I didn't forget about you......

So it has been a while since I've updated this bad boy. Sorry about that. I think that is because one of us has had a semester from hell, and the other one doesn't know we even have a blog! :)

While I have been slacking off on the blog, A TON of stuff has happened!! Now the hard part is deciding where to start!

First and foremost.... the the big bad PRAXIS!! I never thought I would say this, but it's over, and I am truly grateful for the challenge it has created! I have learned SO much in the process of preparing for it.  I know all the presidents (in order!), I know who Lewis & Clark are, and that the "Bay of Pigs" doesn't really have to do with pigs! I have never been more stressed in my entire life, but I learned so much about myself in the process too! I am much stronger than I think I am, and I am never alone! I have so much support from my husband, family, friends, and the Lord (Not in that order!)  And now I can heave a big sigh of relief because it's over!

We also have a new living situation. It's a little complicated, but here is the short story.... Steven's parents have bought a house in Springville, UT. but they are leaving in a few weeks to go on a "mission" in Missouri. We generously offered to house-sit for two years! It's a 4 bedroom 3 bath with a giant back yard for our new dog to roam around (We're getting there!!)  And room for me to try my hand at gardening-Should be interesting!

Meet Oakley:

*3 years old

*Purebred Lab

*Likes: belly rubs, giving kisses, going on W-A-L-K-S, and fetch.

*Dislikes: pooping with an audience, being locked up, sharing Steven.

She is THE most jealous dog I have ever met! She would be the epitome of a "homewrecker" if only she weren't so cute!   We have absolutely LOVED having her! I tell Steven every day ways that she is preparing us for parenthood! 

1) We take turns feeding her.

2) She insists on sleeping between us.

3) Heaven forbid we try to watch a movie these days.

4) I sacrifice reading time to go on family walks each night (Not that kids need walks, but you get the idea...)

Anyway, I am so glad that she is part of our family! :)

Onto Graduation day ( I told you a lot has happened!)

Steven graduated yesterday with a Bachelors degree of science in Electrical Engineering! I'm so proud of him! Not that we ever doubted that he wouldn't or couldn't do it.... but it is still very impressive saying he is a "college grad"! 

He didn't really want to walk at first, but his mom talked him into it and I think he's glad she did! It will be a good moment for him to look back on! And it was a great moment for us to scream and clap for his accomplishments! :)

I'm sure I have other things to share and plenty more pictures for you to look at but I'm worried it's already becoming a little long! Until next time....

2013 in Review!

2013 has been very good to the Deshazer household! Since this was our first full year as a married couple we had quite a few "firsts" along the way!

First married New Year: Don't get too excited. We were asleep before midnight. Welcome to married life, right? ( I suppose most of the holidays were a first for our marriage.  Valentines day, Easter, even my birthday!)

First car accident:  I'm not exaggerating when I say I saw our short life together flash before our eyes! 

 Breanna's first semester at BYU: I still thought I wanted to be a nurse. So I was wasting my whole first semester crying myself to sleep over my awful Chemistry class.  Dopey me!

First time we made funnel cakes for Conference:  I would love to make it a delicious tradition every 6 months... so far so good. Except the second time almost burned our apartment down! :)

First Big move:  As most of you know, Steven got an internship in Austin, TX.  It was quite the adventure to just pack up and move out!  It was also great living closer to my parents! 

First (& later, second) mud run:  Our first one was kind of a mess. Turns out Steven and I were more out of shape than anticipated! It was still fun! :)

First Comic Con: So many nerdy dreams came true that day! It was a cool experience. My favorite part was seeing everyone in their awesome costumes. It reminded me of the elementary school Halloween parades to show off costumes. Except the costumes were ALL believable! My second favorite part was meeting Henry Winkler! So exciting!!!

First Anniversary: It's crazy to think that we've already been married a year! It has been the best year of my entire life! I seriously cannot imagine what I would do without Steven. He has shaped me into a better person in such a short amount of time. I cannot wait to see how much better I can become with him as my sidekick!  

