The First Year in Photos...

Bear with me.. this post will probably be a bit long and full of pictures.. but I feel like once I get it posted I will finally feel caught up and can start posting about current happenings.. So without further ado, please enjoy some highlights of our first year of marriage!

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We had the pleasure of spending one of our first weekends as a married couple with some of our wonderful friends the Millers and the Butlers up at the Millers cabin. It was so beautiful up there. Poor John was so sick the first day, but it was still a blast. 

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 Our first Halloween.

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 First Thanksgiving.

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 Our First Christmas. It was John's first Christmas home since the mission AND our first Christmas being married.. so it was AWESOME.

We set up our bed in the living room Christmas Eve.. This may just become a tradition every year.

We wore these outfits to every Christmas party we attended. These ugly sweaters even won us a $50 gift card :)

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 We were called to be Primary Teachers. This was our first class. We had twelve 7 year olds. It was tough but so much fun. 

The following class we taught was the 4 year olds (I thought the 7 year olds were rough. ha.) We fell in love with those kids and then soon found out that our ward was splitting.. that was pretty devastating news but it has turned out to be just fine! We now teach the 10 year olds in our new ward.. so we've pretty much made the rounds in primary. I don't say it enough, but I am super grateful for our calling. Most the time if you ask me I probably say that it's super hard, and the kids drive me nuts, but I have learned SO much and I know that primary is exactly where I need to be.

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 December 30th John decided to cut his fingers open at work. He called me at work.. naturally I panicked and left early so I could go be with him. After a long 4 hours in the emergency room they stitched him up and were referring us to a specialist because John couldn't feel or move his right pinky. Turned out he had completely severed a tendon and a nerve in his finger and would need surgery and physical therapy to repair it. Of course Surgery was scheduled for January 6th (the first day of Spring semester) John was a champ and only missed a couple days of school. He recovered from surgery very quickly but had to go to physical therapy for a few months. Luckily his injury happened at work so he was able to file workers comp and was paid for these few months to just go to school and sit at home while he recovered.

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In March we took a super quick trip up to John's mission. We spent most of the time driving, so that we could see all the people and do all of the things John wanted to within 4 days. It was such a fun experience being able to meet people who John was able to get to know while he was away from home. He touched many lives and you could tell that every family we visited just adored him. I wish that we could have stayed longer but i'm sure we will make our way up there again soon. 

Portland Temple.

Columbia River Temple

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I was able to watch John throw the Javelin in a couple of Track Meets for Weber State. After a lot of thought he decided that last season was going to be his last. It was definitely fun seeing him throw and he was able to go to the Big Sky Conference in AZ.  

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Our First Easter. 

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In May we made a HUGE decision to trade in the Fiesta and buy a new car. I had nothing but issues with the Fiesta from January-March and I was so sick of taking it in to be "fixed" the problem was never resolved so we started looking at small SUV's. We originally had our hearts set on a Subaru but decided to stop at Mazda to take a look before we made our final decision. The salesman snatched us and asked us if we wanted to test drive a CX-5. We loved it but wanted to explore all of our options. We went straight to Subaru and we test drove the Crosstrek. It was nice... but I think both of our hearts were set on the CX-5. We may have been a little impulsive but that same night we went back to Mazda and bought us the cutest RED car. We absolutely love it. 

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In June, Leah coordinated a weekend that all of us friends could get together and go up to her families cabin. It was so fun to have all of us up there.. even Jared came from California. We had a blast reminiscing about our High School memories. I feel so grateful to have such awesome friends. We are really so lucky.

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 John and I had decided to just go to Park City for our Honeymoon and save up some money to do a fun trip this summer. So we celebrated what we called our "official Honeymoon" in Las Vegas and California. We spent 3 days in Vegas and then flew to California and spent 4 days there. We had so much fun and we were actually able to do a lot of fun things. If you ask John what his favorite part was he'd probably say playing Bingo in Vegas... We played every night. John actually walked away one night with $300 so it was totally worth it!

Newport Beach is my all time favorite. I could have spent our whole vacation hanging out there. 

