Skyla

Our life story of this past year would not be complete without mentioning dear Skyla.

Joshua once explained it like this: Skyla's one of those people that walks into your life and says, "Hi, we're going to be friends." And then you are.

We met Skyla toward the beginning of winter semester 2010. As Joshua and I were walking into the Taylor Quad holding hands, some girl caught up to us and very excitedly asked, "You two are married to each other??" I recognized her from my practicum class, but had never talked to her. So I assumed Joshua knew her. At the same time, Joshua recognized her from his Phil 110 class, but he also had never talked to her. And he assumed that I knew her. So the three of us ended up eating lunch together. Joshua and this girl, who turned out to be Skyla, discussed Phil 110. Her tutor had recently quit so they started studying together. I studied some other stuff. And it wasn't until way later that night that Joshua and I realized neither of us really knew her. We thought it was a little funny and weird, but she seemed like a cool/normal girl.

After that, we both spent lots of time with Skyla. Joshua studied philosophy with her. She and I chatted during practicum, and we complained about lesson plans together. Sometimes she came over to our apartment to study with us. Other times she came over to hang out. Yep. Basically, we were now friends. Skyla introduced us to white chocolate chip pancakes. And she gave me my recipe for the most delicious brownies from scratch. She even had a sleepover with me when Joshua went on a trip and left me home alone for the first time since we got married.

She's incredibly hard working and busy (and popular. . .she knows everyone), so we don't see her too often now. But I'm pretty sure she's one of our favorite friends. She tries to be positive all the time, gives good advice, and laughs a lot.

When I was thinking about this past year and Skyla, I was amazed that I don't have a single picture of her. She gave me permission to steal one from her facebook, so now we can't forget her lovely face.

Tessa's Wedding

That's right. . .Tessa and Tyler finally tied the knot!! And I got to be there!

And now here's my side story. (Really, it's the only story in this post.) I knew Tessa was getting married the Saturday before my finals/graduation week. Obviously I wanted to go, but that would be really stressful. And we're poor. But my sweet mother who loves me (but really it's probably more because she also loves Tessa) offered to fly me to Vegas for the weekend! I was thrilled, but still a little conflicted because that same weekend I had the opportunity to participate in a once-in-a-lifetime trip. Brother Kerr had planned a trip to Salt Lake for all the organ students, and the part I didn't want to miss — everybody was going to play the Conference Center and Tabernacle organs. When I was little I dreamed of being the Tabernacle organist. (That was before I took lessons and realized how hard that would be.) So I told my mom about this and again, because she loves me, she asked if I'd go on that trip if she paid for it. Honestly, I wanted to be in both places!! I was telling Skyla about it, and she asked if I'd really pick an organ over one of my best friends. Well, I think I'd already known where I was going to be that weekend, but leave it to Skyla to make it really obvious. So thanks to my parents, I was able to be there for Tessa's wedding!

It was so neat to be there for Tessa and Tyler's sealing! I hadn't attended one since my own.

Naturally, Tessa was a beautiful bride! I couldn't be happier for her and Tyler!! They're pretty much perfect for each other. I loved getting to see other friends and having some time to catch up while we were at the reception that night. Thanks to those people who took pictures and put them on facebook for me to steal!

Rebekah, Lizzie, me, Tessa, Kelli, Olivia, and Carli
I love these ladies!!

Jonathan, Kelli, Olivia, Carli, me, Kyla, Rebekah and Lizzie

Even if I smile funny for pictures, I still think we're a good looking group!

Olivia is just too cute.

It was nice to have a little break from reality (finals!). I loved getting to see friends and spending a little bit of time with my parents!

Our First Anniversary

That's right . . . this year we celebrated our first anniversary! People always say the first year of marriage is the hardest. If that's the case, life's gonna be a breeze! But somehow I'm skeptical of that. I'm sure life will have lots more challenges in store for us in years to come. Our first year together was pretty great!

To celebrate, we had some plans for the Saturday before. Some school things came up so we just ended up going to Sizzler in Idaho Falls for dinner. We both enjoyed juicy steaks (I'd been craving a really good steak) and salad bars. Also, I learned that Sizzler's strawberry lemonade is to die for! Well maybe not. But it's close. They had fresh strawberries in it, and I think it's one of the best strawberry lemonades I've ever had. For dessert I made the perfect little ice cream cone! I was so proud of how pretty it looked we had to take a picture:


After dinner we wandered around the mall. I fell in love with a striped hoodie, and I wanted Joshua to buy it for me instead of flowers. It was just as colorful and will last lots longer. He likes to make me happy so I am now the happy owner of a very bright and colorful hoodie.

In the car on our way home:

After we got home and our food was all settled we went late night roller blading! We both had a lot of fun!

