8 years ago...

Eight years ago today, I married my best friend. It has been the best decision of my life. We have had our shares of highs and lows and God has kept us together. We have made some pretty incredible memories together in this time. And we've shared our fears, desires, secrets, goals, dreams and so much more. Now, we have a beautiful boy that reflects our two personalities with a little quirkiness of his own and it has gone by so fast! You may be asking yourself, "Wow how do you guys do it?" Here are a few things we've learned along the way (in no particular order.)
1. The couple that pumps together stays together. That's right people, working out together has kept us accountable to each other and God to take care of our bodies.
2. Compromise and selflessness. Neither one of us are perfect, but we learn from our mistakes and press on. When we serve each other we both win! We look out for each other's needs and then our own needs end up getting met. We've got each other's backs. :-)
3. Core Sin. At church we have learned what our main "issue" is. Meaning, how we usually get caught in sin or temptation to sin. We have learned to help each other through these sins and FORGIVE each other. (yeah, the Bible tells us to love unconditionally and forgive so we do that and it saves a lot of unnecessary issues.)
4. Communication. We are not perfect at this, but we've both learned (sometimes the hard way) to talk to each other, ESPECIALLY before confirming attendance to events, activities and spending money. This has saved us MANY arguments.
5. Financial Peace. We attended (and graduated) from Financial Peace University with Dave Ramsey. We learned (after many mistakes) how to take care of our finances God's way and have a completely different outlook on the way we spend the money God has provided us. REALLY wishing we would have learned about this course before we got married or at least when we were newly weds. None the less, we will be saving ourselves years of financial issues because of taking this class. We are not debt free yet, but we are getting there.
6. Stuff is just stuff. Less is more. And the more you have, the more issues seem to arise. We seem to be much happier after removing some of the clutter of things in our life. And we regularly give away and clean out stuff we don't need. It's amazing how much stress extra stuff can cause (cars, clothes, things in the back of the closet that you never use/read/etc). Not to mention how much time is wasted cleaning these things.
7. Take one for the team. Yeah, you can interpret this however you like, but sacrifice isn't always bad. Ha ha!
So, there you go. There is plenty more, but these popped up in my head in the last 5 minutes. Here are some photos of life together over the last 8 years. And here's to many more memories to come!

Dating Days:
My first trip to Santa Barbara to say goodbye. We had been on several dates over Christmas break 1999, our freshman year of college. Shelley, Colin's mom drove Colin, Tymon and I to Santa Barbara to see the campus and hang out. I stayed the night with Shelley in a hotel. This photo is at Westmont a few minutes before we headed back to Lake Elsinore. Westmont freshman must live on campus, and they can't have a car on campus, no room.

 This was my first Easter brunch with Colin, the Bardsley's and the Maietta's in April of 2000. Man, look at my hair (eeeee.)

 This was a trip that Colin and I took to Disneyland, pretty sure it was also in 2000. We didn't go back until like 2006 or 2007.

 We both love the beach. This was at Oceanside beach in 2001 or 2002. The boys covered all but my head in the sand. And then I was real tan when they were done (ha ha!) Good times.

 This was our last night of dating... Christmas Eve 2002. We were engaged the next morning.

 This photo is one of our engagement photos at Westmont in Santa Barbara. It is amazing to see how far camera's and photography have come since we got married. Digital was not really heard of (or used commonly) I had a regular (and crappy might I add) camera. Photos took forever to develop and you didn't get to look at them right after they were taken. Regardless of the clarity, we've changed so much since then.

Here is a slide show of some of our wedding photos. Chris Bence Photography, pretty sure he doesn't take pictures of weddings any more.

Our New Bald Buddy

Since Kellen was born he has had a head full of hair. It grows fast and for whatever reason he HATES getting his hair cut now. No matter how much we bribe, pray and try to calm him down with snacks, a movie, letting him shave daddy first, he just isn't having it. His head gets so hot when he plays and with the warm weather approaching (I think, today was confusing with the rain) I don't want him to get over heated.