We had originally planned to go to Disneyland this trip but after realizing how packed it was going to be we opted out. Instead we just spent one evening at Downtown Disney having dinner and posing with this massive Lego Hulk.

We spent the 4th of July at the Angel's game.

This hat was filled bottom to top with Nachos. It's actually quite gross if you think about it.. but they were delicious :)

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Anyone who knows my family knows that the 24th of July is spent up in Heber lounging around and spending time with Family. They set up the fireworks in Grandpas backyard, so we have front row seats! 

 There is no place I love more than my grandparents home. They moved up there the year I was born so i've spent many many weekends there and that's where most of my childhood memories were made.

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We celebrated the marriage of John's brother, Anthony and his awesome wife Rio. These two are perfect for each other. 

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 We ended the summer with Leah and Toanga up at Leah's cabin. We had a blast and it was the perfect ending to a fantastic summer! 

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I always hear "the first year is the hardest" but I don't think this first year was hard at all. Sure, we may have gotten on each other's nerves a few times but I wouldn't say it was hard. 

We have had some awesome things fall in to our laps this year and we were fortunate enough to be able to make all of the memories we did. 

How grateful I am to have such a patient, loving, easy-going husband. He is perfect for me. I can be extremely difficult to deal with most of the time but he loves me anyway.. and he is constantly reminding me of that. 

I am truly blessed.

September 12, 2013

John and I changed our wedding date probably six times before it was final. September 12 worked best because my brother Josh and his family would be in town from Kansas to run a race in Saint George that weekend.. I was not going to have my wedding without them there! It came so fast, although, that was completely expected seeing how our engagement was barely over a month. We were sealed for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake Temple at 11:40 AM surrounded by our family and our closest friends. It was beautiful, the morning could not have gone any smoother. As we were waiting at the bottom of the stairs to exit the temple all of the sudden I could see everyone's umbrellas go up. It started POURING. But the rain didn't even phase us. We were SO happy.. (sorry to all of our guests who had to stand in the rain and take pictures with us.. but thank you for doing it!) It rained the entire time we were taking pictures outside of the temple. As soon as we were done it, of course, cleared right up. 

 We headed straight up to the reception center. My mom and I made all of the decorations for the reception and I turned in to a bit of a control freak when it came to how everything was set up. Thankfully we had help from some friends and it turned out beautiful. I couldn't have imagined it any other way. Our day was perfect. It seems like it was over in just the blink of an eye! 

The rain brought us a double rainbow.. It was beautiful. 

My sister-in-law Joni made our wedding cake. She totally rocked it!

* Huge shout out to our photographer Annie Duckworth @ V-Photography. She's the bomb!

Engagements...

We had our engagement pictures taken at my Grandparent's house in Charleston. They live right on Deer Creek Reservoir. It's beautiful and it's one of my all time favorite places to be. I am so grateful that our photographer (Annie Duckworth: V-Photography) suggested it. I will cherish these photos forever..

Here's just a few of my favorites:

Wait... how long has he been home?

I am pretty positive that this question ran through everybody's head when they found out we were engaged. Especially people who didn't really know us that well.

Let's be honest... me and John always knew we were going to get married. I had lots of ideas of what I wanted for a wedding  (thanks to pinterest, mostly) and guess what? I bought my wedding dress a whole month before John came home.. I know for a fact only a select few people know this. Surprise! Call it what you want (most people think it's crazy) but I went to try on dresses on my birthday in Saint George and I absolutely fell in love with one. It was PERFECT. Everything I could ever want in a wedding dress. I couldn't pass it up.. and besides.. it was one less thing to have on my ToDo list when John and I decided to get married.

Marriage talk came up very shortly after John got home.. obviously. We knew what we wanted. Now we just had to put a time frame on it. I honestly didn't think we would get married any sooner than November of 2013. That was the SOONEST that ran through my head. Little did I know I was very wrong, but believe me, I am NOT complaining :)  John got home June 18th. We looked at rings for the first time mmm.. mid July? We chose and booked our reception center and had our photographer booked with engagement pictures set by the end of July. The only thing that was missing was that ring on my finger. I was getting anxious.. It was August 2nd and we had tickets to the Brad Paisley concert. For those of you who don't know us.. Brad Paisley is just our thing. He sings "our song" and Brad Paisley was the first concert John ever went to and it was our first concert together. I had hoped that he was going to engage somehow during the concert but I was almost certain that he wouldn't because I would be expecting it.

