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Holdin Down the Fort!!

Things are getting crazy around here!!

WOW. So much has been changed since I last wrote on my blog. The summer heat has set in here in Arizona and I love ever minute of it. I have kind of become a Lone Ranger this summer. First, in April most my guy friends moved to other states to sell for the summer. Than, my cousin who I am pretty close with moved to Utah for the summer. Than, one roommate got married, another bought a house, and the final one moved to Colorado last Wednesday. To top it all off Paul decided to move to Alaska for the summer to sell! I think I am pretty fun to be around but apparently people are running from me like wild fire! Even my uncle and his family moved to their summer home in Colorado. I guess its a good thing Mark is a resident still so Brooke's family can't escape me for a few years. So here I am, in Arizona, in a seven bedroom house....Queen of the Castle, holdin down he fort. Plus I have plenty of time to contemplate life. With my new found freedom, I spend my time playing on a coed softball time, at organizing my stuff, ward parties and hanging out Alot with Brooke's family.
Before everyone took a team vote to abandon me I got the summer kicked off with some pretty cool activities. First in May I hiked the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim with Marks Hospital. We stayed at the North Rim Woke up at 5AM and hiked to the south Rim. It was beautiful. It was great to hike and I got to chat with Brooke the whole time . I am pretty sure Mark never stopped the forward motion of trail mix going into his mouth for the whole 24 mile hike.It was a easily flowing hike until about the last 1.5 miles. I had a blister by than and walked that last distance on my tip toes. I was starting to fear the hike would never end and I was a pioneer of a death march. That's when a trail passer said it was not much further and an ice cream stand was at the top. Instantly my tiptoeing blister pain vanished and I was power walking straight uphill. And it was true pralines and cream awaited at the top for me. The Grand Canyon has now been checked off my bucket list!

The night before the big hike at our cabin on the North Rim

Along the bottom of the Grand Canyon

A bit further than half way. You cross the bridge in the background and you begin the decent out about 10 miles left.
At the end of the 24mile Voyage...Right before Ice cream!
My sister Brooke and Her Husband Mark and I

The following week Paul and I took a trip to Vegas to visit my parents. We spent the day shopping and than went to dinner and a Cirque Du Soliel show at the MGM called Ka. It was awesome. We enjoys ourselves so much. We are both people watchers and loved being in the casino and staring at all the crazys. A few days later the Alaska move was confirmed and off he went with little notice.

Vegas on the strip

In front of the KA theatre in the MGM Grande

Last weekend I spent all my time at Brookes. My weekend plans consisted of two birthday parties for children under 6 and a Sunday full of babysitting.Brooke and Mark had a graduation thing to go to for Marks work so I watched all four kids and took them to church. I thought I was a pretty Good Aunt until Carter told me he wondered what his freinds would say and think since we were so late and than Talamge tackled Avery for taking the tithing envelopes out from the bishops box. That was my babysitting breaking point. I told Eveyone to go to class and Avery looked at me with a blank face. I said do you know where you go and she shook her head. "Well thats great cause I don't know either" Bless the good sisters in Brooke's ward for helping me find the nursery! I think for now I will keep watering my plant Claudia and see how she turns out.

I found new places to meet people to date and spend time...like Chucky cheese
This is my nephew Talamges birthday party

Who needs friends your own age when you get to due things like this. My niece Avery and I on our way to puff the magic dragon.

Work is still going really well. I am learning alot and really like my coworkers. There is so much information to learn and records can be so easily missed up. We had a new position open up at work and I got to sit in on interviews and even ask questions. It's very odd to do that considerings almost every person being interviewed is much older than me.One lady imparticluar was in her late 50's and She was not happy I was one of the interviewers. I asked her a question about getting reports done in a timely manner. The entire interview She would not look at me and than suddenly looked right at me with her dart shooting eyes and answered something smug. Well, that was that she got a 1 rating in the personality category from me! After that though my boss was unimpressed because he felt she did not respect me or my co-worker who also happens to be on the younger side. I feel extremely lucky to have a boss who respects his employees and thinks highly of them.

Well thats it for now. I am still in love with Arizona and am justing awaiting my first full summer trip to visit Ashley in Oregan. Oh and also I finnally got my pictures from Michelle and sterlings wedding from my Dad. For those of you who don't know. Mitch married my cousin Sterling April 10th. It's awesome.Keepin the LOVE in the Family Tree

All the girls at michelles reception

Who's that Girl!!!

Who's that girl...oh wait thats ME!!

So the j-o-b has begun. Its been four weeks since I started and its been very interesting. Some times when I walk through the office I see peoples faces and I know they are thinking " whats that blonde doing here" and so far I have had some pretty blonde experiences . My first week I was at the copying machine and an older guy mid 40's obviously realized I was new and ask me what I did. I told him my job title, Follow up specialist. He asked what department I worked in. I did not know I replied umm I work for Ricardo. He said what department. …again...ummm Ricardo that works under Lori on the right side of the building. He soon realized that I did not know what department I was in all I know was my job title and who I worked for. He than said well what do you do. I explained and than he said you are in the clinical department. I smiled and said "well you learn something new every day" he looked at me not very impressed said nothing than walked away. That is the last time I have been at the copying machine.

Being a follow up specialist basically means I am an after hospital visit coordinator. We work with people who are very LOW income and have severe mental disabilities and substance abuse issues. It's basically people with no insurance at all and few with even Medicaid. We are a private company but contracted by the state. When our members go to the hospital it helps our money costs go down if they go to a follow up appointment because it shows the state that they are trying to get better and not be crazy malfunctioned citizens. Basically we keep tract of the craziest of crazys in AZ . I love listening to the care managers conversations with members about things like taking the tin foil off the windows cause it does not really protect them from people, or calling the police on their 5 yr old son cause he throw a temper tantrum and there was no controlling him. Other times I read medical charts with suicide notes like swallowing batteries, or some one who does not think he should be in a halfway house cause the voices in his head say he is not crazy. Really pieces of work!

