8 Months!

Well life has been quite busy lately with school, work, and church but it has also been great! Holly now gets to spend her Sundays playing with all the little kids in Nursery. It has been lots of fun. I have had to learn about each child and understand more about 2-3 year olds. The semester is almost half over! Amen because I miss my husband and I want him back! which is always a shock because of how fast it seems to come. I (Spencer) had my birthday a few days back and as usual I didn't tell many people, but its ok, thats how i like it. Today is the main reason for this blog post. Today is our eighth month anniversary! Its crazy to think it has been this long... makes me realize how old my parents are... Just kidding! kinda... Everyone was right when they said time flies by. So we try to make the best of each day and our parents are not old =p Anyways we started off our day by sleeping in until about 8:30, which I realize to a lot of people wouldn't really be considered sleeping in, but for me at least it was. Sleeping in for me is about 10am but I was excited for the day and I wanted to get up. We ate breakfast and watched the old cartoons Recess and Pepper Ann. After getting ready for the day we went to Deseret Book to get a puzzle and a few Church videos i've been wanting, while we were out we went and got some clothes for family pictures we will be taking next month. Which was a lot more difficult then I thought, we should of gone around to a few stores to compare but we got him a brown shirt and me a green one and then for our couple photo gray for him and a bright blue for me. I'm pretty excited =] I just love new clothes in general, some day I will have a plain shirt of every color. When we got home we ate our lunch Arbys, i've been wanting a chicken bacon swiss for like ever! and watched a movie I got for Valentines Day (awwww) Sherlock Holmes and we worked on the puzzle, it is 1000 pieces so it will take a little while, (the border was super hard, usually the border is my favorite because its easier) but we got some puzzle glue and a cheap frame so we can hang it up. Later on we went out again this time heading out to Sandy where we did some shopping and got a kite to take out at a later date, and Harry Potter Clue!!! More on that later. For dinner we went to Outback Steakhouse and used the gift card I got from my parents for my Bday. Holly pretty much ate all the bread they give you and she ended up not liking the pasta she got, which kinda makes sense, in the description it seemed very simple, but it had tons of seasonings that weren't to her liking. It burnt my throat I was a little upset but it's normal. So instead she got Chocolate Waffles with Vanilla Ice Cream and Crumbled Oreos and Oreo Cream. It was tasty. It was super yummy but by the time i got it i was already pretty full so we brought it home for later =]
When we got home we played Harry Potter Clue!!! Just so everyone knows it turns out Peter Pettigrew in Weasleys Wizard Wheezes Store with a Jinxed Broom, but we figured it out and saved Ginny Weasley. It has been a great day All thanks to Holly, my original plans were going to be working on Homework... which I will get done on Monday since I don't have school! Thank you Presidents Day! We really needed a day like today. Just go out and do things because we are in the house all the time usually and he needed a break from work and school. It was lots of fun, I meant to take pictures but itjust never really happened. We plan to do more things another weekend and for sure I will have pictures. I'm really excited for our plan to go on a extended weekend vacation sometime soon.

End of 2011, Bringing in the New Year

Well it has been quite a while since we have been on here and quite a bit has gone on. For starters in August we had our reception in Tooele followed by a nice week in California at a Condo in Sunset Beach. It was nice to finally take our Honeymoon and to take a break from our busy schedules. And I got my haircut for the first time in awhile. Sadly it was quite expensive but oh well, it was much needed. We went to Disneyland one day and Hollywood another day along with other small trips and time just relaxing and hanging out at the beach. It was nice to explore California but some days were long and tiring but fun. Near the end of the week we drove to Palmdale and spent some time with my side of the family. My parents flew down as well to be there, which was really nice. We were able to go to Six Flags with my good friend Damien and a bunch of family. We had our reception in Palmdale on Saturday and then took off Sunday morning to head on back to Salt Lake so we could get back to work on Monday. Thanks to my sister Jessica for letting us borrow her PT Cruiser aka Walter.
September we both started up at LDS Business College again, my last semester. I also quit working at the Lion House to have Saturdays free to spend with Spencer, which actually has worked out great because more often then not we have been busy on Saturdays with all sorts of random stuff that would have been much more difficult if Holly was woking saturdays. Spencer received a calling as Executive Secretary to the Bishop, and I received a calling on the Compassionate Service Committee in Relief Society.

