IT'S TRUE.. I WAS MADE FOR YOU!

The cat is out of the bag..

2012-01-25T20:56:00.000-08:00

So Jared and I are excited to finally announce that we are having a baby! We had been talking about when we were going to have kids and we decided we needed to wait until I was done with school. Well I was having a hard time convincing Jared that it was time until his sister Darcie said they were going to start trying for another. After I heard that this was my conversation with Jared:
Me: "Jare, Darcie and Mont are going to have another kid so if we want our kids to have cousins the same age then we need to start trying."
Jared: "Ok."
Me: (seriously it was that easy the whole time??)
We found out the beginning of November that we were expecting but wanted to tell our families after our first doctors appointment. I had my first appointment and then graduated the next day. We made little cards for our parents with a picture of our ultrasound that said: "Card $0.36, envelope $0.05, the look on your face when you see your grandbaby for the first time...PRICELESS! Baby Stokes arriving July 2012." We gave these cards to our moms as we were leaving the Dee events center. My mom stopped to open hers and Billie kept walking. Jared finally had to stop his mom and tell her to open it and when they did we were all in tears. Everyone probably thought we were being ridiculous bawling at a graduation.
Everything has been going great! I haven't been too sick and my doctor says the baby is looking great. She told us today that we were having a little girl. Jared suspected it all along but I thought it was a boy. We are so excited! A little girl is going to be so fun! We thought we were 16 weeks today but our doctor said she is measuring 17 weeks- which is awesome! Anyways we cannot wait for this phase in our lives! I know it will be hard and a complete change but we welcome change!

End of the year happenings!

2012-01-02T19:31:00.000-08:00

November we threw a shower for my sister in law Ali and her little guy.

Jared turned 24. For his birthday he wanted to go out and shoot his swan. He took his pup and had a great time.

Jared loves his Wige!

We went to Wendover on the fun bus with the Buehlers and the Boultons. I was some drunk guys good luck charm and he gave me $100 and then I won another 60 so we came out ahead!

We had cake and ice cream to celebrate.

All of the sisters at Abby's madrigal dinner

I graduated with my RN. My parents, in laws, little sisters and husband went to my graduation and then I snuck out early to go Maddox.

We went down and saw the lights at temple square with some friends from the ward The Webb's. We went to dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory and then walked around. It was such a fun night!

We hosted our second annual ugly sweater party. We had our families over for pizza, games and the ugly sweater contest.

Cami just had her wisdom teeth out so she was trying to not look so swollen!

Christmas eve Jared and I both worked at the hospital. Christmas morning we got up opened some presents and went over to grandma Stokes'. We had breakfast and opened presents. We then went out to my parents for dinner and presents. I was supposed to work Christmas night but was so sick and had to call in. My sweet husband was so good to me! I just love him!!

December 29th we got a new nephew. He is the first grandkid on the Thornley side so my parents were super excited. He is so so cute and has got tons of reddish hair!

Vegas Ragnar

2012-01-01T18:34:00.000-08:00

Jared's aunt Shelley invited us to run the Vegas Ragnar in October. It was the best relay that we ran this year because it was all family on our team! The race started at Lake Mead and went to a park in Vegas. Jared, me, Darcie, Mont, Angie and Aunt Shelley were in our burb. It was a fun relay but so hot! It was awesome to meet up at the major exchanges and hang out with the family. When we ran our last leg Jared's parents met up with us and followed. We had a great time and had an amzing outcome at the end of the race ;)

Jared's cousin Matt conquering the hill

Van 2

Van 1

Jared out on his first leg.

Where we slept..

The dance crew of our group

All the girls in our burb

Mont headed out for his last leg

Me running my last leg.

So glad to be done with my last leg!

Jared's aunt Shelley was having a hard time with her last leg so Billie came out and walked with her!

There were burrows along the side of the road. They were so friendly!!

Mike ran part of the race! We had a weed sprayer that we filled with water to cool us down so anytime Jared ran past Mike would run with him and cool him down!

Jared finishing his last leg

Angie passing off to Darcie for the last time!

The stokes' at the finish line

October Happenings

2011-11-06T12:44:00.000-08:00

October has been a crazy month! I started my preceptorship in September and finished in October. Basically I followed a nurse for her full time schedule for 4 weeks. I was at Lakeview in the ER and PACU! I loved the ER but did not like the pace of recovery room. That along with school and work left me no time for me or Jared. This semester is Jared's busiest with a ton of clinical hours. We had a few days here and there to do some stuff but are so glad that crazy time is out of the way!
Jared's favorite season started! Water fowl season! I actually got my hunters safety so I can go out to.. I haven't yet!

My mom, me and my grandma went to Gardiner's Village to see the witches. We had lunch and spent way too much money! But I did find a pattern to make stockings for me and Jared

We stayed in St. George and then Vegas to Run the Vegas Ragnar (which will get its own post)

I watched Abby run her last region cross country race

We went out to dinner at Corbin's for my dad's birthday!

I love my dad!!

We had bunco at Cami's house and had a costume party!

Joanna

2011-11-06T12:24:00.000-08:00

A couple months ago we got our little puppy! We named her Joanna (per Jared's request) and we love her!! Her name comes from the movie Rescuers Down Under. It's the name of the big kimodo dragon that is trying to steal the eggs. The mean guy always yells "JO-ANN-A" so Jared wanted a puppy he could yell "JO-ANN-A" too. She is a yorkie and such a loveable puppy! Her and Wigeon don't get along because he always wants to eat her. We just love her!

She loves to hide in our house, in random spots!

Even though she's tiny she loves to eat!!

Her hair is so funny! The top of her hair is white and long so she looks like she's balding!

Aunt Darcie bought her a hat and scarf for the cold weather. She was so mad when she was wearing it!

We love to dress her up in little shirts!

Lava and the Duck Boat

2011-11-06T06:27:00.001-08:00

My parents have been looking at buying property up in Lava for awhile now. Lava holds a special place in my heart because it's where Jared and I got engaged. They finally found a piece they wanted to buy and we have had so much fun on it! We have been up several times to go four-wheeling, sit in the hot pots and eat thai food! It has been so much fun and I am super excited to have a cabin on it someday! My parents are super excited about it! It was supposed to snow a day in October so my dad drove up to the property, got a handful of snow and put it in his cooler to show my mom later!!

Me and Jare in the hot pots

Me and my sisters

Me getting ready to go

Tessa and her friend. The leaves were so pretty!

Abby and her friend

My parents

Before the duck hunt started Jared wanted to go scout some areas on his duck boat. He took me and the pups and we had family night out on the swamps. Wigeon was so excited he jumped out of the boat a couple of times. Jo was just content to sit in my sweater and watch everything!

Jared

Me and the pups

I love how Wigeon is poking his head around!

Crane Hunt

2011-10-02T19:46:00.001-07:00

September, right after school started Jared went to Wyoming for the crane hunt. He was going with a buddy but the buddy decided to take his wife so I thought I'd join in on the fun since I had the days off. We went up after Jared got off work and drove to the huge town of Farson Wyoming. Jared and Jeremy talked to this guy that gave him permission to hunt their field and then we found a little spot to camp and slept in the bed of the truck. The next morning we got up hella early and Jared set up his blinds and his decoys and I laid in one of the blinds and fell asleep. It was freezing and I kept walking up and moving my toes to make sure they weren't frozen. After shooting started they had some geese come over and Jared and his buddy each shot one (it was an early goose hunt too). We waited for another couple hours and no cranes came over us so Jared and Jeremy went to go stalk some. This time me and Jody just hung out in the car and waited for the men to come back. After awhile we heard some shots and not too long after they both came up the road with a crane. Never in a million years would I have imagined myself laying in a duck blind, but I actually didn't hate it! I was so excited and proud of my hubby! It was some quality time together and that's what we needed!
Had to stop at Mcdonalds for 50 chicken nuggets on the way down..

Love campfires!

In his layout blind

Don't I look awesome in camo? ha

Jeremy and Jody

Jared with his goose

I was so happy to see them walk up the road with these

Jared and Jeremy with their birds

It was EPIC!

2011-09-22T13:19:00.000-07:00

Back in August Darcie and I ran the Epic relay from Logan to Jackson Hole. I loved it!! It was a beautiful course, I had less miles than Ragnar and I actually knew people in my van!! Also my awesome husband and brother in law volunteered to be the drivers so we all partied together!! We started out early Friday morning and took my parents suburban to Logan. Darcie was the first runner and I was the second. I ran through Richmond, Grace, ID; and Etna, WY. It was so much fun and we signed up to do it next year!! So excited!!
Me and Darce at the start line

Me and Jare ready for my run

Jare came out and ran with me

Our van

Our drivers Jared and Mont

Darcie and Mont out running

Just runnin

Done with my last leg!!

