Frank

Let me be frank with you.

Marriage is one of the hardest things I have ever done.

It is also the most rewarding.

I can't see my life without my husband in it.

But with that being said there are times when things are rough 

and I just have to cry.

It's hard being married at 21. It was even harder being married at 19.

There are times when I mourn for the days of being single and carefree with my friends.

There are times when I just want to be back in New York living with my family.

But then I realize there was no Sam in those moments. 

There was no man that loved me to the deepest levels of my soul.

And whom I love just the same.

Sometimes I think people, especially younger married people in the Mormon community, make marriage out to be a walk in the park.

And honestly sometimes it is. But sometimes there are moments when I just want to scream at my husband.

Sometimes there are moments when I wonder was I truly ready for this. 

Sometimes I am one of those people that make marriage out to be a walk in the park. 

My go to response when people ask me how married life is treating me is to tell them that it is fun.

Sometimes it's so fun to get to spend every day with Sam.

But sometimes it's not so fun.

Some days I just need my own friends and time away from Sam.

I think the biggest difficulty that Sam and I have had in our marriage, apart from living with his parents the first four months (which I would not recommend to anyone), is not having our own friends.

Our own things to do and time away from each other.

Sometimes all I need is just time away from Sam. 

Since we have moved schools and came to ISU, 

we have both had difficulty coming into our own.

It's great to have Sam to go through all of this with, 

but to be frank, I just need some girlfriends! to chat about anything and everything with.

Sometimes I get that with my friends that are at BYU-I. 

And I thirst for more of those moments.

And sometimes I need my family.

The ones that have seen me at my weakest moments and been there for me always.

It is a very hard thing to be the one in a marriage where it's your family that lives far away.

It's incredibly difficult for me at times to only see my family once a year.

I grew up with my ENTIRE family a thirty drive from me.

Now they are all 2000+ miles away.

I'm not saying that I don't like/love my in-laws.

I couldn't have married into a better family.

I constantly laugh because of them and they bring serious joy to my life.

But since I am being frank, Alan is not my dad.

And I love my dad more than words could describe. 

I miss him more than I could ever write.

Alan is an amazing father-in-law and I get to do things with him that I would never do with my own father, which is just awesome.

And Sydney is seriously the best mother-in-law ever.

She is my Momma Syd.

I love her.

I don't have a relationship with my own mother, so she is my mom.

She fills a void in my life. as cheesy as that sounds.

But back to this marriage thing.

It is hard.

It requires a lot of work.

I have cried more times than I would like to admit.

But my marriage is the best thing that I ever happened to me.

Sam was the best decision I ever made.

I love him more than anything in the entire world.

I wouldn't trade this life for anything.

It isn't always an easy life, but sometimes it is the best life ever.

Until next time!

Pocatello

Pocatello is the worst place to live a boisterous city. 

Don't believe me? Check out this photo, taken by yours truly.

Yes folks that is the whole dang place. 

With a whopping population of 54,000, this is the FIFTH largest city in all of Idaho. You have got to be kidding me!

The fifth largest state in New York has three times that many people. 

It's a rough life I am living here in Idaho.

So when you complain about your life and that there is nothing to do where you live, just remember that you could be me, stuck in Pocatello, Idaho for the next FOUR years.

Until next time!

Part of the new has been returned...

For a even better new. So I had purchased a very very basic Singer sewing machine. I literally don't know if I could have chosen a more simple sewing machine. I owned it for all of one week, but I did make two things out of it. However, this wasn't the most high quality machine, whenever I would turn the knob to put the needle down, it would make this like growling noise and it just wasn't cut out for the type of stuff I wanted to make. So I returned that puppy. This time around I did a little research about what machine I wanted and ordered this baby. I am waiting for it to arrive. So you will just have to wait to find out if I like it, but I do have some grand plans for it. I don't think anyone knows this yet, but I think I have become addicted to sewing and looking at all of these sewing blogs. I do it ALL. THE. TIME. I just can't help myself. Anywho, I'll post some pictures of the other other new(that I mentioned in the previous post) when it gets back from the, if you will, shop. This one I am also super excited for. Hope all is well!


