Music, Moments, Memories

Adventures

2011-04-10T16:15:00.000-07:00

Annalee and the rest of us have been on several adventures lately:

Delivering scouting-for-food bags with the cub scouts.

General conference at Grandma Walkers. We also went to a fun birthday party at Aunt Sharla's.

More bundling for cub scouts. This time we played basketball.

All dressed up for Relief Society at a care center on Tuesday. Anna loved the old ladies.

Don't look at me. This is all moby-ed up for housework.

And helping in the kitchen. She can hold on to things now.

Exercising with mommy in the lovely April snow.

Lots of adventures.

Talking

2011-04-08T06:32:00.001-07:00

I hope to have a whole slew of posts coming soon because I'm really really really behind. But at least I have pictures and stuff to say. I'll get it done eventually.

This is just a fun video. Ignore me on the video please. Anna has started "talking." A little more like babbling and cooing, but its super fun. She's just adorable and I like that we can play with her more. There is nothing like the look she gives me when I'm completely focused on her. Also, as Anna has started to talk I realize that I'm a horrible baby-talker. I used to be 100% anti-baby talk and then I came around to the fact that using a different voice for babies is important for their vocal development (thanks school) plus it lets them know they are the one you're talking to. Now I use bad grammar and don't pronounce "th" or "r's" correctly. Maybe I'll fix it. So, here's the video of Annalee.

One Month

2011-02-08T20:08:00.000-08:00

Squeaker is now a month old! We've all learned so much in the first month, but mostly mom and dad have learned a lot. We've learned that she does not like to be cold at all, and thus does not like her clothes off. Or bath time. Or diaper changes. She does like to snuggle especially again our chest. She absolutely loves to swing! And most of the time she likes to be held. She's a good eater and weighed in yesterday at 11 pounds 1 ounce and 22 inches long. We're all making the adjustment fairly well. Enough that mom has started teaching piano. Dad is going back to school to be a police officer and for the moment being a substitute teacher until we can find a more permanent job that works with his school schedule.

I know what everyone really wants to see is pictures of the cutie. So just for the record I have difficulty figuring out how to work with pictures on blogger, so I'm going to deal with them in the order that they decided to be put in here. Hopefully it makes some sense.

Daddy said that she looked like a koala bear in this outfit, snuggled on mom's chest.

The cub scouts made paper bag hats this week and so we decided to make a paper bag hat for Squeaker as well.

Her outfit 2 Sundays ago, I thought she looked beautiful in the yellow dress. This was the second time we'd gone to sacrament meeting.

Mom just taking pictures while Anna models.

More pictures, this one with her name that we had carved this summer at Peach Days.

Our first outing outside, just walking around the yard.

Ain't I cute :)

Not edited, but a sample of the pictures my sister took for us just recently. I love my baby!!

Squeaker

2011-01-22T07:51:00.000-08:00

Just a few words about my little girl in her first couple weeks of life. She is a very good eater and mostly a really good sleeper. When they first handed her to me it made me laugh. She was sticking her tongue out and moving it around. Genetic trait, my dad's story about my birth always included that I did that. I knew she was actually my daughter. I'm also amazed that she actually had hair, I expected a bald baby. I didn't know that she would come out with furry ears. No one had ever mentioned that to me with a different baby, but they are just a little furry :) She likes to lift her head up and when she's on her tummy now, she can lift it and change which side her head is turned to.

From the beginning, she squeaked. In fact after her first day it took her a while to get her cry back. The first couple of days home she just squeaked when she cried - it sounded like she was hoarse. She continues to squeak frequently, when we're playing, when she's sleeping, after she's finished eating. So her first nickname has been "Squeaks" or "Squeaker."

Mom and Dad both love spending time with her and holding her. She's sure precious. I have to admit that I've always found newborns a little bit boring and was worried about how I would feel about my own. Thank goodness, I never began to think that being Anna's mom would be as much fun as it is. It's fun to watch her personality develop, to figure things out and to just snuggle with her.

January 4th

2011-01-22T06:38:00.000-08:00

January 4th is one of the biggest days of my life now: the wonderful day I became a mother. Also the day that I slept the least out of probably my whole life. The night before we went swimming with Matt's sister, brother and his wife and their kids. It was lots of fun and so nice for my huge pregnant body to be in water. So we came home that night and went to bed. I woke up just a few hours later at 1:30 a.m. because my water had broken. We left for the hospital. I got there and they hooked me up to monitors. I had regular, not too strong contractions but strong enough to keep me awake until the normal morning hours. At this point they slowed and almost stopped. To keep this from being forever long I think I will just list the memorable events from this point forward.

- I went in not wanting to have an epidural. Not 100% sure why, but I just didn't want it.

- All morning some of the equipment in my room wasn't working, so I had this I.T. guy popping in and out all morning. Somewhat awkward.

- About 10:00 am they started me on pitocin. Thank goodness, I wanted to get things moving. I'd already been there too long for me.

- Early afternoon I decided to get pain medication through the I.V. which was a bad plan. It made me excessively dizzy and nauseous. After that I decided that the pain from the contractions was much better than the pain medication.

- Anna was posterior, I think was the term they used, I had to work to get her forward, part of what took so long.

- About 5:00 pm after now 16 hours I was completely exhausted and about ready to go ahead and get the epidural. Luckily the nurse that came in at this point was really helpful and coached me a little to help me manage the pain and get things moving. I managed to stay natural which I was happy about :).

- The last centimeter or so took forever. She was turned sideways and wouldn't turn the right way. Later we found out that the reason was probably because she had the cord wrapped around her neck.

- Pushing was such a relief. I much preferred this part because I was actually doing something. I finally started pushing just before 7:00 and Annalee made her appearance at 7:29.

I felt so relieved. I was tired enough that I think I mostly just had complete disbelief that she was actually here after waiting so long. But it was amazing holding her. She weighed in at 8 pounds and half an ounce, but sure didn't look that big. Before weighing her, everyone guessed she'd be 7 something. She measured at 20.5 inches. And now she's here. It's great.

Annalee

2011-01-16T20:04:00.000-08:00

I'm currently holding my beautiful brand new baby which means this will not have very much text because I don't have the patience to type much one-handed. So here's some pictures in no particular order of our sweetheart, with more of the story to come.

Friends

2010-12-29T18:02:00.000-08:00

I just have to say that I don't know how, but I got blessed with the most amazing group of high school friends ever. We've managed to keep in decent contact thanks to blogs and Facebook over the years (now almost 8). Now many live out of state, in fact of six of us girls we live in five different states right now. But the track record is amazing. Everyone either has a college degree, or are in the last stages of finishing their degree. Everyone has gotten married in the temple.

So these said amazing friends have come up twice recently. The first was just over a week ago. I came home from a family Christmas party to a giant box on my doorstep. Unable to really get together, one of my friends still organized a baby shower. Here it is.

