Don't Ever Forget

So, I recently watched Desperate Housewives. And although it wasn't the cleanest thing I've ever watched, it was really good! The last episode had a quote in it that was really really awesome, and is something that I think everyone should hear, whether they watch that show or not.

"your wedding is one of the best days of your life. because it's the day you realize 'i finally have the thing i need to be happy'. and then you forget. so... then, what happens is, instead of waking up every morning and shouting 'somebody loves me', you start looking around and thinking 'what do i want now? what's the next thing i need to be happy?' so... you look and you look and you keep thinking you found it, but nothing works, and the reason that nothing works, is because that hole in your heart that you're trying to fill is already filled. you just forgot."

"don't ever forget. always remember how much you wanted to be loved, and how much you are loved. and i think if you can do that, and it isn't easy, you will stop looking and realize you already are happy."

Plant, plants, Dexter, and random. What a fun post!

So, I'm officially obsessed with plants! We currently have 8, because of the sweet bunco prize that I won tonight! Like I said on Facebook, I love it when I bring a super awesome prize, and then I win and get to pick first, and take home what I brought.. It makes me so happy!! Here's the two plants:

We bought them at Lowes and all together, both plants, pots, and pot bottoms, came to $10.11! Such a good deal! And I bought the clay pots so I could customize them to our room, and I'll probably paint them black and white like this one that I did last night:

This plant (and the other Croton that we had) just doesn't want to stay alive! So many leaves have fallen off already, but these ones that are left are goin strong! I got the idea for the painting from none other than Elise Blaha Cripe, of course. I just love her and her sense of style. It's not perfect, as I just freehanded the whole thing, but it's perfect enough for me because I LOVE IT!

So now on that shelf thing, we have all four of these plants:

Such a happy sight, right?!

Also, if you didn't see the picture on FB, Cody and I planted a few fruits and veggies. See?

 There's cucumbers, watermelons, cantaloupes, beans, peas, squash, gray pumpkin, and two different types of tomatoes. And look what I found when I went outside tonight??!?!

One cucumber plant decided to make an appearance!! He's the first one so far, but I have high hopes for the rest of them (:

Also, it was this little dude's birthday on Monday! One year old!! He was so cute and sleepy all day (:

So, for a long time, I've been wanting a cute necklace with Cody's initial on it because he has a necklace that reminds him of me, and I had my eye on this one. It never felt right to get it, and then on Memorial Day weekend, I looked again and she had it on sale for $13.50! So I snatched it right up. I LOVE IT!

The chain it came with was actually like 2 inches shorter than this, and I hated it, so I ghettoly added a few more inches using another big chain.

A few days ago, Cody and I wanted hot dogs, but didn't want to put them in the microwave. And since we don't have a grill, we made a fire in our back yard and cooked some up!

 Yes, that's a paint roller without the foam thing. We got desperate.

 We brought the rest of our food outside, along with Dexter's food, and watched Raising Hope on the computer. Beautiful weather, great food, awesome show.. I'd say it was a wonderful night!

 Oh.. and then one of the metal pokeys from the paint roller just came off. Whoops!

 I love my cute boys!

 Isn't this peony BEAUTIFUL?! Dexter liked the smell apparently.

 So it sat in our kitchen for a few days until it died.

Also, last Friday we went camping with Cody's family for their annual family campout, and Dexter found a dead snake right before we left!

Yummy, right?! I was trying to get a video of it, because he was so happy and proud of himself for finding it! He was practically leaping everywhere he went!

And then Cody and I were shooting Austin's bow and arrows, and Cody got a bullseye...

 And I got all four of my arrows on the box! Let it be known that this was my first time shooting a bow and arrow since I was like 7, and the arrows weren't the best. I'M AWESOME, RIGHT?!

 This post is almost long enough to be called a book, so I'll end with my skills. See ya on the flip side, or whenever I do something that's worthy of a post.

Oh, weekends (:

FRIDAY

Friday was the start of our weekend, as usual, and it started off by getting happy news that Kaylee had her baby boy!! Paxon Jeffrey Richardson, 7lb 9oz. He's so cute!! I am flying out to Arizona on Wednesday and get to stay until Monday! My mom is there right now, so I'm excited to see her too!

