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.