Missionary Fun!

    Somehow the Sister Missionaries had Jared's name written down for exchanges last night. We aren't quite sure how it happened, but we are SO glad it did!

    The Sisters are so sweet and they texted me yesterday afternoon asking for Jared's number because he said he would go on exchanges with them that night. I laughed and gave them his number, thinking he'd be out and I would stay home. But nope! Jared said I was going with them.

    The first and last time I remember going out with sister missionaries was not the best experience. They were Spanish-speaking and I only went because they were teaching a friend of mine and he told them I would give them a ride. They spoke Spanish the whole time except for when they asked me to bear my testimony on the spot. That's not my kind of thing...

    But this time was so great! Jared and I had enough time to eat dinner before we met up with the Sisters to go visit/teach this lady. We got a quick background on her and learned she is very smart and knows her stuff. I got nervous, because I honestly don't know a lot of stuff...

    We got to her house and it was so great. The lady has met with missionaries before, but she had been out of town. She wanted to ask the Sisters some questions to clarify what she was reading. Her major in school was Religious Studies, so she knows her stuff and her Bible. She asked about the chronological timeline in relation to the Bible. I had no idea....but the Sisters were amazing and answered her question with no problem.

    Anyhow, all in all, I think it went great. Even though it might have just been an academic visit, the spirit was there, I learned stuff and we answered her questions.

    When it was over, Jared and I thought it would be silly to follow the Sisters as a little joke, to see where they were going and if it led us back to a main road and out of the neighborhood. Turns out, they were heading to a couple they like to visit. I'm so bad at remembering faces, so I think I have seen them at church, but I'm not sure. Lately, it's been hard for them to get to church now that she is going through terrible morning sickness, but I am so excited to see the couple again! They seem really great.

    It was so nice to meet them and I think it was a fun visit. Sister Valentine just shared a quick message and left the couple some homework for the week. :) Sister Franson has such a sweet testimony and they both are such great Sisters.

    Jared and I are wanting to go out more with them, especially if they go back and teach the first lady. We hope the couple will come back to church. We'll make sure to look out for them so they don't sit by themselves.

    Last night was such a great missionary experience and I am so excited to have more. I even created a mormon.org profile and it was approved, thank goodness! For some reason I was worried they would think my responses were blasphemous! I keep changing them every now and then when I think of something I would like to add.

    The link to my page is: Mormon.org and I would love for ya'll to check it out. Please offer ideas and help me make this a missionary tool!

One Year Down!

    Jared and I celebrated our first year anniversary and it was so great! We got to spend the whole weekend together and had so much fun!

    Friday night we got ourselves a Papa John's pizza (so delicious) and we split it the way we normally do. My half of the pizza has pepperoni, canadian bacon and pineapple. Jared gets pepperoni, peppers and onions. We have very different tastes sometimes :)

    We also watched a movie that night, Jared's pick. We watched E.T. I'm not a big alien fan, but there were some funny parts. I didn't pay attention to anything really than the funny parts...I'm not a movie critic :)

    I made Jared go to bed early so I could decorate the apartment and I secretly wrote him a little note on a card I got without him knowing :) I'm so cute. When I got the card I also got streamers (pink and blue) like our wedding colors and I put them all over the place. 

 In the kitchen...

The living room was an obstacle course :) Either crawl under all of it, or go over and under 

    Jared liked the streamers. I also put one of his mugs in the freezer so it would be nice and chilled when I gave it to him in the morning. 

    He woke up super early Saturday morning (early compared to me). He went out and got me flowers and he wrote me a wonderful little note and hid it behind lots of files. So I clicked on documents, opened the file: OPEN THIS FOLDER STEPHANIE to open the next file: JARED to open: LOVES to open: STEPHANIE to open: YES!!!!!!!! to open: HAPPY 1ST ANNIVERSARY! to open a PDF file of a sweet note from the best husband ever! He also went out and got me a treat for the movie we would see later. I got one for him, but didn't get one for me. He thought it would be fair for us both to have a treat.

    Then Jared made cinnamon rolls, which were yummy and we had a good morning getting ready for our temple trip! We weren't going until noon, so I had time to quickly made potato salad for our picnic we had planned for Sunday. We decided it would be fun to do sealings, seeing as how we were sealed a year go. Seemed perfect! Such a great experience. 

    We took some fun pictures outside the temple!

 Jared is so cute!

 We're kinda cute sometimes. I'm SO proud of myself for getting Moroni up in the background!

 Pink flowers behind us!

Up close on cuteness!

    For lunch (because I was starving) we went to McAlisters and had a fun time! With our extra time to spare, I thought it would be good to go to the movie theater so we could buy tickets for Harry Potter 7 before they sold out, if they would. We were an hour early, got the tickets and hung out outside for a little bit. That was before I realized I didn't have my wallet in my purse...

