Phone Dumpage

^^Blakers surprised me and brought me my favorite donut to work this morning.

For that, I will give him 100 gold stars, and 5 "you-can-go-fishing-whenever-you-want" passes.

^^Becoming a Sanford has introduced me to the life of 4-wheeling and the SAND DUNES.

It's so great and scary and fun and provides a lot of holy shiz moments in my life. 

 

^^May Lady and the rest of my family came to the Sand Dunes with us. 

After May went for a ride with B, she came back and told me "we did JUMPS!".

I was a torn person at that moment. 

Like B, I love you so much...our future kids are going to be ballers and brave and bad aces. 

But also like, please bless our children live past the age of 5. 

 

^^ My friendy Alex who I love so much. 

This is us at a golf appearance with the Jazz...getting all cozy under a tent while it rained.

 

^^We went and saw Wicked with my Bro and Sissy-in-law. 

OBVIOUSLY we had to take a picture like this. 

And OBVIOUSLY the caption to the picture is..."We had a WICKED good night".

 

^^Here we are playing Bocce ball with our good friends Kal and Trav.

I would have freaking won if B didn't beat meeeee. 

 

^^ One of my besties moved away last month :(

Her and her hubby are on to way awesome things, but I miss her!!!

 

^^At one of the Jazz Appearances, I met a guy who works with the ticket sales at Energy Solutions. 

Before he drove away in his golf cart, he asked me what my name was then said, "Great! There's two tickets at will call under your name for the Lady Gaga concert tonight."

I'm like, WHUT. 

So B and I are just stoked to go (maybe me more than him) but we were both kind of expecting crappy seats since the tickets were free. 

Um, no. 

Hello Jazz Suite Box Seats. 

Best night of my life. 

Except that Lady Gaga was completely insane!

 

^^These two just melt my heart. 

^^ We floated the Provo River again this year!

It was so great!

Our tub only deflated once, and I used my handy dandy survivor skills and patched our hole with the gum I had in my mouth. 

I swear, that piece of gum kept our tube inflated the WHOLE way!

A solid hour and a half!!!

B and I were amazed. 

^^B went to his parents to clean up some of his keepsakes and look what we found...OUR LOVE JOURNAL!

That thing is truly awesome.

Better than a blog. 

Yup. Said it.

 

^^It's so hard having church at freaking 9 a.m.

Jk.

Our church is at 1:00.

^^I love little brenna-boo-boo-boo.

(like benny-boo-boo-boo from "how to lose a guy in 10 days" you got me?)

^^ Two words. Swoll mates. 

And Kasey. 

Great. Now I can delete a bunch of pictures off my phone. 

I get that stupid "cannot take photo - manage your storage in the settings option" push notification like every time I try to take a pic!

Argh.

Back To Being The Third Wheel.

Hiiii! Niki here.

So in light of my used-to-be-wedding-date being, uhh, right now, I thought it was high time for an overdue explanation.

If you didn’t know yet. I’m not getting married.

But first, I just want to say THANK YOU for everyone’s support and love through everything! Because, for reals, it means the world to me. 

And I’m super duper sorry for probably making you feel as awkward as crap when you’d ask me how wedding plans were going and I’d have to tell you that I called it off.

And sorry for taking a lifetime and a half to tell you all because I know you were dyyyying for an explanation. jk. But not jk for being sorry if that’s the case.

And sorry mom and dad for using so much of your money on deposits and such.

But on a brighter note, I didn’t send out any invites so that’s a plus right?

Hahha. K but let’s get serious.

People ask a lot what happened, and that’s hard to explain because frankly, nothing did happen. I just got more and more uneasy as plans kept happening. Jacks is a great guy and treated me like gold, but I just couldn't ignore the hesitancy I kept feeling.

Guys, marriage is HUGE.

Like for eternity. And that’s a really long time.

I’m not ready for something like that yet.

I thought I was, but I’m not.

And you know what? I’m okay with that.

So as crazy as it sounds, I’m happy right now. Very, very happy.

I’m happy about starting my major and starting into my second year of BYU track. I’m happy that I get to move in with two of my very favorite people next month and I’m happy I have the best co-workers ever. I’m happy that I’m dancing again and TAing my sissy’s dance classes. And I’m happy that my family has taken it in their hands to be play matchmaker with my incredibly awkward self. I’m just happy. Even as the third wheel again. I’m even happy that Netflix, nutella brownies and my freakin’ rad bro-in-law, B, have become my BFFs.

So all in all, it was an extremely hard, but a very right choice for me not to get married. 

Thanks for all your love and support! *muahh!*

-niki

PS, I have the most beautiful Vera Wang wedding gown, unused, size 2, if anyone is interested!

The ol' man is 50!

^^hey there, mykey! 

