Thanksgiving, Husbands, and husbands putting dryer sheets up their noses...

This Thanksgiving equals awesome! I got to see my family whom I haven't seen in months. what I love most about it is that we all come together and there is no fighting, it is just love and plain silliness. With my family, if you know them, you know what I mean. Ca-ra-zzzyyy. But that's what I love most about it. We can act foolish without feeling foolish. :)

Another great part about coming home is that my mom immediately let's me do just about any decorating I want. The interior design of the house, her office, Christmas decorating, etc. And I love it! So we made a few more plans on painting the kids bathroom and started Christmas decorating. So, fun! My sister and I even got to decorate the tables for Thanksgiving...

If you look closely, you may recognize some of the center pieces.....not ringing a bell? Let me help, bells were ringing the day we used them. You got it! Best day of my life, my wedding.

Speaking of weddings, we are coming up close to our one year anniversary. I know right?! so excited. It has been one heck of a year. I can see what they mean by the first year being the hardest, I may have to agree with that, but I'd say that ours went fairly smooth compared to how it could be. I can deal with that. :) It has been a wonderful year and the only thing to make it better is having Christmas be a week later. :) Something I just have to share is the response Richard gave to a question that I just about cried over it was so sweet. My best friend Britney, had a family foundations class assignment. She asked five questions to married couples at different stages in their marriage. One within their first year (us), one couples whose been married for several years, and another later in their marriage. One of the questions asked was "How would you express your degree of love for your spouse now as compared to the day you were married?". I happened to see Richard's responses before I sent them off in the email, (of course I looked, I'm a curious person) his response was so adorable. His reply was, "My love for Janie has grown from the time we were married, I loved her for what I had seen and the little I knew about her. I now know her better and have come to love the person she is and not the idea of who I thought she was." Umm, adorable right? I am grateful Britney had that assignment. You know that they love you, but you like to hear it anyway. :) I just had to share. I loved that response. I feel so incredibly blessed to have Richard as my husband and who loves me for me.

One thing about Richard that makes me laugh is that he does the strangest things without thinking about it. The one I'm thinking of in particular happened to me today. I came home from class to find Richard on the couch watching a tv show of sorts. I came to sit next to his horizontal body. I picked up a dryer sheet that had somehow gotten stuck to the edge of the couch, and promptly tossed it in his face. I like to be obnoxious what can I say? I started to pet the cat for a minute before turning around to watch the show with him and started busting a gut. In that short amount of time he had taken that dryer sheet and shoved it up one of his nostrils and left it there. Ha ha ha! Where did that come from? Do all men try to find things to shove up their noses? Peas? Beans? Dryer sheets? I asked why he did that and of course he says, 'I don't know, I just did it.' I will never understand but it was the funniest thing I had seen all day. I don't know where I would be without any boys in this world to make the women laugh. I think it would be a sad and boring place. I love the boys in my life that make me laugh especially my darling husband who tends to make me laugh on a daily basis. :)

Fall is in the air... and so is Christmas!

I don't know about everyone else, but Thanksgiving to me is just the holiday before Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Thanksgiving. Fall is my favorite time of year and Thanksgiving is probably my second favorite holiday. But all I can think about is Christmas. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year. I'm already listening to Christmas music. Who isn't at this point except all the haters of Christmas music before Thanksgiving people? I'm just sayin.

Besides this, there are other things that are coming. Like Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and other very good lookin and world saving men. Can't complain. I'm just super stoked about the Avengers next year. It will be a good Christmas either way. :)

These pics are for the enjoyment of Captain America fans. MM-Hmmm. Looks like Richard right?! I always thought so. :)

For Christmas, get your man this year a muscle shirt. Make him feel like he's your good lookin, world saving, loving Captain America. Happy Thanksgiving ya'll!

Pizza, Doughnuts, and Primary Programs

Some of us remember the many years of hours of practice for the annual primary programs. Oh how I loved them! The constant memorization, frustration, singing, and just fun. What is it about them that you most remember? Not the lines, that is for sure. But you remember the Saturday before the performance the most I think. What I remember most is the doughnuts we got afterwards. In this case, pizza. The entire time they would ask for pizza instead of working on the program. Apparently that is the ONLY reason they came. Well....it at least got them to come. :)

This week Richard and I got the opportunity to work with the CTR 5 class because their teachers had a baby (jealousy!) and so they asked us to take over just for the program. uhhhh yeah!!! I love the primary programs. Besides the Christmas program, Primary is my favorite. Kids are hilarious especially when they get an opportunity to be at the pulpit to share their part. This ward is special though. Every month for testimony meeting, more than half the speakers are children! EVERY. MONTH! I can see why the lord tells us to be like little children. Although they can be very obnoxious, they are perfect. I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity to work with these children even if it is for a little while. :)

Yes, I'm keeping track....

