I hope this isn't too morbid...

I know that this might sound strange but I have always had an interest in walking through cemeteries. When dad and I would go on our walks while living in Medford sometimes he would take me to the oldest cemetery there and we'd just walk around and read the headstones. I'm not really sure why I like doing this because it does sound creepy, but I think I like the history, just thinking of the kind of life that these people lived. It's really interesting when you actually know the story behind some of the people that are buried there. This past Sunday Jason took me to the Salt Lake Cemetery, which is huge we walked for about 2 miles and still didn't see everything. In this cemetery is where a lot of the pioneers and prophets have been buried over the years. Most of the prophets graves are marked by obelisks, so they stand out and naturally draw you to them. We saw one very large one and walked towards it, it was in remembrance of Hyrum Smith who was actually laid to rest in Nauvoo. We saw the graves of John Taylor, Willford Woodruff, Joseph Fielding Smith, Joseph F. Smith, Heber J. Grant, David O. McKay, and Gordon B. Hinckley. Like I said we didn't get a chance to walk around the whole thing because our feet were aching and it was getting really warm, but we do plan on going back when it's nice outside again and trying to find some of the other noteable people in lds history.

The picture below came our dark but this is Heber J. Grants:

I thought that it was interesting to see so that's why I'm posting them. This past week we've just been working and trying to spend time with one another. It's been hard when Jason's schedule is working the night shift and I work the days so sometimes we just see each other for 2 hours before its time to go to bed and start all over again. I know that many of you did that when you were in your early married stages but wow, it's hard stuff. We are so excited to see Kevin, Nicole, Noah, and Abbie Mae this week and hopefully the weather will be nice enough where we will get to play wiffle ball again. I'll let you know who wins! Love you all,

What a Fantastic Year!!

It has officially been one year since I moved to Utah on March 31st 2008. It’s amazing how fast the time goes, however; it didn’t always feel like that. I decided that I am going to take a cue from my dad and give a year in review starting in March.

March 2008- Quit my job at the Medford Medical Clinic after working there for 3 years, told everyone I was moving to Utah to follow an idea of getting my master’s degree in curatorial studies. I was released as Relief Society President in my singles ward after two and a half years, that was a little hard but it was good for me. March 30th my parents helped me pack up my Nissan Sentra as much as possible, but I had to leave behind several favorite items. March 31st took off for Utah on my own drove straight through but had to stop a few times on the Salt Flats because I kept on getting tired. Finally arrived at Eden’s sisters house.

April 2008 – Moved into our new house, met the other three roommates and got to unpack the entire car by myself and lug it all down stairs, this I will tell you was not fun. Bought several items to make my bedroom look like home, i.e. bookcases dvd case, dresser, computer desk. General Conference morning I was the only one home so I had to go out and buy rabbit ears to watch it on the tv downstairs. Brittany and Clay moved to Utah too so I had family close by. Had a few job interviews but none that worked out.

May 2008 – Received my stimulus check so I bought a new bed and a new laptop computer. Definitely overspent that check but I had more left in savings to make up for it. My bedroom flooded, I backed into Eden’s car and finally, after 25 years of searching I found my better half at a stake FHE activity no less. He asked me out for that Friday night but I had plans to go camping with Brittany, Clay and Eden so he told me he’d call next week when he knew his schedule. I kept my phone close to me that whole camping trip and nothing. Finally on Monday afternoon he called and we had our first date. He was (and is) absolutely wonderful!!

June 2008 – Jason took me to Lagoon and to the zoo, we started officially dating and seeing each other ever day. He met members of my family and at the end of the month he took me down to California to meet his family. I didn’t do anything with the job search.

July 2008 - Met up with Kevin, Nicole, and Noah and played a few games of waffle ball they met Jason…seemed to like him. Since Jason and my birthday are so close together we went down to the DMV together to see if we could get our drivers licenses renewed. We got there 15 minutes to 7am and ended up being there until about 11:00am. Don’t worry though, we passed that test with flying colors and are now officially Utards.