After hearing that news, we went out to eat with a couple of Cody's high school buddies and their wives. Brett and Alissa and Spencer and Mirisha (just married last week!). We went out to eat at DP Cheesesteaks, and if you haven't been there before, YOU ARE SERIOUSLY MISSING OUT! It was honestly one of the best things I've ever eaten. It's about $7 a person if you get a meal, but only like $5ish without the meal and just the sandwich. But we had a blast talking, getting to know Mirisha, and eating delicious food. Afterwards, we headed over to Trafalga for some mini-golf and batting cages. Since we bought the pass of all passes, it was free for us! Let me just say, I was doing so well for the first 10 holes or so! My score was +2!! I wanted to get a picture of all of us, but forgot. But I did get a picture of Cody in the batting cages!

I'm pretty sure Cody would live here if I'd let him. He was telling me that before I knew him, he would stop by the batting cages everyday after school and just hit all night long until they closed. HE LOVES BASEBALL!

SATURDAY

Yesterday was so wonderful! I love being able to be with Cody every second of the day. We decided to hike up Stewart Falls. We had both been there before, but it had been a long time for both of us (Cody- since 5th grade, me-since 2010). So we brought our little puppy with us and had such a wonderful time on the trail, and it was so peaceful and beautiful! We didn't encounter people until the last tiny bit of the stretch before the actual falls, so the whole time was spent enjoying the beautiful world and talking our little hearts out. We absolutely love being outside and have missed it so much!!

Can you find me? *Hint- I'm the one "in" the water!

 There was a little bit of snow close to the falls, but the weather was so warm and sunny that I didn't even care! It was such a dream to be able to be up there!

Dex was our fearless leader on the way back down the hike.. He loved exploring and sniffing everything. 

We ended the night by going to Spencer and Mirisha's open house in Highland, and it was good to see them again before they head back to Idaho for school. 

SUNDAY

Today was so peaceful! Cody and I slept in, like we do every weekend, then ate some yummy blueberry waffles and bacon. Then we got ready for church and had a lovely walk over there. I love living so close to our meeting house!!! I was feeling the spirit so strongly today, and loved the talks on The Family: A Proclamation to the World. For the closing song we sang, "Families Can Be Together Forever" and I was tearing up because I'm so blessed to have found my eternal companion, be living such a wonderful life, and to be know the truthfulness of the gospel. Then onto Primary, where I started teaching one of our Mother's Day songs! It was called, "My Mother Dear" and I had them do simple body movement/signs to get them to remember the lyrics.

"Like sunshine in the morning that wakens day from night,

Like flowers in the springtime so colorful and bright,

Like happy songs of bluebirds that fill the air with cheer,

A person bright and lovely is my mother dear."

This song also made me tear up because I miss my Mom. Good thing I get to see her in 3 days! Once the kids were more familiar with the song, we played this game, and it was really fun! They were all very engaged, and loved it!

Once we got home, I made some lasagna, and then we headed over to the park to enjoy the beautiful weather. We played Yahtzee, layed around, and even colored a little bit!

If I had to rate this weekend, I'd give it two thumbs up (: Excited for this next week, and send a few prayers our way that Cody's 2 interviews go well tomorrow!!

My boys

  These next two were seconds apart..

This was yesterday after church.. so sleepy!

Dex is such a cuddle bug (:

Also, not related to my adorable boys, (but I don't want to write another post just for this) we finally got real curtains for our front room so we can have some privacy from the world!!

My house was messy.. I didn't want you to be distracted from the reason of this picture.. the curtains!! Aren't they just beautiful?!?

Valentine's Day!!

Thursday wasn't a good day to have Valentine's day for us, so we opted for Friday! Cody magically got home AT 5!!! I was so blown away! It was awesome! He went to go get my present, while I was finishing this! 

That cute little bear was part of my gift last year! Happy birthday, cute bear!

When he came home, he told me to go out to the car to see my present...