Well my friends, it is my 10 month anniversary. I can't believe it is so close to having been a year since Rich and I got married. Life couldn't be better. I can honestly say the I'd much rather be at this end of it then the other when I was doing school and planning for a wedding. Talk about your stresser going into overdrive. Funny enough, I still look at my wedding ring the same way I used to when Richard first put it on my finger. Every time it glitters in the light, I can't help but smile and think of how truly lucky I am. I couldn't have asked for a greater man to spend the rest of eternity with.

So here's to the last two month stretch to the one year finish line! :)

Beastly

Umm he's kind of gorgeous right? These two actors may be familiar to you. Well not only are they familiar, but so is the story line. This is one movie I can't get out of my head. It may or may not be due to the fact that it is my favorite story since I was a kid.

In 1991, the Disney movie Beauty and the Beast came out and I fell in love with it as a child. This is a modern version of that same story. And I love it. There is probably only one cheesy part, but even then, it's kind of cute. :)

Something interesting that I found out, while filming for this movie when he is 'the beast', his make-up took 9 1/2 hours to put together. Amazing. I took a flight that took about that long and I could not sit still. Try holding very still for this!

So all in all, I recommend this movie. It is a little bizarre I will warn you, but I still enjoyed it. I must say, Mary-Kate Olsen played the role of the witch quite well. :) Go see it! It may still be at redbox!

The best husband in the world

So many of you that are married are under the impression that you have the best husband in the world. While that is wonderful for you, I'm afraid you are wrong. I have the greatest husband in the world, no battle.

Some of you may even understand from brothers, friends, husbands, or even fathers (most of the time they are males though some women have this problem, but I will say that none come to mind) really love to play video games, computer games, and the biggest one of all....the x-box. It is like women and their chocolate (that is definitely me though I am getting better at that) or reading. It is something that everyone does to wind down and take a break into another world rather than the one that we are in. I get that I do, because I do it too. We always made the joke (we meaning Richard's sisters and I) that whenever Richard would say that he would be done in a second really meant 2 and a half hours later. Almost every time. This has recently changed.

Richard came to me this morning with the news that he has cancelled his order of two more x-box games that he had coming in the mail and put the money into getting books for his MCAT test. Honestly, I thought I had fallen back asleep and fell into a dream. Richard LOVES his games if he gets a chance to be out of his own head. I was so proud of him I wanted to celebrate and tell it the whole world! To further this amazing surprise, he asked me to create a password that he wouldn't know in order to put an hour time limit on his gaming everyday. Granted he has the password to get past mine, but I don't care I will take that! It is a start.

I am so proud of him for having the courage to do something hard. It is not easy to break a habit especially with something that is enjoyable to you.

*Richard has always been a caring and wonderful husband and I am so lucky to be his wife.

*He is a wonderful example to me in trying to do what is right.

*He is my very best friend and is always there for me when I need him or just when I want to be around him.

*He is patient with me when I don't understand or am extremely obnoxious which is most of the time. :) Or my crazy obsession with my collection of Disney things, mostly movies. :)

*He is extremely thoughtful towards me and understanding better than I do exactly when I need to see my family. I don't have to say anything he can just sense it and say that he is getting work off to go to Utah.

*He is ALWAYS appreciative of everything that I do whether it's cooking, cleaning, or just sitting and taking the time to listen. Whatever it is, he always makes sure to tell me that he loves me and appreciates me.

*He is smart, funny, caring, and very generous to everyone around him. (of course Britney is a work in progress. it's a love/hate relationship :))

*I love him so much and will continue to strive everyday to deserve him and his love.

I love you baby and thank you for being such a wonderful husband to me!

Costa Rica!

I finally got the pictures up! I feel bad for everyone because you all know me.....and how horrible I am with technology. I can't even figure out how to get pictures loaded without my husband. *sigh* one day I will get it. Maybe when I'm 60.....

Anyway.... now that it has been a month I have pictures. Richard and I had an amazing time and loved every minute of it. Him more than me probably because this place has much more meaning to him. But all the same, one heck of a place to spend your honeymoon. (though that is 9 months belated as well. :)) So here are some pics and some stories to go with it.....

