Flight Fiasco (Delta, I DESPISE you)

Ok..so this is old news seeing as it happened a week and a half ago, but I just need to vent! And that's what blogs are for every once in a while, right?! (Warning: Long rant!) So I had a fabulous week long vacation to Pennsylvania to see the world's two cutest kiddos, but the ending to my trip left a BAD taste in my mouth for the entire state (I might be exaggerating, but probably not). So my sister, the two kids, and I left their house at 11:15ish am to make the over 3 hour drive to the Philadelphia airport. We stopped in Hershey for a short shopping break and some lunch, then continued on. Tom Tom (GPS) took us on kinda a crazy route to the airport through lots of cities and things. So I started to get a bit nervous that we weren't going to get to the airport on time. My flight was to depart @ 5:29pm. We finally pulled up to the drop off at 4:40, said our tearful goodbyes, and I thought all was well. I went to the stupid Delta electronic check-in thing (if only it had worked faster) to see the heart dropping words, "It is too late to check bags for this flight," or something. I hurry up to the counter to a most unpleasant lady to see what was going on. The current time, 4:45pm. She looks me up and says in oh such a sorry voice, "You can't check bags for this flight. You have to be 45 minutes early to check bags." Are you freaking serious? I'm here 44 minutes early lady...does 1 minute really make that much of a difference? I couldn't even stand to look the heartless lady in the eye I was raging with anger. My bag was too big to carry on so my only other option? Miss my non-stop flight to Salt Lake, pay $50 extra for a flight that changes planes in Atlanta, sit on a plane for over an hour longer than scheduled due to lame weather, get to Salt Lake at 1am (as opposed to my original time of 8:30pm on the non-stop). Awesome right?! All for being 1 stinking minute late...Oh Delta I despise you at the moment. And it will take me a LONG time to get over it. I might feel a little bad for giving the desk lady the evilest glare I could conjure up, and maybe I feel a little bad for chucking my credit card at her to show how thrilled I was to pay the extra fee, but mostly, I feel justified in my actions seeing as "Customer Service" is apparently non-existent in Delta Airlines business. I did save my tears for the security line because I didn't want to give the mean lady the satisfaction of seeing me cry. Let's just say I don't handle changes from my original plans very well. To make matters more fun, I asked my work to put me on-call since I knew I would get home late and only get a couple hours of sleep. So that was the plan...at least until 4:30am when they called me and told me I needed to come in at 6am. The perfect end to the perfect fiasco of a day. But amazingly enough, I survived, with only a SLIGHT distaste for Delta Airlines. Ahh...I feel better already with that off my chest!

Please tell me if I am totally out of line here to have felt/acted this way...but mostly I would just like my behavior validated :)

WE LOVE SHAVED ICE!

Summer CANNOT be over yet! We haven't had enough of our new favorite summer treat! Shaved Ice is sooo good! We like to go all out and get snow cap (sweetened condensed milk on top) and ice cream in the middle! Let's just say that we would go for a snowcone anytime! Yum!

I have lots more to post about but I haven't had the motivation to start yet, but hopefully soon I will catch up!

My man is 24!

Curt turned 24 last Saturday! *I'm a little slow on the update... I love birthday/parties so I loved celebrating his b-day! We spent the day up in Bountiful since his family was in town. It was fun to spend it with his family since that doesn't happen very often. We went to lunch at a delicious burger place (Pace's) in Bountiful, then had snowcones (my fav), then went to Cirque du Soleil, then Grandpa Barnes took us to Olive Garden for dinner (where they sang to Curt against his wishes :), then went to a big family party with Curt's aunt, uncles, cousins, and grandparents (where we had Costco cake..yum!), and the night ended with opening presents. Curt got a couple new outfits, a couple new hats, a bike helmet and a sweet pair of Nike shoes! It was a fun day and I hope Curt had a great b-day!! He's such a wonderful husband and deserved it! (Again, no pics of his b-day...I try not to think about b/c it makes me sad...)

Cirque du Soleil

Last weekend, Curt and I were able to go to see this amazing performance!~It's a really neat acrobatic/musical/circus thing (but since it's in French, I still have no idea on the story line :) ~It came to West Valley and it was so cool!~Unfortunately, we lost our camera and so we don't have any pictures (plus cameras weren't allowed), but we loved seeing the amazing talent that the performers had!

Bittersweet..But mostly sweet!

