Chris and Rachelle

Baby!

2010-11-24T13:07:00.001-08:00

Well, for anyone that hasn't heard yet, we are having a baby! I am due June 19, 2011, and we are so excited! Here is a timeline of the events:

October 16th - Positive pregnancy test!

We also decided to tell our parents right away since we had no idea what we were doing. We called my parents that night and got them talking about some of their upcoming vacations. I told them I had a great idea for a vacation spot, and I got them both on the phone at the same time so I could tell them both. I told them that they could come to our house in June to meet our baby, and they were way excited.

October 17th - We told Chris's parents the good news this night. We had a birthday card for her that was addressed to Grandma. Here is what the inside looked like (the pictures were in there too):

It took them a minute to figure out what it meant, but then they were really excited too!

November 11 - First prenatal appointment . They took lots of blood, ask lots of questions, and invited me back for an ultrasound on the 18th.

November 18 - First Ultrasound! The baby was perfect. The ultrasound tech measured and said that the baby was right on track at 9 weeks , 4 days. The little baby was moving its little arms and legs like crazy! I think it was excited to see us. We saw the little heartbeat and heard it too. It measured at 171 bpm which is right where it should be. Here is one of the ultrasound pictures.
Chris think our baby looks like a mouse. I'm afraid he's right.

November 23rd - We finally told everyone else that we were having baby. My sisters were in town on their way down to Las Vegas for Thanksgiving, and Chris's brother and sister in law were in town as well. We decided to get together for dinner at a chinese restaurant we all really like. We decided to secretly order custom made fortune cookies with fortunes that annouced our pregnancy. Chris went and talked to the owner of the store, and he agreed to give us our fortunes cookies after our meal instead of the ones they usually give out. We got there, and the owner was totally cool and didn't ruin our secret at all. He's sneaky! He brought the cookies out and everyone started opening them. Here is what they looked like.

Regular Fortune Cookie?

Nope!

Chris's mom actually got a video of everyone's reactions, so I'll post that after I get it from her. It was great being able to finally announce our good news!

Right After the Announcement :)

Spring Break

2010-04-04T10:13:00.000-07:00

We spent the first few days of Spring Break in Park City. It was fun! We shopped at the outlet mall our first day there. The highlight of the outlet mall was the Bose store. We went in and watched a short film about high quality audio in a home theater system, and then we found out how much it was(A LOT!). Since we watched the movie, they let us enter into a drawing to win one, so don't be surprised when we announce on April 16th that we won it. I'm sure we did, so soon we will have a new home theater system. You're all invited over to enjoy it when we get it. (Don't tell Chris we might not win. He is convinced that we have it in the bag.)

After the outlet mall, we went over to the historic district of Park City and walked up Main street. We spent most of our time in the art galleries looking at pictures. We also saw the painting done by the graffiti artist Banksy this year during the Sundance Film Festival. Here is Chris with it.

I had heard about this guy before, and I was excited to see it.

The next day, we went to The Utah Olympic Park. We spent some time looking through the museum, and then we went a guided tour. It was awesome! They took us to the bottom of the ski jumps, and then all the way up to the top of the luge track, the top of the bobsled track, and the top of the ski jump hill. It was SO STEEP! I can't even imagine going down that thing on skis. I'm not usually afraid of heights, but I would be scared to death to do that! Here are some pictures from the Olympic Park.

Saturday night, we were back home and we decided to color Easter eggs. I know we're not little kids, but it was fun! We bought the Tye-dye set and let me tell you, it was the most complicated Easter egg dying I've ever done. We had to take each egg, put it in a plastic bag, and use these little sucker straw things to suck up a little bit of dye and drop it on the egg, rub it all around using a bag, switch the egg to a new bag, add more color, and repeat until you were satisfied. We quickly found out that too many colors just turned the eggs brown. Only a few ended up ugly. Here are some of our eggs.

Kiersten's Senior Pictures

2010-03-28T19:57:00.000-07:00

My parents came in town this weekend for my Aunt Berta's wedding. Here are few shots from the Mount Timpanogas temple.

Shannon, Berta, Ron, and Don

The Happy Couple

Congratulations, Randy and Berta!

I also took some pictures of Kiersten at Wheeler Farm. Here are a few of them.

