The DIY Blog

I promise to do a real post soon guys so just hang in there. Right now, I just want to tell you all about my new awesome blog. I teamed up with 2 other incredible women and started a DIY blog. It is called Our DIY Diaries. We would really appreciate your support. Please follow us on the blog and share us with your friends. We are also on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.


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We would greatly appreciate it if you would follow us and share us with friends. Please, feel free to get involved. We want to hear from you!

Not just updates anymore

For the last couple months, I have been having some bizarre dreams. Those, along with real life events have lead me into some serious contemplation. Unfortunately, these aren't just thoughts that come and go, they are extremely persistent. So much so, that I have had issues getting to sleep because of the thoughts racing inside my head. Because these thoughts refuse to go away, it leads me to believe that either I have some things to work on in my life, although don't we all, or that I need to finally write them down so they can leave my thoughts, or at least leave long enough to allow me to get to sleep faster.

Keeping a journal for me is a big fat FAIL! As many times as I have tried to write regularly, I find that there ends up being long 4-8 month gaps in between each entry. I am not a whole lot better at keeping up blogs, but the gaps are at least a little shorter than 4-8 months.

Long story short, in an effort to "put thoughts down on paper" I am going to start using this blog, not only for updates on our lives, but to share some of my thoughts. Feel free to read if you wish and I certainly welcome any comments or input.

School+Work+Moving=UGH!

Actually it equals stress and the desire to pull ones hair out. Kyle started back to school last week, I can't believe he is already a 2L, and if all goes according to plan, he only has 3 semesters left before he graduates. Yippee! I have stayed busy with work both at the law firm and the graphic design. Those things alone keep us busy, let alone adding additional health problems and moving.

We are moving into a house on September 1st (or that weekend pretty much) I am so excited to be done with apartment life and the hassle it brings but nervous as well. With an apartment, you have the comfort of maintenance and the office staff (however incompetent they are) just a short walk away. Even though we are renting the house, we are still taking on so much more than we have had in an apartment. It will be so nice though not having an 80lb elephant stomping around above us, or neighbors below who like to fight and make up, both loud enough to wake you up at 3 a.m., not having someone constantly parking in our covered spot, or blocking it with a U-Haul. Best of all is we will finally be done with the idiots that run this place!

On to bigger and better things and the new adventures our life brings!

Family Fun Night!

A few months ago, Kyle's family started having Family Fun Night. Once a month, the whole family gets together to enjoy time together. We take turns planning the events.

April was our first month in which we got together for dinner and volleyball (sorry no pictures).

Last month we took a camping trip.

The camping trip turned out to be quite the experience for Kyle and I. We had borrowed the tent and air mattress from my parents. Once we arrived at the campsite, we took the tent out of its box and laid it out in the spot we wanted to set up at. We then discovered that the poles to put the tent up had not been returned to the box the last time the tent was used (probably more than 5 years ago) Fortunately, Bryan and Brittany had a 10 person tent and offered to let us room with them along with Courtney and Chase. In the late afternoon, Kyle went and aired up the air mattress inside the tent. A few hours later when it was time to go to bed, we come to the cruel realization that the air mattress has a leak in it, oh and we didn't clear the land before hand, after all we had an air mattress. Needless to say, despite the fun time we had with the family, we were glad it was only for one night.

This month was our turn to plan family fun night and we decided to take advantage of our apartment pool. I have to say, I think it turned out quite well. We didn't get to use the huge pool at the front of the complex...dang college parties. However, we used the one closest to our apartment and had great views of the lake and the golf course and had the whole pool to ourselves.

It was sure fun watching the kiddos. Some knew how to swim, others were learning and others had their first experience in the pool :)

A New Adventure

I have been so blessed to have my own little business and I love love LOVE every minute of doing my graphic design work. However, since setting up my online store, my business no longer requires as much of my attention. I have been going crazy at home. After all, there is only so much cleaning, dishes, and laundry that needs to be done. I decided that since my health has been increasingly better, it was time to get out of the house and find a new adventure. I started applying for some jobs and was offered 3. 1 was for a Marketing/Administrative Manager, another was a Member Services Rep at a Credit Union and last was a Legal Assistant. Can you guess which one chose?

After a lot of thought, prayer, and discussion, Kyle and I decided that the best option was to take the Legal Assistant position. I started about a month ago and I LOVE it. It was absolutely the right decision. I work for a great LDS attorney in a very laid back firm. I have already learned so much which is exactly what I was wanting. I love that I get to learn some of the same things Kyle is learning in school. The skills I am already learning and will continue to learn will come in so handy when editing Kyle's papers, not to mention help in understanding more than half the things Kyle says haha. The attorney I work for as well as the other two attorneys in the office are so interested in how Kyle is doing in school, they constantly ask questions and offer advice and are willing to sit down and talk or answer any questions he might have.

I work Monday-Wednesday 8-4 which I think is a great part time schedule. Who can argue with a 4 day weekend? I am so blessed to have 2 jobs that I LOVE and am looking forward to learning even more in this new job.

Kyle also has a new adventure. Besides for summer school he is now volunteering at the Community Legal Services in downtown Mesa on Tuesday and Thursdays. Hopefully this turns out to be a good experience for him.

School is out...ok maybe not completely

Kyle finished his first year of law school and is officially a 2nd year law student....that means another year closer to being done! He has worked so hard and I could not be more proud.

