It's been a minute!

oh wow

here I am

nearly 8 months since my last blog post

I HAVE BEEN BUSY OKAY

but I'm glad I'm here now, documenting and such. This is basically my journal, so as long as I manage to be consistently inconsistent and write posts, then I'm happy for posterity's sake. ;)

SO we left off at the beginning of June...a LOT has happened since then. It's going to be interesting documenting our life, since I've organized it around semesters and classes and I haven't paid any attention to anything like that in almost a year (now THAT is a weird statement). So we'll go by chunks of time I guess? heh

JUNE
So I've been working at my same job still--and the summer time is very slow, so it consisted of a lot of "manning the desk". I don't mind, though. It could be so much worse, and I am so thankful for the job and the boss I have! June's main dealio was Girls Camp, and it was the stake's turn this year to plan and execute, so my duties as president was basically to show up and have fun! It had been so dry this past summer that Camp LoMia was closed, so we ended up just having the activities at the stake center. All things considered, the stake leadership did an AMAZING job. They decorated the entire church building to make it look "outdoors", like set up tents, signs, and naked Christmas trees. It was just so stinking hot. But we still had fun! Well, I did for the most part. I tend to put the people I'm responsible for before myself, which isn't a strength when you've been in the sun in the middle of an Arizona summer for nearly 6 hours of the hottest part of the day, so you get heat exhaustion! yay! It was so much fun!

not really. nope.

We went from hiking a "mountain" (glorified hill next to the Phoenix temple) early in the morning but it was still stupid hot by the time we got done around 9am, and then we were at Big Surf from about 11:30am-3:00pm. During that time, I was starting to feel lightheaded so I tried sipping water and cooling off in the shade, but it wasn't helping a ton. Then on the car ride home, my car overheated on the freeway and I followed suit. It was not an exaggeration to say that I myself was a hot mess. Poor Claire was in the car with me while my sanity melted away with my body's ability to cool down. It was awful, because when your body gets to that point of overheating (and looking back I probably should have gone to the ER for fluids), your body kind of "resets" so I couldn't hold anything down for 2 days during camp and I missed all the fun parts like lipsyncs. My fantastic leaders were there to make sure the girls had a great time though, and that's all I wanted anyway!

JULY!

July was a pretty fun month! I got to visit my mom and sister in Hunstville, AL for a whole week! Allegiant flies pretty cheap out there during the summer so it only made sense! I had a blast. I definitely understand the draw to move there...it's green EVERYWHERE and the weather is fairly mild (even with the humidity). We went shopping, at great food, and I even got to go spelunking for the first time---which was my favorite part of the whole trip! I slid down a mudslide, waded in 4.5 ft of ice cold water, did the "polar bear" challenge in a deeper part of said ice cold water, and army crawled through the cave with my mom and my sister, and her in-laws! I wish AZ had caves like that, because I'd be going all the time!
I don't like that half my family moved across the country...but where they moved to isn't so bad. ;)

 before!

after ;)

Twas a very good trip. :)

I also threw a really cool Harry Potter birthday party, which included an Azkaban mugshot photobooth, Ollivander's wand making station, goodies (including a Hagrid's birthday cake), and movie marathon. It was quite epic if I do say so myself. :)

AUGUST

This was a weird month. Ian was gone for half of it (Annual Training with the Marines), so I spent most of this time not doing much since my adventure buddy was gone. I did, however, sing in a vocal jazz group for the first time in yeeaarrsss! It was weird and fun all at the same time. My voice doesn't bend that way as easy as it used to, but the music was mostly Beatles and other fun standards so I didn't mind the change of pace. :) I have an even larger appreciation for "jazzers" than I already did--hats off to you! I will gladly sit in the audience and just bask in the skill that it takes to be good at that sort of thing. ;) 

Now this next part, I am a little uncomfortable sharing, but it needs to be shared because I know that now that I'm out of school I know there are a fair amount of people wondering--when are y'all having the behbehs (babies)? Truth be told, I found out I was pregnant the beginning of the month. I had a happy 7 days of knowing and keeping a fun little secret with my husband and close family, until I miscarried on the 13th. It was a "chemical" pregnancy so to speak, and fortunately my body recognized it quick enough to terminate it on it's own, and I do find that to be a blessing. Sometimes you aren't "lucky" like that, and you go on for another couple weeks making plans and looking forward to the next 9 months until you find out otherwise. 

The reason I'm sharing is because, to be honest, I don't know when (if ever) naturally bearing our children will happen. This isn't meant to make you feel sorry for me, but hopefully it does quell any questions/assumptions and it avoids us from having to keep hearing/answering the same question over and over again. ;) 

anywayyyy

SEPTEMBER!

