Happy Holidays!

It’s our first Christmas as a married couple! We enjoyed being engaged last year and getting to know each other better during that fun time, but this year is even better!

For Thanksgiving this year we decided to go to Disneyland. I’m not sure why exactly, but we just wanted to do something fun together and Bry loves Disneyland. We had a lot of fun and I’ve never been there for Christmas, so I really enjoyed that. Here are some pictures.

We decided to get a Christmas tree even though our apartment is pretty small. We figured we’d just get a little one, but ended up getting a decent sized one that barely fits in our apartment and blocks our coat closet. But that’s okay, because we love it! It is perfectly rounded and has great, full branches. We took 2 days to find it and then a few more getting it all decorated. It was quite the event. I guess I see why a lot of people don’t get real trees every year, because it is a lot of work and very pricey. We had a lot of fun though. We went searching all over for Christmas ornaments and such. We ended up with a red and green theme plus adding snowmen, Santa, and penguin ornaments. It turned out great. We were thinking of letting our future children pick out a new ornament each year to add to the tree. That of course will not be for a while, but it’s fun to think about…It stemmed from an idea Bryant’s mom had where she bought all the kids a new ornament each year. For now we just get to decorate it how we want and I’m happy about our decision!

I hope everyone is enjoying this Christmas season. I was able to put out my nativity set that I have been collecting for a few years. It is beautiful. I can’t wait to add a few more pieces to it. That is the real reason why we celebrate this wonderful time; to celebrate the birth of Christ. We have so much to be grateful for this year and we owe it all to our Savior. Merry Christmas everyone!

We've been married for 5 1/2 months! Woot woot! It's gone by really fast. We're back into normal life. Bry is going to the U and is working hard. He says he really likes most of his professors, but overall doesn't like the school a lot. I'm happy about that. ;) School is going alright for me. My class is really wild this year. They all like to chat and do anything, but what they are suppose to be doing. I'm just having to lay down the law a little more. Hopefully they will mellow out a little. I have one student who was adopted from Africa with a lot of problems, but he is really cute. We had a 2 hour meeting with his mom and councilor before school started explaining some of his issues. I've always had this weird desire to adopt a child and now that I married someone who went on a mission to Africa we've talked about adopting from there someday, but after hearing all of the stuff this mom has gone through it makes me a lot more cautious.

Well we've been trying to enjoy the weather while it's still nice. We've gone to some Real Salt Lake soccer games, been golfing a ton, hiking, boating, swimming, and just going on walks. It's been glorious. I love fall and wish it would stay like this all year. We really want to get a trip to Zion in before the weather gets too cold. Hopefully we can. Here are some pictures from recently.

Hiking with Jordan and Cristy! We love hanging out with them. We started dating about the same time, so we always went out on double dates and now we're both married. They're super fun and we are trying to see them as much as we can until they move to California.

BYU football!!!

Boating. It's been nice for me to be able to wakeboard this year finally now that my knee has completely healed.

Jordan bought a motorcycle and left it at our place since he had a car with him. He asked Bryant to drive it down to Provo, which I was not super excited about, but I did have some fun on it before we took it to him. Too bad Motorcycles are so dangerous, because they really are so much fun and they can be super convenient. We took it to one of the football games and parked right across the stadium and had no problems with traffic after the game. But they can be so scary. Sorry Bry, no way!

Here we go

Well I couldn't decide for a while if we should start a blog or not, but I was looking through my old teacher blog and I love how it kind of becomes a journal for you to go back and look at. So, I decided even though we don't have kids, which is why most people look at others blogs I am sure, I figured why not. Maybe some day our kids will want to go through and see what we were like when we were young and free. :) So, here are a few things that have happened in the past little while...

Our Story:

We started dating in May of 2010, but didn't become "official" until July. Long story. All I can say is good thing Bryant is a patient person. We got engaged on December 15, 2010. I feel this story is worth writing down.

