From Engagement to Married!! . . .FLASHBACK

When you are engaged and planning a wedding over the holidays, a lot of craziness goes on. We were engaged during Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Eve. Add on top of those Holidays all the showers and family parties, we just partied for two whole months.
We spent Thanksgiving, the year we were engaged, with Matt's family. This is when I meet most of the extended family on his mom's side. They are party animals. They had so many things planned, it was a riot. The best part about thanksgiving is shoving shaving cream into Matt's face. In the picture, you can see Matt's head and those are my hands. It was a lot of fun.



Shortly before Christmas, Matt's sister Kim came home from her mission in Valencia, Venezuela. We went to the airport to pick her up. This would be the first time that I had met Kim. Matt has four siblings. Kim, whom I met a two weeks before we were married, Jordan, who left 1 month before I met Matt, and then Tony and Braden. Kim and I became good friends fast, and love getting together at family functions.



The weekend that Kim came home from her mission, Matt's extended family on his dad's side got together for their annual Christmas party. We went and this would be were I met the other half of Matt's family. For the entertainment that night, they set Jason and I in the middle (Jason was marrying Matt's cousin the week before we got married) and told us all the BAD things about becoming a CLINGER. It applied more to me since my last name was changing and Justin's wouldn't, but it was quite the welcome to the family.



I was given about 4 or 5 showers. One was by Matt's aunts and cousins. They had a great time dressing me up. After this shower, I took Matt outside to the car to show him all things we were given. While I was doing so I looked up to see a cow on Matt's front lawn. I immediately grabbed the camera and started taking pictures.

Matt just stared at me and asked what I was doing. Apparently, in Idaho if a cow wonders into your yard, it is just an everyday occurrence. For me, I don't really see that sort of thing happen in downtown Salt Lake. Guess that is how you can tell that I am a city girl.



This shower was given by the ladies in the ward that I grew up in. It was very nice of them to through us a shower.



The day before we got married, my brother Cameron and his family flew in for the wedding. This was the first time that Matt had met him. We went and ate at the Red Iguana and just spent the day playing around.

We're engaged . . What?!!! FLASHBACK!!!

So Matt and I had been officially dating (i.e. boyfriend/girlfriend) for a about a week, when we went up to Idaho for his cousin's mission farewell. This is an event that you would think is quite harmless. I had been to Matt's house 2 times before this so I didn't think much about it. We went up and after church went over to his Aunt Tina's house. While there I was introduced to Matt's Grandma Ila and other family members that I hadn't yet met. We had been hanging out for about 30 minutes when Matt and I separated. I went to get a drink refill and upon making my way back to Matt, I ran into Matt's dad, Dallas, and his uncle. Dallas introduced me as Matt's fiance. I about freaked, I had just decided that I was ok with the title Girlfriend, were did fiance come from. Dallas was obviously joking around, but I don't know if he realizes what he started. After that event and Matt and I were driving home I brought up his dad's joke. The response I got was also odd. Matt didn't freak out, he didn't propose but he didn't freak out.

Over the next week the wheels began to turn in our heads, and we started looking at whether or not marriage was possible. We talked, I went to the temple a few times, we had many late night conversations, and spent a day or two apart to gain perspective. Our answer came a lot quicker than I think that we had anticipated. One night after Matt had gone to the temple he came back to my house and took me out to dinner. We went out to eat at Robintinos in Salt Lake. I was as sick as a dog, but was anxious to know what he was thinking. He was silent most of the meal. But that could easily be because I couldn't stop coughing and sneezing. Matt took me back to my house, and while we were sitting around, Matt simply said, "Why don't we get married?" That was all I needed. I was excited and we called our parents that night.

Matt let me come and pick out the ring, and about a month before we were to get married, he came over to my house to give it to me. Matt had continually been telling me that there was a problem and that it would be another few weeks until the ring came. So when he came to my house that night I didn't quite expect to get it. I was laying down getting ready to take a nap, before I went to work the graveyard shift at the University Neuropsychiatric Institute. Matt showed up to see me before I left and sat next to me to chat about me day at work. I was telling him a story about a boy that I worked with that was about 8 years old. Earlier that day, the little boy announced to all of his friends that I was his new girlfriend, Brittany Spears, and that we were getting married. I told the little boy that I was already engaged to someone else. The little boy asked were my ring was. Matt took this as an opportunity since we were on the marriage subject (kind of) to propose. He asked how disappointed this little boy would be if I showed up the next day wearing a ring. At that point he pulled it out and gave it to me. I remember that I was so excited, that I just kept staring at it all night long at work. If I ever felt drowsy around 2 or 3 in the morning I would just hold the ring up to my face and get all flustered with excitement again.

Sunny Days, Sweeping the Clouds Away!!!

We started the morning at trying to wake up. Matt came out to find us on the couch huddled up together. We had planned to meet Nana and the cousins at Discovery Gateway around 10:00 making it a must to finally wake-up. This is also how we ended our night, back on the couch, in a huddle.



The Discovery Gateway had a special exhibit of Sesame Street. It was all I could do to snap this picture because the kids had so many friends on Sesame Street to meet.



Eston was running around like a crazy person. You would have thought that Big Bird and friends had come to life. He would run from one exhibit to the next and each time he would stop long enough to stand next to Big Bird's feet look around and then take off. He was hilarious to watch.



Eventually we stopped at Mr. Hooper's store to play for a while. Eston just enjoyed making a sandwich with Nana and Sammie was excited to be able to scan everyone's groceries and ring them up at the cash register.



After the Sesame Street exhibit we went to see the rest of the museum. We spent about 45 minutes there until we decided it was lunch time and that we should go home for naps. We went back later that night with Matt and stayed for about 3 hours. Eston has proved he is a boy by how much he is in love with construction, (we can put the princess dresses away.) He was so excited to be building with the huge blocks and to send them down the big tube. Sammie thought it was so cool that she could actually ride a horse that wouldn't move.




We had a ton of fun and look forward to doing it again next year sometime. (It costs an arm and a leg to go in to this place.)