Until next time!

WOAH!

On Saturday Sam and I will have been married for one whole year! It is so crazy to think that it has been that long. It seriously feels like it was just a few days ago that we were married. I have never been happier or had more fun with anyone. Sam is literally the best thing that ever happened to me. I always tell him that he is the best decision I ever made. If you ever read this Charles know that I love you more than words could ever describe. Well enough of the mushy stuff. Here are some pictures from our wedding day. Enjoy!

Until next time!

Day 2

The meaning behind your blog name:

I named my blog "unscripted" because I feel like so many things in my life at the moment are in a sense "scripted." My day to day life is very much directed and scripted by school. And I wanted my blog to be anything that I wanted it to be. What I write about, is whatever is going on in my life at the moment. Or whatever I feel like rambling about. Hmm well I guess that is it!

Until next time!

One year

So this past weekend was one year from Sam's and my first date. It was so nice to get to spend the entire weekend with him and not worry about school or anything. We had so much fun together. It's always hard after spending all weekend long with him, without school or anything, to then have Monday come. On Monday's I have class until 11, but Sam has class all morning long and then again from 5-7. So I usually don't get to see him until after 7.

On Friday we had plans to go to BYU Spectacular with Mindy and Dave, and Dave's dad Dale. BYU Spectacular is something that they only do for homecoming weekend. It was really fun and cool. It is like a bunch of groups from school that put on performances. There is a lot of singing and dancing. But it is way good. Last year it was a couple of weeks later. I think more towards the end of October, instead of the beginning. We went with Mindy and Dave last year also. That was the first time I had met any of his family. We went to dinner at this sweet Italian place called La Dolce Vita. We also went there last year. It is such good food for a pretty reasonable price. After dinner we rushed over to the Marriott for BYU Spectacular. It lasted for about two hours. After wards we went home and watched a movie.

Saturday was the day we were for real celebrating. We started our day out by sleeping in and getting ready for the temple. Sam went to temple on the morning of our date last year, so we did it again. Instead of doing an endowment session, we did initiatory. We got out of the temple at around 12. We headed down to Wal-mart to pick up somethings we needed. I wanted to get some crop pants for rock climbing later. We then went to Tucanos. Last year Sam had gone to Tucanos with some friends and I went to basically the same place, but it's called Rodizio Grill. I actually didn't eat when I went, so this was the first time for me. It was so yummy. I love getting to experience things with Sam for the first time. We ate so much food and were so full after wards. All we wanted to do was curl up and sleep. But alas we couldn't. We had to run back to our apartment and change back in to church clothes and run over to Jen's husbands baptism. We had Sophie, their their 7 month old daughter with us, so Jen could just enjoy the baptism and not have to give all of her focus to Sophie. she was really well behaved. Mostly she just played with these fake keys that she had. In fact she was so well behaved Sam even held her. Towards the end she got pretty fussy because she was hot and tired. I took her into the hall, which was a lot cooler, and she fell right asleep. It was funny to have her with us, because it was a little taste for the future for when Sam and I have our own babies.

After the baptism we went home and just relaxed. We wanted a break before we went rock climbing that night. I remember thinking on our first date ever, when we went rock climbing that Sam must trust me quite a lot to let me belay him. I mean we had only known each other for a little over a month and here he was practically putting his life in my hands. I also put mine in his, but he picked this date. Anyways, back to the future. We left to go at about 7:15. And we got all geared up and had a lot of fun. Sam is way better at it than me. Then again he is better at just about everything than me. What a punk!

On Sunday we had a pretty lazy day. We went to church and got sustained and set apart as Sunday School teachers. We weren't exactly stoked when we were called, but the idea is warming up to us, mainly because we get to team teach. After church we just ate some food, watched movies and enjoyed our time with one another. I love Sam more than I could ever describe and it has been the best year with him. He is one great man.

Until next time!

