One-Year Anniversary and flowers

We had our 1-year-anniversary last week. Can you believe it's already been a year? I had some beautiful flowers delivered to me at work the day before, a wonderful surprise. These flowers really are beautiful. I thought about taking a picture, but didn't think it would do them justice so I've just been enjoying them while they are around. Lilies, roses, and snapdragons. Roses make me think of Jake. I will never forget the first time he brought me a rose! What a delight!

Snapdragons remind me of my Great Grandma Fern. She always had snapdragons in her yard and I'd play with them and make them talk. I can't help it now when I see a snapdragon.

I've never had lilies before. They smell delightful! What intricate flowers they are.. Anyway, they are still blossoming in our home, how fun.

The anniversary was special. Not because we did anything super amazing to celebrate, but because it was a day to remember everything. Why we got together, our wedding day and the many memories wrapped up in that, our honeymoon cruise, our continued love, everything. He reminded me of some things I'd forgotten and I reminded him of some things he'd forgotten. What a wonderful day to celebrate! Nothing beats good memories. They can be revisited over and over again.

And I love having our anniversary close to Thanksgiving. I'm able to be thankful again and again for Jake. He is an excellent husband and I'm eternally grateful for him. And I'm proud of the awesome watch I gave him for our anniversary. You'll have to check it out.

D.C. and Virginia

Jake and I got to go out to Virginia in October (I know this is way late..) and visit his sister and see some of our country's history in D.C. It was a quick trip, but so wonderful! The fall leaves were beautiful and the trip to D.C. was so cool! I learned so much about history and it increased my desire to learn more about everything that has happened in the world. Jake's sister, Sarah, was a wonderful host and has spent a lot of time in that area, so she was able to teach us about Williamsburg, Jamestown, and about the Revolution. It was awesome. I wish we would have had more time. The pictures below have captions, which will pretty much tell you all about our trip. We got to see a lot of cool places and took pictures at most of them.

This slideshow is cool, but I could not for the life of me get the pictures to go in the right order. They play backwards. I reordered them 5 times switching back and forth, and everytime, it plays them in the same order. So it will make more sense if you just use the arrows and go backwards..



It was a great trip and we were so lucky to have Jake's frequent flyer miles and hotel rewards to make it probably our least expensive trip of the past, present, and future. And of course, our big thanks to Sarah and Daniel!

My pregnancy..

pregnancy calendar from WhatToExpect.com

Halloween

We had a simple Halloween, but it was nice. Look what we did..

Jake had a good idea for what we could do with our two pumpkins..

Isn't my husband the cutest!?

Our pumpkins were famous by the next day at church. We heard about it from several different people. I had fun passing out candy for the first time and we enjoyed going out to dinner with some friends. Happy Halloween!

Our little miracle!

Jake and I are the only ones who know what a miracle we have, so I thought I'd put a sparkle to our news of our pregnancy and tell the full providential story. Here is why I believe this little girl is surely meant to be. Some people attribute things to chance, others clearly recognize when God has performed a work, however great or small it may be. I attribute the procession of occurances we experienced to God.

We had been trying to get pregnant for a few months without success and God told us it just wasn't quite time yet. When He decided it was time though, there was no stopping it!

First, Jake was going to be in Germany for 2 weeks during the small window of opportunity we had to yield a pregnancy in the month of June. We had even planned our own little trip to take advantage of the free airline ticket. But even with my flying out to Germany as planned, we still would have completely missed the small window. Before we made any definate plans, however, his work postponed the trip until August. Jake was grateful because he wasn't planning on staying with the company that long and didn't want to be away for 2 weeks anyway. So that meant no trip to Europe for me, but that he would be home.

Then his work scheduled him for a business trip to Oregon just overlapping that small window.. Oh well, maybe next month, I thought.

Nope, then his company had something urgent come up in Quebec. So they had Jake cancel his trip to Oregon (which was no small deal because he had to cancel an airline ticket, a hotel, and forget about all he had done to get ready) and schedule a trip up to Quebec for the week following.

So first it was out of the question because Jake was going to be in Germany. Then it was out of the question because he was going to be in Oregon! So after changing the plan 3 times, God was able to bring us together during that critical week.

