My last post as a 20-year old.

It's 11:58 p.m. on May 28th, 2013.

Aka: my last few minutes as a 20-year-old are spent writing this blog post.

Yahoooooooooo!

My plans for tomorrow are pretty much a mystery, Lover Boy has kept it a secret.

I can't wait to tell you all about it though..

knowing that boy, it's gonna be a great day.

Heck, if I just got to chill with him for the entire first day of my 21 years, I'd be super happy.

And also, he said this to me today,

"I'm so excited to give you your birthday presents, but I'm starting to get really scared. Just know that all the presents I give you are just a representation of what you really want. They're just there so you have something that you can return for something that you love, do you understand me? Just a representation. Okay? You have to know that you won't hurt my feelings if you return what I get you for something that you love better. You know? Cuz. they're. just. a. representation. You got me, Rik?"

He's so funny.

In fact, he's out getting stuff right now. At midnight. For me. On my birthday.

Gosh dang, birthday's are the best thing!!!

And 21 will be great.

Not only can I legally consume alcohol, but I get to officially wear my birthday suit for my significant other.

Whoa Rik. Too much info.

Sorry, but now that I'm 21, I feel like I can say grown up and mature things like that.

And are we loving the new blog design?!

B pretty much hated my last one (the green, pixelated "on the reals" at the top, that is), and took it upon himself to help me fix it.

And since it's my birthday and all, it was the perfect time to finish it all up.

Yay for blog facelifts! And yay for a hubby that's tech savvy.

Can I get a "who-rah?!"

And you can add a "Happy Birthday, Rik!" in there if you feel so inclined to do so.

It's a disaster.

What do you get when you put two game loving individuals who love to win under one roof?

Better yet, what do you get when you marry them?

You guessed it,  Blake and Riki.

Aka: Mr. Competitive and Mrs. Competitive

And what do you get when the Mr. and Mrs. decide to play card games together until 1 a.m. on a Monday night?

Yup, Disaster.

I guess if we're gonna get technical here, it wasn't ALL disaster.

Like 3/5 fun and 2/5 disaster.

In an ideal world, game night would be 100% fun and 0% disaster.

Like, Lover boy would give me 12 kisses and compliment me on my speedy hands after I win.

And I, being the saint that I am, would fist pump those wins of his and reward his game playing skills with a 20 minute back massage at the end of the night.

However, somehow reality always trumps the ideal and intended congratulatory kisses turn into rage... and fist pumps turn into cards thrown on the table with a dramatic "GOSH DANG IT!!!"

And don't forget the all too common...

"You're such a freaking card stickler!"

and the,

"It's NOT a tie! You lost!"

and the,

"Whhhhyyyy are you acting like a crazy loco....I clearly won."

So you see, I'm torn.

We love games, and we love hanging out.

But we clearly love to win way too much and I can't decide if the resulted contention is worth it.

But actually,

right now I'm thinking about how satisfying and fun it is to beat that husband of mine in an intense game of speed.

And I'm starting to think that a little 'card game competition' never hurt anyone.

And I'm also thinking that until we have kids and we have to teach them that, "causing contention isn't worth winning a stupid game" and that, "being a nice person is more important than winning" and that, "winning a card game doesn't mean you're better than your opponent", and that winning in general is NOT everything...I'm going to continue to whip B's butt whenever possible, and deny him all fist pumps and back massages when he beats me.

And to finish off this post, a loving picture of B and I when we're not playing card games.

So here's to disastrous game nights and admitting the 235th flaw in our marriage on my public blog, lack of harmony and love during a game of 'speed'.
Cheers!

Sorry for the break.

I'm literally laying in bed right now...I'm supposed to be at work, but I just can't get myself to get up!

It has been the craziest week of my life (more on that later) but sorry for the lack of posting....there's just not enough time in the day! All I want to do is lay in bed and snuggle with my man and relax for just a little bit. Is that too much to ask?!

