

This is what my computer says the weather will be like September 27th (today) through October 2nd (Saturday).


I am perfectly content with this weather. I would happily wait for another month for fall weather to kick in.

Thank you Rexburg for delaying summer until the Muir's came back. :)



Here are a couple things we've been up to this past month.

Bike Riding.

Boating.

And Painting. (Before)

(After)

Before, After, Present Day

Drum roll everyone...........I have the pictures you've all been waiting for!!!

Remember this post? Well, I promised before and after pictures when all my sessions were over with. A month or so after my last session our Rolfer gave me a CD of my pictures. As soon as I took a look at them I was both amazed and disappointed. It was crazy to see all the amazing changes I had made in my alignment and disappointing to see the changes I had made in weight. I hadn't really noticed how much weight I'd gained since we got married and the pictures threw me off. I wanted to post these pictures when I got them in March, but I didn't know if I was ready to show you. Also, your body continues to change long after your sessions are complete. They say your body is adapting to the changes for up to a year. Which means my body is still changing and getting better.

Anyway, there are three pictures at each angle. The first one was taken in October of 2009 right before my first session. The second one was taken in January of 2010 right after my last session. The final picture was taken earlier today on our own camera. These photo's are completely natural. I'm not wearing make-up, I'm standing completely relaxed in every single one, and none of the photo's have been edited. So, here I am. Completely exposed ;)





If you would like to take a closer look, click on the photo's to enlarge.

The third photo is at a little bit of a different angle. Notice all the changes in my face, (besides the weight changes ;). The craziest part of getting Rolfed is when they realign your face...all of it. I've told a lot of you my horror stories about that. In the middle photo it's only been a couple weeks since my face was done. It still had a lot of adjusting to do on its own.

Notice my right shoulder compared to my left.

Look at my mid section in all the photo's. You'll notice in the first photos' it is short and compact. One of my favorite things about getting Rolfed was how it elongates you, especially in the middle of your body.

Notice my chest, shoulders, and neck. Remember, I'm completely relaxed in all the photo's.

A lot of my problem's were in my lower body. My hips were really bad and my left ankle. These two things really affected my knees. You can't see any of these problems in the photo's though.

Anyway, if any of you are considering getting Rolfed, I highly recommend it. It has really changed me for the better.

Tubing, Ballerina Style

Saturday it was in the 80's and the sun was shining! So, we took the boat to the lake and had a little fun.


It's always entertaining when Sid and Karen take a ride.


The coolest tube ever!


We all had a fun time switching back and forth between these tubes. It was a little tricky going from the small one to the large one, though...

Idaho? Udaho!

I'm so clever. Anyway, I got back to Rexburg a week ago and the weather was AMAZING! Unfortunately, that quickly changed when we went camping that weekend :( Fall is pretty much here. I even dreamed it snowed! I also dreamed Tyler wouldn't marry me and we were ghost hunters...weird. Tyler dreamed I had a baby when I was 16 and never told him about it.

OK, on with the blog update. When we left Texas it was over 100 degrees and Tyler's "Silver Bullet" over heated about 8 hours into the drive. We were literally in the middle of nowhere at a rest stop trying figure out the problem for several hours. There were three different truckers who stopped and helped us. At one point two trucker's and Tyler were looking down under the hood pouring their 2nd 64 oz. bottle of water into the radiator when I decided to look under the car to see where all the water was going. That's when I said, "Hey guys, all that water is just pouring onto the ground!" Three car savvy guys and none of them thought of it. Luckily I was there ;) They found the leak and Tyler fixed the problem. He had to blast his heat for a little while, but we made it!

So manly.


First time seeing 80 on a speed limit sign.


Cool rock on the drive home.


We saw one of Tyler's friends in San Antonio before we left. This little boy looves Tyler and when his Dad told him we were leaving this is the face he made. Notice the wet eyes. Poor boy.


He was happy when Tyler let him wear his hat, though.


I didn't get a lot of pictures of us camping. We spent most of the time in the tent playing card games instead of going off the rope swing into the lake :( We ended up taking off a day early and went to Green Canyon Hot Springs instead.

