The Stephensons!

Thankful

2011-12-04T21:50:00.000-08:00

Since we just celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday, and Christmas and New Years are right around the corner, my mind has been filled lately of the incredible blessing that it is to live the life I do. Recently I have found myself pondering over how and why I have been blessed in so many ways. Surely I have done nothing to deserve the many wonderful things I enjoy. Whatever the reason, I have so much to be grateful for and I thank the heavens for sending me so many wonderful miracles along this journey.

I have the cutest, funniest, most thoughtful, caring, and loving husband in the world. I can't believe I got such a catch. He showers me with love... not just verbally, but through his actions. He makes me laugh, and he makes me smile. I just know that we will have a long and happy eternity together :)

I have a wonderful family with awesome parents and hilarious siblings. I'm so thankful to be able to call them all my best friends. We have the best memories together and although we no longer live under the same roof I'm glad that we are still as close as ever.

My in-law family is the best. I'm so glad I feel welcome and loved in my new family. They make me feel right at home. I'm grateful to each of them for being who they are.... because I know it's through them that my man became who he is, and I thank them for that.

I'm thankful that Luke and I have incredible jobs. In an economy where so many are unemployed, we find it a real treat to not only have jobs but to have ones that we enjoy going to each day.

I'm grateful to have been raised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and to know the truthfulness of the gospel... to have the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, and to know of my divine potential to someday become like him. Especially at this time of year, I'm grateful for the birth of Jesus Christ who lived and died for me. May we spread the joy that is the reason for the season.

<3

Thanksgiving

2011-12-04T21:42:00.001-08:00

We had such an enjoyable Thanksgiving weekend. We got to spend it with Luke's family in Las Vegas. We watched football, played volleyball, ate lots of yummy food, took family pictures, and enjoyed time together.

We also got to take turns holding this precious girl:

and playing with this guy:
We had such a fun trip, and are excited for the upcoming weeks where we will be able to see both our families again!

Our Orlando Trip

2011-10-10T17:33:00.000-07:00

We have been home from our vacation for two weeks now. It was the most needed vaca in the history of my life... and I am already SO in need of another! We had such a blast in Florida with my parents, brother and sister.

We started our trip by taking the Coaster to the San Diego airport, which was a new adventure for me.

This is us waiting for the Coaster to arrive.

We flew from SD to LA and then from LA to Orlando. The flight to LA was seriously 25 minutes long. The other flight was 4.5 hours and since it was a red-eye, it was probably the 2nd worst plane ride I've ever had (1st worst was the flight to Jamaica on our honeymoon when I got super sick). Not only was it a long flight... and in the middle of the night.... but the man sitting next to me was really big, really old, and really smelly. Luke and I would eye each other as people were boarding the plane wondering Is this person going to sit by me? Oh I hope not. Or...I hope we get that girl! (Are we the only people that do that?) And as this guy got closer it became obvious that he was indeed going to be sitting by me (and practically on me)for the next 4.5 hours. I'll just say that fresh air had never felt or smelled as good as it did after that flight was over.

So our flight landed at 6am Eastern time. We got our rental car and headed to our hotel, where we spent most of the day relaxing by the gorgeous pool and exploring all the activities our hotel had to offer. That night we met up with my family at Planet Hollywood in Downtown Disney.

After dinner we walked around Downtown Disney, which was actually really cool. Our favorites were this girl who looked just like a statue and didn't move a muscle, and all the extremely talented musicians.

The next day we went to Disney World. It really wasn't any different than Disney Land, which was kind of sad. We had a ton of fun though. Our favorites were the Buzz Lightyear ride and Space Mountain. We also went to the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor, an animated comedy show, which sounds super cheesy, but was actually hilarious, especially since Luke was "That Guy". I guess each show they pick a guy from the audience to kind of pick fun at and they chose Luke. Afterwards they gave him this special sticker. It was seriously hilarious. We were all dying.

It started storming in the late afternoon so we called it quits and went out to dinner.

The next day was LUKE'S BDAY! We went to Universal Studios that day. Sadly my camera was out of battery and I forgot to recharge it so I have no pics. This was definitely my favorite park. There were awesome rides-- the Hulk and Spiderman were among our favorites. We also got SOAKED on a few water rides. Of course.... Hogwarts was incredible. It seriously felt like we were in Hogwarts. Everything looked so legit. The rides were pretty awesome too. I so wish I had pictures of it! That night we went to BJ's and watched the BYU football game, per the Bday boy's request.

On Saturday we went to my dad's work event. It was a trucking competition where a bunch of truck drivers had to compete in some obstacle courses. The heat and humidity really caught up to us that day and we were exhausted after sitting outside for just an hour. Luke and I relaxed by the pool for the remainder of the afternoon until we went to the Hooptie- Doo Review, a dinner/ play that people from my dad's work went to.

On Sunday we went to church for an hour,

walked around the Orlando Temple grounds,

Chased little geckos,

and went on an alligator tour. This was the only alligator I saw, although the tour guide pointed out baby alligators but I never saw them. Afterwards we each took a turn holding a baby alligator. Luke passed for some reason.
Monday was our last day all together. We went to Typhoon Lagoon, a water park. There were some pretty cool rides, and the wave pool was awesome.

The fam took off that evening while Luke and I scored some sweet deals at a near by Outlet mall. We left the following morning and have been home ever since. Coming back to real life is always such a bummer... especially when it involved piles of work that need to be done. We spent the rest of the week playing catch-up. We are now back into the regular swing of things... and are anxiously awaiting another vacation, although I don't think it will be for a long while.

Our Latest Adventures

2011-09-10T19:26:00.000-07:00

We have had some fun and crazy adventures lately. The last few weeks have been crazy, busy, fun, exhausting, and I seriously cannot wait for two weeks from now when we will be relaxing in Florida. It will be a MUCH needed vaca.

Last week we went to the Chargers vs 49ers game with some people in the ward. It was my first NFL game, and was really fun. The stadium was actually less impressive than I had imagined it would be, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless.

Labor Day weekend was so much fun! We had most of Luke's family in town, as well as our great friends Kevin and his wife Kelli. We loved having everyone together and enjoying so much company! We spent a rather overcast Saturday at the beach.... the girls tried to catch as many rays as we could while the boys played countless games of beach volleyball (something Luke had been wanting to do ever since we moved here, but has never had enough guys to play with). Then we pigged out with some Phil's BBQ in our living room watching the BYU football game, and later did some shopping where I got a KILLER deal on some much needed new bathing suits.

We were also able to attend a session at the temple. It was neat to be there with family and friends.

Afterwards, Kevin, Kelli, Luke and I spent the day at SeaWorld. It was so much fun. We have lived here for a year and a half and had never been to Sea World until last weekend, and I think Luke would agree that it exceeded our expectations. We both loved the Shamu show the best.

This Thursday we, as well practically the rest of So Cal, some of Mexico and Arizona were affected by the blackout that I'm sure everyone heard about. I was at work when it happened... we had patients in the chairs and had to let everyone go and cancel the rest of the day's appointments. We got to go home a little early, which was nice, but it took over an hour to drive home in the ridiculous amount of packed traffic. That night was so eerie. We drove around town, just curious if anything was open. Of course nothing was, but it was weird to drive around and see no street lights, no store signs, no gas stations open... everything was out. We hung out with some friends that night, ate some peanut butter & honey sandwiches, and played some card games under the light of some lanterns and candles. Rumor had it that the electricity would not return until Friday or possibly even Saturday. Luckily we got ours back on at 10:30 that night. It really made us think how grateful we are for the things we take for granted every day... like electricity.

2011-08-30T20:11:00.001-07:00

I have a hot husband! Seriously. I'm sitting here lazily on the computer while he's doing P90X right in front of me (he just asked me if my fingers are getting a good work out...) and I like watching him. I'm so proud of him for being dedicated and working so hard at being more active. He's doing great :) I even tried it with him last night... and it's NOT easy! Props to my man!

This past weekend was so much fun! Our good friends Nate and Liz came to visit from Utah. Luke was seriously in heaven. I forgot how good of friends he and Nate were. The whole weekend I could just tell he was so happy. We spent time at the beach, watched movies, and ate way too much. Unfortunately both of our cameras are broken so we didn't take a single picture the whole weekend. We didn't even think until after the weekend was over that we should have taken some on our phones. Oops!

Maybe we'll take some this weekend b/c we have a lot more visitors coming. Most of Luke's family will be coming down as well as some other really good friends from college. We can't wait! It will be so fun to have family and friends with us for a whole weekend!

THEN just a few short weeks later, Luke and I will be jumping on a plane and flying across country to hang out with my family in Orlando, FL! We are so excited for all the fun things we have coming up :)

2011-06-26T19:16:00.000-07:00

Last night Luke and I went to MORMON NIGHT at the Padre's game. It was a lot of fun to "root, root, root for the Home team", even though they didn't win (and it was a shame). Our seats were like 6 rows from the very top, but I guess that's what happens when you only pay $9/ ticket. It was still fun to see a lot of people from the ward and even run into some relatives and old friends. I have a few pics of the night, but my man was sick of taking pics and would not cooperate, so I'll save them for another time.

This week is CAMPING week for me. Since I am in the YW presidency I get to go to our stake's Girls' camp. I will only be up there for a day b/c I can't take too much time off of work, but right after I get home from Girls' camp, Luke and I will jump right back in the car for 4 more days of camping with the Stephenson clan for the 4th of July. Next week at this time I will be one dirty, dusty, gross girl. Eek! But we are so looking forward to spending nice, relaxing time with the fam :)

I Love Us

2011-06-23T10:27:00.000-07:00

Well I'm almost 2 weeks late in posting this, but on June 13 we celebrated our anniversary. I can't believe it's been two years already! I can definitely say the second year went by much quicker than the first. Luke and I both agreed that although the two years of our marriage have been wonderful and amazing, we liked the second year better. Not only did we have to deal with the whole "getting used to living with someone else" thing the first year, but we were also in Utah, going to school, and freezing for the whole first year of our marriage.

This year we moved on to the REAL WORLD, got big boy and big girl jobs, moved to a brand new place, experienced amazing weather that makes us happy instead of miserable, and got to spend more quality time together. So many things happened this year and I'm so thankful that I was able to go through it all with my wonderful husband. It's amazing to think that we are only on year two of eternity. It's the best thought ever! Here's to us, babe!

For our anniversary, we walked around Del Mar (which is like..the best place for a date) and ate at Forever Fondue, which was pretty yummy.

PS- has any one seen 500 Days of Summer? We just Netflixed it and I loved and hated it at the same time.

Mikey.

