Tis the Season

Hello! As some of you may or may not know, Zach and I have adopted a furry friend into our family-Eva! Since we love her so much, she is in our Christmas card this year.
Shutterfly is willing to give me a great deal on my Christmas card just for me telling you all how amazing they are. We have picked out our Christmas card; feel free to pick one out for yourself here. They have TONS of colors, sizes, patterns, etc. to chose from. Zach and I chose this simple one, though, since we are both pretty simple people.
One of my favorite products from Shutterfly is their calendars. You get to have your favorite pictures displayed all year long! I've ordered my calendars from them for the last two years.
Additionally from printing pictures, they also print canvases. All of Shutterfly's products have amazing printing quality and I would recommend them for all your printing needs.
I hope you all enjoy your holidays, and remember to check out Shutterfly's website some time!

First Impressions

Today I had my first day of work as a full-time teller at my new branch. Think of a bad first day of work. Maybe you get a stain on the front of your shirt on the way, or realize at lunch you left your tag on your new shirt, or maybe you have really bad gas that day :/ I could only wish those kinds of things happened to me today.
My alarm went off at 6:27 A.M. I felt decently rested, but had a funny feeling in my stomach. As the morning progressed I started to feel more and more nauseous. I figured it was because I'm not used to waking up quite this early and that it would go away as the day went on.
I get in my car and push the address of the bank into my GPS. It's 7:46 and my ETA is 8:09-not bad. After 15 minutes of driving my ETA has gone up to 8:18 because I am in stand-still traffic on Highway 169 by downtown KC. That's ok, though, because I still have two minutes to spare.
As I enter into the city part of my drive, I realize I do not know what the speed limit is on this road because I have not seen any signs. "I'll just keep up with traffic and be fine," I tell myself. While driving at the tail end of a group of vehicles, suddenly a man in the road jumps into the middle of the road and starts waving his arms! Almost hitting the man, I slammed on my brakes. Turns out this man is not just any man; he is a police officer that is motioning for me to pull over to a side road where his motorcycle is parked. Awesome.
I pull over and he tells me that he clocked me going 47 in a 35. I tried to state my case telling him this is my first day of work down here, and I have not seen any speed limit signs. He says he will try to get me on my way as quick as possible. He was fairly quick....at giving me a ticket! Seriously!? My ETA is now 8:28, and I clocked in at 8:33. Late for my first day of work-always a great impression.
So a ticket is not the best way to start your week at a new job, but things could be worse.
For some reason I was having troubles with my password working on my computer. My assistant branch manager was on the phone with Tech Services at my window trying to help me get things figured out. All of the sudden I felt very light-headed and thought I was going to throw up. But me, I never throw up when I get sick. In the last ten years I have thrown up one time.
Despite my previous good luck with throwing up, today was not so lucky. I asked to excuse myself to the restroom. The restrooms in the bank are in the basement and the door to the basement has a code on it to get in. As I'm running toward the door I ask my supervisor what the code is.
When I reach the door, one hand is covering my mouth while I start to heave, and the other hand is quickly trying to enter the code to the door. I keep pushing the code in over and over, but it is not opening! My supervisor came running over and entered the correct code.
I darted down the stairs looking for the restrooms. As I am running through the carpeted break room I start to chuck. Vomit is coming out of my mouth, onto the carpet, while I continue to run and frantically look for the ladies room. I finally spot it, push open the door and start to throw up again. The door closes behind me, and the lights were not turned on yet. So here I am, standing in the dark constantly heaving and throwing up. Vomit is now in my hair and puddled on the ground...in the dark.
I find the light switch, step over the puddle, and run to the toilet where I continue to throw up. After I get myself cleaned up, I walk back into the break room to look for a mop. Instead, I find my new manager cleaning up my vomit from the carpet. Again, an awesome first impression.
With cheeks bright red from embarrassment, I ask for a mop so I can clean up my mess in the bathroom. Did I mention that I had Cinnamon Life cereal for breakfast, so the whole bathroom reeked of cinnamon puke? Not the most pleasant smell.
I go back upstairs thinking I can make it the rest of the day. I feel fine now. Shortly after this, a customer walks up to my window with very strong perfume. My nose did not like that smell, and I suddenly felt sick again. I run back down to the restrooms for trip #2.
I have now determined that I do not feel fine, and I need to go home. I tell my supervisor, and start counting my drawer. I had an error while trying to balance and had to have my supervisor come over and help me troubleshoot the problem. While he is troubleshooting away, I start to feel nauseous again. Come on! I lock my drawer and computer and run back down to the basement where I threw up 4 more times. I want so badly to go home, but can't because my drawer is not balancing.
We finally figure out the error later on and I balanced and got the heck out of there. I just kept telling myself all day, "It can't get much worse from here. It has to get better!"
I called my mom after I left work only to find out that the same thing is happening to her and my brother. I was home in South Dakota this weekend, so we were all three together. It must have been something we ate and it only affected the three of us for some reason. Hopefully this is just a 24 hour bug, though, and I'll be back to work tomorrow!
This was definitely my worst first day of work, but it still could have been worse...right?

