1st Married Christmas! Oh and New Years Too.

You know this post is better late than never.

Can I just talk about how much I love Christmas? This year was especially wonderful because I got to take Johnny home for his first Arkansas Christmas. He loved it so much.

We got to spend tons of time with my family and we even hung out with a couple of my old MH friends. The weather was beautiful, so one day, Johnny and I decided to go for a walk around one of the lakes.

We had lunch with my good friend Terra and her boyfriend Jake, but I forgot to get a picture because I'm always on my toes. And the morning we left Arkansas we had breakfast with Erin and her husband Josh. Yay for old friends!

Boo for bad lighting.

We basically just loved spending time with my family and kept things pretty simple. My parents treated us to a nice dinner out and a movie (Sherlock Holmes 2). Because it's been so long since all of this took place, I think I'll just post lots of pictures to tell the rest of the story.

Johnny with his new BFF, Bailey, and Joseph & Clark. Love them all.

Breaking the gingerbread house! Yes, Clark is about 1 year younger than Tanner but 3 times larger.

Bailey loves Papa. Get prepared for lots of Bailey pics, it was my first time to meet her for crying out loud!

I've been waiting for this picture for four months!

Lots of pictures of Emily's kids because our camera died and we had to steal her pictures..

Emily helped me make pillows for part of my present from her. They go so well on our couch under our canvas wall art.

We played tons of ping pong on the table my parents bought on Black Friday. I won't say who generally won and who generally lost.

We sometimes enjoy posing with cute little santa hat cupcakes made my Emily.

My parents are spectacular.

Tanner is quite the budding photographer.

Tanner usually doesn't like me much, but once we put these fake mustaches on we really connected.

This is the best (and coincidentally the only) group shot we got this trip.

We flew back on Wednesday but it wasn't too sad of a farewell because my dad flew into Utah the very next day! He got to come out for Christian and Kim's wedding, which was absolutely perfect. We all love Kim and are so excited to have her as a new cousin! Dad bought himself an air mattress and a new pair of sheets (just more presents for us - they spoil us so much!) and stayed at our apartment as our very first house guest. We loved having him here. Johnny couldn't come to any of the wedding or reception because he was putting in 18 hour days at work (thank you, inventory), so it was so nice to have my dad around.

Super funny but also slightly sad that Johnny's suitcase arrived in Provo without wheels and with new gaping wholes in their place.

The morning Dad left - don't mind that I just woke up and am not wearing any makeup.

Dad left on Saturday just before Johnny finished inventory, so then we went up to Layton to spend New Year's with the Allreds. It was so fun. Claire made delicious sushi, games were played, and we stayed up so late.

Look how wild we are.

1 year ago from the night this picture was taken, we got engaged! We love our lives.

Okay okay, I'm officially headed to bed. It's five after 10 for goodness sake. Yay for responsibility!

Just Two Quick Things I'm Loving Right Now.

1.

the fact that my cute little sister considers my husband to be her big brother. bff's.

2.

the fact that my wonderful husband is a pro at making Christmas sugar cookies. who even knew?

Lights at Temple Square

Classes are officially over! All that's left is finals (no big deal, right?) and then it's Christmas break! So last night, we decided to celebrate. Johnny, Adam and I drove up to Salt Lake to see the lights at Temple Square. We met up with Daren and Margo at Crown Burger (they have delicious gyros!) and then we all headed over to see the lights! It's pretty funny because last year, Adam came with me and Johnny to see the lights, so it's basically tradition at this point.

We even ran into Scott at the lights. He was on a double date with his roommate and a couple of girls from Utah State. Of course Margo and Daren came prepared with hot chocolate and krispy kreme donuts, so we all got to enjoy that together. After our sweet treats, we headed back to Orem. It was such a fun trip. We are loving Christmas more than ever before!

we love this.

So far we are absolutely loving our first Christmas as a married couple. On Saturday, we were busy doing this:

We strung popcorn for basically the entire length of time that BYU dominated Hawaii on Saturday night. And we love having a real tree - it makes our house smell like Christmas all the time! Margo donated lights and ornaments, which really helped because we had absolutely nothing to start with.

After the game ended and we were finished cleaning up our popcorn mess, we watched Miracle on 34th Street and drank hot chocolate. It's basically full on Christmas in the Allred household. Last night we had Laura, Becca, Hannah, and Sarah Michelle Allred over for dinner. Then we ate treats and watched the Christmas devotional.

I hope everyone else is getting in the holiday spirit too!

Just Over 2 Months

Can you tell school and work have kept me busy for the past two months? It's been forever and a day since I last posted. I thought I might as well start again with Thanksgiving!

We spent most of the break up in Layton with the Allreds. It was such a fun visit! We had the whole family together, which is a pretty big deal considering the size of this family. Look how big we are!

