Merry Christmas Everyone!

I want to know what everyone did and what their favorite Christmas gift was. :)
Our christmas was nice and casual. Since Jared had to work on christmas eve and the following monday, we couldn't travel to spend it with family. So the family came to us :) Jared's brother William is getting ready to leave for a mormon mission so this was his last christmas with everyone for the next two years. Jared's family (minus his dad) traveled to our house on the 23rd. Early that morning we woke up to go out to breakfast with our brother in law. Besides the extra early, it was nice to have breakfast before school. I usually choose sleep over eating lol. That night his mom took everyone out to eat at Applebee's and we had a pretend christmas that night for his sister. I took some great pictures of their daughter Kaelisa. It was great to have everyone together! It's been a long time since that has happened.
On Christmas eve Jared went to work while the rest of us spent time together. I gave Trevor (our brother in law) a hair cut in the morning, started a huge turkey dinner, and then highlighted Jessica's hair. It was so fun and busy! We ate dinner and then Jessica & Trevor left to spend christmas in Star Valley with his family. The rest of us played some intense rounds of pictionary and card games until about 11:30. What a great day it was.
Christmas morning we slept in a little and opened our gifts around 10. Jared got a waffle maker so we had that for breakfast. I gave him a Yoshi blade because he was wanting one for so long, and let me tell you, that bugger is SHARP! It looks like a toy blade but holy cow. I recommend it!  After breakfast we watched the Sorcerer's Apprentice and then mama Maud and Will left back to Star Valley around 3. The rest of the day Jared and I played Spyro on the wii and just hung out. I have been so busy since school started that having a long break has been super awesome.

On going battle..

It's been no secret to you readers, or anyone else that knows me, That I have been struggling with my weight since getting married 4 1/2 years ago. With the military stress I blew up like a balloon and getting it off has been hell/ non-existant. I wish I could say it was just 5 pounds or so...but it wasn't...it was 65 or more. At my heaviest I was a horrific 200 pounds. That's a 70 pound weight gain since the day I said "I Do". It showed so bad in pictures and I felt so helpless. Even when I was going to the gym every night for an hour it wasn't coming off and I was ready to give up. I still am using my shape up shoes every day at school and since I stand litterally 8 hours a day I think that has been helping.

WELL.....I AM PROUD TO SAY THAT I AM...

187!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have not seen the 180's in like 2 years so I am very proud. I still have forever to get to my goal but I was so excited that I had to share.

December Overview

Happy Happy Holidays everyone! Did everyone have a fantastic December season and Christmas? I for sure had mixed feelings about this year, up until a few days before christmas, it didn't feel like it was here or that it was that time of year at all.  Let me catch you all up on my December review...

My how busy I have been still, I feel like I don't have time for anything because I piled myself with side projects that I wanted to get done before the holiday. Despite feeling like I am slightly drowning, I have had so much fun with them.  I have officially finished my family vacation dvd that I started back in May. It was getting to the point where I was tweaking it to death and not getting the result I wanted so I had to let it go before I drove myself insane. It was mainly one certain video clip within the video that was giving me trouble. No matter what I did  the audio was slightly off in one part of the clip. After like 3 mock up dvd's I had to let it slide before I ran out of disc's and time. I didn't get the dvd in the mail before christmas but I think it will be a great gift for my family anyway. Here is a picture of the finished result :)

This was the mock up of the dvd case that I made. In the center it had a title bar though.

Since I got my professional camera last year I have been dabbling in photography as a hobby. On December 18th Jared and I drove to Island park to meet Jerri and her Fiance Matt at Aunt Sandra's cabin to take her engagement photo's. Wow! What a beautiful setting! Island Park Idaho had so much snow it was crazy. The way it dusted the tree's that surrounded the cabin though was such a magical sight so to speak. Each flake sparkled so bright. I think the pictures turned out great, and I am so happy for them. When we arrived to the cabin at midnight we had to dig our way in. It was a good 4 feet at least. I love their cabin and I appreciate them so much for letting us use it. Here are a few of the shots I took. The one's with Jared were taken with a cell phone through a windshield so they aren't the greatest.

