Did ya know

Wow I can't believe Chase and I have already been married for 3 years!  That's crazy.  I feel like it's been forever since we got married.

The reason I titled this post "did you know" is because when someone sees us they will usually ask what we have been up to.  SO to tell the truth, pretty much the exact same things we were 3 years ago!  Okay okay I know, we've changed jobs, we've moved, and Chase is further in school, but it's still all the same.
Since Chase and I have been married he's worked at Allens Camera in American Fork, Klune Industries in Spanish Fork, and now some new job that I don't know what it's called, but it's in Orem, yay.  Since we've been married I've worked at Utah Spine and Disc (US&D) in Murray and 1-800 Contacts in Draper.
You probably think that we don't like hanging around at our jobs for a long time.  Well that's wrong.  Chase worked at Allens Camera before and after his mission.  He then luckily got his job with Klune making more money.  Which came at the perfect time.  I was able to get a job at Utah Spine and Disc a couple months before we got married.  We were so thankful that I was able to get this job. unfortunately, I was laid off just 3 months after we got married.  Chase had just gotten his new job which was such a blessing!  We then recieved another blessing when one of my patients at US&D noticed that I was gone.  When he found out they laid a couple of us off he gave them his information and told them to pass it on to me.  I was so grateful when he told me to apply at 1-800 and put his name down as a reference.  He helped me get my job I have today and I am still so grateful for the day that I met him.  Which now brings us to Chase's current job.  He had wanted to work for this small company earlier in the school year but decided to stick it out with Klune.  However, during the hunt of career jobs he realized that the skills he could learn at his new job would probably help him with the type of jobs he's looking at for his career.  So he asked the guy if he would be willing to let Chase help him out for a short period of time.  The boss agreed and so Chase started this week.
That then takes us to School.  Chase has pushed really hard to get through school and it's paying off.  Each semester he's been full time plus some.  It's been tough at times but he's survived.  Thank goodness :)  He has also always worked while going to school.  This has been much appreciated and I love him for his hard work.

Chase's Senior Capstone Project.  Sorry Dad's this is the best picture we have.
The video below shows the project in motion.

Now you're probably wondering um you've been married for 3 years and don't have any kids.  Yep that's right, no kids.  We wanted to wait until he was done with school.  Our hope and goal is for me to be a stay at home mom.  Which meant that waiting would be a key factor in that goal.  Plus if we did already have a kid I would be pretty darn sad leaving my baby for 9 or more hours every day, so that I could work.  I think that would've been rough on us.  Now p.s., this is not an announcement that I'm pregnant.  When that time comes I will be letting everyone know.
So instead of having our own kids to love on we love on our nieces & nephews.  In order of age :)

Cadence Johnson

Taylor Birks

Lucy Hadlock

Lyla Johnson

Myles Jenkins

Devan and Paige Birks

Aren't they all so cute?  We love them.
Now to the moving part.  We hadn't thought about it much but when the opportunity presented itself, we decided why not.  The funny thing is we stayed in our stake.  If you draw a square we literally went from one corner down diagonally to the other.  After talking with a member of the bishopric we realized why we moved.  Moving also brought me the opportunity to receive a calling as secretary in the young women's and a calling for both of us as the ward trek leaders & ma and pa for trek in July.
So that's what we've been up to the last 3 years :)  We've also had a lot of fun mixed in with all of the mumble jumble part of life.  Thank goodness too, or else our lives would be pretty darn boring.

catching wind 

Goals

To me goals are a very important part of our life.  I personally don't think we would get anywhere if we didn't make goals.  Growing up, my mom did her best at helping us to understand that it's important to set goals.  More importantly she taught me how important it was to find a guy who was/is goal oriented.  I am so grateful for her instilling that in me because I know the importance and I married a man who also sets goals.

While in a rut after high school my sister encouraged me to set short term and long term goals.  I made a bunch of goals.  Some of which I have accomplished.  Others that haven't been completed.  Now as the years have gone on I've decided that some of my goals need to be changed.  Also what I love about being married is that Chase's goals are now my goals as well.  I want to do everything I can to help him accomplish them.  So I have listed off some of our goals.  These goals are going to help shape our lives, and bring us much happiness.

Our biggest goal is College for Chase.  I am so happy to say that in April Chase will be graduating.  What an accomplishment to be able to say that he has his degree and is an Engineer.  Now with Graduation brings on new goals, like finding a career job.  He is currently searching and applying so hopefully we'll end up with one soon.  He has a goal on what he wants to do with his career so were trying to be a little bit picky with the job hunt.  I'm sure it will all pay off in the end. :)

One of my goals is to run a marathon.  I've already ran three half marathons and was training for my 4th so I figured I could step it up and do a full.  I signed up to run the Utah Valley Marathon on June 8th, however an injury has set me back.  I was unable to run the half marathon and I don't think I'll be running this marathon anymore which saddens me because I was excited to run it.  The good thing about goals though is that if you need to revise them you can.  So it looks like I need to decide on a different marathon to run.