I killed Patty twice. I think she's gonna throw up.

Me and Jare in front of Palisades. So pretty!

Our van minus Ashley. By Palisades.

Honey buckets

End of summer

2011-08-17T10:20:00.000-07:00

Summer is unfortunately coming to an end and we are getting ready to go back to school. We have been doing so much fun things before we have to head back!
We celebrated our two year anniversary with the Boulton's and the Buehler's! We went shopping for most of the day. Went to Riby River for dinner and raced go carts at Boondocks. We had so much fun and I am so glad that I married this amazing man!! I love you Jare!!

The guys

The girls

I went hiking with the boys the other day. They had a blast!! I hope when me and Jared start a family our kids will have close cousins to play with!!

Cutest buddies!

For the 24th of July we had my family over for a barbecue and some fireworks. Nothing too exciting but we always have fun when we're together!!

Sparklers

Cute Jare

Wige

Can you see some feet??

We spent the annual Samson family reunion at Cherry Hills. We drove up for the day and went swimming all day and then miniature golfing that night. It was fun to see family that we don't see very often!

mini golfing

Me and Sky at Cherry Hills

Happy Anniversary!!

2011-07-29T06:51:00.000-07:00

Two years ago was the best day of my life!! I was able to be married for time and all eternity to the most amazing man ever! It was the perfect day! I was so nervous the day before our wedding. Jared and I had a ton of stuff that needed to be done so I got up and texted him and received a text back saying Babe I've got some bad news.. I think I have the flu. I thought he was teasing but after going to his house and seeing how sick he really was I was devastated and convinced he wouldn't make it to our wedding the next day (i'm convinced he got food poisoning from his bachelor party the night before, ha ha). I rode to Salt Lake with my parents and we stayed in our condo which is right across the street from the temple. My sweet mom ordered chinese food and we did manicures and pedicures. I went to bed that night still super worried about Jared but hoping for the best! The next morning I woke up early and couldn't go back to sleep, I was so excited!! I called Jared who reported that he was feeling much better! I started getting ready and had Cami do my hair and by then Jared and his parents were at our condo. We all walked over to the temple together. It was such an amazing feeling to have my mom and mother in law helping me get ready to be married and sealed to Jared. I got ready and met Jared and we sat with each other in the celestial room until our sealer came and got us. He led us to our sealing room and I was amazed at all the friends and family that were there for us. We knelt across the altar and were sealed for time and all eternity! AMAZING!! After that my mom helped me to get ready to go out for pictures. Jared had never seen my wedding dress. He was old fashioned and said he didn't want to see it until we were married and he couldn't really see what it looked like in the temple. When we met up to walk out together the look on his face was priceless and I'm so glad we waited for that. We then walked out to meet our families and took a ton of pictures. Our wedding luncheon was at Chuck a rama because we had so many people. Jared was still nervous to eat anything and so many people wanted to talk so we didn't have much time to eat. I thought we would have tons of time that day but it seems like we were in a rush to get everywhere on time! After the luncheon we met our families at Tuscany gardens for pictures and our reception. I LOVED my reception!! It was so low stress! We went there a couple times before and picked out colors, food, cake, flowers and music. We got a ton of comments about our cake and flowers! The night went by too fast and before we knew it it was time to cut the cake and time for our first dance. We finished up the night in a limo taken up to a condo in Wolf creek. It was the perfect day and I married a man that was perfect for me! We have done so much in two years!! WE: bought a car, bought and remodeled our house, got a dog (soon to be two), both finished up associates degrees, both got into our programs at Weber, both got jobs at Davis, gone to Mexico, gone on mini vacations, and are both still madly in love with each other! Everyone tells me now that we hit the two year mark that the honeymoon is over but I can only see it getting better and better!! Thanks for the best two years of my life Jared!! I love you more than anything!!

The Crazy month of July!!

2011-07-21T12:20:00.000-07:00

For some reason July always ends up being the busist month of the summer!! I love it but it makes the summer fly and we have to go back to school in a month :( We have been busy hanging out with family and working. I'm so proud of my hubby, he got hired on at the same hospital as me so he has been working a lot too. We've had a lot of fun so far and still have the Samson family reunion and our anniversary to look forward to!
We started out the month with celebrating the 4th of July. I had to work until 7 and then we went over to the Stokes' and hung out with family, ate good food and watched fireworks.

Jared wanted me to come and get some pictures of him and his dad hauling hay. I never knew my handsome husband was a farm boy at heart.

Ang and Bronner

I absolutely love this picture of Jared and his dad!!

My sweet mom decided to take my grandma, Cami and me on a trip to Oregon. There is a big outdoor quilt show in Sisters Oregon every year and she wanted my grandma to go to one. She rented a SUV and we made the long trek across the ugly part of the state. We spent a lot of time in the car sewing, reading and listening to the hunger games (again!!). It was so nice to have just the girls and be able to stop whenever we wanted and to shop for as long as we wanted! I brought home a bunch of new projects that I am so excited to get started on!! It was a quick but such a fun trip!!

After dinner in Bend

Cami mom and grandma in sisters

Sisters quilt show

Me and Jare went to classic waterslides with Ang, Darce and the kids. I seriously have THE cutest nieces and nephews!!

Last friday we ran the first ever Legacy midnight run. We ran the 10k and the goal of the race was to beat the midnight hour. The girls were only 3 minutes off but the boys beat it. We ran with glowsticks and had so much fun! Jared and Abby got 3rd in their age divisions. Mont got 2nd in his and 4th overall. My Jare took 10th overall. He's turning out to be quite the runner!

The crew in our matching outfits

The girls waiting for the race to start

Our outfits

After the race we spent the night in Salt Lake and went to the farmers market and shopping at the gateway

Jare and I went to Clinton days with the Buehlers and watched the boys ride rides and watched fireworks.

I took a drive up to Logan the other day and met Jess for lunch. We've been friends since we were teeny. We were born 10 days apart and grew up in the same ward and went to the same schools. Her hubby plays basketball professionally so they are only around during the summer and I knew I needed to take advantage and see her. She just had a baby and he was so cute and sweet! It was so nice to catch up!

After lunch with Jess I went and saw another old friend that lives in Logan. Sorry Britt I didn't get any pictures but we had a nice chat! It's so fun to get together and see how much has changed!

Ragnar and Hiking

2011-06-28T09:36:00.000-07:00

Jared and I ran Ragnar this year. For those of you that don't know what it is it's a relay race from Logan to Park City with 12 people on a team. Each person on the team runs 3 legs and you switch off. This year I was the first runner so I ran legs 1, 13, and 25. My first leg was supposed to be 7 miles but we all went the wrong way so it ended up being about 7 1/2. My second leg was 8.3 miles down old snowbasin road and my last leg was 4.8 miles from Oakley to Kamas. You are running early in the morning and our other van ran during the middle of the night. Jared and I were not on the same team. He was on a team with a girl he works with at the hospital and I replaced a girl that I work with because she was pregnant. It was lonely without Jared but it was fun to text him and tell him what he had to look forward to and to see where he was at. Our team had quite the excitement and ended up in the ER Friday night due to one of our team members being dehydrated. After our van had finished everyone's last legs we drove into Park City and ate some real food and I met up with Cami. We shopped for a bit and then Jared's team had finished up so I went and met him and we went to the finish line together and waited for our teams to come in. Jared's team came in about an hour after my team finished (they started 7 hours after us so they made good time!). It was so awesome and I am looking forward to doing Vegas Ragnar in October!! I didn't get many pictures of the race but here is me starting out my first leg.

My team Far from normal

Jared's team finishing

Jared and I are Ragnar finishers!!!!

We went walking down by the parkway and it was crazy everything that we saw! We saw a bunch of pheasants, some quail, two snakes, a toad and this little guy! He was one funny looking turtle!

Jared and I decided to go on a hike yesterday. We invited Dallen and took Wigeon! It was nice and sunny and such a pretty hike! We went up to waterfall canyon and had such a good time!

Little Wigeon was such a trooper!! He prob went double the distance of the rest of us because he would run up ahead and then run back. We got to one part that was really steep and rocky so Jared decided he needed to carry him so he didn't fall off. Cute little Wige licked Jared's face the entire time he carried him. He was probably just excited he didn't have to walk. ha ha such a cute pup!

Big D, Jare and Wige at the top

Me and Jare at the top

Me and the pup

Jared shot a fox the other day. He was so proud but Wigeon didn't know what to think of it..

Doesn't feel like it yet, but Summer so far

2011-05-30T20:35:00.000-07:00

Meet the newest addition to our family.. Wigeon! He's Jared's little hunting dog but he is so cute! We got him the middle of may and Except for the potty training he's awesome! Love this little pup!

