CHRISTMAS PRESENT FOR RILEY!!!

soooo boys and girls.... if you look back a few post, i put up the rules for while Riley is at BootCamp... one of them being, that i am not allowed to send ANYTHING other than letters and the occasional picture. well i was trying to figure out what to do for Riley for Christmas, his birthday, and Valentines day... WELLLLLLLLL i found a loophole! YAY ME

Today it hit me like a ton of Bricks... "Sav" i said to myself.... "yes?" i answered back...
"Why don't you order Photo Stamps.. that way he gets a picture of you with every letter?!"
"Wow Sav, you're pretty Brilliant sometimes... should i use a Wedding picture, or one that Xandra did?"
"Silly Sav, Neither! You need to get some new pictures done." "Oh... what kind of pictures?" "Pictures against a white wall that completely represent the essence of Sav... That way Rye can see that pretty Amazing Girl he left behind everyday!" "ya... i think you're right... Should i set up my Tri-pod or have Phil take it?" "NEITHER YOU DUMB GIRL!!! You're best friend is a photographer... call her up!"

So I called Lauren... AND ARE YOU READY FOR THE RESULTS!!!! i think you are! these are just the pictures. the Stamps are in the mail as we speak! but here are the pictures! AND A HUGE THANK YOU TO LAUREN! You made this entire thing AMAZING. i think you definitely captured everything about me in 3 simple pictures. once again... this is why you are my best friend! The last one is Laurens Favorite one!

I'm Fine..

i think i was all hormonal last night... cause today was AMAZING! seriously... i learned how to play "silent night" and "dreaming with a broken heart" on the piano. Paul-o took me out for a very fancy lunch at the golden arches. then i got to go pick Phil up from school, with Shanae, and ali missed the bus so i got her and Caitlin too. dropped the girls off at home and then took Phil and Shanae to Acting Up. saw some ALWAYS amazing friends! then i was told to get food for the 3 of em... so after going over to Zack's sisters apartment to get my bangs trimmed i went and got a costco pizza for them. i brought the leftovers to Lauren and Dal's house. and me and lauren played Harry Potter on the Wii... now me and lauren have been playing the harry potter video games for probably about 6 years... so it was SOOO MUCH FUN!

now the downfalls of the day... it snowed... which is an UP... except that i almost died about 1935 times while driving today.. and thats no good, cause Rye probably wants me alive when he gets back. so i drove like a freaking 90 yr old woman... but i am ALIVE, my car is NOT SCRATCHED... except for any scratches that existed before today.

tomorrow i'm looking forward to the Acting Up Christmas performance... i think Lauren is going with me tomorrow.. or maybe we decided on Wednesday.. i don't remember. also..... looking forward to a little later this week... i really hope everything turns out like i really want it to.and i really want to finish this winter puzzle i started last night. i didn't get to touch it today... but.... i'm about halfway done...

I'm listening to New Moon again. I love that book. and this is the first time i haven't cried when he leaves... it's like the 10th time i've read it... and this last time i've switched from Team Edward to Team Jakeward.... so don't know what that really has to do with my life... BUT IT DOES!!!! anyway... if you're going to the performance tomorrow... i'll see you there!

I love my life, my friends, my family, MY IN-LAWS, my amazing little nephew who misses me and wants to call me on the phone, My church, my car!, my mostly clear skin for the moment, the fact that Dal moved his truck so i didn't have to sleep on their couch, Josh Groban, and more than anything in the world I love Riley Robert Gardiner, the boy that came into my life in the fall of 2003, and in summer 2004 he stole my heart forever... I love the fact that he will belt Phantom of the Opera and then debate you on the fact that it's not a musical... cause it's Badass... I love that he usually would get out of giving me a back massage so now i'm not missing anything :), I love that he has a different hat for every outfit. and that the Marines will give him plenty of new outfits.... EACH WITH A MATCHING HAT! and i love that he has let me grow into the girl i am supposed to be.

