Twenty-one

It took me and Matt twenty-one months to the day to get from this:

To this.

(Air Force Academy cadets aren't allowed to get married until after graduation.)

It then took another twenty-one months to the day to get from the above picture to yesterday. Yes, my friends, at long last we have finally been married for a whole day longer than we were engaged! When you're engaged for as long as we were, that is definitely a noteworthy statement.

I figured out that it was our 21-month anniversary purely by accident. Matt and I had to speak in church on Sunday, so while we were finishing up our talks on Saturday I started joking around giving a pretend introduction about ourselves. When I got to the "we've been married for..." part, I realized I had no idea how long we'd been married and did some quick math. This led to me marking the calendar for a 21-month celebration on March 2nd. Hooray!

(You'll have to excuse the 10:30 p.m. picture.)

We ate cake, watched a touching chick flick called The Italian Job, and skyped with some dear old friends. So, to be honest, the whole "celebration" part was mostly an excuse to bake a yummy cake. But hey, you can never have too many of those :-)

Black widows and hiccups

I tend to think of myself as pretty fearless--for a girl, anyway. From cliff jumping to rock climbing to surfing to sky diving, I'll try it all in the name of a good time. But I do have three major fears, which I refer to as the three S's: snakes (deadly ones -- I used to play with garden snakes as a kid), sharks (all kinds, but especially great whites) and scary people (you know, the kind that end up in prison for life). There is also a fourth, lesser concern, which is coincidentally also an S: spiders -- more specifically, spiders of the poisonous variety. The others are unsanitary nuisances, and the poisonous kinds freak me out. Good thing I live in an area crawling with black widows, eh?

(See? I'm fearless! I jump off cliffs!)

Awhile back, a friend of mine found a black widow in her bathroom sink (despite having the home sprayed multiple times) and promptly killed it with a shoe. I told Matt if that had been me, I would've left the house and let the black widow have it. I was only partially kidding. My fear of deadly spiders can be traced back to my younger days, when my dad decided it would be funny to make his daughters watch Arachnophobia with him. Oh yeah, I developed arachnophobia alright. The potential situation that creeps me out the most would be having a poisonous spider in my bed -- far worse than in the bathroom sink, right?

(Or on my back porch, like this nasty creature.)

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when a bad case of the hiccups struck right at bedtime. For some unknown reason, I got the hiccups like 1200 times during a 10-day period. Matt found it hilarious. We tried everything to get rid of them -- holding my breath, drinking upside down, etc. Matt tried "scaring" me a few times but come on, a "Boo!" around the corner probably only works on a 3-year-old. So there I was, laying in bed, helpless to combat the "hics" that violently escaped my mouth every few seconds. Meanwhile, Matt was trying to contain his laughter as he drifted off to sleep.

(That was me.)

About ten minutes later, my nearly-asleep husband's body suddenly stiffened. "Ash, don't move," he whispered urgently. "I just felt something on my leg." Naturally, I did the exact opposite, flinging the covers off and jumping out of bed as fast as I could to escape the treacherous beast that was surely in my sheets.

I rushed to turn on the lights and when I did, I saw Matt standing there, smiling. "You're welcome," he laughed. There was no spider. And no more hiccups, either! That little stinker had scared them away (and they haven't been back since!).

Balloons

Last weekend, we had some friends in town who just happen to be our future child's future in-laws. While looking through baby pictures of the four of us (to see what the happy hypothetical couple will look like, of course), we came across this one:

My three-year-old self is so in right now :-)

Sunday evening ritual

I can't think of a better way to kick off a new week than with homemade chocolate chip cookies after church on Sunday. What can I say? Sugar makes me smile.

He likes it, too.

All at once

Happy Thanksgiving!

This picture seems to capture so many of the things we're most thankful for, all at once:

Our Savior, Jesus Christ. The gospel. Temples.

Our eternal marriage--with each other!

Our incredible families.

Our wonderful friends.

Our rich heritage.

Our great country.

Our good health.

Our income.

Our ability to enjoy life.

We feel so blessed to have all of these things--and all of you--in our lives. We look forward to seeing many of you very soon!

Eating cows and caramel

I was craving chick flicks and caramel apples last Friday, so to even the score a bit we kicked off our date with some delicious (read: manly) steaks.

Then we went to work, melting caramel...
dipping apples...
using every last drop...
and enjoying the results.
(And the movie.)

It was fun.

Oh, yes we did.

A few weeks ago, we somehow came across the fact that we'd been married for 99 days. I jokingly told Matt that we should have a 100 days party like in kindergarten. He, uncharacteristically, didn't even play along with the idea... and thus inspired me to tease him with an actual celebration.

When Matt came home the next day, he was greeted by this poster (made with 100 marshmallows, of course) and an entire itinerary for the evening. Luckily for him, it was a rainy day without anything else to do than have a party for 2.

Matt laughed for about ten minutes straight upon seeing the poster, and we continued to laugh at ourselves throughout the rest of the night as we celebrated our first 100 days of marital bliss. We kicked off the evening with dinner at our favorite southern BBQ restaurant in nearby Prattville.

Jim 'N Nick's is incredibly delicious, thanks mostly to its signature BBQ sauce. Their lemon cream pie is also a must.

After dinner, we headed home to our hotel room to continue the celebration.

Remember the "friendship mix" you made 100 days into kindergarten? Yep, this is our "love mix." (If we'd been in our real home, I would've also purchased a "love fern" ala "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days." Just because I enjoy being ridiculous.)

I'd also counted out 100 Hershey's Kisses earlier that day (because, seriously, what else do you do in a hotel room during a tropical storm?). We used them to play a little 5-minute game where we came up with 100 things we love about each other. Some of them were sentimental and sweet, such as me loving how Matt, on days when he has to be out of the room at an early hour, will get completely ready with the lights off so he doesn't interrupt my sleep until he comes to kiss me goodbye. But most of them were silly things and inside jokes that had us rolling on the floor laughing.

You know what, though? Even though it was a cheesy game that we were playing as a joke, it was neat to spend even just that short amount of time sharing what we love about each other and laughing together.

I don't think you can ever do those two things too much.

The shoe fits!

Ever since I can remember, I've wished I was just a little older.

(I think it comes with the territory for a second child.)

I especially hated telling people my age over the past few years, though. As an 18-year-old college junior and then 19-year-old senior, I felt so far removed from the typical connotations associated with those numbers. Consequently, I avoided the age question by responding with my school status: "Oh, I'm senior over at BYU." Awkward, no? It wasn't much better as a 20- or 21-year-old young professional.

But somehow 22 just sounds different.

And, for once, I think it fits :-)