Here is Chris entertaining himself while I took pictures.

It was a fun weekend!

The last 7 months or so...

2010-02-15T19:18:00.000-08:00

So, the last time I blogged was in July of last year. Wow. I did change the background once around Christmas with the intention of blogging...but it never happened. Sorry for those of you who got excited thinking I blogged (Becca :). So, lets see...school started, Halloween happened, Thanksgiving happened, Christmas happened, and New Year's happened. They were good.

So, my birthday was a few weeks ago, and Chris bought me this.

So exciting! I am excited to learn how to take really good pictures. In fact, I have already read the entire user manual and the entire "Digital SLR Cameras and Photography for Dummies" book. I went to a cool workshop this weekend where I learned all about different types of lighting. It was awesome!

We went to St. George last weekend for the UMEA conference. It was good break from school and we were able to do a lot of networking with several other teachers in Utah.

I have the best husband ever! For Valentines Day, he sent me roses at school. All of my students (particularly the girls) thought it was really sweet. I did too. He really knows how to make me feel special. He also continued the tradition of giving me a noise-making stuffed animal for Valentines Day. Plus, I got chocolates. He spoils me so much! Here are the goods.

Since Chris's favorite food in the whole world is cheesecake, I decided to attempt to make one. I didn't have a recipe, so I googled "best cheesecake" and made the first recipe I found. It was a complete and total success! Chris loves it ( we still have half in the fridge which I'm sure he will finish off quickly). It was a great recipe and I will definitely do it again. However, next time, I'm going soften the cream cheese to room temperature before I start. I think it will make it smoother. The flavor, however, was PERFECT! I also made a tart raspberry sauce that complemented the cheesecake very well.
It was a great weekend and I am SO LUCKY to be married to such a fabulous man. He is the best husband anyone could ask for. I love you, Chris!

The camera is back!

2009-07-27T21:33:00.000-07:00

Woo hoo, our camera is fixed! $112 dollars later, we are able to take pictures again. Thanks Dad for letting us borrow your camera for our cruise :)

So, on the 24th of July, we decided to get tickets to the Bees game. Chris's parents and his sister Becky came with us. Here is Chris driving us there.

And here is me riding.
So, we arrived at the game, got a really good parking spot, and went to the box office to pick up our tickets. There was a sign on the window that said the game was postponed! The team that was supposed to come got sick, so they brought in some all-star high school teams for a home run derby and a 7 inning game. They were still going to have the fireworks show too, so we stayed. Also, because of the inconvenience, they gave everyone who bought a ticket 2 more tickets to a Bees game, a Jazz game preseason ticket, and a ticket to the Miller MotorSports park. Hooray for free entertainment for the rest of our summer!

We got seats on the grass and watched a high school kid dominate the home run derby. He was even outplaying all of the Bees players. We later found out he is sort of famous and was on the cover of Sports Illustrated recently. He is only 16! I think Kiersten should marry him since they both live in Las Vegas. His name is Bryce Harper. Read about him. You'll be impressed.

Here are some pictures from the game.

Bunny ears :)

They moved everyone from the grass to the outfield so they could launch the fireworks.

Okay, the fireworks. This was one of the best firework shows I have ever seen. They advertised it as "Utah's Best Firework Show" and I was skeptical, but after seeing it I am a believer. They had lots of unique fireworks and they were fast paced. Here are a few shots from the professional firework picture-taker, my talented husband.

This one looks like jellyfish :)

Here is a group shot taken after the fireworks.

I think Chris is standing on my foot.

The next day, my parents came into town for the weekend. We went miniature golfing at Boondocks.

I think he means business.

