Dear Earth, I'm sorry for my giant carbon foot print.. I promise to recycle.

I am so excited about my summer plans! ..Can I share them with you??
I  am curently in Virginia with my sister-in-law Kimi and my cute little nieces, and I've been able to see my in-military-training brother too!

...Then, I will hop on a plane and fly to paris, where I will have a 15 hour layover in PARIS. Oh hello Eiffel tower, crepes, and amazingnes... nice to meet you, let's fall in love.

...Then I will fly overnight to Johannesburg, arrive in the morning and catch a plane to Mozambique where I will finally, finally be reunited with my hubby and get to meet all the people that he loves so much!

..After 10 days Jake and I will fly to Atlanta together where we will spend 2 weeks with Jakes family, relaxing at the lake house and eating yummy southern food.

..Thennn.. I will fly to Seattle to spend a week with my parents (Jake will stay in atlanta).

(pike place market)

..Theenn (we are talkin June now..) Jake and I will both fly back to SLC where we will have 1 week to get super excited for Jordan & Bradys wedding.

(photo added after original post)

.. Then we have summer term of school (6 weeks)
               ..........bleh
..And we finish out the summer with a week in Seattle & a week in Spokane.


(haha, mia i couldn't resist.)

Then back to school for a long, long, time.

 I'm thinking we better enjoy it now, because how can life get much better than that? I feel more blessed than I deserve and more excited than I can handle.

Getting caught up, part 2

My life in bullet points:

--Missing my husband

--Trying to think of crafts to do, realizing my house is full of crafts, trying to redo wall hanging in bedroom, ending up with an ugly smelly project that will be thrown in the dump and never completed, oh well.

--Sleepovers with my sista

--Cleaning out my closet, selling clothes so I can buy new clothes. Including a bunch of new earrings & necklaces for super cheap. And an African looking maxi dress, I may not fit in here, but I'm thinking I'll blend in nicely in Africa.

---Chocolate, lots of chocolate. ..Jake out of town= me eating way more chocolate than I can handle. My sister brought me a giant piece of my favorite cake--chocolate bouvliard. I also ate a frosty, a piece of dark chocolate cake, Reese's peanut butter cups, and some other stuff {this is my way of ending the list so I don't get to embarrassed by the amount of chocolate I consumed in a week}.
--Finding a lot of entertainment by reading forums from others with 'chocolate sensitivity' lol
--Feeling my mean twin take over
--Jake asking me to never eat chocolate again, even if we are far away. Point taken hahaha, but I am not ready to commit to a lifetime with out my favorite food group.

excuse the double chins...you understand, right?



Getting caught up... Part 1

I feel like I have a lot of blogging to catch up on and I don’t really know where to start! So instead of doing a bunch of separate posts I’m just going to sum up as much as I can, quickly. Unfortunately, I have really FAILED at taking pictures lately, so forgive me please.

Jake’s parents came into town a week or so ago. As always they treated us to lots of yummy food and we had fun spending time with them! I didn’t cook one thing for an entire week and LOVED it. lol There was lots of wedding plans happening, which I also love.

Jarett & Jordan {Jake’s siblings} both went to the temple for the first time together. That was the first time I ever went to the Draper, UT temple and WOW was it gorgeous!! It was so nice being there with family and feeling the peace that surrounds you there.

I was a cry baby for a week {or more..} before Jake left for AFRICA. Seriously, I cried every day just in anticipation of him leaving. So embarrassing. And the airport scene/ drive home/ days following… I can’t even go there! Lol I’m pretty sure I convinced myself he would die there and never come home, and that is the excuse I’m giving myself for being such a wreck. As of now, I’m doing much better and loving the inventor of Skype.

Moving on from my emotional craziness--- JAKE IS IN MOZAMBIQUE {and has been for over a week}!! He has been talking about going back to where he served a 2 year mission since I met him. So you can imagine his excitement when his parents so kindly got him {and me!!} flights to visit! Jake wanted to surprise his friends in Mozambique and I wasn’t too excited about announcing my alone-ness to the entire world over the internet, thus the delay in the news.

We are hoping to set up a non-profit organization there to help women who suffer from domestic violence and who have nowhere to go. Right now Jake is filming a little documentary that we will use for fundraising to get this project started. It will be a lifelong adventure that I am super excited about. My husband inspires me.

Check.

I’m giving myself one giant check mark, because I am DONE DONE DONE with finals.

Every time I have finals, I seriously question why I go to school, is it really worth all the torture? Luckily I always have some time before school starts up again, that the terribleness of school fades enough and I remember to be grateful for an education.

I can’t remember the last time that I got done with finals that I wasn’t leaving for vacation, to go home, to move apartments, or just something that had to be done. . in fact---it’s never happened… UNTIL NOW!! I have spent days studying for finals & depriving myself of sleep. So please excuse me while I sit on my bum and watch t.v. for days {ok, well maybe only one day, until I decide to be productive again}. It will be wonderful.

