April showers bring this...

It has been pretty gloomy here in Provo for the past MONTH.
It seems to have rained almost every day.
I thought the showers would end with April, but alas, here we are half way through May.
About the ONLY good thing this rain has brought is some pretty amazing flowers and greenery that make me feel like I'm in....not Utah.
My Grandma Doris definitely has a green thumb, a trait I most certainly did not inherit.
She is out in the garden almost every day pruning, plucking, and planting.
And she's 83.
When I'm her age I definitely intend to just sit around.

These Tree Peonies in the front yard are like the size of my face.


I really wanted peonies at my wedding, but they are out of season in August : (



Lilacs are especially pretty right now and smell great too!

I really like these hangy ones...don't know what they're called


Here's some cute lil yellow ones


And yes, she has tulips too.
Happy Tuesday friends!

IRONPEOPLE

We went to St. George this past weekend to watch Tys uncle compete in an Ironman.
(I think Ironpeople is more pc because there were a lot of women in it too.)
If you aren't familiar...here's the breakdown:
2.4 mile swim
+112 mile bike
+26.2 mile run
= 140.6 miles of...well, hell.
I saw people passing out, throwing up, and even bleeding.
But I actually thought it looked fun?
Watching them cross the finish line was my favorite part.
Quite an accomplishment.

Here's us with Dirk-the Ironman himself, and Jodi- Ty's mom

Dirk's cheering squad after the race


Soooo...
Ironman- South Africa
April 22, 2012.
Who's with me???
Anyone?
ANYONE????

DONE.

As of yesterday I am an unemployed college graduate.

Ahhh feels nice.
Tyler and I graduated in my department together.
We even walked across the stage hand in hand because
1) We're married, duh
and
2) Because I was scared I was going to trip and fall on my face.



Both of our parents came into town to celebrate.


Here's our friends Kylee and Scott.
Love them.


After we walked we met up with Aleesha at the pool for some swammer grad pics.

Our sexy mamas

I wish I'd taken some pics without that fugly robe on.

Seems like only yesterday I was moving into the dorms.
I'm sad to be done...But happy to be done.
You know?

I just wanna fly....

On Saturday we went to a movie.
A movie that I really liked.
After that movie we walked outside and heard live music coming from the mall next to the theater so we decided to check it out.
As we walked (limped) towards the music all of a sudden the unfamiliar tune ended and the sound changed to a memory from my pre-teen years:

I really haven't even thought about the band Sugar Ray in like, 7 years.
Ok that's a lie.
I watch Celebrity Apprentice every Sunday night and Mark McGrath is on it.
If you don't know what I'm talking about...well I wouldn't be that surprised.
Anyway I was SO excited when I heard this song.
See...
SO excited.
There were tons of people there!

It was so fun.
When does this ever happen?
Just walking around, minding my own business, then all of a sudden BAM I get to go to a FREE concert with one of my childhood favs.
Their music reminds me of being 10 years old riding in the backseat of my mom's car headed to summer swim practice.
LOVE Sugar Ray.
Even if they haven't had a new song since 1997.

My life

is like this for now.

Happy Friday friends!!!

I kneeded surgery...

*Notice: If this post doesn't make sense and has a lot of grammar problems I apologize...I am still on meds*

So I found out last Monday that I had torn the ACL and meniscus in my right knee.
I wasn't that surprised when the doctor told me the news because I know exactly when it happened.
It was on Christmas Day.
Yes, Christmas.
The ONE time I decide to try and play basketball.
Thought I would try and join in on the family fun and look where it gets me.
Anyway, because we have a lot coming up in the near future I decided to go ahead and have the surgery on Friday to get it over with.
Of course the nurse calls and tells me I must arrive at the hospital at 5:45am.
I could barely sleep the night before, but before surgery I was actually feeling quite peppy and excited.
I have never had surgery before and was anticipating, well the anesthesia ; )

They even gave me these nifty undershorts things to wear which were super cute.


So they start drugging me up and before I even realize it I am acting pretty weird.
As they were wheeling me off into the operating room Ty said one last, "Love you babe!" and I responded by saying "L-O-L!"

All I remember is them putting an oxygen mask on my face and then, what felt like 5 minutes later, shaking me saying it was time to wake up.
I then remember demanding apple juice.
When I got back into the room where Ty and my mom were waiting, I told Ty he could take some pictures, naturally.
Apparently I insisted on throwing up a peace sign in every picture.

