BEST month of my life!

Yesterday marked one month since Nic and I have been married. Our marriage has been the best thing that has ever happened to me. It is so nice to have a man to come home to at the end of the day who loves me, thanks me for my cooking, treats me like a queen. I knew it would but this month has FLOWN by.. I just hope the next 50 years don't go that fast because I love every minute of our time together.

On a side note.. Friday is a special day for me, the big 21! Not that it will really be THAT different than any other day but we are going to Merville for it and I CAN'T WAIT :) I love spending time with my family and best friend Bara! LOTS of pictures to come

Oh the Dragons...

I never realized the interesting things I would need to accommodate for when moving in with a boy haha and by interesting in Nic's case I mean collections and weapons.

Why didn't anyone tell me these things BEFORE haha just kidding.

Who knew I would be sleeping next to a samurai sword by my bed?!!

or the MASSIVE collection of dragons I would need to take into consideration as household decorations??

I had to make some compromises. He had to store most of the dragons for now and got to display these breathtaking book ends.

Oh how I love my husband and all of his many treasures :)

New Hobby

Nic and I have been searching endlessly for night stands and have had NO LUCK!

They have either been...

1. Too Short

2. Too Expensive

3. Wrong Color

4. No Drawers

(basically the opposite of what we were looking for)

This is when our new hobby developed.

GARAGE SALES!

We woke up at 7, put on hats, and off we went! After 5 hours of searching and at least 50 garage sales later we found what we were looking for :)

We found this "dresser" but we actually love it for a night stand. It has more room to set stuff on top than some we have seen in the past, it is vintage looking (LOVE that part). AND, the best part?? ONLY $10

We are still deciding whether we want to keep it red or paint it white with black handles to match our other furniture.

But doesn't my "new" lamp look SO great with it :)

We also bought these 5 books for a $1 each, most of them BRAND NEW and hardbacks!!

We love garage sales. New favorite hobby.

First Project

Since we moved into our apartment together I have been dying to decorate! The only problem is that decorating can get expensive unless you get creative... so that's what I did, got creative!

I have had this lamp for several years now and in the past it has worked perfectly because lime green is usually part of my bedroom (one of my favorite colors) but when we moved in together it didn't match. Our bedroom colors are black, white, and red. A little paint, little fabric, a few buttons, and a new lamp shade and vwalaaa!!

I LOVE IT!!! It turned out exactly as I had hoped.

Gave in

Remember back in my post when Nic and I registered at Bed Bath and Beyond and I said the only thing we "argued" over was....

that $500 beast?!!

Yes, I am the sweetest wife in the world... we are purchasing that vacuum on Friday.

haha okay maybe I want it now too.. I just can't stand another day of this dirty germ-filled apartment from us being sick this week! But hey, I still think it is completely crazy to spend that much money on it so it better last forever!

The good news is.. Bed Bath and Beyond offers you 20% off all of the items left on your registry. The only catch is that you have to come in on a specific day. Well we are happy to say that day is finally here. It's clean time people!!

Verizon

Being newly-married and with me in college we aren't the richest people on the block if you know what I mean :) But we have created a budget and I know that if we stick to it everything will work out!

Well speaking of the budget, I have been up on my 2 year contract with Verizon since February but my phone was working fine and I knew I would be switching over to a plan with Nic once we got married so I held off. Well it was now time to get a new phone and man has the technology changed in just two years. When I got my phone it was the latest and greatest but now they don't even make it anymore?!

I am really not a fan of sales people because I feel like a lot of the time they are not out for the best interest of the customer but rather what will make them the most money in the long run.

Anyway, back to my new phone story!

As I am looking online all these new phones have come out and guess what... ALL the really fancy cool ones require a data package. So if you want one, you better be willing to add an extra $30 a month to your phone bill! What the heck.. what if I don't even use Internet in the first place? It is ridiculous that you can't just get a smartphone without a data package. I think Internet would be really addicting on my phone so it is probably a good thing I don't have it anyway.

2 phones ago I used to have a pink LG chocolate and I absolutely loved it! Too bad they don't make that one anymore either!

Nic really wants an iphone and I don't blame him. Hopefully our budget in the future will be able to support one smartphone but for me, I'm fine sticking with the budget friendly version from Amazon. :)

Oh Verizon... you are seriously killing me!

