our happy life

Last post, we said we planned on blogging more in the future. Believe us, we have planned on doing it every week. It's just never happened. Until now.

Exciting news since our last post is that we know we are having a baby girl! We are very excited. We also felt her move for the first time and now she moves quite a bit and likes to stretch and push underneath Natalie's ribs. It's really comfortable (..not). We've heard it only gets better :). Natalie is more than half way through already. It's pretty crazy and really exciting.

We've kept really busy this past month with school and work. It seems there is never enough time--sometimes we only see each other 30 min a day. Weekends are heavenly and we spend as much time together as possible. Our favorite activity to do together is cook! We have made all kinds of delicious dishes like pumpkin pie, pumpkin rolls, pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, broccoli salad, cheesy cauliflower soup, honey oatmeal bread, cinnamon raisin walnut bread, blueberry streusel muffins, butternut squash red pepper puree soup, snickerdoodles, shortbread cookies, hawaiian haystacks, and more.



Our friends Madeleine & Ked invited us over before Halloween for a fun activity. We had pumpkin cookies and each carved a pumpkin. Kenny went with a crazy face and Natalie went with "pumpkin pi." Ha.Ha. So funny. Here is a bad quality picture of our pumpkins:



We handed out candy that night, although we didn't have too many trick-or-treaters. Natalie made ghost lollipops. They were cute but we had lots and lots of extras.

That night, Natalie's mom came in town (to help move Jenna back home for treatment of her recently diagnosed brain tumor). It was fun to have her stay with us for a night even though the circumstances were definitely less than ideal. We also went to visit Jenna in the hospital that week after her biopsy. Now Jenna is home with family which is good but makes Natalie sad (she's never been in Utah without a sister until now). Jenna has another major surgery tomorrow and then starts chemo treatment--please keep her in your prayers.

The first few weeks of November sure flew by.

After a long, hard day at work, Kenny suggested they take a bike ride and visit Dave & Carol's family (Natalie's aunt and uncle). So they went. It was more uncomfortable than Natalie expected with being pregnant, but it was a lot of fun and good to get some exercise and get her mind off things. Kenny took some pictures during the ride.



One day Natalie had a conference for new teachers down at BYU so she got to meet up with Kenny right after he got done with class! It was happiness. We took a walk around BYU and took a picture with the pretty sunset in the background. We have a new goal to take at least 3 pictures a week because we are horrible at it!



The 20th of November was Kenny's 23rd birthday. He wanted to go on a run early in the morning with a friend, so while he was gone, Natalie cleaned the house and made a large breakfast for Kenny. His favorite breakfast is cornbread and milk, so Natalie made cornbread, eggs and sausage, a fruit smoothie, and yogurt and granola. Here is a picture of the breakfast (half eaten) and Kenny after his run, enjoying the breakfast:



Then Natalie took him to see Harry Potter (surprise! She blindfolded him on the drive over to the theater) and then they just relaxed in the afternoon. They went to Tucanos for dinner with Kenny's birthday coupon and Allie's generosity, took a free carriage ride through the Riverwoods, and then headed to BYU for the men's basketball game (thanks to Ole for getting us tickets!). We met Kenny's friend KC and his fiancé there and had a great time! BYU won and since they scored over 80 points, we got free (birthday) cake at Maglebys and then went to Coldstone to redeem Kenny's free birthday icecream! It was a fun-filled day for pretty cheap.



Here are some random pregnant pictures of Natalie in case anyone is interested:



Recently we've done more cooking and enjoyed our long Thanksgiving break! We enjoyed Thanksgiving day at Gordon & Sarah's and Rhodes & Heidi's (Kenny's aunts and uncles) and Dave & Carol's. Here we are with the delicious spread at Dave & Carols:



This break has been so wonderful. We love spending time together, playing cards, cooking, and just laughing and talking. Natalie's mom sent us ADORABLE stockings in the mail (she hand-made them)...and yes, there is already one for our little girl Adelaide. We also got a cheap $20 artificial Christmas tree that will hopefully last us a couple years and decorated with old lights and ornaments Natalie had (plus a few new beautiful ornaments someone made us for our wedding!). We love how Christmasy and homey it feels.