What a miracle! I can't wait to meet her.

Car troubles and wonderful parents

Jake took his car in for inspection on Saturday and when they gave him the report, it said "FAILED." Apparantly there was a rear brake light wiring problem (whatever that means.) When the headlights were on, the rear brake lights and cruise control both stopped working. Super strange. I was sure that this PROBLEM was caused by the people who worked on his brakes a while back; however, they said there was no way it was related to the brakes. (I guess that makes sense when I really think about it.) They said to take it to the dealer because they probably always deal with this problem. Wrong. Jake spoke with the dealership, who said they have NO IDEA what it could be and that it would cost $85 to assess the car. YIKES. So I did the typical Holland thing and went to my dad for his expert wisdom (and consulted the internet, of course.) Well, an hour or so later and after spending $4.00 on some new light bulbs, the car is fixed! AMAZING. My dad is amazing! He can fix anything.

Jake was out of town for the night and it was wonderful to spend the time with my family. My parents are my greatest examples of selfless giving. It's fun to have them checking in about everything and know they truly care and will help me out in any possible way they can. And they do.

Fall mornings

Our internet is down at work so I have some down time to write about the beauty of the morning! Jake’s big annual work convention is this week up in Midway, which is up in the canyons above Park City and Provo. I went up last night for their big opening dinner and everything up there is quite nice. It is 100% fall up there! Beautiful fall leaves, a few snowflakes, and brisk air. This morning I had to scrape the frost from my car windows and wander through the lonely streets on my way back towards Park City. The hills looked exquisite with the frosty mist and the fall leaves. The full moon was out just above the ridgeline as it contemplated setting behind the mountains for another day. The mist looked beautiful as it rose up from the river, pond, and lake I passed along the way. I haven’t seen a morning so beautiful in as long as I can remember.

It was fun to be up there with Jake and see his professional, efficient work manner. A lady he works with asked him yesterday if he liked his job, to which he replied he did. She then asked if he loved his job, to which he easily responded, no. I don’t know if Jake will ever LOVE his job, but I know for sure that he loves to do a job well. I see it all the time.

I’m going back up tonight and will try to take a picture in the morning on my way back into town. We’ll see if a picture can even attempt to do it justice or if I’m lucky enough to start off two days so wonderfully.

Happy Fall!

Birthday and more!

I'm 15 weeks pregnant now, finally starting to show, and we find out next Friday if it's a boy or a girl. We're super excited. Jake bought me two little binkis for my birthday (one says I love daddy!) and his mom bought me the cutest little moose outfit for the baby. I am so anxious to go out and buy EVERYTHING, but haven't yet. You should all be proud of me.

My birthday was great! We went to dinner with my family the night before and then Jake had secret plans for me on the day of (he had so much fun tormenting me as I was dying to know what we were doing.) Since it had been a year since we got engaged, he took me up to the same place up Rose Canyon and we had a nice picnic and cake and presents. He wrote another letter to continue what he had started last year. It was super great!



We are doing well. I'm starting to feel better more and more and throw up less and less.. Nice details there huh? Jake seems to like his new job and we're going to have to stop calling it new here soon. I'm still happy with my job as well and am half way done with my hours to become licenced! Something I'll definately have to finish up even after the baby arrives.

I also got called to work in the young women's as the Laurel advisor about a month ago and am enjoying that. We have great girls and great leaders.

Hope all are well. Good luck with your endeavors.

-Ashley

WOODBURNING

Jake and I went camping with some friends over the weekend up in the Uintas at Moosehorn Lake. It was beautiful and another great time! We remembered the camera, but the battery was dead! So here is a picture of Jake and our tent so you can picture what it looked like set up in our campsite.