These were just two of the many families that we went to visit while we were there. It was really fun watching Richard talk to these people and you could just tell how much he cared about them. Even though I had no idea what they were saying. They loved me too because they loved Richard and I was his wife. These people were so generous and so sweet. Every time we wen to visit, they always came out with a drink and crackers. It was amazing to me because we don't really think to do that in the states and we are so blessed. Yet these people live on little and give so much. It was a big eye opener. The little boy in front in the bottom picture was one of the members that Rich baptized. He was 8 at the time. He is 12 now and still so strong. Despite the fact that his family didn't join him, they respect it. It was amazing to me how much faith an 8 year old can have when his parents were against it. I have so much admiration for this boy. I can see why Rich cared for him so much!

Part of our tour was to go swimming at a hotel and these were the springs we swam in. so gorgeous right? The cool thing about these is that they were everywhere. You could go on a mini nature hike and jump in somewhere else. It was so tropical and beautiful. We had a lot of fun!

This was our last hotel that we stayed at. This was actually the last day. But this was the view from the top of one of the balconies. The pool down to the left is where we spent most of our time. It was incredibly relaxing. It was such a beautiful place to stay!

All in all we had so much fun learning about a new culture and meeting some of the people the Richard had come to love while he was here on his mission. I am so glad I had the opportunity to see it. Not many people do. We learned a whole lot and came back much more humble. (I love dry weather!) It was a beautiful place and a wonderful experience. Hopefully we will get to go back again one day and I will be able to communicate!

That is all I have for right now but I will post more later! We had lots more adventures that we would love to share with you. So until next time! :) Buenos noches!

That makes sense...

So as most of you already know at this point, it's my birthday. yay. I turn 21 this year and am super excited for it! As a mormon, you feel deprived not being able to really do things that most 21 year olds get to do right?
Example: drinking. You have to be 21 to waste your life. cause that makes sense.
Clubbing. You are now old enough to flirt while wasting your life and wearing next to nothing. cause that makes sense.
License. Your picture gets to be horizontal now instead of vertical! You've now been driving for 5 years so you get to change to look of your ID. cause that makes sense.

So on this joyous occasion, I will do what all 21 year olds do as a mormon. Drink virgin margarita's or jamba juice, dance to disney songs with friends with modest yet crazy clothes on (with the husband if he joined in, which he won't :) ), go take a test to change my license from vertical to horizontal, and in my special case, eat all the sugar, chocolate, and mexican food I want! On your birthday you can do that cause no one can judge you. Even for health reasons. I will pass out 10 times over today cause I can!
And all of this because......it makes SENSE!

So I guess being 21 rocks. :)

PS. I know I'm super late with Costa Rica pictures and all. I will get to it one of these days I promise!

Costa Rica baby!

Okay so in a week exactly I will be on a plane on my way to Costa Rica! Crazy place to be but I am super excited! Richard went there on his mission and is just itching to get back. Being as we got married a week before Christmas, we never really got a honeymoon so this is our excuse to go before we get busy with school and well... life. :) We'll be gone for close to two weeks but we promise to take tons of pictures so that we can share our adventure with you! So I won't be online for a while, but here's to vacation! See you all soon! :)

Ceeelebration Time, Come On!

This past Wednesday my brother Nathan got married to a wonderful woman. I am incredibly proud of him. It was a beautiful wedding and we all had a lot of fun! Here is a small portion of all the fun we had and just at the reception!
Uh...well let's just say I was given several accessories and had a lot of fun with them!
My nephew here saw me taking a picture and immediately gave me this pose. He knows how to work it! ha ha love it!
Melissa really enjoyed her birthday ice cream!
Again, I don't know how to explain this except my dear brother and I have fun when we get together. :)
Oh I love this man! Silliest person I ever met besides my family! ha ha he fits right in!

