The Newly Mormon Idalifornian: November 2012

I've been meaning to write this post for over a week....whoops. Anyway, last Monday (the 19th) was our first wedding anniversary! On one hand I feel like we just got married, but on the other I feel like it's been ages ago. Anyway, I'm so very very grateful to be married to such a wonderful man and that we have the relationship that we do. You always hear how the first year is the hardest, and if that was the worst then the rest of eternity is going to be a breeze :)

Don't get me wrong, we had our issues. Back when we lived in Moscow for the first 6 months of our marriage, we fought a ton more than we do now. It was never that bad or anything, but we definitely didn't always get along the best. Both of us were stressed, working students and we spent every free second we had together so every little annoyance we had, we took out on each other. Plus I think there was just an added stress of being married during that young, college time of our lives too. Not that we've suddenly morphed into super mature adults over the past 6 months, but we're just in an easier, calmer place in our lives now. We're not the old married couple trying to go out with our college friends every night when we really just wanted to lie in bed and watch reruns of The Office. There's not the pressure to keep up with all that stuff anymore.

We've settled into our comfy little life full of having dinner ready when Sterling gets home from work so that we can watch our weekly favorite shows, Saturday date nights, getting ready for baby, teaching Primary classes, and whatnot. We like it. And we get along much better these days. Yeah, we still get on each others nerves, but I think we have a lot more respect and appreciation for each other these days. We don't let big fights come out of little dumb bickering anymore. Well, we do have some dumb fights, but they're over in about five minutes. Like, I was telling my mother-in-law recently that we can't go to Arctic Circle anymore because it caused an argument three trips in a row (someone refuses to let me use coupons there because it embarrasses him!) and she laughed and said that if that's our biggest problem she's not too worried about us. I think she's right.

I'm proud of us for how much we've grown together in the last year. Maybe it's the pending arrival of this little girl that's helped us, but we've really reached a good, happy place. I can honestly say that being married to Sterling is easy, and I know that we're really blessed because marriage isn't an easy thing for a lot of people. I've said before that I knew I was going to marry him the day that I met him, so I've always just known that this is right. But I have such a sense of comfort and happiness, I can see the Lord's hand in every step of the way. Everything has fallen together so perfectly, I can't believe it sometimes. Life is just so good.

I rambled on with all the sappiness a little more than I was expecting :) I have some pictures from the last few weeks of our lives! We went and got a 4D ultrasound of Brynleigh, so I'll share a picture from that. We couldn't get the best pics since she's getting so big and crammed in there, but it was still a lot of fun getting to see her!

And last weekend, I kidnapped Sterling for a getaway in Salt Lake City. He had no idea. He thought we were going to meet his parents at the Logan Temple on Friday, so he's all dressed up in his suit and everything. I wore my normal clothes and told him I'd just change into church clothes at the temple before we went in, which confused him, but he didn't question me too much. So I drove us down, and he fell asleep on the way. He woke up waaay past the exit to Logan and was super confused and thought I was crazy just driving along down though Ogden. We had some good laughs out of it. So anyway, I got us a room at this swanky hotel in downtown SLC, and they upgraded us to a super nice Premier King Suite even, so it was quite the luxurious stay for us :) That night they lit up Temple Square for Christmas, so we walked over and saw that and got some yummy dinner at P.F. Changs. The next day we had tickets for a Idaho Vandals game at Utah State, so we went to that. We lost horribly, but it was fun still. So we had a very nice little weekend :)

Here are pictures!