Sunday was our actual anniversary. I spent much of the day grumpy for a ridiculous, but not at all ridiculous reason. And Joshua still loves me. I'm a pretty lucky girl!! And I love him! One year down, eternity to go! :)

Rollerblading Days!

I love rollerblading! And I wanted Joshua to love rollerblading too!! Once upon a time he went rollerblading. Just once. He's never owned rollerblades, and this year we changed that! When the weather got nice, we took a trip to Idaho Falls to find Joshua a nice pair of rollerblades.

For Joshua's first rollerblading lesson we went to the church parking lot. It's nice and smooth, with no people around. It was a fun and entertaining experience for both of us!

We made a couple rollerblading trips alone before moving on to bigger and scarier things. Joshua's first experience with going downhill was at Smith Park. On some random, beautiful day in April, we went rollerblading there with Katie Smith. We've been friends for years, and she's just one of those people whose last name seems to have to go with her first. Katie Smith. Anyway, we got to the downhill part in the lap around the park, and lots of people were walking toward us. Joshua wasn't sure how to slow down or stop, so I'm pretty sure he ended up bailing into the grass. Katie and I laughed a lot, and he didn't appreciate it. Oh well. It's part of the learning experience. The park was pretty busy, so after that we stuck to the basketball court.

Joshua and some random cool kid who wanted to be like us:

After we exhausted ourselves with rollerblading, we headed back to our apartment for a filling dinner of hamburgers and tater tots. We love eating outside when the weather is nice!




We ended that day of rollerblading adventures with a free concert at the Tabernacle. We got to hear The U.S. Air Force Band of the Golden West. They were really good, and we had a blast! And now that Joshua's on his way to becoming a rollerblading master, we'll be able to have many more rollerblading adventures together!

Outdoor Escapades

We love when the weather is nice enough to do things outside!! This is an assortment of **unfinished sentence in an unfinished blog post.**

So there was this one afternoon that Joshua and I made ourselves hamburgers and tater tots, packed them into our picnic basket and headed over the nature park. It was windy so we ate fast, but we made sure the duckies got fed too before we left!

 **Unfinished blog post alert!

Imagine inserted photos here.**

Once upon a time, between winter and spring semesters, Joshua and I hiked "R mountain"! (I'm gonna get technical – it's really a butte.) We hiked up what we thought was a rather treacherous path. Once we got to the top of the especially scary part, we realized we weren't on the path. We actually took the path on the way down, and it was not scary at all. We had fun exploring once we made it to the top and wished we had more time to spend all day up there!

During the summer we hiked R mountain with the Andersons. We were adventurous and went up a different way. It wasn't so bad to go up, but we knew we sure didn't want to go down that way. Joshua and Jordon braved it though (somebody had to get the car) and I took Sunshine down the way Joshua and I had gone before and we met the guys at the end.

Then there was this other time we went to the nature park. We actually visit the ducks often, but this particular time we took some pretty pictures.

I don't think I can say it enough how much we love the nature park here!!

Joshua's Birthday

Since Joshua's birthday was on a Monday this year and we were both in school, we had his birthday dinner on Sunday. I've realized birthday dinners are a really important tradition for me. He picked some casserole that I concocted recently. My re-creation of it for his birthday wasn't quite as good as the original, but he was still happy with it. (He's nice and enjoys humoring me by telling me I'm a good cook.)

Monday we were both at school most of the day. However, we did something unusual and took a break from homework for the night! First, we came home, gathered his birthday presents, and went over to the clubhouse. (Of course I knew we'd have a choice of movies to watch once he opened his presents. And we are without something to watch them on.) He picked Jurassic Park, and we got to cuddle up to watch a movie! That doesn't happen too often.

After that, we went to The Cocoa Bean for cupcakes! I even took candles, but forgot the essential something to light them with. . . . Maybe he'll just get extra wishes next year.

It was a happy birthday!!

Blog Stalking

...has led to a blog post!

I love reading others people's blogs. I was reading all about some other people's lives today and it inspired me. Normally when I read other people's blogs I think about how their lives sound so much more exciting than mine, but really my life is great too. Or I think about how witty they are and how it makes reading their blog enjoyable. I've still not convinced my blog will be really enjoyable to read, but life is good and I want to record these memories. I have a couple posts that I started at the beginning of the year and I've already forgotten about some of those things. They also include lists of things I wanted to write down, but I can't remember any of the details I would have included then so I'm not sure what to write. I'll have to settle for a simple overview of the past year. A lot of times I just don't do something if I don't feel I'm going to do a good or thorough job. So I'm making it my goal to catch up on my blog anyway!! By the end of the year I want to be caught up. That's rather ambitious but if I can't remember half of what happened maybe it won't be so hard. ;)