{Brenden and Shay's Wedding}

So this past weekend, I went to a cousin's wedding.  It was such a special experience to get to be in the temple with those two awesome people while they got sealed in the St. George Temple.  One of the best blessings we have on this earth is a temple marriage!  What a fun weekend it was too!  Although Hesston had to stay home due to work/school responsibilities (they never end, I swear) I still had a great time spending the weekend with all of my family!  I got to Vegas on Thursday, and got to spend the first couple of days with my Mom and Dad, and brothers (sis is still on a mission....cue the closet and makeup raid haha).

 Finally reunited with my puppy dog :)

 All dolled up and ready to go to a Women's Conference with my momma 

 Osaka Sushi with my brothers

Visiting the Shaffer's...hands down the cutest girls you'll ever meet!

Ireland playing her recital songs for me :)

 Wedding day! (I cheated my hair length and added in my extensions...I'm no longer blonde, but I thought I actually pulled it off!)

 Me and my sweet cousin Amanda :)

  Went to The Habit Burger restaurant after the sealing...I got a salad, but it was amazing!!

 Buuut, then we went to Sweet Tooth Fairy and un-did the healthiness :)

 Tried on fairy princess dresses at the mall...

....and enjoyed the reception at the end of the day :)  

The next day (which seriously couldn't have been better timing since everyone was there for the wedding) we blessed my cousin Brooke and Ryan's baby Isabelle!  ...kinda made me want one of my own ;)

What a gorgeous day the wedding was, and so much love and happiness having all the family together to celebrate Brenden and Shay. (P.S. they have dated longer than me and Hesston have even known each other, so I'm sure marriage will be a piece of cake for them!)

After a fun filled weekend, I was finally reunited with my love.  He drove down with his sister who was actually headed back to St. George while I was on my way back up to Provo, and we met at a gas station in Scipio so we could have a little time in the car together. It was a long weekend without him, and I am hoping he won't have to miss any other family events from here on out!

{Goals}

So, pretty much since high school, I have developed a major passion for fitness and health.  It all started with Track and Cross Country.  I then moved into studying multiple Pilates, Yoga, weightlifting, and nutrition books before college.  I got my degree in Exercise Science and Nutrition, I got certified as a trainer and coached clients for a couple years, and I competed in a figure competition to truly test my will and my abilities.  I have always loved learning more and more about how to live life with good nutrition and exercise habits, while still feeling like a normal person...not only for me, but for the people I coach or motivate in their fitness goals.  When I got married, I was fresh out of my figure competition training, and it felt SO nice to get to eat what I felt like. I was burned out of being on a written-out, exactly-the-same-meals-everyday diet plan.  It kinda backfired.  Did I get obese? No. But did I lose all of my progress from figure competition training? Yes.  I was unhappy, but never could quite get the motivation and the habitual routine that is required to get results. With my background in all things diet and exercise, I have been able to keep my self in a stable-ish size, but I am always in the mindset of "I can do better".  As a trainer, you are expected to be the expert, and not only talk the talk, but walk the walk.  After 7+ years of going through the different phases of learning (aka diet and exercise experimentation) I think I am finally starting to strike my own perfect balance of healthy eating and exercise, but still feeling relaxed and unrestricted by food.

The first morning (in pretty much the history of EVER) that I actually woke up, worked out, and got ready for work all before 7:45....insane.  I definitely look better after a shower lol.

The day I competed in my first figure competition.  I will say I look pretty good, but again, my mindset is stuck in "I can do better" mode.

I am going to start using my blog as a means of accountability, and to post workout/nutritious recipe ideas.  Gotta get that hot body for my cruise (and before any babies have a shot at my stomach haha).

 Grow baby abs, grow!

Christmas Day....I love these leggings...comfiest things in the world!

Dressing room progress pic...2 months til the cruise.  We'll see what progress I can make til then!

Well I might as well get back on the blogging bandwagon...

Life is just too full of fun things and happy memories to just forget about them as we go.  It has been a whole year since I last posted. Yep.  A whole year.  Instagram is just too easy and fast, so it makes blogging feel like such an ordeal, but it's so much more fun to read a blog and track all the details than to just scroll through a bunch of pictures with a sentence-long caption.  Yep, it's worth the work.  As sporadic as it may happen, I want to keep my memories, for both myself, and to share with anyone interested enough to read about them (there might not be too many haha).  But that's not the point.  Since I first discovered blogging, I always wanted to have one of my own one day.  Luckily I haven't missed out on too many crazy awesome memories yet...our life is mostly just boring school and work, no kids yet, etc....but it's good to get in the habit now so I can keep the memories going as they come right??  SO here's to the future of my blog...hoping it's not as sad as the past year of blogging :)

Here are some pictures that capture some of the fun from this past year that I have missed blogging about!

A nice little pic from our One Year Anniversary that we had Hesston's brother Kyle do for us!

Of course Hesston couldn't resist a little nose-picking action...such a tease.

Making a memorable little ceramic plate at Color Me Mine

Our cute First Year Anniversary Plate!

