Goodbye Salt Lake...hello Rexburg.

May was quite the month for us! It has been busy but even better one of the most fun months of being married! On April 27 we packed the Uhaul and left our tiny apartment in Salt Lake and headed four hours north to Rexburg, ID. And I have to say we were pretty apprehensive about the move, worried that we wouldn't find much in Rexburg from moving from the SLC. But I think we are both loving it more then we had thought. We love the smaller town feel and especially NO traffic, hardly any driving, and our apartment. I admit we are missing the shopping ESPECIALLY Smith's, Target, Costco, Winco and the farmer's markets. It was so fun to go to the mall and go downtown and walk around temple square whenever we pleased. I loved compare shopping at all the different grocery stores (oh and I am missing Trader Joe's) and seeing all the diversity of people there. We loved going to the farmer's markets and people were selling goodies from their culture, we always loved trying stuff from India, the south, Asia, and Africa. We miss seeing the great big mountains and driving down by Parley's canyon and jogging to Wheeler farm to play frisbee and see the farm there. But most of all we are missing are good friends and family, Nick and Brecca and their cute cute kids, Beckett and Bostyn. Brady's brother Seth and his girlfriend Nikki, my Grandma and Grandpa who were right down the road and saved me multiple times when my car broke down and spoiled us with treats and goodies and my sister Emily. I loved going to see her and knowing that we were close to one another. These are the things that make me miss SLC soooo much. But I can't even begin to describe how good I feel about being here and look forward to all the fun things we will experience here. Brady is doing awesome in school and I was blessed with a really awesome job as a loan officer at a local credit union. We live right around the corner from it and I can't even begin to say how nice it is to come home for lunch everyday and not drive through traffic. We love what Rexburg has and the school and we are very excited to be here.

 This was outside our apartment complex in SLC. It really was a pretty little complex. 

 Nick and Brecca came over to help us move and say goodbye :(  We miss them already!

 Goodbye Aparment 17Y...excuse my nasty face, I wasn't getting ready that day.

 Our Rexburg apartment, thus far...I am still working on decorating.

But we love the nice big kitchen!

A week after moving in we got to go to a concert at BYU-I. It was the Piano Guys, who we have always been big fans of and it was so good!...This was leaving for the concert.

And that weekend we went home to Burley to watch my sis, Abby, dance in her senior recital. I was so proud of her! And so proud of Brady for going with me and sitting through the whole thing!!! It probably was not the most exciting place to be for him, my dad and brothers but we loved seeing Abs.

They did the ballet, Circus Mystique...I'm not exactly sure that's how you spell it! But she did awesome!!

We headed back to Rexburg for the week and then turned around and came back to see one of my best friends, Dani, and her wedding reception...so happy for her! She was beautiful, her reception was perfect and I loved seeing her so happy! Brady and I are hoping to go to Pocatello soon and have dinner with the cute couple! That Sunday I went to Abby's baccalarete, I KNOW that's not how you spell it. It was so fun seeing her in her cap and gown. She has made everyone very proud she is such a smarty pants and is going to do great things. I couldn't be happier that she will be up here in Rexburg in January, it will be great to have a sister near by again :)

 Abby and her cute graduating friends!

We are excited for June and a little bit quieter month...and it will be our one year anniversary! I want to celebrate the WHOLE month :)

I'm It!

 My super cute, super sweet friend, Jenna tagged me in a blog questionnaire and it looked so fun. We are getting ready to move this Saturday….crazy!! And it was a nice distraction. More on the move to come and I SWEAR I am taking some pictures of the occasion. {Rexburg or BUST}…

1.       Your life is going to become a script for a movie. Who would play you?

I wish it would be Audrey Hepburn. I love her! But maybe Brittany Snow or Elizabeth McGovern. I have been told multiple times in my life that I look like Brittany Snow and I recently went dark brown and my sister told me I look like Elizabeth McGovern (the mother on Downton Abbey) She is a lot older than me…so not sure how I feel about this one J

2.       What is your most embarrassing moment?

Sadly, I can’t just say there is one moment that stands out. There are MULTIPLE moments for me. Even though I seriously try to think before I say things I sometimes make comments without thinking and I sound like a true blonde. But it was pretty embarrassing when I judged a horse show back in August in Blackfoot, ID. I  drove up late the night before in my pjs and the next morning I woke up to get ready for it and realized I had forgot a bra! It’s a good thing it was a warm day!! WOW..

3.       What are three things you cannot live without?

Brady Jay Anderson, a horse to ride, my sisters

4.       What is at the top of your bucket list?

Ride at either the world AQHA show or Appaloosa worlds

5.       Favorite Vacation Destination?

I honestly have not been on a lot of vacations! Pathetic. But number one to go to is Europe (London, Paris, Rome) and I really want to see Disneyland!