Jack didn't give me any "Banana Pancakes"

Jack Johnson. One of my favorite musical artists. I have wanted to see him in concert for so long!

The bank I work for sponsors a park where several outdoor concerts are held every summer. The bank gives its employees the opportunity to get into any of the concerts there for free simply by working the bank's booth for a few hours before the main band starts.

When I heard Jack Johnson was coming to play at this park, I was thrilled! I patiently waited for the e-mail to come asking for volunteers. Suddenly, it's three days before the concert, and I realized I hadn't yet received that e-mail.

I was pretty bummed to find out all the volunteer spots had already been filled, and seeing how we would have to spend $80 for Zach and I to go to the concert, buying tickets was not an option either. My manager told me he would ask the guy in charge to let him know if any spots opened up for me.

The day of the concert one of my coworkers asks me what I was doing that night. I proceed to tell her how I will not be attending the Jack Johnson concert, but that I wish I was.

About 15 minutes later my manager gets a call from the marketing guy in charge of the booth. Someone has ditched out last minute, and there was now a spot open!

He asked me if I still wanted in, and I answered with a "Yes!" as soon as I heard the words, "Jack Johnson" come out of his mouth.

As you now know, I = Jack Johnson fan; however, Zach ≠ Jack Johnson fan. No worries, though, I have a loving and supportive husband that would go to any concert in the world just so he could spend more time with me (or at least that's what I told him...).

Needless to say, Zach volunteered at the booth with me for 2 short hours before the concert, and we in turn received 2 VIP passes in! They had a separate area where "VIP" people could hang out and enjoy free pop, nachos, music, and SHADE!

After feeling pretty dang sweet in the VIP section, we went to the car to get our blanket then headed back to the concert to await listening to the beautiful, soothing music I had been waiting for.

The only bad thing for non-smokers about outdoor concerts is the freedom for people to smoke anywhere they want. About the only spot left was directly behind 6 adults who were-you guessed it-smoking. No big deal; surely they would not smoke for the entire concert. You guessed it again-they did.

Not only did we have smoke blown into our faces, but these 6 adults progressively became drunk as the night went on. One of the ladies tried to stand up ("tried" that is) and stepped on me without even noticing. They also slowly started inching their way closer and closer to Zach and I...creepy...

I kept trying to send Jack telepathy signals to play my favorite song, "Banana Pancakes." Sadly he wasn't able to read my mind :( Since Jack wasn't cooperating and our friends in front of us grew more and more obnoxious with the more and more alcohol their bodies consumed, we decided to beat the rush and call it a night a little early.

Even though Jack didn't play me "Banana Pancakes," I still thoroughly enjoyed a free date night with Zach-Jack's other songs that he played were pretty sweet too I guess :)

Baby update from Aunt Jessica!

