Remarks from Sparks give away

So I'm pretty loyal.

There's a certain blog that I read everyday...at work.

Some people take smoking breaks, I take "Remarks" breaks.

It always leaves me laughing and contemplating...plus it's better for my health.

So I read it every day.

I never leave a comment...I've always been shy. I really should tell her how much I love her blog.

She also just so happens to be giving away an iphone...the dearest desire of my dearest's heart!

How Exciting!

For extra entries, I've faithfully voted for her and her sister's blogs for the BlogLuxe Awards (both are deserving of the award if you ask me), I dutifully snatched their buttons for my own blog, and now I am obediently posting about this particular give away.

Mark another one up for Whit and Chris.

Shortly after Chris and I entered wedded bliss, he insisted that we needed new phones. I was perfectly happy with the old, outdated phone of my singledom, but I wanted to give him what he wanted. And he wanted the blackberry. I chose the blackberry pearl. We went throught a week long ordeal looking for phones and phone plans, choosing colors and making orders. I liked my new little phone. It makes calls just like the old one... plus a lot of stuff I don't know how to use. Totally worth the $$$.

Chris on the other hand, opened the box to his highly anticipated new purchase, and promptly announced he didn't like it and wished he had gotten a different phone. Now he is jonesing for an iphone.

He really hates his phone. For the sake of my husband, I hope I win.

http://www.remarksfromsparks.com

My Little Sunshine

I consider myself to be lucky in that I have just bit more sunshine in my day than my co-workers. You see, I have the greatest mail man in the world...and as I'm the receptionist, I revel in selfishly hogging his sunshine all to myself at the front desk.


He's like Santa Clause.


Honestly, he kinda looks like Santa. He's an older gentleman, a little round 'round the middle, and a beard as white as snow. And his eyes!! Oh, his eyes! They make me feel like when I was a little girl and grandpa would laugh as I searched every coat pocket for the piece of candy he must have surely brought for me...little did I know that his eyes were laughing because it was his little secret that the candy was really in his hand. To say the least...they twinkle.


He always wears shorts...December or August shorts are the attire. And he wears the funniest glasses. I swear my teacher had some just like it in the fifth grade. She'd pull them out when it was story time, and they were small little frames with brightly multi-colored rims. Delightful.


I don't know his name, and he does not know mine. I doubt we'll ever be formally introduced. To me, he'll always be my mailman. At Christmas, I will give him a card addressed to "my favorite mailman." (Yes, he is so endearing that I want to give him a Christmas card) He has a boisterous voice that's just a little gruff. We exchange pleasantries such as "Good morning," or my personal favorite, "Happy Friday!" Once in a while he'll compliment my sweater, saying it reminds him of the color of cranberries. Charming. I always thank him for his service, and I sincerely mean it when I say, "Have a good day."


As we all know, I am not a morning person. I've had quite the love affair with my bed for some time now, and I can be a little cranky when we must part ways. I don't really remember much until about 10:00 am, as that's when the fog clears and I'm fully awake and functional...luckily that's about the time my beloved mailman comes.


It's nice to wake up to sunshine.

I've been tagged

So, Teagan tagged me to blog about the sixth picture in the sixth file on my computer. This little gem is from our honeymoon (oooooo!) This is a picture of the patio on the night we got there (if you didn't know, we went to a little condo at a ski resort in Ogden.) That night it snowed like crazy! If you can't tell there was about 3 feet of snow, and most of it fell that night. We were pretty grateful we arrived before the storm hit. Plus being snowed-in was kinda cozy... being that it was our honeymoon and all. :) So there ya go.

That boy must love me

Well, a few months ago I went into a sort of blogging frenzy...with a whole 3 new posts. (quite the accomplishment.) And now I'm back to posting here and there every few months, something that I know can be a little annoying to everyone else. I've come to realize that it's not my fault (nothing ever is...obviously!) My reasoning being that I don't have all the necessary subjects of blogging: Cute children, a house project (or even a house in general), Cute children, "couple friends", and Cute children. Our life is void of all three genres...although I do have a cute husband (and lucky him, he has a cute wifey!)

So, I've decided instead of feeling awkward as I blog because 1)there is nothing terribly interesting about our lives and 2)I don't have the necessary subjects...I've decided to write about what I DO have: A lovely husband (most of the time anyways) a funny kitty, and the interesting thoughts that come to mind during the ridiculous amount of free time I have at work doing NOTHING. (Some days, I absolutely love my job...who else gets paid to daydream!)

So, with that introduction, (and at the risk of making this blog a shrine to my husband...it's a good thing he never reads this thing or else he'd be a little embarrassed) without further ado, I bring to you in honor of the upcoming Lover's Holiday:

Things I ADORE about my ADORING husband (The reason that "husband" is green is because the word "husband" should NEVER be the color pink. FYI)

Today I loved the spouse because he studies so much. He got up at 6:30 today to study just a little bit more for his Econ. test...which he aced!!! So proud :)

I also loved el husband-o because this morning, as all mornings, I woke up holding hands with him...Somehow during the night his hand always manages to find mine. (I know... you're all thinking "awwww"...That's okay...go ahead and think it)

I loved playing hookie with him today. Hookie is no fun without him.