I was hoping we'd get to see a moose, but no luck. Kenny and Steven saw a moose up our own canyon back home. We went all the way up to the Uintas and we didn't see one. Oh well! Maybe NEXT summer! It was beautiful and finally felt like real camping. I was super worried about throwing up because I'd have to do it in the outhouse and I truly can't imagine how horrible that would be, but it turned out to be a good day. No sweat! I guess what's really on my mind today is Grandpas. We were sitting around the campfire and I got a faint smell of the wood burning and it brought back these strong memories of my Grandpa Pope. He passed away when I was 8, so I don't have a lot of memories of him. I remember him down in the family room working on his woodburnings. They were so awesome! It was so awesome to watch him do them. I said something at the campfire and sounded like an idiot.. "It smells like woodburning." .. 'Yeah, that's wood we're burning!'.. "Right. But I mean woodburning, like where you make pictures with a hot tool thing. It's art." Apparently, not many people have been exposed to the world of woodburning, which I just learned is called pyrography (Isn't that cool Danny!) So those who were lucky enough to get one of Grandpa's woodburnings, hold onto them because we'll have to explain what they are to our children and I can't even explain it to my husband.. They're beautiful pictures. My Grandpa's looked just as good or better than the ones in the links. The other memory I have of my Grandpa is they would come out when we'd arrive to visit from California and Grandpa would stoop down and give me a big hug.

Jake's Grandpa is on his way out of this life. We left the Uintas early in the afternoon to make a trip up to Logan so Jake could say goodbye in case it was his last chance. It was sad. He's had alzeimers for quite some time now and isn't the same guy they've always known. It really was heartbreaking to see Jake say goodbye. His Grandpa is already gone in so many ways, but to loose someone is always hard. (I'm writing this after the fact, and he is doing better now and may stick around a little longer afterall.) Emotions definately run stronger when you're pregnant.

I'm grateful for wonderful Grandparents. They truly enrich our lives so much and become so much of who we are.

I'm also grateful for great parents who went the extra mile so often so we have so many wonderful family memories and I know how to start a fire and set up a tent. They're going to make incredible grandparents and I can't wait to see it!

On Kaiizen and service

Kaiizen!! Yea!

I have always loved my involvement with Kaiizen and finally did something with them again. They helped out at the Utah half iron man down in Provo on Saturday. Wonderful is probably the right word to describe my feelings about the event. I wasn't feeling wonderful the whole time, but that's just part of being PREGNANT. I've never mentioned that on here.. but I am. That is also quite exciting. (I was tempted to wait and see if Jake would announce it if I waited long enough. He loves announcing it. I don't. But we're both super excited about it and are almost through the first trimester--Hallelujah!--so chances of a miscarriage are decreasing rapidly. Maybe after that I'll love to announce it too! We'll have to find another way to get Jake to post on here..) So anyway, back to Saturday. It was a cold, wet, windy day. They started the race 45 minutes late and almost cancelled the swim because of the wind. They ended up cutting the swim in half, and then they had the biking, then the running. (Probably close to the following distances: Swim .6 miles, Bike 56 miles, Run 13.1 miles)

I arrived probably 10 minutes late for my group which ended up to be quite serendipitous. No one really knew what was going on. I waited around for a few minutes before my friend Luke from Kaiizen showed up. Oh how glad I was to see Luke!! We waited around for a few minutes and then it was constant work from then on! We were placed at the first and last aide station for the runners. They all passed our station 6 times through their two lap run! So we were of vital importance and appreciated the help some of the supporters gave us. We filled drinks, cut bananas, handed out drinks, and treats, and directed the runners along their path.

Towards the very end of the race, we heard a story about one of the people in the race, Kyle Garlett. He had a heart transplant a few years ago after battling 3 separate forms of cancer. Our very own Lance Armstrong! He is training for a full iron man in October. So that was another pretty cool part.

So what was so wonderful about it all? It was cold, wet, hard work. And my goodness, for the most part those runners just treat us volunteers like crap. They won't stop to actually take a cup from you and don't care if there is a trash can. They throw their trash down and just expect that someone less important than them will pick it up. Wow. That took some getting used to. But several did thank us for being there and helping them out and many were polite. It wasn't the runners. It wasn't Luke's constant jokes. It was the feeling of serving! I am blessed to have a job and a church group where I am continually in the arena of serving, but it's SO DIFFERENT when it's something separate from all that. Something I never would have had to do. I am energized and rejuvenated when I get involved with that kind of service.

