Promotion!

In April we had an employee move away and when her position became open, my manager encouraged me to apply for it, so I did and I got it! So instead of being a part time Sales Associate in Portable Electronics, I’m now a full time Front End Lead in Operations! Basically what that means is I coach and train the cashiers and customer service associates and deal with all the customer issues that arise in those areas of the store (which are not lacking unfortunately!). It’s great to have more responsibilities but it’s not without its share of negative features. I’m enjoying the position overall though and think it’s a great experience.

One other work update that happened right around the same time is that I was accepted into the Harvest program! It’s basically a management training program run by the current managers for those who want to move forward in the company and show potential. About 30+ people applied and they only accepted about a third so I feel very privileged to have this opportunity and hope to learn a lot of valuable things from it.

Janae's Birthday

I really didn’t want my birthday to come this year because for some reason I did not want to turn 23 (Aaron and I felt the same way about our birthdays this year). But, as always, time didn’t conform to my wishes and April 17^th came and went without my permission, lol. My birthday was on a Sunday this year so we celebrated on Saturday and Sunday! J

On Saturday Aaron put together a great day for me! We went bowling, shopping at a fabric store, then out to dinner at an Italian restaurant. Bowling was SO MUCH FUN!!! Aaron made the mistake of walking away and letting me create the bowling names, haha! So we were "Birthday Girl" and "Handsome Guy". J We had two of the closest games we’ve had, it was some intense competition! There was an old man in the lane next to us who was watching our game and he got pretty caught up in the intensity of our close scores, it was fun! And of course we had awesome bowling shoes, lol.

Oh and I got to listen to whatever I wanted on the radio which I abused terribly and poor Aaron was stuck listening to all kinds of 90s “girl power” music, haha. He was also a great sport at the fabric store while he waited patiently for almost an hour while I picked out a dress pattern. Then that night we had the adult session of stake conference. I’ve had at least some part of stake conference fall on my birthday for the last three years somehow… what’s up with that?? Oh well J Oh and Aaron got me Sims 2 Open for Business for my birthday, haha! It’s a fun game, and Aaron actually got a little addicted to it too once I showed him how to open a robot-making shop, lol.

On Sunday morning I had a delicious fruit tart for breakfast and skyped with my family for a while. Then I got to go to my Grammy and Papa’s house after church and have tacos and birthday cake with my extended family! I picked out a delicious Boston Creme Cake for my birthday cake. So yummy! The best part of Sunday was getting Grammy and Papa’s rendition of “Happy Birthday” in person! J

Aaron's 29th Birthday

This year we celebrated Aaron’s 29^th birthday! My man is getting old! Leading up to his birthday he kept saying that it didn’t feel like his birthday so I went overboard with decorating the apartment for his special day so that he would feel like it was his birthday! Lol, it was fun to see his reaction! My favorite gift that I got him was a Superbowl Packers Champions Tshirt. It seems that every time I’ve gotten Aaron a Tshirt, it’s always too small, so I was thrilled that this one fit! And he wears it a lot J

For his birthday dinner, we had chicken enchiladas and Mexican rice. As a special surprise, I also got him Sangria to drink with his meal. He fell in love with the drink on his mission and every time we have Mexican food he comments that it needs Sangria, so I found some to go with his Mexican birthday dinner!

I also made Aaron a birthday cake and I was really excited to surprise him with a circle layer cake that he prefers (but it’s a little more work so we usually just do sheet cake). Unfortunately, the cake making did not go well! It completely fell apart! I couldn’t stand letting that ugly cake be Aaron’s birthday cake, and I had about 45 minutes before Aaron was supposed to get home, so I ran out the door to the grocery store to get a bakery cake. The grocery store cake saved the day! And actually my ugly cake still tasted pretty good, so we had two yummy cakes to eat!

Valentine's Day 2011

2011 was by far the best Valentine’s Day Aaron and I have spent together yet! Since it was on a Monday it kind of turned into a Valentine’s Day weekend. On Saturday we had a fabulous night of dinner and dancing! We went out to TGI Fridays for dinner and had a really delicious meal. I think their new cheesecake is AMAZING and Aaron really loved his first wedge salad.

Then we went to the Stake Valentine’s Day Dance. The dance was SO much fun! I was very impressed by how beautiful they were able to make the cultural hall. It definitely rivaled most wedding receptions done in church buildings. The theme was "A Love Story" and they had couples submit their love stories beforehand with a picture. Then they displayed the pictures as a slideshow throughout the night and they had each love story on posters around the room. At the end of the night we got to take our poster home. They had some of the pictures in frames as the table centerpieces and our pictures was one of them so we got to take that home too.

