One Year Later

Can you believe it, Shea and I have known eachother for a little more than two whole years. On Thursday, October 22nd, we celebrated our very first anniversary together. It is crazy to think it has been a whole year since we were married. It has been so wonderful being together and knowing we get to spend eternity with eachother. The time sure has gone by fast and at the same time I couldn't imagine what it was like without him before we met.



Shea surprised me in the morning with a dozen red roses. Fortunately, Shea got off work early and we decided to keep it simple and go to Idaho Falls for dinner at Olive Garden. We had a lot of fun, afterwards we rented a few movies and popped open a bottle of sparkling cider!

(Eating at Olive Garden)

(Celebrating with some sparkling cider... oh baby we are wild)

A few of our favorite things about being married to one another are . . .

Shea:

1. Her loyalty. I know that Kay-Marie always has my back and I am never afraid that she will contradict me in public, making me look stupid...although she might tell me later. She is so supportive and strong, I love it.

2. Kay-Marie is so gentle. She takes the time to rub my back and her every touch makes me so happy that I get to spend forever with her.

3. The fact that Kay-Marie is ticklish everywhere. I will be scratching her back and she will squirm around with a smirk on her face trying not to laugh. It cracks me up.

4. Kay-Marie is patient. I can be a dummy sometimes but she is always there for me. She is an example to me. She picks up after me and make me happy all the time.

5. She is beautiful. Whether it is early in the morning, late at night, or right before a date she looks beautiful. I am so lucky. She gets dressed up for me all the time, I love that.

Kay-Marie:

1. Waking up next to Shea in the morning. He loves to cuddle when he sleeps so in the morning I usually have to push away to get air, but I love it all the same. When I wake up in the morning sometimes I will move around a little and Shea will start to wake up and on his verge of awakeness and sleeplessness he rubs my feet, at first when we got married it made me laugh now I love it.

2. Reading together. Both Shea and I love to read, and reading to eachother is one of my favorite things that we do. We both take turns reading a chapter or two, basically when we get tired or one of us wants to take over we swap. It is fun seeing how enthusiastic we are when we read, we love doing different voices and just having fun getting really into the book. We read Lost Boys by Orson Scott Card in August and greatly enjoyed spending time together reading and laughing and talking about the book. I hope to start another book soon, probably after school is out, it is a great way to relax.

3. Going on our dates. I love that Shea will try to take me out atleast once every week. Sometimes its for a walk in the park or a hike, or dinner for two. But it is so nice because he always remembers, even when I forget, that we need time for just us. It is so nice to get away from school/work/all the worries of life.

4. Shea is so supportive of my education and anything that I want to do. That is so important to me. This semester has been rough, but Shea has been a great reminder of how important it is to get done and how close I am. I have even been talking about going on to get a Masters in Education so that I can later teach all this stuff I have been learning. Shea loves the idea of me continuing my education and it is great to know that he will always be at my side.

5. I am no perfect wife, that is for sure. I feel like a mess of one most of the time. I am so busy that I barely ever make dinner and if I do it is never anything elaborate. I am slacking off on cleaning, sometimes I get a rush and there is not a speck of dust anywhere in the apartment to be found, but most times Shea has to help me do the dishes and clean up. Shea never complains about having to cook or clean if I ask him too (although the dishes are harder to get him to do). I really appreciate the fact that Shea compliments me on being the best wife in the world, which is one of his favorite things to say, when most of the time I feel like I could be so much better and hope to once I am finished with school.

(Here is one more picture from our wedding day, one year ago...)

Time To Move

So Shea and I have been thinking it is time to move for a while now. Living on the third floor is a dangerous idea for me, since I tend to take quite a tumble every now and then. Well after searching for a place for a while now we decided to check into the apartments at The Village. We were pleasently surprised. After checking out several other apartments we decided to take the plunge. We applied and were accepted but the two bedroom apartment we wanted was unavailable. We were so depressed. We had thought that everything was going so well.

Later in the week they called us to tell us that someone had dropped their contract and it is ours now! It is going to be so fun, we got the model apartment so all the appliances are new, and I am loving the fact that we are going to have our own washer and dryer and dishwasher and air conditioning. It will be so nice. We signed the contract to move in January, so we have to suck it up for a while here at our current apartment while we get everything ready for the new one.

Exploring Mesa Falls

Well school has been crazy. Shea and I are busy all the time, I barely ever see Shea because he leaves for work most mornings at 7 and works on homework in the library until 11:30 most nights. He is working hard to get straight A's this semester, I am so proud of him. I am not as diligent but just as busy. This last semester has been a bit more demanding then I imagined it would be. Shea and I only have one laptop which can be pretty difficult at times, but we have managed so far. This week is midterms, it is crazy that we are already half way through the semester. I love that I am almost done!

This weekend we were both yearning for a break, so I suggested Mesa Falls. We keep hearing about it but neither of us have ever gone. So on Saturday we made a date of it we went for lunch and then drove to the Falls. It was nice to have a chance to relax and talk.
Shea read all the signs as we walked along the trail to the falls. So it took us a lot longer to get to the falls but Shea found all the information very engaging, I found it a bit boring. Some of the information was interesting though, the rocks behind us in this picture were formed 200,000 years ago from the cooling of a volcanic explosion.

This squirrel in the picture below was a hard fellow to catch, I took this picture and Shea wanted to get one up close so he proceeded to chase the squirrel around as it ran along the trees and skirted around the ground. Finally our squirrel ran right into the thicket of trees and we gave up on a closer picture.

Part of the reason I was so excited to go to Mesa Falls was to see some leaves changing colors, I am do used to the beautiful bright colored autumn leaves that make up Fall in Maryland. But Idaho, particularly Rexburg, doesn't seem to get the whole autumn season, skipping right to winter. So catching some color was exciting!