First bath

Just a boy and his pup

Wigeon stayed pretty close to Jared the whole time

We went and searched the ditches for asparagus and got a ton!

Jared and I ran the Ogden Half Marathon the middle of May! The weather cleared up perfectly that day so that we didn't freeze! Jared did awesome and only missed last years time by one minute! I was SLOW!! I didn't have Darcie to push me the last three miles like last year and finished 15 minutes slower. Right before the first marathoner came in! Holy fast!!

My sweet family drove up to cheer me on!

The whole family ran!

Darcie ran the full marathon this year! She did awesome!

For memorial weekend we went camping in Lava with my fam and Jared's fam. We got rained on most of the time but it was so fun and nice to get away for awhile!

Mike and Dad! They're so funny when they get together!

Me and Jared

Around the campfire..

My mom and me. I tried to take 20 pictures of me and her together but she blinked in EVERY one of them so this is the best I've got..

Jared and his peeps

School's out for the summer!!

2011-05-01T12:37:00.000-07:00

It doesn't feel like it but school is done for the summer! At least for me! jared goes full time during the summer which will suck but he's done in June so its okay! We spent some time with our families for Easter and my birthday. Both days were so good! I love my two families!
My birthday!

Jared and dad

Eating ice cream

For Easter we went out to my parents and shot our new 20 gauge and ate. After we went to the Stokes' for more food and the kids Easter egg hunt

Our last clinical! The whole group!

new stuff

2011-04-03T20:53:00.000-07:00

We are winding down! Not too much longer till we are done! We've had a lot of fun lately!
Cute little Abby went to prom. She looked so beautiful!!

The girls

For spring break we decided to take a mini vaca. We went to Wendover with Darcie, Mont, mike and Billie. We lost a little money but had so much fun! It was just the break I needed to have the motivation to finish out the semester.

Hanging out!

Saturday all of the girls got together at my house for crafts while the guys were in priesthood. We made owls and they are so cute!!

Love these tough guys!

Ollie the owl

Our finished owls!

Life is GOOD!

2011-03-10T20:48:00.000-08:00

Have I ever said how much I love this kid because I do.. SO MUCH!! I don't know how he puts up with me but he does! I have these little breakdowns almost weekly now and he just lets me and is so funny about it. I love school I really do...and I love my job (some days more than others) but the combination of the two sucks sometimes! When I got accepted to the program we decided I had to keep working full time to keep ahead but I didn't realize how hard it would be! These last couple weeks have been crazy!! So this is my typical week, it's awesome that I work 12 hour shifts because I can work 3 days a week and still be full time so I do that and then Monday have school from 12-4:30 Tuesday clinicals from 5am-3pm and Wednesday school from 12-7:30. Add in some random psych clinicals that are 8 hours and what do you get?? 4 weeks with no days off!! Holy cow it has been crazy! Add that to switching from days and nights pretty often and you get emotional Katie! I came home from work one night and was onery and mean to Jared so I just went to bed.. Well that just made things worse and me more onery and I just started crying. Jared is in the next room studying and this is how it went. Me: "Jared??" Jare: "What?" Me: "Will you come in here?" Jare: "I don't know are you going to be nice to me?" Me: "Just come here" So Jared comes in our room and by this time I was sobbing! Jared: "What's wrong?" Me "I..I.. du-du-don't know! I..I..ju-ju-just can't stop crying." Jare: "Why?" Me: "I don't know!!" Jare: "So you're crying for no reason?" Me: (still sobbing)"Its just too much!" By this time Jared was probably thinking what kind of lunatic did I marry?? So he proceeded to calm me down and tell me we had 2 weeks until spring break and then when we got back only 4 weeks of school left and that YES I could actually survive that long. At least we could get a good laugh after the fact! So spring break next week and then 1 month of school!! Hooray!! So excited for summer! Jared unfortunately has to go summer semester but only until the end of June. We've got a couple races planned to get us back in shape and then back to school in August for my supposed easiest semester of nursing school! Yippee!! Anyways! I don't think I've ever written this much on my blog but I've got one more story to tell because I want to remember this! So Tuesday marked the one year mark since we got our offer accepted on our house! Holy cow it has gone by so fast! I remember the date because it was my little sisters birthday. So last year me and Jared decided that maybe we should start looking at houses while they were doing the 8k tax credit. So we started looking on KSL and then realized we had a friend that was a relator and called him. So we had been looking at houses for a month or so and it was starting to drag on and I was getting impatient! I wanted a house!! We had put offers on one in RIverdale and one in Roy and hadn't gotten them accepted so one day Jared decided we should just go out looking in neighborhoods that we liked. Only problem was the neighborhoods we liked were more expensive then we wanted to go. Well we pulled up to this cute little gray house that had a for sale sign and called on it and it was in our price range!! It was a HUD home which I thought meant a crappy house but turns out it's just a house that someone with an FHA loan (pretty much a first time homebuyer) had defaulted and the government took over ownership of the home. I liked it and we put it an offer. Two days later Jarad (our relator) called and said our offer was accepted! Woo hoo! My family was going to be in Ogden for dinner for Abby's birthday so we asked if he would open it up so we could go through it and Jared called his family to come over. It was 8 or 9 at night and dark and the house had no power so we went through it with flashlights and a ton of people! Well my parents were leaving and someone yells inside the house "Someone called the cops." WTH? So me and Jared walked out and this guy is on our grass yelling "This house is not for sale!" (while standing next to the for sale sign in the yard) And kept arguing with us until Jarad showed him the papers saying that we had our offer accepted on the house. So my dad seems pissed and are leaving and my brother in law Jared (enough Jareds for you yet? Welcome to my life.) Pulls out and yells "everybody leave the cops are coming." ha ha ha! The neighbor settled down and just left and my dad called me and said that apparently this guy and him started getting into it and it was the closest he had come to getting into a fist fight in 20 years. So funny! Needless to say we haven't talked to that neighbor, he's probably still embarassed, but I think it's a hilarious story. Welcome to the neighborhood huh??

Behind as always!

2011-02-22T14:51:00.000-08:00

Good news! Jared and I are halfway done with the semester!! Woo hoo! Life has been so busy! We are going to school 3-4 days a week and I'm working full time but we still have time to squeeze in some fun! School is going great! Just super busy! I'm doing all my clinicals at Ogden Regional and it's going okay. But it seems like this is what we spend most of our time doing....

Grandma and grandpa Stokes gave us tickets to the jazz game on new years day! We went down with the Boultons, Buehlers and Egberts!
Go Jazz!

me and Cami started a tradition of going to lunch for each others birthdays. For Cami's birthday we went to a little Italian restaurant in North Ogden. The food was great and the company even better!

Mom and Nina

Jared has a new obsession with snowmobiles and convinced his dad to buy three so we took one of them and my dad's up to Monte Cristo snowmobiling! Me and Angie only rolled twice and Jared threw me off once but it was a fun trip!
Buehler Family

Jare

snowmobiling

Of course for Valentine's this year I had school and Jared had clinicals. We both got done early and the Spendloves invited us to dinner at Tepanyaki! It was amazing as always! Jare surprised me with some gorgeous flowers!

My cute valentine!

Cami and Jared

My cute parents

Abby and Tessa

Cami and mom

2011-01-01T08:25:00.000-08:00

We've had a great winter break! Jared and I were able to spend lots of time together before we both start school again and it has been so fun!
We went to dinner at Ligori's for Christmas eve!

We had an ugly sweater party at our house with some of our family members.
Our Ugly sweaters

The girls

Can you guess who won the prize for the ugliest sweater??
All the guys

We went to Island Park for a couple of days with my family. We hung out at the bishop's cabin, played games, went snowmobiling and of course ATE a lot of good food!
Our new Christmas outfits

The Cabin

Mesa Falls

I was scheduled to work Christmas day which I was bummed about, but I was put on call all day! So nice! We woke up and opened our presents. My sweet husband surprised me with a new camera and a gift certificate for a couples massage. We then went to grandma and grandpa Stokes' to have breakfast and do our traditions there. And finally we went out to my parents house were we had an amazing Christmas dinner (my dad never disappoints) and opened presents. We were so spoiled!
Hammer model??

Ummmm.. Abby??

Little homemakers...

Hmmm... what could it be??

Tony and the Spendlove fam

Dad and his diet coke.. need I say more??

Cutest boy ever!

Angie, Bron, me and Averee

Christmas breakfast at the Stokes'

I love my family!

Fall into Winter

2010-12-11T12:23:00.000-08:00

These pictures are really out of order but this is our activities lately!
I went to Park City with my sisters and mother in law for some Christmas shopping! We had so much fun!
Us being silly!

Dinner

Sisters

toes

Big hair Darcie!

I Love decorating for Christmas!!

downstairs Christmas decorations

Our Christmas present for the year so we can keep our butts in gear during the winter!

