My Amazing Wife

There are many times I find myself wondering how I got so lucky.  In fact, a couple of those times have occurred within the last two days, and I just had to share!

1/26/13- Krista and I live for weekends.  Week days are filled with work, class, homework, commuting, you get the picture.  Saturday is one of our only days to relax and take it easy.  On Saturday, Krista spent the late afternoon and evening shopping and cleaning so that I could go play basketball with some friends.  As soon as I got home with my brother Jourdon and our friend Caleb, Krista watched Bourne Legacy with three gross, sweaty boys.  Wow! 

1/27/13- Krista had a headache on Sunday that was pretty bad.  Luckily we had an easy dinner plan for the night that wasn’t going to require any cooking at all.  However, our easy dinner plan completely fell through, leaving us wondering what to do for dinner.  There would have been nothing wrong with suggesting Captain Crunch, but Krista decided she would make one of my favorite casseroles instead.  It was delicious!! 

These kinds of things happen all the time.  Krista has always been so good at the little things.  Things that I really enjoy are important to her, so she’ll encourage me to watch a Thunder game when it’s on, or to go play basketball with the guys.    

I just had to give my beautiful Krista a shout-out and thank her in front of everyone for how amazing she is!   I don’t know exactly what it is that I did to earn her love, but I sure am eternally grateful I have it. 

Snapshots from the Anniversary Celebration

We felt a little jipped on the anniversary celebration because our one year mark fell on a Sunday. So we decided to celebrate on our own the Friday before by going to dinner at Outback (my personal fav) and getting away for a night. On Sunday, our real anniversary, we celebrated with my family. And ate our year-old wedding cake (which had been stuck in a freezer for the entire year). All for the sake of tradition.

I also insisted on adding a candle to the cake. It just feels too weird to have a cake without a candle you get to blow out.

 My reaction to the prospect of eating year-old frozen cake. Yummy....

Drinking sparkling cider with our arms crossed. 

Kissing under the kissing ball. Happy anniversary Shawn!!!

Reflections on a year

A couple of weeks ago marked one year since this:

And oh, what a year it's been. While we have had some amazing times, we've also been hit with a LOT of HARD things that I don't think either of us expected. We've had to move 3 times so far in our marriage. We've had neighbors who smoked and apartments that let in way too much sunlight during a 115 degree summer day. We've faced the struggle of trying to find jobs and trying to find a decent apartment. We've faced moving away from family. We've had the transmission on our car go out (which costs $$$$$$ to replace). We've had a scholarship fall through because of a miscommunication. We've had crazy school fees appear. And many more struggles which are too personal to mention. Sometimes we can't help but feel that it's too much, and that this isn't what we signed up for with marriage.

But in those moments, it hits me- No, this is exactly what you signed up for with marriage. A carefree life full of happiness and fun is what dating is for. Marriage is where you get to choose your best friend and your partner to navigate life with. You choose that person that can help you get through it all. I know Shawn infinitely more than I did a year ago. I know what makes him tick, what his dreams are, and what insecurities he has. And he knows the same about me. And that's what's so incredible about marriage. When we were first married, I thought I knew everything about Shawn. After all, we talked on the phone for hours every night. You find out a lot about a person that way. But I realized now that I didn't truly know Shawn like I do now.

People always say that the first year of marriage is the hardest. At first I didn't believe them, but now I do. But it's important for it to be hard. Those trials cement you together in a way that no other thing can. They force you to be a team and learn to compromise. They force you to have faith. They force you to love harder than ever before. And while this year has been tough, I wouldn't have it any other way. The love and admiration I have for Shawn is stronger now than it was on the day we got married. And I can't wait for it to grow even stronger as we continue on our eternity together. 

I love ya forever babe.

Christmas 2012

So it seems like everytime that I say I'm going to get better at blogging that a bunch of other things come up and blogging gets pushed to the side again. But with the new year I'm more determined than ever to be better at documenting our life and blogging happens to be a great way of doing that.

Not too much happened to us during the fall. Shawn continued school and I continued work. For Thanksgiving break we were lucky enough to go to Branson, Missouri with the Beans! We had an amazing break and saw four incredible shows. After that, Shawn had finals and ended his first full semester of grad school with a 4.0!! Way to go babe! Only one more semester of school and we will be done forever! (Hopefully...)

After finals wrapped up, we headed out to Idaho for Christmas break. We hadn't seen my family for 8 months which was way way too long. I was able to take a lot of time off of work so we were able to be out there for almost 2 weeks. Nothing too grand or exciting happened during the break, but that was exactly how we wanted it to be. Life is always crazy so we loved doing nothing for 2 weeks but spending time with people that we loved and keeping traditions alive.

The girls all dressed up for Church (minus Michelle). It used to be that I was easily the tallest and now we are all close to the same height!! They are growing up way too fast.

My favorite boy EVER. I love him lots and lots and lots and lots.

Reenacting the nativity with my family. We even snuck Cuddles in there as a sheep.

Christmas morning at 6 am. I used to love waking up early as a kid, but as you can tell from my face, not so much anymore. But hey, at least we managed to coordinate our Christmas outfits!

As much as I love the rest of my family, these two girls definitely stole most of my attention over the break!! We're super lucky to be aunt and uncle to these two cuties!! 

Getting ready to make cookies!

 I love how she is so determined to move my hand out of the way so she can stir.

Christmas presents!! She would not stop riding on her horse all night.

Seriously. Love. this. girl.

Matching pajamas!

And finally, Shawn being an incredible uncle and playing pretty pretty princess :)