9 Months!

Well I can tell you one thing, 9 months does NOT stand for the length of any pregnancy I'll be experiencing any time soon!

It actually is significant for 9 months of Dan and I being married (next week!) Crazy how time flies eh?  And so grateful we are not having a honeymoon baby :)

So something I love to do is ask people questions about their experiences in life and see if they have any advice to offer.  I don't like wasting time (though some may say my Vampire Diaries obsession is a waste of time!) AND I don't like making mistakes! So if anyone can give me advice to divert mistakes they've made, or things they would do differently, I'm all ears!  I like to be as prepared and ahead in the game of life as I can.

Which leads to this blog.  One of my best friends is getting married in two days... in Hawaii... to a beautiful Hawaiian named Drake.  And I can't be there. And I'm so bummed.  Out of all the dear friends in my life, she would be the one to have some exotic getaway wedding.  I should have seen this coming and had a wedding fund set aside for Kylie years ago... if only money grew on Sage Brush in Utah, I would be set.  Doesn't it make you sick how gorgeous their children will be?

Anyways, I love talking to people in my life that are in my same shoes... newlywed, poor, school, adjusting to a new way of life... and soak up any advice I hear.  So this blog is for my dear friend Kylie, and all the things I'd say to her, and anyone else getting married pretty soon.  A list of 9 things (one for each month we've been married) I've experienced and found be effective!

#1- If it's not too late to ask for/register for gifts, these are three things I'd say are most overlooked wedding gifts, but seriously the most useful:

A Membership to Costco or Sam's Club: We have a membership to Sam's Club and it has been the greatest thing ever!!!  We can buy bulk of canned items, big bags of frozen chicken, veggies, cheese, etc. for a way better deal than buying them in the normal size at Wal-Mart or Smiths.  PLUS there is sample Saturday which is a great time! PLUS their gas is usually the best deal in town and saves you a LOT of money in the long run. PLUS, somehow when you get married, you are busier than ever.  You don't want to spend your spare time going to the grocery store every week.  We just buy in bulk and get all the food we need for 3-4 weeks in one trip.  It's so great.

A Digital Photo Frame: So you just spent thousands of dollars on pictures. Pictures for your engagements, formals, wedding, reception... You've got lots of GREAT pictures that you are so excited to frame and put all over your apartment! And with great reason, it's your first pictures as a married couple, and they are beautiful.  After about 2-3 months though, you're going to get sick of looking at yourselves in every room you walk in.  Let's be honest, they could be on almost every wall. SOLUTION, get a digital frame and load that puppy up.  That way you don't feel guilty for not displaying the pictures you just spent a pretty penny on, visitors to your house aren't overwhelmed with your face on every wall, but every picture can still be seen on the digital frame!

 

 For All Eternity (Talk on CD) by John L. Lund: I honestly don't know what we would have done without these CD's! We got them as a gift from our friends Justin and Melissa and I wasn't sure what to make of them at first, but like I said before, am always up for advice! HOLY COW! They are amazing! Communication is seriously the hardest part of any relationship, and I don't care who you are, or how long you're been married, you need to hear this!  They have changed the way I communicate with every person in my life. It is so worth your time I promise! Dan and I listened to them anytime we were driving together and it was so amazing to see how much our relationship (that we thought was already awesome!) changed for the better! Seriously, you won't regret it!

#2- Be smart about using all your gift cards and money when you're sorting out all your wedding gifts! We got a LOT of gift cards to Target and I'm so grateful we did! We didn't have a TV, and instead of running around the store grabbing what looked good at the time, we put all our gift cards together to buy a nice TV- after all was said and done, we owed the cashier at Target like $0.27! It was awesome! It's really tempting to walk around the store and grab anything you set eyes on when you have a wallet full of giftcards.  But we tried to calm ourselves and bought all our NEEDS first, and then gave ourselves sometime to live with what we had to make sure we weren't missing anything. Then we went back and splurged on WANTS! I'm so glad we did it this way! It wasn't till almost three and a half months after we were married that I realized we didn't have a muffin tin...

#3- Pinterest makes a great cookbook, and a great place to keep recipes you find on other blogs/websites.  I've been cooking every week and I think I've repeated only a handful of recipes! I love it because we get to eat a diversity of things, it keeps Dan guessing what he'll come home to every night.  Crock pot recipes are awesome. Make the crock pot your best friend. Plus I can pull up the Pinterest app on my phone while we are out grocery shopping and look at recipes I've pinned and get the ingredients right then and there.

Some my favorite website for recipes is allrecipes.com and the-girl-who-ate-everything.blogspot.com check them out!