2011-05-02T19:25:00.000-07:00

Remember that show "Recess"? I used to love that show! Lately I have been feeling like Mikey---you know... the big guy---not only because I have been feeling like a fatty and working on eliminating the 5 pounds I gained over Easter Break ( yes! FIVE pounds! Can you believe that? I, who have only gained 8 pounds since graduating 8th grade ((oh by the way, I wore my 8th grade graduation dress to church yesterday. Ha. I'm such a nerd) gained 5 whole pounds over a period of 2 1/2 days and it's taken me a week of intense Jillian Michaels' 30-Day-Shredding to get back to my pre-Easter weight).
ANYWAYS... back to my original thought. I also feel like Mikey sometimes because snippets of the Recess episode entitled "The Voice" have recently been coming to mind. See, in this episode Mikey shows that he can sing really, really well, but only when he's in the bathroom. As soon as he exits the bathroom he instantly has a horrible singing voice but upon re-entering the bathroom, he's excellent. Sometimes I think this might be me.
I sing in the shower...almost always. And perhaps it's the echo in the room or the effect of the water spilling over my face or... whatever the cause may be, I feel like I'm an A-okay singer in the shower. I even have a few favorite "shower songs" that are routine, a nightly "must-sing". But as soon as that shower head is turned off I become convinced that this talent is a "shower-only" one. I don't know what it is!
There. There's my secret. Now that I've admitted that I am a shower-singer, I can sleep peacefully tonight. (Although I'm not sure I'll be sleeping very peacefully at all this week since Luke is gone until Friday and I'm all alone.) Please tell me someone else out there is a shower-singer like me? And also maybe that someone else gained almost the same amount of weight over Easter weekend as they have in the past 6 years? Am I the only one?

Things I Love

2011-04-26T20:49:00.000-07:00

This past week was just great! It's made me realize how many things I love in life. Let me share a few:

1. I know, I know... Just about every blog post I brag about the gorgeous weather we have in San Diego. It's probably super annoying by now, but hey... it's my blog and I'm gonna talk about the sunshine and beach as often as I want. How's that? This was taken a few weekends ago when we got into in the 80's. Although Luke and I (especially Luke) got pretty burnt, I still love the bright sunshiney days we get here. This weekend marked the 1 YEAR point of us living in San Diego. We're so grateful for the decision we made to move here. We love it :)

2.Birthdays and Birthday dinners :) Luckily, I have the best husband in the world who made my day a special one. He took me out to the dinner of my choice (Joe's Crab Shack), got me some pretty presents, and a yummy birthday cake. He made me feel super special, as did all of you. Thank you to everyone for the birthday shout outs via text, FB, phone calls ,etc. :)

3. Family! Luke and I went to my parents' place this weekend for Easter. Sadly, this is the one picture I got with more than two people in it.

4. I especially love this little girl! She's the cutest, happiest, easy-going baby in the world. She definitely deserves the Best Baby award. She took the drive to and from Fresno like a champ. Luke and I picked up my sister, brother-in-law, and baby Ev on our way up to Fres this weekend and she hardly made a peep throughout the whole trip. And while in Fresno she was mostly all smiles the whole time. Having a baby in the home is so much fun. We loved spending time with Baby Ev. (Don't go getting any ideas.)

5. The reason for the Easter season. I love Christ for his life, sacrifice, death, and especially for his triumph over the grave, because of which we too will be able to live again. What a perfect example for us all. I am grateful to him each and every day!

Hope you all had a great Easter :)

House Hunters

2011-04-10T19:33:00.000-07:00

No... We are not looking for a house. Not even close. But maybe someday...
We are, however, avid watchers of the show House Hunters. We love it! And when I say "we" it's not one of those things where I really mean "I" love the show and drag Luke into watching it with me. We both really do enjoy watching it together. It's fun seeing the varieties of homes that are out there, and being surprised by what home the hunters actually choose. Luke and I often make remarks during episodes like, " I can't believe these people are complaining about the color of the rooms. Don't they know they can paint?" or "They're really not going to choose that house because it doesn't have a fence? Why don't they just put one in themselves?"

This weekend we experienced a little bit of what it might be like to be a House Hunter someday. On a boring Saturday afternoon we decided to travel throughout nearby neighborhoods and explore houses for sale that might one day be in our price range. We found ourselves being somewhat nit-picky just like some people on the show. It was fun pretending to be in the market for a home and imagining what it will be like when we eventually are house hunting. I can't wait to have a home of our very own :)

PS: my bday is next week :)
PSS: Is anyone else super excited for the Hunger Games movies?

2011-04-04T12:51:00.001-07:00

This weekend Luke and I went to Las Vegas to visit Luke's family and to watch General Conference. While there, I was slightly reprimanded for my lack of blogging. So here I am... blogging. The only problem is, I don't have much to say.
Our life is pretty consistent right now. Nothing's new- no big news or changes. We're just enjoying the hustle and bustle of our every day lives, which consist of work, church, and school (for me). Luke and I enjoyed a wholesome conversation last night as we drove home from Vegas about how we feel we're always looking forward to the next best thing, and putting all of our energy and efforts into that-- aka a vacation, or saving up for the day we can buy a house, or when we're finally ready to start a family-- and while those are great things to look forward to, we forget to appreciate the "now" stage. Our life is so great the way it is right now- just me and Luke- and although we're thrilled about the idea of growing old together and all the events that will happen in our future, we decided to look forward to the future with just as much enthusiasm as we have for our present stage.
So- while it's not anything exciting and new- I'm grateful to be a 21 year old ( almost 22) girl happily married to the 25 year old man that I get to live a simple every-day life with. And I'll proudly blog about it :) cheers.

On another note- I am working on having a change of heart. For any of you who would like to know the secret to a happy, selfless lifestyle, read the book Bonds That Make Us Free by C. Terry Warner. It's incredible. Of course having a change of heart and being truly selfless and seeing others' worth is not easy and doesn't come simply by reading this book, but it really does open your eyes to how you can become the kind-hearted person you want to be (if you do indeed want to be a kind-hearted person. I suppose some people might not....?) Anyways, if you're looking for an eye-opening book, this is a great one and I suggest you read it (all you 3 people who might possibly read my blog).

<3

10 Days of Valentines

2011-02-15T22:28:00.000-08:00

For the past 10 days I have felt like Hilary Swank in the movie "PS I Love You", except it's been even better because my husband is very much alive. Last Friday I got my first of 10 Valentine's gifts. I was greeted by:

and:

.
And this was just the beginning. Every day my sweet Valentine gave me a gift- big or small. The gifts varied from items of clothing, to roses delivered to me at work, to a simple walk on the beach. He had every day planned out to the T, and made sure I felt special every single day.

Luke and I haven't really been very good at celebrating holidays. We usually exchange simple gifts on V-Day but don't really go all out. We didn't even do anything for our FIRST year anniversary, which I thought was a big deal, but we were so busy moving into our new apartment that the event kind of slipped unnoticed. However, Luke made sure this Valentine's did not go unnoticed. He was so sweet and loving and selfless, and I'm so happy to have such a loving husband.

After the 10 days leading up the V-day, we decided to spend the actual day relaxing. I did not have to work so Luke took the day off to spend it with me. We enjoyed a beautiful scenic drive along the coast and did a bit of shopping.

Thanks babe! Love you. Hope you all enjoyed your V-day as much as I did :)

I'm An Aunt.... Again!

2011-01-27T18:18:00.000-08:00

Today I became the proud aunt of THIS little beauty:
Oh how I just want to squeeze her. She looks perfect. I heard her cry on the phone today, and even her little cry is perfect. I cannot wait to see her and hold her and give her some loves tomorrow.

Baby, Mom & Dad are all doing well.
Congrats Hen & Jared! We love you, Oakden Family :)

Well What Would YOU Do if You Were Getting Kidnapped?

2011-01-10T15:28:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago Luke was in Texas on a business trip with his boss (whom we will call Jack). He was to be gone from Mon- Wed. It was Tuesday night. I had gone to mutual after being at work all day long and then had a Presidency meeting after mutual, so it wasn't until 10:00 pm that I was finally on my way home for the day and got to call my hubby and say hello- which meant it was midnight there in Texas. The convo went something like this:
Me: Hi hun. What are you doing?
Luke: Nothing, just got back to the hotel.
Me: Um... isn't it midnight there? Why were you out so late?
Luke: I went shopping with Jack.
Me: Shopping? What could you guys possibly be shopping for at midnight?
Luke: Just stuff, I don't know.
Me: I don't get it. What kind of stuff did you get?
Luke: Just random stuff.
Me: Okay you're being super sketchy right now. I'm going home and taking a shower and I'll call you before I go to bed.
So I got home, LOCKED the front door and LOCKED the bathroom door (because I'm paranoid like that when Luke's not home), and jumped in the shower. A few minutes into my shower I realize the shampoo bottle is empty so I slide the shower curtain back and reach out to the near-by cabinet to get a new bottle. Just as I grab the bottle I hear the bathroom door handle shaking. Someone was trying to get in! I freeze. A second later I see the door handle twist and the door opens. I seriously don't think I have ever screamed so loud in my life! And never for so long before either; it took a good 10 straight seconds of screaming before my brain realized that the intruder was none other than my loving husband who had returned home from his trip a day early and wanted to surprise me, but ended up terrifying me to death instead.
Now that got me to thinking that:
1. My bathroom door is obviously very easy to pick and I'm not sure I'll even bother locking it from now on because someone can still get in whether it's locked or not.
2. I'm glad my husband isn't really "sketchy" and was really only a few miles away from coming home to me when he said they were "shopping".
3. I need to work on my self defense skills because, honestly, if that were a true kidnapper I would have been stuffed in a bag and hauled into someone's car in .2 seconds. I did nothing but scream!! That's so lame! (Of course I'm glad now that I didn't do anything other than scream because it was Luke, and I wouldn't want to hurt him... but I DO want to hurt a real kidnapper if the time ever came and obviously I am HIGHLY incapable.

But seriously... What would YOU do if you thought you were getting kidnapped?

2011-01-05T20:21:00.000-08:00

Luke and I had a great Holiday break! Both of our bosses let us take a whole week off from work, so we were able to spend a lot of valuable time together, with Luke's family, and with friends.

We spent Christmas in Vegas with Luke's family. We got spoiled with a lot of great gifts and enjoyed our time playing games, talking, and watching videos of previous Christmases in the Stephenson home.

During our time in Vegas we also did a little site-seeing and visited Red Rock Canyon, which I had never even heard of before, but is super cool. Next time we're in Vegas I'm definitely going to bring my tennis shoes so we can climb around instead of just watching everyone else.