Today we volunteered at the Oquirrh Mountain temple again. Chris did parking and I was an usher outside of the tents. Chris got a very fashionable sunburn in all of the places he did not put sunscreen, and I am now a pro at crowd control and keeping people who have to wait in long lines happy. I really liked my job this time and hope I get put there again tomorrow. Last time, I opened the main doors of the temple on the side that got almost no action, so in 5 hours I saw about 100 people. The rest of the time I just stood there. This time I was busy the whole time. Much better :)

SCUBA diving, near death experiences, and Mexico

2009-07-20T14:44:00.000-07:00

Chris and I just got back from yet another vacation (This is Chris, I'll add my comments when needed ;). It began here:

That's right folks, the airport. We arrived for our around 3:30 for our 4:55 flight only to find out that it was delayed. Not just a little delay, 3 hours! (Somebody decided to have a heart attack on our plane before it came to Salt Lake.) Here is us waiting in the airport:

We got really worried because we thought we needed to be in California on our dive boat by 9:00, and our delayed flight was scheduled to arrive at the Long Beach airport about 8:30. I called my dad in a panic, but he assured me we didn't really need to be on the boat until about 4am. So we waited and read lots and eventually arrived in Long Beach around 8:30. My brother Eric picked us up from the airport and we went to a small hole-in-the-wall brewery with the wobbliest table EVER and ate dinner. (The waitress messed up multiple times on my check, lost my credit card, and she wouldn't stop touching me, but it was still fun.) Then we went to the port and hopped on our dive boat.

(A little background on the SCUBA diving stuff: My uncle is a SCUBA instructor, and over the past 3 or 4 years, he has certified many of my family members. All of my immediate family and several of my aunts, uncles, and cousins are certified. Chris also got certified right after we got married. Because of that, our family decided to rent out an entire dive boat for a few days.)

We spent 2 days around Catalina Island at several different dive sites. We slept on the boat and the boat captain drove us to different dive sites all day long. It was a ton of fun having a boat just with family on it. (It was great except that I get seasick!!!) Here are some pictures from the dive trip:

Chris and me in the galley

On the back of the boat

Chris climbing into the boat

Eric and Brandon

Isn't diving the most flattering sport ever? (I think so :)

My dad how he usually looks :)

Ben's giant fish

Sean holding another smaller fish

Kiersten and Jean

Me climbing into the boat

Just kidding, this is in Disneyworld

Chris, Brandon and me planning our dive

So overall, our dive trip was very good. Except the time we almost died...

So, at our third dive site on Friday, Chris and I decided to go down with my dad and my cousin Becky. The whole trip, visibility was very low, only 5-10 feet depending on the site. Chris and I went down, and we immediately lost my dad and my cousin. It wasn't a huge deal because Chris and I were together, so we stayed down for about 15 minutes and saw some cool stuff. We stayed right near our boat the whole time (or so we thought...) We surfaced to see where the others were, and we saw that there was some commotion going on. A few of my younger cousins that were too young to scuba dive were snorkeling and there was suddenly an extremely strong current that was pulling them close to some boats that were docked and close to the shore.
Here is a visual aid to help you understand:

The dive boat was equipped with a smaller boat that could help in an emergency called a dinghy. While Chris and I were diving, my dad had realized there was a strong current and that the kids couldn't make it back on their own and had blown his emergency whistle. The two deck hands that worked on the dive boat got in the dinghy and picked up the stranded kids. In addition, they took back Becky and Ben (who swam over to help them). In the meantime, Chris and I decided we had better get back to the boat because of the strong current. The dinghy was still going to go back and pick up my dad from the buoy because he was really tired, but we figured we could make it back fine since we were so close. Chris and I went down about 10 feet and swam about halfway back to the boat. All of the sudden Chris told me we needed to surface. I was kind of annoyed because I just wanted to get back, but I did it anyway. Lo and behold, we surfaced and we were right next to my dad...all the way back near the boats. Chris had looked over and seen my dad and we realized we were actually going backwards even though we were swimming forwards. Stupid current... Since the dinghy was coming back for my dad, we figured we had better join my dad on the buoy and wait for it to take us back.

Now, floating in the ocean with a tank of air on your back and an inflated vest with weights (all in all about 50+ extra pounds) on sounds like an easy task, but it is not, at least when there is a crazy strong current pulling you into the shore. We had to fight just to keep hold of the rope. So the dinghy arrived back to us and they had us hold on to the rescue rope they were dragging to take us back to the dive boat. However, the current was so strong and we were so heavy with all of our equipment and weights that the current starting pulling the dinghy into the rock! The deck hands decided they could only take 2 of us at a time. Chris volunteered to stay back and hang on to the buoy while the dinghy dragged my dad and me back. Unfortunately, we were still too heavy and we were still getting dangerously close to the rock.

Don't forget, this whole time we are ridiculously close to our dive boat and it is super embarrassing that we can't get back on our own.