I was talking to Steven about our favorite parts of the past year and obviously with 365 days behind us,  it is impossible to pick ONE favorite moment.  We did generalize by saying that my favorite part was trying new things with my husband by my side.  Every time I thought  of a "favorite" it was trampled by another wonderful experience! Honestly,  I think one of my favorite experiences happened over the summer. I changed my major. I was absolutely terrified and everytime I prayed I waited for this "Hallelujah chorus" to begin so that I would know which one was right! Turns out that didnt happen!! I finally made a jump and went for it. I believe it was the biggest Risk I have ever taken. ( keep in mind that I got engaged 2 months after meeting a boy on a plane!)  I kept asking Steven for help since I'm so bad at making decisions, but I learned that some things need to be handled alone.  I am NOW seeing the blessings from making that jump! I love saying "I am going to be a special educator" out loud! It truly is where I belong and I think Steven and I actually grew closer by his refusal to solve my dilemma!  If you want the more detailed story GO HERE!  

As I reflected back on 2013, and I started thinking about New Years Resolutions I will never complete for 2014, I was reminded of how blessed I am.  Sometimes I want to say I "got lucky".  I got lucky by meeting Steven. I got lucky by getting into BYU. We got Lucky when we didn't become road kill in that car accident. But it has nothing to do with luck. (Otherwise I would be in Vegas right now!). I am BLESSED. I am loved. And I am protected! My Father in Heaven takes GREAT care of me! And this is part of the reason New Years is one of my favorite holidays. I think we should all take a few minutes to stop and see the ways that we have been touched by the hand of God. He loves y'all too! He protects and guides all of us in ways that we cannot even begin to imagine! 

I hope you all enjoyed your Christmas and I hope you can find a second to reflect on your 2013 as well. :)

Happy Holidays!!! 

A month in Review

I don't know how frequently "normal" people update their blogs, but I realize it's been a while!  The problem is that Steven and I don't live a very exciting life day-to-day.... so I don't ever feel like I have stories worth sharing!

I figured without big, fun, life changing events happening, I would post just to let you know we're still alive and kicking!  School is still going well for us.  Looks like I was right about sacrificing my husband to the EE gods. He spends a lot of time at school working on labs, and when he isn't, it is all he wants to talk about! :)
In his "free time", he manages to help me with MY homework. I have an assessment class where we learn how to give tests, and every one I've learned I've had to practice with Steven.  He's such a trooper! (And borderline genius, but we won't go there!)

Work has been fun! I've learned all kinds of stuff at this job at BYU alterations that I know will come in handy! I may not be able to make an entire wardrobe for my children, but I will be able to alter their clothes like a boss! :) It's all I do all day! Since starting this job I cannot count the amount of pants I've fixed for Steven, or small alterations I've just never dealt with in my own closet! Steven has also started a new job recently.  He's working at a start-up company called Owlet.  They are designing a sock for babies that monitors their heart rate, respirations, pulse oximetry, the way the baby is laying, and how well they are sleeping.  It all gets sent via bluetooth to an app on your phone! They've already had places like Babies R Us and Target offer them millions of dollars for this technology, which they have declined because they felt it was too low of a price!  Isn't that so cool???  He loves it. In fact it's where he is right now on a beautiful Saturday afternoon! Unlike his previous job, he feels like he has opportunities to REALLY contribute here. I think it helps that they are making a product that Steven can agree with and support.

