April

Not a whole lot happened in April as it blew right past us. Kurt and I did a duathlon, 2 mile run, 22 mile bike, and 2 mile run. Nothing what we expected it to be, to say the least. And we will definitely train on a bike in the future IF we ever decide to do something like that again. In 3 weeks, I will be running the Ogden half marathon, I am just hoping to finish it. A girl at my work couldn't do it, so I told her I would. I am a little nervous because it is so soon and I am not fully trained, but hopefully it will make me more trained for my other half in June.
Work is still going great, I have hit my 3 months, so I get a raise. Yeah for us! Kurt has his finals this next week, good luck on those babe. And to celebrate and squeeze in a quick relaxing time, we are going to San Diego and will be back just in time for him to start the summer semester on May 14.

March

March came and gone. It went by so fast, which is a good thing because that means it's closer to warmer weather. Kurt and I finally moved into our apartment and are loving being on our own. I think Kazi is used to living there by now. Sad though that she doesn't have a back yard to run around in without a leash attached to her. We are still getting our selves situated though at our apartment, there is still lots of things in boxes. I just don't know where to put them. We did finally hang most of our pictures up yesterday, which makes the apartment a lot more "homey." Kurt is almost done with his first semester at the U, he is a really hard worker and I am grateful that I am able to work and put him through school. That way he can focus more on his schooling and not be as stressed out. I am still loving my job, I am getting a lot of opportunities of learning different things about the company and working with different individuals. My days and weeks can be long, but that doesn't stop me from waking up every morning and going. It makes me grateful for the times that I can come home and relax.
Kurt and I are going to be super busy these next 6 months, for we are running a few races. Next week we are doing a dualthon. Which is a 5k run, 22 mile bike ride, another 5k run. So it's like a triathlon without the swimming. We haven't trained much on the bike, but it's just a bike. We will see what is in store for us on that day. In June we are running the American Fork Canyon half marathon with my brother and sister. This will be our second half and we are hoping to beat our first time. And last but not least, we signed up for the St George Marathon in October. We are that crazy. I have always wanted to run a marathon, and we've learned that unless you don't sign up for something, you'll never achieve it or run it. We are also looking at running some 10ks and 5ks along the road until October to keep us in shape. We just hope we don't get injured along the way.
Kazi is almost 6 months old, she is so much fun and so funny at times. Lately she has been peeing in her cage when we leave the house and having to give her a bath everytime, which gets annoying. So we have been leaving her out and so far she has not had any accidents while we've been gone. We just make sure we close all the doors and get everything out of chewing sight and call it good. I think she likes that a lot better than being cooped up in a small cage. Most of the pictures that we having been taking are of Kazi in all her funny positions.

Her green for St Patrick's Day, she did not like it very much around her neck. 

Always wanting to sleep on someone's pillow. 

I moved her from the one position above and she turns around and just flops down again on Kurt's pillow.

The piece of carpet was by the door, and she dragged it over to the sunlight so she could lay on it. 

Finally some pictures on our wall. 

As of Lately

Since the last time I wrote, Kazi has grown a lot! She is very big now, and still chews on everything. We are still working on potty training her. She has her accidents still every now and then. :( But we still love her! She takes over the bed sometimes and LOVES to play with Sugar. 

For Christmas I got Kurt tickets to the Brian Regan show in January. We really enjoyed it and had some really good laughs. I got some really good tickets, they are really close. We did have quite the adventure coming home though. It snowing/raining and one of my windshield wipers had broke, of course it was the drivers side, so that doesn't help much. It was a pretty scary drive home. 

Another thing that happened was I got a job at Verisys. It is located in South Jordan and it is a company that verifys health associated licenses for people being hired at like Rite Aid and Walgreens. I really enjoy it there and it is also a full time job. Which means I am not going to school anymore. I was in school the beginning of the semester and I paid my tuition on the last day it was supposed to be paid. About an hour after I paid my tuition I got a phone call for an interview at Verisys. I didn't know what to do, because it was a full time job and there is no way I could do that and school. Plus if I wanted my money back from school, I had to drop my classes that day. So after much thought I decided to drop my classes and take my chances and hope I would get the job. Things worked out really well and obviously I got the job. 

Kurt and I are moving pretty soon to an apartment in south Salt Lake. This whole month of February, Kurt has been at the apartment a lot fixing it up. It was a dump and the people before had lots of candles which made the walls black and the kitchen cabinets were a little outdated. I am sure glad Kurt knows his cabinetry, because he did a really good job painting and glazing them! Every saturday Kurt and I have spent at least 5 hours there cleaning and making it look nice. It has been a lot of hard work. 

The Kitchen before...

(a little messy) but after

the yucky walls

and yucky family room

a ton of taping! 

That spray gun saved us a lot of time! Thanks Chad!

Bathroom before

We painted all of the countertops, including the bathroom!
We are still planning on doing the bathroom cabinets like the kitchens.

Yesterday, Kurt's brothers and my brother spent a long hard day painting the whole apartment! They did a really good job! We are so grateful they helped us because that would've taken us forever to mask off everything and then paint it. 

More photos will come when it is not such a mess and maybe once we've moved in and have everything situated. 

