A Whole Year!

Spencer and I were married exactly 1 year and 2 days ago! CRAZY! Saturday was our 1st, yes, FIRST anniversary. In memory of such, I have decided to go through the archives and post some pictures from some of our many memorable events from before, during and after the wedding.


DATING LIFE

Spencer and I started dating on February 21st. The next week, February 28th, we attended the Draper Temple open house and upon coming home attended an 80's dance. It was so much fun and warranted the first pictures ever taken of the two of us together.
We had so much fun together!

After the dance at Spencer's apartment - I was falling pretty fast and it had only been a week :)

We wanted to surprise Spencer with a birthday party, but weren't sure we could make it a surprise if we actually did it on his actual b-day, so we opted for the night before. He was very much surprised and quite happy!

The morning of March 21st (his real bday) we went to Golden Corral, his birthday choice :)

That night I made him dinner and we watched George of the Jungle - a movie we'd been planning on seeing together since before we actually started dating.

Not exactly sure what the date of this hike was, but neither of us had ever hiked the wind caves up in Logan (something every Aggie needs to do before leaving this school), so we set off when the weather was warm enough.

It was on this hike that we both talked about our summer plans for the first time and Spencer admitted that his plans original plans were quickly changing on account of our relationship.

I wasn't going to argue with him. The two of us at the peach days demolition derby. I still haven't decided if I can handle the purposeful crashing and munching of those cars with people still in them.

Spring formal.

Summer came and I had surgery on my feet to get my bunions removed. Spencer came to my parent's house in Centerville to visit while I recovered a little. He brought me the most beautiful flowers! I was so excited to see him!

ENGAGEMENT!

On June 10th, just before Spencer left for New Hampshire for 10 days, the ring Spencer ordered finally came in and he proposed!

All the stuff I'm holding was part of the proposal he had planned out. It was perfect!

I was so happy and I LOVED/still LOVE my ring!

The wedding date was planned for September 4th - less than 3 months away. We had a lot of work to do, apartment shopping being one of them. Spencer ruled this place out the second he realized he couldn't even sit up straight, let alone stand in the shower.

Spencer came with me to our Cox family reunion (my mom's side of the family). It was the first time he'd met a good majority of my extended family. He was a great sport and I was thrilled to have him there with me! We even got to take a ride around Wendell Idaho in this awesome little plane. I loved it!

Engagement pictures by our friend Tim Jordan. We went to first dam here in Logan for these ones.

This picture was taken by our photographer, Sarah Hatch, at Woodland Park in Farmington.

THE WEDDING DAY - Friday, September 04, 2009

Spencer and I coming out of the Bountiful Temple after the sealing. It was the most perfect day of my life!

More pictures from the wedding day.

My bouquet! I loved it!!!

The Bountiful Temple

Married for time and ALL eternity - How did I get so lucky!?

Outside the reception center, just before the reception started.

MMM... He's Hot!

My family. Korbin, Casey's cardboard stand-in, Josh, Mom, Dad, Me, Spencer, Aimee and Oaklee, Porter and Sadie and Sydnee in front.

Spencer's family! I'm not even going to try and name everyone right here. I actually could - I promise - but it would take a LONG time right now :) We were so lucky to have so many wonderful family members come to support us. We love them all!

Our car... :-P All covered in toilet paper, oreos, glow sticks and flour. Yes, a year later there still is the rank smell of flower in our ventilation system. Thanks guys!

At least we didn't have to drive away in the dirty - we got the sweet car that Spencer's brother-in-law, Blake, provided for us! The perfect ending to our perfect day!

HONEYMOON

We went to Wolf Creek for our honeymoon. Real exotic huh? We had a lot of fun though! This was the only restaurant in town. Good thing we enjoyed it!

Spencer especially enjoyed the Apple Beer.

The next Monday we took the 4-wheelers up to Monte Cristo for a ride. It was the most beautiful day and I found the most spectacular cloud formation, I just had to take a picture.

Spencer loved the 4-wheelers. He would have ridden them like this if he was flexible enough.

Before Spencer decided to eat me we decided we'd better take a break for lunch.

That was our last day of the honeymoon - it was short and sweet and unfortunately we needed to get back up to Logan for school on Tuesday. We still found many fun and crazy things to do though to keep life exciting and interesting!

AFTER MARRIAGE LIFE (A year in a couple minutes)

Homecoming dance, October 2009

Christmas morning at my parents house. Casey had come home from the mission and all of us kids were all back together at last (with a couple extra additions).

