Recent Happenings

Well everyone, I'm officially done with school! Graduation was on April 15th and my portfolio event was on April 8th. It's kind of weird now having a lot of free time, our house has been really clean this past week. :) I'm going to post more pictures tomorrow, but these are the ones I have on my jump drive right now. (They were the ones that I posted on my design blog so they're not really the fun ones with Brandon and my family, those are still on my camera and will be posted tomorrow.)

Brandon's Post

So, Brandon was telling me the other day that he’s feeling left out from the blog. So I decided to dedicate an entire post to my darling husband so you all can get to know more about him. :)
His favorite dinner ever is wet burritos. Now I know that may sound interesting, but they’re basically microwavable enchiladas. His Mom would even send him all of the non-perishable ingredients for every major holiday and his birthdays while he was on his mission.
He absolutely loves the boat. He would spend every weekend all year out on a lake if he could, if he wouldn’t be a popsicle by the time we got back to shore. During this particular trip he leaned over the bow like that and then turned to me and said “Look, it’s like Titanic!”

He absolutely loves teasing the dog, and says that one day he wants to get a basset hound.

Some of his favorite activities are playing xbox and going hunting. However he never plays a hunting game on xbox.

He also loves John Deere stuff for some reason, and when we recently got a lawn mower, he was so excited that it was yellow and green because then he could put a John Deere sticker on it. :)
He's always willing to go along with whatever crazy idea I have, and is always really supportive of what I'm doing. Thanks Brandon for everything you do, I love you!

Quote 2

Here is my calendar quote for the month. I really like this one because it has been such a crazy month. Portfolio is tonight and then graduation is next week. I've been feeling stretched thin but really happy with myself at the same time because I did it! It's such an awesome feeling to be this close to graduating from college. Here is the quote
"Anticipate the good so that you may enjoy it. -Ethiopian Proverb"
Isn't that so perfect. When I'm constantly running around being so busy, I miss everything that is good and I don't enjoy it. I've always considered myself a pretty optimistic person but from now on I'm going to be looking for the good in everything that happens. Hope you all have a wonderful day! I'll be sure to post pictures of my portfolio tomorrow or Saturday. Oh, also, I started a design blog on my own it is kirstenelizabethdesigns.blogspot.com so go check it out!

Life's Story...

I found this quote from the general Young Womens Broadcast on this blog that I read sometimes (more like blog stalk but come on, who doesn't :)). I can't wait to read the whole thing when they get it posted on the church website. From what I can find online his talk was about how overcoming adversity is the key to "happily ever after". I just loved this quote, it was a nice reminder to keep your chin up and keep going. Enjoy!

"Why must all experience sadness and tragedy? Why could we not simply live in bliss and peace, each day filled with wonder, joy and love? In stories, as in life, adversity teaches us things we cannot learn otherwise. Adversity helps to develop a depth of character that comes in no other way."
"None is exempt. You will suffer, be tempted and make mistakes. You will learn for yourself what every heroine has learned: through overcoming challenges comes growth and strength.
"It is your reaction to adversity, not the adversity itself that determines how your life's story will develop."

- Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf said at the Young Womens General Broadcast on Sunday March 28, 2010

Quote of the Month...

At work I have this calendar that has a quote for each month along with a gorgeous nature picture (I'm a sucker for a good nature shot. I think it's the colors found in nature. They're so pure and beautiful.) So I figured that this year I'll make sure and post that quote on the first day or every month. At least that way I can guarantee one post a month. :) This month the quote is from an amazing classic author...
"Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many..." -Charles Dickens
How awesome is this quote, and how true. Recently our family has been having some hard times. For those of you who don't know Brandon's Grandma passed away in February. And my Great-Grandpa passed away on Christmas Eve. Although both of these have been hard, I find myself realizing how blessed we are. How wonderful having the gospel in our lives is, and what a blessing it is to have that understanding that we will see our loved ones again and be with them. What a blessing the temple is and how amazing it is that our families are eternal. I wouldn't trade this knowledge for anything in the world. Remember that there are blessings in every trial we go through. We may not see them until much later but they're there.