Idaho

A couple of weekends ago Sam and I ventured up to Idaho for the first time since we had left for school. It was so nice to be back and just get to relax and enjoy time with family. It was a pretty chill weekend, which was nice.

We didn't leave Provo until about 5:30 or 6. This turned out to be a really bad idea. Because of the traffic it took us an hour to go twelve miles. It was pretty ridiculous. The rest of the ride was pretty nice. I decided that we should call Momma Syd to let her know when we would be there. It turns out, she didn't know we were coming, because Sam never officially told her. But it wasn't a big deal at all. We hadn't eaten dinner before we left so we stopped in Brigham City at this place called Hunan Village. They serve Chinese food. It was alright food, I have definitely had been Chinese food before. We hopped back on the road and got to the house around 11 or so. We chatted for a a while with the parents and then ventured downstairs to hit the hay.

We got to sleep in, which was so nice. When we went upstairs Momma Syd was talking to Christina on Skype. Chris is Sam's sister that lives in Serbia, with her husband. He works for the embassy. We chatted with Chris for a bit and then ate some breakfast. Sam and I didn't bring any clean clothes up with us because we brought all our laundry to do. So we had to wait to shower until we had clean clothes. Momma Syd took us to lunch at this place called Bubba's Barbecue. I had never been before. It turned out really good. We made Sam get a hair cut after wards and went shopping for stuff for dinner. I almost forgot. When we got stuff for dinner, we made a terrible decision to get this ear wax removal kit. Sam used it first. You basically put ten drops of this kind of gooey stuff in your ear and wait for a few minutes. Then you have a bulb syringe and flush out your war. Well I used it after Sam and was fine for a while. During dinner one of my ears started to hurt. I decided I would just wait until after dinner to take some medicine. That turned out to be a bad idea. Since I waited so long to take the medicine, the pain in my ear just kept increasing. When I finally took the pain medicine, it didn't touch the pain. At this point I was in pretty bad shape. My other ear started to hurt quite a lot as well. I went to the store with Sam and Momma Syd to get a few things. On the way home I was in tears. My ears hurt unbelievably bad. I had never been in such pain. When we got home I went right downstairs to lay down. Sam brought me some more medicine and a heating pad. When I was 5, I had a tare in my ear drum and my mom would always have my use a heating pad, so I thought it might help this time. It did a little. Sam thought that I might be having an allergic reaction to the stuff I put in my ear, so he gave me some benadryl. I was pretty drugged up on medicine, but the pain wasn't even being touched by any of it. I tried to watch some tv to take my mind off it. About an hour or so later Sam gave me a different kind of medicine, because I was still in so much pain and crying. The benadryl started to kick in and make me sleeping. I passed out and when I woke up in the morning, my ears no longer hurt. So word to the wise, do not ever use some stupid ear wax removal kit. It's just a bad idea.

On Sunday, since it was general conference weekend, there was church. We helped bring some stuff up stairs for Momma Syd to put the dining room back together. After we ate dinner and all of our laundry was done, we hit the road to come back home to Provo. It was a really great weekend with a great family.

Until next time!

Driving in style??

On Wednesday, I got to drive this beast of a truck to work. It's a pretty obnoxious truck if you ask me. And I have never driven anything that large, so I had trouble sensing where I was on the road. It's a pretty wide load I felt like. I am used to driving Sam's and my car, the little Saturn Ion.


