SO... we shaved his head. His first summer he had a mow hawk, and he looked rad. He's a boy, he can rock any hair cut and if we don't like it, it grows out in less than a month. Here are some before and after photos... and a video of my fitness partner. :-)

Here he is resting with Daddy... and Mater.

I think this one is at Grandma's house... a back view, while blowing bubbles!

And now, with no hair. Yep, it's gone (for a little while). It seems to have made him more hyper and mischievous. I don't think I will do that again. I think next time I will make Colin take him to a barber shop and see if that works.

No matter how crazy the little guy gets, he is still the most amazing little thing to look at when he sleeps. I am so thankful that God has blessed us with such an amazing little boy.

Time to get rid of OBESITY!!!

Ok, so I am now officially a Team Beach Body Coach. I am taking the fitness challenge. I consider myself to be pretty fit, however my diet has not always been the best... when I signed up to be a coach, I signed up for Shakeology. The above video describes what shakeology is all about. I am taking the Shakeology challenge. I am wating for my shipment to arrive in the mail and I am SUPER excited! Once it arrives, I will be taking some "beginning" photos and measurements and posting regular updates to watch myself get healthier!! I am going to be a product of the product and lead by example! I hope you will follow me on my journey and be challeneged to take control of your health!!

Blessings!!

Mindie Gilliland
Independent Beach Body Coach
http://www.teambeachbody.com/timetosoar
http://myshakeology.com/timetosoar

Best Buy Follow Up

OK, so I received a letter from the corporate office in the mail yesterday. Here is what it said:

"Dear Mindie,

Thank you for contacting the Best Buy corporate office with your letter. First and foremost, I want to sincerely apologize on the Best Buy's behalf for the experience you had getting this computer repaired at the store in Murrieta. Yours i never the experience we want our customers to have and I would certainly feel frustrated too if I were in your shoes. Clearly, there are several coaching issues that this letter has brought up that will need to be addressed with our Geed Squad at this store.

With that said, I do want to thank you for taking the time to bring these issues to our attention. Although we don't like hearing negative feedback about our stores, we do need to hear it to ensure that we are dealing with the issue appropriately and there aren't other customers who have a similar experience.

I will be documenting your complaint and sending it off to the store's management team as well as the district management team for review. Please do not hesitate to contact us directly at 888-BEST BUY (237-8289) with any additional questions or concerns.

Best Wishes,

Seth V.
Best Buy Consumer Relations"

It was nice to know that they are at least going to attempt to fix the issue. Will I ever shop there again, no. But that wasn't the point, the point was to make them aware of the issue so that other customers that choose to still shop there will not have the experience that I had. So, there you go.

Mission accomplished.

BOYCOTTING BEST BUY

DO YOU SHOP AT BEST BUY??? READ BELOW TO SEE WHY I AM BOYCOTTING THEIR STORE. THIS IS THE LETTER I SENT TO THEIR CORPORATE OFFICE.

Attn: Customer Service

Best Buy Corporate Customer Care
P.O. Box 9312
Minneapolis, MN 55440
1-888-BEST BUY (1-888-237-8289)
Friday, March 11, 2011
To Whom It May Concern:
My name is Mindie Gilliland and I have been purchasing my electronics from Best Buy for as long as I can remember. Through the years we have purchased several computers, DVD’s, CD’s, and an entire home theatre system. We purchased a Sony Computer in April of 2009. We also purchased the warranty for this computer to cover all repairs. Since our purchase we have taken advantage of the warranty and saved over $700 in repairs. We are very thankful for the warranty.
Recently we had to have the hard drive and optical lense replaced because it fell off our kitchen table. We brought it to our local best buy, which is in Murrieta. We live on the northern side of Lake Elsinore so it takes about 30 minutes to get there. I am pleased with the repair; however the amount of time it took to repair the computer, the poor customer service and communication has made me decide to no longer purchase any items from Best Buy ever again. Let me explain why:

• February 14th 2011, my husband and I dropped off the computer for repair at the Murrieta Best Buy with the Geek Squad. We explained the issues, the man (Harvey) that we spoke with assured us it should be a quick fix and we would get the computer back quickly.