I had balloons, treats, a diaper cake, confetti, gifts, and cards all stuck in this box. They went in on the crib set I'd picked out for the room that matches the border. And this was my happy surprise. It was so much fun.

Also recently, the largest group of these friends got together for breakfast. Its sort of an annual tradition to get together for breakfast shortly after Christmas. This year more people came than have in a long time. We were only missed a couple. It was fun to see people's families and hear where everyone is right now. We forgot to take pictures before a couple of people left, but here's the picture when we did take it.

Just the girls (and kids) Everyone left and families

Pregnancy

2010-12-23T13:35:00.000-08:00

Just so I get all my tummy pictures on here, a recap of pregnancy. I feel like I've been pregnant for a very long time. It was funny, because for so long I would get comments on how tiny I was. No longer. I'm not tiny. But its fun to see the growth. So here is my collection of me pregnant. Hopefully not too much longer.

Pretending to look pregnant at three months Four and a half months, not much better.

My Halloween costume and Anna's first costume as a basketball. 6 1/2 months along.

Not quite sure exactly when, but getting big. Something like 8 months.

And just before Christmas (Dec 23) almost 9 months.

So baby is big and I'm big and now its time for this belly to disappear :) I have to say, I've never put this many pictures of myself anywhere, its a little unnerving. One funny thing I find is ladies that I talk to who mention they miss being pregnant. Although there are some upsides to it, mostly I can't imagine ever missing my entire body being out of whack. Come on little Annalee, its time to come meet mommy :)

Anna's Room

2010-10-27T20:51:00.000-07:00

I haven't been good at this but I did want to share our big project of recent weeks. We have turned Matt's old bedroom into our little Annalee's room. Last week we finally finished the floor and moved what stuff we have in. I have to say that it just makes me happy. I'm at about 30 weeks now and looking forward to these last 10 weeks being done. Luckily the holidays are upon us making this all a little more fun.

Here's my chair that we've had for a long time and a few of the big butterflies.
The corner with the bassinet that we have right now and the butterflies going up the wall. My husband did each and everyone of the stenciled butterflies and designed it. So amazing. Also, I have to draw attention to the items in the bassinet. The pillow was made by Matt's mom. The quilt was sent to me from Texas and is absolutely amazing!
Detail around the door and light switch.

And I realized none of the pictures showed the awesome floor. I'm too lazy to go take one right now, but here's an idea, although this is before we refinished it. It looks the same only clean and shiny and the trim is now pink.

So that's been our big project and its fun to see it done.

Millions of Peaches

2010-09-24T17:10:00.000-07:00

Yes, its been over a month and yes I should write about other things, but I wanted to post something and I'm very proud. I recently bought a ton of peaches and I just finished putting the very last bag of peaches in the freezer. They look all beautiful! So now I have a freezer full of peaches.

(and sorry, somehow this picture insisted on being big even thought I told it to be small!)

P.S. pregnancy is going good. Little Anna is extremely active and according to the ultrasound technician has big feet.

Its official!

2010-08-17T14:15:00.000-07:00

And we're very, very excited.

What's it going to be?

2010-08-14T19:53:00.000-07:00

I plan on doing a really nice girl's camp post sometime. It was really fun and so awesome to see many of the girls grow a lot. Most seemed to have a good time. I loved all of them and had the added blessing that besides some sore, out-of-shape muscles, I felt really good the whole time! I can't begin to express how grateful I am for that.

So this post is for an official tally. Any and all who read it, I want predictions on what the gender of the baby is going to be. I have to give you the facts. My sister and two sister-in-laws with children all had a boy first. Out of my close friends in high school, the four who have already had children also had boys first. The fifth who is expecting has not been able to get a clear answer yet. Of ex-roomies that have children and I've kept track of, three had a boy first, one had a girl first, one is expecting a boy and one is expecting a girl. A clear majority of boys, but a few girls thrown in. My chinese zodiac predictor or whatever says its a boy and I'm carrying low. Matt, my mother and I all have had dreams it was a girl. I've had lots of morning sickness. Hopefully I will know on Monday and make the reveal. Let me know what you think it is.

Other News

2010-07-26T19:49:00.000-07:00

While on our trip on the farm there was a goat. I don't know if you can tell, but we sure could in person. There is something unusual about this goat.

We didn't think the wide hips were just some extra weight. And so I use this goat expecting some kids to make an official cyberspace announcement of what many/most of anyone reading this already knows.

We are expecting a new baby. Baby is due January 13th, 2011, so I am just over 16 weeks along. We do not know gender yet, but we do want to find out and hope to in two weeks at my next doctor's appointment.

Now for me just a word about being pregnant. I believe it is the worst thing ever. I miss liking food, I'm tired of my body ruling my life. I can't ever ignore it, even just for a little while, because it will rebel and make me wish I hadn't. Pregnancy has not been kind to me in any sense. One of people's issues is the weight gain, and I will be very excited for that. Right now I feel like I'll be lucky to get to my pre-pregnancy weight before I have the baby. I've lost somewhere between 10-20 lbs, depending on how you measure it. I do not like that Sam-I-am. It gives you an idea of how I've felt. But I am grateful for drugs, which allow me to keep any food down at all. I'm also grateful that finally I think that second trimester promise is starting to kick in. Although just when things seemed to be getting better, I had to go and get the stomach flu. Luckily when the flu went away so did morning sickness. I've actually felt completely human for most of this week.

Alright - enough complaining. Things I sort of like. I have already felt baby move. Its sort of early on a first pregnancy, but I'm pretty darn sure. And its nice to have that reassurance that baby is healthy. Its a slightly uncomfortable feeling, but sort of fun.

Baby is cute. The following pictures are from my first appointment, so I was only about 10 weeks at the time, but they are pretty good.

This one causes my husband to call the baby "Wave." But it really does look like baby was waving :)

So there. I'm very excited to be a mom. I'm excited for this journey. And I'm already looking forward to January when this whole prego thing can be done with!

Our Trip

2010-07-26T18:19:00.000-07:00

I know. Once again its been a long time. But I make up with a blog post and pictures and good stuff.

Last week Matt and I took our summer vacation. We were planning on going to Colorado, and then Matt couldn't get the time off work. Unluckily I had paid for a conference there and it was too late to get a refund, but luckily I procrastinated and had not made any reservations. Maybe I was inspired. So, we decided to still take a trip, but with only three days where to go? So we toured Salt Lake City and had a ton of fun.

So as to not go in to too much boring detail I will just list all the cool things we did in Salt Lake. We went to Liberty Park, Tracy Aviary, Wheeler Farm, Temple Square (including Relief Society building, Church Office Building (for the view), one of the organ concerts, Salt Lake Temple, Brigham Young Historical park and the church history museum), Welfare Square, the new aquarium, Wedding Singer at Hale Center Theatre, and Fort Douglas.

