Fall Favorites

I never used to enjoy the fall season in the past, I think mostly because it signified the beginning of school and the end of summer fun and warmth and all I had to look forward to was freezing cold weather (although I will admit that I am a fan of the snow). Since I no longer get any such summer break (sigh), I'm beginning to realize more and more that I actually do enjoy fall. Maybe it has something to do with being in California as well. As Mark says, fall is the best season in California. The weather isn't too cold, but we've lost that feeling of extreme heat. There's just a little hint of briskness in the air that makes me feel alive! So, in honor of my extreme good feelings for this season that I have harbored so much animosity for in the past... here are my Top 5 Things I Love About Fall.

1) The briskness in the air: I've already talked some about that, but one other thing that I thoroughly enjoy is driving in my car with the windows down in this beautiful weather. I've always really enjoyed feeling the wind as I drive, but it just gets too hot during the summer to actually make this comfortable and too cold during the winter. I just love the feeling of being free. The hair flying around and getting completely ruined isn't my favorite anymore so nowadays I wear my hair in a bun tucked up into a baseball hat. I keep this hat in my car simply for these occasions. For anyone who knows Mark's style, you can tell that this was actually a Mark purchase from some thrift store that he gave me as a gift. I had to take a picture of my "get-up" while I drive home today. I still need the sunglasses because it's too sunny. I probably look crazy to the other drivers as I'm driving around with the windows down and my get-up, singing to the radio turned up high. Good times.


2) Crunchy leaves: I stomp on crunchy leaves. It utterly fills my heart with joy to feel and hear the crunch. I walk along the street trying to step only on the leaves, which means I walk in shorter steps or longer steps or by crossing legs or whatever it takes to get as many leaves as possible. The colors are pretty nice too.

3) Sweatshirt weather: I have been in the mood to wear sweaters for at least the past month but it's been way too warm so I would end up just carrying the sweater around wishing it were cooler. And now it is!

4) Cool weather (especially at night): Can't say enough about how much I love this weather. Snuggling up into bed feels so much nicer now. I love it when Mark comes over and puts his arm around me and snuggles up close. I loved it during the summer as well, but I would get so overwhelmingly hot while trying to stay still just to revel being in his arms.

5) Upcoming holidays: I love the upcoming holidays that just get better and better. It all starts off with Halloween and the fun of dressing up, followed by the amazing amounts of yummy food at Thanksgiving, Christmas time with all its splendor and sincere spirit and family time, New Years Eve to reminisce our engagement, and then... the best of all... my birthday! So much goodness in the next few months.

Runner-up) General Conference! I had such a great time this past weekend listening to the words of our prophets and apostles. Such a time of rejuvenation and growth (that I will hopefully carry on for the next six months). In keeping with my parents family traditions, I made a nice breakfast Sunday morning. As evidenced by the picture below, I was less than enthused to have a photo taken of me fresh out of bed and still groggy. You can see the conference starting on the computer. I'm so glad we were able to get it in our home.



And now, my complete and utter guesses on Mark's Fav 5 for the Fall season...

1) LAKERS!!!! So many games and he'll be able to watch all of them. It honestly is a little intimidating to me at the moment, but I'll get through. The team is looking to be amazing this year. Ron Artest will be a great asset to an already fabulous team. Mark definitely is excited for the games to begin. As he told me recently "it's not that my love for you will change at all, but my love for Lamar will just increase."

2) TV shows: The fall line-up of shows is back on and running. Mark and I enjoy several shows... I'm not going to list all of them because it may be depressing, but just to give you a flavoring: So You Think You Can Dance (mostly my show, but Mark will watch), Survivor, Amazing Race, Glee (amazing show!!), the Office, Parks & Rec, 30 Rock, Community, Project Runway (mostly mine again), Mad Men (Mark's show), Biggest Loser (mine), etc, etc. :)

3) Going along with the sports idea... better sports highlights. Mark loves sports and watches a show called "Pardon the Interruption," which is also known as PTI by some, and (my personal favorite) "two old men fighting about sports" by Abby. It's much more exciting when the highlights and stories aren't all just about horrible ball... as Mark's brothers call baseball.

At this point I'm not positive anymore, so this may be completely inaccurate...

4) Cool weather. Although, he really likes hot weather, but I think he enjoyed the coolness to a certain degree as well, or at least just as a change.

5) Better movies coming up, but that's not for a few more months or so.

Runner-up) The brothers emails. Mark and his brothers have these amazing emails that go back and forth between all of them, which will only get better with the Lakers season and even better things to talk about.

Well, anyone have their own top five list of great things about the fall? Please share!!

