Saturday, September 10, 2011

Shootin' up the holiday weekend












































Labor Day weekend we drove back to Vegas so I could get another shot at getting a Nevada license (which I finally passed...). It was nice to be back with family and get a break from school...even though we'd only been in classes for a week. On Labor Day, Uncle introduced me to my new family heirloom...a Ruger 22 rifle. It was beautiful. Multi-colored wood, pink tinting. The first gun I've ever held that was actually mine. He took us shooting out in the desert so we could get some good target practice. My gun shot so smoothly that I just couldn't get enough of it. I especially loved using the scope, which made targets so much easier to shoot. I especially loved watching how excited Eric got while shooting and having contest with his brothers. After shooting we headed to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch, then headed back to Provo. Though the weekend was short, it was just what we needed. We are so blessed to have such a wonderful family, who loves spending time together. When I was arranging things with my wedding photographer, I mentioned that I was marrying into the Gourley family. She told me how lucky I was and that she had never seen a closer-knit family. And now I can clearly see, she was right.

The day I married my best friend...







On August 6th, I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world. Everything was perfect. I was marrying my best friend. I woke-up at 6am with a lot of prayers that everything would turn out smoothly, and that I wouldn't have anything go wrong. My hair dresser was half an hour late, so I called her, only to find out that she was lost. We gave her instructions, and she showed up about an hour after she was supposed to. Thankfully she worked fast, it looked beautiful...and we still got to the temple on time. I was slightly nervous when Eric was late to the temple, but I kept reminding myself that I had given him the same scare the night before when I walked into my endowment session almost fifteen minutes late.

A few minutes before the sealing started, we were led into a room and left alone. We sat there, looking at each other, and it was the most special ten minutes of my life. There he was, the man I would be married to in less than half an hour. I couldn't help but hold back some butterflies inside, but they were mere anxious anticipation than nervousness. I was overcome with a peaceful assurance that I was at the right place, doing the right thing, at the right time. And nothing is better than that feeling.

Our sealing was beautiful. As we walked into the sealing room, everything was still and quiet. I took a seat next to my beautiful mom, and looked around as I saw so many smiling faces of people, friends and family who I hadn't seen in years. It was so refreshing to see their eyes, all twinkling with delight and excitement. I was overcome with a deep admiration and love for everyone in the room. The spirit was indescribable.

Walking out for our grand exit was quiet exciting in itself. There were all my bridesmaids, some of who I hadn't seen in years, smiling and cheering. I was so overcome with excitement that I just kept smiling and hugging everyone I saw. Then I found my brothers, all who looked cute and spiffy in their blue shirts. I gave everybody hugs, and all of the sudden was feeling very grown up.

The rest of the day was wonderful. We got to attend a baby blessing for our new nephew, Brock, who is just the cutest little baby you will ever see. Our reception was better than anything I had envisioned. I owe a special thanks to all my bridesmaids and family members who spent all Friday setting up for it. It was incredibly perfect.

I was all smiles the rest of the evening. We had so many special people attend our reception, many of whom we hadn't seen in years. We also had a lot of fun just singing and dancing with our friends. After many stressful months of wedding planning, it was extremely nice to "let go" and just enjoy ourselves. One of the best moments we will probably laugh about forever...would be our cake cutting.

I wanted a tall cake, but I didn't need one giant sized to feed a thousand people, so I ordered the bottom layer to be made of foam. In all the hustle and bustle of the wedding, I had completely forgotten about the cake. The other layers had ribbons on them, so we chose to cut the bottom layer since it wouldn't be difficult with a piece of ribbon. It took us about five minutes of pushing and grunting until the cake cutter snapped...oops. After a few more minutes of trying to cut our cake, we realized it was...foam. How embarrassing!

We left two hours later for the airport. We had eight hours of travel ahead of us until we would end up in humid Miami. We were pretty tired once we reached Florida, but found an extra boost of energy when we started boarding our cruise ship. Neither of us had been on a cruise before, and we both were pretty excited about the adventure that laid ahead.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Happy Birthday!






This past Saturday we got to celebrate Eric's 24th birthday! Due to conference sessions, it was tricky planning a party, but Jay and I were about to set up a birthday breakfast at Delynne (our folk dance teacher's) house. We had an awesome turn out, and the food was delicious!


I spent all Friday evening and Saturday morning baking cakes. I wasn't sure which would be best, or how many people would be there, so I decided to make a few different kinds. It started out with a better-than-sex cake, Eric's favorite. It looked good, it smelled good. After covering it in caramel, I put it on the stove to cool while I began the german chocolate cake. Over a half an hour later, I noticed a burnt smell coming from the stove, and glanced over to see my cake...smoking. It looked as though it would burst into flames any second.


Turns out, I had left the stove-top on and instead of my cake cooling, it had melted all the carmel and burnt the entire cake, including a layer of blackened caramel along the bottom half of the pan. Go me. It was already midnight, it had been a long day of classes and tests, and I still had more to go. And now my cake that had turned out beautifully, was ruined. I began scraping off as much as I could get into the garbage, because I now had to scrub this nasty ruined pan and start all over on a better-than-sex cake. I sent Eric a picture of my blacked masterpiece and said, "If this is better than sex, you might want to re-think the ring."


