Week 19

So we've had a very interesting time here for the last couple of months.  Yes, Daily is 4 and 1/2 months pregnant and the baby is the right size. (Almost the size of an artichoke!).  Daily just isn't showing that much, but she is showing.  She still looks beautiful, and will continue to do so.

The baby is growing

 August 15th- 4 weeks

September 1st- 6 weeks

September 11th- 8 weeks

October 10th- 12 weeks 

3 o'clock in the Afternoon

So Daily and Stuart had a great date today when they decided to write a little short story together. They had some story cubes laying around and decided to roll the dice and write a story from there. We hope you like it!

3 o'clock in the Afternoon

Ellie looked at her phone and realized that her alarm was going off.  She did not know why she had set an alarm to go off at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, but she was determined to go and find out.

            Heading out her back door, she turned the lock and started towards her car. She realized, however, that her keys were still sitting on her dining room table. Luckily, her neighbor had a spare set. Maddie was a young girl, about Ellie’s age, and while they weren’t necessarily “friends” by the normal definition, she was the closest Ellie had come to making friends in the few short months that Ellie had been living in Seattle.

            Ellie entered through the back gate of the small condo, hopping over the large irrigation ditch that separated the two apartment sidewalks.  It wasn’t a big deal to do it; she had seen the neighborhood boys do it plenty of times.  There was a slight problem, she just happened to enter the wrong gate and was completely unaware of where she was.  She heard a yelp of a large dog, who she had surprised.  Ellie’s heart sank, what would the dog do?  Would it run up and bite her?  Or would it maybe just growl at her menacingly?  These thoughts raced through her head when she realized that the dog was looking at her quizzically, and not in a threatening way.  She said, “good boy,” to not make it decide to change it’s mind.  Just them she saw the dog’s owner walk up to their sliding door.

            “Hey, what are you doing?!” yelled the owner. He looked as if he had just gotten out of bed and was a little disgruntled at having been woken up by a girl in his back yard.

            “I was just wondering why my alarm was going off,” came Ellie’s reply. Sometimes honesty is the best policy and other times it makes you seem delirious. This was definitely the latter situation.

            The man cracked a smile. “You’re trying to figure out why you alarm is going off, so you decided to sneak into my back yard and make friends with my dog?” Ellie felt her cheeks get red. It did sound a little ridiculous, but it was the truth.

            “Could I just use your phone? I need to see if my friend can get my spare set of keys to me.” The man turned abruptly and walked back into the house. Ellie took this as an invitation to follow him. As she entered the house, she was intrigued with the wide array of guns and workout equipment that was scattered throughout.

            As the man grabbed his phone, he said, “Don’t look so freaked out. I’m in the Army. I just got back from training yesterday.” He stopped and smiled, “I bet you couldn’t do five pull-ups on the bar over there.”

            Ellie laughed, “You’re probably right. I think I didn’t do much of that in high school. I was more into basketball”

            “Well here you go, try not to get distracted about catching butterflies or something like that princess.” He said amusingly.

            “What did you just call me?” Ellie snapped.  She dropped the phone and marched straight up to him without putting it back on the receiver.  “I’ll have you know that while I don’t have much in upper body strength, I am an excellent runner and I can run five times further than anything you have ever done in the Army!”

            Besides, I could just have Gregory come and compete against you. It had been a few days since her and her friend Gregory had talked. He was living in New York now, working as a business executive. He probably didn’t have time for his old high school pal anymore.

            “Ellie, is that you?” Suddenly, back to reality, Ellie remembered that she had dialed Maddie’s number.

            “Oh, hi Maddie. Yes, it’s me. I was just wondering if you had my spare key?” Ellie twirled the phone cord on her finger, twisting it every which way.

            “ I do,” replied Maddie, “I’ll bring it over to you in just a minute.”

            “Thanks so much. See you soon.” Ellie set down the receiver, strangely aware that the Army man was sitting at the kitchen table listening intently to the conversation.

            “Thank you for letting me use your phone.” Ellie said, gathering her purse.

            “Not a problem. Next time, though, you can come through the front door like everyone else.” The man chuckled, bringing a small wrinkle to the space around the corner of his lips.

            The man held the back door for Ellie, “Hey,” he said nervously, “I’m new to the area and some people from my work are going to go up the canyon and build a fire tonight. I don’t mean to seem weird, but I noticed that you seem to be new to the area too. Would you like to come along? They are really nice people.”

            Inside, Ellie laughed. She really was a large crowd kind of person. But, this young man seemed kind and didn’t make her nervous like most people.

            “If I can figure out why my alarm is going off, I’d love to come.” The man smiled.