So it is looking like I will get be in Provo in one week! I am excited. I was planning on going down on Saturday the 21, but I have to pick up the keys to the apartment and the office is closed on Saturdays, so I need to go down the day before, which is perfectly fine with me. The only sad part is that Sam won't be going with me. In fact, I am not even sure when he would be coming down. Either that Saturday or Monday. He is in the process of cutting and bailing the hay, but he has been experiencing some difficulties with that. The tractor that he needs to use, has been acting weird and will only run for about 30 minutes at a time. We ordered a part that it needs to be up and running normally, but it won't be in until Tuesday. And his dad said that in order for Sam to get is hay bonus that he needs to have it done by Saturday, which might mean is working all day Saturday, making it impossible for him to come down then. Also we have been talking about the possibility that he might not even come down until later in the week. His dad wants to extend one of the horses pens and Sam hasn't been able to do that either because he needs the tractor to dig the holes. So he might stay in Idaho until he finishes that job. And while that would mean an extra $400 to $500 dollars for us, it would also mean that I would live in our apartment without him for almost a week. That would pretty much suck, because not only does it mean I won't see him for a week, it also means that I won't have any of our stuff in the apartment. All of the big things will be up in Idaho still, like the couch, bed and tv. I am bring down everything that can fit in the car, but that won't be a lot. But there is also the possibility that he will finish the hay and not worry about the fence and come down Saturday. That is what I am hoping for.

As for other news in our life, there isn't too much going on. However, Sam's dad did manage to get hurt by a horse again this summer. This time he was trying to saddle two horses to go on a ride with Sam. He got one all ready to go, but as he was trying to put the saddle on the other one, the horse side stepped onto his foot, causing Alan to loose his balance and fall over. The horse continued to side step onto his leg and head. So Sam walked into the barn to find his dad sitting in a corner with blood dripping from his head. Sydney took him to the ER and Alan got 27 staples in his head and found out he broke his fibula, the small bone in your calf. I am assuming he broke it up pretty high, because they didn't put a cast on him, just an immobilizer so he can't bend his knee. If they were to put a cast on him, it would have gone past his knee.

Today at work, someone brought mini raspberry cheesecakes. And as I went to snag one out of the frig, I somehow managed to run my toes over with the door and cut my first two toes. I didn't think that it was that bad, until I was in my office with the cheesecake half eaten and noticed some blood dripping onto the floor from my foot. So that was interesting. And painful. And I just realized why it happened. Today is the very spooky day of Friday the 13th. Alas it all makes sense of why I would hurt myself on this day. Frick!

I only have three more days of work left. HALLELUJAH!!!! Unfortunately, they aren't my usual schedule. I am covering for someone on vacation. Usually I work from 3:30-8:30 on Tuesday and Thursday, but my last three days, Monday - Wednesday are from 8:00-4:00. I get a lot more hours, but it's dreadful being here for that long. The end is in sight!

Until next time!

Water, Water, and More Water

Heck! It's been a long few weeks. Let's see where to begin. The weekend of June 25, Sam and I ventured down to Utah to visit his sister and her beautiful children. We went to Lagoon with them. It was so much fun. It was my first time going. The only amusement parks I have ever gone to are ones back home like Six Flags and Enchanted Forest Water Safari. These parks are pretty huge, so Lagoon was a little on the lame side compared to what I am used to. Although we did manage to have a lot of. For the beginning part of the morning Sam and I went with Dave and Cameron on the rides. Cameron is 8 and he went on all the same rides we did. He is a pretty brave boy. Then we met up with every one for lunch. After lunch we went on the Rattlesnakle Rapids with the whole family, except for Dave and Abbie, because Abbie is too small. They went home after that to let the kids rest and to eat dinner. Sam and I stayed. We went on this ride called the Sky Coaster. It was so much fun. I had previously ridden something exactly the same as it back home so I knew what to expect. It is basically a ride where you are in a harness and you are attached to all of these cables. Your belly is facing the ground and they pull you up really high and you pull a cord that makes you fall. For the first 20 feet or so it feels like you are free falling because the harness doesn't catch yet. It is so much fun and it's only $15 per person, which is fairly cheap. We stayed at Lagoon until about 10:45 pm and we got there at like 10 in the morning. So it was a really long day. We were exhausted by the time we finally made it home. The next day we went to church with Mindy and her family. Then we ate some food and made our way home.

