A New Life

Christmas Corner
My sweet crystal nativity from Achievement Days and the cute angels in the back from Phoebe
Happy Thanksgiving!
Mmm.... Yum!
A lot of food for two people
Our beautiful delicious turkey
Aaron making homeade apple pie with the utmost care
I made the pumpkin pie!
This is how it looked outside for Thanksgiving. Watch now we won't have any snow for Christmas. It's just cruel.

Wow so I'm pretty bad at this whole blogging thing...which is sad because I know my adoring fans are dying to know what's going on with Aaron and I! Right? Well we have been married a little over 6 months now and it's been so much fun. It's interesting to just have life come at you so fast. Suprisingly, paying my own cell phone bill, car insurance, health insurance, car payment, utilities, mortgage and so forth really isn't that bad! Who knew? Speaking of mortgage... Probably one of the most exciting things we've down since we've been married is buy a house! Yep we are first time homebuyers and got a lovely little townhouse close to the school. Now I know what you're thinking, Why the heck would you buy a house there? Well we mostly figured it made a lot more sense than paying rent for the next couple of years and having that money go bye-bye. In fact, our mortgage is almost less than a lot of people's rent around here and our place is probably 10 times nicer. That $8000 back was a nice little incentive too... I'm hoping to put pictures up of the house soon but I keep pushing it back because I don't have it quite set up the way I want it yet and so I don't want to take all these pictures if I'm going to change everything. That's probably a lame excuse, but it's the one I keep using. Let me now tell you about a few things I've learned as an old married woman: Tis better to vacuum often for one thing. I vacuumed our carpet for the first time the about a month and half ago and let me tell you our vacuum was not a pretty site afterwards. The carpet looked 100 times better but I felt sorry for the vacuum. As a kid we always had a vacuum with a bag so I never really knew the extent of the filth in our carpet. Now we have a bagless one and I can see EVERYTHING... very yucky...yet fascinating. Anyways, that was one thing I've learned. Secondly, boys are 12378921478912 times easier than girls. Don't get me wrong, I had good roommates and I love my sisters, but boys are so much easier to live with. Now you're probably asking yourself what about Daniel and my dad? Well Daniel (as we all know) is not your typical boy and I think I was kind of ignorant of how easy my dad was to live with. So Aaron is my first real male roommate and it is sooo nice. I don't know if I can pinpoint exactly why because it's a million little things. Just know that boys are easier and better than girls haha. Another thing I learned is that going to school when you're married is much easier as well. It's nice to settle down and stay home with your sweetie and just enjoy being together whether you're visiting or studying. My favorite new thing is probably going to bed around 10:30 at night. Working full time isn't always the most fun thing, but it definitely makes me appreciate the time that Aaron and I get to spend together a whole lot more. Every date, meal, bedtime, and Sunday are so much more special! Well there's a million more things I've come to learn but I want to start talking about Thanksgiving now. This was our first big holiday together as a married couple and it was definitely a new experience. I was feeling the loss of a big family around but it was fun to have the two of us as well and do everything together. At the beginning of the week I was feeling pretty jealous that my family was in Southern California enjoying friends and sunshine while we were experiencing less than hospitable weather and a rather empty Rexburg. As Thanksgiving day rolled around, I had a really good time with Aaron though. I had never made a Thanksgiving meal before and neither had Aaron. We looked up recipes online and put in some of our own flair and made culinary masterpieces! No joke I was extremely proud of us. Everything turned out delicious! Our turkey was so moist and delicious and flavorful. It was probably the best turkey I've ever had if I'm being honest (no offense to all past turkey that I have tasted). The next day was kinda disappointing because I couldn't follow through with the tradition of Black Friday and getting up at 3 in the morning to go shopping because I had to work. It turned out alright though because I hit up Wal-Mart after I got off and got our Christmas tree and a bunch of Christmas decorations. I was so tickled to put up our own little tree with Aaron. We have lived in our new house for a few months now but with the Christmas stuff up, it's really starting to feel like home now. I just fully love the holidays! Last night Aaron took me to go see Michael McLean's "The Forgotten Carols" and it was so fun! I think it will be a fun tradition our family will create. I've been feeling so blessed lately. I totally think that Aaron and I are spoiled. No newlyweds should be as well off as we are. For some reason Heavenly Father has blessed us with everything we need and much MUCH more. I'm not complaining or anything. Aaron and I definitely enjoy and appreciate our blessings. Hopefully this holiday season we'll be able to share with others our joy. Well this post is becoming epic so I'll wrap it up for now. Hopefully it won't be too long before I post again. Happy Holidays everybody! We love you!

