Jenny Get Your Gun

So here is something new, this is Nate actually doing a post on here. I just have to brag about my girl. Last weekend my family went out into the desert to shoot our guns and basically just to make some noise. Well, Jenny had never shot a gun before at all, so my family was excited to see how she would do (I was very interested). We got out there and by her second shot she was putting holes in all of the bottles that we had set up. The picture here is her with my dad's SKS assault riffle going to town on some poor helpless targets. So anyone thinking about breaking in to the house is going to have to think twice.

Honeymoon take 2!

As most of you know (or if you read this post) Nate and I were sick for the duration of our honeymoon. We had talked about maybe taking a second honeymoon later this year or after Nate graduates but then we got an unexpected surprise. During a conversation with the doctor Nate was rotating with in February, it came out how we had gone to San Diego and gotten sick. The doctor then told Nate that as far as he was concerned his rotation was done on Tuesday (instead of Friday) and that if he didn't go somewhere he'd fail. Well we couldn't let Nate fail his rotation, so I looked around and found us a great 3 nights for the price of 2 deal in Sedona. It had been a good 10-15 years since I'd been to Sedona and with it only 2 hours away it was a perfect opportunity for make-up mini-moon.
The weather was perfect and it we had a great time enjoying the beautiful scenery of Sedona. We went hiking at Soldier's Pass and saw the giant sink hole Devil's Kitchen.


We drove up to see Snoopy Rock.


Hiked around the base of Cathedral Rock.


Hung out and relaxed by Oak Creek.


And walked around Tlaquepaque, where it was my turn to try on a goofy hat (maybe this will be a trend of ours).



After we had our fill of Sedona we took a drive up to Flagstaff to visit Nate's sister Jana and her family. There was still some snow on the ground and after lunch we found a spot to pull off for a impromptu snowball fight. I wasn't quick enough to get a picture of that though. Overall it was great to get away for a few days and enjoy some time with just the two of us away from work/school, the housework, and all the illness we've had for the past 2 months. A husband, a wife and the beautiful outdoors, how can it get much better than that?

Valentine's Day

Ok I know this is a little bit late but I wanted to document how sweet my husband is. In all my years I've only had 2 good Valentine's Days (one of which being this year), so historically it's been more S.A.D. (Singles Awareness Day) than a day of love. I woke up Saturday morning to a dozen red roses next to our bed and even though I didn't get a picture of them before they started dying, they were beautiful to wake up to. Nate gave me a very sweet card and then went downstairs to make me/us waffles for breakfast. I had to laugh when he told me he was going to make waffles because I had had the thought of making him waffles for breakfast. We often end up thinking the same thing and this time he beat me to it.
For my gift he got me an herb garden and I absolutely swooned over it. It was so thoughtful as I had wanted to start another herb garden since it's warming up. He'd been planning it for weeks and even consulted my mom on what kind of herbs would be good to plant. I love the mental image I have of him picking out the plants and potting them for me the day before while I was at work. He can be wonderfully sneaky sometimes.


That evening we decided to use a gift certificate Nate's sister Ellen had given him for his birthday and went to dinner at Romeo's Euro Cafe in downtown Gilbert. The restaurant is fairly small but they have a huge menu and the portions are big enough to share or take the rest home for a second meal. Also should you go and get a salad with your dinner, I definitely recommend the feta dressing, YUMMY!

Overall it was a fun day with my hubby and I'm glad to have retired from S.A.D.

Stepping back in time

A few weeks ago Nate and I went to the Renaissance Festival during their opening weekend when we could both get in for the price of one. I hadn't been to the festival for years and it was amazing to see how much it's grown, at least from what I remember.

The last time I went I was much younger and remember seeing Ded Bob perform on this little stage made out of 2x4's. One of my favorite old memories about the Renaissance Festival doesn't even come from my trip but rather from the aftermath of my friend Chari's trip with her family. After seeing the candlemaking and wax hand demonstrations, Chari thought this would be a great thing to try at home and somehow got her hands on a candle dipping kit. We spent an afternoon dipping candles in a variety of colored wax, then Chari got the idea that we should make wax molds of our hands and got out a larger container for the hot wax and a bowl of cold water. I remember thinking at the time that sticking my whole hand into a container of hot wax probably wasn't a good idea, but I went along with it anyway and while I remember it being uncomfortably hot to begin with it remarkably it worked. I walked away unscathed and with a mold of my fist that I believe I still have packed away today.

This year's trip was fun and memorable but not nearly as dangerous. We walked around, looked at the different shops, and watched the knight's joust all the while reveling in the great opportunity for people watching the festival provides. We also managed to catch two of Nate's favorite shows, Ded Bob and London Broil (a trio of comedic jugglers).

And what trip to the Renaissance Festival would be complete without gnawing on a big turkey leg.

Where have we been?

Well it's official, we have been married for a whole month and we haven't killed each other yet. Just kidding, we love married life but we have definitely been keeping busy. The last few weeks have mostly been spent moving Nate's stuff into the house, combining my stuff and his stuff, buying new stuff to replace worn out old stuff that we might not have gotten from the wedding, and finding places for this new stuff which has resulted in reorganizing every room in the house. I love my house and I feel very blessed that I bought it when I did so that we could have somewhere nice to live but I think it almost would have been easier if we were starting fresh in a new house. For the last few months my (now our) house has been in a cylcical wave of clutter/boxes and disorganization. From wedding stuff, to my roommate moving out, to new stuff and my hubby moving in. There have definitely been days where the mess felt overwhelming and I didn't think it would ever get put back together again. Luckily it appears there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We're nearly there and then our house will be better (and more organized) than it's ever been. We can rest assured we've done our part to try to help the economy or at the very least we've kept trashmen employed.

