Our Anniversary

Andrew and I have been married for one year and 13 days! Whoo Hoo! For our anniversary we went to the good ol' PC (that's for Park City for all of you non-hip peeps) Diane let us stay in her timeshare which was totally awesome because 1. we didn't have to pay 2. this place was gorgeous and huge and 3. it was literally on Main Street! Diane is way to generous and even took us out to dinner Friday night, so sweet. She called us a couple weeks before our anniversary and asked if we had plans for the weekend and of course we didn't because we're impoverished. Okay, not really but we're newlyweds and I'm still in school getting paid $9 to answer phones and take people on tours, I'm suppressing my pure joy right now. Any who, Diane's awesome and I love her soooo much!

So Friday night we went to dinner with Diane at this awesome little Mexican restaurant and had the worst waiter in the world!!! It was so funny, normally I would probably take offense but it was so bad I just had to laugh. I asked him to take a picture of us and he said no! Obviously someone should not be in the customer service industry :) But the food was wonderful so we had a great time and he didn't get a tip.

Then on Saturday we went riding even though it was raining and thundering. But we're cowboys, we're totally tough. Andrew bought me a duster to keep my warm even though the price was a little too high for my tastes but I love it! I look so legit with my cowboy gear going on, Andrew won't be embarrassed to ride with me anymore.

After the ride we got massages and that was amazing. We had even planned to go to Bandit's (one of Andrew's favorite places) that night for dinner but we settled for Panda Express because we didn't have the desire to get ready again.

We were totally lazy and it was the best weekend ever. I am so grateful that Diane would let us use her timeshare and I am beyond grateful for Andrew. He makes me so happy.

And I'm a believer

A few weeks ago Andrew and I set out to one of the most awesome places in the world...Lake Powell! We met up with Andrew's entire family and some of his aunts, uncles and cousins equalling about 25 people total. It was so fun! This was my first real trip to Lake Powell and I didn't get it before we got there. I had been a couple years ago with some friends in March and it was still pretty cold so I will claim this as my first official trip. I was overwhelmed the entire time by the cliffs and the water and the fun...I am exhausted just thinking about it! I am grateful to be back home sleeping in my soft bed and having a shower that doesn't get it's water from a lake that Andrew uses as a toilet. love you sweets! Here's a little video of our adventures. In order to get the full effect you have to pause the music player down below so you can hear Bob in the video.

Hallelujah!!!

It's sad, it took me about 2 minutes to figure out how to spell hallelujah. Don't worry, I'm in college. On a different note I passed my classes!!! Yipee! I am so happy! With everything going on with my mom I wasn't sure if it would really happen but I got 2 A's and 2 B-'s. I'm kind of sad about the B-'s but I'm at the point where I just want to get out of here so as long as I pass, I'm fine.

Last weekend was the UVU car show at Thanksgiving Point. My dad has been working on his Datsun 280Z and got it ready just in time. (His car is for sale if anyone is interested, please someone buy it!)It was really fun to walk around and see all of the cool cars and all of the cool mullets!

My future ride :)

Also Aaron had his seminary graduation on Sunday so Andrew and I went down. It was fun to see him. His high school graduation is May 28th if anyone wants to come! We're getting him skydiving for his graduation present, it's going to be awesome!

On Tuesday all of the girls in Andrew's family got together and got pedicures! It was so fun and my toes look so cute for the first time since I got married! I love pedicures until it comes to the pumice stone part. I freak out everytime. I told myself that I wouldn't be ticklish but that didn't happen. The poor girl had to deal with my laughing and squirming the whole time! But it was so worth it! Thanks Martsie! Love you girls!

Happy Mother's Day

Well, it's been a crazy little while. I have had the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows these last couple of months. I have realized that it takes a tragedy to understand how many people care and I was surprised by how many people actually do care. When my mom died it was a sense of relief in my family. We had watched her suffer since last November and prayed that the Lord would take her quickly. Even though those were my last prayers I miss her more than anything and feel the void in my life now that she's gone. Her spirit of happiness and hope is still with us though and that makes me so happy! If you knew my mom you understand that she was a remarkable woman full of fight and life. The whole process was exhausting and I am glad that it is over but I miss being surrounded by my family, especially her. There are so many details that I won't recount but overall it was all incredible. Thank you to everyone who sent notes, prayers, flowers, smiles and love. Thank you for understanding that I have been a little preoccupied this past year and being patient with me. Especially Andrew, he has been a more than perfect husband since we've been married and an even better friend. He lets me cry as much as I need to, hugs me when I'm sad and/or happy and puts up with the craziness of my life. I can't imagine just getting into a family and then having this happen. He has really stepped up and taken the reigns for me in more areas than I can explain. He is the most amazing husband in the world and I am so grateful to be married to him! We went to go visit her grave yesterday and bring her flowers and to our surprise Diane was sitting there already so we just hung out with her and talked about how we need to stay close and help each other through all of this. Diane has been in my life for over half of it and is like a second mom to me. I love her so much and I was so grateful that she was there to sit and cry with me while Andrew got us pizza. I had so much fun and I am excited for Star Trek this week!

Other things have happened to us these past couple months that have been pretty amazing! Andrew bought a motorcycle, it's a Yamaha V-Star that is super sexy :) and I'm totally a biker mama now.

My brother Jared and his wife Rose and their baby Tyler came out for the events and it was so fun! I am officially known as the candy aunt now because I give Tyler candy in exchange for his love. I know how this all works and I am more than willing to sacrifice health for the coveted spot as the favorite. We also celebrated Jared's birthday by going to dinner and having the best cake ever made by Rose! I miss them so much!