August 2008- Went wedding ring shopping, did a lot of reading, watched a lot of softball/baseball games. Jason met my parents and asked them for permission to marry me…they said yes! Then the next day Dad had a seizure, my phone kept on going off every 30 minutes around 6:30 but it was on silent so I couldn’t hear it. Finally woke up and listened to my messages. Called Jason up so he could take me down there since I don’t think I was fit to drive. Dad was ok after a little bit. The next day Jason proposed!!!

September 2008- Went looking for apartments everywhere and narrowing it down to 2 that we really liked. Took Brittany, Clay, and Jason to see my favorite LDS band Colors, it was amazing. Decided that I needed to start making money to pay for the wedding so I went into a temp agency and walked away with a job at their office.

October 2008- Had our engagement pictures taken by Daniel, they turned out really well. Mom and Dad came out for General Conference; it was great to see them again. Finally went through a haunted house/maze thing.

November 2008- Packed up all of my stuff and moved into the new apartment with the help of Jason and Daniel. Had the flu for a few days and then took off to Oregon for the wedding. Went through the temple for my own endowments and then was sealed for time and all eternity to my best friend the very next day. Went to San Francisco for the honeymoon got lost quite a few times but that was ok, at least we were lost together.

December 2008- Jason moved his stuff into the apartment and we tried to make it feel more like home. Went to Temple Square to look at the lights, froze to death while walking around but it was beautiful. Met up with Brittany and Clay quite a bit to celebrate the holidays.

January 2009 – Mom came out to help Brittany with Maeli. Jason and I injured ourselves quite a bit but luckily none of it required stitches. Watched a lot of TV shows trying to get caught up.

February 2009- Had my first real Valentines day, it was awesome! Had free pancakes as IHOP and was introduced to the gelato place in West Jordan. Went to the temple again with Brittany and Clay.

March 2009 – Went down to California for Grandma Daggett’s birthday, hung out with family and played on the Wii. Found out that Jason and I can be really competitive when we want to be. Went to the South Jordan Temple by ourselves this time and had a good experience. Still trying to decide where to live, what to do, and when to do it.

So that’s my year in review and looking at it this way everything happened so fast but I’m glad it did. It was an amazing year and a lot of stuff happened that really made my year an adventure. With the trials that came I don’t think I would trade that for anything because the blessings that came afterwards made it all worth it. Love you guys.

Has anyone else ever burned their tongue eating ice cream? Or is that just me?

So you know that promise I made to myself last month that I would update our blog more often? Well, obviously I need to rethink that goal and make it more realistic. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks but it’s been a good couple of weeks too. Jason has gotten some of his hours back at work which is good but his schedule is still a little trying sometimes. He still works a lot of late shifts but he’s also had some days off which gives us more time to spend with one another. My schedule at work is still from 8-5 so at least that’s constant. One thing that was nice the month of February, is that we went back to the temple the first time since getting married. We went with Brittany and Clay and tried to just follow them around since they had been to the Mt. Timpanogas temple before. We decided that we need to try and make this a monthly thing now so we went out and bought some temple stickers so that we block that night out of our calendar.

On Valentines Day Jason had to work that morning so I kept myself busy by cleaning the house, especially the kitchen. When he got home he wanted to exchange gift so he gave me Victoria’s Secret lotion and body spray called Berry Kiss…it smells really good! Now I don’t want you to think that he bought me this because I smell bad or anything. It’s just I wanted to know what perfume he liked that I had and said all of them reminded him of food (What’s wrong with that?!). He also took me out for dinner and to Mr. C’s for some gelato, so delicious! My gift to him, or rather for both of us was tickets to see the Utah Jazz. He had already partially guessed that we were going to go to the game because I made sure that he had that night off but I told him that we were going to see Celine Dion in concert. He knew that wasn’t true but still he played it well. When Tuesday rolled around we were excited to finally get to go to the game and he wanted to make sure that I was properly dressed. He bought me a Utah Jazz Jersey so that I looked like I blended in. The game was really good and we won so that was an added bonus. Also, I don’t know if this has happened to anyone else but I think I got freezer burn from eating too much ice cream. We paid $2.50 for a cup of ice cream but it’s like 4 scoops into one bowl and that’s a lot! When I finally got towards the end I could feel that my tongue was burning…It wasn’t pleasant for the next couple of days but it finally healed.