It was a lot to pack into three days. My biggest happy surprise was the Relief Society Building. I can't believe I've never been in there. It was way cool and I got some good stuff and inspiration for girl's camp. Poor Matt was a good sport while I looked at all the ideas. I also was proud, I took the initiative to talk to Richard Elliot after the organ recital, which I never do. I was glad I did, learned some interesting things. We had fun with a very trunky missionary at Welfare Square who was probably on her last transfer, because she said she's starting at BYU this fall. In general we had a really good time together.

Here's pictures in no particular order. Camera had died on the third day and we had no back up batteries :( But hopefully the videos of us milking a cow for the first time will work :)

Matt liked bigger fish. I'm pretty sure these guys were native.

Feeding ducks and tractor ride at Wheeler Farm

The penguins at the aquarium.

And I think its going to be tradition to find a frog on every trip. I have so far.

Me milking

Matt Milking

Keep reading the next post as well :) Its worth your time.

Past month in one sentence

2010-06-14T17:52:00.000-07:00

Wow. Its been a long long time since I've written anything. A full month tomorrow. So here I am catching up in a not very good way. I'll do even better with pictures soon, since its been a while from that. Life was just crazy.

So in the past month we've had the Durrants all come and visit, family pictures taken (which are beautiful thanks Heather), school ended, I started a new job, I'm quitting said new job, I'm teaching a piano class at our local fine arts center, I turned 25, Matt just finally finished his class and will soon be getting a diploma, we've been busy cub scout leaders and we've planted a pretty nice garden and enjoyed a lot of yard work.

There now with more questions than answers that's what we've been up to and its now here.

Crime?

2010-05-15T18:40:00.001-07:00

Is it a crime to sit and read allrecipes.com while eating a tv dinner? Just curious.

Lack of fictional mom models

2010-05-05T20:46:00.000-07:00

I just attempted to enter a contest where it asked me to put in my top ten favorite fictional moms. I was sort of saddened by my inability to name very many moms from fiction. Many characters are orphans, have only one parent or we're unaware of their parents at all. Disney especially is guilty of this. Very few Disney characters begin and end a movie with both parents alive. We did come up with a few such as 101 dalmatians, Mulan, and Sleeping Beauty (although she does not grow up with her parents). Once of the few examples we could think of where a Disney movie had a family intact was The Incredibles.

Moving from Disney, two of my favorite book characters from childhood were Anne of Green Gables and Dorothy Gale. Both are orphans, although luckily both have good people that become their mothers (Marilla and Aunt Em). I also liked Boxcar children, who were orphans, and of course the Narnia children who do have a mom, but she's just barely mentioned. The famous Harry Potter is also an orphan, although his mom, Lily did make my list for her sacrifice.

In television it gets a little better, but even some of my favorite shows the families are either motherless or childless. There's always the example of Full House, although my husband did point out that Becky in it is a good mom. Another of my favorites Sabrina the Teenage Witch, her mom existed, but was absent. Then shows like Seinfeld and King of Queens, adults live their lives without children in the picture.

The world of fiction is not devoid of mothers who care. Malcolm in the Middle has one of my favorite moms, Reba on her show was a good mom, Marge Simpson cares a lot for her family, 7th Heaven's family was intact, Clair Huxtable from The Cosby Show and even digging back, Little House of the Prairie. There are good moms out there but so few and far between.

Its no wonder that in our day that motherhood has been slightly lost. On today's television our role models for mothers come from things like Desperate Housewives which I will admit I have never seen, but from what I read, not the mother I want to be. In fiction, where does one go for a modern mother role model.

I'm grateful for a wonderful role model in my mother. I also married into an incredible mother-in-law. Both great examples for me and thousands more around me in my world. But where would a person go who had not been so blessed.

I did want to share my list of my personal favorites from fiction that I came up with. Maybe you can add a few that I missed.

Mama Bear from the Berenstain Bears, Pacha's wife from Emperor's New Groove, Malcolm's mom from Malcolm in the Middle, Dennis the Menace's mother, Peter Rabbit's mother, and Lily Potter. Tell me what you think.

Losses and Gains

2010-05-03T18:36:00.000-07:00

I dislike losing things. You'd never know it because I lose things a lot. Objects and such. But its also interesting when you lose friends. Not a permanent loss on these ones. But Matt's brother and family are going to leave us, and one of my best friends of all time is moving clear to Texas. I haven't seen her a lot as of late, but its horribly sad even still, because she's one of the few people I'm not related to that really get me. I'm definitely going to miss both of these people. But I have to remind myself its not really lost, just a greater distance away.

I also am happy to report a follow up on the last post. Today Matt and I did the same workout and much less pain and more strength. So my gain is not nearly as big as my loss, but I'm gaining muscle for the first time in my life! Its very very exciting.

So friends, I will miss not seeing you as often. But I do hope your next adventure is a good one.

Embarrassment and Pain

2010-04-25T20:13:00.001-07:00

Luckily not from the same source. I'll start with the embarrassing story. I'm sorry I'm not a story-teller so its not as funny as if someone else told it. I was at school on Friday and I had decided to wear a skirt, not for any particular reason. Its sort a an old skirt, not really old, but I wore it on my mission. I have recess duty and I had two coats on. So I went outside and came back in and took off my coats. I was working with my student and stood up to do something and she told me that I had a hole in the back of my skirt and I looked and the zipper had broken and burst open and I did have a 3 inch gaping hole at the pack of my skirt. It took me forever to get the zipper fixed and now I think it's permanently broken. There was only the one student in the classroom at the time and I desperately hope she's the only one who saw it. Thank goodness for the coats.

Now pain. I remember once doing a leg workout with my middle brother and not being able to walk for several days. You would think I would have learned. Nope, just Thursday I did another crazy lunge workout and I'm just now gaining the ability to walk again. Which would be better if I could raise my arms today. But I can't. Yesterday was push-up/ pull-up day. More soreness. So yes, its definite pain. But good pain. Matt & I are getting in shape! We are doing P90X, which really is crazy intense luckily its a lot of fun. Its a little strange how the person on the videos reminds me a ton of one of my brother's friends. So, here's hoping that I get actual muscles for the first time in my life! Go pain!

One year

2010-04-17T16:20:00.000-07:00

Dear Matt,

What a fun day it was to celebrate your birthday. I bet you would have never guessed on your last birthday that the next day you would meet your future wife. It was good to see you so happy and having fun today. I'm sad that once again I forgot to take pictures, but it happens. I don't think when either of us met, there could have been any clue of everything that we would see, do, and go through together. I have to be perfectly honest that this last year has been the most challenging of my entire life, but I know we have both grown so much and the best part is, we've grown together. You've heard this before, but my reaction of our first date was that I could be myself around you and that's still very true. The good, the bad, the wonderful and the ugly - you've seen it all and your still here and I know that no matter what you'll always love me. I love you so much and I'm very grateful for this past year and all I've grown to know. I know it will just get better.

