October Happenings!

Birthdays are meant to be celebrated for like a month, or at least a week. October has a lot of Skelton birthdays, and this is the first year that we haven't been able to be in St. George to celebrate each one. So, a couple weekends ago we went to St. George to celebrate all the birthdays. (It was sad that Aaron & Aarin's family and Travis & Myriam's family couldn't be there though.) While we were visiting, we got to hang out with both of our families a little bit and Bryce got to go golfing with one of his good friends, Dane. We went to lunch with my dad and stepmom and they showed us around the house they're remodeling a little bit, it was fun to see them. We celebrated birthdays at the Skelton's and went out to dinner a couple of times. Woo! It was a lot of fun hanging out with everyone. We don't have very many pictures, but here's a silly few.

 
Happy hour tradition continues! ;)  Sonic is awesome.

Musical family ;) Happy Birthday month to Aubree, Aeme, Aaron, and Bryce! (And Lela, too!)

We carved pumpkins, that was fun. Everyone's pumpkin turned out awesome. Aubree carved the scary&awesome skull one, Aeme did the ....Eek one ;) and her and Jbz did the incredible/detailed castle one. Jenelle did the cool cat one by herself! Way to go Jbz! Bryce and I did the random hole ones... he made an amazing galaxy look on his. We definitely like the drill-pumpkin-carving idea. It's much easier. Anyway, good job everybody. 

Also in October, we went to Kyle&Janae's house to play games and have a soup party. It was fun to hang out with them. (Kyle was one of Bryce's mission companions.)

So, it turns out that we both really like Halloween. I love that it is close to Bryce's birthday. I got some orange, white, and black balloons for his birthday and they worked as Halloween decorations too :) He also really likes the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team, and those are their colors... so win win! I have a really hard time keeping surprises from Bryce, so he got birthday presents for like a week leading up to his birthday haha. It was fun though, because it felt like a long celebration. He got a few movies, game stuff, some clothes, and a few kind gift cards/lunches from family. We went to dinner for his birthday at Cafe Rio:) and had fun going to different places around town. And technically, Bryce got a house for his birthday ;) we're so grateful to be all done moving and done with the process of buying a house. It takes a very long time, but it's way worth it. We're hoping to get our names off the lease of our last place soon, so hopefully we can save that money each month ;\ instead of spending it on a place we're not living in. Having anywhere to live is a great blessing. Moving is a hard transition, but we're settling a little bit at a time into our new place/routine. We really like the new neighborhood and ward, they seem really nice! A couple weeks ago, we spoke in church. (If you're not sure what that is....it's kind of like teaching or bearing testimony of what we believe in front of others of our faith... we're asked to speak by a leader in the church and then we have the opportunity to study a topic and hopefully learn more and prepare a message that we think others might need to hear.) Our topic was "Finding Hope Through Jesus Christ." It was scary to stand up in front of all the people we didn't really know yet, but it seemed to go well. Preparing to give a talk usually teaches the one preparing something that they needed to know for their own situation, so we're grateful to speak.... even though it can be scary haha. Anyway, we haven't met a lot of our neighbors yet, so for Halloween we wanted to be home to hand out candy. We started out the night looking like this...

Make-shift pirate

Bryce wanted to be a Mo-Tab singer. 

And... yeah. We didn't really have a big ol' plan for dressing up, but with the little bit of dressed up we were... we think we frightened a few neighbor kids and their parents because they must have had the idea that we dress like that all the time. "What creepy people that just moved in next door." Haha.. anyway, we decided to dress casual after a few people came to trick or treat, so that we could make a better impression on our new neighbors hahaha.... some of those cute little kids faces when they saw us. This Halloween, I felt like an adult. It was weird. We figured out the "adult Halloween secret" ... very clever all you adults from my childhood days. I always wondered why I had a pillowcase full of weird unheard of candy. You people (everyone that has to actually buy candy to hand out to others...) take out the good candy to eat and put the rest in the bowl for those trusting little kids. Talk about trust issues. Just kidding, it makes complete sense. Good one though. Bryce and I had fun, holidays are awesome. 