I'm sure most of you know by now that Katie finally had her baby boy, Elijah Lee Imhoff, on Wednesday, July 21st, at 4:38 A.M. I am finally an aunt! Yippee!

I really do think he is the most beautiful baby I have ever seen. I think there's a lot of babies out there that look like aliens when they are born. They can't help it-they have little to no hair, have been living inside a woman's body for the last 9 months, and have almost no control over any body movements.

But not Elijah! He has a full head of hair, beautiful eyes, his daddy's long eyelashes, and is perfect in every way! I'm sure every mom feels this way about her child when he or she is born, but seriously, I think everyone can agree with me about Eli.

I, of course, had to go see my nephew and take pictures before he gets bigger (which I hear doesn't take very long, unfortunately). Saturday after I got off work I booked it up to SF to meet Eli.

I even got to have a riding buddy on the way up. My cousin, Jacob, that lives down in KC was wanting to go up to SF for a week, then his dad would come up and bring him back home the next week. Company always helps with driving long hours!

I bolted into my parents house at 6:00 that night and immediately asked to see Eli. He is so precious, and I am so sad that I do not get to be there for all the milestones he will go through soon. Luckily we are only 5 hours away now instead of 8 1/2.

Anyway, back to Eli. I loved being able to hold him in my arms. I felt like I could just stare at him all day long. When he is actually awake his facial expressions are just priceless!

That evening I got to meet with one of my dearest friends, Mollie. Although we are trying not to admit it, we have not seen each other since my wedding last year! After a few hours of catching up, I get a phone call from my brother saying that Katie had just left for the ER.

No worries, she is doing just fine now. Josh told me that it was just him and Eli while he waited for Katie and her mom to get back from the ER, and if I wanted to help hold Eli he would not object. Another chance to hold him? Yes, please!

After Mollie and I were done I headed over to Josh and Katie's house and wrapped Eli in my arms again.

We stayed up until 3 in the morning, but it was so worth it to be able to have that time together! Not wanting to leave Eli, after a short 24 hours and 20 minutes, I headed back home for work the next day.

Here's some pictures of my handsome nephew. Check out my Facebook page for more!

"A God thing"

I finally get to write a blog telling you all we found a vehicle for Zach! We searched for 2 months, and right when we were wanting to give up, God gave us a steal of a deal.
Zach found a 2003 Mitsubishi Lancer on Craig's List. I figured we would go look at it, and like every other car we looked at, something would be wrong. I took out all the cash from our savings account that we had been saving for a car, and the next morning we headed over to the house to look at the car.
The owner of the car got to the house right when we did, and about 5 minutes later another potential buyer also showed up with his son. It was slightly awkward trying to check out the car while two other people are checking out the same car at the same time.
Since we go there first, we took the car on a test drive. For the first time while test driving, everything seemed to run quite smoothly.
When we got back to their house the dad and son were waiting for their chance to test drive the car too. Zach and I quickly talked it over, and decided this was a great buy! It's pretty compact, but it gets good mileage (which is a necessity for Zach since the church he works at is 45 minutes away and the seminary he will be going to is 20 minutes away), is fairly new, it's a great price, and it RUNS!!
The morning we went to look at the car the owners increased their price $250 (probably because they were getting so many calls about the car). We told the owners we had the exact amount of cash that their original price was and asked if they would be willing to take that price.
The lady said she was so tired of her phone ringing off the hook that she would take it, so we got a great car for exactly how much we had saved for. I like to call that..."A God thing" :)

My nephew is on the way!