    I freaked out and we looked all over for it. I asked the theater workers and it hadn't been returned! I'm cursing the world for the awful generations to come that steal wallets. It was a Saturday, so all the banks were closed and there was no way to call and cancel my cards before someone went on a spending spree!

    But the people were so nice and remembered we bought the tickets and believed I had honestly lost my wallet. I cried before the movie started because I am SUCH A HUGE BABY. 

    The movie was good and really fun. I'm glad the series had a good ending. When it was over we decided to try one more time to see if my wallet was returned. As we walked up to the person we talked to before, she left for a split second and came back with something familiar looking in her hand. 

    Someone was great enough to return my wallet! Oh my heck I was so happy and Jared was happy that I wasn't wanting to cry anymore! It would have been such a huge weekend spoiler for me to have lost my wallet. 

    Anyhow, we got home and I felt so much better. I decided I wanted my presents and Jared gave in. He got it all ready and came out with a little box in his hand. The only clue he gave me as to what it was was that I gave him the idea before. I remembered I said I wanted earrings, so I totally thought that's what was in the box. 

    I was half right :) I opened the nice box with the ribbon on top and found some super cute earrings! Only they weren't just earrings, they were gnome earrings! Now I can have two cute gnomes with me every day I wear them!

    That wasn't the only part of the present though. Like how Jared proposed, the real present was in his pocket. He got me a beautiful wedding band that matches my engagement ring perfectly! I couldn't get any good pictures, but it is absolutely beautiful and it makes my finger Blingin'!

    After that, we tried on our wedding outfits again :) I still fit in my dress the same way as a year ago. I had my hair curly like that day too, only my hair isn't as long as it was then. Jared put his cute pocket square and tie on!

 I still fit

    It was such an awesome first anniversary! And we made the whole weekend out of it. 

    Sunday we missed church (Whoops) and got ready for our super fun picnic! We had been planning it for weeks. I cut up the pineapple, steak, chicken, green bell peppers, got the bacon, the bbq chips, the potato salad, bbq sauce and A1 sauce, cinnamon, skewers, lighter fluid and we hit the road. Our charcoal is always in the trunk. 

    We went to Percy Priest's Lake and it was so great! We didn't go swimming, but we went to the picnic area and learned we can go canoeing for only $5 an hour! Heck yes!

    The food was so good. Jared did a great job with cooking them. The pineapple was soooo good grilled with just the cinnamon on it. We got so full so quickly. The potato salad was really good too. I got the ingredients from Laura, Jared's mom, so I'm glad it all worked out. 

Pictures:

 I tore the head off the pineapple with my bare hands!

 Good salad

 Shish kabobs off skewer

 Putting the pineapple on the grill

 So yummy looking

We were so full!

    We got home and relaxed and waited for our tummies to not be so full. When we finally got our tummies good, Jared melted some chocolate and dipped strawberries and pineapple in it! Yum Yum!!

So delicious!

    Monday was nice. When we both were up, we just had a nice time relaxing. Jared had the great idea to go out to the pool. The water felt good and we tried to tan for a little bit. But some losers came by us and started smoking, which made me want to leave. Even in the water, the smoke still got to me. 

    I started to get hungry, so we went to El Tapetio! Hooray Mexican food! We went to Mexico for our honeymoon and I didn't eat anything authentic, so Jared appreciates me liking this. And I love it! We have enough to fill us for two meals!

    Later, we went out and bought some new flowers for outside to hang above our patio. Since the bird made the nest, our flowers before died...I wanted something pretty outside. We got some very nice purplish ones, which we love. 

    Laura sent us some gift cards and a fun little card. Even though we had food left over, we thought it would be good to use one of them. We decided to go to Applebee's and get an appetizer and a dessert. Jared remembered liking the wings, so we got those, half hot half mild with sides of ranch (hooray!) and we got the triple chocolate cake. I tried the kiwi lemonade, which was pretty good, not great. The wings weren't all that great and the cake was nothing extraordinary. It was a good meal though. 

    When we got home, the Sister Missionaries dropped by! They said they were in the neighborhood and decided to drop by, but we secretly think it was them checking up on us because we missed church. They are so funny and stayed for a few minutes and we just talked and hung out. They are absolutely amazing and it makes me want to miss church  more if it means they'll drop by!

    The rest of the night was just relaxing. Nothing too big. We went to bed at a decent hour because we both had to return to work the next day. 

    Such a great weekend and a great first year of marriage! It's amazing how it doesn't even feel like a year. We're just living life and we love it!

