Red Sox in ALCS

We would have given anything to be able to watch the ALCS games live at Fenway Park, but alas... we are poor newlyweds who live clear across the country from our favorite field. So we had to improvise!

Homemade signs helped to turn our apartment into the ballpark. The Citgo, John Hancock, and Coca-Cola signs are a Fenway must. Next was our own manual scoreboard which we kept up after every inning. 

It wouldn't be a baseball game without the concessions! Our own personal concession stand was equipped with popcorn, cotton candy, ice cold Coca-Cola, and of course Fenway Franks!

Last but not least a bowl of Dubble Bubble is needed for every dugout and a green blanket to cover the couch for our Green Monster seating.

Top it all off with a grand slam by Big Papi and a walk off by Salty!! 

What a great night! 

Go Sox!

Gen Con Oct 2013

This was my first "Pajama Sunday" that I spent all alone.

I'm not going to lie... I was pretty bummed all week thinking about it. Usually "Pajama Sunday" means a giant breakfast feast, snacks and crafts in between sessions, and snuggling up next to my family  while listening to the Prophet. The thought of lone watching depressed me a little bit.

But like Elder Vinson said,

 "Sometimes when I least expect I feel almost like the Lord taps me on the shoulder to let me know he loves me. " 

This General Conference turned out to be quite a beautiful experience. I was able to focus and listen more intently then I ever have before. Each talk touched my spirit in one way or another. How is it that the speakers always seem to be addressing me? My heart is left feeling rejuvenated while my spirit is left feeling reignited. General Conference always proves to be a perfect escape from the stresses of the world.

I am ever so grateful and blessed for this gospel in my life.  

Our own little Fenway

Say hello to our new miniature dachshund puppy.

Mr. Fenway Brower!

Lets just say that we are silly spontaneous newlyweds that on Devin's day off  ended up purchasing a puppy! Haha! Not quite sure what we were thinking there... but good thing he is super sweet and adorable! 

When we brought him home he was just under 3 months old and weighed 6 pounds. (Being a mini he will hopefully only reach about 10-12 pounds.) 

He loves squeaky toys, chasing water bottles, eating the fuzz off of tennis balls, sleeping on his back, tunneling under the bed, and meeting new people. Fenway is obsessed with paper and can find ANY tag! He hardly ever barks, except for when we pull out the dirt devil. He is my personal shadow and follows me incessantly; sitting on my feet when I stop for things like washing the dishes or doing my hair. 

This little cuddle bug has sure wiggled his way into our hearts!

Engagement Story

The Story by Me:

I knew Devin had planned a date for this night, but I didn't expect it to be a date filled with a proposal. It was the Thursday before Fall Break, and for some reason I was sure that the proposal would happen over the break while we were up north visiting my sister. 
I first started to get suspicious that this wasn't just any other date when Devin arrived to pick me up. I noticed that he had changed his shirt from what he was wearing earlier that day. Small detail, I know, but it seemed out of the normal to me. Then he blindfolded me and took me to the car, and I remember strongly smelling fresh flowers as I sat waiting for him to get into the driver's seat. This definitely added to my suspicions. 

I knew we were going up the mountain even though I couldn't see because I could feel the winding mountain road. I may even have made a joke about him taking me somewhere into the mountains to kill me. When we finally stopped he lead me to a perfect little picnic spot he had set up. 

He had went to St. George earlier that day, for what I had believed was to have work on his car done, and he was so kind to pick up bowtie chicken ceasar salad (one of my favorites) from the Pasta Factory for our picnic. 
We sat and ate and talked about things that I can't even remember now. I could tell he was nervous which made me nervous. Not a bad  nervous... but an anxious nervous. 
Finally he told me that he had a present for me. And he pulled out a box of Toms. As I opened the box I saw a pair of toms custom painted with mustaches and the phrase across the feet "I mustache you a question."

As I looked over to see what the question could be Devin got down on his knee and said some really sweet things, (which I also can't really remember; I was too much in shock) and asked me to marry him.
 I told him "of course."

  The Story by Him:

About a year and a half ago I started looking for ideas to propose to Aliza. As I was looking for options my mom noticed that Aliza had pinned a picture on pinterest of a cute picnic area underneath a tree and Aliza commented on the picture saying “I would die to have a picnic here.” This was the best idea because Aliza would have no idea what I was going to do to propose. 

