Surprise Date Night!

Kaytlyn is easily one of the most indecisive people I know. So today I text her and told her she was taking me on a date tonight that she had to plan by herself. 

As we were leaving she wouldn't give me any clues or let me ask any questions. All she said it was about a Half hour drive. We start heading north a little bit and I really didn't have the slightest idea what to expect. She had stopped at her parents as well as the store to get supplies but they were all in the back covered up so I couldn't even peak. We eventually start making our way up the canyon and it made me more curious. Eventually after we drove a while up into the canyon she told me we were going to roast hot dogs and make s'mores and just hang out up there for the evening. 

Here are some pics for your entertainment. 

Kaytlyns dad taught her right! 

This dates gettin hot! 

I'm so immature and used the word wiener as many times as possible. 

Nothing like a fire roasted wiener. 

Kaytlyn loves her hot dogs! 

Felt so good to relax with a nice view. 

Just an old boring couple 

Insert sandlot s'mores quotes here. 

She's silly and cute. 

She hearts me! <3

Leaving the fire pit. 

Now it's time to cuddle up to some Harry Potter!! 

Live long and prosper. 

Post honeymoon happenings.

Well since the last post cut off after the honeymoon I'll fill you in on the last few months. We're gonna make this short and sweet.

We found a nice 2 bedroom 1 bath basement apartment that we both love. We're both about 15 minutes away from our works and we got a great deal on it so we couldn't ask for more. We've got it all set up with furniture, our wedding pictures and even added some animals! We tried our hand at goldfish and after several of them decided they would rather die than live under our care we are now left with one fish named Munchy. As of Memorial Day weekend we adopted to baby Red Ear Slider turtles. Their names are Yolo and Swag. 

We've done a bit of traveling in our first 4 months as well. We've had our typical trips to Saint George which I can't get enough of. One weekend my sister and her husband had a timeshare in Vegas so we went down and stayed a few nights there. We had a blast walking the strip, doing some shopping and hanging out in the pool. Kaytlyn hadn't ever really been there so it was fun to see some sites with her! 

Kaytlyns parents owned her car so we decided to get our own together. It took a while of searching and test driving but we found one she really loves! I'm weird and name cars. Her name is pearl! 2004 Hyundai Santa Fe. 

Some people may not know, but my brother is a recovering addict. Right now he is in Denver and recently made it five months clean. Me and Kaytlyn took a trip over to see him. We drove from Salt Lake to Grand Junction to stay the night with my aunt and her family. The next day we headed to Denver and the drive up through the mountains was full of awesome views. We picked up Randy and walked around the 16th street mall and he showed us around. The second day we went to the zoo and saw some awesome animals!! 

We spent that night just hanging out at the hotel and relaxing. Our 3rd day there we went to Elitch Gardens theme park. It was fun but definitely had been to better theme parks. We left the next day and drove up through Wyoming. It was a great trip and was glad we were able to see my brother! 

Now our days are filled with working and hanging out together. Married life really is great. It's got it's ups and downs but its worth every minute of it! 

Oh also... We watched every season of Bones and I'm obsessed with it. Probably my all time favorite show and we are looking forward to season 9 to start! 

Thanks for reading the rambling and hopefully ill stay on top of my blog now so it won't be so rushed and will be a better read. 

First comes Love, then comes Marriage... and life! Part 1

It's been over a year now since my last post. Since then not too much has happened except I started dating an amazing girl, I moved to northern Utah, I married said girl, got a whole new family I'm a part of, new job, car, pets, trips and just about nothing in my life is the same as it was a year ago! So without writing all night and boring all 5 people that may stumble across this post, I'll try to keep everything short and sweet! 

So in my last post, I had just visited Kaytlyn up in Salt Lake for the premier of the Hunger Games. That was one of our very first weekends together as an official couple! More weekends came and passed where we visited each other through that spring semester while I was at SUU and she was living back up in SLC. Summer rolled around and the choice came: Go back to Saint George and continue my life, or follow her up there and pursue this relationship. Well everything added up and I decided to chase her down! One of my top dudes Trevor was coming up for a summer class at UVU. This made for an ideal living situation. One of my life long friends Casey helped me get a job at Vivint. Shelter and money. I was set. lets break down how the summer went. 