After 5 days in Vegas Luke and I started our trek to Utah for our friend's wedding. We got caught in the worst snow storm either of us had ever seen, and both got extremely sick from hanging out the window and snapping the frozen ice off our windshield wipers. I was so looking forward to being back in Utah visiting our friends, playing games and hanging out but Luke and I were so sick we were hardly able to enjoy anything. I swore I would take a ton of pictures over our break, but sadly being sick really made me lose any motivation I had to take any. Sadly this is one of the only pics I took while in Utah. This was while we were outside the Draper temple waiting for Nate & Liz to come out. We were beyond freezing.

We spent New Years Eve at with some of our friends and their family playing games.

Since being home Luke and I have both made our goals for 2011 and took some time to reflect on the good/ bad of 2010. Ultimately we both agree that we have had a year of many blessings. We love being here in San Diego with great jobs, awesome friends, a nice apartment, and each other. We have loved taking this adventure and exploring this new place together. We loved 2010 and can't wait to see what 2011 holds!

2010-12-10T22:57:00.000-08:00

Not gonna lie... Lately I have been missing this:

Christmas time in Utah. Christmas hasn't really felt like Christmas for a few years now... it's just not the same when you're all grown up. But somehow Christmas time still felt Christmasy the past 3 years I spent in Utah. I'm sure the crisp winter weather had a lot to do with that, and although that's all I ever complained about when I lived in Utah ( and I still wouldn't trade the SD weather for Utah's weather in a million years), it did have a way of making "it look a lot like Christmas". The snow, Christmas lights, late night runs to 7-11 for hot chocolate, and gingerbread house competition with friends definitely made the cold winter days bearable. This time of year makes me reminisce on the fun wintery things Utah has to offer. I'm actually excited to visit the good old state of Utah in a few weeks for New Years. Luckily, though, I only have to endure the freezing cold for a few days rather than the 8 months I used to have to go through. Yay!

On a side note- Did any one else think the latest Harry Potter movie was a major let down? Luke and I thought it was dumb- we were definitely not impressed.

When I Thought My Husband Died.

2010-12-06T15:13:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday was my sister's baby shower, so I went to LA for the day to join in on the celebration. Meanwhile I left the Mr. at home. Throughout the day I wondered what he was up to and how he was doing, but never heard from him, so I figured he just wanted me to enjoy the morning with my mom and sisters without interrupting me. By 1:00pm I thought it was strange that I hadn't even gotten a "How's it goin'" text and decided to text him and see what he was up to. No response. A few mins later texted him again. No response. Luke knows that I freak out if I don't hear from him after two texts. No response= he's dead.

So I called him, left a voicemail, and texted him some more. (Good thing I'm his wife, otherwise my persistence would have been super stalker-ish) I tried to not let it worry me and just enjoy my time with my family. Kendra had an AMAZING baby shower with so many fun friends, great food, and tons of gifts. Then us girls and Jared went out to lunch and did a bit of shopping on 3rd Street Promenade. All the while I had not heard from my boy. The time came for me to say goodbye and head back to Carlsbad, so I got in my car and drove back a little too quickly, hoping that within the next two hours he would call. No such luck. 2 hours later (and a lot of terrifying thoughts of what I would do without Luke) I pull into my apartment complex. As soon as I get to the gate of the complex I get his call. He left his phone in the car all day on accident and didn't even realize it. He was laughing hysterically at all the "Where are you?" "Are you okay?" texts and the "I hope you're not dead" voicemail. I, on the other hand, did not find it very comical. What would I do w/o my hubby? IDK... But at least I don't have to think about it anymore, because he is very much alive and I am very happy about that.

Me and the pregnant woman herself.

While I'm posting pics, this is me and Luke over Thanksgiving break at the fish hatchery- one of my Dad's favorite places....

Luke and I got box tickets for a Clippers vs the New Orleans Hornets game. It was so much fun!

2010-11-20T16:05:00.000-08:00

Yes I know, I know.. it's been forever. My computer decided to completely shut down about a month ago, thus the hubby and I have been sharing his laptop, which is my excuse for not having updated in forever. That and also I have been too busy/lazy to update. So I'll just give a quick run-down. Since my last update:

-I switched jobs. I now work as a front receptionist at a dental office and LOVE it. I seriously work with the best people ever. It's awesome :)
-I have been called to serve as 2nd Counselor in the Young Women's.
- Luke and I spent a weekend in Vegas for our nephew's first birthday.
-We had a happy Halloween.
-We spent a beautiful warm sunny Saturday at the beach catching some rays.
-Luke finished his last online class for BYU and will be graduating in December! We're both very happy and proud of his accomplishments! He's worked so hard the past few months on his final classes and now he's finished and can finally relax!
- I ,on the other hand, have not been as diligent with my online studies. It's so hard to be dedicated and motivated. Therefore, I'm not.
- I went to the SYTYCD tour with a friend. It was way fun!
Now we're looking forward to the next couple of weeks in which we'll be able to go to Fresno for Thanksgiving, Vegas for Christmas, and LA for my sister's baby shower!
Although we have been crazy busy lately, I only have a few pics to prove it.

Me and Luke with our pumpkin that stayed good for 3 days. Things seriously go bad here in 2 seconds because of the moisture. We had to throw this bad boy out within a few days of carving it.

SYTYCD :) Amazing.

My camera takes pics super delayed. I tried to take a pic when Ashley was up, and it finally took like 15 seconds later when it was Billy's turn. Boo- I don't even like Billy.

Me and Taylor

And.... that's about it, folks.

2010-10-05T14:30:00.000-07:00

Well I'm home from work sick today... there's some flu bug going around. Being sick is not fun but it's somehow nice laying on my couch watching the Food Network all day. The only thing that would make my sick day a little less sick is if I knew Luke would be coming home from work this evening, but he's back in Texas again so I'm a lonely AND sick girl :( Boo.

Well since I'm home with nothing to do I figured I'd show a few of the little festive crafts I've been up to lately. They're nothing too great or exciting, but a few autumn leaves/ festivity add a nice fall touch to our apt.

First up is the BOO letters that I made. My friend and I decided to entertain ourselves while our hubbies watched football all weekend every weekend to get us through the season so we bought the makings of a few crafts, and this was one that we each made. It hangs on my pantry door. I think it's pretty cute.

Next I made a few fall arrangements with pumpkins, leaves and pinecones for our entertainment center area.

I also made myself a nice autumn wreath to hang on the outside of our front door. It looks so autumny, and it was so easy to make!

I also made these fun pumpkins out of plastic jars and orange tissue paper. Luke thinks they look a little juvenile which, okay... ya it's true but when I fill them with Halloween candy like candy corns, etc I don't think he'll mind so much. Juvenile or not, they were still fun to make.

I also have a few other fun Halloween decor but i didn't make them so I won't post about them. Anyways... that's just about it. I love fall time. It's so great. The End.

Farewells and Birthdays.

2010-09-26T18:57:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we went up to Clovis for Emerson's farewell talk. He did such a good job, and I'm so excited for him and the experiences he will have the next 2 years in Colombia. He is such an obedient, happy and positive guy and I know that he will bless the lives of many people while on his mission. Luke and I were also able to spend this weekend with my family in LA. Unfortunately I forgot my camera last weekend for our trip to Fresno, but I did capture a few pics this past weekend in LA.

We will miss Moe. He doesn't leave for another week, but this was the last time Luke and I were able to see him. Good luck, Moe! We know you'll do great and we can't wait to hear all about it in your letters :)

On a different note, my lovey turned 25 this week. It was a pretty low-key birthday that consisted of us just being together. We went to one of his favorite store, Fry's, went out to dinner, opened presents, and had some yummy ice cream cake. I am so glad that I married Luke and that I get to spend forever with him. Here are just a portion of the many reasons I love this man:
1. He makes me smile.
2. We have a similar sense of humor, and we're both constantly cracking jokes and laughing. He is a goof.
3. He is very handsome.
4. He is extremely smart.
5. Luke is very hardworking and determined. He's doing very well at his new job. In fact, he does well at just about everything he puts his mind to.
6. He helps out with keeping the house tidy.
7. He is a handy man. He has been my side-kick with decorating our apt by hanging pictures, shelves, wall art, etc.
8. He compliments me on my crafts :)
9. He tells me I'm beautiful.
10. He wakes up diligently every morning at 5:45 to fulfill his calling as seminary principal.
11. He is faithful in attending our church meetings every Sunday.
12. He honors his priesthood and is a great example to me.
13. He understands the importance of the principle of tithing and pays it dutifully for the two of us.
14. He is patient.
15. He has an incredible attention for detail.
16. He does the little things for me, like getting my oil changed or washing my car. And killing bugs.
17. He calls me cute nicknames like sweetie girl, Jay Bird, baby girl, etc. My favorite is sweetheart.
18. He writes me love notes when he leaves to go out of town.
19.He has a good head on his shoulders and is able to look ahead and plan for the future.
20. He has good family values. He loves spending time with his and my family, and is preparing for the day we have a family of our own. He will be a great dad.
21. He is a good friend.
22. He has adjusted well to me and my quirks/ habits within our first year of marriage. We have grown to the point where we almost know what the other is going to do/ say before the other does/ says it. I know that will only enhance the longer we're married. :)
23. He has a strong testimony and love for the gospel.
24. He loves me.
25. He is the best part of my day... every day. I love just being near him. We don't even have to be saying anything, I just love knowing he's near. He smells good, he looks good... he is good at.... everything. What is there not to love??
I love you baby boy. I'm so glad that I got to celebrate your 25th birthday with you, and I'm so glad that I will be able to spend the next x amount of birthdays with you. XOXO.

2010-09-06T19:10:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we went to a Padres game with some friends. We had great seats and great company. It was a ton of fun!

Last weekend we went to the San Diego Zoo with some of our friends. We had so much fun!

This weekend was also very eventful. Our friends Nate and Liz came into town. Sadly I only snapped one pic the whole time!
This is the boys running out of the freezing cold water after Luke tackled poor Nate into it.

Kendra and Jared also came down for a day this weekend. We went to Old Town San Diego and visited the Mormon Battalion, among other places. We also went to Balboa Park and toured the Natural History Museum. We especially enjoyed the dinosaur fossil exhibits. Dinosaurs are pretty cool. We also went to Phil's BBQ, an amazing rib restaurant that Jared had talked up quite a bit- and it did not let us down one bit. It was super yummy.

the 20 week baby bump!

On a side note, my husband just said these words to me: "Sweetie, you have a really good Fantasy Football team." Mission accomplished. Sunday was my first time experiencing a Fantasy draft. I was actually really nervous, because one of the rules in our league is that Luke can't help me with my team so I'm all on my own. I'm new at this whole football thing, but I'm learning, and hope that I'll do alright!

On a second side note: Tickets to see these lovely people came in last week!

