2 years!

For our anniversary, we went out to eat with Nina and Matt at La Carreta, a Peruvian restaurant that Nina really likes. We were also celebrating Nina's birthday. Our main anniversary gift was also the trip to Florida and Disney.

Our wedding day is definitely on the top of my list of memorable and special days. I had never felt happier. It was such a fun day. I can't believe it has been 2 years. Sometimes I feel that it has been longer and then there are days when I feel like it was just yesterday. I've never posted wedding pictures of us on the blog, so here are a few favorites of mine.

So far, each year is getting better! We continue to experience new things, even when we think that we've gone through so much together. We continue to learn more about each other and re-learn each other as we change each day. We continue to support each other in our goals and dreams. We continue to laugh together or at each other. We go on dates and fall in love all over again. Most importantly, we continue to forgive and forget quickly. We have learned a lot in these 2 years of marriage. I'd like to share some advice that my institute teacher and his wife gave us on our wedding day in a frame: 

Essentials for a Happy Marriage:

Live the gospel.

Love, and appreciate each other. 

Develop self-discipline.

Curb temper and tongue. 

Look on the bright side of things.

Develop and maintain respect for one another.

Give soft answers and

Speak quietly.

Don't be selfish.

Look after one another.

Help your partner develop talents

And fulfill opportunities.

Recognize differences.

Pay tithing and stay out of debt. 

Develop the ability to

Communicate with each other. 

President Gordon B. and Sister Marjorie P. Hinckley

It is hard to keep each and every one of these suggestions all the time. But I do know that when we try to live one, the others become easier to keep. And when we forget about these "essentials", we immediately feel a difference in our marriage. Marriage is full of ups and downs for all, but I am so grateful for the gospel and for this advice that gets us out of those downs! Can't wait to see what this upcoming year of marriage has in store for us! So much is unknown!

Nina's Maternity Pictures

On Sunday, I took some maternity pictures of Nina. I am no professional and don't even own a DSLR (I used Nina's), but Nina just wanted some shots of her and her cute belly. It was pretty cold and super windy that day, so instead of going to the canyons, we went to The Shops at the Riverwoods. Nina's a good friend for trusting me to do this for her!

I had so much fun doing this with Nina. I can only imagine why photographers love their jobs so much. How can you not smile and feel good inside when you're photographing a happy family, a couple in love, or a glowing mommy-to-be?

Here are the best of the pictures:

I am so happy for Matt and Nina. I can't believe they're going to be parents. We've come a long way from being roommates close to 5 years ago - watching each other fall in love, get married and now become parents! Luna should be here any minute now. I can't wait for her arrival! 

I'm 23!

My birthday this year was a lot of fun. I couldn't have asked for a better birthday, except for maybe getting a better score on my midterm. Yeah, I had to take a test on Friday (a day before my birthday) and Saturday morning. Can you believe it? At least the testing center was nice and gave me this pencil...



On Friday, Blaine took me to see The Sleeping Beauty by BYU's Theater Ballet. It was a lot of fun for me - not so much for Blaine. Blaine actually appreciates the arts and dance, but I think theater ballet was too slow for him. Anyway, I have always wanted to watch The Sleeping Beauty and Blaine needed to learn the story since she is my favorite princess. The dancers did a good job, but it wasn't anything out of this world. But the live philarmonic band was amazing!

On my actual birthday, Blaine took me to Kneaders for breakfast. Kneaders is my favorite breakfast spot in Provo. That afternoon, we went out to lunch with Matt and Nina at Station 22. We had never been before. It was a totally, cool, yummy and hip place. I'm sad that we only have another 2 months to get back there. We ordered the chicken and waffles (a first for me) and it was really good! The rest of their menu was really original. I wanted to order everything on there. 

At night time, Blaine took me for a quick shopping trip at City Creek with all the gift cards I got for my birthday. We had dinner at Magleby's Fresh (another new place for us) and came home pretty early to relax! It was a great day. Of course, the texts, phone calls, and birthday packages from family and friends made it even better! 

Gifts from my family!