I'm done sulking... he wouldn't want me to be miserable during his favorite holiday of the year! so as long as Lauren and Dallin aren't sick of me... i'm just going to keep busy! i really am fine... i can function without him. i really can. it's just i don't know... it's like the weirdest thing in the world.

SO DON'T WORRY WORLD... i'm going to be ok... thanks for giving me a week to readjust.

-Sav

2:54

I can't sleep anymore... which is wierd cause i've never had a problem sleeping when he was gone before. like when he went for boys time in Vegas last year, i slept wonderfully, i even told him he should leave more often :)
then last Christmas he left for a week for job training... and the only reason i didn't sleep well then was cause i was afraid someone would break into my house... but as soon as i got the Gun out and made should i had a magazine near by and the safety checked i slept like a baby. i wonder if it's just because it's a more permanent situation here... well either way.. this can't be very healthy for me. so as soon as Cat and I get our Military I.D.'s i need to make a whole bunch of Dr. apts. i need to see the Optometrist, and the always fun girl doctor :) and i need to see the dentist.. and on top of all those i guess i need to see if my dr can write me a prescription for some sort of sleeping medicine. cause it's like when i do finally fall asleep around 12 or 1 ish... i wake up every hour or so. and then i'm up for like 20 minutes. SOOOO irritating. so now it's past 3 and i need to get up in less than 4 hours to get dressed so i can drive Phil to school... plus with the snow i'll have to scrape my car... when i say I'll i mean I'll have to make phil do it.. :)

on a happier note... i got to see all sorts of people that i love and adore this week. Lauren (and Dal of course), Collee, Laurel, Jordon, Xandra, Ben, AJ, Pasquale, and i'm sure ton's more that i can't think of. so to everyone who i saw this week... Thank you, seriously, you all made my life bearable this past week. you'll probably never know how much it really meant to me.. even the cumulative 4 minutes i talked to AJ, that was 4 minutes that i felt like a normal person. lately i feel like everyone is staring at me.

My mom keeps telling me i look depressed... I know she is just worried... but all that makes me think is that everyone can take one quick glance at me and know that i just want to cry. and i do. about 80% of the day i do... but i can't because it's not going to do me any good... so i suck it up and bottle it in. thats probably part of my sleeping problems...

I usually feel better when i write him his daily letter.. but since i don't have his address until i get his first letter.. they are all bobby pinned together on top of my tv. and so i feel fine right after i write a letter, cause it almost feels like we're really talking. like i can really vent to him as if he were here... but i see them piling up and it reiterates the fact that he has absolutely no idea whats on my mind. he doesn't know that i just wrote him and told him i had food poisoning last night. and he doesn't know about the conversation with a mean old lady that made me have to choke back tears. or how my stupid little brother had the audacity to insult him by saying he was in the army... WHICH HE'S NOT! or that when i tell some people where he is, that they give me that look of pity, and sometimes tell me he's going to die... since when is that an ok thing to say. i would never ever ever try to tell someone that i thought someone they loved was going to die... i think about it enough already.

and if i didn't have complete faith in God, i would be terrified... but i know that if god forbid anything did happen to him.. it's supposed to.

and so i cry myself to sleep everynight at about 3 a.m. and then when i wake up an hour later and he's not there shoving his arm under my head in the most uncomfortable way, i cry again because all i want is his morning breath... and that sounds totally lame but i just don't want to forget anything about him. i walked in a hollister the other day... so that i could smell him (he wears the hollister cologne) and it's his favorite store.. and I almost wanted to go to the rock canyon bowl with some friends... but i almost feel like thats our sacred spot... we spent probably 200 hours there in high school, sitting on the grass hill and just talking.. and thats where he proposed to me on a snowy February night.

until Riley left whenever anyone asked me who my best friend was, it was the easiest answer.. Lauren... Riley was my husband and the closest person to me, but Lauren i felt was my best friend, who would be there for me, no matter what i needed... with him away though... you start to realize how much you depended on them for.  i mean Lauren is AMAZING! and i couldn't survive without her.. but i didn't really know how much i needed Riley before... because i don't want to sit and vent to Lauren about STUPID stuff constantly, because i would get irritating. but it's like Riley married me, He has to sit through my dumb stories, and he tells me when i smell bad and need to shower... and being depressed like this.. it takes every once of energy to get up in the morning... and shower and do my hair... because i don't want to look frumpy when he gets back.. and NOONE will want to spend time with me if i don't shower...