My friend, Taylor and I are going to the SYTYCD Tour... in November. I know, I know- that's still 2 months away but we didn't want it to get sold out so we acted quickly! I'm soo excited!

2010-08-08T18:22:00.000-07:00

We have been so busy with fun things the past few weekends! Two weekends ago we went camping in San Clemente with Kendra and Jared and the rest of the Oakden crew. Last weekend we took a trip up to Clovis for Emerson's first time through the temple and to visit my family. And this past weekend we went with Luke's whole family to Six Flags and Hurricane Harbor.

Throughout all these activities I only managed to take a total of 4 pics. :(

Me and Boo on our way to taking family pics.

Jamie and Shaun and my cute little nephew at Six Flags:)

Me and Charlie

Me and Luke :)

We have had so much fun the past few weekends! We're so glad we have family semi-near by so we can get together rather easily.

Now after all these fun things, I am dreading a horrible upcoming week. Luke is going on a business trip from Monday to Friday and I'm already missing him just thinking about it. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself for a whole week, but I keep telling myself to look at it as some personal time to possibly do a few crafts, do quite a bit of reading, and cook a few meals that I like but Luke doesn't like to eat. We'll see how it turns out. Wish me luck on my upcoming lonesome week!

Happy News!

2010-07-11T18:21:00.000-07:00

About 2 weeks ago my sister announced to the family some of the happiest news ever. If you are friends with my sister (or I suppose even if you're not) I would suggest you mosey your way on over to her blog and view her latest update.... if you haven't already. I am so excited for her and Jared. They will be great parents! I can't wait to become an aunt again, and this time on my side of the family. Baby Oakden is due this upcoming January, and I can't wait to spend the first few months of his/her life living so close to them (hopefully we can convince Hen and Jared to stay nearby but I think they have alternative plans for after Jared graduates in April). Anyways- cheers to Kendra and Jared and their beautiful baby (as I'm sure it will be).

I suspect it will grow to look a little something like this:

And while I'm at it.. here's a little sneak peek at what me and Luke's future kid will look like

kinda freaky...

Anyways- Luke and I have had quite the week. We enjoyed a short 4-day work week, a fun party at our bishop's house, a relaxing night in the hot tub, a good set of tennis matches with some friends, and a great day at church.

Another happy fact: I found my camera's battery charger yesterday, therefore I will now be able to update my pics, since I haven't in forever!

The end.
<3

2010-06-26T18:05:00.001-07:00

Thoughts of the day:

-Things like bread and fresh corn go bad much faster in California than in Utah. We seriously had bags of bread in Utah for like 3 weeks and I would throw them out just because I felt like it should have gone bad by then but was freaked out that it hadn't. Here our bread had turned a disgusting green after a week. And I just bought corn 2 days ago, and it's bad. What the heck.

-I wonder what it would feel like if my thighs filled up the whole space in my jeans. All I've ever known is jeans that fit around the waist and then are super baggy at the back of my thighs. Either I have really skinny thighs or absolutely no butt. My guess is both. Sometimes I think it would be nice to fill out my clothes.

-I got home from work at 2:30 this beautiful, sunny afternoon and wanted to lay out at our apartment's pool. Instead, the Mr. and I began talking and laughing, and ended up wrapped up together for a 2 hour nap. Do I feel bad about missing out on a good tanning opportunity? Nope. Sometimes nice, cuddly afternoons are much much better than a nice tan :)

-Luke and I are having fun bringing out the designers in us and decorating our new apartment. We love our new home!
- Life is beautiful :)

2010-06-15T22:21:00.000-07:00

This Sunday was our ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY! In some ways it seems like we've been married for way longer than that, but in some ways it also seems like we just got married yesterday. Either way, let me just say that the past year has been absolutely amazing. I won't say that it's been perfect, because it had its ups and downs, but I have enjoyed every minute of it.

I love coming home each day knowing that I have someone to go home to.
I love telling Luke about every part of my day, and him doing the same to me.
I love having someone to cuddle with, and to hold me close.
I love having inside jokes, and laughing all the time together.
I love going on late-night grocery trips.
I love Redbox nights.
I love having date nights.
Believe it or not, I have learned to ~~LOVE~~, ~~like~~... tolerate football, basketball, SportsCenter, etc.
I have loved living in new places, and beginning new chapters of our lives together. It's so nice knowing that in this new city where I hardly know a soul, Luke and I still have each other.
Basically I just love Luke, and for all the achievements and accomplishments we've both made over the course of this past year.

(And while I'm on the subject of why I love this boy so much, I'll just rave for a bit of how proud I am of him. He goes to work early every day and always stays later than he is required. He works so hard, and then comes home to work on his homework. I have been so impressed, and am so proud of his diligence and hard work.)

Anyways. So this weekend was our big MOVE IN day! We had been staying with my relatives for the past month and a half, and this weekend we were finally able to move into our apt! We LOVE it! Since moving took up the majority of our time this weekend, we decided to just relax on our anniversary. We planned a romantic picnic on the beach at about 6pm to hopefully catch the sunset! Sadly, it was terribly overcast and we could hardly see the sun in the first place. We still enjoyed our picnic anyways.

Although we weren't able to catch the sunset, we did see a few of these visitors. (It's a dolphin fin, not a shark. Believe me, if it was a shark I would have done something crazy like.... dedicate a whole blog post about it. Psh just kidding. Idk what I would have done. )

We're planning on celebrating our anniversary sometime down the road (as soon as time permits. I am currently working two jobs- one full time and one part time during the nights and Saturdays- so spare time will be hard to come by) by going to Sea World.

Happy One Year to me and Luke. Here's to many more happy years to come :)

Summer Reading List

2010-06-05T12:30:00.000-07:00

I've decided that I am going to make a personal summer reading list. I'm thinking of reading books of all types of genres: fiction, non-fiction, inspirational, etc. So far I have read:

The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands

I feel like Dr. Laura is anything but a feminist when it comes to the subject of relationships. Sure, she stands up for the women who are in abusive or other-wise dangerous relationships, but all in all, I feel like almost any other situation goes to the man. Sometimes she's a bit extreme, but for the most part I'm okay with that. In a world full of man-bashing and the common stereotype that men are less intelligent or less capable than women are, I am glad that there's someone who sticks up for the men... and that it's a woman! This book is pretty good. Like I said, she can be a little extreme at some times, but it really helped me to understand that (most) men have the best intentions, and we women are too confusing and change our minds too often to notice that all our men are trying to do is please us. It also opened my eyes to the fact that behind the big, bold, masculinity of a man there is a great deal of sensitivity. It's an interesting book, and I would recommend it. I started it when I first got married (... almost a year ago) but never finished it once school started. I decided to start it again this summer, and actually finished it this time. I think this is a great book for newly weds.

The Host

This was a really great book. Long, but good. I hardly ever wanted to put it down; I love books like that. I didn't get through all of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight books, (and while I'm on that subject, the movies are not good. I finally watched New Moon the other night, and although it was a step up from Twilight, I still didn't like it. Kristen Stewart bothers me and Robert Pattison? Really? He's not the Edward I had in mind when I read the books. Anyways.. that's off subject) but this book kept me interested and guessing the whole way through.

Life of Pi

Okay seriously this book is the most boring book ever for maybe the first ten chapters, and then it gets so interesting. I had only heard good things about it, and I thought something was wrong with me for thinking it was terribly boring but it gets to be really really interesting and I would recommend it. The only problem is you have to endure a lot of gross scenes. That's all I'll say about that.

So I just finished Life of Pi last night and I'm on to this next book:

The Client

My friend's cousin's wife's mom gave this book to me. How's that for a connection? I haven't started the book yet, but I hear it's good. It was even made into a movie, although I've never heard of it.

Anyways... so those are the only books I've got on my list so far. Oh, and I want to read Angels and Demons, too. SO: If any of you have any suggestions for me please, please, please let me know. Gracias.

In other news: Luke and I are going to have a spelling bee. And I'm going to win. I'm pretty much a spelling freak, and spelling isn't exactly Luke's strong point. We'll see how it goes.

2010-05-25T11:46:00.000-07:00

Well Vegas was as fun as we'd hoped. We got our fair share of activities in: we played volleyball, tennis, Mario Cart, and the boys all played golf. After a few kicks of the volleyball, thrown tennis rackets, and flying golf balls, everyone survived the weekend all in one piece. (Need I say that Luke's family is a bit competitive? haha ) But really... we had a blast, and really just enjoyed being together.

The concert was seriously amazing. Carrie Underwood did NOT let us down. She is absolutely amazing live, was incredibly entertaining, and put on such a great show. I would recommend this concert to anyone, so if she is coming near you and you are even just slightly a fan of hers, I guarantee your money will not be wasted. Even the openers (Sons of Sylvia and Craig Morgan) were great.

This is kind of blurry, but Carrie was in the back of a pick-up truck and it was lifted up into the air and went above the whole audience.

In other news here's a SHOUT OUT to my bro. for getting his mission call! He will be going to the BOGATA, COLOMBIA mission! Congrats, Moe!

2010-05-21T10:44:00.000-07:00

My dad and my Uncle came into town the other day to visit! Yesterday we had such a fun adventure. We went paddle boarding in San Clemente. Basically it's just a big surf board that you stay standing on and you move around with a paddle. I started off doing pretty well. I caught a wave or two... then the waves started getting bigger and I didn't stand a chance. I started falling at like every wave. We wished we had a fourth person with us who could take pictures while the 3 of us were out paddle boarding, but we didn't. So after about an hour, my hands started turning purple- the ultimate sign that I am freezing- so I came in and took a few pics of my dad and uncle. Unfortunately, they didn't turn out so well. Oh well.

We had a ton of fun. I'm glad they convinced me to try it.

Anyways... today Luke and I are getting out of town and going to Vegas! We're going to see this lovely lady perform in concert

Well, actually we (Luke and I) aren't. But my sister-in- laws and mother-in-law and I are all going! Yay! However, Luke and I are looking forward to doing a few fun things together while we're there. We hope to enjoy the pool and hot tub, play a few rounds of tennis with Luke's parents, and enjoy the company of FRIENDS and family. (We've realized that we really took for granted the fact that we had friends in Provo. Although we love being in California so far, we only have a few friends here, who we feel like won't be our friends for much longer if we keep bugging them the way we have been. JK) We're looking forward to a nice, relaxing, fun vacation. Luke deserves it after working SO hard for the past few weeks. I'm so so proud of him.

My brother should be receiving his mission call today. I'm kind of freaking out. I can't believe it's already time for him to go on a mission. Holy cow! But I know he'll do just great!

Our ONE YEAR anniversary is in THREE weeks! Geez Louise. This year sure did fly by. And I'm still in love with this handsome man.

