It's what we've been up to...

Alex and my brother Jacob work for the same company and wouldn't you know they picked their bonus night in November on the same night as the BYU vs. UofU game. So everyone had to pick a side - hence why we're wearing the t-shirts, and we ate dinner while watching the game at the Salt Palace. The four of us were on a Rock Band team and we .... ROCKED!! It was a fun night and of course Al and I went home holding our heads high :)

The next weekend Alex and Jacob again showed their dedication to their job by participating in a flag football tournament. It was all the way in Ogden and a lot of fun to watch them play.
Little did we know how cold it would be. Mom and dad came to support them too and were thoughtful enough to bring the hot chocolate.
They were so dedicated they had jerseys made with their names, numbers AND America First colors. I was surprised to see Alex play football. I knew he'd played rugby in high school, but I'd actually never seen him play a contact, team sport. It was pretty cool. My hunnie is just so cute.

One of the best things about Alex is how much he makes me laugh....unintentionally :) One night while going to bed, we were laughing so hard when I realized there was something wet on his shoulder..... so I got up and turned on the light to find that he'd drooled while laughing, so much that his shirt was soaked. Which then of course that made us laugh even harder and to this day we still laugh about the time he drooled on his shirt. It wasn't the first and I'm sure it won't be the last.... just keep the laughs coming Al.
So it was December and time to put our tree up. I had one from college and Al had one from our parents that was unfortunately too tall for our apartment. So we went for the little one and put it on boxes. I'm a huge Coca-Cola memorabilia fan so our tree is all white and red with coke ornaments and .... a moose for a tree topper (I also really like moose) It was fun to put our green and blue stockings up and see our apartment all decorated. Of course some rearranging had to be done and furniture pieces put in storage to accomodate our tree but we loved it just the same. One of our favorite things to do is drink hot chocolate at night and sit with just the tree lights on. We really love Christmas and our whole month was filled with our first memories together.
Christmas morning was so fun to have cinnamon rolls together and then open our gifts. Alex was so surprised when I got him the game of Farkel - one of his family favorites. Only to find out that he'd gotten me the same thing only a travel version. (my dice are green of course :) Alex got me a massage chair for my aching back when I come home from work. It is amazing and he was so thoughtful!! This day is also special for us because one year ago Alex and I became engaged, knowing that we would spend the rest of forever together. It is one of the best days of my life and one of the most exciting for years to come, to continue creating memories together.
Alex and I played Farkel the morning after Christmas and I, well I kicked his trash!! This is a game others may know as Six Dice and it is so much fun. I'm not really a risk taker, but I got a few lucky rolls. This one being a straight, worth 1,500 points!! It was so much fun.
But really I just like playing games with him. He's so funny and we laugh way too much. But most of all we still love each other when the game's over! :)
Holidays rock and I hope everyone got to spend as much time with the ones they love that they could. It may be a while till our next blog. Without internet it's far and few between that we get the chance.... and have the time. But we're still here and we love you all.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Take time to enjoy LIFE!!

Bored Anyone?

So Alex has an imagination and if you give him the time to express it, you might be suprised to see what can happen.... Pretending not to like my pink headband.... I think he secretly wears them when I'm not around. It's the main reason he likes to grow his hair out ;) OR carving initials into my failing fingernail polish with the ink tube from inside a pen, during Sacrament meeting.

No matter what it is, at least we're not bored for long in our house. Thanks for the good times Al!

Happy Halloween

Don't be scared it's just Alex and I. I'm not quite sure what he was, and don't say "Joe Dirt"but I think he was excited to wear the mullet wig. He was so cute with that moustache...not fun to kiss that thing though. Good thing he doesn't really grow facial hair. I on the other hand was a "Team Edward" vampire . . . didn't really have a name just wanted to support my Twilight. :)
My special pumpkin lit up our living room the whole month. I was so proud of his green smile. Alex was a little frightened by my Ghost cookies... BOO!!
Jacob and Elaina had relaxed by the time we started playing guitar hero, but could still rock it out. Mmm mmm good, I like me some... white trash? Alex special made my vampire teeth. The ones we bought were made with only 3 front teeth, well that just wasn't going to work, so he fixed it.
I'm not quite sure what they were trying to do, but Jacob looks like the headless ghost from Harry Potter... good costume improv Jb!! Halloween wasn't complete without Chili and cornbread mm mm good. It's all about the tradition. We hope your Halloween was ghoul-tastic and you scared to your heart's contempt.

Domestication here I come

One of my best friends from high school is having a baby!! Little Karl Jacob. So to try my hand at domestication I told her I would make a blanket. Little did I know what I was getting into. I had never made this kind of blanket before and didn't really have a pattern, just the idea in my head. So I bought the material (WAY TOO MUCH, but that's what the lady at the store told me I would need) but at least I'll have enough to make another blanket! So Melissa told me I could pick the colors. Knowing it would be a boy I picked blue and this cute animal print and then of course I had to add green. And topped it all off, or rather backed it all with a nice brown. So after making a blanket the size of my entire body and a sore on my hand from all the cutting. My fringe baby blanket was DONE :) and I am proud to say it turned out very well. And even better, when I showed up to the baby shower with the blanket I found out that the colors of the baby room were BLUE AND BROWN! So perfect and with my green touch it will always remind them of me.

