10 Year Anniversary

Louis and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary in August.  We went to Park City which is where we spent our honeymoon.  We had an awesome hotel room that was close to a lot of restaurants, we spent the day at the Park City Adventure Park riding the zip line, mountain coaster, and a scenic ski lift ride.  We got soooo sun burned, but had such a wonderful time!  One of the highlights of our anniversary for me was leaving an anonymous gift card and note on the car of some newlyweds!  It was so sweet thinking back on when that was us and being able to wish these newlyweds the best as we were celebrating our 10 year anniversary!
I am continuously grateful for Louis and our relationship.  I love spending my life with him and I love the life we have built together.

8 Years!

Over the weekend Louis and I celebrated our 8 year anniversary!  It was such a wonderful celebration together.  A few months ago I got the idea to go camping for our anniversary this year.  If you know me, you know I do not like camping.  But I do love Louis and I knew it would be something he would love.  I brought up the idea to him and he was surprised that I was even suggesting it!  It ended up being one of our best anniversary celebrations.

Thursday night we headed up into the mountains to the camping spot Louis had set up earlier in the morning.  We finished setting up the camp and had dinner (we got pizza on the way up).  Louis made a fire and we sat there talking, roasting marshmallows and looking at the stars.  It had been a long time since I'd seen the stars like that.  It is still one of my favorite sights.  I wish I had the capability to take a picture of how wondrous it was.  When the fire was almost out we stood up and were watching the stars when a shooting star passed by!  It was such a nice night just sitting together with the sound of the stream in the background.

It was so cold that night!  We had two blankets, but I was still cold and did not sleep very well.  Louis woke up just after 6 and I woke up just before 7.  A few minutes after I woke up I heard someone ask Louis if he had jumper cables and could come help them.  Apparently this girl's friend had gotten drunk, then got scared and turned her car headlights on all night long!  

We ate breakfast and searched for deer.  Not to brag, actually yes I'm bragging, Louis spotted 0 deer and I spotted 3!  He said he's always going to take me hunting with him now.  We took a nap since it was a little warmer and we could comfortably sleep, then packed up and headed out on a little hike.  

We then headed home to shower and get ready for the temple and dinner.  We like to do sealings on our anniversary and this year was extra sweet because of the couple we ended up being with.  I'm going to share here what I already shared on Facebook.  We were in the sealing room with two other couples.  One of them was celebrating their 33rd anniversary and that day they'd done baptisms, confirmations, initiatory, an endowment session, and sealings.  They also said that they had not been to the temple together in 5 years because they have a highly special needs boy, and until recently they weren't living by family.  The other couple we were with had been married for 62 years!  It was sweet to see the love they had for each other and how the husband took care of his wife.  It was nice to share our anniversary celebration with them.

We had a gift card to Chili's so we went their for dinner and afterwards got a Redbox movie to take back home.  It was such a great anniversary together, we both loved it!

I am so blessed to have Louis as my husband.

He is patient, funny, kind, strong, hard working, can figure anything out, spiritual, and so accepting of everything that I am. I'm grateful I have him for eternity.

6 Years

6 years of marriage

2,191 days

313 weeks

52,584 hours

3,155,040 minutes

189,302,400 seconds

And an endless amount of LOVE

Since our anniversary was on a Tuesday (the same day of the week we got married!) we waited until Saturday to have a date.  On our actual anniversary we exchanged gifts and of course took our  annual anniversary picture!

As you might remember, Louis and I are doing a no spend month this month.  We knew that would mean we would need to be creative for our anniversary date.  Earlier in the year Louis and I bought a Cache Valley direct card.  It is a card that has coupons for a bunch of places here in Cache Valley.  Included with this card there are quite a few of coupons for free things.  Louis and I used some of them during our date!  We started out at The Pizza Factory and got a free bread twist, I also signed up for their e-mail list which gave us a second free bread twist!  Then we headed over to Zeppe's and got a free Italian ice, orange cream all the way!  We then headed over the The Book Table because we had a coupon to get a free scrapbook grab bag.  We sat in the parking lot, ate our bread twists and Italian ice, and talked.  It was actually quite nice as lame as it sounds!
We headed into the Book Table and got my grab bag then looked around at the hundreds of awesome toys and games they have upstairs!  They also had a table full of games that were opened to try them out so we played games for a little bit.  It was so fun!

