Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Basketball Memories

I was going through some of my old picture albums the other night and had a good laugh looking at the pictures I have from playing basketball with my friends through high school. If you knew me at all back then, you know how obsessed I was with playing ball, it pretty much consumed me for more than 4 solid years. I give basketball credit for teaching some of the best lessons of my life and for giving some of the best friends I've ever had. We've all gone our separate ways now, but it was pretty fun to remember some of the good times we had! I decided to scan some of the pictures and post them because they are funny to me haha! (Sorry for the poor quality but it's the best I can do!)



Bahaha the classic freshman picture! :) 
I look like I'm about 10 years old in this pic ha


That's me, #5


I'm pretty sure I sewed these sweats back in the day haha


We had a tradition of hiking Angles Landing 
in Zion as a team every year


At the top



LaRaine definitely ripped her pants on that trip
Hahaha don't ask me how, she was always doing stuff like that!


Seniors. . . minus Steph. . . where were you this trip?!


At a tournament in Arizona


A few of us did a three point shooting contest 


Havin a little fun after practice




Not sure what was going on here haha


Somewhere by Lake Powell in Arizona



Road Trip!


Uh. . . I don't even know lol


We did a scavanger hunt one day after practice


And this is what these weirdos showed up in! haha


Lol this pic cracks me up! 
Way to go Steph!


Warmups

The only action shot I have from playing, kind of pathetic I know!



Varsity (don't mind the part down the middle 
of my hair. . . I was a tad bit haggard in high school haha!)



Good times, love these girls!


This year will be seven years since I graduated high school and so much has changed since then. Probably more than half of the girls in the picture above are married. Some of them have had a baby, others have had multiple babies! Some still live in STG but many of us don't. It's funny because everything seems so dramatic in high school, you can't imagine life past the next day, let alone what it's going to be like almost decade down the road. I remember the person I was then and am glad for the person I have become. I would never have guessed back then how things would be now seven years later, but if I could have looked into the future when I was a high school senior, I think I would have liked to see how my life has changed.


Anyway. . . this weekend is going to be a little crazy. We found out a of couple days ago that Jared's grandpa passed away, so everybody is headed up to Washington for the funeral. Although the circumstances are pretty unfortunate, it will be nice to see all of Jared's family and he is going to fly in from Wisconsin so we will be able to spend a few days together there! 


Sunday, March 18, 2012

Sleepover

This weekend Whit and Chris came up to Provo/SLC so that they could go skiing and hang out with some of their friends. They brought Drake with them and I spent Friday and Saturday watching him while they skied. It was really fun! They all stayed at our apartment on Thursday and Big was pretty excited to be having a sleepover with B. We set his bed up in the family room and I slept on the couch by him. On Friday I took him swimming at a cool indoor pool up in Lehi. That kid could seriously spend hours and hours swimming. Luckily we went during the day when it wasn't so busy and he pretty much had free reign of all the toys and slides. We watched Puss in Boots later that night and crashed early. On Saturday he got in his fill of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Mario Kart in the morning and then I took him to the Nickelcade (a five cent arcade for those of you who are unfortunate enough to have never experienced the awesomeness of a Nickelcade!). He went straight to the race car and motorcycle games and we spent the majority of the time playing those. Later when Whit and Chris got back from skiing we met up with some of their friends to get dinner and then let all the kids play at the Provo River Beach Resort. That place is pretty sweet, check it out if you haven't been there! It was nice to have those three around this weekend.

Haha I had some hilarious conversations with the Little Man, he seriously says some pretty funny crap. Here are some highlights

"When I get bigger I'm gonna drive B's car!"

"I'm gonna come visit B and Bah in Wisconsin when I am two fives old. . . " (and from his mouth it sounded like "Winsconsin" haha)

He was telling me how one of his friends he plays with who is a year younger than him is a little baby, I asked him what he was and he said, "I'm a man!"