Yesterday Andrew and I took out the horses for the first official ride of the season! I found a birds nest with little tiny baby birds in the hitch of the trailer and Andrew had to move it to a nearby tree. He's so sweet!

The horses all look so great with their new summer coats and Cisco and Duchess did surprisingly well considering it's the beginning of the season and they haven't been ridden in about 7 months. We went up Highway 40 past Heber right before Daniel's Summit to a place called Center Creek. It was a fairly easy ride and even though everything is still dead it was gorgeous! The creek was running and the grass was green. The weather ended up being perfect, warm with a slight breeze, and I didn't even loose my sunglasses that were on top of my head when we were galloping. I was pretty impressed with myself. :) We are so blessed to be able to do this thanks to Andrew's parents.

And Happy Mother's Day to you all, especially Sister Cooper who had her baby boy today! We are so excited for you! And to all of my adopted mother's: Diane, Patty, PJ, Christy, Aunt Valerie, Lil, Martsie, Myrna, Kathy, Nancy and all of the rest of you, I love you sooo much!!!

Art with a capital A

Not to toot my horn too much but changing my major from marketing to art history was a bold but brilliant decision on my part. I am taking a class where we discuss the emergence of modern art in the 20th century and why we should take it seriously. One of the more recent pieces we looked at is called Erased de Kooning by Robert Rauscheberg. This piece has created sooo much controversy like most modern art but this one is different because the artist instead of adding marks to a canvas erased a portrait created by one of the most celebrated modern artists of the early 1900's.

I know most of you will say to yourself "this is so goofball, Krystal is nuts to think that this is art." To be honest I thought it was pretty stupid myself when I first saw it but after talking about it in class for about an hour straight I have a great appreciation for this piece. If you look close you can still see smudges that Rauschenberg couldn't get completely off the paper.

Our subject today was pop art. Seriously, in what other major do you sit around and talk about Andy Warhol all day? I spaced out in the middle of class and had a flashback of 2 years ago when I was still a marketing major. Every Tuesday night I would go to my Accounting 1010 class, sit in the back with my laptop and look at Nordstrom's shoe department and check Facebook for about 3 hours wishing I had a blunt object to knock myself unconscious with. To this day it still gives me shivers just thinking about it...some people have the smarts for that stuff but not this girl! So I stick to modern art where you can pretty much interpret art in any way you see fit, you just have to use big words and say "I feel like the artist was trying to represent..." blah, blah, blah and everyone will pretend like they understand what's going on. It also helps to flex your fingers like you're putting quotation marks around a word while your talking, then people can interpret that word however they feel fit. For example, we looked at Andy Warhol's Marilyn series today

I really love Marilyn Monroe, who doesn't? My teacher came up with about 15 different interpretations of this series including that it represents the superficiality of being famous, Marilyn's different 'masks' she had to wear because of being a celebrity, something to do with drugs and another to do with a man in drag, he said that this series was a like lifesavers and everyone had their own 'flavor' of Marilyn etc. It was really interesting and I was fully entertained the whole class period! I definitely cannot say the same for my accounting class. :( I do have to say that my teacher scares the living you-know-what out of me though, he definitely never had a job that dealt with customer service but overall its a pretty entertaining class. I love art history because I don't feel like hitting myself with a blunt object everyday in class and we get to look at stuff like this all day...
Yes, it is a urinal and yes, I really do think that this is art. I've been converted to the weird side... well, partially, some of it is really just goofball. :)

Rose and Jared's Visit

My brother and sister-in-law came out to visit from North Carolina for the past week! It was so much fun having them here! Their little boy, Tyler, is so cute and because he is the only grandchild he is totally spoiled! We are so happy that we were able to spend a couple days with them while they were here. Andrew is happy now because Tyler will actually look at him without crying. I'm still the favorite though! see...he totally loves me :)

Tyler reading Hawaiian moon with Grandma

playing the guitar, singing and dancing with grandpa

after a bath with dad

bathtime!!! he had so much fun blowing bubbles and showing me how he can be a fishy

There's tons more to come!

Valentine's/President's Day

There's lots to catch up on! Since our last post we have moved into a house about 4 blocks away from our old apartment. It's so cute and I totally love it! We are still in the same ward which is so nice because we love it. The story is kind of crazy because we sold our contract to our old apartment and realized that we had to find a place to live in about a week! I was totally stressed and one day I got a phone call from a woman saying that someone in our ward had given her our number and she had this great house for rent. She told me a little about it and I was so sad because it sounded way too expensive. So I told her that I appreciated her calling but that we could only afford a certain amount. She asked how much we were looking to spend and when I told her she said that we could do that. So Andrew and I rushed over to the house and fell in love! We told them that we'd take it and we started moving in a couple days later!!! It is such a blessing and we know that the Lord is keeping us in our ward for a reason.

We had such a fun Valentines/President's Day weekend! Andrew gave me my present early so I could use it the next day. He got me flowers, chocolate covered strawberries, a little bear I named V and new snow boots!!! I was so excited because my old snow boots are from the 80's and what girl doesn't love flowers and chocolates?!

Our newest hobby is sledding at the GR. There is a huge hill and the boys built a jump that just about kills you every time! These are some of our finer spills...

John

Aaron before

Aaron after

my graceful tumble

The GR has been such a blessing to us. We would be so bored without it :)