4 Years Later and Still Going Strong

Last Wednesday was Bryant and I's 4th anniversary.

Where did the last 4 years go? It doesn't feel that long. Although, we have technically been "together" for 5 years, and friends for 6. Saying that makes it seem longer.

And I am more in love with him today than I was the day I married him. And I will be more in love with him tomorrow than I am today. (Sounds so sappy, but It's true!)

Bryant had to work most of the day, and I was thinking we would just do a quick dinner out somewhere like Texas Roadhouse or Olive Garden (thats about as fancy as we get around here these days because they are still pretty kid-friendly...) 

But Bryant surprised me by getting off work a little earlier than I was expecting him, and he told me to "Dress fancy. Not 'prom' fancy, but fancy casual" (his words, not mine). Since I only have one maternity shirt that is short-sleeved and still fits, I had to go with pink stripes and khaki pants. A little too casual for a fancy dinner, but it's the best I could do.

We took Savannah to my parents house and took off. Bryant told me that the place we were going was about 40 minutes away, so I was thinking we were headed to somewhere in Salt Lake, but he headed south towards Provo. As soon as he turned up the canyon, I knew where he was taking me.

The Tree Room at Sundance! 

Ahhhh! 

I've lived in Utah my entire life and have never been to Sundance. Is that crazy or what?!? I've done half the Alpine loop several times, but never made it down the backside into Sundance, but I have heard a LOT of good things about the Tree Room.

The whole restaurant is so cozy. I felt like I was just having dinner in a really nice cabin with Southwestern decorations. The only thing I found weird, is that they sat us at a table, which had a couch to sit on, on one side, and nothing on the other. So Bryant and I sat next to each other, and had a beautiful view of the trees out the large window, which was really romantic, except that we were both in front of all the other tables and guests. Bryant told me he felt like we were at the head of a table or something. I wondered if people thought it was weird that we were essentially watching all of them eat.

The food was amazing! I always feel so awkward when I go somewhere really nice to eat, like I'm really out of place. When they asked what I wanted to drink, I asked for just a water. Then the waitress said "We have water, bottled water, sparkling water, bottled sparkling water, which do you prefer?" and I just, very dumbly responded, "um, just ice water" and she replied "so just tap water?! Ok..." 

They first brought out these weird spoon things with a tiny dollop of a pea puree, a single slice of a strawberry, a mint leaf and an almond slice. Like, the whole concoction was slightly bigger than a dime. Bryant and I looked at each other and I said "how the heck are we supposed to eat this? Do I use a fork, or do I just lick it off?" I ended up just licking it off all awkwardly. Bryant then said "Honey, we are not very good at being fancy..." No, we are not. After that weird little bite of food, they brought out a mango sorbet. Yum! I ended up ordering the peppered steak with what I think was an apricot sauce, mashed potatoes and spinach. Bryant got the buffalo with a semi-spicy blackberry sauce. We unashamedly reached over and ate off each others plates. I tell ya, we are classy...

They offered us the dessert menu to look over, but we both decided that we didn't want to pay nearly 20 bucks for a dessert and declined. They ended up bringing us 2 little chocolate tarts with a raspberry on them anyways. 

After dinner, we kind of snuck around the restaurant and the lounge next to it just to check it all out. I MIGHT have also been snooping around to see if I would bump into Robert Redford... but no luck there.

We then headed outside and walked around for a bit. There were a ton of people riding the ski lifts up the mountain and then biking back down, and we had fun watching them for a bit.

Afterwords, we debated going home and picking Savannah up. Most of the time when we go on dates, we do dinner OR a movie, so that we are not forcing whoever is babysitting to deal with our crazy, high-energy child for more than a couple of hours. But I told Bryant that we should just do the whole date enchilada and go see a movie too. So we headed back down the canyon to the theaters where we saw the new Star Trek movie! We got lucky because the theater sold out minutes after we got our tickets. Who knew Wednesdays were such a popular day to go see a movie?

The whole night was perfect! Bryant always spoils me on our anniversary. And now that we have a daughter, dates in general are far and few between, so something like this is extra special and extra romantic!

I'm so happy to be married to my best friend. I know the term "soul mates" is a little cheesy and sappy, but I truly think of ourselves that way. If you think about it, so many factors and details of our lives had to work out just perfectly for us to even meet, let alone fall in love and get married. Not to mention that I do believe that we are sealed for time and all eternity. It's not just "till death do we part" for us. We will be together forever. We are a team, and we work together in everything we do. Marriage is hard work guys, but it's so worth it if you put the effort into it. I am a very lucky woman to have married someone who sees my potential, who pushes me to accomplish my goals, who walks beside me in all my decisions. When I told Bryant I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, he fully supported me and did what he had to do to make sure I could stay home with Savannah. And I know that if I went to him and told him I wanted to be a working mom, that he would fully support me in that too. It's a beautiful thing to have someone who loves you unconditionally, and who wants to make you happy, and I was so lucky to find Bryant, who loves me as much as he does. 

Happy 4 years baby, and here's to many, many more anniversaries!

A trip long overdue...

Today was day 2 of my spring break and once again I didn't have to work. Today was also Bryant's day off work. For the last couple of weeks we had been trying to find time to go do a session in the temple. Unfortunately, Bryant works all day and when he comes home, I'm usually running out the door to go to my job. But we decided that Thursday was our best bet to make it to the temple. Then Bryant decided to go all out and go to the Manti temple. We live 5 minutes away from a temple, and the Manti temple is a good hour and a half or so away, but it is the temple we were sealed together in and since we had the time, we thought today was a good day to go back.