My favorite month of the year! Our anniversary AND my birthday month. :) I turned 25?? What even is that? We also celebrated FIVE FREAKIN YEARS. I don't feel old enough to have been married that long. #teenbrideoops 

We had plans of taking some pretty pictures for our anniversary, but money has been tight so we'll get to it eventually. Maybe. ;D I guess you can count our new car as our anniversary gift? It was out of necessity, but I'll take it. Ha! It's a beautiful 2015 Dodge Journey that was a Craiglist unicorn find. I'm in love with it. It only had 40k miles on it, and we got it for a screaming good price. 

It was also YW in Excellence, which I was super proud of how well it went! It was an awards theme, so we went all out--fancy decorations, red carpet, dinner, little Oscar trophies, the whole nine yards. My presidency and I ended up getting released a week later, so we definitely went out with a bang! :)

love every single one of these ladies

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER/DECEMBER!

I'm jamming these all together because honestly that's how these last three months have felt. Jam packed and kind of a whirwind. 

During majority of this whole time, I was actually doing keto--which was amazing and awful all at the same time. My body feels a lot better after doing it strictly for that long (and to be honest, I miss how I felt so I'm trying to incorporate a less strict version of it for maintenance), and it's amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it. I have an assortment of imbalances in my body and doing keto for a few months helped me out (er, at least I'm pretty sure it did. I still need to have bloodwork done again). A bonus side effect was losing somewhere in the 15-20lb range--it wasn't my intention but it was a confidence booster getting back to where I was when I got married! I haven't weighed myself because #triggered but I fit in my wedding dress with some wiggle room so I'll take that as a win. Cutting out foods that are inflammatory to my body really help how I feel overall. I got my first headache today since September, which is a huge deal for me! As long as I feel good and not losing my sanity, I'm good. :) Halloween was a little hard since I love me some twix, but good company made up for it. :)

During this whole period of time since I graduated, I've also been taking lessons twice a week--Lots of work has been done! I've pounded opera repertoire like nobody's business and I can hear a significant change in my voice. I still have a lot of improvement to make, but what's nice is that there's nowhere to go but up from here. :) In October, I had the opportunity to sing a few of his art songs for Morten Lauridsen himself (cute the choir nerd fangirling hardcore here). 

I also was able to sing for two separate Messiah (Handel) performances, which has been a bucket list item for me. I love that music and I was finally able to study and then perform it! 

Definitely the highlight of my Christmas season. Thanksgiving was fun spending time with family, eating super yummy food; including a keto friendly French Silk pie that was surprisingly delicious! ;) 

This year was potentially our last USMC ball as well, and may I say, I looked FINE. 

And Christmas was filled with plenty of yummy food, even better company and lots of fun memories. :) we had our last hurrah as our annual NYE party, and though it was smaller than usual, it was still just as fun. I'm just glad I have Ian beside me every time. :)

In addition to the holiday festivities, we've decided to sell our house and move back to Mesa! It has been a bittersweet experience but I'm very excited to be closer to family and to be able to be financially more secure. We're currently in the middle of all of it, so odds are you'll hear all about it in a couple months. ;)

Anyway, this has gotten long so I'll wrap it up. Thanks for reading the novel. 

Goodnight my lovelies. xx

Summer Shenanigans 2017

Hey y'all. Currently jammin to some new music from Superfruit and I thought "I should write another blog post"! It's been about three months so I'm due for another one anyway.

So here we are. :D

Last time I checked, it was about a week or two before the summer workshop I did started up and lots has happened since then! So we'll just go through it.


CGCC SUMMER OPERA WORKSHOP!
Huzzah! This definitely took up a good portion of my brain space this summer. Twice a week for a few hours I went to a workshop held at the community college I used to go to and it was seriously so much fun! I strengthened some friendships I already had as well as made some new and valuable ones! I definitely came out of it a better performer than what I was when I went into it. It was also exciting to be coached by people you have never really been coached by before. I knew Jen and Jeff already because I had gone to CGCC but neither of them were my voice teachers and I don't think I ever sang in one of their masterclasses over my time there, so it was a new and educational experience for me!

