Summer of Weddings

MY BESTIE JESS GOT MARRIED!

Jess has been one of the best friends in the whole wide world to me. She has always been there for me and has always gone over and beyond in helping me with anything and everything.  We've had countless memories of us laughing our heads off, going on drives just to chat and listen to music, hanging out at the farm or having slumber parties in my tiny apartment.  And this summer she got married!!! After moving to Virginia unexpectedly, it made it a bit more of a challenge to get to the Wedding than originally planned, but with a lot of thought and Jesses help, I made it!!! And I am SO GLAD I DID!!!.  I am so lucky to have friends like Jess and I wanted to be there for her on the happiest day of her life more than anything!

Beauty School friends were there! It was really fun to catch up with them again. 

Hailey me and Kayla

The ceremony was really nice, then followed with a very delicious dinner.  And then of course, thinking about what Jess does best....a DANCE to end the night! It meant so much to me to be there and see Jesses family.  It's crazy how sometimes you don't realize how much you missed someone until you see them again.  That's how I felt when I saw the Parkinson family.  Robin (the mom) has probably the best dance moves on this planet, and the rest of the family is just hilarious, always laughing, teasing eachother and having a good time.   I'm so lucky to have been able to go and share that special day with them. 

CONGRATULATIONS JESSIE!

Swimming in the Atlantic!

 VIRGINIA BEACH

Being on the East Coast I have gotten the opportunity to see and do a lot of things that I never thought I would, or at least not for a long long time.  Some of the adventures we've gotten to do is play in Virginia Beach.  My first experience at the Atlantic I saw DOLPHINS! We got there in the early evening and a few minutes later we saw like ten different fins come out of the water really close to shore! It was the neatest thing ever!!!!! Have you ever seen real dolphins in the real wild?!?! I HAVE! and it was AWESOME! Apparently the locals see em all the time, they like to hang out around these beaches.

These beaches are really clean and have really nice sand, so what'd we do?! We built a sand castle of course! But after all the hardwork, and hard play, Landon needed a break...he is IN FACT asleep in that chair. An entire day of playing on the beach can be pretty exhausting.

So, this ocean is REALLY fun to play in!! The waves are perfect size to body surf in, dive under and play in.  The sand was nice, and the water was WARM! buuuuuut one BIG complaint I had was these stinkin little crabs!  I kept stepping on em!  The waves would mix the sand around so you couldn't see what you were stepping on until it was too late!  All of a sudden your foot would hit something hard and immediately when it happened to me I would throw my body in the opposite direction and pretty much dunk myself cause I'd lift my feet as far off the sand as I could.  I'm sure I looked ridiculous, but other than that....I don't think I've had more fun playing in an ocean in my entire life!

We caught one and put in our sand castle.  He might look little, but he was TOUGH!  He was on great defence and wouldn't ever lower his pinchers and would turn his body which ever direction the closest person was. Now can you see why I hated these sneaky little guys?!

 One of our most favorite days EVER

We caught that wave in that first picture and in the second one, we're just about ready to catch the next one.  

  ATLANTIC OCEAN ROCKS THE FREE WORLD!

Disneyland

Happiest place on earth

 Ryan and Meredith's wedding was on a Friday and Connor and I weren't flying out of California until Sunday, so we had all day Saturday to play.  So, where'd we go?! DISNEYLAND!!!! I hadn't been there for a really long time and I couldn't remember most of the rides. I had SO much fun running around and going on the rides.  It really is, the Happiest place on earth :)

 The weather was pretty perfect.  It was nice and sunny and warm, but not too hot that I was melting all day long! Perfect day to spend running around disneyland.

 

We got there in the morning and stayed there until it closed.  We all were exhausted by the end, but had the time of our lives!

Ryan and Meredith

Introducing the newest Mr. and Mrs. Willis...

Ryan and Meredith were married June 17, 2011 at the Redlands California Temple.  It was the first live sealing since I've been married that I got to attend, and it was so special.  The wedding was so nice and they did such a good job decorating and making it look so beautiful.  Not to mention the beautiful couple!!!!  I stole these pictures from facebook that their photographer took, I hope that's ok.  She did such a good job.

The Willis family

I am so lucky to have married into such a wonderful family. I got the coolest and sweetest new sister in law, awesome brother in laws and the most loving and caring and wonderful mother and father in laws a girl could ask for.  It was so neat being at the sealing with them; it was the first time that their entire family was in the temple all together.  I can't think of anything better than that for a family.  It was so special and I feel extremely blessed to be a part of a family that is so great.   

WASHINGTON DC

We got to visit Washington DC!!  We got there later in the day so we didn't get very many pictures while the sun was still up, but here are a few that we did get! It was so fun seeing things that I had always seen in pictures. 

The Washington Monument

  

A pretty fun group of guys we went to DC with!

  

 I wanted to see Abraham Lincoln monument more than anything else! I was so excited to see him in real life.  The reflective pool right outside of this was under construction at the time, that was a bummer.  I'll have to come back to see it! It was one of the things I really wanted to see too!

