Matt and Amanda Ekman

Graduation

2011-07-03T19:00:00.001-07:00

Well it has been an awfully long time since I have posted anything. We have just had so many things going on lately, so its been very busy. I will have a few catch up posts shortly. First of all was graduating from BYU.

Matt and I both graduated and it was so fun to be able to walk together. Matt received his degree in Geospatial Intelligence and I received a degree in Exercise Science. It feels so weird to be done, it will be weird when Matt starts law school in the fall and I won't be starting school :( Hopefully I can get into a dental hygiene program wherever we end up and then I will back to school. It is so amazing to achieve this lifelong goal. Both my family and Matt's parents came for graduation and it was so much fun. We got to eat lots of good food and we all went to Texas Roadhouse after the actual graduation...soo yummy! And after that we had to pack up our house and move it into storage. We were lucky to have Matt's parents help us to pack everything and even help clean, we were so grateful for that.

We are both just so priviledged to have such wonderful and and supportive families who are always there for us and who have helped us to get to this point in our lives and we are so grateful for them. :)

Now here are some pictures from graduation.
Walking across the stage to get our diplomas.

Here we are with my family minus Blake who had a Basketball tournament that weekend.

And here we are with Matt's parents.

Of course we had to take pictures by these big signs on the way up to campus.

Posing with the cougar

More updates coming soon.....

Where in the world will Matt go for law school?!

2011-04-27T12:55:00.000-07:00

So this post will be long just a warning. To start I want to talk about our last minute trip to Vegas that we took the week before graduation. We had no school on Thursday and Friday so we decided to drive down to Vegas and then California to go and look at Pepperdine's Law School and UNLV's Law school. I am so glad we took this trip because it has helped to narrow at least 1 decision down. So we packed up and left Utah at like 7:30 pm Wednesday to get to Vegas. We got there at like 12:30 and then we left Vegas at 3:40 AM! to drive to Malibu, CA. Luckily my husband is awesome and I had a little bed in the back seat while he drove that first stretch. We had a meeting at 10:30 with the admissions lady at Pepperdine to take a tour and sit in on a class. Let's just say we were less than enthused with Pepperdine. It has a beautiful location and is a very good school but we just didn't click with it.

So we went into this thinking it was definitely where we would want to go and came out of it knowing it is not where we should go. We just did not get a good vibe here, the school felt like a high school and people were so inappropriately dressed. We just expected that people in law school would try to be a little more professional and take their schooling seriously. Anyways we have decided that we will be turning down Pepperdine it just was not the right fit for us and we really do not feel like that is where we are supposed to be, plus I don't care to deal with the traffic, crazy drivers, and ridiculous living costs. So yay we have made at least one decision! So after our visit we drove to Beverly Hills to see my sissy in law Rachel and go to lunch. It was a quick visit but it was fun and we were glad we got to say hi :) then we drove back to Vegas and of course hit the awful 5 o'clock LA traffic :(. We got home at like 10:30 exhausted.
Ok ya still with me?.... So on Friday morning we went to take a tour of UNLV's law school. I was almost like let's not even go but I am so glad that we did. We met with the admissions director and he was soo nice. He knew Matt's file and commented on his essay, it was so nice to have him be personable with us. We loved it! I have actually never been to the campus before and I really liked it.

We had such a better feeling about this school and the students we saw acted so much more mature and were dressed nicely. The school is very young and isn't as well known as some of the other schools we have looked at but there are soo many more perks to going to UNLV.
1. Matt has a bomb scholarship offer to UNLV
2. We would be close to both our families (mine in Vegas and Matt's in Oregon)
3. We could buy a HOUSE, and finally get a dog :)!
4. I can get back into horse back riding :)
5. I can apply for dental hygiene school and hopefully get in :)
6. We have lots of friends in Vegas instead of moving back east and knowing no one :(

I think I'm sold but we still want to take a trip back east to see our other school options there. So we are working our last 2 weeks at our jobs in Provo and then we are moving to Vegas for the rest of the month to my house until we can figure out where we are going. We are planning a trip during that time. We are going to look at Villanova in PA (where we have another scholarship offer also they have a sweet study abroad program in Rome!:) ), University of Maryland, American University in DC (pretty sure we are turning this down, it is a very liberal school and just doesn't sound like what we want), and William and Mary in VA. I forgot to add that we may take a trip to Texas to see University of Houston, and we will most likely drive to Arizona to look at ASU. We were also accepted to Willamette in OR with a scholarship but we have turned that one down. It is going to be a busy trip and we have a huge decision to make very soon. So that is plan for right now, I am very excited to finalize our decision and get started on this next step of our lives. Anyone who has gone to any of the schools or visited them etc. let me know what your impressions were/are.

Ok lastly I am gonna finish up on the rest of our time in Vegas. Friday I was able to get my hair done yay! Seriously I don't know what I am going to do if we move far away I just don't trust anyone else with my hair (Leslie has been doing my hair since I was like 10 or so and has known me since I was a baby). We ate Raising Canes, their chicken fingers are soo good! Also Friday night we got to go and see Le Reve at The Wynn. My dad got us tickets and it was a sweet show. All of the acrobatics and effects of the show were really fun to watch, we were both lost on the story line though. But I am glad we got to go see it, I had no idea that the whole stage is a big pool!

After the show Matt wanted to walk around a bit (great idea since i was in heels...not. Here is the Wynn fountain.

We went as far as Caesars Palace and then came back. I was trying to take Matt to the Nike Store in the forum shops but it is closed until summer they are like renovating it. So we walked all the way over there for nothing :( Well not for nothing it was still fun just walking around with Matt.

(Ok im getting on my soap box here but I just have to defend my hometown for a minute. I am sick of people always bagging on Vegas and saying its soo sinful and gross. Um hello ya if you spend all your time on the strip that is what you will find but your asking for it there because you know what to expect before you go so its no big surprise. Also can I please point out to these Vegas haters that what you see on the strip is not Vegas those are all the tourists! The tourists bring the trash to the strip, get drunk, act slutty etc. You can ask just about any person from Las Vegas and the majority of them will say they never really go to the strip except to see a show, try a nice restaurant, spend a night in a fancy hotel for a special occasion, to show visitors around because they want to go, or to go shopping. Also there is a HUGE LDS population in Vegas so its not all bad. Once you realize that Vegas is not the strip you see that it is a nice place with nice homes, people, and things to do. Im sure all of my fellow Las Vegans have been irritated by this too at some point or another so you know what I'm saying.) We love it there that's why so many of us have gone back!

Ok back to the trip...On Saturday it was so nice to sleep in a little although my body clock is still set to wake up at 7 am :(. We went around with my dad to look at storage units, and then we all went to dinner with my grandma and Aunt Edyth to Lindo Michoacan for my dad's birthday.

Afterwards Morgan, Matt, and I went to grab Yogurtland for everyone :) We watched the new Narnia movie which was lame. On Sunday we had to leave pretty early to get back by 7 to show our house to some potential new tenants. It ended up being too expensive for them but we fulfilled our contract so we don't have to stress about finding a renter just show the house to interested couples :)

Well that wraps up our trip, we have a lot of big decisions to make in the next month wish us luck!! Oh ya and I have graduation to blog about next :)

Dilemma solved

2011-04-21T11:21:00.000-07:00

I finally got my hair done and I love it, I'm back to my more natural dark hair. Oh and I didn't cut my bangs I'm gonna try growing them out for a little while longer. :) What do ya think?

Palm Springs (unofficial Spring Break)

2011-04-18T09:40:00.000-07:00

Well we have been doing a lot lately and I just have been too lazy/busy to try to blog. So I will just update quickly and with lots of pictures. So since BYU doesn't give us a spring break we created our own. Matt's parents rented a beautiful house in Palm Springs for everyone to come and stay at. This year we were very happy to have a bed we could sleep together in :), last year our room was 2 twin beds and you bet we still slept together but not very comfortably haha.It was a little cooler and overcast the first couple of days that we were there but the last 2 days were perfect! Also side-note: Any vacation where all the kids are present is amazing birth control for us haha. It is wonderful to have these kinds of trips every year to keep us on track ;). We have been the couple in the family to wait the longest before having a baby, so we feel very accomplished. Awwww its so nice to go to sleep at night and not have to worry about anything but me and the hubby, we always get to eat first because we don't have to fix kids plates , and we can do whatever we want and not have to worry about where the kids are or who can watch them. I realize that this sounds a little selfish but I don't really care, we deserve to have a few selfish years to ourselves to complete the things we want to do and just be together.(sorry for that little tangent):) Anyways, these pictures are not necessarily in the order that they occurred but here they are.

Here we are in the backyard, which had an open view to the golf course.

We rode bikes.

We played the game "Headbanz" with the kids.

We sang and ate Birthday cake for Akoni-32, Matt-25, and Amanda-23(gosh im so old now!)

We golfed. (On alittle putting green in the backyard and at an actual golf course, I drove the cart and I actually hit a ball over the water and not into it! Major life accomplishment).

We got to eat at Cheesecake Factory on Matt's birthday and to celebrate the other birthdays (Kid free!) And mom and dad E treated all of us, it was soo good. thanks so much!

We hung out by the pool (attempting to get some sun and wearing my new swimsuit and awesome hat!).

And Matt was busy being his usual silly self :) I sure do love that boy!

Well there is a quick recap of our fun little break. We are glad we were able to go down and enjoy the nice weather to get a break from this nasty overcast/rainy/snowy Utah weather.

Well many more post updates to come....

Dilemma!

2011-03-24T11:51:00.000-07:00

Ok so I have a dilemma that is very very serious. I will be getting my hair done soon, (which is way overdue) and I don't know what to do! I have been growing my bangs out for the last little while but now I think I want to cut them for summer. What should I do!? And my husband is of no help on the matter he thinks I look good either way so I have to decide myself :( Seriously though, give me your opinions friends bangs or no bangs? Here is a sample...

NO bangs...?

or bangs...?

Accepted!!!

2011-03-08T10:32:00.000-08:00

So I just have to announce that Matt received his first law school acceptance yesterday and I am so proud of him! He was so excited yesterday this is the first school we have heard back from so far so hopefully we have many more acceptances headed our way :) I'm so grateful for this bit of news because now we can relax a little since we at least have one option and a pretty good option at that so no matter what we will be going to law school this fall! :) There are still a ton of schools that have Matt's file "in review" right now so hopefully we will be getting some more responses soon. I will have a another post with all of our options soon :) As for now I am just so excited that everything is finally becoming real for us, I just cant wait until we can high tail it outta Provo (yay finally!) and move somewhere new and exciting :) Law School here we come!!!

I think I should get this book for myself so I have some clue as to what it is that my hubby will be doing everyday. Haha. :)

I can't wait for this!! :)

2011-02-23T09:34:00.000-08:00

So Matt and I went looking at lab puppies yesterday! We wanted to see if we like black labs or yellow labs better and I think it will be a yellow lab. It was so fun and I just love those cute little puppies. I can't wait until we can get one! Seriously I can't stand waiting for anything I just want to take one of those cute little guys home now but we cant :( Well in the meantime I will be looking at lots of cute puppy pictures like this...

Valentine's Day Festivities

2011-02-17T10:00:00.000-08:00

So Valentine's Day was awesome this year! (Well all of our Valentine's Days have been awesome together.) First of all here are some pictures of a few of the Valentine's Day decorations that I made. First is some letters that say "Kiss" and I put a kissing picture of us next to them, and second is a yarn wreath I made with sparkly white felt rosettes :). I love how they both turned out! It was just enough decor without being too much.

Ok so to start off when I woke up I found surprise #1. There was a pink mug sitting there with a little note. It also was full of milk chocolate dove hearts with the little messages, i love those. I have been wanting a pink tumbler mug for so long so this was perfect! It was cute Matt wrote a cute little poem to go with it, he is so creative and good at getting things to rhyme.

(The flash makes it look like the little card is blank but its not)
Before Matt came back to pick me up for work I hurried and set out his surprise. I had made his card using the little candy sweethearts with the messages on them. It turned out perfect, I was so proud. Underneath his card was a "love coupon" to go to that new indoor surfing place at The Riverwoods. He was very excited when he saw both his surprises and I can't wait to watch him try the surfing thing.

So at around 9 am came surprise #2. A pomegranate pick me up Jamba for breakfast, my favorite! It's actually a little joke we have to always get a Jamba on Valentine's Day. This also came with another clever little poem. I wanted to type up what the poems said but Matt made me promise not too, he is embarrassed but I think they are awesome! :)

After work Matt took me to get lunch at California Pizza Kitchen. It was perfect! We had the Chipotle Chicken Pizza and a Sicilian Pizza. They were both soo yummy :) Seriously you have to try the Chipotle one its amazing!

I don't have any pictures of Matt, he didn't want to be in any of them :(.
After our lunch we headed home to take a nap. When I walked in the door I found surprise #3 waiting for me. A beautiful arrangement of 1/2 dozen red ecuadorian roses :)They are so pretty and they are continuing to grace our kitchen table :)

There were a few more things on the table as well. Surprise #4 was a note that said to "Meet here at 6 for a dinner by Chef Matt". And Envelope 2 had surprise #5 in it. Tickets to go see "Just Go With It at Thanksgiving Point. I had really been wanting to see this movie and it was soo funny. We were laughing the whole time, seriously if you have seen this the coconut part I was dying at hahaha. Also surprise #6 was some yummy caramel and white chocolate with cinnammon sugar covered pretzel sticks. This plus my dove chocolates were perfect movie snacks!

