Cosmic Love

Once upon a time I was in seventh grade.

I was all about punk boys, messy buns, tight v-necks,

pink {yikes!}, skater shoes...and dreams of cheerleading.

After try-outs that year I was shocked to see my name on the list.

Monkey limbs, no coordination, a ghastly toe touch...

Maybe they liked my giant messy buns ;) 

Looking back to those years, I know I made it for a reason.

I needed a good friend.

Days after I entered my "glory years" (haha)

my parents told me they were going out of town. 

Which meant I needed to find a place to stay.

I didn't have any close friends that I thought my parents would trust me staying with for a week,

but I did have a good feeling about one girl that also made cheer.

We had known each other since sixth grade,

 had one science class together, 

but we were typical girls that had opinions about one another.

Anyway, I called her up...

"Hi Jamie, this is Ashley Christiansen. We had science together,

and I just saw you at cheer orientation...can I have a week long sleepover at your place?..."

I'm not sure what she was thinking on the other side of the line, 

but she was cool with it!

Long story short, we were instant best friends.

I prayed my parents would go out of town {not really} so I could 

have sleepovers at Jame's house on school nights! 

Through the years of jr high and high school we did basically everything together.

Cheer {you know that already, sorry}, office, dance co, choir, 

graduation {i'm soo funny}, and guess what? 

We came up to USU together.

and we're bff's married to bff's.

Holler.

Well Jame is on the university's dance companies, Full Circle and Velociti.

Tonight I got to watch her fourth and final concert, 

{she's graduating next month}

Jame, you are an amazing dancer, and friend to me!

I'll admit it, I shed a tear or two watching you tear up that stage.

Who knew we'd be here 11 years later?

Thanks for the week that was the beginning of something

 I'll always cherish. You've been there for me
no matter what stupid things I've done.

Love you add.dork.#1.

 Oh yes...

 Lovers

 She's still dancing!

 2008

Good job Jamester!

I think I'll go stretch for the first time in like 4 years.

I wanna move like Jagger!

Heavenly

Two weekends ago we were lucky enough to go to the Salt Lake Temple
to witness our dear friends, the Lister's be sealed as a family.
 It was seriously such an amazing experience! 

I love the temple. 

Being there gave me a stronger desire to do my best in all things,
for my family. 

Thank you Brooke and Brady for having us there! We love you guys!

Later that evening Jon and I joined my fam for some
good ol' fashioned bowling!

Have you been to Fat Cats? Helloooo delicious pizza! 

 Little munchkin Ave

 Mamacita

 My Honey drinking rootbeer

She'll go pro. Just watch.

 Yeah Boi! Strike

 We love bowlinggg

 Mom and Ty

 My sis is a beauty

Cute Holts!

We have lots of memories of bowling when we were younger,

so this was a great night!

I just need a little bit more practice, then I'll be back to my

8-year-old-striking-days 

:) 

take me to the sun!

Well, this week has finally come.
On Thursday we're headed to Cancun with the Feller Family!
Jon's parents give their children an adult vacation
each year for Christmas.{we are adults, ya know!}
Basically...we're really excited.
And fearful these next three days will feel really long.
Also...my skin hasn't seen the sun in months.
So Cancunians, prepare to be blinded!
(not so sure Cancunians is even a word. oh well)
This new year has been quite good so far.
We've been lucky enough to see our good
friends at least twice in the past month, which sadly... is rare!
Thank you, Karin and Emily for being prego.
(baby showers are what have brought us togetha.)
I was good and brought my camera to Karin's baby shower,
but not Em's.

You may be wondering why MEN were at the baby shower??
Well, these were taken after all the baby stuff went down,
and the boys were just down the stairs watching a movie,
so they joined us for dessert.
Also pictured above is a few of us at Mike's mission homecoming!
I met Mike and the rest of these wonderful people
(missing Josh in the pic) my freshman year
here at Utah State, and they are some of my best friends.
I'm so grateful we all lived in the
same dorm, or I would've probably left USU and never looked back
3 years ago!
Val has been my roomie up until marriage, and we're still going strong!
{friendship wise. :)} she is so great.
All of us have been able to get together a few times since Mike has gotten home, since we're all here in Logan.  Love you guys!
Last night Jon and I went to dinner to celebrate Valentine's a little early.

 Here we are standing in front of 1 of the 3 little decorations I put together for love month.
Yeah...they're not that great, so I think I'll spare pics of the others ;)









We went to Firehouse pizza, pretty much just for the Fh'zookies
{or however you spell it...}
It was packed! But somehow we were seated and fed pretty quickly.
I wish I would've taken some pictures, but I thought I would feel silly
amongst all the other pizza eaters...
Maybe next time.
I made a goal to take more pictures. Would you agree that I'm failing so far?
 
Anyway.

I am looking forward to this next week, it will be so awesome to get away for a little bit!
Cross your fingers that Jon won't fall too far behind in his classes...we'll see if he actually does
some homework while we're laying on the beach ;)

Pumpkins

On Monday we went over to the Smith's to carve pumpkins and eat brownies. It was so much fun!

We all carved different faces into ours. Can you tell whose is whose??

Everyone's is so different :)

 Jonny's

 Mine

Jord and Jame's

 We're so glad Jame and Jord are up here too. Logan is a lot better when you've got loved ones around.

Afterwards we went to the annual pumpkin walk. We had gone the Saturday before but the line was reDICulous! There were atleast 250 people in front of us just waiting to go in. That was dissappointing. But when we went back on Monday it was okay. Everyone walked pretty slow, so we walked behind them and just took pictures of scenes we liked over there heads.

