Well, as we all know, I have terrible skin. It's overly sensitive, it often breaks out in hives, it sunburns very easily, I cannot use normal fun, girly smelly stuff, and worst of all, I have had terrible acne my whole life basically. I have been on every antibiotic known to man to help my skin since the time I was about 13 (with the exception of acutain). The drugs DO help. I took them all through college and I was very happy with my skin during college and on my wedding day. But, here's what happened, I got married. 1st of all, my health went way downhill after that! WHAT THE HECK!? Next, I got booted off of my parents insurance, thus- I no longer have a dermatologist to write me scripts for pills. Slowly the zits began to return. And before I knew it, I looked like a 15 year old again with terrible acne. I was wearing WAY too much make up to try and cover it up, which makes it look worse. I was the annoying wife who always talked about how ugly I am, and mostly I was 100% discouraged that I would be this way for the rest of my life.
Well, as I have previously mentioned, I have the greatest co-workers known to man. Sarah could feel for my big time because she's been there and so she gave me all her tips and secrets. She mentioned that she gets peels, facials, and extractions all from an esthatician. I thought well, that sounds painful, but worth it because her skin looked great. Then, Loriol told me that she gets her facials from a lady here in town who works out of her home and is the best in the business. So...I decided to try it.
FINALLY- a glimmer of hope. Julie Foo has given me my confidence back. She is the most adorable little lady from Syngapore. The first time I met her, she said right off, "you have bad skin, I fix your skin, you will thank me". Let me walk you through the progression of my skin with pictures to prove my progress.
FIRST- She gave me a facial with extractions. What does that mean you say? That means she takes a sharp metal tool (pictured below) and digs into EVERY SINGLE poor on my face until all of the dirt is gone. Painful? HE** YES! That took over an hour.
Then she did some other stuff that felt like I was being shocked, a nice mask, and some burny cream. I came out looking like this...
At this point, my boss called me and asked me to come into work. I was terrified. But decided that this was the price I was willing to pay and I headed off to work. Everyone was really good liars and said I didn't look that bad :) A week later, my face was already clearing up and it was SOOO smooth! I mean, obviously not 100%, but encouraging. So, I went in for my peel. At that point, she puts this super stingy stuff on my face and I chill there for a while. It was WAYYYY better than the extractions and I came out looking like this:
Better, yes? I'm always in my scrubs in these pics haha. It looked way better the next day even. SO- next week, I went back for MORE of those tortorously painful extractions. I wasn't even half as swollen afterwards this time and I'm healing way faster and now, I look like this:
BETTER, YES?! And bethy came to see me :) :) This pic isn't as close up, so I tried to zoom in. It doesn't look that great, but trust me it's better. I haven't even mentioned the hardest part of this yet. Julie Foo says "NO MAKE UP". WHAT?????????I haven't gone a day without make up in decades due to my insecurity. I spent many nights crying about going to work, church, out without make up on, and my wonderful husband has been so supportive. But if I'm going to give this a try, I"m going to give it 100%. she says I can wear make up in a couple of weeks. I cannot wait for that day. 
This is what I look like everynight now. It takes me over 30 minutes to do my face routine, but I love doing it because I feel like I'm making progress. Look at all of the products I use... 
Yep, that's 11. Not cheap. Not cheap at all. But worth every penny. So, that's that. My skin is definately not healed yet. I have a long way to go. I'll be seeing Julie every 2 weeks, then 3 weeks, and so on until I only need her every 6 weeks. But for now, I'm feeing hopeful and can see my face improving. yay!Sorry about the novel.
Darrennnnn- way to go. You must be Bruce Jolley's son, because Joseph and I were looking good before the bunny ears!
Justin is growing up so fast and he is absolutely adorably charming! His little personality is so much fun. We couldn't get our act together, I thought we were doing silly faces and he thought we were being cute....
And then he thought we were doing silly faces and I thought we were being cute... hahaha!
Michael was all about the cold stone catering... can you blame him?
I'm really ticked at myself for not getting a picture with Jill. We were able to spend some time together later in the week. We went to lunch, she approved of my new place, and we played at the park. It was just really nice to spend some time with them. And someday, I hope to be the mom that Jill is to those boys, that's for sure. Anyway, it was really, really nice to see them. 
