..of great gratitude..

..today is the day! the turkey..the pie..the family..the black friday preparations..what a wonderful way to spend the day! thanksgiving is always an eventful yet relaxing day. i love it! i love the month of november as people reflect on the things that bring them such joy. those moments of recognizing what means the most in life and how truly blessed we are. this year i have much to be thankful for. and even though i know i should do this more often i can't help but share the things that fill my heart with such gratitude.

1) my Savior, Jesus Christ and His gospel-i wouldn't have the peace and happiness that i do without Christ and His teachings. i'm so very thankful for the scriptures, a living prophet, the Temple, and the Holy Ghost. each of things help me live in a way that brings me closer to my Savior.

2) Matthew Ryan King- my dear sweet husband. i cannot comprehend life without that boy. no one makes me laugh harder, helps me to be my best self, work as hard, or even enjoy life the way he does. i couldn't ask for a more supportive and encouraging person to be my spouse. i love him more than i will ever be able to express.

3) family and friends- i have some of the very best family and friends. i am grateful that we live close enough that we are able to get together as often as we do. i am truly thankful for the encouragement and support that we've been given by our family and friends. it's such a relief and blessing to know that we have such remarkable people there if we need them and so quick to offer help in any circumstance.

4) our home-this year has been exciting as Matt has taken on a new job that requires us to live on site. it has come with it's share of challenges but the blessings of it outweigh them by far. i'm grateful for Matt's dedication and diligence to his work that provides us with an incredible place to live.

5) my job- i love my job. even the hard days where i would be okay if i never saw another student again. i love that i get to watch others progress, accomplish goals, learn from failures, and find friendships that will last a lifetime. i am blessed to work in a place where i am able to express my own creativity and push myself to new limits. i am also so grateful for the income that it provides to help support our family.

it's such a blessing to have a day once a year where it's socially acceptable to throw out to the universe what we're thankful and grateful for. if only i could be better about sharing those thoughts with the world more often. may your day be filled with gratitude and love (even during those crazy black friday moments when you want to punch someone in the face!). happy thanksgiving..

..blaaaaaaaahhhhh...

..i don't want to go back to real life tomorrow. i've LOVED my labor day weekend.. 

..tomorrow is a day full of catch up, check in, 102 tables of people to be taken care of, playing sophisticated a dinner, pro card statements, and so much more. i'm SO excited. i'm grateful for a job, especially one i love, but i could use an extra long week.. 

..what about you?..

..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..