We got engagements a year late.

Back in July, Elisha Braithwaite of EB Photography opened a giveaway for a free shoot with her in honor of a new full-frame camera she had just bought, with preference given to people who were already married or who had never gotten pictures done. I had been following her on Instagram for a few weeks and I, no joke, almost jumped straight up into the air when I saw her post about it. She invited interested couples to email her pictures and a blurb of why they wanted a shoot. 

I typed that email up like a madman. I have told myself since our engaged days that I would get pictures of Ryan and I. Because of budget restraints, Ryan and I didn't get engagements. Our announcement photo was one my dad took in our back yard. I wanted professional pictures of this blissful, amazing time of life so badly, and Elisha's giveaway literally felt like a miracle! After a few days I got a response from Elisha saying that she would love to photograph us for our anniversary! AHH I almost died of happiness. Ryan didn't understand what the fuss was all about, but he just doesn't get how much pictures mean to me. [: I'm so lucky to have a guy who is willing to do things that he knows make me happy, even if he's not super thrilled about it.

Elisha and her boy were the coolest people to hang out with! We had so much fun with them. Heck, I'll take any excuse to make googlie eyes and kiss my husband for an hour. Elisha was the perfect mix of letting us do our own thing, while still giving us pose ideas so we didn't look like awkward weirdos. For the most part, the shoot was totally candid, which is everything I wanted. 

I love the love I have with this guy, and I love having pictures that show it. I am so happy with these.

I just love this green-eyed boy.

Elisha is a fantastic, talented photographer and her images are not only beautiful, but needle-sharp due to the fantastic camera she's chosen (I appreciate things like that). She is the sweetest person ever and is so fun to hang out with! She shoots in the Northern Utah region and loves travel. Hook up with her if you're reading this and like her stuff. [:  

San Francisco birthday weekend.

The week before my birthday, we decided to plan a spontaneous trip to one of my favorite cities for a weekend birthday extravaganza on a budget. We got Alaska Airlines standby passes thanks to Ryan's dad, and stayed (for CHEAP) about 20 minutes away from the city thanks to AirBnB (seriously you should check out that website right now. It's addictive. Ask Ryan. He's already got a list of places for us to go in Europe).

We didn't have a whole lot of time to plan, but this was my SF bucketlist:

1. Walk through Golden Gate Park (we ended up getting off at the wrong bus stop so I really got my wish with this one. It is HUGE and beautiful!)

2. Spend a day at the California Academy of Science (I. loved. this. place. They had a giant walk-through rainforest dome, dozens of amazing aquarium tanks, a planetarium... I could go on and on. Admission was pricey but we deem it TOTALLY worth it.)

3. Baker Beach (Pretty pretty views of the Golden Gate Bridge. Plus, the first time I had seen the ocean in like six months. Oh man. It was great.)

4. Land's End Point (Lots of cool trails, beautiful ocean views, and some historic sites that Ryan was obsessed with.)

5. Fisherman's Wharf & Pier 39 (Classic tourist site. It was fun to go back here and relive memories of this road trip years ago. The place kind of reminds me of the Seattle Waterfront. Except for of course that Seattle is better because... Seattle.)

6. Drive across the Golden Gate Bridge (Fun to think that the last time I did that was two years ago doing possibly one of the most psychotic and fun things I've ever done - Ragnar.)

7. Muir Woods National Monument (Heaven on earth. Made my lil dendrochronologist heart real happy.)

8. Grandview Park & the 16th Avenue Mosaic Steps (Incredible view and beautiful stairs! Though a lot of them... Man. That was a quad workout.)

9. Drive Lombard Street (We did it twice in a row. Booyah.)

Things not included in the list but ended up happening:

• A flat tire downtown. Changed that bad boy like total bosses. Teamwork.
• Free fireworks show during dinner one night. Like, LEGIT fireworks. They knew it was my birthday.
• Ending up in what we later found out was one of the SF's most famous taverns and turning down the offered alcoholic drinks for a caesar salad and french toast (me looking especially innocent with 'BYU' emblazoned across my chest). I wish I could have gotten a picture of our server's face.
• Totally wasted SF Giants fans all over the place.
• Visiting Ghirardelli Square three separate times and perfecting our look of surprise when walking through the doors and getting the free chocolate ("Oh what's this? For me? Why, I don't know what to say!").  

 

 

 

 

 

Bottom line: birthday weekend was a success. We loved this trip. I love being with Ryan.

My husband spoils me big time.

Status update.

Something I've been wanting to start. A short blurb about what each of us are up to so I can remember when I'm going through past posts.

