the day of pioneers

yesterday was pioneer day. Jeff worked all day but i wanted to do something fun at night like watch some fireworks! I looked online to see where some festivities were and spanish fork was to be our destination. Tadd, melissa, alisha, (roommates) jeff, and i headed down to spanish fork to go to the craft festival and then watch the fireworks. As soon as we got there we realized that not only was there a craft fair, there were yummy food stands AND a carnival! (one of my favorite places in the world.) We immediately bought tickets and rode the tornado.

After that ride, Jeff wanted to ride the Zipper... too dangerous for me and my weakling of a back so i had to pass on that one :(

After riding the rides we decided to head over to watch some fireworks. On the way we stopped for some DELICIOUS shaved ice :) Jeff and I have a new love for this stuff and ended up getting watermelon and strawberry. yummmmy :) then we drove over to the new baseball park to watch the fireworks. We couldn't find parking ANYWHERE. then just as we were about to turn around we found the most perfect spot right outside the park. we had a perfect view and could hear the fun music playing. ranging from the sound of music, to america the beautiful (sandlot version), and circle of life. SO fun!
overall, i'm obsessed with july 24th... thanks pioneers for giving me an awesome night! :)

New toys :)

today, jeff and i finally got REAL furniture!! (not smelly indian furniture) :) We heard about this liquidation sale up in murray this morning and headed up... unlike our last moving experience we decided to get some tie down so we could actually make sure our mattress wouldn't fly off... unlike the last time where we just used some twine we got for free from savers haha. When we got to murray we could not find the warehouse to save our lives! so lost we ended up going around the block a few times but fiiiiinally we found it. We walked in and it was wall to wall mattresses and furniture. ALL brand new and ALL affordable :) (heres the ad from KSL) We picked out a mattress and decided to take a look at some furniture. almost immediately we found some perfectly cute stuff (a love seat, chair, coffee table, and 2 end tables) for only 300. AMAZING. new and beautiful... gotta love wholesale :) I am so excited to finally get everything moved in to our apartment and to start decorating. Thank you jeff for being such a great help :)

Yesterday as Jeff and I were at smiths getting a glue stick to finish invitations we decided to conquer a million year old question. ok... its probably not a million years old but we bought one SKOR bar and one HEATH bar and tried to tell the difference... if there was any... and see which we liked better.
skor on top heath on bottom

heath on left skor on right

VERDICT- i think they taste the same and jeff likes skor better :)

Falling in to place

So. in the last week Jeff and I have mailed out half of our announcements, found a place to live, and gotten some furniture. Our announcements are way cute! butttt a little tedious to put together. As i would address the envelopes, jeff would, as he says, glue white square to blue square. glue blue square to blue strip. bend blue strip. glue blue strip together. slide in announcement and picture. he LOVED it. :)
Next is the housing NIGHTMARE. i have been looking for housing since before jeff and i were engaged. i've called more than 50 people. visited many apartments. and nothing was falling into place. On friday, we were going to look at an apartment appointment but ended up mixing up the time and went a half hour late and were unable to go see the apartment. On the way home, we passed a house with a for rent sign out front. Called the number and he told us the basement was unlocked and we could go in and look around and see which of the two basement apartments we liked better. as soon as we walked in we were in love :). AND they had a washer and dryer!!! after calling him back and talking back in forth we decided to take the apartment. :)
saturday i found some furniture on craigslist and decided it would be a good buy. poor choice to do so already. first jeff and i moved the mattress, boxspring, and bedframe into the house. (hard to do in a nissan xterra but an adventure none the less)
Then we waited for our friend Austin to get off work so he could help us move the rest. We went back to get the couch entertainment center and tv... on the way home my car was crazy. first. there was a huge wooden entertainment center on top. a couch hanging out the back with austin laying on it jeff in the front seat with a TV on his lap. oh wait. we went through a taco bell drive through and made the lady at the window laugh out loud when austin ordered on a couch in the back of a car :) we went to move the couch in and it didnt fit :( oh well... we'll just keep trying. as usual we are playing card games all the time... our new favorite pass time!! :) ... just ask jeff if you ever want to learn to play YOU BET YOUR GRANDMA :)
can't wait to get pictures up of our cute new apartment :)

Sun valley!