Forever yours,

Emily

Emily actually gets a little creative!

2010-04-08T20:34:00.000-07:00

I had a lot of fun making birthday presents for my brothers. I got some awesome books that give instructions on how to make cookie bouquets and fruit bouquets and candy things too. These ones were appropriate for the brothers. For my fishing brother there was this one.

Please excuse my iron in the background.

I'm very proud of this one. I had a blast making this. We went to Walmart to get some stuff including cookie cutters. I was surprised, Matt was very excited when we found this box of 100 cookie cutters for just $10. Only 10 cents a piece which is pretty good. Brother gave me a big hug when he saw it which made me really happy. So for my all-star brother:

And with my leftover cookie dough here are my attempts at decorating. And for the record, I had no patterns in my decorating! I think they actually look pretty good. Happy Easter everyone!

Kitchen Fun

2010-04-08T19:32:00.000-07:00

I've been having a lot of fun in the kitchen lately and this post is badly overdue. So many weeks ago we decided to have a cooking around the world week. It was great fun.

The pictures went in reverse order, so I'll just do it in the order they came out. This was our last dish, paella. We had to include a Spanish dish in Matt's honor. Bad recipe and I didn't do it right either, so this was the closest to a failure. Next time we make paella, Matt's going to do it.

Next try was the tamales. Mmm pork tamales. We faked it and used aluminum foil instead of corn husks to wrap them in. They turned out very well and I'm not quite sure why they are rumored to be so difficult. It wasn't that hard and they tasted good. I don't even have this recipe and I altered it so much and don't remember what I did that I couldn't put it here now.

And the next one is not actually a world food. Its name is "alfredo egg bake" so we'll pretend in our tour that it is Italian. Really pretend. Matt loved this one, it had a little too much fat in it for my tastes, between the eggs, bacon, and alfredo sauce but it was good. Got the recipe from the bisquick website if anyone wants to try it.

This was by far my personal favorite. We made Pad Thai using a recipe from the Betty Crocker website that I love a whole bunch. It was really really good. We had to use ramen noodles because I couldn't find rice noodles that day and I would cut down on the amount of cayenne pepper unless you like it really spicy. I highly recommend this recipe.

Bleed on the Page

2010-03-15T16:55:00.000-07:00

So as a teacher's assistant some of the students complained about the red pen of death. The red marks that covered the page and hacked their essays to pieces. They had spent all of two hours last night, between 2 and 4 in the morning, and I in 15 minutes had the audacity to pick it apart like I was paid to do. How dare I!

Anyway, I don't understand them. I've just done a little red pen work on my own work (actually it was pink highlighter of uncomfortable moments, not the red pen of death). The mistakes were horrible, I repeated words and couldn't get my years right. Somehow my character had spent 8, 10, and 9 years locked up in prison within two pages. That's not the next greatest superhero power, able to serve several prison sentences simultaneously.

But it wasn't just a pen cutting into my heart like the students whined about. The parts that I like get to stay (maybe changed) and the parts that I don't like are cut. More of me surfaces in the pages and I can actually read it and say, "Hey, I like that."

inspired by I seek to Delete

Cleaning out the email inbox

2010-03-13T21:04:00.000-08:00

So, I had my sister and brother-in-law over this evening. Actually they invited me over to keep me company while Matt works. It makes for fairly long nights with him gone. Although I do have to say when you start texting things like "A parakeet with a machine gun!" or "I do not think that word means what you think it means" it gets more entertaining. Anyway, we looked at some random videos and funny stuff (if you haven't seen the sleepwalking dog on youtube you need to look it up. I almost died laughing. Its the short video with over 10 million views) which led to sharing emails I'd been forwarded which led to me decide (probably not a decision but just a default action technically) that rather than kill time on facebook this time I would clean out the email inbox. Which also leads me to an apology. I'm really bad at responding to things or forwarding things that I really actually should. So I'm sorry if I ruined recipe swaps or didn't respond to your email. That's why the email inbox is now getting cleaned out and I promise to repent and do better in the future. You do also find some gems when you clean out the email inbox, which I love. You feel very loved. So tonight I just want to say thanks for the email.

Three Things

2010-03-03T20:47:00.000-08:00

So my sister did this a while ago, but I'm a little behind on my blog reading, so its now time to catch up. The question is what three things we would do all day if we could do three things and include all members of the household. Mine are:

1. Teach something. Most likely piano. But being with kids (almost any age) teaching something.

2. Play the piano

3. Organize stuff - rooms, shelves, files, you name it. And alphabetizing things. And putting things in rainbow order. And numerical order. Ok, I've got OCD.

Matt's are:

1. Play video games

2. Write

3. Shoot the breeze with people. Just have good nice conversation.

So I'd look forward to reading anyone else's.

4X4

2010-03-03T11:15:00.000-08:00

So last Saturday I had work. During my Saturday shift I am supposed to do three things specifically besides the normal guard duties. I am supposed to patrol in a vehicle the perimeter/exterior of the construction site. I am supposed to patrol on foot the interior of the building. Then, last of all, I am supposed to drive out to the plant's power station and check to make sure it is secure. I like the two times I'm in the vehicle, I have the radio and I'm warm and none of the freakishly evil stray cats on site jump out at me. That night it wasn't too cold and the cats were fighting on the other side of the building (away from me) so foot patrol wasn't so bad. Then I checked the substation and got the work truck stuck.

Really, it was ridiculously stuck. One wheel wasn't getting grip on the road because of the mud and so two inches of mud was keeping a two-ton pick up truck from moving forward or backward. Naturally, I wanted to remove those two inches. That was rough because I didn't have a shovel and only found the tire iron in my last fifteen minutes of being stuck. But digging in the mud with your hands can have all sorts of bad side effects. Losing your wedding ring, covering anything touched with mud, and basically not working at all were the side effects I found. Don't think it was for lack of trying, an hour and a half of digging in the mud isn't as fun as it was when I was five. After that hour and a half I was convinced that I wasn't getting out on my own and since I couldn't get the other guard on site by way of the radio, I had to use the company cell phone to call my supervisor. He didn't pick up and so I called the guard who was going to relieve me on duty. I told him what was wrong and the first thing out of his mouth was "Is it in four-wheel?"

No, sadly it wasn't in four-wheel. But it could have been. The entire time the lever on the floor with 2W and 4W Hi had been staring at me wondering why I hadn't pulled it back two inches. Two inches. The entire time I was hoping my answer would be that other guard bringing a shovel or someone pulling me out. I was so focused on the answer I wanted, the real answer I needed was ignored. And just like the guard said, I put it in four-wheel and drove out of the mud in ten seconds. Tiny little answer that fixed everything.

p.s. I did find my ring before driving out which is why this story is not a police report ending with "Wife then killed husband with piano bench"

Enjoying the Basketball Season

2010-03-02T20:53:00.000-08:00

I have discovered that I inherited a hobby. I just spent the last hour checking out high school basketball scores and players and anything else. I love following high school sports, almost as much as I like watching them. So, its started out as a good week in the world of basketball. Two brothers are in tournaments this week. Younger brother won his high school game over Box Elder by 25 points, older brother won the first game of their conference tournament by 23. Good day. I'm hoping that the good week just gets better. So many important games this week, starting tomorrow. BYU vs. Utah is always great and what a great year if we sweep them! Then it continues on Thursday with more action from the brothers. Hopefully it can keep up till Saturday and beyond. There's the beauty of a possible state championship, and a conference tournament championship. Wow, I'm excited. Go Cougars, Go Griffiths, and most importantly GO LEHI!

