Sunday, December 25, 2011

Happy Christmas!!!


So I know it's been a while since my last post. The reason: I suck at keeping secrets so I've tried to limit the amount of communication I've had with the outside world for the past month... two months.. while. Anywho the reason for this need for secrecy is no longer because of the following:




What my father is reading, in case you can't hear for some reason or if you want to follow along with what he's reading it is the following:
"PricewaterhouseCoopers

Ms. Erin Madsen

November 18, 2011

Dear Erin,

Congratulations! I am pleased to offer you a transfer as an Experienced Associate to PwC's Rockies Risk Assurance Practice based in the Salt Lake City office, effective January 1, 2012."

Yup, it's official. I'm transferring offices and we will be in Utah again. Drew has been accepted in to BYU as a former student and will start classes on January 3. He's going to be getting a second undergrad degree in Exercise Science to bump up his science GPA so he can be a more competitive candidate for med school. I think he's going to apply to med school this year also though just to see what happens.

We decided the middle of October that we needed to move back to Utah and holy cow we've seen a lot of things that show us this was the right decision. Everything has fit together sooo well and just helps us know that we made the right decision. Drew got in to BYU, we're going to be able to live in his parents house there in Orem, I got to have 3 weeks off for Peter's wedding (which was lovely. I have supermodels for in-laws, curse you Peter and Becca ;)), Christmas, moving our stuff, and getting settled. I"m really excited to be here.

So yeah, we did the "we're moving!" thing as Mom and Dad's Christmas gift and holy cow it was difficult to keep it a secret. I suck, as I said, at keeping secrets so I've been dying and seriously stressing out every time I talk to my mom. As you can tell from the video, the secretive-ness was a success though so yay! It was exactly the reaction I was hoping for :)

It was seriously a great Christmas. I went all crafty and made everyone's gifts so Clari, Colton, and Christian all got scarves that I crocheted


and then for Annette/John, Peter/Becca, and Ryan/Natalie I made decorative wood thingies.




And I got an AWESOME gift from and for Drew. He got me an awesome sewing machine and surger so now I have no excuse but to be crafty :)
I seriously look like such a grandma though. I mean, I got a sewing machine for my gift and I crocheted everyone scarves and yeah... I need to go sky diving or something like that to remind me that I'm 23 years old instead of 93.

But yeah, I'm ranting now and people don't really like reading long blog posts. I don't at least. I will update more often with details of once we've settled in and life is going.

Merry Christmas and I hope everyone has a fantastic day :)

Sunday, October 30, 2011

BOOO!

*** It has been brought to my attention that we are bordering on Crazy with the amount of Chester photos on here. It's kind of a sad comment on the excitement level of our lives that the only thing we want to tell people about is our puppy. To make up for this, I will try to keep the Chester to a minimum and try to add more about us..


See!! We have faces! We do exist!


______________________________________________________

So tomorrow is Halloween. Which means that Thanksgiving is coming!! Happy day, happy day, HAPPY day, happy DAY. Bet you couldn't tell that I like Thanksgiving. What's even better than Thanksgiving is Christmas. Cause you get food and presents. What more could you ask for??

Drew is laughing at me because I'm already starting my Christmas vacation countdown. I haven't had a vacation from work since May. Definitely learned the hard way that I should take a summer vacation. As a result, I am very much looking forward to a 2 weeks Christmas break so thank you Peter (and Becca) for deciding to get hitched because that gives me an excuse for a long break. :)

It's been  a somewhat busy past couple of weeks. I had to go off to Dayton, OH for work two weeks ago. I was not a huge fan of Ohio from our cross country trip and I was hoping to have that remedied but no such luck.It was cold. It was wet. It was dreary. I ate nothing but fatty food (not necessarily Ohio's fault but I don't care). I did have some amazing pizza though. And there was a zoo on the loose when I was there so that was kind of exciting.

Then this last week was a lovely trip to Fort Walton Beach, Florida - still for work. It was GLORIOUS! At least the part where I got to be by the beach, especially because my hotel was right on the beach. I mean, this was the view from my balcony:



Obviously the only time I saw the sun when I was there was in the morning when I was getting ready for work and at night when i was getting back from work. And the latter was more questionable since we often wouldn't get back to the hotel until 8:30. But I was able to get up early one day and take a walk on the beach. In shorts and bare feet. Happy. :) 

And then I came home and then it snowed.

Pooh..

Last weekend we went to the Baltimore Aquarium and that was purdy sweet. Drew was like a kid in the candy store, it was funny


and I just got frustrated that the fish wouldn't slow down enough so that I could take a picture of them. It was a sad day because it hit home that my photography skills are definitely lacking. <Sigh>


So I settled on taking pictures of stationary objects like creepy crocs...


... and whatever this thing is..