Little did I know.. he had it all planned out. He was going to propose while Brad Paisley was singing our song. However... I totally ruined this plan. Let's rewind a couple of days... Wednesday he had flowers delivered that had a note saying "Because I love you"

The next night he doorbell ditched a butt load of candy on my porch. Each candy had a little "because" note. I didn't get any pictures of them and I so wish I would have because I don't remember what they all were. 

Okay now it's the day of the concert.. well on the way to dinner John wanted me to drive he said it was "because he wasn't familiar with City Creek (which is where we were going to dinner) so he didn't want to get us lost" so as i'm driving he snuck the ring box in to my purse. He couldn't keep the ring in his pocket because he had written in the box "because you're my best friend" so he couldn't proposed without the box... Well here's where I ruined his whole proposal. We get to the concert and I am debating whether I want to take my purse in or not. He was so sweet and offered to hold it if I got sick of it.. but NOOOOO I insisted that he shove it under the seat and leave it in the car. He was just trying to make me happy so guess what? He shoved the purse under the seat and that was that. We went in to the concert. We sat in the pit and we were so close to Brad Pitt I could have grabbed his butt if I wanted. It was AMAZING. Well.. the concert ended and no proposal. I wasn't sad because I figured he wouldn't do it because I would be expecting it.. but we were running out of time.. Our engagement pictures were scheduled to be taken in 5 days and we still weren't "officially" engaged. We got in the car started driving home. Well if you've ever been to a concert at USANA you know that traffic is a beast to get out of. So we were just sitting in the car stopped and he just casually asked me to get chapstick out of my purse. Well he had put my ring in the side pocket where the chapstick was and so when I went to open it there was my cute little ring box. That was that. He asked me to marry him.. right there in my cute little Ford Fiesta. It was not how he planned (thanks to me) and not how I expected it to be.. but it was perfect! 

Welcome Home, Elder Kendrick!!

Two years... are you kidding? I still don't understand how two years flew by so fast. Some days were longer than others but for the most part it FLEW by. I tell John all the time that it doesn't even feel like he was gone for two years. I mean, come on, two years is a LONG time and I basically blinked and it was over.

I had a lot of great experiences while John was gone.. I was able to get my associates degree, got a dental assisting certificate, lived in Kansas for 3 months with my brother, sister in-law, and adorable nephews, got my first "big girl job", strengthened my testimony and realized how crazy I truly was about John.

After two phone calls a year (mother's day and christmas), hundreds of emails and probably even more letters, it was time to prepare for John to come home. What a crazy emotional month I had preparing for this. I never had any doubts that everything between me and John would work out, but we were about to see each other for the first time in TWO YEARS. June 18th came quick. I had to work for part of the day.. but let's be honest, I don't think I really worked. I was SO anxious. I got off work, met my friends at my house, freshened up and we headed to the airport. John's flight was a little bit late and then we waited.. and waited... and waited.. I swear we were at the airport for HOURS.

There he was. This was the moment I had been waiting for.. my handsome boyfriend was headed down the escalator and he was beaming! 

I melted. Do you blame me? Just look at him :)

As soon as we made eye contact a wave of relief came over me. I just knew. Nothing had changed. We were still crazy about each other. I waited for him to hug all of his family members and then it was my turn. We hugged. We took a picture and then it was time to head out. I remember getting back in to my car and just losing it. All of my emotions just came out. He was FINALLY home. It's over. We can finally move forward with out relationship. It was the best two years and I literally would not do anything different even if I could. We both grew so much and being apart just made us realize how much we love each other. 

We all headed over to his house for dinner. I remember every time we would catch eye contact, or he would put his hand on my leg my stomach would just go crazy. It was so natural.. but it was so exciting again. Like it was when we first started dating. 

Was it hard? Of course.

Was it worth it?

ABSOLUTELY.