First Purchase

With Nic's tax return we got our first big purchase in our new apartment together...

energy efficient

WASHER AND DRYER

pretty fancy huh :)

He picked them out, I was very impressed and they work great so far!
Next he wants a flat screen tv... not so much in the budget! haha

Mr. 24

It was my husband's birthday on Wednesday and he turned 24! I thought I would take this opportunity to write

24 things that I love about him

1. I love his smile, it brightens my day every single time I see it.

2. I love that he is a hard worker and does everything in his power to excel in his job and to fix up our home.

3. I love that he always opens doors for me, he is such a gentleman.

4. I love that he is such a good listener.

5. I love that he is willing to watch ANY movie with me chick flick or not and avoids putting me through seeing a scary one.

6. I love that he has a love for the savior, reads scriptures, and prays with me every night.

7. I love that he is the kindest person I know and would do anything for anyone. He is always serving others around him.

8. I love that he is smart and values his education and has a desire to further it.

9. I love that he is nerdy! I think nerds are so cute.. probably why I married one.

10. I love that he loves One Tree Hill just as much as I do.

11. I love that he loves to travel and that we have many more adventures in our future.

12. I love that he is a family man and puts that first in his life.

13. I love that he wants children. He will be such a good dad.

14. I love that he is willing to compromise with me. Like getting that massive flat screen once we have saved a little more money.

15. I love that he still thinks I'm beautiful even when I'm sick, sad, just woke up, working out.

16. I love that he is affectionate and always holds my hand.

17. I love that he runs with me and pushes me to go faster.

18. I love that he doesn't care for watching a ton of sports on tv.

19. I love that he tests my limits and makes me a stronger person because of it.

20. I love that he still likes to go on a date with me every week no matter how simple or extravagant it may be.

21. I love that he is still constantly surprising me every day with how amazing he really is.

22. I love that he is romantic.

23. I love that we cook and do the dishes together.

24. I love that he loves me back and that I get to spend forever with him!

These are just a few. For Nic's birthday we went out to dinner to Red Lobster which has been a tradition for him with his family every year. I'm so glad I was here this year to share it with him and his mom! We came back to our apartment and Nic opened his gifts. I'm excited that his birthday will continue because I got him a pass to Lagoon and we are planning a weekend trip in July! I also got him a massive bag of swedish fish which I think he might have liked even more than the Lagoon ticket haha. I made him a better than sex cake. We all had a piece then Nic and I went to visit his dad. We had Beau and Mindy over for a little bit. They gave him a Jamba gift card... yumm! Glad we could share the cake with many people so we don't eat it all!

Happy 24th Birthday Nic! I love you and hope it was the best one yet!!

St. Lucia Bliss

The day after our wedding we headed to St. Lucia on a long journey to our honeymoon!
and when I say long journey.. I mean 24 hours.. it took us an entire day to get there. But it was SOO worth it!

We drove from Boise to Salt Lake. This is us waiting to board our first flight to Las Vegas! Don't we look so excited?! Well to be honest.. that excitement died after the first flight haha

....and in-between there were many more layovers and flights. We took a red-eye so we had been flying all night when we finally ended up in St. Lucia Monday afternoon.

Here is where it got exciting.... isn't it the most beautiful place you have ever seen?!! And that was just from an airplane window!

(we look a little haggard from the flying ha)

So we go through customs in the airport and are led through a big door that says "Sandals". At this point I am dying to be at our hotel. We are both exhausted and experiencing a lot of motion sickness. A man walks up to us and hauls our stuff into a Landrover (which is a really nice car for this place) and says it will be a little over an hour to get to our resort. UMM excuse me?? I seriously had been planning on MAYBE a 15-20 minute car drive from the airport. Oh just wait it gets worse... so not only is it a little over an hour, we are with a driver who can barely speak English but continues to talk to us every few minutes. I don't think I have said "I'm sorry can you please repeat that" more in one hour in my life! Another tidbit you should know, there is practically one road that takes you around the entire island and our resort was on the other end of the island than the airport. So we are driving along and suddenly realize the reason for the whip lash we are experiencing every few minutes... NO speed limit in St. Lucia. OH GREAT.. and the island gets hits with hurricanes which have completely trashed their roads so we are dodging pot holes and driving 80 mph on a road that is incredibly windy. On top of all of this, our driver was listening to obnoxious rap music that said the "f" word every 30 seconds and did not understand that we didn't want to drink his champagne. So the journey to St. Lucia was not the greatest by any means but once we got there, this is what we got to experience.....

