SCHOOL

Mykel started fall semester at the very end of August and is seriously killing it so far this semester!  He has all A's and B's so far and is half way through.  I am so proud of him and all of his hard work.  He gets up at 5am Tuesday-Friday to work before he starts his classes, and then works every other Saturday and I am so thankful for that.  He is also getting involved in the BYU Dental Club and has already toured one dental school that is pretty new up in West Jordan.  They were able to eat dinner with the assistant dean of admissions and a few faculty members, asking them any questions and getting to know them as contacts when it comes time to apply!  Plus many dental schools around the country send representatives to BYU for the students to meet as well.  We are definitely going to be struggling these next two years left at BYU since he will soon stop working to focus on school full-time and prepare for the DAT, and I am only able to work part-time now that I'm in school.  But I know we will be blessed as long as we continue doing the right things like going to church and paying our tithing.  Even if we have to take out a small loan, it is worth it for our education.  And P.S. this dental school picutre below is a random one that I found online... but soon enough that will be Mykel! :)

And speaking of me starting school, I finally started at AVEDA!!  I started September 26th and am in school Monday, Tuesday and Friday from 9-6.  Then I work Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday so it is definitely a very hectic schedule for the both of us.  But I am so glad that I chose to go to Aveda I really love everything about it.  It's not just a company but a lifestyle.  If you read their mission statement you'll see that overall it's not only about beauty, but also about keeping your body healthy and caring for the environment.  These are all things that are very important to me and I'm so glad that I get to be surrounded by people with these same values each day at school.  If you don't know much, or anything, about Aveda I definitely challenge you to do some research, experience an Aveda salon, and think about the impact that you make in the world and how you can improve each and every day. 

Right now I am in my first phase of school, Earth phase, which is mostly learning all of the foundations and basics of Cosmetology, along with everything that we need to know for the state board exam we will take once we graduate to get licensed.  I'll be honest it's not the most exciting some days... but other days it's a blast.  We've started learning manicures and pedicures, and soon enough we'll be learning about hair cuts and colors!  I seriously cannot wait to be out on the floor taking clients and doing what I love!  There are six phases total and if you get high enough grades in at least four of them you can graduate with a high honors diploma.  I am positive that I will be getting that. :)  And I am already a member of the AMP team, which is basically like student leadership.  We plan and participate in all of the events that Aveda puts on, as well as charities and many other opportunities.  I have already helped out with a Young Women's group that came in for a self-esteem class where we gave them a little lesson, hand and back/shoulder/scalp massages, and then the more experienced students styled their hair!  Next month I get to help at the Twilight VIP party doing makeup, styles, putting on a fashion show at the theater and then seeing a special 4:30pm showing the day before the midnight premiere.  Even though I could care less about Twilight haha.. it will still be a great event!  Oh and did I mention that I get hours, that count toward my needed 2000 hours for school, for every event that I attend?!  AND Aveda offers 4 free fitness a week to keep our bodies healthy that we also get hours for going to.  As you can see I am very excited to be doing what I love in the perfect school and am looking forward to learning more and more at Aveda. 

Some exciting things I am sure I will be posting about in the near future are the holidays!!  We will definitely be attending a few haunted houses and Halloween parties this month.  Next month is Thanksgiving and I am thrilled my parents decided that they are going to come up since I don't get any time off from school.  So it will be a fun family filled Thanksgiving in Provo, with them finally getting to see our new apartment and our little kitty.  And then in December I get an entire week off so we get to go down to California and spend Christmas and New Years with Mykel's parents!! We are so excited for all of these fun plans and will keep everyone updated! :)

One Year Anniversary

Yesterday, August 14th, was our one year wedding anniversary!  It is so hard to believe that we have been married for a year already, time sure flies by when you're in love.  In honor of our anniversary, and because sadly I didn't have a blog when we got married and couldn't post pictures and memories from it, I'm going to do a post that combines both our wedding day and our anniversary celebration.