They decided it would be better to go the long way around the rock so we wouldn't crash into it. We were still holding on to the rescue rope, and the dinghy was going as fast as it could to hurry and get us back so they could go back and save Chris. Imagine water skiing with your face under the water. Fast dinghy+rescue rope= Rachelle's eyes, nose and mouth completely full of salt water and no breathing. Bad idea. I had to let go when we were about halfway around the rock. They decided to have me take off all of my gear and pull me into the boat with them. They decided to do the same with my dad because he was having the same issues I was having plus we were both really tired.

Now, a word about the deck hands. Imagine the skinniest, most petite 15 year old boy you have ever seen. Now cut him in half. That is how big the two boys in the dinghy were that were trying to pull me and my gigantic father into the boat. They did well though, and after a graceful face-first entry into the dinghy by me, we were ready to go on.

By the way, the whole time we were being pulled into the boat, Chris was patiently waiting on the buoy and trying not to die.

It's my turn to tell my side of the story. I volunteered to stay behind because it was only my second dive of the day and Rachelle and Ron had been diving all day (not to mention that I would never leave my lovely wife alone in the middle of the ocean) so I was still pretty fresh. After they left me I took a look at my air supply and knew that I had enough to last about 40 minutes. I decided to just hold onto the buoy and float on the surface face down because that was the most comfortable and energy efficient way. I knew that they were headed to the boat, so every few minutes I would look up to see if they were there.

About fifteen minutes later they still hadn't made it back to the boat and I couldn't see them at all. I didn't know that they were going the long way around the rock and I figured that they were going to the shore to get into the dinghy. Anyways... about fifteen minutes later a military helicopter flew over me and for a brief moment I thought they were there to save me, sadly it flew off into the horizon :( After twenty minutes of solitude I was utterly exhausted and decided that it was about time to drop the weights on my vest (not my air supply) and try to swim to one of the yachts or the shore. At that time the people on the yacht closest to me noticed I was in trouble. They asked if they could help and I was excited to accept. As they were preparing their dinghy our dinghy returned from behind me with Ron and Rachelle inside. They pulled me in, much like they did the others and all three of us just layed there like dead fish until we returned to the boat (I never thought I would ever be happy to be back on that boat because of my seasickness).

So that was our drama of the day. We were all so tired that none of us did a night dive because we were pooped. We definitely slept well that night though :)

Before we went to bed, we went to the back of the boat and tried to spot some of the sea lions hunting the flying fish. We saw the coolest thing ever. A flying fish was jumping in the air right by us, and while it was midair a sea lion jumped out of the water and swallowed it whole! It was awesome! When the sea lion went back in the water, it made a huge splash and got all of us wet. Chris says it was the highlight of the day for him :) (Can you blame me after reading that story?)

The next morning we woke up and did a dive to see some giant sea bass. They were so big! They were as big as a person. Rumor has it that they can get as big as a VW bug. They were fun because they didn't really care if we got close to them. They just stayed in place and looked at us. (We also saw a cute fish that wouldn't stop flirting with my wife. Good thing I didn't have a spear gun...)

Later that afternoon, we got off the boat and went to the hotel that we were staying at in Anaheim. (Boy was I glad to be back on dry land.) My parents and my brother and his family were staying there too. We went to dinner and then went home and went to bed. We were all tired from the trip.

The next morning, Chris and I got up and went to the Angels v. Yankees baseball game. It was Chris's first pro baseball game and we had a great time. It was SO HOT though and we were in the sun the whole time. The Angels won which made Chris happy because he hates the Yankees. (I love watching the Yankees loose!!! Especially when it ends with an A-Rod strikeout :)

We went back to the hotel, went to dinner with my parents, and then went to the pool at the hotel to swim and relax.

While we were at the baseball game, my brother took his family to Universal Studios. They had a good time, and when they went out to their car to leave, it was gone. Someone had stolen their van! Who steals a minivan? They were supposed to drive back home to Colorado in just a few days. My sister-in-law had left her purse (with iPhone, keys, and wallet) and Eric left his plus diving equipment in the van. The perpetrator had already charged nearly $3000.00 on their credit cards by the time they canceled them. My dad went and picked them up from Universal Studios and they got back late and went straight to bed.

