Andrew's Internship

For those of you who have not heard..

ANDREW got an INTERNSHIP!

This has been the thing hanging over our heads lately.

Where is Andrew going to get his Internship?

He really wanted one at WalMart Corporate Offices.

Guess what...HE GOT IT!!!!

He went out to Bentonville, AR January 19-22.

He had THREE interviews! HOT!

He was offered two positions and took the one that he REALLY wanted in the Merchandising Department.  I am so proud!

Which means...we are going to Bentonville, AR this summer.

We will leave May 19th.

Should be a ton of fun!

Here are some pictures of Bentonville!

Wal-Mart Corporate Offices

Aerial view of WalMart Corporate.

Are you wondering where Bentonville, AR is located?  Well here you go!  It is in the NORTHWEST corner of Arkansas.  Oklahoma City Temple will be the Temple District that we will be in.

Look how close we are to ANOTHER CAPITOL!!!

We will be visiting Little Rock, FOR SURE!

An aerial view of Bentonville, AR

Downtown Bentonville

This is the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.   For more info go to their website. 

It is opening November 11, 2011.  I really hope Andrew gets a permanent job at WalMart after the Internship, so we can actually go inside of this place some day!

And...are you ready for this....

This is the HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL stadium!!  

Brings me back to my roots in TEXAS FOOTBALL!

I am TOTALLY OK with going to these games someday!
 

So, yes, we are excited to experience Bentonville, AR.

We will miss all of our Idaho friends.

We will be sad to miss out on an Ashton Summer.

The 4th of July festivities and the warm BBQ weather.

However, we will be back for Andrew to finish up his Senior Year,

so we will hopefully get to fit in a few BBQs before the snow comes back!

Congrats Andrew!  I am way proud of you!

Look what came in the mail today...

 

Do you see that cute little lady in the front there?  That is my dearest Grandma Jones on her 90th Birthday 2 years ago!  I love her.  She is awesome!  Look what she sent us in the mail today!

 She sent us the most precious afghan in the mail!!!  It is so small and beautiful!  I can't wait to wrap our little bundle of joy up inside of it.  I will cherish this afghan for many, many, many, many years to come.  I am just amazed she is still making these afghans!!!!  I just love my Grandma Jones so much and wish I lived closer to her, so I could see her more.  Andrew and I are planning on going out to South Dakota this summer to show off our new little one to their Great-Grandma Jones!  I just can't wait!!!  

Now, I have two afghans from my grandma. 

This one she made for our wedding present!!!  She said it was just all the left over scraps of yarn she had left to make this....but that was okay because it was wild and crazy just like Andrew and me!!!!  This is one of our most favorite wedding gifts.  Again, an afghan that will stay in our family forever! 

Thank you Grandma Jones!

I love you so much!

I Love to See the Temple

 While in Utah, my sister-in-law, Cathy, and I went down to the Salt Lake Temple to see the lights.  Of course, I took pictures.  I was actually pretty impressed by the job my little Canon did.  I love these pictures, and I love the Temple! 

Enjoy!



Bringin' in 2011

 

(Just realized we never blogged about New Year's)

 This year for New Year's we were invited to some of Morgan and Andrew Schauerhamer's relatives' home.  We had so much fun!  There was a ton of food and games.  I absolutely LOVED their REAL Christmas tree.  Just look at that thing.  Can you even take in how TALL it is???!??

For New Year's it was FREEZING outside. Literally!

When we left Ashton it was -17 outside.

I don't think the truck we took ever got completely defrosted the whole drive down.

Where in the world do we live.

When we first got to the party, we realized there was a POWER OUTAGE

in Sugar City.  That was a great start to the party.

The lights came back on about an hour after we got there.

Awesome!

 We left the party around 11:15, so that we could get back up to Ashton, pick up the Leah and Lily, the Schauerhamer's girls, and bring in the New Year with some Martinelli's Apple Cider.  Yum!  

We made it just in time.

 On New Year's Day Andrew and I decided to try out our NEW Ice Cream maker we got for Christmas.  It was our first time and it was ok, not the best, but still pretty GOOD!

WE are excited to make MORE & MORE ice cream in the days and years to come.

Christmas in Utah

This Christmas we went to spend the break in South Jordan, Utah with Andrew's family.  Everyone was there and we had a great time.  I took four days off from work and we headed on down.  It was great to be with everyone.  

We did a ton of shopping, hanging out at the house, movie watching, and game playing.