One of Chase's goals is to restore his 67 911 Porsche.  This is going to take him a few years to complete but will be well worth the hard work in the end.  He has made it a goal to do most, if not all of the work himself rather than sending it off to someone to have them re-build and restore it for him.  This will be really fun for him since he loves cars and he will come away with a lot of new skills.  I'm excited to see the excitement in his eyes when the project is all done.

It should look something like this when its done

Another one of our goals is to travel.  We have a few places that we would love to go visit and I'm sure more will be added to our list as time goes on :)  For now though we really want to go back to Germany, so Chase can show me the beautiful place he lived in for 2 years.  We have some friends where the husband also served his mission in Germany but up North, so we've discussed having all 4 of us go over so that we can see all of Germany.  One day this will happen.  When?  We don't know yet.  We need to set that in our goal so we can actually work towards it rather than just dreaming about it.  The other place we really want to visit is Ireland.  This has been my dream/goal for a very long time and it has turned into Chase's as well.  So we will one day be visiting Ireland as well.  Don't worry there are a lot of places that we need to see in the states as well.  Along with traveling to visit family :)

I'm so excited for all of our goals and trust me there are more and will always be more to come.  The one thing we are lacking in right now is actually writing them down so that we can look at them and plan for them.  I like to think of them as only dreams if we don't make it a goal and plan for them.

Love is in the air

Ok so I know a lot of people like to complain about having holidays where you are forced to do something for someone like Valentines, Mothers day and Fathers day.  However even though I agree that I have a husband who shows me his love all year long, I still think it's fun to have a day designated to go above and beyond for your loved one.

With that being said this is how our "love" day/month went.  For Chase I decided to do the 14 days of Valentines.  I bought 14 little "gifts" for each day leading up to Valentines.  I really enjoyed this and I'm pretty sure he did too.  Even though he kept asking if I was trying to make him fat since I bought a lot of candy.  No that was not my intentions :)  Below is what he got.

This one says I've always been carazy for you, in case you cant see the first word.

With his can I also added a note that I was armed and ready.  He walked in the door and I started spraying him.  Uh he wasn't even ready :) Oops. Oh and the note says "I love that we can be silly together."

This one came with mint chocolate chip ice cream, but our freezer is too full so it's at Mom and Dad Birks' house.

For myself Chase kept telling me he got me a puppy, however I have yet to find this cute puppy :(  Anyway I apparently messed up his plans.  He planned on putting a note on his pillow so that I would find it when I was ready to get out of bed, instead I jumped out of bed to help him pack some snacks for lunch since he doesn't usually have time to eat.  So I found all 3 of my cute notes and presents right at the start of the day, instead of finding them throughout the day.  My first one was on the table, the 2nd in the fridge which was deliciousness from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and my 3rd was a rose on my office chair.  I loved them all and it was so sweet.  Little did I know there was another present waiting for me to find it.  I'll explain the 4th later.

Ok so for our Valentines date or dinner instead of going out somewhere I wanted to stay home.  So I found a bunch of cute ideas for at home dates on The Dating Divas website.  Which by they way they have a butt load of ideas.  I decided that I wanted to combine some of our first dates into one date night, so we were going to go camping, watch Cars and eat funnel cakes for dessert.  Camping because on our very first date I had invited him to my families annual trip up to Jackson Hole to go rafting and camping.  Watch Cars the movie because our first date was to the race track.  And eat funnel cakes because our 2nd date was to the carnival.

Since I knew it would take a little bit of time to really clean our apt, go for a run and set up for the date I got off of work early.  I guess I was too slow though because Chase came home before the date was set up and I wasn't even home.  I had gone up to my in-laws house to get ready because our apartment's water heater wasn't working all that great and I didn't want to have my 3rd chilly shower that week.  So I ran up there and when I came home I had to make Chase hide in the bedroom so that I could set up the tent in the living room.  Once I got that all set up I let him free from his prison and we started making dinner.  Hobo dinners (tinfoil dinners) was on the menu, because who doesn't think of camping when they hear hobo dinners.  Which by the way took a lot longer to cook than we expected, haha oh well.  While dinner was cooking we started watching our movie.  Once our tummies had room for more we made our very own funnel cakes that didn't turn out very well.  Haha they still tasted good it was just a pain to cook.  So even though things didn't run smoothly we still had a lot of fun!  I think we need to have more date nights like it.

