Our Wedding

My sister had a fun post on her blog, and I thought it would be kind of fun to do the same for myself and others, who may not know much about how Jon and I met. Please feel free to do the same on your own blog, it would be fun to read about how you and your spouse met.

1. HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR SPOUSE? Jon and I met in a student ward at the University of Utah. My roommate Melanie, from Logan, had moved down to Salt Lake in May, after school was out. I didn't want to attend my family ward, so I attended her ward instead, and Jon just happened to be in her ward. We officially met at a party at Melanie's friend's apartment. One of the girls in our ward was a friend of Melanie's from high school, and she happened to be Jon's ex-girlfriend. They were still friends and he also happened to be at the party. He didn't ask me out for a couple of weeks. I think it was weeks?

2. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST DATE? We went to dinner at the Olive Garden and then Jon took me to see Pearl Harbor the weekend it opened. I really wanted to see the movie, and he thought it was the perfect opportunity to ask me out on a date. I think he wondered about me, because I cried for a half an hour during the bombing scenes. In fact, he leaned over and asked me if I was okay, I was crying so much. Let's just say, the knee of my capris were slightly damp, from wiping my tears on my knee. I did cry just a bit!

3. HOW LONG DID YOU DATE BEFORE YOU GOT ENGAGED? We dated for a long six weeks. I know, it was quick.

4. HOW DID YOUR FIANCE PROPOSE? We decided to fast and then go to the temple to do baptisms to get an answer as to whether our decision to get married was right. After doing baptisms, Jon took me to dinner at Cafe Alecia in Bountiful. On the way home, he made a comment that made me really nervous, something about a surprise waiting for me. When we got to my house, there were a dozen roses on the coffee table in the living room. I was quite relieved when I saw my surprise. We hurried and changed our clothes, and then we went outside on the deck, in the rain. It had started raining on our way home, and I asked him if he had ever kissed in the rain. Once we had changed, we went out on the deck to kiss in the rain. The rain was falling in my eyes as I was kissing him, so I told him that. He knelt down and asked if that was better. I told him, if someone were to see us, they might wonder if he was asking me to marry him. He then asked, "Will you marry me?" My response was, "No way, no way!" I wasn't saying no, I was shocked. I had no idea he had any intention of asking me to marry him so soon, after all we'd only been dating for six weeks. Once I calmed down, he took the ring out of his pocket and it flew across the deck. Luckily the deck is covered with carpet, so it didn't fall through the cracks. I did finally say yes.

5. WHAT JOBS DID YOU TWO HAVE WHILE YOU WERE ENGAGED? I was working at a law firm, Ray, Quinney and Nebeker and Jon was teaching at LDS Business College and had recently been hired to teach at Weber State University.

6. HOW LONG WERE YOU ENGAGED? 10 weeks

7. HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOU GOT MARRIED? I was 22 and he was 23 (he turned 24 exactly two weeks later)

8. WHEN DID YOU GET MARRIED? September 21, 2001

9. WHAT WERE YOUR COLORS? Navy blue and yellow

10. HOW MANY BRIDESMAIDS DID YOU HAVE? three

11. WHO WAS YOUR MAID OF HONOR? I didn't really have one. My sister Nicole, my cousin Adriana and my sister-in-law Heather were my bridesmaids.

12. WHERE WAS THE CEREMONY? Salt Lake Temple

13. DID YOU HAVE A DJ OR A BAND? no

14. DID YOU HAVE A SONG YOU DANCED TO AND WHAT WAS IT? Yes, we danced to There's No Way by Alabama.

15. DID ANYTHING GO WRONG AT THE WEDDING OR RECEPTION? Yes, I squished the cake on Jon's face. I wasn't going to do that, I prefer when people are nice, but Jon put a little too much cake in my mouth and when it was my turn, all I could hear was my brother-in-law telling me to smash it in Jon's face and I did. It wasn't that bad, he had a little frosting on his face and I had some on my hand, but my mom was not happy with me. That's what made it not so good.