Lastly, I love that when he's dead asleep, I can lay my head on his shoulder and he will always, always turn his head to kiss mine. Never fails. IN HIS SLEEP of all things. That boy must love me.

There's obviously more things I love about the lover, but those are just some reasons on my mind today. So there ya go.

What did you adore about your adoring husband today?

Do you want to hear a love story?

We made it! (of course we made it) The supposedly hardest first year of marriage has been completed and we're beggin' for more! After a year we still feel like Newlyweds.

Most of you don't really know the story of how we fell in love, and how we knew we should be together. In commemoration of our first anniversary, I've decided to share with you what I consider to be a gem of a love story. (I'll omit the mushy details for the sake of my male readers.)

Last summer ( '07) I was having a blast in the student ward. I had lots of fun with my friends, I was dating some really fun guys, and you know...generally having a lot of fun. Chris had seen me at the student ward and, as he would say, "he could never find me to introduce himself after church." However, as he was living with his parents for the summer, his mother says it was slightly more dramatic than that. She told me about how every Sunday for two months they would hold their breath waiting for him to come home to see if he'd worked up the nerve to talk to "that girl" he saw at church, and every Sunday he would come home disappointed because he hadn't.

In June, my friend Denae Crowley was looking for someone to play a musical number in sacrament meeting for the Stake presidency. She knew I played the cello and asked me if I would put something together for the next week. Now, I don't know if you're aware of this, but there is not much that I dread more than playing for an audience...especially in church. This time though, I was actually pretty excited about it. I was playing a duet with my friend Andrew who is an incredible musician (which could explain why I didn't mind so much).

After we were finished playing (which was gorgeous by the way, should have been recorded) I was standing talking with my friend Christine and Kelly, and Chris came up to us to say hello to Kelly. (I found out later that he had asked Kelly to go talk to me so he could come up and talk to her and she would introduce him...smooth) Anyways, when he came to talk to us, Kelly and Christine got "distracted" by someone across the room and left Chris to talk to me. The conversation literally went as follows:

"Hi, I'm Chris"

"Hi I'm Whitney"

"You did great today"

"Thanks"

"So what was it that you played"

"Oh, it's an old hymn. Come thou Fount of Every Blessing." (I found out later that he was actually asking what instrument I played... Silly boy)

"Oh... You know, I'd really like to get to know you. Could I get your number and take you out next week?"

Now I don't know what it was like when any of you were dating, but this was a total jaw dropper to me. Guys didn't just ask you out like that. Oh no, that was far too simple. There's an epidemic of "hanging out" for months before there's a possible first date. So naturally, I gave him my number and told him I'd like to go out with him that weekend.

Mom and dad were in Michigan for 10 days, so when I got home I called Mom and told her about Chris. I think I told her it was kind of odd, but I liked that he was obviously interested in me. (Chris told me later that when his parents asked if he had talked to me that day, he was horrified at his conversation with me and he was convinced I probably thought he was such a dork...silly boy)

So, the weekend was soon, and Chris called me on Thursday and asked if I would go out with him the next evening. I worked till 10:00 every night, so I told him we'd have to do it some other time. He told me that 10:00 wasn't too late, and we'd just go out for a bite. I was trying to get out of it, but he was persistant. So Friday 10:00 rolls around and I'm nasty, tired, and sweaty from my job which is basically an 8 hour work out, and I head over to meet him at Applebee's. We eat some grub and talk. I thought he was kind of a nerd, but then again so am I. (Did I mention I love nerds? They're the sweetest). We had a lot of fun talking so he asked me if I wanted to go back to his house and play some games. I figured why not, and don't tell Mom and dad, but we were out till 4:00 just laughing and playing. I really wasn't that interested, but I thought he was fun.

The next Sunday at church he said hello and talked to me during Sunday school. He knew I was by myself because Mom and Dad were still in Michigan, and it was Father's Day, so he invited me to the picnic his family was having. I felt a little akward intruding on his family event but everyone was really nice. We stayed out on the front lawn goofing around all night again and when he walked me to the car and said goodnight, he was about to shut my door and he popped his head in and said "Oh yeah, you have the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen...How'd you do that?" Cheesy, but cute. You gotta admit.

On his mission, Chris had been given these little medallions that had his mission seal on them. They were awards for...doing really well...I guess. Anyways, he had been given a few of them, and he gave one to me to keep on my key chain. On one of my favorite dates with him, he took me to go star-gazing (One of my very favorite things.) He brought a little mini grill to roast marshmellows, and he had gotten me an astronomy book with all the constellations. I was so impressed! Keep in mind that at this time, I'm still dating other guys because I'm NOT interested in doing the whole boyfriend/girlfriend thing. One day though, I had an unexpected day off (something about it being illegal to do 16 hour shifts in the health field...) so I had a whole day to myself, and do whatever...but all I wanted to do was be with Chris. That's when I knew that I should probably stop dating other guys and see what could happen with me and him.