(I wore my hot pink peacoat to be extra festive :)
So while I got ready Chef Matt prepared a delicious Valentine's Day feast for us. He made filet mignon with a tasty rub on it, grilled veggies(bell peppers, onions and zucchini) that was seriously soo tasty, caesar salad, and asparagus in a butter and white wine sauce. He kept saying he messed up on everything, but seriously it was flawless! I loved every single bite, it was the perfect dinner. I had said I wanted a home dinner instead of trying to battle the crowds at a restaurant and Chef Matt far surpassed any restaurant :)Plus he served it on our pretty wedding china and we had sparkling cider :) Side note: This boy cooks the BEST steaks! he seriously is a grilling master. I am sad I didnt take a picture of our dinner set up, I was too anxious to eat it :) After dinner we changed into comfy sweats and went to the movie. It was a perfect day. I love how Matt was able to make the day feel special for me. I love you Matthew Alder Ekman so so much and I am so grateful and happy that you are MINE forever! I feel totally overdone though, but Matt says Valentine's Day is a day for husbands to spoil their wives and that what I did was perfect, so that made me feel better :). Anyways I can't wait for all of our future Valentine's Days together. Up next we have birthdays, graduation, waiting to hear back from law schools and then deciding where to go,our 2 year anniversary, and moving to a new state in hopefully May or June. We are going to be busy busy busy these next 2 months just the way I like it :)

2011-02-14T10:42:00.000-08:00

Being married really makes Valentine's Day so much more fun!! There is no stress attached to it so it really can just be a fun day to surprise and love each other. It is fun to do little special things for each other. I love sneaking around to set stuff up and surprise him. I was actually telling Matt yesterday that everyday with him is like Valentine's Day because everyday we celebrate our love and do special things for each other! I know that sounds cheesy but all you other married folk will agree. :)I hope Matt will enjoy his little surprises and I know that I will! I can't wait to get off work today and spend the rest of today with my Valentine! I mean who wouldn't want to spend the day with this hottie!? Happy Valentine's Day babe! I love you forever!

Also I plan on doing lots of this today. But lets be honest we do lots of this everyday! :)

(Oh how I wish we were back in a tropical land on the beach right now, but thats ok fun vacation coming after graduation! Yay cant wait :)

New post with pictures of actual Valentine's Day festivities coming tomorrow!
Loves!

Aww Color Me Mine :)

2011-02-10T11:15:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures from one of our most recent date nights at color me mine. I forgot to take any pictures during the painting process but here is the final result. I painted a goblet and Matt painted a cereal bowl. We love all of our fun creations from color me mine. It is one of our favorite date activities!

The newest member of our family!

2011-02-04T10:54:00.000-08:00

And now presenting...Humphrey!! Haha I bet you all thought this was a baby announcement nope its my new stuffed animal friend. Matt and I went on a date to build a bear and came home with this little guy. You can now find him sitting on our bed or being held by me :)

haha

2011-02-03T10:45:00.001-08:00

This picture made my day. haha, the little chick is soo cute!

Brittany's Wedding

2011-01-12T10:10:00.001-08:00

Ok so I have just had no desire to blog lately, call me lazy. So sorry this post is rambly and unorganized :(. Anyways so Matt and I finished all of our finals on Thursday night (December 16) and at about 8pm we left to drive down to Vegas for my sister's wedding. On Friday we did last minute wedding stuff, I got my nails done and Matt ran errands with my mom. That night there was a wedding dinner at Olive Garden hosted by the Baker family. It was really good and lots of fun! I don't have any pictures from that because I was taking pictures on my dad's camera for the night. Later that night Britt didn't really want a bachelorette party so all of her bridesmaids just came to our house to paint their nails and toes all matching bright pink, and then we played Dance Central on the Kinnect which was hilarious and way fun!

The next day was the wedding and boy was it hectic. Well it started out with a very calm and relaxed morning, all the girls getting ready but then we started running out of time. My mom and Brittany had already left so i was left at home to make sure that Morgan and Blake had everything together and ok. I was very proud of myself I thought of all the little things we could possibly need like scissors and safety pins, etc so when my mom was freaking out I was just like oh hey ya I brought those :) haha Oh ya and Matt and I were the last ones to make it to the temple, we got there like 1 minute after the sealing was supposed to start. But we made it yay! It was the same guy who sealed Matt and I a year and a half ago so that was really cool that he sealed Brittany and Quinn as well. Next was getting everything ready to go outside and take pictures and let me tell you it was sooo cold and it was really windy so all the girls hair was flying around like mad. But we survived. Here are a few pics from the temple.

The happy couple

freezing our tail-feathers off!

I found myself a dead sexy groomsman ;)

So after all of the picture snapping we finally were able to escape the cold. Matt and I went off the the Encore to decorate the hotel room for the newlyweds. It was fun we put rose petals and candles everywhere. Then we went back to the house for a 20 minute lunch break, then to the Red Rock Country club for the reception. We had our hair and makeup fixed and then it was back outside for more pictures.

All the bridesmaids in the dressing rooms, well except Amanda P. and Mackenzie.

I got to hang out with my handsome man. He was seriously the best all day! I was a frantic mess running around doing things, getting frustrated when things went wrong and he was just so patient and well, the perfect husband.

The Bridal party

So the reception was great, they had the same food as at our reception and this time Matt and I were able to eat and enjoy everything :). My mom even ordered a sheet cake of Matt and I's cake that we were able to eat and it was delicious! Hey we even got a few presents from people who didn't give them to us at our wedding haha. It was fun to dance again with my hubby and to talk to friends and lots of family. We are so happy for Brittany and Quinn and wish them the best!

I loved being a part of this wedding because it helped me to realize how much everyone in my family did for me at my wedding. Its a lot of hard work to get everything just right. When your the bride you don't really see all the hard work and I was able to see how much my family did to make my day perfect and I am so grateful for that. My parents never read this but thanks so much mom and dad for everything you did to make everything about my wedding perfect!

I also hope that I was able to help make Brittany's day perfect. Its great to look and see how lucky me and my sister have been. We both found awesome guys who just love us to death and were worthy to take us to be married in the temple forever :) I am so grateful for that! Morgan's future husband has a lot to live up to!

Coming soon will be my post about the rest of our break in Oregon!

Update!

2010-12-09T08:03:00.000-08:00

Well I know it has been literally forever since I have posted anything but Matt and I have been so stinkin busy this last little while. This post is just gonna be me randomly blabbing about what we've been up to so sorry if its all over the place, and I have no pictures either :(.

We had a great time at Thanksgiving with my family in Las Vegas. Matt and I got up at 4am on Black Friday with my dad to go shopping it was hilarious to see all these people lined up! We shopped for a really long time but it was lots of fun.

Also my sister Brittany's wedding is coming up so things with that have been hectic. I threw a bridal shower for my house last Saturday and it turned out soo cute! It was so much work though and I felt like crap still from my surgery. I am flying home on Friday to be there when she goes through the temple, yes the week before finals! Seriously such a stressful time to have a wedding, anyways I am excited to go home for a few days but sad because Matt will not be joining me. He is taking the blasted LSAT again so he will be in Provo studying and taking the test and of course missing his wife :( Then next weekend we have to drive to Vegas late late Thursday night after my microbiology final to get there for all the wedding festivities. Then we will be flying to Oregon to spend Christmas with Matt's parents.

So for anyone that knew I was having surgery here is an update on that. First of all I had been having pain for over a year now in my low back and front pelvic area that no one knew what was causing it, finally a doc decided they needed to check for something called endometriosis which grows all around the reproductive organs and can cause a lot of pain and infertility so the y wanted to do a laparoscopy. I had my laparoscopy and some other thing where they flush out by tubes done last Wednesday Dec. 1. I really thought it wouldn't be that bad/painful afterwards but I was in for a surprise. I was feeling awful up until about yesterday. But I am glad that it is over with although right at the end of the semester/ finals was probably not the best time to have surgery. I was really sore and nauseaus :(. So anyways the doc did find endometriosis and got it all removed and my tubes are clear. I go in next Tuesday for an apt so I can find out more about how everything went. But yay! I am so glad they finally figured out what was causing the pain and that now it is gone, on the other hand it sucks that I have endo because it will never really go away it will continue to grow back ugh! Anyways thats the update on that hopefully everything continues to go well. (Anyone else have endo? let me know what you've had to do to manage it/its effects on you, I am curious to know what I am really dealing with)

One last thing, Matt finally took me to see the new Harry Potter movie and I absolutely loved it!! It was so good and I can't wait for part 2. All I pretty much watch anymore is Harry Potter when Im at home haha I am obsessed and I like it! Also we went to Smashburger for a late lunch/dinner and it is soo good. They have really really good burgers and Im not ususally a burger person. We had never gone because a friend told us it was nasty but my dad took us when we were in Vegas and Im so glad he did because we were missing out. Seriously go eat there and get their sweet potato fries :)

Alrighty well I should probably start studying for my test today and no one is prob even reading this really long post with no pics anyways. I can't wait to finish this semester because next semester I only have 2 classes woohoo!!Well I can't say when I will post again but hopefully I will take some pics! Adios!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

2010-11-04T10:24:00.001-07:00

Woo hoo I cant wait for HP 7 part 1 to come out! I won't be going at midnight however because #1 I need my sleep and I work at 8am the next morning, and #2 I hate worrying about getting a good seat at a theater especially with a movie as good as this, I will not settle for less than perfect seating! Oh and #3 I don't want to listen to obnoxious teenagers who cheer at every part haha I am serious about my Harry Potter. Hopefully the husband will be smart and take me on a date to see the movie :)Oh and don't worry I will totally have my wand on me :)
Love my wand! And no Im not one of those weirdos but I really love HP!

Caramel Apples!

2010-10-19T08:52:00.000-07:00

SO last night we decided to make our own caramel apples instead of paying the $6 for one from Rocky Mountain Chocolate factory and voila! We created a masterpiece :)We invited Britt and Quinn over to make them too and it was a lot of fun. Matt did burn the first bag of white chocolate(I have already learned by now to always have a back-up ready so naturally we had a second bag!)but the second one was perfect! Yum I can't wait to eat mine when I get home from school today.

Also on a side note Matt and I are obsessed with the TV show Modern Family so we bought the first season on blu-ray and we have been watching them non stop. Seriously if you have not seen this show you must watch it, it's our favorite and is so hilarious! Can't wait for a new episode on Wednesday!

Halloween Time!

2010-10-12T09:07:00.000-07:00

Well I just love October. I love that the weather is cooling down and I just love the fall atmosphere. I love Halloween but I hate the dressing up part, I like all of the candy and fun decorations but costumes are just too stressful. I can't wait to have kids to take trick or treating and I hope that we have some trick-or-treaters come to our house this year since we are in a house and not a hard to reach apt! I also love watching Halloween type movies, Im not talking about the gory rediculous ones but the classics. I want to/need to watch Hocus Pocus, and Practical Magic, and Halloweentown, hopefully I can find all those movies or they come on TV :). Also this year I finally got some decorations for my house. There are just a few but i like them and they make the days much more enjoyable. I also made a little Halloween craft. Christina and I made these little lantern lights to hang up and they turned out soo cute!(see pictures below). I also have some stuff outside but I haven't taken a picture yet because it isn't done plus we still need to go pick out pumpkins. Oh and speaking of pumpkins I made my awesome Chocolate chip pumpkin cookies the other day and they were delicious, i can't wait to make more as Halloween gets closer :) Anyway here are some pictures of my, very small, amount of decorations.
Here is my table centerpiece (I just loved the witches hat!!)

And this is my candy bowl that scares me to death every time I walk by it and don't know its on haha

Decorations on the bar.

And here is a picture with the light thing I made (I made the little Halloween lanterns hanging from the lights)

I know its really not much of anything exciting at all but I like it and it makes me feel a little bit festive. Also here is a picture of the Family letters that I made a few weeks ago, unrelated to Halloween but it was a really fun craft and they turned out soo cute! Christina and I have developed craft Saturdays and we are finding all sorts of fun things to make, we are bringing out our craftier sides and it is so much fun!

And last but not least Matt got a new gun! Its a shotgun and he loves it! It is really fun. This was supposed to be his birthday present but then he couldnt make up his mind so now he has it and he is in love haha. I have more pictures and really funny videos from when we first took it out but I have to put those up a different time :)

Anyways thats a little update for now, I will have more pictures of our activities coming soon!!

LSAT

2010-10-11T11:01:00.000-07:00

Woohoo Matt is all done with the LSAT and the stress of that blasted test :) I am so proud of him for studying so hard and practicing and I know it will pay off. He is so smart! Now we have to wait 3 weeks to get the score back and I think it will be worse on me than on him haha. Until then we will start working on law school applications and everything yay, I am just so excited to get this ball rolling so we can hopefully figure out where we will be going next year! Anyways I will have a new post soon with some pictures but I just wanted to proclaim the awesome news of Matt getting done with the LSAT. Now we just have to patiently wait....

My last year of school!!

2010-09-14T09:37:00.000-07:00

So on August 31, 2010 I officially started my last year at BYU! Wahoo. Matt and I will both be graduating in April 2011. I cant believe we will have been married for 2 years when we graduate! We are so very excited to pass this stage of life and move on to the next, law school for him and dental hygiene for me :)

(The baby cougar is much cuter than the real one haha)

And not to mention we are just dying to get out of Provo! Don't get me wrong I have enjoyed my time here and learned to appreciate the good things Utah has to offer but its just not where I want to be permanently and I am sick of living in a college town, it definitely changes in Provo when your married instead of single. I am really hoping to go somewhere on the east coast so we will see where Matt gets accepted and then I can't wait to start planning! This semester so far scares me. I am just at that lazy point where I am so sick of school and homework and I just wish I was already done but I know I will get through it it just takes frequent pep talks from Matt haha. I don't understand how he never really stresses out. And the rare times he does he hardly shows it, that boy seriously has so many amazing qualities that I need to pick up on. So this semester I am taking Worksite Health Promotion, Personal Training Strategies(where my teacher scares me and literally locks us out if we are not there right when class starts...lame!), Food prep (which I am taking with Matt and it is way fun), and then Microbiology with Micro lab (ahh shoot me now this class is hard! but the stuff is interesting). So that is how it goes. All I have left to do for next semester is take Public Speaking (ahhh! there is a reason I waited until my last semester to take this), and take Problems in Exercise Prescription, and then there is this stinkin internship that I have to do 200 hours for! I mean seriously I don't want to do this internship its lame and what am I supposed to do for 200 hours, if you have any ideas let me know! So that is the forecast for the semester...stress+stress+stress+really relaxed husband=wife still stressed even about things that don't matter. Well on another note I am doing some things to keep me sane: Working out at Golds with Matt, reading a few good books, sewing some projects, and doing some fun home decorating and crafts. Some pictures to come of my latest craft that I am super proud of! :)

Disneyland!!