            “Well, if you’d like some help with that I’m terribly bored and really don’t want to finish unpacking.”

            “Fine with me,” Ellie said, so they both went out the door into the sunlight.  Ellie decided that the first thing to do was to go home and wait for Maddie to get there with her keys.  They got there soon enough, but the door was locked and Maddie had the keys. Ellie was getting really frustrated; Maddie said that she would be there in a few minutes.

            “What now?” the Army man said. “Is there a spare key somewhere that we can use?  Oh yeah, your friend.  Should we just go by her place?”

            This was a good idea, Maddie was one of those people who forgot what day of the week it was.  So she probably forgot to bring her keys already.  “Yeah let’s go to her place, she’s obviously there since she picked up her phone.” It took a minute for them to walk there, and during that time Ellie found out that the Army man’s name was not Army man, but Jeff.  Jeff had lived out in Virginia for most of his life and had moved here to start a new life being independent.

            So they arrived at Maddie’s house and rang the doorbell.  No one answered.  She rang again, and still nothing.  She knocked again a third time and still nothing.  Finally she knocked on the door and immediately realized that the door was ajar.  “I think someone’s in there, you go in first.”

            Jeff pumped his chest and flexed his muscles and dove inside without another word.  The lights suddenly turned on as if a match was struck.  There was a loud “SURPRISE!!!” and then silence, and then a loud scream.

            Ellie timidly poked her head into the house, and then quickly burst in at the sight of her parents, siblings, co-workers, and, of course, Maddie.

            Oblivious now to the strange stares still coming from the majority of those present, Ellie wrapped her arms around her mother who inquired as to who the “strange young man with the gorilla-like grunt” was.

            “Oh,” said Ellie, returning to the situation-at-hand, “this is Jeff. He was helping me figure out why my alarm was going off. It turns out I was supposed to meet Maddie for lunch. Apparently, she had other ideas.” Turning quickly to face Maddie, Ellie inquired, “How did you know today was my birthday? I haven’t told a soul- well, except for my family.”

            “Well, your mother got ahold of your phone one day and looked through the people you have called and I was at the top of the list for the past few months since you lived here.  And we got things planning from there.” She looked up to Jeff.  “I guess we all know why you’re late now,” she snickered.

            Just you wait!”  Ellie yelled.  “I’ll get you back for this someday!”

Crossing Paths

So we've been talking about how we met and we always have a lot of fun discussing it.  But the thing is, the more we talk, the more we realize that before we met we had crossed paths many times before. We look at each other after we realize that we crossed paths on certain occasions and we just start to laugh out loud. There have been many times, even before we both made it up to Utah State.

1. Nauvoo (2002). We aren't completely sure if we were there at the exact same time, but we were pretty close. Before temples are dedicated, newly constructed temples are open to the public. Daily was 12 and traveled from Georgia with her family to take a tour of the temple. She especially loved the spiral staircase. Stuart was there in April with his family when they went on a huge month long tour of church history and colonial US history.  At the time the temple was not open to the public, so we were a little disappointed.  It would be another month or two when that would happen, when Daily would be there.

2.  Logan Institute (August 2013). This is where we began to cross paths more often, since this is when we were both at Utah State. We once went to the same ward for one sunday in Bishop Jensen's ward, Daily's parents were there as well. This is the ward where I would stay at for the next year, while Daily realized that she belonged to another ward, the ward Stuart had attended in the summer (there are a lot of wards in Utah!). Daily was there for her first Sunday in Logan. First Sundays are more terrifying that the first day of school. There's always that lingering question- Am I going to end up dating anyone in this ward? Yep, turns out she would. 

3. Village Inn (August 2013). Early in the semester, August 16th according to our phones, a big group of people got together and went to Village Inn for pie Wednesday. Daily cannot remember a lot about that night, only that she sat with a group of people and talked about dating and all the stressors that came with it. That was a pretty fun conversation. As for the pie, Daily is sure it was delicious. Pie is now one of Stuart and Daily's favorite treats. Stuart went there as a sort of late birthday dinner with one of his new found friends. Had he known that Daily was somewhere in the crowd, he may have freaked out a bit, but this was a day to get a free slice of pie.  That was exciting too.