October was a relaxing month for us. We did have a goal to go out and try new restaurants then our normal Red Robin monthly dinner. Every month around the 18th we go out somewhere to eat as a monthly anniversary, for a while it was Red Robin, but changing it up has been great because I love Red Robin, but we knew if we went there monthly over time we would end up getting sick of it, and there are so many great places out there. Also for Halloween we decorated a door at Church for the trick or treat, Jessica and Jerimiah came and J had a good time with all the games they had for the younger kids to play.

November Spencer finished his intership at the Church Office Building and started working as an Accounting Clerk doing work for Family Services. 
My sister Stephanie got her endowments out at the Draper Temple. We had Thanksgiving dinner in Tooele, with my side of the family. Since everyone was going to be gone for Christmas we also opened Christmas presents as well.

December I graduated from LDS Business College with an Adminstraitve Assistant Certificate. Spencer has 3 more semesters left to go at LDSBC then he will be going to the University of Utah. I've lost about 20 pounds this year. Also my sister Stephanie got married to Rick on the 17th. For Christmas we drove down to California with Andrew. It was my first Christmas without my side of the family but it was a pretty darn good Christmas with the Peacocks. It was actually the first Christmas in 5 yeas that I was able to spend with family. We were able to go to the annual Peacock/Tan Christmas party, those are always a good time.

We brought in the New Year, 2012, while watching Netflix TV shows in our Pjs, drinking strawberry sparkling cider and eating sour gummy worms. That will be our tradition every year hopefully! =]
Dianne, Jessica, and Mike all headed up to BYU-Idaho right around new years, so we were able to go out to breakfast with Jessica and Mike and then later see my parents and Dianne for a few minutes. On my parents way back home we went for a late night Denny's run with them. Now my parents are officially empty nesters... well kinda they still have a crazy cat, and spaztic dog, and my grandpa living with them.

Life is cruising on and things are going great. I start school again tomorrow... and it is going to be a very busy semester, but like always, before i know it, it will be over and i'll be signing up for the next group of classes.

Holly's New Year Resoultions:

Be a better wife every day

Be better at keeping the house clean

Keep my credit card for emergencies only

Be better at saving money

Be healthy; exercise (that’s every year)

Find a full time job that I enjoy and that pays well

Say my personal prayers

And have personal scripture study

Go on lots of dates with my husband

Meet new people

Try new things

Spencer's New Year Resoultions:
Well... I guess i'm not very good about making new years resolutions. Maybe that hould be my resolution... I guess my main goals for this year are...
Do good in school so hopefully I can get a scholarship to help pay for my schooling at the U of U.
Find ways to magnify my calling at Church
Make sure I am doing my part to make the changes I need to in our Marriage.
Have fun and fall deeper and deeper in love with Holly!Stay Positive

One month and on

Spencer and I have been keeping ourselves quite busy. We have kind of a routine. We get up I make his lunch (I have found out Holly is much better at making sandwich's than me. They just taste better), then we read our scriptures. Then he leaves for work. I work out and get dinner ready for late then I am off to work. Then we get home eat dinner, then watch Doctor Who.

Monday is our Family Home Evening Day

Thursday is our Laundry Day

It works out great because we are able to get everything we need done and there are enough random things going on to keep life interesting. We do pretty good with shopping too, we plan out dinner meals and make a list of all the random stuff we need plus everything we will need to make those dinners and off we go to the store! We have learned a lot this past month or so and are getting better and better at shopping.

