A Few More Goals

I have a few more goals I wanted to add to my post from this morning.

• Read six books. I know, this probably doesn't seem like a lot to most of you, but it would be an accomplishment for me. I love reading, but I often let other things get in the way. I think this will be a good goal to help me have some more much needed "me" time.
• Go on a fun trip. When Jayson and I got married we decided that we wanted to do a sort of biggish, fun trip each year. In 2008 we went to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for our honeymoon. In 2009 we went to Zion's National park. However, we failed to go on our trip together in 2010 becaue finances were low at the beginning of the year and when we got more money I ran out of vacation days at work because of all the family trips, trek, and weddings from the summer (they were worth it though). So, we have to keep this tradition alive this year.
• Read my scriptures in the morning.

The Ultimate New Year's Post

Reflection:
2010 was...
absolutely nothing like I thought it would be. Seriously, if you asked me at the beginningn of 2010 what my year would be like I would have given you a completely different story than what actually happened. But, with that said, it was still a pretty fabulous year.

Highlights/Major events:

• Late 2009 we moved from Logan to Salt Lake, leaving us the most poor we've ever been in our marriage (which is saying a lot) in early 2010
• By the end of 2010 we were/are more well off than we've been in our entire marriage. I'm not certain how that happens in just one year.
• I graduated from Utah State!! (wha? Did that really happen?)
• Jayson decided to stop going to school and go into business with his dad, which solved an insane amount of problems and answered an insane amount of questions for us.
• My work decided to let me work full time and thus we got good health insurance and dental insurance.
• Baby Adam was born! (the first, and only thus far, baby of the Sisterhood..so, he's kind of a big deal.)
• One member of my Sisterhood, Cameo, got called on her mission, went through the temple, and left on her mission.
• Three of Jayson's cousins, one of my cousins, and a few really close friends got married! It was definately the year of weddings, which is saying a lot because I attened a lot of weddings in 2007, 2008, and 2009.
• We went on Trek with our stake
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 was released in theaters.
• Many many camping trips with family and friends, including Lake Powell, and the blissful non-holiday weekend at Bear Lake where we got to ski and knee board to our hearts content without having to fight the crowds.
• Another member of my Sisterhood, Sarah, moved away, to California
• We found out we're getting a new nephew in May, 2011
• We decided to start looking for a house...wowie!
• Another member of my Sisterhood, Marni, decided to move to Arizona, and did so early 2011.

I am sure there are a few things that are not on that list that I can't think of at the moment. Thus, 2010 was quite a year with a whole lot of changes.
Out With the Old and in With the New:
We've made a few new purchases that we're excited about. We've never really had nice comforter set, so we decided that since our birthdays are just a month apart we'd splurge and use this as our birthday present. It's reversable too!! It even came with cute (also reversable) decorative pillows. Observe:

We realized that since we are going to buy a house we'd want furniture to go in that house and that our one love seat probably wasn't going to cut it. Plus, we've been wanting more seating for a while. We kinda feel bad when we have people over and only two people have a place to sit. Thankfully, Jayson's brother was selling his entertainment set and two couches, so we snatched them up, because they were a good price (and buying two new couches is kind of expensive). It really gave our living room a new and more classic look. We are very pleased. Observe:

Blast. I don't know why I didn't take Jayson's shoes out before I took the picture.

Goals:

What is a New Year's post without goals, right? The word "resolution" seems to have a lot of negative connotation about people never actually doing them, so I'm going to call them goals.