6.       What is your favorite holiday?

The 4^th of July! So weird but I LOVE summer more then I explain (so why are we moving to the North Pole?) and I usually eat maybe 14 s’mores that day.

7.       What movie makes you cry?

After I cry once in a movie, if I watch it again, I don’t cry. But I cry a lot the first time. However  the ONE that I dread watching every Christmas cause I know I will bawl is Nora’s Christmas Gift. Ugh…how could you not when she drops the salt in the toffee?

8.       What is your least favorite word?

Pee. I don’t say this word. Ask my husband. I think it’s disgusting. And the fact that I always have to use spell check on the word definitely I always spell it definatly

9.       What is your favorite quality about yourself?

At the moment it’s that I survived teaching my seven year old primary class and at the end they all gave me hugs and cards. I got pretty teary-eyed. I am going to miss them.

10.   What are your favorite places to shop?

H&M, Gordman’s, Rue 21, Home Goods, Hobby Lobby, Farmer’s Markets, Big Lots and Tiffany’s (not that I actually “shop” there…I just LOVE that store…thank you City Creek Mall)

11.   What is your biggest pet peeve?

At the moment, my pot smoking, beer drinking, partying neighbors. I will not miss you. But I have a really hard time with a messy house. I am a little anal about cleanliness and all these boxes stacked in our living room are driving me nuts!

So who will I tag? Taja! You’re it!

Conference Weekend.

This is a short, picture-less post. These are getting old.

I promise I wrote my last few blogs right after the holidays/days they were intended for but never posted them cause…LAME…I always forget to take pictures.

 

Well this last weekend Brady and I got to go to conference. We had gone home to Burley the weekend before for our sweet nephews baby blessing and what happened? Forgot the camera. So I bought batteries and had full intention of documenting our time at conference and downtown. As we walked into the conference center…I pulled out the camera…told Brady to smile AND it went black. The batteries I bought were to cheap for my camera. STORY OF MY LIFE.

 

Besides that, we LOVED conference. The spirit was so strong and we loved seeing our prophet and leaders so up close. We were a little bummed the Motab wasn’t singing that session and then the BYU choir started singing and they were amazing! It was such a good session (as they all are) and there was even a shout-out to Burley,ID from Elder Ellis! We have felt very privileged since we started dating that every conference we have been able to go to at least one session and this summer we were able to go to a concert. That is a total of 6 sessions! We have been to the spoken word a few times and there really is nothing like hearing the choir live and being so close to our prophet. It is always a very humbling experience and brings Brady and I closer. We sure love living in Salt Lake  that gives us the opportunities to appreciate the church more and its history. Friday, before conference, we went to two mission reunions for Brady and on our drive back to Midvale we passed the Draper, Orcher, and Jordan Valley temples and the next day stood next to the Salt Lake temple. We feel so blessed to have been to so many temples here. I know my testimony has grown here for our pioneers and the church’s history. How lucky we are to be members of this wonderful church. The talks from conference only confirmed this, in a world that is trying so hard to bring everyone modern and “with the times” I found so much peace and comfort in listening to our leaders and their steadfastness in our Heavenly Father’s way.

This is for sure what I will miss most about Salt Lake City, because in exactly 15 days we are moving to Rexburg. I am excited for the adventures that are in front of us but feel very blessed to have lived here and experienced it with my sweet husband.

St Pattys!

St. Pattys!

(Written before St. Patricks...I'm just finally posting it) Worst blogger ever award??
 

Anyone who knows my family or my husband knows that Christmas is a REALLY. BIG. DEAL. So big in fact that you would think this was the only holiday that was celebrated but in fact my mother is the master of making any holiday great. I intend to do the same with my own family.

I remember my most favorite St. Patrick’s Days when I was about 10 and my little sister, Abby was around 5 or 6. I remember my dad taking us to the movie store so we could pick out a video to watch and since it was the night before St. Patty’s we found one appropriate for the holiday. It was called Rumplestilskin and I loved this movie so much I probably watched it 12 times before we took it back. I can remember being so excited to watch it I made a song about the movie and on a certain home video I am sitting at the kitchen table holding the beloved movie in my arms, with my eyes closed, singing this song I had made up. To make it even more embarrassing I am in my favorite long pink nightgown that was so see through you can see my underwear and my hair was in tight curlers. I was a special child. Anyway, Abby was way into leprechauns and really wanted to catch one. She even made a trap and made a trail of cabbage to it so the leprechaun would find it. The next morning my mom had removed the cabbage and left a box of lucky charms in the trap instead (she is wonderful). Then on this special day we ate a huge meal of corned beef and cabbage and usually for dessert we would enjoy my great-grandmother’s famous recipe of lime dessert! (Chocolate crust with a sort of key lime frozen cream topping, it is still to this day one of my favorites).