so this week... i'll be heading up to ikea to pick up a million pic frames and i'm going to cover my walls with happy pictures, of him, and us, and our amazing friends... and hopefully that helps.. and seriously i don't expect anyone to read my entire blog... but it just kinda feels good to empty out EVERYTHING into cyberland where i don't feel like it's bottled up.. or sitting on top of a t.v. waiting for an address.

Alone...

Well on Tuesday i spent most of the day up in Salt Lake, waiting to watch Riley swear into the Marines. there was alot of drama, and problems with everything... lets just say it was a VERY stressful day. the four of us (Rye, Zack, Cat, and I) sat in a TINY room with 4 arcade games for about 6 hours. all the other recruits that were shipping out for all the branches were in another room. but Sgt Worthen worked it so we could hang out until they had to leave. not that it was really hanging out since we were all stressed out of our freakin minds! so around 2 ish... the mess with Riley's contract was figured out... not fixed just figured out, and the boys went into swear in. Thats when it kinda hit me, that i wasn't going to see this man for 3 1/2 months. but for some reason i was still weirdly calm, i wasn't crying or even tearing up like Cat was. But then Rye came and gave me the last hug.. and my eyes welled up alot.. but i still didn't cry.

then on our way back from slc Cat was driving and bawling and we got pulled over... so the cop comes up and asks where the emergency is she broke down and told him we just dropped our husbands off for boot camp and she wasn't paying attention to her speed at all. he then informed us that we were going about 95 mph... but apparently he's either patriotic or he felt pity for us... but either way... TICKET FREE!!!! YAY HWY PATROL... you made a pretty crappy day... that much less crappy!

So later i went over to Lauren's house to try and keep my mind off of things. we watched "The Holiday" doodily doo! and played Wii... and then i remembered why she is my best friend. because she knows when i need to talk about things and when i just need to think of NOTHING... and She's pretty amazing!

so on my way home i looked at the clock and realized that Riley was probably just arriving at mcrd (bootcamp) and i made the mistake of thinking about what he was probably doing at that same moment. I realized he was probably getting violently yelled at and it made me sick to my stomach... i had that lump in your throat when you can barely swallow. so i tried to clear my mind again and not think about him AT ALL (next to impossible.) but i did it and i was ok. i went home and was excited to watch Gossip Girl and unpack my room.

while getting ready for bed my phone rang from the other room and i missed the call just barely. so i checked my voicemail and it was him... the first thing i heard was SCREAMING in the background... and then a series of yes sir and no sir's... and then i heard his voice... cept that it wasn't Riley.. it was not the dopey, happy go lucky guy i married... he sounded scared... it was a 20 sec message basically stating that he arrived and i will recieve a letter within the next week or so with his info and grad date on it. LOVE YOU BYE.... and then a quick click... you could tell he was reading a script given to him, and that there was a drill instructor in his face making sure he said exactly as he was told. It was the creepiest thing i've ever heard in my life... and it all hit me... at that moment it became VERY REAL. I called Cat in hysterics and luckily she had received the same phone call and was equally creeped out by it... but she had cried earlier so for some reason she was kind of calm. i bawled for about an hour while on the phone with her. and she told me that until that phonecall i was in complete denial... i mean until then i guess i just told myself that him and Zack were just hanging out.. i know it probably sound crazy but i guess that's how i was dealing with it.. more like NOT dealing with it.

so Lauren took me out to magelbys for breakfast yesterday which was awesome.. and i hung out with her till she had to go to class at 2 ish... and ever since then i've kinda settled into like a depressed zombie like routine. i mean i respond to people when they talk to me and i'll try to participate in conversations... but i end up just blanking out of reality and just staring at NOTHING for like 10 minutes at a time.. and i can tell that i have this constant look on my face that i never had before... i don't feel like myself... but i'm trying... i guess thats what really counts right... i feel better when i'm in zombie mood during the day cause i don't hurt as much.. i can't really feel the void thats there. but Nighttime is alot worse... i can't sleep.... i have to watch tv till i fall asleep, i wake up with it still on... and during the day i can't eat. i'm not hungry and when i do eat i'm forcing it down because i don't feel hungry at all...

