Moving In: Part 1

Moving in to our new apartment was a lot harder than either of us thought it would be. We started by just emptying our carloads into the soon-to-be living room/kitchen area. From there it was a complete mess. 

Yes, that is trash piled up by our front door.

If these pictures aren't terrible enough, let me tell you about our moving conditions.  We drove up to Provo on the Thursday after Christmas - in a snow storm. The storm continued the entire weekend while we were trying to move our stuff and buy/transfer furniture from various locations. It was not easy. To make things worse our gas wasn't going to be turned on until the next Tuesday. No gas meant no heat and no hot water. So, we were unpacking in the middle of a snow storm with no heat. Saying it was cold does not do the situation justice. We bought ourselves a small space heater to keep us warm at night, but I unpacked for a few days in boots, my heaviest jacket, and a beanie. Carson even resorted to microwaving his socks at one occasion. It was ridiculous. Thankfully, we could take advantage of the warm shower at Carson's parent's house. 

Don't worry. We got through that mess and our apartment looks fabulous now (in my opinion of course), but I am going to make you wait a little to see that. 

Christmas and Beyond

Okay...back to catching up. 

We spent Christmas this year in Las Vegas at my house. We got back from Jamaica just in time for dinner on Christmas Eve. We were both a little sad to be leaving our paradise of a honeymoon, but the fact that we were coming home to Christmas made up for it. Unfortunately, Drew had to stay in Provo for basketball practice, but he got home a few hours after we did. 

My family has a tradition of opening pajamas on Christmas Eve. They are always from the "Pajama Elf" and usually they match. This year the Pajama Elf was thoughtful enough to include Carson in the pajama festivities. 

Waiting to open our pajamas. 

 

Does this give you an idea of this years theme?

Of course we went to bed early so Santa could come for the little kids. And yes, we even left him milk and cookies. 

The next morning was one of the calmest Christmas mornings I have ever experienced. Usually we have a ton of family in town and a lot of little cousins running around, but this Christmas it was just our family. It was really fun enjoying everyone's company while we took turns opening presents. 

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from dinner that night, but we had a delicious Christmas dinner with a few more family members. 

A few days later we left Vegas with my mom's car and a u-haul trailer packed full of luggage, Christmas/wedding presents, and a few furniture donations. After getting into Provo, we picked up the keys to our new apartment, unloaded (more about this later) and drove up to the Flake's house in Springville to spend the next few days. 

Between unpacking, furniture shopping, and spending time with family, the next few days were a little crazy. We did have a great New Year's Eve night that included an appetizer dinner and playing games for hours. 

Such a great Christmas break made it very difficult to go back to school, but somehow we managed, and are continuing to manage. 

We are grateful to both our families for everything they did to make this holiday season so wonderful and we enjoyed spending so much time with both of them. 

Learned Wisdom

I promise I will get back to all of the updates soon, but I want to take a break from all of that. Today Carson and I have been married for a month. Yay! In that time we have learned some valuable lessons, so we thought we should share them.

1. Never put a large bed against a wall - that side of the bed will require the moves of a rhythmic gymnast to make. Moves neither of us have. 
2. Buy a plunger before it becomes absolutely necessary. And before your local Target runs out of them. And before it's Sunday. 
3. Objects displace water. Very large objects displace a very large amount of water. 
4. In a snow storm, many objects - mattresses, large pictures, snowboards - can catch the wind and act as sails. Beware. Especially when going up stairs. 
5. People buy wedding gifts from very....um...unique places. Of course we are grateful for any gift we get. 
6. Ikea is a great place to buy projects to keep husbands quiet (or swearing) for hours. 
7. Even with all of the rope, manipulation, and imagination in the world, our sectional will never fit into or on top of my mom's Honda Pilot. Bummer. 
8. Girls don't cry to all chick flicks. And they don't appreciate it when boys pretend to cry "for emotional support."

Jamaican Honeymoon

After the wedding Carson and I had no idea where we were going on our honeymoon. My dad had set the whole thing up and barely told anyone. We did know that we were spending the night at the JW Marriot Resort where we had our breakfast and reception earlier that day. We walked in to this...