My mom was making an "L" with her fingers because they were still laughing that I said "L-O-L" on my way to surgery.
I got sad because I thought the "L" stood for "loser."

So she switched to a "w" for "winner." No she wasn't on drugs too, silly.


I mustered up all my strength to throw up that peace sign.

I remember my mom and Ty laughing at me but I didn't understand what was so funny.
I got home around noon on Friday and the rest of the weekend is pretty much a blur.
I slept.
Went to the bathroom like twice.
And ate a little .
Seriously that's all I did.
I'm starting to feel a lot better now and will hopefully get back into the swing of things pretty soon.
Luckily when the doctor got inside my knee he found out the meniscus was not torn so he only had to fix the ACL, which equals a shorter recovery.
I doubt your weekend was as good as mine, but hopefully you did something fun!

CARS

One of the most embarrassing things in my life happened to me today.

I parked my car in the BYU parking lot so I could go work out in the gym.
As I began my workout, I received a phone call from a BYU number.
The man on the other line said, "Is this Sara Jayne Baldwin?"
"Uh...yes?" I Replied
"This is BYU police calling, there is a problem with your car so you need to go to the parking lot right now."
So I run down to my car to see what was going on...right now I am assuming someone had hit it or something...but no, that would have been nice.
I go down to the parking lot to see that my car had rolled out of its' parking spot and was sitting in the middle of a one-lane, one-way road blocking like, 4 school buses and 15 cars from getting through.
Yeah.
As I run to my car people are like honking and yelling at me and looking at me like I'm the village idiot.
One of the three police officers parked at the scene directing traffic and calming the angry mob walked up to me and tried to explain how a parking brake works.
I guess you're supposed to pull it ALL the way up.
Who knew?
Embarrassing.
Anyway today we sold our other car, the Sentra.
I thought I wouldn't care but I actually got a little sad seeing it drive off into the sunset.
I didn't think about it at first but then Ty brought up that it was the car he picked me up for our first date in.
SAD!!!!!

Luckily it has gone to a nice new family!

Sure it's not the fanciest car on the block...but we have many good memories of the Sentra.

Tomorrow I have to wake up at 5am to get knee surgery.
I randomly tore my ACL/Meniscus and need to get them repaired.
My biggest fear is waking up during surgery and feeling my flesh being cut open.
I swear it happens.
I'll let you know how it goes, if I survive.
: )

vegas birthday

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!
Here's what Ty and I did to celebrate MY golden birthday!
We first went out on Tuesday with the fam (parents not included...they always go on a cruise over my birthday I don't know why...) to Provo's ever so fabulous Los Hermanos restaurant.
We usually don't get to go here bc Ty thinks it's nasty but I love it and
decided that's where we'd celebrate.

Here's me at Los Hermanos with the giant birthday cupcake that my sister-in-law made me!!!

Then we went to my grandparents house and ate this apple pie, made by yours truly.

The first pie I have ever made and most likely my last.

THEN
Ty surprised me with tickets to "O" in LAS VEGAS!!!!!
SO on Thursday we packed up and drove to sin city.
We stayed at the Tropicana Hotel.
I was going to take some pictures of us at the show but when we got there at 10:15, what we thought was early for the 10:30 show, the lobby was empty and there were no lines of people waiting to get in.
We started panicking and when we went to pick our tickets we learned it had actually started at 10!
Whoops.
Kinda sad but we only missed a few minutes so we go over it.
We love the Cirque du Soleil shows in Vegas and have to admit O is our new favorite.
We also hit up the buffet at the Wynn Hotel...TO DIE FOR.
Here are some pics:

cool plant things

Ty just chillin

The food went on FOREVER! And we're not talking Chuck-A-Rama here people!

My plate of deserts. My guess is I ate about 10,000 calories in that one meal.

Here's us in the Wynn after dinner

And me out on the strip.

Wow like 99% of this post was about food.
I don't really know what to say about that.
Bye!

Identity Crisis

Have you ever had one?