And now my quick snippit about Chester. Promise it'll be short!!
Chester is officially less of a man now. We were mean, horrible people and took away his God-given right to procreate. Not that I feel bad about that though; I was not a fan of the marking every single thing that was standing upright outside (trees... poles... an occasional fire hydrant) nor the <ahem> other thing that happens with male dogs. Poor thing has to wear the Cone of Shame for the next week or so. It's tragic and yet absolutely hilarious. He runs into walls and chairs, face plants a lot, and has taken to catching the toys we throw with the cone. It's like I get basketball practice every time i play with him!
and his little needle injection site where they had to shave a bit of his arm so he's now bald in that spot



On that note I'm going to sign off until the next post. Whenever that might be...

Happy Halloween and YAY NOVEMBER!



Sunday, October 16, 2011

Fancy Meeting You Here

Well well well... so we meet again.

This is turning in to a monthly meeting. And by meeting I mean monthly upload of Chester pictures scattered with  pictures of random Drew and I stuff... but mostly just Chester pictures.

The agenda for this meeting, Chester sure cleans up good. I mean, look at him before (my cute little demon dog..):



And now him after we took him to PetSmart



I didn't know his hair could be so straight. And now he really is a puff ball on legs. Plus, he now has more of a  'stache rather than a beard and stache.


He wasn't feeling well a few weeks ago and it was really really sad. The Sunday of conference he was just zonked. He wouldn't move much and he just slept. The funny/cute thing was that he only wanted to sleep ON us. He would sleep on Drew's head


or else on my legs..


He wouldn't eat much though, he had the runs, and he was just so exhausted. I felt so bad for the little guy. We took him to the vet the next morning and they said he had an ear infection and they weren't sure what was wrong with his inards. They gave us some meds to help with the ear infection  and some more to help with his.. um... bathroom business. He's definitely feeling a lot better now so hallelujah it's great to have our puppy back.

But yeah, we're rather attached to our cute little guy. I know a lot of it is compensating but hey, I'll take a cute puppy any time :)

In other news here is our brand new-ish aquisition:


And I greatly dislike myself now because about 3 weeks ago when our car was still only 3 weeks old, I scratched it.. really good. Grumble grumble grumble. It was my first day back at the client I love oh so very much <insert eye roll here> and I was late in getting there since we had taken Chester to the vet earlier. The parking garage was really full so I had to pull around in there and I was coming around a corner when I had to pull my turn in tighter since there was a car coming. didn't know there was metal at the bottom of the column I was pulling around and it scratched the back passenger-side  about an inch away from the wheel well and then above as well. oh how I dislike life some times. The sad thing is I think we may have to break down and get it fixed since it's starting to rust a little bit already. Definitely don't have the money to be doing something like that. Yikes. We'll figure something out. I guess Drew and I are even from our car chaos this year.

In other, other news we took Drew shopping with money his parents gave him for his birthday. He cleans up pretty good too I guess :)



Also, I have to give a shout-out. I am going to be an aunt!! I'm super excited and it feels so weird but yep, as of around May 14 there will be a mini-Goodrich roving about. Yay Natalie and Ryan!!!

In closing, Happy Halloween from Chester :)

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Money spent will sometimes equal happiness..

Well, there are just a few things to update about and only a ba-jillion Chester photos/videos to post!!

First thing first, I can't help but note what day today is. I want to write down my remembrances of what happened 10 years ago as it's kind of crazy to me that I remember something so vividly that happened so long ago. I remember I was not feeling well that morning so I told my mom I was going to stay home sick. Don't ask me whether I was really sick or not because I will neither confirm nor deny that I was totally faking and just didn't want to go to school (don't tell my mom!). My mom had gone to drop my brothers off but I could hear her downstairs on the phone as she got back, "Planes have hit the World Trade Center! A second plane just hit." I rushed downstairs to see what was going on, thinking that she was talking about some sort of action movie rather than real life. She had turned the news on and was sitting with disbelief on her face. Pillars of smoke were rising from both towers. I sat glued to the tv all day, from 8 am to 6 pm. I watched the chaos that was going on in New York with people running around, screaming, stuck in disbelief. I saw people falling from the top floors of the towers because they didn't see any other way out. I watched as the towers fell. It's surreal that ten years have passed since this and surreal to think what horrible things I actually watched with my own eyes. It's good to remember what happened and remember that America is strong and can get through.

I have to admit now, it's kind of hard to transition from something so serious and somber to the other things I was going to write about. :P One way to segway: to show our support of America, we have decided to add to the economy by spending money in the form of buying a new car (that was a good transition, right?! :D ). Our car is reaching it's last leg... granted, it's got a feww feet before it reaches that leg... so we want to sell it while it's still worth a good bit rather than putting money into it that we'll never get back. We went car shopping yesterday and I have to admit that I was SOOOO STINKIN' EXCITED. But then we got there and I felt overwhelmed and couldn't believe we were contemplating spending that much money so I kind of got moody was just generally not pleasant to be around. I wouldn't talk for a good 5 hours the first time my mom made me buy my own pair of pants so yeah, buy a car isn't much better. We honestly need one and we're planning to keep the car we get for a LONG time so it's just a matter of me sucking it up.