SO for the fourth, Jeff and I decided to take advantage of his weekend off and head up to Sun Valley Idaho with the Jones' for the family reunion. We left saturday at 11 with jeff's gorgeous cousin Kate and finally got up there around 530. Half way there, Jeff and I realized that we were going to be homeless because his parents weren't arriving until monday night! thankfully the lovells allowed us to crash with them. aaaamazing family. Saturday night we participated in the Jones cousin ritual of game night I learned to play speed scrabble which was so fun!! Sunday was the fourth and because we went without the G.A. (craig christensen) we were about to ditch out after sacrament to watch the cute haley idaho parade. once again that night more games with the cousins... this time speed scrabble AND card games. We learned to play euchre (pronounced yoo-ker)... frustrating at first but then SO fun... thank you parker jones :) monday we just hung out all day. played tennis in the morning. went to the pool to do the WHIRLPOOL (jones family initiation for me) where everyone walks in a circle quickly to make the water like a whirlpool... all while the little cousins are jumping all over ben and jeff. we also hit up the candy store... a must do at sunvalley and got some yummy strawberry icecream :) that evening jeff and i went to a cute chinese restaurant with his parents. Tuesday we played tennis again (i watched of course... silly back) went to a yummy diner for breakfast then said good bye and headed back to provo with danny. over all an AMAZING weekend. Highlights definitely were...

watching the funny things in the parade... ex a horse and buggy

more watching... finally warm
going the pool even though it was FREEZING

yummy strawberry icecream

and of course
cards with the jones'

Getting the ball rolling

So in the past week or so we've been getting used to living in the same state again. we've unpacked my room... ranging from unloading boxes to having jeff make me keep unneeded things in boxes. We've had tons of fun eating around and hanging out. On saturday I went to Jeff's cousin Brooke's wedding (he was working and i needed to watch kids during the sealing so i went alone). She looked beautiful and I had so much fun. It was the first realization that WOW. this is going to be me in just two months!
back to provo life... I've been taking classes and jeff has been working. Yesterday i finally got to go pick up my wedding dress and take it home. I just keep opening up the bag and looking at it and trying it on. I feel like a 3 year old i get so giddy :)
tomorrow we're going up to Logan to take engagement pictures courtesy of the amazing brittany cascio (check her out she's amazing). I got jeff excited about it by letting him pick out new shirts and shoes :)
My newest clothing obsession has been shade shirts. in the past month i've stocked up on loads of different colors. They are so cute, modest and look aaaamazing. i definitely suggest them to ANYONE.
This weekend Jeff and I are heading to sun valley idaho to spend time with his extended family. I'm so excited. It's been so fun getting to spend time with his parents, cousins and all the aunties. :)

ps. Happy early independence day everyone :)

We're Engaged!

So, back in august Jeff and I met because we lived next door in our apartment complex. After being friends for a while we started dating in October and got engaged on June 19, 2010... almost nine months later :) SO... here are some of the high lights and low lights of our 9 months together so far!
1. meeting my mom. so about a month after we started dating he already was scheduled to meet my mom. we ended up going on a hike and having a blast.
2. in november we went to a scholarship dinner and kissed for the first time in front of a camera...something i swore i'd never do
3. he came to virginia to visit over new years and we ended up running a 10k spur of the moment...

4. for christmas i got jeff some suns tickets so we got to go see the suns play in january
5. on february 13th i was in a bad four-wheeling accident and was in the hospital for 10 days wih a broken back followed by a 4 month stay at home away from jeffrey

valentine's day in the hospital

date night once i could sit up in my brace :)

6. LAKE POWELL! need i say more?
7. Jeff came out to virginia to visit and have the talk with Rod. I knew thats why he was coming so on friday i picked him up from the airport in baltimore with anniep and drove back so he could get some sleep before going fishing with Rod at 5AM. While he was out fishing I was kinda hoping i'd be getting a pretty ring, but was 99% sure i wasn't... so in order to confirm that assumption i had to look through his backpack (yes yes i know i was ruining the surprise factor) but i didnt find anything. seeing as how i wasnt expecting it i wasn't upset. The day before he had asked me if we could do something fun during the day, maybe a little date or something and i suggested a picnic at Maymont Park. We had a delicious lunch and afterwards fed the fish and hung around. Meanwhile i kept giving jeff a hard time about how he could never surprise me when he proposed because he can't keep a secret from me. Well as our date was coming to a close i was so hot and almost running up the trail so i could get to the air conditioned car. Jeff told me i needed to slow down and wait for him and so i turned around and he said something about how he was going to surprise me. He dropped to one knee and asked me to marry him. and of course i said yes :)

We're getting sealed in the Washington DC temple on august 27, 2010 and celebrating in richmond on the 28 and partying in provo the next weekend :)

We couldn't be happier and are loving life