For the 4th of July weekend Sam and I didn't have too many plans. Or at least we thought. Sam's brother, Jake, and his wife Ashley came up for the weekend. Originally, we had planned on just hanging around the house and playing in the river with the kayaks, but Sam's parents invited us to be in a parade with them in a tiny town called Victor, which is like an hour and a half away. We agreed even though it meant we would have to wake up at seven in the morning. Sam's dad really likes horses and so our contribution to the parade was a horse drawn wagon. It was kind of fun to sit in the wagon and wave to all the people. However, this parade was honestly the worst parade I have ever been to. There was no regulation. It was basically like having three horses and a wagon go through a crowd of people. There were kids EVERYWHERE! Parents weren't watching their children at all. My father-in-laws friend, Clyde, came along with us and had his ponies pull a small wagon. When we were just about to the end of the parade, this little girl who was about 5 or 6 decided to go up and touch one of the ponies. When the horses or ponies are pulling anything, they have blinders on, which are basically things that prevent them from seeing to the side of them. So the pony could not see the crowd. When the little girl touched the pony, it went crazy! It reared up and started dragging the wagon. Eventually the got the pony to calm down and got her out of the parade with the help of about ten men. It was a pretty scary experience.

After the parade Sam, Jake, Ashley and I decided we were going to drive to Wyoming to get some fireworks that aren't sold in Idaho. It's only about a 40 minute drive from Victor, Idaho to Jackson, Wyoming. However, when we got into Jackson there was a nice big sign that said, "There are no fireworks in Teton County." So we went all that way for nothing. We did end up going to eat after much persuading to Jake. We were all pretty hungry and tempers were running low, especially mine. First off, Jake is a pretty terrible driver, he doesn't keep his eyes on the road enough. And second, Jake is kind of annoying. He definitely tries to get a rise out of people.

Finally we arrived back to the house at around 5 pm after having left at 7:30 am. It was one long day. We basically just hung out and went and returned a movie. Also almost every time we go into Idaho Falls we stop and get a horchata. So of course we got one. There is this little Mexican restuarant scattered all through out Idaho Falls that we just love. It has such good food for a really good price. Hopefully soon I will make some horchata of my own and share the recipe.

On the same weekend, we had a toilet overflow. The toilet in the upstairs bathroom that Jake and Ashley use was broken and we didn't know it. They flushed the toilet before they went to bed and it kept running. Everyone else was in bed so the water just kept pouring out. The only was that we knew some thing was wrong, was by the water was dripping down into the kitchen into the light cover and evenutally it filled the light cover and it burst. That woke up Alan. There was about 4 inches of water upstairs in the bathroom. It leaked all the way diown into the kitchen and then went through the heat duct and went into the basement. It soaked the carpet outside of the bathroom, seaped through the wall into Sam's old bedroom and ruined the carpert in the dining room. So currently we have huge pieces of the ceiling missing in order to dry everything out. We just barely got rid of the huge fans and dehumidifiers that only heated the whole place up. It's been one heck of a mess.

This past weekend Sam and I decided we would take a trip to the Salmon River High Adventure Base Camp. He used to be a kayak and raft guide there. So we got to go white water kayaking and rafting for free, when it would usually be about $200 per person for 2 1/2 days. IT was a lot of fun, but also pretty scary. There were so many misquitos. That was the most annoying part, because we forgot to bring bug spray. We kayak the easier part of the river on Friday. I fell over twice. The second part was the scariest because we were going down rapids and I couldn't swim to the side and Sam was having a hard time getting my boat. Also I had to hold onto my paddle and it kept dragging me under. I feel like I went down a fourth of the river without a boat. The next day we rafted the lower section of the river. This part is a bit harder, which is why SAm and I decided to raft it. After going down it I am so glad that we didn't kayak it. It was pretty scary even in the raft. On Saturday afternoon is wehn all the boy scouts go home, so it's like a half day off for everyone. We decided that we would go to these hot springs with one of Sam's friends from the camp. Her name is Sophie and her husband is Morgan. They are really nice and a lot of fun. We planned that the ride to the hot springs would take us about an hour and a half, but little did we know it would really take us about two and a half hours. We had to drive up a mountain, so we got to see some pretty spectacular views. It was really nice. The hot springs were disappointing. And by the time we got back to the camp it was two in the morning so everyone was exhausted. In order to get to the other side of the river where the camp is you either kayak, raft or take this cart that is on a zip line. The cart was on the other side, so we had to take a canoe and Sam kayaked across. That certainly woke us up. Originally we were going to stay until Monday night, but Sam decided that he didn't want me to get burned out on our first trip there, so we came home Sunday. Also another huge deciding factor was that we were basically sleeping on wood.

