Quick Get away

This past Labor Day weekend I traveled to Utah with my parents to take my lovely sister and her husband their stuff they didn't have room to fit in their car.

  

The newlyweds have a nice little basement apartment that they live in that is super close to BYU. For those of you familiar with the area they are kind of across the street from the Creamery on 9th. They are having a great time.

 

One of the best parts of the weekend was being able to be reunited with Tiauna. She is kind of like an adopted sister. She was tiff's roommate in FL and the three of us became really close and did a lot together. I haven't seen her for a year since my last trip to UT. She came and stayed with Tiff for the weekend as well and we had a great time catching up and hanging out again.

There were some very funny experiences this weekend.  Provo and the whole BYU experience are very interesting.  It is like its own little world up there.  We went to their BYU Married students ward on Sunday.  I thought I have seen a lot in my days of singles wards and attending church at my lovely Sheraton Safari, but this is a whole new experience.  During church Tiauna and I were the only ones who did not either had someones arm around us or holding hands.  I'm glad she was there so that we could be alone together.  I have never seen such a high concentration of young couples and  either pregnant women and newborns.  It was fun.  It is a very good thing to have that kind of ward for all of the married students at the Y.  Another thing that made me laugh very hard inside was during Relief Society.  There are some really young , and I mean REALLY young girls in that ward.  They had all of the new move ins introduce themselves.  There were some who had been married like 2 weeks.  My favorite was this blonde from Southern California.  She is going to have a great time adjusting to life in Provo!  I laughed the most at booked they passed around with all sorts of information, including who in the ward is expecting, when, boy or girl and the hospital they are delivering at.  It was awesome. 

Saturday was the first BYU football game of the season.  Since Tiff and Jeff live up the hill from the stadium we passed by it a couple times before and during the game.  It was hilarious to watch people arriving to the game.  I saw a lady, who is not very skinny, wearing a BYU jersey, white shorts, REALLY high heels, tons of make-up and huge hoop earings.  Really?  Is that necessary?  She was walking up to the stadium, and I'm sure she had to walk pretty far, how did she do it?  Oh the college life in Provo!

We had fun seeing Jones family that lives up there.  On the way home we stopped in Parowan to see my mother's friend.  After taking that detour we got to drive up to Brian Head and Cedar Break.  It was so gorgeous up there and made the trip a little more enjoyable to have something pretty to look at.  When we got closer to home we hit really heavy traffic.  It took us 2 hours to go 20 miles as we got closer into Phoenix.  It was ridiculous.  Traffic coming out of Payson has never been that bad.  We will never go to Flagstaff or anywhere using I-17 on a 3 day weekend, it was awful.  It is amazing how impatient, rude, and inconsiderate drivers are when there is lots of traffic.  We all have to sit in it and you aren't any cooler or more important than the others driving.  We finally made it home and I got to sleep in my bed.  I got the honor of picking the air mattress that had a hole in it and got some interesting sleep  while up there.  It was a fun trip and how its good to be home.  Life at BYU is very different and it own thing.  Now its time to see what adventures await this week!

Farewell Summer

Summer ended all too soon.  Luckily I was able to find a job for the school year, it came very last minute, but it is so worth the wait!  I got a job with Mesa Schools, it is currently only part time, 3 days a week, but it is still wonderful.  It is 100% better than last year, so amazing to see such a change in the different schools.  I teach at 4 different schools, I'm kind of like the clean up teacher, picking up different general music classes that the full time teacher at the school couldn't fit into their schedule.  Nothing against where I taught last year, staff morale is so much higher and I feel more valued and respected.  On the other days I'm not teaching I will be able to sub or just chill at home, I'm really excited for this change.  One of the best things about my new job is my first school on Mondays and Fridays is 5 minutes away from my house.  No more 45 min of rush hour traffic!  I can leave my house an hour later, which means I can sleep an hour more and it also makes for a happier Wendi!  I did take a pay cut only working part time, but its still enough to get by with and I'm living at home so I don't have too many expenses.  Life is good!  Now I just need to find people who want to take a trip Oct. break because I need a vacation.  As much as I love my little sister Tiffany, she ruined my summer vacation plans, so I need to get away.  Luckily I'll be leaving AZ this weekend to go take some stuff up to Tiffy and Jeffy up in Provo, I'm not looking forward to the drive.  It will be a quick fun trip and a chance to get away for a little bit and to see my dearest Tiauna whom I haven't seen for a year and miss dearly.  Summer was too short, good thing I'm not working full time so the school year isn't too intense yet!