I was so grateful for the reminder of what Kaiizen meant to me and how lucky I was to get involved with them. I was able to go down to Mexico with them on 5 trips and those were trips I will never forget! Para los niños!!

What A Beautiful Day

My goodness! I have so much on my mind today. This could be an interesting post.. First of all, life has been great these past couple of weeks. I've been a little sick, which is never fun, but we've been blessed beyond measure! This is probably going to be a long post, so if you're just checking in, all is well. Otherwise, read on.


So I had a fun dream last night. It was a family reunion type-thing in some remote country town. My family was there, the Woolleys were there (my awesome Oregon cousins), and the Pages were there (our close family friends in California). Plus lots of random friends, almost like you'd imagine heaven I guess--always seeing people you love. That's probably the only part of the dream that resembled heaven. So I was with my family and we were waiting for something to happen before we could walk across town to the fair. Some kid from another family, that I think I was supposed to know but I'm not sure who they were, lent me this cool little go-gadget about the size of a mini oreo that you stick on the road under your shoe and try to balance on it and when you step down, it has a motor that propels you forward. (click here for a visual image.) I didn't glide very smoothly, but it was fun to try. So anyway, it was all of a sudden like a pioneer trek and everyone was trekkin' over to the fair. I got separated from my family, but wasn't worried at all about that. While I was separated I saw the strangest thing. There was a field of horses ready for a performance at the fair and they were all lined up in rows all professional-like. Well there were people with carts going by of something that horses like to eat, I guess. It looked like manure or raw hamburger--one of the two.. These people started giving some to the horses in the field, and people had horses on the road that saw what was going on and they would just hop right over the fence in one motion (kinda like the horse we saw jump over the fence at the Lehi rodeo last summer) to go and eat some of this yummy stuff. It caused some awesome mayhem and looked awesome. Then all of a sudden I caught up with my family and they were talking to Ryan, Ralph, and Wendy Page so I went and gave Wendy a big hug and then continued on my way. Then I was at the fair and we were all making our own soup. I was by Amber and Aunt Jer and Jer had all these awesome ingredients we could add to our soups to make it delicious! (I think Amber, Lindsey, and Kenny are in like 80% of my dreams. We're like the adventure team in my mind always going and doing cool things like saving the world, exploring, or running from the evil guys. Random, but quite consistent, like I said.) That's all I really remember, but it was a nice dream. Good to see everyone.

What we've been up to lately.. Well, I got called into the Young Women's group for my church and get to help out with the Laurels. So last week we went to the D.I. to help out for a while. Wednesday we went to a Chris Cagle concert at the County fair. It was great. He has a couple of songs I really like. It was his first concert back after several months back home. He played some new songs and some old songs. It was nice. And it was hard to act like nothing was up when we were hanging out with our friends who were getting engaged the next day--unbeknownst to the girl. Then Saturday we made it over to the Real (pronounced re-AL) Salt Lake Soccer game. We got tickets through my work and a few clients made it as well. A player on the team, Clint Mathis, bought a set of season tickets so that kids who couldn't go otherwise can come to see a professional soccer game. It was an awesome game, very fun, and we won. We were with Jeff and Kim again and this time they were engaged! It was fun to hear all the details.

What else.. We went to a family party with my mom's side on Sunday. My uncle Chad blessed his cute little baby CJ. Then Monday Jake's parents came down for a nice visit and delicious treat. They came to pick up Kazia from her trip to Germany. She was visiting my other sister-in-law, Rachel, in Germany who has been there for a year. She gets back in another 2 weeks and we're looking forward to it. It seems like she left just after Jake and I got engaged. (AGES AGO!) Susan brought a beautiful spread of her garden bounty to share with us. We've enjoyed it every night! This kinda reminds me of the little red hen. She did ALL the work, but has still been more than willing to share. We'll have to repay her on the flip side.

Married life has been wonderful. I'm at the point where I couldn't imagine it any different and would hate to come home to a house without Jake. I feel like the adjustment phase is over and just feel completely at home and am incredibly grateful to have the blessing of a life with Jacob. Oh how dear he has become to me!!

Well I hope you are all well. Time to get back to work!

Two weeks smashed into one paragraph!