Happy weekend!

JAZZERCISE.

2010-05-06T11:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my aunt invited me to go to Jazzercise with her. Jazzercise is a workout class that incorporates moves from pilates, yoga, jazz dance, kickboxing, and hip-hop. It's a one hour class full of stretching and working out. The first 45 minutes are basically just stretching and pilates-type stuff but the last 15 minutes are spent with weights and a floor mat. Although this last portion of the class is much shorter in time, it worked me out 10x more. Man, oh man, was it fun. I really enjoyed it.

So I got a membership for a whole month. I went again this morning, but this time I went to the body sculpting class. PHEW. What a work out. Most of the time spent today was with weights and those rubber band stretchy things. I'm telling you, I am going to be sooore.Watch out all you one pieces and tankini's. I'm getting my summer-time bod nice and shaped up.

I love the feeling of just getting up and doing something active. It really starts the day off right, and I'm feeling like today is going to be a good day.

Aside from the workout, this morning was also great because our future apartment complex called me to let me know they have an apartment that will become available a whole MONTH earlier than we'd planned. We will be able to move in on June 11th. AH. Yay!

I just hope that the rest of the day will be just as good and successful as my morning has been so far. I'm crossing my fingers for some good news later today! Life is great.

Ps: I am currently pulling out my Carrie Underwood albums and getting ready for her concert in just a few weeks! Can't wait!

2010-05-05T15:06:00.001-07:00

Thank goodness for Bejeweled Blitz. That's all I have to say.

And that hopefully tomorrow brings a job along with it.

The End.

2010-04-27T16:57:00.000-07:00

Hey, so remember how last month I was here:

Well last week we said goodbye to our beloved apartment.

It served us well for nearly a year. We really enjoyed living there. The location was prime for both me and Luke. We had a great ward. And it allowed plenty of space for the both of us.

We are currently- what I like to call ourselves- "floaters". We have no apartment, nor will we have one for a couple of weeks. Luckily, I have a kind aunt and uncle who have allowed us into their home until we find a more permanent place to stay. Seriously we feel so blessed that they opened up their home to us.

After a series of events, we have watched our lives fall into place. The past few months we have seen little miracle after miracle occur as doors have been opened for us. Luke's friend heard that Luke was looking for an internship and set him up with a company that could provide not only the internship, but also a permanent job after the required internship hours were fulfilled. The amazing thing is that Luke and his new boss had never met until today.

Here's Luke on his first day of work!

Well while Luke has been at work the past two days I have occupied my time with apartment hunting, grocery shopping, laundry-ing, flower-watering, dog- feeding, and......

oh ya. beaching.

Ok, so I felt a little bit guilty that I was laying out on the beach while my husband was busily working. But I justified it by concluding that I was actually doing him a favor. See, Luke claims to not really enjoy the beach. So my going while he is at work saves him from having to with me after work or on Saturday (although I'm sure I will drag him along one of these Saturdays). See.. I was being thoughtful. Although it was rather overcast today I still got pretty burnt. (That goes to show just how white I am from living in Utah. Any drop of sunlight is seriously attracted straight to me. I promised myself that although I am super itchy from the burn I WILL NOT COMPLAIN about it because I am just grateful to see the sun and the beach at all.)

Anyways.... a little more on the update:
Last week was my birthday. I am now 21! I must admit that I kind of forgot I was only 21. A few weeks back I wrote in my school calendar for April 21 " My 22nd Birthday", which I embarrassingly had to scratch out and rewrite "21st".
With the expenses of moving Luke agreed to keep it simple. He took me out on a surprise date a few days before my birthday, and on my actual birthday he got me a nice pair of flip flops :)
Remember my recent blog post about the bug vacuum? Well my in-laws got me one. Seriously I'm so excited. Of course it would be better to not have any bugs to vacuum up in the first place, but since that isn't possible, I'll settle for second best which is owning a bug vacuum.
We spent the day walking around the outlets in Vegas, going to Luke's brother's volleyball game, going out to BJ's with Luke's fam, and ending it by seeing The Last Song which Luke and I both enjoyed.

This past weekend my family came down to Vista, CA for my cousin's farewell. We drove to La Jolla where we had an awesome dinner and watched the seals.

It was really fun. I love my family and I'm SO excited to live only 5 1/2 hours away from them instead of the 12 it takes to get to Utah.

2010-03-28T11:57:00.000-07:00

My birthday is in less than a month! I'm super excited for it for a few reasons. One main reason is for the new birthday present Luke just tacked onto my wish-list of presents. I've been working on a list of just a few ideas of things for him to get me and this new and possibly the best one was just discovered today. A bug vacuum.

Lately we have found quite a few spiders in our apartment :( In most of the places I've lived, if there was ever a spider-encounter it was usually with a daddy long leg, which are gross but easy to kill because it's just a dot of a body with long legs. These spiders that we have here are much, much worse. The bodies are big and they're way wider than daddy long legs.

Since spring is around the corner we have found a lot of these unwelcome visitors exploring our apartment. One day we came across SIX within just about 2 hours. GROSS. Ever since that day I check everything for spiders. Every cupboard, every closet. I even check our bed every single night, because seriously that would be the worst thing if I woke up to a huge spider crawling on me. We hadn't seen any for about a week and a half.... until today. Luke was in the bathroom gellin' his hair and I walked out into the family room to find the biggest one yet crawling on the ceiling. Seriously it was enormous. Luke thought I was a cry baby until he came out to examine it himself and agreed that the body was huge. Now i"m back to my paranoid self and can't go anywhere in my apartment without checking everything for spiders first. I told Luke I wanted to go back to California where there weren't any nasty spiders, but then I remembered that last summer our apartment was infested with cockroaches. I can't decide which is worse. We just can't escape the bugs...

That's when we discovered that Walmart has a bug vacuum that sucks up the bugs and kills them with a chemical. Among other things, I sure hope that this is one of my b-day gifts. I can't live with these creepy, crawly things anymore!

March 7, 2010

2010-03-07T12:14:00.000-08:00

Welp today is our one year engagement anniversary. Ya. Crazy to think that it was already a year ago. It seriously feels like just yesterday.

So I know that not many people do anything for the anniversary of the day they got engaged (most people don't even remember the date) but I thought I would just do something really simple, just to do a little reminiscing. I wanted to surprised Luke and go to the place that we got engaged and have a little picnic. I had everything figured out... I was going to make one of his new favorite meals, wrap it up, grab a picnic blanket, get Luke into the car and head to our spot. There were a few set-backs to this plan.

1st of all: We got engaged at this park that was along the bike trail. For the life of me I could not remember where this park was. My mom was making fun of me because "girls are supposed to remember these kinds of things" but honestly I don't. The day Luke proposed I thought we were just going for a walk along the bike trail, so I didn't pay any attention to where he was driving or where we parked to start our walk. AND after he proposed, I was too excited to look around and remember the directions of how to get to there. So for the past few weeks I have seriously driven to every park along the bike trail that I could see. I even looked at Google Earth to find it, but without luck. and I asked every girl at work if they knew of any park that matched my description. No luck .

2nd of all: The weather the past little while has been absolutely gorgeous. We've hit the high 40's and I think we've even gotten into the 50's a few days.... Until maybe 2 days ago when it started POURING snow. Today is freezing cold and rainy, so I knew that making a nice lunch and having a picnic was now out of the question.

So.. instead of having a cute little surprise afternoon, I just asked Luke to drive us to the park after our Stake Conference. He agreed and we got out to revisit the place that Luke proposed at one year ago today. We stood looking at the jungle gym for a few minutes and both decided that this didn't really look like the one we were at last year. We both thought the swings were on the left side of the jungle gym, not the right. And the slides looked a little different as well. However, we decided that instead of walking around in the cold rain trying to figure out if this was in fact the right place, we would just claim this as our engagement spot whether it was or not.

It's crazy to think about all the things that have happened within the past year, but I sure am glad for that day ONE YEAR ago today where Luke got down on his knee and I said YES. We sure are happy, and I sure love him.

PS: We have become great fans of Jimmy Fallon's late night show. He is so stinkin' funny. The other night we were introduced to this "Let us play with your look" segment. Please check this out. I die every time I see it. It's SO random.

You Should Know I Bleed Blue.

2010-02-10T20:10:00.000-08:00

I've decided that I need to be better about blogging. I get so caught up in reading everyone else's that I never really get around to writing my own. I usually just wait until like 5 new blog-worthy things happen and then write about it. So here they are:

1.Superbowl Sunday.
We had a mighty fun party in hopes that the Colts would pull through for us, but that was not the case. However, our party was not in vain because we still had fun nonetheless. It was made up of lots of friends who brought lots of yummy food. I think we had like 80 different types of dip. Jk more like 3.

Luke, of course, got into the Superbowl spirit and made a collage of all the pictures he could find of the Saints or the Colts in the past year's worth of ESPN magazines. It's still on our wall. In fact, he just came home 5 minutes ago, admired it, and said, "I think this should stay up here forever". And it might. We also had blue streamers up across our ceiling to show our Colts pride.

He was so sad the Colts lost... :(

I need to be better at taking pictures. I told myself to take lots and then ended up with only like 4.

2. 80's Roller Skating
Our ward had an activity last night at Classic Skating, and it was 80's themed. Who knew that roller skating was so hard? Geez, I remember being like 5 and flying around the rink. Or maybe I just thought that I was super good, but really wasn't. Either way, I was sufficiently worse last night than I was when I was younger. I didn't fall though. And props go out to my hubby for doing very well on his first roller skating experience. We did so well, in fact, that us and 2 other couples won a super cool flash light ring for being really good and winning a game! Woo woo.

Here's my flashlight ring. (Does any one else think I look creepy/ weird in this pic? Maybe it's because I'm SO stinkin' white. Summer! Please come!)

3. I love my new coasters!
We often bring drinks and snacks into the family room while watching t.v. or a movie and we started to see water rings on the end tables from our cups, so I bought some coasters, and I absolutely love them. They make me happy.

4. Valentine's Day is coming up.
Our plans consist of spending time up at a cabin with some friends. Should be lots of fun. It's fun to think that this will be our THIRD V-day together, and each year we have been in a different stage. 2 years ago we were friends and Luke took me out to Tucanos. Last year we were dating (ha... but it also happened to be the day that I bought my wedding dress.) and this year, of course, we are married and loving it.

5..... Ok so I don't really have a #5.
So I'll just make a quick shout out to Jay-Z for making my current favorite song, "Empire State of Mind", from which the title of this post comes.

Basically.. that's the latest around here.
:)

2010-01-16T22:03:00.001-08:00

I just heard Luke say, "This is like the real military!!" and "Where'd you go? I'm so lost without you, baby" and then began singing "I'm all out of love. I'm so lost without you" to Nate while playing Modern Warfare. Haha. I love listening in to them while they play. They have absolutely no idea what they're saying because they're so focused. So funny.