#4- This should really be number one on my list.  We started important habits right away.  Even on our honeymoon we read the Book of Mormon together every day. When I have been gone on work trips, I call him and before we say good night, we read together over the phone. Every morning before I leave for work, I wake up Dan and he rolls out of bed, (sometimes without opening his eyes!) and we pray before I leave for the day. We pray over every meal (and always do our very best to eat together). Dan is usually up till all hours of the night doing homework, but he is really good about coming in, praying with me, and reading a chapter in the BOM every night.  I honestly think this has made a HUGE difference in our first 9 months and made it SO much better than what it could have been.  It's made me a lot more patient, and keep a good perspective on our relationship. Don't forget to go to the temple too!  Our goal is twice a month.  And it's so worth it to go even when you have to sacrifice a lot or aren't in the mood to go. Just remember CPR! Church, Pray, Read! and Temple! and Family Home Evening every week!

#5- Don't be cheap when it comes to buying a mattress! Next to planning our wedding, Dan and I spent the most time on mattress shopping.  Honestly though, if you think about it, you spend a LOT of time in your bed, hopefully 1/3 of your day if you get your full 8 hours of sleep! And nothing is worse than getting an awful nights rest!  So we really wanted a good mattress.  We looked everywhere and finally found a Stearns and Foster at Costco (see point #1!)  It was a REALLY nice mattress with double pillow top thickness, we fell in love with it.  Best decision we ever made. Even though it did cost some money, it was still a steal of a deal, it's something we use every day and it should last us quite awhile! (by the way, we bought a King and love the space!)

#6- Men aren't use to wearing rings!  I don't know if Dan ever wore a ring prior to us getting married.  And I didn't really think about it either.  We looked at men's wedding bands and Dan had a few he liked.  I actually found the perfect one online for a really decent price, and I'm so glad I didn't spend a whole lot of money!  For probably the first 4 months we got married, I think Dan lost his ring on a weekly basis.  Sometimes for 10 minutes, sometimes for 10 days! But we've always found it which has been good! It wasn't that he didn't like it, or didn't want to wear it, but just simply wasn't use to having to keep track of a ring! Eventually he got the "married man indent" on his finger.  He wears it all the time with no problem and it keeps the ladies away just fine :)  But had he lost the ring for reals during those first few months and I had spent a good chunk of change, it coulda been ugly! So take this for what its worth, but I wouldn't recommend spending a lot of money for the guys first wedding band!

#7- Making friends is a whole new ballgame. Don't expect people to reach out to you and have tons of married friends! We have had to initiate pretty much any double date we've ever been on with the exception of 3-4 times.  I thought that once we moved into our new ward, we'd have lots of married friends to do things with... turns out it's a lot like dating again! You go on this double date, you see if you get along with the wife of the other couple, your husband sees if he gets along with the other guy, you come home from the date, evaluate if you BOTH wanna hang out with them again, see if the other couple ever invites you to do anything, blah blah! Ha it's so funny!  It really is double dating! But it's a lot of fun and we have met wonderful people!

#8- Talk about money and have budget.  There is nothing more stressful than money strains! Well, to me at least.  Dan and I talked about money before we were married, but talking and doing are two very different things!  And I can guarantee that you will ALWAYS need your savings account! We have needed to dip into our savings these last nine months for things we didn't plan on (like car repairs, new tires, etc).  Point being, live under your budget. Always have a savings account.  Don't expect to go out to eat all the time and to movies. One of our favorite things is to bring our blow-up mattress into our living room, get a redbox or $5 movie from Wal-Mart, pop some popcorn... it's fabulous!

#9- What Elder Whitney L. Clayton said :) Watch it, ponder about it, live it! He gave this at the last general conference and it was so powerful. It's called, Marriage: Watch and Learn it's not very long, just sit back and enjoy!

So now that I am an experienced married woman after these last 9 months (sense my sarcasm), here is to the next few months until we hit our year mark! Have a happy marriage my dear friends! It's the only way to have one in my book.

An Ode to Kalie...

So I should have written this a long time ago. I've had the thought several times, but I'm finally sitting down to write (type) it!  My best friend Kalie Vickers is the most incredible woman I've ever met, and I'm hear to let any soul (especially the men) know why she is best girl you'll ever set eyes on!

It was my second year of college at Utah State University and I was 19-- I was moving into an apartment with five other girls who I had never met.  Was I nervous? Yeah maybe a little.  But I was trying to have a positive outlook and told myself the whole summer prior that I could get along with anyone for one school year.  Well August came around and these five girls filed in with their parents, and all their belongings.  There was one girl who really caught my attention, not just because she had this gorgeous strawberry blonde hair, but the most piercing blue eyes I'd ever seen in my life!  I was scared to look her in the face for the first 2-3 days we were roommates-- I was so intimidated by her for some reason!

