brandon and shaina

OUT OF HERE!!

2011-05-02T08:28:00.000-07:00

Good bye drury New Mexico, and hello Florida and luxurious beaches of Bahamas! I am so super excited for my trip! I am on my way today and will have to come home in a week. Once I am home, I will share pictures and thoughts of our wonderful getaway!

Until then....

...VACATION...

2011-03-17T03:15:00.000-07:00

Brandon and I are ready for a vacation! So, we are going on vacation, but not together. Crazy right! We have not been to anywhere but to Cruces, twice, since we got married 6 months ago! My oldest twin sisters decided to take their families on a Disney Cruise to the bahamas and we were invited, but Brandon asked "What 23 year old wants to go on a Disney Cruise?" Uh, ME guy! I mean, come on, it's the Bahama's and Sunny Florida! So I am super excited for this vacation and it's almost time to go! Brandon gets to go to Denver to see his brother who he doesn't get to see very often. He is also very excited to go on a vacation. They have a lot of plans which include playing golf, golf, and MORE golf! Needless to say, we are both ready for some much needed time off away from work so we can both bask in sunshine.

We have also been thinking about where we would like to go on our next adventure together for our anniversary. I know that it is still a little early, but come on, you have to plan ahead if you want to go somewhere fun!

I am going to meet my mom and hopefully a few of my sisters in Albuquerque for some much needed bonding time. It is just Albuquerque, but it is very exciting for me since the only shopping I have is Walmart and a few mom and pop shops. Not so much enthusiasm about that.

I do not have any pictures to post because quite frankly, not much excitement has been happenin around here. But, more to come soon hopefully.

Picture Request

2011-02-03T23:08:00.000-08:00

Here are some wedding pictures I was asked to post in order to be able to view them bigger. ENJOY!

My wonderful hubby.

The guys.

Our outrageously fun party.

The whole fam damily.

SNOW, SNOW, and.... MORE SNOW!

2011-02-02T23:16:00.000-08:00

So Monday night was a very snowy night. While at work, I watched on the cameras as the snow came down and knew it wasn't going to stop. Before I had gone to work that night, there were just flurries in the air so I drove my little car who we call snowflake because she is white and in our town, there are lots of real snowflakes. Literally now-a-days. So as the snow kept falling through the night and as morning came I listened to the day shifts stories of how bad the roads are. For some reason, our "village" only plows the two main roads, which gets you nowhere! So, I knew I had no choice but to call Brandon to come pick me up. Boy are we lucky to have the Explorer or else we wouldn't be able to get anywhere. Once we got home, I went to bed and Brandon got to pretty much stay inside since the snow would never stop! It was craziness when I woke up. There was at least 8-9 inches of snow and it was still coming down. So, we bundled up and went to clean around the Explorer and our stairs and a little bit of our drive. The temperature has been dropping like crazy here too. Tonight, Wednesday night, when he was driving me to work, was -21 degrees! I don't think I have ever seen weather like this!

So, poor snowflake, does not get to come home for a couple of days. She is snowed in with about a foot of snow now all around her. It is literally up-hill both ways to our mountain house so she gets to stay parked in the hospital parking lot. I had to brush off some of the snow off of her so the snow plow could see her. Wouldn't want her to get swept away. LOL.

Here are some pics of our beautiful (but awful to drive in) wintry-weather

Visitors

2011-01-16T09:08:00.000-08:00

This past weekend my parents made it to see us along with Kambree and Paige. We had a great time, but the time went by too quickly. I showed them my little town and where we work. There isn't a whole lot to do, but we still had a great time.

Here are a few pictures we got of the girls with my friends that come see me every evening. They were pretty excited to see them this close.

I think these deer might be Jewish, because they really loved my Jewish Rye bread.

When the buck came to join his friends, Paige came running in to tell us "There is a huge elk out there! Seriously! Come see!" So this is her "elk". Funny girl.

I think the girls had a good time while they were here. When they left, Brandon had made the comment that he had no clue kids needed so many things to keep them busy since the girls brought all sorts of toys and games with them. Boy does he have a lot to learn. ;)

Thanks Mom and Dad for coming to see us. I know it was a long trip here,

but we really enjoyed your company! Also thanks for the awesome scarf mom, I love it!