So at the end of the spring semester 2012 I decided that it was time to save up money to buy a ring. So for all of the summer 2012 I worked and saved my money. As summer ended and the fall 2012 semester began I started narrowing down when I wanted to propose. After a lot of thinking I decided that October 2012 was going to be the month. I wasn’t exactly sure about what day I was going to propose due to the fact that in Cedar City you never know what the weather was going to be like. So as October began I started narrowing down days and decided upon the date of October 18^th. I chose this day because it was a day or two before our fall break and we were going to visit Aliza’s sister Lindsay and her husband Greg. I thought it would be really fun to propose before we left for fall break so Aliza and Lindsay could celebrate and squeal haha. 

In order to pull of the picnic idea for the engagement I started going to stores and finding materials. The hardest item to find was an unfinished door. The door was to serve the purpose of being the table for the picnic. So now that I had all of my materials for the actual picnic I needed to buy a ring. So one weekend Aliza and I went down to St. George to go ring shopping. We first went to McCarthur Jewlers and looked at what options they had. Aliza picked out her top 3. We then went to the jewelry stores in the mall. After looking at all of our options I told Aliza I would surprise her with what one I bought when we actually got engaged. 

So the day of the engagement was here. It was the morning of October 18^th, and I still had a lot to do to set up the picnic. After my morning classes I loaded up my explorer with all of the picnic material and drove up Cedar mountain to set up the picnic area. About a week before the 18^th I had driven up cedar mountain to find a location and found a perfect spot. I found a spot that had a big grassy area overlooking the edge of the mountain and a grove of trees where all of the leaves on the trees were changing to beautiful yellows and oranges. It took about an hour to set up the picnic area just the way I wanted it. 

I then had to drive down the mountain to St. George to pick up the ring because It had gotten sized and all ready to go. After picking up the ring I stopped by the Pizza Factory to pick up some bowtie chicken ceasar salads to eat at the picnic. I then drove up to Cedar to pick Aliza up. I had arranged with Aliza’s roommate Sydnee for her to be the secret photographer. When I got back into Cedar I had Sydnee get in the back seat of the car while I went inside to blindfold Aliza. I then lead Aliza out of her apartment and into the explorer. 

As we drove up the canyon to the picnic area I asked Aliza if she knew where we were going, and she said she had an idea but not exactly where we were headed. When we finally reached the picnic area I lead Aliza over to the table and took her blindfold off. I served the salad and we ate and talked about how pretty the trees were and about school. After we had eaten I told Aliza I had a present for her. For the present I had painted a pair of cream toms with mustaches and on the very front of the toms I had painted the words “ I Mustache You a Question.” As she was opening the toms I got the ring box out of my pocket and got down on one knee. After she had read what the toms said I asked her if she would marry me and go on adventures with me and get old with me. Aliza said “of course” and we kissed for the first time as an engaged couple. 

Octobcer 18th, 2012

October 18, 2012 was a great day. 

I got engaged to my best friend.

I've known that I love Devin for quite sometime now. I can even say that I've known that we would get married one day for quite awhile too.(No one would say that this engagement was a surprise.) But I can't say that I can pinpoint the exact moment that I knew he was the one I was ready to spend the rest of my life with...  

It might have been when he first kissed me on the forehead during the bus ride back from senior sluff.

Or when I cried the whole drive home after dropping him off at the airport when he moved to Florida.

Or when we fled to the Cape squished in the back of Lindsay's little blue Honda Accord and he protected my head from falling pancake boxes.

Or when he visited me in the ICU; and held me until I finally could fall asleep.

Or when he thought I was at work but I was actually hidden in the back of his dad's truck nervously waiting for his flight to land.

We've had several years of dating to get to know each other. We've had our disagreements and fights, but we've always worked things out. I constantly find myself falling even more in love with Devin. 

I couldn't be more excited to finally marry this man and to be able to continue our adventures together!

Happy Angry Birdsday To You!

Clear back in January, Devin decided he wanted to have an Angry Birds party for his birthday. So after months of planning and preparation, November came and we finally threw Devin his party.

First there was an Angry Birds photo booth set up on the front porch equipped with pig ears, pig noses, angry eyebrows, feathers, and beaks.