...What a difference a day makes..
And the best part?.. I either got a 3.88 or a 3.95 GPA this semester {at least I'm pretty sure..}.. chyaa.. I’ll brag about it AND pat myself on the back.

Focus.

Today I am having such a hard time focusing. The last day of finals is Thursday. I still have my psychological testing final, psychological statistics final, a paper to turn in (which is done--thank heavens), a powerpoint to put together, and a group presenation. So now would really be the time to start focusing! However, I have felt tired and lazy all day and haven't accomplished nearly as much as I need to. I'm even playing  classical music thinking somehow that might help---it doesn't.

On the bright side, I just found out today that Jake and I both got academic scholarships through winter semester of next year. I'm pretty excited..

Ready...set..focus!

A little love note.

Today I want to write a love note to my amazing husband, Jake.

I just feel so in love with him every day. Today I was looking at my phone and realized I have a million pictures of Jake—stalker status. But I’m ok with it because they make me smile. More importantly, Jake makes me smile, for so many reasons.

--He will always tell me what he thinks
--He is a great decision maker
--The way he looks at life just cracks me up
--He puts up with my crazy girl emotions
--He is the best protector ever
--He likes to cuddle
--He surprises me with cute things
--He is insanely smart (this is something I mostly love, but also hate a little bit)
--He makes me a much better person
--His wheels are always turning
--He has such strong faith in God
--things like-- the slow drip dance
--He has a HUGE heart
--putting up with my desire to slow dance in the living room a few times a week
--He will make a difference for a lot of people
--He has a super cute smile {see below}
--Sometimes he holds my hand in his sleep
--He is so so perfect for me.

all pictures via my iphone--thus the bad quality.

There are just so many reasons why I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. I just couldn’t help but blog about it. And this is one blog post that I will make sure Jake reads. : )

Mommas here.

My momma came to visit. It was lovely, I chatted her ear off until the wee hours of the night. She COMPLETELY stocked my cupboards and freezer to the brim. This wasn’t an ordinary grocery shop—she cooked and marinated tons of meat and sauces and onions and just so much I can’t even explain. Also she made a bunch of homemade granola that I can’t stop snacking on. I keep going back to the cupboards and freezer and get so excited discovering things she’s packed away in there. She worked for so long doing it and I am officially awarding her Mom of the year. Yep –it’s official.

(please excuse the terrible picture quality.. my iphone was all I had with me)

all those jars are full of cooked hamburger. And there's a bunch of chicken & a million other things!

Besides all the hard work, we also relaxed. We went to one of my favorite Provo restaurants—La Jolla Groves. The food was so delicious everyone ordered dessert. Oh yum.

lemon tiramisu



rasberry.. something?

chocolate lava cake

Another day we went to my sister’s favorite local Tai food place. It has weird seats and its pretty good. After dinner we showed my mom the Rebecca black “Friday” song. It just cracks me up.

It was so nice having my mom here—I love talking to her and she is so helpful! Dad—provo is calling your name—you’re next!

Operation.

Operation get Nicia to move to Provo (OGNTMTP).

I’ve known Nicia before we could talk, but we go’ed and ga’ed and each other and we were great friends. She lives in Seattle and I live in Provo and it makes me sad. Therefore when her family came to Park City we took advantage of the opportunity and I secretly tried to convince her to move here. Actually I was pretty obvious about it; I have no shame. We’ve also known Missy forever & she was the perfect partner in crime.

First, we went to lunch at Jdogs. When you visit Provo you just have to go. It’s the perfect polish dog with “special sauce” that’s to die for. I mean it’s still a hot dog, but its good.

Nicia with her first (but not last) J dog. ;)

Then, we had girl talk at my place for awhile. But then we showed Nicia Provo’s best selling point, tons of guys. Hahahah Oh my, I told you I am shameless. We took her to the business building, where there are an unusual amount of boys (for single girls).

Later we went for a little tour de Provo and showed her all of our favorite apartment complexes. We even showed her “the pent” which is Jordan and Tessa’s apartment. It’s super adorable so we thought that was a good selling point. lol

Then we went to Sammys. It’s a little hole in the wall that has amazing milk shakes. They make the shake with an entire piece of pie, cobbler, cupcake, or whatever you want mixed in. Oh my so delicious.
We had fun, so I’d say it was a success!
(ps. Nicia please don’t hate me and know that I am mostly kidding). LOL.

Our Wedding Part 1

With Jake’s sister Jordan getting married, I’ve been spending some time looking at wedding blogs. It really serves no purpose except so I can ooo and aaah at all the creative ideas.


All of this wedding business has made me realize that since I wasn't blogging when we got married, I havent shared any of our wedding pictures! So today, I'm going to post a million pictures from our wedding that bring back so many fun memories for me & hopefully you can enjoy them too.

(We have a million pictures of friends and realatives at the wedding, and hopefully someday I will post those, but for today I mostly just posted details and decorations)

Our Wedding Part 2

 These are in a very random order : )