(P.S. we like all sorts of company. So feel free to come shack up with us anytime.)

Christmas Morning

2011-01-06T01:04:00.000-08:00

Brandon and I had a great Christmas this year. It was a little weird just being by ourselves, but we had a great time. I actually got the morning off, but had to be at work by 3 that afternoon. Here are just a few pictures of how our morning went....

I got spoiled with some new shoes from Bran, a kindle, a clarisonic and other great things.
Brandon put some Peanut M&M's in my stocking.
I got a kick out of it, cause if anyone knows my mom, she has a very serious addiction
to these things. I guess we are going to start the tradition.

Brandon also had a great morning. He got some much needed clothes, a sweet range finder,
new shoes, and a neat carving knife thingy for when he goes hunting.
We also got this nice Bluray player and a GPS.

I had to have a fire for the perfect atmosphere.

And Santa came and brought us lots of fun gifts!

Elk Hunt - October 2010

2010-12-21T12:55:00.000-08:00

This year Brandon put in for the bull elk tag and a buck deer tag here in the Ruidoso area. To our surprise, he drew both! He was really excited for these hunts and they were going to be at the end of October and beginning of November. His dad also drew for a buck deer tag in between Brandon's hunts here in our area as well. The elk hunt was first and for months leading up to the hunt, Brandon would scout and scout. Thankfully we live in the mountains and the land to hunt is only about 20 minutes from our house. Marty came to help Brandon with his hunt and at 5:30 on a Saturday morning, they headed out to the woods to start their hunt while I went to work. We anticipated elk hunting being really difficult since Brandon had never really seen a bull in the area for a very long time, but 4 hours into the hunt, DOWN HE WENT! Brandon called me at the hospital super excited letting me know he had shot a 5 X 5. It was a very exciting day for all of us. Since High School Brandon has not been able to go on a hunt since college and working always got in the way, so I was very excited for him to have this chance and to kill one! The hardest part of the day was upon them and their own legs. He had shot the elk in a canyon and they had a one and a half mile hike back to the truck packing out the elk. Brandon called one of his friends for help and he brought a four-wheeler with him. Thank goodness, or else they would have been there all day and all night. We have decided that for next season we will look into getting our own ATV, only that will require an upgrade of our house. I guess we will see.

So here are the pictures of the famed elk. Brandon is getting it made into an European Mount. (I have had to learn a lot about his hunting thing, LOL)

He made a great shot. I have to brag a little bit because he had not shot this gun in a long time since it was at his parents house.

This is around our condo. We are surrounded by pines!

Good job Bran! Now we have elk meat galore to enjoy!

Highlights of our Honeymoon

2010-12-14T14:34:00.000-08:00

So like I said, I would post some pictures of our honeymoon. We had an awesome time in Las Vegas and plan on going back in the spring sometime. We stayed busy the entire week we were there and got to see so many things and made lots of great memories. When we arrived to our hotel at The Mandalay Bay, we got upgrade to THE HOTEL at Mandalay Bay. It's a separate very modern, high class hotel and boy did we enjoy it! It had two bathrooms, and a separate living room with two big screen TV's. It was amazing. We also took advantage of the Wave Pool and the Lazy River. We didn't get to be very lazy in the river because the darn tubes were $16! So we just swam around it. That was some awesome exercise, let me tell ya. The first day we started walking the strip was really fun just to watch people and listen to them. We passed a few girls who looked like they had had a wild night and were walking with their suitcases. One girl was on the phone telling whomever that they had to walk to the airport because they only had $20 between the two of them so they couldn't afford a ride. We sure did get a kick out of listening to her. They were going to have a long 3 mile walk to the airport, LOL.
So here are some pics,

Our shuttle ride to the Mandalay Bay

The entrance to the Paris Experience. It was so super high, but incredible to see all across Las Vegas.

The GIANT margarita at Margaritaville. Just grab a straw and enjoy, j/k. But I would sure swim in it!


We had a little bit of fun with our chances. We didn't spend too much money, maybe that's why we weren't so lucky.