I'll be ok. it's just 91 more days right...

OOO RAH! :) I love my life.. this is just a small blip in a very long and happy life.

Catch up time! haha 8 days left.

ok so i'm BETTER at blogging than i was a year ago... but it's been a busy month for us here.  As most everyone knows... Riley is Leaving Dec 1st for Marine Corp Boot Camp in San Diego... now Dec might seem soo far away... but it's only 8 days.. wow, that's really soon. now here are the rules while he is gone...

I drop him off sometime Tuesday the 1st, a few days later i MAY get a call letting me know that he arrived and he's safe - end of call- from there on out i will be expecting a letter everyday from him(he knows if i don't get one his ass is grass!) and i will write him back. old fashioned style with a stamp that i lick and everything! no e-mails, no phonecalls, no texting, no visits. and then sometime like the 2nd week in march i'll go to San Deigo for his Graduation, tears will be shed and it will be pretty cool. then he gets 10 days leave, and then he'll go for 3 more months of training to the school of infantry.

so i've been trying to get everything together for while he's gone. i have to pack up my room here at his parents house so i can move up to my moms next weekend. Dec 1st is not going to be a fun day. so i'm trying to figure out what i'm going to do. I have to go get my military I.D. with Cat that day. but i think sometime that day i'll have to go see Lauren, cause she's my best friend and i'll probably need my best friend. but i have a few other friends that will be around so i can stay super busy. so if anyone wants to play... i'm probably up for it. call or text me.

well this is kind of a long post but expect another one shortly!

Sav

Cold Season! and Wedding Season!

So as the couple of you that actually read this know, i'm not living with the in-laws. we closed on our house tuesday morning, we finished cleaning out our house that night. and after tears from both me and Riley, we closed down another chapter of our life.

well tuesday, while moving i felt a little trickle of a cold. well yesterday it came full force!  so i've been locked up in the in-laws house because everyone is terrified that i have the swine Flu. well i don't.... at least i don't think i do. So i'm sitting in the nice leather lazy boy, which has been my spot of choice for the last tue days. and i'm thinking about how much i HATE being sick. you always forget how miserable you get. i went with Riley yesterday for a quick trip to the bank, mall and walmart. and by the time we hit wal mart i thought i was going to die! you have absolutely NO energy. and even walking to the kitchen or bathroom makes you completely winded! LAME LAME LAME!!!!

anyway on another note. i've decided that October is wedding season. last year we were invited to about 5 or 6 weddings JUST in October. this year... it's not quite as many but still. this weekend, we have a full schedule.
Tomorrow my mom is getting sealed to her husband at the Salt Lake Temple, so we are going up with them to take some pictures for her. then we have to race back down to Highland because one of Riley's best friends from High School, Tanner, is getting married. Tanner is marrying this DARLING girl Sharley who i absolutely adore.
THEN.... on Saturday i will be cohosting the infamous conference party! anyone that knows me knows that Lauren, Megan, and I have held a party for the annual and semi-annual General Conference! sooooo if you want to join us for Crepes, fun, and the word of God, let me know! we would be more than happy to have you join us! so i hope to see you all there. in between sessions. AND for anyone that went to Timpview... remember those crepes the catering class would sell... the strawberry ones.  well my sister was in the original class that did those. so I HAVE THE RECIPE. and we have been making them at every conference since 2003... so stop by. even just to take a crepe and say hi for a minute! let me know if you wanna join us in provo and i'll get you all the info!

TADA!!!!! MIFI INTERNET!!!!

