kicking off my year of kobe

I know I've read somewhere about the logic behind February having the least amount of days in the year, but I still think it got cheated.  February is my favorite month, and coincidentally both our birthday months.  However, since it has a couple days less than usual, I believe it makes it that much easier to make birthdays last all month long. 
As a birthday present to each other and to celebrate our 73rd day of marriage (that's one day more than Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries, obviously), we treated ourselves to some pretty amazing tickets to the Lakers vs. Jazz game.  Even though the Lakers lost, it was still fun to see our favorite players in real life!  Our seats were on the same side of the Lakers bench, so we enjoyed watching our mutual crush at all times.

Lakers vs. Jazz

My birthday came first on the 9th, and in true boring-married-adult fashion I was most excited to go to a VIP tour of our new downtown grocery store prior to its opening a week later.  If you live in Salt Lake and haven't checked it out yet, you must.  It really will fulfill all of your grocery shopping dreams.  We've found bar-b-q sauce from the Salt Lick, who catered our reception in Texas, and Bundaberg "peachies" soda that Matt loved from his mission in Australia.  

  

After the tour, we stopped by our favorite dessert place in downtown called Gourmandise.  I got chocolate covered strawberries and some kind of heavenly pastry filled with whipped cream and covered in powdered sugar.  It was divine.  Matt got a chocolate covered peanut butter cookie and a dark chocolate mousse cake.  It was all amazing.

My sister-in-law, Stacie made me this yummy red velvet cake from scratch!  Stars and USC colors... two of my favorite things!

Flowers from my family... we've had fresh flowers all month!  That's what a birthday, Valentine's Day, and a husband being nearly 2 hours late for dinner will do for you.

Valentine's Day falls halfway between our birthdays, and we decided to have a nice meal at home and watch a movie.  I made a fancy tasting meal that was super easy: steamed broccoli, baked stuffed chicken and roasted potatoes with ranch seasoning.  The prep time seriously took me about 20 minutes and I made brownies while the meat and potatoes baked.  After a long day at work, that is what I call perfection.

My first time getting flowers at work!

Since Matt was having a milestone birthday and I knew he wouldn't let me if I told him I wanted to have a party, I decided to throw him a surprise party.  I don't really have the creativity nor do I have the patience to throw a homemade party, much less keep it from Matt.   This and the fact that our apartment is pretty tiny led me to the decision to celebrate his 25th birthday in style at the infamous Chuck E. Cheese.  After spinning an elaborate web of lies the day of his birthday, Matt finally arrived with his friend, completely surprised!  

how cute is that picture??

blowing out the candle

Matt had a lot of fun talking to people he hadn't seen in a long time, and we had a blast using our golden tokens to play games and take photobooth pictures.  I will have to scan those in later.  Thanks to all who came!

I am sad to see February go, but have a lot to look forward to in March!  Namely spring break, March Madness, the new downtown mall opening (including Chick-fil-a), and IMAX tickets to the Hunger Games!  Hope you had a wonderful month of February!

the temple ceremony

Our wedding ceremony took place in the morning on November 22, 2011 at the Houston Latter-day Saint temple. 

 

Fun fact: When the Houston temple was built back in 2000, Matt went with his family to the open house to tour the temple and his sister Kristin remembers him telling her, "I'm going to get married here someday!"  Since the San Antonio temple is closer to Austin, that's the one we had planned on getting married in, but the scheduling just didn't work out so we ended up going to Houston instead!  So Matt's 13-year-old prediction came true.
  
