Happy Birthday Tyler!

Let me begin by letting you that Tyler can be very pursuasive at times. But only in a good way of course. He began his prep-work early, probably right after Christmas, putting plugs in here and there about a PlayStation3. "Do we really need one?" Of course, his answer was yes! Well, before we knew it I was asking him what color paddles he wanted and which games would be the funnest. He convinced me.

It took further pursuasion to convince me that he needed it as early as possible so he could play during the summer. See, in my family, if you you're going to get something for your birthday, you get it on the day of your birth. In Tyler's family they are more liberal with when they actually get their gifts.

Well, I broke and when his PlayStation finally came in the mail it happened to be a day we had planned a bon fire so we kinda made it his birthday celebration.

He didn't know at first...

Until I pulled out two wrapped boxes.

This face says it all.

So since we celebrate Tyler's birthday 2 weeks early, today was a little more low-key. Dinner and a movie and a quiet night at home.

It's been great to celebrate his birthday over the past few weeks and see how truly grateful he is for EVERYTHING. It makes me very grateful for him and all he does for me. He is always so happy and patient and encourages me to be a better person.

Love you, Babe!

Make it Happen

In an effort to change my most recent post to something that doesn't sound to demeaning to my workplace (since I actually really like my job), I'm going to post a quick snippet about our weekend. I hope to post pictures shortly...although, I think I've said that many times and have yet to come through with that.

Let me explain something first. Back in about February or so Tyler and I were featured in our ward newsletter in the "Getting to Know You" section. I'm sure most people (those that actually read it) thought we were just another nice couple, but one couple decided that we had enough in common that we should see if we'd click. Two days later we had game night and the rest is history.

Doesn't that sounds like the beginning of a love story! Haha. Well it's the beginning of my love-for-life story.

On that fateful game night, the couple briefly mentioned that they wanted to go to Europe this summer. We of course had the same aspiration so they jokingly said "oh, you should come with us". Three months later we were on a plane to London.

Within the 5 months we've known the Sampsons we have done a lot of things that we would never have done on our own. Sampled numerous foreign cuisine places starting with the White Owl, then Indian Oven, Factory pizza, Happy Sushi, Beehive Grill $.15 wings, and a billion places in Europe. Boy, have they cultured me! And I'm proud to say I liked all of them (except the sushi). We've gone to Europe (again, hope to blog more about that soon) which has opened my eyes to an entirely new beautiful world. And we DO stuff. Ya know how you usually say "Oh yeah, we should hang out sometime." Well, with these guys, we take action and we DO stuff.

Last week we had a last minute bon-fire. This week included fondue night and a camping trip to Bear Lake. We've had numerous movies nights - many of which were a complete flop but we're still friends nevertheless - and all this has changed my attitude towards life.

Live it now. If you want to go fishing tomorrow morning, make it happen. Pack a picnic and make an event out of it. Who says that just cuz you're married you have to stay home every night and go to bed at 10? Live today cuz it makes today awesome and challenges you to make tomorrow even better.

Safety Training

Did you know that June is National Safety Month. Pretty exciting stuff. Today at work we celebrated by having Safety Training. The whole time our HR guy was showing us hand exercises I couldn't help but thing about how much it reminded me of the safety training episode from The Office. Remember the episode where Michael tries to make the office staffs' work sound really life-threatening when in reality there are production people who have serious safety things to worry about, like the deadly bailer.

I have to admit that while I'm sure I could have benefited from the wrist-rolling and finger bending exercises, I got more caught up in the thought that the company I work for is kind of like Dunder Mifflin. They sell paper, and now printers. We print things on huge printers. Dunder Mifflin has an office staff and production staff. So do we. And most importantly, Dunder Mifflin and RR Donnelley both share a deep-routed respect for safety. It's important stuff.

Big Fish

Tyler went fishing today (yes, he's feeling much better). We went fishing on Memorial Day but had no luck. He and Ben went a little earlier today and had a few more tricks up their sleeves.

Here's the little philly he caught, or black crappie to be exact.

So he brought the little guy home and we ate him. Poor little guy, never stood a chance did he! I still can't get over how cool it is that he went out and killed our dinner and brought it home to eat. It's so primative, like..."Bye honey, I'm going out to kill some dinner." Tyler's response was..."you've never fished before have you?" No, I have not.

Something so small.

Well we have a lot of catch-up blogging to do, but at the moment I still need to get the rest of our pictures so our Europe trip will have to wait.

In the mean time, Tyler just couldn't deal with things being dull around here, so he decided to get appendicitis. As we were going to bed last night he complained that his stomach hurt. I gave him some Tums and told him he'd feel better in 10 minutes. I was wrong. He was up all night moaning and trying to clear his stomach in any way possible. By 6 a.m. he threw in the towel and let me take him to the hospital. We got checked in, they gave him some pain killers (which were greatly needed at that point), and ran a CT scan.

Sure enough all the signs pointed to his appendix so they booked him for the surgery room. He went into surgery around 11:30 and was out in an hour. Tyler had a great doctor, Dr. Weiss, who took great care of him. During surgery he found that Tyler's appendix was very close to bursting, so it was good we came in when we did.

He is out of surgery now and his pain has gone from an 8 or 9 to a 1 or 2. It's crazy to think that a useless little body part caused him so much pain. We're both in good spirits and surprised how much better this hospital experience has been than our December experience when he broke his ankle. We appreciate all the texts, prayers, blessings and meals we've already received. Thanks everyone.