Stuart and David at Village Inn

4. Creekside (September 2013). So Stuart had made friends with someone named Ryan, and he was known as someone who threw lots of parties to get people to socialize with each other. Ryan invited him to come to a party in the parking lot of this apartment complex. Stuart really isn't one for parties, but he came anyway and began socializing with a friend of Daily's named Teresa. He got Teresa's number and soon left the party. On that note, when Stuart and Daily were supposed to go on their first date, Daily told Teresa about him and Teresa laughed and said, "He got my number at a party and never called me back." The good news is, that actually eased Daily's fears because she had met guys who were very eager and that was scary- Stuart was just the right balance of eagerness and space. When I went to the party, I didn't really know anyone. It had been announced in one of the church meetings, probably ward prayer. There was a little bit of dancing, which Daily enjoyed but, as usual, being social was not a big thing for her. She left soon after it started. 

That's all we can come up with at the moment, but we swear there are more occasions where we crossed paths.  These four will have to do for now

MARCHing through springtime

What a great month this was! The month of March was a really great one to be sure, and we did so much that we forgot about what we did until we looked at our photos that we took. We had spring break, Taylor came to visit, we went hiking, and we're preparing for graduation soon. Not in that order mind you, that's just the things that came to our minds in that order.

 First of all Taylor came to visit us and get more acquainted with his new sister-in-law. It was great having him over and spending time with him. Stuart has four younger brothers so it's hard to get everyone together to do something.We took him out to Sizzler and got steaks and everything.

While Taylor was here, we took him on a tour of campus. We walk this campus every day and yet our feet hurt a lot more this time! We aren't true Aggies, but we are Aggie blue.

So for spring break we did the most exciting thing we could think of doing, going to Idaho state and checking out their speech pathology program... Yeah it was a bust. BUT we did have some fun touring campus and we even ran into this huge institute building on campus that was pretty nice to walk through and everything. We know Daily's mom would love it if we took a picture of it so here it is.

 We took another photo at the University sign here just to prove that we went there.

In compliance with our official "church-nerdiness" we visited two temples on our trip: the Rexburg Temple and the Idaho Falls temple. Fun fact: Daily always dreamt of being married in the Idaho Falls temple.

We ended our trip through Idaho and came back in time for the graduation fair that was going on on campus the week after spring break. Stuart got his cap and gown and received a little something extra, a medal from the college of Humanities and Social Sciences. It's pretty cool and you can see him holding it up here along with his cap.

We were definitely blessed to rest up during spring break. Now that we are back in school everything is going so fast and we're lucky to keep up. The end is in sight, and there is a light at the end of the tunnel. 

Gracious scavenging

This week we went on a picture scavenger hunt in order to find things that we are grateful for.  We went to Kohl's and Bed Bath and Beyond because they were right next to each other and they were nicer retail stores than Walmart. Smaller too, which became a bit of a problem when the employees started noticing that we were going from one end of the store to the other with no obvious intentions of purchasing a thing. We got a big list of things we needed to look for, nothing really specific, so we had to be creative with our choices of things to be thankful for.

Something in color- Easter decorations

 Something in nature- the ocean

 In the city- clocks

 In the park-benches (we spent a lot of time sitting on park benches when we were dating. Grateful for those special memories!)

 Something that is soft- it's a blanket, they're nice and soft.

 Something Hard- It was supposed to be a piano, but we couldn't find one, so we went with headphones, that have music in them.

 Something in my closet- This is supposed to be representative of my temple bag.

 With Texture- Stuart's face before it's shaved.

 In my Kitchen- Food, the picture on that box.

 In the Weather- Sunshine!

 In Black and White- A suit.

 In the workforce- Secretaries

 With words on it- Stuart liked it because it's how he feels about Daily.

 That Entertains Me- The movie Frozen

 That is Unique to me- Stuart is getting his diploma very soon!

 In the Retail Industry- All of the random things that keep Daily entertained in the grocery store. 

 In my neighborhood- trees and flowers (We are so anxious for Spring!)

 That keeps me warm- Stuart keeps Daily warm.

 That makes me cough... I mean, laugh- Puppies

 In regards to the holidays- lights, the twinkling kind that look like stars, although an Ihome will do for a scavenger hunt. 

 In the month of November- Football 

 That makes my life easier- Kitchen aid

 That reminds me of friends- Grilling

 That is indicative of my city- We live in Utah... remind me again why we live in Utah? I guess we had to meet somehow...

 Represents my country- Hamburgers

 In your house- a mop

 Gets me from here to there- Our feet!

Keeps me healthy and strong- Brownie brittle, for mental health. 

What a great date, and with a fun treat of frozen yogurt afterwards, life was complete. 

Valentine's Week

We really enjoyed Valentine's this year. With it being our first Valentine's as a married couple, we made it nice and special by celebrating the whole week. There were little treats throughout the week and fun activities to do together. One of our activities was to go to Cold stone creamery. What a treat!