Ok so my last gift.  When I got home Chase sniffed me saying that I didn't smell like myself.  I had just been thinking about that on the way home so I chuckled and said yeah that's because I used Carissa's shampoo and conditioner, Carissa's body wash, and Carissa's lotion.  So I ended up smelling like Carissa, which is not a bad smell since she likes her smell goods :)  I'm pretty sure he then told me I should put on some perfume but I didn't.  So later on that night he sniffed me again and said I should put on some perfume, I told him I didn't want to since it was late.  After multiple more comments of me putting on my perfume I finally went to put it on to oblige.  I opened up the door and found my last present hiding by my perfume.  That morning he had hid an iPhone by my perfume with the logical thinking that I would put my perfume on when I would get ready for the night.  Since I didn't get ready at home and didn't put on perfume he had to finally pretty much force me to go find my last present.  After finding the present I had to ask him if he still wanted me to put on my perfume :)

So that was our Valentines and I loved everything about it!

Vacation needed

It's weeks like this one that I feel the need to be on a vacation!  Oh how I wish that I could leave work behind me, board a plan and go somewhere refreshing for the soul and mind.  I'm a day dreamer and lately I've been day dreaming of being on a warm beach!  Somewhere kind of like this.......

I think I could handle that.  

Other places that I would love to visit that isn't summed up in one word like BEACH, would be Ireland and Germany.  Of course there are many other places in the states and outside of the states that I would love to visit too but right now I'm not dreaming of them. 

So why Ireland and Germany you ask.  Simple.  I've always been fascinated with Ireland.  I love how green it is and of course the movies make it look lovely too.  Oh and who could forget about the accent.  Sometimes I day dream about raising my kids in Ireland or England just so they can have the accent :)  Germany because Chase served his mission there.  After looking at pictures of Germany I can see why he loved it besides the fact that the Porsche factory is there.  Remember a couple summers ago when the mountains were super green and beautiful?  Yeah well he said Germany is always that green in the summer.  What can I say I'm a sucker for vibrant landscape.

Germany

Germany

Germany

Ireland

Ireland

Ireland

I'm sad about the quality of the pictures, but I'm too lazy to find more.  I told google only to give me large quality pictures.  They looked good on google but not on my blog, go figure.  

Now hopefully since I've looked at so many pictures today, I'll dream about being on vacation.  Maybe that will help my itch of wanting to be on a real vacation :)  Doubt it, but it's worth a shot!

Working from home

Did you know that working from home is not all that bad?

A couple months back my work was trying to get a bunch of people to work from home.  I had never really given it much thought beforehand.  So when I told my manager that I was thinking about it she strongly encouraged it.   She told me that it would be really good for me to work from home. You see, she thought a lot of the issues I was having was because I talked too much, so of course I'd do better at home right? :)  I will be the first to admit that, yes, I like to talk to people, but I personally don't think that talking was causing all of my problems.  Anyway, when I told Chase that I was thinking about working from home he worried that I would go crazy without being around people.  I too worried about that but we decided that I'd never know unless I tried.  So here I am working at home and I actually love it.  I'm surprised myself :)  I think what saves me is that I told Cierra we had to work out each morning before work.  We did pretty good but still have work to do :)   In other words, we both have a really hard time getting out of bed!

Even though some mornings it's made me really tired, it gives me the opportunity to get out of the house and be social.  Hopefully that's enough social interaction so I don't go crazy being cooped up inside all day by myself.

Ok so the story of getting my office furniture:

Since I was going to be working from home we had to get a desk and chair.  I tried buying a desk from some guy on ksl.  His desk had been listed for a week which to me meant go ahead and ask for a lower price than its listed for.  So I offered him half, mind you be was only asking $50 anyway.  So I offered expecting him to counter offer with a different price.  Nope he didn't.  Instead he started off by calling me a dude, uh I'm not a dude, I'm a dude-ette doesn't he know better, sheese.  We'll anyway he told me that even though its Provo his asking price was reasonable.  Bad idea buddy.  I was already in a bad mood, so I have gave him a piece of my mind.  So since he pissed me off and Chase and I were so sick of shopping for chairs and were starving, we decided to just buy this little desk we found at staples.  So with my chair and desk both being on sale, we were able to get them both for under $150.  Yeah for shopping deals, boo for how cranky it made me.

I work in our storage room haha.

So if you ever stop by my apartment during the day and see my car in the parking lot but I'm not answering the door, it's because I'm working.

Snowbird

Crazy or not somehow Snowbird always makes its way into our year.  Which we don't mind at all.  Snowbird is pretty awesome.  Maybe they should pay me or something for dedicating this post about them.  That would be nice, but I know I'm dreaming.

Anyway since Chase and I have been together we've tried to make our way up to Snowbird each year for Oktoberfest.  We haven't always made it, but it's been fun to go.  It gives me a little taste of "all things" German.  I say "all things" because I know that I'm not getting a true feeling of all things German.  I think I would need to go to Germany to truly experience it.  Maybe, hopefully, wishing that one day we'll get to go.