2010-09-09T09:42:00.000-07:00

So 2 weeks before school started we decided to do a spontaneous trip to Disneyland and the Baird family came with us. This is gonna be a long post but sorry I took lots of pictures! We left super early on Wednesday at 5:30 am!! It was so hard to wake up that early. Matt was awesome and drove the whole way and we arrived in Anaheim at 3:30 pm. On the way up we stopped in vegas to see my mom which was fun and we got to strecth our legs a nit. I'd say we made pretty good time :). We got all checked in to our hotel and relaxed a bit.

We all napped, showered and got actually got ready. Our first adventure was a trip to Downtown Disney. We went to eat dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. Mmmm Matt got the coconut shrimp and I got a caesar salad and we shared. Dinner was super yummy!.

We walked around downtown disney for a bit and I got some yummy new perfume at Sephora. Then we sat down in the area between the 2 parks to watch the fireworks, which are awesome! We went back to the hotel and crashed.
The next morning was our first day at Disneyland!!! I was happier than a kid on Christmas and Matt tells me he has never seen anyone walk as fast as I do at Disneyland haha.
Here we are at the entrance.

Our first ride of the day was Space Mountain. Here are the 4 of us waiting in line. Me, Matt, Chris, and Ally.

Here is the place we ate lunch Cafe Orleans. Matt got the gumbo and I got a caesar salad, they were both way good. I think caesar salad is the best food at disneyland, well besides the churros! We even got to see Princess Tiana and her band walk by.

Ally was getting blisters from her shoes so her and Chris ran back to the hotel and Matt and I waited in line for Indiana Jones, when they got back we used our fast passes and rode it again!

I got a churro!!

Going on It's a Small World, Matt had never been because his sisters all hated this ride.

Matterhorn=rode it 3 times=our favorite ride!!

The California A!

Hollywood Tower of Terror my favorite ride at California Adventures

We went and ate dinner at Bubba Gumps one of my favorite places! And then we rushed back to watch World of Color a new water show at California ADventure

World of Color! It was really cool.

After the show we rushed to the Toy Story 3D ride, so fun!! and I totally dominated Matt :)

It was a successful day...now on to day 2 of Disneyland!
First of all I got a jamba and a pretzel for breakfast yummy!

Main Street!

The Jungle Cruise! The piranha part scared me so bad

We ate lunch at the Pizza Port and shared another caesar salad and a tasty rootbeer :)

Captain Matt Sparrow

Splash Mountain where Matt got soaked and Chris' face is hilarious

Mad hatter

We got to see Mickey!

And we got a yummy Mickey Premium bar, it was dark chocolate and soo yummy!

California Screamin'

Sleeping Beauty's Castle

Splash Mountain again

Kissing in front of the castle with practically no one around. aww love my husband :)

Well that concludes our disneyland part of the trip. We had soo much fun and all together we rode: Space Mountain, Indiana Jones(x3), Splash Mountain (x2), Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Pirates(x2), Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise, Astro Blasters, Peter Pan, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Pinocchio's Daring Journey, Alice in Wonderland, Matterhorn (x3), Tower of Terror (x2), Mulholland Madness, Toy Story, California Screamin, and Im sure a few others that I can't think of right now but we sure accomplished a lot! We are thinking another trip will have to occur soon possibly in february again :)
So on Saturday we slept in, packed up, and checked out and drove to long Beach. We had lunch at BJ's and then went to the beach. It was so breezy and cold so I just lay there covered in a blanket and we fell asleep for like an hour and a half! But it was soo nice.

We then headed back to the hotel to relax, we went to the hot tub and met a crazy guy and then we chilled in our room. Ally and I watched Enchanted while the boys went and got Bubba Gumps to go for dinner. It was the perfect end to a great vacation! Ally and Chris flew out early Sunday Morning and Matt and I slept in and then got everything ready to go. We went to visit Rachel for a bit before we headed back to Provo and then we made the long journey home :( I want to go back to Disneyland soo bad already. We had a lot of fun and we are so glad the bairds came with us! thanks guys! And Disneyland don't woory we'll be back soon. Oh no I didnt get any pictures of my cute new sweatshirt and stuffed animal Pluto :( Oh well you'll just have to take my word for it :).

Boating Trip!!

2010-09-03T09:56:00.000-07:00

So Matt and I have been dying all summer to get out on the lake and do some wakeboarding and other lake like activities but lo and behold we have no boat :( Well our friends Jon and Jordan recently bought a boat and we got to go out with them one afternoon yay!!! We had lots of fun and it was only Matt's 2nd time! When we were getting back to the dock however it was already dark...bad bad idea. We gotten eaten alive by mosquitoes they were everywhere!! It was disgusting. Well the next day I woke up and discovered so many bug bites all over my body. No joke over 100 bites all over. It was pure torture for the rest of the week. I just took a ton of benadryl rubbed my entire body down with calamine lotion and cortizone and tried to sleep as much as possible. It was miserable!! So while we had fun boating it was definitely not worth it bc of the bites. Oh ya and just about every single one scarred too so the backs of my legs are soo ugly now :( Seriuosly I am embarrassed now. Anyways never ever go near Utah Lake at night or you will die. Oh ya and the Mr. not one single bite not one! Same thing happened on our honeymoon in costa rica i got bit all over when he told me "oh no we don't need bug spray we'll be fine" little did I know he is immune to them! ugh I am so jealous of his perfect condition and scarless (is that a word?) body :(. Now I have to apply mederma multiple times a day to try to help the scars at least fade. Well here are some pictures of the fun part of our lake experience and thanks Jordan for taking us out on your boat!!

Here is my sister Brittany. She had that huge smile on her face the whole time!

Matt getting ready.

Flag duty

Me!

Me and Britt

Stud muffin

Well that was our adventure I cant say ill be going back to Utah Lake anytime soon tho. One of these days I will get Mr. Ekman to write something, he would have the insider details on my bug bites haha he had to put up with me the whole time I was miserable, he was of course the perfect care taker. Love you babe!

Shooting and Hobo Dinners Date

2010-09-02T10:07:00.000-07:00

So I think this activity was sometime in August. It was on a Saturday we met up with one of Matt's mission companions Dave and his wife Christina (we do lots of fun stuff with them). First we went to Gunnies (Matt's favorite store)so that Christina could get some ear protection and then we headed off to the other side of Utah Lake to our favorite shooting spot, also where Matt and I went on our first date, and where Matt proposed to me :). See its a good place. We set up all our water bottles to shoot at and off we went. After shooting we went to get shakes at Arctic Circle (Christina had a coupon woohoo!) and they were yummy. We headed back to our house to put together our hobo tin foil dinners. Then we went and got some drinks and snacks and headed up to one of the campgrounds at Squaw Peak to make our dinner.The boys made a good fire and we had a good dinner. It was really fun to just chill around the campfire. Here are some pics of the event :)
Matt and Dave loading up

Waiting for the boys to be done.

Making a fire. We have such good Eagle Scouts

Our dinner. yum!

Tasting their "special creations"

It was a very successful and fun Saturday. Thanks Dave and Christina for coming with us!!

Lagoon with the Fam

2010-09-01T09:58:00.000-07:00

So here is my part 2 post of when my family was in town in July. We all went to Lagoon and it was so much fun. I haven't been in so long and Matt had never been so we had a good time.
Here we are at the entrance to the spider ride which was really fun it was a fast roller coaster and the whole time the car which seats 4 is spinning different directions it was awesome!

Blake, Morgan, Britt, and Quinn all went on the log flume ride, but Matt waited with me I didnt want to get wet :(

Matt would just love to have a gun collection one day...in the very distant future haha

The family except my mom is taking the picture.

Fun rocket one

I loved the bumper cars! I just laughed the whole time and Matt would laugh at me laughing.

This was supposed to be a little kid ride but it was fast and scary it felt like we would flip around. This made us all sick afterwards. \

Me being scared and Matt laughing because I was screaming so much.

Yummy dippin dots!

Wild Mouse Ride! So fun! the best is my dad laughing hysterically behind us.

Here are our old western photos. The girls were saloon ladies and the boys were outlaws. It was fun and Matt was such a sexy outlaw!

Leaving Lagoon :(

We had so much fun and later we went to the hotel room when and picked up pizzas from The Pie and sodas and then we ate pizza and watched The Prince of Persia. We even got to see some 24th of July fireworks from the hotel balcony. Thanks so much mom and dad for such a fun weekend!! We love you!

Yay for Marriage!!!

2010-08-31T09:50:00.000-07:00

So on July 22nd my cousin Allison Haymond married Jeremy Knowles in the Salt Lake Temple! Congrats newlyweds! (Even though this is a month late they're still newlyweds). We just got back from Oregon on Wednesday and the wedding was on Thursday. My whole family was in town and it was awesome! The wedding was beautiful and it is just so fun that I have been able to see 2 of my cousins now get sealed in the temple. We did lots of fun stuff while my family was here. We ate dinner at Texas Roadhouse one night and we ordered Pizzas from The Pie and ate them in the hotel room while watching The Prince of Persia, we all went to Lagoon on Saturday, and on Sunday before they headed back to Vegas they came to our house and my mom helped me hang some of my decorations! It was a fun and busy weekend. Here are some pics from everything.
The happily married bride and groom

Me and my wonderful husband aww loove him!

Break time at the hotel room.

On Thursday night they had a dinner for close friends and family. It was at Thanksgiving Point and looked so pretty it was just sooo hot until the sun went down!

Trying to pin the stinkin' flower on grandma's shirt (you'd think I would have had enough practice from pinning those dang things on for high school dances haha)

Yay I did it! I just love my grandma, she is so sweet and fun I wish we lived closer so we could see her more often :(

Me and my lil sistew Morgan (well not little anymore she is already driving and is a junior in High School! Crazy!)

We were waiting for the reception to start so of course picture time!! I just love this one

Cousins!

Being silly with Britt, Morgan, and Kim

Well the wedding activities were way fun I am going to do a seperate post of our Lagoon trip, this one is getting kinda long and I have realized that I post a lot of really long ones. Anyone Lagoon is coming up next!

Oregon Trip July 2010

2010-08-27T10:06:00.000-07:00

So this trip was awhile ago but I am still behind a little bit on my blog posts. So we drove down to Portland on Wednesday the 14th I think. On Thursday Matt had to get his teeth cleaned and I got a tiny cavity filled. We found out that Matt had to get his root canal re-done because he had gotten an infection so that was on Friday and he was not too happy about it. But he had me there to hold his hand so it was much better than his first root canal. Thursday thru Saturday we just did some fun stuff. We ate at some new places and I got to do some shopping. Yay! I did get a few successful purchases that I am proud of. I think it was Saturday when the rest of Matt's family arrived and then on Sunday we all left for the Beach House in Lincoln City. Matt caught a cold and was sick the whole time we were at the beach. Poor thing he is just miserable when he has a sore throat and can't breathe :( Luckily I didn't catch it from him!
Here are some of our pictures from our time in Lake Oswego and Portland.
We got to drive around in the Jag and put the top down since the weather was so nice.

We went to this awesome doughnut place called Voodoo Doughnut that we had watched a thing on on Food Network one day. We waited in line for like 45 minutes but it was fun and they have so many random funny flavors.

The doughnuts! We got a Texas challenge (the huge one), A Voodoo doll, a Portland cream (the chocolate one), an apple fritter, a maple bacon bar (seriously the best doughnut ever!!), and the dirty bastard(the oreo and peanut butter one).

Here is Matt getting his root canal....again

Now we skip to the beach adventures :)
We flew this awesome dragon kite.

It was so windy and cold down by the water. Luckily I got that cute new jacket I am wearing here from Lululemon my new favorite athletic store!

We went on a walk to look at all the cute beach houses.

We went to lunch at Mo's a favorite Oregon Beach tradition I have only been one other time when Matt brought me home in December 2007. My fish n chips were really good and they have a famous clam chowder that everyone loves.

Matt and I then drove to the Oregon Coast Aquarium just the 2 of us. It was so fun and nice and quiet :). My favorite are the otters and the puffin was hilarious. He was puffing up his feathers and then popping up in the water right in front of me Matt says it was a mating dance haha.
Cool sea anemones

Matt with the jellyfish.

Playing with sharks. Ahh!

Matt in the scuba suit.

The Tufted Puffin!

Hedwig!!

And of course I got a new stuffed animal, an otter holding a little oyster, I named him Oyster haha I just love getting new stuffed animals to snuggle with! i still snuggle with Matt too tho :)

Our last little adventure was going to the Tillamook Cheese Factory. A little ironic since I hate cheese! Yup I don't like cheese, except for in certain situations. But it was still cool to watch them cut and package the cheese.

The Mr and Mrs

The best ice cream cone ever!! Coffee Almond Fudge and Caramel Toffee crunch yummy! Who wants cheese when you can have ice cream!

Here is the view from the beach house.

Here is the beach house, it is huge and so nice inside!

After Tillamook Matt and I drove back to LO for the night and then we left early the next morning to drive back to Provo and work :( On our way we stopped to visit these water falls. here we are at Horsetail falls.

And a quick visit to Multnomah falls.

We had a lot of fun on our trip and got to do and see some fun stuff plus relax a little bit. It is always nice to get a change of scenery and Oregon is so pretty and green, although we will not be living there it is fun to visit a few times a year and I love that I can always do something new. Thanks again Ekman family we had a great trip!!

My new gun!!

2010-08-13T09:21:00.000-07:00

So I finally got a gun of my own :). Matt bought it for me in the beginning of July and I just love it. My brother has the same one in black and I loved it after shooting it so when we came back from the cabin for the 4th of July we got this little beauty!