 We celebrated actual Valentine's day by going to the temple together. It was a very special experience that we had.  It is always a very spiritual time that we have and we wouldn't trade it for anything. We've decided to make it another one of our Valentine traditions.

 So we went to go see the 5 Browns in concert on Valentine's Day! It was so amazing and we loved every second of it.  Stuart loved the opening numbers of the Planets by Gustav Holst.  Not all of it was there, just Mars, Neptune, and Jupiter, the three best ones in Stuart's opinion.  He also liked "Toccatina" by Nikolai Kapustin. It was about using every finger you had on the piano and going at the speed of light as well, it was very very fast. Daily enjoyed "Clair de Lune" and "Noturn in C Minor". (She printed off the music this morning... we'll see if it actually gets into her repertoire).

You know you're an adult when you plan your trip around buying gas and food for the trip. Brigham City had cheap gas, and we stopped off to grab a soda and candy bar on the way home. After a wonderful dinner at Sonic's (this wasn't the original plan, but Winger's was packed), we were pretty sure our bodies would hate us anyways, so we "spoiled" ourselves. It was worth it.

Very soon we'll be writing in the family letter that Stuart's family has been doing ever since 1979. Not that he wrote in it back then, it was done by his mother's parents and they have insisted that all grandchildren had to start writing in it once they got married.  Well that time has come.

We can't wait to write again blogging more about our adventures.

182.5 days later

Well what do you know?  Six months have gone by since we've been married!  Can you believe it?  We can.  Do we really believe it? Maybe. It's just been such an amazing adventure that keeps on getting better as time goes on.  And we don't see it stopping any time soon either.  Here's to an extra eternity in the future.

Our actual six month anniversary... (monthiversary?)... was on a Sunday, so we opted to celebrate it a couple of days early by going to the Beehive grill. We've been hearing the "buzz" about it for a while. It's a local favorite, located on Main street. Then again, everything in Logan is on Main street.

You'd think we would get tired of each other. Our schedules are such, as students, that we get to see each other multiple times throughout the day. We even get to take an institute class together. But, every time we're together, it's special. We love those time we just get to sit and talk about nothing in particular or really nothing at all. 

Daily got a french dip sandwich and Stuart got to taste it the next day as he was trying to figure out what to eat for lunch.  It was amazing.  Along with the meals we got, there were fries too.  As for Stuart's meal, he got prime rib, which was a little dry.  But the root beer barbecue sauce that came with it was divine.  And by the way... did you know that the Beehive grill has its own craft root beer?  We do now, and it was amazing as well.  We recommend getting it whenever you may go there next.

In conjunction with the dinner, Daily had been working on a special present. 435 jelly beans for the 435 days that we had known one another.

It all seems so fast, and yet there are so many memories that have happened in the last year and few months. These last few months, especially, have been chalked-full of special memories that we won't forget. Even if we get too old to remember, we've written a bunch of them down... just in case.

6 months

Date night at the Bluebird

This week we finally went to the Bluebird! We pass this restaurant often, and the enchantment finally got to us. It's a little soda and ice cream parlor, along with candies and a restaurant. You see, we had a date planned for Saturday- ice skating. However, something just feels wrong about being a newlywed couple and not doing  something on Friday night.

The week was overall a very uneventful one, mostly filled with schoolwork and work work.  Things got better as the weekend arrived and we decided to do something.  We were going to see the Antics comedy show, but we found out a few hours before we left that they had cancelled their show.  So we sat staring at the wall for a few minutes as we realized that we didn't know what to do with our night.  That's when we decided to go over to the blue bird restaurant over on main street.  It was a late night already (8pm) and we had already eaten dinner.  So we decided to go over there and get some soda and ice cream. Of course, it makes sense to eat ice cream when it is literally freezing outside... we are turning into true Utahans!

When we arrived at the restaurant we got to sit down on bar stools, and watch as the waitress prepared the ice cream and soda orders.

Stuart ordered a Vanilla Cream Soda and Daily got a chocolate sundae. We knew we would pay for this later... our digestive systems don't like it when we eat past seven. The perks of getting older.

The way they prepared the Vanilla Cream Soda was interesting.  They took some regular run of the mill Sprite and added vanilla syrup and heavy whipping cream.  It was fantastic! Stuart could have gone with another cup if he wasn't already full of ice cream.  Daily loved her sundae and could barely finish it, it was so big!

It looks like we found another gem of a restaurant to share in Logan. This city is finally growing on us. Of course, falling in love here is probably one reason why we like it here so much. There are lots of good memories here in Logan and we are excited to see what fun places we can find in the next year!