My Valentine

Photo of us in Beaver taken on the drive home-April 2004

I was going through some of my old photo stuff and I have a manila envelope full of all my wedding photos and memorabilia. I always meant to make some sort of wedding album but I have never done it. Looking through it, I found a letter I wrote to my Grandma Newey about meeting Jace and my wedding day. She was on a mission that year and didn't get to be there for all the fun. Reading through it made me laugh and with it being February & heart day, I thought it'd be fun to share the story of how we met. (Copied straight from the letter I wrote-almost 8 years ago)

I met Jace after he got home from his mission to Utica, New York. I was over visiting my college roommate, Lacey, and he was there visiting her husband Sam, who was his good friend from high school. We spent the whole night talking with our friends and didn't say much to each other. Throughout the next couple months, Jace called a couple times to ask me out but I always had other plans on those nights. I heard a lot about Jace from Lacey in stories that she told. Lacey and I worked at the bank together and Jace often came up in conversation because he hung out at their house.

One Friday, I was planning on driving up to Salt Lake for a missionary homecoming but it was raining really hard so I was trying to decide if I should go. My phone rang and it was Jace. He said that he had heard that I was going up north this weekend and wanted to know how the road conditions were. I told him that I hadn't left yet and asked if it would be possible to catch a ride. Jace was actually already to Hurricane about 15 miles north of St George but he said sure. He picked me up at my house and we drove to Salt Lake together. We talked the whole way and I found him really interesting. He had very strong opinions about everything and was very talkative. He liked music that I had never heard of before but he made me feel comfortable. He dropped me off in Provo at my girlfriend's (Lindsay & Alicia) apartment and went to his missionary reunion. We didn't talk the rest of the weekend until Sunday when we made plans to drive home. It was Easter Sunday and we talked the whole way home. He dropped me off at my house and about an hour later called to invite me to Lacey & Sam's house to play games with all our friends. It seemed like after that we hung out every night. Spring semester ended and we decided to take an early morning theatre class over the summer. We had a lot of fun dates. We donated blood, stayed up all night running at "Relay for Life", stayed the weekend at Lake Powell on a houseboat with our friends, camped at my manager's cabin in the mountains, shopped in Park City & Salt Lake, drove to Vegas for a concert, countless movies in the theatre and rented, and every Sunday night playing games with Lacey & Sam. My favorite thing we did was sit in his living room on the couch at night and look out his huge windows that overlooked St George. His house sits on a hill and you can see the whole city lit up at night. It's just beautiful!

Happenings

January is definitely our month to stay home and just relax. By relax, I mean we've been extra lazy. I've been reading a lot and watching too much tv. But there have been a few fun happenings this month.

Photo taken by Jill's sister in law. Hopscotch studios. 

Baby Zoe was born on January 10th. She is the second niece on my side of the family. She was 8 pounds and 12.9 ounces. I've seen a few photos and videos of the two girls together and LaNea seems like a great big sister. Jill & Eric are blessing Zoe in March and we are planning on flying to Texas for the weekend. Can't wait to hold this little one.

We drove down to SG last weekend for a little getaway. We haven't been down since October so it was really fun to see everyone. We had dinner with Laura & Fernando on the first night at Peppers. It's a cheap Mexican place in Bloomington. Real good! I ran/walked in the SG half marathon on Saturday. The weather was overcast when I started but a complete downpour the last few miles. It was a fun race with lots of people. I'm hoping that run will help jump start me to being more active in 2012!

Last but not least, we had a few friends over for game night at our new house. I love that we have room to have people over now. We ate some treats and played Pictionary. Jace & I can get a little competitive with games. We love that our friends will put up with us!

Andy's Daycare Fiasco

Sorry guys, I know I'm one of those super annoying people that are obsessed with their dogs. But until I have kids and somebody takes Andy's spot, you'll have to deal with my dog posts. I forgot to blog about Andy getting kicked out of daycare. It's a funny story now...back when it happened, I was in tears and blaming Jace for being away. Andy is a nervous dog, extremely high strung and freaks out a lot. Anybody who has the pleasure of dogsitting him knows this. He cries and howls whenever Jace leaves, he shakes uncontrollably on car rides and panics anytime you put your shoes on. Eventually he calms down but it takes him awhile. Jace works from home so Andy doesn't get left alone very often. But when we go out or on vacation, we take Andy to the Puppy Lounge. Its a little daycare for small dogs in SLC. He loves it there! The girls are very sweet, everyone knows his name and they take really good care of him.