Other Website

2010-02-21T17:46:00.000-08:00

The post below is much better, but I just had to post my link to my new blog/website for my piano studio. I'm so excited to start teaching again more. Watch also for the weekly practice tip.

pianofun.wordpress.com

Sweet Husband

2010-02-21T16:34:00.000-08:00

So, I don't have pictures again, which makes this less interesting, but I do have to put a plug in for my husband lately. It will update you as best I can on life lately as well. My story begins two weeks ago. With the impending holiday (Valentine's) for family home evening I pulled out our little "FHE for newly-weds" and looked for a fun idea. We decided to do an activity where the goal was to hide little notes around the house and allow the spouse to find them during the week. Well, we decided to do it sometime when the other was actually gone. The next day was very eventful and difficult, but when I got home from work my sweet husband had still remembered to hide his notes. Things like "I love you because your mine" "I love you because you play slug bug" "I love you because we snuggle well" and similar sentiments. It was so nice on that particular day. The next day he left in the early morning, walked to the grocery store and bought me a rose, but even more than that was so supportive and helpful.

Then this weekend I went Friday evening down to visit my family and watch brothers' basketball and youngest brother's play. Matt couldn't go because he had to work both Friday and Saturday. I really enjoyed my trip. When I got home, the first thing I saw was one of the same-style little notes on the kitchen table that just said "I love you." Then continued finding them again, "I love you because you smell good" in the shower. "I love you because you have passion" on my piano. "I love you because you're a little nerdy too," which may sound funny, but with us is really sweet.

So there you go. Husband has definitely been earning points. Very sweet.

Weekend Adventures

2010-01-31T15:38:00.000-08:00

So, it was a good weekend. Very good. It started off earlier in the week in that the husband has a job! I'm very happy for him. It's only part-time (28 hours) for the moment, but we have high hopes that he'll be able to pick up more hours and plus it gives him time to work on his class and write and stuff. But anyway Friday night we had an awesome date night. We used our Christmas present from Matt's cousin McKell (thanks) and went out to dinner at this cool little cafe in town. Yummy chicken fried steak that I actually enjoyed, which was really good. Then my husband finally took me swimming, which I've been wanting to do since we got married and we've never gone. Obviously no pictures of that, no one wants to see very white winter bodies in swimming suits. But it feels so good to be in the water and Matt taught me how to swim better and I was proud because I swam the whole length of the pool without touching down, possibly for the first time in my life.

So then Saturday we had fun. On Thursday we bought a little end table from DI. It looked like this:

The lighting is not great, but when we finished painting the table looks like this:

I'm still going to antique it by sanding the edges, but I wanted to share our project and I might not ever do it if i wait. I also thought the drop cloth we used looked very neat and artistic. Matt didn't agree with me, but I had to share it.

2010-01-20T08:07:00.000-08:00

know that we're all moved in, but I actually took pictures of the move so it seemed like a waste to let them just sit there with nothing to do except watch the popular pictures get blogged and make new friends. Sorry, had an afterschool charlie brown special moment there.

Anyway, this was the result of our move. Yes, it is in deed a room full of our stuff. My old bedroom got packed (as you can see) with almost everything we owned while we waited for movers to make room in the house for us to take over. Luckily most of our furniture sat in a kind uncle's garage so we didn't have to worry about it.

So my wife didn't want me to show a picture of her on moving day, so here's a mildly entertaining popular picture of my old roommate Abe being attacked by three Werewolves. Anyway, the movers came and were just the happiest elves you'd ever meet in a truck stop. They were really cool and moved all my mom's stuff into their truck PDQ. I think that means Pretty Darn Quick, but I better google it and make sure it's not a viral plague somewhere. Ok, thanks for enduring the randomness!

Wow, its been too long!

2010-01-16T11:18:00.000-08:00

So, I haven't blogged for a very long time. I've been a little preoccupied I guess. Or I just don't have an excuse. Its sort of like writing in my journal has been my whole life, I go through streaks. While Matt and I were dating I kept a journal all the time, we got married and I did ok, and it just gradually went downhill. The good news is, I think that soon I will be on the upswing and blog a whole bunch.

So the holiday's were good and they won't get more of a mention than that. Matt graduated (sort of almost, but I consider him graduated. Just got to finish that last class honey :) and it was a lot of fun for me as the wife. I'm really proud of him.

And then our big news is we've now moved from the frozen north, just a little farther south to Brigham City. Matt has pictures from the move, which he might feel inclined to share sometime. His parents got a job out in Sacramento and have made the big move out there, in the meantime we are living in their house. Its really nice to have a lot of space, we just have to be careful not to fill it. The house is nice and we're both really enjoying it. Its also been nice being closer to family again. Matt's brother lives just across town and my sisters are only a half hour away. So we're taking advantage of that.

I've started working at the local elementary school, and I love it. I'm a paraprofessional, which is a fancy word for an aid who teaches a lot, in a resource class. The kids are awesome and I'm having a blast. Big shoes to fill though. I actually am replacing my mother-in-law who is one of the nicest people ever, and then indirectly it was actually my aunt who had my exact job about a year and a half ago. I really like my job. Then I'm also starting to teach piano, and its been a long time since I've had very many students, and quite a while since I taught at all and I LOVE teaching piano. I'm sure to it will make good stories which I hope to post here.

So there, I caught up. Next post I won't be lazy and I'll add pictures of the new house. But I have to decorate it at least a little first. It feels good to have finally done this.

Oh what a beautiful morning

2009-12-10T10:45:00.000-08:00

It is really cold in Rexburg. I just have to start with that. This morning when we awoke and looked at the weather, it was -9 degrees and with wind chill felt like -20. That's really cold. And our high today is 14 which is a major improvement from the rest of the single-digit week. I knew it was cold up here, but this is a little insane to me. When we awoke this morning we didn't have water in the house. Someone left our apartment complex laundry room open and a pipe froze and so they defrosted it, but it has broken. So still no water, but they are working on it.