This is a picture of all of our friends and family that were at our wedding ceremony in Manti, Utah.  We were so thankful and blessed to have so many loving people who supported and shared this amazing day with us.  Even though we were in a random city of Utah and the sun was blazing hot, everyone that was a part of our wedding helped to make this day so incredibly special.  One of the biggest questions we got about where we were getting married, and still continue to get about where we chose to get married, is why Manti?!  Well ladies and gentlemen, look at this next picture of my amazing hubby and I in front of the Manti temple, or should I say castle of a temple, and this might give you a good idea why.  This temple is absolutely gorgeous, it is the house of the Lord and we were able to be married for time and all eternity.  When trying to decide which temple to get married in of course my first instinct was the Portland temple, my home temple.  But when discussing all of our wedding plans with Mykel, we both decided that it would be best to get married in the central location of Utah, where most of our family was located or could get to easily.  Then we went on the church's website and looked through pictures of all of the temples in Utah.  We quickly agreed on Manti, went for a little day trip down there to check out the temple and town, and knew it was the perfect temple for us.

The wedding planning continued and I had no trouble deciding what my wedding colors would be.  I wanted a summer wedding since I was a little girl, and anyone who knows me wouldn't think twice about what my favorite color is, which I'm guessing you're smart enough to figure out just by looking at these wedding pictures.  Next I decided on my flowers, which were beautiful, bright gerbera daisies.  And of course the dress shopping, which was an intimate and special day spent with my mother finding the wedding dress of my dreams.  Let's just say that the classic story of crying when I found the right dress definitely applied to me and I was so blessed to have such perfect details added to my already perfect day of marrying the man of my dreams. 

Our photographer was incredible and really gave us some amazing shots.  I would highly recommend her to anyone in Utah or even outside of Utah if you were willing to pay for transportation and she also does portraits, family pictures and baby pictures too!  She was so fun to work with and had such great ideas.  We were able to do a photo shoot with her a month before our wedding of our bridals/groomals.  Some people are against the groom seeing the bride in her dress before the wedding day, or don't think these shots are necessary.  But I am so glad that we decided to do them because we had some beautiful pictures with a mix of scenery.  The biggest positive part of it was that on our wedding day I didn't have to stress about getting the perfect wedding picture or about getting a certain amount of wedding pictures, because I knew we already had such amazing shots from our bridal/groomal session.  Here are a few more of my favorites from our wedding.

August 14th was one of the very best days of our lives and we were ecstatic to be able to celebrate it again yesterday, being one year later.  Now I guess that I should admit that there is one negative thing on this post... we forgot our camera on our anniversary weekend...  Isn't that ridiculous!  We managed to pack everything else but forgot our camera.  Luckily the hotel we stayed at had pictures online that I downloaded so we can share that, as well as the restaurant, but no pictures of us haha.  Oh well, we still had the most amazing weekend and memories to last a lifetime!

I mentioned the website City Deals on the post about our birthday celebrations and am definitely going to give props to the website once again.  An entire month before our Anniversary, when we still weren't sure what we were going to do to celebrate it, I found the ultimate deal!  It was a one night stay in a really nice hotel in Park City, Utah.  The hotel was actually called Hotel Park City and our room was an "executive suite".  This included a king size bed, jetted tub, triple-headed shower, balcony, fireplace and a kitchenette.  The deal also came with a $25 gift card to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, as well as a $25 spa credit for a purchase of $100 of more which unfortunately I knew would go to waste haha.  And all of this put together for the incredible price of $105.  Now of course that didn't include the hotel "fee" and hotel "tax", or the fact that Ruth's Chris is one of the most expensive restaurants I've heard of... But it was all SO worth it.  Here are the pictures from hotelparkcity.com of our room:

We got to the hotel on Saturday at about 4pm to check it and relaxed in our room until our dinner reservations at 6.  Ruth's Chris was basically a part of the hotel and so all we had to do was take the elevator down to the 1st floor and we were able to enter the restaurant from inside the hotel.  Now if you haven't been to Ruth's Chris they do everything "A La Carte" and it is definitely pricey, but the steak is sensational!!  We each got a filet mignon and Mykel got shrimp with his and then we got a side of mashed potatoes to share.  They gave us a free dessert because it was our anniversary and we barely had any room at all to eat it.  But of course my stomach always makes room for chocolate dessert no matter how full I am.  This steak dinner was probably the best filet we've ever had.  They cook the steak in broilers at insane degrees and then bring them out on 500 degree plates with the butter all over the plate sizzling.  The steak was so tender, cooked perfectly and tasted incredible with nothing but the salt, pepper and butter. 

