halloween

halloween is one of my most favorite holidays ever. i would dress up all the time if i could. there was even a halloween from my days back in provo where i dressed up in three different costume..in one day. david and i love disney and want to coordinate disney costumes every year. this year has to have been my favorite year ever though. meet russell and kevin, from up. isn't my husband the most adorable thing ever?!

 it wouldn't be halloween without a few haunted houses in there as well. the haunted forest is my absolute favorite here in utah. and of course, i am destined to be a holiday home decorator and usually do my sister's house and mine.

 i am pretty good at chalkboard signs if i do say so myself. it has become my specialty:)

one year

i sure love celebrating anything and everything under the sun. if there is a holiday, i am probably celebrating it. i love celebrating the little things in life among the big things. however, one of the biggest celebrations i was looking forward to was our anniversary.

some don't think of it as a big deal, and until you are actually married it really doesn't matter, but why not celebrate the one day that changed your life forever.

we chose to get married in october, which will luckily always be around fall break. bad news about this day, there is always something going on. this year was no exception. college game day was in utah, there was a football game, my aunt got married. busy busy busy.

we already went to disneyland as our "big" celebration, but we wanted to celebrate the actual day as well. friday night we went to ruth's chris steakhouse, which was highly disappointing. i know some love it, but when i am paying quite a bit for a piece of chicken it should not be over cooked. the service was fantastic though so all was well. after we started on one of the disney puzzles we brought back from our trip (a week later and it still is not done).

 sometimes i cannot even handle how adorable my nephews are

the next day i went to game day and after we went to my aunt's wedding in brigham city and went to the temple. what an incredible way to spend an anniversary than in the temple with your spouse. we loved it.

we rushed back to salt lake (stopped along the way to pick up our cake) and made our way to the tailgate. i had to volunteer because of the muss, but i love the atmosphere on campus during game day.

the big game was fantastic and probably some of the most intense moments of my life, but utah pulled off another sweet victory and we could not have been more happy. we love our utes.

i loved celebrating my favorite team with my favorite boy, and i am so glad we got to experience it on our anniversary.

the one year old cake...

when i started wedding planning, i knew that i wanted a cake. it was the only time in my life that i would get a big fancy gaudy, over the top cake. funny thing is, i don't actually enjoy cake all that much. i just wanted it for the decoration (an expensive decoration, silly me). i looked high and low over salt lake for a baker and finally found a cute lady that baked out of her house. we had a testing, it was easily the best cake we had ever tasted. she got my vision. she knew exactly what we wanted and made it happen.

terrible pictures with our puzzle in the background:)

fast forward to the wedding day and the cake was perfect. it turned out even better than we talked about. we cut the cake, barely tasted it, and made our getaway. my dear mother packed us a plate of that cake though and i took a bite later that night and couldn't wait to finish it in the morning. well david accidentally left the bag open and the cake dried out so i never got to fully embrace our delicious wedding cake. per our instructions, she froze the top tier of the cake. we opened her freezer many times and saw our cute cake top sitting there waiting for the year mark to come when we could defrost that beauty and finally taste it.

the other half is still frozen in my parent's freezer

here we are, a whole year later and we finally got to taste the cake. i almost forgot it until we were in a rush to get back to salt lake from a wedding in brigham city and remembered that it was in my parents freezer.

we knew the cake would not taste as it did on the wedding day, it was a year old after all, but that cake was still delicious. if you ever need a baker, cake dame is magic.

fall bucket list

now that we are well into fall, better late than never to post our fall bucket list. as you can tell from previous posts (christmas bucket list here), david and i are obsessed with bucket lists and doing fun seasonal activities.

-carve pumpkins
-take pictures in the fall foliage
-make caramel apples
-go to haunted houses
-make halloween costumes
-dress up for halloween
-go to a halloween party
-watch a scary movie
-go for a drive in the mountains
-go to all the football games
-finish our Disney puzzle (i know this isn't really fall related, but something we want to do)
-drink apple cider

family reunion

all of my family is from idaho. both sides. i was born in pocatello and shortly after we moved away. idaho hold some of my dearest memories and nearly all of my family members still live there.

now that everyone is older, it is much more difficult to get together. my grandparents are celebrating 60 years together this year, so we got together with everyone for a night. i had not seen a few of my cousins in over 10 years. that is waaayyy too long. it was such a fun night though to get reacquainted with everyone.

i don't know why, but i always get a little emotional when i look around in a big family setting and realize the legacy i am a part of. it happened at david's family reunion a few summers ago and now. when i realized how two people created a family and those families created more families and they were the leaders of that. what an incredible experience to be able to look at all your children and grandchildren and know that you were the reason for this. 

my grandparents are 2 of the most kind, caring, selfless people i have ever met. i have never heard them speak unkindly to or about another person. i have countless memories of them coming to every even possible while we lived in idaho. they also trekked to wyoming every winter to watch us in the nutcracker ballet. they were some of the biggest supporters i had growing up. my grandmother is one of the most humble patient people ever. she raised 6 rowdy rambunctious boys and i have never heard her raise her voice.

most of the cousins...still missing a few

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this weekend was the semi-annual conference of the lds church. 

it is always just what i need to hear, and so good for the soul. 

my strength is renewed, i have received guidance i needed, and 

i may have finished a craft or two ;)