So naturally last year before Brady and I were married I personally made him his FIRST (can you believe that???) corned beef and cabbage meal. I am not sure if he really liked it or was trying to be nice. He did agree to the tradition again this year and I have a good lookin chunk of meat in our fridge and a head of cabbage. I think I am going to mix it up though and do Reuben sandwiches (bring on the sauerkraut!!!!) and roasted cabbage and possibly try a key lime yogurt pie for dessert. Cross your fingers I don’t burn anything!!

Valentines Day!

Valentine's Day!

            Valentines Day could not have been more perfect :) I have always loved Valentines Day and I am pretty sure it stems from my mom and dad always spoiling us on that day. We always woke up to a giant breakfast (of course) and a special little gift. I was probably 6 or 7 and I remember going upstairs to giant teddy bears sitting at each one of our breakfast spots with a plate of pancakes in front of them. I remember my mom coming to lots of my Valentine's parties at elementary school where she brought pink ice cubes shaped like hearts in a delicious red drink with the softest most delicious sugar cookies you have ever tasted. We would make an insane amount of heart shaped sugar cookies all wrapped in pink and red and deliver them to our neighbors. I really wanted to celebrate for our first Valentines as Mr. & Mrs. but unfortunately Brady had to work late. It ended up working out great however because we just celebrated again the following Monday on President's Day! Working for a financial institution defiantly has its perks because it's paid holiday! On the morning of Valentines Brady and I woke up to go work out when we got back I went and jumped in the shower when I went out in the kitchen to start breakfast Brady had a bouquet of red and white roses sitting on the counter with a really sweet card and 2 movie tickets to Safe Haven on Monday! I was so excited :) We made french toast with strawberries and bananas and I gave Brady a card and socks with a cheesy little saying on them. I know socks are a little lame but he really needed some new church socks and we gave each other a cheap gift budget. That night when I got home from work I made us dinner of pesto lemon chicken, green beans with shallots, rosemary potatoes and Brady brought home Blue Lemon's delicious mushroom soup. When he got home I had it all set up like a picnic in our living room and he told me it was the best dinner I had ever made! We both licked our plates clean. I was pretty proud of myself. Ha!

            On Monday we went to the matinee for Safe Haven and then to Olive Garden. Love. Olive. Garden. I ate my fair share of carbs and shrimp :) I was sad to see the holiday end. It was such a fun way to celebrate and I don't think we could have spent our first Valentines married any better, except for the fact that my camera ran out of battery and we didn't get any pictures. grr…

January '13

Pretty sad that the next few blogs are all going to be re-caps. They have been written for awhile I just kept putting it off! One day I will be caught up!
We started out the year right. January is usually one of my favorite months. I get so tired of the cold and dark. I am for sure a fair weathed girl and all the cold and snow  is really starting to get old. But even though it has been cold and yucky we have had an awesome first month of 2013. This year already is turning out to be a good one.
We had a New Years Ev party with Brady's cousin Brecca and her husband Nick and we partied it up eating finger food and sparkling cider (crazy mormons!)  We love when we get to spend time with Nick and Brecca we always have the best time with them. And Brady and I are both in love with there little boy, Beckett! We can never get enough of him, he is seriously the happiest most content baby I have ever been around and we loved welcoming the new year with them.
On January 10th Nick and Brecca welcomed their newest addition, Bostyn Tamrie. She is absolutely adorable and she and Beckett are only 14 months apart. How fun! We got to watch Beck for awhile when Brecca was in labor and when we were able to hold Bostyn we were so in love with her. Since then I watched them all by myself and they were the most perfect children ever.
Later in the month we went to Brady's work disco party and it was actually the first dance we have ever been too. (Unless you count our wedding dance??) Anyway, lets just say that Brady can bust a move or two and we had such a fun time. We even won free bowling and pizza!
My most favorite thing we did in January was Brady's sister, Ainsley's baby shower. I was so excited to do the decorations for her and I think it turned out pretty cute. I had never done anything like this before but my mom and sisters, Molly and Abby are pros at party planning and decorating. I have helped with plenty of things like this so I thought I could do it! I spent hours on pinterest trying to find a fun theme and ended up doing a "baby rain shower" theme decorated with raindrops, clouds, umbrellas and decorated in the colors blue and grey. I sort of have a grey obsession. Brady's mom and sister-in-law, Amanda, made the best food and we had a really fun time! (Hopefully pictures to come soon!)
In other news...we got some furniture.I would have loved to write that except I still am not sure how I feel about this. Let's just say it is far from new and something you might see in a retirement home. It all has potential and was free but I am defiantly going to be tried and tested in my pinterest crafting skills!