Wow! What a crazy two weeks we've had!! From camping on the golf course to floating the Weber River to an awesome fireworks show to sleeping on bunk beds with Jake to a family dinner at my Grandparent's to some exciting news and a new job to a cabin overlooking the beautiful Bear Lake to being the awesome aunt and uncle who take their nieces and nephews cool places like the beach at Bear Lake (that's them in the picture!) to loosing a paddle while floating around the lake to bunk beds again to saying farewell to Jake's sister Kazia who is going gallivanting around Europe for a month to Jake hiking timp and me bringing some cousins back from EFY to lunch with some great friends that I don't get to see much to being back home together again and relaxing!! We've also been to 3 missionary discussions (2 new member discussions taught by us and 1 upcoming baptism discussion taught by the elders!) and on Sunday I taught Gospel Principles. Jake's up this week.. Tonight I pick my awesome youngest brother up from the airport in the middle of the night. Saturday we have a baptism and we might go see Jake's sister and family up in Ogden. In summary--LIFE IS GOOD!

The secret to world peace!

This is awesome! Check it out when you have a few minutes.

Remember

Sometimes you get reminded of that feeling of complete and total love that you have for someone. It's easy to forget when you spend every day together. Or maybe it's not forgetting, but getting used to it so you just don't notice it as much. I've had a couple recent reminders of that feeling this past week. Today I met Jake for lunch and we went to this lovely Thai place. I picked him up downtown at work and then dropped him off again. Lunch was nice (we met up with his sisters, Sara and Kazia,) but it was afterwards that I was struck with that feeling. We embraced and said goodbye after exchanging details of when we'd see each other again, and as I pulled away, we waved to each other, and then I watched him walk down the street. While waiting at the light, I was reminded of my love for this man! And as I turned the corner and drove away I was struck by how much I missed him! I wanted to turn around and go back, kidnap him from work, and disappear for the week together. I didn't even say I love you before I walked away.

I had another experience on Saturday. He had been gone to Canada for work since Monday and I left Friday for Youth Conference with my ward. We missed each other by just a few hours. Youth Conference was wonderful and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed myself despite only knowing a few people a very little prior to leaving. It was a spiritual experience and I was reminded of many important things like what I felt like as a teenager, what experiences were important to me, how my testimony was shaped and molded, how lucky I am to have a mom who taught me how to do EVERYTHING, the importance of preparing ourselves every day for what may come, and the goodness of people. I enjoyed the opportunity to lift where I stood, which was more about people than projects.

Jake was going to meet us at the church where we were going to play games, have dinner, and end with a quick devotional. We returned a little earlier than we'd planned, so I was waiting for Jake to come and it was the longest 10 minutes of my life! Knowing I could see him at that moment, but being unable to. I think everyone noticed my longing looks down the road and my antsyness (is that a word) as I paced back and forth glancing at my phone every other minute. And they probably noticed my glow when we were together that night.

We're going through some big changes right now, and we've had our ups and downs, but I am still so in love and so grateful for every day we have together. It all makes the journey more deep and rich.

Anyway, I love you Jake! See you in a few hours..

Inspired

I spent some time with an old roommate this past weekend and she was telling me about ways to bring out your creativity by spending an hour a week doing something completely random (was that before or after we discovered her car had been towed and she had to pay $203.00 to get it out?) This past week I ate at a wonderful Indian restaurant, saw the movie Up, went to a Tongan wedding reception, gazed out over the valley after a picnic as Jake read, watched lizards running around and chasing each other, saw some beautiful waterfalls, almost went camping, saw some incredible cloudy skies, basked in the smiling eyes of my husband, played some tennis, talked to some old friends, spent some time with my dad on Father's day, and read Pete Brienholt's blog. After all of this, I feel something close to inspiration. It's like a breaking down of the things that kept me from creating a blog and a desire to have an outlet for my thoughts. I told Jake yesterday that I didn't have anything to write about in my journal, only to discover that I had quite an eventful week. At least now I have a place to put all the blogs I visit to see a window into the lives of my friends and family. I'll have to ask Jake what that hot air balloon says--I think it's in German.

-Ashley