anyway, welcome to our blog! it took me six months of dating, six months of engagement and eight months of marriage, but i've finally succumbed to a couples' blog! surprisingly, cory wanted me to make it. he then requested that i put all these weird security features and password protect it so basically no one can read it...isn't that what a journal's for? lord knows i only write in that thing when i find it while i'm cleaning out under the bed (like twice a year). i've decided to make this sort of an outlet for all my favorite things-food, home decor and my family/friends. today will be the recap of 2012! since we already clarified that my diary sees more dust than ink, i want to have some sort of record of my first year of marriage! i'm getting self-conscious about all the exclamation points right now. here begins the year in review...
january-cory and i had just spent two weeks for christmas at both my parents' house and his parents' house...and we will never do that again. we loved spending time with both families during the holidays, though! cory picked out some fab clothes for me at the j.crew outlet in maryland, which were featured in our engagement pictures in late january. it was also during this month that we realized that cory's beloved 1970 olive-green volkswagen bug would have to go. after a harrowing experience during a blizzard with a non-working defroster and the windows down and snow from the road in our ears, we knew it was time to go (mostly, i said "cory, it's me or the bug!" i also had babysitting money saved up for a new car).
february-the truck was ours! we got a classy white ford f-150, '93 baby! i don't really remember that much of february...we spent it planning the wedding, four-wheeling and our first valentine's day. i got cory moccasins and a huge box of ferrero-rocher chocolates which we kept in the truck and anyone who rode with us got a special treat! he got me a gps. we're working on the whole "romance" thing.
march-is it bad that i remember even less of march than i do of february? i feel terrible! well, march was spent going to school (still) and working out (ashley, at least) and OH YEAH-a spontaneous trip to Cedar City, UT and Zion National Park. cory and i went to get lucky charms at the little market by our apartments one friday morning walked over to our friends' lauren and hailey and decided that we would drive to cory's granny's house that night. it was so fun! i honestly thought i would fall off the cliffs while i was hiking the next day, not because i'm legally blind, but because i was laughing so hard.
april-remember even less...just kidding. I GOT MARRIED! to the sweetest, handsomest, kindest, funniest, burpiest man i know! it was a great month because we ended the semester. cory and my brother erik did the splash and dash at byu-a mile swim and a 10k. we ate out NINE times during five days. also the five days before my WEDDING. everyone wanted to take us out! which was great and i'm so glad we got to spend time with all the wonderful family who came out for the best day of my life. i'll have to do a separate wedding post. you know for posterity, not because i just want to relive that day over and over or anything.
may-cory and i had a little honeymoon in utah. spent the week in our new duplex and then began our epic road trip to illinois! we took the scenic route, driving through wyoming, south dakota, minnesota, wisconsin, iowa, nebraska, and illinois (this was the total of both to and from). we saw crazy horse (not worth it, sorry), mt. rushmore (somewhat cool-except crazy asian tourists everywhere!), and the largest corn palace in the world. probably the only corn palace too. we also stopped and watched a circus for an hour in nebraska. if we survived that trip, i think we can make it through anything. we had a gorgeous reception in naperville-thanks mom! and shelly :) we also listened to all of the hunger games books and some of the eragon books, thus there was a lot of screaming in the car, and not because of cory's driving. this month also began the warm weather in utah allowing us to go to the pool!
june-downton abbey. cory's birthday. swimming. summer games. barbecues. cattle drive. that pretty much sums up the month! we watched a few seasons of the office and downtown abbey. we had an awesome barbecue for cory's birthday! i also made my first cheesecake for his birthday-great success! we went down to cedar city so cory and aunt nicki could swim in the utah summer games. cory won many gold medals and we ran the 5k together. it was a marvelous weekend. even granny and dorothy walked the 5k! and our friends derrick and anika invited us to go on a cattle drive with them because anika's family owns a ranch in wyoming. mostly, it was two days walking along a road swatting cows with flag things to make them move faster. it was quite an experience! that makes it sound bad-it really was fun.
july-while resting during the cattle drive (at night), i found our new house for hopefully the next year and a half. in provo, you have to hop on housing because it gets snatched up before your eyes! luckily, my email was so enthusiastic that they held the house for an extra day so we could look at it. we are currently living in a cute, old two bedroom duplex, with its fair share of problems, but it has a backyard and is pet-friendly! anyway, fourth of july was awesome because cory and i rented a tandem bike and rode it for two days. ouch. and then we had another barbecue. yum! the rest of the month flew by because i was doing job interviews, packing, cleaning and cory was still working full-time on grounds crew at byu. at the end of july, we moved into our new house, we picked out a puppy to take home in august and i started my job! good month.
