Temples

So I was going through our pictures and noticed we have tons with temples. Collin and I try to go to the temple every week! We absolutely love it and it has brought us so close! It's a great habit for us and one we will miss when we don't have a temple so close that we can go to!

                                                                    Las Vegas, NV

                                                                         Draper, UT

                                                           Mesa, AZ (one of our favorites)

                                                                Salt Lake City, UT

Update 2

Alright now I'll continue with our updates.

In July my brother Taft left on his mission to Philadelphia Pennsylvania. We were really close so I was sad when he left, but he's doing awesome!!! I'm so proud of him! I think in the last post I said for our anniversary Collin took me to see Phantom of the Opera in Vegas. It was AMAZING!!! I absolutely loved it!
Then school started and life got boring again. But it was Collin's last semester so that was exciting! We were involved with a Halloween party full of Disney characters and the kids came trick-or-treating to the Disney characters. Collin and I were Woody and Bo Peep from Toy Story. We did this the year before too and we had so much fun! It's fun to see the cute little kids come and be so excited to see the Disney people in real life!
We had 3 Thanksgivings to go to in one day so that was pretty crazy. The Cragun family, the Barker family, and then my aunt's family. It was crazy, but fun to be with family the whole day. Collin graduated in December with a Bachelors in Microbiology and a minor in Chemistry. That was a very exciting day for our family! Technically he could get a real job now, but he has more school to do since he wants to be a chiropractor!
Our Christmas was once again small this year. We got a big Draper Temple picture, a few seasons of The Office, Collin got me a Disney Piano Book, and I got him Drill Bits. Even though we've had small Christmases, we've loved them. And I'm trained from my family to wake up super early to open presents so we were up at like 6 I think opening presents. After we had our Christmas we went to parents to have breakfast with them and to talk with my brother on the phone. I absolutely loved talking with him. He's such a great kid. Christmas Eve we were at Collin's parents having the Cragun Christmas. That was a lot of fun too. I love seeing how excited all the little nieces and nephews are with their presents.
January 2013 Collin lost his job from something that was an accident and he didn't know was wrong. So that was a tough little while, but luckily my brother Dallin got him a job at Trampoline Parks about 2 weeks after so we didn't have to wait too long before we had another job. He helps build Trampoline Parks all over the country. The end of January he was in Virginia for a week. I missed him at home, but he got lots of hours while he was there.
This month we celebrated Valentines Day the smart way. I was busy the night of Valentines Day with something for school, so we went out to dinner the night before. GREAT IDEA! It's not packed and busy the night before. Then on Valentines Day we gave each other our presents (Collin gave me chocolates and then said he was taking me shopping, and I gave him a basket of "101 Reasons Why I Love You". I typed up 101 reasons why I love him and then bought a few presents that had to do with the reasons. Pinterest was such a help for this). Then February 25 was Collin's birthday so we went out to dinner at The Pie and I gave Collin his presents, Skyfall, the game Ratuki, dark chocolate covered pomegranates, Riesens, and a nice bright blue AE shirt.

                                                              My big little brother Taft

Wow it's been forever! Sorry!

Yep we haven't updated on here for like a year and a half so I will do my best to make up for lost time. December was our first Christmas together and we had a meager first Christmas. But we loved it! We got a Blu-Ray player, 5 or 6 DVDs, and we each gave each other a small little present. Collin game me a Phoenix Suns couch pillow and I gave him a nice white and gray striped sweater. We then went to AZ with my family for a week and that was a lot of fun. This was Collin's first time going to AZ and he loved it (which is very good).
January 2012 was a scary month for us. My Nanny passed away after being sick in the hospital for about a month. This was so sad for me. She was the one who made me want to play piano when I was little. I wanted to play just like her. Having her die before my Senior Piano Recital was very very very hard, but I know she will be there in Spirit listening. I know there is no way she would miss it. Just after Nanny died Collin's dad was in the ICU. He was so sick. He had a horrible cold with an infection on his stomach that burst. They had to drain fluids out of him. It was so scary. We went down to AZ for my Nanny's funeral and I was so afraid the whole time that my father-in-law was going to pass away as well. Luckily, he didn't and he's doing great now. I had to play a musical number at Nanny's funeral which was very hard for me, but luckily I was comforted for those 5 minutes that I didn't cry until I sat back down next to Collin. I'm so grateful for her and the life she lived and her absolutely amazing testimony!
For our first married Valentine's Day I made Collin Snickerdoodles and he gave me the Proposal and a bag of Ghiradelli chocolates, just like when we were dating. We also went to see The Vow. It wasn't as good as I was hoping but I still liked it. Collin's birthday is also in February and we had a lot of fun for that.
I don't think much happened until summer. We had so much fun during the summer. We went to the cabin at Bear Lake several times. I tried water skiing and I got it! And it was so much fun! The water wasn't super cold like other times I've been there so that was definitely a plus! One of the times we went to Bear Lake we went on a family hike to Bloomington Lake which was really pretty. There was even a rope swing to swing into the lake, which of course Collin had to try. It was a lot of fun though and a very mild hike. We also went on a trip to AZ and Vegas. Collin says he experienced something totally new for him in AZ, it's hot but when the wind blows, the wind is still very hot as well. It was strange for him, but awesome for me! I miss AZ summers! In Vegas we went boating with Collin's brother, Boone's family. We had so much fun with them. We also celebrated our anniversary while there by going to see Phantom of the Opera.
And this is all I have time for so I'll finish another time!