Anniversaries!!

Back a few months ago, on May 25th to be exact, Mark and I celebrated our 1 month anniversary! It was crazy at the time to realize that we had been married for a whole month, yet it felt like we had been married for much longer than that. Even more crazy is looking back from our perspective now, when we're coming on six months. How much life has changed in so many ways since our wedding.

We decided that for the first year, we would celebrate our first month by planning an activity together. Then we would switch off planning activities for the third month, sixth month, ninth month, and then one year anniversary. We definitely wanted to celebrate but weren't sure if we wanted to make a huge hoop-la every single month. In fact, this may be sad to admit, but we almost missed our second month anniversary. It wasn't until later in the evening that we realized it had come and almost past.

So, for the first month anniversary we were quite lucky. It ended up landing on Memorial Day (or is it Labor Day? I'm pretty sure Memorial is in the spring, but I always get those so confused and I don't want to look it up right now... look it up yourself if you are burning with curiousity... does this make me a lame blogger when I'm not willing to look up facts? or it just means that I'm months behind and trying to catch up). We decided to have a day up in San Francisco, but not before Mark surprised me with a beautiful bouquet of roses. Thankfully we hadn't been able to return the huge marble holder (as my new brother-in-laws called it when we opened the present as they were also chanting "take it back"), which worked as a beautiful vase and is a great addition to my kitchen decor.


We then drove up to San Francisco where we ate at a yummy Chinese restaurant called Eliza's. Such goodness. Because we apparently really like to eat, we then headed over to Ghirardelli Square for some ice cream. We walked around the little beach area nearby to chat and people watch.


We were a bit full so we just shared one cone, but it was so worth it. I absolutely adore Ghirardelli ice cream (as you can tell from the picture).


And Mark loves making faces, as you can also see from this picture. Oh sigh, I love this man!!


Just as an update: all of the roses in the bouquet eventually dried out and the petals all fell off, except for one. Which still remains in the vase as our "Beauty and the Beast" rose because I haven't found something else to put in the vase. Those petals are on for good!


Then, for our third month anniversary, I planned a little hiking and picnic adventure to the Big Basin Redwood Forest because neither of us had ever been. Unfortunately, Mark hurt his foot playing basketball just a few days before, which he kept telling me he could handle walking on, and he apparently doesn't like driving on windy mountainous roads. And let me tell you, the roads were definitely windy. Mark was such a trooper and went on all these hikes for the few hours we were there, even though his foot really hurt him. What a stud. I forgot my camera and literally have no pictures, but I just stole one off the internet machine of one of the amazing trees you can see there. The trees are so ginormous! They are ridiculously tall and ridiculously large. Some have been there literally for 2000 years and some are as tall as 329 feet! One of the most incredible trees was the Chimney Tree. They believe that several successive fires over years ignited the inside of the tree and created a chimney effect... meaning that the tree is literally hollow from top to bottom. It was insane. Here's the picture I yanked off the internet that someone took from the middle inside of the tree up towards the top:


Anyways, we had fun for both of our anniversary celebrations and we're looking forward to our 6-month later this month. I love Mark more and more and am so lucky to be married to him. Marriage is pretty amazing!

Our first apartment!

I've been meaning to post about this for awhile... we moved into a new apartment and have been busy trying to put it together. I'll give you some before shots and shots of the place today.

The beginnings of our kitchen...



Our kitchen today...



The beginnings of our front room...



Our front room today...



The beginnings of our bedroom...



Our bedroom today...



The beginnings of our bathroom...


Our bathroom today...



And here's a few pictures of us during the moving in process...





Love you all and wish you could come visit us here at our house! We have a very comfy air mattress for any who would like to!!

My wedding ring is more sparkly in the temple

Mark and I had the opportunity to go to the Oakland Temple this last week. I always love the temple, but for some reason this trip was special. Maybe it was because we hadn't been for awhile... we go every month, but in June we went at the beginning of the month and we didn't return until the end of July. I felt like I'd been away too long. I had missed that peace and beauty that permeates my soul and makes me feel at home and loved. It's such a beautiful experience and one that was made better by having Mark there with me. Several times during our visit I couldn't help but notice how much shinier and more sparkly my wedding ring was than usual. I am so used to my ring that I don't often notice it anymore, but it was simply and utterly more beautiful within the temple. I felt an overwhelming gratitude for Mark and for our eternal marriage. I am grateful for the temple that seals families together and will allow me to be with Mark forever. Mark is my best friend and the kindest husband, and the temple sweetens and brightens our relationship. The temple is a place where we can go to be reminded of what's truly important in life and to be reminded of our own worth, as well as the worth of those we love. I love to see the temple!!