august-california! cory's high school friend justin got married in the beginning of the month, so we drove to stockton and santa cruz for the wedding because cory was a groomsman. it was so much fun to stay at his best friend's house and then see the gorgeous santa cruz. it was also my first time dancing with cory at a wedding and i wished we had it at our wedding, in retrospect, so everybody-have a dance floor at your wedding. they're awesome! the drive back was not so fun-fifteen hours in the car and having work the next day...but at least we got our beautiful chocolate lab sienna that day too! yay! she was the biggest puppy of the litter, cory picked her out. the breeder's kids had been calling her "big bertha"-ha. we went through a lot of nature's miracle and paper towels this month. i wasn't sure i would make it. we also started going on weekly hikes with the pup...enter in the lake pittsburgh hike. first of all, we were with our friends trey and kevin and none of us knew how to get to the actual location. so we drove around for an hour and half through midway. then we got there and started hiking like normal. then something happened. the trail became SUPER steep and basically loose rocks everywhere. it also became ridiculously long. and hard. and horrible. did i mention that i had passed out that week too? yep. full-on fainted for no reasons. but i was fine. this hike though, was the WORST hike of my life. every step i took meant that i went back two steps sliding on all the loose rocks. i had some pretty good scrapes. and then we got to the lake and it was so not worth it. we climbed over a THOUSAND feet in elevation. wow, this is really long. anyway, don't do it folks. although trey did jump into the lake naked and we did make it back in less than a third of the time it took us to climb it (four hours total hiking trip). and we had great sushi afterwards. also, school started again this month! yuck.
september-hmm, in september we went to several waterfalls in utah. unfortunately i cannot remember the names of either, so sorry. we also got to go to the utah fair in salt lake city, where i got to see my former roommate liz! it was fun to see the rides and animals and partake of deep-fried foods. my brother erik also came out this month to visit...actually to recruit byu students for his company in minnesota! battle creek falls! and stewart falls! those were the names of the waterfalls-both were great. thanks cory for looking those up.
october-my birthday month, woot woot! this month was great because we had chad (cory's brother), jodie (cory's sister) and erik all come to stay with us! at different times. it was nuts, but fabulous. uncle nick got baptized on my birthday. erik, cor and i went to tucano's and got cupcakes to celebrate. cory and i went on a shopping spree the next week so i could spend my birthday money and have some fun me time, while cory indulged me, and yes, that involved me eating noodles & co. i don't even want to admit how much indonesian peanut saute i had in the year 2012. it's probably a record. we also ran in cory's aunt's 5k-in which cory beat me! so now i'm running again, as of yesterday, january 1, 2013. cory helped our neighbor put together a haunted house for the neighborhood and we won a ward chili cook-off, for a ward we don't attend and chili we didn't make. we went to a byu football game with erik and his friends. also, cory got my grandpa's shotgun. so good month was had by me AND cory!
november-this month went by quickly! we had a random snowstorm in which cory had to work a gazillion hours in three days. it also knocked part of the tree down in our yard, as well as the internet and cables lines, and part of our fence and cracked our windshield. this was also the time when we watched shelter dogs for a week or so before they got adopted. but we went sledding and built snowmen and had delicious chicken noodle soup and monster cookies. we celebrated thanksgiving with our friends and our neighbors in the local church. weird, but okay! there were like seventy people there. i made sweet potato casserole, pecan pie and sour cream pumpkin cheesecake. all turned out beautifully! not the kitchen though....we went to another football game and that's all the memorable stuff i can remember :)
december-oh well, this starts off great because we began it flying from slc to long beach to maryland! we had a day with cory's family, which we spent getting ready for family pictures! they turned out great and we wished we could've spent more time there. ugh. luckily there's a wedding coming up in dc! (jodie's engaged!) on our return flight from maryland to long beach, we had along layover in which we spent the day with cory's extended family at huntington beach-so much fun! and then we flew back to slc and the real world. we quickly wrapped up school with lots of studying and cory getting sick and finals and packing for illinois! it was absurdly nice to be home for christmas. we got to sleep in every day. and then take naps. eat so much food. watch lots of movies. oh, and open presents! cory also managed an inhuman feat of consuming a large oberweis dairy milkshake three days in a row. we also went to the christkindl market in downtown chicago-a family tradition and smoque-the family's (not mine) new favorite bbq restaurant. we saw les mis and the hobbit and went to the bean and the sears tower-the tallest building in the western hemisphere. we were some one hundred something stories above ground, in the little bubble jutting out from the building. trippy.
whew. that turned out a lot longer than i wanted it to. mostly, this year was about spending time with each other (ashley + cory) and with our family and friends. i am SO grateful for the people we are blessed to have in our lives. as evidenced, our first year together was filled with so many things, people, experiences, animals, food to be grateful for. bring it 2013!
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