I was singing and dancing in the car and he kept saying "B, stop that singing! B, stop that dancing!" I didn't and finally he shook his head and said, "B, you're makin me crazy!" haha






Jared started his job at Trek and so far he's really been liking it. He'll be working on stuff related to the mountain biking aspect of the company. This past week he redesigned a website for one of Trek's mountain biking teams. He's been able to meet some nice people out there and I think that he really likes the guys that he works with so that is good. Obviously it's not that fun living apart, but the fact that he has a job that he loves makes it a little more bearable for now!







Haha

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Dating Memories

I was hanging out with my friend Emily this weekend and we got talking about all the fun times we both had with our husbands when we first met them and then started dating. I've never been much of a journal writer and my blog is pretty much the only journal I have, so I wanted to write down some of the details I remember from those times with Jared (and if you can't tell from the last few posts, I've been feeling all sentimental about stuff lately, I blame it on the move!).


Warning: Unless you really want to know the details of our dating life, I suggest you stop reading now, it will probably bore you to death! Now that you have been fairly warned. . .

- We met through his sister Mikell back in August 2008. Kell and I had become good friends the school year before and decided to move in together. I met Jared the weekend before school started when he was helping Kell move her stuff in. I thought he was really cute and nice but kind of shy. He totally thought I was hot! ;)

- I remember developing a crush on him one afternoon when he came over to talk to Mikell about something. I was in the living room playing guitar hero and he was sitting there waiting for Kell to come home. I wanted to start a conversation with him, but I was too nervous so instead, I asked him if he wanted to play guitar hero with me. Awesome story to tell our kids, "Your dad and I bonded for the first time over a video game!" Lol real romantic eh??  (What's pathetic about this is I even remember the shirt he was wearing haha. A long sleeve button down shirt with pearl snaps, he still has it!)

- After that I decided he was too shy and I was too nervous around him for anything to come of it, so when his roommate started showing interest in me, I decided to try that route instead. I went over to his apartment to see his roommate a few days later and Jared answered the door. His roommate was still on his way home from school so Jared and I ended up having a good conversation while I waited, which made me realize I was really more interested in him than his roommate.

- I got his number first, and invited him to come over to our apartment and watch a football game and eat pizza. . . He was out on a bike ride but said he would come after he got done. He showed up decked out in all of his biking gear and I thought he looked kinda weird haha

- One night we all watched I Am Legend at our apartment and I sat next to him on the couch. I am the worst person to watch scary movies with because I get freaked out really easily. During the movie I jumped pretty bad and grabbed his arm a few times . . . he argues that I did it on purpose, I argue that I was honestly just scared, which was the truth, I promise! :)

- A group of us went to the kite festival down in Spanish Fork one night.  I strategically positioned myself to ride in the same car with him on the way to the festival and snagged the seat next to him on the way home. We watched a movie after that and this time I purposely pretended to fall asleep so I could lean my head on his shoulder. . . smooth is my middle name people lol!

- I knew he liked me when I got a random text from him saying that he had gotten a job he had applied for. I figured you don't just randomly tell people stuff you're excited about unless you like them.

- It took him the better part of 2 hours to get up enough guts to put his arm around me. He did the whole, "let me rest my arm on the top of the couch above you," move. His arm slowly started sliding down the couch closer to me until I finally leaned into him to force it the whole way down haha.

- We didn't go on our first date until after he had put his arm around me and held my hand. We went out to lunch at Tucanos, best restaurant ever, the end!

- We kissed for the first time after coming back from a play up in SLC. We parked the car in the parking garage underneath my apartment complex and then walked up the stairs and onto the grass in front. He gave me a hug and his heart was beating really fast. I thought it was kind of cute so I asked him if he was nervous. He said, and I quote, "No, I'm not nervous, it's because I just walked up those stairs!" I laughed and then we kissed, it was a good one. He texted me a few minutes after he left and said "Muy Bien!!" haha that's Jared for ya!

- I first realized I loved him at my friend's apartment. We were doing some math homework and I remember sitting on her bed and just randomly blurting out, "I'm in love with Jared, what the crap?!" Haha the look she gave me was priceless, who the heck realizes they love their boyfriend when doing math homework??

