The New House

My HUGE closet Bradley lets me have all to myself!
So I am missing pictures of a few bedrooms and bathrooms, but those aren't finished yet! We love our new house and feel so grateful this Thanksgiving that we are (we hope!) able to afford it! We love being homeowners and feel so blessed to our families who have helped us along the way! Come visit soon!

The Unfortunate Bachelor

For those of you who know me, you must know that i am OBSESSED with the show "The Bachelor/Bachelorette." Yes I know the show is old and some find it repetitive, but for me it gets better each season. Before I got married I had a lifelong goal of going on the Bachelor, but as you know, I got married before I was old enough. Did I want to go on to find love? No, I just love the show that much. Anyways, I just have to say, what was ABC thinking? I mean come on Chris Harrison!! Last season I liked Jake at first, but at the end, I thought he was very boring and couldn't stand his tucked in shirts and jeans up to his bellybutton. They had much better choices... Kiptyn or Reid or even though I hated Wes at least he would be more interesting then Jake. I am very disappointed in this decision. I wish I had enough willpower to boycott this season, but secretly I am counting down the days until it starts! January can't come soon enough!
I know there are fellow fans out there... does anyone agree with me? Or am I the only one who thought Jake was boring and an awful dresser?

We've Been Busy!

As some of you may have heard, Bradley and I bought a house!! We moved in last week and are loving every little thing about being a homeowner. We have spent way too much time at Home Depot as well as way too much time digging through boxes... we can't wait to have everything settled and be all moved in! Some joys of moving thus far have been only having half a roll of toliet paper for three bathrooms and four people as well as not being able to find my razor and having hairy man legs my first Sunday in the new ward.We lived in our apartment for about 10 months and have made some great friends there and will miss them dearly. We hope that even though we no longer live close we can still remain close friends! We are so grateful for everyone who helped us move and I am volunteering Brad to return the favor whenever you need! Sorry for the overload of pictures, but I never posted pictures of Bradley and my first apartment together and I don't want to forget what it looked like!
My parents came in town this weekend and spent Halloween with us painting, scrapping down wallpaper, hanging a tv on the wall, taking down and putting up light fixtures, fixing lawn mowers, unpacking boxes, etc. We are so grateful for their help, but there is much more to be done so come back soon!
This was also our first year handing out candy to trick or treaters... lets just say we were not prepared, our neighborhood was crazy! Each house had major Halloween decorations, and all of the neighbors sat outside in their driveway or on chairs with their doors open handing out candy. We had over 200 pieces of candy and it lasted us less then an hour before we had to turn off our lights! To our new neighbors, next year we promise to be more prepared! We love having a home and feel like we are able to set down roots in a new place. We love visitors and now have plenty of room so we hope to see you soon!!

Haylie's Homecoming

This Friday, we went up to LA because Bradley's sister was on the Homecoming court. We were both so excited to join her and the family in all of the festivities. The Wiens, KC, and Kelly along with her girls came down so it was fun to have everyone there! Their high school starts out Friday afternoon with a Homecoming parade with bagpipes and all.
Chandler even got to be in the parade, he was the best part of the freshman float.
They came beautiful Haylie, on her own car, definitely the best part of the parade.
Then that night was the legendary football game. The half time show was the BEST I've ever seen, well maybe not--Alice in wonderland needed to be cut short, but it was still exciting. Here is Haylie and Russ awaiting the big reveal.
And the winner is... HAYLIE!!! I can't tell you how excited I was for her to win Homecoming Queen! She looked beautiful and I loved both of her dresses. Haylie has to be the most beautiful, nicest, and most Christ-like girl you will ever meet, we love you Haylie!
Here is Queen Haylie the next night leaving for the dance.
Also while we were there this weekend we got to go and see Brittney and Steve's new baby Karlee Paul. She has to be the most adorable and perfect tiny little baby! We always have so much fun going over to their beautiful house and we just love the Paul's! Thanks for having us over Brittney!

My Trip to Houston

I am going to start with blog out with some old memories. As I was flying to Houston, I had a lay over in Phoenix. If you don't remember, Phoenix airport is the airport I hate. This is where Bradley and I flew into after our honeymoon, ran/sprinted a mile to our gate, and missed our flight by minute. At this point, it was 9pm and we had yet to eat or drink something all day, so yes, I had some major meltdowns. Here is where Bradley got into a yelling fight with every US Airways manager because the next flight they would give us was the next day at 5pm.
Bradley had no change, and both of our cell phones were dead, so here is where I called my dad sobbing. I can only imagine what my dad was thinking when he hadn't heard from me all week, and suddenly I call him collect in tears because I didn't want to sleep in the airport.
(I felt like a tourist/loser taking these random pictures in an airport) Since US Airways wouldn't compensate anything for us, we decided to rent a car and drive home, arriving around 4am in Glendora... a perfect ending to a honeymoon if you ask me! If you feel bad for us at all, don't... Bradley complained to all the right people and we ended up getting all of our frequent flyer miles back as well as a $800 check for our suffering. Now, back to my trip....

