April 6th 2012 and our experiences.

As many know (except me, I guess) April 6 is the anniversary of when the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints became a church. For me it was just the first Friday in April and Chris and I thought it would be a perfect day to schedule a very small room at the Salt Lake Temple to be sealed.  We knew we couldn't invite everyone who would want to come (Aunts/Uncles, Cousins, Friends) because both of our families combine are so large, so we wanted to make it fair and we only invited parents, siblings, and grandparents. We also invited Chris's Aunt Linnea and Uncle Clint, because Clint is the bishop who married us, and we invited Brother and Sister Hirshci ("Hershey") because they taught our temple class. That was it. Capacity.

Chris and I awoke that Friday morning, thinking it was going to be great weather and as we looked out the window it had snowed over night, so we decided to get ready and leave early because we weren't sure what the roads and traffic were like, because the temple asked us to be there no later than 10:15am for the 12:00noon sealing. We ended up arriving to the temple in 20 minutes. So we decided that we would just wait in the seating area they have for early guests until our two witnesses and my escort (My mom and dad, and Chris's step-dad, Tom) arrived. We ended up waiting for about an hour for everyone to get there and checked in right at 10:15am (most of the temple workers were pretty impressed). I went with my mom and changed in the brides room and met a young woman (not like a Young Woman) who was getting married that day and was in her wedding dress waiting to be called on. (more on her later)

They soon called me, and Chris and I (with out going into too much detail) had a chance to just sit together in a peaceful room for about an hour (apparently the temple isn't used to people being on time and they weren't ready for us). We then went and got seal. It was pretty special. I don't know how to write it and make it have all the feelings but you'll just have to take my word.

Now about the funny story about this girl. So as I'm getting she started to talk to me because I think she had a lot of nerves. She asked me if I was excited and I said yes and I asked the same and she was, too, excited. I then asked her if she was nervous and she said that she wasn't, but she was the day before, in fact she was so nervous the day before she hadn't eaten at all. She then left and I was pretty close after her. Her and her fiancee sat next to Chris and I they soon left to be married, or we assumed, and then they were back and they sat on a bench by themselves and were very scared looking. They started to pray and the girl started to cry. a lot. and she started to get pale and getting shaky. Her fiancee got and went to a temple worker and Chris and I soon realized, something was going on here. (so of course we started to stare) They brought her juices boxes wrapped in tissues so they were white. Soon they asked us to leave the special waiting room so we could be sealed and they too were coming out. They ended up have the room next to ours and were sitting on a bench. They had crackers and juice for her and she was looking in pretty bad shape. They also had a cold compress on her head. They soon stood her up to go into the room and she about passed out, so her fiancee and two little old temple worker sisters were pretty much carrying her into the room. Chris and I teased after that the sealer probably didn't give too much advise at the beginning and just got right into the ceremony.

Anyway, after we were sealed we went to Olive Garden with my parents, sister/bro-in-law, and grandma and grandpa Cook. It was fun to just sit and talk about life and everything. We soon had to go get our puppy. I got home thinking that I wanted to write in my journal about all our experiences and by the time I got home I realized that Chris and passed his cold on to me and I was starting to feel pretty bad. I took a nap and woke up and forgot almost everything I wanted to write down, luckily my parents remembered most things.

What a day though! I have a great feeling now, knowing that if anything were to happen, Chris and I will be together forever, whether he likes it or not. I sure do love that kid!

1/24/12

As many of you who know me have realized in the past I have tried to be vegetarian and dappled with staying away from dairy and eggs. I started to eat meat again, right around the time Chris and I got married, mainly because I got tired of the idea of making dinner, and walking to Dylan's with Chris sounded a lot better than cooking, bleh!!  It doesn't hurt that my husband is probably the best bar-be-que-er ever! I recently, however, started my venture and wanted to share with my friends and family!

