Happy One Year Anniversary!

One Year ago yesterday we got married. Isn't that crazy?! It's been one whole year, I feel like it's gone by so fast. For our celebration we went to the temple and did sealings on Friday and then we went up to Portland, Maine to see the lighthouse and stopped in a beach town, Ogunquit on our way up. It was beautiful. The leaves are starting to change colors and I discovered that we both love the rocky ocean shores. For me those have always been the places that have been most reflective and I was thrilled to find out this was something we shared. We then came home, perhaps did a grocery stop on the way home, and we ordered take out Italian which was delicious, shared our wedding cake, and watched the video from our wedding. Here's a few pics...

We saw a couple who were getting married taking pictures which inspired this photo shoot...

We finally found a Wendy's! Jason's favorite place to eat. It felt like we were back in Utah/Idaho again, kind of homey in a way.

This is the famous Lighthouse in Maine, we both aspire to own a beach cottage on the rocky shores of an ocean some day.

This is the top off of our cake a year ago that my mom graciously sent to us in dried ice :) It was pretty good and better for the memories

And I guess this just sums it up. I love you Jason.

 If the first year is the hardest as they say then I'm excited to see what the next year brings. I'm not going to pretend that our one year was perfect. We had our bumps and some times I wished the first year would just end, however, the happiness and peace that marriage brings far out ways the hard times. I feel so lucky to be married to my best friend. For me, the fairy tale love wasn't when we are dating but has manifest itself into the quite moments of our married life for the past year and it's better than I had dreamed or hoped for.

And we're up again

Jason and I successfully survived our first full week of working and going to school! This is something to celebrate about since I worked 40 hours, Jason did school more than that, we went grocery shopping, paid bills, cooked yummy dinners, and we succeeded going to the temple for the 5th week in a row! (Why we were never able to do that in Utah, I really can't answer) I feel exhausted but pretty accomplished. And since we both recovered from our sickness we celebrated by going into Boston on Saturday to visit once again the freedom trail and the Haymarket. Probably our biggest success of the day was going to Mike's Pastry which is world famous for their Cannoli's and man were they delicious. Food is honestly the best way to feel satisfied when touring, even if it was over priced :)

Statue of Paul Revere 

 Mike's Pastry Cannoli's....Amazing!

 You can't see it but this is a sign for the garden of Sir William Phips...the discoverer of sunken treasure! Oh not to mention he was also the first royal governor of Boston, Boston seems to think sunken treasure is a better thing to remembered for and hence is Jason's new goal.

 This is the Old North church, the second Anglican church to be built in Boston in 1723 and this is the church that Paul Revere had the lanterns hung to warn that the British were coming.

And this is us, just enjoying Boston from the other side of the Harbor, one of the best views of the city.

So far Jason and I haven't decided quite what we think of Boston itself. It's an interesting city because it is so small and so everything is compounded. The history is amazing and the harbor is beautiful. My favorite place in the city so far is Columbus Park because you can look at the Harbor and listen to the street performers and it's just peaceful. The not so fun parts is everything is really expensive. Since Jason and I live here it's different than if we were tourists and could justify all the money. Instead we budget and see things in pieces. We have yet to go to any of the museums that I hear are amazing because it will be about $40.00 for us to go into one, not saying that we won't, just that it's something we have to budget out for. The other not so fun parts are experiencing the people that you can avoid when you live in your own little world. While walking through Boston Commons there were masses of people who were smoking marijuana and we felt like we were in the middle of a drug town. When we got home we found out it was a rally to revise marijuana laws...at least that explained it. There were also homeless people asking for people to "help them get drunk" as well as all the bars we passed with people just getting drunk. Then on the other side there are the super rich people that buy EXPENSIVE stuff for who knows what. It made me really thankful for the gospel in my life and that I have some direction and I feel like amidst all the confusion I know where the real happiness comes from.

"There are as many loves as there are hearts"

One of the benefits of being sick is that I finished the 800 page book I started about a month and a half ago called Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. It was a beautiful book and it has been in my head for the last few days since I finished it so I figure I'll write about it. First of all, Tolstoy wrote this beautifully. I don't know how he did it but he wrote a wonderfully intriguing social commentary on Russian aristocracy and love for 800 pages which basically chronicles several people's lives and it captured my attention the whole time. It was like an 800 page book of Pride and Prejudice about Russian Aristocracy about a woman, Anna, who ruins herself with her love affair. I think one of the major themes of the book is the difference between our ideal and our reality. All of us have a reality that we would like to live, and a lot of times it feels like other people live our ideal. However, once we get inside of the other people's lives it becomes clear that maybe our life is exactly what we want and we find a peace and happiness. Although fear and deception can inhibit our happiness ultimately it is within our power to put the good into our lives. It also has a lot of religious themes and love themes that are beautiful and made me think a lot. Now that said, I know there is a movie coming out about this book that looks beautiful and one of the reasons I initially picked it up. I just watched the trailer again and to my dismay found out that this is rated R! After having read the book I can not fathom why it is rated R and not only will I not watch it because I don't watch R rated movies but if they made the movie rated R they have probably twisted the book in a way that I wouldn't care to watch anyway but still I am not happy about it...

Sick, sick, sick

Yes I'm sick, and now Jason's sick. I've been sick for now almost a week and a half and after trying to be so positive and taking it in strides, yeah well I'm done with that. It's killed about every motivation I've had to cook and exercise and meet people. Jason and I couldn't even do anything for Labor Day weekend. The best I did was go to the grocery store...I long to go into Boston again and see things and have energy and be able to breathe. I'm so over this cold. Today even ice cream couldn't cheer me up, in fact it only made me irritated as it proceeded to melt faster than I could eat it...here's to hoping for a better weekend. At least we discovered amazing sipping chocolate from Burdick's which is right across the street from his school, honestly it was like drinking and melted chocolate bar, yum.