we have an announcement...

friday started out as a pretty stressful day for me. i had a really horrible morning. so when ry said he had to go to school to finish a project. i didnt think anything of it. then just has he is about to leave, he says.. i am not really going to school. i kind of bought us something... 

i would like to formally introduce the newest member to our family, harley "furball" ford. 

When ry told me he had bought us a puppy, i was ecstatic. but i am going to let her tell you more about herself. 

hello everyone, i am a golden retriever and i am 6 weeks old. 

my birthday is february 17th so mark your calendars for next year's big birthday bash =) i guess my name is harley. i didnt really get to chose but mom and dad seem to like it. my uncle ashton ( he's 5) thinks i look more like a furball so mom and dad let that be my middle name. 

i am pretty much the most adorable thing ever. My favorite thing to do right now is cuddle and sleep. mom and dad try to make me play with them and go on short walks outside but it sure wears me out. mom and dad bought me some fun toys but my favorite things to play with are their clothes. usually when they are wearing them. they are so much fun to bite. 

they seem to really care about where i go to the bathroom so i have been trying to go whenever they take me outside. it seems to make them happy. you will probably be seeing me more as i grow up. 

 she has quickly stolen our hearts and i am so excited to watch her grow. this easter has been so fun hanging out with her and getting to know her. 

xoxo, 

a 

im a big girl now {kindof}

its funny to think that i am a grown up. i am graduating college in less than a month, starting a real job, house hunting! it is crazy to me. 

although i never dreamed i would be staying in utah, it is something that has happened and although i am sad to be away from my family who are all in california, i realize that utah is the place that ry and i are suppose to be for right now. it is scary and fun and sad and exhilarating at the same time. 

i always dreamed of owning a house, raising a family. those dreams are starting to come true and it is awesome. i am nervous about it. i am no longer playing house. i am going to own a house and really start real life. 

but while house hunting, we have realized something. ry is a DIY-er at  heart. he loves the houses that have potential. he grew up ripping out carpets and hammering down walls. his family rebuilt their whole house. so naturally, he wants a house that we can make our own. i grew up in a family where changing a lightbulb or painting some furniture was a big deal. we like turn-key houses. {meaning the house is move in ready} as you see from the description, ry and i have very different views when house hunting. but i see his side. i get excited when i think of redoing things the way i like them. being able to be creative and use all my pinterest ideas! we have been looking for weeks. trying to stay below our budget and find something we can see ourselves raising a family in. 

so we found a house that is ry's style. it is a great layout and has so much potential! but it is a DIY dream! it took some convincing but i see where he is coming from and i love the house. {or more, i love what the house can be} it will take work but i figure that work will give ry and i something to do together and it will be a fun project. i have faith in ry and all our friends who love ripping a house apart. 

we put the offer in today! 

we shall see what happens! 

fingers crossed

im ready to be a big girl now. 

oh utah

i tell myself that utah is pretty. 

last week, it was not hard to see that. 

then this morning, i woke up to snow and this is how i felt. 

Just imagine that i am michael scott and the snow is poor toby. 

Utah is so mean. 

in other news, in-laws are in town so i am in for a weekend of cabin relaxation, furniture de-stressing and fun. 

what are you doing this weekend? 

year round school

i am a teacher at a year round school. this means that throughout the year, i get breaks. these breaks allow me to relax and remember why i love to teach. 

one of these breaks happens to coincide with spring break which means that instead of having three weeks off, i have 4 and it has been amazing. 

but one question i continually get asked by my friends, family and ry is a variation of what are you going to do today or what did you do today? 

this meme explains it perfectly.

even though this is not 100% true, my days are considerably less busy than normal. 

** we are moving so i am packing

**i am done with two whole weeks worth of lesson plans

** i have watched 4 seasons of the office 

** 16 episodes of revenge {new addiction} 

worked out almost every single day

**gone to work 5 days { subbing or staff development} 

** had my wisdom teeth removed

i have done things but for the most part i have done absolutely nothing and it was everything i thought it could be. 

flawed factory reject

body image.

 it is not something that a lot of people, girls in particular, like to talk about. 

we like to pretend that we all love ourselves and don't cry ourselves to sleep when we are pms-ing and bloated. 

there is an article that i found on facebook and it was kind of interesting. {you can find it here.} 

it is about a girl who weighed 300 pounds and got the weight loss surgery. she talks about even when she lost 180 pounds and was a size 2, she was mad at herself for not being a size 0. she said that losing the weight did not address any of the problems that made her heavy to begin with. but one paragraph she wrote really hit home for me.