    We appreciate all the love and support from our family and friends! We are so happy to be married and we love that it's for eternity! Hooray an eternity of great anniversaries just like this one!!!

  

All Before Noon

    Jared couldn't today off for an early vacation, but I did and took full advantage of my day off. I had a list of a couple errands I needed to run, and I was thinking they would take some time. But what the heck, I have tons of time!

    To have the car today, I dropped Jared off work after calling Firestone to see if they had time today to change our car's oil. They totally did, so that was my first stop.

    Firestone happens to be in the parking lot of Wal-mart, so I parked, had them take possession of the car and I started grocery shopping. I had to drag out the shopping for an hour because Firestone got a little backed up, but that's OK!

    I got everything on my list that I wanted from Wal-mart, headed back to get the car and had to wait a few minutes for them to give it back. Before, I had asked them to take off our license plates because they were stuck on. Jared and I tried getting it off, but one of the washers (whatever) was stuck and we needed help. Well, the guys forgot, but were more than happy to do it when I asked them again. Free of charge.

    Because I bought milk and things that needed to be put in the fridge, I came home and unloaded the car, only to go out again to Krogers. My Mom told me that sometimes they have better prices than Wal-mart on certain things, so I had Jared get the ads last night so I could plan what I wanted.

    A quick trip in Krogers and I had everything I needed.

    Laundry is about to be started and it's all before noon!

    Groceries only cost $40 and that was with us buying big items, like steaks, for our anniversary picnic! This may have sparked my new hobby of couponing!

    What a great day to just relax the rest of the afternoon after just a few trips to switch and fetch the laundry. To think, back in college I would sleep til about noon and now I'm getting everything done before then. Crazy!

Almost A Year

    I almost can't believe that Jared and I have been married almost a whole year. Our anniversary is July 23, this Saturday and we are so excited!

    People have commented (outside the mormon circle) that Jared and I got married really young and after only a short period of dating. That may be true, but we have been SO happy because of it!

    The first little bit was a little stressful with figuring out internships and where we would live. It seemed like every time we moved, we were starting over with our marriage, which was totally fine.

    Now that we have been on our own for about 7 months, it feels like we have only been married that long! But it's true, we have been married practically one full year! And if this one has gone by so quickly, I feel like I'll be saying the same thing when we celebrate 5 or even 10 years together!

    And one of my best friends, Rachel, is getting married in August which brings all the fun feelings for me back! I also remember some stressful ones, but all in all, getting ready for my wedding with Jared was so great. I hope she has such a great wedding and I hope she is getting excited for all the fun things ahead!

    Jared and I went shopping the other day for our anniversary presents. This year, they aren't too big, but they will be fun and have meaning. He already knows what one of his presents are, I bought them right in front of him and made sure they were what he wanted.

    For a few months he has been wanting mugs for his rootbeer. He loves Cracker Barrel with their frozen mugs and he wants to do them for himself some days. So I looked online and found what store had good ones. A nice lady in Bed Bath and Beyond helped us find what I was looking for and Jared seems very happy!

    I have no idea what I am getting, but I know my little gifts are under the bed, right now! I'm doing very well at not peaking, as long as Jared doesn't check our transaction history with our online banking. :)

    We have so many fun things plan for the weekend, we hope we can do them all. We will be going to see Harry Potter and we hope to have a little picnic. If it doesn't rain, we will shish-ka-bobs with potato salad (Jared's Mom's recipe), bbp chips and corn on the cob.

    This weekend will be a blast! We'll make sure to get pictures of the fun things, like the picnic and maybe us playing out in the rain :)

Sunday Hike

    Jared had a great idea to go up the Natchez Trace on Sunday and look for a fun place to picnic and hike for our anniversary weekend. 

    We may never agree on how to pronounce the trace, so ya'll can call it what you want. I say Natchez as if the "a" was the same in gnat. So Gnat-chez. Jared says the "a" as knot. So Knot-chez. We've both agreed to just let the other person say it how they want :)

    Even though we didn't find a waterfall or creek or anything, we had a fun time driving part of the trace and we even stopped for a little hike! 

    There was a rest stop that had "creek" in it's name so we thought we'd check it out and saw a sign giving directions to a look out area that was only a half mile hike. We thought we'd check it out and began our journey. 

    Our outfits: I was in jeans, a tank top and a little sweater thingy. Jared was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, so he was more prepared. But we both wore flip flops, not thinking we would actually go hiking. Hahaha next time we'll be more prepared!

    The hike was pretty fun. Not too bad, but I was happy to have brought a water bottle with me! The lookout wasn't anything too impressive because some big trees were growing and blocked most of the view. 

What you see behind us is pretty much all we could see :)

    We took a couple pictures on the way back because it is just BEAUTIFUL back there in the woods. 