But after the move, Andy started getting moody. He stopped liking to go to the Puppy Lounge, hated going into the bathroom (even when we offered ham or bacon) and seemed over all kinda sad. After the move, we headed to Lake Powell and then to Europe and on top of all that Jace started having to go to Phoenix for business for a week each month. I work 8-5 so I would take Andy to Puppy Lounge on my way to work. In December, I went to pick him up and one of the girls asked if she could talk to me. She said Andy has been acting very upset lately, showing aggression at times, avoiding all other dogs and basically being unhappy. She said we should probably take a break from the Puppy Lounge. I felt terrible! Its bad enough to take him to daycare for 8 hours and now I was going to have to leave him in the bathroom instead. I asked her what she thought I should do and her response was that I should sit him down and explain the situation to him. She said a really long talk between the two of us might straighten things out. (OK, Crazy! I've been laughing abou this comment ever since)

I left Andy in the bathroom the next day while I was at work and came home to find the entire bathroom covered in poop. It was on the floor, toilet, walls, everywhere. And Andy started getting up in the middle of the night with diarrhea too. If I woke up in time, I could let him outside but if not he would sneak downstairs and poop. This kept up for a few days until Jace got back. Anders kept having tummy issues until we finally took him to the vet. He had lost 2 pounds (which is a lot for a 11 pound dog), got a bacterial infection and need an IV from being so dehydrated. Poor little guy!

Since then, we have tried not to leave him for extended periods of time and exercise with him more. But I'm still not sure what's going to happen next time Jace goes out of town. The things this we do for this dog!!!

Happy 2012!

2012…Can’t believe it! That’s ten years since I graduated from high school. I swear I don’t feel that old! 2011 was an eventful and crazy year for us. We had a lot going on and the majority of it was pretty awesome. We got to do so many fun things and accomplished a lot of stuff on my bucket list.

New House

Graduated with my Bachelors in Accounting

My first trip to Europe

Bad news about the condo

San Diego with Hirschi Family

Lake Powell with friends

Andy was kicked out of doggie daycare

Almost moved to San Francisco

Hanging with Newey family in SG

Photos with Shar

Lost iPhone and dumpster diving

And as always a few trips to Park City & Vegas

I have a feeling this next year is going to be a great one. Even years tend to be! Happy 2012!

CHRISTMAS

Christmas this year was exceptionally great! We had fun just taking it easy and hanging out with family and friends. We spent Christmas Eve in Ogden at the annual Bonnemort Christmas party. Definitely wasn't the same without Steve and Shelley but it was fun to see everyone and eat all the good food. Christmas day, we worked on a puzzle my dad sent in the morning. Jace loses patience real fast with puzzles but I think it's fun listening to Christmas music and working on it. Later, we headed over to Kassi's house to have lunch and see what the girls got from Santa. We ate a ton again (notice a pattern, lots of eating) and had a good time getting to know their new German Shepard puppy Dixie. Plus I got to talk to all my family on Christmas. Lots of phone calls and texting with everyone. I'm sad December is just about over. It's been so fun to check the mail everyday and find cards and gifts from everyone. Hope you guys had a great Holiday season!

Tis the Season

Do you love or hate Christmas gifts?  I kinda wish Christmas wasn’t so centered around the gifts. I love buying gifts for other people, especially for my niece LaNea. But sometimes the Holiday season gets a bit stressful and trying to find a last minute gift in the crowded mall can be a nightmare. Ask Jace, last year I nearly had a panic attack in Bath & Body Works. Too many people in a small space! So this year, I rushed to get all my Christmas shopping done early. Now I can sit back and enjoy all the really fun stuff about December. Like coming home to a mailbox full of Christmas cards, Holiday parties with friends, Christmas treats, baking pumpkin or gingerbread treats, skiing, Christmas music, cinnamon candles and watching Elf.

Robyn invited me to join her family for dinner and seeing the lights. We ate at the Lion House with their awesome rolls and honey butter and then walked through Temple Square. Luke & Jake got so excited about all the lights, cracked me up when Luke called the tree a "fire tree". Reminded me of stuff we used to do in high school for date nights. 

Thankful

Thanksgiving is such a great holiday because it always makes me think of the stuff in life that I am most thankful for. I spend a lot of time thinking about all the things that I want and sometimes I forget to remember how much I have. I am grateful for so much but mostly the people in my life! Jace, my family, my friends, my co-workers, my neighbors, everyone! This year my relationships are the thing that I am most thankful for.

We spent Thanksgiving here in Salt Lake. That almost never happens. Normally, we head to St George and spend the day with Jace's family but this year they came up. Kassi, Jace's sister, cooked an awesome Thanksgiving meal. My favorites-the mashed potatoes, homemade strawberry jam on rolls and asparagus! Before dinner, we ran in the Farmington Turkey Trot, a 5k race around the park next to the Udy house. Scott, Wick, Jace and I ran the 5k and Eliza and Naomi ran the 1k. It was such a fun way to spend the morning. Plus you felt a little less guilty about overeating later in the day. After dinner, we saw the new Muppet Movie. So funny! I especially loved all the music, I heard that Jason Segel wrote most of it. 

A few weeks ago, we spent the weekend in Park City with friends. We wanted to have a little getaway from the house stuff. We tried snow shoeing for the first time at Deer Valley. I definitely overdressed! I wore all my ski gear in preparation for the cold but I was sweating by the first 15 minutes. Once we made it to the trail, we had a lot of fun just roaming around. I love staying in Park City during the off season. We were basically the only ones at the resort and had the hot tubs to ourselves every night.