Last Tuesday night was Free IHOP pancake night so of course we’d stop in. We invited Eden to come along with us so we went to pick her up and waited in line for maybe 45 minutes before being seated. They sat us down, handed us a menu and asked what we wanted to drink, we also said water. Then they bring us each a short stack of their buttermilk pancakes and since we didn’t order anything we didn’t receive a receipt. It felt weird just walking out of their without paying, we did leave our waiter a tip despite the fact that he forgot to bring us silverware until we asked for it. And we did leave a donation for the Children’s Miracle Network so we felt like we had paid for a little bit of dinner. After that we somehow found our way back to Mr. C’s for some more gelato, don’t worry I got a smaller size this time so I didn’t burn my tongue again. After that we went back to our place to watch a short movie and then we had to take Eden home.

I finally got to see the new Twilight movie! It came out the night before our wedding and I guess it just wasn’t a priority at the time. It came to the dollar theater so we made plans to see it last Saturday. However, Jason wanted to buy me a bigger purse so that I had more room to fit candy in…also the zipper on my other purse had broken so it was probably time to switch anyway. We made a trip into the Dollar Store and most of their candy had been picked over so we bought a bag of potato chips, beef jerky, and tootsie rolls, yes it was a rather weird combination for me too. Anyway, I thought that the movie was good, it was a lot better than I was expecting. I still don’t think that Robert Pattinson is my ideal Edward but I thought he did a good job. I was a little disappointed that they skipped over a few things that were in the book though, or things that I thought should have been in the movie. So I guess that is the last few weeks in a nutshell…

Love Survey? Is that what you call these things?

Even though I was an English Major you would think that I could come up with something compelling to write about. I promised myself that I would update our blog more frequently but other things come up and I forget. So since I’m not ready to post an update on our lives the past two weeks I’ll leave you with this fun little survey about us, you know since it was Valentines Day and all…So here are my answers...I had Jason answer the same questions just to see where we differed, an interesting experiment. If his answers don't turn out well I'm taking this down...

♥ What are your middle names? William and Renée

♥ How long have you been together? 10 months…it seems longer than that though

♥ How long did you know each other before you started dating? Ummm…a day? I don’t know! We met and he asked me out for that Friday

Who asked who out? Jason asked me out

♥ How old are each of you? He’s 27 and I’m 26

♥ Whose siblings do/ did you see the most? Ummm…When we were dating Jason lived with his brother and so we saw him a lot. Now that we are married we probably see my sibling (Brittany) the most.

♥ Do you have any children together? Nope, not yet...we have 3 adorable nieces and one handsome nephew

♥ What about pets? I wish…we want a beagle puppy but can’t have any pets in our apartment

♥ Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple? Umm…right now we are just trying to figure out the job situation; Jason’s just trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life and wanting to go back to school. We’ll make it work!

♥ Did you go to the same school? No

♥ Are you from the same home town? No

♥ Who is the smartest? I think he is but he tells me that I am. I guess I’m more book smart and he’s more street smart.

♥ Who is the most sensitive? Oh that would be me!

♥ Where do you eat out most as a couple? Café Rio…we try not to eat out a whole lot though we have to save money!

♥ Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple? San Francisco, Medford, Pocatello, and LA

♥ Who has the craziest exes? I’d say he does, he has stories to back them up.

♥ Who has the worst temper? That would probably be me too…

♥ Who does the cooking? We both do, anyone have any good recipes we should try out?

♥ Who is more social? Jason…he makes friends with everyone

♥ Who is the neat-freak? I think we both like the house to be clean.

♥ Who is more stubborn? I don’t know…

♥ Who hogs the bed? He hogs the bed but I get all of the covers

♥ Who wakes up earlier? I do

♥ Where was your first date? Formosa (Chinese Restaurant) and then he took me bowling and then to ColdStone Creamery

♥ Who has the bigger family? I do I think

♥ Do you get flowers often? Yes! He treats me well!

♥ How do you spend the holidays?Well, we’ve only been through Thanksgiving with my Family and Christmas with Brittany and Clay but I think we’re going to try and keep it even, somehow…
♥ Who is more jealous? I don’t know, probably me

♥ How long did it take to get serious? About 2 weeks

♥ Who eats more? Jason!!!

