A Casual Sunday

Today Bradley and I had a FREE day all to ourselves! No meetings, no homework, no big fancy dinners to go to. It was so WONDERFUL! We decided to go walk around Utah Lake and watch the boats and all the the families spending their Sunday afternoon together. It was so much fun. We really value our quality one on one time together. We decided that we are going to take some of our engagement pictures here and so we figured it would be a good idea to practice :)

The Simple Things

Brad and I have been trying to register for all the wonderful household essentials that we'll need when we finally get married. It's been a slow journey. It's so hard to find a time when both of us can spend 3 or 4 hours scanning gifts that we hope to receive. In this process we have talked a lot about where we're going to live, how big our first home is going to be and what kind of things we want to put in it. At first all I wanted was a cute little basement apartment that had one or two bedrooms and a bathroom. As we went looking at apartments we saw some really nice ones with things that I thought I had to have, such as brand new kitchens, a fireplace, a big walk in closet, a balcony overlooking some bird filled pond (I don't even like birds) but suddenly I wasn't so excited about the basement apartment anymore. To make matters worse it seems like all of our married friends are buying condos or townhouses or actual homes! And while I am very very VERY excited for all of them, it makes me feel like we should be buying a condo or a townhouse or an actual home. and poor Brad is wondering where the girl who was so excited about a basement apartment went. Well don't worry babe, I haven't gone anywhere. :) I was laying in bed last night and I realized that we have our whole life to be home owners, and only now will we get to live in a crowded apartment that is so small the bathroom is practically in the kitchen. I realize that this crowded apartment will get really old really fast and I'll probably complain about the size everyday until we move out, but I know once we find something bigger I'll look back and wish life could go back to the days when we lived in a tiny crowded one bedroom apartment with the bathroom practically in the kitchen. And I learned a fun little fact: office tables have 400 times more bacteria than toilet seats! So it is actually cleaner to eat on the toilet seat rather than an office desk. That is so GROSS! So while we may not have the most spacious home, at least we'll be healthy because our toilet seat is our kitchen chair! :) No, hopefully our apartment isn't THAT small. But this whole house hunting process has reminded me that it really is the SIMPLE THINGS that make life beautiful! You can't always have exactly what you want when you want it, but if you can learn to make the best out of what you have you'll always be happy! :)

Today I was getting my hair cut and I was looking at the bridal magazines my hair lady handed to me (I'm so excited that I can actually look through those with a purpose now!) :) and I turned the page and there in the middle of this wonderful bride magazine was...MY WEDDING DRESS! I was so excited! I jumped out of the chair and said, "Look, this is my dress, it's in a magazine!!" I was like a little kid with all of my excitement! Just another example of SIMPLE THINGS making life wonderful! :)


Yes, this is the Liahona magazine, and yes, I did put it on our blog...


...because, we're in it! :)

TRIATHALON!

May 22nd, 2010. The triathalon is finally here! Melinda and I signed up back in December for the Women of Steel triathalon in May. We trained for 5 months for this day. Every week on Wednesday we would go swimming together and then run and bike on our own throughout the week. It was so fun to spend time with my sister swimming together and sharing our training stories. We had some trouble when we first started training. Neither of us had ever really swam or ridden bikes before. The first day in the pool was exceptionally bad. We showed up to swim our laps, neither of us had goggles or a swim cap and to top it all off, I was in my two piece swim suit! I'm sure you can guess that we got some WEIRD looks from people. But looking back on it now, we did look pretty ridiculous. The swim was 300 meters long and so we decided that we would 'go the extra mile' and swim 500 meters. We swam it in about 10 minutes and we thought we were awesome! We couldn't wait to tell our family of our accomplishments. We got home and Jeff and Holli were there, we told them what we did and how fast we thought we were. They both just looked at each other confused and told us that swimming 500 meters in 10 minutes on our first swim was crazy! Eventually they figured out that the pool was only 25 meters long instead of 50 meters long, so in all actuality we swam 250 meters in 10 minutes instead of 500 meters in 10 minutes!! That was a bad day. We kept swimming each week and over time we got faster and stronger. We were finally ready for race day. The morning came early (5:00 early) and the weather was bad. It was so cold and it was raining. These were not the conditions we had hoped for. They ended up cancelling the swim (we all would have gotten hypothermia) and added a one mile run in its place. We ran a mile, biked 12 miles and then ran 3 more miles. We actually didn't do too bad. We took places 294and 296 out of 600 people. Our goal was to finish...and not finish last. We accomplished both! It took us 1 hour and 33 minutes to complete it. We did have some minor bike troubles along the way, but overall it was a great day! We were lucky and our family came out to support us and cheer us on. It was so nice when I was tired to hear Brad or my parents or Jeff and Holli cheering for me! They are troopers and stood outside in the cold rain to watch us. Thanks guys! It was such a great experience and I was glad that I was able to complete my first triathalon with my training buddy. We liked it so much that we are planning on doing it again next year! So...START TRAINING GIRLS!

more triathalon pics.

Last part of the race!

We were laughing about how cold our legs were.

sprint to the finish.

WE DID IT!!!

Women Of Steel!

girls night!

This week, since all the girls in my family were here in Utah we decided to have a girl's night! No boys allowed. It was a BLAST! Melinda made a delicious dinner and we sat around the table talking and laughing all night. Then Courtney taught us how to make avocado face masks, it was really fun! Having 7 girls in one room was tons of fun! I'm so grateful that I have 5 wonderful sisters and a great mom! They are each a wonderful example of the woman I hope to become one day. I love them all so much! We're lucky to have each other. Only 4 more months until I get to add 2 more sisters to that group! I can't wait :)


Before...


After...



Love them all!

Family Fun!

Last weekend to celebrate my sister's birthday we had a family day. Brad and I couldn't make it to the first half of it but we heard it was really fun. Everyone packed a lunch and headed to Antelope Island to enjoy the beautiful weather. Brad and I were really bummed we couldn't be there...until we heard everyone talking about how many bug bites they got while they were there. Suddenly Brad and I weren't so upset we missed out on that part :) After the Island we had some delicious dinner and then we played MINUTE TO WIN IT games. We paired off into teams, boys vs. girls, and the war began. The girls were some good competition but in the end the boys won. It was a great day and it was fun to have the whole family together! Thanks Courtney and Robert for setting it all up!



young and in love :)



Brother/Sister wrestling.


Cute dad and Cute Fiance :)




Our adorable niece Chloe Blue

Baby Carter.

WE'RE ENGAGED!!

Yep, you read that right, Bradley and I are getting married! He popped the question on Monday May 10th! Brad had this whole cute date planned out perfectly! He showed up at my house around 7:30 with BEAUTIFUL pink roses! I was so surprised and so excited! We headed up to the Draper temple to have a picnic overlooking the Valley. It was just like the movies, he had a cute picnic basket and some blankets for us...he also had to pack the umbrella because it was raining. But we didn't let rain ruin our perfect day! We sat there on a little green bench and ate our sandwiches (well tried to eat, Brad was so nervous/excited that he didn't have much of an appetite) We watched the rain and talked and laughed. It eventually started raining harder and Brad suggested that we pack up and leave. We started to clean up the blankets and basket when he wrapped me in his arms and told me how much he loved me. Before I knew what was happening he was down on one knee with this beautiful ring in his hand asking me to be his wife! I was so shocked I didn't know what to say! After a long pause I somehow managed to say YES!

Our first photo as an engaged couple!


Pretty Pink Flowers

The RING!!