- We dropped the L-Bomb in Park City a few weeks after that. My family had come up to visit and they were staying in a sweet hotel room that had it's own hot tub, so we all decided to make good use of the thing. After everybody else got out, Jared and I stayed and kept talking. I can't remember what the conversation was about, but he eventually said, "I'm falling in love with you," and I said, "Good, cause I'm in love with you too." That's right, we said "I love you" for the first time in a hot tub, at a hotel in Park City. . . kind of a random circumstance but whatever works right?!

- We first brought up the idea of getting married a little while after that, thanks to my crazy sister. We were planning to go to STG for Thanksgiving and I was talking to Whit a few days before we left to go down and she was asking me if we had talked about marriage. I told her we hadn't yet and she said that I had better bring it up with him before we came down to STG or she would ask him about it at the dinner table on Thanksgiving. Yep, my sister is a little manipulator! :)  Later that day Jared and I were driving to the grocery store and I brought up the conversation I had had with Whit and said something like:

Stace: My sister is kinda crazy, she threatened to ask you if we were going to get married at the dinner table on Thanksgiving! Haha isn't she ridiculous?!
Jared: Well that sounds like a good idea to me.
Stace: Us getting married??
Jared: Yeah
Stace: Okay sounds good

And that was that, haha, I still find it pretty dang hilarious that we decided we were going to get married on such a whim!

- He proposed inside of a cool gazeboo that is on campus at BYU. I had always wanted to get kissed in a gazeboo and had told him so when we were dating. He did a whole scavanger hunt/geo-caching thing that led us to the box the ring was in by the gazeboo. He said he promised he would always take care of me and asked me if I wanted to be his wife forever. I said yes and fulfilled my goal of getting kissed in a gazeboo! :)

We got married on May 30, 2009 and now almost three years later, here we are! If anybody made it through this post I am very impressed, you now probably know way more about Jared and I than you had ever wished to know haha!

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Our Apartment

The reality of moving has been setting in this past week. It's kind of funny, but I think something I will miss the most is our apartment, weird I know. You always hear old people reminisce about the good ol' days of being dirt poor and living in a crappy little apartment, and I honestly think I'll turn into one of those people down the road haha! We both love our place and are really going to miss it when we move! So for my own sake, I'm making a list of things I want to remember from the three years we'll have lived in this apartment

Year 1

- I learned how to cook
- We went on our Caribbean Cruise. . . best vacation ever
- We learned that neither of us is as easy to live with as we expected before we got married
- Jared met my little brother for the first time
- I did my student teaching
- I got accepted to grad school and Jared got accepted into the BFA program
- Jared learned how to be a graphic designer (many long nights spent on the computer in the family room)
- I graduated from college


Year 2

- I finished my first year in the grad program
- We bought a bike for me
- Jared did an internship in SLC
- We went on the family beach trip up to the Oregon Coast
- We learned how to fight and then how to compromise and get over it
- We started watching white trash reality TV, thanks to my bro-in-law's influence!
- Spent many nights hanging out with our siblings at Whit and Chris's house


Year 3

- I learned how to plunge the toilet lol
- Jared learned how to make potato soup
- Jared graduated from college
- I've taught up on campus and have LOVED it, best job I've ever had!
- We bought our first big purchase together. . . the Subi
- I learned how to take care of newborn babies by helping my friend Dana with her twins
- Jared got his dream job
- I bought a sweet Patagonia down coat in preparation of the nasty Wisconsin winter's
- I'll finish my thesis and master's program



The list could go on and on, but I don't want to bore people. It really will be sad to leave this place though, it's been our first home and we've made alot of great memories here.  We've also made a bunch of really great friends who we are sad to leave!


I was looking through my camera and came across some random pictures


Candid!


This was our New Year's Eve dinner, we definitely ate the whole thing!
. . . in one sitting. . .  
Amazing margarita pizza from Nicolitalia!


Jared taught Big how to play games on his iphone
he created a gamin' monster!


Valentine's dinner. . . that's salmon, not tofu or
some other weird looking substance on our plates! haha



I came across these pictures of Wisconsin in the winter
this is the doom we have to look forward to next year. . . 


On the left is downtown Madison



Some random stretch of farmland