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.

Photo dumpage

Summer came and went. 

I started my last semester of my undergrad ever. 

Other stuff happened that I have pictures of.

Dendro field trips every. weekend. It's been a little lame having my weekends blown for three months, but we're always in cool places and the work is rewarding! Especially when you find horned lizards. [: So cute!!

When I DID have a free weekend, we took a day trip to Arches. There were so many Asian and European tourists. And Ryan tried to talk to every. European. he could. Haha. That kid. He really misses it over there.

Sometimes when I'm walking on campus I can't help but take pictures of it. I love BYU. Also, we had wedding cake for dessert every day for the two weeks following our anniversary. Not mad.

More dendro fieldwork. Jackson got to core his first tree. And a bugger of a Rocky Mountain juniper at that! Huzzah for Jack.

SO MUCH RAIN in the past few weeks! It made working at the weather station more exciting. Plus - all you can eat french toast. Thank you, Kneaders. Thank you forever.

My day gets so much better when Ryan makes my lunches. We've been writing on one another's lunch food since we started dating and I love that we still do it. [:

Dendro lab for days. And post-college job searching. That one there is a serious possibility...

MORE fieldwork! And more adorable horny lizards. At the site of death. Tanner Ridge. We all fell at some point during the day. But I got the award for the best/worst fall depending on how you look at it...

Writing to Merr in Argentina! And finally putting the petals from various flowers that Ryan has given me into Christmas ornaments. Flowers from our first Valentine's day, the night he proposed to me, and my wedding bouquet. I love them. [: Makes my sentimental heart happy.

The aftermath of my previously-mentioned fall. So colorful! 

And conference. This weekend was so perfect. 

Life is good.