First of all, Bry had planned on proposing 3 weeks before, but I came down with Mono. His original plan was to go down to Mesquite with his brother and sister-in-law for the weekend after Thanksgiving. Then on our way home he wanted to take a detour to Zion National Park where he wanted to propose. For those of you who know me that was quite the perfect plan. I love him for coming up with the idea. As it turned out I was so sick that we didn't end up going. :( Finally, I was feeling better so he took me up to Salt Lake to go to This is the Place Heritage Park. There were a lot of fun Christmas things to do up there and we had a lot of fun. We got to listen about how Christmas use to be, here stories of how stockings came to be, watch a puppet show, dance, etc... I was having so much fun. At one point he tried to pull me away from everything to a spot where you could overlook the city, but it was blocked off and so we couldn't get there. His second attempt to propose had just been ruined. I had no idea and continued to enjoy the evening. We then tried to go eat at top of the Joesph Smith building which turned out to be packed, so we decided to leave. We thought about walking around temple square to see the lights, but it was also a zoo. The night really wasn't going our way, but I was happy and enjoying it all anyway. Through all this Bryant, understandably, had been silently panicking a little because the night wasn't turning out the way he planned. But as it turns out that had kind of been how our whole relationship had been. Unplanned, yet perfect. So I feel it was the perfect evening. We left Salt Lake to find a place to eat and he suggested Market Street Grill in Sandy. I had never even heard of it, so that sounded fine with me. However, when we sat down to eat I took one look at the menu and wanted to leave. It was VERY expensive and I felt too guilty making him pay for such an expensive dinner. Of course, he didn't mind because of the special night, but played it off like he hadn't realized how expensive it was so I wouldn't start to get an ideas. He really wanted me to be surprised. So, yet again we left to find another place to eat. By now it was pretty late and Bryant had given up hope of proposing. We ended up at Texas Roadhouse and had a delicious meal. I was still blissfully unaware of the evening going so wrong and in an excellent mood. Bry really didn't show any signs of being stressed and while at dinner decided he just really wanted to propose because of my good mood and would try to do it at my apartment where he had left a bunch of balloons, a flower, and a note that was suppose to be an extra surprise when I got home. However, this became his back up plan. He had to text my roommate and ask her to leave so he could propose. So, he did that as we left dinner. We hit traffic, because there was road construction at the time, so I wanted to go drive through the lights at Thanksgiving point instead of sit in the traffic. Bry really had no choice, but to go and so getting home was delayed further. Finally, we made it through traffic and back to my apartment. I was in an excellent mood. We walked in and Bry came over to me and gave me a big hug. I could feel his heart pounding and this was the first inclination I had that something was up. As soon as I had the fleeting thought maybe this would be the night, he turned me around, guided me to my room and turned on the light. I was surprised by the balloons and then turned around to find him down on one knee opening a little purple box with a gorgeous ring in it. I started backing away in total shock and he had to grab my hand and pull me towards him. We were both very nervous. He said some sweet things and proposed. I managed a "yes" and there you have it folks! I was silent for like 30 minutes, because I was just so shocked that it had all just happened. We went for a walk and we just started talking about the future and I was just so excited! I had never been happier up to that point in my life. It was so perfect and we were so happy.



So, we got married April 15, 2011 in the Mt. Timpanogos Temple. It was a beautiful day and everything was perfect. My favorite part of the whole day was walking into the sealing room and seeing so many people I cared about in one room. It was such an unreal feeling. We had such a fun reception with food and dancing. I loved every minute of it. Then we went to Cancun on our honeymoon and just soaked up the sun.











Now here we are 4 months later living in Sandy enjoying married life. It has been so much fun and I have never been so happy.

Bry had an internship in DC 2 months after we got married. It was too expensive for me to go, so we decided I would stay in Utah and work. Bad choice. I don't know what we were thinking, but it was awful. We were too newly married to be living in different states. But I did get to go visit which helped.





One last story. I have to embarrass my dear husband for just one second. I came home from school one day right after we moved in. He was in the kitchen looking at the dishwasher and asked, What do you do if there is extra soap in the dishwasher?" Yes, he had put dish soap in our dishwasher and we spent ten minutes cleaning up all the soap. Haha, priceless!

And here is our very first apartment! It's small and perfect for us. We love it.









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