The next joy of the day was that I was going to go down to Utah for an audition. I loaded up my car and began the journey, but the car was running a little warm. I got on the highway and it got really hot. So I pulled off the side, waited for it to cool down and got to a place where I could turn around. While waiting frost formed on most surfaces on the inside of my car. Going in little spurts letting it cool down in between, I was able to finally make it back home. In fact at the end it actually seemed normal. When frozen wife got home, the nice husband went to the closest gas station and got coolant, that we were low on. Its still not running amazing so we get to take the car to the shop and also I didn't get to go to my audition.

Still, there is good news in all of this. I didn't freeze to death :) Just kidding. There is real good news. The people let me reschedule my audition. We don't think the car is as broken as it could be. And I have strangely not been upset at all of this. Its just life and things always go on and there's reasons for everything. Except maybe the temperature in Rexburg.

Changes

2009-12-03T19:31:00.001-08:00

Change seems to happen all at once. But I guess its a chain reaction, since one change often causes other changes. That is the case with our little family. Soon we'll have a change in location, a change in employment, and the big change of graduation. I'm a little sad as I've started packing a little and I look around our first little apartment. Its going to be somewhat emotional leaving our first place and I can't believe we only have a little over 2 weeks left here. So much love and learning and joy and hard stuff too. A lot of memories. I'm excited because our next place is going to be awesome and I'll be able to start teaching piano and lots of other things. But its just interesting to change.

Grand Pianos Live

2009-11-13T08:47:00.000-08:00

So, even though there is less evidence on this blog I really do love music and I love to perform. I was really happy when recently I was able to get on a stage. A real live stage where people could applaud when I was done - something I haven't done since before my mission. The experience was a lot of fun and I was mostly happy with how it went. Not perfect, but a good experience to get the taste of the stage again and remember how much I enjoy it. So without further comment I will share with you the video. Not the greatest angle, but I'm impressed by our little camera's sound. Hope it works. Also I have to put in a plug for William Joseph, who wrote the song and you should all go out and buy his CD because its really good.

P.S. Skip the first 15 sec. because I'm just talking and you can't hear it anyway :)

Halloween

2009-11-01T18:29:00.000-08:00

So its been a really long time since I've blogged and if there's anyone who cares, I'm sorry. Its been a busy month, but I feel like my head is finally above water and I can get back into routine a little. I've intended on a few blog posts, so I'll combine all but one into this one. Complete with pictures :).

Just as an update from the last one, Matt was absolutely correct that getting in was difficult, in fact, they decided that it just wasn't for us, so we will not be going into the Marines. We're pretty sure his mom's prayers made that possible. For us, we're just waiting to see what direction that God takes us in. I'm sure it will work out.

So on to the topic at hand. I've never really liked Halloween (sorry I know lots of you love it) but this one has been a lot of fun. Our celebration began as we carved our pumpkin about a week too early, but we were both proud of it - being our first "fancy" pumpkin carving. It was a great family home evening. We also roasted the seeds - very yummy.

Next was the Masquerade. This was actually a week before Halloween, but it was my first formal dance with a date and I did actually enjoy it a ton. I'm glad I got to go with someone I really love though, not some random high school boy that wouldn't matter a year later. So all in all, not sad I never went to prom or anything, but very happy to be able to go to the masquerade. BTW, doesn't my date look attractive :).

Our ward did their Halloween party on Friday night, so we went to that after one of Matt's swim meets. It was a lot of fun. We dressed up as Smurfs, which turned out pretty well. We did a relay race at the party and I was proud of how we did. We were also pleasantly pleased that the blue Hawaiian punch mix we used for paint actually washed off pretty well.

And on Halloween itself we had a fondue party with some friends and Matt's sister. Fondue is good and we had fun with many different items and chocolate and cheese fondue. If anyone wants to do it I can recommend a menu - it was great. I forgot to take pictures during it, so here's our wonderfully cheesy (pun intended) posed one.

Afterwards Matt went and shot Nazi's with his friend (who knows?) and I went to a Halloween orchestra concert. It was a great ending to a good holiday. And we came home and cleaned-up the mess, which was actually also a lot of fun :) My husband is very helpful.

M E P S

2009-09-30T08:46:00.000-07:00

When people tell me that being a Marine is one of the toughest jobs on earth, I'm beginning to think that most of challenge is just getting into the Corp. Even the recruiters, who try to gloss over most of the paperwork as "simple" put the fear of fire and brimstone into recruits before going to MEPS. Military Entrance Program Stations are where the doctors make sure everything is working before drill instructors break it all down. As nervous as I was, the process wasn't as bad as I had anticipated. The doctors are actual people with skewed senses of humor (like: Why are there Marines on Navy capital ships? Well, the Army uses guard dogs for secure bases and the Army got to pick first). So the worst part was trying to track down paperwork that didn't exist (got shredded after 7 years of doing nothing). Of course, it was odd to leave my lovely wife all alone in our apartment, but she did get her best night's sleep without me rolling over her in the night. Imagine that.

Alone

2009-09-27T18:56:00.000-07:00

So, I just dropped my husband off tonight and I called my mom and I realized that this is probably the second night of my whole life that I will have been completely alone all night. I've always had roommates, family, and missionary companions. Then a husband. I was trying to think back, and thought there was probably one night where my roommates were all gone for Christmas and I was working and I stayed at my apartment, but I could also be making that up. So this is more or less a new experience for me. I'm not scared or lonely really. Its just strange that in over 24 years of life I have never been alone.

Reflections on Idaho

2009-09-22T07:03:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning and we had to scrape the windows of the car for the first time this year and it caused me to want to comment on my experience in Idaho thus far. Everyone always says Utah and Idaho are the same, and I don't think so thus far.

1. There is still open space in Idaho. Ok, so there's technically still open space in Utah, but its gradually disappearing. You have to drive pretty far south, north, east or west from my parent's home to find a lot of open space.

2. The air is actually dryer (if that's possible.) I loved the humidity in Texas, and coming back to Utah was a shock. Now I'm using tons of lotion and my hair feels like steel wool. So if you like a lack of humidity move to Idaho.

3. No one speeds! I commute a little to work and the road is a 65 mph highway. Everyone is going 65 or less. If I go 68 I'm passing people the whole time. Compare this to I-15 in Utah where the posted speed limit in Salt Lake and Utah county is 65 mph and as long as its not rush hour and the traffic is not bad, everyone on the road is going a minimum 65 and most are going in the 70 range and 75 is not even very fast.

I'm sure there are more observations I will make on my continued time here. What an interesting place, but I'm definitely enjoying it.

My Dream Wedding part 2

2009-09-21T08:18:00.000-07:00

So here's the last set of pictures. I think that the pages are better today, if I do say so myself. But its been really fun to go back through all of the pictures, since so much of the day was such a blur. A very very good blur, but blurred nonetheless. So we start out today's pictures with the parents. Our parents are just amazing and I love them a lot. So this is a big thank you to the parents and their love and support and everything. This day wouldn't have been possible without you.

For those who don't know, I now share my anniversary with my parents. It was their 25th wedding anniversary, and so it was neat to share it with them. Sometimes my parents still act like newly-weds and so I loved these pictures because its proof. The newly-weds and the 25 years - looks like its been a good 25 years.

