Happy Birthday Lindsey!

Happy Birthday Lindsey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My younger sister, Lindsey Johnson, is 17 years old today!  She is one of my best friends and I love her dearly.  I am so proud of her and all she has accomplished.  She is a talented singer/ pianist, and back in the day she even played the clarinet!  Now she is a International Science Fair Competitor for her work in Solar Technology regarding the enhancement of photovoltaic methods (Now before you google what that even means... it is the engineering process of enhancing the power of solar panels in order to increase efficiency and effectiveness.  Basically, finding ways to get the most out of a solar panel and its energy.  For more information... just ask Lindsey :)).  Yeah.  I have a smart sister.

And even beyond that, she is an amazing friend!  One of Lindsey's best qualities is her willingness and desire to give.  She is the queen of gift giving as she makes every gift a personal one.  She is always generous with what she has and would do absolutely anything to help anyone that she saw had a need.  I am so impressed with her and her big heart.

Also, Lindsey is a whiz at Family History!!!  She is crazy good at it and finds so much joy in building connections on our family tree.  With her work, our family lineage has been traced to Atilla the Hun, numerous European Kings, and most recently, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the Son of Mary.  It is amazing to see all that she has been able to accomplish with that and also the people she has been able to teach through it. 

She is an amazing sister and I love her so much!  Happy Birthday Lou!!!!!!!!

Yep.  She is a babe.

She is one of my best friends

Sisters :)

I love this girl!

Family Home Evening

The night that I went through the Bountiful Temple for the first time to receive my endowment, a temple worker talked with Joe and two other grooms whose brides were going through the temple at the same time.  He instructed each of them to use the pamphlet "Preparing to Enter the Holy Temple" as the guide for the first few weeks of Family Home Evening that we would hold as a married couple.

We took this counsel and Joe surprised me by making a random stop at the Distribution Center in St. George where we picked up a pamphlet for each of us.  They were free so we were able to get two!  Now, each week Joe and I read from the booklet together and discuss the principles it teaches.  Although we have now both gone to the temple, studying this pamphlet together has still been a great experience and brings us closer to the temple.

I know the temple is the Lord's house.  It is filled with his Spirit and as we study the temple together, we invite Christ into our home.

"I love to see the temple.
I’m going there someday
To feel the Holy Spirit,
To listen and to pray.
For the temple is a house of God,
A place of love and beauty.
I’ll prepare myself while I am young;
This is my sacred duty.

I love to see the temple.
I’ll go inside someday.
I’ll covenant with my Father;
I’ll promise to obey.
For the temple is a holy place
Where we are sealed together.
As a child of God, I’ve learned this truth:
A family is forever."

“I Love to See the Temple,” Children’s Songbook of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 95

 

Unexpected Visit

Last night Joe and I were surprised with a call from my best friend, Rachelle Stoker, and her fiance, Michael Peterson, that they were in Orem for the evening and wanted to meet up with us!  They were down for a job interview and to look at an apartment.

I am so excited for these two!  They are such a great couple together and are getting so close to their wedding!  The two of them will be sealed in the Bountiful LDS Temple on August 4th.  They are only a month and a half away!  7 weeks! Only 50 more days!!!  Although for them this may seem a long ways off, they are getting closer, anxious, and excited as it comes closer.

But anyways, we decided to meet with them at a somewhat central location-- Provo's BuyLow Market.  Joe and I brought Josh & Jocelyn along with us and the four of us had a great time together!  We sat at the tables and enjoyed soft serve ice cream cones ($0.25 for a small and $0.50 for a large. So cheap!) while we chatted and laughed.  Somehow our goofiness turned into a game though as the change leftover from purchasing the ice cream cones were spun and flicked around the table.

This simple get together was a blast and we loved catching up with Rachelle and Michael.

Ah... the joys of friendship! :)

The Lakenan (+Johnson) Family

To begin with, sorry for the long post with no pictures, but it all happened so spontaneously that I wasn't prepared with my camera.