And just to sum up this post.... Happy birthday month (October) to the greatest person I know, my best friend, confidant, and eternal companion... Bryce Skelton! You are amazing Bryce and I'm so grateful to be married to you. Thanks for always knowing how to make me and others laugh :) you are fun and amazing! Here's a video I put together to celebrate Bryce's birthday. ... if you want to watch it :) I love you Bryce!

Happy November! 

Love, Us

Moving + General Conference!

(This is somewhat of a venting post....disclaimer.) We were able to move in to our home on September 28. To say it was a long day would be an understatement, but we're so glad to be moved in. The week before that, we were worried that we wouldn't be able to find anyone to help... mainly because Bryce was experiencing major back pain that would make it hard to move everything. We were hoping and praying that we'd be able to find some people that would be willing to help us move. Also, we had found out that almost all of the U-hauls were rented out for that day, so we had to just be okay with picking one up in the evening. We were able to get a lot done in the morning and by time 6 pm rolled around, we had everything packed and a U-haul ready to be packed up. Thankfully, there were 2 guys (one from the old ward and one guy that works with Bryce) that came to help at our old place and their young kids. With all of us, 4 adults and 4 young kids, it took us a while, but we're grateful for all of their help. They seriously saved the day.

We had called the bishop of our new ward that week and asked if there was anyone over there that could come help us unload the truck, and the bishop said he'd try to get a few people together to go to our new place around 8 pm on that Saturday. Anyway, after loading up the truck at our old place, we headed over to the new place to unload. We were amazed and so happy to see that so many were willing to help over there. Another guy from Bryce's work came to help, our friends Kyle and Janae came, and like 7 guys from the new ward including the bishop came! It was a blessing beyond words. We feel very grateful that they took the time to come help us in our time of need. It's a very nice and welcoming ward/neighborhood, and that's very exciting considering that we'll be in this ward longer than any other ward we've been in. (We've moved once every year of our marriage due to different things.) We are grateful for everyone that helped us move, we couldn't have done it without them.

      
After moving everything in, we talked to Kyle and Janae for a bit and then we drove back to Provo to return the U-haul. It was getting pretty late and we hadn't eaten, so we went to Denny's and splurged on some yummy food to celebrate being done with moving in. That was fun to just chill for a bit. When we got home, we were super excited to get cleaned up and get some sleep. Then came lesson 1 of home ownership..... you get to deal with things yourself, no landlord is going to explain stuff and come to your rescue if something needs working on. Our water heater decided it'd be hilarious to not work and also our heater. Haha good one house. Our house was way cold 63-ish degrees and the water was even colder. We were stinky from moving and a warm shower is nice, but nope.... cold showers were our housewarming gift from our cute new house. We endured the freezing, but I'll admit... I didn't handle it very well... probably because it was 2 in the morning haha. Anyway, reality is great isn't it. Lesson learnt. We went to church the next day just in time to have our names read in to the ward during Sacrament Meeting. Haha..... fun. Bryce asked around to see if there was someone that could teach us how to get our water heater working, and someone from the ward came over thankfully! I don't know if you all know how to do that stuff and I just missed that class in school or what, but we were grateful that our neighbor was kind and helped us turn on our hot water and heater for our home. Next time, we'll be able to figure it out, woo! We unpacked a bunch and then we got to visit with some of Bryce's family for a little while because they were in Spanish Fork for something. It was a fun and eventful weekend. We're glad to live in a place that we can stay as long as we'd like. I know for sure that moving without much help is not that fun, so we've made a little goal to try and help people that need help moving, if we can. Sorry for the venting. It's just to document what happened for our memories sake. 

Transitions are kind of tough, but change is good. We're grateful for all of the help we've received, and we're excited to make new friends in the new hood. Woo! We hope you're all doing well. Peace and love! 

P.S.-- General Conference (on Oct. 5/6) was amazing. There were so many inspiring and uplifting talks given by those that are called of God to serve His children. They prepare their messages based on what God would like us to learn and hear. I know that we have living Prophets and Apostles on the earth today, and they are concerned for each person and their happiness. If you want to watch/read the words of these wonderful people, go to lds.org and check out General Conference and the Relief Society broadcast talks. You are loved and needed! God is aware of you and He loves you!  (Here are some quotes from the talks. I found these pictures from Deseret Book's Pinterest page.)

Love, Us