The Place We Call Home.

2010-01-11T09:32:00.000-08:00

This post is mainly for my sister, and any other bloggers who may be interested in the apartment Luke and I call "home".

We'll start with the kitchen:

That door is our back door and leads to the parking lot.

This is the other side of the kitchen going into the family room. The wall on the right is my "holiday wall" and obviously I haven't really done much for with Valentine's Day yet. But I DID make that heart wreath.

Family room:

Other side of the family room from the couch:
(On the right is our front door )

Office:

Bathroom:
(Okay so our bathroom isnt' really that great and it was hard to get a picture of the whole thing, so I just took a pic of the toilet to show the pom pom flower balls I made :) )
And... our bedroom is still pretty bare, so I thought I'd just show the newer additions. Thank you, IKEA for providing us with a great dresser. And thank you, Tai Pan for having a $130 mirror on sale for $35 :)

And here's a picture frame I made that is going in our bathroom as soon as I find a pic to go in it. I thought it'd be weird to have pictures of me and Luke in our bathroom so I'm trying to think of something else I can put in it....?

Anyways.. that's a tour of our little place. We love it. It's been fun decorating and experimenting on our first place. In fact, Luke had a surprise date for me the other day when I came home from work. He took me out to lunch and then we went shopping for things around the house. I love that he loves it just as much as I do. We both cannot wait, though, to have our own HOUSE that we can do absolutely anything with (basically PAINT!)

A brief overview of our lives:
-We had SUCH a fun Christmas break, and were able to visit both our families.
-We were able to be at Baby Kai's blessing.
-I went snowboarding for the first time. It was an interesting experience. I struggled even getting UP the bunny slope (I couldn't even hold on to the rope that takes you up the hill), my dad broke his collar bone within the first 20 minutes of our first run and had to walk the whole way down the mountain. I was scared to death and had Luke hold my waist the whole way down. Mason hurt his knee, and we lost Emerson. I must say that I'm glad I went and actually gave it a try. For all you snowboarders out there: I admire you so much. Snowboarding's hard.
-We had our annual hockey game in our cul-de-sac
-Us kids made our annual Christmas video and were able to add Jared and Luke into the great fun.
-We had a 2nd Christmas at the Stephensons. They were very generous and we got some fun things from them.

-We spent our first New Years together as a married couple at the Stephenson's playing games and watching the ball drop. We had a lot of fun!

-The Stephensons came up to Provo for a day. Most of them went snowboarding while Mom, me, and Tori had a girls' day and played games, watched movies and ANTM marathon all day.

Now we're back in school. I LOVE my classes. I'm finally getting into stuff that I enjoy.
Luke likes his classes and is now a TA for one of them.
We're both busy busy as always, but we're loving it.
One thing that we're enjoying is being hooked on ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT.
Thank goodness for some friends of ours who lent us the first season. We've watched most of it already.

And one last thing: I miss the beach, and I miss being tan, hence the background change to palm trees even though it's the middle of winter.

2009-12-11T20:09:00.000-08:00

My man asked me on a surprise date earlier this week.

He picked me up at 5:30 and took me here:

The Mayan!

I had been wanting to go here for so long! He's obviously pretty good at getting hints because every time we passed it I was sure to let him know that I wanted to go there sometime.

So this surprise dinner was the beginning of our date.

We then went here:

SLC

to see the lights. It's one of my favorite things to do during Christmas time.
However, we were not able to enjoy it very much because it was SO cold. We literally stopped at every tree we liked, snapped a picture, ran into a few buildings to defrost, and left.

We cannnot wait to be done with finals, take a few weeks off from work, and go HOME! I haven't been home in SO long, and I can't wait to see my family. I hope that everyone enjoys their holiday as much as I know that I will. Merry Christmas!

I'm Back.With the Best News Ever.

2009-10-26T19:10:00.000-07:00

Hello, all you fellow bloggers. You MAY have thought that I was gone from blogging forever. I haven't blogged in more than a month now, I know. So you may be wondering what momentous event has sparked my return. WELL....

I COULD write about the Cornbelly's maze adventure we had with some friends.
Or me and Luke's day to Park City
Or the festivities we enjoyed on Luke's birthday
Or the late night Sundance ski lift ride we went on with Kev and Kel
Or our pumpkin- carving night with friends from the ward
Or our new obsession with the game "Scene it"
Or the fact that I don't have work for 3 more days.
Or the bridal shower that two lovely girls and I threw for Charlie
Or the delish enchiladas, calzones, and stuffed green bell peppers that I have made recently
Or how I've thought lately about coloring/ styling my hair in some new way (?)
Or how we climbed the Y a while ago b/c I had never done it before, and the whole way up I was wondering why I ever wanted to do it
Or how we went to the Utah Fair a while ago... the first fair I'd ever been to
Or how we bought a new (used) car
Or how good this season's Gossip Girl is
Or how I love the fact that my husband loves that show just as much as I do (he might kill me for revealing that....)
Or my first time to Outback Steakhouse, and how much it exceeded my expectations
Or tons of other things we have been up to lately.

And while these things are all very important things that have gone on recently, and while most of these things are very blog-worthy and I SHOULD have blogged about them early, and while I will blog about them in more detail in just a second, these things are NOT what originally brought me back to this good ol' blog.

THIS IS:

(Please excuse the bareness of the walls and the plainness of the bed. We been so busy decorating other parts of our apartment that we haven't quite gotten to our bedroom yet, so it's still completely bare.)

Today we made the best purchase of our entire married life. We bought this incredible BED! The first few months of our marriage we were lucky enough to live in APX's apartments who provided all furniture for us. When we moved to Provo we decided to put buying a bed on the back burner for a few days until we made a few other purchases first. A kitchen table, couch, ottoman, end tables, book case, curtains, and a few other main purchases later (not to mention the multiple months that passed as well) we decided it was at last time to say goodbye to our beloved blow up mattress.

Yes, you read that right. We have been sleeping on an inflatable bed for the past little while. This is embarrassing to reveal. Very. But to tell the truth, we loved it. It was the best blow up mattress ever. Thank you, Wal Mart. It has done us well. To make this sound better if I can, this wasn't just any ordinary blow up bed. It's not like the ones you go camping with. It's legit. You don't have to blow it up with your mouth nor with a separate pump. Instead you plug it into the wall, flip a switch on the back of the bed, and it inflates itself to the desired fullness. I'm not gonna lie... as excited as I am to sleep on our new legit mattress, I am sad to see our good old blow up friend go back into the box after it has served us so well.

Ok, enough about our bed.

Luke and I at the Olympic Park.

At Cornbelly's

The group
There were some pretty amazing pumpkins...

pumpkin carving night with friends from the ward.

boy pic
This year's choice: Volcom stone pumpkin

driving to Luke's soccer game in Lindon
taking the bus from the parking lot to the ski lift
us with kevin and Kelli on me and Kel's surprise date for the boys (Sundance ski lift)
bringing out the ice cream came for Luke's bday

The Y

the view from the Y. For those of you who are wanting to climb the Y for the view, I advise you to look from the comfort of your own car at the parking lot. The view is the same. I was a little bummed about that. But climbing it is a great experience nonetheless
The big yellow slide at the fair

the fair

I thought I'd throw this in just for kicks. this is when our car broke down. we were extreeeeemely sad. duh.

But while I dont have much to make up for the previous pic, this boy sure does. He's so cute... even while making this face.

I apologize for the length of this post. I figured I had to catch up sometime though.

oh ya... and I'll be sure to let you know if my sleeping improves with our NNNNNEWWWW bed. <3

SHOUT OUT

2009-09-23T13:52:00.000-07:00

This one's for you, sweetie boy:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

My man is 24 today. Yep... the big 2-4. *What a man, what a man, what a man, what a mighty good mannnn.

*reference to "Whatta Man" by Salt N Pepa

We've celebrated this day by: sleeping in an extra 15 mins this morning, resulting in a 7:30 wake-up time instead of 7:15, going to school (and he's been at work too), later opening up some presents from the wifey (namely me), enjoying a bite to eat, playing at our late-night kickball game, and later having some friends over to eat some ice cream cake. YAY. I sure do hope he's been having a good day. It stinks that we've been apart all day, and especially that neither of us are doing anything fun during that time apart. I wish it was Saturday so we could go out and do something together during the day, and make it more of a celebration, but at least tonight will be fun!

I have a lot of classes that deal with marriage and family, so lately my mind has been on me and Luke even more than before. I've been thinking a lot about how our relationship began and everything that occurred before and after we started dating. Basically, I am the luckiest girl in the world. Everything that has happened between Luke and I has been the biggest blessing, and I couldn't be any happier. I thought today, being his birthday, would be an appropriate time to say that I am the happiest I have ever been. I am so glad Luke stuck with me, and that we started dating, and that we are now happily married, and that I have an amazing, extremely handsome husband who make me laugh, smile, and happy.

PS: If you would also like to feel grateful for the people in your life, all you have to do is go see The Time Traveler's Wife.

Anyways.... a photo update is much needed, so that will be coming up soon!

Busy bees

2009-09-17T20:25:00.000-07:00

Welllppp... we sure have been busy bees lately. With what, you ask? Well let me tell you:

-School is back up and running so we've moved back to Provo and we're all settled into our apartment. Well.... mostly set up. Actually we still have a long way to go. But we actually have a couch now, so our bed is no longer in our family room. What kind of bed do we have? Please don't ask because that's a little embarrassing. Oh and we now have electricity in our bedrooms. We lived the first three weeks without it. So little by little, our apartment is getting better.

- We went to Vegas for the 3 day weekend last week. Hen and Jared made the trip down from LA also so we all stayed with Luke's parents for a few nights. Talk about fun! We had a FULL lake day complete with jetskis, boating, and tubing.

After the lake we did a little BBQ action and watched BYU cream Oklahoma. What a fun weekend.

- It ended perfectly... an hour and a half away from home on our drive back our car decided to break down. Breaking down in the middle of nowhere at 10pm is always fun. We just loved it. Thank goodness for good friends who came to our rescue and picked us up. What life savers!

-Last weekend we went to the Utah State Fair! It was my first time to a fair, and I loved it. We went down a big yellow slide on potato sacks, watched the bear show and the rodeo, ate funnel cake, drank too much lemonade, and Luke even won me a stuffed animal tiger from one of the games he won! What a man.

-We've started our intramural kickball team. I know... who knew there was such a thing? I sure didn't until we enrolled. Luke is on 5 other intramurals, which keep him busy. I have found a new love for tennis. We played last night with Kevin and Kelli, and had a lot of fun. I want to play more.

