life lately...

well let's see. we got our wedding photos back. if you haven't seen them and want to, you can look here until january 2. oh, and happy thanksgiving! we went up to Logan to be with a couple of Adam's sisters and their families. while we were there, we built our first (edible) house together.  here it is... from the front (cool wreath, yes?)

so you can see this side of the roof...

and the other side of the roof... did you notice the tootsie roll log pile?

and the back... um, well maybe we just wanted those cadbury chocolate balls and so made a design for the back. this is called maximizing the amount of candy we get to take home without making it look incredibly tacky (maybe just a teeny bit...)

and i found this random picture on my camera. it's from when we went to the aquarium. i think it's telling us to swim with the jellyfish...

our loft

So. We live here. me too (insert by Adam). ok, this first picture is not our living space, it's the storage part. we live at the top of a house in one gigantic room, like a studio apartment, or just a loft. anyway, i'll stop typing and let you look. this is what you see when you open the door and start coming up the stairs.

when you reach the top of the stairs and look left, this is what you see... all our dishes and some food too.

next to the little nook is the one door in the house (besides the front door) that leads to the bathroom. our toilet is literally a throne....

here is our teeny little kitchen. now you know why all the dishes are in the nook. on the left of the picture just above the trash can you can see the doorknob to the bathroom. are you getting a sense of the place yet?

here's a close up of the main part of the kitchen. i just baked these cakes for a rah activity.

this is our kitchen table directly across from the nook. i'm standing at the fridge taking this picture. it's pretty messy but we can usually clear a space to eat. ...we're still organizing and getting lazy finishing up the odds and ends...

this is the bedroom/library (adam has a gazillion books... these aren't even all of them). it's on the other side of the kitchen. see that white part on the left of the bookcase? that's the fridge.

here is the living room. again, apologies for the mess. i guess i coulda tidied up before taking these pictures. oh well. so the kitchen table is behind the couch and the bed is to the right of this picture. still following along?

here is the closet/entertaining area. besides the skylight we have, that bright spot is the other window in our house. um, so we also recently acquired some furnishings from adam's grandma and we haven't exactly found a spot for them yet, which is why it's just sitting in the middle of the room. again, still sorta organizing....

it's the entertaining area as well because the screen pulls down and we watch our movies from a projector with surround sound. all that equipment comes with the place. otherwise, we don't own a tv.

so there you have it. it's small but cozy and we like it! the place has lots of character. if you hate it, we don't want to hear about it.

honeymoonin'

So we had our first road trip as a married couple to San Francisco... it was our honeymoon trip. We stayed here at the Crescent Hotel in downtown really close to Chinatown. The rooms were cozy and we liked it. We did not like, however, being woken up to jack hammers outside, one morning it was a false fire alarm, one morning it was room service (they didn't have those convenient do not disturb door hangers)... good grief, all the unwanted noise!

Anyway, we did a bunch of stuff... like going to the City Lights Bookstore, which is famous for some reason that I don't remember....

We visited Chinatown a lot... (i think Adam's hair in this picture is hilarious)

We went down to the pier to enjoy the view for a bit before eating lunch at the Slanted Door (Jason's suggestion and it was goo-ed)

We ate in Chinatown a few times, and at the bakery of course. This is at Sam Wo, a total hole in the wall awesome place with excellent food. And they served way more than I thought they would so i accidently over ordered... oops.

We visited one of the Chinese shops where they sell a lot of junk, and found these awesome sunglasses. Which we did not buy.

We drove over the golden gate bridge (we would've stopped but there were TONS of people at the stopping points) on our way to...

the Muir Woods. It's such a pretty place with all it's tall redwood trees.

We also went to Golden Gate Park and went to the Japanese Tea Garden.

And saw this car parked on the street at the park. Someone loves dogs... or at least dog figurines.

We didn't take pictures of everything... but we also went to the MOMA (museum of Modern Art), and we saw Wicked which was awesome! We ate at a lot of other places including the Stinking Rose, which if you like garlic you should go there, it is delicious!

And now we're back to real life in the swing of things. We went to the aquarium for work the other day... on Adam's bday actually... and they have a touch pool with sting rays. Here i am with a participant doing the two finger touch on these silky feeling creatures. Adam hated touching them but i thought it was pretty neat-o.

and that is our life in a nutshell. maybe when we get our place organized i'll post some pics of that. and one day when we get our wedding pictures back, there will be a post about that too.

married!

it's that time to blog again... except that i'm in the middle of moving... in with a boy... so this will be real brief. our wedding day was fantastic. the sealing was lovely, the weather was excellent, the family was stupendous, and everything worked out really smoothly. it was a really fun day. here we are coming out of the temple!

anyway, we went to san francisco on our honeymoon which was really fun as well. a few pics from that trip to come, and one day we'll get wedding pictures up too. we have to wait a few weeks before we get the pictures back :) thanks for everyone's love and support! we sure do appreciate it!

oh right, i blog...

so i just realized that july is almost over and i haven't posted anything this month. but basically all that's on my mind is wedding planning. with that being said, here are just a few of the photos taken during our engagement session. don't worry, you'll be getting your invitation in the mail soon. (the invitations are in print as we speak...)

our photos were done by yan photography (yanphotos.com) and she was great! just sayin...

i'm engaged!

Remember that boy Adam from a couple of posts ago that i referred to as my coworker? well, that's true, he is my coworker, but maybe i failed to mention that we were also dating... well actually, at that time i don't think we were. so yeah, Adam and I have known each other/worked together for a couple of years. we started dating last December and i may have broken up with him twice in that time. But alas, it eventually worked out and now we are getting married August 24th. And we're pretty excited.

oh. and i went to china the last 2 weeks in May with some of my family and it was AMAZING. if we're friends on facebook you should look through the pictures that have been posted thus far. some of them are pretty entertaining.

mother's day

dear mom,

happy mother's day. most all the people around me are calling their moms or celebrating this day with them. since i can't do either, i decided a blog post to celebrate you would be my mothers day tribute. just wanted to say thank you for bringing me into the world. and for being an amazing mother and being a wonderful example of how a mother should be. you've shaped my life and taught me well. i wish i had more time and opportunities to learn from you, to ask you questions i have. of course i do have dad and the other siblings who i've been able to go to and learn from. they've been really great but let's be honest, they aren't you. thank you for all your sacrifices, your kind and encouraging words, your simple acts of love, your cooking and baking skills that you've passed on, the knowledge that you've shared, and your love for Heavenly Father and the gospel that you demonstrated in all walks of your life. there's a whole lot more i could say but i don't want to bore the public world who may be reading this... anyway, today is a day to think about and honor mothers. well, i think about you daily and i miss you. happy mothers day!

God be with you till we meet again. i love you!
love, me