Our church calling is in nursery and we love it--Kenny especially. The kids LOVE him and he's lots of fun. Natalie took a picture today of Kenny playing "horsey" and letting two of the little girls ride around on his back forever. This is classic of what happens every week in nursery (Kenny has also taken them on imaginary plane rides to China and they've had to jump out with parachutes, etc...and the kids totally act it out and love it! Natalie has a video of this one on her phone but has no idea how she'd upload it on the blog...).



Only 3 weeks of school and work left and we will be flying home for Christmas! We're going to be able to see both of our families over the break and we couldn't be more excited. Life is wonderful and we are more than happy.

we promise we're still alive

Dear family and friends,

So last time Natalie wrote was back in June before we were even married.

Quick update:

Kenny came home from study abroad.

We flew to D.C.

Kenny met Natalie's family.

We drove to South Carolina.

Natalie met Kenny's family.

Natalie went back to D.C. Kenny stayed in South Carolina.

Kenny came back to D.C. We got married in the D.C. temple.

(Our wedding day was absolutely perfect, by the way.)

We went to Ocean City, MD for our honeymoon.

We drove back to D.C. for a week and spent time touring D.C. and visiting with Natalie's family.

We drove down to South Carolina and spent a week with Kenny's family.

We drove to Alabama with Kenny's family and had a family reunion at a lake house.

Kenny taught himself how to french-braid Natalie's hair (Natalie doesn't even know how to french-braid!).

We flew back to SLC, Utah.

We moved into our apartment in Orem, UT.

Natalie started feeling sick.

We went on an intense backpacking trip in the Uinta Mountains with Aunt Monta and Linds.

We got called as nursery leaders in our ward.

We found out we were pregnant (surprise!).

Kenny got a job working for BYU grounds.

Natalie started working at Westlake High School.

Kenny started classes at BYU again.

We are busy as ever. Life is wonderful. We are so excited to have a baby join our family in just 6 months! Life is sure to change quite a bit. We are incredibly blessed and happy.

We plan on blogging more in the future. Sorry for our absence.

Love,

Us

soon

I just realized that I haven't written in forever. I think I forgot I had a blog. I probably won't write again for a little while, so I thought I'd write a short post.

Kenny came back June 3rd and it was truly magical. Our reunion was much better than I imagined it being. Being with Kenny is the best.

We flew back to VA the next day and spent about 4 days with my family. It was really fun (especially since most of my family hadn't met him yet!). Then we drove to SC and spent a week with Kenny's family. It was so much fun! I love his family so so much and felt like part of his family from the very beginning. It is going to be fun to have a lot of younger siblings.

I came back up to VA a week ago without Kenny and will be here until Monday night without him. It's really hard, but comforting knowing we will be married in just 9 days!



I am so excited--not nervous at all. I am so confident this is right and so happy. Kenny is the most wonderful man in the world. I told my family the other day that my life is so much better than any chick flick...it's so true.

I love my life. 9 DAYS MORE!!

this summer

So Kenny will be back from Europe in a week and a half. I know that to most of you it seems like this has gone by fast, but on my side...well, it's seemed like forever and a day since I last saw him. And it's only feeling longer now that it's getting close! It's really hard being away, but it's great to feel so much love for him and to be so confident that this is right! Next Thursday (when he gets back) is going to be THE BEST.

Kenny has sent me a few letters and a ton of postcards since he left. It's pretty fun to get things in the mail, especially from Kenny! He's really adorable. I love being in love.

