Random Moments

I have had a lot of random thoughts lately...

• Dear New-Years-Resolution-ers: You can't just sit in the gym and hope it counts as working out.  I commend you for getting yourself to the gym, but unfortunately that isn't merely enough so thank you for finally fizzling out or actually using the machines you are sitting on! 
• Dear lady that dances with the Little Ceasar's sign on the street corner, you are always smiling like you have the best job in the world.  Your happiness is contagious.  Thank you for your daily reminder that life is good.  
• Dear Utah, thank you for winning the bronze medal for coldest winter on record this year.  Next year, can you avoid winning a medal please?  It's a bit chilly!  Although, you have conditioned me so well, that the 41* day felt FABULOUS!  I didn't even wear a jacket! 
• Dear Subaru, you make some mighty fine snow-handling vehicles.  I am so grateful to have a vehicle to drive that doesn't try and play bumper cars on the freeway.  
• Dear Taxes, you took 20% of my first paycheck.  Rude.
• Dear BYU Library, I love that you have ALL the books I love to read and that I actually have time to read them.  Yes, I have read about 4 books this year already! (That already doubles how many I read last year.)  I forgot how much I love reading! 
• Dear (Warm) Sunshine, I miss you.  
• Dear Kids-at-work, your endless charity to your friends is amazing!  Thank you for teaching me so much. 
• Dear Sunrise times, thank you for beating me to the day!  It's nice to be able to drive to work without my car lights on! 
• Dear Life, you can be uncertain, but you really are good. 

Our 1st Valentines Day

We had heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast made on our new griddle (I've never had a griddle until now, but I LOVE it!).  We covered our pancakes in strawberries and yogurt that we blend in the blender!  It's so much healthier than syrup and SO delicious! So our pancakes were cute, red hearts... I forgot to take a picture.

At work, I asked all of my kids what their families do for Valentines Day.  It was fun to hear all the traditions, but I really liked a few ideas.  Many mentioned that they had red and pink meals (either breakfast or dinner).  Ours was so fun, that I want to keep that as a tradition.  Most of them mentioned how they write valentines cards/notes to all their family members.  Many of them also do heart-shaped pizzas and a "red"box movie.  One of my little first graders told me that I would make my husband really happy if I rented Hotel Transylvania and watched it with him.  He was so sincere.  He said, if he had money, that's what he would do with his mom.  

That evening, we had plans to go out to eat, but so did EVERY other person in Provo.  Everyone here is practically a newlywed, dating, or engaged... so we had a pretty good hunch that every single restaurant in town would be PACKED.

So, what did we do?  We got a "red" pizza and a "red"box and we watched Hotel Transylvania.  It was actually a very cute movie that had us laughing and it was a really fun night.  I think I like the red breakfast, redbox, and red pizza, and writing valentines-for-those-we-love traditions.  Of course, I had to get Jared his favorite candy.... red vines.  And he got me beautiful red flowers.

Our entire day was 

RED. 

What a fun day to honor, remember, and serve those that we love.

Oh, The Weather Outside is Frightful

Let's not talk about how the average high this month has been 20 degrees.  No need to mention that our 60 degree apartment feels fabulous - honestly!  It's been so cold that when I was walking out to my car after work on a 40 degree afternoon, I was so warm that I didn't even turn my car heater on.  People keep telling me this has been the coldest winter here in Utah in a long time!  Well, thank you Utah, for the not-so-warm welcome!

Despite the bone-chilling temps (I was perfectly fine with never having been outside in -7 degrees), we have tried to enjoy it as much as possible!

Jared and I went to Brighton Ski Resort the day after finals ended last semester.  It was the perfect day to be on the mountain.  A constant light snow kept it nice and powdered for us the entire afternoon.  It has taken me some time to adjust to snowboarding on "real" snow but let me tell you, it's way better than ice!

When we came back from our holiday break, we met up with the Horlachers who were in Utah for the holidays.  We went sledding and it was seriously SO fun!  The parks around here are designed with sledding in mind.  It made it way better than always trying to dodge trees and rocks!  It was so fun to see those kids and play with them!  I miss seeing them more often and I can hardly believe how big they are getting!

Just a couple days later, Jared and I went to the Canyons Ski Resort.  That place is more like a village than a resort.  It was such a big resort with so many great runs down the mountain.  It is exhausting to go out all day!  I was used to only being out there for half days, but we don't like to waste which means our all-day passes get put to their fullest use!  I had to take a break both times, and I accidentally fell asleep even!  I was SO tired, but it was so fun!  Both times, we ate out afterwards because we were positive that we were going to starve or fall over before we could even make ourselves the simplest of meals!  We hope we can make it out a few more times this season!

Moral of the Story: I like playing in snow.  I don't like living in snow. 

Our First Christmas

Christmas was wonderful!  We enjoyed the warmer weather (in the low 60's) in Arizona.  I LOVED the mild weather! We spent Christmas eve day with Jared's family.  Then we ate with our family and opened presents with my family.  It was a late night filled with lots of tradition - both his family's and mine.  We then finally crawled in bed to be woken up a few short hours later to see what Santa brought.  The little kids (Jared is #2 of 9 kids, the youngest being 3 years old) were so fun!!  I've missed seeing little kids on Christmas morning.  After breakfast, we went to my family's house and opened presents, enjoyed family, and saw what Santa brought there too.  We took our usual mid-Christmas-morning nap and then went back to Jared's Grandma's.  Then we went to my Grandma's.  Next we went back to our family's house and then back to Jared's house where we finally crashed....  Whew!  I can't even begin to tell you how busy it is to always be bouncing between both families for the fw days we have with them, but it's so worth being able to spend time with them!  We are blessed to have two very wonderful families!