- We occupy our nights with our shows (or rather MY shows): SYTYCD, ANTM, GG, and WIPEOUT which we love.

bassssically thats just about it. Busy busy busy. But loving it :)

PS: How cute is my husband?

Prettttty dang.

2009-08-14T15:03:00.000-07:00

1) Last Day of Work!= TODAY!
2) Magic Mt!= TOMORROW
3) Fres-yes!= TOMORROW NIGHT
4) Vegas!= MONDAY
5) Provo!= TUESDAY
6) ONE WHOLE WEEK OF AN ACTUAL SUMMER!= NEXT WEEK

I cannot wait! I never thought I would see the day that I would be counting down to get back to Fresno. But that day has actually come, and I only have one more day to count. We'll only be there for a day, but I wanted to see my family one last time before Luke and I head off to school, b/c I won't see them again until Christmas!

And I surprise myself every summer when I find that I can't wait to get back to Provo. Everyone's always so anxious to get out of that place by the end of Winter semester (mostly to escape from the dreadful weather), yet I've always found myself anxious to get back. This year will be especially exciting b/c WE'RE MARRIED! That entails:

-married ward
-married friends
-married housing
-married... just about everything.

We're excited for everything that's ahead, but especially excited for the next week or so! Bring on the fun! and a full week of no work for either of us! Summer has begun!

The Latest....

2009-08-11T16:07:00.001-07:00

Yesterday morning as I was folding laundry and cleaning up, I heard "vroooom vrrooooom" outside our apartment, and I knew just what it was. Luke and his friend, Bobby had been working on their pit bikes, and by the sound of it, I assumed that they had gotten them working. I decided to step outside on our balcony like a good wifey and watch Luke ride around the parking lot, when I saw this:
a dead....rabbit?

I couldn't really tell what kind of animal it was.. but I was sad for it, annnnd also kind of interested. So as soon as Luke was finished playing with his bike and had come back home, I told him he had to see this. We went downstairs to the bushes beneath our balcony and scoped it out. Instantly I knew I was going to get made fun of.. It was some poor little child's stuffed animal that had conveniently been dropped right outside our apt.

I should have known better... why would any animal, in its last attempt at life, jump up and through the bushes to end its life peacefully sprawled out over the greenery? Its positioning made no sense. What a fool I am, to have fallen for the little child's unintentional "dead-rabbit" trick.

Anyways... This past weekend was adventurous. Luke and I drove to Santa Monica on Sunday to spend the day with my sister and brother-in-law. Church seemed to provide an equal amount of entertainment as it did spiritual growth as quite a few funny things happened throughout the day.

We spent the afternoon with them, ate lunner? (lunch/dinner?), walked NEAR the beach, took a few unprepared-for photos,

(I have no idea why the quality of these pics are turning out so bad..)

ate some delicious fondue, and eventually were on our way back to Rancho. We hope to see Hen and Jared again soon as we've made Labor Day plans together! Woo hoo!

The upcoming weekend will provide GREAT fun as well! We only have about 4 days of work left (give or take..) so we'll be packing up the rest of the week, head to Magic Mt on Saturday and then up to Fresno to see my family one last time before going off to school! Yippee!

As for tonight: we plan on getting lucky and seeing a few shooting stars as tonight is supposed to be prime time to see the Perseid meteor shower! I hope we can escape enough of the city lights to see atleast a few!

<3>

Exciting!

2009-07-30T15:40:00.000-07:00

- Luke said something very exciting to me today

-The suspense of who's getting kicked off SYTYCD tonight is killing me. I hope it's Evan.

-I'm excited to have company this weekend... more excited that they're GIRLS (I miss having girl friends).... and even MORE excited that they are some of my favorite girls ever!

-I'm starting my "project" today. I've been thinking of crafts that I can do to fill my time while I'm at work. I decided that I want to make headbands:

We'll see how this goes... And how long it'll take until I get bored of this project too. (I've tried scrapbooking, reading, compiling a recipe book, etc but I find that after a short period of time I get bored and end up spending all my time playing Tetris or my newest favorite Facebook game, PathWords.) I am just a lame case.

- Me, Luke, Nate, and Roy finished our last night on our Summer Bowling League last night. Although I spent the majority of the nights being frustrated because of all the effort I would put in to bowling straight while the ball would immediately turn for the gutter, I will miss having a Wednesday night ritual that includes my hubby, friends, pizza, rootbeer, and entertainment watching some of the other bowlers' interesting techniques. We had a lot of fun doing it!

Lately..

2009-07-27T17:20:00.000-07:00

Welp.. We've been pretty busy people lately. Lots has been going on. Here's the latest:

-My fam came into town a few weeks ago. I LOVED seeing them all. The younger siblings stayed the night at our apartment and spent the next day with us. We took them bowling, swimming, played volleyball, and took them to the mall. Busy day! That night the whole family met up and went to the Pageant of the Masters at Laguna Beach. This year's wasn't quite as good as the one a few years ago, but it was great just being with the whole fam!

-We made a trip to Vegas over the 4th of July. Unfortunately, we had to work most of the weekend, but we got off early enough on the 4th to enjoy the afternoon and went swimming. We watched fireworks that night at some casino. Pretty cool. Bad news: The AC in our car blew out on the way home :(

-We made another trip to Vegas last weekend to spend some time with Luke's family. We drove there in 115 degree weather with NO ac. blahhh. Luckily Luke and his dad are car geniuses and were able to work on it and get it to work better. Our car must have brought them a curse though, because the day we got to Vegas, the AC in his family's house broke. We're bad luck.

-Hen came to spend an evening with me this weekend. We enjoyed dinner, walked around Tai Pan, the outlet mall, and ate some Cinnabon. It was great catching up and hanging out with her.

-Yesterday Luke and I visited his friends Matt and Kendra in the San Diego area. They are a cute couple with adorable kids. We had a lot of fun with them.

- Cockroaches are back. Meh :( I JUST got comfortable going back into that bathroom after the exterminator got rid of them the first time. Now I'm back to having to flick the light on with the tip of my finger super fast so they won't jump on my hand... just in case they've escaped the tub and are on the wall. I also check under BOTH toilet lids to make sure they aren't hiding under one of them. And I examine my make up bag every morning before digging through it to start getting ready for the day. It honestly has gotten me to a state of paranoia. :(

The last little while I've been looking through the pictures that Luke and I have together. We've done some pretty fun stuff. Some of these pics just make me laugh...

stuffing me with a pillow to look preg-o.

This was the sketch Luke made of the afro man we carved in our pumpkin.

I made him a Chinese dinner and we both dressed up Chinese to eat it. haha.

Haha. Luke knew that I had always thought it would be cool to put on as many pairs of clothes as possible and sumo wrestle. He made that dream of mine come true.

Oh! and lastly I thought it would be appropriate to make a shout out to Jason Glover, the guy who got kicked off of "So You Think You Can Dance" last week (sadly). I just found out today during my SYTYCD research time that he is from FRESNO, CA and graduated from Bullard High. REPRESENT!

(Hopefully he'll prove to be someone to be more proud of than Fresno's other "claim to fame", Mr. Kevin Federline, Britney Spears' ex- husband, who graduated from CW. I think he will. Kevin's not too hard to beat.)

PS: Go Kayla and Jeanine!

PSS:
SYTYCD Season 5 tour.
West Valley City, UT.
Nov 7.
Girlfriend needed for accompaniment.

my baby boy

2009-07-08T19:32:00.001-07:00

today's entry is dedicated to my one and only.
i just figured i'd just take a second and explain why i'm the luckiest girl in the world.

1) the first thing luke said to me yesterday morning as we laid in bed: "do you want to go clothes shopping today?" he knows that i've been having issues with my boring and plain clothes lately and he patiently trailed behind me for an hour and a half while i shopped around. although we left a little bummed that we'd spent all that time without finding anything modest/appealing, he didn't complain. instead he said that we'll just have to try again another time.

2) he works SO hard. i make money by facebooking, blogging, occasionally taking a few phone calls here and there, but basically i have the easiest job in the world. he makes money by knocking door to door in the blazing hot sun *all day every day. today he sold TWO alarms! i couldn't be more proud. he's amazing.

3) i came home from a run this morning and he had made the bed all neatly.

4) he makes me feel like a million bucks

5) he looks like this:

and I absolutely love him.

the list could continue for days and days, however i'm getting off work in just a few minutes and must get ready for tonight. we're in a prettttty legit BOWLING LEAGUE and we compete every wednesday. watch out.

*= baby i got your money

Our First Bug Encounter

2009-07-01T16:17:00.000-07:00

Welp... this morning I was getting ready for the day in the bathroom... putting on my makeup and beginning to straighten my hair... the usual. I was just looking around the room aimlessly when I happened upon these 2 black strands coming out of the bathtub drain. First I thought it had to have been a piece of hair that got wound around the drain plug. That thought lasted for about 1 second when I saw both strands moving. It was definitely alive. It was definitely a huge bug's antennas. So I did what any normal person would do. I grabbed my phone and got a safe distance away from the drain to where I could easily take a picture of the antennas but could also easily run away screaming without it jumping on me if it decided to come out of the drain. Since my hubby was currently not at home at the time, I had to have proof of the hugeness of this bug so he would understand my reasoning behind my screaming and running around the apt like a crazy lady when I told him the story later if the bug wasn't there when he got home.

My next step was simple. Close the bathroom door, hope it doesn't come out, and wait for Luke to come home to get rid of it. A few minutes later, curiosity got to me, and for some reason I just wanted to know if it was still there. Although I was completely disturbed, grossed out, and disgusted, I was somehow also intrigued by it. When I opened the door, it was still in the tub but this time wandering around it instead of confined in the drain like it was the first time I saw it. It looked like this:

Huge and nasty.

Next, I got a piece of tupperware, held it right above the bug (but about 4 feet higher), dropped it, and ran away screaming. Needless to say... I missed, and our little visitor began running around the tub frantically.

My next conclusion was this: close the door again, but this time stuff towels and placemats at the bottom of the door so there's absolutely no way he could get out. And this was exactly what Luke came home to.

Our story has a happy ending. Luke captured the bug with the tupperware piece that I had conveniently left in the tub after my previous attempt, and threw it outside. However, being as paranoid as I am, I periodically feel like I have bugs crawling all over me. I hate that feeling.

Anyways: exciting/ new news going on in our little Stephenson household:we're making a little visit to Vegas tomorrow. Here we come!

Dancing Dreams

2009-06-27T10:45:00.000-07:00

The other day I asked Luke what he would want to be if he could have any career in the world. He chose a professional basketball player. That's a worthy choice. I would be a singer.
preferably this one here:

Celine Dion. She's perfect. and beautiful. Anyone who knows me knows that I absolutely love to sing. It's probably my favorite thing to do.

