march post

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psych!

2/14/18-4/6/18

Psych! We're not moving anymore. We found out Dallin got a promotion and it will end up with him being here in Scottsdale. So he still has to finish out the project, but at least we don't have to move. There were people in Utah I was looking forward to being closer to, but all in all I was happy about staying because I'm not really a fan of Utah. 

I have great people in Arizona too, and I can go visit Utah and keep in touch with those people still. So for some reasons it stinks, but some reasons it's really great to stay.
These 2 are the great parts about staying. Other great parts: spring, winter, and owning a pool. Bad parts about staying: family & friends in Utah, it's prettier there, summer season sucks.

So this was Valentines day. Chelsea's bf at the time showered her with gifts, and the student government was going around during class handing out candy grams to people that bought them for each other. It reminded me of that part in Mean Girls... 

Except it was, "And none for Sydney Graff" haha 

I got Dallin a massage for Valentines day, but he didn't get me anything the day of. So anyway, Chelsea tried to play a joke on me and have a candy gram sent to me from a made-up creeper kid. haha it did shock me at first but then I could tell she was hiding something. 

I spiffed up the plain black ones on the left, but the right ones already came this way. Look how intense my tan line is from my wedding ring!

The Hotel Business

Airbnb has treated me great so far! It's been a really great experience meeting people from all over. This family from Puerto Rico was so friendly we felt like friends by the time they left. He even helped us fix the toilet! He was showing us his cool car he fixed up.

And they had a dog named Baby who came with. They would bring me home food all the time, and this one night they brought me chinese and in my fortune cookie it said I'll have friends. :) And it just goes to show you that you never know where and when you're going to make new friends. I have really learned since Dallin left the importance of friendship and realized that I need to make more of an effort in that department. It's one of the things that makes life worth living.

 House Projects!

Now that we know we're staying I am all excited to keep going on the things around the house that I want to update. It was stressing me out before, so we've decided to simplify the list. Leave the floors alone, and just do a few more things. The staircase is one of them, and I hope to do that over the summer. This is the kids and I going to home depot. I finished painting all the doorknobs and now I'm going to paint the garage and the front door. 

More Wedding Videos 

I used a lot of the time over spring break to work on wedding videos. This was what I had to do to finally make it work. Return the new computer, external hard drive, cameras, and save each individual video. (And there are hundreds.) Lol it was "an adventure."

I had every single technical issue imaginable throughout the process of doing these last 2 wedding videos. So I feel bad for these brides, but hey, I tried! haha Anyway, Melissa's is finally done! Here it is! It was a fun day and they're a cute couple!

This was my design assistant. She sits on my lap while I work on stuff. :) And I really love doing this stuff, so I'm excited to start advertising and charging and stuff.

Mom Comes To Visit

This part of of the blog is out of order, but after I went to Utah, my mom drove back to AZ with me and the kids. It was a long drive but it went well because of this...

Dallin and I listened to this book on the way up, and then my mom and I finished it together. All 3 of us were addicted! It's such a good book. Dallin and Brian went to go see the movie (which I was pissed about because I wanted to see it but I was waiting to see it with Dallin) but anyway they said they completely changed it and it sucked. So that's disappointing.

The kids did a lot better on the drive home than they did on the drive there. As much as it pains me to admit- I think my mom's essential oils might have helped. Lol I'm not bought in to all that stuff. But maybe I am for them and road trips. 

This was us trying to get them to go pee in a very questionable area of Vegas. Lol 

This was the most relaxed Jake's ever been while driving. He was depressed still, but at least he wasn't freaking out.

 
It was fun having my mom in town and it was nice for both of us to leave the snowy Utah weather and go to the nice sunny Arizona weather.
(Look how white she is!)

we had fun!

masks

outdoor yoga in this divine weather! Very relaxing. She's not used to being outside ever so it surprised her haha

She helped me by painting my house. Literally. lol She always used to say, "You paint a house, you polish your nails." Well this time she painted my house. The stupid HOA said that your garage door has to be the same color as your trim or your house, so she painted the trim white. Well technically, swiss coffee.

I took her to the amazing Gelato place and ruined her diet for her.

She worked really hard!

  She made me dinners, and then even left me with a dinner after she flew out. I've decided that I love spaghetti squash.

I was spoiled for a week and a half and then after she left I had to go back to lean cuisines lol

Track 

I thought I was going to hate track. I requested not to coach at all next year. I thought that the long days at the meets and 7:30-5 every day with practice would be too hard. But as it turns out, I've had a lot of fun. I've made friends with the people I coach with, the runners are so funny, talented, hard working, kind, and just all around good people. I learn from them just as much as they learn from me. And anyway, I just couldn't get myself to leave those dang distance kids. They're simply the best. So I've decided to coach again next year, because life is not always about how much money you make per hour. There's more to it than that and I'm realizing that more and more as I get older. People matter most.