Well this roommate's name is Kalie Vickers.  The more I found out about her, the less intimidated I was, and the more the in pure AWE I was.  Kalie is the same age as me. She was on the USU javelin team her first year in college- she was the Relief Society President in her singles ward her first year at college (and may I add, she served so faithfully with such difficult classes that she got shingles from all the stress!!!!) - she wanted to be a Physicians Assistant and was taking pretty much every class I hoped to avoid during my college career, the really hard ones!

This girl just did it all! I mean who could keep up with that?

Kalie was also a runner.  I had been trying to get back into running myself when I found out that she wanted to run a 10k (6.2 miles I think!) and was asking any of our roommates if we wanted to do it with her.  I said she could count me in! This was the first real bonding moment Kalie and I had as roommates, and later friends for life.  Kalie mapped everything out-- she had figured how many times a week we needed to run and for how long in order to be ready for the Smithfield Turkey Trot in November.

It was on these runs that I learned even more about Kalie.  Kalie was hilarious! We could just run and talk and talk and talk. I don't remember there being a specific moment that I knew I was Kalie's friend, but I remember wanting to hang out with her all the time and always having SO much fun! Not only did she help me enjoy training for the 10k, but she was also so patient as I complained and ran slow!

The first thing Kalie taught me is that I CAN DO HARD THINGS!  Never in one million years did I ever think I'd be running 7 miles without stopping. If the description of her first year of college wasn't a hint that this girl was tough, training for a 10k with her was!  We ran that turkey trot and I felt such a sense of accomplishment in knowing that I actually did something hard!

I think what is even more amazing about Kalie, is not only that she does hard things, but she does them SO cheerfully! She is always so happy and just enjoying the ride of life! She doesn't quit, and she is always looking for another adventure... something new for her to experience and enjoy. I love that about Kalie.  She NEVER limits herself or says she can't do something.

That second year of college I gained a new sister in my life-- Kalie treated me like family!  We have done so many fun things together over the last five years, and each of them helped me gain more and more respect for her.  Here are just a few I'll name:

Kalie always tries to surround herself with wholesome and good things.   She always listened to good music, she did her very best to stay away from movies that had things she shouldn't see or hear.  This is one of a million things she does to keep this big blue eyes bright and full of the light of Christ!  She taught me how important keeping the commandments were, and taught me how to keep the Sabbath Day more holy by wearing my church clothes all day... She did all this by example.  I still to this day can't go a Sunday without keeping my skirt  till it's time for bed. It's changed my Sabbath Day experience forever and I love it! Here is a picture of her acting like Julia Roberts on Runaway Bride!

Kalie and I had a small obsession with Twilight at this time in our lives (and maybe still do to some degree!) and we had tickets for opening night of Breaking Dawn! I just remember that Kalie and I came home, turned off all the lights, and just laid on the floor of our house, wallowing about how we were ever going to find boys to love us as much as Edward loved Bella... our roommate Sheri came home, turned on the light, and asked us what the heck we were doing!  We told her to turn the light back off and let us mourn our dateless lives.  This memory kills me every time I think about it!  Kalie is so funny!  She isn't afraid to be herself or be silly!

I started dating a guy for a couple of months, before summer came. It didn't last past maybe the third week of summer.  I was sad.  I texted Kalie one Sunday morning, asking her to pray for me because I was having a hard time with it.  Kalie lived in Riverton that summer, and I was home in Morgan.  It's about an hour and half drive on a good day. Kalie showed up at my door, a couple of hours later, unannounced to come and console her silly friend who was upset about a breakup!  Who drives three hours in one day to come and see there crazy friend?!? A phone call certainly would have sufficed.  But that's not Kalie's style. She knew I needed a hug and some girl talk. She is one of the most loyal friends I've ever had.  She will do anything for anyone, at any time! And I don't know if any of you know this, but loyal friends don't grow on trees! They are hard to find!

Among many other things we have in common, Kalie and I share a love for David Archuleta!  One of my favorite memories of Kalie is going to the David Archuleta concert in Boise, Idaho.  We drove 4.5 hours to go see him in concert and we were so excited! But of course we had to get there early enough to get good seats! We got pulled over on our way there, and were standing outside in line for hours, which of course it had to rain on us and we had no umbrella.  I was tired and discouraged by the time they were opening the doors.  My feet were freezing and my shoes making that wet-squishy noise that shoes make.  Kalie was Kalie, she kept encouraging me to hang in there and made friends with the people in line by us (three older ladies, who later Kalie ended up having one of them as her boss that summer!) David finally came out on the stage and it was a HUGE adrenaline rush of excitement! Kalie encourages people to be their best when they are at their worst! Kalie can talk to anyone!