Another random fact: I love pistachios :)

Sunday night, Blaine attempted to throw me a surprise party. I knew something was up when he wanted to clean the house and starting chopping vegetables while I was upstairs. He spilled the beans finally and I helped him set up. He did a great job though. A ton of our friends came and I hadn't had so much fun in a long time. While all the girls were talking in the kitchen, we realized that the guys were all breaking it down and playing Dance Central. Some of these guys are usually very shy and would never do such a thing. It was so fun to watch. They were having a great time, laughing their heads off and sweating quite a bit! 

I wish I would've taken more pictures. They were out of control...

I love my friends!
Stevensons, Slaughs, Monsons, Dawsons,
Steve & Mechaella, Simmons

Thanks to everybody who came to wish me a happy birthday! It wouldn't have been the same without you guys! And a big thank you to Blaine for throwing me this party! I love you babe! 

For my birthday gift, we bought flights to Florida to visit my family and run the Disney Princess Half Marathon! More on that soon! :)

Valentine's Day 2013

I love Valentine's Day. I think it's awesome. My mom and family always did a great job at emphasizing the importance of love on this day. It wasn't a day where I was happy if I had a boyfriend or depressed because I didn't. I also love Valentine's Day because when I see all the red, pink, hearts and chocolates in the stores, it means that my birthday is also right around the corner! :)

Blaine is kind of traumatized with Valentine's Day. I think he feels a lot of pressure because my birthday and our anniversary are all so close together. One year, he tried getting me flowers around 7 pm and he quickly discovered that there were no flowers in all of Provo and Orem. So this year, he bought flowers a day early to avoid that craziness. Blaine's all about effectiveness and logic. He cracks me up. I came home from work on the 13th to flowers and a handmade card from Blaine and Rue. He actually tried using my cricut to make it. And he had Rue sign with a very wet, messy paw (the floor was a mess when I came home!). I was confused at first and thought that I had missed Valentine's!

 

Who can get mad at that face?

 

On actual Valentine's Day, we went out to eat at Molly's (one of our favorite restaurants in Provo) because we wanted to avoid the crazy long waits in all of the other restaurants. The food was great, as always and we tried their carrot cake for the first time - so good. After, we were supposed to go to Provo Beach Resort and play a round of golf on their cool simulators (my gift to Blaine), but we were so full that we decided to leave that for another day. We ended up at the Nickelcade and had a fun time. We had never been before and we both love playing arcade games. Random fact about me: I love Mrs. Pacman. I have played till I've gotten blisters!



Some goodies for Blaine.

 

Our 4th Valentine's Day together.



 

 



Bye-Bye Virgin Hair

So I totally forgot to mention this in my posts on Miami. But while I was there, my mom dyed my hair. Yeah. Yikes! I have been wanting to do something different to my hair for like ever now (really, it has been years). But I'm such a pansy when it comes to change, especially with my hair. Also, I've seen people who have dyed their hair a lot and it gets weak and damaged so quickly. My aunt has never touched her hair and she has gorgeous, healthy hair!

I did cut my long hair in December, making it about 6 inches shorter. I have really missed my long hair, but it's already growing back super fast. Anyway, I was still pretty bored. So my mom did this ombre thing on my hair. Basically, it's just a different color at the bottom portion of your hair. What I liked about this and convinced me to do it is that I can just cut it off if I don't like it or get sick of it. Also, there's really no maintenance. I like highlights, but having my roots grow in would drive me insane. It's also pretty pricey to keep up! I didn't want to deal with anything like that. And the damage is minimized to part of my hair that I'll cut off anyway. So yup. Just in case you didn't notice it in my pictures so far...I just wanted to mention it because it was a huge deal for me!

My First Sewing Project

So remember when I said that I procrastinate studying and homework? Well it's very easy when you have other fun and exciting things to do...like learn to sew! I could've started studying for my midterms next week, but this was too tempting. I caved. Cait made a cute dog bed for Tess last week and she offered to teach me how to make one. So from 5:30 pm till 11:00 pm last night, that's what we did. Rue already has a dog bed but for some reason, she only likes to use it downstairs. So this one will stay upstairs! We'll see how that works out. 