Christmas tree up and decorated!!

My madre and me made this Christmas tree skirt last year.. Love it!

When we were in Park City the guys came up to stay for a night so we hung out and then decided to drive home at 2am so no one had to sleep on the floor. I came home and was like why is the kitchen/dining room in our front room??

Jared painted the kitchen while I was gone! We've wanted to do it for awhile but haven't.. We still need to replace the light in the dining room though..

kitchen

We drove out to Tremonton after eating Thanksgiving with the Stokes family. Decorating gingerbread houses/trains at Grandma Palmer's with my cuz Cody

Thanksgiving at the Stokes'

Me and the sisters in law saw Lifehouse in concert. So amazing!! We were pretty close but there were so many drunk people around us! Made for an exciting night!

Random guy.. Ha ha

Desperation!

Trying to be sexy

I went to Disney on ice with sisters in law and mother in law and their kids! Love these boys!

These boys were so into it!

Jared finally caught up to me and turned 23. We had cake and ice cream at our house with his fam.

And ate at the coppermill for dinner. So good!

Other than that things are going great! Jared is done for the semester and working a ton. We both start school in January. I have 2 semesters to complete my RN and Jared will be done the semester after me!

Happy Birthday!!

2010-11-18T11:56:00.000-08:00

Happy 23rd Birthday to my handsome husband!! He's such a good man and I am so lucky to have him!!

I love fall!

2010-10-27T18:27:00.000-07:00

Did I ever mention that I love fall? Well I do!! Pics below
My cute quilt I made..

Abby running region

our outdoor decorations

B's Halloween party, me and Jare in our borrowed gangsta costumes

Cutest Skylee and Bronny

The sistas trying to be sexy

The beginning of Fall 2010

2010-10-10T21:53:00.000-07:00

Are geese taking over my lawn or is it water fowl season???

nope just all of Jared's decoys..

Yep looks like water fowl season is in full swing already! Jared was so excited to get out and shoot some geese on opener morning. We are staying super busy with work and Jared's school! I am so excited that it's fall! i love this season! Especially decorating for it! Anyways here is what we've been up to..
He's such a poser! ha ha gotta love him!

Dinner at Iggy's

Right before priesthood session

We had family pictures on Saturday out at the spiral jetty. I'm so excited to see how they turned out. I think they're going to be awesome!
Me and Cam

Jared being...well Jared

Most of the girls in our fam

Aww... He loves me!

Where has the summer gone??

2010-08-21T22:48:00.000-07:00

We've had a busy summer and it's gone by way too fast!! Jared had one class to finish up before he started the program so that's probably what made it fly! We've had fun at the family reunion, baseball game, working around the house and a lot of other things. Here's the pictures to prove it :)

The boys at the Raptors game

Jared and Sky

I love Boston's face!

Fishing up in Manti, look father like son

Jare's huge fish

Me and Jare at the Manti pool

The girls at Yuba

Me and Jare at gma and gpa Stokes's 50th anniversary party

Jared and Skylee at Gma and gpa Stokes

One Year!!

2010-07-31T00:40:00.000-07:00

Jared and I hit our one year anniversary on Thursday! We had so much fun celebrating! We went on Wednesday to Park City and stayed over night. While we were there we did the zipline and alpine slide, shopped at the outlets and of course ate good food! Thursday our actual anniversary Jared had his last day of class so we had to head back for that. After class we went to the batting cages and hit a bunch of pitches and then ate our cake. So much fun! It was such a great anniversary and I'm looking forward to an eternity more!

Eating our cake!

Jared at the batting cages

P.S. We found out this week that Jared will be doing clinicals at the same hospital that I work at! Kind of random but we met the director of radiology at Davis up to East Canyon when we went to celebrate our brother in laws birthday. We talked to him and he was impressed enough with Jared that he said he'd check and see if there was a spot to do clinicals at Davis so Jared wasn't driving to West Valley three times a week. Turns out there wasn't a spot but he arranged with Weber to have him come here still. It's amazing the way everything works out!

Weekends

2010-07-15T20:46:00.000-07:00

First off.. I love this picture of Jared and his dad! They were over at the barn cutting cows one weekend. Aren't they handsome?!?

We had a great 4th of July weekend! Spent Saturday at Willard (without Jared-boo!) But had fun boating and tubing with the Stokes's!

We had a little barbeque at our house on the 4th with my fam.

I love these guys faces! apparently something was hilarious!

Me and my man

Mom and Cami

Our little house to this point..

That's about it for now! Jared is just finishing up his last prerequisite for the rad tech program so summer has been a little slow. There is a possibility that his clinic site will be closer than West Valley but we find out for sure in August. And our anniversary is less than 2 weeks away! Crazy!!

Life changes fast!

2010-05-31T10:17:00.000-07:00

Crazy how much life can change in just two years!! Me and Jared met about two years ago when we were headed down to Havasupai on a trip with a bunch of friends. Who knew it would evolve into this! And then a year ago over Memorial weekend Jared "took the plunge" and proposed to me! I love it! Now we are making a house into our little home and Jared found out last week what he's going to do with the rest of his life! He applied for the radiology program hoping to just get an interview, which he did. Got a letter the end of April saying he was an alternate and then found out last week that he got into the program! He's so smart and so driven! I am so lucky to be his wife!!
This past weekend we went up to Yuba lake to do some camping. Enjoy!

Us on the beach

Jared and Bronny

I love this kid in his train conductor hat!

The water was so cold! Someone dared all the guys to jump in so they were showing how tough the are. HA!

Must've been bad because they were swimming pretty fast to get back in the boat!

The guys after jumping in the cold lake!

The only room I felt was done enough to take a picture of.. the master bedroom

Love this picture! These two loved to help! Big D and Grandpa Samson painting

Family room downstairs right after we painted it.

Front Yard

Our Front yard was a little overgrown but Jared took care of that!

quickie update

2010-05-24T22:55:00.000-07:00

We are finally moved into our house and I love it! We (meaning Jared) have just been working on little projects since we have been in, like installing light fixtures so once we have the final product I WILL post pics! I love the color though! I think it really updates our house! And our jetted tub is amazing!!! The only problem I have with the house at this moment is we haven't put our blinds up so we have no privacy! It kinda sucks to have to think to cover up before I walk out of the shower (sorry TMI.. ha ha). Jared, me and Darcie ran the Ogden half marathon about a week ago and all ran it in the times that we wanted! Jared did awesome for his first! I was jealous! So there's a quick update and I promise pictures are coming soon! P.S. I am so grateful for eternal families and love mine!!

House and graduation

2010-05-10T07:56:00.000-07:00

Our updates on our house are coming nicely! We have all of the upstairs painted (well minus the bathroom and kitchen, but everywhere that carpet is going) and downstairs have mudded the walls and rebuilt the wall in the spare bedroom. I really love our house! It was a long process and it was frustrating at times but now that it's all coming together it was totally worth it! This house had everything we were looking for! We wanted something that we could grow in so that when we decide to have kids we wont be cramped in, something with an open floor plan, something a little newer (our house was built in 1991 so its new enough)and a good neighborhood. The way we actually found this house was we were driving around neighborhoods that we liked and saw the for sale sign and called our agent about it. I definitely would buy a HUD home again. I thought HUD was a house that needed work but it actually is a FHA loan (first home buyers loan) that someone could not pay for. We ended up getting a good deal since it is a HUD home and really all it needs is cosmetic work. So here is a tour of our house (and remember these are the before pictures)!
The blue room

Living room. It looks so good right now with the new paint, just waiting on carpet!

Love the dining room! Love the natural light and how spacious it is. The doors lead out to the deck.

Really like the kitchen!

Downstairs bathroom, blue cultured marble

Colorful downstairs bedroom

One of the downstairs bedrooms, it had some water damage. We just had to reframe the wall and it looks good! Jared and his dad did it Saturday morning.

Family room downstairs, I think this will be my favorite room to hang out in!

Family room downstairs

Storage/wash/mud room! Lots of storage!

The walls in the master bedroom, I was worried that black would be hard to cover up!

Master bedroom closet

We pulled out the cupboard and desk from the family room

Darcie doing what she does best...vacuuming!

Billie pulling up carpet

The blue room was really beat up if you can't tell. All those white spots on the wall are mud from patching the walls!

Pink cultured marble in the master bath, hey at least we do have a jetted tub in there. That'll be nice!

Grandpa Samson came out to help

My mom graduated from college with her Bachelors in Business on Saturday! We were so proud of her and all her hard work. She's been going to school I think for 8 years.. And what is she doing next... More school! In the fall she's going to be teaching and working on her masters degree at USU! Congrats Mom! She graduated summa cum laude which means she had awesome grades!