My desk all decorated..you can see my name tag on the left side

Just workin my life away..the usual

I never thought I would like sitting at a desk at a computer but really the time flies by and its sometimes entertaining. I am not use to the sitting part but during my lunch I do laps around the building and than eat while I work instead. I sometimes wonder if people look outside their window every day around 12:30 and see me power walking all dressed up and wearing my work badge walking around around and around and think to themselves...who's that crazy new girl swinging her arms. In office emails I am tagged as the new girl who does not like donuts. Just like starting your first day at a new school! I still wonder if my manager knew what He was doing when he hired me. The other day he asked me which I would rather have mental disabilities or sub. abuse. I thought I clarified it when I said "For ME to have" he said yes. I than explained in my most professional voice that I would rather have a mental disability than substance abuse because you can take medicine for that. He first looked at me with a blank stare and than broke out in laughter and replied" No Andrea for you to work which cases do you want" I thought that was what he meant but than I thought I clarified it by saying ME to have. Sneaky wording supervisor!!
The only friend I have made on my own so far is a large black women with a thick southern accent who sits right on the corner on my way to the bathroom. She has all these proud big black women cards hanging every where and always has her bible out . She calls me Little Lady and always asks how they are treating me on my side of the cubicals. The other day I saw her in the hall and she yelled and me for not coming by her desk yet that day to say hi. I really like her. Her name is Eartha Jackson.
Really though I like my job, co workers, and supervisor. I am pretty sure they like me to. My supervisor pulled me aside and told me he told his supervisor that he was happy he hired me cause I am eager to learn and a very hard worker. YA YA!!

Socially things are good to. Some friends from Utah came in last week end and we had a black and white party for my friends birthday. I wore suspenders to the party!! Once again i am sure lots of people thought who is that girl!!

Black and white party. The girls from utah came down

Rockin the suspenders

All Girls BBQ during the priesthood session
we made amazing food!!!

Wait...I have to Grow up??

On our group Date

So appearently I am not very good at posting alot but I will get better. A few weeks ago I went up to Utah to throw Michelle Reichert a bridal shower. It was great. She is marrying my cousin so the night before the shower we went on a little family group date to Happy Sumo. For the Bridal shower we ate dinner at the melting pot and than went to the Piano Bar. A few of us girls actually got booed of stage for not being crazy enough...it was soooo funny.

Bridal Shower Dinner at the Melting Pot

On the long ride home I decided I needed to really find a better job asap. For the past 6 months I have been looking for a job turning in resumes and hearing nothing. In the past week I had three interviews and was offered two jobs. I decided to take one with Magellan Health Services as a Follow up Specialist. It has pretty good benefits, paid vacation and lots of space to move around in the company. Since I am going to have to turn into a grown up at the end of this week I decided to go to Mexico this past weekend . It was dirt cheap. We rented a ton of rooms and played on the beach all day. Every day we played an all girls game of volley ball and it was full of no skill and alot of trash talking!! All in all it was a good little trip full of dollar tacos that dont sit well, amazing keylime pie ice cream, and good ole dancing!! Some of the girls from Utah stayed down in AZ after mesxico and we continued to play at the lake and my uncles pool. After every one left I started thinking about what its going to be like working an 8-5 job and what comes along with that. Than I realized a few things...

Sunset in the Hotel

Playing on the beach in Rocky Point

1. When you take a job you cannot go out of town any time you know of someone going on a
trip.
2. Take the job that offeres the most paid time off and or vacation days
3.Back ground checks sometimes include checking driving records..no bueno for me
4. Is my job gonna be like The Office??


Well I guess I will learn soon

NEW YEAR ...NEW ME...well sort of

2008 was a crazy year for me. I graduated from BYU, backpacked through Europe, than moved to Arizona. Since moving to AZ my sister has gotten married, I went on a trip to New York with my Cousin Stephanie and then flew to Oregon to spend Christmas with my family. It has been really fun on all my trips but back in Az the economy and job market has been rather mean to me. It has been a little rough.. I did not realize it would be so hard after graduation to place a job I wanted. Other than that things our great and 2009 has gotten off the a great start.
The first weekend of the new year I went to Malibu with Paul for Erin's open house. We spent the day before the reception shopping, at the pier, finding purses in alleys in L.A ,and eating great food. It was a really fun little double date. The next day Paul and I spent the day with my parents and than went to the open house with them. The first thing I saw when we pulled up to the house was a huge semi In&Out Burger truck blocking half the street. Yes it was there to cater the open house. The colors of the truck even matched the wedding colors...it was so white trash...yet awesome. It was a once in a life experince to be standing in my brides maid dress ordering a burger from an In& Out truck with my sister in her wedding dress standing next to me!! It was ...breath taking. Honestly though the back yard was decorated beautifully and there was another catering with normal wedding food in the back yard. It was pretty....once you passed the truck that is. It was a really fun weekend.
This past week I made sushi with my room mates and dates. It was so legit we had bamboo mats to roll with and even a deep fryer!! We used fresh tuna and it was so good.I was the head chef rolling most the rolls, Paul toasted the seaweed while Steph directed my rolling abilities. It was so fun...we had miso soup, chopsticks, soy cups really the works. It was so fun we decided that once a month we are having a foreign food night. Next time is Fondue!! Its gonna be a good year!!

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