Valentine's Day

Hey everyone! I hope everyone had good Valentine dates this weekend! A few weeks ago, I told Chris that I wanted to "camp" for Valentines. I wanted to set up a tent in our living room and pretend that we were camping. I kind of forgot about the idea because we didn't have a tent and it didn't seem so practical. So whatever. Yesterday, I worked until 3, I came home and found this.

Chris is the sweetest man in the whole world.

The night was perfect, of course. Chris took me to my favorite place, the Cheesecake Factory. We figured that since 1. It's Valentine's 2. It's the Cheesecake Factory, we would have to get there extra early if we wanted to get a table before 9 pm. We left the house at 4 and arrived at 4:30. There was already a line (out the door) to even get your name on the list. It ended up working out perfectly. There was an hour wait, so we sat down at 5:30 and got our food around 6. I love that place. YUM! We ate WAY too much though, that's why we ONLY go there on special occasions!

This year

Last year

Ya know why this year was 293847 times better? BECAUSE WE'RE MARRIED!

Then, (this is extra sweet of Chris) we went and saw Gnomeo and Juliet. It was cute, but it was no Disney movie. The theatre was full of little kids, I actually love that situation because I absolutely love hearing little kids laugh. The CUTEST kids were sitting on both sides of us. I love that kids will just say whatever is on their mind. "Oh no! Watch out Gnomeo!!"

It ended up being the perfect night. We came home, got ready for bed, and camped out in our cute living room tent! I'm so grateful for my amazing husband. He is so incredible and makes my life SO happy.

I love being married. I love cooking and cleaning and having a lot of US time! I am enjoying all of this time before law school because I get Chris all to myself for a few more months. We hear that all of the schooling will steal my husband away for a few years. I'm trying to mentally prepare myself for this. I'm not too worried because we both work hard at our relationship. An important part of our budget is "Date Night" every week. We also started having Family Home Evening, we want to be in the habit by the time we have kiddies.

We received this book at a wedding shower, it has great and easy ideas for FHE as a newlywed couple!

OH and back to law school, the night we came home from our honeymoon, we had a letter on our counter. We thought it was just another law school brochure, but we opened it and it was Chris's first law school ACCEPTANCE letter! It was to Lewis and Clark in Oregon. Congrats to my wonderful husband! We are so anxious to hear from the other schools now. It's so crazy not knowing where we'll be in only a few months!

Anyway, I hope everyone had a great weekend with their lovers, I sure did. Thanks for reading XO!

Some bridals and groomals

Here are a few bridals and groomals. Bridals are by Steve Barrus at Nook & Cranny in Lehi. Groomals are by Vanessa Rae at La Caille. More to come.

MARRIED

It's been so long! There is just too much to talk about! We'll start with the wedding day.

We woke up on January 25th and it was snowing pretty badly, NOOOO! I was so sad, it hadn't snowed for weeks, and it was a blizzard the morning of my wedding. I woke up at 6 even though I didn't have to be to the temple until 10. I did my make up, my mom and I did my hair (I shouldn't have been so stressed about the hair). It wasn't anything fancy, but I loved it. We arrived at the temple, and were married for time and all eternity shortly after. The ceremony was amazing. Miraculously, my make up didn't get one smudge during all of my crying.

When it was time for pictures, we looked outside and magically it had stopped snowing and the temple grounds looked gorgeous!. So, I'm glad it wasn't snowing anymore and everything, but this was the only bad part of the day...it was FREEZING and we had to do a lot of pictures and video-ing. I literally almost passed out because I was so cold. It was miserable out there, but at least I had my HUSBAND to hold me tight.

The reception was ABSOLUTELY PERFECT! People always say, "Oh our wedding was good, little things here and there went wrong but that's what makes it fun"...well we CAN'T say that at all. Not one thing went wrong. The night was 32432 times better than I ever could have dreamed. Every single little detail was perfect. I was obsessed with our cake. Our candy table was adorable. The pictures were perfect. The food was great. The decorations were fabulous. The flowers were gorgeous. All of our friends and family were there. Chris and I were officially husband and wife. I could just go on and on about the perfectness of it all.

Side note: Before the wedding, Chris had been working 60 hour work weeks. I just thought work was really busy. But when we walked into Heritage Gardens for our reception, I saw why Chris had spent so much time at work lately. He had made me a cedar chest as a wedding gift. It is beautiful. He spent hours and hours on it, he is the sweetest man in the whole world. I love it! Here are some pictures, just ignore the couch's reflection on top haha.

We stayed at Little America in the honeymoon room on the top floor that night. On the table there were roses, chocolate covered strawberries (the chocolate looked little little tuxes, pics are on Chris's camera, I will put them on later), and Martinelli's (which I couldn't drink of course, but it sure smelled good!), and a key with our names and anniversary date on it. Just like the rest of the day, it was perfect.