Dad, Mom and Logan (one of my dad's former employees)

The family minus Jared St

Graduation Dinner at Maddox

Jared, Me and Abby

Pictures of the house coming soon!

2010-05-05T09:35:00.000-07:00

We have been homeowners for over a week now! It hasn't really hit me since we haven't lived there yet but at least we're working on it finally! It has been a lot of work so far and there's still so much to do! We've ripped up all the carpet, mudded and sanded all the walls upstairs and painted the front room and our bedroom. The people that lived there before did some weird things to the walls in our bedroom! And the people that built the house must have had a fetish with pink and blue because our bathrooms are pink and blue cultured marble! Who does that? Anyways I'm excited to get the upstairs finished and then be able to start working on the downstairs. We have new carpet coming next week so we're trying to get everything done! We've had so much family help us so far and it's been great! Even Jared's grandpa is showing up to help! Anyways I'll post our before pictures pretty soon and then hopefully we'll have after pictures in a couple weeks!

Hello pics!

2010-04-02T08:48:00.000-07:00

It's a little backwards but here's what we've been doing the past couple of months!

We are in the process of buying this cute little house!

We hung out at the cabin

We went to Schofield

We bought jawbreakers and

We had a contest

We saw Justin and Tisha in St. George!

We went to Lacy and Daniel's wedding!

We saw Katie and Lloyd in St. George!

We celebrated Valentine's day (my amazing husband refinished this end table! It looked amazing!)

We watched the superbowl

We had girl's night

We celebrated 6 months of marriage at Maddox (now 8!!)

We celebrated Cami's birthday!

We found out how big of geeks my parents were!

We went fishing!

We celebrated Christmas!

We spent a lot of time with family!

We went to temple square with the family in December!

We celebrated Jared's 22 birthday in November!

Some news...

2010-03-09T07:15:00.000-08:00

Our offer got accepted on a house! As long as there aren't any major problems we should be closing in about a month! I can't even wait!!

2009-12-06T19:58:00.000-08:00

We took a trip down to St George and finally got our pictures back from Katie! I thought she did a great job! I love how they turned out! Here's a couple of our favorties! I love being married! Jared is the greatest husband!

Wedding Pics

2009-12-06T19:30:00.000-08:00

2009-10-27T11:36:00.001-07:00

Couple Pictures of what's going on lately.. Jared's goose he shot and some ducks, my dad's birthday, Abby at region cross country (2nd overall good job girl!!) and just hanging out. Enjoy

We're Still Alive!

2009-10-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

Life has been so crazy busy lately and we don't have the internet at our apartment so I never have time to blog. Sad! But life is so good! Jared and I are staying way busy! I'm still working full time at Davis and am loving it! (Well except for the mean patients I get, but oh well) I also am working 2-3 days a week doing pediatric home care. Its not my favorite but I'm getting to like it more and more! I'm trying to apply for the RN program at Weber for the Spring. I doubt I'll get in but I'll just keep trying until I do! I love being an LPN so hopefully I'll like being an RN just as much! Jared is staying busy with work and school and when he's not doing that he's out duck hunting! He loves this season! We love being married and are looking forward to some fun times coming up! All my friends in Cedar we're coming down in November! I wanna see everyone!! Pictures to be posted later.. Oh and a shout out to my sister Abby! Hope you do well at region cross country tomorrow. You'll be great! And Happy Birthday to my daddy tomorrow!

The Life of a Hunter's Wife

2009-08-29T10:41:00.000-07:00

So when Jared and I talked about when to get married he told me if I wanted to get married in the summer it had to be before August. I kind of laughed at him and said "Okay why."
His reply: "Well if we get married in August our anniversary will be about the time of the deer hunt and I'll be okay missing it one year but I'm not going to miss hunting every year for our anniversary."
Little did I know how serious he was!! Jared doesn't just hunt for fun, to him it's a sport and he takes it really serious! Did you know they make scent away body wash, laundry detergent and even deodorant! Jared even showed me this can the other night of elk urine he was going to spray all over himself when he got up to the mountains! Hopefully our house smells normal after hunting season is over!
We got married, came home a week later from our honeymoon and I was widowed a week after that. Jared packed up his truck and headed to the mountains for a week! I though for sure he'd be down to see me or at least call everyday but no. He texted me three times the whole week and only called me once to ask me to find a phone number. (I gotta give him credit though he came down a day early because he missed me, but then he went back up hunting the next night, ha ha). So what did he get after being in the mountains for a week, hiking in and out an hour at 3am and 4pm... Not even a shot off! Ha poor Jared is still waiting for an animal to come in. He goes up everyday he has off.
His brother in law that he went up with had a little better luck though! I came home from work late Tuesday night and Jared told me Mont had shot an elk and he was going to help track it. I didn't like the thought of him going up that late but I didn't want Mont to go up alone so I said okay. I went and laid in bed for a minute and Jared came in and asked me if I wanted to go up. I was so tired and my feet hurt but I'm always up for an adventure so I agreed. Mont picked us up about 11 and we drove for an hour to get there. We hiked in to where he had shot it and we looked for the blood trail. I was impressed at Jared and Mont's eyes, there was no way I could look on the ground and see two or three drops of blood the way they do! We followed the blood trail for awhile and I was getting really excited thinking we'd stumble on this animal any minute. Finally we got to a spot and Jared looked up and said "We're going to cross into private property in a sec." To which Mont replied "Looks like we're done for the night."
WHAT?!?!? We've been following this trail for a couple hours we can't just give up!! So of course we hiked down the mountain and drove back, didn't get home until 4am! I don't think I could personally do it! It was a huge frustration. (Mont did go up and find his elk the next morning though.)
Do I hate hunting? No! It's something Jared is passionate about and I support him completely in it! If it makes him happy then it makes me happy. And I'm actually really excited to go on the antelope hunt in two weeks. I just hope all his hard work pays off :)

Honeymoon!

2009-08-15T15:22:00.000-07:00

We've been married for over two weeks so I should finally write about it huh? Our wedding was so great! It felt like it flew by! Jared was sick the day before the wedding so I was a little nervous but he was fine on our wedding day. July 29th I woke up and got ready and me and Jared and our parents went over to the Salt Lake temple. We were sealed that morning surrounded by lots of friends and family! After we went and took pictures and then went to our luncheon at Chuck-a-rama. Our reception was that night at Tuscany Gardens! Everything turned out beautiful and we could not have asked for a better day! They day after we flew to Cancun for our honeymoon! We stayed at an all inclusive resort for a week. We went on two excursions while we were there Xel-Ha and Chitchen Itza. Xel-ha is a natural water park. While we were there we went snorkeling, cliff jumping, and exploring. It's set in the middle of a jungle so it was awesome! Chitchen itza was pretty cool. They were the Mayan ruins. It poured when we were finishing the tour but it was so hot that we didn't mind. We also went parasailing which was awesome! We spent the rest of our time at the hotel swimming pool, on the beach, in town trying to buy cheap stuff and eating! We had really good restaurants at our hotel and I think we ate half the time! It's been fun getting everything situated in our apartment. We spent a good week together and then Jared left yesterday to go hunting and he'll be gone for a week! We shaved his head before he left. He looks handsome as always but I'll be glad when he has hair again :) I couldn't ask for a better husband! He's a great guy and he makes me laugh everyday!

2009-08-15T13:47:00.000-07:00

2009-07-23T08:23:00.000-07:00

Our Summer Fun

2009-07-20T09:54:00.001-07:00

So I found one spot in my apartment that I can get the internet so here's a big update (mostly pictures but I love pictures! oh and sorry about the videos, I don't know how to rotate them). So to start off we had a little BBQ at my apartment with my family and Jared's parents. I love our little backyard for entertaining people, we just need a grill and some lawn chairs to put back there (hint, hint to anyone who is stumped about what to get us for our wedding, ha ha). It was a lot of fun! I'm glad our families get along so well together!

Last week we went to Manti for the Samson family reunion. It was a lot of fun to meet all of Jared's extended family. We had games every night, rode on four wheelers, went fishing(by the way Mike Nielson I did catch the biggest fish and no I'm not talking about Jared), laid around by the pool every day, and lots of other activities! My favorite to watch was the hula hoop contest! I didn't do so well myself but once Jared got the hang of it he did awesome! That hip action makes me a little nervous though! Ha ha! It was a ton of fun and we came back with pretty good tans!

We went boating twice last week! That's more then we have all summer!! Jared of course looked amazing on the wakeboard and I was happy to just get up! This is the first summer I have even been able to get up but I'm trying to get better! We went with some of Jared's sisters and pretty sure they showed me up!

