Wanna watch a movie?

Since I've been married to Nate, I've really struggled to stick with my "early to bed, early to rise" behavior. He likes to stay up late and sleep in as long as possible. And I like simply like to be around him as much as possible, so I stay up. And then I'm tired. Lately, I've noticed a pattern. Sometime around 11, when I reach the "too tired to realize I'm tired" stage, something comes over me, and I always feel like watching a movie! So I say to Nate, "Wanna watch a movie?" And of course, his response is always a heart felt "Sure!" Now it's become more of a joke. When I say "Wanna watch a movie", we know that means it's time for me to go to bed.

9 months today

Engaged one year ago, and married 9 months. And life is great! Nate and I are loving every moment together and are really happy. We celebrated this weekend with some of our favorites - a DU hockey game (we've been wanting to go since we arrived here), snowshoeing, and french toast with pear and goat cheese (yum!). We're still working on narrowing photos for our wedding album though - we're so close! Hopefully we'll have that before one year!

I'm an aunt again!

I love being an aunt! And, this time, not only do I have another super cute niece, but she came with red hair. Phew! The pressure is off. Thank ,Vaniesa! My brother has red hair, my grandpa had red hair, Nate's sister has red hair, and five of Nate's nieces/nephews do. My mom loves red hair. So on our wedding day, Mom pulled Nate aside and kindly ordered "I want a red-headed grandchild." Who can blame her? Red hair is awesome. The only problem is, this is one thing we definitely do NOT have control over. Lucky for me, my sister took care of things, so now I don't have to worry anymore. I can't wait to meet this cute little girl!

Calling #3

My stake president at BYU continually assured that there is one prayer the Lord will always answer - and that is to ask "Who can I serve?". It's true - I've tested it more than once. For a while now, after living in really huge wards in DC among a ton of amazingly talented people, I have felt a bit unneeded. It's made me want to live in a little branch somewhere where I feel like I can help. This past week, I received one more calling in my new ward. Our bishop very hesitantly asked to chat this past Sunday because just two weeks before, I had received my second calling to lead music in the nursery (which is blast btw). And now, I get to coordinate the weekday Relief Society meetings, in alignment with Sister Beck's recent guidance. I'm really happy the Lord heard my prayers for opportunities to serve, because I need it!

Did I mention I got my wedding band finally?

At last, on our 8-month anniversary, my wedding band arrived. You may know that Nate designed my ring, and it took a little while to get everything perfect. For my bridals, the jeweler let me borrow a ring since mine was still being made. Yep, he opened up all if his cabinets, and said, "choose". It was crazy. He'd only talked to Nate a few times on the phone, and that was the first time we met. He had such a good feeling about Nate and completely trusted him. It was an amazing experience. Only in Utah, huh. So, they were able to finally get my real engagement ring ready in time, but I guess they were still in discussions about the band? I don't know. What I do know is that I borrowed a wedding band for the day of, and wore it just that one day. They attempted customizing one that they sent to us in November, but it wasn't quite right (hard to make sure without the actual one to double check), so we finally took them my ring so they could be sure to get it right. Nate gave me my real engagement ring two months to the day before our wedding, and the band arrived 8 months to the day after. Interestingly, by that point, I've gone without a ring (except for the wooden one we picked up in Peru) for 2 months now, and it feels a little strange to be wearing one again. I feel like we're newly married. I really can't believe it's been 8 months already! The good news is, I still love the ring. Good job Nate - you amaze me.

Setting the mood

Sometimes it seems like we're in a movie. We decided to try being romantic. Ironically, instead we somehow immediately became clumsy. Joking around, while cleaning up a few things, Nate threw his hat my way and tried to land it on my head. Instead the brim got my nose - ow. Shortly after, I was trying to find something good on his IPOD, and I turned to ask for help, and bam - there he was, and I got his nose. Another ow. If we didn't know better, it would have seemed like I did it intentionally to get him back! Well, so much for the romance. But at least we got some good laughs together. I guess for us romance wouldn't be romance without some laughter.

Sewing patches - Is this what I signed up for?

We recently received new callings in our new ward, and Nate is now the scout leader for the Webelos, the 11 year olds. Basically that means he gets to be a kid again and play every week. For their first activity, they went to a Denver Nuggets game. No I’m not bitter. I just never liked scouts (okay, maybe it is because they get to do fun things and I was never invited). So…Nate has to get a new scout uniform (he tried his old one, but it turns out he has grown since he was 12, a little bit), which entails a very expensive, very ugly tan shirt; and several patches which must be applied to the shirt. He asks if I would sew the patches for him and I willingly agree. Now, I am 100% certain he could have done at least as good of a job, or possibly even better; sewing is not one of my strengths. The night before his first “official” meeting, he pins all of the badges for me. A couple of hours before his meeting I begin to sew. And then I start thinking about it more, and I imagine him returning home, seeing my work and saying that it must be re-done. Oh well. I’ll try anyway. Well, sure enough, upon his return, he laughs and declares that it isn’t right. Why? Because he didn’t pin them in the right place!!!! I sewed them exactly where he pinned them. So, for his first week, Nate got to go to scouts with a ton of straight pins in his sleeve holding the patches in place, and some thread hanging down. Luckily, nobody noticed. And then I got to sew them all over again... Nate could do it, but this IS what I signed up for - not sewing, but serving. He's worth it.