First of all, if you've already watched all of 24 and you plan on commenting, please don't give anything away! I've only seen season 1 so far. Thank you. My family has been watching 24 since it started, and they've always told me how good it was, but it was on during FHE in college and I was more concerned with flirting with my FHE brothers than watching 24. Now, I'm married to the only boy I want to flirt with, and we watch it together. It's so fabulous. It must be said that all of the credit goes to Emily and Steve Rogers for introducing us to this fabulous television show. And even though I'm way behind, I'm going to do this anyway...
Season 1 was absolutely fabulous. I love these characters. I have very strong feelings about each of them for different reasons. I cannot WAIT to see what season 2 holds. 
This is my favorite picture of Jack. I asked Michael if I ever saw Jack Bauer on the street if I could kiss him on the lips. He said no. Rude. He's a fictional character so there is a 0% chance that I'll ever bump into him, and he still said no! The truth is, I think Michael loves him just as much as I do. 
Reading my super tender card, if you can't already tell.
Malls :) REALLLLY excited for a 3-day weekend!After the shower, we went our seperate ways. The Lance's drove all night to get to Jarom's hometown (stress me OUT, driving all night!), and Michael and I took off for 
Easton's little personality is truly a JOY to be around. We had so much fun playing with him. He is hilarious and adorable and waking up at 7:30 AM isn't so bad when it's to this cute face.
Carly really wanted to go outside and play with the boys, but I made her stay and play with me. I had to warm up verrrrrry slowly because she loves her mama, but it was well worth the wait because I could SERIOUSLY gobble her up she's so adorable. Just look at that face! And when she scrunches it all up, it just melts me! I actualy really miss her.
One of my favorites from the weekend. She didn't cry at all when Mikey held her. I was a tad jealous. 
We bounced, and bounced, and bounced, and BOUNCED! Michael was on a roll while the rest of us were getting tired... until the fall. Watch the sequence of events:
Uh-Ohhhhh. He went down pretty hard on his toe. It is now quite huge and multiple shades of purple and blue. I think it's good and broken. Poor baby :( I feel really bad for him! But he is back at work today, trying hard to get over it.
There were 3 people wanting it, so Michael pulled out his money and handed it to the guy before anyone else had the chance to. And we got it! It's so fabulous to have a table where we can fit our plates AND the food! We plan on re-painting the top black, and I'm going to re-cover the chairs. But for now, we're so happy with it! And for such a steal. It's our first little project and we're really excited to work on it together.
This brings me so much happiness. I remember when we all lived together, and we had to say goodbye for the summer, we all cried and cried for fear that we'd never be as close again. Well no need to fear! Looks like we're going to be seeing alot of each other throughout our lives and we couldn't be happier!
Loni stayed the night and corbin came over in the morning to help us break in our table for breakfast, look at how everything fits on there! YAHOO!!! We seriously love visitors and mingling with friends, so please, feel free to stop by any time if you don't mind tiny apartments :)
Yesterday was jam-packed for us and we enjoyed every minute of it. We started off bright and early to get up and get ready for our 5k run. We had such a great time! When we got there, and saw all the legit runners and cross country teams, we were a little scared! And I think Michael started to get a little nervous about his goal of winning. But once we got jogging it didn't matter, it was fun. I'm sorry to inform you that Michael did not win first place. I think first place was something ridiculous like 16 minutes. There were over 200 participants and Michael came in 14th with a time of 21 minutes! Not bad, huh?! I, on the other hand... took 33 minutes. :) But I'm satisfied with that. I was well in the top half of runners haha. I'm slow, always have been, always will be. It's ok though, because I still had energy left at the end and could have kept going, we'll definately do another, possibly a 10k next! Who wants to join us??? 
Steph and Jarom are the best! They were there at the finish line waiting for us to cheer us on. It was fun! Afterwards we all stayed and listened to the live music, had some free breakfast, and just enjoyed the atmosphere. Michael has decided that his entry fee was totally worth it, we got free jambas and a t-shirt which he sported around town all day.
We had so much energy from the fun of being involved in an experience like that. It was great! It carried us all day. And we needed it because yesterday was Brooke's 24th birthday! Wahoo! I will let the pictures do the explaining. Good food, games, and getting a little too silly once it started getting late. 
Cafe Rio Birthday Dinner... great choice, Brooke!
Apparantly the candles were too hot for Brooke. And to end the night, a tribute to the one... the only... Beyonce. Only watch this if you can tolerate some serious silly and pink panties.I think it's easy to see why I have so much fun with these girls. Ohhhh our patient husbands hahaha
