September Wedding Bells

September is just the BEST time to get married. well if you ask us. and if you ask anna&jordan and now alex&logan.
Andrew's best friend Logan ( he was mentioned in this post and this one) goes to school at BYU-Hawaii, lucky little duck, and he met this AWESOME girl named Alex (mentioned her in the last post).
Well long story short they dated and fell in love and got married. awesome right? yes.
September 6th 2012 they got married in the Salt Lake City Temple. I loved being able to go and celebrate with them in the most special day of their lives. This temple is so magical. I love the history of it. and the detail of everything in it.

It was a beautiful day. and everything was just amazing. love is great. and so is marriage.

and on that note, i seriously love this man so much. 

can you see her face? she seriously looks so happy. i love it. 

the newlyweds and the parents. 

we switched husbands and waited to see who noticed first. 

i really just love this. and all of them. 

Logan's adorable little sisters. 

the men. 

oh man look at that ring. 

happy couple 

rainbow to the reception. 

The day was just wonderful. The wedding. then the reception. We had so much fun there. i fell in love with the location of the reception. and then we all fell in love with the food. seriously delicious. and Dustin (our photographer) was there with his photo booth. that was SO FUN! 

Needless to say we all had a great time and we are so happy for this beautiful couple. 

Welcome to the Club :) and we can't wait for them to move to Provo! 

love,alex&andrew 

A Wonderful Labor Day

School started. Andrew started working and all of the awesome events that we have been looking forward to are starting to slip by. Where does the time go?? It is just crazy to me how fast time goes one moment but then other times I can't wait for weeks to go by and they go as slow as possible. I guess that is life and we just need to LOVE it. and we do. life is great right now. really really great. (I think I am in a good mood..ha)

Thursday the 30th we went to our very first BYU football game of the season. It was wonderful. I am falling in love with this school.

Wowoooo so Labor day weekend was great. Relaxing but a BALL. Andrew and I were definitely ready for a little break after our first week of school and work (Andrew especially). Saturday we got some much needed sleep and then I went to a bridal shower for this cute girl named Alex. Small world I know. and more on that cuteness later :)

Sunday we went to our new ward for the first time. eeek. it was good. other than the 8am thing we are still trying to deal with. guys, it is hard. I think Heavenly Father is testing every single person in that ward asking us to be there that early. But I like it already. The girls all seem really nice and I feel like Andrew is liking it too. This week we found out that two people from my stake back home are in our ward. yup small world again. it is fun being in a ward with so many kiddos. I like that its not just dead quiet in the meetings :)

Do you see the temple??

Sunday afternoon we went over to the Turnbulls for Sunday dinner. we like this group of people a lot. and they are our only friends right now ;) ha so we hung out with them and had fun. and at 10:00pm we decided we would hike the Y. and the reason being was for Andrew & I's two year anniversary which started at midnight!  Now I had never done it so I was pretty up for it and excited and so was everyone else. It was a beautiful night. But man is that hike hard. maybe cause I am so outta shape! the whole thing us up hill but once you get to the top it is magnificent. I guess I never realized that the whole thing was up hill..I don't know why cause it is in the middle of a mountain..ha










Needless to say it was awesome. I am falling in LOVE with this city.

Well Monday was our anniversary and because we are starving college students we had a pretty relaxed but fun day. In the morning we went over to the Turnbulls because Amanda decided to paint her new car. Its an old little guy but we made it new and awesome! We took some time trying to get the right base color and painted that on, which is a beautiful sky blue I might add, and then we had the real fun!














                                                                                   



We flung tons of different colors of paint ALL OVER it.
AWESOME, right? yes! it was so much fun and I am pretty jealous now of this hot rod she has. oh and did I mention the door handles, rims, side trim, and windshield wipers are GOLD. yes she is now the cooolest kid at school. or at least in my book she is :)


















































After this lovely adventure we met up with Justina, Curtis, and the babies. They were visiting his family that weekend in Layton and it was a perfect time to come see us as well and go to Cabela's. I loved seeing my two little boys. and my sister and brother in law of course.

THIS FACE. AH I caught him at the perfect moment. 

 So we played with them for a while and then went to dinner at Tokyo. yup we went to Tokyo. But really its one of those places they cook in front of you. I had never gone and it was a perfect day to try something new and awesome. Of course I loooved it. and so did everyone else. Taeden especially loved the fire being right in front of him and all the crazy tricks the chef was doing. Then we decided we needed some really good dessert so we headed to The Cheesecake Factory. Oh my I am droooling just thinking about it. YUM yum YUM.

Future hunter like daddy? 

After saying our goodbyes to the babies and adults Andrew and I ended the night at the movies where we saw Nitro Circus. It was actually awesome. and I will admit I loved it. and of course andrew did :)

Obviously it was an awesome weekend. it was hard to go back to school and work but it was a great break. Hope you all had a great Labor Day weekend two weeks ago :)
love,alex&andrew

Grateful

Obviously I haven't posted in a few weeks but I promise I have already started writing down what I need to post about. all of the fun things we have really been looking forward to have come and gone and I can't wait to share them. For now I wanted to write a little post about the past week. I really want to remember my thoughts and feelings about it.