...it was seriously the nicest hotel I had ever seen. It even had three bathrooms! On the bed was an envelope from my dad telling us that the next day we would be flying out to the Couples Negril resort in Negril, Jamaica!

We spent most of the day relaxing and then we were driven to the airport where we first flew to Charlotte, North Carolina and then Montego Bay, Jamaica. Since Negril is a 90 minute drive from Montego Bay, my dad arranged for us to fly in an air taxi instead. Carson, who doesn't really like flying anyway, was a little scared when he saw the name of the airline (TinAir), but even more scared when he saw our plane...

I love flying so I was supper excited. I sat up front in the co-pilots position and Carson sat in the back with all our luggage. 

Yeah...he was more than a little nervous. To make things worse for Carson and better for me, after getting into the air, the pilot told me to fly the plane. He didn't even have his hands on the controls!

The pilot taught me how to go up and down, showed me what some of the gauges on the dashboard meant, and just told me where to go and I took us there. It was awesome...and just hours before I was telling Carson I wanted to learn to fly an airplane. Carson distracted himself from the terror by taking pictures of Jamaica from the sky.

We finally made it to the resort and found our way to our room. It was a spacious room with two private balconies, a mini-bar stocked with non-alcoholic drinks (they must have thought we were crazy when we asked not to have free alcohol in our mini-bar), and a hammock. 

Every day there was a different towel sculpture on our bed which is what is on the bed in case you were wondering. 

Our resort had tons to do but it was also a nice place to just relax. 

To Carson's delight between the four restaurants and three bars he could always get food or at least a pina colada. 

We were both fans of the bar - especially this one that was right on the beach. Everything was virgin of course!

This one was Carson's favorite because he could be in the pool and still order drinks. 

Carson ate this same meal at least once and most often twice a day - jerk chicken and fries with a side of wings. And some sort of tropical drink of course. 

Carson in the hammock on our balcony. I think it looks like he is in a cocoon or something. 

The view from our room. The weather was perfect the entire time we were there. It was warm but not too hot and the sun was always shining. 

As part of the honeymoon package at the resort we had a couples massage in this hut...right on the beach. It was so nice to relax and be pampered, especially after we had been so busy and stressed. Here we didn't have to worry about a thing. 

The beach was one of our favorite spots to relax. There were hammocks in some of the trees big enough for two people. We loved swinging in them and listening to the water. 

This restaurant was really nice and required reservations. The decor was really unique and we got to eat some things we had never tried before. It was also fun to sit on an couch and eat a formal dinner, not just leftovers or something.

We intermixed all of the relaxing with fun activities. One morning we took a shopping trip out into the city. We bought a lot of really cool things to decorate our apartment with and we made a friend. 

He wasn't really musically talented, but like almost everyone in Jamaica, he was super friendly. 

We also did some snorkeling where we got to see a lot of starfish.

It turns out that it is pretty hard to take pictures of someone else while you are both snorkeling. So, this is what you get. 

The highlight of the trip for both of us was going scuba diving. We took a little class with another couple, passed with flying colors, and then headed out to the ocean.

The water was really choppy so it was pretty scary to jump in, but it was way calm under the surface. 

During this trip we saw a ton of lion fish. In this picture our instructor is pulling one out with his flipper because they are poisonous to touch. 

Apparently Carson only felt like taking pictures of me from the back that day...

We also did a little jet skiing. We negotiated a deal with a nice Jamaican not affiliated with the resort and got to ride around for an hour. This was a little sketchy...especially after he told us that if it starts beeping its okay, just to let him know. I was a little afraid we were going to get stranded in the ocean but it ended up being a lot of fun. Carson and I took turns driving us around the bay where our resort was.

Even though Carson didn't get to make a gingerbread house this Christmas (a Flake family tradition) he did get to enjoy this one, probably the biggest I have ever seen. 

Our trip was short because we wanted to be home in time for Christmas, but it was a blast. Thanks dad for letting us have this opportunity!

Formals

We will have our wedding pictures any day now, but for now I can show you the pictures from our formal shoot that we took before the wedding. It felt a little weird getting all dressed up in our wedding clothes and having people congratulate us when we weren't even married, but it was a really fun day. Jennie from Jennie Slade Photography did such a good job. I absolutely love her and Carson will even tolerate taking tons of pictures if she is behind the camera.