• February 16th 2011, I received a phone call to notify me that the computer needed replacement parts that they did not have and they needed to ship the computer “out” for the repairs. They needed my approval in order to do this. (oddly, they never needed my approval to ship the computer for the other 2 repairs that we have had in the past) Regardless, they needed me to call them back to tell them to ship it out. I called back that afternoon, and the phone rang for about 3 minutes and then an operator lady asked for my name and number and told me the Geek Squad would return my call shortly. I told her if she could just let them know that it was fine to ship out the computer for repairs that that was all they needed to know. The conversation ended with her telling me they would call back.

• February 21st 2011- A WEEK LATER I still did not receive a call back from the Geek Squad so I called again to see if they had received my message and sent out my computer. I got the same operator and she asked for the same thing, my name and number and they would call me back. I explained to her that we already did that once almost a week ago and she put me on hold. A minute later I was speaking to another male Geek Squad clerk and explained the phone call I received on the 16th and the message I left and the fact that no one returned my call and he pulled up my information. He told me that they had not sent out my computer because they did not have my permission, (which meant that my computer had sat there for almost a week and nobody even thought to try calling me again to get it taken care of) The man on the phone didn’t even apologize for the delay. He said it would be shipped out to for repairs the next day.

• February 28th 2011, I received a phone call from a woman at the Chino repair shop where my computer was shipped. She asked me if I could explain what was wrong with my computer because NO PAPERWORK WAS SENT WITH IT FROM THE MURRIETA STORE!!!!!! Not only did it take a WEEK to go less than 50 miles, she had NO COMMUNICATION with the Murrieta store to take care of my computer. I explained to her that the hard drive needed to be repaired and the optical lense for the DVD drive wasn’t working. She assured me that they would be taken care of and that I would receive a phone call when it was shipped back to the store.

• March 7th 2011, I received a phone call from Harvey that my computer had been fixed and that it was at the Murrieta store and that they needed my recovery discs to complete the repair. He assured me it would only take a few hours after I dropped off the discs. My son was napping when he called, and we were unable to get to the store that day. We headed to the store the next morning.

• March 8th 2011, I waited in line for 25 minutes behind only 2 customers. There was only one service clerk working. One of the customers was having similar issues with customer service that I was having (her issue took a month and they gave her back her item broken and missing parts) finally another man came out to help. He was shorter, with dark hair and a mustache. I do not recall his name. The other employee was a tall Caucasian man with no facial hair. I gave the shorter man my paperwork, and he looked at the computer for a few minutes, and then I began to explain the entire situation to him because he seemed to not know what I needed. After explaining the whole thing, he asked me if I had my power cord for my computer. Nobody told me to bring any cords with me when they called me so I did not have it. He then told me that the computer would probably not be ready until tomorrow because he would need to find a power source and he couldn’t guarantee it would be ready that day.

• March 10th 2011, I happened to be in Murrieta and thought I would check on the status of the computer. I had not received a phone call yet, but was hoping this whole thing would be done so I could have a computer again. A woman was working the Geek Squad area that day. A very friendly, medium length hair, middle aged woman helped me. When she looked up my information on the computer, no one had updated the computer and it had no notification that my computer had even arrived back from Chino! She had another young woman help her insert the information into the computer (because they cannot release the computer until the information is correct), and then I finally got my computer back. I apologize that I do not recall any of the other Geek Squad member’s names. Only one person actually told me their name.
Each time we have had to take our computer to the Geek Squad it has taken several weeks to complete the repair. This time, was that last. You have lost me as a customer. And unless you teach your Geek Squad helpers how to answer their phones, communicate with one another, care about customer needs in a timely manner, and smile, you are going to lose a lot of business.
A friend of mine just purchased her Apple computer from the Apple Store in Victoria Gardens instead of going to Best Buy because of my suggestion; which lost your company at least $500.00 in business. I have several other friends that have also decided to purchase their electronics elsewhere because of similar issues. I am posting my complaint on my face book, my blog and emailing it to all of my friends and family and urging them to save themselves the head ache and NOT to shop at your stores. If you wish to contact me with any questions please do not hesitate. You’d be the first to call back.