Funny side story: after leaving the temple, we decided to go walk around the temple grounds. You can walk up some stairs and actually walk on a second story ledge around the temple. They have beautiful trees and bushes on the ledge and a fabulous view, especially at night. We walked around and came back to the gate that lets us out into the parking lot only to find... the gate was shut and locked. With no way out. It was honestly quite a humorous moment, but we weren't sure what to do. Sleep on the temple grounds until morning? Climb over the tall fence in my skirt and high heels? All options seemed bleak (but really amusing), until a security guard came back after making a sweep of the place to let us out. In retrospect, of course they wouldn't accidentally lock people in. Although after all the Man vs Wild type shows that Mark's seen, I'm sure he'd be able to figure out a way to get us out eventually.

The craziest, most exciting weekend ever!!

I'm a little late in posting this, but here it is!!

Mark and I decided to get married the same weekend of his graduation from BYU. Needless to say, it was a crazy weekend! Here's my recap:

We flew into Utah Wednesday evening. It was a crazy mess. We were finalizing our packing and just getting ready to leave for the airport when I got an automated call from the airline company telling us that one of our two layover flights to Utah had been canceled. I immediately began to panic thinking, "but I'm getting married! I have to get to Utah!" After some negotiations with the airline, we were able to switch to another flight out of Oakland airport the same night, which was actually a direct flight and got us into Utah sooner than we would have originally. We booked the flights and frantically started calling anyone we could think of who could drive us last minute an hour away during traffic. We are soooo eternally grateful for our friends John and Eliza McKeon (just married this last weekend, congrats!) who quickly answered our pleas for help and even left work early to get us to our flight on time. One thing I've learned time and again during my life is that immense blessings come when life throws us something hard.

On Thursday, we had a whole list of errands we had to run, including getting our marriage license, picking up Mark's tux rental (which had to be fixed that day because the legs were too short... my stinkin' tall husband!), getting my nails done, and taking pre-wedding pictures.

I have two sisters who each got married within 8 months of me. My mom wanted to get pictures of all three of the girls in our wedding dresses and the boys in suits. So yes, Mark saw the wedding dress before the actual wedding day, but it was for a good cause! The pictures turned out absolutely darling! Here are a few...

My sisters and I:


From left to right: Seth and Heidi Larsen, Mark and Heather Abbott, Dave and Ashley Voelkel:


After the pictures we hung out for a bit with our Wadsworth family until Mark went to hang out with our Abbott family for the rest of the night (and he honestly had to watch the Lakers tournament game). I have such a crazy amazing husband! I completely accidentally plan our wedding for the middle of the NBA tournament... the Lakers played game 4 the day of our wedding during our reception with a record of 2-1! I know what a huge sacrifice this was for him to not be able to watch the games and I love him to pieces for not being annoyed or complaining about it (or at least not to me)!!

So Friday morning we woke up at the crack of dawn for Mark's 8:00 am graduation. Mark even had to be there an hour earlier... poor guy! Mark's parents, Kevin and Rachael, Uncle Clay and Aunt Marcia, and my mom were able to attend with me. To clarify a bit... Mark actually graduated from BYU in the English/Humanities department last December 2008. However, for whatever reason, BYU doesn't hold an actual graduation ceremony in December so Mark had to wait until April to have us cheer him on while he walked across the stage (wearing borrowed robes from Rachael Abbott - thanks again dear, we dropped the ball on ordering his robes!!!) and received his diploma cover (not to be confused with the actual diploma that we had received months earlier). Mark graduated cum laude, which is quite impressive!! I'm so proud of him for all the hard work that he continues to put into his education and into bettering himself. He's the best example to me of someone who knows what they want and works hard for it!

Mark right after getting his diploma:


One of the last pictures of the two of us pre-wedding:


The Abbotts (Kevin, Rachael, Abby/Mom, Mark, Heather, Papa) - Tyler was in Utah for the wedding but didn't join us until after the graduation... too early:


Mom and I had a lot of fun eating and laughing during the graduation:


The rest of Friday was full of celebratory eating out for breakfast and dinner with the Abbotts, picking up our Budget truck rental to drive back all our stuff to San Jose (crazy adventure in and of itself... those things are ginormous!), and wiffleball madness! We were able to play a rousing game of wiffleball with some of our dearest friends, Arie and Abi Dekker, Dave Theurer, Forrest and Lindsey Parker (and their cute Davis!), Mike Hansen, Kevin and Rachael Abbott, Tyler Abbott, and Jayne Bradshaw. Here's the whole wiffleball gang:


That night Mark hung out with his family and I got to have my "bachelorette" party hanging out with my bestest friends!! Amber, Jenn, Ryan, Todd, and Jessica made my night before the wedding so fun. We had yummy appetizers and drinks at Spark Restaurant Lounge and chatted. I love being with them because we always end up laughing so hard! I wish I had pictures of the evening, but I didn't get any. Love you guys!