So yesterday when Joe and I got home from work, we were welcomed by a great surprise! New neighbors!  Their names are Josh & Jocelyn Lakenan and they were moving in to the apartment complex right next door to us.  The couple is just barely younger than us and are also in their first year of marriage.  Josh & Jocelyn have two dogs, Pouch and Burton, whom they adore and even though I don't like dogs too much, I have to admit that their little pups are cute.

When Joe and I showed up, they were in the process of unloading the family trailer.  Joe and I helped them carry their things into the new apartment and sort the remaining items based on which child's stuff it was (the family currently has three children attending Brigham Young University, two of which are married).  We were with them for most of the afternoon and enjoyed talking to them throughout the time.  After introducing themselves as Lakenan family, the parents and six kids told us all about their family and their trip to Utah as we unpacked, sorted, and repacked the trailer.  We were able to tell them about us as well and found that we actually had a lot in common.  It turns out that their family does homeschool, so with my Elementary Education background, Sister Lakenan and I definitely had a lot to talk about.

The Lakenans are such a bright and cheerful family that we loved being with them!  They made us laugh and feel comfortable around them so easily.  One funny coincidence was that their youngest daughter was named Emily as well.  She is six years old and along with her eight year old sister, Hannah, the two were delightful and fun little girls to be around.  They had fun being the "water girls" and always made sure people's water cups were full from the family water jug and were running around being great little helpers!  Being at college and in a Young Married Ward, I don't get to be around kids this age much, so that was fun for me.  I formed a fun friendship with these girls and completely adored each one of them!

Another thing I noticed about the Lakenan family was the love that they had for each other.  Not only were they all smiley and playful, but they never said a negative comment about each other or complained about the work they were doing.  They worked together as a family and everyone happily did their part.  Joe and I felt lucky to be included as a part of this for a while.  Also, Hannah was cute as she talked about how much she was going to miss her older sister who is moving out to college for the first time.  After listing off a whole number of things that she loved, she said that she would miss her sister more than all of those before running and hopping onto her sister's lap.

Once all of the stuff had been taken into the apartment or reorganized into the trailer, we all stood and enjoyed talking to each other just a little bit longer.  Who knew moving could be so much fun!?!?  But we really had made some great genuine friends and the time had escaped us as we worked together, laughed, and chatted away as if we were the oldest of friends.

Then to Joe and I's surprise, they decided to continue the fun and spoil us by taking everyone out to dinner.  Although we insisted they didn't need to do that, they wanted us to come and told us that not only was this a family activity, but Joe and I were now considered "part of the family!"  We couldn't say no to that.  So we piled on in the family van and after dropping the trailer off at the hotel, made our way over to Provo's famous Brick Oven!!!!

Yumm.

Our party (family) of ten stuffed our stomachs full of pizzas, garlic bread, pasta, sandwiches, calzones, salads, and Brick Oven's Old Fashioned Root Beer.  We all enjoyed every single bite and left full of the cheesy pizza goodness (and PLENTY of leftover boxes as well).

Unfortunately the family fun had to come to an end at some point.  The family still had some errands to run, so Joe and I along with Josh & Jocelyn (our two new neighbors) were dropped back off at home.  One thing we had learned at this point was that one thing we had in common was our sense of humor.  All four of us were able to tease, laugh, and joke with one another, which we did for the remainder of the night.

We had an absolutely fantastic day and are extremely excited about our new friendship!  We will hopefully get back together with them soon and have more fun times like we did today.

Frozen Yogurt

At one of my bridal showers, my mom and sisters spoiled me by giving me a Cuisinart Ice Cream, Frozen Yogurt, & Sorbet Maker.  I couldn't wait to use it and so on Monday night, Joe and I pulled it out to make our Family Home Evening refreshment.  Following the machine instructions, but not necessarily a recipe, we ended up with a Peach-Strawberry-Vanilla Frozen Yogurt.  With fresh fruit, skim milk, and honey, it was deliciously healthy and sugar-free!  My favorite!  We both enjoyed a big bowlful and still were able to save a bunch for leftovers!  We love our machine and can't wait to try more yummy yogurt and ice cream concoctions!

