Wedding Extravaganza

What a summer it has been! Regretfully, this is the first post I’ve made all summer, but I blame it on the hard drive crash we had removing all wedding pictures from my life. Yes, that’s right. We lost the drive with all our professional wedding pictures on it. That is the delay of my blogging…

Did I make your heart stop yet? Truthfully, the drive did crash, and took 2 months to recover. But it is fully recovered. So now I can blog. Sorry for the delay… and for making you feel sorry for me.

Mat and I have been married for 3 months today, and it’s been a great 3 months. All our friends are right. Married life is SOOO much better than the single scene. It’s so nice to have your best friend with you all the time.

The ceremony itself was amazing. We had both of our immediate families there and the sealer was inspired and perfect for us. He said some things that will help us throughout our lives and throughout our marriage. And, not to be sappy but, I’ll never forget kneeling across the altar from Mat. It was the best moment of my life. And on top of that, it was the first time that all 5 kids in my family and their siblings were in the temple together. It was a cool experience. Love you fam! I look forward to Kaysie’s marriage so the Taylor family can experience that.

Take a look at all the pictures to the side. Don’t we look like a happy couple? We had a lot of fun things happen that day. While we were waiting to take the ever-so-common-and-impossible-to-see-anyone-picture-in-the-stairway of the Salt Lake Temple entryway, I looked at the group before us and spotted one of my old mission buddies, Emily Carlson Hartvigsen! She was there for her cousin’s wedding. It was the craziest coincidence.

At the luncheon all of our siblings and parents had the chance to stand up and say something nice about us and it was fun to hear stories of the things that our siblings remember and love. Mat learned that our 4-year-old girls will have the capacity to order pizza and I learned that Mat will be carrying me to bed every night… just because he can.

It rained on our parade mid-day, but my family were troopers and rolled with the punches… and the thunder. Thanks for being so flexible and doing pictures later fam!

The reception was great, my feet hurt like the dickens, and we actually got a little of the food. (Mat and I had heard horror stories of how the bride and groom never got any of the food and we just wouldn’t stand for that so we asked friends to bring us food. Nope, food doesn’t drive our lives at all, not at all… Mmm...carrot cake…salad…)

We spent the next week on our honeymoon on a Mexican Cruise, which was a blast. Again, eating and no responsibility… more eating.. Nope food doesn’t run our lives at all…

We got home on Thursday, drove to Moscow on Friday and had another reception on Saturday, which was wonderful. Mom had the backyard decked out (bless her) and we felt so blessed by all the people that came to congratulate us.

Well, that’s about it for the wedding. It’s been an amazing 3 months. Mat and I have found out new things that make us perfect for each other and realized every day how perfect we really are for each other. Toon in for more blogs on the last three months.

Just for laughs...

My boss sent me this email at work and I thought it was hilarious. Thought I'd share the wealth. (slightly edited to make it PG. :) )

Here is the Washington Post's Mensa invitational -which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are the winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Intaxication (n.): Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

3. Reintarnation (n.): Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

4. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

5. Giraffiti (n.): Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

6. Sarchasm (n.): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the Person who doesn't get it.

7. Inoculatte (v.): To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

8. Osteopornosis (n.): A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

9. Karmageddon (n.): It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

10. Decafalon (n.): The gruelling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

11. Glibido (n.): All talk and no action.

12. Dopeler effect (n.): The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

13. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

14. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

15. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. And the winners are:

1. Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.

3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade, v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.

6. Negligent, adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.

7. Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence, n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.

11. Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

12. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with yiddishisms.

13. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

14. Circumvent, n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

We're Engaged!

Mat completely caught me off guard this last Wednesday, the 4th of February, and asked me to marry him. We had decided to get married 3 weeks before, and had kept it a secret from the world for that whole time. It was actually a comical experience for both of us. In the moment that we decided to get married, people started randomly asking us if we were going to get engaged! Mat and I started having a daily ritual of telling each other the experiences we had had that day where people had asked us and we had to flat out lie to them.

We looked at rings about a week later, about the 21st of January, and I assumed that it would take forever for the whole process to happen, so I was just happily going through life, thinking we wouldn’t actually get engaged for a long time.

Mat was gone last weekend, so when he got back on Sunday, I asked him what his plans were for this week. I had Wednesday free, which was a miracle, so asked if he wanted to do something. He seemed surprised, said he didn’t know what to do, and as I looked at him with a “hmmm…” look on my face he stumbled out, “oh, wanna go get something to eat?” I consented, thinking it would just be another “dinner and hang-out” night, which is fine.

Wednesday came and after nutrition class, which we have together, Mat told me that he had late practice including film and lifting, so he wouldn’t be done until 7:30 or so. Seven-thirty rolled around and Mat came over. When he came in, he looked completely palid—literally pale. I asked him if he was ok, and he said he was just really hungry, which made complete sense. I was putting together a piano with my roommates, so I made Mat wait for a little while until we finished.