                                                              Bloomington Lake

                                           Collin with our niece and nephew, Rylee and Kaden

                                                              I did it! And we have proof!

                                                         Collin is much better than me!

Our Engagement

So I think it's time we wrote about our engagement, I kind of cheated and told Stefani her ring was gonna take a while so she didn't know it was gonna happen. I had my go to man Brett hike up to Big Rock (a local hike in North Ogden) and take one lily, which is Stef's favorite flower, up to the end of the hike. Stefani and I went to Costa Vida to eat dinner. Then we drove back and began our hike Stefani was complaining the whole time because she was tired, wanted to be done, etc. Of course in my mind I was thinking oh if only you knew what was at the end. We accidentally bumped into Brett but he and I played it off well and Stefani thought nothing of it. We got to the end of the hike. . . after much complaining. . . . and the flower was laying on top of a precipice with a note attached. OF COURSE Stefani being the tease that she is ignored it and went and sat down. So I came up and said you know there's more comfortable rocks over there, pointing to where the note was. She conitinued being a tease. When she finally went to read the note she turned around and I was on one knee and asked her to marry me!!!!

Then I had Brett actually leave an entire arrangement of the lilies in her seat in my car so when we got done there were flowers in my car. I told her halfway through "There's always flowers at the end of a hike", hehe she thought I was only talking about the one at the top.

Dating Flashbacks

Wednesday night we went back and revisited one of our first dates. We went to Costa Vida got a sweet pork salad and played 20 questions (it was more like 50) but this week we played 20 questions but we had to answer for the other person. So I had to say what Stefani's favorite sports team is. That one was easy she LOVES the Utah Jazz ;)
Oh please Collin! The Utah Jazz my favorite team... No way!!

Our FIRST Date

Since we don't have a lot of stuff to put on our blog we decided to talk about our dating history and other fun stuff about us. There is some debate as to what our first date is, it all depends on your definition of a date. The first time we had any one on one interaction was Wednesday, January 19. We went and got some Ben and Jerry's Phish Food which is my absolute favorite and we just drove to Mountain View Park in North Ogden and ate ice cream and talked while we looked over the whole valley. After that we stopped into volleyball at the singles ward where someone's phone got stolen.

Our other first date was Friday January 28 we made some delicious homemade pizza and went and saw Tangled. There was only one other little family in the movie theater with us. We stayed after the movie and made fun of all the funny names in the credits and we do that with EVERY movie we watch now. So we are always the last ones to leave the theater. You can decide which one qualifies as a date.

Yes, we got married!

We got married and it's made us the happiest we've ever been!
Our luncheon was the day before at The Maddox Lodge. The food was great and it was a lot of fun! And Collin's cute little niece sang "I Love to See the Temple" which topped the whole thing off and made it super special. Little does she know that's my favorite primary song.
We got sealed July 30, 2011 in the Draper Temple and it was absolutely amazing! Best day ever! All my family from Arizona came up, which made me so so so excited! I love my family so much and miss them tons! Anyway, our day was absolutely perfect!  I woke up at 6:30 so my sister Emilee would have plenty of time to make me look beautiful. But I still had to make Collin wait about 15 minutes til I was done. When we were driving to the temple it was super cloudy and sprinkled a little bit. I was so worried that it was going to rain on us. We had so many family and friends at our sealing and we absolutely love everyone who was there to support us. We got out of the temple and the clouds had broken up and it was BEAUTIFUL! Our photographer, Camille Garrison, did a great job on our pictures and we love them! After the sealing and pictures were done we went back to my parent's house to relax, eat a little, and wait for the reception to start. The reception was beautiful as well! Don't worry standing in line is not as fun as it sounds... But it was fun to see all our family and friends who came to show their love and support. We had chips and salsa, cookies, eclairs, and brownies. Well the people who came got to eat them, Collin and I didn't. But we heard everything tasted super good. All the salsas were homeade, a red, green, and another corn and bean one. Mexican food is my favorite, so of course we had to have chips and salsa. Just about all the credit for our reception goes to my mom and sister! They worked so hard to make our day special and to get everything looking great and they definitely succeeded. My mom made my veil, did all the flowers, made the salsa, pretty much plan everything for me! My sister Emilee did my hair, makeup, nails, guestbook, and took tons of pictures. Thanks everyone who came! It means a lot!



I think this is my favorite!



I'm a sandals girl - of course I had to have super cute sandals!



See how amazing the sky is???



What a good looking guy!

Didn't my mom do awesome on my flowers??? And my sister on my hair and makeup???



Mmmmm I want some of that!