Finally Jared's family threw a bridal shower for me! And for all of you that thought me and Jared don't know each other very well when he got off work that night we were talking about all our answers and Jared had the right answer on a lot of them but apparently they didn't get written down! My shower was awesome though! We got a lot of cool stuff for our cute apartment! I'm glad I'm marrying into such an awesome family!

We're just playing the waiting game now! 9 more days until the wedding and I am so so excited! I'm so glad I get to be with Jared forever! I go to the temple for the first time on Wednesday. Oh and we're going on an awesome honeymoon! We're going to Cancun! I can't wait! I love Jared so much!

Pics of family reunion and boating and a few extra...

2009-07-20T09:23:00.000-07:00

2009-07-20T09:16:00.000-07:00

2009-07-20T09:09:00.000-07:00

2009-07-20T09:01:00.000-07:00

Busy busy

2009-07-03T13:53:00.000-07:00

Life has been so busy but great! We are just finishing up wedding plans and getting so excited! It seems like it's coming fast and slow at the same time! We got a new little niece too! Mont and Darcie had little Skylee two weeks ago. She's precious! 26 more days until we get married! I hope to see everyone at the wedding!

Our Engagement Story!

2009-05-27T09:57:00.000-07:00

It's true we're finally engaged!! This past weekend we went up to Lava Hot Springs with Jared's family! We went to the pool on Saturday to swim and of course as soon as we got there it started raining and they made us leave. So we went back around 4 when they opened it up again and Jared said him and his brother in laws were going to jump off the tallest platform. Darcie told me to come with her to take pictures so we went to the other side of the pool. I couldn't figure out her camera so I wasn't really paying attention and she nudged me and said "Look they're up there." I looked up and they were holding up a big banner that said "WILL U MARRY ME KT?" I was so excited but started freaking out because I couldn't get Darcie's camera to work and I wanted to take a picture of it. Ha ha! Jared jumped through the sign into the water and then swam to the side and I ran over to meet him. His mom was behind us with the ring and a dozen roses and he got down on one knee and asked if I'd marry him! And of course I said yes!! I am so excited! We are getting married on July 29th in the Salt Lake temple and then we are having a reception at Tuscany Gardens in Roy!

2009-05-27T09:53:00.000-07:00

WE'RE ENGAGED!!

2009-05-24T16:02:00.000-07:00

More details coming soon!!! I'm so excited though and so happy!

The Real World!

2009-05-14T18:32:00.000-07:00

So I don't have the internet at my new apartment so I'll have to post some pictures later! We are so excited that summer is here! Jared passed all of his classes! Way to go babe! And I graduated from the LPN program! Real World here I come! A couple days before graduation I had a job interview at Davis Hospital for the Pediatric/Surgical floor as an LPN. This was my first real job interview and I felt like it went pretty well but never heard back from them. Well I was at work on Tuesday and I had a new voicemail so I went and listened to it and the lady said not to give up hope they would finish up with interviews this week and then let me know! Well I got another call today saying I GOT THE JOB! I am so excited! I start June 1st! Seriously real world here I come!!

2009-05-09T22:28:00.000-07:00

What's going on lately!

2009-04-30T13:26:00.000-07:00

We've been busy busy lately just finishing up with school! My birthday was a couple weeks ago and these are some pictures from it!That afternoon my sisters and mom took me out to lunch at Red Lobster. It was very good!
That night we drove to Logan and ate at the Coppermill! Mmmm! One of my favorite restaurants!

We drove past the house that Billie's grandma and grandpa used to live in!

Last week I went to Tulip Days at Thanksgiving Pointe. I went with my mom, her sisters, my grandma, and Nina.

Grandma and Nina

Mom Jeannie and Barb

Mari, Barb and Mom

Me and Nina!

I finished up school today! And graduate next week! It feels so good to be done! I even have a job interview at Davis Hospital on Monday! I'm so excited! And I am in the process of moving into my new apartment! Its been fun!

Easter Weekend

2009-04-15T13:12:00.000-07:00

Jared and I had a great Easter break! Friday night we backpacked up Ogden Canyon and went camping with some of Jared's friends. Just us
Jared was so proud of his badlands pack he wanted to model it. Dead Serious. He posed for this picture :)

I love campfires! I'm ready for summer! Jared and big John

One of Jared's best friend's Jeremy and his girlfriend Jody

Jared was so proud of his Marmot tent we just had to take a picture in front of it!

Big John

Saturday I went out to my grandma's house. We had brunch, an easter egg hunt (that I slept through ha ha) dyed easter eggs and made chocolate marshmallow eggs.

Some of my fam dyeing eggs

Dad and Abby being antisocial :)

Sunday we went to church with my parents and then came home and made dinner for his parents. They just got back from San Diego and it was good to see them again!

I love these boys they crack me up!

They all got matching tee shirts from Grandma Billie

Jared and his sexy legs

The boys again!

Also some more updates... I graduate in three weeks! I'm so excited! And I found out I'll be able to get my license right away instead of having to wait until June or July! We're just headed down to turn in my paperwork today! And I'm applying for my first LPN job! It's for homecare and I'm way excited! Lastly I think we finally found somewhere to live! We've been looking for somewhere that I can live by myself for a few months and then when we get married Jared will move into and we found a duplex in South Ogden! We're turning in our application this week! I'm so excited for all of the changes going on!! We're loving life :)

I miss...

2009-04-05T08:14:00.000-07:00

RUNNING! I love to run but I hate to run in the cold so I never run in the winter. My lungs burning from the cold and having a cough for a week after running just does not appeal to me! When Jare and I first started dating last summer we were always doing something and one day he said we should run together. We ran a lot on the Riverdale parkway. Its a paved trail by Jared's house that's about three miles long. I was worried at first that Jared would get sick of my pace and run ahead of me but Jared has been an awesome running partner and always runs with me! We ran for about a week last month when it was warmer and it made me excited to run again but then it got cold! We didn't do a lot of races last summer (my pictures are from I think our only one it was the Tremonton 5K and Abby kicked both of our butts in it!) but we've kinda been talking about doing some this summer. We're thinking about training for a half. I've ran a couple before but Jared hasn't so it would be fun. One of my friends lives in San Francisco so I'm thinking about running that half so we can go see her! Jare me and Abby

The start of the race
Jared beating me! Anyways this post is random but I really want to start running again! Its nice today. Maybe we'll go today!

Our Mini Roadtrip!

2009-03-30T21:21:00.000-07:00

Jared and I took a much needed vacation! We both have a month left of school before the summer and we were both feeling burnt out so when I found out my old roommate was getting married in Vegas we jumped at the chance to get away! We left Friday after school and got back Sunday night. It was about a five hour drive to St George where we were staying. Jared being the good guy that he is drove the whole way. I was so glad because I HATE driving!
Our first stop was in Cedar. As most of you know I lived in Cedar for three years so we stopped to visit some of my friends that I haven't seen since I moved up north! I missed these girls so bad! They were such fun friends and luckily we keep in touch but it was good to finally see them again! This was their first time meeting Jared too. Hopefully he passed the friend test. Tamara gave her approval so I'm just waiting on Lacy and Carolyn :)
This is Tamara, Lacy, Carolyn and me! Love these girls!

Tamara had a baby last summer and I had never seen her before! Emma was such a cutie and such a good baby! She was so cute with Jare!

Tamara and Lacy! We ate at Milts this steakhouse in Cedar. I used to work there and it is so good!

Carolyn Collin and Craig! I hadn't ever seen Carolyn's baby either and he is almost a year old! He was so funny! And so cute!

Us and Emma! So cute!

That night we spent the night in St George at Katie and Lloyd's house! It was so fun! The next morning me and Jare went to Hurricane to visit some of his family that I had never met! They were all way nice and we had a good time talking to them. We headed down to Vegas that afternoon with Katie. We got down there early enough to gamble. This was the first time Jared could legally so it was a lot of fun. He won $145 on the Roulette table! We were pretty excited! I won $11.60 on the video poker and then lost half of it. Ha ha!

One of my favorite parts of Vegas... the buffets! Ha

I love food!

Jared pointing to my dad's girlfriend (Marie Osmond) So we came down south to go to my friend's wedding reception right? Well we figured we left the strip early enough to make it but something happened to Katie's phone and she couldn't connect to the internet to look up the address. I called my mom who gave the phone to my little sister to look up directions and we got completely lost! We missed the reception and had the hardest time finding the freeway to get back but oh well! ha ha!

That night we stayed at Jared's cousin Mike's house! It was way fun and then the next morning we drove into Zions. We went through the tunnel which was awesome! You'd think since I lived down there for three years that I would've gone to Zions more but honestly I went there once and it wasn't even when I lived there!

We went hiking and it was so warm! We went on the Emerald Pools loop first. It was a nice little hike!

This is the upper pools

I'm gonna start calling Jared Cliffhanger! Ha ha this picture is deceiving :)

On our hike. We're in love :)

The other hike we went on was called the weeping rock. It said it would take a half an hour but it was so short!