I'm currently the Relief Society accompanist in our ward, a calling I've had since I think the beginning of this year. I'm still working as a research assistant for one of my professors in the dendrochronology lab (Dendro = tree, and chrono = time. Dendrochronology is the study of tree rings and all the environmental/climatic factors that they can tell us about from the past. In the lab we study trees that are up to 1,200 years old and use them to reconstruct the climate and precipitation patterns of northern Utah.) I can't believe it's been a year and a half since I started. I'm now senior RA with my own team. Lately Dr. B has hired four new RAs and I've been training two of them to sand and cross date cores. We've been focusing on Tanner Ridge, a site up in Spanish Fork Canyon/Diamond Fork Canyon. I've got a good team and they're catching on quickly. [: I'm also a TA and grader for Dr. B's 303 class, Biogeography. Awesome class. I really enjoyed it when I took it. Grading is HARD though. It took me a week to grade the first midterm. I sweated over being too easy or too hard on them. But now I'm a pro. And lastly, I'm the supervisor of the BYU weather station. I've been there for a year and a half, too. That time blew by. I'll be graduating in December and am looking for jobs in my spare time.

Ryan is a Sunday School class president in our ward. Perfect for him. He loves to talk with people and get to know them. His job at SkyRocket Media is going great, and he's so good at what he does. While I do homework in the evening he practices his Dutch, reads his latest book Naked Economics, keeps up on his nerdy shows (currently Gotham and Agent of Shield), and listens to NPR and especially his latest addiction, a nonfiction murder mystery podcast called Serial. [: He still does most of the cooking and I pinch myself that I found a guy like him every night.

We recently started watching The War, Kevin Burns' documentary on WWII, as well as Battlestar Galactica, which I've never watched before. We still go to Art City Trolley about twice a month and just found an awesome Mongolian grill in Spanish Fork that I think we'll start to frequent as well. It's amazinggg.

Life is good.

Moments.

This morning Ryan said something as he walked out the door that almost jolted me
out of my socks and made me cry at the same time.
I officially graduate from my beloved BYU in five weeks.

When Ryan and I walked for graduation in August, I almost had to drag Ryan to it. Not really, but pretty close. Ryan is not hot on things that are done purely for the sake of sentiment. [: I on the other hand could not be more into that kind of stuff. I love the symbolism and the reflection these kinds of things bring. I was stoked for the ceremonies and the pictures and the celebrating, and I could not be more smug when President Worthen said in his commencement address, "We go through ceremonies to symbolize finishing a stage in our life and moving on to the next." There, my opinion has been endorsed by the Pres. And I couldn't have put it better myself.

I love thinking about the stages of life, the things that contributed to each experience, and the people who have helped me through them. The weeks leading up to our wedding, I was cleaning out my room for my sister to move in, and I loved doing it. I had stacks and stacks of papers, flyers, planners, notebooks, and other random things from junior high and high school under my desk in there. I savored looking at each thing. I found things that were happy-sad, things I had totally forgot about, things that made me laugh, and a whole notebook that my friends Danielle and David and I drew doodles and wrote notes in during the most boring class of high school, political science. I found my old planners with events like homecoming, prom, movie nights at David's, big exams, birthdays, trips, and the like. I found 12-page essays that at the moment made my ninth grade self feel like throwing up with stress... and now look where I am. Look how little that mattered. But at the moment it mattered so much. I like finding those things again. They pull a bunch of other memories into my mind along with them, and they make me so grateful.

Writing thank-you notes after our wedding was the same deal. Although I had to write almost 400 of them, writing each one was an opportunity to think about the people who had helped both Ryan and I along the path to our temple marriage, the best and happiest blessing ever. It was, in a word, humbling. I couldn't express my gratitude enough and how deeply humbled I was. I couldn't NOT write those cards. There was no way. I had to. To shrug off the task would be so ungrateful.

To me, graduation was the same way. The convocation and commencement ceremonies, to me, represented recognition of both us students and the people who had helped us along the path. To not participate would be, in my mind, ungrateful. And boy am I grateful for the four years I've spent here. I'm really ready to not ever have homework again, but at the same time I'm almost desperately grasping at these last moments I'll have as a BYU student. My last time doing this, seeing that, studying in this spot...

Life is so complex and deep. There are so many moments that make it up. I love those moments. I'm so grateful for them.
I guess that's why I blog.

Our first year: Highlights

1) Our wonderful honeymoon at the cutest bed & breakfast ever. So relaxing and the perfect place to just be together and let the reality that WE ARE MARRIED FOREVER set in. [: Then we road tripped through gorgeous northern Idaho, Montana, and down to Provo.

2) Moving into our apartment. I remember my parents went to check it out while we were on our honeymoon, since they were in Provo dropping my brother off for his first year at BYU. They called us and hesitantly asked, "Are you sure you want to move into this place? We think you should see it before you decide." It freaked us out, but then we saw it for the first time and were all, pshh! Welcome to reasonably-priced Provo housing, Mom & Dad. We're used to this. [: This ain't bad at ALL.

For the first few weeks we didn't have any furniture but a sofa, a mattress on the bedroom floor, and a kitchen table without chairs. So we ate on the box our KitchenAid came in every night. It was really classy. We've slowly procured more furniture, and it's fun to see how far our little place has come.

 3) Our first national park/camping trip as a married couple. We headed over to Great Basin National Park for "Astronomy Fest," which got rained out. But we loved being there together!

