Day 341, January 25th

So I spent my lunch hour on Wednesday trying to get Lolla in tip top shape.  I found Mad Hatter Mufflers & Brakes thanks to an old friend, and they told me they could fix Lolla up for a small cost. We headed over there, got fixed up, then immediately headed back to emissions where I'm happy to report we passed!! It was a stressful couple of days, but glad to be safely back on the road.  It's times like these I wish I had a new car, but then I think that really I just spent a car payment to fix her up and now we're good to go, so I quickly get over that desire.

Day 340, January 24th

Tuesday was a pretty hectic day.  Ryan and I are going to Mexico this weekend, and out of the two cars, mine runs best.  Well, anyway, I needed to get my emissions done before the end of January, and my check engine light has been on for probably about a year.  Car people, don't get on me about that, it was running fine.  Anyway, as it turns out, I needed a new Catalytic Converter, which, yes, made me fail my emissions test...talk about embarrassing. 
Well, so as my mechanic told me it would cost me $2000 I had a mini meltdown, called my mom, who helped me find a place that did used catalytic converters.  As I wasn't totally out of the woods yet, I stressed all night, per usual for me, wondering why Lolla would turn on me after all our years together.  Even though I stressed all night long, our children did not.  As I went on and on about my car, these two didn't seem to have a care in the world...sometimes I wish I was a cat.

Day 95, May 24th

Oh being a grown up...Ryan and I have been trying to figure out a good life insurance plan for us since we got married.  Does this mean Ryan is slowly killing me by slipping me something each dinner and wants to make sure he's covered? Maybe, but who's to say I'm not doing the same?!?!
Our luck now is one of us will pass away and some one will reference this blog post and think that one of us is a murderer!! 

Anyway, on Tuesday, we signed our final paperwork for our life insurance and we are now officially covered! I didn't really see the point in having life insurance since if we are like Noah and Ali and die together when we are old, which will most likely happen, we will have just put away all this money for nothing!! But to my surprise, there are so many options to life insurance! I learned so much, it's wild what other people know that I know nothing about!!So now we are responsible adults and I can go on worrying Ryan is plotting my demise! Just Kidding.

Day 32, March 22nd

 Tuesday, JDRF had a research update at Paradise Valley Country Club. Ryan came out to hear the updates and probably a little to have some free food and drinks!! :) I thought the research update would be the highlight of our night, we didn't head home until almost 9, so really what else could happen tonight I thought...
Well, Ryan's birthday was 3 weeks before the wedding, which is also like 3 weeks after Christmas, it also happened to by The Promise Ball on his birthday weekend, so honestly, it didn't fall on a good time this year.  
With trying to have enough money to pay for the wedding, I gave Ryan an IOU for a beach cruiser, well now that we are back from the honeymoon, I'm no longer buying things for the wedding, I have money again, and so I ordered his bike a few weeks back.  When we got home from the event, the box was on our porch!! Ryan and Gus worked to put the bike together as Max and I watched.  In under an hour, Ryan had his sweet new ride put together, so he went for a quick night ride and then headed back in, exciting end to an otherwise normal day!

Day 29, March 19th

Today is our one month anniversary of being a married couple!! Since I changed my license over today was also the day that we got joint bank accounts, another exciting occasion!! 
We got ready and headed out for the day, we went to La Grande Orange for breakfast, it was Ryan's first time going, which when I find out things like this, I question how I ever could have been paired with such a deprived individual!! After breakfast we headed up the road to the bank to join together our revenue and expenses.  That was quite a short process, shorter than we thought, and we were heading over to see our friends for the day so we made a quick detour to pick up Ryan's new ring, as his first ring was too big, to give the group time to prepare for our arrival!!  We headed over to see the group, none of which said Happy Anniversary to us, so I was pretty much over them right away! :) We decided that since it was such a lovely day we should head out and hit a patio bar.  We went to RnR  which I've been wanting to go to for some time!! We ate a bite there and had a few drinks.  I got the Bloody Mary which was amazing and had a slice of bacon in it which only added to the awesomeness.  After RnR we headed over to Patties to watch more of March Madness and do more chillaxin.  I loved this place, I got like 6 drinks for $25!! We didn't take any pictures during the day, which I really need to get better at!! Especially since I'm doing this blog, I really need to step up my game.
After we bounced from the group we went home to get dolled up for our evening.  Ryan took me to J&G Steakhouse to celebrate (or did I take him out?! The questions of life with one bank account!) and we had a wonderful time.  The meal so delicious and the place was amazing.  They serve their sides in mini cast iron skillets, which we own, so now I have cute ideas for serving side dishes! We had a great night, reliving all our memories of married life, haha.

Day 28, March 18th

Friday morning, I started my day at the DMV switching over my name on my license.  I wasn't too pumped for this because I really liked the photo on my license and I didn't want to risk getting a bad picture that I will be stuck with until I'm 65!! The line was about what it was at the Social Security office but the wait was a bit longer as my category was only being called by one person.  I got my new license and got ready for the photo, then bam it was done!! When I got it back I was disappointed that my shirt isn't showing, it's just a creepy close up of my face, why did I spend so much time making sure the top of my shirt was cute?!?! It did feel good to get the big two changes out of the way...now I need to get my passport changed over!! 
On Friday I also had my last birthday celebration for the month.  Sad face!!  Ryan and I met up with my family on my dad's side for dinner at Arriba.  Wow, we really do eat Mexican food a lot!! Not like I'm totally surprised, but when you put it out there, it's sort of like whoa.
So we spent the evening with the family, talking about this very blog here, our honeymoon, since this was the first time we had seen most of the family, and about my sister's new beautiful floor!  My dad and Sara got us the rest of our dining set, so that was exciting, they also got us a beautiful teapot cookie jar that I wish I took a picture of, although when I re-gift it, then the surprise will be ruined if you knew what this beaut looked like. 
I was having Ann take my picture for the blog when the waiter came to sing to me, which startled me, which resulted in quite an awkward photo. I was not okay with this depicting the day though, so I made her redo it..yay birthdays!!

Day 25, March 15th

So on Tuesday, I started my journey of no longer being Rivers, Rios, Miss. Rivers, S Rizzle, the Rivernator (no one called me that last one, but I always wanted them to).  Gave up my oh so easy to pronounce name for one I'll now always have to spell out, or tell people what it rhymes with.  Ryan wasn't with me on this journey, but I figured this would count since I was changing my name to his name, so this is what I took the photo of for today.  The social security office opens at 9 a.m., I thought I'd be smart and get there at 8:50 or so and beat anyone else.  My oh so clever thought was also had by 30 other people who were already in line when I arrived.  I stood in line for honestly only about 12 minutes, got to the security guy, told him I was there to change my name, and he told me to go to the door behind the building, second floor...blast! wrong line!! Maybe I was the first person to arrive then for the line I was actually supposed to be in! I scurried over to where I was supposed to be and sat patiently for only about 10 minutes! Went over to the lady, who shredded my identity before I had a chance to fight for it back and bam!! new last name!! Everyone made me think this would be an exasperating process, when it really wasn't, besides my wrong line hang up.  So by 9:30 I was on the road back to work! The rest of the day was pretty status quo, worked on curing diabetes and then headed home.  My mom and Rick were stalking our neighborhood at Gallagher's so we met them there for dinner and got my virus free laptop back after months of separation!! Lovely little Tuesday.