Oh What do you do in the Summertime

This summer has by far been one of the craziest yet most amazing summers ever!  My sister Tiffany had been dating this guy Jeff for awhile and he was conversing with Marilee of when he was going to propose.  Well he finally proposed on June 1 when his family came up to do some shopping.  Jeff only has one brother and he was leaving on his mission June 30.  So to be accommodating we planned the wedding for June 25.  Let me tell you how intense those 24 days were between the engagement and the wedding, there wasn't much time to come up for air!  It is amazing everything that we accomplished in such a short amount of time.  The next day we went dress shopping and didn't have too much luck there, since we aren't made of money.  Luckily we found the dress from China and it came just barely in time, as in Tuesday 3 days before the wedding. (See previous post for more info)  We quickly became a sewing factory making 8 bridesmaid dresses and amazingly finished them all.  Tiff and I also were able to get our temple recommends because I decided it was time for me to go to the temple.  I've been wanting to go for a while now and was just waiting for the perfect time to go, which I thought was going to be the end of summer.  Tiff wanted to go through the Gila Valley Temple since she had been going to school down there and being a part of all the temple festivities, it was a part of her now.  So I went to the Mesa temple June 18, and then the next day we drove down to Thatcher and Tiff went through down there.  It was such a neat experience.  It was the best decision I made, and it wasn't just so I could go to Tiff's wedding.  Then the next Friday Tiff and Jeff were married and I was the lucky one to walk around with them after the wedding to take pictures.  I was going to die.  June in AZ is killer if you are outside for more than like 10 minutes.  When we finally made it to the family dinner I had like 10 cups of water before I even started eating.

The next day we traveled back down to Thatcher so that his side of the family could have an Open House before Taylor the brother left on his mission.  It was a fun little party and a nice little get away for us.  This wedding ruined my plans for a vacation so staying in a hotel in Thatcher is pretty much all I got.  The cake the Patty, Jeff's mom made for the open house is amazing and super cute.  I loved the idea that she found in magazine.
 

The awesome cake at the open house. It was so much fun to watch Patty's Father and Brother who are engineers piece it together. It was a big puzzle for them

We waited 2 weeks to have the reception back in Mesa so that we could plan that and get ready for an awesome party. It turned out so beautifully. We don't have too many pics of how beautiful it was because we epically failed taking pictures. It was very simple and elegant.

The happy couple with the beautiful cake that Emilie and I made

The reception was decorated very beautifully. 

I love my nieces, they are so cute and love to hang out with each other and do what the other is doing

My nephew was having a blast in his walker roaming around the cultural hall.  He thought it was the greatest thing ever, and then my niece had to join in and push him, they were having the greatest time playing.

They have such a great relationship can't you tell?!

My mom is an amazing florist. 

Sisters, sisters!

Made in China

I haven't blogged in a very long time, and I will go more into that at a later date. My sister got married and it was a rather short engagement and very intense.

I have discovered the coolest new thing, ordering your wedding dress from China. I hadn't heard of it until my cousin, who is also getting married this summer, got hers from China. Since we didn't have much time to get Tiff a dress we went out to the different shops around town to see if they had anything that worked. We found a few options and Tiff found a dress that she fell inlove with. The bad part about that dress is that it cost $1,000! Who in this economy has money for that? Not us! So we left the shop pondering what to do. We had looked at a website for a chinese company and found a dress she was interested. When we got home from dress shopping we found a knock off of the one she fell in love with that would only cost us around $200 including shipping. So we took the gamble and ordered the dress from China. It came in the week of the wedding and mom put sleeves on it and she looked stunning on her wedding day.

I think from now on I will suggest to people to order a dress from China. The dress doesn't need to last forever because how many times do you wear it? Tiff has worn hers 3 times now and it still looks amazing. There are 3 cousins on the Riding side getting married this summer, and they have all purchased their dresses from China. It is the thing to do now, I swear. What I say to do, is go shopping and find what looks good on you, and then find a knock off from China and you're good to go! Take a look, what do you think?

