Disclaimer

My husband read my post from yesterday and said the end made me sound like I hate my life. 

So I just thought that I would throw a disclaimer out there.

I am very happy with my life and with my marriage.

I love it and wouldn't change it for the world.

I think the post was me admitting to myself and the world that marriage is hard.

And it is okay for it to be hard at times. 

Going through struggles with Sam is truly what makes us stronger and so much closer. 

And I really do mean that. 

We always weather the storm and feel so much closer to each other and stronger in our marriage. 

Until next time!

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!

Bowling

The first time I spent any real time with Sam's family was Thanksgiving 2009 and we went bowling. And I mean bowling.

As in we bowled like 8 games in two days. Back then, that was a 

whole heck of a lot of games. 

The tip of my middle finger literally went numb. For like a month.

But now a days I am well trained and can easily bowl four games.

My last game might be awful. 

And I might literally be chucking my ball down the lane. 

But at least I still have feeling in my fingers.

Over break we went bowling a few times. 

And I FINALLY got some photos.

(I always feel weird taking pictures in front of Sam's parents)

Well here they are! 

They are pretty much all of Sam. Because he doesn't know how to take pictures. I told him that if people looked at our pictures some time, they wouldn't even know I existed. Pathetic.

So I told him his New Year's goal is to be better at documenting our life.

We will see how well he does.

Until next time!

The Day

So our anniversary has come and gone. It was so nice to spend the whole day with Sam and do whatever we wanted. I loved it. Here is a run down of what we did:

Woke up and shared cards with one another. (I am a big card kind of girl)

Got ready and got some donuts for breakfast. (I am also a huge donut fan)

Headed to the Draper Temple, where we got sealed. We did some sealings. This is the perfect way to spend an anniversary if you can. The man who did the sealings was hilarious.

Came home, changed and went to lunch at Zupas. This is a big deal, because Sam never wants to go there because a guy in our ward told him it was "chick" food. Sam liked it, but agreed that it was "chick" food. I do not know what it is with guys and thinking that they need to gorge themselves every time they eat.

We planned on going to Jump On It. It took us a while to find the flipping place. When we got there, it was pretty crowded, so we headed back home. We were pretty tired at this point, so we just took a nap, which turned into two hours.

We woke up from said nap, decided we were hungry and I talked Sam into letting me order some take out from my favorite Thai restaurant, Spicy Thai. If you are in the Provo area and have not tried this place you seriously should. It is so good. Do not get scared by the name, you get to name your spice.

We ended the night watching some TV. All around it was a perfect day with a perfect husband.

Life is great!

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!

Wasting some time

Instead of finishing up my math homework that is due at midnight tonight, I decided I would blog, because it has been a lot longer since I blogged compared to when I did math homework. I mean for heavens sake I just took a math test this morning and did some homework last night. I need a serious break from it. Thank goodness my math class is a block class and is ending in about two weeks.

So I finally have a picture of our apartment! It's actually only of the living room, because I never got around to taking a picture of the rest of the place when it was all clean. But anyways here you go!



























Sam and I are really happy with where we live and the people around us are pretty great, except the people above us. They are SO LOUD! It is just ridiculous. We can hear them shut cupboards and they must stomp around when they walk. They sound like elephants up there. But we are dealing with it. We finally got our ward directory this past Sunday and we stalked it to see who they were, but alas they aren't in there. So either they go to the family ward or they aren't members. It is weird to think that just anyone who wants to live in those apartments can. We have two single men in the complex, obviously each in there own apartment. (All the apartments at College Park are one bedroom, so it would be way awkward if they were roommates.)

Not too much has been going on with us. Just being busy with school. We are both wrapping up a two week span of midterms. Like I said I just took a math test today, and I have a geology test tomorrow. Sam has his first chemistry test tomorrow, which he is pretty nervous about. Mainly he is nervous because he wants to do well in the class and like chemistry because we have been really thinking about Sam changing his major from mechanical engineering to pharmacy. If he did that we would definitely have to transfer schools, and leave Provo. Most likely, if we decide on pharmacy, then Sam will apply to the University of Utah's pharmacy program, and I would transfer once again. Salt Lake Community College has a dental hygiene program, so it works out for us. It is a little bit bigger program that here at UVU. And it's cheaper to go there. The program at UVU has 14 spots available each year and I believe that SLCC has 21.

Our "One year anniversary" is coming up in a couple weeks. It is the anniversary of our first date. We are going to replicate our first date, or at least attempt to. We will go to the temple in the morning because that is what Sam did that day, and then we will go to lunch. I am not sure where yet. And we have a baptism to go to. And then that night we are going rock climbing. We have wanted to go before this, but every time we planned it, it just never worked out. And we will end then night with a movie and some dessert. The baptism is for my step sister Jen's fiance, soon to be husband. Jen is a member of the church all ready, working her way back, and her fiance, Edgar, has investigated the church for a very long time and is just now getting baptized. They aren't legally married yet, so they are going to have their bishop civilly marry them a few days before the baptism. And then in a year they will be sealed in the temple. We are so excited for them and so happy to see them making such great choices. And then they will get to have their daughter Sophie sealed to them also. The knowledge of eternal families is probably one of the most comforting things in the world. It is so nice to know that Sam and I will always be together no matter what happens to us in this life. I can hardly wait to spend forever with him.

This weekend Sam and I are heading up to Idaho. It will be nice to be back and visit some more. It is always nice to be around family. And I must admit I miss Mama Syd and Alan. It will be sad not getting to see Oden. I don't think I blogged about that before. Oden was one of their dogs, he was a huge Great Pyrenees and Newfoundland mix. This is him:










(Photo compliments of Ashley Zohner Photography)
But this summer we noticed that he started limping around quite a lot. We took him to the vet and he couldn't find anything wrong. Everything in his foot felt fine, so the vet just gave us some pain medicine, hoping that by the time Oden used all the medicine his foot might heal. But it just kept getting worse, so we got him some more medicine. He finished all of that and was still not better. By this time Sam and I were back in Provo. According to Sam's parents, the last week of Oden's life, he could hardly walk around. They took him to the vet again, and he must have done a lot more tests than when we first took him. Oden had bone cancer and it had spread. There was nothing they could do for him, so they had to put him down. When Sam and I found out we both cried. He was such a fun, cute dog.

Well sorry to end on a sad note. I'll let you know how the weekend turned out and what else has been going on in our lives.

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.