The Big News

Well I am sure most of you know by now, but Brynt and I are going to be parents! we are SO SO excited! We have know for quiet a while now (since the middle of May), but wanted to keep it on the Down Low for while just to make sure that everything was ok. Also it took us (mainly me) a while to believe it was true. On top of that, those who know me well will know that I like to figure out every possible thing that can go wrong so that I am prepared. I have spent hours reading articles, blogs, and website that talk about stories of women who warn not to get to excited and not to tell anyone for a while. These were all kind of downers so I wouldn't suggest reading them to anyone else, but I did learn about A LOT of things that can go wrong in early pregnancy. needless to say I was nervous to tell anyone. Slowly we have told family and friends which has been wonderful to because we have had so much support, love and excitement from everyone.
Yesterday was a mile stone though. It was our first appointment and first ultrasound! I have been waiting WEEKS for this appointment. and it was awesome.
I've never experience an "awesome" doctors visit before, but this one definitely was. When the picture came up on the screen and we saw our little "gummy bear" on the screen, it took my breath away! and then to hear his/her little heart and see it wiggling and moving its arms... incredible! I have never seen anything that touched my heart like that, it was so wonderful.

The part that made that moment so much sweeter was having Brynt there and seeing the joy and excitement on his face. He is beyond excited to be a Dad, and I know he will be an amazing Father.
I hope and pray everyday that I will be a good Mom!

so that is our big news, and we are so excited to share it :)

Herbert Ghost Town

So the weather has been beautiful today and it was time to get out of the house. A few days ago I was just messing around online and I found out that there is a ghost town just South of Rexburg. Not like scary haunted ghost town, like everybody just up and left ghost town. Here is the story;

Herbert was a small farming town, in its hay day its population was only about 150. It had a school house, small store and a few small homes along the creek. The invention of the automobile really killed the town since it was so much easier to get to Rexburg and Rigby, and by the 40's it was completely abandoned.

Sound cool? It did to me, I absolutely love this kind of stuff. So Brynt and I set out to find it.....and we did!

First we found an old chimney that has since been creatively decorated, next to it there was the remains of an old seller.



Just up the hill was this awesome house, it was so neat!

Brynt wanted to "hold up the house"....but really it just looks like he is trying to push it over :)

Brynt loves old farm equipment... not sure what this was but it is old and very cool.

  We drove up the road a little ways look for more of the buildings..... but then we got distracted by the beauty of the Idaho country side! Its just gorgeous this time of the year.

After we had our fill of beautiful scenery we headed back to the creek where the community was said to have been. that is where we found this little beauty.

These were the stairs to the second story and down to the basement. I really wanted to explore but for safety reasons I didn't. If we go back though I don't think I'll be able to resist ha ha.

It is a little hard to see in the picture but all those little bumps are moss growing all over the roof. it look so cool.

Nice view from the front yard. 

Across the stream there we could see another building but it was to muddy to get to. We plan on going back to see if we can find some more!

Our final finding for the day was what we think was the old store.

It was an awesome day! we had so much fun and loved exploring all the old buildings. It was cool to try and imagine what these places were like back in the day. We plan on going back some time in the future and seeing if we can find more of the building along the creek. Great time!

Revelations of Marriage

So after now being married for 7 months, here are the 7 changes that we love and laugh at.

1. When single there seems to be this desire to stay up till as late as possible; when married we are out cold by 10pm...11 if we are really being night owls.

2. Grocery shopping is now a fun trip because we get more food.

3. While going to the bathroom, this thought crossed my mind " wow, Brynt got the good toilet paper, what a great husband." What?! when did I start having thoughts like that?

4. We actually say things like, " when we were kids things were so much better". This is true, but we're 22.... can things have changed that much?

5. When single, its such a big deal to go on "single" dates, Just the two of us... woo hoo! These days.... We absolutely love double dates, or having other couples over, it rocks :)


6. We act like complete idiots around each other. Whether it be ridiculous accents, goofy dances or just things we would never dream of saying out loud in front of any one else, we act like idiots... and its funny,like really super funny.

7. There are so many weird changes that come with being married, but my favorite thing is that we now share a life together. We always understand the struggles and joys that each of us are facing because they are ours together. There is always a shoulder to lean on, there is always someone who cares.

