The longest update blog ever!

Okay, so its been over a month since I've last blogged and I know my life isn't all to interesting, but I figured I'd update you all...

A bunch of insanely happy things have happened... My doc gave me the thumbs up... No brain tumor! It was just a small mix of some worrisome test results and strange symptoms that ended up being caused by a bad reaction to a dumb medication!

Amanda and Phil are finally pregnant! Yay! I'm so excited to have another wonderful baby to hold and love!

(There are more throughout the blog...)

December...

My work started out REALLY slow for the month, but as usual, the week before and the week of Christmas was crazy! I had all my Christmas gifts ordered by the 10th of December, but due to a billing problem, Dustin's main present didn't arrive until Christmas Eve! I was so worried it wouldn't arrive on time. I even ended up under budget this year! The best gift this year was the Zoo membership Dustin and I gave to Bekah, Erika, and Jeff! I can't wait for the weather to warm up so we can go! Erika and Bekah moved in for while during the time Jeff is deployed in Afghanistan. Its nice to have them here for a while. Its fun to wake up to laughter coming from upstairs, but no so much when its crying! And Dustin and Bekah have gotten closer. She now reaches for him when she sees him around.

On Christmas Eve, Dustin and I had dinner with my family because we were spending Christmas day with his. We were all just chatting and waiting for dinner to finish cooking when we suddenly saw a sly little girl put her pajama'd foot in the dogs water dish! She thought it was so funny! We laughed, but Erika had to grab her and put on some new jammies. Luckily, I grabbed my camera fast enough to snap a picture...

Haha! She's such a little joker!

I have to admit this was the best Christmas ever! I had my family around me and my friends. Plus, I got a really sparkly Christmas present...

Yes, that's right... A new ring! One to replace my other ring! Dustin even picked it out himself! He's so good at picking out things that look gorgeous on me! Oh, and the way he wrapped it was funny. He had a BIG box, I unwrapped that box to find a box just a bit smaller than the first, inside that box was... you guessed it, another box! And yes, this went on for quite a while! I finally got down to a little box, about the size of a ring box, and then I opened to box and there was no ring... Just a piece of paper that said, "To get your gift, you must give a kiss!" So I kissed Dustin and while I was kissing him, he slipped the ring on my finger! It was so cute! It was perfect!

Then the crazy snow came! It snowed so much at Dustin's house and because of the big field in front of his house, we got stuck in some snow. But since the power was out at his house earlier that morning, our Christmas feast was Betos, since they were the only place that was open. It wasn't too bad, definitely a fun memory of our first Christmas together! My family usually does a big Christmas party on Christmas day, but because of the crazy snow, the heads of the family decided to move it to the following Sunday. I was so happy! This would've been my first Christmas missing the family party, but I didn't miss it! I had a lot of fun at the family party. It's nice now that Dustin is becoming more of a member of the big extended family.

Oh, and another wonderful thing I celebrated on Christmas... The size 12 jeans I got from my parents... Oh yeah, THEY EVEN FIT! Perfectly! I haven't been a 12 in a long time!

With my dumb job, I had to work New Year's Eve, but thank goodness, I got off early enough to go hang out with Dustin... So for our New Year's feast, we had... Mac 'N Cheese! One of our favorites!

January...

The first part of the year was crazy at work! As usual, half the businesses run their end of year at the real end of year, unlike those who end their year in July. I took a week of vacation early in the month, the week of Dustin and my one year anniversary! Yay! On January 13th, we both got all dressed up and he took me to my FAVORITE place... The Melting Pot! The same place he proposed at in April. We had a wonderful dinner, the food was absolutely fantastic and I even saved us some money by using a coupon for free dessert fondue! The whole night I was on cloud nine! He was too!

After our fantastic dinner, we decided to go to a movie! We went to Jordan Landing, we had no clue what we were going to see and couldn't decide between Benjamin Button and Marley and Me. So I made the final decision and we went to Marley and Me. I knew Marley and Me was kind of a tear jerker, but I didn't think I'd cry that much! We were all cuddled up together, he had his arm wrapped around me and I had my head resting on his chest, and I was crying at the end and you know how sometimes when you cry, you have to do that breath catching thing where you breath in quickly, well I was trying my hardest not to do that! (By the way, that was the longest run-on sentence ever!) Suddenly, I heard Dustin sniffle and realized we both were crying! Now, don't think Dustin is some girly girl. This is only the second time I've seen him cry, it was cause he had a dog he felt the same way about and had to be put to sleep too. So we both had that same feeling! It was by far one of the best movies I've ever seen! All the dumb critics are wrong!

Well, I got up the next morning and got a call from Dustin. Sometime during the night, someone broke into his car... Lately, his luck has been that way! They stole the Ipod he bought with his birthday money. He had to buy a new window. In about four months, he has paid about 1000 bucks on car repairs due to vandalism and a break-in. So now he and I are majorly saving our change! Luckily, my boy knows how to save and had all cash available for that stuff.

Last week, I started feeling a little pain in my throat and figured the beautiful gray Salt Lake inversion was the culprit, but it got worse and worse until Dustin had to take me to Urgent Care to get it checked out. The doc looked at my ears, then felt the very tender glands of my throat, looked into my throat, and said, "Yep, its strep!" It has been like five or six years since I've had strep! Unfortunately, the Walgreen's Pharmacy had their computer system updating at one a.m. on Sunday morning, so they could only give me a 12 hour dose of the Amoxicillin to make me feel better. So I just figured I'd go back Sunday when I woke up and get the rest of the drugs. When I woke up, I headed back to Walgreen's, picked up my scrip, and headed to Dustin's house. I didn't want to be at home because the last person who needs to be sick, especially with strep, is Bekah. So I temporarily moved to Dustin's. (Just for the day.) It came the time for me to take my prescription and Dustin brought it over, since I wasn't allowed to get out of the lazy boy or take my blankie off, and I opened up the bag, and realized... These aren't my pills... The bag label had my name on it, but the prescription was for someone else! They mixed up my pills with someone else's! I went back to Walgreen's and got the mess worked out, and to "compensate" me, they offered me a $20 gift card. I'm just glad I'm cautious with meds and looked before I reached in and grabbed what was in there. When I told Erika, she got worried cause she has never really checked the pills before taking them, or giving them to Bekah. So it was a good lesson. Also, I'm glad that other person who would've gotten my stuff hadn't picked theirs up yet! Heaven forbid the person had picked it up, took my amoxicillin, and had a fatal allergic reaction. On Monday I was still feeling really sick, so I called to doc and he got me some other meds to help out. Today I feel good, minus the little bit of pain that's left in my throat and the strange ear issues.

So there it is... An update of the world according to Amanda!

Oh, except change that car repair amount of Dustin's to 1250. The dang road by his house that is plagued with pot holes blew out the side wall on this car tire! Boy, the city is going to hear about this tomorrow!