Beginning the 1 hr 30 min dig into the cabin.

Still workin' on it.

Finally finished.

School has been busy too. There are a few days where we have been super slow, but for the most part I have been keeping busy. I am finally getting a request clientele. It's nice knowing that people like me enough that they want to come back to me. For the Christmas season we were able to wear red and green shirts at school. It was such a nice change from solid black, you have no idea! We also did Avant Garde type style hair aka: Cindy lou who kind of.  Here are some of the fun things I did.

My version of a christmas tree

I thought it turned out pretty good.

The only thing holding the hair is bobby pins and hair spray, and none of it was done with a curling iron. I just molded with my fingers. 

Check this post again soon...I have another fun Avant Garde style to share with you.  

 More to come....

Quietly gave Thanks, and more..

Seeing as it's December 12th, I figured I had better catch up on the end of Novemeber festivities.

Our Thanksgiving was extremely quiet...maybe because I spent almost the entire day alone while Jared was out hunting haha. We didn't even start a dinner until after 3:00 pm and we didn't eat until 7. We normally pull out all of the fancy trimmings and what nots even for just the two of us. This year we did not. In fact, I didn't even take a single photograph, you all know that is just not like me. But we gave thanks anyway and took some time to reflect on our blessings and how much we appreciate everything.

After thanksgiving I have still been very very busy with life. School is going well, I now only have 1000 hours left and have been attending for 5 months. I am starting to see improvements on my abilities and timing. It's a good feeling! I am still a little stressed though because I have less time to pick it up than the other girls in my class and I am starting to double up on testing so I make sure that I make it through. I made a decision when I came onto the floor that I would save all of my tips and then cash them in for something awesome when I graduate. So far I think my count is going fantastic, I am up to $130 since October. Not bad for a dollar here and there :)

I am still working on a christmas project that I started like 3 or 4 months ago. I am making our family vacation pictures/movies into a dvd set to music. It's been a LONG process but I am almost finished. It looked so good in my opinion :)

My super awesome adopted little sister also just told me that is getting married last week. So now I am taking on the project of being a bridesmaid, taking/editing her engagements & bridal photo's, and fixing the hair for the wedding. I am so excited for her and can't wait to do it all.

Jared is still scruffy as ever and is still enjoying working at Kenyon Noble as their delievery driver. He was gone every second he could during hunting season and came home with a few deer because of it. He was pretty proud :) We had to buy a freezer as his christmas present to put the meat in. It will come in handy and save us some money. Especially because we can stock up more at Costco because we will have the room.

well that is pretty much it so far I think, I will post a picture update later.

As close to Halloween as I got.

Normally for halloween while in california we would go to bates nut farm to pick our pumpkins out, have a pumpkin carving party, mabye make some pie, and think about dressing up. This year we didn't have any of that. Instead Jared went to Wyoming to go hunting, and I was left to celebrate alone. I didn't plan on doing anything but we were allowed to dress up at school and the day before they had a halloween costume contest with Tim Burton characters. That contest really got me in the mood so I decided to pull out an outift the night before. I'm really glad I participated because it was the closest to halloween as I got.

The beginning of the Corpse Bride.

The workings of Cheshire Cat.

Putting together Edward Scissor hands

 Edward Finished.

 When Mar's Attacks girl start.

It doesn't look like Tim Burton's character..but this was Sammantha's version of Mad Hatter.

 Mad Hatter.

Corpse Bride all finished

 Cheshire Cat all finished

All of the contest Characters finished. The creators did an amazing job!

 All of us who dressed up for the day.

 Mario & Luigi Instructors

 Mickey the Zebra & Courtney the cop

 Who doesn't love Lucy? I know I do!

 Look out little Red!

 Resident bad girls. Rachel & Roxanne

I got that Punker!

Kali, Klarisa, Lynde, and Jaycee.

On Halloween day I watched old time halloween favorites  such as Hocus Pocas and Halloweentown 1,2,3 and I ordered myself a pizza.  Wasn't how I would have pictured the night, but it was fun none the less. Even though I didn't hand out candy I saw some adorable trick or treators. I hope everyone had a great Halloween!

I spoke too soon..