Because of our religious faith, we believe that families are eternal.  As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we believe that a man and woman can be married not only for this life but for eternity.  This sacred and special ceremony can only take place in a temple.  To us, temples are literally houses of the Lord where individuals make sacred promises with God.  Our ceremony was very small and so beautiful!  I was so grateful for everyone who came; when Matt and I walked into the room where we would be married and saw everyone waiting, I became so overwhelmed at the love I felt there.
As weddings go, not everything was perfect.  As we walked into the temple, it started raining and I worried we wouldn't get any good pictures.  However, when we came out of the temple the rain had stopped, and instead the sky was just overcast, which was perfect for the pictures!  We left my bouquet in the hotel refrigerator, I left my makeup in Austin, and I lost Matt's wedding band.  My sweet sisters shared every piece of makeup they brought, and my clutch brother jetted back to the hotel while we started taking pictures to get my bouquet out of our already-checked-out-of hotel room, and searched under the seats in the car (all while driving) to find Matt's wedding band that I must have dropped as I got out of the car!  All's well that ends well.
Our wedding photographer was Jessica Shumway, and she was one of my favorite things about the day. 

some pictures of our cute nephews and nieces

friends

our family

It was a beautiful day that I will always remember. 

If you have any questions about temple marriage or why we decided to get married in the temple, please feel free to ask me!  I know it is something that isn't very well understood, so don't be shy!  If you'd like to do your own research and then ask me, feel free to check out this website or this website and get back to me. :)

the rehearsal & bridal luncheon

Mercury Hall had an event the night before our wedding, so we had to do our rehearsal in the morning.  It was actually the first time our families met all together!  This day started off a little dramatic and only continued...  
Many thanks to my bridesmaids Julie and Jasmine, without them I would have zero documentation of any of the events preceding the wedding.

Outside Mercury Hall

Sisters Hilary & Hannah

Rehearsing :)

MOH & flower girls

"rehearsing"

ring bearer Brody and flower girls Bria and Sofia

Bridesmaids Jasmine, Jen, Hannah, and Hilary

My cute siblings

Parks family

Following Mercury Hall, the girls went to the bridal luncheon.  My mom's sweet friend lives near Mt. Bonnell and she hosted a beautiful lunch for us at her house.  I gave my bridal party super cute tote bags my mom made.  The bags were filled with a "bridesmaid survival kit" including band-aids, safety pins, mints, and other things.  I highly recommend this because these items definitely came in handy throughout the next 36 hours.  
                                     

the whole gang - thanks Julie!

The drama of the day included car wrecks, getting pulled over, Matt texting my dad that he and my brother were going to jail, the workers at the salon getting into a brawl (verbally and then physically), credit cards not working, my dad nearly getting stranded at the airport, renewing car registration in Pflugerville, driving to the airport numerous times... and probably more that I'm still not aware of.  On this day, I was most grateful for a family that just laughs and carries on.  It allowed us all to actually have a lot of fun the day before our wedding.

the rehearsal dinner

The night before our wedding, we had the rehearsal dinner at Freddie's Place on South 1st in Austin, one of Matt's favorite places.  The summer after his first year at college, Matt moved back to Austin to live with his best friend (and best man!) in a house close to downtown.  They frequented Freddie's and often took me along for Velveeta Burgers and live music.  Their outdoor eating area is adorable and has such a fun vibe.  When we found out we could have the rehearsal dinner there, we were thrilled!


We were lucky that aside from the insane humidity (as you'll see my frizzed-out hair in these pictures), our November wedding weather was actually amazing.  The people at Freddie's were awesome and set up our rehearsal dinner outside.  Our greatest nemesis throughout the week was of course, Austin traffic, but we all made it there eventually.  


The food was great, the service was the best, and of course the company was my favorite.  I couldn't believe that we were getting married the next day!

We played a lot of Pass-the-Baby -- cute Vin and Emily

Last night engaged!

My grandma, mom, and brother

So much love!  Me with my MOH, Jen.

College roommates Natalie, Jasmine, me, Jen, and Sanam all together!

Best Man Nolan with Matt

My dad and sister Hannah

Julie and me

Matt had his Velveeta burger, and I tried their fish tacos for the first time -- AMAZING.  Matt gave his groomsmen pocket watches that, as men, they loved.  After dinner, we made the trek down to Houston to stay the night and have the wedding at the temple the next morning!