In only a few short days I will finally get to be an aunt! As many of you know, my brother and sister-in-law are expecting their first child very soon! I cannot wait to be an aunt, and am so exciting to meet my nephew whenever it is that he decides to finally come out and greet the world!
About a year ago I became very interested in maternity pictures. I started bugging my brother, Josh, about getting Katie pregnant so I could get a chance to take some of these pictures myself. Little did any of us know that Katie was already about a month pregnant when I started begging them to make a baby.
Ever since the day I found out Josh and Katie were pregnant, I have been looking forward to photographing Katie (and yes, of course, getting to have a nephew :) ).
Since I wanted to be sure and get the photo session in before the baby came, Zach and I decided to go to South Dakota a week before her due date, hoping the baby would come early so we could get to see him too while we were up there.
A few days before we went up Katie's doctor informed her that she would most likely give birth that week, which worked out perfect for us. I would get to take Katie's maternity pictures, meet my nephew, and take the newborn pictures all in one trip-hip hip hooray!
Did everything all work out this perfectly? Well, no, but now I have an excuse to make another expedition up to SD after he is born! AND, I still got to take the pictures!
The photo shoot was so much fun, just like I thought it would be! Side note, feel free to check out some more pictures on my website, www.jk-images.com or even more on my JK Images Facebook page.
After hearing that the baby had no plans of coming out soon and that she could easily be pregnant for another month, they decided to set an appointment this Tuesday for Katie to be induced (unless the baby comes before). You know what that means...road trip for me this weekend!
Also, while we were in SD last week, we got Josh a shirt that reads, "I did this to you!", which he will be wearing when they go to the hospital, just so Katie has a friendly reminder while she is in labor squeezing Josh's hand.
That's all for now, I'll post some pictures of my handsome nephew next week!

365 days later...

June 20, 2009, I said, "I do" to my best friend. 365 days later...we're both still alive! Kyle White did such a great job with our premarital counseling by preparing us for all of the ups and downs of married life. The first six months flew by me like a race car in the Indy 500! I wondered why people tried to tell us that marriage was hard and was something you had to work at every day. Then reality kicked in, and I suddenly knew what they were talking about!

Marriage is one of the hardest, yet rewarding experiences I have ever gone through. I never really viewed myself as a selfish person until I got married. I never noticed how much I had put myself first in the past 21 years (which should have been my first sign of selfishness...) until this last year.

There are so many things in a marriage that force you to go against human nature: thinking of others first, putting yourself second, and making sacrifices to name a few. All of these selfless choices help make you into a better person, though. Marriage is great, and I'm excited to see what God wants to teach me next through this journey with Zach.

Speaking of our anniversary, maybe some of you are wondering what we did to celebrate this joyous occasion. We took a road trip! One of my close friends since childhood jumped on the bandwagon and married the love of his life on June 19th.

We stayed with Zach's brother and 7-month-pregnant-sister-in-law in Indiana Friday night and Saturday night. Our itinerary went as follows:

-Friday morning we packed up and drove nine hours to Lafayette, Indiana
-Saturday morning we drove to Wadsworth, OH for the wedding
-(Zach was only 40 minutes away from his good friend from OWU, so he ventured up to Cleveland, OH and came back for the reception)
-Saturday evening we stayed for one dance at the reception, then headed back to Lafayette at 9:00 P.M., which put us in at 2:00 A.M.
-Sunday morning (our anniversary!) we made the nine-hour trek back down to Kansas City

24 hours in three days was quite tiresome, but so worth it! Weddings are a monumental event, and I was so glad I could witness Andrew and Brittani's special day. Seeing Andrew's face as he saw Brittani for the first time that day made me tear up, and made everything worthwhile. It was also great to be able to hang out with the fam for a little bit and as usual, the road trip with Zach was very fun indeed!

Zach and I have a tradition that we started last summer while trying to stay awake on our drive back from Michigan. We sing every single song and chant that we learned in Sunday school and VBS as kids. Even though we grew up in different churches almost seven hours away from each other, it turns out we know all the same songs!

Needless to say, on our way to IN from OH we had to bust out the songs again. I wonder what other people thought if they turned their heads to see a man and woman screaming at the top of their lungs and waving their arms around. If you were on the inside of Salena, you would know we were acting out and loudly singing to "Father Abraham"; however, it probably looked like we had bees in our car from the other side of the window!

That's all for now. Hopefully my next blog will be telling you all that we finally found a good car for Zach for a great price