Sneaky...

I have made it a goal with the start of this school year to shed some bad habits. One of which is being late to things.

For the past almost 2 weeks, we have been able to make it to school and work on time or early, every day...I've been feeling so good about that, and my ability to get ready on time, as punctuality has been a lifelong struggle for me.

This morning, it all clicked as to WHY I've been able to do this. I told Richard about these goals not to long ago, and I think he must have thought this one was a REALLY good idea. As I was finishing getting ready this morning, I looked at the clock and it was 7:40am. That's when we try to leave each morning. So I hurridly got everything together, and about 5 minutes later, I was ready to walk out the door. A bit guiltily, I looked at my cell phone clock to see how late we were, and was surprised to see that it was 7:38! What?! Then I figured it out! Richard had set all of the clocks in our house 5-10 minutes later...SNEAKY! He must have really wanted to help me out with this goal of mine.

We've figured out that we can always be "ready" by a certain time, but then there's always those last minute things that we have to do, that we forget to take into account, that always add on those precious minutes. By giving ourselves those few minutes back, hopefully this will help us to keep getting out the door, and being on time for the rest of the school year!

Anniversary Photos

Anniversary Date

Ok, I know I'm late on this, but I think I would be lame if I didn't have some kind of record of our amazing 1st anniversary date!
As I mentioned before, Richard gave me my anniversary present early - the photo shoot. (I'll be including the pictures from that in my next post). But the joy continued into Saturday, the 22nd of August (our official 1 year anniversary)

We decided that sleep was important to us that day, so we indulged ourselves in sleeping in until 11 or 12. It was beautiful. I served Breakfast in bed to Richard - a yummy french toast casserole, and then gave him my present that I'd been working on for a long time... A hard copy of his mission emails, and then a separate book with the emails that we sent to each other on his mission. Not to brag or anything, but it was amazing! I am not gonna lie, I'm really proud of that present, it was a lot of work! And it paid off. We had fun reading the letters in both books, and I know we will enjoy looking back at those in the future, and I hope our children will too.

For our date, Richard wouldn't tell me what we were going to do (if you haven't noticed by now, he takes great joy in surprising me and dragging out the suspense...I love it!). Eventually, we ended up in Santa Barbara (beautiful!) and we spent the rest of the day there.
We first went to the Santa Barbara Catholic Mission - it has been there for over 200 years! It was so old, but very cool!
then we went to State Street - basically the place to hang out. It was fun, its just a huge outdoor mall, with great restaurants and stores. I LOVED it! And Richard actually admitted that he kind of LIKED going shopping there. If that doesn't say something about how amazing it was, I don't know what does. :) After looking at the fun stores there, we went to a yummy Italian restaurant. We had AMAZING pasta, and a delectably delicious dessert. If you have ever had flourless chocolate cake, you know where I'm coming from when I say it was TO DIE FOR!
Then, we walked down to the beach and rented a surrey, and rode around all the beachside paths. I think that was my FAVORITE part of the date. probably because of the creativity and uniqueness of that idea. It was so fun.
After that, it was late, so we went home. Richard told me on the way home that we could watch a chick flick if I wanted, so I was all over that. I was so excited! When we got home, he sat me down and told me to just relax while he got the computer all set up. Then, all of the sudden, the music came on, and pictures started popping up, and I realized that my love had put together the sweetest slide show of our past year together (during his very limited free time). I was so impressed and felt so loved and special. It meant a lot to me that he was willing to sacrifice his free time to do something that would make me so happy.
I'm so grateful for such a fun, loving, unselfish, thoughtful, funny, creative husband!

Happy Anniversary!!!!

Well, I can't believe it, Richard and I have been married a year now. And what a blissful year it has been! Words really can't express the love that I feel and the gratitude that I have for such a wonderful man in my life. I am grateful for the change and growth (for the better, of course) that we have experienced over the past year, and I am excited for the change and growth that we will continue to experience together for the rest of forever. Well, I'll stop being all mushy, but I'm just happy that I have an amazing husband, and that I lucked out and got my dream man! :) I Love you Honey!

