{Blessings in Disguise}

Today is a great, happy day.

I don't know why, it just is.

I feel so blessed to have the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life. I have so much hope and peace because of it. Life gets messy sometimes but having the tools that the Saviour gives us to know we can reach out to him in times of crisis and uncertainty definitely makes the hard things simply easier to handle knowing you aren't alone and He is always mindful and wants the best for you and everyone involved. It takes a lot of trust and a lot of faith...but He is there when we let Him be there.

The answers come :)

{Almost 9 months later}

I stated at the beginning that I would be upfront and bold on this blog to discuss the ups and downs of marriage, but that was before I would understand how tender and delicate a marriage could be. Marriage is something to be protected and cherished. Full of understanding, compassion, charity and most of all forgiveness. I love marriage. I love my husband and although he and I haven't exactly had the fairy tale newlywedded bliss that I was hoping for yet...I believe we still can, and still have hope that we do. A lot of my friends and family know the problems we most recently have been facing and while I'm not exactly thrilled about that, I am also glad I don't have to tell the story any more.

I think really the only purpose of this post is to let friends know we are okay and doing better. Thank you so much for your prayers and support. I can definitely feel the difference :)

{Wedding Day Bliss}

February 7, 2012 was perfect. I loved my wedding month, wedding week and most especially my wedding day. My mom flew in the day before and Ben drove us over to Baton Rouge late morning. It was a lot of fun having her along for the 2 1/2 hour drive and having Ben tell her all about the area and different stories about growing up in the south. We got to the Baton Rouge Temple a little earlier than everyone else because I wanted some time to spend with my two friends from my childhood and my mission who flew in just for our wedding. Michelle and I grew up together in Iowa and have known each other since we were nine years old. Natalie is actually from Louisiana, but has been living in the DC area. We were mission companions in England and it meant so much to me that they were both able and willing to come spend such a special day with us. It made such a difference knowing they were there for me. I know how hard traveling across the country is and the only unfortunate part was not being able to spend more time with them! The weather couldn't have been better. The sun was shining and it was warm! The Baton Rouge Temple is a brilliant white and I am so happy we decided to be sealed there.

{Louisiana Wedding Reception}

We were married on a Tuesday, left for our Honeymoon that night and then came back to Lake Charles, LA for our wedding reception on Friday. These are the photo from the night. Ben's family (my new family) decorated the entire day before and so many people helped and cooked and just made the party so very memorable for Ben and I. My new sister-in-law (with the help of many) turned a regular church cultural hall into a romantic, canopy ceiling, wedding land with white lights! I loved all of the decorations and the details she and Ben's mom put into it. I couldn't believe HOW BEAUTIFUL and PERFECT everything turned out. I really couldn't have done what they did or even dreamed it up. I am not a details kind of gal, but they made our reception exactly what I didn't know I wanted :) The food table was beautiful with amazing food--including Gumbo, Swedish Meatballs, Fruit...and to be honest, I'm going to need to get the list of what else was there. I was too busy to eat anything---except for CAKE! Oh wow. That was pretty amazing though. A week before the party, Ben and I went for a cake tasting and since that day all I could think about was cake. I've never had cake quite like that before. If you ever get over to Lake Charles, LA go to Pronia's Deli and eat the White Raspberry cake and German Chocolate cake. YUM! I need to learn to make spicy Gumbo and Etouffee as well...that was a side-note. I'm just thinking about all of the good food we ate while down there. Anyway, I digress! Ben's brother, Daniel was our MC and set up all of the audio so we could have music and a slideshow going on. Music is a big part of our life and we worked really hard on the perfect playlist and chose all of the songs that would always remind us of our wedding. Having said that, I think its funny that last minute I changed the song I wanted to be our "first dance song" and while we were dancing I wished I would've stuck with the original. Since there is no video or proof of our wedding reception, it will go on record that although the song we danced to was "True Companion" by Mark Cohn, our real song will be "Crazy Girl" by the Eli Young Band. I can do that, right? We had so many guests and it was really fun meeting all of the people Ben had told me about who meant so much to him. We did the traditional cake cutting and I was "encouraged" by several people to smash cake in Ben's face. I really hadn't intended on doing that, because if there is one thing I know about Ben, is that he doesn't hesitate to retaliate. While I was telling him to "be sweet" and he was feeding me cake, I just decided to go for it and I was correct to assume I would end up with cake in my hair...not to mention my ears. It was worth it though :) Everyone worked so hard on our party--it was picturesque and lovely and we have so many wonderful memories from it. We got an interesting send-off as we left the church that night...the great part was all of the bubbles people blew while we were walking down the sidewalk...the interesting part were the messages someone had written on the windows of our car. All wedding related, but conveniently blacked out for our future posterity :) One of our wedding presents from his brother and sister-in-law was a room at a hotel in town. It was homey and clean and very nice! I have to say how much I appreciate those details because we now laugh at the difference from the hotel we stayed at in New Orleans :) Good memories! Being a married lady is great. I love it!

