CATCHING UP

So I've proven I'm not a good blogger I was going through my saved favorites and found my blog, and i see i haven't been on here since i got married, which was 2 years ago. wow!
so I'll try my best to catch up.

Married life has surprises around every corner. You come to know new things about yourself, your spouse and you learn how to take care of more then yourself.

After we got married we moved in with Brian's oldest sister Rebecca (but she goes by Becky) Becky is a widow with a very intelligent daughter named Jeanne. After moving in with her in March 2010, we started having trouble paying bills. all three of us had a job that kept cutting our hours, leaving us with very small paychecks. In August we had to say goodbye to Becky's house and we moved in with my In-laws. It was a very tight fit. With only 4 bedrooms and 1 and 1/2 bathrooms for 8 people and 4 cats, Claustrophobia set in fast.

for our 1st year anniversary we went to Palmyra, NY. it was a fun visit and Brian's first time seeing were Joseph Smith (first LDS prophet) lived.

 In 1818 Joseph Smith sir. and Lucky Mack Smith and their 8 children moved to Palmyra

 The little log house had a main floor, and upstairs and a basement. Upstairs were two rooms, on the main floor was the kitchen and the parents bedroom. The basement was used as an ice room.

 A few yards away was the "frame home" Alvin, the oldest son started to build it but was unable to finish it before he passed away. The Smith's Moved in and finished it.

 Inside there was a big Kitchen, a living room and a bedroom, there was an upstairs but we're not allowed to go up.

 In the living room was a fire place, this was one of the many places Joseph hid the gold plates. the bricks at the base of the fireplace are the original bricks Joseph used. I thought that was cool.

 

  Even though the ground was covered in snow, we walked through the Sacred Grove anyway, until our toes got cold. Here in these woods, in the spring of 1820 is were it all started. 

 

 When we were done we headed into town but first we swung by the temple.

    When in town we stopped by Alvin's grave, it is on top a very big hill.

 Now that we were good and cold we warmed up by visiting the book store where the Book of Mormon was published. It took a lot of sacrifice and work to publish the book.

 then we took a drive over to Peter Whitmer's farm, this is the site of the organization of the LDS church which took place April 6, 1830.

In May 2011 our best friends Kim and Tarik got married. They started coming to church, took the missionary lessons and in July Kim got baptized and Tarik got to baptize her. Kim was a blessing for Tarik and we are so happy to have them in our lives.

In October My brother Ryan got Married to a wonderful and beautiful women named Valerie.

 

*** the end of 2010 and begging of 2011 was a long and trying year but with the help of friends, Brian got a very good salary job in August 2011. This job was an answer to our prayers and the following month Brain and I were able to move out of his parents house and we got an apartment of our own!!!

Now we have our own space for our very first time. We are on the third floor with one bedroom, a yellow bathroom and a decent size kitchen. :-) ... here I'll give you a tour...

 when you walk through the front door, you see the living room and the dinning area

 around the corner you can see where the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom are.

The Kitchen was updated before we moved in, with new cabinets and a breakfast bar.

 Here is my yellow bathroom, the tub and toilet are separated from the sink by a sliding door

And this is the bedroom, it looked big until we put our bed and dressers and clothes into it.
which by the way was all we had and a ton of kitchen gifts from our wedding.

The first few nights in our apt were hard, we live next to a hospital and a fire station. so we got quite a wake up call. Three different times during the night an ambulance or fire truck would come whizzing by with all its bells and whistles, giving us a heart attack. Thank goodness we had a fan that we could turn on at night, to drowned out the noise.

After a few weeks our friends Kim an Tarik found in an ad online, a couch and two chairs for $30 bucks. what a steal, i contacted the person who was selling them, and that's how we got our first set of furniture. A couple in our church gave us a table that they weren't using anymore, and that's how we got a table. As Christmas was drawing near we got a gift for ourselves, we got a new computer.
When my parents came to visit me they got us a set of bookshelves. Our little empty apt soon become more homey and we started to learn and grow. Bills were coming in, cooking dinner and having full time jobs were our problem now. At times it felt good to be in control and other times we wanted to be a kid again waking up on a Saturday morning with the only worry of whether or not we missed our favorite cartoon, but that's part of life.

***Jumping into 2012, we celebrated Brian's birthday and invited all his friends over for games. I ended up quitting my job at subway in the middle of January (i first started back in Aug 2010) and i got a job as an Assistant but that lasted 3 days because it made me sick. To keep me busy i have babysitting jobs that i do here and there.

I started GED classes to get my diploma in the summer of 2011, I was home-schooled my high school days and when i "graduated" in 2006 I was in the middle of my parents trying to Sell their house so i forgot about school and got a job. ***After 3 semesters, I have finished my classes and I took the official GED test in Feb 2012. I came very close to passing it but I was very happy with my results. It took two days to test, first day i had to do Math and Writing with an essay. The second day was science, language arts and social studies. I didn't pass social studies, I get to retest July 14. wish me luck!    