♥ Who does/ did the laundry? We both do

♥ Who’s better with the computer? He is, depending on the program…

♥ Who drives when you are together? Jason


And here are Jason's answers...He is more brief in his answers than I am...


♥ What are your middle names? william renee

♥ How long have you been together? 9 months about

♥ How long did you know each other before you started dating? 2hrs

♥ Who asked who out? I asked her

♥ How old are each of you? 26 &27

♥ Whose siblings do/ did you see the most? hers

♥ Do you have any children together? nope

♥ What about pets? none

♥ Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple? work

♥ Did you go to the same school? nope

♥ Are you from the same home town? no

♥ Who is the smartest? her

♥ Who is the most sensitive?her

♥ Where do you eat out most as a couple? cafe rio

♥ Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple? san fransisco

♥ Who has the craziest exes? me

♥ Who has the worst temper? me?

♥ Who does the cooking? both

♥ Who is more social? her

♥ Who is the neat-freak? her?

♥ Who is more stubborn? me

♥ Who hogs the bed? her (I'll have to talk to him about this one!)

♥ Who wakes up earlier? her

♥ Where was your first date? furmosa/bowling

♥ Who has the bigger family? her

♥ Do you get flowers often? get her flower

♥ How do you spend the holidays? together

♥ Who is more jealous? dunno

♥ How long did it take to get serious? 3 weeks

♥ Who eats more? me

♥ Who does/ did the laundry? me, sometimes both

♥ Who's better with the computer? me

♥ Who drives when you are together? me

Another crazy month!

The month of January flew by and I’m sad to say that I didn’t accomplish a whole lot. At the beginning of the month it mainly consisted of working and trying to do thank you cards…and other projects I’ve been trying to accomplish. Jason’s schedule at work has been weird lately sometimes he’ll go into work from 5pm – 9:30pm which means that he starts work when I get off and we don’t get to see each other until he gets home around 9:35 or so. This also means that all of our favorite TV shows that started up again this past month are being recorded so that we can watch them together…which means less sleep. We probably don’t go to bed until midnight most nights because we’re trying to catch up on 24, Psych, Burn Notice, American Idol, and Glenn Beck…oh and I can’t forget Jason’s Utah Jazz basketball games that he records. Also some of our time was spent down in Orem visiting with Brittany, Clay, and their new adorable baby Maeli plus it was an added bonus that Mom was here for a couple of weeks. We tried to go down whenever we could but gas is expensive these days and couldn’t make it down everyday. Mom, Jason is still raving about the Chicken Curry you made.

We finally used the ice cream maker attachment that Jason bought me for Christmas. We decided on French Vanilla and while Jason was at work I made the batter(?) which was interesting because it called for egg yolks and that was a little worrying but I guess you do cook it a little in a pot before making the ice cream. It had to chill in the fridge for about 8 hours and then we had frozen the bowl for a few days and were told to turn the churner on and poor the liquid in while its moving…I did at first but then I was taking too long to try and find a funnel of some sort so that I wouldn’t spill the liquid all of the place so I stopped it and poured the stuff in and when I tried to start it up again, the liquid had frozen in place and the churner…thing was stuck. It wouldn’t move at all because it was frozen in the liquid. I know now why you leave it running while you are getting things prepared. Luckily, Jason had to try and turn it himself a few times before it became unstuck and then we could turn the Kitchen Aid back on and have it complete the process. We through a few Reese’s Peanut Butter cups and Peanut Butter Twix in there for added measure and it turned out really well. It’s very filling but at least it tasted like vanilla ice cream.

Last week was crazy, both Jason and I got injured throughout the week. My injury occurred on Tuesday morning at work. I was sitting in my chair at my desk and had my fingers on the arm rest and I swung around and my middle finger on my right hand got caught in-between the desk and the chair and I had given myself quite a deep cut that wouldn’t stop bleeding. It didn’t look pretty but it’s healing now at least. Jason went to play church basketball on Thursday night and ran to save the ball from going out of bounds and he slammed his back into something that was sticking out from the wall and scraped his left shoulder up. So we were a bunch of wimps the past couple of days.