Happy Birthday Sadie Ann James!!! Our sweet little niece was born August 5th @ 5:39 p.m. She weighed in at 8lbs 8oz and was 21 inches long. Alyssa is my hero! She has had natural deliveries with both her kiddos (I'm pretty sure I won't follow her example but I admire her nonetheless :) She was only at the hospital for just over an hour before little Sadie joined the James family. And you wonder why the bittersweet?? Well Sadie lives in Pennsylvania so I haven't been able to see the precious baby yet. But yes, I am counting down the days till I get to play with my niece and nephew (only 12 days)!!! Even though it was hard to be so far away during Sadie's birth, I'm so happy to have a beautiful, healthy little niece!!

Baby Sadie


Doesn't she look great?!


Cooper loves his little sister


I love this picture! (I need a family picture so Spence doesn't feel left out!)

I'm Nocturnal..or trying to be!

For the past 3 weeks, I've been working nights. I have always been a night person, meaning I like to stay up late...not all night! I actually have enjoyed working nights where it's not quite so face paced (usually), especially since I just started working on my own last week so I feel like it's been a good adjustment. But as far the schedule goes, I feel crazy! I work from 6p-6a and then get home and sleep from about 7a-3p. I have come to find that humans really are made to sleep during the night as I've found that my body is so much more tired working nights and I require more sleep. Even with the crazy schedule I have and only seeing Curt for a couple of hours a day on the days I work (and even then, I'm not very awake and kinda crabby) , I'm so grateful to have a good job! My manager says she plans to have me work 2 weeks of days then 2 weeks of nights...that sounds better to me than all nights so I'll take it! (By the way, don't ask me right now why I went into nursing...Something to do with being kicked and slapped..Needless to say it's been a long night but only 2 hours left!)

Kylee Anne Pittenger

This little beauty was born on July 24th @ 2:58 a.m. She weighed in @ 7lbs 15oz and 18 inches long. Curtis and I are so excited to have our first niece!!!

Congrats Ashley, JB, Tyler and Jordan!! We can't wait to meet her!

1 Year Already??

I think it's a good sign that Curt and I both can't believe we've already been married a year! On Sunday, July 19th we "celebrated" on 1 year anniversary. I use that term loosely because we were actually driving in the car for 8 hours on the way home from Montana. But really, we were just happy to be together! It really has been an amazing year. Honestly, we have been blessed time and time again and we have so much to be grateful for. We have seen the hand of the Lord in our lives constantly this past year. We know that eventually we will have harder times, but we have made so many good memories to hold onto that will help us to make it through the trials of life. We are looking forward to an eternity of anniversaries!!

The highlight of our day (at least if you ask me), eating our wedding cake top...And it actually tasted pretty dang good!

Curt came home with beautiful flowers a couple days after our anniversary...such a sweetheart!

And since we both have a weekend off work in a couple weeks, we're planning to celebrate our anniversary in Park City (since neither of us has been there since living in Utah). It just so happens it's the weekend of Curt's birthday...Killing two birds with one stone I guess you could say :)

Counting Down!

In less than 4 weeks, I will be going here...

Where I will:

1. See our niece due on Aug 3rd, Sadie Ann James

2. Play with my fav little man Cooper

3. Help my sister and bro-in-law adjust to life with 2 kids

4. Hopefully see a bit of Philly

I can't wait!!!

In less than 4 weeks, Curt will be going here...

Where he will:

1. See our niece born July 24, Kylee Anne

2. Shadow a PT for more observation hours

3. Go boating with his bro-in law

4. Hopefully get some golfing in!

Even though we won't be together on our vacays, at least we'll both be gone at the same time (looking on the bright side of things) :)

Cooper Family Reunion

Montana is one of my favorite places. Maybe because I was born there, but especially because I spent a lot of time there growing up. Grandma and Grandpa Cooper lived up Petty Creek, out in the beautiful forest up a dirt road with the creek running right on their property. It's a gorgeous place and I have many memories of Petty Creek. We have a Cooper Reunion every other summer with my mom's side of the family. Even though Grandma and Grandpa have passed on, their legacy is endless and I love how close I feel to them while at Petty Creek. Curt and I were so glad we got to go to the reunion!! We left late Thursday and got to our destination at 3am. After a short 3 hours of sleep, we were off to the lake. We had so much fun boating, tubing, jet skiing and swimming.

The luau that night was lots of fun! Curt and I slept in our tent (it was the first time we used it outside not inside..a momentous occasion) and even though the air mattress went flat, at least it was more than 3 hours of sleep!

Saturday was spent playing Jeopardy (I represented my family and I'm waaay too competitive!), baseball with 2 person shirts (dangerous game!) and eating.

There were probably about 100 people at the reunion and it was so nice to catch up with cousins I hadn't seen in a long time. I'm so glad we were able to go and am already looking forward to the next one!!