The next morning we woke up at 4:30am to catch our flight. We went down to our car and the battery was dead. Ok, no big deal, we'll just jump it, right? We try to take the key out...it was stuck in the ignition (stupid American cars). We couldn't find the battery, so we look in the owners manual thing, the battery is in the trunk. The whole car is electronic so we can't pop the trunk...which is where Chris's luggage was. So, we had to just call a taxi, leave all of Chris's stuff, and have my parents deal with the car while we were gone. We bought Chris some cheap clothes when we got to Mexico and he was set. Wouldn't it be nice to be a guy sometimes haha!?

Our honeymoon was amazing! We stayed in THEE coolest hotel in the whole country of Mexico. There really isn't much to tell, we mostly just relaxed. We painted a lot of pottery, took tons of naps, ordered room service, played in the pool, kind of got in the ocean once (neither of us love the ocean too much), and just hung out! We read a whole book together while we were down there, it's called The Maze Runner, I LOVED it. So good! I highly recommend it, especially to all of you Hunger Games fans!

I loved being with Chris 24/7. It was the greatest thing ever. I knew it wouldn't be, but for my whole life I really hoped that my honeymoon wouldn't be like Ashton Kutcher and Brittany Snow's on Just Married.

View from our room.

Mmm mmm!

Eatin' guac by the pool.

I spy with my little eye...an iguana!

Our favorite thing to do!

Ribs!

I didn't eat any Mexican food all week haha!

Ouch!

Everyone at our resort was about 75 years old. Everyone could tell that we were newly weds and they would always talk to us. They would say, "How did your pottery turn out?" and we would be like, "Great!" while we were really thinking "Uhh who are you? Have I seen you before??" (all the grannies started looking the same and we couldn't remember who we had talked to previously haha!

So, to summarize everything real quick. The wedding was perfect. The reception was perfect. The honeymoon was perfect. My husband is perfect, oh yeah I forgot to mention this, I love living with him, it's SO fun! Thank you everyone for all of your love and support, all of your help with the wedding, and just for EVERYTHING. It was the most perfect day/week of my life.

Chris

Hey blog world! I think this may be my last post as a fiance, next time you hear from me I will be a WIFE! I'm so excited to marry Chris. That's why I decided to write a blog post strictly about him. Here is a warning in advance, if you don't like cheesey, mushy, lovely dovey stuff, then don't read this! 

Chris is literally my other half. Together, I believe, we make such an unstoppable couple, mostly because of him, of course! I love him more than anything, more than I ever thought was possible to love someone. The first time he said "I love you" was on January 10th, 2010 (1.10.10 cute!), I was so happy and I didn't think I was able to love him any more than I did on that day...HA ohhh how I was wrong! I love him more every single day. It's incredible because I know I'll love him more tomorrow, which seems so impossible, but the impossible keeps happening every day with him in my life.

Chris is so handsome, smart, motivated, sweet, hard working, kind, funny, my list could go on and on. I have never heard him yell, I have never had to open my own door, I never even dreamed of finding someone who is as good to me as he is. He is my prince charming and I can't wait to spend time and eternity with such an amazing man. I wish every girl could have a man like Chris because every girl deserves to be treated like a princess.

There are so many things that I love about Chris. I love that he makes me laugh every single day without fail. I love how easily he can make me smile, I can't even look at him without smiling. I love his facial expressions, especially his excited face and his amused face.  I love his motivation, dreams, and goals, i'm so excited for everything in our future.

Anyway, I'll wrap this up, i just thought it was appropriate to blog about my almost husband right before we get married. I know that everyone thinks that their husband is the best, and I'm no exception to that!  Chris is the best person for me, which makes me the luckiest girl in the world.

2 WEEKS!

 Surgery went well! Chris is so sweet, he went into work an hour early (at 6 am!) so that he could leave for an hour to be with me at the doctor. I was SO scared and trying so hard not to cry (I was successful, surprisingly). When trying to figure out how much Valium I needed, the assistant lady asked me, "On a scale of 1-10, how nervous are you?" I gave myself a solid 17. She decided to give me 2 pills. LIFE SAVERS! I could feel a dramatic difference in my heart rate, I was much more calm, I wasn't on the brink of tears anymore. I went into the operating room and 10 minutes later...WALLA!! I was finished! 

 I had to have a more dramatic version of Lasik called PRK. With this procedure, the doctor removed the whole outer layer of my eye. So, when I came out of surgery, I could see pretty well. But my vision has gotten worse over the past few days because that layer of eye is attempting to grow back. Gross, I know. It's an estimated 10-day recovery, so I should be good by the end of this week!

Only 2 weeks until we are Mr. and Mrs. Higley! I'm so excited that I started packing for our honeymoon today! YAY for dresses and shorts!

