2012 in Review

2012 was definitely a banner year. Here is a little of what we did.

January

Started winter semester and full time dating. Morgan and I skyped all last Christmas break and we were excited to see each other when the new year rolled around. I also celebrated my 22nd birthday.
(sorry no pictures).

Morgan and I discovered one of our favorite places to visit, the Shops at the Riverwoods. There is a particular fire there that we loved to sit around and night while eating Chocolate-caramel apples from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.

Morgan also came to my concert in Salt Lake on the 30th or 31st of January (which is when he told me he wanted to marry me).

February

We got engaged!

March

We took engagements,

and continued to take classes and do a million things at once.

I also gave my Junior Recital in March.

April

We found a place to live, finished school, started working on the BYU Grounds Crew together (so fun!), and just got ready for the big day....sadly no pictures. We really must have been busy :(

May

I went through the temple for the first time for my endowment. I also caught a wonderful cold the week before my wedding....and the biggest even of the year....

WE GOT MARRIED!!

YAY!!

June

First month of married life. We also bought a car.

Meet Webster, our green Honda. This is the only picture we have of him and sadly it is from his sad side. :(

Working grounds also continued to be an adventure.

This is a picture of one of the huge beds that we planted and replanted within the time span of 2 months.

One day I came home to these.

Morgan picked them while working grounds and brought them home for me.

July

We had an epic family reunion in Idaho with Morgan's family where Morgan proudly won Heiner of the Year (the reunion was set up like a competition where you could win points for every activity you participated in...I came in 4th).

We moved to a new apartment in July because our old one (pictured above) was regularly single housing and so we would have to move in the Fall anyway. We moved next door to our good friends the Laws.

and the Settler battles began...

August

We went out to eat with Morgan's sisters and mom.

We also tried to use our "Starving Student" cards as much as possible before they expired on September 1st. Here we are with our spoils.

Morgan hiked the Y for the first time.

 
Also, the new semester started...

September


We went to Disneyland with the family the first week of September!

It was delightful! While in Aneheim, we also went to an Angel's game.

The trip was fantastic and we came home exhausted and sunburned.
Morgan and I also participated in Chalk the Block at the Riverwoods. We had never done a sidewalk chalk competition, let alone even a sidewalk chalk drawing together. I felt like we were rather successful! Here is our drawing.

We drew How to Train your Dragon, because that is the movie we watched on our first date.  We found out through this experience that we compliment each other really well when doing art projects.

October

Fall in Provo was beautiful this year. We took a few drives up the canyons to see the leaves.

 We also carved pumpkins.

November

In November, we struggled through the hard part of the semester and happily made it to Thanksgiving. We spent Thanksgiving with Morgan's family in Honeyville and Logan, Utah. We got to spend two days in the temple doing family names. So in a two day period, we did baptisms, endowments, and sealings. It was really neat to spend so much time with family in the temple. It was a really special experience and the Brigham City temple is BEAUTIFUL! (Especially the brides room, if you go to that temple someday, just see if a temple worker can show you it.)

 

December

Finals were hard, but we made it through the semester. Morgan got straight A's (smarty pants) and I got all A's and one B...YAY! My family came down the first week of December and we went to the BYU Choir's Celebration of Christmas which was fantastic. They came down two weekends later and we all went to the Mormon Tabernacle Christmas Concert featuring Alfie Boe. Can I just say WOW! It was amazing.

Follow this link to listen to Alfie Boe's rendition of Bring Him Home from Les Miserables...it is the most beautiful thing I have ever heard, and when he sang it at the concert we were all in tears...well at least all of us women were in tears...

It was a fantastic year! I am blessed beyond words with fantastic friends, family and an amazing husband!

...

I'm not good at thinking up titles, so three dots is it for today (ha, how lazy is that!). Anyway, the purpose of my writing today is to display more gorgeous pictures of fall. I know I just posted some below, but the ones we took yesterday blow those out of the water! It all started yesterday...

>read in one of those mystery novel voices< It was a stormy day, dark clouds hung over the sky veiling it's happy face and threatening to destroy the enjoyment of many homecoming football game goers. I was not among that group. I had been called on an assignment to sing opera in the HFAC from 9-4. It was a grueling day. When I finally was set free I made my way home in the gloomy weather. I could tell something was up when I got to my door. Mr. Morgan's keys were hanging from the lock and he was no where around. I pushed the door slowly open while removing the key from the lock. To my left were pumpkins and wood and bags of other such suspicious materials. Suddenly, I heard a noise from around the corner. Mr. Morgan came and stood in front of me. He smiled slowly, "Are you ready to go?" He said....um...suspiciously(?) "You may want to dress a little warmer, it is going to be a little chilly in this weather" he continued. I changed and then we gathered up the materials and jumped in our dark green honda who goes by the name of Webster.

"It's about a half hour drive, I'll need you to navigate" Morgan said as he handed me his phone with the GPS pulled up leading us to an unknown location. We drove until we reached a remote canyon called Hobble Creek by the locals. It is the kind of canyon that is filled with multi-million dollar homes and signs lining the streets saying, "No trespassing." and "Keep Out". Undeterred, we kept driving. We eventually reached the end of the paved road and continued, in our beast of a car, to drive through muddy and rocky terrain. After driving a short distance up this suspicious road, we ran into sights such as these:

and these.