 The next day we went to the cemetery with all the soldiers. I think its called Arlington National Cemetery.  More than 300,000 people are buried here, Veterans from all the nation's wars are buried in the cemetery, from the American Revolution through the Iraq and Afghanistan.   It was really neat being here,  there were tons of people everywhere, but even though it was packed full of people, it was so quiet.  The feeling of respect was overwhelming.  This was one of the coolest places we went. 

This is the soldier that guards and shows respect of the Tomb of the unknown soldiers.  There is a soldier there 24/7!!!   They take turns after a certain while with another soldier to give them a break, and this picture is when they do a soldier switch.  They come marching in and then they do an inspect to make sure he doesn't have an ounce of dirt or anything, he has to be perfect! Watching this is incredible, they do everything synchronized and soooooo soldier like. Very cool to watch.  

 The soldier will march back and forth and then solute.  It's all timed how often he does it, but I can't remember what it was. 

The capital building!

Moving is my hobby

Welllllll, I had just updated everybody about our summer adventures in Pasco Washington, but we moved....AGAIN! Have you ever heard of anyone that moves as much as Connor and me?  Well, Connor's manager came over one Friday morning to tell us that he had just gotten a letter telling the company to pretty much stop and get outta there. Long story short-  Connor's office were on the power companies bad side from the beginning for not getting licenses in time and finally pulled the plug on us.  So, we found out that friday and were out of there and moved to Virginia by that next friday. 

Connor's doing the same thing here.  So far, its a little bit harder to sell, but Connor will get a hang of it and do awesome. 

I had always wanted to visit the east coast and now I LIVE HERE! its crazy! I had always heard people tell me it was beautiful but the humidity will keep everybody from moving there.  I didn't believe that it was THAT bad.  But I am here to tell ya, it IS THAT BAD!!!!  A little story about the humidity.  One day I opened our screen door for just a little while and then I realized that all the glass in our apartment was steamed over like someone had just taken a shower and steamed the entire apartment over!  The mirror in our bathroom was all fogged, the tile floors felt dewy, and even the glass cup I had on our coffee table was all fogged!!  Walking outside on day like that feels like im walking into a hot sauna.  It's hard to breathe and I instantly start sweating. its just down right ridiculous!  But overall, we're having so much fun experiencing the other side of the country!!

 The lucky thing about moving here is Connor's company spoiled us again and got us really nice apartments.  Here are a few pictures of the ponds around the complex (that have fish and turtles in them!) and the nice pool. 

1 year Anniversary!

 HAPPY 1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY CONNOR!!!!

Connor and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary June 26, 2011.  I can't believe it's already been a year! It FLEW by!  Before I got married I had always heard people say the first year is the hardest year of marriage.  I wondered what it was that was going to make the first year the hardest.  Was it the silly things that your spouse did that maybe you didn't know about? Or was it deciding who was going to cook everday and who was going to work on the car or pay the bills?  Maybe its a collection of all those things.   But goodness gracious! I couldn't have had a more fun year in my entire life!! My family has asked me if there were any surprises that Connor does.  I tell them that there hasn't been any thing surprising, just that he really is THAT patient ALL the time! He's more wonderful every day.  When they ask Connor if there was any surprises he smirks and says, "well I knew Janiece was dramatic, but I didn't know she could carry it on ALL THE TIME!"  Ha ha ha! Alright I AM dramatic! I get very enthusistic about things that I love!  But he'll tell ya that he loves it. :)) He really is the best. 

Connor and I were talking about some of our favorite memories of the year and we were just laughing and laughing.  We've had so many good times and most of our favorite times were when we were just at home being silly together.  

I am so lucky and blessed to have Connor in my life.  He is my very BEST friend and I couldn't ask for anyone better.  Everyday he is sweeter and sweeter.  Not to mention he gets cuter and cuter :) I am the luckiest girl in the world!!

I love you Connor! Happy Anniversary!   

A couple days before our anniversary I had gone home to spend some time with Jenica before she went to Alaska for the summer. And while I was there, there was a lot of sewing going on.  Tyleen sewed a quilt, my mom made Tyleen a dress.  So, I wanted to join the fun and I needed something to give to Connor for our anniversary coming up.  So, I decided to make us cool pillow cases!!! My mom makes these for us for Christmas and I LOVE them!!! I love the idea of having different, bright, fun pillow cases that are completely your own.

I gave Connor the pillow cases and even though they're pretty girly looking he did a good job at acting as excited as I was about them.  I had gotten back from Idaho Friday night and I couldn't wait until Sunday to give them to him so I gave them to him that night!   Connor was better than me and waited to surprise me with a gift on Sunday!! He had folded up a little piece of paper that said "couple massage".  When I first read it I was thinking that we were going to give them to eachother that night or something. But then he quickly informed me that it was for a REAL couples massage!!!!! When I came to that realization I almost started crying!  If anyone has talked to me within the last couple months they would know how badly I wanted to go and get a professional massage!!! The appointment was for a couple days later, and the night before we went I could hardly sleep, I was so excited! :)  And it felt more amazing than I thought it was going to!  I got that picture off of their website.  It had two beds in that same room where Connor and I got them done together. Best hour of my life!   It felt so amazing!! Thank you Connor for being so sweet and giving me such a special present!