The main cars in the running right now are a 2011 VW Jetta which is the one Drew is totally championing (http://www.vw.com/en/models/jetta/gallery.html), a Kia Sportage which is the one I'm loving (http://www.kia.com/#/sportage/explore/) and the Hyundai Elantra (http://www.hyundaiusa.com/elantra/). We posted our car for sale on Craigslist just to see if we could get any interest in it and then we're thinking in the next month or two making the big ol' purchase. Scary!!!

That is the most exciting thing really going on for us right now. Chester is getting big, he's up to 10 pounds now! We found out with the hurricane and the tropical storm this past few weeks that he refuses to go to the bathroom outside when it's raining. Dumb high maintenance dog. It makes life rather difficult for us considering when this happened he also decided that he was going to forget how to go on the pad. Grumble... OH well! Still love him and after you see these pictures/videos you will too!

Sleepy puppy!


We learned the hard way how best to puppy-proof the bathroom when we leave him in there while we're gone...

The many emotions of Chester. He's so blasted cute!!


And then some videos :)





Sunday, August 21, 2011

We're All Growing Up!

Happy Anniversary to Drew and I! It's crazy that it's been two years; for some reason that makes me feel old even though I'm only 23. Granted, being officially 23 now makes me feel old. Pretty much from the time I hit 20 it was all down-hill from there. I was going to feel old no matter what.

Anywho.. coming back from that tangent. Drew. Yep, I still quite like him. The past 2 years have been COMPLETELY different than how we had both imagined they would be but i can still say I'm happy with day to day life. We've grown soooo much, both as people and as a couple. It's kind of funny but he really is my best friend and I love being able to come home each night and tell him all about my day and I love that we can talk about EVERYTHING. That's one thing about our relationship: we don't run out of stuff to talk about.

Last night we celebrated since we couldn't really do so on a Sunday. We went to a nice restaurant for dinner (it was REALLY good) and then we came home and cuddled. Drew got me some gorgeous jewelry and I'm getting him a printer/scanner thingy cause he really wants one as well as making BBQ ribs and some pumpkin pie today. I'm restocking my jewelry collection slowly but surely with his help!

So babe, here's to 2 fantastic years! ... and I just realized we forgot to buy sparkling cider like we were plannning. You ok with a Koolaid toast instead?




In other news, Chester is getting SO big! I mean he's still small but compared to that tiny little thing we brought home almost a month ago he's huge! We're kind of getting into a groove and he's doing better about house training. He's pretty much paper trained with the exception of going number 2. With that we still have to watch for his "I'm going to go" signs. There is hope though. We still need to be consistent and eventually this only-go-outside thing will take.

We've discovered that the toys he has the most fun with are mundane house items (I've been told this happens with kids too). I have an old pair of shorts that I stole from my older brother long, long ago. Well, they pretty much got ripped in half because of excessive use so I decided that since Chester is always trying to chew on our clothes, I'd give him one item and let him chew on that. He LOVES the shorts.

The other item we discovered just this last week. It's an empty 2 liter soda container. He will chase that thing all over the apartment. The first time he started playing with it he thought it was alive because it "moved on it it's own" (aka, slides on the carpet at the slightest touch).Drew said he pinned the container in the corner and then sat there waiting for it to move. Below is evidence of his silliness with the container:



As you can see, our little man is still really cute. When he's not bouncing off the walls he is asleep on our laps so we've only got extremes here. He loves people and will usually try to maul them with kisses when we pass them on our walks. It's fun.


Drew likes to rough house with him and Chester absolutely loves it. He likes to attack your nose, hair, and ears. We're working to have that not happen because all we need when we have a baby for him to attack the baby and nibble on the baby's nose. Don't think that'll go over so well.


He's still really cute so I guess we'll keep him :)




Madsen Additions

July 25, 2011

CHESTER!!!!! That's all I have to say. Life has become all about out new cute and cuddly buddy. Holy cow he is so cute. Seriously. Love this little guy tons. Look at this face. I mean, how could you NOT like him?


I know, I've become a crazy dog lady that talks baby-talk to her puppy. Oi vey. I'm not the only one that goes berzerk for him though. I took him for a walk yesterday, just around our apartment neighborhood, and I had 2 cars stop so the people could roll down their windows and talk to him and ask me about him. Then, there was another car that drove past then turned around and drove past again with the driver and passenger ooing and awing over him. That one was kind of creepy but I love it when people tell me how absolutely adorable he is. It makes me proud of my little man.


Drew is gaga for him too. I get texts from him telling me all of the cute things that Chester has done that day. Like being absolutely exhausted so he follows Drew around everywhere he goes and falls asleep on the floor in each room Drew goes in. They are so cute together. I mean, look at this picture of my two men sleeping. Love it.


This house training thing is turning out to be quite a big bite to chew. I'm afraid we aren't very good at it but we're trying! I felt like a horrible person last night because I forgot to set up an alarm and so I didn't wake up and take him out until 5:30. Oh dear. we'll just have to do better.

He was really good tonight though. We got along really well and we went for a really long walk. He kind of pooped out along the way and afterwards he came home and collapsed. It was so much fun. We just chilled together. Yay for Chester :)