We couldn't let this evidence go undocumented so we took a few of these...

Darkness started to settle in and the clouds were growing thicker. We decided to turn back and find a hideout to discuss the evidence. We found a small campfire in an unknown location. It was small, but warm and just what we needed after such tiring work. Keeping our voices low, we discussed the happenings of the day. We made sure to snuff our fire completely out to make sure no one to could track us to this place. We got in our car and headed for home.

Upon arrival at home, we completed the last task of the evening. Carving these: 

A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its' secrets....but one couple is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions.....

Leaves are falling all around...

Well they aren't quite falling all around yet...but they are turning fiery, vibrant colors!  I love the fall!!

So, this past Sunday Mr. Morgan and I decided to have a picnic up the canyon. Everything was green until we turned to head up the canyon. As soon as we rounded the first bend, the trees burst into color!! It was SO beautiful! Here are some pictures from the day.

It was a perfect autumn day. The sky was overcast and there was a warm breeze. Fortunately, we made it home right as it started raining. Welcome fall. We've missed you!

Drawing with Chalk!

This last weekend Morgan and I had a wonderful time participating in a chalk art festival at the Riverwoods here in Provo. We discovered while were dating that both of us can draw pretty well and so we were excited to see what we could do. We showed up at the festival with two boxes of chalk and two sides of a cardboard box (to sit on). In comparison to our rookie supplies, the group next to us had paint brushes, tape, string, food, and a cabana for the sun. We were intimidated and were doubting our skill. We just decided to take a stab at it and started making a graph. It really started to come together from then on. Morgan and I work perfectly as a drawing team for a few reasons:

1) We both trust that the other person won't mess it up
2) He's detail oriented (Consequently, he drew all the details and made sure all the shapes were right)
3) I'm a little more "artistic" (in the unorganized sense--Which allowed me to shade without regretting the loss of detail)

Overall the project turned out better than we could have hoped.

We drew Toothless and Hiccup from "How to Train your Dragon". Our inspiration was that it was the movie we were watching when we first held hands. And here it is....

Not too shabby huh? Our favorite part of doing this was the comments/compliments we received. Children would scream and drag their moms to our spot to look at these characters and tons of pictures were taken. it was nice to receive immediate feedback. ;) Our favorite conversation from the night was when a lady came up to us and asked how long we had been doing this. We simple responded that it had taken us two hours so far. She said, "No, how long have you been doing chalk art." We looked at each other with a smile and said, "Two hours." She then asked us if we had ever been in an art class--we said no. She couldn't believe it and just shook her head in shock. 

It was such a fun activity. The Riverwoods should be doing a chalk art festival every year. I recommend going next year, if you missed this years. It was fantastic! Go here or here for more pictures from the chalk art festival. 

Our "honeymoon"/Family Vacation to Disneyland!

Well, school is in full swing, but before I tell about our most recent happenings, I first have to blog about DISNEYLAND!!! My sister also blogged about it, and probably did it more justice than I will. You can read her take on it here.

So, Disneyland was our 'honeymoon' if you will. Morgan and I wanted to go there after we got married, but since my parents had already planned this trip, we decided to hold off and just go with the fam. It was SO fun! We missed four days of school, drove a total of 2 1/2 days, visited Las Vegas (which Morgan had never been to), went to Disneyland for 3 days, the beach for one day, and an Angels game. We also ate ourselves silly, but what is a vacation without good food right?

We left the Sunday before Labor Day and drove all day, arriving in Las Vegas that evening. We then got up early the next morning and walked around downtown Las Vegas. We went to the M&M world, which I have never been to, and caught a little show at the Ballagio. We then hopped back in the car and drove 7 LONG hours to Anaheim. Morgan and I sat in the back seat in the van, so we had a little room to sprawl out, take naps, eat, read and watch a movie. We reached our hotel a little before dinner time. It was SO close to Disneyland (or rather California Adventure). We could see into the park. I was SO excited I could barely sit still all night. I'm afraid it may have driven my dear hubby a little crazy. :) As we were reading our scriptures and getting ready for bed, we hear a loud bang. I thought someone must have been shot. However, soon we realized that it was the sound of the fireworks in Disneyland. We were able to watch them from our hotel balcony. They were beautiful!

The next morning we went to Disneyland, bright and early. We had a fun day even though it was really hot. We came home tired and sore and crashed. The next day was another day at disneyland and that was followed by a day at the beach. It was the first time I had been to the beach when it wasn't freezing outside. The water was cold, but the warm air made it perfect. We body surfed, built sand castles and got fried. We then were back to Disneyland for half the day on Friday and then we went to the Angel's game. It was a fantastic week. Here are some pictures:

Updates

Well, it has been a while. I can't believe school is going to start in two weeks. I feel like my summer was just not long enough. Morgan and I have been trying to do as much as we possibly can before school takes over our lives. Our next adventures are: Going to the Cassia County Fair and Rodeo, going to Disneyland with the fam and using up our starving student discount cards before they expire! Life is great. Sadly we have been so busy that I haven't taken a single picture to put up. That's my next goal. ;)