{UT Bachelorette Party}

I had two Bachelorette parties. My friends are spread out with several states between, so I celebrated a few times. I am trying to find my photos from Oregon, but I'll go ahead out of order and post a few from my Utah party. Angela and Nicole organized this one and it was exactly what I wanted before the big day.  They invited all of my close girlfriends (and I didn't get an entire group photo...ooops!) and we met for SUSHI at  Mikado. They decked that private room out with balloons, streamers, signs, confetti, presents and even condoms all over the table. Yes---the place was covered. HA! Those in attendance included: Angela, Nicole, Anmaree, Mandy, Laurie, Stacy, Faith, my Mom, Stef, Erika, Laura, Marissa, Heather and Cathleen. It was great...and I was so completely touched that they came out, despite the chaos of the night. I didn't get to spend nearly enough time with all of them. It was a big room and it was loud, but it meant SO much to me that they all came! Later that night some friends had to go, so our smaller group headed over to dance to the music of the Spazzmatics, an 80's coverband. It was fun of course, but I found it interesting that we all wanted to leave after an hour. Haha. True story. So much for living it up as a bachelorette :) I was perfectly happy with this and was looking forwarding to driving home and calling my future husband. Some things never change, but luckily that part of my life has. I love that I would rather be with him than out with strangers. Give me an hour here and there and I'm sure I will always be reminded of how good I have it. THANK YOU to all of my girlfriends. I love you!

{Last Minute Bridesmaids Dance}

We had a small wedding in Baton Rouge & Lake Charles, Louisiana and we were surrounded by Ben's friends and family, my mom, Michelle, my best friend growing up from Iowa and Natalie, my last mission companion I had when I was in England. My wedding day was perfect, but I missed having more of my friends and family with me. It really was great and I wouldn't change a thing. Honestly, I don't feel I missed out on anything, especially because my wedding festivities started last October when I went out to Bend, Oregon and my awesome friends Kellie and Becky threw me a Bachelorette party. Come July, the parties will conclude with a big shindig celebrating my wedding and my little sister, Jessica's wedding, with our side of the family. I didn't have bridesmaids at my wedding since it was going to be so far away. A few years ago, one of my favorite parts of celebrating Kellie's wedding was the time we got to spend with her while working on her bridesmaids dance. In October, I flew out to Oregon and about an hour before my Bachelorette party we had this great idea that we could choreograph and record this dance, sort of like the one we did for Kellie. It actually worked out rather well for the limited amount of time we had! I'm not quite sure how we did it, but we pulled it off. This is the end result of that idea. I love my girlfriends :)

Click here for Kate's "Bridesmaid" Dance.

{BenjaKate Wedding Slideshow}

We've been married almost four months and I am finally getting around to finishing up our thank-you's, printing copies of photos to send out to our families, updating our blog AND I just uploaded our wedding slideshow to YouTube so we could share it with everyone who wanted a copy (so far I haven't been able to burn it since the file is so big and I'm not techy enough to figure out another solution I guess). It is about 18 minutes long or so, but we love it. Without further adieu, here is more than you ever wanted to know about us :)

Click here for our WEDDING SLIDESHOW

{If You Can't Say Anything Nice...and FHE}

We were feeling all family-like tonight and our first ever "FHE" ("Family Home Evening") took place. 

We didn't sing, we didn't have treats (mind our diet) but we were spiritually fed. 


What did we learn, you ask? Not to tease each other :) 


Good thing we are working on a lifetime of eternity together, because that might just be how long it takes me to master this.

{Krista}

Hey Krista...yes you.

Hi.

You asked about my blog.

This entry is for you.

You are beautiful and I love you.

Thank you for being a friend...yes, just like the Golden Girls.

Have a great day, okay? Good.

{30 DAYS TO GO}

I had every intention of consistent blogging. This little bride got hit with reality.
Our original wedding date was November 17th, 2011. 
Our new wedding date is February 7, 2012. 
Between another job lay-off and other life circumstance we had to postpone. (All is now well...I've been working 2 part-time jobs for the last 2 months)
In 30 days I will get to be Mrs. Ben and I couldn't be happier. 
In the course of the last few months we took our engagement photos in October. 

In the rain. The cold, cold, rain. My hair was awesome pre-photos. It morphed into "wet-awesome".
Three days ago we took our wedding photos. 

• We choose to do this before the wedding for a few reasons.
• We found it more economical to use our photographer's talents here in Utah since our wedding will be taking place in Louisiana.

After spending 2 1/2 hours with our photographer doing this, I am thanking myself! I was pretty exhausted and it wasn't even my wedding day.

I have been blessed with many talented friends who have offered their services as our wedding present. I couldn't be more grateful! (My 2nd part-time job at Victoria's Secret is depriving me of sleep and every generosity is another hour I am not walking on a cement floor in pain...thank you!)

I can't wait to show you all of our wedding photos! Enjoy the sneak-peak.