Monday: Day 1

Our incredible view from the balcony of our suite

This picture was taken shortly after we had gotten to our room. Our butler checked us in and set up everything for us.. the only thing we forgot to ask about was what was open for food. We hadn't eaten anything since the previous afternoon so we were starving! We realized the resort has a dead zone between 4-6 pm for food as they are closing down lunch and setting up for dinner at the restaurants. We realized we could order room service at this time so we call... DANG IT.. hour and a half wait. When we finally got our food we sat on our balcony overlooking the beautiful Caribbean. As I was looking over at Nic I notice this little guy scurry our balcony and I got a little excited. Nic on the other hand took this excitement as OH MY GOSH look at that massive creepy thing crawling on your t-shirt. This is where he jumps up smacking nothing off of his shirt and me rolling on the ground laughing. haha

Holy moly was that a little of food, but it was sure delicious :)

P.s. we came home plump but happy at the end of this trip!

Tuesday: Day 2

This was our one day of the trip where we didn't have any plans what-so-ever so we spent the day on the beach and got a little fried :)

At first we couldn't figure out why there were holes all over the beach until this little guy decided to pop out

A TON of water sport activities were included with our all inclusive stay, we loved it!

Paddle Boat Trike!! Greatest thing ever!

These were all pictures we took of our resort from the trike... gorgeous huh?!

We rented a jet ski! So much fun and a great way to tour the island!

For lunch we went to a restaurant at our resort called Josephines which was a homemade pizza/crepe place. Their food was incredible! It was our favorite place by far. We ordered a apple, banana, cinnamon, honey crepe and we both thought we had died and gone to heaven with every single bite. There were these cute little birds all over the island and they were NOT afraid by any means to enjoy your food along with you :) Here he is watching me like a little hawk. Just wait......

Hops on the table a little closer.. I had only scooted my plate to the other side of my drink to see if he would take a bite.

Yep he sure did!!

Some of the restaurants required a dress code and we had everything for it except dress shoes for Nic... oops. We thought he would just be able to go with the "casual dress" look with flip flops so he talked me out of packing his dress shoes. Well it turns out he needed them after all and all he brought for closed toed shoes were tennis shoes. They looked a little dorky but we did what we had to do to experience St. Lucia's fine dining.

The restaurant we went to was a Italian place which is right up Nic's ally. Sometimes we had a hard time determining what it is we were exactly ordering because their menus did not have great descriptions of their food. At this restaurant Nic ordered a tomato herb salad or something like that. It was literally a slice of tomato, a piece of mozzarella cheese, and some herbs sprinkled on top hahaha no lettuce for you Nic.

After dinner we were slow dancing on a dock and got really excited when we saw this. I know it is really hard to tell because my camera isn't great and it was too small but for anyone who has seen the movie Tangled will love this as much as I do. They lit it on fire and it was a floating lantern JUST like in the movie Tangled!! It was the coolest thing ever! Nic and I are bound and determined to learn how to make one this summer.

We had the cutest little romantic butler. He would always escort us to dinner and we thought it was a little strange at first until we realized he did it so that he knew for certain we would be out of our hotel room. Then he worked his magic, turned on some music and mood lighting, spread flowers on the bed for when we got back.

Delicious desserts always accompanied the room decorating as well. Thank you Richard (our butler)!

Wednesday: Day 3

Today we went zip-lining! Nic and I both had been wanting to do this for a really long time!! Our tour guide's name was George but he told us that everyone calls him George of the Jungle. We quickly realized why. At every chance he got he would hop out of the bus, scurry up a random tree with literally his bare hands, and hack down a piece of fruit or some leaves. Funniest man ever! We were driving to our destination when George brings up the animals of the island. He says, "now you know that St. Lucia is a rain forest right?" He asked if we were afraid of any animals and most people said snakes and spiders. His response... "Yep! Got both of those! Tarantulas and the fourth deadliest snake in the world!" GREAAAAT! At this point I was pretty much glued to my seat on the bus and didn't really want to get out ha. I sure did stay on the look out for most of the time though.... more to come on this topic later.