On Friday morning I had forgotten to eat breakfast and Jason had the day off and had planned to go to a grocery store right by where I work. I had asked him if he would bring me something to eat since I was starving. When he arrived he brought me some granola bars, apple juice and…flowers. He made me the envy of the office that morning. And then he had told me that he had something planned that night but it was a surprise. I knew that we weren’t going out for dinner because we were doing that on Saturday with his brother Daniel and his girlfriend Kali, so it had to be something else. I was thinking either bowling or going to see the movie Taken since it just came out that day and we’ve been talking about going to see it. So when it was finally time for the surprise we headed out towards…the movie theater. I knew it! It was a really good movie, lots of action and intense in some parts. It was just like watching 24 but in only 90 minutes. Liam Neeson actually made a good action hero.

The next thing won’t really interest anyone but the girls but I thought I’d give the boys a warning before reading forward. I had a real hair appointment on Saturday morning. Yep, Jason agreed to let me try and real hairstylist and luckily I found one that specialized in curly hair. I was told to come in with hair freshly styled and dry so that’s what I did. I went in and was given a haircut that helps enhance the curls and given tips along the way to help enhance the curls as well. It was great! She also gave me a head massage which was worth every penny. It wasn’t until I was talking to my parents last night that I realized I forgot to tip her!!! I’m a horrible person!!! I can’t believe I forgot to do that. I’ll have to make up for it the next time I go in. However, it did cost me $55 for the appointment so I say she got a tip out of that. I had Jason take pictures when he got home from work, so the first picture is not a very flattering one of me but you get the idea, and then the sides and the top…he said he took a picture of the top because that’s what he mostly sees.

Saturday night we hung out with Jason’s brother Daniel and his girlfriend Kali, met three of her kids. They were a little shy when they met Jason and I but hopefully we didn’t scare them too much. They took us to a Chineses Restaurant in Holladay that was pretty good, however; I'm a little disappointed that they didn't have orange chicken on their regular menu...just the lunch menu. After dinner we went back to Kali's house to watch the Jazz play against Portland...to be honest, I don't remember who won but I think Utah lost.

On Super Bowl Sunday we went to church but I attended my first real Super Bowl Party. One of the families that Jason and Daniel know invited us and a bunch of other people over to watch the game and pig out on food, let me tell you, it was a great way to break the fast. Ryan and Wendy (the hosts of the party) gave a great party and there was lots of entertainment, even some quizes and questionnaires that were fun. I actually won one of the prizes, yep, I won for guessing the outcome of the game...of course, I came in third place and tied with Daniel but I won because we had to play rock, paper, scissors for it and I came out victorious. Your probably wondering what my prize was, well, Mom...you'll be jealous. I was given a Symphony bar, almonds and toffee, I think its still in Jason's trunk but I'm hoping that it's still holding its shape because it was melting just sitting on my lap on Sunday. So far that is the update of our lives for January and the beginning of February. I hope you enjoy the pictures, love you all.

My lovely finger, I promise I'm not flipping you off or anything...unfortunately that's as close as I could get to it without shaking the camera.

Jason's basketball injury, this is after it had healed a little bit.

I warned you that this is not a flattering picture at all....

What a busy month!