We found out a few days later that the van was found in perfect condition in Compton. They didn't take the DVD player, the satellite radio, the dive equipment, or the $300 purse. Just the wallet and the iPhone. They even returned something they bought with the stolen credit card and the store credited it back to the card. Stupid criminals...

We got up the next morning and my brother worked on getting a rental vehicle for his family. We entertained his children. By the way, my niece and nephews don't even like me anymore. Everytime they see us, they say "Rachelle!" and they start coming towards me....and then they see Chris. "Uncle Chris! Uncle Chris! Uncle Chris!" Their path immediately changes and they run into his arms. All thoughts of Rachelle are forgotten. Lame... (Mwa ha ha...)

That afternoon, my parents drove us to our cruise boat, the Paradise.

After convincing the front desk to switch our room because ours was REALLY STINKY, we went to dinner. We sat with two couples from California. They were nice and it was fun to get to know them a little bit.

The next morning we woke up and we were at... drum roll please... Catalina Island. Although we had just been diving there, neither one of us had ever actually been on the island. (Believe me, there were many times that I had wished I was on the island while I was sick on the dive boat.) We wandered around Avalon and got some fine jewelry (that changes colors in the sun!) for free.

Later in our lives, we are planning to move to Catalina, live here

and drive this.

After walking around the town ,we decided to go back to the boat. We got a highly coveted spot on the soft beach chairs on the back of the boat and napped and read for the rest of the afternoon.

That evening we went to dinner and ate with the same people. Here is us right before we left our room:

The next morning we woke up and we were in Ensenada, Baja California, Estados Unitos Mexico!

We had signed up for the "La Bufadora Adventure", so we went to our designated spot and met our tour guide, Selene. She was very good. They drove us on a bus out to La Bufadora, which translated is The Blowhole. It is one of 3 natural blowholes in the world.

At La Bufadora

At la Bufadora, there is also an open-air flea market that you have to walk through to get to the blowhole. We had a lot of fun shopping there and bargaining with the salesmen. Chris is so good (Thank you Brazil!!!), he got me a purse that was supposed to be $120 for $30. Not bad. After the flea market, we went to the cultural center in Ensenada (where, according to Selene, the margarita was invented...right...) and learned some history of the city. We also did a little more shopping. After that, we went back to the boat. We did NOT want to be wandering around Mexico at night.

The next day was a "Fun Day at Sea" which we are pretty sure meant "A Fun Day Anchored in the Middle of the Sea". We could see an island, and it didn't move all day (I'm pretty sure it was Catalina Island). We relaxed and got lots of naps in :)

On Friday morning, we got off of our cruise boat about 9 am. We didn't have to be at the airport until 6 pm, and we didn't really have a plan. We sat right outside the cruise terminal for a while discussing our options. We sort of felt like transients with no where to go and no means of transportation. We also had all of our luggage with us. We finally made some calls and found out there was an aquarium a few miles away that would let us check our bags at the front desk while we wandered the aquarium, so we went there. We had a good time seeing all of the stuff that we wished we had seen on our dive trip (if the visibility had been better). There were about 5 million 5th graders there enjoying it with us. Here are a few pictures:

Me by the shark touch pool

Chris by the shark touch pool

A lionfish (get it? Lyon fish? ha ha)

Some cool birds

By all the Nemos and Dorys

After the aquarium, we went to lunch and then braved the Long Beach public transit system and went to the airport and paid $1.10 each. On the way, Chris made a friend. There was interesting guy who told us about his experience in 'Nam. He proceeded to pull out his cell phone and play all of his messages for Chris, most of which were random people calling him and asking if he was in jail again. When we were on the bus, the driver kept telling him to sit down and stop bugging everyone. The bus driver called him a gift. We also met a man on the bus that told us how he had driven through "Mormon Country" once when he found out we were from Utah. He wanted to come back with us, he said Long Beach is the town of "fruits and nuts". He told us how much he liked Brigham Young, too.

We finally arrived at the airport and got home and went to bed. We had a really great time on our trip. It is so nice to have the summer off!!

