5k, "terns," job hunting, birthdays, and a new GPS!

Wow! I had no idea it has been over a month since my last post! I will try to be better and MAYBE get some pictures in the next post.

So, I ran another 5k. You probably all forgot that I even ran my first 5k because it was so long ago. My time when I ran back in April was around 39 minutes. NOT GOOD! And I was paralyzed for a week afterward. This time I actually decided to train a little bit. I went to the gym every weeknight for 2 weeks, but the fastest I ever got was a 5k in 36 minutes. I am proud to say that on the actual race day I ran my 5k in 31 minutes and 42 seconds!!!!! Everyone in Daniel's family beat me (even though some of them didn't run the whole way) but I ran the entire time! It felt great to be able to run that far and still be able to walk afterward! My dad ran the race with me too. He caught up with me about halfway through and we ran together for the rest of the race. I am glad he caught up to me because I really wanted to quit. Running isn't easy! My dad really encouraged me to keep running and I really appreciate it!

I finished my externship at the pharmacy!! It was a really great experience. My "co-workers" were all awesome and I was sad to leave them but I am really excited to be graduated and qualified to get a job in my field. I have been applying to a bunch of places and actually had an interview this morning with a really great company in North Salt Lake. They asked me back for a 2nd interview next week!!! I really hope this works out!

My birthday was this month. I turned 23! I am so old now. My sister in law threw me a party, I went to lunch with my mother in law and sister in law, I got an AWESOME candle holder from my father in law, and got some birthday money to go shopping with! Thanks to everyone who helped make my birthday great!

And now, on to my pathetic story of the week!! (I'm really hoping that pathetic events don't really become a tradition, but whatever). So anyway, I went to Salt Lake on Wednesday to turn in my pharmacy technician license application and get my fingerprints done. We just got a new GPS and I thought, "perfect timing." Well, turns out that it doesn't matter if you have a GPS if you don't type the address in correctly! Luckily I only ended up a few blocks away from my actual destination. THEN.... I had to call Daniel to ask him how to use a parking meter. ME and my naive life!!!

Anyway, I am really excited for the next few weeks. I am going to visit my sister in law, Raquel, and her cute family this weekend. It will be so nice to get away! Then, over Halloween we are doing another reenactment just outside of Las Vegas. And hopefully I will get a technician job in the next few weeks!

Happy Halloween!!!

A Post Dedicated to HAIR

So, it's been a while since I have posted anything and, as usual, we have been super busy! Last weekend the Phister family got together for another reenactment at This Is The Place State Park. It was a fun weekend, but really it's the boys who have THE MOST fun. They get to ride their horses all day and shoot their guns in mock battles. It is really impressive to see. The fun part for the girls (and the boys) is the civil war ball because we get to dress up in puffy dresses and hoop skirts!!! Stephanie, my sister in law, helped me get my hair in curlers so I could have ringlets.

Thanks Stephanie!!! My hair turned out great! The curls stayed in for 2 days!!!

There is the finished product!! I am also wearing a new dress in this picture! It was in one of the shops at This Is The Place. Daniel got it for me as an early birthday present. I love it!! (Deanna does too... she gets to do all the alterations!)


There is a picture of me and Daniel together at the ball. That is his "dress uniform." I remember last year when I saw them for the first time. I thought his hat was really funny looking!! BUT... when he and his dad wear those outfits they get more attention than the girls do in their ballgowns!

Isn't he sooooo sweet??? :-)

You may be wondering why I have a picture of a tarantula in this post and what that has to do with hair. Let me explain. After the ball we went back to our tents to go to bed and I was cleaning up some clothes and getting my bed ready. I picked up my skirt and was folding it when "something" dropped on my arm. IT WAS A TARANTULA!!!!!!! And no, this is not an actual picture of it. We killed it too fast to get any pictures. I ran out of my tent telling everyone that there was a huge spider in my tent. Of course they thought I was just "being a girl" and overreacting. They thought it was just going to be a tiny spider or something. BUT NO. One of the guys went into my tent and caught the spider and everyone got a good look at it before I screamed at him to KILL IT! He said he could feel it crunching under his boot. Anyway, the reason I put this story in my hair post is because I swear, I could feel EVERY hair on that spider's body when it was crawling on my arm. It was the SICKEST experience of my life!! AND I still had to go to bed that night. CREEPY!

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Now for a HUGE transition. I got my hair cut! I have been waiting to cut my hair for a long time! This is probably the longest I have had my hair since I was 12. I would like to have grown it longer, but it was dying. Darn flat irons! So, here are my before, right after, and after pictures! Enjoy!