After the Book Table we went to Chugz for a free soda.  This place is weird!  First of all, we couldn't even figure out how to get into the place!  There are like three different entrances.  You can go in through Plato's Closet, you can go in through the back, or there's a walk-up window also in the back, but set back so you can't even see it.  The red cream soda was good though!

After Chugz we went over to Fizz N' Fryz for another free soda, (we want to go back here to try their fries) then we headed over to Cafe Rio!  There aren't any coupons for Cafe Rio on our Cache Valley card, but Cafe Rio does have a punch pass and when you get 10 you get a free meal.  We had 10 punches and so we were able to get a free meal!  Which worked out perfect because we usually can only eat half of a burrito on our own so we were able to split the one between us.  

After Cafe Rio we went across the street and did some window shopping at Staples and Best Buy.  We need a new laptop.  Seriously ours is falling apart.  Our screen could detach at any moment.  So we looked at the laptops they had and a few desktops.  We're not sure if we want a desktop instead of a laptop since Louis is no longer in school and doesn't need to be taking a computer around with him.  We saw a few options and we'll see what we decide to do.

That was the end of our date we headed back home and had an epic marshmallow shooter war with Louis' sisters!  It was a fun end to our anniversary date!

May 6, 2009

6 year ago today Louis asked me marry him.  

Here's the story.  

A few weeks before we got engaged Louis told me he had seen in the paper that there was going to be a formal dance on the 6th.  I kept asking for more information about it (like where it was), but he was just super vague saying he'd have to look at the paper again.  The night of the 6th came and I got all dressed up and ready for the night.  My parent's knew what was going to happen that night and they hid it well.  I didn't know what was going on.  When I was finished getting ready Louis came to pick me up for the "dance"

Look at the excited smile on that boys face!

We were going to go to dinner before the dance, but instead we started heading back towards Louis' house.  I asked what we were doing and he said "We're poor college kids so we're going to eat at my house instead"  Alright, made sense!  I still didn't think anything was going on.  When we got to Louis' house and walked in the door I knew something was up.  There were white sheets covering the doors out to the deck, romantic music, a nicely set table on the deck, and lights strung all along the railings.
We went out to the deck and sat down and Louis' little sister came and brought us food and let us know she'd be our waitress that night.  She also took some pictures.  (I have never seen these pictures that were taken and would LOVE to see them if any of you Brandley's know where they are!)  We ate chicken Parmesan and spaghetti.  At some point during our dinner I was getting cold so Louis gave me his jacket.  Then he hugged me from behind and I felt him reach in the pocket of the coat to get the ring out because it was left in there!  Louis still denies that happened to this day.

I found this picture in a photo book at the Brandley's

It was while we were having our dinner

After we ate our dinner and were just talking Louis asked if I wanted to dance. Very romantic.  We danced for a while then turned to look at the full moon that had come up over the mountain.  Louis was behind me and got down on one knee and waited for me to turn around.  Confession:  I knew he was on one knee and was about to propose, but I was nervous and didn't turn around for a little bit!  I needed to breath and get myself ready!  Finally he gave a little pull on his jacket (that I was wearing) and I turned around.  Even though I already knew he was on one knee my heart jumped when I saw Louis!  Also there were 5 or 6 heads looking out at us through the glass door and a camera flashing away.  (Again, where are these pictures?)
I don't remember much about the actual proposal because I was crying and thinking, oh my goodness he's proposing to me!  A few years later I found the poem that he wrote for the proposal so now I know what he said to me that night.  After I of course said yes we danced some more and talked about when we wanted to get married.  Louis had already looked it up and thought August 18th would be a good day, it would be in between semesters and right after the temple opened back up from being cleaned.
It was sweet night, I love that Louis had everything so perfectly planned out.  I am forever grateful that I have Louis as my eternal companion.

Bonus:  I asked Louis what he remembered most about the day we got engaged and this was his answer.  Earlier in the day while Louis was getting things set up his mom walked in and asked what he was doing all this for.  Louis just simply said, "I'm proposing to Becca tonight."  He hadn't even told anyone!

5th Anniversary

We didn't do much for our anniversary this year because Louis and I are going on a trip together next week!  We are so excited to go on our first ever trip together!  So because of our trip all we did to celebrate (besides exchanging gifts) was go out to dinner Saturday night.  It was wonderful!  We talked about our last five married years together and our favorite memories.  It was really nice to reminisce.
What we've enjoyed this year:
My surprise birthday party
Christmas, it was really fun having a 3 year old for it
Black Island Farms was definitely a highlight of the year
Louis graduating!