Assembling the machine

Picking ingredients

In the machine! So excited and ready to eat! :)

Springville Art City Days

HELLO SUMMER!!!

One great thing about Utah in the summer is the carnivals and celebrations in each of the major cities.  Now I don't know if Springville is necessarily a "major" or landmark city in Utah, but they sure found enough reason to celebrate and we did not complain!

To kick off our participation in the Springville festivities, we met up with our cousins Aubrie and Aaron Butler for the morning parade.  We loved watching each of the creative floats go by and visiting while we enjoyed the exciting event!  We laughed as the kids in front of us collected candy, water bottles, t-shirts, otter pops, coupons, etc.  All of them were definitely spoiled with treats and we even got a few for ourselves.  It was a hot sunny day--perfect for a parade!

At the parade

After the parade, Joe and I headed over to the car show.  We found some fun "dream cars" with all the neat fixings for us to look at.  My personal favorite was the jeep with the bright purple paint job. So fun!

Springville also had a carnival which we attended that afternoon.  We walked around looking at the fun booths and vendors that were there.  There was so much to see and enjoy!

And then there was the food... over-priced, sinfully delicious, sugary fried foods.  One vendor had scones bigger than my face!  Literally they went off the edge of the plate. Crazy.  Some of the food vendors had samples though, which Joe and I thoroughly enjoyed.  Our favorite was a Belgian Waffle stand that served Brussels style waffles rather than the typical Liege style.  Oh. My. Goodness.  I have never had such a delicious piece of waffle!  Unfortunately it was only a sample, but the temptation to eat more could have definitely been an issue.  Why does unhealthy food have to taste so good?

That night we met up again with Aubrie and Aaron for the free concert in the park and fireworks show.  By this time the wind had picked up and it had gotten chilly, so the four of us bundled up with sweatshirts, blankets, and bags of fresh kettle corn.  And if anybody doesn't know this about me...

I. Love. Fireworks.

They are definitely one of my favorite parts about summer.  I love how they light up the sky and fill everything with color.  I guess I find a sort of magic in watching them.  It was a great end to our full Saturday together!

Picture Wall

Seeing where Joe and I are now makes it fun to look back and see how it all began.  The two of us really have grown up together over the past few years (this September we will celebrate the 5 year anniversary of us meeting) so we have lots of great memories to look back on!  Luckily for us, a lot of these have been documented with pictures over time.

At our wedding reception, in order to show a bit of our personality and history, Joe and I had our decorator (Lisa Kellogg from LK Events) create a picture wall display with matted pictures of us throughout our dating time.  The whole thing turned out beautifully!

At the Wedding Reception

But now that the wedding is over, instead of wasting these fun pictures, we decided to put them to good use!  We used them to create our own photo wall in our room!  Right above our couch we have this fun reminder of all the fun steps that brought us together now.  With lots of fun colors, smiling faces, and great memories, this display adds a fun element to our place.

Home! :)

My favorite part is the way this makes our apartment feel a little more like home. Through these small things, we are making our apartment our own.  We will be living here for the next year or so, so adding a little bit of "us" to the apartment has been fun.  I like deciding together how we want things decorated, where we are going to put things, and rearranging things to fit our likes and personalities.  It is kind of a funny feeling being head of the house as real adults now, but we are enjoying the adventure.

Neighbors

We have the absolute best neighbors!!! 
In the house that Joe and I live in has been divided up into three separate apartments (one full upstairs and two small basement apartments).  The two basement apartments are reserved for married couples like Joe and I, but the upstairs is rented out to 4 single college girls. 

The couple in the basement apartment next to us are Caleb and Megan Hunter.  They got married just two months prior to Joe and I and are a joy to have as neighbors!  We have loved getting to know them and have actually developed a really great friendship.  So far we've had them over for homemade salsa and chips, gone to church together, and joined them for a fun Family Home Evening of rock climbing and Cold Stone Creamery ice cream.

