Our Story

Okay, so maybe you'll all think that I'm living in the past.  Nah, I'm just a little late getting around to documenting it.   For Valentine's Day this year, I made a photo album for Kyle.  We had bought photo albums right after we got married with the idea that we would print our wedding photos and make a nice album.  Well, as you guessed, it never happened.  Since Kyle and I are pinching pennies, I thought this would be a great gift.  And now, since I have all the pictures uploaded to the computer, it will make it even easier to document that special occasion here.  So, I think I'll just go crazy and document our entire relationship thus far.  Here we go!

Kyle and I met way back in 2005.  He showed up at Iowa State University the second semester of my freshman year.  I don't really remember the specifics but I do remember that by the end of that first semester we had made a pact to spend every day of finals week together.  I guess we were trying to rebel against our college education.  "Take that, ISU, we'll show you we can pass without studying!  Or without studying very much."  I don't know.  But we did it.  We had a lot of fun that finals week, but ended up loosing touch over the summer.  I moved home and he moved in with a sister.

I remember the first time I saw him again after that summer after freshman year.  We made eye contact when he walked into the chapel just before church started.  I waved him over, and he sat with me.  That week he stopped by my place several times.  We started hanging out regularly, and of course I had a major crush on him.

Here are a few pictures from our fun together from 2005-2008.

We became really good friends and spent a lot of time hanging out together.  This is a Sunday evening back in 2005.

One of Kyle's friends from home, Kyle, came to ISU in the fall of 2005, all three of us starting hanging out together.

We celebrated Kyle's 22nd birthday in 2007.  This started almost two weeks of flying kites daily.

We traveled to Manchester to see Kyle's family pretty regularly.  I loved those car rides.

Hanging out with the Hansens in Man-town.

Casey and Amber's wedding!  Summer 2007

Another friend got married later that summer.  We often hung out with our buddy Nathan.

Failed camping trip, summer 2007.  But it was still fun hanging out at Backbone with the Hansens.

An addition to our family:  our sweet cat, Ruby.  Sept. 2007

Celebrating the New Year!  Jan. 2008

For my 22nd birthday, Jan 2008, Kyle got me an elliptical!  

This is us celebrating Kyle's 23rd birthday! March 2008.

I graduated from Iowa State in May of 2008.  Kyle and I decided to both serve missions.  In September I left for the MTC, then to Jacksonville, Florida.  Kyle left in October for the MTC, he would head to Oakland/San Francisco, California in January, spanish speaking.  I know we have tons of mission pics that we could add, but maybe that will be another day.  Kyle and I wrote each other our entire missions.  It was a wonderful but difficult experience to serve.  I missed him terribly.  I got home from my mission in February of 2010.  I moved in with my brother and his family and worked away the time until Kyle got home.  Kyle got home November 5, 2010.  We were engaged December 11, 2010, and married December 30, 2010.  

Here are a few pics from our engagement photo shoot (thanks Amber!), and then some pictures from the happy day.  I love him so much and am so happy that we have the rest of our lives to spend together!

These are kind of in a wacky order, but I'm too tired to change them around.  Hope you like them!

Christmas 2012!

I’m playing blog catch up! This is a picture we took for Kyle’s family’s Christmas newsletter.  Kyle had a mustache starting after Thanksgiving.  He shaved it off a few weeks into the new semester.

We ordered train tickets to come home for Christmas back in October.  I was so excited to go home and see family that I reminded Kyle of our trip daily.  The day finally arrived!  We drove down to Utah on a Tuesday after school.  We picked up Ginny and then headed to Kent and Kate’s for our very short night.  Our train was scheduled to leave Salt Lake at 3:30am, and we were needing to be there by 2:30am. Since it’s an hour from Kent’s house to Salt Lake area, our alarm clock was set for midnight.  We made it safely onto the train and found seats.  Ginny sat in a seat across the aisle, and she was able to sit by herself the entire trip.  The train really is an enjoyable mode of transportation.  The seats were nice and big, and we had plenty of leg room.  We were scheduled to come into the Ottumwa, IA station by 9:00 am on Thursday, and ended up pulling into the station at 6:30 pm.  We were a little late.  There was a huge snow storm that hit the Midwest, which was typical.  The great thing about riding the train was that it was the only thing still moving.  Roads and airports had been shut down, so we felt pretty lucky.  Kyle will kill me for putting this on the blog, but this pretty much sums up our train ride.  Just hanging out, drinking juice boxes.  It really was a nice trip, a little long, but very nice.

We loved spending time with my family at my parents house in Chillicothe.  I loved hanging out with my sisters and brothers and all their adorable children.  Not to mention my parents.  Gosh, I love them all so much!  We celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve, I don’t remember all the fantastic gifts I got, but I do remember how fun it was to be with everyone.

The sisters and mom all had our nails done.

I loved hearing my Mama read books to her grandkids, Josh and Eli!

We headed up to Manchester to be with Kyle’s family that evening.  They had a full house since every sibling was there, again it was so much fun to see everyone.  All the kids had grown up so much!  We had a very pleasant Christmas.    Kyle got me a bunch of stuff for cake decorating.  I am always excited to have more crafty things.  He also played his trombone with his Dad, brother and nephew for the family talent show. The day after Christmas we went for family pictures.  It was probably the quickest, easiest family picture session we have ever been too.  During this family get together we had quite the epidemic of sickness.  Several of us got some pretty bad colds.

 

 

 

Kyle and I celebrated our two year anniversary while we were in Iowa. We went to lunch at Red Lobster, our favorite, and then spent the evening with Casey and Amber at a hockey game.  We had a lot of fun!

The return train ride was much quicker.  We were able to see Beth’s baby, James when we got back to Utah.  It was nice to get back home, though. We’re going home again this summer, so the count down is on!