General Conference was a few weeks ago. Always such a great weekend!! Steven and I made the smoke detector go off making funnel cakes.  We had some friends come over and watch it and played games in between sessions!  For those of you that are asking "What the heck is General Conference?" Let me tell you.... There are two weekends a year (once in April and once in October) where the leaders of the church take turns talking to us about various topics.  They tell us what we should be working on to be better people, parents, friends, etc. They also remind us of how much Heavenly Father loves all of us, and what a WONDERFUL reminder that is!  It's hard to pick a favorite, but if I did, it would have to be Jeffrey R. Holland. He talked about how someday in heaven we will be able to see these people with special needs in their perfected state and what a joyful reunion that will be! There were actually a few talks that I felt related to me as  a special educator, and it was just ONE more reminder that I'm right where He wants me to be!
There was also a quote I loved by D. Todd Christofferson. He said "The world has enough women who are tough... we need more women who are tender".  Great reminder! :)


LAST THING... I promise!
Since Steven spends so much time on campus, we have worked to save time for a date night once a week. Our date night this week was my turn to plan! We bought pumpkins, grabbed dinner from L&L hawaiian barbecue, one of Steven's favorites. Then we came home and watched E.T while carving pumpkins. Mine died, and just like last year, Steven's turned out 10X better than mine. His looks so cool! It's an owl. My spiderman pumpkin was cool in theory, but I didn't think it through before carving!

Anyway.... we had a great time together. That's all that matters, right?




Sorry to ramble on and on... I'm really done now!
Thanks for stopping by!

See Ya Later, Summer!

The first week of class is almost over which sadly confirms that summer is gone!!
(Don't tell Steven I said that's sad! He's thrilled)

I like to think we had a great going away party for Summer though! We uncomfortably camped out in Murray for Sniagrab! Sniagrab (Bargains, spelled backwards) is a huge ski and snowboard sale on last year's stuff.  Everything is 40-90% off!!  I remember my dad taking us when we were younger and it was like Christmas in September!! Can I just say, it was worth the lack of sleep!! Steven found 230 dollar boots and we spent 14 dollars for them! HELLO!!!! How could you possibly beat that?!? Unfortunately that means Steven won't stop talking about snow and mountains and canyons and his awesome new gear! I have to keep reminding him "We still have a few months, dear!"




Then Labor Day we had a super fun get together.  We had pulled pork and hot dogs at our apartment and headed to Kiwanis Park for some games and a paint fight.  We started by throwing a frisbee covered in paint so it splattered everywhere. But that lasted about two seconds before everyone was full on flinging paint at one another.  It was so great to see a group of people we hadn't seen in a while- Thanks to Texas.
 
 We had a lot of fun. The clean up wasn't quite as enjoyable.  But after scrubbing paint out of my hair (and out of the 4-Runner seats) a few people came back over and we played some board games.  Emily and I learned that "running the option" happens in Football and Steven and Scott learned that satin is heavier than chiffon! :)

Like I said, It was a great weekend with great people!!

Now onto school! Steven started his final year in the Electrical Engineering program.  From what he's been saying, it sounds like he will enjoy his classes but will be pretty busy overall.  It sounds like I have sacrificed my husband to the EE gods for the next semester.  They better take good care of him!

Can I just say how nervous I was? I've been working towards nursing for as long as I can remember.... until this week.  I started my first semester of Special Education classes in the Program.  SO NERVOUS.  After my first day I am still a little nervous, but there is no doubt in my  mind I am in the right spot.
 I had 3 classes and in two out of the three I had to work to keep from becoming overwhelmed with emotion.  We talked about how these are children of God and how much he loves them and seeks after their happiness.  One teacher emphasized the blessings we will receive for also seeking after their happiness as the Savior did.  So in a majority of my classes so far I have personally had moments of confirmation that this is where Heavenly Father wants me and it is something I will be good at! I am very ready! If He is positive this is where I belong, so am I.
One of my favorite things about actually being part of a program is that it's the same 25 people in the program with me.  For the most part, we have the same schedule, we move across campus from one class to the next in herds.  That's so different from just the general credits I've been taking! The other people in the program seem unbelievably nice, and the teachers are already making an impact. I can't express to you how excited I now am for this adventure.  :)

Promise to keep you posted when I have more than 1 day of Special Education under my belt!