We celebrated our one month anniversary by going to Red Robin. That was one of the first dates we went on after officially starting to date. It was fun, we got enough food to eat as leftovers a few times. Our waiter was cool and I was quite impressed. We were at this small table connected to the wall that was definitely made for only 2 people. One sitting across from the other. It was quite cold in the building so we ended up both sitting on the same side, our waiter gave us a funny look when he saw us sitting like that.

This Pioneer Weekend I got off work and we went camping together for the first time. His parents and his sister Dianne came with us. We went to Antelope Island. It was super hot, LOTS of spiders, and gnats, but cool at nights. We had bathrooms and showers, and saw even some dragonflies. We played Dutch blitz, phase ten, and rummikub. It was quite ridiculous. That's all I have to say. It seemed for a long time like it was Dianne winning a game then Holly the next, back and forth with my mom occasionally winning. I don't think i ever won at Dutch Blitz (and we probably played at least 20 times) and I think maybe once at Rummikub (even though I totally would have won twice if i didnt show Dianne a move she could make, but i enjoyed more just being able to figure out how to put the cards down) When I got home I was exhausted!! I slept for two hours then relaxed the rest of the day. We were able to get our Netflix to work so we could watch Doctor Who again. We found out how many mosquito bites we have and got to use a real shower and bathroom! =]

Less than two weeks before we head out to CA! How exciting!!! Also Reception is coming up soon and I sure hope I can keep up with it all and we can get everything done on time and have fun.

Great Time For A Wedding!!!

As of today, June 22nd 2011, Holly and I have been married for five days! Really?? I swear its been like 5 months haha in a good way though =] It has been a fun and crazy adventure this past week. My parents were able to drive up here friday night arriving early saturday morning. Jon and Mallorie picked up Dianne at the bus stop (she came down from Rexburg) early saturday morning and drove down from Pocatello,while the rest of us traveled much shorter distances. At 2pm in the Timpanogos Temple we were sealed for time and all eternity. It was a wonderful and powerful event. We received a lot of suggestions. The end.
Afterwards we were able to take a few pictures with our small group and then take a bunch of pictures with just the two of us. With our awesome photographer Justin. I highly recommend him.
After pictures we met up with the family at Applebees for a celebration meal. Chicken Strip Basket =] My parents got a small wedding cake where I got frosting on Spencer's nose and he got some on my ear and we were able to relax and enjoy some time together with the families.

Monday we went on our first grocery shopping trip as a married couple! Awww so cute! haha we did really good thanks to some gift cards and money we had received from others. We also got a Playstation 3 and TV to complete the apartment, and thankfully they had forgotten to change the price on the TV so we got it for about $50 cheaper! AMEN Good thing we went first thing in the morning instead of waiting until the evening.

It has been a great 5 days so far, we both went straight back to work on monday since we already have our honeymoon booked for August, but its been alright. My employees keep saying, why are you here, shouldn't you be on your honeymoon? And I explain over and over again it was booked for August because our previous wedding date was in August. lol Our love grows deeper and deeper and we are getting to learn more about one another every day. Good or a bad thing you ask (about learning more about each other) both! =] But you love the good and the bad of each other. It's a part of marriage you accept it all! =]
Just starting our journey

The Nielsen Family

The Peacock Family

The Apartment!

We found an apartment! It's a nice little place far enough outside of downtown, but close enough to a Trax station so I am able to get to work simply as well. It was actually the first one we looked at. The owner is a nice guy, very honest, and I dont really see any potential issues. When we first called him it went to a recorded message that basically said if you wanna check out the apartment it will be unlocked during the day so just go check it out and if you want it fill out an application on the kitchen counter. So we did! And it works great for us since some of the ceilings are fairly low, but we are both short so no worries there! The past few days we have been moving stuff in and we are pretty much done. Holly will move the rest of her stuff in once she actually moves in. We got a really nice couch with a hideaway bed in it for a great deal, and we were able to meet our new wards Elders Quorum President (his name is Thayne), he helped us get the couch into the apartment. Luckily the couch fit in pretty easily I was quite nervous that it wouldn't. We don't have a washer and dryer, but we will survive. Here are a few pictures to get an idea of it.