It is a Walther P22 and it is so much fun to shoot. We took it out the day I got it and probably shot over 200 rounds. Thanks hubby! Now I can do something fun when you want to go shooting :)

Matt trying it out.

We destroyed the water bottles!

The case I got for it, of course also pink :)

Hike to Timpanogos Caves

2010-08-13T08:55:00.000-07:00

So another fabulous weekend we did the trail up to Timpanogos Caves. Brittany and Quinn were going to come with us and we had a picnic lunch all planned but Brittany woke up really sick so Matt and I just went. We were bummed they couldnt go with us but we still had fun. The hike was soo steep I didnt think I would make it. And at the bottom of the trail it says to make sure to use the bathroom because there are no bathrooms along the way. Now Matt makes fun of me and says I have a bladder the size of a peanut because I always have to pee so I was so nervous the whole way up that I would have to go, and I didn't want to drink water. Well when we got to the top before the caves there was a bathroom!! haha I was so worried the whole time and there was one up there gosh dont scare me like that! Anyways, it was really fun and the caves were really cool to go through. Even though our cave guide was awful! She just was not friendly and seemed like she was in a bad mood. But we still had fun. I only got a few pictures because the camera battery was almost dead. (This always seems to happen to us and I get so bummed when we cant take any pictures).
Here we are about to start the hike.

Along the trail

Inside the caves

We had a fun day and I am glad that we went, if you haven't done that hike and tour yet you definitely should!

4th of July Weekend

2010-08-13T08:39:00.001-07:00

Ok so this is over a month late to post but I am trying to get caught up. So for the 4th of July we went up to my families cabin in Duck Creek. I drove up Saturday with my mom and Morgan because Matt had to work at The Stadium of Fire. He joined us early Sunday morning. I hated being away from him. It was the first night since we have been married that we have not been together but alas I did survive! On Saturday we went to the Duck Creek parade. It is really silly but its always fun to go. People decorate their ATVs and the firetrucks and they throw out candy and little toys. We brought Bella with us which was fun we walked her all around and she made lots of friends she is just the cutest puppy and everyone wants to pet her. On Sunday we mostly just relaxed and ate yummy food and Matt and I took Bella on a walk, she is so ADD its hilarious I can't wait until we can get our own puppy. On Monday we all went shooting at this great spot. We got to shoot Blakes new AR-15 and it was so fun even my grandma tried out all the guns. We had Matt's 9mm and Blakes little .22 and AR. Ok here are a few pics from the weekend.

Me and my mom at the parade.

Best seat in the house. Grandma, Bella, and Blake

Me and Bella

Shooting!

The gang

Great now Matt really wants an AR-15 but im ok with that because they are really fun!
Tiny little Morgan

Grandma was awesome she shot all of the guns. I just love her she is the best!

We had a really fun weekend and can't wait for our next weekend at the cabin!

Hogle Zoo

2010-08-03T09:52:00.000-07:00

Well once again it has been quite a while since I have blogged about anything. I'm just lazy haha. Well anyways one of the weekends in June we went to the Hogle ZOO. I was so excited to meet baby Zuri the little baby elephant. She was the cutest thing, I told Matt I need a baby elephant :). The zoo was so much fun, its smaller than I thought but there was still plenty for us to do and see there and it was not that expensive either. :) We saw all sorts of animals and I just loved it. Matt loves watching me get all excited about the cute critters and he thinks its funny. After the zoo we went to dinner at Squatters in Salt Lake we have always heard about it but never went before just because of the name haha but it was ok, I wasn't that impressed and wouldn't go back it was nothing special. Before we went back home we went out by Utah lake to shoot Matt's gun. It was a lot of fun and I am better at hitting the targets than he is! haha Anyways we had a ton of fun at the zoo and I am glad we finally went. And of course at the end Matt bought me a new stuffed animal, an elephant! I love getting stuffed animals everywhere we go, its a new tradition. Matt said one time, "We will have all these stuffed animals for when we have a kid" and I gave him an evil glare he was like "ok we'll have to get new ones then " haha. Ok here are some fun pics from the day :). It was just Matt and I so we have like no pics of us together :(.

Here is Baby Zuri hangin out with mom

I could have watched her all day, so cute! They even had a big popsicle for her with tons of different fruit in it!

Giant Turtles! biggest things I had ever seen

Matt liked the Ostriches

This penguin was hilarious and was bringing this rock to its little hut haha

I absolutely love giraffes! When Matt went to Africa with his dad before we were married one of the things he brought me was this carving of 2 giraffes with their necks crossed to shape a heart, I love it!

Matt with the giraffes. See it sucks having no one to take pictures of us :( I wish we had someone to follow us around all day and take pictures like we did at our wedding haha

Monkey friend!

I loved these guys too they looked like a bunny mixed with a horse, they were funny

Matt with the baby crocodile

Here's the full size crocodiles. We got to watch them feed them rats.

This little monkey was so cute! Eating his little snacks.

Matt is almost there!

At the end holding my little elephant.

Shooting.

We had a super fun Saturday and I would recommend to anyone looking for something to do on a friday or saturday to go over to the zoo! I still have a lot more to catch up on but that will be coming soon :)

Engaged!!

2010-07-08T09:47:00.000-07:00

I have totally forgotten to post about some huge news in our family. My sister Brittany is engaged!! they got engaged May 23rd. She is marrying Quinn Baker. They will be getting married December 18th 2010 in The Las Vegas Nevada Temple. I am so excited and happy for her, she is just going to love married life! Her new name will be Brittany Baker which I think is funny because she loves to bake haha! We are so excited to have Quinn be a part of our family as well, he is awesome and is just so sweet to Brittany. They are such a cute couple! I just love weddings and am so excited for December it is going to be so much fun. She has already bought a beautiful dress and now just has to wait for it to come in, hopefully she will get it faster than a week before the wedding like a did, talk about stressful! She is getting all of the planning figured out and I am so excited for her, wedding planning is the best! Especially when you have our mom who makes it so easy because she has it all covered :) My dad is sad to be giving another baby girl away but he is excited and glad she has found such a good guy. Here are a couple pictures of the happy couple. Congratulations Brittany and Quinn!

Weekend trip to Vegas!

2010-07-08T08:18:00.000-07:00

Matt and I recently took a fun little trip home to Vegas. We left Thursday June 17 after work and got there later that night. We stayed until Tuesday June 22 and drove home that afternoon. It was a nice little vacation in the heat! We had a lot of fun spending time with my family and I was able to get a few things done. On Friday morning I got my hair done after a rediculous 6 months! I still don't trust anyone here in Utah to do it so I still go home to have Leslie do it, she has been doing my hair for like 12 years and she is the best! People always ask me where I get my hair done and are so sad when I tell them Vegas instead of someone in Provo. Sorry hair school girls, I just don't trust ya yet, there needs to be like 5 years at least of experience for me to feel comfortable. Anyways after my hair apt. we went down to the Fashion show mall to go shopping. I was very disappointed and couldn't find anything I liked :( Oh well, Matt was probably happy about that haha. I am trying to remember everything we did, oh ya we went to Lunch at Islands(before we went shopping). Matt and I also went to Yogurtland which everyone in Vegas says is soo good.

I personally wasn't that impressed and still would much rather have mango and coconut from YoZone. It was ok though and we had to try it, but the place was packed! We couldn't even really get a chance to taste the flavors because there were like 50 people in line.
We also went to Red Rock to go bowling at their insane bowling alley, it was so expensive though. We paid almost $20 for one game but it was still fun and we decided we will just stick to $1 bowling night in Orem from now on. After bowling we won $10 playing blackjack, this was my first time gambling and we didn't even get carded :( It was fun though and I kept wanting to cash out at $3 and then Matt would keep going, he is crazy, its a good thing I kept him away from anything else.

Then on Saturday we had an even more fun filled day. We met my grandma for lunch at Cozymels. Matt has never been there and we all love it, they have the best fajitas! It was so fun to catch up and visit with my grandma she is just the best! I seriously love her and she is just so fun and cute. After we ate lunch we decided to try our luck at the Town Square mall. This was much better, well I still didn't find anything in the clothes department but I bought some new Ralph Lauren sunglasses that I love!

And Matt bought me this pretty Fossil watch, Thanks babe! I love it!

Later that night my dad took us and my little brother to see Toy Story 3 in Imax 3D! It was such a cute movie and we had fun. The theater was packed!

Here is Matt drinking what was supposed to be his movie snack, he just couldn't wait! The boy loves Capri Sun!

After the movie Matt wanted to go down to the strip to watch the Bellagio fountain show. After finally getting through traffic and parking, we were able to go walk around. We watched the fountains and then headed over to Caesars Palace to check out Serendipity with their famous frozen hot chocolate. We didn't end up staying there because the wait was pretty long and we were starving and tired. But I really liked this sundae bush sculpture. :)

We walked back through the Bellagio and walked through the conservatory to see the pretty garden display. I love that it always is changing because as many times as I have walked through that thing it would be so boring if it was always the same.

Before we left we stopped to get some gelato at Cafe Gelato. We got berry and coconut. It was so good!

It was a long and very fun Saturday and we got home around 12 and crashed.

Sunday was Father's Day! Happy father's day dad! I love my dad so much, he is just so fun and funny. He is so laid back, most of the time, and just fun to be around. I was glad we got to spend this father's day with my dad. We all went to church and Matt and I were on time yay! Afterwards we had a bbq and it was really good. Then it was a lazy Sunday which is the best. We napped, watched a movie, read, and played with Bella my family's new golden retriever puppy. She is just the sweetest and cutest little puppy and she is so silly. They call her big baby, because she really is a big baby.
Me and Bella.

This is when they bought her, she is now 3 months old and is growing so fast!

And now look at her, she is a big bear rug.

She seriously has the funniest personality and Matt loves her! We can't wait until we are able to get a puppy of our own it will be a lot of work but so fun and exciting, we have been wanting a dog since day 1. But it will have to wait for a while :(
Here is me and Roxy lounging after church, its a little blurry but Roxy is just so silly.

On Monday I got to go to my favorite place, The dentist! No really I love getting my teeth cleaned and can't wait until I can do dental hygiene school and start working! We didn't have much planned Monday but we had Cafe rio for lunch and then we napped a little and just hung out. Then my family and Angel's family all went to dinner at The Yard House.

Matt and I shared the sliders and as you can see they disappeared!

Me with my sister Morgan and Amanda P.

After dinner we saw The Karate Kid! Which was amazing by the way!! I really really loved it, so cute! I can't wait for it to come out so I can buy it :) (hint hint hubby ;)

On Tuesday we got all packed and ready to head home. We also went and got Matt's windows on his new Kia Optima tinted. He has been wanting to get them done since we bought it. It is so much nicer having the darker windows now and it looks really good. Im sad now that I didn't take a before and after picture :(. After the car was done we went to BJ's with my mom, and siblings for lunch. It was so good, I love that place! (which is why we had our rehearsal dinner there). Ahh good times. After lunch we got everything in the car and we started the drive back to Provo.

We had such a fun break in Vegas and it was desperately needed after a busy Spring semester and no time to go anywhere. I just loved having the whole time to be with Matt with no work and no school to worry about :) We got a lot of stuff done and did some fun things. I am glad we went and did stuff this time instead of just being lazy around the house like we normally are, so it was a successful trip. Its always so hard to come back and have to work and worry about other stuff :( I can't wait for our next trip this summer!

More random events of the summer

2010-07-01T08:43:00.000-07:00

So there is still alot of things that we have done this summer so far and there are a lot more to come. I started and finished my spring semester taking 9 credits, and I sailed through with A's yay! It was tough and 2 of the classes I absolutely hated going to but I survived and I am so glad to have those classes out of the way. Matt and I are now just working the rest of summer, we were going to take a few fun summer classes but decided against it so that we can go on vacations and trips instead :). Its so nice right no not having to worry about school, I have been going for a year straight so a break was much needed/deserved. I just have one semester left and I can graduate but I might prolong and take classes in Winter as well so I can keep my campus job. We shall see. We will both get to graduate together next April and I am so excited! I also can't wait for us to start filling out Matt's law school applications it is kind of fun not knowing where we will be going next year and I am so excited/hoping to go to a fun new place. Hopefully we will know by the end of this year :)I am hoping for either D.C. or somewhere on the east coast, or Texas, or California (we are looking a little at Pepperdine). Anyways we have so many fun things planned for summer and I can't wait. We want to go camping, go to the timpanogos caves, go to Lagoon and seven peaks, plus we have an undecided trip in the making! OK so here are a few more pics of some of the random things we have done and actually taken pictures of.
I made some tasty red-velvet cupcakes (although I'm using vanilla frosting next time I don't like the cream cheese frosting)

Got some cute new headbands at Garnder Village, and a fun new wallet. I love Gardner village they have the cutest little shops and its just fun to go there.

Matt found this key hook, I have been looking for a little hook for a keys and he found the perfect one! (Also from gardner village)

Bought these flower pots and planted flowers in them :)

We also painted birdhouses to hang in our tree outside :)

We have been doing lots of other things but we hardly ever take pictures its hard when there is just 2 people and we arent huge fans of the hold the camera out and try to get a good picture thing haha. We watch a lot of movies, one of my favorite things is just getting a redbox and curling up on the couch with a soft blanket in the arms of my hubby :) We also go to a lot of movies at the dollar theater, we just saw How to Train your dragon and it is such a cute movie! We always make sure to buy our tickets early and get there super early because Matt has learned that his wife gets really cranky if we don't get a good seat haha (I don't like sitting very close). Also we go to get frozen yogurt quite frequently, its one of my favorite treats, we have tried a lot of the places in Provo but I still like YoZone the best, now if they would just bring back Mango and Coconut! Oh ya and we also just signed up at Gold's gym, I have been at 24 for the past 3 years but Matt has been at golds he likes the basketball better there so we have settles on golds. I like going with him so much better than us going to separate gyms, plus its more motivation to go! Anyway there is much more to come and I am so excited for all of our fun plans this summer.