On Monday we went down to Payson and visited with the Hinton family.  They are some of our good friends that Margie met at EFY!  We were really excited to see the girls and the girls were so excited to see us.  They have just grown up so much.  It was so nice to spend FHE with them.

Unfortunately, on our way down to Payson we got a flat tire.  No big deal, we had a spare and we were able to get a new tire the very next day.

 Wednesday we had more of the family over for dinner. Aunt Pat and Uncle Edward came up from Spanish Fork.  Aunt Rae and cousin Stephen and wife Sarah came down from Clinton.  It was actually my first time meeting Rae, Stephen and Sarah. It was so nice to finally get to know them.  It was a very enjoyable evening of talking, laughing, eating, and singing.  That's right, we called Grammy in New York and sang her a few carols.  THEN she wanted us to record them, so we did just that.  That turned out to be extrememly fun!!!

Thursday night, Mike, Cathy, Mom, Dad, Andrew, and I went bowling.  Mom had a great deal for two hours of bowling, pizza, and drinks.  It was way fun.  You just gotta love bowling! 

 Christmas Eve day we were able to go see the third Narnia movie.  It was a great movie and we had a fun time seeing it with the family.  Thanks Mom for the tickets.

That night we had FONDUE!  It is a love of mine.  I would love to do it whenever I can.  We had a cheese fondue and the chocolate fountain.  I loved doing it, because it reminded me of Christmas Eves in my home growing up.  We always had Fondue for dinner on Christmas Eve, which is exactly where my love of Fondue started.  After dinner we read the Christmas story from Luke 2 and then watched a movie together as a family. 

It was a wonderful evening.

Christmas Day was just as wonderful.

We played KARNAXIS basically ALL day.

 In the morning, Andrew and I opened up our presents from my parents.  My favorite one was the HAPPY APPLE.  I had one of those when I was a baby.  Mom was able to find it on Ebay for OUR baby!  I almost cried when I opened it.  We also got a Digital Photo frame, Smart Mouth from Ariana and Spencer, a cute Texas Santa and our annual deck of cards. Thank you for the FUN gifts!

We then headed downstairs and had breakfast.

Carson had brought her Belgium Waffle maker.

They were AMAZING!

We then opened up presents from Andrew's family.  

At this moment in time I was not feeling my best...(pregnancy sickness and a head cold.  So, I was NOT myself...which meant I didn't take ANY pictures.  That should show you how out of the norm I was.)

We got some awesome things for gifts.   In our stocking were waffle cone bowls, and all sorts of ice cream toppings.  Yummy!!  

We started to open our gifts and found....

an ice cream scooper,

Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Recipe Book, 

are you starting to see a theme here...

THE BIG GIFT..

the Ice Cream Maker attachment for the KITCHEN AID!

Thank you, Mom and Dad Walker!

Kate and Branson had our names and Kate made us some blankets with our names on them.  AWESOME!  She also made us a little blakent for the baby and we can attach the baby's toys on the blanket.

Needless to say it was a great Christmas!

 Little J and Pop Pop starting a fire.

It was great being around Little J this Christmas.  A little two year old is always fun to have around at Christmas time.

 Uncle Andrew and Little J having some fun!  We got that goat puppet as a White Elephant gift.  It is pretty much amazing.  Everytime you close the mouth it sings a little bit of "The Lonely Goatherd."  I love it and so did Little J!!!

 Monday night we went to INCREDIBLE PIZZA FACTORY.

Believe me it is INCREDIBLE!

We ate all you can eat buffet.

Played some MINATURE GOLF,

LAZER TAG,

and BOWLING!!!!!!

 We played Lazer Tag the most.

It seriously was so much fun.

 We had such a great night there.

It was seriously SO MUCH fun!

 While we were there in Utah we did some shopping.  the top picture is of Andrew reminding me of one of my favorite commercials...Geico commercial talking about A Bird the Hand being worth Two in the Bush!   The bottom picture is a Nativity that Andrew and I really WANTED!  It was 200 dollars though.   Someday we will have the money for it!   Until then, this picture will have to do!

On our way back to Idaho we stopped in West Point to say hello to the Law's.  Their daughters, Kathryn and Melissa are some of my best friends.  The Laws have been friends of our family for 20+ years.  It was so great to stop and talk to them.  I was also so excited to introduce Andrew to them, FINALLY!!!!

Needless to say we had such a great break. 

We are going to be PARENTS!

Have you heard?

We are having a BABY!

I am 12 weeks on Monday!

First Trimester -- DONE!