Finals were beyond stressful for him and were only at times stressful for me, like when I am helping edit his 12 page paper at the very last minute and telling him "you have 1 minute left before you have to upload your paper!" Yes I had to watch the clock very carefully as he frantically tried to decrease the word count of his paper before the 6:00 deadline.

He was very blessed to find a great group of guys to be apart of a study group from the very beginning and I am so thankful for that. As a group, they decided to take a summer class so they could help each other through it. They are taking Evidence which is Tuesday and Thursday nights from 5p.m.-9p.m. for the next 7 weeks. At first I really didn't think much of it, after all its only Tuesday and Thursday nights right? WRONG! I am glad it will only last 7 more weeks because I do not enjoy him being gone until 10 (by the time he gets home)

We have been discussing whether or not Kyle should take a couple intersession courses and graduate early thats my vote :) It would not allow as many breaks from school but it would mean that he would graduate in December of 2012 instead of May 2013 which also means taking the Arizona State Bar in February instead of June.

I would like to think we took advantage of Kyle being out of school for a couple weeks, but really I think we were mostly just lazy and enjoyed our time together. I know Kyle enjoyed not having to read 20+ cases a week.

Wow, 6 months...really?

I can't believe I haven't posted in 6 months. I kept telling myself I should but then realized I didn't have much to post about. Now that I have put it off so long, there is plenty to tell.

Kyle's first semester of law school was very busy and full of hard work. He really has enjoyed it so far and despite him being gone to school and even mentally gone when he is home (study time) I have enjoyed him being in school. There is no doubt that we made the right choice for us by going to Phoenix School of Law. It has been a great school so far and Kyle is really enjoying it. He has gotten involved in different clubs such as Family Law, Real estate, and the J Reuben Clark Law Society. We had the privilege of attending a function for the J Reuben Clark Law Society which had a panel of judges discussing law and religion. It was so much fun. I got to meet 2 of Kyle's friends that are part of his study group along with their wives. Finals time was not as enjoyable since it took Kyle away even more than usual but it was worth it in the end when we learned that Kyle had done very well on his all his finals. He got the highest grades among his study group and now ranks 55 out of 230 in his class. I could not be more proud of him.

Back in late fall, we found out that my insurance was going to pay for a breast reduction. This was amazing! It is very uncommon for insurance to pay for a breast reduction especially paying for the whole thing (didn't cost us a cent) A breast reduction was something that I had talked to many doctors about and the majority had told me there was no way to get insurance to pay for it so I might as well not even try. My new doctor agreed that it most likely wouldn't happen but was willing to send a note to insurance explaining that it was medically necessary. He also sent me to a plastic surgeon to get her opinion. That appointment was somewhat disappointing and a big eye opener. She thought I was a great candidate for breast reduction but with such a great family history of breast cancer she wanted me to get genetically tested for breast cancer. Her recommendation was to consider a mastectomy with reconstructive surgery if the testing came back positive. I couldn't believe that I was having to consider that at such a young age. After a great deal of thought, we decided to just go ahead with a breast reduction and to cross the cancer path later on down the road if it came our way. I had the surgery on the 14th on January. I never felt nervous. In fact, I more felt nervous about the fact that I wasn't nervous (if that makes any sense) Surgery went very well with no complications. I stayed in the hospital over night and was released early afternoon the next day. The last 6 weeks have been long but have flown by at the same time. I have had many restrictions such as no cooking, cleaning, any physical activity, and not lifting anything over 10 pounds. I did end up having a bad reaction to the medical tape and then a reaction to the neosporn that was used to heal the reaction to the tape. That caused some other issues which put my recovery a little behind. It took forever for my stitches to dissolve and the ends to pop off. Despite that, this surgery has truly been a miracle for me. The second I got out of the recovery room I no longer had the shoulder muscle

pain I have always had due to having a large chest. The headaches have significantly decreased. Overall I just feel BETTER and for me that is huge. The fact that old clothes fit and I can get into smaller sizes is just an added bonus :)

We are looking forward to 2011. So far we have been blessed to have our new nephew Ryder Nelson Gibson come into the world on Feb. 1st. He is absolutely adorable!

On Feb. 17th the last of the Packer siblings, Bryan, was married in the Mesa Temple to Brittany Campbell. This also means that we have a new niece. Emma. We couldn't be happier to have them in our family.

This summer we will have another handsome bundle of joy join the Packer family. Kyle's older sister Tiffany and her husband Adam are expecting their 3rd baby boy due July 4th.

BUT WAIT! Thats not it! Kyle's oldest brother Jason and his wife Stephanie are also expecting their 3rd child in mid October.

Our nieces and nephews are always the cutest and we can't wait to meet the 2 new cutest additions to the Packer family.

We had the opportunity to go up to Seattle for Bryan and Brittany's wedding reception. We enjoyed our vacation surrounded by family. However, the next time we go to Washington it will be late spring or summer. It was way to cold! We went to the temple grounds which were beautiful and covered in snow.

We also went to the Space Needle which had awesome views and about 60mph winds!

I am glad to be home though and am excited to be able to return to my "normal" activities. I'm sure Kyle still wishes he was on vacation since mid-terms started the day after we got back.

We hope everyone is doing well!

Taken from the plane with my new awesome camera!