New Phone Number

2009-07-20T13:20:00.000-07:00

Hey, Rachelle just got a new phone number. If you want it please contact us either by email, or facebook, or comment on the blog, or even call Chris (not Rachelle because you don't have her number, duh...).

ps, we will be posting about our SCUBA trip and cruise soon :)

Our Wedding!

2009-07-06T16:13:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures from our big day. The weather was PERFECT!!! It was cloudy so there are no shadows or squinty eyes by me (woo hoo!).

Finally Married!

We had lots of support from our family and friends.

Rachelle's Parents

Chris's Parents

We made it!!!

Prince Charming

Awwww...

Looking back at the goal

Our FAVORITE picture

Boy did we look good!

Right before my swim... Just kidding!

How cute!

We had the best looking shoes ever!

Chris had to have the "dip"

Our amazing cake made by Monica. Thanks!

More cake, it was yummy :)

Our sign in table (don't worry, it ended up with lots of signatures)

Our candy table with the paintings that Bryan made and a cross stitch that one of Rachelle's student's mom made

Our centerpieces that we didn't get to see until we got the pictures back

Our food table (without the food)

It was the best day of our lives! Thanks to all that came and helped and supported us and shared our big day.

More than 73 days later...

2009-07-05T17:23:00.000-07:00

There is a reason we teach music and not language arts, the frequency of our posts proves that... Marriage is great! We have really enjoyed the last three months. After we got married we spent the weekend at the Homestead Resort in Midway. It was so much fun. It was very nice to get away from things before our final push to end the school year on a positive note.

After the school year ended we finally went on our honeymoon. We went to Disney World. We spent a week staying at the Port Orleans French Quarter Resort. It was extremely hot and humid. All of our meals were included in our resort package and boy did we take advantage of all that food. Our favorite restaurant was Boatwright's Dining Hall at Port Orleans Riverside. The funny thing is that prior to our trip we made dinner reservations and forgot to make one. The first night we were there we just improvised and ended up at Boatwright's. We spent a lot of time in each park, but our favorite was Magic Kingdom. We also really enjoyed going to Typhoon Lagoon, the water park. It was lots of fun to get away from everything so soon after the school year ended. It was a great trip that we will always remember.

Just a few days after we returned, Rachelle's parents came to visit us. Kiersten, Rachelle's "little" sister, was selected to be on Allyse's Bridal's fashion team. While she was at "boot camp" her family stayed with us. It was fun being the hosts for a change.

Just this last weekend we went to Lewiston, UT to celebrate the 4th of July. Independence Day is the biggest holiday of the year there. The Hall family was kind enough to let us spend the night of the 3rd there. We woke up at the butt crack of dawn on the 4th to eat breakfast cooked by the city firefighters. While we were eating, Becca, Meghan, Preston, and some other guy ran the town 5K. Preston was the overall winner at an amazing 19 minutes! After breakfast we went to the parade where we made ourselves sick from eating so much free candy. We then went back to the Halls for the biggest 4th of July party ever! It was lots of fun just chilling with friends and watching the kids play on the inflatable toys. We also went to the town softball tournament where the Morrison family played well. They advanced to the semi-finals before a disappointing loss where Amanda was the last out of the year ;0)

We still have lots planned for the summer. We are going on a SCUBA trip to Catalina Island followed by a cruise to Mexico. We'll try to keep you posted as to our activities for the rest of the summer.

*Our camera was a fatality of the honeymoon, it's being fixed and photos will be taken and posted soon enough.

Only 73 days left!

2009-01-26T16:59:00.000-08:00

We have not posted in forever! We have been way busy with the holidays and wedding plans. We took our engagement pictures, hired a photographer, went to a bridal fair(yes, we...isn't he great?) have talked to lots of florists, I got my dress, we chose the design for our announcements, etc. We are feeling pretty good about this whole wedding planning business. We just have a few more things to plan, and then we are READY! Here are a few of our engagement pictures. They aren't the ones from our announcement, but something to keep you interested :) Becky did them for us and she did an AMAZING job. Thanks Becky!

I Miss You So Very Much

2008-12-24T18:58:00.000-08:00

I know you won't be reading this until you are back, but here I go anyways.

I miss...