Our joint family home evening was a great adventure since Joe and I had both never been rock climbing before.  Caleb, however, is an avid rock climber and Megan enjoys it as well.  Now that it is summertime and the weather is fitting, this Monday night was perfect for being outdoors.  The four of us piled in the car and drove up to Rock Canyon in Northeast Provo where we hiked a little ways up to a place that Caleb they liked.  We were climbing top rope style, so once we were all set up and Megan put on the harness, she started us off by climbing to the top while Caleb belayed her.  Joe followed after her, then me, and then Caleb finished us off with Megan belaying him.  It was great to climb to the top, repel down, and to watch each other do it too.

This was my first time rock climbing and for good reason too.  I am not-so-secretly afraid of heights.  (Yes, I am sure you can see my dilemma here.)  So this 5.10 grade climb was quite an intimidating thing for me.  However, for those who know my dad well know that he is also afraid of heights.  Even more so than me.  So as I climbed, I thought of him and of how proud he would be of me.  For those moments when I thought I was stuck or was tempted to look down, I reminded myself "I can't wait to call dad and tell him I did this!"  That idea was enough motivation for me to shake off my fear and to fake it till I made it.  And I did!  I made it all the way to the top!

After repelling down and feeling accomplished for overcoming my fear in the moment I needed to, I told Joe of my motivational comments to myself on the way up the climb.  Yet regardless of my personal fear, Caleb was distracted by another fact.  He could not get over the fact that I didn't break a single nail!  Not even a crack on my polished French-tip gel nails from the wedding.

So yes, I rock climb like a lady.

To celebrate everyone's successes, Caleb and Megan treated us to Cold Stone Creamery Ice Cream where each couple shared their own concoction.  Joe and I chose a mixture of Cake Batter Ice Cream and Sinless Sans Fat with Caramel Syrup and Health Bars in a large Waffle bowl.

(I apologize if your mouth is now watering and I have sparked a Cold Stone craving.  It is hard to resist, I know.)

Our ice creams were devoured as we talked and got to know our neighbors even better.  Hopefully we will get to rock climb with them again this summer and try our hands more at this fun sport.

Overall, here is what we learned today: Climbing + Bonding/Laughing + Ice Cream = Beginning of a great friendship!

Johnson+Butler Family Night

Yesterday to celebrate our one month anniversary, my sweet husband blindfolded me and drove me around town.  After I was thoroughly confused and felt like I was spinning in circles (later I found out we actually had because he thought it would throw me off so that I couldn't guess.  He was right), Joe surprised me by taking me out to dinner!  We went to Pita-Pit which has become one of our new favorite places. So delicious!!!  With his Dagwood Pita and my Chicken Soulvaki Salad, we left with our taste buds satisfied.

That night we met up with our cousins Aubrie and Aaron Butler for a fun Family Home Evening!  We went to their apartment in Springville and Aubrie gave a great lesson on patience using President Uchtdorf's talk "Continue in Patience."  She showed this cute and inspiring video as part of her lesson.  It was great sharing and learning together!

 

Afterwards, the four of us headed over to the park where we played tennis!  Aubrie has been taking a tennis class as part of her courses at Brigham Young University this term so we had a blast all playing together.  At first it was the two couples against each other, but after a while we switched it up to be boys versus girls. Girls won. :) Even though my skills are not where they used to be, I was reminded of the good ol' high school days on the Basha High School Freshman and Junior Varsity Tennis teams.  I gave up the sport when my family moved to Utah, but no matter what, I still love to play.

Since the boys lost, they were given responsiblity over refreshments.  Back at Aubrie and Aaron's house they made delicious strawberry banana smoothies!  Since it had been such a hot day outside, it was nice to cool off and relax before finishing the night.

We loved our time with cousins and time together as family.  It was a great end to Joe and I's first month anniversary!!!!

One Month Anniversary

Today Joe and I are celebrating our one month anniversary!  One whole month together filled with joy, excitement, and love!  The adventure has been a great one so far and we're excited for the rest of eternity!  So happy to be together!!!!!

(I apologize that I am extremely behind on my blogging and this is the first post that has actually been posted on the correct day, but I'm working on catching up and will do so soon!)