My Dadio turned 50 yesterday.
50!!

and we had a big surprise party to celebrate!
Although, I wouldn't call it much of a surprise...I think my mom slipped about 5 million times before the actual party even happened.
Note to everyone: My mom is the worst surprise keeper. (ever!)
hahaha it's so funny to all of us kids.
Like mother, dad is probably NOT the person you want to talk to about regarding all of his closest friends home addresses...he'll probably think you're sending out invitations to a surprise party for him  or something. :)
Anyway, regardless of if it was a surprise or not, we still had a seriously great time.
Mom may or may not be able to keep secrets, but she sure can plan a mean party!
and my dad!

he's so great and I love him.
It was cool to see a room full of people who admire him so much.
What a super night celebrating a super guy!
Happy Birthday, Dad!
You're a 10 for 10 kind of guy and the most selfless person I know.
Love you long time!

Also, I put together this video of my family as a little present for my Dad.
I love how it turned out.
Gets me all types of laugh-y and cry-y whenever I watch it.
Freak, I have the best family.

and a big shout out to Hans Magleby for making the watching of this video possible!

We had some serious technical difficulties last night when we tried to show it at the party and he. was. clutch. 

so THANK YOU!!

Sunday evening

This Sunday was the definition of a perfect Sunday.

A huge steak dinner.

Chatting for hours on the deck.

Eating crap.

Playing outside.

Longboards.

Throwing footballs.

Bikes. 

Neighbors that visit.

Flying the Phantom. 

Fireworks.

Dancing.

Blurry pictures.

and good people. 

Aka: Family. 

Oh and CHURCH (forehead slap)

We even ended the night with a jeep ride up the canyon and getting royally drenched in the rain. 

Sorry if you hate lots of pictures of beautiful people and happiness.

Feel free to stop scrolling like, now. 

^^Probably my favorite picture ever. so much cute. 

Officially a NBA Jazz Dancer!

For some of you, this may be old news.

But guess what you guys?!

I'm officially an NBA dancer.

WHUT.

Still so crazy to me. 

But I've been getting a ton of questions about it, so I decided to just blog about it. 

And hellllooo, this is a big life event for me…it neeeeeds to be blogged about!

So…some background info. 

I've been in this total pickle lately.

I just graduated from college.

Don't have some awesome career yet. 

Want to go to grad school, but can't finish a program in the time before B and I hopefully leave for dental school.

We don't want a baby. 

We can't get a dog.

Fish are boring.

Plants are lame. 

And I was totally feeling lame as well. 

In a weird limbo stage, if you will.

So B and I are watching basketball together one night and I just said randomly, "I should just tryout to be a Jazz Dancer or something cool like that". 

BAM.

We both kinda looked at each other, like YA. You SHOULD do that Rik.

Which is strange because the thought has never, ever crossed my mind before.

But I looked up auditions and surprisingly they were only a few weeks away. 

So I kinda just let the idea sink in. 

I knew I was going to do it. 

It didn't make sense to NOT tryout. 

It's basically the only time in my life where I have nothing spectacular going on.

Aka: I could totally make time for this!

And I knew if I didn't at least tryout, I would always wonder "what if…". 

So I did it. 

And it was the scariest thing I have ever done in my life.

I wanted to back out a million times.

(tryouts were the same weekend as our favorite annual trip to St. George!)

Trust me…I had one too many reasons to NOT tryout. 

But obviously I ended up trying out

and I'm so glad I wasn't a chicken and that I didn't let my fears and doubts get the best of me.

Tryouts were like a week long process. 

And so intimidating at first. 

Imagine walking into a room of 80+ beautiful chicks with insane bodies and perfect hair! 

Scary.

Tryouts consisted of learning routines, performing them in front of judges, insane (like insane!) workouts…I thought I was fit until we had to work out with the Jazz Dancer's personal trainer as part of our audition. Girls were legit leaning over trash cans to throw up…and I was sore for a good 2 weeks after! Anyway, we had to submit videos of ourselves (an introduction and some of our own choreography), get interviewed by some peeps while we were videoed and mic-ed, and some more performing in front of judges. All the while cuts were being made and wanting to pass out from exhaustion. 

On the final day, we went in for interviews, and then performed all the routines we had learned throughout the week in front of the judges. 

I was way way way nervous for this part. 

It was the final stuff before the final cut. 

After everything was over, they told us to call a number at 5:00 where the 2014-2015 dancers numbers would be read off.

I tried to take a nap at home to pass the time, but ended up just watching So You Think You Can Dance instead. 

B was in class, but told me to text him the moment I found out. 

5:00 rolled around and I was too nervous to call.

I didn't want to know! 

I called and hung up before they started reading off the numbers. 

Then I called back after sucking it up and they. read. off. my. number. 

You guys. 

