Pasta Bella Noche

After waiting for what seemed like forever... we finally made it to the "Night Before" !! We set up a dinner with all our family and friends who were in town at the Spaghetti Factory!! YUM!! A little Italian never hurt right? I think I've known for years that I wanted to go there because of the spamoni ice cream - that's my FAVORITE!!

Well, we showed up a bit early and organized our family's seating arrangements as they all came in. We figured it would be best to mix them up a bit since our families hadn't met each other at all. It was actually entertaining for me at least to watch one family across the table from the other family and see if they would interact and how, or if they would ignore each other... it probably was a bit awkward, but I decided not to worry about it. Our parents at least were big boys and could mingle if they wanted :)

David & I pretty much ran the show during the dinner. Actually, I let David do it all since his voice was a lot manlier, louder, and lower... We walked around the 2 long tables together and introduced each person sitting at the table. David was pretty good with them all, it was cute when he mixed up my uncle for the grandpa for a second, but that was my fault as well since I should have been helping. It was a bit loud since we were on the top floor but could hear the other people downstairs. So, we just basically introduced during the salad and let everyone chat after that. I really enjoyed having everyone getting to know each other in an informal setting.

Oh, another memory from this night was one of my BYU/Mission best roommate Courtney couldn't come because of a crazy storm on the East coast, her flight was cancelled. She told me Wednesday but it didn't hit me till Thursday when I saw our other friend Megan - that wow, she won't be here with us!! I totally started crying uncontrollably for a few minutes - yikes! I hope not too many people saw because they could have thought - what's wrong with the bride? Cold feet? Problems? No way... Just missing a friend who we also promised to be at each other's wedding. Stupid weather doesn't always permit it. I just told Megan and others to not mention "Court" and I would be fine. It was a crazy moment, but I guess I like the memory since it shows my feelings of my whole wedding - all I really cared about was having all my FAVORITE people there supporting and partying with us. That's really been my main priority since planning our wedding. And watching other brides-to-be that I know now, I'm glad for that desire, because in reality, who's going to care about the little decorations, food, or anything weeks or years later? The part that sticks with us are the memories. Okay... a little too deep maybe ... since my point of this post was PASTA... but oh well. My thoughts. :)

And the next day we knew would be the WEDDING!! Everything was ready, just a bit of packing. David & I had about 40 minutes later that night to just sit, stare, and get excited for the adventure in the morning. Awe.

Best Friends

In high school I had 2 best friends. SPRING & LEXIE. We were basically connected at the hip. I remember several late nights/mornings when we'd stay up chatting - we'd always talk about boys, dating, future marriages, children, etc etc. You know.. girl stuf...

One particular night I remember us parked in one of our cars, sitting outside our house. The two in the front had their chairs reclined both staring at the car ceiling. And the one in the back laying down as well. We all were just throwing thoughts out there as to when we'd like to get married, how many kids... I remember telling them that I wanted to get married 1st so that I could then go to both of their weddings. They came back saying that wasn't fair and they also wanted that. We put in guesses as to who would be married first and who would have boys, girls, and what types of mom's we would be. I don't think I realized that those days would actually come to pass sooner than we thought. We probably had this conversation in 2001 or 2002.

May 2003 - SPRING was #1. She got married to Corey when still a teenager :) And now they have 4 cute kids!! Lexie and I were her bridesmaides (so were her sisters in different outfits). We wore our yellow dresses and greeted everyone at the reception and asked to take their picture...wow. That was a fun memory!

January 2004 - LEXIE was up next... She married Rob after a short dating spell as well... And now has 3 darling boys that bounce off the walls in their NJ home... seriously! Spring was prego at Lexie's wedding, and she had her wedding close to Christmas so we'd be in AZ, not UT for the holidays. I was a bridesmaid in black and red and got her bouqeut (couldn't find the place!) and danced at the reception etc etc.

......... 6 years pass .......... am I going to get married? I'm the last one for sure, but the good thing is that the way we had thought about it was that the last person could have all 3 of us in the sealing room together while the 1st only had themself... Looking at the positive.

Febuary 2010 - I tied the knot too finally! I married David and how awesome was it to have SPRING and LEXIE both be able to fly to UT from NJ or AZ, leave their families, and spend a few days with me before the wedding??? Totally amazing! I think I was pretty caught up in "I'm getting married" and wedding details, but looking back now - that wasn't even something I would have imagined! So, we went to all of each other's weddings! Sweet!