At Least We Aren't Being Hunted and Murdered

I'm a pretty positive/optimistic person most of the time, at least I try to be. I hate it when I get down and gloomy, grumpy, annoyed, mad, frustrated, and any other negative feeling. I love being happy. One of the reasons why I love the color yellow so much is because it reminds me of sunshine and happiness! Super cheesy, but it's true. I had to change my blog again because the black was just too bleak to look at. I needed something happier :)





I recently finished a book by Immaculee Ilibagiza called Left To Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwanda Holocaust. A friend recommended it to me forever ago and I finally found it available at the library here. I LOVED it. She said I would and was right. The book is about exactly what the title says. This young ladies entire family was killed during the Rwanda genocide of the early 90's. She hid in a tiny bathroom with seven other women for month's and lived to tell her story. It was so inspiring and made me incredibly grateful for so many things, too many to list.

One day while I was in the middle of this book Tyler and I were complaining about something and I said, "At least we aren't being hunted and murdered, right?" He kind of laughed and said, "What?!" I explained to him what was happening in the book I was reading and my comment made much more sense. Now, I think that phrase to myself when that guy won't call me back about a job when he said he would or when we have to buy new tires...again. I say it out loud to Tyler when he yells at the driver who cut him off or when he worries about not getting as many jobs as he wanted. I know it sounds kind of silly and it is, but it really helps us be more positive. Usually, we laugh about it because it sounds completely ridiculous, but in reality people around the world are being killed for no reason, and we are so grateful it's not us or our family and friends.

Get Me Outta Here!

It's been in the triple digits here for about a week now and doesn't look like things will cool off anytime soon. I wouldn't mind the heat so much if it wasn't so humid. I LOVE summer, the sun, the swimming, the outdoor activities, the greenness, I love it all. Now I just need to get somewhere to enjoy it. I hate when I have to go run a quick errand and I come home sticky, smelly, and greasy. I need to get out of this place stat!



This is Fall River, one of our favorite places in Rexburg...I'm day dreaming of the dry 80 degree weather and cool river water right now...

Gymnastics

(The photo above is Nastia Liukin, if you were wondering.)

As most of you already know, I did gymnastics for like eight years when I was younger. I'll admit it wasn't my favorite sport to participate in, but it is by far my favorite sport to watch. There is just something so amazing about the power and beauty of the sport. Ahh I just love gymnastics.

Anyway, we don't have cable here for the summer so I've been watching a lot of shows online. I search through Hulu regularly to find something worth watching when I get bored. I came across this show while browsing:



I remember seeing previews for it one time and thought I needed to watch it, but completely forgot about it soon after. Lucky for me the entire first season is on hulu.com. It's totally cheesy and I totally LOVE it! I was watching the first episode when Tyler came home from work. He watched it with me and got hooked as well! Ha, ha...don't tell him I told you. We're almost through the first season and it's only been a couple days. Sad, I know.

So, to my gymnastics loving family, watch it! You'll love it. And for the rest of you, here are some embarrassing photos of me:







(Sorry K for the half naked one of us, but these are the only scanned gymnastics photos I have. ;)

Austin Town

Finally something to blog about! It's been pretty dull around these parts. I hang out with the other wives out here on occasion, but they all have kids. It's hard for them to plan things that don't revolve around the little ones. I get asked this question a lot, "So, what do you do all day without a job or kids?" Well, I read, workout, go shopping, lay by the pool, talk on the phone, clean, cook (sometimes), oh and blog.

Anyway, we finally went to downtown Austin yesterday. I've been here almost two months and just made that trip. We went to the capital building and wandered inside and out. Then, we went on a trail the runs along the Colorado River, which goes through the middle of downtown. We only stayed down there for a couple of hours so we didn't accomplish much site seeing. We will go again I'm sure.

This is always how Tyler looks at me...


This fence was pretty cool.


State capitol building.




Looking up inside the state capitol building.


This is what you see...


Looking down.


Down by the river.


During our walk by the river we found a secret fort...and I love it.


This tree is growing horizontally out the side of the river bank. It makes for the perfect little nook.


Our friend in the fort.




Places like this make me happy. I think I might live in a tree one day...


We continued our walk over a nice pedestrian bridge at sunset. It made for a beautiful setting...unfortunately we didn't capture the sunset on camera, but we did get the buildings to the east of us.


It was a lovely Sunday evening.


On our drive home we drove over the Congress Street Bridge. It was dusk and the bridge was lined with people. This is why. We had heard about this event taking place, but didn't realize where it was until we drove right by. Next visit we will definitely stay to watch!