May 1, 2010, One Year Anniversary!!!

2010-06-25T08:45:00.000-07:00

Wow I can't believe we have been married for a year already, time went by so fast and it still is going by so fast. We have had so many fun adventures and I just love every second with the Mr. I have had so much fun being a wife and I just love my husband more than anything!! I never knew that I could love someone so deeply, until I met Matt. And I seriously do love him more and more every day! I love that he is my husband for forever and I can't wait to spend forever with him! I have so much fun with him no matter what we are doing and he really is my best friend. It is so fun that we get to share everything and build memories together and be a family. I don't know what I would do without my husband, I have come to rely on him now for so much and he has helped to make me a better person. It's crazy how we have picked up different traits from each other, for example I have helped him to be more assertive and he is helping me to have more patience. I just love this boy and I am so happy and proud to be his wife. I love you babe!! Here is some flashback from our wedding :) FYI I still haven't finished our wedding book, ordered our nice pictures, or got our Cd's yet, but my goal is to get that done soon!

Ok wow lots of pictures, sry but I am obsessed with wedding pictures, I can't wait to post some of our professional ones they are much better, I just get so excited and happy looking at our pictures. I loved everything about our wedding day and I wish I could go back and re-live it again! Ok so for our anniversary we didn't have much planned. It was our first weekend at our new place and so we ran a lot of errands. We did some fun stuff and I had a lot of fun getting stuff for our new place. Of course the day didn't go without surprises because it wouldn't be Matt if he didn't have a surprise up his sleeve for me :)which I love. I had already told him though that I didn't want him to waste money on flowers, and I didn't really care to go to some fancy dinner, or a hotel, we decided to save that money for a fun trip over summer when life is less hectic. Plus we had just been with family for the last 2 weeks so I was a little tired of eating out every day. Ok anyways lets start with the morning. I had a fun surprise planned for Matt that he had no clue about. The week before my mom helped me pick up a BBQ for him and we stored it at my sister's apt. Then on Saturday morning Jordan and Quinn helped me get the BBQ to our new house. Matt has been dying to have a BBQ since we now have a backyard to keep it in so I knew he would be happy. I had it all set up in the backyard with grilling utensils and everything. I had to try and get him to go outside and when he did he loved it! Now he literally grills everything and it is so nice! I have myself a little chef!

While I had snuck out to get the BBQ he had a little surprise for me as well. This was sitting on the bed for me (which he had also made:).

He got me wedding bands for my ring, they are so pretty! (wow my fingers really aren't chubby like that haha)

He also had a surprise in the car for me, he got me some gardening gloves and a gift card to Lowe's and Home Depot so I could get stuff for my garden!

I had so much fun for our anniversary and I just loved being with my husband, I can't wait to spend many more years together with him. I can't wait for us to take our Disneyland and beach trip later this summer!

Winter finals, wedding, family, and moving!

2010-06-23T10:05:00.000-07:00

Ok so it has been so long since I have posted anything, not like anyone reads it anyways but having a blog is my way of not having a journal so I have got to get updated. So much has happened since I last was on here and Matt and I have been so stinkin' busy! So I will start with the end of our Winter classes and with moving to our new house(see post below for a pic). Finals were very stressful but we managed to survive and we got awesome grades in all our classes. I was able to take another class with Matt which was awesome! I love being able to take a class together its so much more fun. We were able to move into the new house on April 29. I couldn't believe how much stuff we had crammed into our little apt. We had to get a uhaul to move everything. But we managed to get all moved out and said goodbye to our first place and hello to something much better! Thanks to everyone who helped us out with the moving, Blaine, Jordan, Quinn, and their friend (I cant remember his name)! We love the house, we have so much space and its just nice to have our own place that's not connected to a bunch of other apts. We are still getting settled in and organized. Since Spring semester started so soon after Winter we barely had a weekend off and during that time we were at my cousin's wedding. Ok so I'm going to try and remember some of the things we've done since my last post, this is gonna be a long one because there is just so much!
On one of those nice warm days we went on a bike ride and had a picnic at the park. We rode our bikes over to sensuous sandwich and then ate them at the park.

The next event after finals was my cousin Andrew's wedding to Kimmie. My family came down and it was fun to go, it was the first sealing that Matt and I were able to go to together besides our own, and it was really fun. They are such a cute and happy couple and I am so happy for them!
Here is us at their dinner the night before with my cousins Darren and Kimmy.

All the boys,Quinn, my little brother Blake, and my handsome hubby, we were waiting inside because it was windy, rainy, and freezing outside.

Me and my sisters Morgan and Brittany.

The happy couple! (even though they had the worst luck with weather they were still just so happy and excited)

All huddled under my umbrella.

Matt wearing Morgan's silly glasses.

I forgot my camera at the reception so I don't have any pics of it :(.
After bugging them to go to Texas Roadhouse all weekend we finally got to go there for dinner! I love that place.

And later we all went bowling (which I am so terrible at its embarrassing)

The pros! My parents are really good bowlers they kicked our butts!

After bowling we went to YoZone which use to be my fav yogurt place but now that they dont have their mango tart or coconut I refuse to go there Its very sad because that combo of flavors was amazing!!

Also while my parents were here we babysat the 2 dogs Missy and Roxy, they were a lot of fun and we liked taking them on morning walks, I can't wait til we can get a puppy!
Me and Roxy

Matt and Missy

Here is cute little Bella, the golden retriever puppy my parents bought in Utah, she is such a sweetie!

Also while my parents were in town my mom took me shopping at the Gateway for my Birthday and I got lots of awesome stuff, Thanks mom! After shopping my dad, Blake, Matt, and I went over to see the flowers at Temple Square. They were really pretty. While we were there some sister missionaries came up to talk to us and it was funny because one of them was from Japan which is where my dad went and the other one was from Arizona which is where Matt went I thought that was a fun coincidence haha.

Little Bro

It was definitely a fun and very busy week/weekend, but we had a lot of fun with my family and going to the wedding. Don't you worry there is still a lot more I have to write about but I have to break these posts up a little bit. Up next will be our 1 year Anniversary so that needs a post of its own :).

So behind!

2010-05-18T09:57:00.000-07:00

Ahh I haven't updated in forever! School and work are currently holding me captive. But I have so much to blog about. So this is a promise to do so as soon as I get a spare moment. :)
Here is a pic of us outside our new house on our 1 year anniversary!

More to come soon!!

Baby Einstein!

2010-04-27T07:52:00.000-07:00

This is a baby horse that weighs 6 lbs and is only 14 inches high. That's less than anyone I know's babies were when they were born! Let's just say I want an adorable little foal like this. I just hope he is all healthy :)His name is Einstein, isn't he just so cute!?

Done!!!

2010-04-22T08:53:00.000-07:00

Yay we are finally all done with finals, and I have a measily few days to enjoy before Spring semester starts :(. But I have family coming up, I'm going shopping, and my cousins wedding is on Friday yay Congrats to Andrew and Kimmie! This should be a fun weekend. Plus I get to babysit my puppies while my family is here yay, I just love those little fluff balls!

Haha love it!

2010-04-16T09:29:00.000-07:00

Just another thing that made me laugh haha, and I love chicken nuggets!

Ahh Finals Week!

2010-04-14T10:23:00.000-07:00

Well we are all done with classes and now we just have to make it through our finals. I have 5 finals to take and Matt only has 3 (lucky!). It shouldn't be too bad i hope, and I am planning on studying early and taking my tests early so I can be done with them all and start packing for our new house! Happy finals week! may the demons of stupidity get out of my head and the angels of education enter :)

This just makes me smile :)

2010-04-02T10:20:00.000-07:00

We're MOVING!!!! yay!

2010-04-01T09:12:00.000-07:00

Yay we found a place to move to. We could have resigned at our current apt but we really wanted something bigger and we were getting sick of the management company...Stonecrest Properties sucks! Anyways we searched and searched forever looking at soo many crappy places with no luck. Seriously I am no over exaggerating on how bad these places were. I do not know how the current tenants manage to live there. Every time we went looking I felt like I needed to shower after and decontaminate myself, so nasty. Just a little venting about Utah housing. The majority of Provo should be burned down and started over! Its disgusting how bad these places are and how expensive they are.And why don't places let people have pets. Im sorry but the places with kids smell 100 times worse than the places with dogs but they allow you to have babies...anyways. Well at last we lucked in to something amazing! One of the guys who works in the shop where I am the secretary knows the owner of the house we are moving to. He mentioned it to me and started trying to contact the lady. When he finally got a hold of her she had already showed it to another couple who were making there decision. I was so bummed because we had driven by and it was so cute there was no way these people wouldn't take it. Well guess what they didnt!!! They have to move out of Utah for grad school somewhere else so the house was available for us to look at. I was so happy :) We went and met with the lady and she told us all the details of the place and then we were able to go see it. The inside is so nice and looks brand new. And it has everything we wanted. 2 bedrooms, washer/dryer, etc. Plus the kitchen is big, the living room and master bedroom are big and there are tons of big windows to let in the sunlight!. Here is a picture of the outside. We are moving in May 1 (our 1yr anniversary) and then I will take some before and after pictures of the outside.

It is so nice too that there is no basement so we have the whole house to ourselves. There is a huge fenced in backyard with a covered patio and patio furniture and even an area for me to have a garden! I am going to have my sister-in-law Andrea come help me with the garden, she knows her stuff! I am so excited I can't contain it haha. I can't wait to move in and make it our own. We recently went and bought birdhouses at Michael's that we are going to paint and decorate to hang outside. We also went to Lowes to look at barbeques and more garden stuff. Matt is so excited to get a bbq. I cant wait to have little summer bbq parties at our house. :)
Well we have got a super busy month ahead of us. We have school projects to finish, finals, my cousin's wedding, my family and Matt's mom coming to down, and now packing and getting moved out! Its gonna be crazy but I can't wait!

Birthday filled week!

2010-04-01T08:25:00.000-07:00

Wow,so last week was just full of birthday fun!. Matt's birthday was Monday the 22nd, (24) mine was on Thursday the 25th, (22) and my little sis Brittany's was 2 days ago on the 30th, (20). It was a fun Birthday week. I was having not the best birthday at first and was just tired and grumpy, and the weather was nasty. But when I got home I had a wonderful surprise waiting from my hubby. It just made my day! He is the best and always know what will make me smile :)This was what was waiting for me.

So after all of our classes were over I went over to see my sister for a minute and she had the cutest little thing of mase for me to keep in my purse :)

We went out to dinner that night to Texas Roadhouse, which is like my new favorite restaurant. Mmm soo good! They brought us out dessert and made me sit in a saddle for their birthday thing, which Matt thought was just hilarious, haha. Oh how I love that boy.:)

So this past Saturday I got some birthday presents. I dragged Matt to a trunk show that Shabby Apple was having in Provo. I was going to order these dresses but they had them there! Yay. I felt sill getting there right at 10 when they opened but it was a good thing I did and I got free jewelry for being one of the 1st 30 customers. Within 30 minutes the place was packed and I was lucky to get a dressing room early because when I was done there was like a line of 40 people waiting to try stuff on. Anyways I am so excited to wear by new lovelies. I tried to upload pictures of them but they were blurry I'll have to take a pic of me wearing them.
I also got a dress for my sister for her birthday. (I loved it, but it was a little too short on me, so sad, however it looks super cute on my sister and is long enough on her yay!!

The rest of Saturday was just busy busy but we had a fun week and weekend. Thanks to everyone for all the Birthday wishes for Matt and I. We had awesome birthdays!!!

Happy 24th Birthday to my awesome husband!!!!

2010-03-22T09:50:00.000-07:00

So today is Matt's 24th birthday! He thinks he is so old, but he is still so young. He is such an amazing husband and I just love him so much! I hope that he has the best birthday ever! Now if only his birthday luck could win us those tickets to Disneyland from the radio station haha.

Me and the birthday boy!!

Here is the cookie bouquet I ordered for him, I was worried it wasn't gonna get there but it did :). Boys don't really care to get flowers but they Love Cookies!!!

Happy Birthday Matt! I Love you!!

Happy St. Patties Day!!!

2010-03-17T09:47:00.000-07:00

Top 'o' the mornin' to ya! I just love St. Patrick's Day I just know that this year I'm gonna get that pot of gold from the leprechaun that lives in our attic :). Then maybe I can get that vacation :)

Curiouser and Curiouser

2010-03-10T20:20:00.002-08:00

So Matt took me on a date today to go see Alice in Wonderland in 3D and it was simply..."Im thinking of an M word" marvelous! I really like it. I looovvveeeddd the Chesire Cat especially his teal stripes (my favorite color!). Plus all the funny sayings that I shall adopt into my vocabulary :). "I sometimes think of 6 impossible things before breakfast". I loved the old cartoon one and this one was very entertaining although I wish they would have had the singing flowers in the new one, they were there for a second but they didn't sing :(. Anyways it went
From this...

To this!...

Love it!!

This is my Venting post :)

2010-03-01T08:25:00.000-08:00

Ok so sometimes you know how you just gotta vent about stuff and even if you talk to someone else about it, it still feels better to just get it all written out and to know that others agree with you and your not a crazy person. :) So here it goes....

I'm sure we are all aware of the moms in church with the little kids who wail, but never will they take there child out into the hall. Now don't get me wrong I am very sympathetic to all those moms struggling to keep their kids quiet and I do not expect them to be silent or to run them out of the room at the slightest peep. However when your kid starts yelling so loudly that I cannot hear the lesson and I can see on the girl who is teaching's face that she can't even hear her own thoughts, then its time to go outside. I feel so bad because it is hard enough to teach anyways let alone when you no on can hear you. Thus this Sunday in Relief Society this exact thing happened. I know I should have more patience but it made me so angry! It was an ongoing thing throughout the lesson and I couldn't even tell you what we were supposed to learn because I was so distracted. When it gets to that point its just plain rude! To the teacher and to everyone else who is trying to listen and learn something. Its even worse that this same person has done this before when the kid was younger and was just screaming its head off but yup she wouldnt take him out. I know for a fact that when my kids are acting up I will take them out so I don't disract everyone else.