It was really creative and fun! Also, the strawberries were huge and delicious! Aaron and I danced a lot and just had tons of fun talking, laughing and goofing off. There were only two other couples from our ward there so we got to socialize a little, but for the most part we were able to just focus on each other since we didn't know anyone else, which was perfect. I got some pictures of the evening off the event website. They took a picture to show the slideshow when it was our picture on there! And there was even had a picture of me and Aaron dancing! :) Also as part of the event they took everyone's couple picture. I didn't really like ours, but I posted it here anyway. It's the black and white one at the top of the post.

On Monday night we exchanged gifts with each other and played games. Aaron’s gift to me was an amazing meal of stuffed chicken breasts – yum! He also got me roses and a stuffed lion that is SO cute! Sugar thinks Mufee (the lion) is her cub or something and she carries him around the apartment and cuddles with him under the couch. But...she also chews on his tail so I constantly have to take him away from her, lol.

And I spoiled Aaron with tons of gifts! (everything in the picture is from me to him, lol) I also put together a very poorly done photoshopped picture for him. It didn't quite go as planned... I wanted to do a collage of words that would look like his silhouette, and that project got stuck half way through (I'll post a picture of that partial project) so I tried putting words over his face and that just looked odd. As a back up (since I knew this was failing), I also threw together a picture of both of us with lyrics from our songs in the background. By the way, the words I used on Aaron's picture were adjectives that I got his friends and family to send me that they thought described Aaron. Also the last picture is the gift from the dogs to Aaron, lol.

Gingerbread House Contest Result

How's this for overdue?? I posted the result on Facebook right after the contest, but it has come to my attention that not everyone saw it! So this is for Brielle :) The contest winner was House A, made by Janae! That's me!! lol, so yes, I got to open the first present on Christmas morning :) Oh and Aaron's gingerbread house fell apart almost immediately after he took the picture! So it's a good thing he got the picture in time! He might have added more but didn't get the chance. It was a close contest! Thanks for voting you guys, it was really fun and will probably be an annual tradition :)

I plan to get back to blogging, so prepare for an onslaught of entries as I catch up on events of 2011...

Gingerbread House Contest!

Each contestant had access to 13.5 graham crackers, one bag of Brach's Holiday Mix candy, half a bag of Brach's Crimp Ribbon candy, 8.1 ounces of whipped chocolate frosting, 8.1 ounces of whipped vanilla frosting, a working surface of their choice (cookie tray and cutting board were chosen), a spoon, a knife, paper towels, and of course, their own ingenuity (unfortunately that last resource seriously tipped the scales, but what can you do??). There was no limit on time or smack talk.

The contestants were responsible for taking their own pictures at the end and choosing only two to post for judging. Gingerbread houses will be referred to as House A and House B, assigned by the flip of a coin.

YOU will be the judge of the contest! The poll is posted on the right side of this blog...review the pictures and choose carefully! The winner gets to open the first gift on Christmas morning! Woohoo! Looking forward to the final result! The poll will close at 10pm on Christmas Eve (because that's when we're going to bed! lol). Thanks for participating!! Happy judging!



HOUSE A:




HOUSE B:





Don't forget to vote in the poll! It's in the top right corner of the page :)

Merry Christmas!

Rockin Around the Christmas Tree Video!

Yay for time lapse videos!! Okay...disclaimers: It's not the final perfect product, but I don't have the software to make it as good as I want it right now. Maybe if I save my pennies... :) The end is sketchy music-wise, but I think you the get idea of what I was going for at least. Anyway, here's what it is for now. Enjoy! (PS - we have the flu, so don't judge our appearance too much if you can help it! lol)

Christmas in Colorado!

So because of my work schedule I have to stay here for Christmas. After much deliberation, Aaron finally decided to stay here with me, so we'll be spending Christmas together in Colorado. The downside is we'll miss out on visiting our family in Wisconsin, which is a huge bum

Saving...

mer and I've already had my cry about that. The upside is that Aaron and I will get to spend our first Christmas together at home with just the two of us and our dogs!! I've become a lot more excited about that over the last couple of weeks. We'll be able to spend Christmas Eve with my extended family down in Parker (just an hour away), and then we'll wake up on Christmas morning in our apartment. I'm excited to be able to form some of our own traditions and just enjoy each other and our dogs on Christmas morning. A couple of things we're doing this year (that we hope are the start of lasting traditions) are... giving each other pajamas as gifts to open on Christmas Eve, having a gingerbread house making contest and making lots of kiss cookies (our favorite!).



