Easter Decor

I finally spent some more time this year focusing on my holiday decor. I went to Tai Pan Trading with Jenn Baugh today and got a really cute Easter/Spring tree! I absolutely love it and I'm excited because it stay out as decor from Easter through early Summer :)

Jenn and I also visited the Wood Connection and got some cute wood items to paint and glitter. Since I knew most of my Easter decor was already pretty busy...I decided to keep my wood eggs simple with paint and glitter. I also had some lace fabric that my mom gave me and it added the final touch to the entire table so it could all be cohesive :)  I hope everyone likes it!

Updates

Ramin has been sick this week. He took the last 3 days off from work and stayed home. This morning he told me that he started noticing blood in his mucus yesterday and its been continuing and he thought he should go to the doctor. I agreed and we headed to InstaCare. It turns out that he must have just really irritated the capillaries in his nose and that was causing all of the blood. The doctor prescribed him some amoxicillin anyway in case he does have an infection. I've been thinking I may end up getting sick myself so I've been trying to rest up as well. I went to bed really early on Thursday and Friday nights. I *really* don't want to get sick :)

Our dog Dingo also went to the Vet last week because he needed his ear checked out. Since we've had him he's been getting progressively worse - he used to just yelp if you rubbed his right ear too hard. And then he would start scratching his own ear and yelping because he would hurt himself. So finally, last weekend he woke Ramin up one night just yelping a lot. So we figured it was time to take him in - we probably waited too long but we had hoped it would get better on its own.

The Vet and Vet-techs swabbed his ear and looked at the results in the micro-scope. He has a big time yeast infection in his ear. So they showed us how to clean it out and how to apply the medication. In all my life of owning pets I've never once had to deal with any ear issues so it was kind of interesting for me to learn about it all. The entire trip cost us about $100 including the visit, ear cleaner and medication. I've been cleaning Dingo's ear out every day and we have a follow-up appointment with the Vet on Monday to check on his progression. I can already tell it's made a world of difference and I'm sure Dingo appreciates it.

Work is going good. I have LOADS to do, which is great job-security right? I am spending this weekend reading some Instructional Design books I purchased on my own - for my own education. I am also taking some time to learn a software program called Camtasia that I am going to use at work to create some online instructional tutorials. This whole thing is also beneficial for school because my final school project is actually a project I need to do for work anyway - I love killing multiple birds with one stone :)

So that's the update. Not much to report. It's been snowing on and off here in Utah. I haven't taken any pictures recently otherwise I'd post them up. I'm hoping as the time turns into Spring I'll have the time to work on my garden and post up progression pictures as usual :)

Updates

This week I officially was granted a new position at work. I am now the Instructional Designer and Communications Lead for the eBay Quality Team. I'm really excited about this because this is what I've been working toward for a really long time. And I'm really happy that I was able to get this job before I even officially have my degree! The best part about it too is that I get to stay with my current team and boss. I love everyone on my team and I'm really happy I get to continue working with them. Getting the job wasn't easy, I had some really tough competition but in the end I learned a lot and it's really made me appreciate the strengths in others more than I ever did before.

Aside from that piece of good news, I'm working EXTREMELY hard at school this semester. It is my last semester and I have to complete my capstone project. I am lucky that I am able to take a project that needs to be done at work and apply it to school - it is the complete fusion of school and work - finally! So, over the next few months I'm going to sort of cut myself off from the world for a bit and really focus all of my efforts on work and school. You're probably thinking, how is that any different than previous? Well....the difference here is that I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm in a really great place right now and I know that once school is finally over for me in May, I'll be able to really accomplish some of my other goals I've been putting off for too long.

These are some of the things I had on my goal list for 2011:

• Get a promotion/get an instructional design job (DONE!)
• Graduate with my Masters Degree (in May)
• Lose 50 lbs (workin on it)
• Save up a good emergency fund (workin on it)
• Figure out the marriage situation (workin on it - most likely after graduation)
• Go to England
• Start up my Etsy store again and really focus on it
• Get pregnant so I can have a baby at 30 (most likely at the end of the year)

A few of those items on my list also require the input of Ramin of course but don't worry, we've discussed everything and he is on board with my planning.  I like to have plans and so far they've worked out for me in my life. Many times I wish that I could have gotten started on my family sooner like most of my friends, but I am glad I have waited until school is done. I've been able to progress so far in school and in my career that I know I'm in a good place. If I needed to take a few years off work to raise a family I could do it and not have to play major catch-up when I go back into the working field.

Anyway - 2011 has been good to me so far. One month down - 11 more to go!

Valentine's Crafts

 

This is the Valentine's yarn wreath that I made today to hang on my front door. It turned out really cute and when I posted it on Facebook lots of friends said they liked it as well. I may need to put some instructions together of how I made it or just have a little get together to show everyone how to make one. I'm glad people like it because I really do have fun making them. I'm also getting done with them quicker too - this one only took 1.5 hours. I may need to make one for everyone holiday now. I'll need to start working on one for St. Patrick's Day next :)

Christmas Time!