 Jared is such cute stuff and the blue shirt looks nice amidst all the green :)

 Just beautiful scenery!

By the end I was dying! (And if I didn't know 100% that I was sticking out my stomach, I'd think I was gaining weight!)

    We had a great time and think it'll be great when we go hiking in in the fall. Hopefully it'll cool down so we can enjoy hiking more! I'll start working out a little bit so I can get back into shape! Thinking back to BYU days and having to climb the stairs on the south side of campus and the RB stairs of pain, I have no idea how I did it!

My Reviews

    So with Netflix, Jared and I are able to watch lots of TV shows from the first season to determine if we even like them. 

    We've watched shows like Parks and Recreation, Bones, 24 and many more. My mom came for the fourth of July weekend and introduced us to a new show, which we know love. 

    Flashpoint - this is a cool show about a team of people who respond to situations that involve negotiating. Like hostage situations. Jared and I really enjoy watching it, even though it is sometimes sad/depressing at the end. There is not a happy ending every time. But my Mom got us into it and we think we'll keep watching. 

    Parks and Recreation - we finished the seasons on Netflix and can't wait for the next season to be put up! We absolutely love it and will sometimes watch re-runs or talk about episodes we thought were so funny. 

    24 - it was a fun show, but we kept getting in trouble of staying up too late watching it. The hours always seem so short, so you want to watch the next episode as soon as one ends. Jack Bauer pretty much rocks. There are always a few characters though that we greatly dislike and often told Jack to just shoot the person...

    Bones - I love Bones, Jared doesn't really care for it. I think it is funny and entertaining and I learn things sometimes. I finished the seasons way faster than I wanted and I want the latest one to be put up so I can watch the first few episodes. 

    Monk - Jared has gotten into Monk and he really likes it. It's fun watching it from the beginning, but I've already seen some of the later season episodes, so I just watch to learn more about Monk. 

    American Pickers - This is about two guys who travel all over an area pretty much looking for other people's junk to sell. They find antique items in garages in backyards and buy them from the owners. It's fun to see what they find. Sometimes they buy something they think will be worth a lot when they sell it, but it ends up just being junk! That's fun.

    Arrested Development - What a funny show! Such a crazy family and their drama just cracks Jared and I up (well, I mostly crack up). 

    Lie To Me - We pretty much finished all we could with this show, as far as Netflix goes. It's about a guy who can tell by your face and mannerisms if you are lying or not. Human lie detector pretty much. He is hired to solve cases because he can get the whole truth from people, whether they like it or not. 

    These are all the shows I can think of. If I missed something, I'm sure Jared will tell me and I can put it in another post later on.

    We love our TV shows! Netflix is great for us!

Fourth of July! (recap)

    My mom came out for the weekend and it was AWESOME!!

    She got me the greatest present!! I have a strange love for gnomes that started in high school and I am working on collecting them...somehow...

We haven't named him yet. But if you can't tell, he's holding a football! We thought about naming him Jimmer, but that won't work with the wrong sport's ball...

    Saturday we went out to eat at Martin's BBQ Joint and it was soooo yummy! Jared and I had been before, but it was just as yummy the second time. I got the pulled pork, Jared got the ribs and Mom got the smoked turkey.

    Sunday was fun at church and the cookout we had went well! It was picnic style. We cut up half the delicious watermelon, got chips, defrosted the hamburger and got the cooler full of stuff to take to Pinkerton Park.

 This was our table. From the left over, there is a jug of water, ketchup, bbq sauce, container of corn, bowl of watermelon, my half eaten cob of corn, salt, pepper, butter for the corn. At the right, just out of the photo is a bag of lay chips.

    Jared made the best burgers! It was his first time grilling them outside and he did such a great job!

    The rest of the night was relaxing and we just had a good time together. We were full from dinner and decided to take a fun walk around the agricultural center to work off the food.

    On the fourth, we made an amazing breakfast! We had waffles, bacon and eggs. But the toppings for the waffles was what made it great! We had whipped cream, blue berries and strawberries! So they were red, white, and blue!

 This was my delicious blob :)

Jared made a flag. What a cutie!

    After a trip to Walmart to fill our cupboards and fridge and freezer and build our food storage and get a home improvement gift, we went to the mall!

Hooray a full fridge!!

Mom got us a table! Now we can have our cooler in storage. The table matches our other furniture perfectly and it looks great!!

    The Mall at Green Hills was pretty fun, not much I could afford, but there were some fun sales. Mom got some stuff for James because she's great.

    It was such a fun weekend. I absolutely love my Mom and I can't wait for her to come back again. It'll be even more fun if she can get the rest of the fam to come! James would have fun chillin by the pool and we would have fun eating out at cool places.