Sugar and Sampson are getting excited about the tree and the stockings and it will be fun for them to have their first Christmas morning! They usually have to stay in their crates so they don't get in the way, and I'm excited to let them be part of the gift-opening part of Christmas! We have a couple of gifts under the tree for them as well as stockings filled with rawhides! :)


Speaking of which, this is my first year filling a stocking for someone! It's actually really fun! I probably went a little overboard with my items, but hopefully Aaron enjoys his stocking! I've been practicing filling it when he's not home to make sure everything fits, lol. I'm pretty excited! We finally have all of our presents under the tree and I'm getting excited for Christmas to come! Nothing brings out the 6 year old in me quite like seeing my name on a gift!! :)


I also have to add that I recently purchased two nativity sets! We found one at Big Lots and it was marked down to only 14.95 and I loved it, so we decided to go ahead and get it. I think the scriptures carved into each piece makes it really special. I really love it and hope it will be a treasure for many years.

So then I'm walking around King Soopers a couple of days ago...and I see another nativity set! It was beautiful and came with the animals and the stable and everything! It was the very last one that they had and it was on clearance for...14.95!! I knew I couldn't justify getting yet another nativity set to Aaron, even at that price, so I bought it with my own spending money and I think that just makes me love it even more! I still can't believe it was so inexpensive! It looks like a hand crafted set worth a couple hundred dollars to me. I love it!

I can hardly believe my luck, two nativity sets that I LOVE! :) And I've always wanted a Poinsettia but I never get one, so I finally did this year. This is a counter full of things I love! (and our fridge in the background filled with Christmas cards from friends and family!) :)



By the way, I will be posting a really cool video on here soon. It's of us decorating the Christmas tree, but I think it turned out pretty neat. We did a time lapse record! :) You'll see. Here's a preview of the tree decorating...Well, work has been crazy with the holidays, but I'm really glad to have a job (even if it does change our holiday plans) and it's great to feel useful and bring home the rent money! My nine hour shift yesterday was tough. Nine hours is not usually a bad shift, but I had spent all of Friday in the ER with a ruptured ovarian cyst (fun...) so I wasn't really in great condition. I couldn't walk because I was so dizzy with pain meds, not to mention the pain itself, but I knew it was a busy day and my managers needed me there, so I had Aaron drive me to work and I told them I could work, but I couldn't walk. My managers were awesome!! They set me up with a chair at a register and let me sit there and ring people out for my whole shift. One of my coworkers walked me to and from the bathroom and break room whenever I needed her. I had a few customers who I've developed a first name basis with come through the line and chat with me and wish me well. It was an incredibly hard day, but the Best Buy coworkers, managers and customers made it as good as it could have possibly been given the circumstances. I love my job! Everyone is so great. :)


Last thing - Aaron and I will be having our gingerbread house making contest this week and I'll be posting the pictures here for judging by YOU! So be on the look out for that and prepare to vote!! :)

Merry Christmas!

Oh Christmas Tree

We moved into our apartment last Monday in the morning... and got our Christmas tree that night! Here's the story of getting the Christmas tree...

We really put a lot of mental energy into where we wanted to go and get our Christmas tree. I wanted to cut one down this year, but as beautiful as Colorado is, their trees (at least at the tree lots we saw) just aren't up to par with imported Christmas trees (thank you South Carolina!). So we asked around and got a great tip on a Christmas tree lot nearby that was supposed to be really good. I scouted it out during the day a few days before we were going to get our tree so that we knew where we were going. The evening we had planned to get the tree, Aaron and I both came down with the flu.. :( But it was the ONLY evening that week that I had off of work so we had to do it! So off we went to our carefully selected Christmas tree lot ... and it was closed! Bummer!! So, after all of that, we dragged our sick selves to the local grocery store and found a tree there (thank you King Soopers!). So it worked out. I'm pretty sure we got the BEST one they had!! I LOVE our tree!! :)




(we only had our phones with us to take pictures, sorry for the bad quality)

Driving home was interesting because it wasn't put on the car very well (a guy at the store helped us) and it was slowly inching backwards on the car the whole way home! I had to reach out the windows and hang onto the ropes to keep it on the car! Good thing we were only a couple of miles away. It was a little nerve-racking, but funny!

We took it home to our new apartment and got it all set up. Trying to get it straight was an adventure. But it looks great now! So we have no furniture or other decor yet...but we have a Christmas tree!! :) I think our priorities are definitely in order, haha.

Elf Yourself Video

http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/e7mVuRKpz8xMApJT