The trip up was great, I took a little nap while Bryan listened to the BYU basketball game on the radio. When we got there, the next session wasn't for another 45 minutes so we found a little place to eat. I don't know who thought of this idea, but I'd like to shake their hand. It was a burger AND doughnut joint! So you buy your greasy burger and wash it down with a fatty doughnut...it was shear genius.The Manti temple is so beautiful! It's definitely one of my favorites! (Well, of course it is, it's where I got married!) My grandma Bushell, who passed away last year, used to refer to it as "her temple". She absolutely loved attending there and made sure she went as often as she could, offering rides to others who wanted to go as well.

After the session, we even asked a worker if we could see the spiral staircase that go up the sides. He took us over and told us about them. The staircase is 179 feet high and I can't remember how many stairs there are exactly, but trust me, I was getting exhausted just looking at all of them! When we were reserving a room for the sealing, we thought about doing it in the room at the top of the stairs, but it was just too small to fit all the people who were going to be there, and although it would have been really cool, I don't know if everyone could have made it all the way up there. I would have had to stop halfway and take a lunch break! haha.


I always think I'm too busy or too tired or too stressed to go to the temple, but I tell you what, every time I go, I come out feeling so relaxed, so filled with happiness and so loved. It's as if someone pushes a "re-set" button on me and everything I am worried about goes away. The spirit is so strong there and I am so grateful for temples and the calmness they provide for me. There is nothing better than finishing a session, and being able to hug my husband in the most beautiful and peaceful place on earth. Thats when my faith is strongest and I know everything is right and true.
And I'm so grateful to be sealed to the best husband in the entire world for time and all eternity.
If you are interested or have questions about what I believe, feel free to comment or you're welcome to visit here http://www.mormon.org

6 Months!

Well, we have been married for 6 months today! Sometimes it feels like we have been married a lot longer than that and some days I think about the day we got married and think "holy cow, it's really been that long?". It's been a really great six months and im so excited to see what the next six months bring.

So i know 6 months is not a HUGE deal or anything, but I still convinced Bryant to take me out to a movie last night. We ended up seeing The Blindside, which I was not too excited to see at first because the football, underdog type movie has been overdone so many times it's burnt to a crisp. But It was surprisingly very good. Definitely one worth seeing.

As for this week, again not much happened. Both of us have been working a lot and I have been able to pick up a few more hours because we are getting into our holiday crunch and the store has been BUSY! Even with the new In-n-out, 5 1/2 hour drive through wait overtaking our parking lot.

On Wednesday, I realized that after 6 months in our ward, our only friends are our 8 year old primary kids, when Rylan unexpectedly showed up at our doorstep, wondering if Bryant wanted to play. It was cute, for sure, but depressing that instead of being invited to ward parties and relief society events, we were being asked to play football by an 8 year old. But I took Ace out and while Rylan, Bryant and the neighbor boy who asked to join tossed a pig skin around, Ace and I had our own football game with his stuffed football.
Needless to say, Ace kicked my Butt.
Rylan had a lot of fun. The neighbor kid got a little competitive so I felt bad, but Bryant was good about keeping it fair. Afterwards, Rylan told us that he would come over every Wednesday to play if that was ok with us.

Today, we went to church and for some reason ALL of our kids were super hyperactive. Noel, one of our girls, didn't want to come to class and her mom asked me if I could go talk to her. I found her out in the lobby and she said she wanted to go home because she had spacers put in her teeth and they really hurt. I knew there was more then that so we spent about 20 minutes just talking and I was asking her about her favorite thanksgiving food and she wanted to know my favorite 2 colors put together. After a while she said she had forgotten that her teeth hurt because she was thinking of other things, and so I told her that coming to the rest of sharing time would help keep her mind off it. So we went back together and I was really happy when the other 2 girls leaned back to her when we sat down and one told her she had a really cute dress on and the other said she really liked her hair. I think that even at 8 years old, people just need a good confidence boost every now and then. After that, she was happy as a clam the rest of the day.

After church, I was able to work on some christmas crafts. Bryant should not let me go to Michaels craft store alone because It's like sending a kid into a candy store. I just worked on a wreath and then I made some pinecone ornaments.

I thought they turned out really cute, but I promised myself I wouldn't put them up until after Thanksgiving (saves me a lot of flack, I know it's not Christmas yet, but when it's cold and snowy, I can't help but get excited...) Oh well, Thursday will be here soon enough.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, my mom made a Turkey with all the fixin's today and we had our neighbors and my parents really good friends the Ostergaards over for a mini-thanksgiving dinner. I think we should have 2 thanksgivings every year!

On kind of a sadder note, which I feel like writing down cause it's been the cause of all my stress this week, I found our that school is going to take me even longer than origionally planned. I went to a counselor last year who admitted me into the History Education program at UVU. He said everything was taken care of and that I was on track to be done next fall if I did classes in the summer too. I was super excited for this and as I was registering for my final secondary education classes (I only have 1 more history to finish) It was saying that I did not have the pre-requisits for the classes I had to do. So I contacted the department chair for the secondary ed program. Come to find out, I AM enrolled in the history education program, however, they didn't tell me that the Secondary Ed program is not technically through UVU. It's an entirely different admissions process and that I had to apply and perform an Interview with the Dean. To make matters worse, I have missed the deadline for spring term, and now have to apply at the end of next semester for FALL semester.

I was really upset about this because I wish the couselor I talked to had told me this. It just set back all of my plans a lot further than I want them to be. And to make matters worse, I will only be able to take 2 classes next semester because I don't need anything else except for those education classes.

I'm really hoping it all works out. Thankfully I'm not the only person who didn't know this. My friend who is in the elementary Ed program said that she didn't know and had to do it all too. UVU's counselors have always been really awful. They don't ever seem to have all the information you need. On the brightside, I'll still be able to get my grant with only 6 credits (origionally I was told I could only get it full time, they were wrong about that too) And I'll be able to work a lot more and save up a lot more money.