"Even when you don't feel like it, keep going. You never know who you'll impact with your love." 

The other coaches are so cool!

My distance boys are the leaders of the whole team most days. They work the hardest, are the most dedicated, and care about each other. I just think they're the best.

Can you believe this?!?! One of my 8th grade distance boys has the school record in the mile and it's SUB 5 MIN MILE!!!! WHAT?!

I told you they're the best. 

This is the 4x800 team. 

This is "the posse". Lol the head coach nick named us that because out of the 9 coaches we're the only 3 girls. So we started hanging out and they're also part of the reason I love track so much because we just laugh and laugh when we're together.

We snap chat lol and this was me trying to wash and dry my face in the locker room when I didn't have a towel. lol That is a high powered hand dryer! I could not breathe!

They asked me to coach cheer and I just laughed because I have literally never cheered a day in my life, but for some reason everyone always asks me if I'm the cheer coach. And the AD was just like "oh you're just so energetic I thought you were a cheer leader." haha But I told him I wouldn't trade the runners personalities for the world. The cheer atmosphere is a little different- all girls, cheer moms, etc. You get the picture.
I caught the guys walking one time when they weren't supposed to be and they all apologized and then did one more lap without being asked to make it up to me. So yeah, not going to cheer. lol

 Easter

Caitlin (long jump coach) found out that I wasn't doing anything for Easter so she invited me over to her family dinner and it was really fun! I loved it. Her nieces were so funny because they were really shy at first and by the end they were talking to me a ton. It was all decorated so cute for easter and the food was delicious! Her sister's house is only one street over from mine, so now I finally know a neighbor! haha only took me a year.

 

Classy Experience

When Dallin was in Az he took me out to the fanciest restaurant in Arizona for my Valentines day present. It was such an amazing experience! Not just the food, but the entire experience blew us away. They have like 4 servers who are only assigned to each table, they park your car for you, validate it for you, tuck your chair in, match your napkin to your dress, personally walk you to the bathroom, and tell you where every single thing you're eating came from. Like the entire story of everything. They put so much effort and thought into every pairing and order of where it goes. The waiter also could tell when we were confused and would "dumb it down" for us. (Lol I read the menu and had no clue what anything was.)

look how amazing this is!

They would have you cleanse your palette in between the parts and that candle is made out of animal fat and they pour it on your steak when it's melted.
The waiter asked what my favorite dessert was at the beginning of the meal and I said good old fashioned chocolate chip cookies. Then at the end they were so thoughtful and they brought out chocolate chip cookies! They made them jsut for me! They didn't even give me a dessert menu they just brought it! They had the car waiting for us when we walked out and when we got in, there was a card, amazing bread with honey, and then truffles. I just loved it.

The Dogs

babysitting Josie :)

babysitting Marley 

After her mom came back they brought me gifts from mexico! They're so nice :)

Josie looks so cute with her ears in a pony tail :)

hair doo

this was the first time i've ever seen a lip mask haha so funny looking!

I got my hair colored!

Only in AZ would they have a bloody mary bar in the hair salon lol 

My stylist was this really funny and cool gay guy. I loved how it turned out! (just a tad lighter)

I want to quote this super funny line from "Crazy Stupid Love" right now about the skin under my eyes but its a little inappropriate. lol I'll edit the sensitive material. He says, "The skin under your eyes is starting to look like Hugh Hefner's... (and then he says a body part.) "

Anyway, so I bought this stuff on amazon. We'll see if it works. 

 My Lovely Cabinets!

I love my new white cabinets! It was a long, stressful process but it's done! (well almost. I want to put handles on)

the fumes were so bad from the paint

last minute i decided to go with a different color

Woohoo!!!! :) 

My Trip to Utah

I went up to Utah for Spring break!

This was on our way there.

Dallin loved seeing the kids again :)

Pedicures with my  mom and Rachael

I went to bunco night with my mom and aunt kim and I won last bunco!

Kim hosted, and it's funny her and my mom go all out for it! She did these flavored ice cubes, a rainbow out of candy, and it was all st. patricks day themed and decorated. My mom just did one and it took her like 3 months to plan and 2 days before cooking but she did a tea party and went all out. I make fun but still i know I would probablly do the same thing and part of me is jealous lol I've subbed in their group for years but i need to get a group of my own together cuz it's so fun. 

We got massages of course lol tradition! It was super weird, I had knots in the muscles in the front of my neck and in my arm pits. 

It snowed. I would have been more annoyed about it but since I've been in AZ its more of a novelty now than it was before.

Doggie playdate with my mom kim and ray! It was fun for the kids to see Pixie!

Good fun with great friends on these next 3!

Got to see Rachel and her little family and they're adorable. We got pedicures and went to lunch. It was fun!

