Our Wedding

May 23! It finally came. Around may first we were already counting down the hours and there were a lot of them. It seemed like it would never come and time would drag on forever. Finally, I woke up on that saturday morning and couldn't believe that it was my wedding day. I would be mrs. zwygart. I met Joel at the temple and we were sealed for time and all eternity. The whole time we were both just waiting for it to be over so we could hug and be alone. Our ring ceremony and reception were Beautiful! We're so glad that so many of our family and friends could come and share this with us. Immediately following our reception we headed to the air port for our honeymoon. We caught a 6:45 flight to seattle and from there a red eye flight to orlando. Our first night married was on an air plane, woo hoo. Finally we got to orlando and had to wait another 3-4 hours for our transportation to arrive. We napped in the food court, haha. Finally at 3pm Sunday afternoon, we were able to load our cruise ship and crash in our room. We were exhausted from all of our traveling. We were very happy with our honeymoon choice of going on a cruise. It was a 7 day trip and we stopped in Haiti, Jamaica, Grand Cayman Islands, and Mexico. We had so much fun! In Haiti, we went on a zip line called the Dragons Breath Zip Line. It is the longest zip line in the world, over water. At first we both thought it would be scary, but it was so beautiful that it just takes your breath away and you stare at the ocean and scenary. I hated Jamaica. The people there are very pushy and in the end, we would just pay them to leave us alone. It drove me crazy. We were only on the island for an hour total is my guess. Bob Marley is their hero, though. You'd see his picture every where and on everything. The Grand Cayman Island was a lot of fun too. While we were there we had the chance to go parasailing. It's always interesting to try new things and of course our honeymoon is a chance to splurge on new things. While in Mexico we had the chance to drive a dune buggy for a tour around the island we were on. Our tour guide's name was Tito. He took us to a secluded beach and showed us some of the small town shopping areas that are a little less tourist-like. Joel and I bought a hand made blanket that is gorgeous. It has the aztec calendar on it and is our wedding colors. We got a good deal on it. We also discovered that I'm the haggler and not Joel. He's not aloud to talk. :) We also went snorkeling on our dune buggy trip. It was so much fun to swim with all the fish and see sting rays! We concluded the trip with me getting a whole head of braids. (gotta do it at least once! not my thing though) I had a blast with my husband on that trip. It has also been a lot of fun to build our home together. We are finally getting some furniture too! Our bed went from on the floor to having a frame and being on top of these bed prop things that make it so we can fit stuff under our bed. The first morning we both went to get up for work and were shocked at the distance to the floor. It was a fun little suprise. We've also gotten some book shelfs, a few chairs, night stands, and side tables. Free stuff rocks my world! Thank you to all the people who have given us stuff. Tomorrow will be our 1 month anniversary. It has been a fun and crazy trip learning the little things about each other that make us different. I have honestly loved it too. What type of dishwasher detergent to buy, tissues, what foods are good, how to pay for things, what a savings account is for.. those are just a few of the fun things. I've loved it though. We have had a wonderful 1 month of marriage and hope to have many more!!!

Nanny 411!

Well excitingly enough, I have finally gotten a job. And so far it's been my dream job! I am a nanny for a couple who I've known for a few years. They just had their baby on February 10th, 2009. His name is Kelton Michael Hall. Kelton has been one of the two boys in my life for the bast couple months. Joel gets a little jealous but he's been okay. He doesn't admit it but he wants to have children of our own soon enough. I work mon-fri. The hours vary but I usually watch kelton right around 24hours a week. I've been his nanny since he was just under 3 weeks old. I guess that means I'm going on week 9 pretty soon here. It has been amazing to watch him grow though. His little legs are getting so strong and he's always curious to see the world. He wants to be held facing away so he can watch and he trys so hard to grab the little toys placed in front of him. He is 12 lbs now. Such a big boy. I'm building my mommy arms early you see... :) Other than my fav. job, I am doing well. The wedding is getting close.

Joel is still working at Loomis. It doesn't pay like we were hoping but its a good place and he wants to keep it through school. He likes the environment and the people. He's almost done with school. I think there's only 3 weeks left. I'm excited for that just because it means that the following week is our wedding. Joel does very well at balancing spending time with me and doing his homework. He usually has a few hours between school getting out and work so he tries to do most of his homework then, and leave the evenings open for me. What a sweet heat! I love him a ton.