This is right down the street from an apartment Chase lived in during his mission.  Oh and I don't claim this as ours, I found it on pinterest one day.

You are probably wondering what do you do up at Oktoberfest?  Well first things first you find a place to park in their jammed packed parking lots.  Luckily they have a bus that will take you from your car to the fun.  Lets just say parking is crazy, but don't let that scare you away.  The activities, on the other hand, consist of drinking beer (or in our case, root beer), eating yummy food, like brats, waffle on a stick dipped in chocolate, candied nuts, and I'm sure lots of other things we didn't have.  Other activities are the zip line, the alpine slide, riding the lift up to the top of the mountain, going through all of the booths, a rope jungle gym thing for kids, and last but not least live entertainment.  Oh and drinking more beer.  I'm kidding it's not that bad.

Each year we've done something different and have always enjoyed ourselves.  The first year we rode the lift up to the top and froze our behinds off.  It was so cold!  We didn't have a jacket and were in lederhosen.  It was funny wearing our lederhosen because we got some funny looks from people.  I don't know why, don't they know that it's normal German attire, well maybe not for me but for the boys it is. This year we just ate food, walked around to the booths and enjoyed each others company :)  Chase wore his lederhosen and I left the other pair at home.  They are a little short and I didn't have time to buy leggings to go underneath. 

This is an old photo but this way you see us both in lederhosen :)

Next up on Snowbird's fun activities, family movie night.  This was a blast!  I mean seriously who wouldn't want to watch a movie outside in the summer in the mountains.  We made this activity into a double date and enjoyed our company.  They were really sleepy :) and I think they slept pretty much the whole movie, haha.  That's alright we can forgive Chelsea because she had just gotten back from London.  Todd on the other hand, we don't know his excuse.  Don't worry though because when they were awake they were a fun couple to hang out with.  After we had dinner we drove up to Snowbird with a bunch of blankets and started our journey.  We weren't exactly sure when the movie was going to start because Snowbird only tells you that it starts at dusk.  Well we got there early, but that's alright.  We found ourselves a good spot, got snuggled up and comfy and waited to watch our movie.  It was really cool.  If you have ever been to Snowbird they have this big open area right by the tram which is where they had the movie.  Plus let's don't forget that were watching the movie outside, awesome!  Even though the movie was weird (the boys picked the Gremlins) it was still fun!  We will definitely be doing that again :)

Oh and let's not forget that skiing/snowboarding is always fun to do up there :)  We've enjoyed a few runs up there as well.

Thank you Mike for the picture

So there you have it, Snowbird is a place that's full of fun activities.  We will be visiting again sometime.

Oh and p.s. if you have to scroll your screen because the pictures are too large please let me know.  Thanks.

Teaching Young Women's

So on Sunday I taught the very first lesson with the new curriculum that we have for the youth.  I was really scared being the first one to teach, since my ward wasn't doing any training beyond what the church website provided I freaked myself out.  How are you supposed to teach a lesson if you don't even know guidelines to doing it.  Luckily my mom-in-law's ward had multiple training's and since she is also in the Young Women's, she invited me to one of her training classes.  I'm so glad that I went.  It really helped me as I prepared my lesson.  Which by the way was a week long preparation not a night before deal like I used to do.

Anywho the whole reason I brought this up is because my girls along with myself made it through the lesson!  Wohoo.  However I do have one regret :(  I was asking one of the girls a question about a scripture we read.  I unfortunately was not articulating myself very well which confused her and most likely made her feel awkward.  It wasn't until one of the leaders spoke up and told her that it's a confusing scripture and it's okay if she doesn't understand it.  Well duh!  Why didn't I think of telling her that!  So to my young women, I'm really sorry that I made it awkward.  I vow to be better and it's probably a good thing that I don't teach again until May.  Lot's of preparing coming my way :)

Now if you are wondering what lesson I taught you can find it here.  I decided to teach on "How can I know my Heavenly Father?"  I loved the lesson and I learned a lot as well.  At the end of class I challenged the girls along with myself to pray morning and night and study the scriptures.  I know it is kind of a tall order if this is not already a habit, but I truly know that if we all make this part of our daily habit that we will come to know our Heavenly Father better.  What a wonderful thought that is.  Who wouldn't want to know him better?  I also showed a video that when I watched it, it gave me the goose bumps.  Which I know was the spirit telling me that the girls needed to watch this video over the other one.  I hope in any way that my girls got something out of the lesson and that they will continue working on building a relationship with their Heavenly Father.
Oh and in case you wanted to watch it as well here is the video.  It's good I promise.

If you need to take anything away from this post take these two thoughts.  First, it's okay to make mistakes as long as we can recognize and learn from them.  Second, we need to come to know our Heavenly Father better and some of the best ways to achieve this is by praying to him and studying the scriptures.