Speaking of my man....yesterday we were getting ready for our 11 o'clock church and all of the sudden I hear him say "oh my gosh! How is it already 10:30?! We gotta hurry babe!" So I hustle my butt and am all ready to go and then I look at the clock and it's only freaking 10:20. Lover boy just looks at me and says, "Ya! I did that for you! Now you have time to eat breakfast before we go! You're welcome!!" I died. Hahaha he's the funniest most crazy weird person I've ever known and I love him for it. Breakfast was 100% enjoyed and not rushed thanks to that husband of mine.

Stayed tuned for some much needed updates on life!

And oh. Here's a pic that has already been posted on Instagram and Facebook. I just love it so much and think B looks too sexy to not have this posted on all possible social networking outlets of mine. I'm even considering re-visiting my neglected twitter account just to put this on there. And MySpace...don't forget about MySpace.

Oh hey.

We're in St. George right now.
I swear, us home on the weekends is a rare thing.
We have big plans to travel and vacay the fetch out of this summer...and so far so good!
Except I got called to be both the relief society and choir pianist in my ward, aka: more Sundays at home are needing to become a priority.
Looks like we're gonna have to take our vacays in the middle of the week from now on...sorry work, priorities.

She's the Prettiest.

This weekend I took Niki's senior pictures.

I'm in love with her. 

And she's the best looking thing that has ever happened to this world. 

Seriously, I die.

Chu chu check it.

We took like a million pics. 

I wish I could show you all of them. 

But I can't. 

Because me, being the non-photographer that I am, spent half the time trying to figure out how to use my camera. 

Aka: half the pictures are baaaaad. 

Not because of her, but because of my bad photography skills.

Luckily the stars aligned and we managed to get some goooood stuff. 

Love that little girl like mad. 

I can't believe she's graduating!

She's growing up way too fast. 

Someone stop her!!

Button Swap.

I think I'm like 5 years too late on this little trend, but I'm gonna give it a go anywho!

If there is anyone interested in button swapping, please shoot me an email at riksanford (at) gmail (dot) com. 

Buttons will run on my page till the end of June!

Thanks peeps!

Let the button swapping begin.

And may the odds be ever in your favor. 

xoxo. Rik.

Backyard photo shoot.

So remember yesterday's post with me and my camera?

Well...as soon as B got home, he grabbed the camera and starting taking pics of me in our backyard.   

My thoughts go as follows...

1. is this vain to post a bunch of pictures of myself?

2. how do people possibly have fashion blogs?! Being in front of the camera is...how you say?...awkward. 

3. I actually like these pics, so I'm just gonna post them without thinking too hard about it!

So here I am! 

And here's our backyard. 

Thanks for the pics, lover! 

And don't forget the self-timed photo at the bottom. 

Top quality right thurr. 

Details of our home.

Today while I was waiting for B to come home from work, I found myself snapping pics of the love shack.

Since spring has sprung and it's finally starting to warm up,

I can feel my love for all things bright and flowery intensifying. <----- is that a real word?

 Nice dust on the table, eh?

No lie, I love coming home and opening the blinds to let the sunshine brighten up the house. 

Aaaand...there are dandelions covering our back yard. 

On the reals, I love them. 

I think they are so pretty. 

Pretty?! Pretty. 

Check it. 

And here's the outside of our casa.

 It's just a small little guy, but I love it too much. 

I love the weeds everywhere. 

And the dead bolt that's installed upside down.

And I love that there's no garbage disposal, doorbell, AC, dishwasher, and washer or dryer.

I also love that there's enough closet space to accommodate a 2-year-old's wardrobe.

And enough cabinet space to store maybe a weeks worth of food. 

I also love that the sidewalk that leads to our front door ends in the middle of our front yard before it even reaches the road. 

Seriously. 

B and I love all the little weird quirks that make our first home together unique. 

We've had the best time fixing it up and making it a place of our own. 

I'm pretty positive the Love Shack days will be days that I'll always want to re-live and remember. 

Yup, they're that good. 

So anyway, that lover boy of mine pulled up to the house right as I was taking that picture up there. 

So naturally I had to snap a pic of him too...

Is he not the sexiest thing on planet earth?!

Gosh dang I love that man. 

So there you go...some decor, some weeds, some house issues, and a sexy man. 

All in one blog post. 

That one time we bought a puppy.

Here's a little story for you all.