Okay, this might not make sense to you, why he would give me plants. But you guys, I am obsessed with plants!! Ever since our 6 month anniversary/my birthday when we went to Walmart and saw their gorgeous plants, I have wanted to fill my entire house with plants!! A couple of weeks ago, I asked Cody if we could buy the one on the left, and he said no! I was so sad.. I wanted it so badly! I mean, look at it!! It's absolutely gorgeous! So when I walked out to see it in the car, I was just about the happiest girl in the world (: And the other ones are freaking cool!! I just love them all! (And don't worry, we went and got a different pot for the big plant.. It's blue now! Although I might paint it..)

For Cody's other gift, I got the idea from this blog post and thought it was just an absolutely genius idea! Whenever Cody and I want to go out to eat, it takes about 30 minutes for us to decide where to go. So I wrote down a list of about 60 restaurants so we can just pull this little book out to decide for us!!

He loved it (:

My cute plants (:

We're just so cute!!  (;

We went to Red Robin for dinner, and this is the first time in YEARS that I didn't get Clucks and Fries!! This was just as delicious (:

We still had a lot planned after dinner, but we were both so full from the yummy food we got, that we decided to watch Harry Potter. It was about 8:15 at this point. And about 3 minutes in, we were both struggling to stay awake. So we decided to take a little nap and just wake up either before the movie was over, or right when it was over. Except, that didn't happen. We ended up waking up at 3am!! I felt so bad for falling asleep for so long and not finishing our Valentine's plans!! We contemplated getting up and playing games, or a few other things, but we fell right back asleep until 8:30am!! Whoops!! It was really nice to sleep for that long since we've both been getting very minimal sleep, and being very stressed with work and school. It was the perfect day with my perfect man (:

I'm feeling very blessed lately.

(This was written/meant to be posted last Tuesday, Feb. 12th)

I have such an amazing life, and I definitely take it for granted.

Last night Cody and I had our first FHE in a while. We bought these mugs from the dollar store a while ago and were going to draw on them with permanent markers and make them really cute, but then I got nervous and didn't know what I wanted to put on it, so we ended up reading an article from the most recent Ensign (or at least the most recent one we received) called "Stand By My Servant Josheph Smith" and it was so good! Not gonna lie, it's been a while since I've read an Ensign or been regular on scripture study, so feeling the spirit so strong just felt so good. It was a great article, so read it if you haven't already.

Right before we went to bed, we decided to get out our old journals and read to each other. He started from the day he went into the MTC and I started back in 1999. Quite the difference in reading. But it was really neat to hear about his life before I met him. And especially right when he went into the MTC. We haven't really talked about that first part of his mission before, just some experiences he's had during his mission. And he was able to actually remember the feelings he had when he was there! The happy moments, the sad moments, moments where he missed his mom so much, and it's just so cool to be able to "experience" this with him all over again.

On the flip side, my journal consisted of the furby I got, named Candy, trips to my Mom's house, and a very extensive entry about one of my birthdays. Oh, to be 9 again.

This past year has been so wonderful being married to the sweetest, most amazing man on the earth. We have fallen more in love than I ever thought possible, and have grown so much. We've learned a TON about each other, and we've learned to deal with our differences and adapt them in a way that fits us both, and I really am so excited to spend eternity with him.

Anniversary Weekend

You guys, our anniversary weekend ROCKED!! We promised each other that we were really going to try our hardest to RELAX on this vacation. Every time we've vacationed so far, we've filled our schedule up so much that we barley had time to sleep. But not this time.. ohhhh, not this time! And because it was such a laid back vacation, I didn't take very many pictures, although looking back I should have at least taken one of us laying around, eating snacks and watching cable TV! (we don't have cable at home, so this was a rare occurrence!) Anyways, here's a quick recap!

Nice big bed with a fancy headboard and lamps!

We actually used the drawers and unpacked the first day! I never do that!

You may say that I'm weird for taking a picture of the door handle. But it was so fancy looking!

We got a great deal on a hotel up in North Salt Lake, so we decided to stay there Friday night through Sunday night. This year worked out so well with Martin Luther King Day being on our anniversary, because that meant no school or work, meaning one extra day to stay at the hotel and do fun things during the day that we normally wouldn't have been able to do!