On Sunday afternoon after taking a nap I woke up to our apartment looking like it was filled with smoke. Andrew was gone home teaching and I was just really confused at what was going on. I walked around and sniffed trying to figure out why it looked so weird. I finally gave up and started doing some reading. Slowly the fogginess went away in my right eye but not in my left. The rest of the night I had a slight fog in my left eyes vision.

On Monday morning I woke up for classes and could barely open my left eye. Water kept running out like I was crying but only in one eye. It felt like something was in my eye and every time I moved it it stung and burned. I called the health center and asked if I should come in and they said yes immediately especially because it was my eyes. Well Andrew had to go to work and I was just freaking out obviously so I grabbed as many tissues as I could and went to the doctor right away. He was no help and said that I need to see a specialist so for $25 he recommended an eye doctor. (I hate having to pay to go to the doctor and they tell you they don't know or they can't do anything about it but you still have to pay..lame)

Luckily Andrew was able to take half of the day off and take me to this eye doctor man. Right when I got in the office they put numbing drops in both my eyes, and let me tell you it was the GREATEST 15 minutes of that ENTIRE day. I felt like I could see normally again. Well right when he looked at my eyes he says well is your right eye hurting and I was like well I didn't think so, I thought the pain was just radiating and he said well it should be hurting because you have a lot of scratches and erosion going on.
My thoughts = Oh crap, not both eyes!
Then he proceeds to tell me that my left eye is pretty much horrible and I have a huge erosion and scratches right in the middle of it. We spend a few minutes talking about how it could have happened and we got nothing. We have no idea how this happened. My eyes pretty much looked like they had road rash on them and I have no idea what caused it. and now I will proceed to prevent this from ever happening again by doing..... oh yea i don't know. The doctor even said this was the worst case he has ever seen in 15 years or working. He has no idea how I got it and for that matter in BOTH eyes. crrrazy.

To shorten this long story up I spent the next four days with my eyes pretty much closed all of the time. Monday and Tuesday were officially the worst days of my life. I was blind and couldn't do anything. My eyes felt like they had needles stabbing them they whole time. I would concentrate so hard to not move my eyes even when they were closed and let me tell you that is no easy task. They hurt. Wednesday is when I started "seeing the light" (ha no pun intended) I could start opening my eyes a little more and more. Light was just killer up until Wednesday night and I slowly started to be okay with it.

Now I don't write this for people to feel bad for me. I write this honestly for myself to remember.
I have never in my life been so grateful for the ability to see. God has given us these amazing amazing bodies and everyday they are able to perform to the ability we want them to (for the most part). I know I complain about my body and certain things it does or ways it makes me feel but this past week I truly realized how grateful I am for it. How amazing it is. How cool it is that we can see, hear, talk, feel, breath, move, everything. God has blessed us so greatly. I am grateful for this beautiful amazing body that I have. I am grateful for the priesthood and the beautiful gift it is in my life. and the ability those who hold the priesthood have to give blessings. I am grateful for the gift of patience that God has helped me work on this week. I am grateful for a husband who was able to help comfort me and give me strength through this and help me with so many things I couldn't have done on my own.

I really do not want to forget how grateful I am for these things. I feel like I take advantage of these simple but not so simple things, like seeing, everyday and I hope now I can make sure to thank my Heavenly Father often for these wonderful gifts.

Now lets all start off this next week being thankful for what we have! I know I will be.
love,alex&andrew

ps. if you read this whole thing to the end. I am very proud of you. you deserve a bright yellow sparkly sticker :)

Lake Powell 2012

Today is all about a beautiful thing called Lake Powell
and no it is not just a place. It is a thing. a beautiful beautiful thing.
This was my third year going to Lake Powell with the Sorensen's and it was awesome.
Exactly what I needed to refresh and prepare for another round of school!
This year it was the Sorensen's, the Turnbull's, the Rahn's, and Julie, and Val.
It was the best way you can spend seven days.

I made Richard some shorts. He always jokes about me making him some so I surprised him the first night of Powell with these :) 

Andrew's first run of the year 

Logan ready for his first run 

My first run of the year 

Alex's first run of..well ever :) Go Girl! 

Climbing 

Aaron just hanging out 

Lindsay taking the plunge 

So we went to Rainbow Bridge this year and the tour guide took us UNDER THE BRIDGE. I was so excited about this. In all of the time the Sorensen's and Turnbull's have gone to Rainbow bridge they have never been able to go under the bridge. and of course this was only my second time going but it was really COOL! so we took lots of pictures of course. 

This is Amanda 

Just chilling under the arch. 