Luckily, the second one turned out perfect and everyone loved it at the party. I also a three layered german chocolate cake with coconut and caramel glaze, a gluten free cake for myself, and another one for my roommates. A total of seven cakes baked in my oven that night/morning. So Eric, you may not be a seven cow wife like Johnny Lingo's, but you're now my seven cake soon-to-be husband.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Listen to this playlist: youandme


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For the next ten life times?

I've never spent so much time before with one person in my life, nor have I ever liked it so much. Every night the past two weeks we've stayed out past curfew, talking. Singing. Laughing. Playing. After a few near incidents with getting his car booted after curfew, we adopted the Denny's parking-lot (since it is open 24 hours) as our hang out. We have been there a few times as late as four AM, loving every minute of it. A few days ago he turned on some songs he wanted me to hear, and just sang them to me in Denny's. He has the most incredible voice I have ever heard. He say's I'm biased, which could have some truth in it, except that long before I fell in love with him, I always loved to hear him sing. He can do any genre, any voice, any accent, any style, any key, any anything. And it is beautiful. Each time he shares his gift of music with me, I can feel the Spirit and my testimony growing stronger. Even if it's not a church song. He has a way of being so captivating while singing and expressing his passions through his words and music. He can deny it all he wants, but he has a very special gift. Often I feel inferior because I've lost so much vocal training and skill through lack of practicing. But since hanging around him, he has brought music back into my life. I sing all the time now. I listen to music all the time now. And I'm planning on taking up vocal lessons in fall now because I really miss it. And I would never want to marry someone so talented and have myself feel embarrassed to join in and sing with him. He turned on some Johnny Cash songs and made me smile a lot by throwing on a Johnny Cash personality and voice. He was good at it to. One of the songs in particular, "Ghost Riders" brought back fond memories as a child singing that with my brothers as we watched "Roy Rogers" and played cowboys. I found myself smiling under the circumstance. 3am, Denny's parkinglot, singing cowboy songs. No one else could be so perfect for me. For my family. Everything felt so right. My favorite song of the night was a new song he introduced me to called, "For the next ten minutes". He did all the voices, all the parts, and it really touched me. The words were so beautiful. And now we sing it all the time together.

There's Something There

No one saw the two of us coming together in a million years. Not even us. We still laugh every time we're together. Who would have thought that there was something there? A few days after dating, I started listening to the song, "There's something there." from Beauty and the Beast. It fits us perfectly. Not saying he's the beast or anything - but just how the two of us came together and no one ever expected it. And now that we have each other in our lives, we could never go on alone. Word's cannot describe how much of a match we are. In every single way, we compliment each other. He makes me smile and laugh more than I ever have. My roommates and best friends are constantly telling me they've never seen me happier...and how much they love to be around the two of us. There must be something there that never was before...

A Different Ending

I knew who he was. He'd been in my jazz class a year ago, but we'd never spoken. I'd noticed during that semester that he was in folk dance, but I never thought we'd be friends. I watched him a lot in class though, and was always impressed by how ripped he was and how good at everything he was. And he always did things that made me laugh, like wear our teachers clothes during class, even though they were too small. He sure was crazy. How was I to know that the following year I'd be moved up in folk dance and that he'd be on my team. I got to know him rather well. Eric Gourley. The tease. He never let a day go by without coming up to me and mentioning my freshman "boyfriend". I remember a few times when he'd come up to me, flexing his biceps, and asking, "Why would you want that freshman in Idaho when you could have these?" And I would just shake my head. He'd often ask me, "How's that boyfriend?" in a very sarcastic tone. I would smirk back and answer, "Great!". There were countless encounters that we had, all which were very akward. One specifically was the night of the big formal dance. I went with his roommate, and we doubled with Eric and his date. Eric signed his signature on my arm that night and told me to never wash because it would be famous someday. After our date, him and Jay begged me to go hot tubbing with them afterwards. I just got akward, as always, and told them I'd pass. "It's because you have a boyfriend, huh?" Eric would say, rolling his eyes. One night we were having a team movie night, and Eric wanted me to come. He wanted everybody to come, because that's how Eric is. He loves people. I gave my usual excuse, "I don't have a ride." and he told me, "Listen. I will be there at 8 to get you, so you better be ready." and it made me smile. Sure enough, he showed up on time. That was the first time I'd ever gotten to really talk to him one on one. As we drove to his apartment, we got on the subject of relationships and kissing, and he braggingly challenged, "You don't want to know how many girls I've kissed." I asked, he told me. I was shocked. I felt better after he told me most of them were before his mission. But it made me laugh. I would NEVER marry or even date someone who had kissed that many girls. I would be my husband's first and last kiss. Then as we got out at his apartment, he put his arm around me. It wasn't that he was trying to make a move, he is just a very friendly person and he was telling me a story about something. I stiffended up without even realizing it until he said, "Don't get all akward just because you have a boyfriend. Sheesh." And it made me laugh because I hadn't even realized I'd been doing that. I hadn't realized a lot of things. Little did I know that change was on the horizon, and that it would soon take on a new beginning and ending then I ever saw coming...