So he was working two jobs at the time, and I was working as a CNA and taking classes at the same time. Not a ton of time to be together but we managed. One day, we had a miraculous day off TOGETHER, so we decided to make good on the time we had. We got up to watch the sunrise, and ended up spending 21 hours together. Funny part was it was still hard to say goodnight.

We'd been dating for a few months, spending every spare second we could together, and were completely head over heels for each other. Chris and I had talked about marriage a little, but I really wasn't interested in being that serious because I was way too young, I had too much I wanted to do, blah blah blah. Nevertheless, Chris was persistant. He asked me to marry him, and I told him "I don't know." He was fine with that. He told me I could have all the time I needed to decide, as long as he knew that I was thinking about it. Well, I noticed that I would talk to him about marriage more, and what it would be like to be married, and fun things we would do once we were married, blah blah blah, so I knew that I couldn't just keep dating him and making him wait.

I've always known, though, that I should pray about marriage, even if I know that it's what I want. I needed to know that it was what God had in mind for me, and I couldn't give him a definate yes or no until I had that answer. He had already been to the temple about it and had gotten his answer and he was so patient waiting for me to do the same. I procrastinated praying about it because I was so freaked out by the thought of being a WIFE! I was just a kid for heaven's sake!

Well, Chris and I decided that we would set a day aside to fast and pray about whether or not marriage was the right step for us right now. He was out of town that day, but we still decided that every two hours we would stop and say a quick prayer. We started our fast at 10:00, and I went upstairs to my room to pray. I wasn't praying to ask if Chris was "the one." I don't believe that there is a "one and only." I just wanted to know if it was the right time, if we could make each other happy, if I could become the person God wanted me to be with Chris, if we would be the family that God needed us to be. While I was praying, I opened my eyes and noticed that my keys were on my bed. That kind of surprised me because I always left them downstairs on the table. I got distracted from my prayer (obviously) and picked them up. I looked at the medallion Chris had given me, and I turned it over to the back side. I'd never really looked at it before, but on the other side, there is a heart with the phrase "Strive for perfection" engraved inside of the heart. That's when I knew I should marry Chris.

Now, not that it was a "sign" or anything. I was just so worried because I was so young and this was the biggest and most important decision of my life and I wanted so much to marry someone who would be my partner in putting God first in our lives, and in being wonderfully in love forever, and always helping each other be a little better. When I saw the medallion, I just felt so much peace. I knew that it would be the motto of our marriage. That together with our love for eachother, we would always "Strive for Perfection." I knew that I should marry Chris, and I knew that I would be so, so happy.

And when you know...why wait.

He proposed officially in October. He drove me to the highest mountain in Island Park, where you can see the Northern Lights on a clear night. He took me star-gazing with roasted marshmellows...my favorite date. He even brought along the astronomy book he gave to me before (stolen from my room for him by my roommates) Unfortunately, we got stuck in the snow on the way up to the peak, so we settled for someplace farther down the mountain. He asked me to look up Cassiopea in my astronomy book (My favorite constellation because it's shaped like a W and it's named "The Queen of the Sky.") On the page about Cassiopea, he had typed up a story about how the very normal "King Cepheus" (...silly boy) met the beautiful "Queen Cassiopea" and how they'd fallen in love, how he took her to the mountains one evening to look at the stars, and how he had brought a small token of his love to give her as he got on one knee to ask a very important question...

I'm still in love with that...silly boy.

And the rest-- as they say-- is history.

THaNkSgiVInG!!

Well, I finally decided to share all those pictures I had from Turkey day. To be honest, most of them were taken by Maren... which would explain why I have a million pictures just like this!

But she's a little artist, and took some pretty great pictures of the day.

First of all we have Mother, the star of the day! What an excellent cook!

Everyone was helping where they could.

Kids chillin out before dinner.And here we have the days activities.

Cause.....and effect


Yup, dad is eating his pie out of a serving bowl...His excuse being that he's going to eat that much pie anyways, might as well not have to get up to get seconds.


Sam showing off his chocolate pie hands. The chocolate pie and Activia yogurt were his diet of the day.


Mom has this funny knack for managing to stick her tongue out in pictures by accident. I don't really know how one sticks their tongue out on accident, but oh well.

And here's some random pictures taken throughout the rest of the day.

I wonder what Chris is making that face at in that picture ^



Maren and I decided that we like profile pictures. Kinda neat I think.

I would have to say that this Thanksgiving was Fabulous! Delicious, relaxing, fun, and wonderful.

Lucky in Love

The other night Chris made cupcakes, my favorite kind. I brought some to work to share with Annette.


Annette told me I was lucky to have such a good husband.


I told her she was right.