Logan & Alex under the arch

Logan & Alex on the other side of the arch 

Us :) 

Turnbull's and the man that took us under the arch 

Rahn's 

Sorensen's 

C.J 

Us under the arch

Victory 

Ice Cream Stop 

Glasssss

Bonfire on the Last night

 

I thought this picture turned out prettty legit... it's Logan&Alex btw.

What a great way to finish off the week. 

Honestly I feel like I missed taking pictures of so much that happened that week. 

It was such a wonderful week. I feel so blessed and grateful to be able to do these fun things and spend time with some amazing people. This is a beautiful earth we live on and I love being able to spend a week engulfed in its beauty. God really has blessed us. 

Here is to a great week and first days of school at BYU and work.  

love, alex&andrew

P.S- Honestly, I can't wait until Lake Powell 2013..

ohh baby, baby, baby OHHHHHH

On Saturday, August 4th 2012, my sister gave birth to our second nephew (we also have one niece) in Rexburg.

So we decided to head back up to Rexburg after just leaving and spend some time with my family and meet this little chunk of cuteness. and man am I glad I did.
He is such a CUTIE.

Caleb Steven Checketts.

the longest baby I have ever heard of and seen. he was a good 22 incher. Long fingers and very long toes. his feet are huge. and I am SO sad we moved at the time of his birth. I wish we could have spent more time with him and his awesome parents. But we will be sure to visit :)

 I just love this last one of Andrew holding him and the serious look on Andrews face. It makes me smile :)

We are an Aunt and Uncle AGAIN. 

YAY 

love, alex&andrew

Moving On

I am saddened at how behind I have become at blogging because MAN are things happing around here! I have so much to tell I don't even know where to begin. I guess I will start off with this...

We MOVED. it is done. and over with. We are gone from Rexburg. and let me tell you I never want to move again. It is stressful and exhausting. And of course two days before the actual move I get really SICK. darn you germs. So the whole time we were hauling stuff in and out and out and in I was sick. Let me just tell you that was not good. I do not suggest it to anyone. But it is all over and done with and now it is on to the organizing.

Now this move was not an easy one, and not just because of me being sick.
A few weeks before we moved down we came to Provo and looked for two days for a place to life. We found a cute little basement and it was right by campus so I was reallllly happy.
Well On July 31st we drive down to Provo, Andrew in the moving truck and me in the car. I get to the apartment about 30 minutes before I am supposed to do a walk through with the manager. I sit in front of the house and notice the old tenants are STILL MOVING OUT. I got a little confused at that point. I go meet with the manager and she says they aren't out yet and she asks if I can come back later that day. I agree. We go back a few hours later and she says it isn't cleaned yet can you call me tomorrow at noon and I will let you know when you can move in. I agree. It will give us time to rest up and be ready to move all of our stuff again (Luckily we had the truck for about 3 days).

Next day. I call. She says meet me there and we will do the walk through. We go there, she hands us a paper and says mark the damages and anything you would like cleaned again. We go in and we are in SHOCK! The carpets are still drying from being cleaned. and that was the only thing that looked like it had been cleaned. There were holes and mold and nastiness all over.

I proceeded to freaking out a little. Andrew proceeded to getting mad and frustrated. We don't have time for this.

After not being able to get ahold of her to do more cleaning and try to repair the damages, we start looking for a new place to live. and our stress level proceeds to increase. We have to return the truck by the next day.

Our friend suggests we try the BYU Student Family Housing. We agree even though in our minds we are thinking they have a waiting list and have nothing available immediately.

We go. We take a tour. It is a million times better than the basement apartment. We sign up.
By 8 o'clock that night we are moving into a completely different apartment than the one we had planned to move into that morning.

I feel so blessed. We were so blessed to find a good place to live and move in all in the same day. We had an awesome amount of help and I was so AMAZED by everyones willingness to help and at how friendly our neighbors are. We had people coming over to help or even just to say Hi and introduce themselves. Even though this was such a stressful and frustrating time for us, I believe that it worked out for the best and it is what Heavenly Father wanted for us. We were supposed to live here. We were supposed to learn something from this and I truly believe we have. We have grown. and continue to.

And now Provo is our new home. I am about to start school on the 27th and I am nervous. Andrew has a job interview tomorrow and he is nervous. Here comes all of the new challenges and experiences.

Hope you all are having a great week.
love, alex&andrew

p.s- So this new place we live in, Wymount Student Family Housing, yea I can SEE the missionaries walking to the temple. I can walk out my front door, down the steps, look to my right, and SEE MISSIONARIES. Honestly we haven't been here that long, but it kills me. I want to run over there and see my little brother. We might have to go take a walk around the temple on Sunday (cause that is what the missionaries do, if you didn't know). AND if you are really confused at this point here is the low down, my little brother is in the MTC, aka The Missionary Training Center. He is working to serve the Lord. and I now live YARDS away from him. It kinda blows my mind most days that I am so close to him but can't go see him. I am SO proud though. what an AMAZING thing he is doing for the Lord.

P.s.s- On another side note, we just learned tonight that church will now be starting at 8AM instead of 12PM, starting this week.





DANG IT!