So when we got there on Friday, we were both super exhausted from the hectic week we had, so we took it easy just watching movies on TV until we fell asleep (even though we REALLLLLY wanted to go to the hot tub!!!) Anyways, Saturday morning we took our time waking up, but when we did, we decided to go to the Salt Lake Temple to remember our sealing one year ago. So we were looking for doggy day care places to take Dexter to (oh yeah, we brought Dex with us. So glad we did!! Even just leaving him for a few hours of the day to go play was heart breaking!) and Pet Smart in Taylorsville has a Pet Hotel that they get to play with other dogs that are there, they feed them, and play one on one with them! Plus, it was only $15 for the day!! So we took him there and we were on our way to the temple.

(Insert picture here, except I didn't take one because I was so mad!)

We're in Salt Lake, pulling up to the parking lot we always park in, and there's signs above it saying the temple is closed!!! WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE TEMPLE IS CLOSED? It was soooo depressing! So we ended up going to the City Creek Mall, which sucks. They have too fancy of stores.. even the not fancy stores like Forever 21 have only fancy clothes in them. We did go to Deseret Book and bought a book of 777 clean jokes for $3.99... So it was worth it (: Then we went on an adventure to find a Walmart for snacks and maybe a game. No luck. So we ended up picking up Dexter, going back to the hotel and went to the hot tub!! Man, it felt good! I haven't been in a hot tub since last March or April during Spring Break!

Sunday, we had planned on going to Sacrament meeting somewhere in Salt Lake, but.. that didn't happen. We stayed in bed alternating between sleep and half awake until 2:30.. pm... And we found a channel that was playing Disney movies one right after another, and apparently it was very captivating. We half watched Aladdin, Lady and the Tramp, Alice and Wonderland, and Hercules (:

Cody had a meeting at 4 down in Orem, so we left the hotel around 3 to get back in time, and on our way back to the hotel, we stopped at his parent's house for dinner and games! Hot tub again when we came back, and then relaxing once again!

Monday morning we woke up at 11:30, packed up and left by 12:30. Dropped Dex off at the Pet Hotel and then we got massages!!!! We found a school up in Salt Lake that charged $35 for a 50 minute massage, and it was so worth it!! It felt so dang good!

After getting massages, we went to the Living Planet Aquarium. I couldn't wait! We pulled up and the building looked like it was an old grocery store!! Which, I'm pretty sure it was..

Nevertheless, it was still very fun! And here comes the picture overload of the animals, us and the animals, and more animals.

This is an octopus!

HOLY CRAB! (AND LOBSTER!!!)

I was eating it.. although it just looks like I'm constipated..

I could NOT get a good picture of this GIANT sea turtle for the life of me! 

THE REASON I CAME!! PENGUINS!!! They were so funny! They'd just float on the water right in front of the glass like they were posing just for us!

So I took advantage of his posing and posed with him! 

Cody's favorite part!! The gators!! This picture is trippy.. it looks like there's two, or his head was cut off. Nope, just the way the water made it look.

Cody said that these gators looked like the ones that he used to catch on his mission!! Scary!

This is how tall the penguins in the aquarium were.. so cute and tiny!

This is the Emperor penguin. That's the tallest that those kinds of penguins get! Still so cute and small!

Apparently my scarf had lots of radiant heat... (see picture below)

Okay, this is a freaky. This is the size of a shark's mouth!! As in a real shark! Like, somewhere in the ocean, there's probably a shark (or was) this big just chillin down there!

This is a real, fossilized tooth. Oh. My. Goodness.

And, proof that I touched a sting ray (:

We had fun there for about 2 hours, but my goodness, it was so packed with little kids! I felt bad going right up to the glass and taking pictures instead of letting them see, but honestly, I was probably more excited than they were.

We were super hungry when we left, so we went up to Tucanos in the Gateway mall.. We wanted to go somewhere that wasn't a "normal" place to go to celebrate on our actual anniversary. It was delicious, and of course I didn't take any picture.. (stupid!). We picked up Dexter, went home and wanted to relax one last time before we had to go back to our crazy hectic school/work schedule. So we drank some yummy grape "bubbly" with popcorn and M&Ms, and watched The Office, followed by Despicable Me to fall asleep to (:

It was the most perfect, relaxing, and fun vacation, and a great way to spend our first anniversary!! So, happy anniversary Cody! I love you more than ever and am so grateful for all you do for our family! Here's to a million more anniversaries with you!