As usual we held Christmas at our house. Since we don't have little kids around, mom, Taylor and Bob came over around 3 pm so we could all open presents. Here is the low down of how it went:

Our tree and presents

 

The entire family - minus me of course since I'm taking the picture :P All of the dogs are there too!

Taylor, Mom, Bob, Chris, Babak and Ramin

Belle, Lady and Dingo

 

Babak and Ramin both got some batteries...they didn't know what for though.

I gave Taylor a nice Nike shirt - he doesn't look thrilled but he was :P

I gave Bob the "I blog, therefore I am" t-shirt. He got a kick out of it!

 

 

 

Chris got Mom a cool sewing caddy so that she can put a lot of her thread and supplies in it and take it around where she needs to go

 

I got Babak a Nike golf shirt - he thought it was a basketball shirt - but it works either way :)

I got Ramin a Columbia sweater. He doesn't have many sweaters so maybe he can start wearing one now

Chris' friends, the Pope's, got him a cool game called Brass. Another one for us to learn!

Ramin's mom got him some nice Lacoste cologne to add to his collection

The Pope's also got Chris this awesome t-shirt!

Here's what Babak's batteries were for - Chris got him a remote controlled helicopter!

Ramin's mom also got him some nice new jean shorts

Bob loves making Photoshopped pictures, so Chris got him a book to learn more about it. Chris also needs to get Bob the correct version of Photoshop too now!

Babak got Chris a cool headset for gaming. Chris needed a new one!

Ramin got some more dress shirts from his mom - she always gives the nicest ones!

Babak has a really old digital camera, so Ramin bought him a nice new one!

Chris and Babak like to give each other funny/joke type of gifts. So Babak got Chris some shampoo and body wash - they obviously thought it was hilarious!

Chris' current bed spread is horrible! The dogs have slept on too much and ripped holes in it. So I got him a nice new one - no dogs allowed!

Ramin's final present to Babak was a book called "Where's Stig?" - if you don't know what the means don't worry about it. It's from a show in the UK called Top Gear that we love.

Here's Ramin's present from me - to match his batteries. It's called Mind Flex and it's a game that uses your actual brain wave power to move a ball around an obstacle course.

After all of the gifts were open - everyone naturally had to play with everything!

Babak looking through his Where's Stig? book

Babak testing his brain power on the Mind Flex game

...and Babak trying not to think so hard

Ramin tried it out too...

...and tried not to think so hard too!

Mom played with her new Nintendo DS games while Belle sat with her on the couch

And speaking of dogs...here are some of their cute pictures from Christmas Day!

Dingo likes to do this with both Belle and Lady....here he is resting his head on Belle's shoulder. So cute!

This is Taylor's favorite trick with Belle. She looks bent out of shape once I snapped the picture but she likes to just sit in his lap and be held like that - she's so weird when the camera turns on though!

Mom and Bob always give the dogs so much love and they let the dogs get away with a lot - like jumping up on them to get love!

How can you not love this face? Belle is such a little ham!

And that was our Christmas Day! We had some friends over throughout the day as well which was nice :) Overall it was a good and quiet Christmas - and not it's finally snowing outside too!

Jazz Game

Friday night was Babak and RC's first night in Utah. As you know, Babak comes to visit us every December to hang out and go snowboarding with Ramin and Chris. This year his friend RC came with him - RC came back in 2008 as well.

As usual we watch every Jazz game and we were getting to watch it last night and we made the impromptu decision that we should go to the game itself - the Jazz just happen to be playing the Orlando Magic - Babak and RC's team. They thought it would be fun to go watch Orlando play at an away game and so we went. And we did not skimp on the tickets either! We got Row 6 and had an awesome view of the entire game. We had tons of fun. Unfortunately though, Chris' holiday work party was last night and he couldn't go with us :(

Florida Trip

We had the chance to take a very mini-vacation last weekend and Chris, Ramin and I all headed to Florida from Friday the 3rd to Monday the 6th. It was short and sweet but I'm really glad we were able to make it out there.

We spent our first day, Saturday, driving down to Tampa area to visit my Grandma. We spent some time with Grandma at her house and getting to know her dog Patty, then we went out to dinner with the usual crowd: Grandma, Patti, Dick and Bill.

After visiting with everyone and going to dinner for a few hours, we headed down to Tampa to the St. Pete Times Forum to watch the Tampa Bay Lightning play the Colorado Avalanche - the Lightning used to be mine and Ramin's favorite team when we first started getting into hockey but then we wanted to root for a more local team and we started getting into the Avalanche. We pretty much watch every game (at least Ramin does :P) and it just so happened that our two teams were playing each other the very weekend we were visiting Florida - we just had to go!

And of course, we stayed at Ramin's parents house during our visit. It was so great being there and I'm sure it was especially good for Ramin being back to his home he lived in for all of his life. Fatie and Steve really enjoyed having us as well - even if it was too short :)

This was Fatie and I with her friend Linda. We had lunch together on Sunday and it was really fun getting to know her - we had a great time!