Wow, how things can change!

I was thinking about deleting a couple of previous blog posts, considering my life situation. But that would be like deleting my 2 years of my life! There have been good and bad changes, but I have learned so much through it all that I don't want to forget. Plus who reads this blog, anyway?

If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm divorced after a year of marriage.

Long story short, we didn't date long enough and by the time we were committed to each other it was too late. I guess Utah has a reputation of doing that to people. Being married put me through a lot of stress and put me in a depressed/anxious state to the point where I couldn't handle life. I have been judged for choosing to get a divorce for these reasons, ("Why didn't you try harder to work it out?") but you can trust me that it is best for both of our lives that this happened. I have already seen that we have both accomplished things that we never would have if we were together.

Anyway, enough of that. Think what you want about that as I am way over it and past caring!

Will I ever get married again? Maybe. I know a lot more about myself and also the type of person I would marry now.

Lily Dog

Ever since our first month of marriage, Danielle sneaks "puppy" on the weekly shopping list.  Isn't she a silly head? Well one day she sat me down and said, "We need a puppy."
She had obviously been thinking about it a lot because everything I had to say against getting a puppy she had a rebuttal.  The next day we were looking at puppies for sale.

There was a nice litter of 7 where the mommy was a Yorkie and the dad was a schnauzer and that's where we got our little Schnorkie, Lily!

Our little ball of fluff was about a pound when we got her

She sleeps in weird positions.  She generally is hyped up for about an hour, then instantly passes out (after peeing on our floor, of course)

I have always wanted a dog to give myself a dog-beard. 

Danielle and I have had a mix of emotions about our new addition.  It was about day 3 where we tried to sell her back to her litter because of her constant whining.  But now I think we're going to keep her!  She knows how to sit and can almost lay down.  She is pretty good at peeing either on her pee-pad or holding it until we go outside, but she loves to pee on our carpet in spite of us when she's mad.

Here she is being tolerant of her loving parents!  

Stay tuned for Halloween.  She already has a nice costume ready to go.

KirkZilla Update

Welcome to the first post of the official Kirks II (Matt and Katie reserved the name of Kirks I).  We have had quite a few adventures in the four months of marriage we've shared together.  First of all, Danielle found her spirit animal at the Krishna temple in Spanish Fork

That's a llama...not to be confused with Danielle who is making a pretty convincing impression.

Ashton found a new friend as well.

About the time that Danielle was added to the family, these two came along too.

We have been to quite a few concerts where we saw

• Cute is what we Aim For
• Mayday Parade
• Bayside
• Beebs and Her Moneymakers
• I Fight Dragons
• The Ready Set

And last but not least...

• 311

Danielle loves to talk about how much her husband's arm tingles when he listens to them (hehe). We're pretty much all concerted out.  But stay tuned because there are some more concerts on the way!

Ashton's work,Wavetronix, is pretty much the coolest job ever.  They provide tickets to wonderful events and reimburse us for any "bonding" activities that we partake in.  We'd like to thank our sponsors for the following fun events...

Atop the ferris wheel at Goo Lagoon

We bought a club at DI and got free coaching lessons from a professional golfer dude (with a stellar British accent).  He was off to the PGA tour after coaching us.

REAL Salt Lake Soccer game!

There's this place called Waffle Love that everyone loves to spend money at.  So Ashton copied there recipe and we eat them daily for very cheap! Yum Yums!

This blog posted consisted merely of the photographs that Ashton has taken on his phone.  This doesn't even start to cover the extensive exhilaration that we experienced in the first four months. 

THIS ONE'S FOR YOU, ERIK!

I hope you just read that title in an epic voice. That's how I meant it to be read. This is Danielle by the way. I got the wonderful chance to read Ashton's epic blogging adventures awhile back, but never thought I'd have the thrilling opportunity to actually post on it myself. IT'S AN HONOR 

Here's some pictures of the life of Dashton...

This dude's name was Erik. It was quite the moment.

I've turned Ashton into a treehugger. PS I'm halfway a hippie

The jazzalicious game we attended. One of Ashton's many drawing wins!