1. Trevor = Best roommate ever. Tons of laughs were had. 

2. University Villas are absolutely ghetto apartments. I got use to it, but anytime someone new came over it    became apparent how sleazy they actually were. 

3. Vivint = Great job or worst job ever depending what department. Data Entry gave me the worst anxiety of my life apart from the MTC and I finally got put on medication. Initial Customer Care (ICE) was way easy and chill and I worked with some really cool people. Retention. Worst job on planet earth. Especially at Vivint. Long story short, I got fired for cancelling a customers account who had called in 5 previous times to cancel. Not to mention I got fired the week before proposing to Kaytlyn. 

4. Every day after work was either spent driving 40 minutes to Kaytlyns, or her driving down to see me. 

5. Chens noodle house. Trevor was introduced by some friends, so me and Kaytlyn gave it a shot. Easily the best and cheapest Chinese food ever. If you are within and hour drive of Orem, go to Chens!!! You will not regret it. 

Proposal!!! OMG girls are gonna think I'm the most romantic person ever if they haven't heard this story. 

Marriage was a discussion for quiet some time between Kaytlyn and I. We looked at rings and the one she really loved was nowhere to be found. After numerous calls and searching we hunted down the ring and bought the setting. Kaytlyn was present for this and was well aware of what was happening. All that was left to do was pick out the stone. I went to ShaneCo without her knowing and picked out a diamond and got the ring ready. When she was over with me I'd pull up diamonds and ask her questions such as what was more important, color, carrot, clarity, etc... just to make her think I was still doing my research. So the ring is ready and in my room at my sisters house where I was now staying. I devised a plan saying that my mom had won some tickets to a show and dinner out at Tuachan and wanted us to come with her. So we planned a quick weekend trip to Saint George. We talked about stopping in Cedar where we met and getting Panda Express like we did on our first date. So we get to Cedar, get some food and head over to campus where the date took place. The field where we went to the concert was being occupied for another concert that was going to be that night so we had to improvise and sat on a random patch of grass under some trees near by. We sat there eating, making small talk, and I was nervous as ever. We finish eating and open our fortune cookies and in hers was the ring with a fortune that says Will You Marry me. She said yes, we kissed and then out comes Matt and Sarah. They were in on it and were taking pictures so we could remember that moment for the rest of our lives. That wasn't the only surprise. I figured an important event like that a girl is going to want to share it with family. She called her parents and other family members and shared the news, including with her grandma where we were going to be stopping on the way down. We walked into her grandmas house and sat on the couch and out popped both of our families from in the kitchen to share the night with us. It was great to have both of our families there since we live on opposite ends of the state. 

Wow I feel like I'm rushing through this and not doing it justice. Oh well... I've got a year to write about! 

Wedding planning. So... I was out of a job at this point... Screw Vivint....  Kaytlyn is at a job where she is making ok money and we weren't way stressed with me jumping into a job, but rather finding one that would be good. All my down time turned out very helpful because I planned a lot of the wedding. That's right. I was googling wedding colors and themes, I downloaded the Pintrest app (under kaytlyns name of course), I was doing it all. In my opinion the wedding turned out great. We had an open house in Saint George that was really simple but classy, and then the wedding itself was about as much fun as you can make a wedding without having an actual party. We booked the 3rd floor of Noahs Reception Center and because it was winter, the patio on the roof was an ice rink! there was hot chocolate and treats up the wazoo!! And because Kaytlyn isn't a huge cake fan, she gladly let me have a Fun Fetti Wedding cake. 

Honeymoon!!! We all know what this section is about ;) 

I'm the cheapest person you'll meet! I love me a good deal. So let me break it down. Anniversary in is expensive! like 250 a night for pretty small rooms. My sister for a wedding present gave us a $100 dollar gift card that she got for $70 at Costco. I got a text from Anniversary Inn about a deal that if you reserved your room within a certain time frame you got the rooms at a discount rate. So I went to Costco and loaded up on  even more gift cards... It's midnight and I don't remember all the numbers... Long story short we saved a few hundred dollars! We got 3 of the nicest rooms there! The first night we stayed in the Palace Suite, second night the Presidential Suite, and the third night was the Romeo and Juliet Suite. Check it out at their website if you've never heard of this place! Way awesome. Each morning they bring you breakfast to your room. In each room there was cheesecake and mormon champagne (Martinellis)  and they all had jetted tubs! For you married folks, you understand how nice those can be!! Those of you non married folks... you'll find out! 