The pole in our living room




The window between our bedroom and living room





Our storage room/office room



More to come later, my phone is being difficult.

Some Exciting Wedding News and a Garage Sale!!!

May 24^th I went to have my endowment interview with my Bishop. He and I talked about changing the wedding date to earlier. He kept reminding me that it was best to do. The next day when I looked at Spencer I knew it’s what we needed to do. For several reasons which don’t really matter except that I love him. We had been discussing the possibility of moving it up prior to Holly’s meeting with her Bishop, but afterwards it was pretty much set in stone. My Bishop said that we don’t need to worry about making everyone else happy as long as we’re happy. That was hard for us because we want to make others happy too but it’s kind of impossible to do. We made the decision and changed our wedding date to June 18^th 2011. Now we didn’t want to stress out our parents and everyone else who would be trying to attend so it’s just the sealing that day with our families and then August 6^th is still the reception. Yeah it’s unusual to have a two month gap but who cares. Spencer and I are unusual and we like being that way, especially together. I second the “unusual” statement!

There are some feelings we have hurt and caused confusion and we’re deeply sorry but this is what’s best for us. And we will be making decisions together based on what’s best for us and in the future what’s best for our children as well. I was dreading having to wait those two long months until we could be married because most of it was just waiting and waiting. Everything else is already 95% done. I am more excited and happier than ever! 20 days left to go =] Things once again are just falling into place and we know it’s what’s right. We are looking for a different apartment/condo that’s ready for us in June and that will be a good price. We have seen one so far and we LOVE it, we're just hoping he will pick us. We will sell our Seasons at City Creek contract on KSL, and we're confident we will be able to sell it. I can’t wait to spend eternity with Spencer and now it’s just around the corner. =]

May 27^th through May 29^th 2011. My parents spent some time with us after attending a funeral in Washington. We met up in Tooele Friday evening after Holly and I got off work and relaxed for the evening, had a delicious dinner prepared by Holly’s mom Chicken Pot Pie!! One of my favorites, it was good to get the parents and us together again, and talked about all sorts of random stuff. Early Saturday morning Holly and I went out to put a few signs up for a garage sale that Holly has been planning and preparing for all week. Literally all week! I didn’t realize I had that much stuff I didn’t need. I did really well and throwing away junk and decided to sell things. And I got so into it and it became SO excited to make money off of something simple as this. I was glad to have The Peacocks there to help me with it. It went pretty well, we had a T.V. out for sale with a VHS player so we were able to watch (more like listen to) (which was so much fun and made me feel like a little kid again) some classics while people came and bought some stuff, the weather was a little cold with some wind blowing so of course I had my heater out for some of it, but overall not too bad. The Portreys stopped by and we got to talk for a little bit, it was a nice visit. It was good to see them and of course they wore their matching awesome shirts just for me!! =] They have given me great marriage advice throughout our friendship. I thank them for that.

Midafternoon we pulled everything into the garage and called it a day. After taking a quick nap on the floor we all went to watch the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, “On Stranger Tides.” It was a good movie overall in my opinion. It had some good parts and I am glad I saw it but it doesn’t keep my attention enough to watch it in theaters. But Channelle is right Johnny Depp is pretty good looking. ;)

We got home and played Phase 10 and a card game called Dutch Blitz for a long time. It’s been awhile since I played card games so it was fun to laugh and relax. When you win your supposed to say Dutch Blitz or Blitz. Spencer said Dutch Bliss or Double Dutch and Karen said Dutch Boy. It was great fun =] It was so much fun! We also made a quick stop at a small market Holly used to go to and got Mountain Dew and Dr Pepper, we play the “JINX” game so we decided to treat ourselves. It was a lot of fun and all Holly’s idea. There was lots of laughing all night. I won in Phase 10, but we won’t really talk about Dutch Blitz… we were all very tired hence the laughing a lot about nothing and a certain person snorting a few times here and there, by the time we went to bed around 11:30, especially since we knew we were going to have an early morning. I needed to get home and work on my talk for Church and my parents were going to be driving home all day. It was a good week/weekend so far! There were lots of changes but really good ones. It is starting to be my little fairy tale. =]

California!

