Valentine's Day Actually

Our Valentine's "party" was a bust. Nothing fell into place, so each couple decided to do their own thing. I got home from work and there was a pot of mini roses, a card, and some nail polish on the table for me.  Not to mention, Daniel was dressed in purple (which I love haha).  Unfortunately, I had had a rotten day at work and was still in a rotten mood.  I kind of pushed Daniel aside and told him I had to go running or else I might explode.  I ran 3 miles as fast as I could and played and re-played me quitting my job in my head.  We all know that I won't do it until Daniel and I leave for Scotland, but it helped me run faster and it kept my mind off the fact that I was actually running. When I got home, I felt 1000 times better... but Daniel was gone.  So I hopped in the shower and when I got out Daniel was in the kitchen preparing our own little cheese and wine tasting.  It turned out incredible.

I helped set the table and Daniel did the rest.  We had smoked Gouda and brie, green and red apples, grapes and green olives, a french baguette, and a grape/blueberry non-alcoholic drink.  We ate by candle light (using the candles Daniel used when he propose to me) and listened to my play list (which fortunately I added a few more songs to). He asked me to dance when our song came on (Smile by Uncle Kracker).  I cried (tears of joy) and I realized how lucky I am to have a guy like Daniel. 

He makes everything better.

We finished the night with a chocolate brownie with cream cheese frosting and part of an old John Wayne movie. John Wayne is a horrible actor.  I loved it.

First Valentine's Day as a married woman:  EPIC SUCCESS

I'll post pictures later.

   

Valentine's Day

The other night in bed, Daniel rolled over and asked me, "Am I supposed to be planning something or V-day?"  It's our first Valentine's day as a married couple and I guess he just wanted to know my expectations haha. but we got to talking and decided to plan something together: a small "Cheese & Wine" party--minus the wine and plus a variety of flavored Martinelli drinks.  The idea sponned from a miniture cheese and wine picnic set that my dad gave to Daniel after one of his manager's meetings.  Daniel loved it and ever since then the idea has always been in the back of our minds. Hopefully everything works out. I have no idea what I'll use for decorations, but I have been working on a play list:

Kiss --Prince

Unchained Melodies -- Righteous Brothers

Put Your Head On My Shoulder -- Paul Anka

When A Man Loves A Woman -- Percy Sledge

Let's Get It On -- Barry White

Against All Odds -- Phil Collins

Right Round -- Flo Rida

The Glory of Love -- Peter Cetera

Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad -- Def Leppard

Pour Some Sugar On Me -- Def Leppard

Crazy Little Thing Called Love -- Queen

What I Like About You -- The Romantics

Kokomo -- The Beach Boys

Sweet Caroline -- Neil Diamond

I Second That Emotion -- Smokey Robinson & the Miracles

You Sexy Thing -- Hot Chocolate

Wonderful Tonight -- Eric Clapton

How Sweet It Is --Kris Allen

Sexual Healing -- Marvin Gaye

At Last -- Ella Fitzgerald

I'm still adding.  I wanted a mixture of up-beat / fun songs (Kiss... Right Round...Pour Some Sugar On Me), legit love songs (Unchained Melodies, At Last, Put Your Head On My Shoulder), and then all those ridiculous songs that everybody loves (The Glory of Love, Sexual Healing, Let's Get It On).  My favorite is Kiss, by Prince.  I could listen to that song over and over again.

PS. It's going to be a small gathering.  ie. the only people I've invited are my brother and sister and their spouses. Hence the reason I don't want it to be uberly romantic. That would be weird.

Edinburgh!

Married Life:  I work a 8-5 desk job & Daniel is a full-time student with a part time job.  I don't really feel married yet.  I just sorta switched roommates, but I will say one thing: I like my new roommate ONE MILLION times better than my previous ones (haha).

OH! and in other news...

Daniel applied for an international internship program and GOT ACCEPTED! We are moving to Edinburgh, Scotland in April.  HALLELUJAH. I can quit my mediocre job (which I pretty much hate with every fiber of my being sometimes) and move overseas for 8 weeks. I could definitly get use to this new little trend I'm setting: spending the first few months of my summer over seas :-).  I miss Europe.

Bagpipes, kilts, pubs, and castles... I think YES.

More Wedding Pictures

Here are some more pictures from the wedding :-)

Bridesmaid flowers

Incredible bridesmaids

A little bit about these girls:  The two on the left are my sisters. Jani (the blonde who got married two weeks before I did) and Sarah  The other four are my best friends from either highschool or college.  Mal (with the yellow shoes) was on her OWN honeymoon and still came to celebrate my wedding with me.  Jessi flew in from Pennsylvania, Molly flew in from Arizona, and Sarah flew in from Pennsylvania also.  It was such a blast having them there with me. They made me feel so important :-)

The cake. I wanted a really simple and traditional cake. 

It ended up perfect-- a little sloppy, but it looks like a picnic basket right?

Cutting the cake.

Daddy-Daughter Dance (we did the POKA to an Irish Rover song!)

Temple / Dress Shot

My favorite picture.

Where we put our gifts.

The rings! Daniel picked my ring out all by himself. I love it.

A sign leading to the wedding, made by my fabulous grandpa.

The wedding party.

Unfortunately, my photographer wasn't as incredible as I would have hoped, but he did capture some quality shots.  And now that I'm all caught up on the wedding... I can start talking about married life.  It's pretty great.

Wedding

We've actually been married 5 months and 3 days now.   I'm just not the best at this blogging thing.  The wedding was absolutely beautiful.  I couldn't have asked for anything better.  Daniel and I only had three goals--

ONE: We wanted people to have fun and stay

TWO: We wanted it to be simple

&

THREE: We wanted awesome pictures

 In order to meet our goals our wedding sort of evolved into: 

An old fashioned picnic!

My colors ended up being red, white, and yellow. --Emphasizing Gingham & Sunflowers

We also had a three person band that played old time tunes. ABSOLUTELY awesome.

Daniel Baird

Daniel Paul Baird (the one with the du-rag).  He's the boy that invited me over.... haha

After an evening of fried twinkies, hanging out with Daniel and his roommates became a habit. They were fun, funny, and frugal--not to mention the nicest group of boys I had met in a long long time.  The only problem was that Daniel was a red head and that was one of my "rules."

Never date a redhead--it's weird.

It's normal to see two brunettes or two blondes together.  It's also normal to see two asians or two mexicans together BUT how many redheads do you see together? Seriously.  It's not common. And everybody assumes we're siblings.

Apparently Daniel had the same issue so he tried setting me up with his roommate, and then decided to pursue my sister (who is conveniently a blonde). Absolute disaster.  We would always gravitate towards eachother and before I knew it he introduced me to one of his friends as his girlfriend.

Three months later I was his fiance.

Six months after that...

his WIFE.

Long story short-er

Okay. So it didn't really start witha fried Twinkie, but its an important mile marker in our little developing relationship.

Long story short-er:
I barely survived college and developed severe anxiety along the way. Some people walked around campus with their iPod in--they loved music. I walked around with earplugs in--I hated people. That semester I was taking a health behavioral change class and needed a project. I felt like my spiritual and physical health were pretty good. My mental and emotional health were being taken care of (I got pills for that!), and that left my social health... something that I didn't really care for; however, to gain "balance," I decided that my goal would be: Go out at least once a week with a group of people and have fun. Normal college kids don't need a goal like that. I did.

One evening, while working on a stressful 15 page research paper, I got a phone call. It was a boy in my ward inviting my apartment over for fried Twinkies. I was the only one that went....BUT it wasn't just the fried twinkie I fell for :-)