Expensive Dress

Cheap China Dress

I can Spell! (sort of)

A few weeks ago we went down to Thatcher to see my lovely sisters perform in the "25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee"  It was a fun yet interesting show.  It's not your traditional broadway musical.  It was kind of weird.  The best part was I was called up to be on stage with them.  They call up 6 guest spellers to be a part of the spelling bee.  I got to sit by Marilee the whole first half of the show and it was great fun.  The other 5 spellers they called up were really odd and extremely annoying.  One of the guys sat there and was acting like he only spoke Spanish.  You could tell that Tiff ( who was one of the moderators) was getting annoyed by him, luckily the comfort counselor spoke Spanish so he started talking to the guy.  It was hilarious, and if you knew the comfort counselor, his character would alone make you laugh.  My first word to spell was cow, so luckily I made it through the 1st round!  I was the last guest speller to get out at the end of the first half, and ended up getting serenaded to by the cast.  I later found out that Tiffany had full control in keeping me that long.  They wanted to get rid of the others first since they were so annoying.  I had a blast being on stage.  Its been a longtime since I've been in a show and it felt so good to be on stage again. 

 

Rona Lisa Peretti, Me, Logainne Schwartsandgrubbiner

Adventures in Handicap Parking

 The past 2 weeks I have been a Pageant Warrior helping with the Easter Pageant at the Mesa Temple. It has been a great opportunity to help again this year because I didn't get to help last year since I was in Florida. I spent a couple of nights at Handicap parking.  Some nights were stressful and other quite comical.  Some people really abuse the whole handicap pass and it makes me sad because then those who actually need to park closer can't.  Sometimes some members of the church frustrate me especially when the lie and think that paying their tithing entitles them to closer parking at the pageant..  Hello it doesn't matter to me if you pay your tithing or have a temple recommend, those are things you should do anyways and they don't entitle you to anything but blessings that the Lord has for us.  Then there are some who actually do have a disability and don't just bring grandma to use her pass.  One of my favorites was this awesome motor home that was full of people.  I just had to take a picture of it, you don't see too many like it anymore.

  

It was kind of like a clown car seeing all of them leave.  Please be sure to say "Hi" to Napoleon for me when you get home!

The next car was my favorite.  This lady pulls up on a golf cart and tells us she has a permit but didn't want to leave it hanging on her mirror because it would just blow away.  I believed what she said because I had a class with her once at MCC and knew she had some problems.  After she parked she came up to us and said she only used half of the parking spot so if another golf cart came they could park in that spot as well.  I was just dying laughing inside.  A few minutes later she came back telling us she needed to go to Walgreens and grab some tortilla chips but she would be back.  While she was gone a guy on a Harley pulled up and parked in her spot so when she returned we told her to take the other half of the spot.  She was excited to hear that she wasn't completely wasting a space. She first had asked if we had any specific parking for golf carts.  Yeah no, that is the only golf cart I've seen driven to the pageant! 

 

Thats the lighter side of handicap parking.  I was called a liar because some old people thought they saw a spot.  I do know how to count, I do have a college degree!  I also had to deal with crazy anit's as they were passing their crap out and then the liar sales men from Living Scriptures.  I do love the Living Scriptures movies but I do not like the way they do their business.  If you subscribe and then have to cancel they keep calling you.  It is annoying. 

Anyways the pageant was great, I love it.  It is so amazing each year.  There are more adventures to share at a later date, there is lots to do on this wonderful conference and Easter Sunday.  Yay for having family parties at my house!

It's Wendi with an I

Last week I went to the swearing in of the new Mesa Police Chief with my parents, it was kind of our fhe activity, we are weird like that with just me at home.  We are sitting at a table with other city council peeps and the superintendent of Mesa schools came and sat at our table and my dad starts talking to him and introducing my mother and I, then my mother points to me and says "My daughter needs a job!" I think my face turned bright red when she said that.  We then chatted about what I teach and if I have all of my certifications and other stuff.  When I said which district I'm presently working for he said yeah we need to get you over to Mesa.  Hopefully that little exchange will help my chances of getting a new job much higher!  He did say they are wanting to start show choir at some of the schools if I would be interested in working with that and I said yes.  He then asked what my first name is because he knew what my last name is.  I told him it's Wendi with an I.  Hopefully having a "different" spelling of my name will help him remember me and get me a job! I updated my application so now I play the waiting game.