Sister's and Cousin's Dance Concert...so proud of those girls :)

Cold nights watching our hubs play football...only 27 degrees...no big deal ;)

And I'll end with our night at the temple with my sister taking her endowments out. Such a special event! And so cool that all 4 siblings got to be there for it!

Thanksgiving Break

This year for Thanksgiving, we were with my dad's side of the family, and it was decided to have the dinner celebrated at our aunt and uncle's cabin in Panguitch Lake this year.  I don't think Thanksgiving could be made any more fun than that!  Four-wheeling, gorgeous mountain views, tons of good food, and of course some of my favorite people in the world.  The weather was luckily perfect, so my Altima could make it through the mountain roads, but there was enough snow to make everything look so beautiful.  We had such a great time and are so grateful for family and the fun memories we get to make with them :)

So this was my first Thanksgiving as a married woman...SO much better haha.  I loved sitting at the "big" kid table for once, and just the simple fact of having my best friend to be there everywhere I went.  I noticed how nice it was to always have Hesston around...to make me laugh, to go on 4-wheeler rides, to eat snacks...as simple as that is, it is so nice to be with my best friend forever.

Such a fun first Thanksgiving for us!  Can't wait til Christmas!!

(P.S. Note Hesston's beard...he begged me to let him keep it while we were at the cabin so he could feel like a mountain man.  Of course I couldn't say no :)

It's time to start blogging

Wow...now I know what every girl is talking about when they say sorry for not being caught up with their blogging!  This stuff needs to become a better habit of mine, because I really want to document my life so I can go back and reminisce about all of the memories I'm making! 

I've been married for a little over 5 months now.  I'll use that as my excuse...I've been too busy being a newlywed!  I LOVE being married to my best friend.  Being married to Hesston is seriously the funnest thing I've ever done, and he was definitely the best decision I ever made.

Now that we have almost made it half a year of being married, I want to buckle down, and start fulfilling some of the goals I've always had...one of them being having a blog, filled with fun pictures and hilarious stories.

So here it goes, the start to the journey of my life with my husband, and the many experiences, good and bad, that we go through along the way :)

Getting Engaged

On February 14th (Valentine's Day of course!), I was surprised by the love of my life with the best proposal ever!! He had me completely unsuspecting...like I literally didn't know he was going to propose until he was down on one knee.  I started the day out thinking he wasn't planning on doing anything special for Valentine's Day since the whole night before, he told me he was gonna be busy with homework, and that we needed to pack for our cabin trip this weekend.  I was totally bummed since I knew he knew how much Valentine's Day meant to me after having so many bad ones in past.  I was honestly upset, and was on the verge of tears when he told me good night the night before.  I still had MY Valentine's Day gift in store for him, and the next morning.

                                      

 Little did I know that he had a WHOLE BIG SCHEME planned for the whole day to surprise me with things.  It started out with one of my bosses at Nu Skin bringing a vase to my desk.  I was really curious after that.  A half an hour later, another lady we work with brings 2 roses and puts them in the vase.  Then I came back to my desk later to find a cupcake from this really yummy gourmet bakery in Utah.  And THEN I came back even later after a meeting to find 2 stuffed puppy dogs holding even more roses.  By the end of the day and getting even more roses handed to me by another co-worker, I had a dozen roses.  When I left for the night, around 7:00, he was out in the parking lot holding another bouquet of colorful daisies, and said "Let's  put all your stuff in car.  We gotta go."  When I opened the car door, there was Red Robin on the floor that he had picked up so we could eat dinner right away (the restaurant where we had our first date).  He then drove to the bowling alley where we had our first kiss. 

                               Red Robin - the restaurant we ate at for our first date!

 My jacket that he got me a couple days before for our cabin trip!

After that, we kept driving, and he asked me if I knew where we were going.  I wasn't sure, so I just let him keep driving, as we pulled up to a spot in the canyon, where we had a really good talk about marriage and the things we are hoping for and expecting in it.  We got out of the car, and it was FREEZING by the way haha.  He put like 3 coats on me and tons of blankets, so I was this big blob waddling up the canyon lol.  We finally reached our destination....a hammock set up in the middle of the walkway.  He crouched down and started lighting candles that surrounded the whole hammock.  We were cuddling, watching a movie on his phone, when all of a sudden I heard this loud buzzing sound.  After thinking it was a bug, I realized it was one of those rose fireworks that spin around and buzz really loudly. I was getting scared thinking that these one guys that were parked near us were throwing them at us, and Hesston was like, "Ya, let's get out of here." The fireworks started flying faster, and I was like, "What is happening??"  He then got down on one knee. and said "This is what's happening....." and he asked me if I would marry him!  I was so in shock that I was like "Are you kidding me?? I can't believe this! Yes, of course I will :)"  And got emotional, and he was kissing me and stuff, and then his brother's come running down the mountain (the true firework hooligans) and took pictures and video of us after just barely getting engaged.  After that we called all our closest family and let everyone know! 

In our hammock right before he proposed!

So happy I'm in love with my best friend :)

In the car on the way back, about to call and announce it to everyone!

At The Riverwoods!

The ring!