Anniversary

Brenden and I have been together for three years today! 

Just thought you should know.

Happy Halloween!

We realize this is a bit late but Brenden and I wanted to share some of our Halloween adventures.

The Saturday before Halloween we decided to finally cook some of the shrimp my mom brought up when she visited earlier in the month.  It had just been sitting in my freezer waiting for us to have enough time to actually cook a real dinner.  One of my roommates was thoroughly disgusted when she realized Brenden and I had to peel the shrimp (which still had the heads on them!).  She's never had shrimp so she didn't realize it was totally and completely worth it.  Oh the joys of preparing seafood.  We snapped some pictures to share.  And this is how you know Brenden and I are complete weirdos, when we share pictures like this:

We actually took a few others with shrimp brains in the sink but we realized those would probably make people throw up so we decided not to share those.  Who knows?  The above picture may have been enough to make someone sick and our efforts were in vain anyway.

We went to the Ballet West performance of Carmina Burana and the Four Temperaments later that evening.  We didn't enjoy it as much as we'd hoped we would.  Oh well.  It was still an enjoyable evening.

On Halloween, Brenden and I got dressed up:

And we lit a candle we bought back in September for Halloween:

It's a little crazy (and sad) how busy we've been.  But that evening we were able to go to the Courtyard at Jamestown and sing to the residents there with a group of volunteers.  It was incredibly enjoyable and all of the residents really appreciated us being there. 

Anyway, that was our Halloween!  Hope yours was good too!  :)

I Want This

I watched this video in my Adult Development and Aging in the Family class today and knew I had to share it. You can see this couple's enthusiasm for life and each other in this video. I love this so much.

This is one of the things I'm most looking forward to in marrying Brenden: a long, happy marriage with someone I can be goofy with.

A Picture a Day

I just had this fun idea to take a picture every day of mine and Brenden's first year of marriage.  I've been wanting to do this picture a day project for quite awhile now and even started in 2009 but then failed.  Maybe I'll have enough motivation this time because it will actually be more meaningful than just snapping random pictures to document my year.  It will be our first year together!
 
Our wedding day is less than two months away!  This also means this fall semester is quickly coming to a close.  There is so much to do!

This was taken at a session of October General Conference.  This boy is so cute.

 

Hello Friends

Well here's the news!

We took engagement pictures yesterday and it was fun Fun FUN!

Actually it was great. We took some casual-ish pictures in Springfieldvilleland and then went to the hilly forests for a more formal shooting. And then we threw on our amazing sweaters FTW. My sweater bore two rampant moose upon a field of green and Natalie had some lovely snowflakes.

After the photoshoot we were insanely thirsty so we made a stop at Sonic. It was the best Sonic experience ever.

Then we went to a concert in SLC - the Yellowjackets @ the Sheraton. We sat in the front by the speakers and I temporarily lost a little hearing in my right ear. But it was totally worth it. These guys were all monsters. I highly recommend this concert series.

Also Natalie purchased her wedding dress last weekend. We can't post any pictures of that here though, because I'm not supposed to see her in her wedding dress until the day before the wedding when we take pictures. If you'd like to see the dress, email Natalie.

~Brenden

My ring!

Here's a picture of my ring!  I realize the picture is kind of awkward.  But there it is!

Seattle

It's at times like right now when I'm incredibly stressed out about school and work and wedding planning (but mostly school and work) that I miss times like this:

Golden Gardens Park in Seattle, Washington

I snapped this photo at one of our bonfire nights.  I don't know who the people are in this photo but they were great silhouettes!  Even though the sand was grainy and colored my feet gray and the water was too cold for me to do anything but wade, Golden Gardens will always be one of my favorite places in Seattle.

Temple

Just a quick post before I go to bed because I cannot contain my excitement and joy about the newly announced Urdaneta Philippines Temple! 

Urdaneta is the closest large city to Villasis, my mother's hometown.  I remember going to the grocery store in Urdaneta when my family last visited the Philippines!  (I liked going to the grocery store while we stayed in Villasis because it was one of my only opportunities for air conditioning as well as flushing toilets.) 