Adventures

In my heart I like to consider myself an adventurer. Someone who has been all over the world and seen all these amazing places, met all of these interesting people, maybe solve a mystery or two. Couldn't you see me somewhere like these two places...


Since tomorrow is a new year it got me thinking about what this year will bring. And you know what I decided...I'll let you guess...ADVENTURES! (yay, I knew you would get it) I may not be able to go to Paris or Greece in the coming year but I know that whatever this year brings I'll be able to have lots of adventures.
"The purpose of life, after all,
is to LIVE it,
to taste experience to the utmost,
to reach out eagerly and without fear
for newer and richer experience."
~ Eleanor Roosevelt ~
Don't you love that quote! I know I do. This quote is going to be added to my fridge this year so that I can always remember what my new years resolution is. To live life, to always be looking for new experience's and adventures and to embrace them without fear.
"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."
~ Helen Keller ~
I love Helen Keller, she is a true adventurer and such an inspiration. (this is going on my fridge too by the way). How true is this quote. Life is an adventure. It always will be, whether you're traveling the world or like me, and living out your adventure at home with the people you love more than anything. Here's to a new year and whatever adventures come our way! Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you all had a fantastic day!
Love,
Kirsten, Brandon, and Missy ♥

First Impressions

Well folks, the house is coming along quite nicely. And we're getting really excited. All we have left is to get the carpet installed and then we can officially move into the upstairs and stop living like hermits :) I will post pictures of the colors we chose once we finish the touch up work around the trim and ceiling. I've always wanted a house that leaves a really good first impression when people come and visit. One of the things Brandon and I were talking about the other day was our front door. Right now it's just white (with a couple cute crayon marks from the daycare that previously occupied the house) with a small rectangle window in the middle. Eventually we want to get a new one but for now we're wanting to paint it. These are some pictures we found of what we're thinking for a paint color. Eventually we would love to have it look like the bottom one. What do you all think?



Just a little Christmas thought to leave you with...
". . . for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself." -Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

3.14159

PIE! Yummy! Today has been pretty eventful. I had school off for Thanksgiving break so I went over to my parents house to help make pumpkin pies. It smells so yummy in here. Missy and I got up pretty soon after Brandon left for work so we could work on the house some more. So far we have everything primed and the ceilings done. Today I got one coat of paint on the walls in the spare bedroom/office. It's starting to look so good. I'll have to post pictures so you can all see how the work is coming along. We're getting really close and should be done painting by the end of the weekend! Yay! Then all we have left is carpet and it will be time to move upstairs. We're really excited!

I know I'm a slacker...

I've been promising probably the whole time I have had this blog that I'll do better at updating it. The truth is, I really want to...but then I forget. So I'm being serious this time, I'm going to do better. My reasoning is this. We have a lot of family that we don't see on a regular basis and I'm sure they want to know what's going on escpecially since we just bought our house. So...I'm going to start updating the blog more often, starting now. Promise!

Our life recently...

Our life recently...packing...waiting...packing...teasing Missy by putting boxes on top of her and pretending we're going to pack her...waiting...waiting...learning to know when a situation is out of our control and putting it in the Lord's hands...packing...and still waiting! Don't worry though we're doing it with a smile :)

House

Well...we were supposed to be closing on our house today...but...we're not quite done. Technically we signed all the papers and are done, but they're waiting on something from the bank for the seller since it's a short sale. So the seller isn't done. It's been five months since we put our offer in and we were so excited this morning that it was finally going to be finished, after everything that we had to do to get to this point. Let me tell you, I was a little beyond frustrated this afternoon. I came to school and did not want to be here, I just wanted to go find someone that I could blame for not getting their job done. As I calmed down a little bit I was reading some quotes on lds.org and I found one that I really liked. It's from the May 2007 Ensign from an article by Bonnie D. Parkin the part I really liked said:
"...receiving even tribulations with thanksgiving requires a broken heart and a contrite spirit, humility to accept that which we cannot change, willingness to turn everything over to the Lord—even when we do not understand, thankfulness for hidden opportunities yet to be revealed. Then comes a sense of peace."
I realized that I needed to hear exactly what Sister Parkin said over two years ago. I can't change what's going on...in fact at this point in time there is absolutely nothing I can do to make them go faster with the closing. The only thing I can do is turn everything over to the Lord and say "I don't understand why this is happening like this or at this time, but I trust You, I know that you would never give me anything that I can't handle and I know that so long as I have done all I can do that it will all work out how it's supposed to."