Here's one of just me and Johnny.

I love that guy.

On Wednesday, we went on a fly fishing trip. It was my first time and I never even came close to catching anything except for a huge branch, which I felt pretty good about.

When we got back from the fishing trip, Claire and I got busy making pies. She made the most delicious coconut cream pie ever (my fave!) and a lemon meringue pie. I made chocolate cream, banana cream, and apple cream. And Margo made 3 pumpkin pies! We must love pies or something.

Thanksgiving dinner was absolutely delicious! I live for homemade rolls and dressing. It's kind of weird to me that I've been away from home for the last FOUR Thanksgivings. I definitely get homesick, but it is really nice to have been able to go to the Allred's for the past couple of them.

On Friday (when Johnny was back in Orem for work) I went to Aunt Jan and Uncle Don's house in Layton to watch the Arkansas-LSU game. I hate LSU, and I especially hate that they dominated us. But it was still so nice to be around the Lanoys again. I love my family!

On Saturday, Johnny had to work again, so we got up early and drove back to Orem. I got to hang out with Laura, which is always a treat. We went shopping (yay for getting her Christmas present taken care of!), had lunch with Johnny, then came back to my apartment and watched two chick flicks back to back before I had to pick Johnny up from work and head back up to Layton. I know I've probably said this before, but I absolutely love having Laura here with me at BYU! She has saved me so many times. Sometimes I swear she's my big sister and I'm the baby of the fam.

Now that it's officially Christmas time (and I don't have homework this weekend!), we're going to buy a Christmas tree and decorate tonight! I'm so excited. I've always been to cheap to buy decorations here at college, but now that I'm married I figured it's the domestic thing to do. Plus, we'll only be in Arkansas for a week over break, so we'll have lots of time in our house to see the tree. I'm so excited for our first Christmas together! I'll post pics when we get the tree up!

Full Moons, State Fairs, and Other Magical Things

It's been too long since I've posted, so we decided to do some fun things so that I'd have something to blog about. Last week we splurged a little bit and did two very fun activities to break up the boring ol' school routine. We've already had enough of that.

On Monday we went up to Sundance and rode the full moon scenic ski lift ride! It's basically just what it sounds like, so there's probably no need for an explanation there. Besides, a picture says 1,000 words, right?

so much excitement before we even left the ground

There's that full moon I was mentioning. This picture doesn't quite do it justice but it turns out it's kind of difficult slash dangerous taking a picture with Johnny's really nice camera on a ski lift.

Friday was not to be outdone. Johnny and I drove up to Salt Lake to the Utah State Fair. We met up with Daren and Margo and had so much fun with them. I couldn't ask for better in-laws! Of course the ever-prepared Margo brought water bottles, sandwiches, chips, apples, gogurts, and even bridge mix for us to eat. We had been on campus all day and hadn't eaten dinner, and she always seems to have a sense for those things. It was such a good meal she pulled out of her purse for us!

After we ate, we went and checked out some of the exhibits. We even found an 896 pound pumpkin that we instantly deemed picture worthy.

Then we said goodbye to Johnny's parents and met up with my family. Laura, her friend Eldon, and Becca and Hannah all drove up from Provo together to hang out with us! We rode tons of scary rides and ate lots of fair food (mostly in that order, much to our stomachs' delight).

Ever since I introduced him to funnel cake, Johnny has been thankful he married me.

On top of the ferris wheel!

We feel so blessed to have so much family around. Our social lives basically consist of family activities and we love it.

On Saturday we got to babysit our nieces, Gracie and Clara. We had so much fun with them! Johnny was still at work when Sharla and Ben dropped them off, and I was kind of nervous to have two 14 month old babies all by myself for a little bit. But they were so good! And when Johnny got home we had a blast watching them run around and play. They are so dang cute and they made us laugh so much.


Also, I just have to give a quick shout out to my husband. Yesterday, after a long, stressful day, I came home to find so many wonderful surprises. Johnny had cleaned the apartment, made a lovely spaghetti dinner, and even bought my favorite candy for me. He knows the way to my heart.

Seriously - love that guy. And today, I fell in love with him even more! Here's the back-story on this one: There's a boy in my bear den named Noah. Johnny is also Noah's primary teacher, so whenever Noah comes over to our apartment for Cub Scouts, he always looks for Johnny to play with. It's so cute to see how well they get along. Well today, we got this little heart-melter in the mail:

So cute, right? Last week Noah was desperate to know Johnny's middle name. He just kept asking and asking about it. Johnny told him it was "Money Bags" and apparently Noah ran with that.

I can't wait to have cute 9 year old little boys of our own someday - they will love their dad!

Our Wedding Videos are Here!