My other source for venting, I can't stand the Daily Universe, it is a sad excuse for a school newspaper. I have tried to give it a chance by reading it at work but I might read one small thing and then just flip past all the dumb sports articles that fill every page. I'm sorry but not everyone cares about BYU's sorry sports teams, all you need is to put a list of what games were played and who won not an entire recap of every game. Its a waste of paper that I look at for 1 minute and then throw away.

Almost done... Why is is that every single teacher decides the same week is the best week for midterms? Because I may just collapse after this week is over. I have 5 tests all on the same days and I can be certain it is not gonna be pretty. Not to mention the same teachers who have assigned these tests have decided that this week is also a good week to have certain projects due. After this week I don't know if ill make it to the end of the semester.

Ok last one. Why is it so impossible for any clothing company to make any skirts or dresses that go down to the knee. It must be pretty impossible because you can't find one thing that fits that criteria, thus I have had to resort to wearing the same old clothes to church over and over and Im really getting tired of it. Sorry but with the majority of the US being obese I'd say mini skirts aren't very appropriate. So hello lets make some longer skirts and dresses, cause i sure am not gonna attempt to make them myself. ha

Ok so I am not even angry, I am just frustrated about these things mainly #1. And I feel much better after getting that off my chest. Now I can go on and continue my day being the happily married wife who is celebrating 10 months today :) The end.

Valentines Day Weekend!

2010-02-19T09:07:00.000-08:00

So for this last weekend, the hubs and I made our way to Palm Springs, CA where Matt's parents had rented a house for a vacation trip. I have still been sick from this cold so that drive to different elevations was miserable. We got to St. George and my ears were hurting so bad that I was just sitting in the car crying. Matt went and bought me some Nyquil to knock me out haha...it worked. :)It is just so miserable to have a cold, I can't stand when my ears plug up and everything sounds muted. Anyways so we stopped in Vegas and stayed the night and then hung out with my mom a little on Friday before we went to CA. She took us out for a nice tasty breakfast at IHOP and then we went to see Morgan's new horse. She is soo tall and is such a sweetie!
Here's Matt and Sunflower.

Afterwards we took off for the drive to Palm Springs, Matt is amazing and he drove the whole time so I could rest and sleep. We arrived that evening in time to catch some dinner and then we just relaxed. Our initial plan was to go to Disneyland on Saturday but I have just been so tired and miserable and my ears were still plugged so we decided it would be better to stay and just relax and get some rest. I was bummed because I really wanted to go but im glad we didnt just because I know it wouldnt have been as fun. The weather tho was so awesome, it was a clear sunny sky and was so warm. Matt and I went on a fun bike ride and hung out by the pool. It was so nice to have nothing to worry about.
Here's our bike ride on the little beach cruisers.

I wish I had some more pictures, I will have to get them from Matt's mom. The house had a pool and hot-tub in the backyard and it looked right out onto this gorgeous super green golf course.
So on Saturday night Matt and I went to go see Valentine's Day! yay :)I really like it and thought it was a cute movie.

The next morning it was Valentine's Day!! Yay our 1st as husband and wife, I got up early to set up my present for Matt so he would see it when he woke up. I got him some peach rings(his fav!) and sweethearts and then did a bunch of little coupons for him. It was fun to be able to shop for cards that all say "To my husband...".
Here is Matt with his goodie bag.

Matt kept telling me all morning that he didn't get me anything, but of course I know him better than that. He did this to me last year haha, when I got out of the shower my present was on the bed. He bought me a beautiful pearl necklace that I had wanted. He is so sweet, I really told him not to get me any big present but he still spoils me and yes I love it! I did tell him not to buy me flowers though and he listened. I love getting flowers from him but I would much rather have it be a "just because" reason than a holiday where everyone gets flowers. Maybe its just me but I love getting surprised with them when I had no idea they were coming :)
Here are my pretty pearlies. :)

And I got to wear them for church.

We had a lot of fun on our trip and it was great to see all of Matt's family there together(except we were bummed we only got to see Rachel for literally 5 minutes because she had to leave to work that weekend). It gets chaotic at times with all the kiddos running around but its still fun (and its great birth control for us haha!)Here's a few more pics.
Matt and I watching some Olympics on the couch.

Jadyn and baby Kamden, he is so stinkin cute and is just runnin all over the place now haha

Oh gosh you just gotta love having little nieces and nephews, its so funny. Let me just tell you some of the funny things they did over the weekend. First of all they had been told that I was sick and first thing when I get there little Adrian says, "Are you having a baby?" haha I was just laughing and was like nope haha. She associated being sick with being that I was pregnant haha too cute. Another thing, Kamden calls me Matt's girlfriend, he doesn't quite get that you can be married but not have babies yet, and Matt was telling him "no she's my wife" and our other nephew, Jadyn, was like, "hello they're married you went to their wedding!" haha but he still calls me Matt's girlfriend. Lastly we have serenaded over the weekend with "Matt and Amanda sittin' in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g..." haha. They certainly are silly, they can get a little crazy when they're all together but I still love them and its fun to have nieces and nephews now.
Here's a picture of us with all of them from our Oregon reception.

We had a really fun, and relaxing weekend and we were glad we could make the trip to CA to see everyone. I will be getting that Disneyland trip at some point soon haha I just have to figure out when we can go. Until then its back to school :).

Law School Excitement!

2010-01-27T10:17:00.000-08:00

So Matt is starting to prepare for taking the LSAT this June and that means we have to start figuring out where to apply and where we want to live for at least the next 3 years. Its crazy but I am so excited that we will be getting out of Utah and going somewhere new. It is going to be hard to make Matt study all the time when I am just going to want to be with him but I must do it so that he can get into the schools he wants. Right now we are looking at some schools in Arizona and Texas and California my favorite vote is to go here..... Pepperdine Law School in Malibu, CA so pretty!

We thought about UNLV but the more I think about it I don't think I really want to live in Vegas, I've experience all it has to offer and I really want to have a fun adventure with Matt living somewhere new. But we'll see how things go.

So Matt is taking some Law classes at BYU right now that are helping him get ready for law school. He is loving it and is so excited to start law school in 2011! I just love that he really does like it and I am so happy that it is something he will enjoy doing. He comes home from his classes all excited to tell me about cases they learned about and stuff and I just love it! Also he is doing an internship at Aaron Bartholomew, Silva & Associates in Orem and he loves it. He gets to do some really cool things that i didn't think they would have interns doing haha but i am glad he has fun. So we are both excited for this law stuff to get moving along so we can see where we will go! Hopefully he can get accepted to a school where I can also go to dental hygiene school which would just be perfect but we'll see how it goes.

I am getting so excited for the future and for everything that will come with this year. Hopefully I can graduate in December if everything goes as planned and then Matt will graduate next April. Yay can't wait to be done with school and Provo. Oh and so excited to move to a new apt soon. Our contract ends in April and we are hoping to move to a 2 bdrm apt, we definitely need the extra space. :)Also I cant wait to celebrate our 1year anniversary!! And to celebrate it by going on a cruise with Chris and Ally, We cant wait!! Anyways this post has jumped all over the place but I am excited and ready for everything that is coming up and I we are still just having a blast being married and doing everything together. Matt is the best and I am so lucky to have him! :)

Meeting Baby Connor Forbush!

2010-01-25T09:57:00.000-08:00

So one of my best friend's Heather and her husband Braden just recently had their first baby. alittle boy named Connor. I was so bummed I was in Vegas when he was born but we got to see him on Monday January 4. we met Heather and Braden at Rodizio Grill in American Fork where we got free dinner! for listening to a presentation on fire safety. It was way fun and the fire safety stuff was pretty intersting to learn about and helpful for future cases. Their little baby slept through the whole thing haha even through them showing us what different alarms sounded like. After we ate dinner we got to hold him and then I went with Heather back to their house while Matt took Braden to Provo to pick up their other car. We both got to hold him and I just loved it. He was so cute and tiny and makes the funniest little faces haha. I haven't held a newborn since I was 10 when my little brother was born so it was fun to see him so tiny. I know they will just be such good parents and we are excited to watch little Connor grow up. Gosh why are babies so stinkin cute? It makes me want to have one :) Although we are still going to wait awhile, we would like to be out of Utah and in a bigger place than our tiny apt before we have any kids. And I have to force myself to stick to my goal of graduating college first before I have any kids! Matt has to help me to remember that goal all the time haha :)Here are some pics of the baby.
The cute little Forbush Family!

One day...in the not so distant future hopefully we'll be holding our own baby :)

California Road Trip :)

2010-01-22T09:29:00.000-08:00

So after Christmas Matt and I decided to drive down to California and stay with Rachel and go to Disneyland. Well we didn't get to go to Disneyland because when we got there it was sold out!! Which I didnt know could happen :(. I was very dissapointed but since my husband is so amazing he came up with a new plan and we ended up driving down to San Diego where we stayed 2 nights and did lots of fun stuff. It was our own little adventure and I had fun just being with Matt. So our first day in CA we drove to West Hollywood where Matt's sister Rachel lives. While we were there we went up to Hollywood and drove around looked at the stars, and we went to a movie at the Gramuan Chinese theater where they show all the big movie premiers. The theater was so awesome, we saw Sherlock Holmes there.

I found the Harry Potter handprints and got yelled at by some crazy asian chick who said I was laughing at her grandma when in reality the existence of her and her grandma was the last thing on my mind I was just having fun with my hubby. Gosh I hate how people always think your doing something aimed at them I want to be like you mean nothing to me and I didn't even see you and your stupid grandma stop acting like the whole world is out to get you when in reality no one cares. ugh sometimes I just can't stand people who can be soo rude!!! Matt had to calm be down after this because I seriously wanted to punch the short stubby wench after what she was saying and making such a scene, it was actually kinda funny, I feel sorry for her. Anyways here is my picture with the handprints that I laughed at which caused such chaos.

So after our adventures in Hollywood was when we drove to Disney and discovered the sad news. So we journeyed toward San diego, and it was so fun just to do whatever we wanted, stop if we wanted to and just have no set plans.
We stopped to take pictures at the San Diego temple which is so pretty! It was funny because while we were there we ran into some of my friends who were there for another friend's wedding, what are the odds haha!

Later that day we checked in to our hotel and then we went to a mall :). It was fun Matt bought a super sexy new 3-piece suit. Seriously that boy looks SO good in a suit. :) And then I got a Juicy purse and some shoes so cute!! I love them.
The next day we got up and went to Sea World!! Matt had never been before so Im glad I got to take him, we had a ton of fun I just love the whales, penguins, and polar bears. I got a little stuffed polar bear which I now sleep with ever night :) (yes I still sleep with stuffed animals haha) Here are some pics of our adventure.
Before the Shamu show

I just think these guys are so amazing.

I love the Polar Bears they are so cute!

We took a picture like this at the Oregon Zoo (inside joke i guess its a long story)so we decided to carry on the tradition at all amusement parks we go to.

I got my churro!

Matt holding a starfish, the water was cold and he didnt want to but I made him since this was my favorite when I was little.

After Sea World we went to old Town San Diego and ate some yummy Mexican food and got some salt water taffy yum! We stayed one more night and the next day we went to balboa Island and walked around Newport. It was such nice weather and so pretty. Although I rememberd balboa island to be so much more fun than it is now, its kinda ghetto now sad :(

Walking around with my funnel cake(that didnt end up being very good but I wanted one soo bad) Matt thinks he is so funny..

We were able to get back to Vegas in time to celebrate 2010. We ate this tasty treat to celebrate :)

we had such a fun trip and I loverd spending every second with my amazing, sweet, and caring husband, he is everything in the world to me and I just love him so much! We are so excited for another year to spend with each other and for everything the new year will bring. Yay for 2010!

Merry Christmas 2009!!!

2010-01-20T10:16:00.000-08:00

So we had quite the adventures over Christmas break and this might take a few posts to cover it all haha. We went down to Vegas to spend Christmas with my family this year. It was so nice to be in a big house with so much room to move around and a huge kitchen for baking, being cramped in our little apt has been damaging to my health :(. So while we were home we were able to go to the Maaco Vegas Bowl (or should I say the BYU bowl haha) It was freezing cold but it was pretty fun game. Thanks dad for getting us tickets and taking us!!
I wore this awesome racoon beanie that kept me much warmer.

Down on the field.

We had lots of errands to run during the week but we managed to get everything done. We had cute pjs for Christmas and had a wonderful Christmas morning! (despite being woken up earlier than we anticipated by my 11 yr old brother haha)
Stair picture, our 1st Christmas tradition!

Santa came to visit us yay! I got the new iphone 3gs and matt got a Sigsauer handgun!! Thanks Santa!

Here is everyone opening presents... it was so fun to open presents from Matt and to see him open mine. I got him some cologne, a new wallet, some new ties, new socks, the book Catching Fire. He got me a new ihome, a scrapbooking kit, new scriptures with my new mane on them, some super soft sweats from the north face and a zip up jacket. We had lots of fun and got tons of other fun stuff. Including some snuggies!!! haha

We had a really fun first Christmas together its crazy to think that we have shared 3 Christmas's already, 2007,2008, and 2009! yay although 2009 was the first Christmas we were actually together for since 2007 was when we were both home and 2008 was when Matt was in Africa. Our first Christmas Matt bought me a Tiffany's necklace and we had only been dating like 5 weeks! He already loved me then and he loves me even more now :)Im so glad we got to spend Christmas together it was so much fun and we can't wait for many more.

Oh Christmas Tree! Oh Christmas Tree!

2009-12-11T10:41:00.000-08:00

So we bought an artificial pre-lit tree for Christmas this year, best invention ever! I only have one ornament so far, an Our First Christmas Ornament that we personalized :). There will be more decorations to come if I ever get around to putting them up haha.
Putting together the tree.

All lit up!

All decorated :)

Our cute ornament!

Here is the little wreath I decorated to hang on our apartment door.