So Me and Riley are officially homeless... not that i'm complaining at all. the fact that we were able to sell our home in this market is a complete blessing! so while we are awaiting Riley's Ship date of Dec 1st to leave for boot camp. we are staying at his parents house. Now some may be saying to themselves at this point "aww man i'm sorry , the inlaws?!?!?!" but the truth is i absolutely adore my inlaws... yes Ozzy that means you too! so we moved into their house this last Saturday. and then to celebrate... that night all four of us (no ozzy :( ) went to the Shinedown concert... i absolutely LOVE shinedown! and it was a rockin concert. at one point the singer came down into the audience and me and riley were literally 2 feet away. granted he looks like satan up close. he was still super cool and seemed soo down to earth!!! so that is my two cents on the concert....

anyway so the next day i needed to get online for something but realized i don't have internet access anymore since we are homeless :) so Curt (father in law) grabbed his sprint air card and let me use that. so that got me to thinking that since i will be technically homeless for the next 8 months or so i should probably look into investing into something similar. so today i went on an adventure. i remembered talking to Verizon (my cell carrier) a few months back about the broadband options. and i remembered him telling me they didn't offer unlimited broadband. so i went to sprint cause thats who curt uses and talked to them about the options. my mom told me i could get it from sprint, put it on her bill and then just pay her for it. so before i decided to sign up for anything i thought i'd go check verizon and see what they could offer me. so it turns out Verizon offers the exact same thing as sprint. same service and same price. but the cool thing is.....

ok i took off the VCast which was $15 and then with our military discount (which will go up when he leaves) it only added about $25 to our current bill... and i have WiFi anywhere i go! i am my on hot spot!!! so maybe if you're nice i'll let you share my MiFi!
well thats all for today. i have to get to doing some REAL work!

Books!

So after reading the Twilight series like 7 times one of my very best friends Cat mentioned that she had downloaded the Audio Books and was LISTENING to the series on her Ipod... well i thought that was a cool idea because i hate bringing a book to work and then everytime i have to put it down to do something it would put me in a bad mood. so i downloaded the series. this coming after i had downloaded "The Host" back in like march. which is another super cool book. so after listening to the Twilight Saga a few more times i decided i needed some new stories to fill my mind.

So after talking to Riley's aunt Debi about audio books she mentioned that she had an account on Audible.com and paid like $14 a month and got one book a month. .. plus discounts on any others she wanted. so i signed myself up and have falle

n in love with this new trend. it's given me the option of reading books while actually doing something productive. so now i can drive up to see my mom and listen to a book and the time goes by like nothing. AND i'm actually doing housework now. i find excuses to do laundry and dishes so i can put my headphones in without getting too much crap from Riley. so here are some of my very favorite new book finds with

a very quick synopsis in case you are interested.

Twilight

New Moon

Eclipse

Breaking Dawn

The Thirteen Reasons why, By Jay Asher

Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a

mysterious box with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker--his classmate and crush--who committed suicide two weeks earlier. On tape, Hannah explains that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out how he made the list.

The Time Travelers Wife, By Audrey Niffenegger

What if two people who loved each other deeply, married, and faced a life in which one person remained constant while the other slipped fluidly in and out of time?

The Mortal instruments series, by Cassandra Clare

City of Bones

City of Ashes

City of Glass

Clary witnesses a murder while in a club in NYC with her best friend Simon but why is she the only one able to see what just happened. And what do you do when the body disappears into thin air. These three books follow Clary on her journey to save her mothers life, and discover the truth about her that her mother kept hidden for her entire life

So now i've started listening to Harry Potter because i never read them but i love all the movies. i finished the first book a few hours ago... only to realize that the first book is EXACTLY like the first movie... i didn't find any difference... we'll see as i get further in the series though.

I'm also debating whether to download P.S. I love you. because the Movie was one of my favorite girly movies ever... i bawled through the ENTIRE movie... and i don't usually cry like that in movies. i'm also thinking about reading The Outlander... any imput on that book would be great cause it's still way up in the air....

Thanks for reading!

