Our Memories in Marriage

This week I've had a couple of pleasant surprises arrive in my mailbox! First, on Thursday, I received a package from John, which included videos he made for me of himself talking and a beautiful glass rose crossing a heart.
Second, on Friday, was our wedding album! It took me six months to get back to the photographer about our "must have" photos for the album, but he is so patient and has amazingly fast turn around:

I was looking through our wedding photographer's website this evening and saw that he has used one of the photos he took at our wedding on the main wedding page! Click here to see the page. You have to scroll down a little bit to see it, but I took a screen cap in case he ever changes his website:



I'm glad that he chose that photo of us, it is one of my favorites!

Last month I began searching for an ornament to commemorate the year that we would have our first Christmas as a married couple. Searching online produced a lot of results with ornaments saying "Our first Christmas together", but we've already spent Christmases together, just not married, and sadly, we will not be spending this Christmas together. I found other ornaments that were of brides and grooms with the wedding date and even cakes or other wedding related things, but I was looking for a more timeless ornament.

Finally, I happened upon this ornament. It had both reindeer & greenery, and could be personalized!

It arrived in the mail today:


It has our names and our wedding date on it.


It was a lot more glittery than I was expecting, but that is fine.

Last week featured Dmitri, my six year old black cat. I have another cat named Zanita which was given to me by John for my seventeenth birthday, she is four years old.



Both of my cats sleep on the bed with me, especially Zanita. Last summer when John and I got married Zanita was pretty freaked out about John. At first she only hid under the bed when he came into the room. One night, however, I guess John had the opportunity to pet her and she decided he wasn't so bad. In the middle of the night she jumped up and slept on John's feet. John half-woke up and was complaining about the cat so I picked her up and put her on my side of the bed. She purred and purred until morning when I woke up to use the bathroom. Zanita had been sleeping near the wall at the foot of the bed, but when I returned to the bedroom I found Zanita lying right on my pillow, purring and STARING at John! Zanita has never lain on pillows before, but I guess she fell in love with John because she refused to move away from him. The next few nights she continued trying to cuddle with John at night, but he wasn't a fan of that since it was so hot last summer.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! This Thanksgiving I learned how to make a few new dishes: fruit stuffing, vegetarian gravy, and ratatouille penne bake. Now that it is over I have a fridge full of leftovers and Christmas on my mind. I will be mailing John's Christmas presents on Monday to ensure that it arrives before Christmas even if the postal office is swamped with packages. My sister and I have already pulled out our Christmas decorations and have decked the house in our assorted garlands, lights, and figurines.

I have to say that these are my favorite of my decorations and ornaments:


This angel I got a few years ago. I love the gold detailing on the dress.


Here is a close up.


This ornament I got in 2007 and put a photo of John and me in it that was taken on his leave during his first deployment.


This deer I just got this year, it has the sweetest face!


When I pulled out the sheet to use at the backdrop for the photos my cat Dmitri decided he had to be a part of the action! He loves Christmas, he likes to pretend to chew on fake trees, it's the strangest thing.

My general theme for holiday decorating is gold, trees, and "realistic" (not cartoony) reindeer.

The first package I have received from John since this deployment started arrived at the end of last month! He's been getting a package from me at least once a month (the first two months he got a LOT).

He sent a disc with photos on it, many of them were like this:


I guess being deployed makes you go crazy...

I enjoy the other gifts he sent a lot more:


A robe with my initials embroidered on it...


And a beautiful leather diary.

For our wedding gift, John's aunt Laurie let us use her timeshare and we spent our honeymoon in Reno! We left from the Seattle area on July 3rd and traveled to Medford, Oregon.


The weather was nice and the roads weren't too congested. We stayed the night in Medford and left early the next morning.


I brought our cake topper with us on the trip to take pictures of. This was at a rest stop just after we got into California.


The timeshare was at The Plaza Resort Club, and this was our beautiful room!


John took this photo of the view from our window.


We walked around Reno and enjoyed visiting shops and seeing the different places in town.


On July 06th, we went to the National Automobile Museum.


On the 07th we went to Virginia City! This was our favorite part of the trip.


We saw a show put on by three guys, it was really funny!


We also went to a museum that was about Mark Twain and the newspaper he worked at when he lived in Virginia City. That is his writing desk he used.


The next day we visited Tahoe, is was a long drive but beautiful!


John got a tattoo while we were in Reno, it's a pair of Airborne wings.


The last night we were in Reno we went to a fantastic Thai restaurant. The food was delicious!


On July 11th, we checked out of the hotel and traveled back to Idaho. It was supposed to take twelve hours of driving time, but even with plenty of stops for food and to stretch our legs, we still made it in twelve hours...John was speeding a lot!

The wedding reception followed immediately after the ceremony a few yards away under a 40'x40' tent. The catering was all done by the UofI, including our beautiful cake. Unless otherwise mentioned, all the photos were taken by the professional photographer.


My mother and I spent a whole year visiting antique stores looking for tea-related items for the centerpieces (such as teapots, teacups, cream and sugar bowls, and serving trays). In the weeks leading up to the wedding, I created arrangements with all the items and my friends put everything together on the day of.


Photo taken by my aunt Sue. The wedding cake was three tiers, the bottom and top layers were white cake with strawberry filling and the middle layer was yellow with chocolate truffle mousse. The baker went a little bit overboard with the decorations to go with my gnome cake topper, but it turned out wonderfully!


My brother gave John a toast in place of John's best man. It was such a sweet gesture and I am so grateful he agreed to toast! John's dad, my mother, and John also gave toasts, it was our favorite part of the reception!


Our first dance was to "Fly" by Sara Groves. You can see John's bullet cufflinks in this photo!


My father and me. We had a parent-child dance to "You Raise Me Up" sung by Celtic Woman.


John and his mother.


John's parents' friends were willing to let us use their 1969 corvette as our "getaway car". We only drove to my house where we swapped out for a different one to drive to Spokane.


All in all, it was the best day of my life thus far and each time I look at these photos and think of all the memories I get so excited for our future together.

The wedding was June 13th on the University of Idaho's Administration Lawn in the Presidential Grove (named so for the presidents, such as Teddy Roosevelt, who planted trees there). Today I thought I would share some of the highlights of the wedding ceremony. Unless otherwise mentioned, the photos were taken by the professional photographer.


The ceremony began at 2:00 when the bells chimed. My maids held parasols instead of bouquets and used them to "conceal" my entrance..


John's hometown pastor traveled all the way to perform the wedding ceremony for us.


My brother (also the groomsman) sang "Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World" in the style of Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. It was beautiful.


Photo taken by my aunt Sue. My bridesmaids were John's younger sister Hannah, my cousin Becky, and my sister Kimberly.


My sister's husband Caleb played the guitar for the ceremony. Only a few days before the wedding he cut part of his thumb off!


Instead of a unity candle or sand ceremony, we used honey to represent our commitment.
"Honey is a symbol of the sweetness in life. And so, with this jar of honey, we proclaim this day as a day of great joy and celebration. A sweet day to remember.
As together you now share this honey, so may you now share perfect love and devotion to each other, share your lives together, and thereby may you find life's joys doubly gladdened, its bitterness sweetened, and all things hallowed by time, companionship and love."


"You may kiss"!


Photo taken by my cousin Amy. Unfortunately, John's best man wasn't able to make it to the wedding. He is also in the army and circumstances arose and he couldn't come. We missed him!

We met at church camp, he joined the army, we got married, he was deployed for the second time, and now we have a blog. This is to let family and friends know how we are doing and what we are up to, enjoy!