Where like, everything you've ever known is now gone and you don't really know who you are?
Ok I'm being dramatic.
Sorta.
But for reals instead of being an "athlete," now I'm just a person.
Not that there's anything wrong with that...But since I'm not an athlete anymore, I don't have excuses for all of the lame things I do like go to bed at 8 and wear yoga pants to school every day.
I'm turning over a new leaf and I'd like to call it "being a real adult who does normal adult things."
For instance, I made the bed this morning.
And I blow-dried my hair.
These small tasks may seem like parts of every day life to, well, normal people, but for me they were things I could get away without doing because I was an "athlete" and I had to wake up early.
But, alas, here I am.
A non-athlete.
A has-been.
Along with starting to do things that I should have been doing since I was 16, I am trying to work on my person hygiene.
Not to gross anyone out, but it's hard for me to remember to shower now that I don't have to get in the pool.

If I'm not already wet from swimming...why should I have to get in a shower and intentionally get myself wet?

Like I said earlier I did my hair today for the first time since like Christmas.

Exhibit A
(trying to cleverly hide the nastiness with a headband)

Exhibit B
(again with the headband...I really wasn't fooling anybody)

Exhibit C
(I'm the one on the right with the beehive do)

I'm actually thinking about dying it.

Heard of the ombre look?
Some people hate it because it looks like you are lazy and let your roots grow out, but I love it and I think I'm gonna go for it.
Thoughts?
Thanks for tuning in.
P.S. tomorrow's my birthday but you already knew that so you can just go ahead and mail me that really expensive present you bought me forever ago. Thx!

words.

WORDS WITH FRIENDS.
Usually referred to simply as 'words'.
Please tell me you've heard of it.
It's like, scrabble for techy people who have iPhones.
Ty and I have been playing non-stop for weeks now.
I'm not usually a gamer.
I never play games because, generally speaking, I'm bad at every game and I'm too competitive to lose every time.
But on 'words' you can choose who you play so I just choose people who are bad too.
Tyler, on the other hand, comes from a family of gamers.
The Baldwins can stay up all night playing cards and stuff.
The first time I played games with his family I was like, what's going on?
The last game I had played was probably Candyland when I was 6 and I'm sure I didn't even follow the rules.
I feel like an idiot when I play real scrabble with the Baldwins because the only words I can come up with are ones like "no" and "hi."
I come from a family who watches movies and goes to bed by 10 on weekends.
So trust me, if I like 'words' you will too.
My username is sjbaldwin.
Add me so we can be words friends k?

birthday FUN

This is my two year old son riding on a special pretend pony for his birthday.

jk that's my husband.
We went out on his birthday to Texas Roadhouse with them.
(not to be confused with them)
Have you been there?
Every time we go I feel like the biggest idiot because we literally have to wait for 3 hours and there are approximately 500 other people waiting to be seated too.
The food is goodish...but seriously? 3 hours???
It is the busiest restaurant I have ever been to and every time we leave I think, "we are never going back."
But we end up eating there like twice a week even for special occasions like birthdays.
???
Anyway so Ty had a good birthday and it's weird because he seems really old and mature now.

Today with Commentary

Today I
Saw an ex-boyfriend
(what was I thinking?)
Ate three "lite" Yoplait yogurts
(that probably equals one normal one)
Parked illegally and didn't get a ticket
(Yipee!)
Thought I slept for an hour but it had only been 15 minutes
(love when that happens)
Wore wuggs to school
(wuggs are wannabe Uggs from Costco that are 37 bucks)
Started that paper I've been dreading
(1 page down 9 to go)
Saw a picture of my 14 year old self
(I wouldn't go back)

Bittersweet Breakup

SOoo I have been swimming for like my entire life besides when I was a fetus.

The only way I can describe my relationship with swimming (yes, relationship) is to say it's one of those "love/hate" type of things.
I have always loved swimming, racing, competing, and being part of a team.
But at the same time...it has been a major sacrifice and I sometimes wonder why I decided to put myself through it.
Why couldn't I be like...a tap dancer or something?
Aren't there less chemicals on a stage or field or court?
Here is an abridged version of what my life has consisted of for the past 15ish years because I couldn't figure out how to write it in a paragraph:
waking up at 5:30am.
scraping snow off car while the moon is still out.
lifting weights (not like...a few curls with some cute 10lb dumbbells...like we're talking like some manly stuff here).
diving into a vat of freezing chlorinated water...which results in awkward chlorine smelling sweat throughout the day.
swimming 4 hours a day..back and forth....fast and slow...blah blah blah.
only having hair on my head (which feels like straw) and legs bc the rest gets burned off by chlorine.
plz don't ask about the hairy legs thing.
And constant soreness in all muscles, but especially in the shoulder region--I can remember some workouts leaving me so sore that lifting my arms up for a bottle of Ibuprofen wasn't an option.
Why would I choose this seemingly miserable path?
Why would I choose a life like this you ask?
Wouldn't it have been so much more fun in my high school/early college years to stay out late every night partying and sleeping in every morning to my heart's content?
Maybe.
But there's something that has kept me coming back to the pool day in and day out....stroke after endless painful stroke.
So as I approach an epic break-up from this lifelong, sickly twisted relationship, I've realized a few things (this post was inspired by my last two home meets at BYU this weekend)...
My life spent in the swimming pool hasn't been defined by races I've won or lost, best times and records, awards or recognition.
What I will remember from this journey are the lessons I've learned about myself and how I know my strength and weaknesses, the lasting relationships I've made with teammates and competitors, and the value of working hard at something you really want.