And the grandparents. We got to go to the Clayson's and the Walker's in between. The Clayson's have housed Matt when he comes down to visit us and we're always grateful for that. I love going over and visiting them. Some of my best memories with my grandparents is their example of serving missions and church service. That example always meant a lot. Love you! And not to leave out Grandma Durrant, she was one of the first people to find out we were engaged and I still think her reaction was my favorite. So here's a big thank you to our awesome amazing grandparents. Also we're grateful their still around and hope they can be for a long time.

This is the last set of pictures from the events. Cutting cake and dancing. We were nice mostly when we cut the cake. I was kinda nervous because its not something we really practiced and I hoped we could do it. It turned out just fine and I love the pictures because you can see how happy we were at the moment. What you can't see, but what I remember is how hungry we were at this point in time. We were a little later than we should have been getting to my house due to traffic ;). So we didn't eat before the reception. But it didn't matter too much. Dancing with my dad and with Matt were definitely highlights. Matt and mine's first dance was funny to me because lots of people were watching, but mostly all that mattered in the world at that moment was him and me. P.S. I loved the tiki torches!

So here's some pictures of my handsome, goofy husband. He's still a little boy in some ways - everything he picks up turns into a weapon. He was so cute and nervous on this day. Sitting with him before the ceremony was great, he was just excited and nervous and could hardly contain himself. Then he stepped on my dress on the way into the room. I loved the things that the officiator (sealer) said and then the chance to just stare into his eyes as we were sealed together for time and all eternity. Wow! The temple is in the background because throughout this whole process and planning, he was always so focused on the temple. He's pretty awesome!

And so here's the pictures of me. Lots more of those :). A couple of stories about the things I'm wearing. First of all, if you can't tell, I love flowers and I was very excited about the bouquet. I also love my shoes. I won't tell the story about them, but just I LOVE FLIP-FLOPS, although I did feel awkward even just walking out of the temple in them. umm, sister made the sash, isn't it gorgeous, and the pin that held it I found in a antique store in McKinney Texas. I was very excited, I think its beautiful.

So here's me having lots of fun with the husband. Once again, I love these pictures. And it was actually a lot of fun taking them. I was surprised how easy and fun.

Finally, just a word, I am truly grateful for the gospel and the power restored to earth to bind families together forever. The feeling at the ceremony was incredible and the bond created I'm very grateful for. What a joy that families are together and I get to be with Matt forever. I'm truly grateful that through Jesus Christ this is possible. And I want to say I love Matt a lot :) When he proposed I said I wanted to be his forever, and now I am. That's truly what makes this my dream wedding.

My Dream Wedding

2009-09-18T13:10:00.001-07:00

So this is actually my second post for the day, but they seemed to need to be separated.

So here's day one of pictures of my wedding. I just have to first of all say thank you.

Thank you to my mother, sister, and mother-in-law for planning the various events and all the time that went into them. Thanks to my other sister who is responsible for all the awesome pictures that you will see here. By the way you should check out her websitewww.edgeofshade.com. She's really amazing. I tried to think of the best way to allow people to see as many of the pictures as possible and enjoy my amazing day with me, but not have to scroll through all 300 that were taken and given to me. Here's my best attempt, it might be a little busy, but it mostly works. Hope you enjoy them. Oh and if anyone see any they like, contact me or Matt and we can send it to you to do with what you like.

Wedding started out with the Brigham city open house. I didn't wear my wedding dress since it was a couple of days before the actual wedding. It was wonderful and we're down to the last two slices from the yummy extra cheesecake mom Durrant gave us.

Lots of people in these next pictures. These are the luncheon. It was fun, my mom talked about me for a minute and Matt's dad talked about him. It was all really sweet and fun. The food was amazing (I love Los Hermanos).

Next was the ceremony and pictures afterwards which will show up more tomorrow or Sunday. That was awesome, of course, but I won't give anything away. So after that was the reception in the backyard that looked like a dream. And the food (that was able to eat) was really good. Special thanks to the youngest sister for the cake. She and my mom made it and it looked amazing.

And what reception is complete without people. There were tons of them. The girls are my awesome piano students who helped a ton. Pay special attention to Ben telling a "fish story." Actually I have no idea what he

was talking about, but I'm sure it was a good story. Sorry this set has a lot of people in it.

Now we get to go to the pictures of all the wonderful people around me. First of course is the friends. All really good friends and a couple from a long way away. One of the girls came from

Austria, and Matt had someone he knew on his mission here from Hong Kong. Neither made the trip specially for the wedding, but it was really cool to have them both there. P.S. This was my favorite collage.

Sorry, this is turning into a really long post. So less talking from me. Here's the boys. Boys are crazy. Enough said.

And the girls who all look really beautiful. Aren't my new nieces cute? I love being an aunt.

Here's Matt's immediate family. They are all so awesome! I got extremely lucky with my in-laws. We had fun getting a good picture with the nieces and nephews.

And Matt's extended family more. And trying to take a picture at the open house.

And my awesome family. I just realized that I didn't include the best one of the sibs. I like my siblings. Notice that yes, I am the shortest. For those of you who haven't met them, when I talk about how tall my family is, I'm not exaggerating.

Everyone who came to the temple. The big group picture.

And finally the really awesome picture of the siblings.

New Hobby

2009-09-18T12:34:00.000-07:00

Can grocery shopping be a hobby? I think that I might be starting to get into it. I'm not completely hard core where I would be shopping at multiple different stores, but I'm starting to base my shopping list on what is on sale. I don't get the newspaper or see out coupon mailings yet, but there's a blog for deals at my local grocery store with links to online coupons and I've started using it. In two weeks I've saved about $7 with coupons. And it makes me really excited talking about it. Also, out of my grocery bill, on the bottom where it says "you've saved . . ." it is about half the total cost of what I've spent. Yes I think I have found a new hobby. The question is, can I go overboard? Is it actually saving me money? And also, why do husbands eat so much? It rather astounds me and I'm amazing because of the difference between feeding one (me) and feeding two. So that's all on this post. Any advice from anyone? BTW I like cooking just as much as I thought I did and its nice to always have an excuse.

Fall already

2009-09-10T14:24:00.001-07:00

Well, here we go back into the real world. I know most of you involved in school have been in school for a couple of weeks now, but we just started today. This is a strange fall for me. I've been done with school for two years now, but the last two I was on a mission and didn't miss too much the starting of school. This year, as I send my husband off, its a different feeling. Odd to be in a college town and not involved in college at all. Luckily, even without school there are plenty of things to remind me of fall.

1. The weather - one of those joys of Idaho. Labor Day it suddenly got really cold at night and has stayed that way. I'm reminded of fall now each morning as me and my sweetheart go running. This morning I wore a sweatshirt, gloves, and an earwarmer on our morning jog. (p.s. a plug for us, Matt has run every day since moving to Rexburg. I know impressive. I usually go with him, have just missed twice.)