Just hanging out! It was such a fun trip and I had so much fun being with Jared for three days! We were sad to come back to snow! Hopefully summer will come soon so we can start warming up!!

Happy Birthday Angie!

2009-03-23T10:32:00.000-07:00

It's Angie's birthday hooray hooray! We went out to eat at Bella's to celebrate Saturday night and had tons of fun! Angie and her boys!
Me and Darcie

Grandma and Grandpa Samson (I know Jared's a freak, ha)

Corbin, Billie, Bronson, and Mike

Boston was being so cheesy! He makes me laugh!

Jared and Bostie

Big D, Jare-bear and beautiful Taylor

Dallen trying to show Jare his whistling abilities. Ha ha

Last weekend me and Jared drove down to Richfield for my old roommate's wedding. It was a fun little road trip, but Jared's driving is a little scary if you can tell!

Riley, Britt and me! Her reception was so pretty! It makes me excited to plan mine in 5 years :)

This is just a pic of Bridgie from last night. I thought it was cute! A bunch of Jared's nieces and nephews came over and we played with them. They were so funny to play with! We played basketball for awhile and Averee was the funniest! She got pissed. Ha ha! Life is great!

Puppy!

2009-03-12T17:58:00.000-07:00

Alley had puppies about 4 weeks ago and they are getting so cute! There are 4 of them: one black and white, two brown and white and one all white! Me and Jared have fallen in love with the white one! She's so precious! Jared affectionately named her Ethel B This is her at about a week old before she had opened her eyes. Jared makes sure he kisses her and tells her that she is beautiful everyday!

This is her after she had opened her eyes! She was missing Jared because he was gone snowmobiling!

Ethel and Jared just a few days ago! She's so tiny! Jared loves to cuddle with her! I'll be sad when she gets sold!

Butter Shaking party and Jazz game!

2009-02-28T09:37:00.000-08:00

Me and Jare have been keeping busy! Last Monday we went to the Jazz game. His grandparents got us tickets for Christmas. It was a ton of fun! The Jazz won of course! We got our 15 minutes of fame during the game. This lady came up and asked if she could take our picture for the jazz fan website and we were on the front page of the website for a little bit. I don't think we're on there anymore though!
Hooray for Korver!

My dad and Tessa took Angie and Tyler's tickets because Bronson was in the hospital. I think they saw a whole other side of Jared that they didn't know about :)

Mont and Dave. Mont worries me sometimes. Ha

Last Saturday we went over to grandma and grandpa Stokes to make butter. It was fun! All you do is put cream in a jar and shake in until the butter forms and then dump out the extra cream.

Angie of course won the award for the best shake. She really got into it!

Jared and Dallen are best buds. Jared gets so excited when Dallen comes!

Grandpa and Averee dumping out the cream.

Darcie's belly shot. She looks cute prego!

Who knew Jared was so tough! Ha

And again :)

I think all the kids had fun!

Billie had to show everyone how it's done :)

This is a random picture of Jare and my dad at Target. They thought they were cool :) Jared left Friday morning to go snowmobiling with the guys. It's only been a day and I feel like it's been a week! I miss him so much! He gets back tomorrow! I'm excited!

We live for the weekends!!

2009-02-17T15:43:00.000-08:00

With me and Jare being so busy with school and work the weekends are our time we really get to spend time together! We had such a fun weekend and I thought I'd share some pics and memories. Friday night I intruded on guys night and went to the Monster Jams with them. We rode front runner down which I've never done before. It was cute to see Jare with his nephews! Jare, Big D, Bridgie and Bostie
Dallen wanted to take our picture :)

Bost and Bridge were so fun to watch on frontrunner!

Frontrunner again. I don't have any pictures from Valentines Day but I had an amazing day! Jare had a dozen roses sent to my work which were beautiful! Later that night Jared made me a candlelit dinner and burned a CD of love songs and then we watched PS I Love You! He was so sweet! Who knew such a tough guy could be such a romantic!

Monday we didn't have school so we went up to East Canyon ice fishing again! It was fun and I caught the biggest fish of the day. Hooray!

Us and my long fish! Too bad we had to go back to the real world today!

What we do everyday!

2009-01-28T17:01:00.000-08:00

I wanted a new post but couldn't think of what to write about so here is what me and Jared do everyday! And sorry if these are goofy pictures, they're the ones we send each other when we're apart :) ha ha Jared (and Al) go to Weber State. He's a sophomore (I think) just finishing up his generals. He hasn't decided what he wants to do yet but he's thinking he wants to do something in the medical field.

I'm in the LPN program at the Ogden Weber Applied Technology College. I am loving it and finish up in May!

After school Jared goes to work at Sportsmans where he works in the gift bar (knives, spotting scopes, binoculars, etc.) He's a pretty good salesman :)

I work at the Olive Garden as a server. It's an okay job and they work really well around my crazy school schedule. We both finish up with work later at night and then spend time together. Life is so busy but its wonderful! We're really loving it and each other!

My Adventurous Man!

2009-01-12T12:47:00.000-08:00

Seriously, I love Jared! He is so fun and is always getting me to try new things! Last week Jared went ice fishing with his dad and brothers in law and mentioned that he wanted to take me some time. Not really taking him serious I said I'd go. I didn't think he was going to take me. So later in that week he asked me if I got work off and I told him I had and the next day came home with a fishing pole (called an ugly stick) and a fishing license for me. He was so excited to show me how to tie the bait on the line and I was thinking what have I gotten myself into?? I was way nervous but kinda excited at the same time. We got up early Saturday morning and went up to East Canyon with us, Grandpa Samson, Darcie, Mont, their boys, Angie, Tyler, and Boston. Jared got me all set up and went to help his grandpa and I felt something on my line. I yelled "Jared" and he was like "What?" And I said "Nothing" Because I didn't know if I really was feeling a fish or if I was so excited that my hands were shaking. Jared walked over and was like "Babe you've got a fish! Reel it in." I was so excited! I got the first fish of the day! It was so much fun and I was sad when we had to leave! I'm excited to go again!One of my fishes! Those are some hot pants I'm wearing!!
Bridge and Jared

Tyler and Jare

Darcie waiting

Us again!

Later that night we had girls night and saw Bride Wars! It's a cute movie! It made me really excited to plan my own wedding! Such a fun day!!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-07T08:05:00.000-08:00

We had a great Christmas break! We went with my family one night to the Aggie's game where we got to see my best friend Jess. Jared is proud to be at the Aggie's game :)
Me and Jess
On New Year's Eve we spent the night with Jared's family and had a seafood party! Everyone was home by ten and me and Jared brought in the new year by watching a movie and doing our favorite thing...spending time with each other!!

Just us

Being sexy!

Darcie and Bridgie

Bridgie and Bosty

Bridge

Bridge and Bost in their cute hats!

Christmas Celebrations!

2008-12-26T13:33:00.001-08:00

Jared and I had a busy Christmas! We spent a lot of time with our families and each other. It was great! So here's our celebrations We started out with Aunt Pam's Christmas party. We ate dinner and had a gift exchange and talked.
Grandpa Samson, Paylen, Grandma Samson and Billie

Mike, Mont, Darcie, Rick and Jacee

Dave and Staci

Angie and Tyler

Angie is styling!

Monday we went to temple square with my family and then picked up Cami and Jared from the airport. These are my cute parents.

In front of our temple :)

My dad, Tess, Abby, me and Jare

We went to Ligori's on Christmas eve and ate pizza with the Stokes family and then we went back to Jared's parents and got pajamas from Santa. This is Jared, Bridgie and Staci.

Darcie and me

Mont and Darcie

Darcie, me and Jare

I love this pic of Jare! He looks so good!

Christmas morning me and Jared opened presents with his parents and then went over to Grandma and Grandpa Stokes for omelets, presents and lots of family. Here are the guys!

Billie, Staci and Bronson

Me and Jare. I love this sweater that he gave me for Christmas! He did good picking it out!

Jared's grandparents have this tradition where they throw all of their loose change into a bag for the year and then give each of the kids a ball that they get to fill up with the change. It was really cute! Jared was helping Dallen.

Tyler helping Boston.

Bridger thinks I stink!

Christmas afternoon we went out to my parents and had dinner and opened more gifts. The power was out when we got there at 2 and it never came back on the whole time we were there! We went sledding and tried to make a snowman but the snow was so heavy that we couldn't lift the snowballs up so we just ended up with three big snowballs. It was a great Christmas and I'm glad I got to share in the traditions that the Stokes family has had for lots of years!

Cami's wedding!

2008-12-15T14:06:00.000-08:00

My oldest sister Cami got married on Saturday. It was a little hard for me because she's one of my best friends and was sad that she was moving out. It was a beautiful day and her and Jared looked really happy. I'm excited for them!

