..the perfect day for a wedding..

..congratulations to mr. and (the new) mrs. humphrey!..

..my cousin got married today and it was a beautiful day for a wedding! doesn't jess look gorgeous!?! the sealing was incredible. my uncle's dad is the Temple President of the Temple in the Philippines so he was able to perform jessica's sealing. it was so special. the Spirit was very strong and i'm so glad matt and i were able to attend. we were reminded of what a covenant means and how sacred it is, how we have the opportunity to begin making covenants at a very young age, and how blessed we are when we keep and honor those covenants. it was simple and absolutely beautiful..

..i loved watching josh and jess. they are absolutely twitter-patted over each other. they were all lovey dovey and kissey face. it was cute! it was also fun to watch my aunt. i love her. she is so fun, super down to earth, and so easy to talk to. it was great to watch her run around making sure everything was absolutely perfect for jess and then the occasional burst of tears was just classic. she reminds me a lot of my mother.  the whole day made me want to do the whole wedding thing again. as stressful as it seemed leading up to it, it was the BEST day and it was so much fun. i hope jess and josh always remember what THEIR day was like and what an exciting time of life it is..

..congratulations again! and welcome to the family josh..

..would you like a bean with that?..

..tonight we took emily to the buy bean museum. we may or may not have told her that it was literally a BEAN MUSEUM. it was awesome. like black beans, pinto beans, bean plants, big beans, little beans, asian beans, guatemalan beans, you name it..the bean museum has it. haha! it was hilarious. she was so confused when we walked in and shasta the liger was in the foyer. after the museum we introduced her to what we call deliciousness..otherwise known as a cherry dipped ice cream cone..

..ps-emily is matt's youngest sister. she's been staying with us for the last couple weeks while she's visiting from tennessee. it's like having our own teenage to get up and get us stuff. it's great..

..they're starting to move in..

..well, they're here. the students that we'll be working with this year have begun to move into their apartments. there are two cohorts in the program matt works with and the second year cohort started moving in yesterday. we have 15 second years and 21 first years on our floor. we're excited to get things going but i can't believe how quick time has gone by. i don't feel like we've lived here for a month now..
..to welcome our little buddies to their homes we decided to go around, introduce ourselves, and of course leave them with a treaty. what college student doesn't love free food? we figured that would be a good way to start things off. unfortunately, only ONE of the students was home when we went around. so we left FOURTEEN welcome packs on their doorsteps. good thing all the apartments are inside like a hotel and there aren't any random people living on our floor..

..the reflection in the mirror..

..this is how my husband makes me feel..

..i don't think i could be more blessed. i hope everyone has or will have someone that makes them feel that way..

..this comicstrip is compliments of shelby's blog via her brother's blog..

..wedding bells & a flat tire..

..today was GREAT. literally. i LOVE weddings. since matt and i got married i've become especially sensitive to the celebration of such a sacred unit. today we went to the sealing of two of my dear friends..brandon finch & his beautiful bride jessica jill jaynes. i grew up with brandon and went to college with jess so it was very exciting and special to see these two become one.. 

..it was beautiful wedding. the sealer talked about the importance of selflessness and companionship in a marriage and deep spiritual and temporal blessings that come with sacrifice. it was definitely a reminder i needed to hear. not that matt and i have any issues or problems, it's something to always work on. it was so fun to walk through the halls of the Temple and remember our sealing. it was the PERFECT day. i can remember everything so vividly. i'm thrilled for jessica and brandon. they are going to have a wonderful eternity..

..we also were able to go to another friend's reception tonight as well. it was in salt lake so while we waited for time to pass we went to lunch with my sister and her husband (HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRETT!!), saw transformers 3, visited with my mama, and bought 5 dads for $30 at f.y.e.'s discount sale. after that we made our way back to the deveroux mansion in slc-which is beautiful-for jayden and shelby's reception and then onto to pleasant grove for brandon and jessica's-their reception was straight from a fairytale. outside with big bulbed hanging lights, gorgeous flowers, and pictures galore. it was definitely a jessica jaynes event. i loved it.. 

..it was a wonderful day spent with the hubby. we haven't had one of those for quite some time. it was fun just to do whatever and celebrate with good friends. the only downer was the flat tire we got on the way to pleasant grove. but, even that wasn't horrible. in fact we were quite blessed in it happening when it did. it was right after we got off the freeway and main roads, next to a school parking lot, and seconds before a rain storm. plus we were prepared. for christmas we got a hydraulic jack, two weeks ago matt felt strongly impressed to get a new lug nut screwer offer thing-because i may or may not have driven away with our old one on the top of our car last time we got a flat, and we had a full sized spare in the trunk. so with those things in mind i can't really complain.. 

..overall, GREAT day..

..peace out girl scout..

..well, the deed is done! we finally finished moving and cleaning our old apartment. wahoo!! matt was recently hired as an RA for a leadership program at UVU and with that came a move. obviously he has to live on site and obviously i have to follow him so we packed up and moved out. and it is pure heaven. we L.O.V.E. our new apartment. we're on the top floor with high ceilings and huge windows. it totally beats living in a half basement apartment with no light, no air circulation, and no space. we truly have been blessed. it's all worked out perfectly. i'll have to write more about matt's new job and what he gets to do. he's really excited and i'm really proud of him for stepping out of his comfort zone and doing this.. 

..i guess with any new beginning there always has to be an ending to something else. now as much as i hated where we used to live it's a little strange to leave an experience that is so dear to my heart. our cruddy little one bedroom apartment is a place of many memories. it was the first place matt and i lived together. it was our first home. i remember when we first found it. we had been looking for a place to live for months and had become so frustrated. everything was either to expensive or what we considered to be unlivable conditions. and then with pretty much nothing in our bank accounts and a prayer in our hearts we found apartment 12. it wasn't horribly run down and the price wasn't bad. when we looked at the apartments available in the complex i remember walking into 12 and we both felt completely at peace there. of course because of the lack of funds though we left without signing the contract. we also wanted to make sure that was exactly where we were supposed to be. we got about 2 miles down state st. when we decided to pull into the parking lot of a country western clothing store. there we decided that was where we needed to be and did the math again to see if we could do the whole deposit/first month's rent thing. we had just enough so we turned around, signed the contract, and officially had our first apartment together as a married couple. given i did live there for 2 weeks before our wedding but we won't count that. 15 months later we were ready for a move and couldn't be happier. it's fun to look back though and think about all we did while living there. it's a place of many firsts. first boy roommate, first set of couches, first washer and dryer, first holiday decorations, first fight, etc. etc. it was also a place of prayer and faith. matt and i had our struggles of newlywed-hood in that apartment. struggles being financial, emotional, disagreements, you know..the usual. we set goals and made plans to accomplish things together in the walls of that apartment. we scrimped and saved to get little things and do big things. it was a place of service and love. some of my favorite memories are of us laying on the living room floor playing footsie while laughing and making up ridiculous names for our future babies. lots of memories. but like i said..to every new beginning is a simple ending and for us the door to apartment 12 is closed. but don't worry..the door to apartment 406 has opened and life is grand..

..just a little project..

..so back in the day, a month ago to be exact, our bed used to be parallel to our bedroom window but when we moved our new bedroom was set up where the bed had to go directly under the window. we don't have a headboard and so in the old apartment i hung one of those old vintage windows above our bed in place of a headboard..loved it. now with the window though i've had to come up with something else. a couple weeks ago i built and stained one and today i finally finished it. i was going for the vintage meets country chic meets cheap look. i guess it came out how i envisioned it in my head but i still can't decide if i like it...i feel like it's missing something. what do you think?..