My nieces are too cute!

Seriously-how much do I love my nieces? I'm truly troubled by the idea that I don't know when I can fly out to Seattle and see Taylor's baby #2 after he's born in a few weeks!!! I love kids, and especially kids who are my favorite friends' (aka my sisters) kids. A LOT! So here are some pics of both of them. Yesterday Cali, Josh, Piper and I went to Richmond to tour our state capitol. it was AWESOME! And I was so shocked at how much attention Piper got-- sheesh! She is a cute kid, as you can see here:
*Note, she was looking at her mommy in this pic-- Cali was so proud! ;)
Here we are the capitol by the way-- totally worth the trip!
My niece Mad is also SOOO CUTE! She can even talk now-- pretty crazy! When I went to Seattle and saw her the first time, she looked like this:
So cute! Now she is looking like an actual little girl, not a baby:
Too cute! So I'm sorry to everyone out there with nieces, but mine are cuter than yours. and also my nephews-- marrying Neal gave me quite a few nephews and one niece:
and that's not even all of them! Hooray for offspring that you can play with but don't have to keep! ;)

Addendum: my weapon of choice

Some of you wondered what I was armed with when I was searching the apartment for hiding psychos.... I think mostly because you all know I *never* exaggerate whatsoever... so here is yet another re-enactment of that dreadful scenario yesterday-I was armed with a ....

That's right folks... dishwashing dolls do more than wash dishes oh-so-adorably. And as everyone can see, I'm still alive--looks like Delilah the dishwashing doll kept me safe once again!

What in the.... ?!?!

Okay, so I just returned from tutoring and found our apartment looking like this with all the lights on:
I was soooo weirded out! My heart started pounding and my face looked like *this:

*reenactment

I immediately checked for our laptops, ipods, etc. (because let's face it... we don't have that much stuff worth stealing) and everything was in place. My next thought was "should I leave everything how it is? Should I call the police?" I decided to call Neal and get his opinion. He thought it was crazy weird too and called our landlord (who lives upstairs from us). I, armed, checked the apartment for crazy hiding psychos and found none. Neal called me back and said, "I just talked to Yosry and he said the cleaning lady had come and cleaned the basement as well."

ummmmmmm. whaaaaaaaaaaat? then my face looked more like this:
What kind of cleaning lady leaves the furniture strewn all over the floor and all the lights on!?!? I mean seriously!?!? If that's the only way you can tell that your cleaning lady has been there, it's time to get a new cleaning lady! I don't mean to sound ungrateful, thank you for vacuuming and scrubbing the bathroom and stuff but...
wow! Okay that's all I wanted to blog about.... but lest I end this blog without a picture of my love, I shall leave you all with this:

LOVE HIM!
ps the text is huge of it's own accord.. I've tried to edit it 3 times now.

Mini vacation to Niagara Falls

Well, Neal and I just got back from our first vacation! (everyone knows the honeymoon doesn't count) Neal has oodles of Marriott points from traveling for work, and he also got Thursday and Friday off for the 4th, so we decided to celebrate our nation's independence by leaving the country.... that's right, we went here:
and here:
After crossing the border, we immediately heard "aboot" (which some people claim I say) and "eh" and saw Poutine everywhere.. it was quite the stereotype come true! We stayed on the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls near Toronto and for the first time in my life, I got to see the Canadian Side of the falls-- I LOVED IT! It's waaaaaay better than the American side, in my humble opinion. It wasn't even pouring rain the whole time! Here are some pics! This is the best way to get a picture with Neal:
Thumbs up for the Canadian Side:
I'm such a rebel:
We had to stay until the Falls were lit because Neal didn't even believe me that it happened...
The next day we went to Toronto-- I have to say, it was pretty ghetto. BUT at least we say a great play and ate Poutine. If you don't know what Poutine is, it's a super famous French-Canadian dish with french fries, cheese curd and gravy.. healthy, isn't it? DELICIOUS!
Toronto gets a thumbs down:
But I sure do love my husband! We had a blast, and the 8 1/2 hour car ride flew by-- well, as much as it can anyway, that's a looooooong car ride!
It was a GREAT trip-- and even better that the hotel was free! I wish Neal had 2 days off every week!

A post that has nothing to do with our wedding...

Neal and I are SOOOOOO glad we get to live so close to Cali and Josh and, of course, Piper (my sister, bro in law and niece). I'm already training her in the self portrait realm while I babysit--as witnessed above. LOVE HER! I told her to look excited... Cali might want to work on obedience, just sayin'.