16. WHAT CAR DID YOU LEAVE IN AND WHAT DID IT LOOK LIKE? Jon's car had something wrong with it, so it was in the shop getting fixed. My car was nicer, so we didn't want to use it because we didn't want it to get ruined. Well, just before we got married something happened to my car and we couldn't use it. My dad was kind enough to let us borrow his car. Because we had my dad's car, my brothers-in-law didn't dare touch it. My brother, sister and cousin couldn't let well enough alone, so the drove the car home and decorated it with butter, ketchup and mustard. It stunk! We had to take it to a car wash, before we could go to our hotel. Thanks so much Nick, Nicole and Adriana.

17. WHERE DID YOU GO FOR YOUR HONEYMOON? We didn't have much of a honeymoon. We got married on Friday and had to be to work and school on Monday. We spent our wedding night at the Inn on Temple Square which is no longer there and then we spent the second night at a bed and breakfast in Midway called the Inn on the Creek. Two weeks later was conference weekend, so we went up to Jon's grandpa's cabin for the weekend. The cabin was close to Jackson Hole, so we spent a day in Jackson and another day in Yellowstone.

18. WHAT WAS YOUR MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT? This is a tough one, but I think it would have to be the ceremony. Although, I really enjoyed the time we had to wait in the Celestial room. Jon asked me while we were waiting, if I was going to say yes. I told him I was going to wait until we were in the room with all of our family to say no. Of course I was going to say yes. I also enjoyed dancing with my dad. I don't think I'll ever forget that.

19. WOULD YOU HAVE CHANGED ANYTHING IF YOU COULD? No, it was the perfect day, other than the cake issue!

20. HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN MARRIED? We just hit seven and a half years.

Spring Break Getaway

The Ann Bean Mansion

The bathroom had a jetted tub
and heated tile.

Ann & Albert's Room

(the room we stayed in)

I loved the gas fireplace!

I have had cabin fever for quite some time and I just wanted to get away for spring break. I really wanted to leave the state, but that just wasn't in the cards. I figured if we can't get away for a few days, we can at least get away for one day. I made reservations at a bed and breakfast in Stillwater, MN, which is Northwest of St. Paul. I thought it would be perfect to get away and we could attend a session at the temple on our way home. We stayed at the Ann Bean Mansion, an old Victorian mansion, and we had a great time. Of course, it snowed the day we planned to drive up, so we left in a rush. Once we got to the cities, we stopped at the Mall of America for an hour and a half and then we went to dinner a little early and we got to the mansion just in time for check in. We spent the evening in our room, watching movies and looking at pictures. We need to decide on pictures for our adoption profile, and we had plenty of time to look through our pictures, so we took a trip down memory lane. It was a lot of fun! The room had a gas fireplace which made the room feel so cozy. The weather was cold, snowy and windy. I thought the windows were going to blow in it was so windy, but we stayed warm and cozy. We thoroughly enjoyed our winter "spring" break getaway. I forgot the camera, so I got the pictures from the website. The room looked just like the pictures but it didn't quite look the same outside. Imagine it with no green grass or trees and with snow on the ground. I like this picture better than what it actually looked like. I am so ready for spring!

Baby Hungry!

Ben wearing the hat I made for him.
How can you not love that sweet face?

A couple of weeks ago, Jon was asked to hold our friend's baby, Ben, during Sunday school, while she went out for minute. One day I told Jon that whenever I see Ben or hold Ben I get baby hungry. Jon confessed, that when he got to hold Ben during Sunday school, he too got a little baby hungry. I was so excited to hear that. We are both so ready and anxious to have our own, but we still have a ways to go. We are in the middle of filling out paperwork, which there is quite a bit to fill out. We look forward to the day that we get to bring a sweet little baby home to our house.

Happy Valentine's Day!

My fun surprise!

