The Story: 3/12

On 03.12 we celebrated our 1st Anniversary.

3 Things I love about Daniel
1- He cleans the house and does the laundry!
2- He's thoughtful and caring
3- He's always self improving

12 Memories I want to remember about our first year of marriage
1. Being Sealed for Eternity
2. Going to the Phantom of the Opera in Las Vegas
3. Sneaking around a newly built vacant home
4. Flying our kite behind Target
5. Sleeping (Squishing!) in a twin sized bed together (HIS idea) at my Granny's house when there was an extra bed in the room
6. Fishing together for the first time
7. Getting hooked on The Office & The walking Dead
8. Hanging out with his parents when they came to visit, and our adventure of trying to buy a gun
9. Our move to Colorado and sleeping on the floor in our sleeping bags the first night.
10. Driving to Utah for Christmas and listening to Daniel sing Christmas songs in his "special" voice, and being totally freaked out by the people in Wyoming on our way home. A gun was pulled out.... On our side. Protection of course!
11. Trying to avoid the sales associate that would ask us how we were doing or comment on the piece of furniture we were looking at, at Arhaus Furniture every 5 min.  No joke!
12. Our visit to Garden of the Gods

I'm so grateful to have Daniel as my partner in crime.  He's better then I could have asked for (Most of the time ;) )

The Story: Castle Rock Adventures

Most Sundays we try and get out and go for a drive to see what's around us here in Colorado and go dream house shopping. This past Sunday Daniel and I went for one of these little drives and found ourselves in Castle Rock. It's a quiet, small, open little town.  As we came around a bend there it was, THE CASTLE ROCK. We parked our car, got out and followed the trail up to the rock.  Daniel was excited to find "bear" poop along our way. So, it wasn't actually bear poop, but I was informed it WAS a predators "doing".



Sorry for the gross picture...


We hiked around and around this rock to get to the top... well sort of. You can't get to the very top unless you scale the side. But let me tell you it was frightening, okay okay, not that frightening, but there were  (slightly) steep icey parts-I am NOT a fan of ice! Daniel the little explorer he is though, went out to chase an animal noise or something I'm sure... found himself sunken deep into the snow.  This is what you get for not staying on the path!

Well we made it as far as we could and walked around and then found a little trail that took us up further on the rock and then it just suddenly ended on a "CLIFF".  Daniel easily jumps off and me being the baby I am sat my butt down on the rock and looked over the edge with fright....  I guess I wasn't that adventurous as a child, and didn't have many cliff jumping experiences. I think I sat there for probably 15 minutes trying to motivate myself. People kept coming by and I just wasn't ready to let my pride go and let them see this idiot jump.  Daniel kept telling me to just get up and walk back down, but I told him "I'm going to do it, I have to face my fears!!"  Daniel hiked back up the trail and gave me a tutorial on how to slide/jump down. Needless to say I faced my fears. Victory was made! I told Daniel we had to take pictures of the victorious jump, but told him to get down to get the right angle to make it look steep. So he kindly did then took another picture saying and "this is reality." 

My view

Reality.....

You can't really see too much of a difference but I'll be honest it wasn't that high BUT in my defense it looked WAY further down when I was up there and I bet you'd say the same thing.  Don't judge!

                         Here are a few other pictures from our journey.

The Castle Rock



   

The Story: The Avalanches vs The Penguins

  
    This past weekend we scored tickets to the hockey game for The Avalanches vs. The Penguins. We were on the 9th row, and if any of you know Daniel, this was a dream! In the 3rd period during one of the plays the puck was hit over the wall into our section. I realized with all the commotion that it had fallen under my seat. I tried to stretch my tiny little fingers as far as they could go without success, I quickly jumped out of my seat and got down on my hands and knees and peered under my seat to be highly disappointed. It was gone!! The girl behind me snatched it up! That jerk! I got back in my seat and tried to forget about the horrible loss..... In the mean time we realized the lady behind Daniel was hit in the head by the puck. Ouch! Honestly I would have felt terrible to have been celebrating the victory of the catch when some lady had just been knocked out. The stadium was kind enough to give her an ice "puck" though!! Strangly enough it was a cold puck they gave her to ice her head…. a bit of an oxymoron? Unfortunately we lost the puck and lost the game, either way it was to get out and enjoy a nice evening together.

