2000 hours later

 well it's official. i have now completed 2000 hours and am a graduate of taylor andrews academy of hair design.

wow.

i never thought this day would come, 2000 hours is a long time! but i did it, and i wouldn't trade those 2000 for anything. 

graduating was so bittersweet. i am definitely going to miss school, i have amazing instructors, amazing. and i'm going to miss them so much. i have learned so many different things from each of them and i love it. i learned different techniques from each of them, and they always made school so much fun. i am so lucky to know them. 

i had so many incredible opportunities at taylor andrews including:

*being able to do hair show twice, modeling for hair show this year as well.

*doing spy games twice.

*having nicholas french's class twice.

*meeting charles marcus

*motivational class from christopher belmont

*hands on classes from redken

*sub for santa and giving presents to a family in need

*classes from larry curtis, the owner

and there is so much more. i seriously went to the best school. i feel incredibly blessed to have gone there. 

so to the staff at taylor andrews, thanks you. thanks for the support, your friendship, sharing your passion for the hair industry, pushing me to reach my dreams. i am forever grateful for each of you. and i will miss you all so very much.

also a shout out to my bestie, shanelle. thank you for being such an amazing friend. thank you for always being there for me, to listen to me, to let me vent, and being such a great example to me. i don't know how i could have done these last few months of hair school without you. 

so TA, its been real. thanks for the memories, i will cherish them forever. :)

first day of school

last day of school

what a week

this week you guys... has been stressful, but yet very rewarding!

this week i took my final tests to be able to get my cosmetology license. i had to do a written and practical test at my school, and a written and practical for the state.

the state tests were absolutely terrifying. especially the practical. i am so glad i had 3 other friends from my school come with me to take the practical, because it is super intimidating!

about 4 hours later taking the practical at the state we got to see our results, getting that piece of paper and seeing that i passed was like winning the miss america pageant. no joke. i started bawling, i was so relieved! all my friends told me to stop crying, but i couldn't! 

yesterday i took my written at the state, that wasn't as terrifying as the practical, but i still had butterflies.
when you finish your test and are ready to submit it, it asks you twice if you are sure you want to end your test, then it takes you to a 10 question survey about the testing center, then asks you about 3 more times if you are ready to submit, asks you to type yes that you are ready then you FINALLY get your score. holy hannah i just want to know my score! after i got my paper saying i had passed that one i was just even more relieved!
no. more. studying. i can just relax for this long holiday weekend! my school is awesome and gave us today off! a saturday off! yes! 
i'm so glad i am done with these tests, i can enjoy the next 3 weeks at school just finishing my hours. i'm so excited to get out there and start my career!

PASS! PASS! PASS! :)

3 years

this post is a little overdue, but better late than never.

last week on the 15th, nick and i celebrated our 3 year wedding anniversary. it's so crazy how fast time flies. i still remember our wedding day as if it  were yesterday. i remember waiting to go into the sealing room with nick, we were just sitting there admiring the temple and how pretty it was and then nick leans over to me and says "i helped build this temple" definitely something nick would say to me, haha! i still remember how i felt on our wedding day. i still get butterflies just thinking about it. it was an incredible day. a long day too.

the night before a wedding nick posted on my old blog without me knowing, when we came home from our honeymoon i found it, and i just recently read it again:

HEY GUYS!! just to warn you first and foremost, this is nick typing without denise's knowing :) 

so here i sit, on the night before the big day, and i just am soaking in the moment. my wonderful fiance is making the final touches to my groom's cake, (which i cant look at yet) while i am putting together a playlist for background music to the reception. things are just good.

i cannot explain how grateful i am for the last eight months of my life where i have gotten to know my soon-be-wife, dated her, asked her to marry me, and just gotten to love her like no other girl i have ever known. she is just downright AMAZING and i simply cannot and will not imagine my life without her. we are taking a huge step tomorrow and may not know what exactly the future will hold for the two of us, but i know-and trust me on this one- i KNOW, that with her by my side, we can do anything. 

tomorrow i will be sealed to the love of my life in the draper, utah temple. she is my best friend, my one and only. she is the half that makes me whole. 

i cannot wait to spend eternity with her.

(i love you honey!!)

i remember being so excited to say fiance, but i absolutely love calling him my hubby. we sometimes joke to each other still and will say "hey, guess what? we're married!" i love it :)

this year for our anniversary we didn't do much, and that's ok. we are both so busy, and nick had to work that night of our anniversary. he called me when he was off work and i told him i had presents here waiting for him and he quietly said "yours isn't wrapped yet..." but when he got home, he had been so clever to wrap my gift in a mcdonald's bag with napkins as the tissue paper, totally a nick thing to do :)

we opened our gifts and then went and got slurpee's and went on a drive and talked. my favorite thing to do with him. it's so nice and relaxing. 

i have loved these past 3 years, we have had our ups and downs, we have had many adventures and i can't wait to see what the rest of eternity brings us. i wouldn't want to spend it with anyone else. :)

#usetheinternetforgood {my story} part 2

 about a month ago i posted a blog about a trial that nick and i went through with church. if you haven't read it, you can read it here. and to those of you that have read it, shared it on facebook. thank you. i do appreciate it, more than you know. 

tonight i had the amazing opportunity to go to one of al fox's firesides. and i got to go with my friend shanelle, the one who introduced to me al's blog. to finally hear her tell her story in person was amazing. she has such an amazing personality, and an incredible testimony of the gospel. 

when she first arrived shanelle and i were able to go up and talk to her. i was able to thank her for writing me back and giving me some advice, she grabbed me and gave me the biggest hug and was so excited that shanelle and i came. she is such a sweet girl.

in her fireside tonight she said a few things that stuck out to me, one was:

"trials never go away, but neither does Christ."

