11 months!

It is amazing to me that I have been married to my best friend for eleven months. I think back to my life before Bruce and I am so grateful for the type of man he is. I think about people who say things like "I wish I was single again" and I think they are absolutely mad. I wish everyone could be as happy in marriage as we are. Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't be so giddy with it. But then I think about how it has changed my life and I hope that all of those that I hold dear are as giddy with their lives as I am with mine.

About a month ago, we discovered some exciting news. If all goes well, which we pray it will, we will have a wonderful, healthy baby in 31-32 weeks. Bruce is so excited and spoils me rotten as I deal with constant morning sickness and even more constant worrying. He reminds me that someone else is in charge and that I need to trust that all will go as it is supposed to. His perspective is amazing and keeps me humble.

My sweet husband

So, I have to start out with a small fact. Bruce hates Stephanie Meyers "Twilight". He has never read them and never will. Don't get him started on why. He will give you a list that will shock and amaze you. He didn't see the first movie and I thought he would never see the second. I was shocked when our friends Amber and Stu called with free tickets and he said we would go. Now, that's true love! He endured the whole movie because he knew I wanted to see it. The only thing that would have made it better would be if he could have stopped snickering during the movie. But I'll take my small victories.

We have so much to be grateful for as we start Thanksgiving week. We have passed ten months of marriage and it has taught me so much, particularly how blessed I am to have such a wonderful man as a husband and the patriarch of our home. Since I'm the one writing this, I get to extol all of his virtues. :) He is so patient and kind and a true gentleman. I love that he opens all of my doors and insists on spoiling me, which I will gladly accept. He is doing so well with school this semester and I am so proud of him. It's tough taking 17 credit hours and still working, but he is muscling through.

I am also grateful for the new family that has entered my life. The Walther family is so strong and such a great example to me. I now have such a large family and its so nice to know that there is always someone there. This Friday I get to participate in making an advent calender for our home, which Bruce's mother has used in their home for years. I am so excited to bring this tradition into our family and am grateful that she would make such an effort to include me.

I am also grateful for my family. I am lucky to have a mother who is also my best friend. She is always so much fun to hang out with. I miss my sisters a lot, especially since I don't get to see two of them very much. But they are so fun and it always nice to get together. Other than that we all seem to follow my father in the clutziness factor. What can we say? We're all daddy's girls!

Happy Thanksgiving to our friends and family! We love you so much and are so blessed to have you all in our lives.

Life is ...going

I wish I had something fantastic happening in our life to update. I've put it off for longer than I should have hoping that something exciting would happen. But alas, with school for Bruce, I'm not sure he could handle much more in the way of excitement. My hard working husband is taking 17 credit hours while still working another 30 hours a week. So far, he is doing great!

My life is fairly boring. I have just been working and have been enjoying learning some new hobbies. My friend Amber has been teaching me to crochet. Next, it's on to knitting! Hopefully it will be something that I get better at. Right now, the only thing that has come out of it is a very utilitarian scarf for Bruce to wear on his cold, recess duty days! I hope it keeps him warm.

Wedding Weekend

We've had an exciting couple of weeks lately. But this last weekend was wonderful for our family. Bruce and I got to travel to California to be at his brother's wedding. Lewis and Renee were married in the Redlands temple. It was a beautiful wedding and we had a wonderful time with Bruce's family. Almost the whole family was together.

On Friday we went to Newport Beach where we spent the day playing in the waves. Bruce ended up as a lobster! He doesn't apparently handle sun exposure well. But we had a blast. It was so much fun hanging out with all of the nieces and nephews. The adults wanted to stay and play longer! Saturday we spent the morning at the wedding and got to play by the pool for the afternoon. That evening, we went to Renee's parents house for the reception. It was so beautiful. About the only time I can ever get Bruce to dance with me is at a wedding, so we need more people to get married. I love dancing with my husband!

Capital Reef

I finally got to take Bruce to my favorite place on earth, Capital Reef. The Loveless family reunion was down there this year and we got to spend three days with my wonderful family. It was beautiful and we had a lot of fun. We got to go on two hikes, Hickman Bridge and Cohab Canyon. I was silly and planned the hikes back to back, therefore killing Bruce's ankles for the rest of the weekend, but he was a great sport and still rescued when I inevitably fell. Yes, I know, a shock for those of you who know me. These reunions always seem far too short and I wish we could make them last a lot longer. One weekend a year is never enough! But we loved spending time with everyone and realized how very blessed we are to have such a wonderful family!

Bruce's Birthday!!

So, I'll be honest. I'm totally a birthday person. It makes me so excited to plan birthday parties and stuff like that. This time it was even better. It was the first birthday that I got to plan for Bruce. Last year we were just in the dating stage, so I couldn't do much. This year, it was ALL MINE!