Happy Anniverthday to me!

As some of you may know, my birthday was last week.... so was my first anniversary!  Poor Steven!

For my birthday, Steven took me out to dinner at a place called Baris. It was the perfect choice for so many reasons.  He knows I lust after pizza, always. This was a place where I could get great pizza and he doesn't have to have pizza too! Plus, this was the very first restaurant we went to in Pflugerville. It was a good way to end the summer.  We finished off the night with a girly movie (my choice, of course) and chocolate cherry skillet cake! 

Two days later marked one year from our wedding day. It also marked our last day in Texas!!! We started out the morning with gifts and then made breakfast together.  (Steven set an alarm to get up and make me breakfast in bed, but I was awake before it went off! lol oops!)  We headed to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin.  It was a place I'd wanted to go to for most of the summer.  It was so great! They had a lot of interactive learning activities in the buildings. We had a lot of fun learning about biospheres and about all the different kinds of flowers!  

It was a pretty big place. They had lots of different "theme" gardens. They also had a butterfly garden where there were a few different types of butterflies moving around.  

My favorite part was the gift shop at the end. As soon as we stepped in, Steven made a comment that something smelled great.  I said the exact opposite. "No it doesnt! It smells terrible!"  We wandered the gift shop and saw some pretty cool stuff, but before leaving Steven asked what he was smelling. The lady working there didn't even hesitate before saying "Oh something died in the walls" I had to walk away I was laughing so hard! We laughed about it the rest of the day! 

After the wildflower garden we went to The Oasis restaurant. It was high on many "must see in Austin" lists.  It is a 4 or 5 story tex-mex place located above Lake Travis.  It gets super busy at sunset time when everyone comes to enjoy the beautiful view of the sun setting over the lake.  We were there early enough that it was a perfect time to just talk about all sorts of topics! No other distractions just Steven and I. The food was good, and the sunset was great as promised! But nothing could beat the quality time I got to spend with my husband as we reflected back on our first year of marriage! :) It makes me very excited for the

MANY more to come! 

Good Ol' Texas Exploring!

Hi Ya'll!  A few weeks ago my family came to visit! It was so nice to have them here and it was a great excuse to go try new things here in Austin!  We went swimming at Barton Springs pool. That was way cool. Literally... it was like 60 degrees in that water. VERY COLD! The boys got in, my mom and I preferred to watch with our feet dangling in!

We also got to check out the H.O.P.E art gallery.  Its just a bunch of cement walls in downtown Austin that people cover in graffiti. Occasionally the city of Austin will paint over all  of it and hire artists to come decorate the walls for charity events! Its one of the things I've really been looking forward to seeing here! It was super cool! I took A TON of pictures. I'll try not to overwhelm you with them. Especially since they're hard to format on here.
 

Right after this, we piled into the car and headed to San Antonio!!!

In San Antonio we had two goals... Sea World and the Temple.  We started out at the temple. It was a great way to start the day. I loved getting to go with my cute husband and wonderful parents! It was a very close call since we didn't know we had to make a reservation to do a session.  There was something very comforting about getting to go in when we were told there may not be room! It was beautiful!!!














Next up... Sea World! It was really cool! Since we haven't been since we were younger, it was exciting to see it all. The sharks were cool to watch. but we really enjoyed the shows. We bounced from show to show watching the seals then shamu, and ended with the dolphins and the TMNT dressed divers!






Also.... since when are there like 20 "Shamu's"  I thought Shamu was just one whale. They can't all be named Shamu! I was so deceived.


It was definitely hot and we were all pretty tired by the end of the day, but I had a great time and it was even better to have all my family here! :)

Then this past weekend was also pretty eventful. When Steven got off work on Friday we loaded up the car and drove the 3 hour drive to Dallas where we were meeting Sam and James for a nice weekend getaway!