Looking back over a great year!

Can you believe tomorrow is mine and Brandon's first anniversary? It feels like it's gone by so fast, but I wouldn't trade one second of it. We have had an awesome first year. We are working on buying our first house (and hoping that it won't take much longer...we're going on three months of waiting, luckily we're close). We have had lots of fun adventures and have kept each other laughing. I find a new reason every day why I love him and can't imagine doing what I have in the past year without him. We were talking the other day about how much we are looking forward to the many many many more years and eternity that are to come after this first one. As part of this post I wanted to put some pictures of what we have been up to over the past year, (I realized the other day that I have over 500 pictures on our camera and none of them have ever seen the light of day except when I look through the camera :)) So I figured what better time to look back and reminisce then on your anniversary. Our first Halloween! That pumpkin weighed 50 pounds! Our first Christmas! Brandon played with the train every night before we went to bed, it was so fun. We got our first dog! She is so cute! We have been camping and gone to the cabin. We have been boating on Utah Lake. We went to the state fair and have a new tradition (2 years running) of getting a foot long corn dog for dinner! Looking back through these pictures has been so much fun, it has brought back a lot of memories that we have made over the past year. I love you honey! Happy Anniversary!

St. George

Hey everybody! So I’m down in sunny St. George this week helping my Aunt out. It’s been a VERY. long time since I last posted on here and quite a lot has happened. Missy is so much fun to have around I’m really glad we were able to get a dog. We had a really fun Easter and got a lot of candy. Missy even got a toy from the Easter bunny. (She’s already ripped a hole in it) School has been out for about a month now so we have had a lot of fun spending more time together. One of our favorite family night activities is giving Missy a bath (Missy isn’t too fond of it but we like watching Missy pout)
So far St. George has been really fun. I got here last night around dinner time. Grandma and Michele left this morning after they came to check on us. All of the kids (except Dustin) have been at school. Dustin really likes Missy, and Missy is doing pretty good around the kids. She wasn’t too sure of all of them at first though. Well that’s all for now!

Missy!

So once again it has been a while since I last posted and I apologize that I haven't kept my word on making my blog more interesting. As I’m sure most of you know (sorry to those of you who live down south) we got a dog! She’s adorable. So this is my excuse for taking so long to post… I wanted to post pictures but I’ve been so busy recently (and it took me forever to figure out how to get the pictures on the computer) that I just didn’t have time until now to post about her. But here she is. (Once again sorry there is only one picture, once I get the hang of the camera/laptop situation I promise I'll post more) Our adorable little dog’s name is MISSY. She just turned two years old on January 26. We got her from a really nice family on January 24 that we found on KSL, they actually ended up living about one street away from my parents house. (I think it’s fate) She is so cute! We love her. She is the absolute most perfect dog!
Her eyes are actually brown, not green. Her dad is a pure bred chihuahua and her mom is a mix between a poodle/shih tzu/maltese. All in all we have had an awesome February. I've gotten to substitute for nursery recently, which I absolutely love. There are only two little girls in there and they are so cute. I've been pretty busy with school, but there is only 5 weeks left in the semester! Brandon has been a ton of help, if he knows I'm busy then he'll cook dinner, or clean the house, or just stay up and keep me company. It's really nice. Well, that's all for now. Have a happy day!

Update...