Christ will never go away. he is there for us, he is there for us to help us, to answer our prayers. we have to listen. Christ can, and will help us. all we have to do is ask.

when she was telling us about moving here to utah, she really had no idea why she needed to move to utah. and there were so many times she wanted to give up and to move back home. but she had a choice, to give in... or to keep going. to not stop.

i, personally know i need to keep going. i cannot, and will not stop going to church. i will not let satan tempt me again. the church gives me happiness. i know it's where i'm supposed to be.

i know nick and i got called to teach the sunbeams in primary for a reason. i know those little kids will teach me something that i need to know, as long as i keep going and don't stop.

Christ is real. the church is true. and i know the church gives me happiness. 

and i know all of you can feel that happiness too.

i don't ever want that happiness to go away, i've been down that road and don't want to go down it again.

i will keep going. i will not stop.

ah, i am back.

finally have internet. i've missed blogging. so stay tuned for some upcoming blog posts.

:)

hair show 2013

every year at my school we do a hair show. and all the money we raise for it goes to the YWCA. it's definitely a rewarding, incredible experience. (and also a bit stressful.)

i was able to do hair show twice. last year the theme of our hair show was broadway shows and my segment was grease. this year the theme was movies and my movie was mad max beyond thunderdome. haven't heard of it? check it out here.

for the hair show we have to find up to 8 models, build hair pieces for them, get a costume for them, get food/money donations, choreography... and i think that's it. it's amazing what people come up with for head pieces and how they build them. 

my partner for hair show this year was my friend sari. and we picked a character from the movie to go off of and had our friend suda sketch out an idea for a head piece, this is what we came up with:

the character we picked obviously doesn't have hair so we just made up a head piece to go with it. it was fun to come up with it. we built the hair piece off of a headband with wire. and it was a heavy thing of hair. we originally designed this head piece for a guy. but once we attached the tail of hair to it, it made it way more heavy than it already was and made it look really feminine. so considering hair show was about a week and a half away, we decided i was going to model for the hair show. i've never modeled before, but after doing hair show last year it looked really fun. i was excited but instantly got butterflies in my stomach as soon as we decided i was modeling. 

the day of hair show finally came last week (4/18) it was an early morning (especially since sari and i had been up late the night before at the bon jovi concert) we got to the school at 6:30 a.m. and got right to work.

we had decided to corn row the short side of my hair (sari did amazing at it) and have my long side be a part of the head piece. we had to add fake hair to my hair in order to corn row it. we also sewed the corn rows to my head so the fly aways didn't stick out. 

we had our first run through at the expo center at 11:00. after that we went back to the school and it was crunch time on getting everyones make up on, costumes on etc. at 3:15 we were back at the expo center attaching head pieces and getting ready for our final run through before the show at 7:00.

attaching my head piece was... painful. we had to attach it with bobby pins and we also sewed it to the corn rows. (i now know how i made my model feel last year.) but it was worth it. it was fun to be on the modeling side this year.

we had fun taking pictures back stage to kill time while the hair show was going, we were the 3rd group to go so there wasn't much to do til it was over.

we always have a few photographers come and take professional pictures for us. so while the hair show is going it's the perfect opportunity to go get those pictures done. i've never in my life have had professional modeling pictures done, so the photographer had to tell me what to do. they turned out good and it was fun to see how the turned out.

once the show ended we all went out into the audience so people could see our head pieces and get a closer look at them. i met up with nick and my mom and sister. i'm so glad they were able to come.

but now hair show has come and gone. it was such a great opportunity for me to be able to build hair pieces and to be able to model. i love that my school has so many amazing opportunities like this and i wouldn't trade them for anything.

bon jovi

on wednesday (4/17) night last week, i went to the bon jovi concert. i have had these tickets since the day they went on sale, which was in december last year. nick isn't a huge concert person, but he is ok to go to them if they are in big arenas, not little venues. so he agreed to go with me to this one.

april quickly approached on us and about a week before i reminded nick about the concert and that he needed to get work off. unfortunately, no one was able to cover nicks shift. so he was unable to go with me. luckily my friend sari my neighbor/school friend, was able to go with me. despite waiting outside in the freezing cold waiting to get inside, we had so much fun! i told sari that i buy a shirt at every concert i go to. so as soon as got in i looked to my left and just said "is that the merch table??" it was huge and not a very long line so i just ran over there. we both bought shirts and right as we finished paying we could here bon jovi getting ready to come on. so we hurried to find where we needed to go, and we had to run up the stairs... not fun. but we made it. and it was a fun concert! 

a copy of the set list 

we had really awesome seats for being in the upper bowel. we had a "rear view" but they had a big screen that showed everything, and thanks to my awesome camera i was still able to get good pictures of him on the stage. 

it was seriously an amazing concert. bon jovi knows how to put on a good show! thanks again sari for coming with me!