Happy Early Anniversary!?

Richard has been asking me for the past few weeks if I was excited for our anniversary, and if I was excited for my anniversary present. What that means is, "I have a plan and a gift, and I'm really excited about it, but I'm not going to tell you what it is because I want to drive you crazy with curiosity." Well, it always works, and this time was no different. Richard has a way of letting his excitement rub off on me, even if I don't know what it is that he's excited about (I love that about him) and I have been so excited and curious to find out!

Well, the excitement got the best of us.

Our anniversary isn't til Saturday, but he ended up "giving" me my present on Tuesday....
Wanna know what it was?
Ok I'll tell you.

First I want to tell you what Tuesday was like for me...
It started out like any other day. I was planning on going out to work that afternoon, like I always do. But then, the unheard of happened. Richard called me and told me that he was "sick and tired" and was going to come home early. I was surprised because he NEVER does that. There is never an excuse good enough for him to come home early (which I admire). But I just figured that he must really be sick and burnt out that day, so I didn't try to convince him otherwise (Plus, that meant I wasn't going to work either, which I wasn't going to complain about). So, when he got home, we sat and ate and talked, and then I asked him..."so, did you really come home to sleep, or what?" And then he got this mischievous smile on his face and said, "well...actually, wanna go on a hot date right now? We have to be somewhere in an hour, will that be enough time for you to get ready?" Talk about catching me off guard! I was wearing sweats, and on top of that, it was one of those days where I did a minimal job of looking decent.

But he was nice to warn me with plenty of time.

We had gone shopping the day before, because Richard insisted that we needed "hot" outfits to wear on our anniversary, because in the pictures we have on our honeymoon, we look a little more than frumpy. And not only that, but we needed to MATCH each other!? I was surprised and a little confused that he cared about that, but not complaining.

Anyway, we started driving, and things started to "click." Richard had given me a few hints in the days before that got the wheels in my head turning, such as "You've been wanting this for a long time" and "We need to match!" Then, I noticed we were driving to the beach. Why were we driving to the beach, dressed up all nice and fancy? Hmm.... I thought we could be going out to eat at a fancy restaurant... but we had just eaten. But then it all came together as we pulled into the parking lot at Point Dume. I looked around and saw exactly who I was looking for: Mike and Anna Costa, a couple in our ward that we home teach. They are professional wedding photographers, and do amazing work! Richard had arranged with them quite awhile ago, to surprise me with a professional photo session, so that we could have some nice photos together to display in our home. I was sooo excited, because they really do amazing work and have a style that I really like. You can look at their website and some of their work here.
We don't get to see the photos til next Tuesday, but I think it will be well worth the wait!

Thanks, Honey for such a thoughtful, amazing anniversary present! I love you!

Good News!

After almost 2 months of searching frantically, we FINALLY have an apartment lined up for us to live in for the school year in Provo. WOHOO!!!! That's a load taken off my shoulders. It was a relief because before, with just about everyone I talked to, the landlords wanted us to pay the full rent for the month of August even though we wouldn't be moving in until the 28th. But, we were fortunate enough that the landlady was willing to let us only pay for the time that we will actually live there. The funny thing is, its the exact same apartment complex that Rochelle and BJ lived in before they moved to their condo...I should have just checked with them in the first place!



Confession: I got so used to checking craigslist everyday, then making phone calls and sending emails all morning, every morning, that sometimes when I don't know what to do with myself, I get back on craigslist just to see if there are any sweet apartments that have opened. Maybe I just enjoyed the rush that comes with being the first one to call when a really good apartment showed up.
It feels weird that I might actually have some free time to do something I enjoy doing now...

Vacation update...

I just posted a summary of our East coast vacation, but it posted as July 17.I guess that's when I first started working on it... oops, its been awhile. but there's pictures and stuff, if you want to scroll down to the 2nd post after this one.