We didn't really plan anything. We had talked about it and decide to basically just wing it, and play it by ear. The first day we went up to Park City because I had never been there and it was also the Sundance Film Festival. It was mayhem! there was absolutely nowhere to park so we basically just drove around and did some site seeing but it was way nice and we had fun. We kept it low key and got some pizza and grabbed some movies from the front desk for a night in. The second day we really were clueless on what to do and we looked online for things to do in Salt Lake. We had seen temple square, the capital, the zoo, and most things on the list, but one thing we hadn't seen was the Natural History Museum. Totally lame right? Not really we both had fun! There was a lot of interesting things to do and see there! That night we went out for a really nice steak dinner! It was so delicious and so expensive! We were in awe of the price that the receipt is still hanging on our fridge. We stayed our last night there and headed back out unpack our apartment so we weren't too rushed before getting back to reality. It may not sound like much, and it wasn't because we kept it simple, but we both had a blast! 

I fully planned on lumping everything from the past year into one post. But that isn't going to happen so stay tuned for part 2. 

The Weekend I've Been Waiting For Finally Came!

Well, after waiting what seemed to be an eternity, The Hunger Games finally came out!! I have been waiting for this past weekend for a very very long time! Here's the run down of what went down.

Kaytlyn, who I'm sure you recall from previous posts, was nice enough to buy us tickets for the midnight showing on the IMAX screen!!

There is Kaytlyn and I waiting for the movie to start. She's even wearing the District 12 shirt I got her for her birthday! That movie was wesome!!! It was as good as I hoped it would be. A lot of people complained about the camera work, or that a few parts were left out, but it can't be perfect unless the movie is going to be 10 hours long. So I thought they did a great job and loved it. I will probably see it again before it leaves theater. (Side note: I wanted a Dr. Pepper so bad! But I haven't had soda since New Years, so I went with lemonade instead.)

Despite getting home at 3 am after a really long Thursday, I made it over to Kaytlyns about 11 that next morning for a busy day I had planned us. Since she took me on a date to the movie, it was only fair that I took her out. First stop of the day. Hogle Zoo!! Most people don't know this about me, but I LOVE animals. Nothing excites me like seeing a large jungle cat. (lion, tiger, cougar, etc)

There is me with a very large tiger. So of course, I was like a kid in a candy store. I'm sure Kaytlyn thinks I'm super weird, but oh well. Kaytlyn's personal favorite animal was the Giraffes. All three of them were outside and walking around. One of them was right next to us licking some kids hands.

That's mostly us, not so much giraffe, but you can still see one back there. Some other notable animals were the elephants which are fun cause they are huge! Also the monkeys, little ones, big gorillas, the chimpanzees, pretty much all of them kept us really entertained! After we were sure to see all the exhibits and cross them off our handy little map we had a lot of time to kill until our next adventure... so we improvised.

Just that weekend the new City Creek Center opened up in downtown SLC. I had seen it all over the news so we went to check it out. Lets just say that place is a little to high end for me. We looked at the Rolex store, and a tiny, ugly watch that I wouldn't be caught dead wearing, was nearly $9,000!! Another one in the front display was nearly $80,000!! I can't even imagine how much the ones inside the other cases were. We walked around and saw some other stores, most of which I'll never be able to buy anything at, but never the less that place is really nice! To avoid having to pay for parking we got of there and went over to the Gateway. That place had a nice run, but I think we might be seeing it's last days. It felt like me and Kaytlyn were the only ones walking around the whole place. It was like a ghost town! Well us, and a few shady creeps in hot topic. But that was basically it! Once hunger set in, we headed for dinner. And lets just say, with me and Kaytlyn both being so indecisive, picking a place to eat is no easy task. So once again, we settled for Applebees because we both know there are plenty of options. Now onto the final part of our date night.