We made it through our first week of school! Almost.. I get off work at 8:00 tonight and then we're really home free. It's going to be an absolutely crazy semester but I think we might just make it work. I'm on campus from about 8 or 9 each morning until 6 or 6:30 each night (except Friday nights when I work till 8). Johnny is the same on Monday, Wednesday, Fridays, but on Tuesday/Thursdays he leaves campus and works at the plumbing store from 11-6. You'd think that since we're on campus so much that we would be homework free by the time we finally get home, but that's not the case. School and work consume us!

We also started doing P90X again this week. We did it when we were dating and engaged, but this summer we were lazy bums! If you see us with really really huge muscles in the near future you'll know why.

On to the reason for this post - I finally uploaded our wedding videos! There are three of them but don't worry, each one is only a few minutes so hopefully if you watch them you won't get too sick of us. Thanks again to Scott for putting these gems together! He definitely hooked us up and we love them!

Can I just say I love my wedding?

The Last Two Tuesdays of Summer and My Trooper of a Husband

All summer long Johnny and I have had Tuesdays as the only day we both have off work. So Tuesdays became our Saturdays and we've been cramming them full of fun things for our whole marriage. We have a whole list of Utah summer activities we wanted to accomplish this year, but we only have so many Tuesdays in one summer.

As school starts Monday, this past Tuesday was our last day off together and we wanted to go out with a bang. We went to Park City to experience first-hand the thrill of the Alpine Slide! But before we left Orem, Johnny had a follow up appointment with the periodontist. We thought it would be a minor thing, just a couple of stitches and then we'd be out. We were wrong. Johnny had gum graft surgery back in February or March-ish. Apparently some of it didn't take because he had to redo one side of his gums on Tuesday. After this surgery he looked pretty rough - his poor cheek is still swollen. But he was determined to take me to Park City. I tried to convince him to stay home and let me feed him pain pills but he wouldn't have it. So with me behind the wheel and him with one side of his face numbed, off we went!

We drove up Provo Canyon and stopped in Heber at the Dairy Keen for the BEST fresh raspberry shake we've ever had the privilege of indulging in.

Seriously, sooooo delicious. Even if Park City was completely closed, the trip would have been worth it just for that raspberry shake.

Once we got to Park City, we hopped on the ski lift and rode it to the top of the mountain. Then we raced down the Alpine Slide.

We may or may not have interrupted our race for a quick picture.

Then we decided to try out the Alpine Coaster. It is basically a one man roller coaster that you control your own speed on. It was so much fun! I wish we could have done it all day long.

Johnny's view on the coaster.

We finished up with a yummy mango snow-cone and then we were off to the outlet mall! Look how cute my husband is with his swollen face.

We spent a couple hours shopping at the outlets and got Johnny some nice new jeans for $15 as well as a new shirt. He tried to get me to buy something but I think I'm just too picky. We still had so much fun browsing the stores. After that, we made the beautiful drive back to Orem.

Once we made it home, my trooper of a husband decided it was time for a haircut. His mom and I cut it last time for him, but this was my first time to do it alone. We're going to save so much money with me cutting his hair, as long as the emotional damage from having an inexperienced hair dresser doesn't outweigh the cost of regular professional haircuts.

(Before is on the left and after is on the right)

With that full day and a nice 24 marathon to finish up the night, it was definitely one of our best days off all summer!

Last week for our day off we went to Antelope Island! Johnny's family would go there in the summers growing up, so he described it to me with such fond memories. It's like ten minutes from his parents' house and basically it's just an island on the Great Salt Lake. Having lived in Utah for the past three years, I thought it was a crime that I had never been to the GSL. So we planned a little Antelope Island trip with Johnny's sister Jeanette and her three kids. It was definitely quite a bit different than I had imagined but I still loved it. We had a nice picnic lunch and then played in the water which was so salty that even I could float! I was so excited because I can never float, I just sink like a rock.

Alana, McKayla, and Brandon on the way to Antelope Island for their first time! Brandon is much more excited than he looks.

Let me now teach you everything you need to know about brine flies. They are EVERYWHERE at Antelope Island. Just ask Jeanette's van.

My husband the mud monster.

Alana laughed the entire time we were burying her.

I think it's safe to say we all love Antelope Island.

We have had such a spectacular summer but now it's time for school again. I'm taking 16 credits and working 16 hours a week. Johnny is taking 17 credits and working even more than that, so it's going to be a crazy semester. Hopefully we can still see each other from time to time in the coming months. We are getting excited to have everyone back at BYU though! Last night we picked up Laura from the Provo airport and got her settled into her apartment at the Colony (her new apartment is right above my old apartment from sophomore year)! Right before that we had Thai food with my cousin Becca and her mom, Aunt Carol. It's so nice to have these girls back - I've missed them so much this summer!

Life is so exciting right now!