"Magazine articles about body image talk about loving yourself despite your flaws. Sometimes they get really radical and they talk about loving yourself because of your flaws, and that is supposed to be empowering. And it makes me mad, because we're talking about flaws here. A body that doesn't look like the body of a Victoria's Secret model is a flawed factory reject. My thighs aren't the thighs of a figure skater, so they're not good enough, but I should love the flubby little things anyway because I am so incredibly self-compassionate."

this paragraph really made me think about my own body and my personal views on what i look like. now i know i am not heavy. i do not weigh 300 pounds but i dont look like a victoria secret model either and more often than not, i feel like a flawed factory reject. and i know i am not the only one out there! we are imperfect. no one is ever completely happy with their body { if you happen to be one of the lucky few who are completely happy with their body... please TELL ME YOUR SECRET!} but after reading it, i was left with a feeling of "now what?" 

even though i know it is ridiculous, i still hate that my thighs touch and i wish i could have a flat stomach. even at my skinniest, most fit times, i was never happy. i was always looking for something that wasnt perfect. i know that we are beautiful in our savior's eyes but how do i see my own beauty? 

i have resolved to stop looking for my flaws. i know i am not perfect but i want to focus on health instead of perfection. if i am eating right and working out, i need to be ok with that. i need to be ecstatic to have a healthy body that allows me to do the things that i love to do. 

we cant all be victoria secret models.

but we can choose to love who we are, even if we are flawed factory rejects ;) 

Love story part 6

love story part 1

love story part 2

love story part 3

love story part 4

love story part 5

for me, meeting his dad was a funny experience. i had met bob once during a hockey game while ryan and i were still just friends. it was very brief and not very momentous. but when i officially met ryan's dad, i realized i was in for a very comical relationship. ry and i went to a rugby game to watch a friend play. while they were playing, ry, his dad and i started having a conversation about ry's brother joe who was serving a mission. we were talking about how joe was serving in france and had met elizabeth smart while she was serving there as well. 

{to learn more about missions and what joe was doing in france, please feel free to visit lds.org} 

one thing led to another and my future father in law made a comment about how joe should ask her out when he got home

 his first date idea... camping in the woods. 

funny but not funny. it is that same twisted humor that i have grown up with being the daughter of my dad. it was funny to hear it from someone else. 

i dont remember the first time i ever met ry's mom. =( i assume it was around the same time though. 

ry meeting my family. 

it was during thanksgiving break that ry met my whole family. 

remember how i had just sent off a missionary 3 months earlier? 

so i knew this was a big deal. 

 i knew this would be a game changer. luckily my family was willing to see what had me so interested in this guy. 

they knew he was important enough for me to bring him home.

i went home for thanksgiving break and ry came down to visit over the weekend. i thought the worst criticism would come from my family... 

how could i be so wrong??

my missionary was from the same ward 

{congregation we meet with} as me and on sunday, some of the people in my ward were quite skeptical of this new boy. luckily ry did not let that scare him away =) 

my family could tell from this first meeting that ry was something very special. 

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Love story part 5

Just in case you need to catch up, here is the first four installments. 

love story part 1

love story part 2

love story part 3

love story part 4

our first official date as a couple was spent riding 4-wheelers out in heber, utah. ry's family owns a cabin up there and has 4-wheelers, snowmobiles and rhino. i love spending time up at the cabin. we went up with ry's best friend matt and his girlfriend emma. 

that first day of dating was so fun.  the views were gorgeous and the company definitely wasnt bad. after we were done 4-wheeling, we went to the famous dairy king, home of the trains. 

next installment: meeting the parents 

dun dun dun... 

our love story part 4

october 31st. i wasnt doing anything and neither was ry so we decided to carve pumpkins and just hang out. 

i showed up in full costume.. 

as a super hero. 

after  a moment of shock, he let me in and we carved our pumpkins. after we decided we were hungry and he asked if i wanted to go home and change before we went to dinner. 

i laughed and he realized i fully planned on going out dressed as a super hero..

 cape and all. 

that poor boy took me to cafe rio on a packed weekend night. i made friends with a little boy in line who said he had always wanted to meet a superhero and as we stood in line i realized that ry was special. especially if he was willing to put up with me and all my craziness. 

the next day was my birthday and this romantic man of mine got me

 a loaf of bread.. 