I imagine that First Christmas being a bit more calm.

I am thankful to our Savior for His birth and life.

What a wonderful reason to celebrate!

Other Highlights 

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-Buying and decorating our very own tree

-Talking to my brother David who is now in Italy

-Doing the family puzzle(s)

-Caroling with Jared's extended family (around 30 of us)

-Watching lots of Christmas movies
-Going to "A Christmas Carol" at Hale Theatre with Jared's family

-Going to J's basketball game that ended with a 3-point buzzer shot by J's team to tie the game... and then they WON in over time
-Going to the Phoenix Zoo with our siblings

-Jared and I finished reading Percy Jackson #1 on the road trip down and watched the movie.  It's been really fun to read books together on our road trips

-Eating lots of good food

-Going to my Grandma's Christmas party and seeing all the talents

-Attending church with both our families

-Sharing our traditions with each other

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

My Handyman

I married a handyman.   

We moved into a place that had a few things that needed fixed up:

-new shower heads installed

-new calking around the tub and kitchen counters

-a bathroom medicine cabinet needed installed

-new towel rod (one that isn't 10in. above the toilet - seriously, who does that?!!?)

-closet door tracking - the sliding doors were more like just sliding immovable doors

-new sink faucet installed

-putting together a t.v. stand

-putting together a coffee table

Poor guy, had a honey-do list longer than ever should be legal, 

and all before we were even married!

After we got married, he helped hang all our wall decor, hung a ton of storage hooks and... replaced our dishwasher AND microwave. (P.S. I'm really grateful for BOTH those appliances!)

He was able to do all of it!! 

I can't even tell you how grateful I am for having that all taken care of!!

It really is such a blessing!
I'm so grateful he has taken the time to learn those skills
and use them to bless us!

How did I end up so lucky?!?

I am so thankful for that handsome handyman of mine!

Thanksgiving 2012

We were super blessed to be able to spend 7 full days with our families in AZ.  Jared didn't have class the week of Thanksgiving so we were able to enjoy lots of time off.

The entire break was filled with activities with our families from lots of baking to black friday shopping to the turkey trot to birthday lunches to board games to singing around the piano to hot-tubbing to just about anything we could squeeze in.  Not to mention, Jared was catching up on sleep he lacks during the school weeks.  It was a wonderful week that went all too fast.... that is until our drive home which did NOT go fast.  We ended up driving back to Utah with half of our high school who was also caravanning back to Utah after the holiday.  You know it's bad when you can name over half the people at the gas station in Page, Arizona.  Haha!

Turkey Trot - All of us ran the 10K

We have so much to thankful for this year!  Including our opportunity to gain an education, the long break our educational institution gave us, enough funds to be able to drive home for the holidays, two amazing and loving families, good weather, plenty of food to eat, healthy bodies, religious freedom, this time of year to reflect on our Savior, and SO much more!  Happy Thanksgiving!

Our Wedding

We got married over a month ago, but now that I have my pictures, I wanted to post a few...

Our wedding weekend was a WHIRLWIND!!

Thursday morning at like 6am (the day before we got married and the morning after Jared flew in), we met with our videographer to record our stories... it was early, but we had to be done by the time the courthouse opened so we could get a marriage license... you know, that one thing you HAVE to have in order to actually get married!  That was easy enough since we beat the rush!  Afterwards, we went out and ate breakfast.  It was a nice little break to a crazy day.  Then the craziness continued... I went to get my hair done for pictures and Jared had an orthodontist appointment. I know, I know - doctors appointments your wedding weekend? - Yep, that's life!  We got to the temple for pictures and we were so blessed.  It was the ONLY day we could take pictures and it ended up being a beautiful day with an amazing sky!  Pictures were a blast!!  Below I have posted some of the pictures from our wedding shoot.  That night, after pictures, we spent time with family that was in town and then enjoyed our last night being engaged!  Being engaged to him was SO FUN!   It was a crazy day but a very fun day!

On our actual wedding day, I didn't get up super early - I always said I would have a later wedding so that I wouldn't have to get up at 4am.  I'll admit, I didn't sleep much that night - I was a bit excited, but I'm still glad I wasn't getting up at 4!  My sister A came with me to get my hair done (I didn't take any pictures! - Ah!).  Then, I ate breakfast, got dressed, packed my bag for the day and headed out the door with my mom.  We picked Jared up and drove to the temple.  Don't worry, we left the marriage license in our car so we had to run back out and get it!  At least we didn't leave it at home!

Our wedding ceremony was really neat and I am SO grateful that I was married in the temple.  It is the only place on earth that has the power to seal you together so that we have the opportunity to be married for time (this life) and all eternity (forever after).  It was also so wonderful to have so many close family members there to support us and even more family and friends waiting outside the temple for us!

We had more pictures afterwards and then went straight to our luncheon.  It was super delicious and lots of fun!  Jared's family spoiled us with his favorite food and their wonderful talents!

That night was our reception.  I had very little to do with the planning for this day so when I walked in to the building, I was blown away with how good it looked!  I was so pleased and thankful to my mom (and dad) who helped it all turn out so great!  We had so much fun seeing everyone who came and it went so quickly!  The food was so tasty (we got big boxes of it to take with us!) and it was a blast!

As we drove away, we could hardly believe the day we had been planning, waiting for, and dreaming of was over!  It was an absolutely perfect day!  And the best part.... I was married to....

him! :)

For more pictures and our wedding video, click the links below...

Pictures

Video