Friday night we went to see "The Heat" at Studio Movie Grill. For those of you that haven't been there, you essentially have a call light and waiters come take your order and bring your food ALL while getting to watch the movie! It was pretty funny. The food was mediocre.  In theory it's a good idea, but probably not for someone like me. I get distracted so  easily, I was watching people walk all around the theatre instead of watching the movie! Poor Sam got a pizza that wasn't cooked at all! Gross!!

Saturday we got up only to find that the continental breakfast James paid extra for wasn't really continental.... whatever continental even means! It was a very confusing situation and even then it wasn't great food. After breakfast we headed to Six Flags!!! You should know that we had just heard that someone died the day before at that Six Flags, we hoped that would keep the crowds down. We were wrong.  Before even riding our first ride we had sweat running down our faces and who knows where else.  However, by the time we reached the front of the line on our second ride, we were told that we couldn't ride because it was storming! Seriously? Don't worry... we finally got to ride it.  My favorite part of that wait was the guy that worked there started telling jokes over the intercom.  "what do you call a gummy bear...."  A few minutes later he starts over " what do you call a bear with no teeth?" He ruined his own joke! :)
After a small lunch we got in line for Mr. Freeze! My favorite!!!! Guess what.... closed again, because of weather! booooo. We spent the next 3.5 hours waiting for it to stop storming. We did play some games, and make friends with the people sitting around us!


We did a lot of waiting, but I guess that's to be expected when you go to Six Flags in the summer anyway, right?
The good news though, was after this bigger storm quite a few people had left. So after Mr. Freeze we were able to get in line for titan and wait maybe 5 minutes total for that one.
At the end of the day we had spent 11 hours and got to ride a whoppin 6 rides! Impressive huh?  Apparently 30% of rain in Texas means something different! :)

 

It was great to get to spend some time with Sam and James though! I'm glad they could come visit for the weekend! I, personally, still had a great time!

summer lovin.... havin a blast

Did you think I forgot about ya?  I figured now would be a good time to update. We are about halfway through Steven's internship at National Instruments.  He has enjoyed it, and really likes to come home and tell me all about the boot process that he has been working with! :)

It's been an eventful few weeks here in Texas. We've had the wonderful opportunity to visit Oklahoma a few times.  The drive isn't wonderful but the company sure is!  Our most recent trip was our most action packed.  My parents definitely spoiled us!! We got to go see Lion King with my parents. It was SO cool!!!! I have no idea what I expected, but it was very fascinating to watch!  The costumes blew my mind! I'm very glad we got to go see it!!

 

 Next on the agenda for our busy weekend in BA was a mud run! It was on my dad's birthday, and I am sure it was exactly how he wanted to spend it!




We ran a 5k with a bunch of scattered obstacles and muddy pits!

 We had to climb over stuff, and crawl through barrels. We were expected to get muddy and sweaty and let me tell you, muddy and sweaty we got!!


It wasn't easy! There were quite a few times that I felt like we were slowing my super in shape dad down, but he didn't complain!  We had such a good time!!!

Who doesn't love climbing 12 foot walls, and crawling through mud?


It was definitely an adventure and I was so excited to get to do it with my dad and Steven! What a group of studs! :)








As if that wasn't enough for one weekend.... later that night they took us to a fancy place called Riverside grill right along the Arkansas.... river? After eating way too much we headed over to Riverside airport where my dad's friend had an R44 helicopter waiting to take us for a ride! As soon as he got out of the airport Chuck let my dad take over and my dad ended up giving us a tour of Tulsa at night! It was so pretty!!!!

I know Steven and I had a blast. Steven was super excited to have his first ever helicopter ride and what better place to fly over?









Sorry this has turned into a rather long post. Believe it or not... this is just ONE weekend of our exciting summer so far! Like I said, we are halfway through our adventure in Austin and look forward to many more new and cool things to experience! Maybe my next post will actually include things we have done in TEXAS! :)