• Keep my aparment clean. I have much room for improvement on this. It's clean right now and it's such a great feeling.
• Be organized. I have so many projects I need to do that have to do with organization. I have pictures, files, papers, etc. that are just piled on my shelf.
• Work out for 20 minutes, at least four times a week. That might seem like a piece of cake for some of you, but I'm lucky if I work out one time a week these days. Baby steps people, baby steps.
• Buy a house!
• Keep in touch with my friends that live far away, and spend time with the ones that live close.
• Finish scrapbooking. I planned on doing a scrapbook for each year of our marriage. That can't be too hard right? Guess how many I have done. Zero. I haven't even started. In fact, I have yet to finish our Wedding scrapbook. I want to try and do one per month, so I'll be done by the last day of March. Although, if we buy a house before then that might supercede all other goals while we're inspecting, moving, unpacking, etc.
• Learn to cut Jayson's hair. I've been intending to do this since we've been engaged, so it's high time I actually do it.
• Sew something. I don't know what, but something. Maybe two things. I've been really wanting to get back in touch with my creative side because I feel like I've been disconnected from that side of me for years. So, I've decided to start with sewing, because I think it's really practicle and I want to be able to mend or alter things when I need to.
• Be more calm. I worry so much about so many things and I really want to be more relaxed about things in general.
• Make a priority list for my New Year's goals.

I have some ideas about what 2011 will bring, but let's be honest, it will probably be completely different.

Either way, I think it is going to be a fantastic year.

I know, I know....

I've said it about a million billion trillion times but...

I LOVE these girls. I cannot even begin to comeprehend how on earth I got so lucky to be best friends with them. Thanks for being so amazing girls.

Please note the Christmas tree AND that Halloween costumes....

Yup, this was New Year's Eve of our frehsman year of college. We are THAT cool.

I got to spend most of New Year's Eve with some of these lovely ladies, which was fabulous because they all live AT LEAST an hour and a half a way, and some of them a WHOLE lot farther.

I got to see most of them a whole lot this holiday season, and I usually only get to see them for hours at a time when I see them, so it made me one happy girl to be able to see them so much.

So, thus, this is my New Year's post. My first goal I'll state is that I'd like to keep in better touch with them. This holiday season reminded me of how incredible they are and how much I love them. (Not that I completely forgot any of those things...but you know what I mean.)

As for the rest of my goals...I haven't really made any yet. I've been too busy spending time with some of these lovely ladies.

Two Fabulous Years....

WOWZA. Can you even believe it's been two years since this day:









I certainly can't.

It's really hit me lately how young I am. I really don't feel old enough to have been married for two years. Aren't I still seventeen? What's that? I'm 22? Are you sure? But, seriously, two years of marriage seems like a really big deal. Everyone says that's when the "newlywed" stage is over, so that means I've been married like..a REALLY long time! I know all of you out there who've been married for like 30 probably don't think so, but I swear it hasn't been two years. I remember when I would meet people up in Logan that had been married for two years and I'd think...WOW! That's so long compared to six months (or whatever it was at the time).


But, in the same breath, pre-Jayson life seems like forever ago. What was it like without him in my life? I know I had some incredibly fun times in my single days, but man...I can't even imagine life without Jayson now. These two years have been good to us. It's incredible how much has changed, but that change has only brought us closer together. I like the two year mark. It's a good place for us I think. We've learned so much about eachother and how to work together. We're done with all of the suprise quirks and adjustments of the first year, we're done with student life, and we feel sort of established now. Year two was good to us. Life is just plain good.


Our annivesary was on Saturday, exactly one week before Christmas. However, we started the celebration one day early. You see, Jayson was going to take me on a surprise carriage ride (something I've wanted to do since I can remember. I can now check this off of my bucket list..yay!) around temple square, but the night of our anniversary was forcasted to be super rainy. So, he spilled the beans because he was afraid the rain would ruin it all and we'd need to come up with an alternate plan. But, the weather happened to be great Friday night, so, we saw the opportunity and seized it.


While we waited for the carriage ride I snapped some cool pictures of those bags with lights in them that they have around Temple Square. Well, at least I thought they were cool.

And TA DA!!! Our carriage awaits....

Was it everything I thought it would be?

Yes. It was magical. It made me feel so elegant and old fashioned, in a classy kind of way. I don't know why we ever switched to cars.