I think this shows my excitement... I LOVE ZIP LINING!

Nic just laughs at me...







The only creature we actually saw while zip lining was this little guy. Most beautiful blue eyes ever!

When we were done we were absolutely covered in sweat.. didn't think about that one and I forgot a pony tail hence the crazy hair and hand waving.

While zip lining, everyone kept asking where George was? We thought he would have come along. Well if you knew George, you would believe what he had been doing. Spent the ENTIRE time hunting down a trantula for us.. what a sweet sweet man.

Did you know that thing is crawling on your face you freak?!!!!

and on top of your head.

well and every where else on your body. The question is... where didn't he let it crawl

Then this brave soul decided to give it a try. You can see how fun it was from the look on his face haha especially when that thing started JUMPING! I screamed, pushed innocent people to the ground, and jumped on top of the nearest table. haha Nic was dying laughing... I on the other hand was not. FREAKED ME OUT!

The piece of wood sticking out from this post has the fourth deadliest snakes hung over it. Luckily they had been killed and hung there like a trophy. As you can see, they are brown and would blend into pretty much everywhere in St. Lucia so they are really hard to see. Glad we didn't run into any of those bad boys.

This was one of the many things George hacked down from a tree. He claims that the white pieces inside are cocoa and used for making our chocolate. It tasted nothing like chocolate to me though. We got to taste his favorite fruit on the island which was called Judy (his wife's name) and it was soo good. All there tropical fruit there was. Way different though than I had ever tasted before. I forgot to get a picture of a banana tree but they had banana tree farms growing allll over the island with blue bags wrapped around the bananas to protect them from the sun. Among the fruit, sweet old George offered us some type of cinnamon leaf to smoke (good thing he forgot his liter) Seriously close call on that one! And he offered us some type of red shot that had roots and seeds growing in it. Everyone tried it on the bus except for us and said that it burned when it went down. Glad we didn't have to try it!

Another one of Richard's romantic things he had ready for us when we got home from zip lining all day. By the way, I forgot to mention there were 12 zip lines we did, each getting longer and higher. Zip line number 12 was 1500 feet long and completely above the rainforest. It was absolutely incredible and such a rush! We wish we could have taken pictures but it was so high up that we didn't want to risk losing the camera. It has happened many many times and there really isn't any way to get it back.










We went to barefoot on the beach for dinner. It was beautiful to be right on the water with our toes in the sand! Only a few minutes after we got there the beach was attacked with thousands of moths. You can't see them in this picture but I was cracking up because everyone was swatting them away. They got into our water and were everywhere! I felt so bad but the resturant cleared out quick and we went with them.

Right next to our hotel room there was these pots and in one of them we always saw this morning dove camped out in there. Once we took this picture we realized it was because she had a nest in there. It didn't move the entire trip.. poor thing probablly roasted in there during the day.



Thursday: Day 4



We went on a boat to go on a snorkling tour! This was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip! We saw so many beautiful fish and coral. Nic even saw a seahorse!!

While we were in St. Lucia we found out that this was the island that the Pirates of the Caribbean movies were filmed on. Right out front of our resort was one of the pirate ships from the movie.. so cool!!

If you wanted the maids to clean your hotel room you had to put a sign on the door. Nic and I had put the sign out that morning and when we got back from snorkling this "out of order" sign was on our bathroom door. We both looked at each other like "what the heck? It wasn't me!" hahaha We open up the door and found out it was one of sweet little Richard's tricks.















We were so sad that this was our last day on the beach.

That night we went to the fanciest resturant at the resort. It was called Gordon's and it was out on the end of a pier in the water. It was so beautiful out there at night! We had this amazing coconut king crab chowder!! I might need to find a recipe for it and learn how to make it now myself.

Friday: Day 5

We didn't get to take any pictures on this day because we were only at our resort for breakfast and then had to leave to get to the airport early for our flight home. We absolutely fell in love with St. Lucia while we were there and will definitely be going back there someday. The place where we had our honeymoon and fell even deeper in love.

We didn't get back home until 3 am Saturday morning in Pocatello. We were absolutely exhuasted all over again but it was so worth it. We came home to this little fella. Biggest bee I have ever seen in my life! Nic of course had to name him.. goodbye Thor! I won't be missing you even if Nic might!

Love, The Honeymooners :)