CONQUERERS!

It's been a month since labor day but that's when we went on our "hike" of Timpanogos. Who would have known that you can buy tickets to go through the cave ahead of time or that labor day weekend was so popular for the cave.
Well we got there and the wait was 3 hours, that's just to begin hiking timpanogos and then you have an hour and a half to get up to the cave. So if you get up there sooner, you have to wait for your call time. Well we didn't want it to be all for nothing, so we decided to make the hike anyway. It didn't take us an hour and a half to get to the top but when we got there we ate our lunch and thought about eating our walking fudge. That's right we had brought the ingredients in our ziplocs and you just smoosh it the whole time you walk and at the end WA-LA you have fudge. My bag got a hole in it on the way up... but I managed to keep it in the bag. We didn't actually get to go all the way in the cave, but a nice tour guide let us go through the first room.
Elaina (sister-in-law) and I thought this sign was so funny. It said not to stop on the red line because there was a possibility of avalanche, but in order to read the sign completely, WE STOPPED!! that's a true story. Then we took a picture of it on the way down. It was the warmest day of the whole week. 98 YIKES but such a good way to spend the weekend.
We just didn't think to stretch before or after so we felt the hike for several days after. "HEY GUYS don't stop on the red line!"

Do Dr.'s make house calls?...

To begin my story I must start back in October of last year. Alex was having a crown placed by a new dentist and afterword said it hurt a little. Like he could feel it when he was biting down. So not until Feb. of this year did he get back in to have the Dr. adjust it. He said it resolved the problem and this seemed to be the resolution we were looking for. HOWEVER a little while later he said the pain had returned. At the encouragement of his fiance' to return to the Dr. while he was still on his parents insurance was not heeded as the problem then did not seem to be that big of a deal. AFTER our marriage and after he was then off his parents insurance the pain began to increase. On a Monday afternoon he was explaining the the pain had increased to his whole right side of his jaw. He made an appointment for that Wed. morning with his Dr. to have it checked. Fearing root canal treatment, we discussed getting a second opinion. So I talked to my boss about our situation. Without insurance I wanted to be sure this is what he needed. So he said I could bring him in and he'd take a look. Well Tuesday at work Alex said the pain had more than increased. Neither Tylenol or Ibuprofen were working. He couldn't chew on that side and we were afraid of what might happen. But knowing that things would be ok, we went ahead with our plan to see Dr. C in the morning. At 2:30 that morning Alex awoke with pain so intense he couldn't sleep. We were both worried and didn't know what to do. I even thought about calling our parents, but decided that we were adults and should be taking care of it on our own. What were we going to do? So as silly as it sounded and not knowing what else I could do for my husband I asked if I could say a prayer. As we both lay there in tears I prayed to our Heavenly Father, for what I wasn't quite sure, but whatever he could do for us. Peace, comfort and for the night to pass quickly. Worried about him and knowing I would have to get up in 3 hours for work I was scared. As soon as the prayer was over he said it didn't hurt anymore. I told him not to just say that to make me feel better but he told me it truly didn't. He layed on the couch to watch tv so he could keep his mind off of it and before we knew it, it was time to get up. I took him to work with me and had one of the assistants take an x-ray to have the Dr. assess. Sure enough RCT, luckily enough Alex didn't have to be to work until 11 and weird, the Dr.'s sched. was for 3 post op checks which were done in half an hour. Lucky? More like divine intervention. Dr. began the root canal and without any discomfort they were done in about an hour and a half. Alex did not have any pain the rest of the day or the next. There was no need for even one Tylenol! Even the Dr. was surprised.

We were blessed to get the employee family discount, and have Dr. C do the RCT instead of being referred to a specialist, because without insurance we saved about $800 and he already had a crown on the tooth, so there was no need to have one of those palced. But the real moral of the story is, when your wife asks you to do something, she's probably inspired and you should do it ;) haha just kidding. Really we were very blessed by this experience and it brought us closer together and to Him. We are grateful for the trials we have and the growth we receive because of them.

Another year older, another year loved!!

My birthday was a few weeks ago now, but I finally have a second to tell you all about it! Alex had planned the whole night full of surprises. He got off work early to surprise me when I came home from doing laundry, I had the biggest boquet of sunflowers I've ever seen. The pic's a little blurry but you get the idea, they were huge! Then he took me to our FAVORITE restaurant Cafe Rio mmm mmm DELICIOUS :) I was so full after, I always eat too much. But it was my birthday.
This is the tooth I always get food stuck between. Then he took me to the top of Snowbird, on the tram. This was our first real date a year ago... I don't remember it being as chilly as it was that day. Good thing we'd brought the blanket. On our way down we stopped at Snoasis and had one of our favorite summer treats. Tiger's Blood and cream snow cone. You haven't had a snow cone, till you've had one from Snoasis.