Normally I would say its been a long time since I last updated and I don’t have much to say…well, that wouldn’t be true this time. The month of December has come and gone and after having my first Christmas away from home I realized that I can’t recreate it just like it was back home. Jason and I did have a couple of firsts this year though. First time making pomanders and they were delicious; Brittany likes them to be about golf ball size so we didn’t get a whole lot out of it. We also made homemade caramels which was fun but very time consuming. We had to wait probably 30 minutes for the temperature to get just right stirring constantly. Once it set up it turned out really good and then we had to individually wrap them all which took forever too. Jason also took me out to temple square, which I’ve never been to during the holidays. It was gorgeous but freezing cold, we stopped to get hot chocolate which I ended up spilling on my jacket…good times, good times. We set up our Christmas tree we bought from Wal-Mart and ended up getting electrocuted when one of the bulbs was broken, that was another good time. We looked all over the place to try and find some cheap ornaments which is practically impossible. Wal-Mart has boxes of 4 ball ornaments for $6 or a box of 24 for $10 which is still expensive for our pay grade. So we just borrowed ornaments from Jason’s brother Daniel since he was going home for Christmas (Thanks Daniel). On Christmas Eve we both received a phone call around noon from our Bishop, we thought we’d be safe for a couple of weeks at least but no, we were asked to speak on Sunday and unfortunately it was on a topic I hadn’t talked on before so I had to write a whole new talk on the Second Coming. We were invited to go over to Brittany and Clay’s for dinner on Christmas Eve for Ham and Elegant Potato Casserole, Rolls, Salad, and dessert…mmm. That felt like home but there was no Sees Candies so that was a little disheartening…not like I need it though, I think I’ve had enough sweets this year. We played Guitar Hero and I finally got play drums which is a lot harder than it looks, I’m not coordinated enough to use the foot pedal and then pound on the drums…I would have liked to try singing the songs but I didn’t get the chance so maybe next time. We did get to watch National Lampoons Christmas Vacation that night so it felt like home. We tried getting out of there before the snow storm hit but we weren’t so lucky it had been snowing for a while before we left and on the drive home it was hard to see the lines in the road. I don’t trust myself in snow anymore after this past January’s snow storm in Oregon so I have Jason drive who is more experienced in snow. Christmas morning was great, Jason got me an attachment to my Kitchen-Aid…it was the ice cream maker attachment I’ve been looking at for over a year. He also bought me a movie called Daniel Deronda (I read the book this summer and had wanted to buy the movie ever since) and some micro fleece pajama pants, he bought me an XS which was very sweet but I needed another size up. So we tried exchanging them on Friday and no one sold those same pants anymore so we just returned them and will have to go out and get something else later. Jason received a new wallet, replacement shaver head, and Transformers on Blu-Ray. It was a great Christmas…plus we received a gift from Kevin and Nicole with the softest blanket ever (we used it last night, Thanks guys!) and a blockbuster gift card and popcorn for our movie night. Ooh, we can do that on New Years Eve!

We had Brittany and Clay over for dinner on Christmas night and I was pretty impressed with our meal, we felt just like we were at Sizzler or something. Jason cooked up bacon wrapped filet mignon, we did twice baked potatoes (which didn’t turn out as well as I would have liked) and I made a cheese toast bread...Usually the day after Christmas in the Smith family is a big deal we go out for dinner and to see a movie so after Jason got off work we made plans with Brittany and Clay to meet up at a Chili’s for dinner and then head on over to the movie theater to see “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. The roads were so slicked over from the snow storm the day before and Friday that we were sliding all over the place. I had cleaned the entire apartment that morning and actually hung pictures up so it was nice to finally be able to come home to a clean house that looked like we lived there. Saturday we were working on our talks in the morning until Jason had to go to work at 3pm and I had the pleasure of driving once again to Jason’s old house to do laundry and to use their internet to try and write my talk but alas, the internet was down so I had to occupy myself some other way I played games on my computer for 2 hours and read through articles of the Ensign while I waited for our clothes to dry…After I made it back home around 8pm I figured I had some time to write my talk but I ended up falling asleep on the couch until Jason called an hour later. So yes, I am a procrastinator, I didn’t get to write my talk until Sunday morning but I think it turned out well. I was perfectly fine at church until the passing of the Sacrament, and then I started to get really nervous and felt dizzy. I have a tendency to talk really fast when I’m nervous but Jason said I didn’t rush through it so that’s good. I was more relaxed after I was done and just happy to have it over with. Jason did a great job even though he said he felt nervous you couldn’t really tell.

Now it’s back to work for a few days but I get Thursday and Friday off again so that will be nice and hopefully I can get a lot done. On Wednesday we have plans of getting together with Brittany and Clay again and watching movies and pigging out on junk food unless Brittany has her baby then it will probably just be Jason and I hanging out on the couch eating junk food…either way I’m eating Chex Mix (I made some last night), cream puffs, peanut butter M&M’s, Butter mints, Chips, Salsa and bean dip. Anyway, I guess that’s all I have for now, I will let you know how everything goes.

We got hitched!