Sadly this is not the only stack of boxes, we made at least 3 or 4 trips like this. On the plus side I do have a nice pile of stuff to take to DI.

In other news, Nate turned 28 on January 21st! So HAPPY BIRTHDAY STUD! Hope the next 27 are even better than the last.

P.S. If you or someone you know gave us an Oneida pizza stone please step forward. :) There was no card, or it may have fallen off, and I want to make sure we get everyone thanked.

Honeymoonin

For our honeymoon Nate and I went to San Diego. We only had a short amount of time before Nate had to be back for his rotations so we wanted to go somewhere where traveling wouldn't take up a ton of time, plus it is December/January and anywhere with no snow is a plus for me. So we rented a cute little 2 room beach cottage in Mission Bay and drove over the day after our wedding, aka New Years Eve.

After dinner we took a walk around the bay to take in the views and maybe see some NYE fireworks, but alas there were none. So we went home and curled up in front of the fireplace to watch a movie.

And that's when we got a very unwelcome and mean spirited visitor...The Stomach Flu!! It hit me first and got Nate a day later. My sweet husband braved the drunken streets of New Year's Eve somewhere between 1:30-3am (I'm a little fuzzy on when that happened) to get me some pepto bismol in an effort to give me some relief. Needless to say a mean case of the stomach flu was never part of our dream honeymoon but we were still able to do a few fun things.

We went whale watching, and it was really cold. We have a tendancy to underestimate the weather a bit. We were dressed in jeans and sweaters/sweatshirts while the rest of the people had heavy jackets, mittens and hats. We did manage to see one whale, and we followed him for quite a while.


We also took a trip to see the San Diego temple, since I had never seen it before.

Our other splurge was to take a dinner cruise on our final night in San Diego. Considering the angry state of our digestive system, we'd thought about canceling but could not get a clear answer from anyone as to if we'd be able to get a refund since the manager was out until Monday. So rather than lose the money we got dressed up and went. It was still cold but we were a little more prepared. The cruise was fun and the skyline was beautiful all lit up. The food was really good and I think had we been feeling better we would have enjoyed it a lot more. Regardless it was better than the steady diet of pepto, saltine crackers, and gatorade that we'd been surviving on for a few days.

Before heading for home on Sunday we stopped at Old Towne to walk around for a bit. This has always been a family tradition of mine on trips to San Diego. Normally we get breakfast of chorizo and eggs at Cafe Coyote and then get a batch of fresh handmade tortillas to nosh on during the drive home. Sadly neither of these looked, sounded, or smelled appetizing in our current state, though Nate did give San Diego 2 thumbs up!

I think we'll wait and try a second honeymoon later this year or when Nate finishes school.

To Eternity And Beyond

WE DID IT!! On Tuesday, December 30th, 2008, Nate and I were sealed together for time and all eternity as husband and wife. What a blessing it is to know that we have the opportunity to be together forever.

Looking back at the pictures, the day really did go beautifully but it wasn't with out a few stressful points. When we told people we were getting married on a Tuesday we got a lot of crazy looks. No one gets married on a Tuesday. Even when we scheduled our sealing with the temple we were the only one's scheduled, so we expected everything to go easy breezy as we drove over to the temple Tuesday morning. Much to our surprise, as we pulled up the place was a beehive of activity. The parking lots were completely full and there were a number of other cars circling for a spot. We gave up hunting for a spot and ended up parking in the dirt lot Northwest of the temple. We scurried over with all our bags in tow since we were now 5 minutes late and arrived huffing and puffing as we tried to catch our breath. Not exactly how I pictured the start of my wedding day. When we got settled we found out that they had 80 missionaries there that morning for some sort of zone conference and 10...16...18 (the number kept growing with each person we talked to) weddings scheduled. Guess we weren't so crazy after all, we were trendsetters.

Dressed, ready, and miraculously back on schedule we waited for our ceremony to start. We waited, and waited. The other couples around us were all taken in and we continued to wait, when we overheard that the couple before us was scheduled to start over a half hour before, they barely got into the room about 5 minutes before we were scheduled to go. Our ceremony was short but beautiful and sweet. It was such a blessing to be surrounded by so many of our loved ones.

A few other hiccups happened that put our morning events further behind and as Nate and I reflected on the morning we realized that everything that had happened was stuff that was out of our hands. We had planned everything to the "t" and almost every step of the way that morning we hit a bump. My dad in all his fatherly wisdom suggested that maybe we were being taught a lesson that you can plan everything perfectly but life still happens. I think we're still learning this lesson to this day.
In the end the wedding and the reception were beautiful. It might not have happened exactly how I pictured but it was still wonderful. Our friends and family were great in the amazing love and support they gave us in pulling the whole thing off. We were surrounded by loved ones young and old, reunited with people we haven't seen for far too long, and everyone had a good time (at least that's what it looks like in pictures). In the end we're now husband and wife together forever.

P.S. Check back "soon" for a slideshow of more wedding pictures. Our photographer Bob Kaufman took so many beautiful pictures it's taking me a while to put them all together.