To finish the night we ended with Guitar Hero and Cliffs of Dover. It was a spectacular birthday and I owe it all to my hunnie!! LOVE YOU

This is for Brooke....

We've actually lived in our apartment for about a month now, but we've been here since the 15th of July. When we got home from our honeymoon, Alex and I moved ourselves into our apartment...it took a long time, who knew we'd have so much stuff! Our parents had gotten together and put our bed together but the rest was up to us.

This is our humble kitchen... yeah we got a stool cause those cupboards are WAY too tall for me to even reach the bottom shelf. This was one of our first nights. After a full day of moving, we were too tired to cook and didn't really have the option considering the condition of our kitchen, so we had Little Caesars.

And this is how we moved everything.... AFTER we moved the 2 dressers, a couch and a tv, twice. Because we live right behind the Wal*Mart people leave their carts in the parking lot...hence my brilliant idea to use them to transport things it saved us time and back pain later.
Now this is our kitchen after we put mostly everything away, but then I decided to make dinner and got some things out.

A view from our front door - you can pretty much see everything from here.And yes that tv is our Wedding, Anniversary, Christmas, and birthday presents to each other... but we do watch a lot of movies on it. Once we were all moved in, we played guitar hero in our room... We had a tv from Alex's brother in our bedroom for about 2 nights before we decided a bedroom is for sleeping, not for watching tv. So yet again we had to move it back out...without a cart it was too awkward. That's what was waiting for me in the limo when we left our wedding reception...the Union Jack, he's the best!!

Honeymooners, Surf's Up

For our honeymoon, Alex took us to Seal Beach California. It was RELAXING!! We stayed at his aunt's beach house, literally a block away from the beach. We took bike rides, got my hair cut.... it was a spontaneous decision the first day we were there, made cookies, and so much more. The sign behind us proving we were in Seal Beach was taken on one of our bike rides.

The first morning we were there we went boogie boarding at the beach, I got rocked hard and almost lost a bathing suit...

Yes that's Alex acutally touching a stingray at the Pike's Aquarium which is just like Sea World but a slightly smaller scale. I touched it too, but we weren't quick enough with the camera, those things are slippery ICK Then of course he took his turn surfing while I was a sea lion.
I have this weird obsession with Tom Hanks which has naturally lead me to be a Forrest Gump fan, and as I call my brother Bubba, I have become his Forrest, it has nothing to do with how smart I am ;) So whenever I go to Bubba Gump's I snap some kind of reminder.

After an awesome day at the Aquarium we took a walk down to the Marina for a boat ride. Sunset on the Beach begs the question, how can you deny there is a Heavenly Father to provide such an awe-inspiring sight? No this wasn't my first time seeing Mickey Mouse, but out of the 2 times I've now seen him, it's the only time the picture is there to prove it.

So to explain more about our story let me tell you why our return to Seal Beach was so fun. Alex went to this same place on his Senior trip 5 years ago. On that trip he took surf lessons from Mike who introduced him to our great friend Mindy because they and their friends were all from Utah. They became such good friends that 4 years later, Mindy's older sister and my former Mia Maid leader, Melissa decided that Alex and I should be introduced... so when he was in need of a blind date, he got my number and the rest is bliss. So upon our return to Seal Beach we of course had to take surf lessons from none other than Mike. He totally remembered Alex and was so excited asked us for a picture and to blog our story on his website. It was such a great way for us to complete the surfing circle in a way. Thanks to Mindy and Melissa, but also thanks to Mike and Aunt Terrell who started us off. Surfing was so much fun and I only lost one fingernail :) Our honeymoon ened and we returned home to .... MOVE. But did I forget to mention that we drove a 2008 Toyota Rav4, Only my FAVORITE car!! He is too good to me.

Finishing the Wedding Book

Ok, so here are some pictures from the actual wedding day. We were married July 10th in the Bountiful Temple, where we had the amazing opportunity of having my Grandpa as the sealer. You don't remember a lot of the words said that day but you definitely remember the feeling. We can't share it through these pictures, but you'll get the idea.

The official Martin FamilyThis is how we like to spend our time.He's pretty great like that... always keeping the spice in our lives.Holy cow it's the Hoffmanns...and Martins!! Don't they all look so good!!!And that's how he felt at the BEGINNING of the reception... wonder what he'd rather be doing?

My talented cousin Tyne made our cake and it couldn't have been more perfect!! Yes those are sheep on top and you wouldn't understand unless you were Alex and I...we're not even 100% sure.It was time to go and I couldn't believe the day was coming to an end. It seemed to go by so fast.

But now we have the rest of... forever to look forward to. We are in love and it's true what they say, it just grows each day. Kind of boggles your mind thinking you can love them even more than you do now. I am so Lucky!