Me Cami and Rachel

Me and Jare

I like this picture of me. Too bad Jared is closing his eyes ha!

Just us

Cami and Jared and their parents

Coming out of the temple

My mom made Cami's dress. It was so pretty!

Happy Birthday Darcie!

2008-12-09T09:53:00.000-08:00

Hope you have a great day!!

Thanksgiving Weekend, Park City and IFly

2008-12-03T10:13:00.001-08:00

Last Saturday me and Jared went out with Darcie, Mont, Tyler and Angie. We went out to dinner and went to Temple Square to see the lights.
Me and Jare

Darcie and Mont

Angie and Tyler, I've never seen Tyler smile this big!

On Thanksgiving me and Jared started out with dinner at his parent's house then went to my grandma Palmers and finished up at my parents. I realized there wasn't any pictures of me and Cami and our Jareds together so here we are :)

At my grandma Palmer's house. Abby called this out deer in the headlights look.

Jared and his daughter Ali AKA fat one, special needs, down syndrome. Ha! Jared is so cute with her! Everyday when we get to his house he sees her and says "There is our child. Oh look she's precious. She is a child of Heaven. Look Kate she looks just like you." Ha Jared makes me laugh!

Us at his parent's house

A couple weeks ago I went to Park City with Jared's mom and sisters. We saw Twilight and shopped at the outlets. It was so fun! They are hilarious to be with! This is Staci, me and Darcie.

Angie and Billie

For Jared's birthday my parents paid for us to go indoor skydiving. I was way scared but it was fun! Here is Jared with our instructor.

Me with our instructor

Us in our cute jumpsuits.

HaPpY BiRtHdAy JaReD!!

2008-11-18T00:10:00.000-08:00

Jared is 21 today! Hurray! So here are 21 things that I love about Jared :)
1. He loves to hunt! I never thought I'd be so attracted to a guy in camo but hunting is his passion and I love that about him!
2. He loves the outdoors! Jared would rather go outside and do something rather than stay inside and play video games.
3. He is so good with kids! I love to see him with his nieces and nephews! I'm excited to have kids of our own.. in 5 years!! ha

4. He makes me laugh everyday! Jared is the funniest person I know and he's always doing something to put a smile on my face!
5. He has a strong testimony. I knew I needed to find someone that was strong in the church and I'm so glad I found that in Jared.
6. He promised to take me to the temple! Before me and Jared even got serious Jared told me one night that I deserved a guy that would take me to the temple and promised me he would be that guy. He's holding true to it and we're planning on getting married in the temple in May!
7. He is sensitive. He won't admit it but he's a teddy bear!
8. He's good looking.. Need I say more??
9. He is a hard worker. He loves his job at Sportsmans and takes pride in his work.
10. He's a good student. There has been tons of nights that I wanted to go out and do something but Jared had homework and we couldn't do anything until he was done with it.

11. He is so unselfish! I was struggling to carry my pack out of Havasupai and even though Jared hardly knew me he took my pack and carried it all the way to the top.
12. He's a family guy. He would rather spend all his time with his family then with his friends and that's fine with me!
13. He loves his mom. I was always told to look at how a guy treats his mother because that's how he'll treat you and I can really tell that he loves and respects his mom.
14. He's good with money. Jared told me one day that he wont marry me until my credit card was paid off. I was a little mad but I know he'll be good with our money!
15. He's so easy going. I know I can just be myself around him because he's just laid back.
16. He let's me express my emotions! When I'm frustrated I cry a lot and Jared just lets me and is so sweet about comforting me.
17. He's my best friend! I can tell Jared anything! He's seriously so good to me!
18. We are so much a like! There have been so many times that I said something and he looks at me and laughs and says that's exactly what I was thinking!
19. He knows what he wants out of life. Jared has told me his goals and he knows exactly what he wants.
20. He is so easy to get along with! I was nervous for him to meet my parents but he and my dad just clicked. He's so easy to talk to and be friends with.
21. He loves me for me. I can be a brat at times and maybe a little hard to live with but Jared puts up with me and loves me just the same.
Happy Birthday baby! I love you and I'm so excited to be sealed to you for time and all eternity!

Muskrat Trapping

2008-11-10T11:19:00.000-08:00

Look what we got!
Jared

Just us

Gross! I swear with Jared I have been doing things I've never even heard of. Jared has started trapping again with his friends and he invited me to come with him the past couple of nights. I never knew there was such a thing as a muskrat! It's been fun to set the traps and then go back a couple times a day to see if we've caught anything. Last night we only got this fat sucker. Life with Jared is always an adventure and I love it!

Go Jazz!!

2008-11-08T08:17:00.001-08:00

We went to the jazz game last night with my family! It was way fun! We had tickets in the lower bowl. They beat the Oklahoma City Thunder of course! I was sad Deron Williams wasn't playing still. Oh well. Go Jazz!

Jared is such a stud. Just look at him!!

2008-11-02T08:45:00.000-08:00

Jared and I went to a couple Halloween parties this year. The first one was at his cousin's Jacee and Rick. We ate pizza and played games. I hope Angie and Darcie don't mind I stole pictures from their blogs cuz I forgot my camera. Tuesday before Halloween we went to Ruby River with all my friends from nursing school and then on Halloween we went to both of Jared's grandparent's house to hang out with the family. I love how Jared is confident with himself enought to be silly :) I love him! This pic is all the girls. Everyone looked cute except me, I just looked silly! Ha :)

me and Jared's sisters

All the guys

Jare and me in our costumes. Ha Ha

Staci's Wedding

2008-10-22T18:00:00.000-07:00

Jared's oldest sister Staci got remarried last Saturday. It was a beautiful wedding and a good chance to hang out with Jared's family. Afterwards me and Jared went bowling with Mont and Darcie. I won of course... I wish!Just us.
Jared's funny.

Mont Tyler Jare Dave and Corbin holding up Staci

Jared and his new brother Dave!

Jared and his boys Bridger and Boston.

Jared's sisters Angie and Darcie. Me and Angie showed up in matching dresses. Ha! We should've coordinated with Darcie!

The past couple of months...

2008-10-17T14:11:00.000-07:00

We met when we both went to Havasupai. I was with my roommate and jare was with his friends and cousin. When we were in Kingman, AZ Jared wrecked his mom's car. We were the first ones on the scene when the dust had settled. Thank goodness everyone was alright. Jare and Al rode with me Katie and Lloyd to the trailhead. We hung out a little down there and then on the way out Jared carried my pack and we talked a lot! Jare and Al rode to Ogden with me and me and Jare exchanged phone numbers hung out the next day and have been together ever since!

We spend a lot of time with my family also. This was at Abby's region cross country race. Jared skipped school to be there to support her (luckily he found out later the class he skipped was cancelled).

Jared is always helping someone it seems like :) This is the night my sister got engaged. Look closely and you'll see Jared is drenched in sweat because he ran down the canyon to find Jared Spendlove and help him set up the stuff to propose to Cami and then Jared ran to the top to hike back down with me.

Since I've been dating Jared I have tried a lot of new things! One is hunting. Ha! Jared is passionate about hunting and so he took me antelope hunting in Wyoming. We drove around on the four wheelers for three days and didn't see a lot. It rained on us and we came back covered in mud but it was so fun! Finally right before we left Jared shot his doe! It was really exciting.

I live with my best friend (my sister Cami) who is also dating a Jared. The Jared's went to high school together and get along together so it's going to be fun to have both of them in our family!This is one of our date nights at Red Lobster.

This was another fun night with Jare's family. We went to Roy days with Darcie, Mont, Dallen and Bridger. It was geared more for little kids but Jare is a kid at heart so we had fun. He won a pet frog for us. We named him Rufio and he lives in Jared's mom's fish tank. Ha Ha!

Me and Jare used to be really good about running together. We have been slacking a little lately but this pic is from a 5K that we ran with my little sister Abby. Of course little olympian Abby smoked us! Me and Jare ran it in half an hour.. SLOW but he was really good to stay with me. It's really fun to have a running partner!

We spend a lot of time with Jare's family. This particular picture is at East Canyon Reservoir with Angie, Tyler, Boston and Tyler's cousins. We went boating all day and Jared taught me how to get up on a wakeboard for the first time! Hooray!

Jare and I hung out with our friends a lot to begin with. We did all sorts of things from playing night games to watching movies. This picture is one night going to Toad's for Jess's surprise party. We played laser tag and the arcades :)

So here's our life to this point. I'm grateful to have such an amazing guy in my life!

Here we go...

2008-10-16T13:13:00.000-07:00

Jare and I thought it would be fun to start a blog and tell of all our adventures so here it goes.. Wish us luck!