1,2 and now 3 Missionaries

Starting tomorrow my family (on the Dixon side) will have 3 missionaries out in the field. This is the most that we have had out at once. It's crazy to think that all my little cousins are growing up. In the next year we'll have another missionary out from my family and then next December there might be another.

First missionary out (of the 3) is my brother Jacob. He is serving the people of Missouri right now. He will come home next June. Can't wait to have him back, he has grown so much during his mission.

Next is my cousin Jessica. I miss her a lot...not saying that I don't miss Jacob, but I miss my cousin. She is serving the sweet people of the Philippines. She is enjoying her mission so much and I love reading her blog every week. She will be home next November.

And our 3rd missionary out is my cousin Ricky. He leave tomorrow morning for the MTC in Spain.

A couple weeks ago we went to his farewell talk as I mentioned in my last post. While I was there I was talking to my aunt and asked if she was going to do a blog for him while he was gone with the letters that he writes home. She said no and then asked if I'd do it. I told her I would and just to have Ricky send me his pre mission pictures. Well I asked my aunt last week if she still wanted me to do it and she told me that she was going to have Ricky call and ask me to do it. So a couple days later he called and asked if I would still do it. I told him that I would love to and that I will just post the letters that his parents forward to me and any pictures that he would like.

So for any family that is reading this and hasn't gotten the address to his blog...here it is...elderrickydixon.blogspot.com

I think that it turned out great!!! I was lucky to find his mission blog when I was on Google looking for things. So there is a link to that. I believe that it is ran by the mission president himself there.

Well Ricky good luck tomorrow and good luck to you Mom and Dad! You'll be a great missionary and we'll see you in two years!

I am so grateful for the gospel in my life, I have had so many blessing from Heavenly Father. He has blessed my family countless times. I am grateful for my brother, and cousins for making the decisions to serve missions.

4.0!!! and Weekend Getaway.

So this summer semester both Adam and I took classes. Mine were not bad at all, both online. Adam had Anatomy and an art credit class. Now for people who have taken Anatomy at UVU know it is not a cake walk and you work hard for your grade.

Here are the results of Adam's grades!!!

ALL A's!!!! So excited. I also got A's in my class too. I was so excited, happy and proud of my better half for how well he did in Anatomy. Now onto another semester and he has Physiology this semester along with other classes. 

This week I just stated my 2nd semester of nursing school. So far so good, I could have done better on my quizzes this week but we now using ebooks so it is a different experience. I am hoping to do better next week.

Last week was a week break, well kind of, I still had to work but I didn't have school work until Friday.

I have been wanting to make these Oreo truffles that I found on pinterest for a while and so I decided to make then. Let me tell you there are delicious!!! So yummy!!! LOVE THEM!

On Friday I had to go to a orientation for school. Did I mention it was my birthday...ya not fun to go to school on your birthday. I have to admit that I would have rather worked then go to school. 

After school I went home and download my "ebooks" which I am not sure I love as much as an actual book. Anyway Adam and I were going to go out and then my Mom called and said that my brother cut his hand and wanted Adam to come look at to see if it needed some stitches. Turns out that we decided because of the location of the cut and for the benefit of my brother we just super glued it. Adam would have preferred to stitch it because he LOVES doing stitches.

After we got home we still had some time and we decided to go out to dinner. I haven't had steak in a LONG time and so we went to Ruby River. So YUMMY! I even got a free dessert! On top of that Ruby River gives a military discount. I am so grateful for people who give this discount to our men and women who serve our country. We got 15% off our ticket. YA!!!