But first? Some personal info.

I want a dog sooooooo bad.

Like as bad as I want to win the lottery and live the rest of my life giving romanian orphans homes and spending the rest of my time on a private island, type of bad.

Bad.

And great news! I married a dog lover.

So all is well and peaceful on the "we're getting a dog one day" topic.

So the good part of my story goes as follows.

1. We decide we want a dog.

2. I spend all my free time looking up dogs.

3. We find the perfect dog for us, aka: BIG and PROTECTIVE and a RUNNING PARTNER and NOT YAPPY aka: an Akita.

4. I then spend all my free time looking up Akita's that won't cost us 5 months worth of renty rent.

*fast forward 2 months*

5. Found us the perfect little doggie dog.

6. Buy that cutie and bring her home!

Isn't she the cutest thing you have EVER seen?!

We unofficially named her Suki.

Unofficially because I loooooved the name. B wasn't 100% sold. And I insisted on calling her that until he came up with something better. He never did. So Suki it was.

Little Suki got so scared on the car ride home.

Seriously, she HATED it.

Like, wouldn't move a muscle for a solid hour, type of scared.

Like, laid like a splatted dog on the PetSmart floor while we picked her collar out, type of scared.

See??

I swear, we had to defrost that puppy everytime we got out of the car because she was frozen stiff for a solid 20 minutes.

So sad.

but so funny at the same time.

Now...for the bad part of this little story of mine.

To make a long story short,

we had to make a lot of changes to get this little puppy pup of ours.

Like eventually move out and get a new house, kind of changes.

And we thought we were willing to make all these changes because we wanted a dog that bad.

But after having little Suki for a day, it kind of hit us like a ton of bricks that we just aren't ready for a puppy.

We love our life how it is right now, and we want to stretch it out and enjoy it as much as possible.

"Our life" meaning just me and b

and nothing stopping us from a last minute vacation or living in the Love Shack or enjoying a full nights sleepy sleep. :)

But don't you worry.

We'll be ready in a few months, or maybe a bit more.

We still want an Akita puppy pup and have big plans of keeping it for more than a day next time.

Plus, I need more time to bring B onboard with my Suki name obsession.

Bye Suki Suk.
I loved you like a love song, baby.

The end.
Or to stay consistant with my writing quirks today,
The endy end.

Moab wrap-up.

Some things you should know about our Moab trip...

1. My family loves jeeps and Moab. Seriously. I grew up with 3 jeeps parked at our house and one of them was lucky enough to have me as its driver all during my high school years. My dad used to compete hardcore in rock crawling competitions and it was basically a requirement to love jeeping if you wanted to enjoy family vacations, seeing as most alllll of them consisted of some jeeping activity/outdoorsy type of stuff. Soooo...you can imagine my excitement marrying into a family that loves the outdoors just as much as me. Although the Sanford's are more of a four-wheeling type family, and the Laws are more of jeep type family....we are quickly converting each other. As in, my father-in-law has already bought a jeep and my dad bought a truck to pull all the four-wheelers we're about to buy, right dad?! Anyway, point is, I love that the Sanford's planned a Moab trip and brought me and my hubby along. I always pictured marrying a boy who was manly enough to drive me up huge boulders...so I'm glad I got one.

2. Blake was kind enough to let me borrow some of his clothes on the trip. Aka: basketball shorts. Heaven knows you can't wear the same clothes twice in Moab. They get sooooo dirty soooooo fast. So don't ask me why I only packed ONE pair of shorts long enough to cover my new "underwear" (if ya know what I mean). That boy of mine, so nice.

3. One night, Blake took me out on a date. Just him and me. We went to Main Street in our pajamas, smelling like chlorine from the pool, and got us some dessert. B even braided my wet hair and let me sleep on his shoulder while we waited for our food.

4. Moab was the trip that happened right after finals. Sooo....I was planning on it curing my current stress-induced cold. But I think the dirt that got caught in my nose and throat only made it worse. Oh well, it was the best trip ever anyway.

Thanks papa Sanfy for a great trip! And thanks papa Laws for letting us borrow your jeep...our future plans consist of selling everything we posses to buy one of our own. :)