For the past few months we have been planning a suprise trip to California for my moms 50th birthday party. It took a lot of effort to make sure we didn't ruin the suprise, but we are proud to say it all worked wonderfully. We left Wednesday May 11th in the evening and flew into LAX and got back to Salt Lake Tuesday May 17th in the evening. We actually even discussed this trip before we were engaged. Random Fact: Quite a while back as Holly and I were getting closer I had the idea of proposing on the Santa Monica pier, but she is an impatient pretty little lady so instead we just went already being engaged. No complaints though. Andrew came as well and he was able to spend the week with his family. We didn't really see each other very much the whole week but that was kinda to be expected. The day after we arrived I wanted to get some tanning in, it was a nice HOT day! Which I was excited for since Utah has been having such crappy weather! Turns out I got BURNT. I wasn't even out there that long but such is life. So after that I couldn't go out in the sun much but it worked out becasue the rest of our trip there was pretty much windy (welcome to Palmdale) and cold. Spencer also took me to this store called Charlie Browns... Crazy awesome store!!! They have all sorts of cool knick knacks and old candy and new candy. Even a santa with a surf board!! =] I did get to meet some of Spencers friends and his old job and met his favorite dog Skye. =] What a crazy dog! (I second the crazy dog statement, but it was great to see her again.)
It was a great break from life yet it seemed to be very exhausting at times. We were technically the first surprise of the week. Followed by Dianne arriving Friday, then family pictures Saturday morning and a surprise birthday party for my mom. It was my first time meeting Erin, Kevin, and Logan. Logan is a hoot. The pictures were the first time they'd been together as a family in a very long time. It felt good to be a part of it. And we got a sweet picture of me doing a backflip over Holly! Well i guess we haven't technically seen it yet but i'm sure it's awesome. Holly seemed a little freaked out though... not sure why. Hopefully we will get those pictures soon =] Can't wait to see how they turned out. Spencer and I did REALLY good at not spending much money. On Sunday I gave a very short talk in Sacrament meeting, I had planned on longer but thus is life sometimes. That afternoon we went out to see Calzada and Desiree, it was so nice to relax and catch up, I just feel bad because we weren't really able to stay very long. I was able to stick my feet in the Pacific Ocean (Huntington Beach), scary! (She got a nice suprise from one of the waves too... hehehe wet pants!) We drove through Sunset Beach where we will be going for our Honeymoon! Before dropping Dianne off at the Airport in Long Beach we went to Jack in the Box. You get the option of curly fries (which are delicious) or their normal straight fries. Holly had a thought if those fries are straight then the curly fries must be gay. We had a good laugh with it. Also we were able to walk down City Walk (at Universal Studios) and see all the shops. I was thrown a Bridal Shower by Jessica, which was very sweet of her. It gave me a chance to meet all the ladies in Palmdale and for them to meet me. I recieved a lot of great gifts (yay!) and we played some fun games. We did recieve two pictures to hang up in our new house. One from Spencers teacher Mr. Calzada who did an oil painting of the Mount Timpanogos Temple, and a drawing of Spencer and I with a peacock feather from his friend Jeff. I had originally planned on both of these being a surprise for Holly, but with all the other secrets we were keeping I decided to just tell her about them.
All in all it was a fantastic trip, a vacation much needed from all the work drama I was dealing with. This trip brought Spencer and I closer together. We love each other even more now then before. I couldn't imagine my life without him now. Awww :) But I agree, we laughed a lot and enjoyed the time together and with my family. Time for life to continue on... woohoo!