Red Robbins..nommmmm

A rockin' time in Moab! (next time we'll bring the unicycles..after I become a pro like ya'll)

If Michael Phelps did diving instead of the butterfly in the Olympics, we'd be him but in the sky

Another rockin' time of ours

And last, but not least, YOUR THRIFT STORE

What A Fun Summer

Here is a complete list of all the fun things I have done this summer.

•  
•  
•  

And that's it!

Just kidding, I've had a little bit of fun.

For starters, I got a summer job at an auto parts warehouse.  My job was warehouse picking. All day, I pulled around a big box and scanned items and put them in the box.  Then when that box was full I would do it again.  Sounds boring, so let's throw in some fun statistics!

Throughout my job this summer I:

• Worked 498 hours (dang, I was so close to a cool number!).
• Scanned ~ 76,000 items.
• Swore ~ 1,500 times. (I figure 25 a day is a pretty good estimate. And that's only 3 an hour, so it's barely PG-13)
• Made more money than both of my Alaskan summers combined!

I worked with a bunch of old dudes, and they loved making fun of me.  Which I was completely ok with.  I guess one of these guys went to college and now he's a "cardboard technician."  He goes around and picks up empty cardboard boxes.  So they are looking forward to me graduating college so I can go back to the warehouse and be a cardboard technician.  

Every couple of days, one of the old dudes would ask another, "How is {wife's name} doing?" and everyone would bust out laughing.  I never understood what was so funny about it.  It took me about a month but I finally figured it out.  It's like a mystery/riddle thing.  Can you figure it out?

Answer:  This question was asked to those workers wearing "wife beaters" or those undershirt/tank top dealies.  So when someone would wear a wife beater to work, someone else would ask how their wife is dealing with being beat.  ha. ha. Crazy old dudes. 

Whew, that's a lot of blogging!  I really did do some fun things this summer, but I think it's going to have to wait for another post.  Which may be a long long time from now, so don't get too excited.

McD's Needs Me

I don't always see my bosses.  But when I do, they beg me to become a manager and work with them through the summer.  
Thanks, but no thanks.

All the people I work with complain about not getting enough hours.
If I said "yes" to every time they wanted me to come in, I would have a full-time fast food job.

I think it's safe to say that this is my last fast-food job.  Thanks for all you have taught me, Ronald McDonald.

Only 2 more months.  

I love my job. (cynicism)

SL7 Adventures

There was this concert at the college a couple weeks ago.  My roommate Casey loved it so much that he stole one of the posters advertising it and got it autographed.  He's really obsessed with this poster. So he hung it up in our apartment and it takes up the whole wall.  I, personally, think it's the stupidest thing ever.  I mean, it's a poster advertising a dude that no one knows.  But there is no way Casey was going to let anyone take it down.

So I don't know what it is about girls around here, but they think it's really funny to "start wars" with our apartment.  One day, we came home and all of our couch cushions were missing and there was a sign saying "Let the hunger games begin - Apt. 10."  We wanted to show them that we truly did not care to start a war with them.  So we lived without cushions for a week.  Then they felt bad and brought them back.  We won.

Anyway, another apartment wanted to start wars with us.  So they came in our apartment and stole our Rock Band Drums.  I chased them down saying, "Wait! Take this poster!"  And I gave them the poster that Casey loves so much.  I thought it was a perfect plan to get rid of that thing.

Well Casey found out what I did and that was the beginning of the 2nd blowup our apartment has ever had this year (2 arguments for 6 months is pretty good if you ask me).  I was showering when he came home knowing what I had done.  He started pounding on my bathroom door saying some choice words.

The funny thing about Casey is that he is the Elder's quorum president, so anything he says, we mess with him.

"As the elder's quorum president once said {{insert harsh thing Casey said}}"


Casey ended up feeling really bad and gave me candy to make up for it.

We got the poster back... and Casey has the plan to steal the girl's bathroom door to make up for the pain they gave him by stealing the poster.