I started watching a lot of documentaries on hulu.com at work on my own free time, because they are free. That when I decided that I just needed to do it again. (I watched Forks Over Knives and Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. I also read a book called The Complete Idiot's Guide to Plant Based Nutrition) As I was watching Forks Over Knives, Chris caught the tale end and was telling me that he didn't buy it, and that if anyone goes from a diet full of fast food and fat and turns to a healthier diet of whole grains and vegetables, they will be healthier with or with out the meat and dairy and eggs. To this I said, yes I realize and I know that this is not for everyone.

I have been trying to eat this way for about a week now and so far, I have been feeling "cleaner", happier, more energetic, and I sleep tons better. I do agree this could be a combination of things, in that I have been running like a crazy person training for my races, and I have tried to cut Diet Coke/caffeine out.

Any way I just wanted to share the movies I watched because they were interesting to me. Eventually I will post a blog that is more relating to Chris and my's adventure of life with a puppy that's almost a year old!

2012

This year I made some resolutions and thought that I would share them that way I am more pressured to finish them :).

• Be sealed to Chris: We just finished our Temple prep class so this should be happening rather shortly. CHECK! (April 6th, 2012)
• Run a marathon: I am scheduled to run the Bear Lake marathon June 9th, and the Disneyland half in September. I sure hope I still like running that far away!
• Read the Book of Mormon twice this year: I hope to finish it once before we get sealed and once after. (I wasn't able to finish it before we were sealed, but I was close.)
• Get good grades in school: First step register for Fall :).

Here we go 2012!

Wind Storm 2011

I wanted to share my feelings with the wind storm we had on Thursday last week. We all say the mass amounts of destruction on the news with all the toppled over trees, torn up roofs, and downed power poles. The part that I wanted to share was about Yesterday (Sunday). 

A little back story: After the big storm Chris and I were out of power for about 2 days. We woke up one of the days and our thermostat read 54 degrees. We decided that if our power was out for another day we would spend the night at someones house because that was just to cold. We part of our back fence break, but Chris ran out and picked up all the pieces and put them in our garage and when it mellowed out, he put the fence back up. Other than that we had no damage.

Sunday we woke up bright and early to get ready for church and made it on time (yes!) to our 9:00 am church. Our stake is set up backwards, and we have sacrament last. I went to relief society and Chris went to priesthood, and then we met back up for Sunday school. We went into the Chapel for gospel doctrine and about half way through one of the ward clerks came in and announced that the just got word from the Stake President that there was so to be another storm and he wanted to cancel services and have everyone go out and do service (good ol' ox in the myer syndrome). The concern was that with the next wind storm there would be a lot more debris because of all the trees that were already down.  It was kind of scary, but before we left everyone met in the Chapel and we had a ward "family" prayer and all went home to break our fast and change our clothes.

Chris and I went home and ate and changed our clothes and took the dog out to go potty and then ran to his Grandpa Jacobs house to help with their trees (they still didn't have power). Once we got their trees taken care of and ran to the dump with Chris's step-dad, we ran home and started to help out with our ward. It was amazing to me how much our ward got done in so little time. We had the entire ward cleaned up in a matter of hours. A task that seemed a bit daunting when you looked at all the huge trees our neighbors had lost. I took some pictures of the work being down (I wish I would have taken pictures of the before, but I didn't think about it in time). Around 2:00 Chris and I went home and changed out of our sap covered clothes and went to his Grandma and Grandpa Doxey's for dinner. 

When the day was done Chris and I were talking and we felt like we had met more people and gotten to know more people with this "natural disaster" then we would have if it was just a regular church day. Although there was damage done and people didn't have power, I truly have a greater love for my littler ward and know that they would do anything in their power to help us out in a time of need.

We Have Been Married a Year...

...3 months ago! I am really bad at this! But here are the pictures from our sweet anniversary.

 Here are Chris's presents set up for him in the kitchen for when he woke up.

What could it be???