During our ride we spotted this little sign and Jayson thought it was hilarious. So random.

After the ride we walked around temple square and looked at the lights. It was a wonderful evening.

So, rewind for a moment. The Sunday before our Anniversary Jayson came up to me after church and told me that he had gotten a call asking us to help clean the church on Saturday and he accepted. "What?!" was my reaction. He didn't get it for a minute. After seeing my reaction for a bit, he realized what was on Saturday. (Now, in his defense, he didn't forget completely about our anniversary, he just didn't make the connection when he was talking to the guy in our ward in charge of cleaning). So, we had already committed and Jayson always feels bad going back on commitments.

On our anniversary morning I woke up grumpy about the whole thing. I was upset about not getting to have nice breakfast on our anniversary, about not having enough time, yada yada yada. But, it wasn't so bad. It actually only took an hour and a half. During our spare time afterwards we cleaned a bit (our apartment needed it desperately) and made lunch. Then, it was off to babysit..

Now, this one I volunteered us for. You see, there's this family that's very close to my family. They have five little kids, all under the age of 8. 2010 was a really tough year for them and they went through a WHOLE lot. To make a long story short, 2010 left them with very VERY little. They barely BARELY have money to make it through each month, so Christmas was going to be quite small for them. But, the awesome department that I'm a part of at my job did a sub for santa for them and they ended up with TONS of stuff. They were so grateful. Anyway, I volunteered to babysit their kids while they wrapped and oragnized the presents, and it just so happened that Saturday afternoon was the only day we could do it and..how do you say no to that?

One of the kids loaded all of his toys in the toybox onto Jayson's lap. I thought it was funny. Observe:

After babysitting we went to our very favorite restaurant...CHILIS!! In fact, I'm beginning to wonder how many pictures of us there are inside or in front of Chili's. Bring on the burger, the honey chipotle chicken fingers, the blackberry lemonade, and the white chocolate molten cake.

After that we decided to go to the dollar theater to see Legand of the Guardians. Make fun if you want, but we've both really been wanting to see it. We had some time to kill though, so we went back to the apartment and did more cleaning. Once it came time to go to the movie we both simultaneously decided we were tired and just wanted to watch a movie together on the couch. So, we popped in the Nightmare Before Christmas. We were both out within fifteen minutes of the movie. (Mind you, this was probably like 11:30 p.m. Yup, we're THAT cool.

So, all in all, our anniversary was kind of unconventional, and I was kind of bumbed about the cleaning and babysitting on our special day at first...but, as the day progressed, we ended up really enjoying it. We were able to do some service in a way that we don't normally get the opportunity to. It really was such a magnificent day.

Thanks, year #2 for being so awesome.

Here's to year #3. May you bring us even more awesomeness.

I have a good feeling about year #3.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!
Can you believe it?! I am kind of OBSESSED with Christmas. I have been ever since I was a little girl. I am a really good sleeper (seriously, I fall asleep in like three minutes and I never ever wake up in the middle of the night) but, sleeping on Christmas Eve was a challenge for me for years (Probably way longer than it should have been). As soon as it starts snowing the Christmas music comes out. I know, I know, one holiday at a time. I know that's what some of you are thinking, but listen, I've tried! I've tried many many times and failed. My Christmas joy just cannot be contained. Once the weather starts getting chilly I think about Christmas. I can't even pinpoint the exact reason that I love it...everything about it (except driving in the snow) makes me absolutely giddy. Everyone kept telling me I'd grow out of it but....it's not happening yet! I seriously don't think it ever will.

My first Christmas party of the season was last Saturday. The company I work for rented out a whole theater room and we got to see Tangled!!! It was SO cute. I'm really in love with that movie. Best. Work party. Ever.

I love....