I am so excited to be able to spend this Christmas with the love of my life! It is going to be so fun :) Now if only I had some good ideas of what to get him...

BYU vs. utah...Go Cougars!!!

2009-12-11T10:33:00.000-08:00

So I went to the BYU vs utah football game on Saturday November 28th. I sat with my cousins and some of their friends. I almost wasn't going to go at all because Matt works during the games and I really just want to go with him but I ran into my cousins at Target earlier that day so I decided to go with them :) Boy am I glad that I went to that game it was amazing!! And we had such a blast. I ate a yummy cougar tail for lunch which is a bratwurst on a maple bar and is soo good! Anyways we won 26-23 in overtime and then we all rushed the field it was great!! Good job Cougars for taking back the pride that is ours :)
Here's Matt and I before the game.

Me and my cousin Alli after we rushed the field.

Eben though it was freezing it was way fun and I was glad because Matt actually was able to come into the game so I watched most of the game with him anyways :)

Thanksgiving in Oregon

2009-12-10T13:13:00.000-08:00

So for our first Thanksgiving together we flew out to Oregon to be with Matt's family. (I get my family for Christmas!!) It was really fun and all of Matt's sisters and their families were able to come too so it was definitely crazy and busy. It's so fun to have nieces and nephews tho. I love that they are all getting more familiar with me. The best is that Me and Matt had just gotten home and hadn't seen Kim's family yet, when we walked in Adrian came flying down the stairs and was like "Amanda!" and then she ran over and gave me a big hug. :) I was totally expecting her to say "Uncle Matt!" but was pleasantly surprised that she wanted to see me, haha take that Uncle Matt!! So anyways we flew down late Tuesday night and then flew home Friday evening (our plane was delayed for 2 hrs!!) Matt had to work at the BYU-Utah game on Saturday so we had to be back in P-town (more on that later). I was disappointed that our long awaited and much needed break had to be cut short :( However we did a lot while we were in Oregon and had a lot of fun with Matt's family. Here is some of the things we did. :)
We did some shopping! I had lots of fun, Matt however was tired after like 30 minutes haha I'll just have to have a daughter so I can take her shopping ;)haha jk

We got some milk and dark chocolate mint truffles at Harry and David mmm

On Wednesday night we were able to go to a Blazers game! Yay they won but it was pretty close. We had a lot of fun and this was my first basketball game ever!

Then we had Thanksgiving day. We had our Turkey feast at about 1 pm and it was delicious!!
Here are a few of the things I'm thankful for:
-My wonderful and loving husband who means everything and more to me!
-The 2 families in my life that are both amazing and so loving
-Eternal marriage and families, I just love that I'll always be with the ones I love
-A Job
-My education and the fact that I have awesome parents who are paying for my tuition so that I don't end up with tons of debt :) Also Matt's awesome parents who are paying for his tuition as well
-Pictures!! I love being able to capture memories and always look back on them
-Airplanes, because they allow us to travel so fast and see so much of the world that would be most likely impossible without them
-My health
-Grant $
-And many many more things :)

Here is the table all set and ready.

And me and Matt ready to eat, see we were able to sit down and eat first because we (luckily) dont have any other mouths to feed but our own haha :)

I even made my Grandma's Mississippi Mud Fudge cake to contribute and to my relief everyone loved it! mmm

Here's baby Kamden eating some sweet potatoes. He has gotten so big since the last time we saw him, and its been so long since I've held a baby! haha last time I held him he cried and when Matt took over he stopped, but this time when I picked him up he actually stopped crying :) yay!!

After everyone ate we took a family picture for the Christmas card, I don't have that picture but I have one of Matt and I with Paige and Adrian.

At around 4 we all headed over to the clubhouse where Grandma and Grandpa Ekman live. They are so awesome and I love having another Grandpa since the only Grandpa I ever knew is now with Heavenly Father, miss and love him so much! (My other Grandpa passed away when my mother was only 3 so I won't be able to meet him for a while). Anyways tons of Matt's extended family came and everyone brought different pies and treats to share (including my fudge cake :)
Here's what we did to pass the time haha, Matt broke off 2 fork prongs and made vampire teeth, this kept me and Andrea entertained for a while haha.
Attack!

Andrea even did a Nanny McPhee snaggle tooth haha so funny!

Also to stay entertained I found some bubbles in the bathroom most likely from a wedding reception that was held here and I started to gain a following of kids. haha It was all fun and games until someone pooped their pants and that's when I called it quits! haha

I believe it was the little boy in blue who was the culprit
>
That night Matt promised to take me to see.....

It was amazing!!! I like it so much better than Twilight, I think probably because it was mostly Jacob in it. Team Jacob yaya!! So for the movie series I am team Jacob but in the book I am team Edward. I mean hello tan, hot, ripped, tall, and warm vs grey, dead, old, and hairy. The choice seems obvious, right? Plus the on-screen chemistry btwm Bella and Jacob is 1000 times stronger than when she is with Edward aka Robert Pattinson is a terrible actor and is nowhere near being considered attractive in my book!

Anyways so the next day was Friday and we had to pack up to go home...sad day :(. But before that we all went out to a Christmas tree farm and everyone helped pick a tree and cut it down. I have never done this before so it was really fun :)

So before we left we did some last bits of shopping in Portland and then headed for the airport. We didnt realize until we were all dropped off that our flight was delayed for 2 hours, so we had a fun time of 3 hrs in the airport. We actually made the best of it. We went to Panda Express for food and then we walked around all the terminals we ran the wrong way on the moving walkways and just goofed around, we checked out the shops and lastly got some Baskin Robbins :)Finally it was time to board, when we got on I panicked the plane was soo tiny!! I had to hide in Matt's shoulder to calm down cause I seriously did not want to fly on that small plane, but alas I survived haha.

We had such a fun Thanksgiving and everything went awesome. I just love having a husband who I can share all these memories with now. Im sad it was so short but now we can look forward to Christmas!!

SLC Photoshoot!

2009-12-07T09:23:00.000-08:00

So I cant remember exactly when this was, but during the semester I did a photoshoot in Salt Lake. The pictures turned out really good and I had a lot of fun being all primped up and pampered all day. Here are some of my favorites. :)

So much fun!!

Fall Semester 2009!

2009-12-01T20:33:00.000-08:00

So here is what we have been up to since the beginning of this fall semester. I always feel like we never do anything but when I look back at everything we actually do a lot! So here it goes this should be my last post at catching up on what we've been up to since we have been married, I should be running on current info soon. :)

I made this cute welcome sign for the Halloween month

BYU football game, Matt has to work as a Security guard and I watched the game.

Matt's mom came to Utah for the weekend his Dad was supposed to come too but was sick with swine flu and decided it wold be better to stay home :( We were sad he couldn't come
We went to Red Robin

We got Baskin Robbins

We all went up to drive the Alpine loop and see the pretty leaves! it was so fun :)

Our sweet jumping picture, 1st try!!

We went to Cascade Falls

I just LOVE my husband!!

Andrea bought us these yummy homemade suckers at Sundance, they were way good, I got Blue Rasberry and Matt got Peach.

We all met up to eat dinner at Brick Oven. Everytime I am here it seems I have a bad experience. The first time Matt took me we were supposed to be just stopping by to say hi to his mission friend who was in town and then we were going to get dinner somewhere else. But no we stayed the whole time didnt order anything cause I thought we were going somewhere else and by the time we left it was too late to go anywhere. Lets just say I was very angry with him, very. This time the pasta that I ordered they came back and said they didnt have. However this experience ended happily, the chef made a pasta just for me and it was delicious!!

We drove to Salt Lake and I thought the Temple looked so pretty. I love how amongst the trash and garbage of slc you have something so beautiful in the middle of it to make up for all the crap that surrounds it.

We went to Hatch Family Chocolates and got some really yummy Hot chocolate and chocolates.

I went to a London breakfast reunion, where we had Amish Oatmeal a definite favorite of anyone who has lived at the London Center(well since the Shulers have been there, seriously the most awesome family ever and the best London directors!)

We went to Gardner Village which I am now obsessed with, it is the cutest place!

We went on a date night with Heather and Brayden and Jamie and Kenny to drive the alpine loop and get dinner at the pie! Here's me and Heather plus her baby boy. I still cant believe shes having a baby!

Me and my honey :)

I made pumpkin sugar cookies to take to the big pumpkin carving date.

Working on our pumpkin.

Our finished pumpkin masterpiece-Bugaboo!

The group.

Playing in Heather's baby room, I cant wait to see the little guy :)

Here's Matt working one of the football games, it rained on him so he got to wear this awesome jacket haha

We baked some yummy rolls, the dough was way sticky tho.

We have had so much fun this semester although we are both very ready for it to be over haha. Cant wait for christmas break!!

July trip to Oregon

2009-11-23T09:50:00.000-08:00

So after our Summer semester had ended and finals were over we were able to fly down to Matt's house for a week. It was a really fun trip and we did a lot of neat stuff. The bad thing was we both got really bad colds while we were there it was awful. We were totally exhausted all day and I couldnt breathe. I was using some Zicam, don't ever use this its awful! I lost my taste for a day and a half, I mean I literally could not taste anything which was extremely awful :( It made me even more depressed about being sick. Anyways i got it back luckily, there were tons of cases were people lost their smell and taste for months! that would just be soo awful. So I refuse to ever use Zicam again. Anyways here is a "taste" of what we did.

We got to drive around in the Jag which is always fun and the weather was so nice we could even put the top down.

We played with Shadow, she loves going for walks, and going to the park to play fetch, and she just loves Matt. When Matt was younger they picked her out at the pound and saved her. She is such a sweet dog and she is getting more and more used to me :).

We spent way too much money at the Nike Store, but check out our sweet new kicks which I am in love with!

I got the new MacBook Pro!! Happy Early Christmas to me :)

We went and did these awesome Jet Boat rides at Hellgate, they were really fun.

We played in the gift shop.

I tried to find a small patch of shade, it was so hot!

All aboard!

Our next stop was Ashland were they have a Shakespeare Festival. We saw Don Quixote (yes its not Shakespeare). We left at intermission it wasnt that great but the theatre and the experience was awesome.
We ate a really yummy dinner at a place called Mucho Gusto before the play and Matt and I got a Caramel Apple later for dessert mmm apple pie caramel appple :)

I had to try the Natural Lithia Water, which was all bubbly and tasted like sulfur, so nasty!

The theater

The next part of our trip was a drive along the beautiful Oregon coast, it was so pretty.

It was all foggy and misty it was cool. Plus I got to put on my new jacket from the Nike store :)

I wanted a picture by the whale

We got to stay at a really sweet hotel. We had a huge hotel room to ourselves and it even had a fireplace! Here's the room

In this picture you can see my new friend Douglas, we got him at Harry and David along with tons of other goodies.

Here we are shopping at Harry and David.

The next day we played at the beach.

And we went to the Yaquina Head Lighthouse which is the lighthouse they filmed in the ring. The lighthouse was way cool, but there were millions of nasty flies, they were seriously everywhere! At one point we were walking around and one buzzed in my ear I let out an ear piercing scream and scared everyone haha it was funny.

Probably my favorite picture haha

And last but not least we got some yummy salt water taffy, my favorite flavor is watermelon :)

Making the taffy.

We had such a fun trip and were sad to leave. Luckily we started to get better from being sick. Thanks so much Mom and Dad Ekman for a fun and much needed trip!!

Oregon Reception

2009-11-19T10:34:00.000-08:00

Oops I totally forgot to put up pictures from our 2nd reception that was in Oregon at the Tualatin Country Club. It was a lot of fun to have 2 receptions and to get more presents of course haha. Everything turned out really nice and we had a lot of fun. Of course it was mine turn to be completely lost as to who is who and talk to a bunch of people whose names I cant remember, but Matt took his turn so it was mine, he did an ok job of telling me who was who but a couple of times i was left in the dark :( Anyway what girl doesn't want to dress up and wear her dress again and dance and eat yummy food. Here are some of the pictures from the reception.

My parents

Matt's Parents

Our nephew Kenyon with some yummy fruit

Lunch the day after the reception

Opening more presents

Packing the Uhaul for the drive to Utah

Summer Adventures

2009-11-16T08:41:00.000-08:00

Ok so this is gonna be another long post but I am going to update everything we have been up to over the summer. It prob isnt going to even be in order just how I remember it. Plus I know prob no one even reads this but I like showing off my blog work to Matt when I get done :)
So we got back from our wedding and honeymooning on May 18th. We came home to such a mess of an apt we didnt know what to do with ourselves. Plus I had to get back to work the next day so Matt got to play housewife all summer until he started his job around fall semester. During this time I was taking Human Anatomy and working my butt off and Organizational Effectiveness and Matt was taking a Geography class.
The MESS!!

After months of going through stuff, organizing, and many trips to Andrea's house to store stuff in the basement(thanks so much to Andrea letting us store things at her house I dont know what we would do with all our stuff if we couldn't), we finally got our apt looking like this! (Decorations courtesy of my mom she helped pick everything, buy it, and helped me put it up :)

We had a fun cabin trip.

1 Month wedding Anniversary, Matt surprised me with flowers! Love him :)

Went to my friends Chelsea and Lance's wedding at the Draper Temple.

Made a flower pot at Color Me Mine with the hubby.

We bought a new couch at RCWilley.

Matt bought Harry Potter 1-5 on BluRay as a surprise 2 month anniversary present :)

We went to the Scottish Highland Festival at Thanksgiving Point.

Grocery Shopping at Smiths, this is on a regular basis for us since we only buy things we need for like 1 or 2 meals and end up making like 3 trips a week to the grocery store for random things.

Went to the Lehi Rodeo were it poured on us and froze Matt to death.

We had a camping trip up near Squaw Peak with Heather and Braden, and then the next day we went shooting.
Our awesome hubbys!

Me and Heather

We love having fun married friends to hang out with!
Went to my family's cabin for 4th of July. Here is the whole clan waiting for the parade.

We went to the fire station for a big breakfast thing they do every year.