Before:

Right after: (I cut almost 6 inches!!!!)

This finished product!!!!!

It feels so nice to have short hair again!!!

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On a side note. I have successfully finished my first week of my training hours for my pharmacy tech license. It was so fun and SOOOO different than I would have ever expected. It is nothing like class! I have 4 and 1/2 weeks left of training and then I will be OFFICIAL! I have even already started applying for jobs! Wish me luck!!

I PASSED!!! I'M DONE!!!

Yesterday I took my national certification test for pharmacy technicians and I PASSED!!! This was a test I have been dreading for the past year and it's OVER!! That was my very last test and now I only have to complete my "on the job training" and I will be certified! It has been a long year full of a lot of stress and a lot of drug-learning. Now I can live happily ever after with my library books... and Daniel ;-)

Now, playing catch-up on what we have been up to! This past weekend we were super busy! Saturday morning we got up BEFORE 5 AM and went to Logan. Daniel and his dad ran the Top Of Utah 1/2 Marathon and they both did great!! Daniel's time was 1 hour and 39 minutes. He finished 20th in his age group out of like 2,000 people. I am so proud of him!!

And, if any of you are intested, the Hansen family from Plain City, Ut are holding a 5k run/2 mile walk in honor of their daughter who passed away from cancer. It is on October 3rd in Plain City! They would love as many people as they can get, so let me know if you (Ashley!!) want to sign up!!

Sunday we got up at 5 AM again to go to Green River, Wyoming for Daniel's sister's baby blessing. Mike and Raquel (Daniel's sister and brother-in-law) also spoke in church. They gave wonderful talks and the blessing was very nice! After, we did some family pictures and ate some yummy food!! It was a great day and I'm glad I finally got to see Raquel's cute house!

We have a lot of fun things coming up in September! This weekend we are going to the Ft Bridger Mountain Man Rendezvous and the next weekend we are going to a civil war reenactment at This Is The Place State Park where they will be having a civil war ball! I am really excited and hopefully I will get some good pictures to post.

Anyway, happy September! And don't forget to let me know if any of you want to sign up for the 5k in October!

Wedding pictures... FINALLY!

So, I have been promising pictures for forever and I am finally coming through with my promise... it only took 3 MONTHS! And unfortunately, my computer is having trouble downloading any more than 3 so you get what you get.
Can you believe that it has been 3 months ALREADY? It has flown past. But it has been great! This summer we have been on an ultimate camping trip, been to St George, been back to Daniel's mission in LeGrande, Oregon, had 2 new additions to the Phister family (2 cute babies), FINISHED SCHOOL, bought a Kindle, and found my DREAM neighborhood. We still have 2 reenactments left in September and then Daniel is going to a Disc Golf tournament in Walcott, Id.

As I mentioned before, I finished school a couple weeks ago at the OWATC. I still have my national board test, which I am taking on August 31st, and I still have my on the job training. I still haven't been placed for that yet, but I am really excited to start practicing what I have been learning for so long! I will let everyone know when I get placed!

Catch-Up!

We have been super busy lately! I feel like ever since the wedding we have been going non-stop! Every weekend is something knew and I don't get on the Internet enough to update my blog. I have been really good at taking pictures, but unfortunately my computer and camera were being incompatible when I tried to add my pictures from my adventures.

Over the 24th of July Daniel and I went to St George for the Jewkes Family Reunion. We had a blast! We went to Harry Potter, we swam a ton, went to Tuacahn Theatre to see Footloose, went shopping at the outlets, went on a night golf adventure (and believe me, it was an adventure!!), and we got to hang out with family that I haven't seen in years! We also got the opportunity to go to the St George temple. It was absolutely beautiful!! We had an amazing experience there! Can you believe we did ALL those things in 2 days? I can't. It FLEW by!

This past weekend we went to the Salt Lake City temple with Adam and Stephanie. It was also very beautiful and so DIFFERENT from the other temples. It was a nice experience! We had fun hanging out with Adam and Stephanie. Here are some pictures from the roof of the conference center.

This is me and my brother Adam. He is a big nerd, but I am glad he would be in a picture with me!

This is my sister-in-law, Stephanie. She is awesome!!

Daniel was lame and wouldn't take a picture with me, but that's okay. I still like him a little!

So, as you can see, life has been sooo crazy busy! It's not going to stop either. Hopefully in November we can have some free time.

