Our First Valentines Day

So we just had a first Valentines Day together as a married couple. We've had 1 together as a dating couple, and 1 as an engaged couple both of which were wonderful. But this year was different. I unfortunately had to work on Valentines Day, but we were able to get some one on one time together. I made Jared's gift this year, it was a book made from playing cards that was titled "52 Reasons Why I Love You." This took me some time to put together, but I think he really loved it. Along with the book I got him new sunglasses, a cute little stuffed bear, and gummies (Jared absolutely loves gummy stuff). Jared woke up with me at 4:30, and went down to scrape my car windows for me which is not something he does for me. He also came by before he went to school and put a CD in my car that I would listen to when I got off. Totally surprised me. It started with our song "Then" by Brad Paisley, followed by music he knew I wanted and songs that make him think of me. So cute! He also sent me a single red rose which arrived after I got home from work. He also made us a calendar with pictures we have taken since we got together with all the birthdays and other important events of the year on it.
That day Jared got a dent in the slide in his trombone, so he skipped 2 classes so we could get it repaired ASAP. He had concerts and other performances so it needed to be repaired quickly. So we drove to St George and dropped the trombone off to be repaired. While we waited we went to the visitors center at the St George Temple and walked around the temple grounds. We would have done a session or something, but the temple is closed for maintenance and what not. It was nice to just hold hands and be near the temple, where we had thought about getting married at one point. It was also nice to listen to music and hold hands in the car on the way down.
When we got home, we put the lasagna in the oven and ran to the grocery store to get some garlic bread. We ate dinner and watched "Friends with Benefits" and went off to bed.
It was just so nice to spend time together and show our love to one another. It was a great Valentines Day.
Our 1 Year Anniversary is in a few weeks so we'll have another excuse to show how much we love each other all over again.

Christmas Eve Pictures

So I decided to share pictures from our Christmas Eve.

Us Christmas Eve in our Santa Hats of course


Jared cooked our honey glazed ham

Our Christmas Eve Dinner


Jared made wonderful egg nog which we had in our snowflake goblets

Our yummy dinner

We had a great Christmas and are looking forward to many more.

Birthday

Yesterday was Jared's birthday. I unfortunately had to work yesterday from 8 am to 4 pm, so we played on Friday a little to make up for it. On Friday we went to the new Sherlock Holmes movie, with popcorn, soda, and candy. Yesterday we went out to dinner at the Hong Kong Buffet here in town. We came home stuffed. After dinner we watched a movie. Jared got all kinds of great presents. His mom/family gave him 2 cans of food to add to our food storage and a 72 hour kit, so now we have 3 kits which is really nice. From my family he got 4 musicals and some Sean Connery 007 movies. And from me... I gave him Wii Sports, the first season of The Fresh Prince of Belaire, and new hair clippers (which he really did need.) Oh and he got cards from me, our bishop, my grandma Hall, and our insurance I think. He says he had a great birthday. Now we both are 24, and it will be the first age where we started it married. I love Jared, and I am so glad he had a good birthday.

9 Months!!!!

On Monday was our 9 month anniversary. CRAZY! I can't believe it sometimes. Sometimes it's like our wedding day was just yesterday. At other times, it seems like we have been married forever. I love Jared so much more today than I did on our wedding day, and I loved him a lot on our wedding day. We've been married long enough that if we had gotten pregnant right off the bat we'd be welcoming a new baby into our lives right now. Crazy! (And no we aren't pregnant and are not sure when we will either).
We have had our share of ups and downs these past 9 months, but I wouldn't trade any of it for anything. I love Jared, and am so glad that he took me to the temple 9 months ago. I am so grateful that we have the promise of being together FOREVER, so long as we keep those covenants we made that day as well as the others we have made. I can't imagine not having this knowledge, and not being with my sweetheart forever. I am looking forward to the many more months and years with Jared and the many more adventures we will have together. I love him so very much.

Compromise...

We have come to realize that a happy marriage requires compromise. In other words both people have to give up something in order to settle a difference.
Like today we had a little situation. We only had one car and we both had things going on throughout the day. I had work from 10-6. Jared had class at 8, 10, 1 and a meeting at 5:30. So we compromised. Jared would be able to have the truck all day to get to the things he had to, but he had to drop me off at work at 10. As for his meeting we decided that if it were possible I would try to get off at 5:15 so he could be there for the whole meeting, but if I was unable to he would come pick me up when I was done and leave the meeting early or go late. I also said that if that wasn't going to work I would walk home, or maybe try to get a ride from a coworker. I ended up not finishing work until 5:45 and so Jared ended up leaving early and picking me up. I gave up having my own vehicle today and Jared gave up being able to stay at his meeting the whole time.
I don't know how we'd get along without compromising.
The best part of it is, that even though it feels like we're giving up what we might want at the time, I would gladly give up so much more for the closeness that comes as we sacrifice for each other.

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving with the Davenport family and Grandma Davenport's extended family. They asked us to bring a salad so I decided to make my layered Jell-o salad, and to make it in the cornucopia mold I have. It turned our beautiful.
























We stayed in St George at the Days Inn with our family, and had a ton of fun.

Our First Halloween

For our first Halloween together, we dressed up as Ghostbusters. On Friday we went to a Halloween institute dance. Our costumes were a big hit. They even played the Ghostbusters theme song. It was a blast. On Saturday we went to our ward Halloween party. Our costumes were a hit again. We had dinner (soup, rolls, and desserts) and then carved pumpkins. Jared made one into the ghostbusters logo, and I had one say "hi". Yeah Jared is the creative one not me. They both turned out pretty great though. On Halloween I dressed up for work. After Jared was home from school we frosted cookies and then put together goodie plates for some of our friends. We put our costumes on and delivered our treats, and went to Papa Murphey's to get a Jack-o-Lantern pizza along with cheese bread and cookie dough. While we ate pizza we watched "Donnie Darko" and turned off all the lights and lit some candles and plugged in our pumpkin lights. I have been sick with a nasty cold and worked at 4 am, so at 10:30 I was exhausted, even though I wanted to stay up and watch more movies.
Here are some pictures of us:




































We ended up buying some candy just to make sure we had something in case we got trick-or-treaters, but no one showed. I also went to Walmart and bought the 50% off candy so we have TONS.

It was a good Halloween. And looking forward to the many ahead.