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.

Our first anniversary

Best read while listening to our song. [: I listened to it on repeat during this entire day.

 I left copies of four journal entries of different events in our relationship for him to find - one on the mirror where he'd find it before work, one in the car, one on his desk at work, and one on the front door for when he came home. The first one was one of the first times I mentioned Ryan in my journal, and I talked about how much I admired who he was and liked being around him. The second was the day I realized I was starting to really crush on him. Third, our first kiss; and fourth, a letter I wrote to him throughout the day while he was at work.

Throughout the day I was walking on air. I felt like it was our wedding day again. That day and all those emotions and experiences are some of my most happy and perfect memories. It was a fairytale. Walking out the temple doors to a cheering crowd of our family and friends. Kissing my husband every second I got the chance. Getting to talk to everyone who came to support us. I listened to our wedding playlist, looked through our wedding album, and unwrapped our cake while my brain floated through the memories of that Tuesday morning and everything that had happened since then. 365 days. Three hundred sixty-five. I could have shouted it! I was so happy and grateful for the man who had asked me to be his forever.

He brought me roses when he came home. We got dressed up and went to dinner and walked around the Riverwoods, where we had gone on our first date together. Chalk-the-Block was going on, so we grabbed some chalk and left our mark on the sidewalk. We came home, turned on our wedding playlist, lit candles, turned off the lights, and ate our cake. It tasted amazing! We were so excited that it was just as good as that day a year ago. We each had multiple pieces. [:

We danced in the living room to our song, and I felt like my heart couldn't possibly hold so much love. I couldn't hold back my happy tears. A year ago from that moment, I was dancing with my Mr. Gray, my husband, beneath twinkling lights, and surrounded by the people we loved. I still cannot comprehend how I got so lucky. I knew I loved Ryan more than I'd ever loved anyone, but looking back, I honestly didn't know the half of it. Since that day, it's only gotten better and sweeter. Sometimes I can't believe that I'm married to this man. It would make so much sense if it were just a dream. How is this real? How can someone love me so much?

There aren't words for the feelings I have, and I can only put it this way:

I love this man. I love him. I love him. I love him.

And I get him for eternity.