KAMIKAZI

On the second day of the year, Kurt and I drove to Twin Falls, Idaho to pick up what we have been so patiently waiting for, Kazi, our dog. She is a wired hair fox terrier and was 2 months old at the time. A friend of ours told us about those kinds of dogs and Kurt would stay up half the night researching them and finding everything out about them and just fell in love. They are a little more rare on the western side of the states, but luckily we were able to find one a little bit closer, Idaho. She is the runt of the litter and is so loving. We did have a rough drive home from Idaho. Here she was with new people who just wanted to love and hold her. What we didn't know was that she had eaten some leather thing previously and threw it up in our car. ewe. But we still kept her. The first night we had her, she was fine sleeping in a cage, but after that, she would not have it. So ever since, we have spoiled her and let her sleep in our bed with us.

The ride home

She loved the basket more than her bed we got her. 

Her official bed now

It was really nice getting her at 2 months olds, because she was sort of a little potty trained. We still had a few accidents and still do here and there, but she is doing so good at running to the door when she needs to go outside. Since she is a puppy, she is getting teeth in, which means she is teething! And wanting to bite everything! Other than that, she is an angel and we love when she sleeps! 

Another thing that we think is so fun, is going to PetSmart! While we were waiting for her, we went to PetSmart and got her some food bowls, treats, and a squeaky monkey. She didn't like that as much because it was really big. So later we went and got her a Llama that can fit in her mouth and she can squeak it herself. 

She really seems to like it here, because she has so many friends to play with. At first, she was really scared of Sugar, the lab, but now she loves her and thinks she is bigger than her. I don't know what Sugar thinks, but she is really good with her. 

Her new friend, Sugar

Some funny things about her: she runs like a bullet if ever anything is dropped in the kitchen. At night, she will lick Kurt's face to get his head of his pillow and then she will move right in and plant herself right where his head was. 

Happenings

A few things have happened since I last posted.
1. The week before Christmas, Kurt and I were able to attend his cousins wedding in Arizona. It was gorgeous down there for that time of year. It was a long drive to say the least, but we had fun with mom and dad gardner, Nichole, and Braylee. It was cool to see the Mesa Temple and be apart of the sealing. It was really pretty and it was fun to meet all of Kurt's cousins that I've never really met.

2. CHRISTMAS! Christmas last year was held at the Gardner home, and everyone came! It was really exciting because I got to experience a new kind of Christmas, one without my family. I love Kurt's family and just hearing some of their traditions made me excited! The Pajama Elf comes every Christmas Eve and brings pajamas! And of course pictures are taken. But before that, we all went to Outback Steakhouse and ate some yummy dinner! It was a lot of fun because all of his brothers and sister and families were there and I think there was only one other time before we got married that everyone was in town. It was a wonderful Christmas day.

3. The week after Christmas was a busy one! We had A LOT of packing to do before Friday. Luckily his brothers were there to help load some boxes and a dresser. It was surprising though to see how little stuff we had. I was expecting a lot more boxes. The rough part was just packing. It was so weird to see the apartment empty and with nothing on its walls. We got to Draper on Friday and unpacked everything that night with the help of his dad and brother. For New Years Eve, we were kind of lame and hung out with my sister and her friends, who are still in high school. We played games and did some lantern lighting.

4. School has started. Kurt is taking 12 credits and I am taking 13. The campus is so big! Luckily the buildings we have our classes in are in the same area. It is nothing like Dixie. No matter what time of day it is, there are tons of people all over the place. And the library! Holy Cow! Never seen a nicer library. I feel like I could get lost in there. Combine all of the computers they have at Dixie and that's how many you get at the library. Even though it feels like there is never one open when you go in there. I have yet to explore the basement, and the 5th and 6th floors! Anyway we are enjoying life here, just can't wait till it gets a little better weather.

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving, we were lucky enough to get work off and travel up north and spend the holiday with my family. We had the whole day Wednesday, which was my brother's birthday and all day Thursday. On Thursday morning, a bunch of my family ran the 5k Utah Human Race. We had to be there at 7 am. It was freezing. We cut Kurt's hair the night before to make him look like a Turkey. He sure did run like a Turkey with 23 minutes as his time. There was no way I was going to keep up with him. My mom attempted but soon lost him. I tried to keep up with my brothers the whole time, I think I did pretty good with that. It was a great feeling to know that we ran 3 miles so we didn't feel so yucky when we ate a lot of food. 

My mom and I finished my Christmas candy countdown box. Last year I only had the box, so I made her help me with it while I was there since I wouldn't see them until after Christmas. Kurt had to be back at work on black Friday by 2, so I decided to decorate the house! On Saturday when Kurt did't have work, we put up our tree! We are so excited. I think Kurt more so because he gets to have Christmas with his whole family and he has not had that since before his mission. He is like a little kid. But i love him! We also did a fun little project, we had this pooping moose and we decided to paint him like one of the moose's in park city. I think Kurt did a pretty good job with the design.

Goodbye Dixie

Well it's official, Kurt and I are moving away from St. George. Say goodbye to warm weather in November, goodbye to traffic free freeways, goodbye to Gardner family. Say hello to freezing weather, sit in one spot hour traffic, and hello Mikkelson family. Yep we are moving to Salt Lake City to go to the University of Utah starting January. Kurt is finishing up his associates this December and wants to start the business program at the U. Dixie does not have a marketing program and we needed a school that does. We are both really excited about the move but also a little nervous for the change. It is always such a hassle to find jobs and such, but guess that is the fun in life. It's been a good year here in St. George, and we are going to miss it and the friends that we have made. But more fun and friends are sure to come.