I decided it was time for another update, so here I am. We’re doing great! We’ve been really busy between both of us working and me going to school, and everything else we are doing, but I can tell we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing because everything is falling into place and we’re able to do everything we need to. School has been going pretty good. It hasn’t gotten to hectic as of yet but I’m sure that day will come the closer we get to the middle/end of semester. I do have to say that I’m learning a TON in the classes I have. I was thinking about how fun it would be to start posting pictures of the projects I’m working on. There is also a lot of cool quotes/info my teachers tell us that I think would be helpful to everyone, so I decided if something really stuck out to me I would share it with all of you! It’s my goal to start posting a LOT more often than I have been recently so that my blog isn’t boring (my sister told me it was once, gotta love sisters, they’re always so completely honest with you!) In my modern furnishings class we’re learning about the arts and crafts movement and William Morris, one of the architects during this time, said this amazing quote that I’ve kind of taken to heart. He said “Do not have anything in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful” I just think that is such a useful piece of advice to remember, and wanted to share it with everyone. Anyways, that’s our update for now!

Happy New Year!

Hey everybody! I know it has been FOREVER since I’ve posted anything, but it has been a really busy holiday season. I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas. Our first Christmas together was so much fun (I’ll be sure to post pictures once I upload them to the computer). We ended up setting up our Christmas tree on Thanksgiving (which was before we threw away our jack-o-lantern because by that point it was dripping onto our neighbor’s balcony :) and neither one of us wanted to carry it to the garbage) and are kind of sad to take it down. Our fish are still alive and are so cute, they’re our little boys. School is starting again next week, and after this semester is over I should only have two left! Woo hoo, almost done with college! Happy new year!

Seasons

I love watching the seasons change, each new season brings something new to be excited about! Brandon and I got to carve a pumpkin for Halloween, which was a blast because this was no ordinary pumpkin. This pumpkin weighed 50 pounds! It was amazing! (We still have it sitting on our balcony, I'm kinda holding on to it) And next is Thanksgiving! We were talking the other day about Thanksgiving and we both said the same dorky thing at the same time (great minds think a like!) and decided since we can eat at TWO Thanksgiving dinners this year we were going to go into training so we could stuff ourselves as full as possible! And then there is the Christmas tree. We bought it last year while they were really cheap and on clearance. Brandon has been so excited to set it up (and his little train that goes around it) that he asks me if he can set it up every day when he gets home from work! We finally came to a consensus that we could set it up the day after Thanksgiving, but no sooner because it will most likely take up a large amount of the space in our front room. (I have a feeling though that we'll probably set it up on Thanksgiving I'm excited to set it up too!) Anyways, I'm excited for the rest of the holiday season to come!

And now...

It's been a MONTH! That's right everyone, officially 11 minutes ago it has been one month since Brandon and I were married. We have been so busy with school and work and the apartment that it seemed to just fly by. However, I am happy to say that out apartment is finally clean! We still have some stuff that will probably just stay in boxes, but we can sit on the couch and see the floor everywhere (except where the furniture is) in the apartment! Pretty exciting, I'll have to get pictures of it posted some time soon. (We got a way cool digital camera, and we pretty much take it everywhere with us, so now I'll be able to get lots of pictures on our blog!) Anyways, we went to church for the first time in our new ward two weeks ago, and it's HUGE! There are probably 40 women in relief society (which is a little intimidating coming from a ward of about seven) but everyone was really nice and friendly and like half the ward lives in our apartment complex. Oh, and I'm thinking about getting a hair cut, but I can't decide how I should cut it. So if anyone has any ideas just let me know. (Or ideas for Halloween costumes, I can't think of what to be:) )

Life continues

Well, it has now been officially 1 week and 5 days since I married my sweetheart for time and all eternity. It's hard to believe that all of that planning is finally over, and how wonderful it all turned out. Everyone that helped at the weddding was amazing, and I know nothing would have gotten done without each and every one of you. I'm hoping to have pictures soon so I can post them on here. Our photographer was really good (Brandon's uncle Jeff) and I can't wait to see how they turned out. Still life continues. Our apartment is still not even CLOSE to being unpacked (considering that my bedroom in my parents house is still a disaster :) ) but we're getting there. Every day brings new surprises and something to laugh about. I love being married (even though there are still a lot of adjustments to get used to, going from six people to only two is kind of weird). My Mom gave me some great advice she told me "things won't get back to "normal", they just get back to life." This is SO true, I kept thinking that after the wedding things would get back to "normal", but now that it IS after the wedding I have realized that my "normal" has changed, and now Brandon and I get the wonderful chance to start our own life together. Making our own "normal."