This is the one good picture I could get of Richard smiling! It took effort too! We just don't get enough pictures of us, it's terrible. But he sure looks cute when he does smile! :)
Here is all of us except Nate and our new sister-in-law. For some reason I never got a picture of them. My, aren't we a handsome group! :)

It was also my beautiful sister's 24th birthday! 24 of many things that I love about her is.....
I love how beautiful she is. Not only outside, but inside and extremely humble about it too.
I love the way she can make anybody smile just by being in the same room with her.
I love how she can be super silly around anyone and no one feels they need to send her to a psych ward. :)
I love how she convinces the both of us to buy something we know we shouldn't just because it's cute.
I love how she makes me feel beautiful when I feel crummy.
I love how she makes me feel welcome even if she is super busy with everything in her life.
I love that we always seems to be on the same page as me on everything.
I love that I can go to her about anything and she doesn't judge me or criticize me for it.
I love the many nights that we would stay up late to talk about the craziest stuff.
I love that she is so kind to everyone she meets.
I love that she doesn't have a single bad thing to say about people. (even if she does she finds a good quality about them.)
I love her strong testimony in the gospel.
I love that she is one of the strongest people I know.
I love that she is always there for me.
I love how she has always excepted me especially around her friends. She's always included me.
I love the way we can laugh about everything and never get sick of it.
I love the advice she has given me through all the hard times and made me feel better.
I love that she is generous with everything. Never once has she doubted that I wouldn't return something or take care of her things, especially her beautiful children. :)
I love how loving she is and caring.
I love her taste in style! :)
I love her good judgement.
I love her sense of humor.
I love that she is my best friend in the whole world.
But most of all, I love that she is my sister.
I love ya sis! Happy Birthday!

Let the memories begin!

This past week I spent it at my in-laws cabin up in Island Park. So. Much. Fun. Sadly Richard could only come up for a day because he had finals. Gotta love school.... Anyway, here are some of the fun memories we made!
This is the view from the back porch. It is absolutely gorgeous here! The windows of the kitchen are just behind me, so every meal, this is the view. Love it! We would also sling shot marbles from the porch. We're getting pretty good!
Here is the docks that we swim by. That little boat is dad's and he loves it! The dog is Kia. She belongs to Richard's eldest sister Jess. Kia was a lot of fun. She would run up and down the docks playing with her sticks.
Here little Ryker is playing with Grandma, mom, and Kia. This little guy makes everyone smile! We often would sit here to enjoy the view to use the sling shots. Grandma loved her sunshine!
We also spent most of the week riding four wheelers with the grandkids, which is super fun. Ryker was ready to go and lookin rockin while he was at it! He could hardly keep his head up! :)
The one day Richard was here he took me on the four wheeler after he had taken a shower from swimming. (scary as heck. He goes so fast you can hardly hang on!) His hair was still drying. When we got back he looked like this. I had to get a picture I was laughing so hard! He had wings in the back complete with a party in the front! ha ha!
We were able to get a cheap little tube to pull behind grandpa's boat and the grandkids loved it! Look how cute these girls are!
Richard had fun on it too! ha ha love the face! :)
We spent a day in Yellowstone park and as we were driving we came across traffic. Low and behold it was because a buffalo was coming up the street right next to us! This is taken in the car. The window make it glare, but it was cool!
There was another one on the other side of us trying to catch the first one. So funny! So many people. We played the license plate game to see how many of the 50 states we could find. We found all of them except 5 throughout the one day! Crazy!
Grandkids walkin with grandpa! Had to get a picture it was so cute! The two girls have matching outfits and hairdo's. They are cousins, but they looked so much alike! And Ashton in his orange. I'm pretty sure that is the only color he wore all week! :)
Here is Jocelynn and I at one the waterfalls we saw. The kids were so fun. Didn't want to do hardly anything without aunt Jalina. (That is how joce pronoun's my name. so cute) It is nice to be loved by so many kids! It definitely made my week! It is great to be an aunt!
Here is the rest of the fam! Wish we could have had all the men. We all missed them, but they all had to work. Good husband's providing for the family. (mom is taking the picture.) All in all we had fun together for this little reunion. I definitely married into one of the best families ever! I am one extremely lucky girl! :)

Lagoon awesomeness!