The Story: Our First Valentine's Day

    Our first Valentine's day was simple & quiet just how we like things.  I got Daniel Dead Space 2-a video game he's been wanting and Shrek 2 (we've been wanting to build up our Disney/Pixar/Dreamsworks etc selection) I wrapped them up in a bag and made him a card.  I set them out on the bed so he'd find it when he got home.  When he saw them he said "Why do you always have to over do it!"  Over do it? It really wasn't over done at all.  He opened it up said thanks and gave me a hug then left the room and came back and tossed a bag of mini cadbury eggs on the bed and said "This is what I got you....."  I guess this is what happens after you get married?  No more of those cute, thoughtful, romantic gifts ;) We then had dinner and made some peach cheesecake delight cups, which we enjoyed after a good game of battleship! I WON!

                                                                                                           

    That following weekend we went out to Texas Roadhouse and if you know me well enough you know I LOVE this place!  Daniel then told me that he had ordered Guitar Hero for me for Valentine's day but it didn't come in time so he canceled the order and told me that instead he wanted to give me money to go shopping.  So i guess the cadbury eggs were just a filler gift.... Bless his heart ;)  So to kill time until we got our seat we went to Maurices to look around.  I asked him later just to give me the money so when I found something I liked I could get it. He looked at me like I was an idiot "I'm not going to do that, you'll just take the money and pay bills with it"  Dang it! He knows me too well!  Deep down I want to spend money on things that aren't responsible, but more often then not I just can't bring myself to doing it.  Moral of the story, he hung on to the money and I got myself a few "fashionable" tops.  Even though our Valentines day wasn't the picture perfect roses, cards, and candle light dinner, it was perfect for us! I'm grateful for my husband and for all the love he shows me and the wonderful man he is!

The Story: December in Colorado & Our Christmas Adventure

  Colorado is known for its wonderful 300 sunny days a year, and it IS wonderful! It's been nice not to have  the inversion like Utah. Besides the sunny days, there have been other wonderful things we have enjoyed here in Colorado.  Here in Colorado all the subdivisions have names and at Christmas time each subdivision marker gets decorated with Christmas lights. It really adds to the Christmas spirit with all them little twinkle lights (I think anyways).  Another thing we were able to enjoy this December were the Mormon Chorale concerts.  Daniel and I traveled up to Lakewood to see my cousin perform in the Chorale.  At this performance they joined with the Methodist bell choir and it was a delight! I've always enjoyed bell choirs, (secretly I want to be in one, one day) so it was nice to be able to attend a performance this year.  We also attended the Chorale again here locally in Parker. We were able to sit up close, which really added a lot to our experience.  About a week and a half before Christmas Daniel's brother David came to town and they were able to go out and do some ice fishing which neither of them had done before, and they also went out and did a little shooting. While David was here all three of us went to a hockey game.  GO AVALANCHES!! we won in over time. It was a good game!

      About a week before Christmas we decided to surprise my family for Christmas. So Christmas Eve about 2 in the morning we woke up and packed are things and hit the road.  We traveled for about  3 hours and stopped for a power nap and then an hour or so later we made another stop where Daniel discovered some great milk.  He kept ranting and raving about how delicious it was. "Oh, it's so creamy!!"  I think we hit the jack pot in the milk department.  Also with this discovery, we had to drive through the whole town to get back on the freeway.  I think they built it that way on purpose... We finally made it into town around noon. We stopped at home but no one was there, so we called my sister to see if my parents were at her place, so we could surprise them all, but no luck.  My sister and I talked and she revealed she was headed to Target with some of the kids.  We got off the phone, and Daniel and I jumped in the car and drove down.  We scrambled around the store looking for them, then Daniel spotted them at the end of the aisle.  We slowly walked closer and closer and then I saw my sister look up and do a double take, so I started waving my hands and yes did a slight jog towards them. We embraced and then I saw that little watery sparkle in my sisters eye, which made it all worth it.  Tears of joy!  Then we drove back to my parents where I called them and told my mom to look outside to see if our present had been delivered. We were there on the doorstep and surprised them.  My parents kindly asked if we wanted to stay for dinner. (Where else would we go...?? haha) On Christmas we slept in and then my parents went down to my sister's house to be with her kids and to see all the fun gifts they got. We stayed behind and opened up the few gifts we got each other and had gotten family.
                                                       




Thanks Moma Valentine!

 






It was nice to be with family for the holiday and to make more memories- Thanks for letting us join you!

