Blessings

I am a list person and we have had so many blessings in the last month that I just HAD to write a list of just a few of them.

1.  Rod and I are settled into our new place in Las Vegas! After weeks of travel it feels good to be at home.  We love our new little apartment.

2.  I started my new job and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it! (So far at least!) I have been able to play with kids and hold babies... could it get much better than that?  I am so grateful for the people that I work with.  They have all been so nice and welcoming.

3. My new car.  After many years of driving the brown Prism, I was glad to say goodbye.  My new car runs great (and turns on the first time I start it).  It doesn't eat up oil and it gets great gas mileage.  I'm loving it!

4.  The GREAT deals we have gotten on our furniture.  We got a fancy new bed for cheap, a nice table from Craig's List, and a super nice couch and a TV for free!  We are living large.

5. Friends old and new... Rod's coworkers have been our best friends for the past few months and we love spending time with them! They have helped us out a ton! We also made friends with a couple in our ward who just happens to be our neighbor.  We had FHE with them tonight and we didn't even get to the activity because we talked too long...

6.  Our new fancy iphones.  As lame as this sounds, they have been so helpful!  We were able to communicate when we were in Mexico, my phone is my GPS which I use every day for work, and I can get emails for work (and not for work) right away.  It sure is a handy little gadget.

7. We have gas in our apartment! ( We went without for a week).  We get to take hot showers and cook on our stove!

8.  Our families- we love our families! They are a huge blessing and have helped us out in so many ways! 

9.  We are married! It is such a blessing to have each other.  Not only do we avoid all other drama, but we love being together all the time.  We are grateful to know we will be together forever!

10. Having the Lord in our lives is the greatest blessing of all.  He has helped us so much in the past month to get through everything and get settled in.  It is incredible how much Heavenly Father knows us. 

The First Weeks...

The first few weeks of marriage have been pure bliss chaos.  We've certainly had an adventure. On Wednesday, December 19th, we were married in the St. Paul, Minnesota temple.  We had a wonderful day, saw amazing people and had a perfect day.  It really couldn't have gone much smoother.  We decided to take a couple of days and go to some Bed&Breakfasts and one really fancy hotel and call it our honeymoon.  Night one of the honeymoon I wake up, not feeling so great.  The next day I was trying to be a good sport and walk downtown but ended up throwing up in nearly every store (or gas station) we went to.  We spent most of the day in the hotel lobby.  We did get out the next day and enjoyed some of what Minneapolis has to offer. 

Wedding Day

Honeymoon

He ate this...

While I ate this...

Next we had Christmas with the Taylor family.  It really can't get much better than having everyone home for Christmas (and eating all of Mom's treats). 

All the stockings!

From Minneapolis we flew to Texas and the next morning caught a flight into Mexico City.  When entering Mexico City, some people took Rod away because they said he couldn't travel without a Mexican passport.  He was only gone for about 45 minutes, but it was long enough to get my nerves going.  They told Rod to either get a passport or her would have to pay a fine of $30 to get back into the US.  (No big deal!) We were grateful we were able to get there and be with his family. 

We did some awesome things in Mexico.  We went to a castle, went to the city center, hung out with lots of family, had another reception with his family, and ate TONS of delicious food! (I never knew what a real taco was until I went to Mexico).  

Inside the Castle

I love Rod's family!

Ruins

Tunnels Under a Monastery

Churros and Hot Chocolate...you can't get them like this in the states.

Leaving Mexico was harder than I thought it would be.  I was able to get my ticket and luggage all taken care of very easily.  However, Rod was another story.  They said he couldn't leave without a passport.  So, we went down to talk to the immigration people.  They told us the same thing. So, I left Rod and got on the plane to Las Vegas alone.  The man by me on the plane may have been grateful to have an empty seat in between us.  But every time I looked at the empty seat, the tears would start flowing.  I think I cried all the way to Las Vegas.  I had to spend some hours with some friends of ours in Las Vegas until they could take me to get my car.  By midnight I was settled into my hotel room...by myself.  The next day I had to sign our contract for our apartment and run a few other errands.  I was not expecting to be on my own doing this so it was a stressful day for me.

Meanwhile, my poor husband was having a stressful day of his own, much worse than mine.  He found out he could not get a passport and leave within a day or two so he decided to take a flight to Tijuana, Mexico.  From there he caught a shuttle into the US, ran around the San Diego airport and caught another flight back to Las Vegas.  It was a sweet reunion when I picked him up at the airport.  Leaving your husband of two weeks in Mexico and not knowing if he is going to be able to get back is not a wonderful feeling. 

I found out my wonderful grandfather had passed away the night before I left Mexico.  So, we moved our stuff into our apartment and then headed to Utah to the funeral. We returned and had a mess of a time with the electric company, gas company, internet company, and every other company you can think of.  We went without gas (and took very cold showers) for over a week.  Rod had to do his homework in places like the mall and spent late nights using McDonald's Wi-Fi.

It has definitely been an adventure, but we are sure grateful that we have each other.  We have had some wonderful times along the way and we LOVE being married.