We went to the creek to look for trout, here is my dad looking for fish :) I just love him! :)

We went to the Orem Fair with Heather and Braden and Rachel and Arrian. It was so nice and then a storm rolled in really fast, it got super windy and starting pouring.We were trapped in the scentsy tent and the boys went to get the cars but then we had to make a run for it and got completely soaked, but it was fun.

We had to bury one of our beloved robo dwarf hamsters. this is what they look like...

Here is the burial.

Olive Garden date.

I think these are my 4 month anniversary flowers. The hubs knows how to spoil his wifey :)

We had such a fun time this summer, being married made everything in life so much better! We had so many fun adventures and I cant wait for all the new ones we have in store for us :)

Honeymoon Part 2!!

2009-11-12T08:30:00.000-08:00

After we returned from our Costa Rica trip we flew in to Vegas and stayed at my house for a night. This begins the second part of our honeymoon which was a road trip up through California on our way to Oregon for our 2nd Reception there. We started by driving to Matt's sister Rachel's apt in Beverly Hills. We stayed with her for the night. The next day we went down to the beach and just had fun doing things on the pier and laying out :).

We stayed another night and the next day we started driving to Six Flags Magic Mountain WOO!

We got there and there was like no one there. We didnt have to wait for more than 2 minutes on any ride it was awesome! Although this made us sick faster since we didnt have the time waiting in lines for our bodies to recoup. I just love going to theme parks with a boy and always having someone to ride with and hold my hand, I still like Disneyland with him better, but we had lots of fun. :)

After we were too sick for any more rides we started the drive to Monterrey Bay where Matt's sister Kim and her family live. They just bought a house and we got to stay with them. They did a lot of remodeling and there house looks so cute! I cant wait until the day that we can get a house :)The next day we drove "17 Mile drive".

Kim's husband Akoni works at Cypress Point, a gorgeous golf course right on the coast near Pebble Beach. He took us all around the course on a little golf cart tour. It was so pretty.

After this we drove the rest of the drive and started heading for San Francisco.

We made it there just in time for our Alcatraz Tour. We were running along the piers trying to find where to go haha.

It was a lot of fun, and the tour was really cool.
Here I am on the boat.

And Matt

Matt in Jail :(

Me in Jail

Being a Seagull

After Alcatraz we ate at my favorite restaurant, Bubba Gumps, on Pier 39!!

Then we got dessert at Ghiradelli Square Mmm

We stayed at an amazing hotel called the fairmont that Matt's sister Andrea booked for us while we were in Alcatraz haha. It was amazing I loved it, everything was so old fashioned. We told the guy it was our honeymoon and he upgraded our room, sweet! We're just gonna do that everywhere :)

We stayed one night there and the next day we headed out for more driving, but not without stopping at the Golden Gate bridge first and then driving across it :)

Needless to say, Matt was so ready to be out of San Fran, the traffic there drove him nuts and the lack of parking, you'd think he'd be used it to by now living in Provo haha. So we stayed the night at this little motel it was kinda scary but fun. Our next day was going to see the Redwoods. I just think they are so amazing, and we had a lot of fun.

I'm a tree-hugger :)

Look close, Matt is standing btwn those 2 ginormous trees :)

We had such a fun trip, and loved having 2 honeymoons. But as far as im concerned our honeymoon isn't even over, we're still living in a honeymoon state :)

Honeymoon in Costa Rica!

2009-11-09T10:30:00.000-08:00

After our wonderful wedding night we headed off the next day to our Honeymoon in Costa Rica!! I was so excited to get to fly on a plane with my husband, he thought I was silly that i was so excited about it but its something every girl looks forward to..no more feeling awkward on planes worrying about falling asleep on the guy next to you's shoulder (true story happened to me while flying to Italy Junior year of high school haha)

We arrived in Costa Rica, picked up our rental car and started driving to the hotel, a trek that was supposed to be an hour and a half but took us 5 hours!!! Matt got lost and we were driving around this country on unmarked roads and scary streets, in the middle of the night, not to mention the lady told us when we picked up our car not to stop for anything, she said "if you get a flat tire just keep driving, do not stop, and do not let anyone help you" so comforting :(. We finally made it to our hotel at 5 am, and we checked in and crashed in our awesome room with an ocean view.

The next day we ordered room service, slept in, checked out our resort, and planned what we wanted to do.

Some of the amazing things we did while we were there are:

A horseback ride to a waterfall and then to swim in a natural pool.

Get pina coladas.

Go swimming at the beach.

Visit Manuel Antonio National park

Hang out with monkeys :) my favorite!

Go on a white water rafting trip.

We went zip-lining through the jungle but I dont have those pictures right now :(
And lots of other fun stuff.

We had such a blast and have so many fun and funny memories from our trip! Thanks so much to Matt's parents for our awesome Honeymoon trip! We love you guys!

I have the BEST Parents!

2009-11-09T09:57:00.000-08:00

So I just have to say a special thank you to my parents for giving me such an amazing wedding, and raising me the way they did so that I could be married and sealed in the temple just like they were. My parents are seriously amazing and if you know them you know what I am talking about. My mom is so busy with all 4 of us kids and she always has put us first so that we can do the things we want to. And my dad works his butt off as an amazing CAO (Chief Accounting Officer) for Wynn Resorts. My parents have worked so hard to be to where they are today, and I am so grateful to have them . My mom worked so hard to get everything ready and perfect for my wedding. I think she cared more about all the details than I did. haha.

I hardly had to stress about any wedding stuff and I was able to focus on school and finish my semester with A's :). I love having a mom who is my best friend and who I can trust with anything! Who do I want to go shopping with me and help me find stuff?...my mom! And not because she will buy me stuff (which is a plus) but because the cutest outfits I own were chosen by her.

She helped do so much for our wedding and I owe it all to her and daddy of course although he was more there for support he stayed out of the planning mess haha. My parents are awesome and I love them so much! Ready for grandkids yet? haha jk Thanks so much Mom and Dad I love you! Matt does too :)

Mr. and Mrs. Ekman!! 5-1-09

2009-11-06T09:21:00.000-08:00

Ok so I don’t have any of my really good pictures yet, I am getting a CD of everything but haven’t gotten it yet, so these pictures will have to do for now. Plus this is long but oh well my main purpose of this blog is to have a journal of our lives together so I have to use details :). So about a week before the wedding on Saturday April 25th matt took me through the temple.

Im so glad that Matt and I could get married in the temple and that I found a worthy boy to take me there. That next week all the final preparations were made. Matt flew home to Oregon until Thursday and I hated that he was gone. But I had lots to do. I had to have my dress fitted since it had just arrived the week before. I didn’t get to take any bridals for this reason, there just wasn’t enough time. That week there was one day where all of my bridesmaids got together and my mom bought us all lunch at CafeRio, it was Amazing and so fun! Me and mom finished all the details so everything would be ready.

Anna, Britt, Jessica, Amy, Me, Heather, Amanda P., Morgan , and Tori

We also all went to get our nails and toes done that Thursday morning.

On The Thursday night before the wedding we had our rehearsal dinner at BJ’s. We had my favorite types of pizza. It was so fun to have everyone there before the craziness of the next day began.

Angel, Michael, and Amanda

Jon, Jordan, and Britt

My Grandma, Aunt Carol, Uncle John, and cousins

After the dinner all my friends took me out for a bachelorette party! It was so much fun we all had little masks, feather boas, and name tags of a guys parts haha it was funny!

We went to the Las Vegas sign and took some pictures there and then of course we went to the strip and the girls had a bunch of dares for me.

After each dare I got a prize, to name a few…some chocolate paint and some naughty dice haha. I had such a fun time with all my girls Thanks girls!!!
By the time we got home I was exhausted, but of course I stayed up with some of the girls who were staying at my house and we had to have the night before the wedding girl talk, haha it was fun chatting with anna, tori, cari, and my sisters. I didn’t care that I was up late I could not fall asleep!
That morning I woke up and I remember thinking holy crap im getting married today!! Haha but I wasn’t really nervous at all, I was just excited to get ready and have my almost husband come and take me to the temple. So I woke up at 7 am after like 3 hrs of sleep and went upstairs to the chaos, haha every girl in the house was up getting ready and running around getting things together. I got to sit and be pampered while Leslie (my hair-dresser and my moms long time friend) did my hair and then my mom did my makeup.

Poor Matt showed up to pick me up and they wouldn’t let me see him! I wanted to see him so bad, and they made him just go without me, he didn’t even know how to get to the temple so he called like 5 times asking me where to go haha. Once I was ready my mom and I got in the car with everything and headed over, and then I finally got to see my fiancé just beaming at me. We were ready. We had to wait for everyone to arrive and then we were sealed for time and all eternity to each other in the Las Vegas Nevada temple at about 12:30 pm on May 1, 2009. I can still remember how extremely happy I was when I first heard them say that we were now husband and wife. From that point on I have been Mrs. Ekman. After we were married I had to change into my dress which took some time to get everything right, Matt still had never seen my dress so you can imagine the look on his face when I walked out:) . It was so fun to walk out of the temple to everyone cheering for us and to have all our close friends and family there.

Of course then began the 2 hours of picture taking.
We were so exhausted by the time we got back to my house, we ate really fast and then 15 minutes later had to head over to our reception. The reception started at 6 at the Redrock Country Club.

My stud little brother Blake

Everything inside was fantastic!! It was everything I had dreamed of for my wedding. Everything went so smoothly, our dance went perfectly which Matt was freaking out about and I mean literally freaking out, he was more nervous for our first dance then anything else haha.

The food tasted amazing and the cake was so so so good! I have to brag about my cake because it was bomb! There was not a piece of nasty fondant at all. Just 4 tiers of buttercream frosting with white chocolate petals around it.

The reception seriously went by soo fast, I felt like it had only been an hour and my mom was already telling me to start getting my stuff ready to leave , Now I was nervous haha. We walked out through everyone cheering and waving big sparklers and then we got into the limo and rode off :).

We stayed for our wedding night in an amazing suite at Wynn Encore. It was perfect and the room was so nice, there was even a remote control for the blinds which was my favorite part haha. We had to get up pretty early the next morning to go to the airport on our way to our Honeymoon in Costa Rica!!! But ill save that for another time. But I must say that I am so happy with my husband. I love him so much and I am so excited for the rest of our lives together!

Love at First Sight!

2009-10-22T09:32:00.000-07:00

This is kinda long but there is just so much to say about how we met. Matt and I met Fall 2007 living in King Henry Apts. We were in the same ward. We met for the first time after ward prayer at my apt. We both remember the first time we saw each other. Matt was wearing a red track jacket and I was wearing a pink Italy zip-up and gym shorts. I remember turning to roommate and saying “Who is that boy? He is so cute!” Little did I know but he had a crush on me that entire semester. He even admits that he would go to get his mail at the time he knew I would be coming home from work just in hopes that he’d see me, he’s so cute! I had no idea that he had such a crush on me and I even had a little crush on him but didn’t realize it until later. He asked me on a date to the moonlight ride at Sundance and I couldn’t go so he thought I didn’t like him and was shutting him down he had no idea how badly I wanted to go on that date with him. Over the semester we hung out more and more and as I became closer friends with him I knew I liked him. I remember coming home one night and thinking gosh I really like that boy! Haha.

We had so many funny things happen over the semester where we would try to be together. We would always find a way to sit by each other on the couch and we would hold hands under the covers. We even held hands for an entire drive up to Ogden to go to a corn maze. I get so giddy and get butterflies just remembering all of this. Our first date was on a Friday, Matt invited me to go shooting with him so we grabbed a pumpkin and some cans to shoot at and we went out behind Utah lake to go shooting. (This place is where Matt eventually asked me to marry him.) I kept thinking he was gonna try to kiss me and wanting him to but also worrying about what to do haha. Later that week I came over to his apartment and we watched Dumb and Dumber and that was the night he kissed me. I was so giddy! That next weekend was Thanksgiving and I remember hiding my phone to text him constantly and I didn’t tell anyone. Three weeks after our first kiss Matt told me he loved me, I was shocked at first and didn’t say anything back but a few days later I knew that was how I felt about him too.

We dated the rest of that semester and for a few months while I studied abroad in London. He even flew me home for New Years to meet his family and stay there for a few days literally a week before I left for London, it was the best! We have had our ups and downs as any relationship does, but when I came back from London and visited Utah in the 1st week of July there was no turning back. I was in Vegas all summer and when I came back for Fall 2008 we started dating again. We didn’t spend one single day apart from each other (except Thanksgiving and Christmas break.) After we’d been dating again for about a month Matt started talking about getting married and I was ecstatic, we would secretly look at rings and wedding dresses it was so fun. We found the perfect ring at Shane co. the very first time we ever went ring shopping! What can I say I know what I like.

My ring!!!

Our Engagement Photo

We both went home for Thanksgiving break and little did I know that while Matt was home he went and bought the ring! He proposed to me on December 2, 2008. He took me to a spot a little higher than where he had our first date. We flew some kites around and then we sat down and talked for a little. I had no idea he had the ring but I was suspicious when he started talking all serious, and then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him! So cute! I kept saying yes yes yes and are you serious is this real!? And finally he was like well don’t you want to see your ring? I was so excited I didn’t even think about it, it was so windy up there that he didn’t take it out in fear of dropping it. It was just what I wanted and was so beautiful!! I was so excited to call everyone and tell them and go show my friends . After that we started planning a beautiful wedding that would take place May 1, 2009 in the Las Vegas Nevada Temple. I love our story and I couldn’t be happier that I married this amazing boy!

First Blog Post Ever!

2009-10-14T09:27:00.000-07:00

Ok so this blogging thing has been a lot more difficult for me than I thought it would. Maybe the hubs can help me. So this is really just a test post to see if I can figure out what I'm doing haha. Anyways we are in the middle of our fall semester and I am desperately ready for it to be over already, the main reason for that being I just want to celebrate our 1st married Christmas together! I don't really have much to say as of yet I still have to figure out how to add pics to these posts. Til next time when I know what I'm doing!!