Holding your hand
Your beautiful smile
Your laugh
Your eyes
Your voice
Receiving text messages from you
Cuddling with you
Waking up from a nap with you by my side
Talking with you
Sitting in silence staring into your eyes
Making you laugh
Tickling you
Driving in a car with you
Going to the store with you
Spending every moment of spare time with you
Making wedding preparations with you
Watching tv with you
Watching movies with you
Playing video games with you
Talking about work with you
Sharing everything that happens to me with you
Looking at your ring
Walking with you
Smiling with you
My nightly good night text from you
Going to church with you
Putting my arm around you
Hugging you
Kissing you

I miss you so so much! I hope you have a safe trip and I can't wait to see you! I love you more than words can say!!!

The best woman ever!!!

2008-12-01T20:15:00.000-08:00

For Thanksgiving weekend Rachelle invited me to spend the time with her and her family in Las Vegas. I was excited to spend all that extra time with Rachelle plus I got to meet the rest of her family. I started to get sick a few days before the trip, but things looked as if they would get better. When we headed down on Wednesday I started to get worse. As the weekend progressed my condition deteriorated to the point to where we had to leave early Sunday morning to get me back in Utah to see a doctor that accepts my insurance. The whole weekend Rachelle stayed by my side helping me as much as she could.
After a very long trip we finally arrived in Salt Lake and got to the doctor. I was being worked on for about an hour with Rachelle waiting in the waiting room for me the whole time. I learned that I had Bronchitis. When I got home, before I could even take my medicine, my condition got so bad that I could barely stand and I was having the worst Asthma attack of my life. Rachelle stayed and helped me through it. She then helped me get some food down and then helped make me comfortable until the meds kicked in.
I've realized just how lucky I am to have Rachelle in my life. I don't know what I would have done without her last night and I don't know what I would do without her for the rest of eternity. This weekend has helped me love her even more and I know even more now than before (which was still quite a bit) that Rachelle is going to be an amazing mother to our children. I love you so much! Thanks for all you do for me!!!

Our First Fight

2008-11-23T15:59:00.000-08:00

Chris and I decided to make a cherry pie for a fake Thanksgiving dinner we are attending tonight. It was our first time baking together, and it turned into a big mess. It was a lot of fun though. Here is the before picture. Notice that there is no flour anywhere it shouldn't be.

Next you will see me forming the dough into balls so we could roll it on the counter. Still no flour anywhere.

The first strike. Chris is very proud of the fact that he started the flour fight. He keeps mentioning it hoping I will put it on the blog. So yes, it is true, Chris started the fight. He didn't finish it though :) (so says Rachelle)

The finished product.

In Love and Loving It!

2008-11-18T16:57:00.000-08:00

WE ARE ENGAGED!!! Isn't it great? Chris proposed on November 11, but the story of our engagement didn't start there. We were friends while we were at BYU and we had quite a few classes together. After we graduated we ended up working for the same district. We stayed in contact, but that was about it. During the Summer of 2008 we decided to get season tickets for BYU football through mutual friends. When the season started we decided to carpool to save gas and that's where WE began.

After the Wyoming game Rachelle wanted to see Chris's new condo. After the tour Chris took Rachelle to the balcony to talk. He decided to ask her out to the upcoming General Conference 3 weeks away. She said yes and a date was planned. We couldn't wait until then to go out for the first time and the next day Rachelle asked Chris to go to a fireside with her. He was ecstatic. They hung out almost every day that week and the rest is history.

On November 11 Chris proposed. It started with him having flowers delivered to Rachelle's school. The school interrupted class to deliver the flowers. She was so flattered and her little sevies were overcome with curiosity. Later that day Chris told Rachelle that he had to stay after school to do a sound check for the choir concert (a complete lie) and that she should come over around 4:15. Rachelle went home and Chris went to the jewelry store to pick up the ring and make preparations. About a minute after Rachelle got home there was a knock at the door where she recieved a dozen long-stemmed red roses. Rachelle couldn't wait until she could see Chris. At 4:15 Rachelle arrived at Chris's house and he greeted her with another dozen roses dressed very spiffy. They, ummm... "talked" for a few minutes then Chris took her to the place where our lives were forever changed, the balcony (where he first asked her out). They stood in the exact locations as before and Chris popped the question.

We are getting married on April 10, 2009 at 10:20 in the Salt Lake Temple. We are so excited to share our lives together for the rest of time and all of eternity!