The day I spoke of my perfect school record...It came crumbling down. The flu had hit me...and hit me hard! It started in my nose and crept it's way to my throat. ICK! I felt so weak it was crazy. It hurt to chewy my gummy vitamins because of how weak I felt. I decided to spend the day in bed and miss school. Not something I wanted to do, but I couldn't have handled the day doing hair in the condition I was in.  Plus it wouldn't be fair of me to go to school and spread the cold around, after all that is how I got the cold. :( So now I sit blogging curled up in my blanket, missing not only one, but TWO days of school. Thank goodness for me though that I am way above my contract so I could afford to miss a few days. Also it's nail week so I am not missing theory either because I couldn't participate anyway. I drugged up on nyquil and slept in until 1:30 trying to kick this nasty virus. If any of you readers are going through this right now I hope that you get better soon and I will send you good thoughts. Please do the same for me ;)

As will all good situations in life there is the bad. We must take them in and see the positive from it. Although I am sick and feel like I have been run over, it has given me the time to get some well needed rest. I feel like I have been going and going and going with no time to stop and recover. I'm sure that added to how I got sick in the first place. It has also given me the chance to catch up on blog reading and posting as well. I didn't get to read everyone's that I missed over the last 3 months, but I read for hours until I was satisfied. I love that blogging is a way to keep in touch with friends and family. It makes you feel closer and more a part of their life if you don't seem them on a daily basis. I for sure am putting that on my thankful list this year.

Speak of being thankful, we might have finally found a plan for the holiday. :) Jared's work gave him a gift certificate for a 12-14 lb turkey with his paycheck this time around. Those buggers get expensive so we were certainly excited about it. We think we might travel to spend thanksgiving with family this year though. (really we just don't want to cook haha)  What is everyone else's plan for turkey day? Let me know!

M.I.A (long one..sorry guys)

Just like my last several months of posts I am going to start with an apology. How busy life has been since I have started school! I have been looking at my blog and seeing the pathetic slip of posts since the month of August, I still haven't ever gotten caught up with reading everyone else's posts. Lets see, let me try to catch up a bit.

The time has been passing me more quickly this year than any year past. I feel like it should still be March and I was just leaving California. I can't believe that is has already been 5 months since moving into our home in Bozeman. I was cutting a client's hair yesterday and they asked me if I had plans for thanksgiving. I told her no that I haven't even thought about it. She quickly reminded me that it was only 2 weeks off and I should think of making a plan...Geez didn't we just start October? Yeah apparently that month slipped by me as well.

Jared is doing well. Scruffy as ever, he is now 6 months into his hair grow experiment. (YAY HALF DONE!) I wouldn't mind the beard as much if it was well manicured, but since there is absolutely no shears to touch it, it remains wild as ever. Jared is a workaholic to say the least. Since switching his job within the company in July he has worked every single saturday since. His job is to be their truck driver, but with the big hail storm back in June he has been doing incredible amounts of shingle jobs with Ryan. He did the math and he lifts over 1 ton of shingles in a single 12 hours. He is loosing weight and looks great. I am very proud of him.

I am continuing to do well in school. I am holding a personal record I set for myself, that makes me very proud. I have not missed a single day of school since I started on August 3rd. I have been on the clinic floor for over a month and can now do cut, color, and perms on the public. At first I hated cutting so very much. I thought I would like it a lot more than I did. It would frustrate me to the point that I wanted to cry every single time I got into the cut. But I later discovered that it was just cutting on a mannequin that drove me insane. I started cutting on the public and I picked it up rather fast. I think a lot of it has to do with the interaction that you get with the person. I now have a least 2 or 3 clients a day. :) I am getting pretty fierce at men's cuts lol I do a lot of those. I had my first experience with extremely thick asian hair. WOW! I cut more hair off of that guy than I had on my whole head, and he still had triple the amount than I do. After sweeping it up it looked like a small black dog chilling in the corner haha. Unfortunately I experienced my first cut during his hair cut. Everything was going quite well until the thinning process. I was using my thinning shears and when  I went to palm them they slipped off my finger just enough that they were going to fall. I went to catch them and the blades bit down on my flesh in the process. It was so fast that it wasn't painful but it was quick to bleed. The after math looked like a small shark bite haha the serrated edge looked like teeth and somehow it was curved. CRAZY. I am loving it though now that I am busy working with the public.

