Summer Storms

We've been having a lot of summer storms over the past few weeks and one morning the clouds were so amazing that I headed over to BYU to get some pictures of them.

The clouds were so low, that you could hardly tell that Mount Timanogos is there!

Three and a Half In

It's absolutely crazy that we have been married for three and a half years. There are times when it feels like it's only been three and half months and other times when it feels like it's been three and a half decades. (Even though neither one of us is that old!) 

Our time here in Utah has been so wonderful because now we get to see if the two of us can really do this marriage thing on our own. FYI, we can!

Jonathan is just amazing. He does so much with school and taking care of me. Just thinking about it makes me tired for him! Since moving here, he has become a stellar student. He still has a ways to go, but he's determined to get done.

I love him so much and look forward to seeing where the next three and a half years take us!

A New Angel

Today, heaven got even sweeter. My already angelic grandmother is now reunited with her husband, parents, and all 3 of her brothers. When I got the first text two weeks ago saying that she was in the hospital and things weren't looking good. I was a little shocked. Even though she's 94, I just got used to her either not getting sick or the few times she did get sick she quickly recovered. Part of me has struggled with letting her go simply because she was the only Grandma I had growing up. (My Grandma Patterson died a few years before I was born and that's why I was named after her.) I know she is so happy right now. She can remember all the things she forgot from her dementia. 

I have vivid memories of my grandma having that exact same facial expression.

She was truly an angel while she was here. I am so grateful for all the wonderful memories I have with her. My dad had his office really close to where she lived and so he would drop me off to spend time with her while he worked.

After her dementia got really bad, her go to phrase was "I'll go to sleep with a big smile on my face tonight." Tonight, I'll be doing the same.

Pinterest Does It Again!

I decided that I wanted to make some simple cases for some of my electronics. I wasn't too sure about what I wanted so I checked out Pinterest. I ended up finding these adorable felt iPhone cases.

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The instructions were simple enough and thanks to my math skills I was able to figure out how much felt I would need for my much larger electronics. I decided to do something a little bit different for my laptop case, but I absolutely love the finished product!

Even Jonathan wants me to make one for his laptop!

It Finally Happened

I am now apparently old enough to have a nephew with his own social media account.

For now, it's just Google+ but who knows how long it will be until he's on Facebook and Instagram!

Can't Stop, Won't Stop

Back in July, I decided to get my act together and bring some of my own family names to the temple. It has been such an amazing experience taking my family to the temple with me. Though, there have been a few bumps along the way.

After this picture was taken, I was looking at each one of the names we took. I realized that not all of them had been stamped. Luckily, we hadn't even left the parking lot. I rushed back into the temple and made sure that everyone had been recorded.

The following week when we went to the temple, I started feeling sick right after we got to the temple. That wasn't enough to stop me from getting the work done that we had determined to do that day.

We decided on the next week to switch up temples and we went to the Jordan River temple. We did a session and afterwards tried to pick up the name cards, but they some how got misplaced. As soon as we got home, I checked Family Search to see if their ordinances were recorded. Only one had been recorded. That got me anxious because I do feel responsible to make sure everything is done properly. The next night about an hour before the temple closes, I got a call saying they found my name cards. I dashed to the car and made my way up to Jordan (about a half hour away from where we live). I was able to get my family names and told them about one of them not being recorded. They said to wait and see if it does show up on the computer. The card was stamped luckily, but it didn't get recorded. This past Friday we went back and got it recorded. This time there were no problems. 

After taking my own family names to the temple, I understand why we are encouraged to do so. The experiences and the joy I have felt is indescribable. I am so grateful that I can share the blessings of the temple with my own family. I already love going to the temple and try to get there each week, but now I have my family pushing me to get there every week. We go on Fridays because Jonathan doesn't have school and I don't work. We used to sleep in on Fridays because we didn't have anything particularly pressing to wake up for. Since we've decided to take our family to the temple, I cannot sleep in on Fridays. I'm pretty sure that they are making sure that I wake up so I don't forget to take them to the temple. I am grateful that there have been some bumps as we've been doing this because it makes me more determined to continue taking my family to the temple.

Life Latey, According to My Phone

We've been doing lots of little things that don't really justify a post on their own. Here's a lot of the little things we've been doing.

After hiking in Provo, we found some horses.

Mercedes came over and made her own little bed to watch Cinderella.

We've been having a lot of summer storms and I just love it when the clouds cover the top of the mountains.

 UVU apparently has a cage for raptors! I just hope they build better fences. 

Whenever we wander around BYU, we find animals around! They have a lot ducks...

and even the occasional deer!

We got rid of our California plates, but we'll always keep a piece of California with us thanks to In-N-Out!

Other than this, life has been nice and busy. Jonathan's almost finished with his summer classes and then a new semester will be starting up all over again!

A Special Day

Today is a very special day for our little family. It marked one year since we found out we were pregnant. I still vividly remember that day. It was a quiet, Sunday morning. Jonathan was still half asleep and then I tackled him with the positive pregnancy test in hand. He immediately was wide awake and grinning from ear to ear.

What a difference a year makes.

I am so grateful that Jonathan and I were sealed in the temple. One day, we will be reunited with our angel baby. Until then, we will continue to be grateful for the time we shared.

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This helped give me some much needed perspective this year.

My Nephew is Cooler than Yours

A few months ago, I saw on my brother's google+ account that he started posting videos about Minecraft. (It's some video game I still don't understand...)

Every so often he would post new ones, but I never watched any of them. I was talking to Jonathan about it and he said Ryan actually made the videos. My nephew is so cool that he makes his own YouTube videos now. Be jealous!

Just a warning, the video is almost 13 minutes long.

Happiness

Jonathan and I have been married for over three years now. I had a completely different vision of what our life would look like at this point. It was wonderful. But as usual, our life played out very differently than the plan that I had.

I struggled and fought the differences at first. I would get upset at times because things just were not going according to my schedule. All of these feelings exploded after we lost our baby.

Our only purchase for our baby.

I felt like there was no coming back from all that pain and the losing the future I started envisioning and experiencing with our baby.

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It's taken a long time, but I finally realized that our kids are going to come when they need to be here. Instead of focusing and fixating on that, I see that I have plenty of goals and dreams that rely on me and I'm so excited to work towards them. I'll be sharing more as the preliminary steps start coming together, but for now I just want to say that life for me and Jonathan is so good. He has been trying to push and pull me to this point and I'm grateful that he never gave up on me and that he understands a little bit better that I just needed time to work through everything.

Jackson Hole

Jonathan came back up to Idaho to bring me back home to real life. I wasn't too excited about that, but it was going to happen sooner or later!

I did miss him terribly while he was gone!

Before we went back to real life, though we went to visit Jackson, Wy. I drove through the city 6 years ago, so this was my first real time there. On the drive there, we pasted a tractor and saw a crazy deer cross the road in front of us. Oh, and lots and lots of green fields!

We ate lunch at the Wart Hotel. It's supposably haunted, but I didn't see any ghouls or hear any rattling chains while we were there.

Jonathan found a real Stetson that fits his huge head and Clara found an adorable pink cowgirl hat that she needed. Thank goodness Grandma was there!

We found an amazing chocolate store with beautiful creations.

We wandered around the city for just a little bit. It was getting close to Clara's naptime.

The rest of the day, I was in denial that we were really leaving. Though Idaho gave us another beautiful sunset as our final farewell.

Annie and Chris worked so hard to make our week so wonderful. Annie was saying that Seth and Clara ask when their cousins will be coming over again just about every day. I absolutely love our big family trips in Idaho. I already can't wait until next year!