 { dont worry he has since made up for this present.ry is a bomb gift giver.} 

but anyways. i went out to dinner with my girlfriends and afterwards met up with the boys { ry and his friends} to go see the movie despicable me. it was the perfect way to spend my 20th birthday. 

It wasnt until the next day that ry and i became an official couple. it is funny because i cant remember how it actually happened, what was said or how i felt that day. i just remember that he was officially mine and i was his. 

our love story part 3

ry and i started hanging out quite frequently. but it was complicated because as i stated before, i was kind of broken; trying to figure out if i really liked this boy or just liked having a boy. and then on a weekend at the end of september, we went to the utah county fair with a bunch of friends and everything changed. 

once again, sorry for the blurry pic. 

ry and i spent the entire night side by side. we went on rides and had a blast. but it wasnt until i lost my headband that i became really impressed. we went on one of the rides that tosses us all over the place and sometime during the ride, my headband fell off. i loved that headband and was really disappointed.i tried not to make a big deal but ry could tell i was disappointed. instead of just blowing it off and moving on, this crazy boy of mine spent 15 minutes looking around the coaster seeing if it had flown off. by some miracle we found it. his willingness to look for it seems so stupid but it meant the world to me at that time. 

{sidenote- once we were married, this headband was run over by a certain someone while vaccumming. it is now only a memory. } 

by october, i knew this boy was special. we had our first kiss one night underneath the starry sky. ry and i went on a walk talking about anything and everything. then we decided to climb up on the roof of his house. as we sat up looking at the stars, ry leaned over and kissed me. i was nervous and happy and spoke before i thought about it. the first words out of my mouth after this gorgeous man had kissed me was... 

way to go for it. 

such an idiot. 

luckily he just laughed, kissed me again and we hung out on the roof for a few more minutes before one of his roommates decided to ruin the moment. 

the rest of october was spent in that awkward stage most dysfunctional relationships go through. we acted like a couple, hung out like a couple but did not become a couple until one fateful night more than a month later.. 

our love story part 2

after meeting at church our ward had a group family home evening. everyone in the ward went to JUMP ON IT, a warehouse full of trampolines =) 

i arrived a little late and by the time i had gotten there, ry had already twisted his ankle and was no longer partaking in the fun. 

so i spent the night talking to him and messing around with his friends. at the end of the night, ry causally asked for my phone number so that "maybe we could hang out" 

i left with butterflies and he left with a new number in his phone labeled "come jump in".  a joke that i would later find out about.

the next weekend, ry and his friends threw a labor day bbq. my friends and i were invited and told to just bring something to share. 

bri from breezy days and i spent the entire day before hand making my mothers famous sugar cookies.. to say we made a lot would be an understatement. i split them in two patches and planned on giving half to ry and half for the party but theses cookies did not become famous for nothing. 

sorry for the blurry pics... stolen from fb 

by the end of the party all my cookies were gone. =) and i had spent another successful day just getting to know this boy who had caught my eye.

our love story part 1

ry and i are both from california but we both had to come to utah to meet. 

at the beginning of my sophomore year at BYU, my {ex}boyfriend had just left on his lds mission. i had dated him for 3 years and was pretty broken when he left.  i went to college looking for some fun and a distraction. on the first day of church, i showed up with 5 of my best friends at the time. of course it was our first day of church in the new year so we all dressed our best. little did we know that by the end of that year, 4 out of the 5 of us would be married. 

this is the four of us who all got married. =) 

we spent most of our time during that church meeting playing a game between all us girls. we scribbled a line and then pass it to someone else who would have to create a picture from it. we were having great fun with it and caught the attention of some of the guys behind us. when the meeting ended, they came up to us and asked us what we had been writing on the paper that was so entertaining. embarrassing  horrible pictures? yeah... 

we left for our next meetings and us girls spent the next meeting talking about the cute guys we had just met. i immediately singled ry out as the cutie i wanted to get to know more. little did i know that i had just met my future lover and best friend. 