Winter has officially hit Bozeman. We are freezing our Southern Californian Nay Nay's off here because of it too. The bird's hate the cold and stay constantly fluffy. The day the first blizzard hit I took them to the window to look out. Tico freaked and did everything in his power to get away. The first storm decided to come the day that I had to travel to Helena to take my national nail exam for Montana. When I woke up that morning it was just a light rain but after jumping out of the shower is had turned to fluffy white flakes that accumulated so fast! I wasn't thrilled about driving in that, my poor Mazda RX-8 and I was almost in tears. :) The further away I got from Bozeman the better the weather was though. I passed my test with flying colors and I am now licensed in two states. I am happy about that! I am still trying to sell my beautiful car, I am very unsuccessful with it though at the moment. A winter area just isn't the place for such a magnificent sports car lol. I am at the point that I think we will travel to an area where snow doesn't happen and find something else to drive back. It's just too beautiful to get ruined by a winter storm.

With all of that being said, I think you all are just about caught up on our life. We have been very fortunate to have several visitors, which we love. We are still adjusting to our new life and taking all of it's up's and down's with stride. I think I am having a lot harder time doing that than Jared is though. A bit of identity crisis has been going on inside my head. :) I haven't abondoned you all though and I am sorry that I have been such a stranger. I will try to be better again.

Much Love,

Her name is Mindy

I don't know about the rest of you readers, but I am a HUGE "coffee shop" music fan as I like to call it. I love the soft melodies and perfect words that each song possesses, especially when I am stressed or feeling down, or if I just want to unwind and get some work done. My new favorite coffee shop artist is Mindy Gledhill. Her album Anchor is pretty much amazing! I highly reccomend that you all take a listen. I even included one of her songs on my blog for sampling. Jillian Edwards is another new artist that I have had on my playlist. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do!

More Dancing Fun!

I broke down and bought Just Dance 2! I love that game so much, it's super fun and I get a great workout! Here are a couple video's from the 1st Just Dance that my friend and I were doing. Nothing like  a good game night with buddies, completed with Pina Colada's :)

Cotton Eyed Joe

Pump Up the Jam!

Birthday Gun and Bad Mouths.

Last weekend Jared wanted me to go shoot his new gun with him really badly, so we piled in the truck and headed up into the mountain. Ryan and Jared shot the gun for a while and I was hoping to get away without him making me, I wasn't so lucky.  He kept telling me how awesome it was, and how it didn't kick at all because the recoil magically took all of the impact, and blah blah blah. Well I held it tight up against my shoulder not wanting to pull the trigger, and pulled it anyway. Immediately the stupid thing kicked back and smacked me really hard on the Clavical. I was so pissed and instantly a huge string of foul language shot out of my mouth without a second thought. :S I hate guns so much, they are scary.

Isnt it beautiful?

He's so Badass ;)

I really liked this Stump.

I think the moss on the tree's is facinating

 Max

 His new baby

 The Boys Shooting

Me being afraid. Dang gun

Photo update for August

This is the rug walking into the school. Kind of neat

Air forming in basics class

 

Break time! Left to Right: Kallie, Heather, Sydney, and me

Heather and I

This is Tim. He is the instructor that we harass the most, but we love him.;)

Camping with Jared

Yeah we be crazy

Finger 11 and Hinder concert. It was so good

Jared and I after the concert

Jared's 24th Birthday

I put tiny guns on the cake because that is the only thing he got for his birthday.

Rainbow in the clouds.

Kelsey & Suzanne at the wax party

Waxin it up

Sydney and I getting the wax off

Mama Maud came to visit us :)

Roller set from school

Kiwi just kickin' it on the couch with Dad

 

Jared's new gun that he got for his bday.

Doing what I do best...Hair!

I made them a beautiful shade of pink and blue. haha

Pimp Cups!

Chillin' with my Homies

I love crazy friends :)

I hope you enjoyed!