Also this weekend we decided to get away for a night. We were going up to a Wedding in Idaho and so we stayed in Logan for the night. So after working Saturday clinic we headed up to Idaho and then down to Logan. We ate at Blue Bird. Sunday morning we headed to Bountiful for my cousin's farewell. He did an amazing job and made many people cry. For his lunch after my aunt wanted me to make cookies. Adam and I made snickerdoddles. I forgot how much the recipe makes and we ended up with 115 cookies. Yes you read that right, 115. We ended up taking 100 of them and only took home about 10 of them. SO happy that people liked my cookies.  Even though it was only a night it was really nice to get a night away. We haven't been able to do anything since Adam got home. He was in school on our anniversary so we didn't get to do much.  I am so grateful for Adam in my life and for the wonderful husband he is and for making my Birthday so wonderful! Thank you also to my family who made it amazing too!

Summer Semester + Anatomy at UVU= one busy husband

So I just have to say that my husband is pretty amazing. One of the classes that he has to take in order to reach his degree, is anatomy. Now for anyone who has taken anatomy at UVU knows that it is NOT as easy class. It's not one of those classes where you can just show up and not every study. You have to actually study. It takes up your life for 15 weeks, at least it did when I took it 2 years ago. I was a stress nut case when I took it (just ask Adam...or really anyone that knows me) I was constantly studying and when I was not studying I was thinking about it. Adam was brave and decided to take it the 2nd summer block, which means that it is only a 7 week course. I am glad that he did in a way though because I was able to help him as much as possible and not really have to worry about doing my nursing classes. So really Adam had his own person STA! I do have to say I was amazed at how much I remember from when I took it. There was definatly some things I had forgotten, but a lot of it I still remembered. 

Today was Adam's lab final!!!! YAHOO!! So happy that it is done! We went back today and got his score from Mr. Homan and guess what???! Adam got an A+ in the lab portion of the class. He did AMAZING on the final...Even better than I did on mine 2 years ago. Mr. Homan asked Adam if he would be a STA next semester, Adam wants to but it is a lot of work and time to do it. So he is still thinking about it.

This what what part of our living room looked like this last week

 as he was preparing for his final.

 I am so proud of Adam for all his hard work he has put into getting such awesome scores in this class. For one he was still working everyday while having to put in 6 hours of lab each week and about 6 hours of lecture. One thing that most people have to do in this class is go to multiple hours of open lab...for Adam...he only went to open lab when he had to pass off his oral quizzes for his homework. Which ended up being like 10 minutes twice a week. Can you say AMAZING!!! When I took anatomy I was in open lab for 2-3 hours (depending on the week). 

One thing that helped us during the "bones" section was my friend Whitney. She had a skeleton that she let us barrow and so Adam could just study the bones at home. Then during the muscles part I have an amazing book called the colored atlas of anatomy. It has colored pictures of actual cadavers, so it's like your in open lab...at least for the most part. I also had all my flash cards from when I took it.

Now we won't know what his final grade is for a couple more days but I'm pretty sure it is AMAZING! I am so proud of you Adam!!! Thank you for letting me help you this summer with this course.

5 years!

I can't believe it but it has been 5 years ago on July 31, I married the most amazing man EVER!! He has been my best friend though everything these past 5 years. Adam is the most hardest worker I have known. He does so much with out being asked and he get little to no thanks sometimes, but he still keeps on going helping who he can.
We have been through so much this past 5 years and it all has just made our marriage stronger and we love each other more then we ever have before. In the past 5 years that we have been married we have only been able to celebrate it together 3 times now. This year we just celebrated at home because I had to work late and Adam had to study for Anatomy.

 Here is us 5 years ago

The morning of our anniversary worked out perfect. I had a 7am meeting and Adam had to get to school. After my meeting I quickly went home before I had to be back at 1pm. I had this whole thing planned out for weeks now. I had the picture printed out and put on paper. All I needed was the balloons.

I got the idea off  pinterest over a year ago. I wanted to do this last year but since Adam was out of the country that was not possible for me to do.

This is what he saw when he opened our bedroom door.

A balloon for each year with a picture or pictures of us from each year.

On the bed there was a note saying Happy Anniversary and also a shirt with a saying from Old Gregg. There was also a note where to go to find his next present.

Then he had to go find the 6th balloon with his final present.