Cait was so patient and is such a good teacher. She answered my incessant questions and was very confident in my abilities. I've always been petrified of sewing machines, but it was a lot of fun once I became a little more comfortable with it. 

So we actually made the pillow and stuffed it, instead of just buying one already made. Cait saw a genius idea on Pinterest of using tissue pattern to draw out patterns. This part took the longest. I was using the slowest setting on the machine. 

Cait cut the fleece while I finished the pillow and then it was time sew the outside pieces together. I let her do the zipper though. I'm still too much of a noob to attempt that! Everything cost about $30 (which is pretty good for such a large dog bed), but I had leftover fabric so maybe I can make a blanket, too! I was so happy with the finished product. And Rue definitely loved it as well. She loves loves loves pillows and all things soft. And so far, she's used it much more upstairs than her other dog bed. Weird pup. 

I had a lot of fun making it and I hope this is a start to me really learning how to sew. I couldn't have done it without Cait, telling me what to do every step of the way and watching me. She taught herself how to do all this stuff. Impressive! I also had a ton of fun with Cait (and Chloe too while she was there). We just chatted away the entire time. I'm glad that we're friends beyond the fact that she's Blaine's friend from Delaware :) 

Winter Semester So Far

This semester, I am only taking 6 credits (2 classes - Aural Rehabilitation & Speech Science) and working some more hours at my new job. Blaine is taking 13 credits , working part-time with Devin and also doing an internship with Atlantic Trust through BYU. He's pretty busy while I'm taking it slow. With this extra time, I've been reading like crazy (6 books so far in 2013!) and running. This is going to sound bad, but since I'm only taking 2 classes, I've gotten lazier with school. I procrastinate assignments or studying since "hey, I've only got 2 classes to worry about!". It's a very very dangerous thing. But so far, I've done well on my tests and have midterms coming up again on my birthday week (joy). The semester seems to be going by pretty fast. By the end of this month, we'll be halfway done! My mom and sister already bought their flights to see us graduate. We're so excited!

We attended our last CES Fireside in person at the beginning of the semester. Having these CES Firesides on campus have been such a nice experience. President Utchdorf spoke about truth and how we should seek it. It was a very thought-provoking talk. Even though it was freezing cold and finding parking was nearly impossible, we were grateful that we attended this fireside!

We also went to watch the Heat play the Jazz. Erik and Whitney Snow (Erik is one of Blaine's really good friends and study buddies) came with us. The Heat were playing horribly in the first half and finally decided that they wanted to play the 2nd half, but we lost nonetheless. I think Blaine and I are bad luck. Each time we've gone to a game against the Jazz, the Heat have lost! Regardless, it was still a ton of fun to watch.

Blaine and I went to our first ever BYU womens basketball game. It was free for all students and there was going to be free pizza, too! How could we pass that up? When we arrived at the stadium, Blaine thought I had the dates mixed up because it was seriously empty. But I was right. Poor women basketball players don't get much attention! We had a good time and even took a picture with Cosmo! And BYU won...

One random thing about this semester is that we've been eating at the creamery... a little bit too much. The ice cream is so good and so cheap! Their grille is pretty good, too. If you ask Blaine where he wants to eat on a night out, he'll choose the creamery hands down. I think I've been to the creamery more this semester than I have in all the years I've been at BYU. Yah.

We've also tried to find cheap dates on campus...hence the womens basketball game. The Varsity Theater shows movies for a $1 every once in a while. We watched Here Comes the Boom not too long ago. We had a ton of fun. It is such a cheesy movie (I can't emphasize that enough), but it was funny, uplifting and had a good message. Of course, that date followed with a trip to the creamery...

Matt and Nina came over to watch the Super Bowl with us last weekend. Usually, I like to invite a ton of people over. But this year we weren't feeling up to it. I made our favorite peanut butter cheese ball and had some pizza. Matt and Nina brought Apple Beer! Love that stuff. I'm sad that they only sell it in Utah. We'll miss it for sure! Blaine and I rooted for the Ravens, so we're happy that they won :)

So that's what we've been up to! I'm glad that I've finally caught up on blogging. I hope my most faithful readers (Grandma & Poppy) can forgive me for leaving them post-less for so long!