Our second year as roommates, we lived in this red brick house, it was the best!!! Our roommate Sheri was turning 21 in September, so we figured we'd throw our first house party.  Apparently we were better at throwing parties than we realized because the police ended up getting called! We had tons of food, we had a legit speaker system that rocked the whole neighborhood, there were hundreds of people that showed up! IT was crazy! Kalie is one of my favorite people to dance with, because she (like always) is hilarious! She just makes up her own moves and they ROCK!  Kalie just danced this whole night away and was calm, yet panicked in her own way when we were being ID'd by the Logan Police in our living room.... haha it was so so great! Kalie can throw a party and dance better than Shakira! I love her guts so much!

Kalie has such a classy fashion sense.  She seriously does.  She always looks awesome. And even when she is in sweats, you've never seen a girl so beautiful! But every once in awhile this girl can whip out her own fashion... like when we went to the 80's dance... or the christmas she had the brilliant idea for all of our roommates to get onsie pajamas for christmas!!! I'm telling you, any time you are around Kalie, it's pretty much a guaranteed good time! I mean Kalie is the one who introduced me to blue eyeliner and taught me how to make blue eyes look better with makeup!

Easter of 2010 Kalie decided she wanted to go buy some baby chicks and keep them until they were too big.  So I went with Kalie and we bought baby chicks! She bought the food, and donated her desk lamp to being a heating lamp, and found a nice big box and adopted these chicks! Kalie has a natural knack for caring and nurturing people... and chicks too! She loved those things and had so much fun taking care of them!

Speaking of caring and nurturing, there have been times where I seriously felt like Kalie was the only person who was willing to listen to me.  When I got my mission call, it was really hard for me to accept where I was going. Most people are so thrilled and just feel it is so right! However I didn't, and I felt bad that I didn't.  Kalie knew I was struggling.  She knew I wasn't okay.  So Kalie took me on a drive one evening, up to the foothills in Logan.  She parked the car away from anyone and anything, and just let me spill out all the emotions I had bottled inside.  Kalie listened, probably for a LONG time. Kalie even cried with me. She consoled me, and not with words, but just with her kindness and willingness to listen. Kalie was there when I got my mission call! She even bought a map and anyone who offered a guess of where i would go, she made sure it was on the map! She always out does me, I can never repay her for all that she has done for me!

Family is so important to Kalie.  There was an Easter where none of my family was getting together to do anything, so Kalie invited me to the annual Vickers Easter Egg hunt in Dog Valley! Her parents and siblings treated me so sweet, they had easter candy and included me in everything. I couldn't believe how kind they were. Kalie has a great relationship with her family, and it's not because they are perfect and easy to get along with, but because she puts in the time and effort with each individual person! Kalie taught me what a family was, and how I should treat my own.

Kalie is so good at forgiving people who probably don't deserve her forgiveness.  She can ALWAYS find the good in a person.  She can always move on and let things go.  When others have been cruel or unfair, Kalie still treats them with classy kindness.  I have mentioned that Kalie is just a classy lady? Like we're talking Audrey Hepburn classy.

Kalie is brave.  Kalie will talk to hot guys and be bold about it! Kalie will take risks! Kalie will follow the spirit even when it doesn't make sense logically! Kalie will trust you with her feelings! Kalie is just completely awesome!

 

Kalie is a traveler.  She loves people, and all kinds of them.   She once even made a pit stop to the Los Angeles Temple Visitors Center while I was on my mission there-- Kalie was an answer to my prayers that day! I desperately needed a pick-me-up at that time and who should come walking in but Ms. Vickers?! Kalie is going to Spain this summer.  She speaks Spanish and loves the latin culture. Kalie loves my family.  She asks me about them every time I see her.  She has come to family dinners and shared laughter over the dinner table with us.

Kalie was a bridesmaid at my wedding.  Kalie was there when I graduated from Utah State.  Kalie was there when I left on my mission. Kalie has been around for every major event in my life!!! Kalie is the best friend anyone could ask for. Kalie accepts me and so many others around her for who they are, and she loves them for it.

Kalie is beautiful, athletic, and she can beat you up if you tease her enough. She has beat me in an arm wrestle too many times.

Anyone who wants to date or be friends with Kalie, has to talk to me.  This woman is just too precious to throw out to the swine of men ;)