Here are some of our favorites:

 Nightmare Before Christmas

 Kung Fu Panda

 Despicable Me (love!)

 Behind us is Gilligan's Island

 I am Snow White. Didn't ya know?

 Little Bob the Builder:) {Yes we can!}

It was a fun night! Love this little tradition that Cache Valley has.

Ceeelebration Time, Come on!

We decided last night that we LOVE the placement of our birthdays. It's lots of fun to have them 2 weeks apart, and there aren't any other Holidays too close. Being "newlyweds", money is tight. You all know what I mean, right? Well somehow we managed to OVER-spoil each other this year. I don't know, maybe we were just so excited to celebrate our birthdays together once again! {since we had 2 years of them apart...} My bday was Sept 26th. I had class and work, and came home to a lovely surprise from my hubby. He was sitting by the door waiting for me with flowers, chocolate {awww...;)} and SICK a gift! {mmhmm, sick!}

Theeese bad boys! I've been in need of new running shoes for about 3 years, so I'm simply in love.

Jono had to go to a lab for a couple of hours after that, so I had the pleasure of going out for frozen yogurt with my lovely friend Val. She surprised me with a cute striped shirt {love my stripes!} and some goodies that I so dearly love {coca cola, orange candy slices, etc} Thanks ValPal!

Earlier I had told Jon I might want to go to a movie, mainly because I wanted their popcorn and fountain coca cola. Mmm. Guess what he did? Brought the movies to our home!

Thanks baby boy! I'm thinkin' this will be how I'll want to celebrate every year :)

Jame and Jord even stopped by, even though they were feeling sick. It was so nice of them, they brought us brownies :) All time favorite.

It was so fun hearing from and seeing lots of family and friends.

Thanks you guys! I love you!

The Wednesday following my 22nd, Jon surprised me once more with a trip down to Salt Lake to see Miss Taylor Swift! We had such a blast. We definitely looked a little out of place amidst all the little girlies and their moms, but don't worry..we still sang ;)

HAWT. he's the best!

 Thanks JonnyB!

 You are the best thing that's ever been Miiine! {too cliche?}

 She was wonderful

Thank you so much for making my birthday so special, Captain!

We also got to celebrate with our families the Sunday's before and after. My mom hosted a party with steaks and taco salad-the foods of my soul! It was so fun to spend time with mom, Britt, Nick, little Ave, Ty, and Jon. I missed Tia a lot, and hope she is doing okay.

We all kind of failed at taking pictures, but I did happen to get one of the cake.

These are the earrings Avery gave me. I was graced with some shoes, some jewelry, and mula to get ma' hair done.

Thanks you guys for thinking of me, you are the bombs.com!

Jon's family holds a monthly birthday celebration, because there are SO many peeps in the fam it would probably be close to impossible to celebrate each and every one individually. We got together with all the siblings that live in Utah and had a yummy dinner and dessert over conference weekend. Jon and I got Target giftcards, holla! I love Target. I little tooo much!

Thank you for being so good to us, we love you!

We also were able to stop by my dad and Dee dee's home before heading back to Logania. I received an Itunes giftcard AND and Outback steakhouse card as well! Thank you! And for Jon's bday they got him a desk for his music equipment {he doesn't know yet, so luckliy he doesn't really read this blog.}So awesome!

It was really good to see all of our family in such a short time. We are blessed!

This past Sunday we got to hang out with Mindi and Dave. We love having them up here in Logan! after their cute girls were all in bed, we painted a pumpkin that was going to be entered into a contest between all the dental offices here in Cache Valley. Check it out!:

It's Jack Skelington with braces! It took a while to make, but we had fun. And cookies :) Dave and Mindi also gave us bday giftcards to Buckle and Pacsun. Oh yeeeah! Thanks Gordons!

Yes, we were spoiled. What the heck? I thought getting married was the death of birthday gifts!

Ok so in my last post I mentioned that it was Jon's birthday. Well about a week ago Jon said he thought he knew what his present was {my bad for having it wrapped up on the living room floor}. He guessed right on, so I tried "lying" and said 'Nope! Guess again...' But I had this huge grin on my face so it was way obvious I was lying. He fell for it, but I let him open it anyway, haha.

Its-aWii! He's been saying how we should get one since day one of our marriage {kind of..} So I impulsively {oops!} got him one! I think it was worth it, he's spent some time playing on it already. Weee!

So this Tuesday, his day of birth, he had work and class til 8. I met him afterward for some grub at Texas Roadhouse, one of our favorites.

Then we went home and Jon opened the last of his gifts. He pretty much already knew what it was...

But thanks for acting semi-surprised :) It's a microphone! Now he can record all of his new stuff, which I'm hoping I can share with you guys one day.

After all the rolls and steak from Roadhouse we were a little too stuffed to eat any cake, so we just had some of Jon's favorite drink.

It's Sprite with lemons and limes squeezed into it! You should try.

So-fresh-and-so-gooood! ;)

We watched the movie Hanna. Have you seen it? Kind of odd...yet good...

not so sure how we feel about it.

The next day, guess what we did? We ate cake!

Haha, he's such a nerd sometimes :) I love it.

I can't wait to celebrate birthdays each year and create traditions for our little family. I love Jon more and more each day, he is such a beautiful person inside and out. I love our history and the fact that we get to create our future together. It's so fun being young and in love.

I think it will always feel like this :)

Well, time to go to bed and prepare for school and work tomorrow. The routine ;)

Sweet dreams!

PS- if you learned anything from this...was it that we love steak??