            Beginning of February we had a super bowl party with Brady's brother, Seth, and his girlfriend, Nikki. I shouldn't even mention all the food we ate but it was so good. I am thinking of maybe posting some of our recipes on here just because we cook so much it would be fun to look back and see all the things we made. And for the most part we are pretty good cooks! haha No worries, though, we aren't turning into blobs quite yet we work out a ton. Brady is crazy and wakes me up at 5:45 every morning and we go to the gym at our apartment complex sometimes when I am feeling lazy I will go after work and run an extra 20 minutes then normal. But Brady is dedicated and I love it, it makes me get my rear in gear or otherwise I would get lost on pinterest instead :) I married a good guy.

Holiday RE-CAP!

I am definatly much better at reading blogs then I am at writing out own! I love the idea of having a blog but everytime I sit down to write I get distracted on Pinterest or reading anoter blog I follow! But I want to be better because we are havig the best time being newlyweds! The holidays were so fun  and I know in years to come (and even now) I am going to kick myself for not writing all the memories, while there fresh in my mind, and the details of our "firsts." So just a re-cap of the months behind, since it is now March...

1. Thanksgiving was spent with the Nelson/Smack crew. I can still taste the delicious turkey my mom's stuffing and oh yes, the Pumpkin pie!We had dinner in Twin Falls at my Grandpa and Grandma Smack's home with my Uncle and Aunt and their kids from Eagle, ID. We got to spend some really good time with them and with my cousin and his cute wife who got married two weeks after us. For Black Friday we went shopping with with the Andersons and ate more pie of course. We went on our first Black Friday last year and had a blast. We got some awesome deals on a TV and a comforter for bed. We weren't shoping for much this year, we were so blessed with all our wedding gifts that we were pretty much stocked up for a while! For Thanksgiving break (we had about 4 days) my cousin, Kara, went through the temple before leaving on her mission in Anaheim, CA. I absolutly adore Kara and we were always known as Sara bear and Kara bear growing up. I was so happy to be with her that day and incredibly proud of who she is.
2. In December Brady's family came and stayed with us for a weekend. That is right, 4 couples in our tiny 550 square foot apartment! It was a little squished but we had a blast and hope everyone else did too and they come again. We did some baby shopping for Ainsley, a little Christmas shopping, went to dinner, made yummy waffles and paninis, everyone went to church with us (which was fun to fill up a whole bench) and of course we saw the lights at Temple Square and City Creek. It was one of the best weekends and Brady and  I can't wait to do it again.
3. Christmas! Oh Christmas truly was the best. We got time off work for a 5 day vacation at home and it felt so good to be in Burley! Brady got to spend some time with his buddies from high school and I got time with my sisters, Emily and Abby. We ate a TON of food and had two Christmas Eve parties with my family and "Grandpa" Bob on Sunday, my mom spoiled us all with prime rib and twice baked potatos (see kicking self HERE for not remembering the rest of this fabulous meal). We sang lots of Christmas songs at the top of our lungs, one of my favorite Nelson christmas traditions and got to visit with Bob and Eleanor. Our second Christmas Eve was spent on the true day and we had delicious soup bowls and corn chowder at the Andersons and fell asleep watching Christmas movies. Christmas morning reminded me that I made good choice in marrying Brady when he woke me up at 6 a.m. shouting Merry Christmas! Santa sure loved us and our stocking were filled with goodies and presents under the tree. We ate a yummy breakfast and opened presents. Brady sure spoiled this girl. He knows me too well and gave me 4 pairs of shoes, clothes, and jewlery. My favorite present was for sure though my glue gun and I have been workng on pinterest crafts I was dying to make.
I learned that Christmas shopping for Brady is not the easiest thing but in the end I think I did alright. He got a giftcard that can be used at any golf course around SLC, clothes, a back massager, work out clothes and shoes. The best part was just being able to spend time with our family because we are always missing them like crazy.
The holidays are for sure one of my favorite times of the year and it meant even more this year because we miss our families and hometown. I seriously can't wait for the day when we are done with school and at a place where we can live in Burley forever! We plan on being a happy little couple in our little town and raising our kids in the best place we know. But that seems a ways down the road...for now we are just making te most of our adventures in the city.