a leap of faith

ry always tells me that i need to learn to trust more. i used to think of myself as a risk-taker. but as i get older, i find myself being more of a planner. not willing to make decisions until every option has been considered. i have become cautious and it is so weird for me! some of the things coming up in our lives will require me to take that leap of faith. some of our decisions will not allow me to weigh out every option. some are completely out of my control. it is scary and exhilarating all at the same time. 

it is at this time that i realize that planning only takes me so far. it is time for me to take the only available transportation and take that leap of faith. the lord will direct me in all things. 

growing up, teeenage ages

Growing up, teenage years:
*What activities did you participate in?  (Sports, dancing, music, arts, etc.)  Explain what you did with each activity.   
in high school, i was involved in quite a few activities. i was in A.P. classes as well as national honor society and renaissance ( leadership) i also played volleyball and soccer and participated in choir all four years. Outside of school i attended seminary, which is an institute through my church that teaches about the gospel. seminary met at 6 am every morning. as i look back on all our activities i cant believe i did so many things and still kept my sanity. i was the kind of girl who wanted to do everything so i was never the best at anything. 

*How did you learn how to drive?  What kind of car did you have?
i learned how to drive by my mom. she took me out to the church parking lot and then on to deserted streets. i freaked my mom out more often then not because i thought i deserved to be in the middle of the road.it didnt matter about the actual car, it was about me. my physical being had to be in the middle. mom thought she was going to die. ;)   when i turned 16 my parents bought the toyota matrix and that became my car. it is still my mati. sure, she is getting a bit old but she was my first car. 

*Who were your friends? 
 in high school, i struggled with friends. i had friends, dont get me wrong. i had some good friends throughout my high school years. but as most teenagers, high school was full of drama and times of loneliness. i had a few loyal friends and i love them for what they taught me. 

*Did you have a girl/boy friend?  Talk about him/her
in high school i had 3 boyfriends. in my religion they advise us to not begin dating until we are 16, so my first boyfriend asked me out on my 16th birthday. we dated for 6 months. during that time we held hands, went on dates and hugged. for some reason, i never felt the desire to give him my first kiss and thus ended my first romantic relationship. 

my second relationship was full of drama. =) we had our ups and we had our downs. we were crazy about each other and drove each other crazy. our relationship was full of inside jokes and fights. he was my first kiss and the first guy i ever felt love for. we had a lot of growing up to do during our relationship and being together forced us both to do just that. we ended the relationship after 8 months to save our friendship and we have remained friends to this day. 

my third relationship started my junior year. we met through friends and he was the kind of guy who knew how to sweep a girl off her feet. together, we went through two proms, two high school graduations, two long distance relationship times (when he left for college in long beach and when i went to BYU) and finally ending our relationship after 3 years when he went on his LDS mission and i ended up meeting my eternal companion. we went through so much together and i grew into a better person by dating him. 

*What was your first paid job? 
my first paid job was as a receptionist at a podiatrist office. i started out working once a week then slowly working my way to everyday of the week at two different offices. it was a great first job that taught me how to be organized and helped me to develop good customer relationships. 

while the hubby is away.

i am off track right now which means my incredibly hectic schedule has become quite a bit less hectic. i have been off track now for 2 days... and i have spent those two days in the house. sure i went out and ran some errands and i have been working myself back into shape but for the most part, i have been home. ry, however, has not been here! that boy is so busy and i admire his willpower.  

anyways. i am sitting here while ry is off snowboarding. so while the hubby is away, i plan on watching a chick flick, eating some popcorn and drinking my weight in pepsi.. ok i am not actually going to drink that much pepsi. but you get my point. 


i am getting my wisdom teeth out tomorrow. gross. i am not looking forward to it. maybe if you are lucky and i am drugged enough i will post a pic on the blog =)

him & her

him: cereal
her: toast

him: comedy
her: romantic

him: surf
her: beach


him: mexican food
her: mexican food 


him: nonfiction
her: fiction

him: camping
her: hotel

him: adventure
her: adventure


him: weights 
her: runner


him: california 
her: california 

him: baker 
her: teacher 

him: walking dead
her: walking dead/ vampire diaries

him: impulsive 
her: planner 

him: in love
her: in love 

xo,
A 

wafflely wedded

this made me laugh so hard. i love it. i let out a little giggle during our wedding ceremony, thank goodness i controlled myself.