Anniversary

On September 25 Justin and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary. For some reason I am really proud of this one. Maybe it's because this time last year I wasn't sure if we would make it to 5 years. We were at the brink of divorce and we decided to try one last time and voila. Here we are today.
In 5 years we have:
Moved 4 times in 3 cities.
Endured 14 (really!!) new jobs.
Had countless arguments.
Gone on a total of 2 vacations that didn't involve staying with family.
Had a really beautiful daughter.
Started college (me anyway)
Bought a home.
And so much more.

School

This semester I am taking English 1010. So far I'm loving the class but my professor is tough. His assignments are really hard.

Update.

Justin and Alexys with the Sea Lions

My beautiful flower girl with Danielle's bouquet

At the Aquarium of the Bay...touching starfish.

In a cell at Alcatraz...I didn't know he was taking this pic.

Cool, huge bubbles at the Exploratorium.

Well I have a bit to catch up on. July was my birthday. Yay I'm 23. We didn't do anything but that's okay. August was busy. Justin had to go to Washington for work. He was only supposed to be gone for 3-5 days. It ended up being 10 so we spent some time at my parents house. We came home for 3 days, school started then we had to leave again for Brady and Danielle's wedding. Alexys was a cute little flower girl. The wedding was fun. They got married on Thursday. On Saturday we left for Vegas. We spent Sat-Thurs. visiting Justin's parents then flew to San Francisco. Alexys is a good little flyer. We stayed in the Embassy Suites in Burlingame just outside of San Francisco. It was a cool hotel. We had a view of the Bay. We spent 4 days there. While we were there we went to Brady and Danielle's other reception for her family and friends, took a boat tour of the bay, saw the sea lions (whom Alexys loved, but they stunk) went to the Aquarium of the Bay, went to the Eploratorium (I recommend it to everyone. It was really cool) went down the most crooked street, through Chinatown (I hated that. People there are idiots. Justin almost hit 4-5 pedestrians because they didn't look before walking out in front of us) and we went to Alcatraz.
There is so much to say about the whole trip. I loved the Aquarium. You walk through a tunnel and all the fishies are swimming all around you. I loves seeing the rays. Then you got to touch them too! Alexys was a bit afraid to touch, but warmed up to starfish and sea cucumbers. The sea lions were so fun. Alexys still will tell me 'sea lions say ark ark.' We spent 4 hours at the Exploratorium and only visited 2 out of 5 sections. There was so much cool stuff to do there. I was a bit disappointed in Alcatraz. I've heard that it's haunted and you hear all sorts of funky stuff while there, and I heard that sometimes they lock you in the cells. None of that happened for us. In fact they don't even have a tour guide there anymore. The tour you take is audo through a headset. Had I known this we would have left Alexys on the main land with my parents. She was so bored. It was cool to go and see the prison because I've heard so much about it. And it was extremely informative (and you can ask my family I'm always the one reading signs while they leave me behind.) All in all it was a fun trip.

Summer!!!

Wow it's been a while huh? Well lets see what have we been up to. It's summer(duh) and we have been outside quite a bit. We are growing a garden this year. It is actually growing too! That has never happened to me before. We have corn, broccoli, lettuce, onions, peas, carrots, green beans, strawberries, cantaloupe, watermelon, pumpkins, cucumbers, tomatoes, squash, spaghetti squash and zucchinis. We also have 2 cherry, an apple, an apricot and pear trees in our yard so we get lots of delicious fresh food.
Last month Justin had to go to Oklahoma for an Advanced Oilfield Mathematics and Engineering class (ya I'm impressed too) He ended up failing it by ONE POINT! One stinking point. How sucky is that?! So he gets to go back in October. Anyway while he was gone Alexys and I spent a week in Vegas visiting Justins family. They had some fun new toys that Alexys just couldn't get enough of. Namely a trampoline. Her and Domminiq had tons of fun jumping. We also went to the dinosaur park. I didn't get any pictures for those of you who aren't familiar but trust me this park is AWESOME. There is a pond where you can feed ducks and turtles(we found that out when the kept coming up. Nobody knew they were there before) There is a splashy part that is pretty fun. But good laws THE SLIDES. These are the tallest slides I've ever seen in my life. They almost put 7 peaks to shame. I went down a few but got stuck. They are all twisty slides and I have too long of legs. Oh well still fun. We also got to go swimming in Jeff and Mandy's pool. We love to swim so that was pretty fun too. And it wore Alexys out. She napped for quite a while in her bathing suit. We took some cute pics of all 4 cousins together. None of them really wanted to cooperate though. We spent almost the whole time with Nadine and her boys. We just had a ton of fun.
The second week we spent at my parents house. They took us to the zoo! Alexys loves the zoo. She is an animal girl. She was overjoyed when the Tiger looked at her. We went into the little prairie dog holes and one of the cute little buggers tried to climb in with us. It was cute. My moms dog also had puppies. There are 7 of them and they are adorable. When we got there Ashlee handed one to Lex and she says 'Oh I lub them!' All she wanted to do after that was play with puppies. We always have a good time at Grandma and Grandpa's house. (I don't have any pics from my parents as my camera lost its charger. But we go back often so I'll have to upload some from there)

Alexys is 2!

