M E P S

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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."