In other news, our place is so ghetto that we're MOVING next weekend to the basement of a huge house in a nice neighborhood really close to where we live now. Pictures to come. We hope and pray it turns out better than our current rat infested, roach infested, leaky ceiling-ested place with sketchy neighbors.... I would say it seems that it couldn't get worse, but I know we're actually not that deprived here, it just feels like it with the rats, roaches, etc.

Neal and I still love being married--good thing too since it's only been a month!
Also-- I found semi cheap tickets to PARIS and bought them for next March--my spring break. Neal will have to take off 7 days but I'll only have to take off one--the perks of being a teacher! I am seriously SOOOOOOO excited to go back to France with Neal and show him what made me fall in love with France.

I'm also VERY VERY VERY excited to eat this... "pain aux raisins" my favorite French pastry-- that would be worth the trip right there.
I'm highly tempted to jump over to Switzerland as well, but we'll see how the timing works out. I don't want to skimp on France time. Anyway, SERIOUSLY CAN'T WAIT!

Our Wedding Day!

Okay, so I got the pro photos back, and wanted to post. Seriously, WHAT AN AMAZING DAY! The weather was gorgeous, Neal looked fabulous (and so did yours truly, if I say so myself) and loads of our family and friends came from all over the country to be there! Here's a brief schedule of the day.


5:15 Hannah is relieved when her alarm goes off because HELLO, she didn't sleep a wink!
6:00 Hannah gets her hair done
7:15 Hannah is running out the door of the hair salon as Ruthie is chasing her down with bobby pins
7:30 On route to the temple, Neal rolls out of bed---lucky!
8:00 Get to the temple, as they're walking in, Mom says "Hannah, I forgot my recommend, I'm not kidding. That's so funny! I kept on reminding you to get yours and I forgot mine... haha
8:00 Hannah does NOT think that is funny in the least and freaks out--she looks nothing like the picture above.
8:08 Temple worker hands Hannah a tissue because she "has a smudge on her nose"
8:08 Hannah politely says "it's my birthmark" and wishes she were back in bed. Neal punches temple worker in the face for bringing up her deformity on their wedding day--awesome!
8:27 Kaitie shows up with Mom's recommed--- HOORAY!
9:20 The most beautiful sealing ever...Neal is crying freely and Hannah gets emotional too-- WONDERFUL ceremony, FULL room of family and friends, happiness abounds


10:30 Neal pumps his fist and yells "wahoooooooo"s as they are exiting the temple, Hannah gets embarrassed, but they are both ridiculously happy!
1:00 Hannah and Neal roll up to the luncheon a half hour late, but hey, it's our wedding day, and I'm obsessed with pictures. Kaitie and Logan are champions, following us around, making sure my train is billowing and my lips are glossed and Neal's......... okay it was mostly for me.
3-5 reception at Oakridge County Club, LOVELY, loving friends and family flock, we start introducing each other as "my husband" and "my wife" it sounds fake but it's funny.
5:20 We leave the reception, go change and HONEYMOON!!!!!!




Our wedding photophrapher is awesome-- Erin Langford. I have a link to her blog on my blog list.


All in all... INCREDIBLE day and we LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE being married! :) It's true, it's only been four weeks, but still! Thanks again to everyone who came, we love you all!!!!! You made the day even more special.

ADDENDUM: I was remiss about posting pictures of our FABULOUS cake made by the lovely Aunt Stacey: it was the best cake I have ever had (LITERALLY) -- we ate the top layer on our honeymoon, why would we wait a year?!?! anyway, THANKS STACE! YOU'RE THE BEST! Can't wait until Christian's wedding when I can eat more of her delicious cake! ;)
Okay, kind of an awkward photo but we didn't get a posed one of stace by the cake-- dang!

YUM!

sneak peek of wedding pics.....

Okay, so if you have facebook, you've already seen it.. but this pic is SOOO PRECIOUS!

and here's one of just me...
oh and one of my bouquet...
Those last 2 are actually from my bridal session... (which apparently is a Utah mormon thing... is this true?!?) anyway..... I'm still waiting to get the professional pics back from our wedding. In the meantime-enjoy these!

one last one taken by my AWESOME brother in law Logan. He followed us around everywhere snapping pictures so I could have more immediate feedback.... THANKS LOGAN!