The Story: Colorado Dreamin'

    During the summer Daniel decided what he wanted to do for school. Gunsmithing, what is that? Don't ask me! ;)  So we looked around for places he could enroll.  He found 2 places on this side of the Mississippi-Arizona & Colorado. We looked at all the pros and cons and Colorado it was!  So we packed up our apartment and moved in with parents. In October we went to Colorado, looked around and found us a nice apartment.  We rented a U-Haul, packed it up and both our cars! (Barely had enough room!)  Then on November 28th at 5 O'clock in the morning we headed out.  We landed at our apartment at about 5:30 that evening. We were exhausted from all the packing and the long drive, so we only unpacked our cars and grabbed our sleeping bags and sacked out on our family room floor. The next morning we (well...about 94.7% Daniel) unloaded the U-Haul.  We got everything sorted and put away that day and the next except our couch..... We ended up putting the couch in the back of Daniel's truck for about 2 or 3 weeks.  I was not about to help carry up a 50,000 lb.couch up 3 flights of stairs!! Okay, so it's not 50,000 lbs, but I can tell you this.. IT'S HEAVY!! I could have toughed it out on flat ground, but stairs?? NOOOO, thank you! The first week at church we met a couple that was in the same boat as us, newlyweds with no kids, and the husband had been in the Army so Daniel and him had a lot in common, so we've latched onto them somewhat. I thought we were pretty tight, so I had Kaylon come help Daniel Move the couch since they were both muscle men. So now we have a couch and let me tell you it's a dream! No more stacking pillows and blankets to try and stay comfortable while watching a movie. 
     Daniel and I have really been enjoying it here in Colorado. The people are nice, nice sunny days, and there is a lot more open land, which we both really enjoy, but yet we're 1 minute away from Walmart & Target (Literally!) I've been working hard at Pearle Vision for my cousin Ben (Dr. Dixon), while Daniel is waiting to start school and work.  We miss our friends and family, but have been really enjoying this new adventure!

The Story: Adventures of the 14-14

Our first apartment was #1414 and we had many adventures there! Getting settled in as newlyweds, learning how to share space, and learning each others "quirks".   The first few months were definitely an adjustment for us, but many memories were made. One thing that really made this place memorable was the wonderful neighbor we had living above us, and I mean WONDERFUL...... or peculiar is a better word perhaps?  We have many stories that involve her that  made our short but wonderful stay there that much more exciting! I'd hear her vacuuming and stomping around when I'd get up for work at 4:00am, her loud evenings with friends or new found strangers?? She came down one day to apologize for all the noise she had been making (she'd had multiple complaints made about her loud evenings) she made sure we knew she could hear the people above her so she always tried to tip-toe around her apartment. Really you call those stomps tip-toeing?  Well anyhow, we were the nice neighbors being all forgiving and then I swear after that she cranked up the weirdness. Here are a few of our experiences. One day she ran into Daniel and told him that she was going to start giving piano lessons and that if either of us were interested to let her know.  Then suddenly she had an electric keyboard she was always playing on.  One day Daniel told me he heard her play the chorus of the Indiana Jones theme song for about an hour straight, she played her keyboard none stop, needless to say this was out on her deck-not muffled by apartment walls.  Maybe this was her idea of promoting her new business? She then caught me one early morning as I was headed to work and told me she was moving (aka being kicked out-come to find out), but not to worry cause she would be back to teach.  Teach what exactly?? She also informed me she rescued a homeless man that was going to help her pack and move her things. This homeless man then wandered around our complex for days and then she kicked him out of her apartment. I think he stole some of her alcohol... Not exactly sure what happened there- he seemed like a fine pick ;)  On another occasion Daniel and I had loaded something up in his truck in front of our complex and just as we were headed off I hear her yelling "Kathryn, Kathryn wait" so we stopped.  Quickly she throws this box on my lap through the window and says, "here's a present for you guys, love ya" and turns around and leaves. This present wasn't so much a present.  It was a box with some old family photos, and screwdriver, a bay area source book from years ago, sheet music, and other odds and ends.  One other experience I remember was we had some friends over for dinner and to hang out, once they left I got a text that said "Look outside."  She was right outside our patio playing on her keyboard with a tip jar on her table. P.S. this was at 10 or 11 at night, probably not many passer-byes?
Well, needless to say we enjoyed the memories we made with her and all the great people we met while living there.  We miss the area and the wonderful ward we were apart off.