What we're looking forward to this next year:
This will be our first year together where Louis will not be in school.  I'm hopeful that it will be fabulous.
Hopefully a new job and probably a new house.
A new baby!!
Being together.

Each year we take a picture of the two of us on our anniversary.  It's fun to look through them all!  Especially that first one, Louis looked so little!  Also, I've been pregnant every other year.

Our last five years have been so wonderful.  Louis is such a wonderful blessing in my life.  He is patient, (and you know he needs it with three girls in the house) kind, thoughtful, and so very hard working.  We love our life together and are looking forward to so many more wonderful years.

4 Years

We had such a good trip for our 4 year anniversary last weekend!  I figured it was about time I blog about it!

We went to Idaho Falls.  They have one of my favorite temples and I always have a wonderful time anytime I visit.  We headed up Friday afternoon and came home Sunday night.  Avery and Mary stayed with their Papa and Nana and had a wonderful time.
When we got to our hotel I told them I wanted to be able to see the temple from our room.  They gave us our room and we headed up.  This was our view:

See that tree right there in the middle?  The temple is right behind it.  So we had a BEAUTIFUL view of everything. . .except the temple.  Louis went downstairs and they very nicely changed our room!  

This view was much better!  I was happy!  We had a little balcony off of our room that we loved to go out on to look at the view.  There were always people walking on the trail around the river.  I liked that.
I spent a lot of time on the balcony, or just staring out the window at the temple.  It really is a beautiful place.

That night we met up with Tyler and Amy for dinner.  We were going to go to a Japanese place that they like, but it was closed for reconstruction!  So we went to Outback Steakhouse which neither Louis or I had every been to.  It was tasty and a fun place.  

After dinner we took a little walk across the street.  It was getting dark so we didn't go all the way around, but it was still nice!

Then we went to Walmart to get swimsuits because we didn't bring our own and decided we wanted to sit in the hot tub.  We were surprised to find that they had already taken the swimsuits out of their store!

Saturday morning we woke up at 7.  Super early for a vacation!  Louis and I waned to see who could run a faster mile.  I won.  By 32 seconds, but that's still a win!  After our "race" we went in to have breakfast at the hotel.  Then we checked out some bikes and biked around the river.  Biking was one of my favorite parts of the weekend.

After our bike ride we got into church clothes to go to do sealings at the temple.  We decided to walk and stop by the Gardner's Market on the way.  It was about there when I said to Louis, "This is so nice to be able to just do whatever we want and not have to worry about getting back for naps or anything!"  

Sealings were great!  I really like doing sealings.  The sealer talks to you and I always leave having learned something.  At the beginning of the sealing session the sealer said was telling us what a special day this was for the people we would be doing this ordinance for.  I think he said it was Brigham Young who said this, but he said that these people are allowed to be there for their sealing.  I thought that was nice.  

This water is from the sprinklers outside the church by the temple!

We then walked over to Smitty's for lunch!  Louis' whole family seems to rave about this place and Louis has never been there.  He was excited to try it, but we left quite disappointed.  Louis ordered a Belgium waffle with fresh huckleberries.  The huckleberries cost extra.  They brought out what looked like an oversized eggo waffle with about 10 huckleberries!  In the picture below you can see the disappointment in his face.  I got pancakes with scrambled eggs and bacon.  It was pretty good, but not great.  The service also was not very good.  :(  We got a giant cinnamon roll to go and that was good, so it made up for it a little.

So disappointed

We then went back to our room and I took a nap!  It was great!  And also funny because I had mentioned earlier in the day about how it was nice about not needing to worry about getting back for naps.  After I woke up from my nap we drove to an archery shop that Louis' friend had told him about.  We just walked around for a bit then headed back to our room to get ready for dinner.  We went to Olive Garden because it's delicious and we had a coupon!  They were very busy and so the service wasn't very good.  They forgot to bring out our appetizer and Louis' soup.  We reminded them and then they brought out our appetizer and Louis' soup and our entrees all at once.  We had a lot of food.  We had a fun time together reminiscing about our last four years.  

On Sunday we got up and went to Tyler and Amy's for breakfast then went to their church then back to their house for lunch and a game!  They were so nice and helpful to us the whole weekend.  We headed home around 5:30.  We were very happy to see our kids!  I missed them from the moment they left to go down to Ogden!  

Even though I missed our kids I loved being away with Louis!  It was our very first trip just the two of us.  It was a perfect weekend with my love!