Our Garden

Ok, just as a warning this may be a boring post. you have now been warned.
Having an apartment has been awesome, we love it. But as it has started to warm up in the last few weeks we realized that we have nothing green in our home, also we are on the third floor and have no yard what soever. This is pretty depressing for us, my family has always had a garden and a yard and Bynt's family has too, so we were both missing it. This brought us to the decision that we would like to plant a little garden in our apartment, which meant a trip to Home Depot.
Home Depot is not a safe place to go if you are in the mood for any form of home improvement, you always end up with more than you had intended on. This happened to us. we went in to get a couple of herb plants for our little herb garden......but the herb plants were by the indoor plant section which had a whole section of Hawaiian plants. Ever since our honeymoon we have had a small obsession with Hawaii, so we had the idea that we would buy a couple of our favorites that way we could be reminded of Hawaii every day :)
We ended up walking out of Home Depot with a Ti plant, a Hala tree, Pineapple Sage, Thia Basil and Italian flat leaf Parsley... A bit more than we had intended on, but we love it and our house seems much more alive these days! When we got home we had a ton of fun painting the pot for our herb garden and planting all the  different plants ( BTW, this is a great family home evening, even if there is just two of you!). Its been a few weeks now and they are all looking beautiful.

The Herb Garden, it smells so good!

The Ti Plant, this is one of my favorites :)

The Hala tree, when they get big they look like something from a Dr. Sues book!

Cleaning and Learning at the Temple

Yesterday Brynt and I had a really cool experience. We got to go clean the Rexburg Temple! It was such a neat way to view the temple and we both really enjoyed it.
 We got there around 10pm, and they gave us special jump suits, then we went to a little meeting about the temple, it was really cool and it amazed me that the spirit could be so actively involved in something as mundane as cleaning :) After the meeting we went strait to work.
It never stops amazing me how much you learn at the temple, no matter what you are doing: walking on the grounds, doing work in side, or in this case cleaning. I was sweeping the floors and thinking how it felt kind of silly that I was cleaning something that seems perfectly clean already, and that is when I had a really interesting thought. The point wasn't to clean something that was dirty, it was to keep it from ever getting dirty. To some, this isn't that profound but to me it was just so neat. When I thought about it in terms of me, it made so much sense, I need to be constantly "cleaning" my life so that I never have big messes to clean up, just on going maintenance so that I stay as fresh and new as possible.
I am so grateful that Brynt and I had this chance to serve, and to learn. We enjoyed it so very much and will be gladly doing it again if the opportunity arises :)

Our Beautiful Rexburg Temple

How this whole thing got started.

Brynt and I have known each other since our teen years, we had the same circle of friends, even hung our several times but never dated. After our high school years we grew up, lost contact and pretty much forgot about each other. So how did we end up married? Well, we have Facebook to thank for that.
Brynt found my profile in December of 2009, he messaged me saying "Hi, Holy cow how have you been? It's been for ever since i have talked to you what's new? Holy cow we have to hangout.".  So, through messages we talked, caught up with each other and set up a date.
For our first date Brynt took me ice skating, we skated and talked, talked and skated and had a lot of fun. He then took me to see all the Christmas lights around town, this is where we discovered our joint love (bordering on obsession) for Christmas. It was a great night, but neither of us knew it was the beginning of something way bigger.....
After that first date we started hanging just about everyday. We never got sick of each other, in fact the more we hung out the more we didn't want to be apart. Hanging out became dating and dating became falling in love.

I should mention that Brynt knew way before I did that he wanted to marry me; I love that about him, he always knows just what he wants.... I on the other hand have to think things over about a billion times. But eventually I came around and on June 20, 2010 he proposed and I said yes!

We were married in the Mesa, Arizona Temple on November 6th, 2010 and spent our honeymoon on the amazing Hawaiian island of Oahu.

About a two months after our wedding we moved to Rexburg, Idaho so we could go to school at BYU-Idaho. We love it here, and we have had so many blessing.
That is how we  got to where we are in our lives right now, and my hope is that from here on out this blog will keep track of all the little adventures in life, or in other words, The Rest of the Story.