Now for some SUPER good news! I only have ONE MORE DAY OF SCHOOL LEFT!!!! I have this week off from school and then I go back Monday to take the final. I am going to be studying like CRAZY this week to prepare. After the final I will only have my national test left to take. Also, I should get my pharmacy training site any day now! I am excited to actually start doing work in a pharmacy!!! Wish me luck!!

AND... I promise! Wedding pictures will come soon!!!

The Buffalo Days Indian Wars!!

This past week I went with Daniel and his family to the Buffalo Days Indian Wars. This is something that their family has been doing for that past 13 years. We left for the camp on the 11th of July and came back on the 18th. I didn't get to shower THE WHOLE ENTIRE WEEK! But really, I thought I stayed pretty clean.

Let me explain a little bit about what exactly we do here. To put it in simple terms we go somewhere in the middle of nowhere and play "cowboys and Indians" for a week. We go as buffalo hunters, but there is also a "cavalry camp" and of course, the INDIAN camp! All week we get raided by the Indians or we raid them. When there aren't raids it is basically just a "normal" camping trip.... with people dressed in funny clothes. Anyway, here are just a few of the pictures that I took. Enjoy!

This is mine and Daniel's tent. It was actually a wedding gift from Daniel's dad. He made the tent himself!!! It is huge! We love it.

This is a picture of me, Daniel, and the Indian Chief "Iron Bull" and the final feast. The last day of camp we have the final battle and then later we all make peace. Iron Bull is actually a really nice guy (even if he does look scary!)

This is a picture of the back of Iron Bull. I thought his "costume" was amazing!

This is the Indian warriors sitting around the peace circle, waiting for the other camp's leaders to sit in their places. After everyone got there, the chief prepared a "peace pipe." In that ceremony he blesses both the camps (in the Indian language so it's really cool!) then he passes the pipe around to all the leaders. I love the different "costumes" of the Indians!

This is a picture of our bathroom..... We called it the "pee-pee tipi." That was fun...

This is a picture of Iron Bull on the morning of the final battle. I didn't know that he was in the picture though. I was actually just trying to take a picture of the tipi because it was awesome! Little did I know that he was just waking up because he heard the gun fire of the final battle!

This is a picture of me and the cobbler I made everyone for lunch. It was yummy!!! (I had lots of help too!)

This is a picture of Daniel attacking me with his war club for trying to take a picture of him. Daniel, his dad, and his brother all made those war clubs and they turned out to be a lot of fun. I actually ended up using the club a few time. It saved my life!

Most of the time when I tell people about Buffalo Days they think I am crazy. It is just really hard to explain what it is... until you get there and see it for yourself. We had a blast last week and that's all the matters!

On the way home we did have a rather scary thing happen. When we got to Laramie, Wy, one of the horses had fallen in the trailer. It took us an hour to get him back up because he had knocked himself out. I was completely useless because I was bawling the whole time. It turns out, I actually have an attachment to the horses, even if I am a little scared of them. Anyway, everything worked out and Star is okay. Just a little scraped up! He will be better in no time!

Anyway, Happy Blogging!! I should have wedding pictures on here soon!

Stranded at Mcdonald's....

This is a picture I took on Friday. It is a picture of my car, that has my keys locked inside of it. I was stranded at McDonald's on Friday night while getting a Redbox movie. I blame it all on my friend Linda at work. She told me (that day) that the minute husbands go out of town, something bad happens.... and then it did. But it's okay... I didn't get too wet. It happened right before the rain started and I ran inside the McDonald's just in time. Luckily, I didn't have to call a locksmith. I called my mom, who called my landlord to see if he could unlock my apartment. Then my mom came and got me and took me to get my spare key from the apartment. My mom saved my life! Thank you!!

This weekend was crazy! I stayed up all night on Friday getting my "thank you" cards written. Then on Saturday I got up early to get them all addressed and such. Then I went out on a much-needed grocery shopping trip, took a bunch of stuff to the DI, and then went on a search for "pioneer clothing" for my upcoming camping trip with the Phisters. I ended up going to Ft. Buenaventura to buy some clothes because I didn't find ANYTHING in the thrift stores in Ogden. I got a nice shirt and an apron, and then the lady there showed me how to make a skirt really fast and easy. I got the material for that too. Saturday was a long day!! I didn't get home from shopping until after 6 PM. Then it was on to cleaning my house! I finally feel settled. I got each of the rooms clean. Now it's just on to little house projects like painting the bookshelves, and cleaning the carpet, and probably a million other little projects I will find. But right now, my main focus is getting things ready for the camping trip. I will tell you all more about that soon!