New Year's Eve party at Spencer's parent's house. They sure know how to throw a party there!

Date night with some of the couples in our ward. With it being winter - the decision was made to roast hot dogs on the gas-powered stovetop. Creative!

Spencer's birthday breakfast - March 21, 2010

He got a new watch and bright yellow earbuds - he was a happy camper.

Yes, we are still in love! :)

Pictures skipped: Anything after I started the blog, which is basically everything after this point. Our summer adventures, graduation and everything in between there.

We're so excited to be back in our same apartment though. It was so much easier to get things unpacked and put away this tim around. We already knew where we wanted everything, so it was just a matter of unloading it and placing it in it's designated spot. We even made a few long-awaited improvements to the place, including drilling a hole in the desk so we could string cords through it and not clutter up the desk anymore. Spencer did such a good job!

1st ANNIVERSARY! Saturday, September 4, 2010

Because we had such an adventuresome summer and already had quite a few outings that cost a significant amount of money for us, we decided to have a low-key, but enjoyable anniversary.

We started off by going to the temple. It was so wonderful to sit with Spencer in the temple exactly a year from when we had started our journey together. I couldn't help but feel so blessed and loved being there. It's so wonderful to know that I get to be with him forever!

After the temple we changed our clothes and decided on El Toro Viejo for dinner. Yummy!

We then went to the Wellsville Rodeo! It was Spencer's first rodeo EVER!

The bull-riding was Spencer's favorite. Can you see the man getting thrown off here?

We actually enjoyed ourselves quite a lot!

Love this guy!

We have been so blessed and so lucky to be together. It's been the most wonderful year of marriage and I'm excited that we have so many more wonderful years ahead of us!

Home Again Home Again

I left my last post off at the train station in Tartu where Swen and Ivika dropped us off. What I didn't go on to tell was the mess of a journey that laid before us.

About half an hour into our train ride to Tallinn I get a phone call from Ivika telling me that our ferry line, Linda Line had cancelled all their trips for the night because of windy seas... NOT COOL! The train we took was only going to get us to Tallinn in time for one other possible ferry, with Tallink across the Finland straight that would get us to Helsinki in time for our flight the next morning. I immediately called Tallinnk, who kindly informed me that we had no prayer of getting on to their completely booked ferry that night. My initial panic was a little premature because Ivika had called Linda Line for us at the same time I'd called Tallinnk, and Linda Line supposedly had tickets for us to get onto the Tallinnk ferry that night at 9:00pm. We could handle that and I was thrilled with the idea of actually getting to Helsinki and catching our flight home with no additional costs than what we had already paid to Linda Line for our initial tickets.

When we got to Tallinn it was about 7:45pm. Our taxi, which Ivika had kindly booked for us, was waiting for us and took us right to the Tallinnk terminal. We took our places in line and waited to pick up our tickets to go home. But once again panic set in, and very much justified this time around, when the kid at the window told me there were no tickets registered in our names and there was absolutely no way they would honor our Linda Line "reservation". He then told us if we wanted on that boat that we would have to buy new tickets for the equivalent of $115. Uh... we really didn't have a choice did we? It was either $115 or about $2,000 to find new plane tickets home. So I handed him my credit card and asked for the tickets... Oh Wait! "We're sold out." WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
That's right - they had no more available tickets and he asked me to step aside and "wait".

Pretty sure Spencer and I were having a panic attack. I was literally flipping out. This boat was the very last and only other ferry leaving from Tallinn and going to Helsinki that night. Our plane left from Helsinki the next morning at 7:30 am and the next ferry in the morning that would get us to Helsinki didn't leave til 7:00 am - which caused a slight problem because we definitely wouldn't make it in time to catch our flight. AHHHH!!!!

In the meantime, Ivika is trying to talk to Linda Line and figure out where the "tickets" went that were supposedly booked for us and Spencer and I were waiting very much impatiently the miracle that was going to get us on the boat. While Linda Line keeps insisting that they'd booked a ticket for us - Tallinnk kept insisting that there was absolutely no record of tickets being available for us and we just kept waiting for no-shows so we could pick up a couple leftover tickets.

After waiting and panicking for about 30 minutes it finally looked like all booked passengers had made it through and I jumped in front of the line and into the window to grab the first unclaimed tickets. At his point I didn't even care that I was throwing another $115 out the window because it was worth it to us to get home. We probably walked towards the giant ferry in utter and complete disbelief at what had just happened and still not believing that we were actually going to get on that boat. When we walked into the boat it was like walking into a giant hotel or shopping mall. We both kinda turned in circles and had to ask to make sure we were actually on a boat. Spencer says it looked more like a cruise ship than a ferry - but I've never been on one so I can't compare it to that.