THE JAZZ GAME! I was way excited for this. A little back story behind this, Kaytlyn knows I love the Jazz, and going to games. She hadn't been to a game in a really long time so when I checked the schedule and saw they  had a game that weekend I jumped online and got tickets first thing. I told her I had our date planned, but wouldn't tell her what we were doing for it. I like surprising people, except I'm awful at it, because I always get to excited and just give it away. So one night when we were Skyping, I emailed her the link to download our tickets and ruined the surprise. She was excited to go though (or at least she pretended to be because she knew I was excited)  We got there about an hour early and watched a few of the players shoot around and warm up. Even got some sexy visors!

Clearly, she doesn't understand the difference between a goofy picture, and a regular picture. The game was awesome and the Jazz destroyed the Nuggets by 20 points! We left a few minutes early to beat traffic but heaven forbid this perfect day went off without a hitch. I was so close... but upon arrival back to my car, a lovely pink envelop was sweetly placed on my windshield. A flippin' ticket! Was I parked in a red zone? No. Did I not have a parking pass? No. On the ticket it said "Plate Infraction." Your probably thinking the same thing we were... WTF?! I was clueless, and the next block up a police officer was sitting in the middle of an intersection with his lights on, not sure why but he was... So we walked up there and got his attention form the sidewalk. He rolled his window down and we said we had a question for him. Now we assumed he would walk over and talk to us, but instead, he sat in his car in the middle of his intersection, so rather than yelling across 3 lanes of traffic we ran over to him and asked him what that meant. He looked it up in his handy dandy code book, and it said I was either missing a plate, missing the proper stickers, or they weren't valid. Well I'm an upstanding citizen and keep my registration up to date. So I went back to my car to figure out what this could be about... Some goon stole the month sticker off my license plate!! I thought those things were impossible to get off?! Well its a $30 ticket.. which isn't awful, but I still don't want to pay. I emailed them to see if I can fax a copy of my registration showing that it's valid but we will see if I hear back. If not I'll give in and pay. But honestly... who steals a month sticker? It's the year one you need renewed! What a Dumb A.So despite that little set back, it was a perfect day with Kaytlyn.

The next morning we had plans to go to baptisms at the Jordan River Temple. It was a good time. There was a nice old worker in there that kept me pretty entertained by asking "how long have you two been going together?" Then winking at us as he left the room, he even stopped me in the locker room after I changed and gave me tips on making marriage work. I got a good kick out of it! We didn't happen to get a picture of us at the temple, but since it's her favorite temple and right by her house I'll hunt down a picture from the Google machine!

That afternoon we made our way up to Ogden with her family. Her sister Lora is engaged and her fiance's side of the family was hosting a little wedding shower get together so we went up for that. It was fun playing games with them and eating food and there were some characters there. That was my second time meeting them and they are a hilarious family! We had a blast. That night we just sat around and relaxed because we fit a lot into our busy weekend!

Sunday morning we went to her friends farewell and thought we were going to get off easy with only an hour of church... think again! Her mom wanted us to come to their ward so we ate a quick lunch and walked over in the middle of sacrament, and even stayed for Sunday School. We didn't want to be too ambitious and self righteous, so we took advantage of the perfect weather and went for a Sunday stroll around her neighborhood. It was such nice weather all weekend! I stuck around for Sunday dinner and watched the Jazz game that went into 4 overtimes before deciding I better get on the road.

Weekends typically go by fast. But when I'm up north with Kaytlyn they go by even faster and it's miserable! After spending a few perfect days up there it's never fun having to come back down and face reality! I can't wait till she comes down in a few weeks!!

Also as a side note I'd like to thanks my sister. She's the best! Whenever I come up she lets me stay at her house even though I'm always so busy I hardly get to see her. Shes the best sister I could ever ask for! 

A Weekend I'll Never Forget

Well this weekend was something else! I took a trip up North to see the Lady Antebellum concert along with Darius Rucker and Thompson Square. My sister and I had been planning on this concert for months and months and I was so excited to go! The concert was on Valentine’s day so I decided to go up Friday after class so I could spend some time with my friend Kaytlyn as well as see some other friends.  I’ll start off with the concert experience!

 

The concert didn’t start until 7 and the doors opened at 5:30 but my sister and I had Inner Circle tickets so we wanted to be sure to get the best seats so we went about an hour and a half early. 