This last weekend, a couple of friends as well as Richard and I, decided to take a trip down to Utah for some fun! We drove down in Steve, (our little brown car) with everyone and their stuff in it. With Richard and I in the front, Jason, Spencer, and poor Britney squeezed in the middle in the back the entire ride, was pretty cozy, but we had a lot of good times! Saturday morning, we got up early to start off the day! We got to Lagoon at 10 when it opened and stayed until we couldn't walk any more. (which apparently is only 8 hours long because we left at 6) Of course my crazy fun husband likes to start the day with a bang! We went on the Samurai first thing. oh the spinning. For those who don't know me as well, I have really low blood pressure and an extremely weak stomach to go with it. I have to warm my stomach into the crazy rides so I don't have to sit out the entire day after throwing up or passing out. :) oh the joys of my life! So I sat out of this one and took pictures. sadly it wasn't my camera so I can't show you the only three pictures we took the entire trip! I know sad day. I will get better at that I promise! To continue this fabulous journey...I made a deal with my husband (his absolute favorite ride is the samurai and tried really hard to get me to go on it) if he would let me warm up my stomach on a few smaller rides, I would come back and do the samurai with him. Sadly by the time we got back to it, the lines were forever long. So I never actually got to ride it. (I'm kind of okay with it) Some of my favorite moments are with my former roommate and one of my best friends, Britney Davidson. Richard does hilarious things all the time, but I tend to laugh harder when Britney is there to laugh with me. (she is one of those people who have a very contagious laugh) There is a ride there that is in the shape of a dragon. Very fun by the way, but at the entrance there are two statues in the shape of lions. Being my weird self, I started rubbing his curly head like it was buddha. Richard says, "Don't touch the dragon! It's bad luck!" He then proceeded towards the ride as the line had moved at this point. Britney then mumbles under her breath, "You're right cause it's not a dragon. It's a lion." I started busting up because I hadn't even caught the fact that he had mixed up the animals. Plus the fact that she was really saying it to herself, it made it funnier to me. :)
After a full day of rides and spinning, along with queasy stomachs and headaches, we headed home for burgers and stadium of fire fireworks. At the very end of the day we watched Transformers. It was really fun with all of our friends and hope to do something like it again next year!
Almost immediately upon arriving home after a 4-5 hour drive, Richard wanted to go to his family cabin where his parents were at this time. Mind you, it's an hour drive! I convinced him to take like a 10 min nap before leaving again. We were both exhausted. So we drove another hour and got to swim in the lake and go boating with the family I got to babysit for in Idaho Falls. (Richard is there cousin so much of their family was there in a cabin next to us) It was a blast. The next day we headed back into town. On the way, Ricardo wanted to stop by his work in St. Anthony at the theater he often works at, to watch Transformers 3. (it was good by the way, but I still like the first two better) After an exhausting, but incredibly fun weekend, we were able to sleep well that night. We are hoping to do it again soon! :)

Recent Happenings

So a lot has happened that I haven't gotten around to telling about. For Richard's birthday he got a Rugar 22 gun. (yeah happy birthday right?) So he decided to take me shooting. Didn't make a single target I'm sure, but I got plenty of pictures of Richard shooting. We don't need to see my terrible skills... plus he just looks so dang good doing so. :) But I can officially say that I went shooting. Not one of my favorite things to do but I did it!

Looks like he knows what he's doing right? ha ha! Anyway we also recently went with the family to Lava Hot Springs. So fun! It's a half pool, half water park. some of the slides...well I refuse to go on them. Richard of course tried to make me go so I threw in a twist and said he had to go on the third platform. There are three different towers there and are extremely high. He was suddenly afraid. But he got Andrew and Roger (brothers-in-law) to go with him. He did actually go off the third one just the one time with Andrew, but we were too late for the picture. But we did get one of them going off the second one which is really high as well. I still never went on the slide. :) We sure had a lot of fun though!

Triathlon!!!

Okay, so some may have heard, or not heard, that I want to try and do a mini triathlon. Scary I know! I've been working out for several weeks now with some friends of mine and at least two of the three I have been working on! A lady walked up to us girls the other day and asked if we wanted to participate or to volunteer. I'm thinking about doing of the two... :)
It is on July 9th here at BYU-I just in the Hart, but it is getting out of my comfort zone and trying something new and attempting more of a healthier route in my life. As many of you know, is practically non existent for me. :) So, for any of you who may have tips as to how I might better train for this event, please let me know!

Finally started a blog!

Okay, so I have been trying to start a blog for a very long time now. Awesome. So here I am!
Yesterday was my husbands birthday. he is now 23. I thought I was getting old! One thing I have discovered about men is that you can't expect them to remember everything. He has done well to remember our anniversary. My birthday, well.....he at least got the month right. :) I believe girls are just freakishly aware of every significant date in their lives. For one, I know the date of his birthday, our proposal date, anniversary, his sisters birthday, his mothers birthday, the day he asked me out and our actual first date, the first kiss is a little fuzzy, but I know about when. Crazy I know. You would think that with men and there very organized boxes in their brains and women have very chaotic brains that they would be able to remember better......I will never fully understand men.