Unfortunately our troubles were not quite over - but at least we on that boat and headed to Helsinki. We now needed to let Ivika know we were on the boat, we had bought our own tickets and that Linda Line needed to refund us our money AND we needed to find a way to get a hold of Uncle Kim and Aunt Pam so they could pick us up at a different port and at a different time.

As usual - there was no such luck with either of them. Linda Line insisted that they had actually gotten us tickets and couldn't refund us because Tallinnk was already going to charge them for "our" tickets. LAME! And we also realized that we didn't have a phone number for Uncle Kim and Aunt Pam. JOY! Oh the joy! :/

We kinda gave up a little with Linda Line on the phone and resorted to email and gave them every possible detail they could need about us and our tickets from BOTH lines so that we could get SOMETHING back. But at least we were headed in the right direction - HOME! It even somehow worked out with Pam and Kim because by some sort of divine guidance, when no one showed up at Linda Line half an hour earlier, they just decided to go to the Tallinnk terminal to "see" if they could find - and no sooner had we walked out of the terminal they drove up. We waved them right down and I about started to cry. It was so good to see a familair face and I couldn't even believe that we were going to get to the airport.

Pam and Kim dropped us off at the airport then, and after spending the night in the airport, a 3 hour plane ride to Paris, an hour trip to the other side of the airport - a little more panicking that this 1 hour trip was going to make us miss our plane ride across the ocean - we finally sat down on the small and wimpy plane that was supposed to take us across the ocean. It was probably half the size of the one that had taken us at the beginning of the summer and Spencer was NOT happy about the lack of televisions on the back of the seats. He probably ranted about it the whole 11 hours we sat there on that miserable plane. Neither of us were in a very good mood - but upon arriving home on Monday the 23rd, after more than 36 hours of travel time since we'd let Tartu I was certain I had developed an ulcer and was once again in tears to have my feet on solid ground and know that our journey was over.

It was so wonderful to see our families again! My mom picked us up and we went home to a bar-b-que for my cousin, Jordi, who was leaving on a mission to the Texas, San Antonio mission on Monday. I am so glad we got to see her before she left! I love family time and it was so great to leave that night for Spencer's family's house and get more family time in. We may have been exhausted - but we did well at keeping ourselves up and loved every minute of spending time with our families again.

Spencer's brother and sister-in-law, Brian and Amanda, flew in from North Carolina to visit the family this same week! It all worked out so perfectly for everyone and we were so excited to see them again. Their daughter, Micaiah, is gettig so big and cuter and cuter every time I see her. Here's their cute family at the pool.

Brian, Micaiah and Amanda
Look at Micaiah's chunky cheeks! I just want to eat them! I can't help it!
On Tuesday night, Brian and Amanda went out with one of Brian's friends and Spencer and I got to babysit. Aimee and Porter (my sister and brother-in-law) decided to come join in the fun at Spencer's parent's house and Spencer was loving his role as favorite uncle. Here he is with Micaiah and Oaklee (Aimee and Porter's daughter). They're all so cute!
On Wednesday we got to go on a beautiful ride up American Fork canyon in the back of the pickup truck.
Amanda and Brian
The ride was so peaceful and beautiful and I couldn't help but be so grateful to be home in the mountains, enjoying the beautiful nature and wildlife I'd grown up with. We even saw a moose! Can you see it in this picture? I couldn't get the picture fast enough to catch it when it crossed the road.
We stopped by Sundance and took a short rest on the dock.
Spencer and me

Spencer, me, Amanda and Brian

Spencer's loving the ride home! Pretty sure we all fell asleep :)That evening we got to go to the temple and see Stephen and Annaleise sealed for time and all eternity. What a special experience that was. I am so grateful that they waited for all of us to be there. It was so wonderful to be there and see Jayden sealed to them. I've said it before and I'll say it a million more times - I love the temple!

I need to grab pictures of our family from it so we can always remember how beautiful it was!

Thursday, Spencer and I got to run up to Logan and do a quick move in. We are so grateful for our wonderful friends and family who helped us get everything back into our apartment so quickly. We couldn't have done it without them and are so blessed to have so many wonderful people in our lives. Our night in our own little apartment in Logan - even though it was mess and still covered in suitcases and boxes - was like a dream. It was so nice to be in our own place again and even though it's small and very humble, we love it here!