Once we got in the doors and passed security we booked our way down the stairs. That was a nice change, typically when I go to Energy Solutions Arena I have to take a few sets of stairs and escalators up to my seat so it was strange to be down on the floor! It was kind of a joke. They really don't want anyone being where they aren't supposed to be. We got 1 wristband just to get onto the floor. Another one to to get up to the general admission by the stage. And then 1 more big one to get into the Inner Circle. Here is my sis and I sporting our sleeve of wristbands. (Don't I look quiet happy and ridiculous?)

  As you can see, we can't get much closer to the stage. The first band to play was Thompson Square. They were awesome! They are a married couple and the guy is kind of a goon, but the girl is super attractive so its alright! I'll give the guy props. During their most popular song "Are you gonna kiss me or not" he stopped everything and gave her roses for Valentines. She got all teary eyed... yada yada... good job. 

After Thompson Square, Darius Rucker played. He has got to be one of my favorite country singers! There isn't a single song of his that i don't love! And although he's fairly new to the country stage, he's got plenty of experience with Hootie and the Blowfish so he was a great performer! He even played some of their songs and everyone went crazy.

After Darius Ruckers' set, they cleared off the stage for Lady A. Which meant it was time to go to our spots in the Inner Circle. Our punctuality paid off because we were the 5th and 6th person in line to go in so we got to pick right where we wanted to be. Front and Center. It was pretty surreal to look out and see exactly what they see every single night they perform. 

Finally Lady A hit the stage and they were UNBELIEVABLE! The only downside to our seats was a lot of the performance their backs were to us. But it was still the most amazing concert I've ever been to! they were really good about interacting with us, gabbing our hands, singing to us, and making our seats worth it!

After they were done they threw out a couple guitar pics right to us and I caught one. I showed my sister and she just held out her hands and I couldn't say no. So I gave it to her since she went to all the trouble of getting the tickets and making this concert happen! Needless to say that concert was probably a once in a lifetime experience!



So apart from the concert, I still had an incredible weekend! Friday night when I got up north I went over to Kaytlyn's house for family dinner. Her sister recently got engaged so her fiances family came over to plan the wedding and they were nice enough to let me join. After dinner I did something I'm not proud of. Kaytlyn is a big fan of the Twilight books and stuff, and has been to every DVD release. There happened to be one that night at midnight and I went with her. Not my proudest moment, but it actually wasn't that bad. We mostly just walked around Walmart looking at toys.(Kaytlyn please don't kill me for posting this!!) But this is when you know you've got the best friend ever!
     

Saturday Kaytlyn came down to my sisters house and we went to spend the day in Provo. We basically just hung out at the mall and wasted a whole bunch of time. But then I surprised her and had a little date planned with Brady, Jessica, Skyler and Jocelyn. I knew she had been wanting to see The Vow, so I bit the bullet and we went to see that. After the movie we went and made dinner at Skyler and Jocelyn's house then headed to Brady and Jessica's apartment and played Just Dance 3 and Taboo. It was a great date to say the least!!

Sunday Kaytlyn and I went to church, then lounged around and watched movies all day! It was great. That night I went to hang out with good ol' Casey Jo Brandt. I don't see her much anymore so it was nice to catch up and talk. We made some homemade Oreos. 

Monday I hung out with Kaytlyn and we watched movies and chilled for the first part of the day. Little Rascals is a classic! That night we went to her friend Mindy's house. Kaytlyn tends their kids and has seen them grow up since they were babies. I have heard countless stories about these kids so it was nice to finally meet them all. They were crazy! they had so much energy and were so hyper! But I had a blast. We had family night with them and after we helped them make their Valentine's to take to their classes. Kaytlyn even made me a hand made valentine. Probably the best one I've ever got! 

I didn't think I'd see Kaytlyn Tuesday because she had class and work and then I had the concert. But luckily she got sick. That's not a good thing that she was sick, but it meant I got to go over and see her again. She must have felt bad for me or something because she agreed to be my valentine. So I at least got to see her on Valentines day before the concert! It's hard to top a hand made card but I did my best.

                              

   
Needless to say it was the best weekend ever! And I can't wait until March 22.