We went to dinner at Macaroni Grill, which was really fun. As we walked out, Kyrsten, my best friend and roommate called me saying that she and another of our roommates locked her keys in her car and needed me to go back to the apartment to get Kyrsten’s spare and bring it to them. So Mat and I headed back to my apartment. We pulled into a nearby parking lot where Mat normally parks, but there was a cop there so Mat didn’t want to park. I suggested he just wait in the car and I could run up, but he wouldn’t park there. So then I suggested he do the same in our lot, and I would just run up, but he was bent on going up with me. I guess I just thought he was being chivalrous or something so we went up to the apartment together. As I opened it up and looked in the living room, all I saw was a beautiful array of candles and flowers everywhere, and Mat’s guitar on the couch. He escorted me in and began singing one of my favorite songs that he must have been learning recently (Dark Blue, by Jack’s Mannequin), then got down on one knee, pulled out the ring, and proposed.

Mat told me later all of the funny lies that he had told me, but it didn’t matter. It only made the experience more special and enjoyable. It definitely caught me off-guard, and will be an experience that I will never forget. We will be getting married on the 22nd of May and are so excited.

Just for your entertainment: the funny lies that Mat (and my roommates) told me:
~Mat didn’t have late practice; he was preparing everything for that night
~Mat had told me that he needed to change his shirt because his teammate Rusty had thrown soap at him in the locker room and had splattered his shirt. Amazingly fabricated story; very well told; I totally believed it, yet a FLAT OUT LIE. Pretty hilarious though…
~When he arrived, apparently he had left all of the stuff he needed set up in the apartment in the north stairwell, so when I made him wait while I put together a piano, both he and Kyrsten were a little agitated, trying to get me out of the apartment as soon as possible so she could go get the stuff.
~Mat told me during dinner that he was texting his roommate Vance. Yeah, apparently “Vance” was code for “Kyrsten.” Good work Kyrst.
~Kyrsten told me that she was at Smith’s, where we were supposed to take the key. That’s like 3 blocks from our house. If I would have been smart, I probably should have asked why they didn’t just walk home… yeah… good blonde moment, Amanda….
~Kyrsten doesn’t even HAVE a spare key for her car!!!

Girls...or Mechanics?

Who says girls can't put things together?

Thanks Mom and Dad for the wonderful gift! You are amazing!

Girl's Just Wanna Have Fun...

My roommates and I had a blast the other night making fools out of ourselves by krimping our hair, putting on massive 80's make-up and going out on the town. it was a blast. we felt like we were 16 again. Which brings me to a great discussion question: what are everyone's feelings on bringing back the krimp hairstyle? I'm thinking it would be great. What does everyone think?

The Slanket and the Snuggie

I recently saw an infomercial for a blanket with sleeves, called a Snuggie. Apparently it is just too difficult to hold a blanket around you AND get the phone/use your laptop/hold a child/color in a coloring book/use the remote. Really folks? Are we that lazy of a generation?

I chalked it up to a silly infomercial and had a good laugh, until a few days later I was flipping through the SkyMiles Magazine and found, lo and behold, a snuggie, but it wasn’t called a snuggie. It was now, hold on to your hats folks, a Slanket.

Mat mentioned to me that he used the word as a catch phrase yesterday, which got me to thinking. Can you really turn any word you want into a verb? An expletive? Can you turn it into an adverb or an adjective? So to answer my questions I did what any modern sleuth would have done: I searched the web.

Try it. Enter in Slanket and see what comes up. You might find the following words or phrases: The Slankets (maybe they know the Who’s down in Whoville), The Slanket Kids, or my personal favorite, the verb form, slanketteering. Yes, it is now a verb. What do you suppose it means to slanketteer? And when would you do it? Maybe they’ll make a new movie (obviously called something like “Meet the Slankets,” The Slanket Kid,” or “The Slanket, the Snuggie and the Wardrobe”) and a character may yell, “to the slankets!”, or “frankly my dear, I don’t give a slanket!” or “do or do not, there is no slanketteer.”
Just a thought…

Meet the Parents

Mat came to Moscow to visit over break and it was an entertaining few days...

We went ice skating for FHE and took 7 of the nieces and nephews along. They had so much fun! And let's be honest...so did we. Even the twins (who are not yet 4) enjoyed themselves!

The kids just adored Mat. We often had more than three of them with us at all times, which was great!

Most of the break we just hung out around the house or ran errands. Mat fixed Grandpa's computer and TV (which I think lost me my inheritance to him...) and we went to play games at the church. I think the nieces and nephews enjoyed just chasing Mat around trying to tickle him....
All in all, it was a great vacation...I think I've lost my "favorite Aunt/Uncle" status with the kids though... Any ideas on how to get it back?