We had a good Valentine's Day. I have been sick all week with a bad sinus infection and was finally feeling well enough to go to dinner with my sweet husband. This is the first year since we've been married that we've ever gone out to dinner on the actual day. Usually I fix a nice dinner and we stay home. Since I've been sick, Jon decided we could go out to dinner instead. We went to Red Lobster at about 4:50 and we waited for just over two hours to be seated. We didn't stay at the restaurant the entire time we were waiting. We went and did a little shopping while we waited. When we came back we still had to stand for an hour, we should have shopped a little longer. We had a wonderful dinner and then headed home for a relaxing evening. Jon surprised me with a beautiful necklace. I had shown it to him over a month ago, but I wasn't really serious about it, I just thought it was pretty. It was very exciting! Because I had been sick, I didn't have the chance to buy Jon anything, so he is having fun deciding what he wants that will equal the value of the necklace. We hope all of you had a fun Valentine's Day with your sweetheart!

Adoption

I just wanted to let you all know that we have officially begun the adoption process. Jon and I have prayed and fasted about what we should do and we both feel strongly that we should adopt right now. We haven't turned away the idea of IVF, but for now we are going to do adoption. We just sent in our application this week, so we haven't received a reply from anyone yet, but we will keep you all updated as things begin to happen. I don't think anything will happen for a while since we have to have three interviews, a background check and they need to contact our references. It will probably be a long process, but we are excited that we've now begun the process. Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers on our behalf, they mean so much to us.

-22 Degrees

I've been keeping an eye on the weather in other parts of the country (Bozeman and Woods Cross) and I've been quite jealous of the warmer early spring weather. We are currently enjoying subzero temperatures and I HATE it. Spring and fall in Mankato are absolutely beautiful, and the weather is perfect, but I am really struggling with the winter. I have never been a fan of the cold or snow, but I have learned that if it's warm enough to snow, its not too cold. This subzero stuff is awful. I don't know how people live here for many, many years. I'm hoping that I won't have to, because I won't survive. I've had the privilege of going to school this semester and I have classes twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Of course, the two coldest days this week were Tuesday and Thursday. I froze as we (Jon and I) walked to school. My legs literally were numb in less than five minutes. The temperature Tuesday was -15. Today was even better I checked the temperature five minutes before we left and it was a sunny warm -22 degrees outside. We bundled up and headed up to school. Today I actually ran part of the way to school, because I was afraid that my numb legs would actually stop working, or atleast make it that much longer to get to school, because I couldn't feel them and they were literally slowing down with each step. I figured the best way to keep them from stopping was to run and hopefully they would warm up a little. Lucky for us, all of the buildings on campus except for the library are all connected via hallways. It makes getting around campus much nicer, it's getting to campus that isn't fun. I just had to vent and let all of you know how warm it is here in Mankato. If anyone wants to send me a plane ticket to visit you in your warm part of the country, I won't object. Alyssa, please bare with my complaining, because I'm sure it's even colder for you in Alaska. How do you do it?

We're back!

It was Danny's birthday and he turned six.

We got to sing Happy Birthday and have birthday cake with him.

The Bowden kids.

The Zetterquists.

It was fun to see baby Keith for the first time.


I apologize for all of the posts at once, but I didn't have time while we were in Utah. We had such a great time with our families. As usual, it was hard for me to say good-bye. I miss my family so much when we are away. I love being in Minnesota, although I'm not loving it right now, because it's just too cold here in the winter. We have wonderful friends and I am so grateful for them, they are what make living here worth it, but I hate living so far from family. We played lots and lots of games and ate lots of food and just enjoyed being with our families. We got to see friends from Montana, the Bowdens and the Zetterquists and we also got to see the McMillans who are friends from Minnesota. It is good to be back and we are busy trying to get everything ready and finished in time for school next week. Jon starts back on Monday and I start working again on Monday with classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It's going to be a busy semester for us, but we are looking forward to it. I'm glad we'll be busy, because I'm hoping time will just fly by, and before I know it, Spring will be here and it won't be so cold anymore. Wish me luck getting through this winter. I was crazy enough to sign up for classes this semester and now I have to walk from my house to campus in the negative temperatures with negative wind chill. What was I thinking?