Got to see Ryan, Shayle, and James one night and that was good catching up.



Me and Kristin went to the mall one night and it was so good to see her! We had a great time and bought matching shirts lol

We went out to longhorn multiple times with the same server and he was awesome!

Hung out with Rudy, Michelle and Desmo before they left for Hawaii

Saw Shanna before she had brand new baby Mason and gave her a little "congrats on making another human" gift :) 

It was hard to leave. We were both really sad because we miss each other and he misses the dogs a lot too. 

Me chillin in the back seat with Jo on that 10 hour drive

Visiting Hours

Sometimes it feels like we're prisoners of our work (hence the joke "visiting hours") This was us visiting each other 

This was Jake and Josie's first track practice! Jake is going to be really good in the 400 and the 800, and Josie is going to be a thrower. lol
(my mom brought them to practice after picking them up from the groomer and they were crowd favorites lol)

 "Workin Hard or Hardly Workin"

There are certain parts about my job that are hard, one of them being the uncertainty of not knowing what I'm going to teach next year. But there are also a lot of good times and I wouldn't trade it for anything. 

One student brought us back pineapples from her vaca to hawaii!

Taysom's lesson in weight training that day

Chelsea always brings me cookies when I don't go out to lunch with her. She is seriously the most giving person. She got me a shirt on her cruise, she got me girl scout cookies, she got me a dance company hoodie, bought me lunch. She's the bees knees and I'm lucky we're "sisters." lol 

We got to leave school one afternoon to go to the park and play with chalk to shoot pics for the concert

One day in class we watched the greatest showman!

The dance classes have been working on a choreography project and performed them the last few days. They turned out super cute and I was so proud of most of them. They would go off and work in different places ( some even venturing outside to practice on the grass) lol they're so creative and cute. They used chairs as props and did their musical theater jazzy dance to that first song in Lala land.

The dream team 

otter pops from a student!

One student saw me in a hard conversation with dallin on the phone where clearlink wanted me to come up and be at this dinner thing to congratulate the peeps working on this test (Dallin) and I couldn't make it work because of track. They felt bad and bought me flowers and candy with a card that said how awesome I am. I just love these cuties. 

Long Distance Marriage

Long distance marriange friggin' sucks. I knew it would be hard but since I knew we had to do it, I was in denial about how hard it would be. For example right now, I haven't seen Dallin in a month. And between both of our work schedules, we talk about 20 mins or less a day.

Jake has completely taken over Dallin's spot in bed... :(

My mom is being so sweet to Dallin while he's staying there. She heart-attacked his door for valentines day and always talks about him. Its cool that she's close to him and thinks of him as her kid. 

Dallin at the air port when we were at one of our many "good byes." Yuck. I have no idea how/why we're doing this.

We keep in touch by sending videos back and forth on Marco Polo. This was dallin and john singing and dancing to me while they were on their way to Wendover (one of the many trips for them) lol They're so cute together. 

 

 Back on the Band-wagon

I've started trying to go every morning before school. Still boring a lot of calories but I'm astounded at how weak my upper body is. Part of my excuse is my ulnar nerve goes back and forth over my elbow keeping me from doing some exercises, but other than that I'm just a "noodle arms."

Clearlink

Dallin's been doing really well at this project he's working on. He's working sooooo hard though. Like 14 hour days hard. He's doing the jobs of 3 people. So he's stressed, but he seems to be rising to the occasion and taking it on. He showed me his power points and said his big presentations are going really well with really big people. So he's excited, and even though this is hard, it's making a big deal in his career to be rubbing shoulders with the big wigs.

Ben is working for clear link now too selling insurance from home!

Speaking of Ben and Jamie, they're expecting again. So congrats to them!

This was an old pic from clear link vegas that I never put in here. 

We're just grateful for clear link because they've been such a good employer for Dallin for what like 7 years? He's met really good people and worked his way up and I'm proud of him. 

When I was in Utah he took me on a tour of the salt lake office and it was gorgeous! I love the how it overlooks a lake!

This year's Clearlink Party

The clear link party this year was 1920s themed, and dallin flew down just to go to it! We didn't know at the time that we would be staying here, so it's good now that it worked out that way. It was really cool as usual. Loved it. The food was sooo good!

"That's the way the cookie crumbles." -Bruce Almighty

I've been relying on inspirational quotes lately because of my work uncertainty and Dallin being gone and being busy with running my hotel and track. lol So here, let them all inspire you. 

• "You don't grow when you're comfortable."
•  "Energy & persistence conquer all things."
•  "Rule your mind or it will rule you."
•  "Everything is hard before it's easy." 
• "By stepping out of your comfort box, you don't have to settle for what you are- you get to create who you become."
•  "When you can't control what's happening, challenge yourself to control the way you respond to what's happening. That where your power is."

-Sydney (Arizona Resident!!)