Overall, we have had a pretty exciting couple of weeks. We are enjoying life and each other. Only 5 and a half weeks until we move back to Provo! I am beyond excited!!

Until next time!

Living the life??

Sam and I have been married for almost two months. And it already seems like forever. Well not forever. At least not forever in a bad way. I mean it as, it feels like I've always been married to him. And that is probably one of the best feelings int the world.

So a quick little back ground information on us, and how we became us. Samuel, he likes to go by Sam, was born on June 21, 1988. He grew up in the air force, so he moved around as a child, but likes to call Idaho home. I, Jennifer, like to go by Jenn. I was born on July 24, 1990. I grew up in a small town in Upstate New York and will always call it home. We met at Brigham Young University in the Fall of 2009. We were engaged on January 18, 2010. Sam proposed to me at the Idaho/Utah state border, on the Idaho side because he knows how I feel about Utah. Secretly though I am beginning to like it a lot better than Idaho. We were sealed for all time and eternity in the Draper, Utah LDS temple on April 23, 2010. While some may think we are too young to be married, we are loving every minute of our time together as husband and wife.

Maybe some of you curious people are wondering why I chose to title this living the life. I'll explain. I'm not living the life I thought I ever would. Currently, Sam and I are living with his parents in Idaho. We have been here since we were married. We did get to spend three lovely days in Driggs, Id by ourselves for our honeymoon. However, since then our life has been very full of his parents. He doesn't seem to mind, because they are his parents. But I won't lie, it has been very hard for me to not get to spend this first part of our marriage alone. But then again it has been very nice to get to know my in-laws. I have grown very fond of them. We will be living the life in Idaho until the end of August. Which is still a little daunting to me. Another reason why I'm not living the life I ever thought I would has to due with the fact that we live on a little farm. The farm is not his parents lively hood, however it's more like a hobby farm. They have about 16 horses, three dogs, and a cat. And a vicious goose. And that is the extent of their "farm." But they do have about 60 acres of land that they grow hay on in order to feed all of the horses. I have never lived in such a place in my entire life. Living here I can honestly say that I have done the most manual labor I've ever done in my whole life. Sam works for his dad, doing all the things his dad doesn't have time for because he is a full time psychologist. Some of the things Sam does requires two people, so he drags me outside to help him. I have helped him build a fence for the horses, paint a circle pen, get hay, and even put up a barn door. While these tasks may not seem to awful or hard to anyone else, they were to me. They weren't exactly awful, but they were in no way fun. I guess in some ways it was nice to do that with my husband, but that's about as far as the fun goes.

I guess in my little brain I am treating this like a journal or something along those lines. So here is something that I would tell a journal type thing. I miss New York. I miss home and my family and the beautiful green that is everywhere there. I miss all the lakes and creeks. All the natural places to swim and that add to the beauty of New York. I miss the thunder storms and all of my friends. I even miss Provo, Utah, which is something I never thought would happen. I miss the metropolis of Provo. There is a lot more to do there than here. And I have friends there. I don't really know anyone here except Sam and my in-laws. And it gets pretty depressing for me at times. Even though I miss all of these things, I would miss Sam a billion times more than them all put together if I wasn't with him. And so he is worth missing it all.

Anyways, this is my life as of now. Not too much has been going on. I work at this place called Idaho Pacific. They make all sorts of products with, you guessed it, potatoes. I weigh the trucks as they come in and leave. Also I do a little secretarial work. It's actually a pretty good job. I like it. When I am not working, I'm either helping Sam or hanging around the house. It's been pretty rough at times, and I've cried a plenty of tears from it all. But this is my life, even if it's not the life that I expected.