 4) As two Pacific Northwesterns who are used to an autumn full of green evergreens, we loved fall in Utah and took every opportunity to go up into the canyons nearby and see the stunning colors.

5) Made the 10-hour trek to northern California to spend our first Thanksgiving with Ryan's extended family. With Uncle Nick's passing just a few days ago, I look back on this trip and am so thankful that we went and got to spend time with them. Ryan's family is wonderful. We miss you, Uncle Nick!

6) Got a BED! Thanks to Ryan's mom. Walking in to this sight was the best surprise ever! Really. It made us feel sooo cool to have a bed off the ground. [: Movin' up in the world. That's right.

 7) Put up Christmas lights in our little place. This was particularly special to us because it was something we did together to my apartment at the Elms before we started dating. [: Then we'd lay on the carpet under their colorful glow and talk for hours, getting to know each other. It often went past curfew. (Shhh...)

 8) Spent our first Christmas in Seattle with my family! And I got to show Ryan my mountain when we got to go snowshoeing in Rainier National Park. Best New Years' Day ever.

9) Experienced THE craziest weekend ever and hit Six Flags Magic Mountain, Las Vegas, and Zion National Park all in one weekend when my dad came into town. Ryan got sick from the rides, and I got sick the day after getting home due to lack of sleep. It was a riot. [:

10) Spent a whole day snowshoeing and hanging out at Sundance. This was a simple day, but it always stands out as one of my favorites. It was such a good day. It was one of those days where, even after six months of marriage, being together the whole day made it hit us all over again that we were married forever and ever and EVER and would get to do stuff like this for that long, too! [:

11) Got our annual national park pass! When Ryan and I were getting to know each other, I told him about my goal of going to every national park in my lifetime. He thought that was awesome and once we started dating, he adopted it as well. We modified the goal once we were engaged to be that we wanted to go together to every park in our lifetime. That set my progress back a little bit (I had been to 17 national parks so far when I married Ryan; he had been to none), but I didn't mind. We've had so much fun planning trips to the parks near us. And I can't wait to continue it with our little family.

 12) Went to Vegas for CELINE DION. Ryan bought me tickets to her show for Valentine's Day. I grew up listening to Celine (my parents like her, haha) and my siblings and I spent our childhood singing her stuff together with dry-erase marker microphones while dancing around the living room with the CD player at max volume. No shame. Seeing her live was a dream come true.

13) Merr got his mission call to Argentina! Ahhh!! And I'll lump his going into the MTC in there, too. Saying goodbye was so hard, but I love writing letters to him. Ryan was very understanding the following week as I cried at random times about missing Merritt. And then the addition of Merritt's dog Gryffin passing away suddenly, three days after Merr went into the MTC, made for one of the hardest weeks of my life.

14) Canyonlands National Park weekend while my Mom visited. Southern Utah. It's so amazing.

15) Merr and I got our wisdom teeth out together. Conference Weekend was a good weekend to do it, though being drugged up didn't make for much spiritual enlightenment. Also, I don't remember taking this picture.

 16) Sailing with my family over spring break. I had been looking forward to the first time we could take Ryan sailing for MONTHS and it was just as fun as I hoped it would be. The weather was beautiful.

17) Day hikes once the weather started warming up! I love hiking with this guy.

18) Great Basin National Park again, this time with our friends Britania & Tom. The weather was MUCH better than our first experience, and we got to explore the caves and do some hikes. Best of all, though, were the incredible stars that we finally got to see! Ryan was in heaven.

 19) Capitol Reef National Park with Andrew and KayCee. Check another one off the list! Capitol Reef is small and doesn't attract a lot of attention. I honestly didn't really know of it til a couple years ago. It was such a cool place! 

20) Finishing wedding thank-you notes!! This was a MAJOR accomplishment in my mind. We received so many happy wishes and gifts from our friends and family members. I was determined to send all 400 of them a personalized note before our first anniversary. Mission accomplished. And left hand destroyed.

 21) Glacier National Park! Possibly our favorite one so far. Oh man. This was a weekend we will never forget. This place is UNREAL. Here's day 1, day 2, and day 3. That made 7 parks that we've been to since we started dating (Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Zion, Glacier, Great Basin, and Rainier!).

 22) Ryan graduating from BYU and me walking for graduation (December is when I'm done! Ahh!)

23) Seeing Guardians of the Galaxy six times in theaters. We love this movie. Go see it.

24) Our dreamy first anniversary. Almost as good as our wedding day. [: 

Life is so good with my husband. It's not perfect or worry- or annoyance-free by any means, but marrying the right person takes care of so many worries and potential problems. Ryan loves unconditionally, and that is a gift I don't think anyone I dated in the past had perfected so well. He is self-aware, intelligent, hard working, and persistent, and he values budgeting, saving instead of spending, spending time together, leaving work at work, and taking care of me. I never imagined I would have someone so devoted. He has this "love" thing down to perfection. It comes so naturally to him. I learn from him and am humbled by him constantly. Our first year was the happiest of my life. Here's to a million more.

I love you, Ry.