Well Alexys had her second birthday March 14. I know, where did time go? We didn't really do anything (due to budget concerns and the fact that she got 2 first birthday parties) We got her a cake and she opened her presents from Tristan and Calvin and Grandma and Grandpa Stringer. Then we really just played the rest of the day. I can't believe how big (big in a not necessarily physically big as she was only 21.5 lbs at her 2 year check up) she is getting. She has got such a personality. She loves to jump off the couches onto her bum. She loves swimming, playing at the park and 'Maggie and the Ferocious Beast'. She talks like you'd never believe. She can say almost anything that is on her mind and say it clearly. She definitely keeps us on our toes. She is a massive daddy's girl. She can get him to do anything she wants him to do. (In fact she has also got him addicted to 'Maggie and the Ferocious Beast' He admitted that he watches it sometimes when he is alone) She loves to play with her friends Bailee and Emily. They run and spin and play together really well. And she adores her family. She asks constantly if we can call Grandma, Grandpa, Ashlee, or Tristan (they are obviously who I talk to most) I couldn't imagine life without her. Love you Peanut!

A little update

Okay. First of all sorry to those of you who actually read what I have to say. I don't really have much lately. Just trudging along and hoping spring comes soon. We are tired of being inside all of the time. And to top that all off I can feel spring in the air and the snow is melting rapidly. Soon it will be enough gone that Alexys will be able to walk in it and not lose her boots. I'll update you on whats been going on with us. We are very lucky right now, not only does Justin still have a job but he just got a raise. (It may only be 2% but still a raise) I am doing well in my class (yes only one class, trying to ease myself into school) I aced my first test and currently have an A. Alexys has been growing and maturing right before our eyes. Every time we see my parents or Justin's parents everyone is just amazed at how much more she can say. She is stringing sentences together and can repeat EVERYTHING we say. (Not always a good thing. The other day Justin dropped something and let "damn it" slip. Well the rest of the day if Alexys dropped something or saw something spilled it was "damn it" I tried and tried to explain that it is a bad word and we are not supposed to say it but there is not really much reasoning with a 23 month old) She got sick for the first "real" time this last week. I have only had to take her to the doctor for her not feeling good twice before ant they found nothing wrong. Well on Sunday Alexys was cuddling with Justin on the couch while I was cooking dinner (that should have been our first clue) Justin called out to me that she felt really hot and we should take her temp. So I grabbed the thermometer and took the temp. When I read it I almost passed out. It was 104.6. So I turned off the stove and we went to the ER. The doctor couldn't find anything visibly wrong so she got the lovely experience of having blood work, a chest x ray, urine analysis and a strep culture. (As the Dr. told us that a fever that high is usually something) To gather urine they had me put a little baggy that stuck to her girly parts on. She really didn't like this and would not pee. We actually sat in the ER for about 4 hours simply because she wouldn't pee. They ended up almost putting in a catheter but just as the nurse went to place it Alexys let her bladder go. There was a puddle the size of Utah Lake on the bed under her. She got new jammies from the hospital (because she soaked her clothes) and wouldn't take them off for about 2 days. We also got to see a life flight helicopter up close and personal as they had landed to pick up a baby but had to wait to be refueled. The pilot let us look inside and opened up the doors to show us all the gadgets. Oh ya they found nothing in all of these test and sent us home with the diagnosis of a viral infection. When we first got there we had a male nurse taking care of us. He absolutely loved Alexys. When it was time for him to go home he asked if he could take Alexys with him. I love it when people comment about how well behaved she is. And, well, she is. Anyway I was able to keep her temp down all the next day but Monday night about 2 Justin woke up to her feeling hot again. This time when we took her temp it was 106.8. So again off to the ER. This time I stayed home as I had only had 4 hours of sleep the previous night and had only been asleep 2 hours that night. (I have had a bit of insomnia lately) Well I might as well have gone because I just sat up waiting and worrying. Luckily they were only there for about an hour. This doctor diagnosed an ear infection and gave her a prescription for an antibiotic. It is now Wednesday and she is feeling fine. No fever or anything. She is, luckily, a very healthy little thing and bounces back very well.

Okay so it's been a while since I've posted anything. I left my camera at my parents house so didn't have it for Christmas. Alexys got major spoiled again (shocker) She got a kitchen from G'ma and G'pa Stringer, a digital camera from G'ma and G'pa Baker, a bike, a chair, a stuffed monkey, a baby playset (from Ashlee) a cute princess tent (from Brady and Danielle) and a bunch of other stuff.
I started school on January 5th. I only have one class this semester. It's a required computer class. It's all the financeing I could get because I decided a little late to go back.
As for everything else it's just life as usual.