I Fliiiiiiiped. 

Like kicking the blanket up in the air with my feet while screaming type of flipping. 

I called again right away to make sure it was true…and called again (I think I called the number like 12 times to be absolutely certain!)

I hurried and texted B. 

Then ran upstairs to tell everyone but no one was home. 

HA! 

So I just jumped around my house while screaming for a good 5 minutes all by myself. 

I made a few phone calls (which consisted of just screaming I think) and just ran around a lot! 

I was just really really pumped!

After the initial shock wore off…I found myself in bed again. 

I didn't exactly know what to do with myself until peeps got home.

and I was soooooo anxious for B to get home, he was so supportive and excited for me throughout this whole process, I just wanted to celebrate with him.

So I ended up falling asleep to pass the time until his class got out. 

I remember waking up to him knocking really loud on the window then busting inside to congratulate me. 

We kissed and hugged and probably said "this is insane!" about five million times. 

oh ya. We were pumped!

I told Blake at the beginning of the whole tryout process that I wanted to go to Sweet Tooth Fairy after all of it was over. 

"If I make it, I'm getting a sugar cookie"

"And if I don't make it, I'm getting a dozen sugar cookies"

So we booked it to the Sweet Tooth Fairy to celebrate with my ONE sugar cookie :)

Then went to the food truck roundup.

Then to Jamba Juice.

The back home to celebrate.

Oh it was such a good night!

I was seriously just in awe the whole time, like what? I'm an NBA dancer?!

Anyway, it all has been so fun.

We had a video shoot the day after we found out we made it and that was awesome. 

Seriously, all the girls are so sweet and made the rookies feel welcome.

We have our first appearance on Monday at a Golf Tournament and I'm nervous/excited for it. 

All of this stuff is so new to me!

Appearances? Heck, I've never done one of those before.

Luckily, I'm still able to teach and dance at Jive, keep my job at App Raptors, and be a Jazz Dancer all at the same time. 

And I have the best support system that has made me feel so special through all of this. 

Seriously, thanks for all the excitement for me you guys. 

I feel so loved.

And I'm so excited!

So uhhh. Go Jazz!

And come to the games and say hi to me. 

Maybe I can throw you a t-shirt.

Or get you Lebron's autograph or something 

;) 

^^I took this picture on the first day of auditions while we were waiting to see who got cut. I think the sad face is because everyones hair looked phenomenal and mine was slicked back with sweat. Awesome. 

^^ Here's the text between B and I when I told him the news!

Sorry about the swearing!!! (really).

but it actually totally makes me smile.

It was a "Holy Sh!t" kind of day! For sure.

^^Alex and I at the video shoot! She's cute, huh?

^^Here's the piccy they used of me to announce the 2014-2015 team to the public. 

Whatever editing they did on my face makes me look gooooood, right?! Like a vampire off of twilight or something.

If only my skin looked so flawless and perfect in real life. #pimplesgoawayplease

^^ Lucky number 46! I wish I could tell you how much excitement came every time that number was read off or posted. Gosh I love #46.

Hope this all made sense.
I feel like that was a boat load of rambling and stuff!

Camping, what whaaaat?

Oh hey there!

There's so much to catch up on. 

Lots of exciting things have been going on around here and I'm excited to tell you all about them.

But first? camping. 

We decided to go with our friendies, Mitchy and Meg and it was basically last minute and not exactly planned. 

(side note: I know I've never mentioned Mitchy and Meg on the blog, ever. #friendfail

But we do stuff with them all the time and we love them so much. so much!) 

But anyway, camping we went. and it was insane pretty, and just crazy amounts of fun. 

The only mishap we had was someone, someone! maybe B, but who knows ;)…forgot the poles to the tent. (I know…in the video I say "stakes" but he really forgot the poooooles).

I was convinced we were sleeping under the stars for the night with our pole-less tent acting as a nice mattress or something. 

But luckily, Blakers whipped out some sweet problem-solving/caveman skills and with the help of Mitch, a tow rope, sticks, and the Jeep, we had a tent! and we slept like kings. 

Haha jk. *please see end of video for a glimpse into how B felt about sleeping*

You also get a sneak peek of B's morning personality. He's never angry, nope!…just pretty much, silent. 

hahaha it makes me laugh. Conversations in the morning are basically nonexistent in the Sanford house.  

Once Mitch slept over at our house and he and I had a nice conversation over cereal the next morning before B woke up. It felt so weird talking to someone so much in the morning!

Anyway…hope you enjoy these piccys and video. 

And I hope your Monday has been rockin'. 

I always think of this quote on Mondays…

"if Monday were a shoe, it'd be a croc." HA! so true. 

and B's been in class all night.

So, you know…if summer school were a shoe, it'd also be a croc. Like a throw-up green colored croc.