We definitely spent a lot of time just relaxing in the hotel and enjoyed having some quality time together without any worries from the world around us.  We drank lots of Martinelli's sparkling cider, watched a few movies, and did some other celebrating that I definitely won't be posting about...  Anyways, check-out Sunday wasn't until 1pm so we were able to have a relaxing morning with lots of cuddle time.  On our way home from our anniversary weekend we of course stopped by the Park City outlet mall and bought a few things.  Who can pass up outlet prices? :)  Overall the weekend was incredible and it was so special celebrating and remembering the event that happened one year ago, our marriage to each other for eternity in the Manti temple.

Summer Vacations

This summer we were able to take two vacations, one to visit my family in Oregon and the other to visit Mykel's family in California!  We had so much fun with both our families and wish we could have had longer vacations with them.

The first week of July we both took work off and drove down to Oregon!  Instead of making a long one day trip like usual (about 13hours) we decided to leave Friday after work, stay in a motel, and finish the drive Saturday so that we could get there at a decent hour and not be quite so tired.  I think it was nice doing it this way for a change, but lets just say I don't ever want to stay in a motel like that again haha... We slept on top of the blankets and brought our own pillows in, basically just needing a bed to sleep in.  My dads birthday was on sunday July 3rd so we went out to dinner to celebrate that Saturday night.  Then Sunday we headed to Redmond, right by Bend in Central Orgeon, to stay in a vacation home for a few nights!  It was a blast going golfing, watching the fireworks, going swimming, eating out and then going white water rafting on our way home.  Unfortunately my parents still have the pictures of the white water rafting so I don't have any copies to post on here.  But let's just say even though I thought we were going to die a few times, it was an absolute blast!  Mykel and I will definitely go white water rafting again when we get a chance.  The rest of the week was spent at my parents house.  Mykel and I were able to go to OHSU, the dental school in Portland, and get a tour and find out more about it.  He will be applying to dental schools next year and this is obviously my number one choice so it was cool to go and check it out.  But wherever he gets in is where we will be meant to go!  We also went shopping, of course, and my mom took me to get mani/pedis!  We also were able to go to the Portland Temple for the first time and do sealings with my parents.  The trip went by so fast and next thing we knew we were headed home the following sunday back to good old Provo, Utah.  Then we counted down the next three weeks until we would be driving down to California!!

The first week of August was our trip to Cailfornia to stay with Mykel's parents.  It was really cool because for the first time since we've been married his brother Tanner, his wife Amanda and their adorable one year old daughter Addie came down for the week as well.  It was a perfect little family reunion/vacation with lots of time to relax and enjoy the beautiful California sun!  We spent a lot of time swimming in their pool, which I loved, and on Monday we went to the beach.  Even though it was a windy day the sun was out, the skies were clear blue, and the scenery was beautiful.  Mykel and Tanner spent a lot of time body surfing/boogie boarding while Amanda and I layed out on the beach.  It definitely made Mykel and I miss living near the beach, and hopefully wherever we move to next we will be near one!  Another fun thing we did in California was go to a place called MB2 Raceway, which is really fast indoor kart racing.  I had been to a place like that before but not for a long time and it was so much fun.  On the final race it was just myself, Mykel, Tanner and Craig and I actually got the fastest best lap time out of all of us!  It was definitely a fun trip but was definitely not long enough. 

And so the blogging begins...

Well it's about time that Mykel and I become part of this blogging obsession. I guess I should begin with a little introduction about what's going on in our lives!

Mykel and I met in September of 2009 at a local dance club here in Provo, Utah. We were both going to BYUat the time and started dating pretty quickly. Afterdating for about 8 months he proposed and another 4 months later we got married in the Manti Temple on August 14th, 2010! I think we both would agree that this was one of the very best days of our lives. I'm so glad that we found each other and were able to get married for time and all eternity. We were then blessed with the opportunity to go on a 5-day cruise to the bahamas! We had an absolute blast and experienced so many new things. The excursions we were able to go on included an all day hiking/canoeing/privatebeach trip on one island, snorkling on another, and believe it or not, parasailing! The only thing we would change about it is going for longer. 5 days just was not enough, and we definitely plan to take more cruises in the future.