And that is our crazy weekend right up to the wedding day... but that post will have until another day. :)

The best feeling in the world...

I love being married. When I sit and think about all that it encompasses, I just can't get over how wonderful life is and how lucky I am to be able to spend the rest of forever with Mark.

Sigh...

On to today's story. First off, you have to know that I have never really been a morning person. I love sleeping in. Always have. My family growing up would typically sleep in until 10 am or so on Saturdays. We loved to stay up late and sleep in like crazy. In fact, I have sisters who used to be able to sleep in until the afternoon if we didn't wake them up. A bit crazy, but that was our life. Mark on the other hand, is most definitely an early riser (at least compared to me). I remember him telling me once that he had slept in until 9 or 10 am and being so proud of him for how late that was for him. It's probably better for him in the long run to get up early and eventually I will have to become more of a morning person. I'm starting to get better. Usually I can't sleep past 9 am or so anymore. But getting up before that is always kind of a struggle, to be quite honest. Also, another fact you should know... our bedroom gets very light early in the morning. We have thin curtains and the sun shines right into our room. So in the morning's I usually put on a pair of my eye cover sleep masks. Yes, I know it may sound a bit weird, but I have seriously used them since I was in high school. I just need complete darkness to really sleep. I've gotten better at sleeping with some light, but it's still not optimal. So when the sun starts coming up in the morning, I'll slip on my sleep mask and go back to sleep until the alarm goes off or I finally wake up.

Anyways, now that you have the complete and utter back story... here we go.

This morning, being a Saturday, I was definitely looking forward to sleeping in. I had been quite tired this whole week and wanted to catch up on my sleep. As usual, the sun came up early this morning and I put my sleep mask on and went back to sleep. I then would occasionally wake up and toss and turn and go back to sleep. I completely lost track of time, partly due to the fact that I was completely unaware of how light it was in our room. At some point, I woke up and began wondering what time it was. I suddenly realized that it could be late enough that Mark may have already woken up and, being the great husband that he is, not wanting to wake me up, he may have gotten up already and gone into the front room. I immediately began to miss him and want him. I turned over and, completely blindly, stretched out my hand slowly to see if he was there. My fingers soon found Mark sleeping quietly next to me. I relaxed and felt such peace with the world. I happiily snuggled up closer and went back to sleep. Best feeling ever.

It's getting hot in here...

So turn on all your fans and prepare for a warm one!

Turns out it's summer now, apparently. We honestly didn't think too much about it before moving into our new apartment, but turns out we don't have A/C. Which really isn't so bad. Except when it's hot outside, like now. We have a few small fans though and we bought one big fan so far. During the evenings it's actually quite cool outside, so we just open our windows and we put the fan in our bedroom window to blow in the cool air. Our bedroom gets downright chilly at nights... or at least as close as we can get to chilly. So we hadn't really noticed how hot it was getting. I knew it was hot at times, but just hadn't thought about it. Until... the butter.

A bit of a backstory... I decided about 6 months ago that one thing I was looking forward to having in my married life is a butter dish. I decided I hated having to scrap open the butter packets, which get all gross looking (especially with roommates it seemed) and also I hate using hard butter on toast or bread. Thus I have been soooo excited for my new butter dish (thanks to Aunt Susan!) at our apartment. It's a white dish, so I can't see the grossness of the butter except when I want to take off the lid and use the room temperature softened butter. It was a dream come true, for a few days. Well, the other day we realized how hot it was getting in our kitchen when I went to open the butter dish and found melted butter all over the bottom of the dish. So sad. We now keep the butter on the dish, but in the fridge. Sigh, at least I can use the cute dish. Then to remind us again how warm it is getting... last night we pulled out my scriptures to read together before bed and we pulled out my marking crayon/pencils case that my mom had bought for me over a year ago and found that they had melted and resolidified into one giant crayon of six colors. Sigh. Pretty funny though. Not sure how I can mark my scriptures now, but I'll figure something out.

So we're going to be purchasing another big fan and using that in our front room to push the air out of our apartment. My dad recommended having the flow of air to make things feel even cooler. And we'll survive either way. It's been a learning experience for sure! The joys of young married life.