However, what you probably don't know and what might take you by surprise is one of my other dreams. If I couldn't be a singer, I would be a ballerina.

I know... funny, right? Especially since I can't dance... at all. (My good friend Kara knows that. Sophomore year she and I took a hip-hop class together. Probably the biggest waste of money I've ever made my parents spend on me. I couldn't do a single move in that class. It was a beginners' course.)

But, despite my lack of ability, I love to pretend. Back at home, doing the dishes after dinner would take quite some time for our family because we'd have a selection of music blaring and we'd all be dancing in the kitchen. My attempted style of dance would most often be ballet.

Yesterday as I was walking home from work (I work in my apt complex) I had this sudden urge to dance. I knew that I had about an hour and a half before Luke finished work, so I figured that would give me enough time to go home and get my wiggles out before he came home and caught me dancing alone. So I instantly got into my dancing uniform which looks a little like this:

+

Leggings plus a nice long turtleneck shirt make for a great dance outfit. Next, I turned on my iPod speakers full blast, grabbed the mop and started dancing while mopping the floor. (Chores are always much more fun when dancing and singing.) I was have a grand ol' time dancing it up as I finished the kitchen floor and moved to the bathroom floor when I heard the front door open and shut. Either I was going to get kidnapped in .2 seconds or my hubby was home early. Luckily it was the latter. He was a little confused by my attire and the loud music, but understood completely when I told him I was having a personal dance party.

After getting all my dancing out, finishing the chores, and being excited about my man coming home early (and about the fact that I wasn't being kidnapped), Luke and I sat down to enjoy our favorite activity of late: WORSEARCHES! We love wordsearches. We bought a whole book of them the other day at Wal-Mart so we could do them together. Last night's wordsearch activity was a competition. I took a puzzle on the left page of the book and the right page was his. Whoever finished theirs first was the winner. I won.

Other things that we have enjoyed so far in the WEEK of our married life after the honeymoon are:
-making a make-shift couch by sitting on a love-seat with our legs stretched out and pulling the coffee table underneath them. Not the comfiest or softest form of luxury, but the best we could do when our friends stole our big couch.
-peeling the sunburn off of eachother's backs
-grocery shopping at Target with our many generously given gift cards
-seeing TRANSFORMERS at midnight the night it came out. I fell asleep on his lap half way through it because I was so tired. But the parts of the movie that i DID see were great!
-eating at Cheesecake factory... my fav.
-hardcore detailing our car: even took the seats out to vacuum up the disgusting french fries and collection of pens and coins the previous owner had stashed under the drivers' seat.
-etc, etc.

WE LOVE IT.

PS... I've discovered that spending 6 1/2 hours a day at work with absolutely no work to do leaves me a little bored. I have a feeling that this whole BLOG thing will keep me entertained for a while, so I'm sorry that I update like every second.

What the?

2009-06-26T17:01:00.000-07:00

Wait a second... I'm MARRIED? When did I turn 20? How am I going into my JUNIOR year of COLLEGE? Pretty sure that like 2 seconds ago I looked like this:

and this:
and also... this:

and not too long ago my family looked like this:

Add about 14 years, another little Hammer girl, and 2 handsome men to this picture and that's what our clan looks like now.

It's pretty weird to think about how fast time goes by. That's one of those things that often makes me sad/ freaks me out. If you'd like to get sad about this also, all you have to do is listen to "Cinderella" by Steven Curtis Chapman. It's such a good song so sometimes I want to listen to it, but every single time I do, the first few verses leave me with the same results and I eventually regret even turning the song on. This regret happened to me for the umpteenth time just a few minutes ago as I was writing in my journal about my wedding. I was thinking about the Father/ Bride dance and how my dad and I danced to this song. So, since I was already in a reminiscent mood, I decided to listen to it....

And that's why I'm here at work. All by myself. Sitting in the corner of this room. Crying. I'm pathetic.

On the more positive side, my reflections have led me to think about 2 things.
1) how thankful I am for my great childhood and my amazing family.

-I've always loved my family and enjoyed being with them. However, it almost takes being away from them to fully realize what they mean to me and the impact they have had on my life. Going away for school gave me that experience, but I always had the assurance that I would be going home to them for the holidays or for the summer. Now that I'm married, being with the family won't occur quite so frequently, and I've grown to love and miss the goofiness between me and the sibs, the dancing and singing that would occur while doing dishes after dinner, the silly faces that were exchanged when our attention span couldn't last through the entire family scripture-reading time, the fun and the laughter. I've also learned to greatly appreciate my parents: my dad for working to provide for our family, coming home and happily going straight to work on the next new project my mom had planned out for him. And my mom for the meals she made, the laundry she folded, the decorating and the cleaning she did. I've come to realize that those things don't get done by themselves, and they sure take quite a bit of time. So here's to you, Hammer fam.

2) How grateful I am to have a cute little husband who works all day to take care of me and comes home each night to eat with me, talk to me, and laugh with me.

- Luke makes me happy. He makes me smile. He makes me laugh.... even when we're laying on the couch at midnight and he makes me carry him to our bedroom because he's playing dead (yep... that happened last night. Picture a 108 lb girl trying to carry a 160 lb boy. I had to take him limb by limb til I got him on my back... and even then I had to use the wall as a support system as I walked hunch-back with him on me to our room). He compliments me on my dinners, even when I didn't have enough time to run to the store to get some key ingredients. He takes care of me. And he loves me. Who could ask for more?

Basically I'm very content with my life, although a little confused about how it's going by so quickly. But such is life. And that's why we've got to take advantage of it.

YEAH MON!

2009-06-23T16:46:00.001-07:00

If you're looking for a place to relax, get away from ALL troubles and stresses, put your feet in the softest sand in the entire world, view the clearest and warmest ocean water, see the greenest and most beautiful mountains, stay at the best resort ever, enjoy delicious all-inclusive meals 24 hours a day, be around the happiest/funniest people.... and basically experience the most perfect vacation spot ever, go to JAMAICA. Luke and I spent 5 days there on our honeymoon and it was pure bliss.

Getting there wasn't so enjoyable, however. After a 5 hour red-eye flight, an 8 hour layover (during which we slept on eachother's laps in the ever-so comfortable airport seats, woke up to see that we were possibly the only people of Caucasian ethnicity in the entire airport, tried to find something edible to eat with no luck except for a Dunkin' Donuts stand which only had donuts that looked like someone had drizzled chocolate sauce on them and then decided to lick it all off), another hour and a half flight, a trip to the airplane bathroom (which I've come to realize only allows enough space to slightly bend over when attempting to throw up yesterday's chicken fingers), and being cramped in the smallest airplane with absolutely no leg room, we arrived looking like this:

We enjoyed the bus ride to our resort with our driver who called himself "The Famous One". All the bus drivers are SO friendly and funny and make up names for themselves, such as The Famous One, Crazy Joe, etc. After getting to our resort, we went to a banquet on the beach which had SO much food. YUM.

Tuesday, we were so jetlagged from the day before that we just relaxed on the resort. This included exploring the hotel and discovering our favorite treats. Mine was their PINA COLADAS, which they called Snow Dogs
and Luke's favorite was the Jerk Chicken Quessadillas.

That day we just layed out, went in the ocean, and played a giant game of chess. Literally:

Naturally, I beat my husband. JK. He actually won, but he had to put up a fight to do so. I figured that our honeymoon was an appropriate place to pull out my mad chess skills. He was impressed.

Wednesday was AMAZING. We took a bus ride with "Crazy Joe" up the mountains, and along the way he explained a bunch of things that we passed: like how at some places they have speed DIPS instead of speed bumps, and banana trees, etc. At the top of the mountain, we put on our harnasses and hats and got ready to ZIPLINE through the jungle.
It was beautiful. And way fun.

Thursday= Dunns River Falls. This was a Jamaican National Park, and was so much fun. Before going to the Falls, we had to rent some sexy water shoes. At Dunn's River, we CLIMBED up the waterfall. Yep. It was really cool. The water was a little chilly, and the sun was blocked by the huge trees, so we were a little cold, but it was fun nonetheless. The best part about it was that when I got my hair wet Luke said I looked like a bald cat, but he still loved me. I have such a loving husband. :)
We really enjoyed this part of the trip. It was so much fun.

Friday, we only had a few hours until we had to catch our flight back home, so we went on the Glass Bottom Boat ride. We went out probably a good 250-300 ft out in the ocean and it was still super clear and really shallow. We saw a bunch of different fish, and even fed some piranhas. Pretty cool.
Then we had to make our journey back home. Good bye Jamaica :(

It was such a perfect honeymoon. We absolutely loved it, but we'e happy to back in the States, back to REALITY, and starting our new life together.

Happily Ever After

2009-06-21T19:08:00.003-07:00

After much waiting, patience, and anxiety... after much traveling between Rancho Cucamonga and Fresno... after 1 1/2 months of being engaged in Provo and then after 51 lonely days and nights of separation at the beginning of summer, June 13th FINALLY came along, and Luke and I were joined together as husband and wife for time and all eternity in the Fresno Temple.

Luke and I are a pure example of the whole "best friends turning into lovers" thing. After being really close friends for a little over a year, we both concluded that we were just perfect for each other and decided we didn't want to live the rest of our lives without one another. So far we've found our marriage to be full of fun, laughter, jokes, and love and we know that we only have more of it to come.

As we look back on our Wedding Day,
we've tried to think of what we would change or what we would have done differently. Honestly, not much comes to mind. We had our family,

our closest friends,

great photographers, wonderful food and helpers in the kitchen,

the best DJ possible, and each other. We're so thankful for all the love and support we've felt from everyone that we know.

The married life so far has been splendid. There are so many perks and benefits to it that I have come to enjoy such as: being able to wake up and fall asleep next to the person I love, going furniture shopping together and daydreaming about what our future home will be like, attending the family ward and spending more time watching all the cute babies (and wishing time would hurry up so I could have one of my own) than listening to the talks, AND of course... making a blog! I feel like only married people should have blogs, because the single life just isn't that interesting. Don't get me wrong, if you have a blog right now and you're single... I still love you and you're obviously cooler than me, because your life is obviously interesting enough to blog about. But my single life consisted of the same thing every day.... aka boring. BUT now that I'm married I can join the blogging crew! Yay me! So obviously I'm new at it. Pretty sure as I get better at it, this thing will be rOcKiN' and super cool. So just keep lookin'.

As I get our wedding pictures back from our photographer I will post some up... but for now the next thing to be posted is:

JAMAICA

so be sure to stay tuned because it was just amazing and we loved it.

<3