A GOLF CLUB?! (I didn't really get it for him, he picked it out and put it in his amazon shopping cart...)

The other present, the smaller one, was a RoadID. So that when we are out ridding our bikes, if we get hit by a car, people can identify our bodies(jk), a bit depressing and not the highlight of his gifts.

Now it's my turn; for those of you who know me, understand I always have "my blanket." It's usually disgusting and ratty and everyone hates it but me... so Chris decided to make me one. He and his Grandma and Grandpa Jacobs got together and worked on it for me! And all this time I thought on Saturdays Chris was just really really slow... nope he was just busy quilting! 

I picked this puppy out!

It's a bit big but I love it! (now after using it for almost 4 months the only negative side to using it is I think my left arm is getting much stronger than my right!)

Digby has grown up!

I know many of you don't care about our dog, but I just wanted to show her off because I love her. I just wanted everyone to see just how fast she grew up in the short amount of time we have had her (we got her at 6 weeks and she is now 7 months).

 This is her as a 6 week old!

This is a picture from when we had to go out and buy a bigger collar. (also, not the yellow pillow on the chair in the back. Since this picture we have had to move it, because she finally got big enough to reach up and eat the corners of it.)

This is her on our anniversary in August. I remember looking at her then and thinking, "She can't get any bigger!"...

Here I wanted to show how she LOVES HERSELF. She loves her reflections and in anything that she can see her self she will lick... for instance, the glass on the fireplace, my full length mirror and our patio door.

This is her matching my pillows. Its nice having a dog that matches my house so perfectly so I can pretend she is clean.

She also loves looking out the front window. Shes our neighborhood watch dog!

Dinner Party

Chris's Step mom and half siblings on his dad's side were in town from Houston last week to go to Lake Powell with the Doxey family and were going to be up near us for a couple of days so we were planning on having them over for dinner last night. Here are my thoughts and feelings about hosting my first dinner party!!

So I will start with Sunday night when we found out that Chris's family were coming on Tuesday. My first feelings were of panic as I looked around our house that was torn apart because the dog is at a "wild and crazy" stage and is also teething and is chewing EVERYTHING and making a mess, and then I looked at the kitchen where it was a complete disaster because Chris and I (mostly Chris) are putting in a tile back splash. I immediately stopped working on a little project I was doing for my niece's 1 year birthday party and went into crazy cleaning mode! I cleaned a little Sunday night, Monday night, and Tuesday afternoon. When I was done I thought to myself.. other than feeling happy that I have a nice clean house, why did I put so much stress on having a clean house? What really would happen if they came over and I DIDN'T polish the sinks and get the stove sparkling? Will they really be upset that the back door has dog tongue prints on it?

During all of this Chris and I were making all the plans and we realized that there would be a total of 7 people at dinner (Chris, his Step mom, half sister, half brother, Grandma and Grandpa Doxey, and me). We looked at our table and realized that we would have to bring in an extra chair and then the thought struck me! Chris and I wouldn't have enough plates or cups! So chris went to the store and got plastic cups and plates. Once the dinner got started we BARELY had enough silverware but for dessert we ended up have to use plastic spoons (luckily I happened to have them in the pantry!)

So then came the meal. I got really REALLY lucky on this. Monday night Chris went to his mom's house to pick up his grill and brought it home and he made pork chops for dinner. Chris's step mom brought a salad and Grandma Doxey brought a side and I told Chris I would make a side. Once Tuesday came and I had finally finished scrubbing the wood floors and realized I REALLY needed to take a shower I realized I didn't have time to make a side. Once I got out of the shower, I only had a few minutes until everyone was supposed to be at our house. So off to the store I went to get a fruit salad from the deli. I got home put it in a nice bowl (so it looked homemade) and throw the evidence away.

All in all, this experience made me really understand the stress and work that goes in to dinner parties that people invite me to! (it also made me really wish I would have spent the extra money on more dishes that I thought "we would never use")