The final good news is that I got to go through the temple for the first time last saturday. (April 25th) It was amazing!!! There are so many blessings offered and I just loved it. I went again yesterday with Janice and Jared (joel was at work) and can't seem to get enough of it. I plan to go as often as I can.. which I can really go everyday if I wanted. So I plan to go often. Either before or after the wedding, still not sure, Joel and I plan to make the trip to the twin falls temple for a session or two. I was just excited to finally go. I think that's all the updated for now. Oh wait, we did find an apartment that we both love. It's in boise near the mall. It's 2 bedrm 1bath, and about 1000 sq ft. We really like it! Hope everyone's doing well.

Well I'm finally getting the chance to update the blog. I think last I remember, I asked Joel to add a little something so that it was more of "our" blog. Obviously we both forgot about it after that :) So much time has passed since the last time that I updated this.

Joel and I are doing good. Only 2 months and 6 days until we get married! We're both very anxious of course. We've been having fun going on dates and getting everything ready for the wedding. I never imagined how much there was to get done. People always said there was a lot to do but it just didn't occur to me until I was elbow deep in making cards, planning the reception with food and decorations and buying stuff, and then there was looking for the dress and tuxedos and flowers and cakes and food and a photographer... man... it's exhausting to think about. But I have had so much fun with it all. Joel is enjoying what he can. He can only take so much helping with making the invitations and registering. I don't blame him. So not up his alley on those. But he's liked buying furniture and sampling food alright. It's the effort that counts. As of right now we are trying to find an apartment to live in. Hopefully in boise but anywhere in the surrounding area really.

Wish us luck.

I'm excited though! Only 2 months left and counting.

Picture time!

This last weekend Joel and I went and took engagement photos! Yes, we've only been engaged a week but hey, why not right?! Okay so the real story is that my sister is trying to put together a portfolio of photographs. She'd love to be a professional photographer. At any rate, she told us we'd make for great "subjects" and people to experiment on. Free pictures seemed like a fair deal so we had a blast with that. We took 189 photos within a 3 hour period. Joel is such a goof. He keeps things interesting and I love watching him. It just makes me laugh! But by the end we were out of ideas and hungry! We went out to eat with my sister, her husband Bob, and my parents. It was a fun new place in meridian (I'd be okay with never going there again :) ) It was a fun weekend though. I loved spending time with my new husband-to-be. :)

Engaged

As of November 7, 2008 Joel and I are engaged. It was a wonderful memory that I'm sure neither of us will forget. I love reflecting on that night because he did such a good job of surprising me. It was truly the highlight of my weekend. My plan for that weekend was to stay in Twin Falls and get some studying done for tests that I had the following week so I wasn’t really planning on seeing Joel at all. Then he decided that waiting to see me just wasn’t on his list of things to do so he made the choice to come down here and hang out for a little. He had originally planned on only coming for Saturday but then it changed to coming Friday afternoon and leaving Saturday night. (I‘m thinking he was a little anxious :D ) On Friday we went on a date to Jonny Carinos all dressed up and looking nice. We had a lot of laughs including the fact that what I had ordered didn’t taste good at all and Joel traded me his since he eats pretty much everything. (He‘s so good to look out for me) Afterwards Joel said he wanted to go on a walk just so we could talk and have some privacy from my roommates. You’d think this would have made me suspicious but we went on walks all the time around Nampa so it didn’t even strike me as weird when he brought it up. We decided to walk around the Temple that’s here in twin and as we walked, we talked about how beautiful it was and how much we both looked forward to going there someday. That’s when Joel told me he had a question for me and got down on one knee. He asked me if I would marry him and I of course told him “yes”! Well actually I kind of stared at him in disbelief for a moment or two and then squeezed the yes part out. Haha. Afterwards we took a few pictures and called our family to tell them the news. Everyone was really excited for us. (I don‘t think it was a shock to either of our families or friends. Everyone saw it coming.) When we started talking about the proposal and its details I started to wonder how he'd kept it a secret. If you know Joel, you'd know he isn't good at keeping secrets at all. He said that up until the wednesday before that day he wasn't planning on proposing until the following weekend. He changed his mind because he knew that I was getting suspicious. And i was :D So I guess a spur of the moment decision was what it took for him to get it to work out the way he wanted. He did a good job in my mind. Now we'll both have that memory to reflect on. Now we are anxiously waiting for the day we get married. We’re still not certain when that will be but we’ll be sure to let everyone know. We just have to focus on finishing out the semester 150 miles apart and 37 days away.