Thursday morning, Bruce's actual birthday, I got up before work and made some muffins for Bruce and Lydia and her family (who are staying with us for the week. So much fun!). Then, after work, Lydia and Tobin took us out to Rodizio Grill. Neither one of us had ever gone, but the food was fantastic. The pineapple was both of our favorites. Last night we threw a birthday party for Bruce's family. It was so much fun to have everyone over, but we missed Sarah and her crew. Hopefully we will get to see them soon. Bruce got a new grill for his birthday and is the grill master at our house. He had a blast handling all the burgers and dogs and now wants to try to do some ribs on the grill. I completely support that idea! After the BBQ, Emily and Curtis and Lydia and Tobin and the kids joined us at the drive-in movie. It was a cold night, but it was fun to see UP and The Proposal. Plus, you can't beat the drive-in movies. We'll have to do it again when it's a little warmer.

Tomorrow night, my family is coming over for another party. I'm glad that Bruce has so many people who love him. It makes me so happy. What a great husband I have!! Happy Birthday, baby!!

We finally get a HONEYMOON!

So, Bruce and I have finally gotten to go on our honeymoon. We are in beautiful Colorado for this week exploring where Bruce grew up and checking out Rocky Mountain National Park. I have to say, it has been so much fun to see Bruce in his role as tour guide. Plus, he gets to show me all of his favorite places. We went to eat at a restaurant called Beau Jo's yesterday. They have this amazing pizza and Bruce was so excited for me to get to try it. We also went shopping in Estes Park (compare to Park City!). This weekend we are going to a Rockies game before heading home.

The best part of the whole trip has been just sitting with Bruce. He is so much fun to just hang out with and I am so lucky to be married to a man with a little boy's excitement. It makes our life together such an adventure. Plus, I'm the worrier and he's the one who always reminds me that life is an occasion. That's our new quote. "Life is an occasion. Rise to it!" Thank you Dustin Hoffman.

We will post some pics from our trip as soon as we actually make it home! But for now, its off for more adventures!

April showers and May Flowers

So, we aren't as good at staying on top of this as we would like. But not a lot is going on in our lives right now. Bruce is finishing up finals for school and we can't wait for him to be done so we can have fun for the rest of the summer. Bruce has also become the master of the BBQ. He insists that charcoal grills are better and I have to admit that the smell of charcoal is much better than anything a gas grill can do. Plus, Bruce gets to cook then and we love it. Bruce is also looking for a part time job right now for when the school he works out is out for the summer. I'm busy working and can't wait to come home and be with my cute husband every night! Beyond that, life goes on.

So appearantly we suck at this blog thing...

Yeah so we are totally slackers when it comes to doing the blog thing. Anyway, things are crazy as usual. The semester is winding down and I am going a little nuts trying to get it all done, but such is life. One less semester to go! Marissa is busy with both work and church stuff. The cub scouts are running her a little ragged, but she is starting to figure out how that all works. Now all she needs is another leader to help her! All things considered life is good and moving along about as can be expected. We are enjoying being married and it's hard to believe that its only been three months.

Happy Two Months!!

So, today we are celebrating our 2 month anniversary!! Lucky me! I love my handsome husband very much. The last week has been an interesting week for us. Bruce's younger sister got married on Saturday and we got to spend Friday setting up for the wedding and Saturday with the family. It was beautiful and we know that Anna and Kyle will have a wonderful life together.

The good news is that Bruce is on Spring Break this week. That means that he gets to do lots of home improvement projects. Lucky man!! He has been great to take on things at our house that seem to always need fixing. (Yay for honey-do lists!!! ;) ) But it is also nice to be able to come home and spend time together instead of having to find things to do until he finishes up with class.

Yes, we are slackers!

We need to be better about posting to this, but life seems to be hurrying past. Six weeks in and we love married life. I get to be married to my best firend, so I'm VERY lucky. Our time together has been very limited lately, however. I have been working extra hours and Bruce has been preparing for his midterms, which leaves very little time for each other. Sad!

I got called to be the Bear Scout leader in our ward. Bruce is still laughing. Yes, that is right. The woman who grew up with all sisters and is a totally girly girl is now a den mother. I'm feeling slightly overwhelmed, ("slighty" uh huh sure, he he he- Bruce) but Bruce tells me this will be a growing experience and prepare me for the gaggle of boys that he is sure will be in our family. I hope he enjoys helping his lovely wife prepare for all those den meetings. Bruce has yet to have the joy of getting a new calling, but I have a feeling they may be holding out for a big one for him. Serves him right for laughing!

Two weeks in....

So we have been at this marriage thing for two weeks and i think we are finally getting settled in. Our house is finally getting organized a little, we have cleared out a lot of the excess cardboard wrapping paper and gift bags, and we are kind of getting our routine down. It's amazing how different life can be with someone sharing it with you. It seems our perspective has changed on a lot of stuff in just two weeks. Especially when you have such a cute husband!!

Our New Family

And so it begins. We officially became a married couple and started our new life together yesterday morning, January 17th, 2009. So far married life has been pretty good. Our wonderful Loveless sisters gave us the opportunity to spend our first amazing night together in a great hotel room downtown at the Little America Hotel. We appreciate their contribution to our short honeymoon more than they can ever know. This morning we continued lounging in the hotel until we had to check out. We spent the evening opening the many great gifts we have received over the last few weeks and last night at our reception. We got a lot of the things that we needed and somethings that we didn't realize we might need. Thanks again to our many generous friends and family members. You have helped us get a great start to this grand advernture called married life!!