Sav

Here we go again

So my mom has this girl(Kindra) that she sort of mentored when i was in high school. she was in foster care and so my mom would teach her life lessons and such.. take her out and do stuff. anyway the two have r

emained really close. So when Kindra needed a place to stay she moved in with my mom into the spare room. well kindra got married on July 31st. and my mom kind of took it upon herself to put the whole thing together as the substitute mother of the Bride. so the week of the wedding my mom needed someon

e to do the pictures for the wedding last minute. Well knowing what a people pleaser i am of course i agreed. i offered to bring my little cannon point and shoot up and do some pictures for her (I'm planning on going to photography school as soon as i get Riley's milita

ry money so that i can go for free :) ) anyway so Riley decided that since i'm going to need a nice DSLR camera for school anyway we should get me one and i can start learning how to use it before i go to school. So While up in Lehi helping my mom out with this wedding Riley snuck away with my little sister Ali and went to buy me the Nikon D60. he went to best buy and got a smokin deal with a bag, extra lens and

a memory card. needless to say i LOVE IT. so here are a few pictures of Riley, Ali and other

things. these are just me trying to figure this thing out.

Update

so i've decided that i'm going to blog alot more. especially now that i actually have interesting things going on in my life! so this is kind of an update of everything and from here on out i'm going to be better at this! so let's see... whats new.. Well in March Riley joined the United States Marine Corps, thats pretty big news. he told me he wanted to so we decided that was probably the best thing for both of us right now. so he told his best friend Zack later that night while they were on xbox live that he was thinking about joining. i was at the store when they were talking and when i returned home Riley told me that Zack had talked him out of it. something about family obligations... so i was LIVID with Zack and told Riley not to talk to Zack about it anymore and he agreed that was probably best. that we would tell him when everything was official. so like 2 weeks later we had to go up to SLC for Riley to sign his life away. We thought it would be wrong to be up in lehi and not stop and say hi to our bestfriends so we surprised Zack and Cat at their door. me and Cat went on one of our infamous wal mart trips and when we got back Riley informed me that he told Zack. the next day Zack told us he was joining too. he couldn't let his best friend go off and do cool things without him. He said he was actually trying to talk himself out of it when he told Riley not to join. so after another very long week our boys joined the Corps.

So they leave Sept 8th 2009 for 13 weeks of hell in boot camp. i will be moving in with Cat while they are gone so that we are not all alone. our house is up for sale and we've recieved an offer so we are just waiting to close. i really am excited i think it's going to be an adventure. after he's done with boot camp he'll have about another year of training but they will pay for me to live with him at that point hopefully. and then after training we'll go to whereever we are stationed. all four of us are hoping for North Carolina right now so we'll see how things go.

another bit of news is that me and Riley got a new pet. after the whole fiasco with Eddy i was heartbroken. i had the worlds worst dog (literally) and i was forced to give him up. i only had him for 4 weeks but i was devastated i bawled for days! after that i didn't really want another pet because i felt like i failed Eddy. so 3 weeks ago "uptown girls" was on t.v. and i was watching it while getting ready for the day. well if you've seen it you know that Brittany Murphy's charactor has a pet pig. and if you ask almost anyone that knows me well i've wanted a pet pig for years. i even asked our realtor if i could have a pig in the development before we commited to buy. so i don't know what got into Riley but when i texted him a picture of the last little pot-belly piglet on sale at the petstore he said ok. so they boxed up my 6 week old piglet and put him in my car and told me it would take a few days for him to warm up to us. so just as promised our little piglet hid out in his room (our half bath) for 2 days straight and wouldn't let us get close to him. i named him Sam and i wasn't sure if i liked him. mostly because he didn't like me at all. within a week Riley decided that he was changing Sam's name from Sam to Pig... pretty original huh. well he is nothing like what i expected.. i don't know what i expected but not Pig. he loves walks. and getting his belly rubbed. and he LOVES lettuce and oranges. and he's almost all the way litter box trained... we'll see how that goes :) he knows when he's misbehaving and he knows the word Come and his name... we're working on tricks and other things.