I wasn't sure what to expect at first because there wasn't a definitive structure that was given to us beforehand so I went in a little nervous. I was certain there was going to be scene work because I knew there was going to be a performance at the end to show off what we had worked on, but beyond that I had no idea! We all started the class by taking turns singing a prepared aria (naturally) and then we got some coaching on a new aria of our choice. All the arias I had had already been coached with either Dale or Robert so I didn't want to do any of those, so the only one left was one I had been given ages ago and had been pretty difficult for me to do in the past. "Prendi, per me sei libero" from Donizetti's Elixir of Love. Greeeaaattt. It's exposed and way different than what I normally do EVER, but it is so beautiful which were all reasons exactly why I wanted to go for it. It still has a lot of work to do to make it truly perform-able as part of the whole role, but the improvement I made was satisfactory with all things considered. We were also put into scene groups and originally I had two scenes I was part of but one was dropped to my relief (they had me as Gilda in the Rigoletto quartet and I about passed out because that ish is like waayyyy out of my depth fo reals like call back in 5 years thaannnkss) so I was left with The Impresario Trio, which was much easier to swallow. BUT MAN that is a flippin marathon to get through! We had even cut out like a solid minute of it and it was still effin hard. It felt good in my voice which was a #blessing but figuring out how to pace myself was the real trick to singing it. Once we got the hang of it, it was my favorite thing to sing! I am all about the over the top crazy and kooky characters, and Madame Herz/Goldentrill was right up my alley. The performance went swimmingly and we all received wonderfully positive feedback about just about everything. I'm glad my voice teacher and her husband were able to come see what I had worked for.

The Impresario Trio (Logan, Me, Stacy)! 

Me:"A dog, Joe"

 Logan: "Enough about the dog, Susan" 

Stacy: "It's not a dog...hehe"

Logan *might* cry

The letter read "To whom it may concern, Nemorino is now in the army, k? lawlz, Belcore"

"My ears are ringing"       "I know, just smile through it"

Lots of laughs were had for sure and I learned a bunch. I think this was the perfect way to spend my summer, especially since this is the first summer program I have ever done!

{Girls Camp 2017}
I'm grateful that my first girls camp as YW president was ward camp. It was a wonderful experience for everyone involved and I feel like I really connected with my girls. They are so special, intelligent, beautiful souls inside and out. I would do anything for them! We held it up at Camp Brentwood about 30 min outside of Alpine, AZ. It was about 5 hours away, but it was so worth it! The weather was gorgeous the entire time, and we even got some rain! My camp directors and cooks went above and beyond in their assignments and I couldn't have picked anyone better to execute the best girls camp I've ever been to! I also got to know my first counselor and secretary much better....what happens in the tent stays in the tent. ;)

We went on a beautiful hike and stopped at this small river/creek, we had a luau with a whole roasted pig(!!!), made adorable crafts, grew spiritually together and had the best time. That was just a portion of everything we did and I won't ever forget it. :)

our little set up, the girls' tents were further down

BATTLE BUNS!

The Kakamora came and attacked us with water balloons. ;)

Luau Time!

Aside from the workshop and girls camp, I have just been hanging out at home. I have thoroughly enjoyed being able to do whatever I want for once, instead of being restricted by summer camp and the madness and stress that came with it. Yikes. It is a double-edged sword though, with so much freedom comes much boredom majority of the time. That was the only draw back...I can only watch so many movies and clean my kitchen so many times. haha

I did have fun outings though, like Wet n Wild with Kelly and Brent. Guys. My life has changed. That's my new favorite place! It's way the heck away, but it's so worth it because it's so much fun!! Ian and I made the mistake of thinking we'd be alright without water shoes or waterproof flipflops but we ended up getting small blisters on our feet by the time we left. We even had to cut the day short because of it! The pavement is HOT! Sorry guys. Next year though, we'll invest in something to protect our feet. ;) 

Now I'm just waiting for school to start in about two weeks...Getting that chorus music learned isn't that difficult, it's fairly repetitive and we only sing for like two minutes at a time. I'll have it all memorized by next week. 

OH I got a new job! You're looking at Studio 3's newest voice teacher! I'm pretty excited to start. It's like part part time, only two nights a week! I have 3 students so far who want to do a trial lesson next week, so that's exciting. Teaching privately will give us an extra $200/month with just 3 students, so it's definitely a good thing. I feel sometimes I'm not qualified to do this, but then I remember I've been at this for 4 years now and some choral ed students start teaching well before they're graduated so it should work, right? RIGHT?! Gah. It'll give me experience regardless, so that's the up side. My students also won't be over the age of like 16 so it's not like I'm teaching people my age. LOL I got this....?

Anyway. That's been the summer shenanigans I've been up to over the last few months. Hope you all have had an enjoyable summer! Goodbye, my lovelies!

Campouts and Ostrich Farms

Hello! Let's do a little catch up before I get into things, shall we?

Since the last time we talked a lot has happened!

School:
The semester ended quite nicely. I ended up losing my voice right in time for juries (yay!) but still got good grades. I just sing so stinkin much during the semester sometimes it is hard to keep up! I supported my fellow voice students and saw A Christmas Carol (which was fabulous, contrary to the cast's beliefs). I know so many talented people it's not even funny!