To be perfectly honest the past month was a such a blur everything went too fast but it was amazing. We took off for Medford on November 17 and it was a very long drive, we took off at 5AM and arrived at home around 4:30pm so we definitely made good time. When we got there Jordan, Christina, Hayley & Tia were there so that was exciting. We got our marriage license on Wednesday and hung out with family, and on Thursday night Kevin, Nicole, and Noah made it out to Medford so hung out with them too. Friday was spent getting food items for the wedding reception and flowers for corsages Costco had a bit of a lacking in the cream roses area so we were lucky that found a lot of cream colored roses at Safeway. That afternoon I was kidnapped by Eden & Hanah and taken out for lunch at a really nice cafe and then we made our way over to the Brookhurst building where the reception was being held so that we could help set up. That night we went to the temple and took out our endowments. It truly is an amazing experience to go through for yourself and I don't think I will remember a whole lot about it but that is why you go back. On Saturday I woke up early to get ready and Dad made pancakes and bacon so it was just like old times (Thanks Dad). When Jordan, Hayley and Tia came over Hayley kept saying I looked different I looked beautiful...I had a new face...however, I don't remember getting plastic surgery or anything so I guess make up really does work. I got all ready and we were a little late getting to the temple. It seemed like we were waiting in the lobby forever but finally it was our turn and we went through with it. I know that you were all worried but I can now say that I married my best friend...After taking pictures we went back to my parents house and changed and went over to Aunt Jeanne's for the luncheon where Jason's parents made a delicious meal of taquitos and chicken tortilla soup and we watched the BYU vs. Utah game (I was hoping that being married that day would have created some good luck for them but to no avail they lost). The reception was really nice everything was beautiful and the food was terrific, and of course it was great to see everyone again.

On Sunday Jason and I took off for San Francisco and found our hotel pretty easily and right next door was a Sizzler so that's where we ate...I still love their cheese bread. On Monday we had tickets to Alcatraz, we just had to find a way to get their so we went looking for a gas station to drive to downtown San Francisco and the closest gas station happened to be next to the BART Station. So we got to ride BART to the Embarcadero area and then walked the rest of the way from Pier 1 all the way to Pier 33 where our ferry was waiting to take us to Alcatraz. I've been fascinated with Alcatraz since I went there on choir tour in high school several years ago and it was different then. We had our our own personal guided tour and stayed with the group. This time we were given an audio guide and got to walk around and follow our own time table and got to go anywhere. The audioguide was interesting because it had interviews with 4 previous prisoners and 4 previous guards. They had background noises like whistles blowing, people chatting, yelling, doors closing and it all seemed like it was happening around you it was kind of creepy but I loved it. After taking the ferry back we walked to Pier 39 and watched a magician light his hands on fire while juggling, we also tried finding somewhere to go for dinner but everything seemed so expensive. We walked a few blocks further to an Italian restaurant we heard about but there were no customers inside and the cheapest thing on the menu was $15 so we went back to Pier 39 and looked at something else and finally decided on Hard Rock Cafe not knowing what was on the menu...sure enough it was $15 a plate too. Oh well. On our way back to the hotel we saw a Krispy Kreme donuts and IHOP while we were on BART so on Tuesday we tried to drive to where we thought they were. We ended up driving around for about 2 hours trying to find IHOP and finally found it. We drove to San Francisco and wanted to go to the Golden Gate Bridge and got lost driving around again but quickly found our way. We walked across the bridge and then tried to make our way back to the hotel so that we could go to San Jose for the Winchester Mystery Home but no, San Francisco was more of a mystery and we got lost again. While we were lost we did find Ghiradelli Square so it wasn't a total loss...and we did make the mistake of going down Lombard street (the crookedest street) and it really is crooked...I don't think I want to do that one ever again. Eventually we got out of San Francisco but unfortunately the Winchester Mystery House closed at 5pm, next time we'll make it there...Wednesday we took off early to make our way back home in Medford and when we got their we had a game night with the family. Thursday, thanksgiving and we all know that was amazing. And Friday we took off for Utah again, it was a fast trip but I enjoyed every minute of it, it was sad to leave but I hope that everyone in the family can come together soon and this time with Brittany, Clay and Maeli joining in. We love everyone and appreciate the love and support that has been shown to us during this important time in our lives. I tried to keep the posting short but sometimes I just ramble, sorry about that.

I'll post more pictures once I get them!