I was unable to get the present in time, it was coming by mail. so I printed a picture of it and attached it to the balloon. I got him a Zippo hand warmer for when he goes hunting.

Here is to you my sweet love Adam!! I love you so much with all my heart! Thank you for the most wonderful years of my life! I love you so very much!!!

Thank you for being my HERO, my best friend. I am so happy that I get to spend eternity with you. One day you are going to be an amazing father to our children. I love you very much!

July 4, 2013

This year we had family up from Arizona and we were able to get tickets to the Stadium of Fire for an AWESOME price!!!

The Stadium of Fire dancers in the shape of the USS UTAH.

This was the funniest dance ever!!! It was super cool what things they did with the slinky things. In this picture they were crawling.

My nieces and nephews were really excited for "call me maybe" to come on, and they were rocking out to it. I really like the Cirque Du Soleil! They were amazing and I would like to one day see one of their shows in Las Vegas.

We had Adam's cousin Amber and her husband staying with us. Now, they stay with us pretty much any time they come up and we always put something on their bed. You know like room service does. Well we have done chocolates and mints so this time we did this....

We thought it was super funny and they both did too. So much that they ended up posting it on Facebook.

This was the second night we did fireworks. The first night Ella wouldn't even touch the sparkler but the second night she loved it!!!

Claire LOVES her glow sticks

More glow sticks

and even more glow sticks...

To say the least the 4th was awesome and we had a great time with our family from Arizona. I'm so grateful to live in the U.S.A. Thank you to my wonderful husband who helps protect the freedoms that we enjoy and don't realize how lucky we are to live where we do.

Post-deployment photo shoot

A couple weeks ago we had our sister-in-law do our photos. She just started up her company not long ago and she does an amazing job.  I wanted to get photos done after Adam got home, with him in his multicam. Sorry for the photo overload, but there are just so many that we love...so I just chose a few.

When taking these photos everyone driving by kept slowing down and looking at us. We even had one guy yell out of his truck and say thank you. I am so grateful for people out there who truly realize the sacrifice that military families go through. 

I love my husband and how good and amazing he looks in his uniform.

Believe it or not these photos below with the blue wall was taken at the Napa store.

I love these photos, they make my eyes look so blue.

These photos were taken at my father-in-law's house

I love h ow you can see US ARMY in the background

Can I saw that I have a HOT husband!

So this photo of poop on the wall was pretty funny. We were there taking photos and then we look over and see poop, so naturally we had to get a close up of one.

Thank you so much Bethany for taking our photos!!! WE LOVE THEM!!!

 Everyone should check out her Facebook page and see her other photos.

4/25/2013 Part 2

 So here are the picture for part 2. 

Some of my nieces...don't you just LOVE their skirts!!!!

 Best friends reunited again...FYI: I'm his bestest friend and Jake is his best friend...and yes Jake did get a little teary eyed.

 Brother! They have not seen each other since March 2012 when J Ryan went off to basic training for the National Guard.

 My wonderful Grandparents!

 

My family and Roscoe cute girlfriend Allie

 Adam and his parents

 Everyone that came up to the airport

 Now here is the part that I really love. I was so stressed out the day before Adam got home because I had ALL of this lined up....

 The flags once you go over the overpass...yes there are over 100 flags that our ward set up for us. It was so cool and was almost like tunnel vision flag style.

 More flags

 My father-in-law had this awesome idea to get a HUGE flag...I didn't know anyone who had one so then I talked to Adam's uncle who works for the city and he let us barrow this one and then we hung it with my brother-in-law's crane.

 IT LOOKED SO COOL

 The flags in the yard and in front were flags that my parents' ward let us barrow. Thank you ERIKA!

 oh, and a lady in my ward donated the balloons for us.

 Adam's amazing banner!

Well now you can see what an amazing display we had going on for Adam when he got home. He thought that I was just doing the huge flag, so when we went over the overpass and he saw all the flags...he was surprised. He loved it!!!