Friday morning, after doing a bit more unpacking and organizing, along with a lot of other logistical stuff, we headed up to East Canyon to spend the weekend with the family again. We had ALL of the Dearingers up there on Saturday and it was so neat to have us all together! We spent time by the pool, played games, ate lots of food and did lots of laughing.

I especially enjoyed the 3 little babies all in one place. I felt so baby-deprived this summer without all the cute neices and nephews that I've grown to love this past year, it was so fun to see them all again.

This is Amy and Brandon Wyatt's daughter, Brianna. Cute Jayden is Stephen and Annaleise's baby

I've already got a picture Micaiah earlier in this post - but having all three of them together was a blast! Uncle Bill's daughter, Rebecca, bought all three of them matching outfits.
I love these pictures of them! They all almost weren't awake and happy - but we got pictures of them together, awake and not crying. That's a miracle! :)
Cute babies, cute family and a wonderful week! It was a wonderful way to spend our first week home from our summer abroad. We love our family!

Take 2 in Tartu

Our first night back in Tartu was not the greatest of days we've ever had. We got off the bus somewhere around 3:30 in the afternoon. We didn't really want to take a taxi and even though our hotel was on the other side of the city, I figured that we'd done enough walking around in Pärnu for the last few days that we could handle the walk across Tartu. What I didn't comprehend anymore was how much larger Tartu really was than Pärnu and how hard it was going to be to haul all of our baggage all the way across town. About half way there Spencer starts asking for rough estimates of how much farther we need to wak and was not so thrilled when I pointed to a far distant yellow building and told him that we would turn on that street to walk a couple more blocks to our hotel. :) Sorry Spence! We definitely should have taken a taxi! It was too late though to grab one now, so we walked ahead, a bit more grumpy and tired than when we had started.

When we finally reached the hotel, it had probably taken about 45 minutes to an hour to walk there and we were exhausted and hungry (not a good combination). We walked into our room and felt like we had walked into more of a prison cell than a place where we had paid to stay the night. The bed, which was WAY smaller than the other hotel beds we'd stayed on during the trip, took up almost the whole room. We barely had enough room to lay our suitcase down and change our clothes and on top of that, the room was swealtering hot. We felt like we'd gone back to Ghana and had all of our fans taken away. Needless to say, as much as we would have liked to lay down and rest, we opened the bedroom window and headed right out to get some food.

After dinner, we decided to catch The Last Airbender in 3D. We were so excited to see it because we'd been waiting for so long to see how the cartoon (which we LOVE) and the movie match up. We were so sad in Ghana when the movie came out in the US and we couldn't go see it with all of our nerdy Airbender friends, so when we saw that it was coming out in Estonia while we were there we made sure to catch it. Sadly enough, like the rest of our day, it didn't quite go as we would have wished. We showed up to the theater, had to leave and get cash because they wouldn't take our card, subsequently forgot the card IN the ATM and didn't realize it until after the disappointing and anti-climactic movie when we were at the cash register of the grocery store trying to get some food before we went back to our hotel cell. We then tried to go back to the ATM to find the card - of course it was no where to be seen by now - missed our bus home and then had to wait another 45 minutes for another bus to come along and get us to our resting station for the night. Needless to say, the next morning we were positively thrilled to be checking out of the so-called hotel. My friends, Swen and Ivika Hirs (who were married and baptized while I was in Tartu) had come home from Finland late the night before and rescued us! We were so excited to see them and it was so much fun to go stay at their house and spend the next day or two with them.

Our first venture with them was to stop by the outdoor market and pick up some fresh vegetables and fruits for our meals together. We then stopped at a place right in center called Creppe for lunch. Upon ordering, Swen, Spencer and I decided we wanted Lemonade. I had apparently forgotten what lemonade in Estonia was like because I forgot that it was more of a carbonated soft drink than the lemonade we were used to. When it came out we all just kind of stared because it was in huge A-le-coq glasses (beer glasses) and has the brownish-yellow look of beer too. Ivika immediately commented and made sure that the contents of the glass really were lemonade and that it was NOT alcoholic. We couldn't help but laugh and feel just a little bit awkward sitting in the middle of Tartu, on an outside table with hundreds of onlookers, drinking what looked like beer but happened to be lemonade. "Avoid the appearance of evil" just kept runnng through my head over and over again - but we laughed and joked about it and prayed no one who knew us would walk by and notice what was going on. I mean, look at this picture - what would you think we were drinking?