2. Food - I'm not even home to enjoy most of the spoils of a very successful garden, but there is fresh local produce at the grocery store and I took a little of the homegrown with me before I left. Plus, last night we had an adventure in donut making. Husband became fry-master, while I designed, cut and frosted. We invited a couple of fun neighbors to enjoy in the spoils. Somehow donuts just seem like a fall food. These are just the leftovers.

3. Football! - I missed two seasons of my Cougars and I just have to make a mini comment - last Saturday's game was awesome! I love football, inspite of the husband's preference against it. I'm really excited to be able to watch this next one with family. GO BLUE!

Mostly Grown Up

2009-09-09T13:21:00.000-07:00

So it has been nice playing grown up, settling into the apartment and buying furniture for more than ten bucks. It really started to make me feel like I was an actual adult. Don't worry, it didn't last long. Because apparently my hair didn't get the memo, so while I was feeling like a true blue readers digest afficionato, my hair was doing the Dennis the Menace. Emily noticed the rooster tail I was sporting as she cut my hair while I was watching a cartoon on her laptop. So maybe the hair wasn't the only thing not to realize I'm supposed to be grown up already. Anyway, the hair was bad enough that it had that Emily took a picture as a warning to future generations and it'll thankfully remain offline unless I really tick her off. Hopefully it can just fade away, like the mullet, only let's hope this one's permanent.

Home Sweet Home

2009-09-05T16:15:00.000-07:00

So, I know that you all want to see wedding pictures, and I promise they will come soon. I have been very excited this week to move into our own place, plus I already have pictures ready of moving in. We have lived in our little apartment only a little while now, but it already feels like home. That's the main part of the house. I love the couch especially - $25 at D.I. Best rental deal ever.Here is the leaning tower of boxes from unloading everything. Lots and lots of empty boxes :).

Our bedroom with a small shot of the beautiful quilt Grandma Clayson made us.

This apartment has the most unique kitchen of almost any I've ever seen. The hall from the living area to the bedroom/bathroom is the kitchen, as you can see. But I have to admit, I like it. The pizza is one of the meals here so far that has worked pretty well. I've also made salsa which worked a little less well. I didn't use gloves when cutting jalepenos, and I'm still paying for it. Just a recommendation as well, don't itch armpits when you have jalepeno on your hand. Not that I'm speaking from experience.
And finally, can you think of a better way to break in a house after moving in than a light saber fight. I think not.

Matt's Point of View

2009-09-04T10:01:00.000-07:00

Hi, so I'm Matt. I don't know what details Emily has told about how we met and our first dates, so I'm gonna tell it how I remember it. I think the best place to start, like the best place to start talking about Christmas gifts is with Santa Clause, is with Brenda. Remember, Brenda = Santa Clause, Emily = Christmas Gift. Now that I've made it as confusing as possible I can start. Brenda started telling me about her niece that I just had to meet. A lot of my mom's friends from relief society had nieces or grand daughters or recent parolees that I should really get to know, so I didn't exactly take it seriously. That started about novemberish of 2008, so i might have been a good thing I didn't rush off to find Emily. There's a right time and a wrong time to get a Christmas gift, open it early and Santa's unhappy, so I guess the time had to be right to find Emily.

Anyway, enough with the cheesy analogy. School let out for the Summer and I got call telling me that the niece was coming to town in a few days and was expecting a phone call to set up a date. This was with her niece, not a parolee, so I gave her a call and set up the date. It was simple, dinner alone and then board games with some friends. So simple, I'm surprised it fell through.

The first thing that happened when I went to Brenda's to pick her up, was a surprise from Erin (Brenda's Husband). He introduced Emily's sister as Emily. Emily's newly engaged and very much in love sister. I reached to shake her hand and she jumped nearly two feet to plaster herself against her fiancee with that engagement ring extended as far as she could get it without touching me. It was as awkward as it sounds, Heather and I are friends now though. I have to hand it to Erin, it couldn't have gone better if he had planned it.

The sandwich shop I had planned on was closed and so we had to improv a meal. Wal mart normally wouldn't cut it for a substitute, but tonight didn't start normal so I shouldn't have expected normal. She just seemed so calm despite the fact that I thought everything was going wrong. The one part that went according to plan was the board game. Four of my friends thankfully showed up on time to play a few games while my nephew tried desperately to join in.

He had been having .... issues.... like many eighteen month old children do, so I wasn't exactly thrilled about his addition to the fun. Ok, the past four nights in a row little Matthew had thrown up without warning and in some awkward places. He'd been eating gummy bears and technicolor vomit just wasn't going to go well on a first date. Thankfully, he kept the bears down until he got home and I got a yes when I asked Emily out about three weeks later.

Our Fairy Tale Story

2009-09-04T09:19:00.000-07:00

I thought our first post should tell our story. We first met back in April, just after Matt's birthday. My brother was headed up to visit our aunt one weekend, and that sounded like fun so I thought I'd come along. When I told her I was coming she said she wanted to set up a date for me, someone she'd wanted to set me up with since I'd come home from my mission. I said that was ok, he called and we went out on our first date. I felt very much like I could be myself around him, and had a lot of fun. Honestly didn't think it was likely to go anywhere, but I was willing for another date.

He added me as a friend on facebook, and made one attempt to ask me out via facebook, which didn't work - I didn't get the message. So we chatted online once and decided he would take me to Star Trek. He called me, set it up and we had a good time. He dropped me off at 10:00 which was too early for me, so I texted him and asked him to go hiking with me the next day. The hike was tons of fun and we connected very well.

We continued dating, going back and forth between his home and mine, 90 minutes apart. One weekend here, one there. Things progressed pretty fast, our first kiss the next weekend, and we decided soon we were officially dating. He was really sweet for my birthday, gave me a stuffed arctic fox who we've named "Hielo." He even got it delivered to me on my actually birthday even though I didn't see him till the day after.

Things were getting more serious. My sister got married the next weekend and things were good. The following weekend we went to a comedy club, and I sort had this weird sort of thing happen, where at the beginning of the night I was annoyed and didn't even really like him for a minute, to resolving things where I remembered how much I did love him and how at peace I'd mostly felt about life since I'd met him. Somehow, through all the confusion I created, that night on the doorstep he asked me to marry him. :) Actually, he told me to marry him and I said ok, but its about the same thing.

Wedding planning began, but we were able to have so much fun throughout the summer. On short notice I took one last trip without him to Texas and visit all the people I love there. We went together to concerts, up canyons, and even just my backyard swing. We spent a lot of time with family getting to know each others families better. He even braved family vacation with my whole family to Yellowstone. And then treated me to going with some of his family to San Diego to the beach and to the play "Wicked." Before we knew it the wedding arrived, and now we're together forever, starting our "happily ever after."