I am so grateful for the faithfulness of the church members there.  They are such beautiful and humble people and they need the blessings of a temple just as much as anyone.  I think of the proximity of the Provo Temple and the Houston Temple (when I'm at home) and wonder just why I was so blessed to live where I have lived and always have a temple nearby and transportation to make the travel easy.  Even though Manila (where the nearest temple is currently located) is only a little over 110 miles from Urdaneta, I'm sure many of the Saints in the Pangasinan province (where Urdaneta and Villasis are located) do not have the means to travel to Manila.  The blessings of a temple in Urdaneta will be innumerable.

These are images of the two temples already in operation- Manila and Cebu City (which was just dedicated this year!)  The Manila Temple District actually includes many stakes and districts in the Philippines as well as Guam and Micronesia.  These are beautiful edifices. 

Manila Philippines Temple 

Cebu City Philippines Temple

I vaguely remember my first trip to the Philippines (being scared of a boat in Baguio and getting a yarn marionette) but what I experienced from my last trip instilled in me an intense love of that country and the people.  The deep emotional ties I have to that country cannot be explained (I don't even understand them.)  When I learned of the announcement of the Urdaneta Temple, tears of gratitude and joy came to my eyes almost immediately.  (Note:  I have a tendency to cry about happy things including but not limited to: sweet elderly couples, small children and babies, and a lot of stories in General Conference talks.)  I can't explain my joy and excitement about this announcement.        

We still have family in Villasis whom I hope to visit again someday.  I want to take Brenden to the Philippines to see the beauty of that land and experience the generosity of those people.  I love the Philippines so much.  Brenden and I will go there someday.  We will visit the Urdaneta Temple and take part in the blessings that so many Filipinos will soon have access to.

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To learn more about Latter-Day Saint Temple worship and why temple building means so much to me, watch this short video and check out this website.         

We found a ring!

Yesterday we bought an engagement ring for Natalie! It's getting sized and we should have it by Thursday. We'll post some pictures of it ASAP.

In other news, I did the math and figured out exactly how much a "ton of money" is. A ton of money is actually $3,163.06, converting with short tons, English Pounds, and American Dollars. If you do the math, a year at BYU is actually 1.5 tons of money. And you thought it was cheap!

Also it turns out I need to take the GRE for some grad school applications. I'll probably do that in November.

Also also it turns out that when you buy used tubas from people, they almost always expect the full amount up front in cash. Which is like 2-3 tons of money.

An update an update!

I should probably put up some information about our upcoming wedding on this blog since that is what we created it for.  

This is where Brenden and I will be getting married:

 

Houston Texas Temple

This is where we will be having our reception:

 

1859 Ashton Villa

A few things I love about Ashton Villa:

-  I went here on a field trip in third grade.  Fell in love with the architecture, the original furniture, the history.

-  I wrote a report on haunted places in Texas in fifth grade.  Ashton Villa was included.  Best assignment ever!  (When you come to the reception beware of Miss Bettie!)

-  When I worked at the Rosenberg Library I would see this lovely building every day I went to work.  

A few things I love about the Houston Texas Temple:

-  I remember when it was being built.

-  When it was completed, my whole family including several of my extended relatives attended the open house. 

-  My family was at the temple when it was dedicated by President Hinckley.

-  Late night youth temple trips.  Exhausting but wonderful.

-  My family was sealed here.  There are no words to describe what this means to me.

-  Brenden and I will be sealed here!  Again, no words.  

P.S.  Only 98 days! 

  

THIS JUST IN

I'm famous!

Check out photo number 38!

~Brenden

Welcome!

Here's the deal.  Brenden and I decided that bothering with a wedding website was boring.  We figured that a blog would be a much easier and informative venue for keeping people updated with our wedding plans and other areas of our lives at this time.  This means that I, Natalie, will most likely be keeping people updated with our plans/other areas of our lives, if for no other reason than that Brenden doesn't actually care if you know what we're up to (or he may just be too busy to update!), which really is fine.  This age of technology has opened up a whole new can of worms with concerns to privacy and exhibitionism (not the kind of exhibitionism from which you cover eyes but the kind that is the simple act of behaving in a manner to attract the attention of others). 

Right, so that last sentence brings me to this next little bit.  Those who view this website may be subject to my rambling and sometimes indistinguishable ranting.  For this, I apologize.  But I'm not sorry enough to prevent it from occurring.

There will be a better post somewhere down the road.  I promise.  In the meantime, make up your own Shakespearean insults!