For our 2 year anniversary we went to Philadelphia, it was a lot of fun! there is so much history there.

  here we are at the Liberty bell

 and this is Independence Hall. we took a tour and got to see the inside were the Declaration of Independence was signed.

  down in the city we found some cool larger then life table game pieces to play with.

For my Birthday in May I got the greatest gift, I got my very own pro camera but that wasn't the greatest gift.... I found out I was pregnant! but as time went by i knew i wasn't going to get to keep this one. I was sicker then normal, and after a month of being pregnant the doctors couldn't find anything that resembled a baby. Near the end of my first trimester I had a miscarriage. I was disappointed but I didn't have any hurt feelings, I love and trust God and know that he knows when its time to start a family. Better luck next time.

In June I got a visit from my Daddy and baby sis Mekayla. I had a great time with them in the short time there were here.

As callings go, I was called to do activity days with 8 to 11 year old girls at church. An awesome idea that my other leader came up with was a Daddy - Daughter dance before father's day. I along with the primary president exploded with decorations and ideas and once the word got out to my girls they were very excited.

 this was our theme of the dance, and here you can see on the program what we did

 Decorations were done by Cindy Scott, our primary president. She is an amazing woman.

 The tables were beautiful, the center pieces were amazing, there were 3 glass blocks and on the blocks were words the girls came up with that describe a princess. On top of the blocks was a temple.
   

 the pom poms that hung over the tables were made by the girls. they did a wonderful job.

 to make fruit and veggies look princess ready i turned them into a castle.

 our first princess to show up was Abigale and her prince Brother Muller

 our next princess was Emily and her prince Brother Hull

our first activity was build a princess out of marshmallows. I was amazed to see the different creations each girl and dad made, yup even the dads got into it. 

 Princess Kimberly and her Prince Brother Christensen showed up just in time and jumped right in.

                      

 

 So many different wonderful sculptures.

here's me with my little crown that Cindy made to put around the cupcakes that sister Muller made.

After lunch we had a princess test that I had come up with moments before the princess crowing.
to get crowned the girls had to walk to their dads with a book balanced on their heads. 

They did a great job, and when they reached their dad they got their princess crown. 

then the girls tested their dads, very creative girls.

 what beautiful Princess, I shared with them my testimony that even thou we don't think we are princesses we are princess to our Father in Heaven, He loves you and his kingdom is waiting for you.

Next, Sister Hull taught the electric slide, and they did a good job with it.

 

 to finish off a special daddy daughter dance.

my girls are amazing! thank you dads!

 That night after the Daddy - Daughter Dance our niece Jeanne had her very first dance recital. She was amazing, you could tell she loved it up on stage.

 to the left is Grandma and Pa Miller with great grandma (i don't know why i didn't get a picture with Becky's family)

Jeanne loved her flowers

Becky was a proud mommy!

As was I! I did help raise her after all.

***with all the archery movies coming out, and i have LOVED archery since middle school, and Brian was in a high school tournament, so we went out and got ourselves an archery set.

 For the 4th of July we went to DC and spent the day in museums, outside the heat was murder.
once the sun fell we found a place to watch the fireworks.

To be festive, Brian and I designed our own shirt. (I added a trail of stars to my shirt latter)

It was hard to find a good spot, there was construction in the middle of the mall and large tents that i didn't understand what they were for, no one was in them. Once the fireworks started i tried my best to put my pro camera to work.  At first I was getting black pictures, I had to change over to a different mode and started getting better shots. there were SOOOO many people there to watch.

 but the moment it was over everyone disappeared the moment the lights came on. The journey home was a mess. there were soo many people using the metro. Cops stood at the entrance of the escalators that took you down to the metro and only let a small group go down ever 3 to 5 minuets, waiting inline was awful. Even at 10pm it was still hot and very humid out. Once we got down there we had to take a train to the green line. when we got on the green line we jumped on the wrong direction, so we had to jump off and get on to another train. here is were it got bad. after we jumped on the train that went the right direction, i realized i left my tripod on the bench back on the platform!!! i thought it was still on my shoulder. so we jumped off the train at the next stop, and with out checking which train it was, jumped on a completely wrong train that was for the pentagon and there's no train to take you back, so we were stuck and had to ride it all the way around. by the time we got back to the green line we had only 30 minuets left to get back to our car before they shut down. so i had to let it go. the metro is so confusing in the first place.

On July 6th, my pain was forgotten as i watched Kim and Tarik go through the Temple. I got to be Kim's escort and Tarik had his dad. Following their session, they got Sealed!!! It has been a wonderful blessing to be able to watch Kim find her own testimony in the gospel and Tarik to rekindle his and in turn has strengthened mine.

 OH! Kim and Tarik and expecting their first baby!

 One Proud Father!

 My spirit burns with happiness for them, tears of love and joy have not stopped falling.