Here is our pool next to the ocean!

 And our hotel!

Aww it's going to be AMAZING! We are basically ready for the wedding. All our centerpieces, candy jars, pictures, sashes/bows, etc. are finally finished! Invitations are sent out. Bridesmaids have their dresses. Tuxes will be fitted tomorrow. We just need to get our marriage license and have the final meetings with our bishops/stake presidents!

Chris has applied to almost all of his schools! So far we have:

University of Oregon

University of Alabama

University of Florida

Lewis and Clark University

University of Washington

University of Georgia 

University of Utah

It's going to be so exciting when the time actually comes to pick THE school that we will be going to! There is a good chance that the state where we go to school is where we will be raising our family. When you take The Bar, it is only valid in that state, the school you attend will teach the laws of that particular state. So far, we have a 1 in 7 chance of staying in Utah.  

I feel that we always eat at the same places when we go out, so I definitely need to know your favorites this week! 

TOP 5 PLACES TO EAT

• Gurus - they have amazing wraps and sweet potato fries
• Firehouse Subs - amazing sandwiches
• Red Robin - bottomless fries, yum!
• Cheesecake Factory - everything is delicious
• California Pizza Kitchen - we had our first date there :)

Please tell me some good places to eat in Salt Lake County, we need to try out some new food! Thanks for reading! XO

2011

I hope everyone had a Happy New Year! I have so much to blog about today!

3 weeks from now, I'LL BE MARRIED!

I want to share some great experiences I have had lately. There are so many people who have these amazing stories about praying. I always pray but I'd never had any awesome testimony growing prayer moments...until this week.

• For the past 3 months I have had really clogged ears. It makes me feel all off. The doc in October couldn't find anything wrong with me. So, last week, after 3 months of discomfort, I finally went to an Ear Nose & Throat doctor to get checked out by a specialist. They did all sorts of tests but still couldn't find anything wrong with me. The last thing we did was a throat culture. I thought throat cultures were only for strep, so I didn't think that was going to be very helpful. Sunday morning, I got a call from the doctor telling me that the culture had come back positive for some type of influenza bacteria in my tonsils. I googled it and started to really worry. Many websites stated that it is very rare, like .4 out of 100,000  people get it, and it's usually only in unvaccinated babies. So, I started to REALLY worry. It was all I could think about. It was making me sick. I decided to pray. I asked to feel comfort and peace. Immediately I felt better, I knew everything would be okay. Yesterday my mom talked to her friend, who is a nurse practitioner, about what I have. He told her that there are 2 types of that sickness, the type that I had was the most common cause of ear infections and about 40% of people get it at some point. That form would be what shows up on a throat culture test. It wasn't the rare baby form. He said not to worry, and since I'm now on an antibiotic, I would be better in no time. It was my first experience of pure FEAR turned into pure COMFORT, and I know that it was because of prayer.

• I'm getting Lasik on Friday, I have terrible terrible eyesight (-9.25, if you know what that means, you'll understand how bad my eyes are). I have always dreamed of the day where I will be able to see. But now that I'm getting so close, I am scared out of my MIND! Although I have bad eyes, contacts fix my problem. But blindness (due to Lasik mess-up) is permanent.  Today I was at my Pre-Op appointment, the doctor was telling me that I'm at higher risk for complications due to: my ridiculous prescription, dry eyes, astigmatism, young age, and cone shaped corneas (yeah, only a COUPLE things!). He told me that they would need to put permanent "plugs" in my eyes today to keep them moist. I get extremely hesitant about anything concerning my eyes because !COME ON! eyes are KIND of important in my everyday life. I started getting really nervous again. I was shaking and on the verge of crying. I didn't want plugs and I wanted to tell him that I didn't want to do Lasik anymore. But, once again, I decided to pray, just the same as a couple days before. And BAM just like that, I felt completely better, I knew that I'd be fine. Dr. Davis sat me down and one minute later, I had these magical plugs in my eyes. Didn't feel a thing. I'm not even that worried about Friday...for now haha!

I'm so grateful for prayer. It's only day 4 and it has helped me out so much already in 2011. I know Heavenly Father is watching over us and wants us to be safe and happy.

And now on to TOP 5 TUESDAY!

Since it's the New Year, I figured it's appropriate to have GOALS FOR 2011 as our Top 5 for the week! Of course there are little goals/plans that go with each of our individual goals, but we'll just keep it basic here.

TOP 5 GOALS OF THE NEW YEAR

1. Run 1+ miles everyday. Be able to comfortably run 10 miles by July.

2. Get a new job. 

3. Only eat 2 healthy carbs per day

4. Be nicer and more positive. Compliment 1 person per day.

5. Be the amazing wife that Chris deserves

So tell me everyone, what are some of your new goals/resolutions?!