I am also realizing that for the rest of my life I will never be in as good of physical shape I am currently in.

That is depressing.

With only about 4 weeks left until swimming and I call it quits I'm trying to think of the right thing to say to make it a clean break...
I'm thinking something like, "It's not you, it's me"
or maybe
"I just need to move on"
What do you think?
After that I will join the ranks of the "Swammers"
(those who swam).

1/11/11

I like today's date because all I have to write is:
line slash line line slash line line.
Makes life just that much easier, doesn't it?
No curves or loops or zig-zags to deal with.
Here's a picture from my new camera taken on Christmas.


Presh.

Christmas Miracle

Jk there was no miracle.
But lets be honest... December 26th is by far the most depressing day of the year.
I already miss Christmas and want to fast forward 365 days from now so we can have it again.
It was a Christmas of lasts for us.
The last Christmas for us living in Utah until who knows how long.
Last Christmas as college students.
Last Christmas with my 'lil bro before he leaves for two years.
It was a good one.
On Christmas Eve, after the annual Christiansen party (which is complete with funeral potatoes, green Jell-o, and a live nativity) we headed home and spent the evening eating, laughing, playing, and watching that dumb movie "A Christmas Story" that nobody really likes but we have to because it's tradition.
After my niece and nephew went to bed we acted as Santa and put together all of their presents and placed them under the tree.
This was a fascinating experience, seeing as how it is the first time I've played Santa.
We spent almost 2 hours putting together this doll house for Alli, my niece.
Don't even worry it includes an elevator, patio furniture, and a toilet (her fav part).



I couldn't sleep at all on Christmas eve because I was so excited.
I wonder if I'll ever grow out of that.
Prob not.
Ty got me this....



I am so excited to take pictures with something other than my phone!

I was sad to leave home this morning to drive to San Diego for a week of training. Right now I'm blogging from my phone in a van somewhere outside Beaver, Utah.
Jealous?
Thought so.
Hope Santa came to your house this year too!!!

Naughty or Nice

So don't get me wrong...I LOVE the Christmas season and everything about it.
I just really haven't had the time or felt the urgency to decorate our little apartment all Christmasy especially because we aren't going to BE here for Christmas.
Is that Scrooge of me?
The only decoration we have is a 12 inch tall "Christmas Tree" that I got it from my freshman roommate's mom.
See...
Sad.
I think I will try to get into the Christmas spirit by writing a list of Naughty and Nice things I did this year.

Naughty things I did this year:
Left dirty dishes in the sink for over a weeks and they mold grew. oops.
Punched Ty in the groin.
Asked a lady when her baby was due...turns out she wasn't pregnant.
Faked sick.
Made Ty watch "The Devil Wears Prada." Twice.
Spent too much money at Lululemon and hoped Ty wouldn't find out but he did and I'm sure Santa did too.
Lost a bet and never payed up.
Fought with an old man in the grocery store over one of those sticks you use to separate your groceries at checkout.
Squeezed from the top of the toothpaste tube when Ty repeatedly asks me to squeeze from the bottom.

Nice things I did this year:
Made homemade pancakes for my family.
Gave some old clothes to the D.I.
Raked leaves for my Grandma.
Pretended to have fun when Ty wanted to watch 3 football games in a row one Saturday.
Ate a gross meal just to be nice.
Stopped to let some ducks cross a busy road and honked so other people would stop too.
Slept with the window open when it was 10 degrees outside because Ty likes it cool when he sleeps. I am the best wife ever.
Visited someone in the hospital.

I'd say I have a pretty good chance of getting what I want for Christmas.