Ivika was just glad she has stuck with the overly-priced water :)
After lunch we headed back to Swen and Ivika's place, which is also quite nicely situated in the center of town and relaxed for a little bit before deciding to go see an early movie. Spencer and I needed a better movie to remove the sour taste the Last Airbender left for us, so we were all for another movie. We decided (or really Ivika and I decided) to go see Letters to Juliet. We ended up labeling it as the cheesy tear-jerker because Spencer almost laughed at all the cheesiness through the whole movie, while Ivika was tearing up. Having Ivika on one side and Spencer on the other made it hard for me to decide which emotion I was feeling. I actually kind of liked it that way because I hate crying and laughing at the cheese kind of ruins the movie - so I was at a great happy-medium in my spot and thoroughly enjoyed the movie.

We then headed out to Lõuna Keskus to make sure Spencer and I had done all of our last-minute shopping before leaving Estonia. It was Saturday now and our ferry was leaving Tallinn Sunday night - so we weren't going to have another chance to buy something if we wanted it from Estonia. This little shopping trip made me very happy. I basically splurged on every piece of chocolate I had ever craved since leaving Estonia 20 months before. When we walked out of the grocery store, this is what we had finally ended up with. Our chocolate goes from the yellow bag up to the green divider thing. Ivika thought it was quite an amusing sight, and thus insisted on getting a picture of it.

Spencer really didn't have much say in what we chocolates were going to buy - but in this linen store, he was very adament about NOT getting any of the over-priced things. Even if I HAD wanted something, I don't think it would have gone over too well. We did have fun trying on the sauna hats though, although I still can't figure out why you'd want to wear a hat, especially a linen hat, in the saune.
After playing around in the linen shop for a while we headed back to the apartment for more food and games. We had the most delicious stew from all sorts of fresh ingredients and played Ticket to Ride Europe - which Swen and Ivika had just bought. We were so excited to see a game other than cards that we could barely handle it. After all summer with only facecards, Skipbo, Monopoly Deal and Phase Ten, we were definitly ready to play something else.

That night I slept better than I had in a long time. It was so nice in their apartment and I think I was just grateful to be with some familiar people again and have fun like we would with our friends back home.

The next morning we headed off to church and had a great time meeting new people and seeing the old again. I tried translating for Spencer - but most of the time he just got to sit and listen to the Estonian while I tried my hardest to comprehend what was being said on my own. I'm not sure why it seemed so much easier in Pärnu to understand and translate everything, but my brain must have been completely fried or something because I was completely lost. I really enjoyed being with the Tartu branch again though. They are now in a completely different building than when I was there, but it's so much nicer and it was so fun to see everyone and talk to them about how much they like the new building better than the old one.

Anyway, once church had finished and we had gone home to eat some more of that delicious stew we thought we'd spend our last hour or two going on a nice walk around town and enjoying our last little bits of Estonia.

This fountain is right in the center of Tartu's Raekoja Plats. As missionaries we used to meet people in front of this kissing fountain all the time to teach lessons. I had always wanted to bring whoever my sweet future husband would be back to this very place and get a picture like this. So now that I had my sweet husband right here I couldn't miss this opportunity :) The only thing we're missing is the umbrella and rain. We continued to walk around and Ivika made sure that we didn't miss a single picture moment. This is the Tartu town hall - notice the fountain in the background.
This is some monument to the Wilde men, Oscar and Eduard
These are their statues with Spencer and Swen admiring their beauty :)
You think Spencer's jealous ?
Not going to lie - after being in Ghana where husbands/wives, fiances, boyfriends and girlfriends never even touch eachother in public - it was really nice to see some public affection again.
Mine? Oma, in Estonia is basically the all-around word to make somehing possessive. So this is MY mural on the side of the building.
Cute Swen and Ivika! I'm SO glad they were game for so much fun!
Tartu University main building. I love it here!
We didn't do it! I promise!
Swen, Ivika and Spencer just walking down the street. Yay for candid moments!
We had to check out the botanical gardens. They have so many beautiful flowers and plants. This picture makes it look like Spencer's allergies are going crazy - but deep down, I know he really does appreciate the beauty of plant life.
Swen and Ivika in front of their apartment building where we stayed.
Our train left that night at 5:30 from Tartu so we could catch our ferry from Tallinn to Helsinki at 9. Here we all are at the train station. After a long summer away from home we were ready to get going, but it was so bitter sweet to leave such a wonderful people behind and not know when we'll be able to come back and see this beautiful place again. Hopefully someday!

We love you Swen and Ivika, all you other Estonians and just Eesti in general! Thanks for such a great visit!