We also saw the Pirate show at TI, went on the New York New York roller coaster, which was really fun, went to Madame Tussaud's wax museum (which we highly recommend) and went to The Tournament of Kings.

It was an awesome week and we enjoyed it to the fullest. The next time we go we will be able to see the things we didn't have time for this trip. We loved VEGAS!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

2010-12-07T12:52:00.000-08:00

Brandon and I were able to finally have a day off together (which has not been able to happen since our Honeymoon!) and do all of our Christmas shopping. We decided to go to Las Cruces for the day and boy did we shop! We had so much fun together, Brandon kept saying he didn't know what to say to me because we haven't spent a day like that together in a long time. We also realized that we really miss Las Cruces, but living there just isn't meant to be. On our wonderful shopping excursion, we also stopped by to get a real Christmas Tree. We have never had a real tree and the artificial one we do have is in Farmington, along with many of our other belongings. We were super excited to have a real tree and once it was bought, into the Explorer it went. We got to enjoy the wonderful scent of our Fraser Fir 6 ft. tree for the 2 hour ride home. When we got home, we realized how exhausted we were from being on our feet all day long, and with me wearing high heeled boots all day, my feet were aching! But.... the tree had to be assembled! So, we set it all up and got it decorated, and WALAH! a BEAUTIFUL CHRISTMAS TREE! We are now very excited for Christmas to come but also bummed we won't be around family for the holiday festivities. My brother called to invite us to the Annual Ping Pong Tournament and dinner, but I had to sadly decline the invitation since I will be working the Holiday. Even though we won't be around our family for Christmas Eve and Christmas day, my parents are supposed to make a quick trip to come see us which will be super fun. I miss my mom especially since it is the holiday season and she calls to tell me all the fun things she is making or doing. Thanks mom, for rubbing it in, lol.

Happy Holidays to everyone! Hope this Christmas is a great one!

Christmas Tree finished and looking beautiful.

"I Do" Vow to Blog

2010-12-06T21:09:00.000-08:00

CAUTION: LONG POST AHEAD, DETOUR ADVISED

So I have tried blogging once, but felt our lives were so boring since they only consisted of school. Well, school is now over (YAY!) and now our lives are filled with work! We can't believe how many events our lives have been through this year. First, in May we both graduated with our Radiologic Technology degrees and soon followed with taking our registries which were passed with flying colors! Right after graduation Brandon was immediately hired on with the hospital where he did his clinical's for the entire previous year. The shift he was hired on for, the dreaded graveyards, was only supposed to be temporary but soon turned into being quite the contrary. Following graduation, I was torn between decisions of what to do for income and for the coming summer. The plan was to go home and finish planning our wedding and nanny then move back to Ruidoso with Brandon once we got married. But lo and behold at the end of May, Shaina got hired on at the same hospital. I was not hired on to do the job I had gone to school for, but at least I got my foot in the door and the job eventually turned into a full-time x-ray position, but for the weekends. This was very exciting although we are not able to spend so many days together.
Also this year, of course, WE GOT MARRIED! Can you say finally!! :) After almost 7 years of dating, we tied the knot and had a wonderful wedding with our family and close friends. The day went really well with only a few mishaps occurring, and Brandon begging to have another wedding on our way to our honeymoon destination. He got my raised eyebrow look saying, "seriously"? If only the men knew! I know he loved having his brother there and dancing the night away with our wonderful friends! After the reception ended, we headed up to Vallecito Lake, where his parents recently bought a magnificent house. It was so sweet because his mom and aunt had decorated the railings with white tulle and lights leading to where we would rest our heads. The next morning we were able to take our time and enjoy the beautiful morning, then head to the Durango airport, where we would head out to VEGAS BABY! Now that will have to consist of another post to follow along with many more to come on these wonderful events!

As you can see, we have had a very busy year this wonderful year of 2010. We are looking forward to 2011 and to the events that will take place along with growing in our relationship and marriage. Thanks for
reading....

Our FANTABULOUS bridal party!

Seconds before riding 'The Big Shot" and Shaina screaming for all of Vegas to hear. Hee Hee