Everyone got to wear an Angry Bird party hat.

That I made by adding feathers and faces to some plain colored party hats

We decorated with birds, block towers, and nests all in red, yellow, green, and blue like the Angry Birds themselves.

We had a variety of "Bird" and "Pig" food for everyone to eat.

With pig tails and feathers on the name tags to match.

Birds Food: Sour worms, chocolate eggs, TNT popcorn bags, and fruit skewers

Pigs Food: Ham sandwiches, pigs in a blanket, chocolate pig snouts, mud cake, and cheeto twisted puffs pig tails

As everyone arrived they filled out a "Do You Know The Birthday Bird" questionnaire about Devin.

Points were awarded for closest and funniest answers. 

Next was the building game. We split the group up into teams and gave each team a stack of newspapers and a roll of masking tape.

Then they had 15 minutes to try and build the tallest freestanding tower out of the materials.

The winning team with their tower.

And for the grand finale of the party we headed to the backyard for the life size Angry Birds game. 

The teams took turns setting up the boxes and firing the slingshot. 

Here's a video clip that Devin got of one of the best shots of the day.

We finished off the party with singing Happy Birthday to Devin and eating cupcakes that were decorated to look like Angry Birds.

As the guests left the party we gave them their photo booth picture and a party favor of seeds and a slingshot. To thank them for "crashing" Devin's party. 

What made this party the best was everyone who took time out of their busy holiday weekend to came celebrate Devin! 
I know that he is loved by so many people! 

Love you Devin! Happy 22nd!

Big Things Coming

Life is crazy.

And blogging was forgotten.

This semester at SUU has been busy but great! 

I have definitely grown a love for this wonderful university. 

I'm currently working on some lengthy posts about some big recent happenings.

So keep your fingers crossed.

Playing catch up is hard. 

But I'm trying for posterity's sake.

Moving In

I have officially moved into my apartment in Cedar City.

 I have my own bedroom, my own bathroom, and a washer/dryer right outside my door. I live with 3 other girls (Alex, Janelle, and Sydnee) and we're all 21. Our apartment is literally across the street from campus. It takes less then 5 minutes to walk from my house to any of my classes. So far I'm loving SUU! The campus is beautiful and everyone I've interacted with is wonderful!

It's great, and I'm excited for what's to come!

Reunited in MA

We went to the Cape

We visited "Make way for Ducklings"

We walked in the Boston Commons

We ate delicious cannolis from Mike's Pastry shop

We spent a day on the beach

We had an authentic lobster fest

And we went to Prom!

(Just kidding - but we did get to see Janelle's little sister Alexis off to prom)

What could be better then visiting one of my most favorite cities to spend time with some of my most favorite people?! 

I dearly love these girls! We had so many laughs and had such a good time! It was like we had never been apart! 

I hope that we can continue to find ways get together for the rest of our lives! These girls are some of my very best friends!

21

I must say I had quite the 21st birthday festivities!! 

I had my very first birthday number pizza! 

It was quite exciting for me, too bad it only took me 21 years to finally get!

We tried out the St. George carousel! 

I'm a sucker for these kind of things so I was quite excited! Plus we had the whole thing to ourselves!

 Then I was surprised with a mustache birthday party! 
Mustache banners, "Name that Stache" game, balloons drawn with mustaches, a birthday cake decorated with 21 mustaches, chocolate mustache suckers, milkshake mustaches; this party was all mustached out! 

And to end off the fun day we made our own little BBgun shooting range by shooting the party balloons off of the back fence from our balcony.
The only bad part is we wish that there was more balloons to shoot!

I know it may sound cliche but the honest truth is that the very best part of my day was just having a good time with people who mean so much to me.

A BYU Grad

I couldn't be more proud of my sister! 

She graduated from BYU as a Broadcast Journalism Major and is going to be working for KUTV as a freelance producer!

She has always been such a great example to me and I couldn't have been more happier to get to be there to celebrate this BIG step in her life with her!

Love you sista friend!!

Easter

//epic egg hunts

//easter dresses

//chocolate eggs

//starburst jellybeans

//slush mugs

//grape mustaches

//gummy tummy penguins

//spring sandals

//green capris

//coral roses from my sweetheart