• The lights. This has come to mind a lot lately when I think about why I love Christmas. Twinkle lights are one of the greatest things that ever happened to this world. They really just make everything so beautiful. I find them really symbolic actually. I mean, is He not known as the light of the world? The night He was born a beautiful bright star appeared.
• I truly love the reason for the season. It's amazing to be able to celebrate the miracle of our Savior's birth. I'm working hard this year to really focus on this and to create traditions for my little family of Jayson and me to carry on so that we can remember Him a lot at Christmastime. Sometimes focusing on the true reason for Christmas can be hard for me. I don't think it's so much that I get caught up in all of the commercialism, but the movies, the lights, the parties...there's just SO much celebration going on that I think often I forget what we're celebrating. So, like I said, I'm cracking down on really focusing on the Savior.
• The songs. Oh, don't even get me started. My very favorites are: O HOLY NIGHT, I HEARD THE BELLS ON CHRISTMAS DAY, BABY IT'S COLD OUTSIDE (ELF VERSION), and really I could go on and on, but I'll choose to stop now.
• Family. There is so much family get togetherness, and I LOVE it. We have a Kim family party, with Jayson's dad's side of the family, the Defriez Christmas party (Jayson's mom's side), the Klein family party (My dad's side. This one is especially special because this is really the only time of year my whole extended family gets together. You see, that side of the family is HUGE and it's really quite difficult to get together too often. So, I love seeing them at Christmas!), the Kelly Kim Christmas dinner, which is for Jayson's immediate family, and then of course we see lots of family Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
• Fake Christmas. My Sisterhood girls and I started a tradition way back in high school called Fake Christmas. Basically, it's just a get together for all of us and we draw names to exchange gifts. Some of them have been fun, some have been...well, not the best (the girls would attest to this), but the first one was the very best. We actually had a sleep over and Santa Suzanne put things in our stockings during the night. I don't even know what it was that made it so great, but it was magical.
• My anniversary! (That's right...two years!!) So many people told me I was making a mistake getting married so near to Christmas because it's such a busy and expensive month. Well, I happen to think that Christmastime is super romantic, so HA. How cool was it for me to have Christmas trees at my wedding? SO COOL.
• The movies. There are SO many great ones! My favorites are: Elf (this is my favorite movie...out of all other movies), The Year Without a Santa Claus, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. There are many more that are very delightful though.
• Decorating. I have a very specific things I do when I decorate for Christmas...and I LOVE it. Everything is so festive.
• Gigantic Christmas trees. Enough said.
• Giving presents. It's really so fun to pick out fun gifts for the people you love.
• Well, ok.... getting presents isn't half bad either....

I hope you all have a Happy Christmas season!

HAARRRYYYY POTTTEEERRR!

I posted two Potterish posts for you enjoyment.

Hufflepuff!

Harry Potter confession. Once me and a few members of the Sisterhood went through our entire year book and sorted everyone into houses. Yup, we really did. End confession.

I am a Hufflepuff. Anyone who is ready to diss on Hufflepuff's, don't even get me started. They are loyal and hard working and there isn't one single thing wrong with that. I've never really felt like I am really great at many things. School was a struggle for me, but I worked hard at it. Let me share this with you: "Some succeed because they are destined to, but most because they are determined to."

I think these guys get their bad reputation because they never win the house cup and because after the other three founding wizards of Hogwarts stated the type of students they wanted to teach, Helga Hufflepuff proclaimed that she would teach the rest. I think that is pretty noble. I totally agree with Helga; everyone deserves a chance to learn. Plus, Hufflepuffs are inclusive, friendly, non judgemental, and patient. So, maybe they're not the glorified types of personalities. They're usually the kind people you neither hate nor love when you first meet them. That's how I've always felt about myself. But, I think a lot of them are much deeper that you may think. They're the kind of people with quiet talents, such as: listening, hard working, being a good friend....you get the picture.

Cedric Diggory has always been their claim to faim, but everyone always forgets an even cooler Hufflepuff.

Nymphadora Tonks.

Yup, that's right. Tonks was a Hufflepuff.

So, BAM. Take that, all you Hufflepuff haters.