This semester so far has been crazy, insane and wonderful. I auditioned for The Addams Family at CGCC and I ended up getting cast as Wednesday! It was double-cast so I was only Wednesday 3/6 performances, but I'll take what I can get! It was challenging for me as an actor and vocally since I have almost always been type-casted for the energetic, "blonde", girly, more-often-than-not soprano and Wednesday is the literal exact opposite. Wednesday is a dark and twisted type of person which voice part is a belt. HA. Me. Belting. That's a good one. But I managed to pull it off! I am quite proud of myself actually and of the entire cast! We pulled it out of our butts during tech week and it was a fabulous show! The script could use some work but the music was to die for (get it? to DIE for? oh man). This was definitely my favorite show so far, and for many reasons. Mainly because there was very little drama among the cast. For the most part nobody hated each other! That's quite the accomplishment if you've done any type of production. Any who. I'm going to miss performing it. /sigh I feel like I'm still progressing in my voice lessons (yay again!). Especially since I finally have the time to put in the practice.

Me as Wednesday! I could pull off dark hair...right? 

I looked pretty awesome. Not gonna lie.

The family portrait.

Work:
My official last day at State Farm was 2/20/2015. My last day working was the Monday (2/16) before. It was definitely a bittersweet day. I hated being on the phones with a firey passion of a thousand suns, but I loved the people and the atmosphere. My supervisors were simply the most amazing and the most supportive people. I turned in my badges, gathered my things out of my locker, and my supervisors walked me down to the lobby after my shift, I gave my main supervisor Tyrone a hug and off I went! It was a weird and yet invigorating feeling driving out of the parking lot knowing I didn't have to drive there at 3 AM ever again. Let's just say I have adjusted quite nicely of having a normal sleeping/social schedule now that my bed time is no longer 8:30 PM. HUZZAH. I mean I consistently stay up to around 11 each night and it feels great! I'm a human again!

 Now that I haven't worked for about a month, I've finished the show and have had a nice break, I decided to apply for a job closer in that does not involve any sales! I applied for VIK (an after-school program for the elementary schools in the Gilbert Public School District) and I got an interview! Tomorrow at 11:30. Eeep! I'm nervous/excited. I haven't interviewed in over 2 years! We'll see what happens. Fingers crossed!

Home/Husband/Family:
Well life has been going on an uphill for these McHardy's. In December Ian received a call from the Verizon recruiter and there was a job opening for him! Ian successfully passed through all the supplemental interviews and was hired! All the praying and waiting finally paid off and Ian is now excelling at his new job. He also loves it, which is a definite plus. I'm so grateful for everything he does and how hard he works. :) He's a keeper, for sure.

On the downside, in December we lost our kitty Socrates. We have a little kitty door that leads to the garage, where he litter was (that way the litter wasn't stinking up our house) and our garage door has been acting up lately so one night it decided to open by itself and he got out and never came back. We searched for a couple days, had the missionaries keep an eye out, and we even put up posters but nothing. :( I admit we cried. We loved our cat. A lot. We were sad for a while but we're to the point we are going to get another kitten in the near future.

Other than that, everyone is doing pretty well. :) I am really enjoying life right now. I'm so grateful for everything we've been blessed with.

Now, on to my main reason for this blog post!!

Ian and I have been wanting to go camping since we got married. Like I've been begging him to take me (someone document this, because I have never been one to BEG to go camping. Ever.) and we finally went! It's Spring Break for me and Ian traded a shift with someone so that way he could have Wednesday (today) and Thursday off to give us plenty of time. Since I have my interview and Scouts on Wed evenings, we went last night! IT WAS SO MUCH FUN. Just an overnighter out at Picacho Peak. I loved it. We gathered up a bunch of blankets and pillows and made a bed in the bed of Ian's truck. Voila!

*check out that smolder...*

We ate some MREs (Meal Ready to Eat, they are military issue) and watched most of Crazy Stupid Love and went to sleep. 

After breakfast we took a short hike up a trail on Picacho Peak

Then we went to the Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Ranch that was right next to our campsite. 

IT WAS MAGICAL.

This sign killed me! They went above and beyond here.

I legitimately felt like I was feeding a dinosaur!

 Watching the goats eat is the most hysterical thing you will see.

My favorite part was feeding the Rainbow Lorikeets!! They gave us a little container of fruit nectar and when we walked in the birdhouse we immediately had like 4 birds on each of us to eat. They even popped off the lid of the container themselves! 

UGH so much fun. Anywho. I've got to get ready for my cubbies. Have a wonderful evening, my lovelies.