Now on to my hubby, Mykel.

Mykel just turned the big 22 last week on July

15th! We celebrated with golfing in the morning. I wish Mykel was able to go golfing a lot more because he absolutely loves it. But it can get expensive and we are just way too busy. It took him a few holes to get back into it but once he did he started doing great. Although I admit it's not the funnest sport to watch, I enjoy going with him and watching him play (as long as I get to drive the golf cart!) After golfing, we went to lunch at Tucanos. And for those of you who do

n't know what Tucanos is, it's this sensational Brazillian grill restaurant where they give you a little wooden "cue" that has a red side and a green side. Green obviously means keep the food coming, while red means stop! The servers bring around all kinds of amazing grilled meats and grilled pineapple and vegetables. It's pretty pricey but a really fun experience and fantastic food! Luckily for us they send you a card in the mail for a free meal on your birthday so Mykel's was free. After Tucanos we got to wait in the line to see the new and final Harry Potter.

I'm definitely not an obsessed HP fan and don't exactly love the movies, I mean they're decent but I can only watch them so many times, but Mykel read all the books and really enjoys all of the movies. It turned out to be really good though. It's crazy that it's all over now but they did a good job with it! After the movie we came home and had warm apple pie, and then let's just say we did some other celebrating. :)

Anyways! More about Mykel he's still going to BYU and is majoring in exercise science. He should be graduating in April of 2013 and hopefully getting into dental school that fall!! Currently his summer job is working full time for Vivint, a security call center as a customer service rep. I think it's a love hate relationship with him and his job but overall I think that he likes it. I guess it depends on the day and how many angry customers he hasto deal with haha.. Overall though he gets paid pretty well, they give him lunch everyday, and it's a really cool company. I'm glad he was able to get his summer job there, and when fall comes and he starts school again he will work part time on campus at BYU. It's not the most exiting job but they work with his school schedule really well, he doesn't have to work too many hours, and it's definitely convenient.

Now on to myself!!
So my birthday was just a month before Mykel's on June 4th, and I finally turned 20! The morning of my birthday I had to help my brother and his wife move into a house in West Jordan, not exactly what I would have planned as a birthday celebration... But they ended up getting me a really great ice cream cake and it turned out to be really nice! After that we went out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse (where they have the second best filet mignon I've had yet -the best was on our honeymoon cruise in the bahamas).

Then we drove to Salt Lake City and stayed at the Anniversary Inn. We discovered this place by s

earching hotels/B&B's online and I seriously want to spread the word about it, I thought it was really, really cool. It's a little bit cheesy but I like that kind of thing haha. All of the rooms are themed and are completely decorated for that theme. We stayed in "Carriage Suite" and our bed was in an actual carriage! My mom booked the room for us and was so sweet to get us a special romance package, and the room was covered in rose petals when we arrived! Talk about fairy tales. The room was painted beautifully and had all kinds of incredible decorations. It also had a fireplace and most importantly, a huge jetted tub! It was an amazing little get-away for the two of us and we are so thankful for my moms sweet gift. I also was able to go and experience a 4 hour spa package thanks to my mother-in-law! She sent me some birthday money and a beautiful Tiffany's necklace. And I definitely put that money to the best use I could, with the help of City Deals I found a spa package on sale! It included an hour and a half massage, hour and a half facial, and an hour pedicure. I definitely needed it and was thankful to be so spoiled for my birthday this year!

Currently I am working for Golds Gym in the tanning salon in Provo. I work full time and enjoy the girls that I work with. I am actually at work right now so as you can tell I have quite a bit of free time during the summer while at work! It's nice not having a stressful job right now and I will keep working here part time as I start school in the fall. And for those of you who don't know I am finally starting cosmetology school!!! I start on September 19th at Aveda Institute Provo and will graduate about the same time that Mykel graduates BYU. Aveda is such a great school and I can't wait to start my education there. My schooling will only be 3 days a week, but 10 hour days. It's a blessing that I found a school that I love everything about and also allows me to still work on my days off.

It's going to be a pretty hectic semester for Mykel and I as we both have school/work 6 days a week, but we're one step closer to our future!

Until then we are going to enjoy the rest of our summer!