The engagement

I find it very therapeutic to write my feelings out about things and since I have very strong feelings about the engagement/wedding planning aspect of my life, I'm looking forward to letting it all out. Needless to say it has been a very eye opening experience. Through my blog I only hope to inform people what to expect during this time in their life.

The day we met... oh so long ago

A few of our engagement pictures

How It All Began...

So we are now into April and things have been great so far! It's so crazy to think that we are now getting married next month! Time is going by really fast (thank goodness)! Only one week left of school and then it's off to Vegas and then California for a week! (For me at least. Aaron has to go back to his other love... Melaleuca :P ) We've got most of the big wedding plans out of the way which is such a relief. Our next biggest goal is gonna be trying to get those dang invitations out in a timely manner. It occurred to me though that our engagement probably seemed kinda sudden so I thought I might explain how Aaron and I know each other in the first place.
Aaron and I met each other last April at a ward activity. It was the kick-off activity for the summer semester and Aaron was my ex-FHE brother's roommate... Does that make sense? Dallin was my FHE brother last winter semester and he moved to the apartment upstairs for the summer semester where Aaron was living and they became roommates. Anyways, the party was right outside their apartment and I was kinda early so I decided to go visit Dallin. We weren't talking for very long before this unfamiliar (but highly attractive) man strolls into the apartment. I, of course, was the most gorgeous creature he had ever seen (ha!) so he immediately introduced himself. I found out that he was from the Sacramento area, which really excited me considering my family had just moved there and I didn't know anyone. After talking a little bit we went down to the party and ate together and talked some more. He was very friendly and fun to talk to. Little did I know what would become of us back then! That was the beginning though. I could go a lot further into the details of the progression of our relationship but undoubtedly, Aaron would want to tell his side of the story because I wasn't that nice to him. So... I'm just not gonna go there and will instead leave with the happy thought that everything worked out and we're going to live happily ever after now :)

Engaged!

So Aaron decided to pop the question on Tuesday (March 3)! We have known we were gonna get married since the end of January, but were trying to be smart with our money so I really wasn't expecting to get a ring for a while. He completely took me by suprise! The story goes a little something like this:
Tuesday morning he told me that his sister and brother-in-law wanted to take us out to dinner that night. He said they wanted to pay us back for the BYU game and that seemed reasonable enough so I wasn't suspicious at all. All day he kept talking about how excited he was to get free dinner, and I know how much Aaron loves free food so that also didn't make me suspect anything. Well he got off work a little early and was going to come pick me up at my apartment but I got a call from my brother saying he needed to use the car. When Aaron came to get me, I explained that I needed to go drop it off and he could just follow me there. After I ran up and gave the keys to my brother's roommate, Aaron was down waiting at his car to open the door for me. When he did, I looked inside and saw that there were candles inside and my favorite song was playing. Embarrassingly enough, I didn't really get what was happening and asked myself how I was supposed to sit down with candles in my way. I stood there and looked at Aaron and he said, "Oh what's that?" Then he got down on one knee in the street, opened a ring box and said "Oh what's this? Will you marry me?" I was in complete shock! I mean I thought it would be hard to surprise me since I already knew we were gonna get married but he managed it. Of course I said yes and we hugged and kissed and he opened a bottle of sparkling cider for us. People were walking by and giving us funny looks and it was great! With all the excitement I had kinda forgotten about the ring though. After a minute I was like oh wait let me look at this thing and it was gorgeous!! The ring is absolutely perfect! Exactly what I wanted! He did a very good job picking it out. After I calmed a little bit he told me we really were going to eat in Idaho Falls...just not with Becky and James. I enjoyed a nice steak dinner and we got free dessert! (Sadly it was not because we got engaged though...It was because my dinner was taking a long time to get out haha.) After that we went home. It was a pretty great evening. Things have been great since then and the wedding plans are coming along. Only two and a half more months now! The date is May 22nd and we will be getting married at 3:00 in the afternoon. We can hardly wait!