Wednesday before the wedding, Lexie flew in and I picked her up, showed her around, took her on errands - and that evening my Mom & Steph took us to do peticures, dinner and embarrass me with "bride to be" outfits :). Spring flew in on Thursday and we went to Chik-fil-A and ate, looked for a shirt for me, got new lipstick....They ironed my dress, and helped me pack... I had them at my home those 2 nights... a little crazy to get sleep, but it was fun (my downstairs neighbors hated us for being so loud!). I still just can't imagine how amazing it was that my 2 high school buddies with husbands and 3-4 kids each left it all and flew out to see me. They're just GREAT! I remember in high school our parents would say, "friends will come and go" and I remember us 3 saying, no - we're different! And so far I love that we've stayed in touch and that our wedding dreams have come true so far. Thanks girls, you're the best!!!!

Shower Shower Shower...

No, I'm not talking about "baths" here... But I had 3 AMAZING briadal showers in January all thrown by some amazing family/friends. Actually the 3 were all within a week! Crazy week...

#1 - Utah Shower - thrown by Steph & Jan at Uncle Richard & Jan's place... JAN 16th. We had a little "family" get together before the open house began so that my family could mingle with David's family. There were many relatives on mom's side that I hadn't seen for years so I think my family was happy to see them. Then the friends headed over too! That was the best for me since I hadn't seen some of my old roommates from P-town for awhile. Thank you everyone for coming! It was great to feel so loved and blessed to know all these wonderful ladies. David showed up after a bit too :) Had to bring him and show him off. Here are a few photos:
# 2 - So like 4 days later my two HR co-workers threw me a shower at WORK too! They decorated a conference room, picked up some good munchies and cupcakes etc, and we spent an hour with about 10 gals from the office just chatting about getting married, asking me the regular questions of how we met, etc, and then opening presents. Wow, for it being a work party, it was really awesome too! They were all so sweet and it was great to see all the kindness there too. Here are a couple pics:
#3 - AZ Shower - thrown by some good church friends the Toblers at Maren's house in Gilbert...JAN 23rd. Yep, the next weekend. I took David with me (remember I won't take vacations without him again..) and we flew to AZ for 40 hours basically. We did a whole heck of a lot for just that little of time. The main point of coming was the shower. We also were able to have a BBQ with Dad and Co. and also Ice Cream with David's family in Phoenix. So, the shower in AZ was absolutely perfect to me!!! It was so wonderful to see so many family friends from my growing-up years. Really, there were all these ladies that were in Young Women's with me, all my leaders, and just people who might have even helped raise and watch me when mom was at work etc. Even after 8 years of being gone in AZ, I felt such terrific love and support. All the girls in the family were able to come as well - thanks Bri, Beck and girls, Diane, mom, Amanda! And Spring came too! It was great to see her and have some good laughs :). The ladies also made me a tied quilt while we were having the shower. That's been a tradition for years, and it's great that I have this beautiful blanket now... David came for the 2nd half to this one too - and all the ladies oouued and awwed over him. It was fun to tell our story together of our life together so far. Here are some photos from that day:
Thanks everyone for making my bridal shower experience so great!!!

Ketchup

I have a lot of "Ketchup" ing to do.... And I really don't have too much free time. But alas, I want to remember the best times of my life.... so the next few weeks I'll re-live these times :) Here's a little list so you know what I'm catching up on:

Before Wedding:

- Showers....

- Friends in town

- Dinner Night Before

- Wedding/Reception (finally getting pictures!)

Now Married:

- Date nights

- Vacations

- Work-crazy-busy-ness (hence less posting)

- Amber's wedding (My new sis-in-law)

Okay, so those are the events, I'm sure there are TONS of thoughts I could blog about too, but we'll see what I get to of the above for now. Can you believe we've been married 2 months? We say it feels longer - not in a bad way - just in that, weren't we always married and like this? It's been a perfect 2 months so far :) :).... Wow, seems so short when I write it like that. I think I've conquered most of the "To Do After Marriage" like thank yous, changing my name in all sorts of places, car stuff, banking, ... who knew there was so much! And we had a lovely 2nd honeymoon/vacation to CALI for a week during David's spring break! His school semester will be done at the end of this month and we'll get ready for summer term too. And someday it WILL be warm here, right? Last week we still had major snow storms - maybe we're going

counter-clockwise with our seasons? Back to Winter??? NOOO!!

Other than all we've done and random winter stuff, life is just perfect. Can't be better. Loving it all. I think we both are :)....