Mr. and Mrs.

Mark and I finally got hitched on July 31st. There's no turning back now! (says Mark) I can't believe it's been 2 months already! It's taken me almost a month to finish writing this blog post...
The day went by so fast I could hardly take it all in! We got married at 9:00 in the morning, so I had to wake up at 4:30 to get ready. I couldn't sleep because I was so excited and ended up only getting around 3 hours of sleep anyway.

It was so busy inside the temple I was glad we were there pretty early. The temple workers all kept trying to give me stuff that wasn't mine, and they even lost my dress bag afterwards! I can only imagine how hard it is to keep all of the brides straight!

Everything was so surreal; I couldn't believe that our wedding day came so fast!

After we were done taking pictures we went to the chapel where our reception was going to be held, and had a luncheon. It was pretty tasty and it was nice that we were able to socialize with everyone that decided to come.

After the luncheon, Mark had this "brilliant" idea to go the Maverik and see if the clerk would give us a free drink. (Imagine--me in my wedding dress, trying to hold it up off the sticky floors, and Mark in his tux--walking into the gas station to get a fountain drink.) Jeff came along in his tux, too, to supervise and document the event.

Our reception was from 6-9, and it was a blast! But by the time it was finally over, I felt like a zombie! I was so ready to just get out of there.. Mark took FOREVER to change out of his tux and I ended up having to wait even longer before we could leave.

I'm glad that we were able to celebrate our big day with all of our friends and family... I'm so excited for the many years to come.

Here are some of our favorite wedding pictures:

I wish I could share more with you, but there are just so many that I love!

Our First Place

This past week has been so busy I just feel like passing out on the couch! The good news is that I can now officially pass out on my own couch. Mark and I have started to move in to our apartment this week and it is so exciting--I can't wait to get all settled in!

Our apartment is in North Salt Lake which will be nice for Mark's early morning commute to Salt Lake City. Now he can wake up at 4:45 instead of 4:15!

Here's brief look at the outside..

We picked up our sectional on Tuesday which I was looking forward to all week--It actually looks live we have a living room now! When we picked we didn't realize that they gave us two pieces that didn't fit together. Luckily Mark and my brother-in-law Kodie realized this before they got both of the pieces up to our third-floor apartment. But it's so nice to finally have it!


We also went to Big Lots beforehand and bought some storage cabinets for all of our books and DVDs. (Mark had a ton!) Mark and I made a pretty good team putting the first one together. It was a little confusing and took FOREVER, but we managed to come up with a finished product.(picture coming soon!)

Here's a better look at the rest of the place:

Our Bedroom
Guest Bedroom
Kitchen
Guest Bathroom
Our Bathroom
Outside Deck
I know there's a lot of pictures in this post, but I am just so excited for our own place. I can't wait for you all to come and visit!

Summer Fun!

The 4th of July has to be one of my favorite holidays. With parades, barbeques, family, and fireworks, you can't go wrong. In the past, my family and I would go to the Layton Park where they have a parade in the morning and booths set up all over the park with people selling whatever their heart desires. We would stay there all day and then go home after the fireworks.

This year, however, panned out a little differently than usual. Mark and I decided to go out on the Lake since nobody was able to all get together this year, and we hadn't taken out the Jet Ski since last August. It was the perfect opportunity.

After church on Sunday, we drove up to get the jet ski out of storage so we wouldn't have to worry about it on Monday. But when we got it home, it wouldn't start. We figured it was the battery, so we tried to charge it, but it still didn't work. We then had to search online to find a place that would be open on Monday so we could buy a new one. It turns out, there was just a blown fuse, but we got a new battery anyway since the old one was 3-4 years old.

Finally, we headed out to Utah Lake. It was so much fun to have a day of fun since I have been so stressed lately! Mark's brother and sister-in-law met us there after a few hours for just a little bit since they were in town.

We went from one side of the lake to the other to meet his brother, and so we had to take my cell phone to the other side so we could call them. Mark already had gotten his phone wet, so we took mine. I was a little nervous, since last year when we went out on the lake, my phone took not one, but two swims in the water. We found a plastic bag and put it in the "dry storage" area. Turns out the "dry" storage isn't so dry after all and plastic bags don't always keep out the water, and my phone got wet anyway.

Amazingly, my phone started working again. (It's a trooper!) But sadly for Mark, his phone is toast. Obviously, we have learned our lesson that you shouldn't take your phone out on the water even if you think it will stay dry.

I still got to see my fireworks, even though they weren't up close. We watched them from Mark's uncle's backyard which has an amazing view of the city. (You can see the Bountiful Temple from his back porch in Layton!) It wasn't as good as watching them close up at the park, but it was still nice to see some fireworks, especially since Mark doesn't really like them for some reason!

A Sneak Peek..

I had my bridals done this past Wednesday at the Ogden MTC Learning Park. Luckily, the flowers were in bloom, which normally wouldn't be a concern for me in the middle of June, but considering how Utah-ish the weather has been, you never know.


I was afraid the weather was going to be bad, as the forcast looked dismal, so we took them earlier than originally planned. Here in Layton the wind was blowing like crazy! I decided to go for it anyway, (I didn't want to wait another week to take them and wear my dress!) The place where we took the pictures had perfect weather. It wasn't too hot, or too cold, the sun peeked through during a lot of the shoot, and it was only slightly breezy making perfect winded shots.

After we were done, I could see the storm clouds rolling in from both sides. I was relieved that we didn't keep the original time.

I had only 10 or 15 minutes to do my makeup, which is about the same amount of time I usually spend in the morning, so I hoped that it wouldn't look too rushed. The girl who did my hair did it pretty quickly as well, but it turned out great!

I had so much fun! I didn't want to take my dress off afterwards! I realized how hard it was for me to laugh and smile without it looking fake, especially without Mark there goofing off. So my mom and photographer started talking about Mark, which made me smile somehow. ;)

So here is a little sneak peek for everyone! It doesn't really show anything off, and I probably could have put up a better picture of the dress, because Mark probably isn't going to see this anyway! But just in case...