So about 12 hours after Kenny gets back from Turkey, we are flying out to D.C. to spend a few days with my family (talk about jet lag). I'm SO excited. Then we are going to spend a week with Kenny's family down in SC and then a week apart (it's going to kill me...but at least we have practice...and we want a chance to spend one-on-one time with siblings before that basically never happens again). Then Kenny will come back up the week before we get married and it will be greeeaat.

Only 5 1/2 weeks left until we get married! I am so excited.

This is the Kenny I love and miss desperately:

Oh how I wish he was here.

how it all began

I'm anxiously awaiting Kenny to get on skype so we can talk. He's in Belgium right now. It's 6:45 in the morning there. He usually meets me on skype at 6am. He's been having some early mornings. I've been having some late nights. I wanted to go to bed at like 8:30pm today, but it's 10:45pm now and I'm still waiting. I'll be honest, I want Kenny more than I want sleep.

I figured while I was waiting that I could write up the story of how we met and everything happened. I'm going to try to make this detailed enough that it's not lame, but not so detailed that everyone gets bored reading it.

I kept a really good journal during everything with Kenny. I've been on and off with journal writing in my life, so this is truly a blessing.

On Friday, January 15, I was sitting around with nothing to do. My roommate Madeleine suggested that we go to a games night at a boys apartment in the ward. Fall semester I had been really antisocial and so I really didn't know anyone in the ward. I had talked to one boy in this boys apartment for maybe a few minutes before, though, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to go. When I got there, I sat down at the food table and just ate some snacks. Soon after, that boy came over and sat down at the table with me and started chatting with me.

Well, we kept talking and talking and TALKING and talking....and 5 hours later, we decided it might be time to go to bed. That night, I wrote in my journal that "I haven't had this much fun talking to someone in a LONG time. I was completely comfortable with Kenny THE ENTIRE TIME. I was sooo myself. More than I ever am. Kenny basically had a window into my soul."

Still, I didn't think anything would happen. I wrote on Saturday that "when I woke up in the morning, I was decided that I wouldn't like him. Just that I was really comfortable with him and had an amazing time the night before. As the day went on, I wanted more and more to see him and talk with him. By Saturday night--only 24 hours later--it was decided. I like Kenny Barlow." From then on, it was history.

Monday (a holiday) we went on our first date. It lasted 6 1/2 hours long. It was awesome.
Wednesday he randomly stopped over at my apartment to see how my first day of teaching was and we chatted.
Friday we went on our second date. Kenny tried to hold my hand. I said nope...too early. We had a good long talk and we decided we would always be really honest with each other. This date lasted 8 wonderful hours.
Saturday we spent most of the day together. We talked about how we would wait a little bit to exclusively date. Kenny asked if that meant he could date other girls. I said yes, but that I would probably be jealous. Might as well be honest :)
Sunday we saw each other multiple times. And Monday. And Tuesday. And basically every day after that. Basically, Kenny didn't have any time at all to go on dates with other girls.
The next Friday we were at BYU's international cinema when Kenny asked if he could hold my hand. This time I let him. Everything just felt so comfortable and right.
Saturday we decided that we should probably not date other people. Neither of us wanted to, obviously.

Two weeks after we started dating I wrote in my journal that "I want to marry Kenny. I really do. I want to be with him forever. I don't know how I can possibly feel this after such a short time...but I really will be surprised if we don't get married."

YES, I realized how crazy I was. I always judged people like me! And yet I couldn't deny how right things felt and how different things felt and what I knew inside. I had a really hard time not talking to Kenny about what I was feeling. Luckily I only had to wait a week longer.

3 weeks after we started dating, we talked about getting married. Not like "maybe we'll get married," but...we're going to get married. This summer.

We waited 3 weeks longer to get engaged, just so it would seem a little more normal to society.
:) We got engaged March 12. Kenny knelt down and asked me to marry him while on a walk on the Provo River Trail. He gave me the most beautiful, perfect ring.

I can't wait to be sealed to Kenny for forever. He's wonderful. He's perfect. He's everything I've ever wanted and more.

July 2, 2010 is going to be the best day of my life.