Luckily, I have not been as sick as I know I could have been.

We are hoping it stays this way.

We are pretty excited about this.

We know our life is about to change.

We are due June 21st!

Our 3 year anniversary.

Two days later is my Birthday.

Can't wait to see when the little one actually comes.

It will be one excited June of 2011!

Christmas Decorations

This year Andrew and I decided not to put out ALL of our Christmas decorations.  We just put out the tree and all of my Nativities.  We are in the market for a new tree.  I love my tree.  We just want to get a bigger one.  But for now, this one will do.  My dream is to have two trees.  A big really nice one in our Living room and then this one that I have right here with all the FUN ornaments on it for the Family room.  But seeing how we don't have those TWO rooms right now in this home, we will continue to have our little tree!

I also love what I did with the Dollar Store Hurricanes.  It is simple, yet beautiful.

I like to get a new Nativity each year.  The ones that I have gotten so far are not the big extravagant ones, but I love them just the same.  I usually don't spend more than 5 dollars.  One of these days we are going to get a REALLY REALLY REALLY nice one.  Andrew and I even saw one that we would have loved to have, but it was 200+ dollars.  We are not quite that rich yet.
One of my favorites is the one under the Temple picture.  My mom gave it to me last year.  It is a Mary Englebrieght and it is little kids doing the Christmas Pageant.  I am so happy Mom decided to give it to me.  I just love it so much.

 

Here are more of my Nativities.  It was so peaceful in our home with them out. 

These are my two new ones for this year.
My mom bought me the colorful one.  I love the flow and colors in it.
The white one Andrew and I bought for 5$.
It was normally 60$, but it was missing a Wise Man.  We took out the wise man it came with and just have out the Holy Family.
Perfect!  I love the simplicity of it all.

I just love remembering the reason for the season by looking at all of my Nativities.

How blessed we are to live in this time.

How thankful we are to know that Jesus was born in a manger so many years ago.

Merry CHRISTMAS everyone!

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO CUSTOMER SERVICE?

       
        What has happened to our society? I am only 29 yet in my short lifetime we have lost the notion that the customer is always right. Yesterday I went to get my tires rotated and my oil changed at Big O's in Rexburg Idaho. I have been a customer there for about two years and I have rarely been satisfied but I have continued to go because of one of their employees, who wasn't present yesterday. I walked into the store and was the only customer. The owner was at the counter and asked me, "What do you want." Not the best phrased sentence but it wasn't unpleasant. I told him that I needed an oil change and tire rotation. He replied, "Which one?". Fortunately I'm not stupid and I decoded his cryptic talk to mean which oil change. I asked for the mid grade option.
        I then asked him to check my account notes because the employee that I like told me he left a note in my account to remind me of a service I needed to have done on my car. At the time I forgot what it was but since I have remembered it was to change my transmission fluid. (A $180 job they lost because I'm never going back). The  owner gave me a quizzical look and said "What!?" I repeated stating that on my last visit one of his employees told me he'd put a note in my account so I could remember what I needed to have done.He replied, "What?! Are you sure you're not thinking of RC Willey?!".  For those who don't know RC Willey is a Furniture and home appliance store. I can see how he might have thought I got his TIRE store confused with a FURNITURE store. I hope you noted the sarcasm. I replied no sir I am talking about your store. Your employee told me.... I couldn't finish my sentence because the phone rang and he answered it without saying excuse me or anything. A reminder that I was currently the only customer in the store and their were at least 4 other employees including his wife in the adjacent office who could have answered the phone. He then helped the customer on the phone for a few minutes and I walked away and sat down. About 30 minutes later my car was done. The owner never even looked at me the whole time.
        I am a bit upset with myself that I didn't say anything to him and just let it slide. I should have told him he was way rude and his customer service ability was no better than that of the guy who hacked into my bank account last year and stole all of my money. When I checked out another employee, the one who performed the service, checked me out. They charged me $22, which is the price of the lowest oil change not the one that I had requested. Did they not hear me mention I wanted the mid grade?!!! Oh wait, that's right, he was on the phone at the time. To add salt to the wound they spilled oil all over my engine so oil fumes pour into my car as I drive down the road. It will burn off in a few days but in the meantime I'm developing lung cancer.
       This is just a small example of the crappy customer service that is looming in the majority of our stores. I am PAYING money for a service and a product. I demand to get my money's worth.

Please leave a comment on your crappy customer service experience and be sure to leave the employees name and their wonderful place of employment!!