I went to go and see this cute little guy
My sister Sunnie, who has three little girls just had her first little boy, so obviously I had to go visit! The trip was so much fun. I love hanging out with my little nieces and now nephew, and my sister is one of my best friends so we always have a great time. Mya, Jada, and I decided to go on a walk that ended in a run. We were all very hot so I got us all ice packs and told them to look like you were hot, and this is what I got
The Texas weather was actually COLD! I loved it! Here we are at soccer practice, freezing.
The week consisted of two soccer practices, one soccer game, gymnastics, going to meet Elle at school for lunch, and taking carpool... I definitely got to see what my sisters mom life is like-man is she busy!! I also found a new love for Blue Bell ice cream, it is delicious and I had a huge bowl every night!
Out to lunch at PotBelly's, I love that place!
They have the best Mexican food in Texas! I love the green sauce Sunnie!
Excuse the bags under my eyes, I was not used to waking up at 8am Texas time (6am San Diego time) Mya also took my camera and surprised me this this picture, I guess I was a little tired!
Sunnie broke her foot, so I tried to help with all of the heavy lifting such as lugging this little cute chubby around
Last, the morning before I left, I got to go to Elle's soccer game and she scored a goal!! Her team dominated and I just about lost my voice yelling for her!
I had such a fun trip and miss everyone so much already! I wish Texas was a lot closer!! Sunnie, have more kids so I can come back to visit!!

Happy One Year Engagement

A year ago today was one of the happiest days of my life, Bradley and I got engaged. It was the night of the Relief Society Broadcast and I had moved home from school one week earlier. Bradley was ignoring my calls all day until an hour before the broadcast. I was so mad at him, so to fix things he decided to patch things up while taking me to the romantic McDonald's. I think Bradley got nervous when I was upset because he asked me in the golden arches if I still wanted to marry him... little did I know he was planning to ask me to marry him that same night! After the broadcast last year, Bradley came over and told me we were going to meet his friends to see a movie, but first were going over to his grandparents house to see his family who just got back from a cruise. I had NO IDEA Bradley was going to ask me to marry him that night. I thought it would be another 2 weeks or so because the night before is when I finally showed him what type of ring I wanted. (I found a fake ring that I loved so we bought it for $15 and I gave Brad the task of finding me a real one that matched!) Anyways, when we pulled up to his grandparents house I was on the phone and totally ignoring what was going on, which was a good thing because Brad started getting nervous. As I walked around the corner, the whole back yard was filled with twinkle lights, tons of candles, roses, rose petals, and a sign with my favorite song "Love Story" playing in the background. As we walked to where the sign and ring were, Bradley got down to his knee and popped the question. I still don't remember if I said yes or just nodded my head because we were both crying, but I do remember pulling him up and kissing him! I then told him to put the ring on my finger and started screaming/squealing when I saw how pretty it was! (I still LOVE my ring and can be caught staring at it constantly) At that time, Katie jumped out of the bushes and Brad's parents and grandparents came out to congratulate us. He also told my parents what was going on so they weren't too far behind us. I love my engagement story and couldn't think of a more perfect way that Bradley could of asked me to marry him. I love you babe!!

A Last Minute Trip

A few weekends ago, Bradley and I decided to go up to Utah with my parents on a very last minute trip. You see, my husband being the die-hard fan that he is insisted we go see the opening BYU game at Lavell Edwards Stadium. (Ok, well I really wanted to go too, so it was a mutual decision) We drove the long 10 hour trek there with my parents and arrived in the beautiful state of Utah. While we were there, Bradley and I both relived our BYU glory days and for a few seconds even consider moving back, until we remembered it gets below 70 degrees in the winter and remembered why we love San Diego.

I absoultely LOVE my parents house in Utah. It is right on the Jordan River and is beautiful!! It has a little bike/running trail that goes along side the river/golf course. Bradley and I would wake up and go on bike rides every morning. One morning I almost rand over a 4 foot long snake, snakes have always been my biggest fear. Obviously I was ahead of Bradley and when I tried to warn him, we came within inches of running this bad boy over. Luckily, I have quick reflexes because when I was warned my husband, the snake coiled up and struck at me.



While we were there I got to see some of my old friends and loved catching up with them. I met Lauren at Kneaders (MY FAVORITE place to get turkey sandwiches, please build one in SD!) and had the newlyweds Brittany and Adam as well as Bradley's brother KC over for a BBQ at my parents house. My cousin Leah also came over and chatted the night away as we had the usual shakes from jcw's!!


The Ahlander family was also in town for the game so we met up with them at Thanksgiving Point Gardens. My parents house is 2 minutes away and I have never been, but it is so pretty!! I loved it and felt like my floral design days were coming back to me.

The game we still won't discuss, but did see some familiar faces in the crowd. Since the game was disappointing, Bradley and I made the night much better by picking up some Cafe Rio on the way home--also another restaurant I want to have in San Diego.




Brad clearly disappointed with the loss
It was a short trip packed with lots of friends, fun, food, and family, and I loved every second!! Until next time beehive state....