Nine Reasons I am Thankful for Nate

This year, Nate and I decided to do the Twelve Days of Christmas for each other.  It has been so fun to think of twelve days worth of small gifts/ acts of service for each other during this wonderful Christmas season!!  For Day Nine I decided that it would be great to write about nine reasons I am thankful for Nate.  We were on the road nine days before Christmas so this is a little late, but hopefully just as nice :).  There so many reasons I am thankful for Nate!!  Below are nine of those reasons.

Reason #1: I am thankful for Nate because he is so loving towards me.  I love it when Nate shows his love for me through hugging me or kissing me and fortunately for me, he does it all the time!  I love it!!  He is also so loyal.  He is so careful to never say anything negative about me.  I really appreciate this.  Best husband ever and most easy to love husband ever.  
Reason #2: Nate is always looking for ways to improve and become the best he can be.  I really admire this trait in anyone and am so lucky to have that influence in my life daily.  Together I know we will become better than we would have alone.  Best husband ever and most perfect husband for me.
Reason #3:  Nate spoils me with gifts and service.  He is obviously wise and helps me make good choices with purchases, but I love how he wants me to enjoy nice things.  He also trusts me to make decisions on what I think would be a good buy. And he serves me so often.  He is so good at doing things for me that he knows I would appreciate.  Best husband ever and most generous/ trusting husband ever. 
Reason #4: Nate is a pretty funny guy, which I am so thankful for.  He always makes me laugh and I love that because makes everyday tasks much more fun.  And while we are on the topic of laughing, he also laughs at my jokes, which I really appreciate.  I am not near as funny as Nate, but he makes me feel like I am :).  Best husband ever and most hilarious husband ever. 
Reason #5:  Nate tells me I am beautiful all the time. He honestly tells me more times than I can count daily.  Every girl loves to hear this and I am so thankful Nate tells me all the time.  It really makes me feel so wonderful all the time!  Best husband ever and most thoughtful husband ever.  
Reason #6: Nate loves to make me happy.  I really appreciate this because I like being happy :).  But really, he is so concerned for my happiness.  And if I am ever unhappy, which basically is never of course :), he helps me until I am happy.  Best husband ever and nicest husband ever.  
Reason #7:  Nate is a hard worker and really wants to be successful.  I really appreciate this because he will most likely be the one providing for our family and his desire to be successful is very comforting.  It is very nice to know that he will always be giving his best to help make our family comfortable and happy. Best husband ever and most successful husband ever.
Reason #8: Nate is pretty good looking.  I am thankful for this because it is always a good thing to be attracted to your husband and Nate makes it very easy :).  He focuses on keeping in shape and I really appreciate that too.  His focus on health encourages me to do the same, which makes for a better lifestyle for the both of us!  Best husband ever and best looking husband ever.  Below is a picture to confirm the previous statement.

Reason #9:  Nate is such good person.  He is always trying to do the right thing and sets a good example for all those around him (including me).  He always puts what is most important first, which is exactly what I could ever want in a husband.  Best husband ever and best example ever. 

Nate is the BEST HUSBAND EVER!!!!  Everyday I think about how thankful I am that I married Nate.  Merry Christmas Babe!!!

Love,
Rebekah

The Last, Last Day of Summer

Well sadly our lovely first summer married has come to an end, but I believe it was well spent!  We had a wonderful time relaxing and only having work to worry about.  We started out the summer by taking a trip to Carlsbad for Nate’s birthday, Nate’s brother’s graduation, and mother’s day!  We also squeezed in a few trips to the beach.  I was going to try to surf for the first time, but apparently according to the surf master, Nate, the waves were not right for learning.  So I just relaxed on the beach and took a pictures instead :). It was a great way to start out our summer!  One definite highlight was the Mother’s Day celebration at the park when the boys made a train riding on their skateboards.  It was pretty cool.  See vid below thanks to my wonderful videographer skills :).

Sorry for the quality, it was just videoed on my phone :(

Then we went with my family to reunion in the middle of nowhere Idaho over the Fourth of July.  There was so much fun to be had in the two days we were there!  It was just play, play, play!  And Nate was a hit with all the family there, obviously with that mustache! (see couple pic below, please ignore the awkward hand holding)

Then instead of going home, we continued our vacation to Yellowstone with my family!  It was an amazing place!  We say deer, elk, moose, bison, foxes, and bears! The only animal we missed was wolves, next time.  It was beautiful!  We took a couple of hikes and really had a wonderful time sightseeing!  Our personal highlight was petting the bison we found!  We would have taken him home if we could have fit him!!  And then Nate at a bison burger!!  Obviously he didn’t care about saving the bison even after we befriended one! So sad. (But also super cool.  Probably cooler than it is sad. He ate bison!!!)

That is a moose and her babe there that Nate is clearly ecstatic about :)

(That is Nate petting the bison!!!)

Then we came back to Provo and worked our little tails off, only sometimes taking break to do cool things, which were mainly weddings I might add.

Finally came the first week of August and we took our week long vaca to Lake Powell!!  Nate talks about this trip seriously all year long, and for good reasons.  It was amazing.  We water skied and wake boarded all week long!  I almost jumped the whole wake by the end of the week.  I will do that next year for sure!  Nate has amazing tricks of course and looked super good.  We did some tanning, some reading, and some swimming.  Next thing we know, the week is over and we are driving home! :(  The relaxation and fun just flies by!  My favorite memory was definitely the dance partay (shout out to all our cool cousins for their sweet moves!  Nate and I learned a lot from your great talent) and then the night swim to the island and back afterwards! 

Brother Love. Too great of a picture to not include, right?

The Lake Salon - a definite highlight! And yes, Nick wanted to get his nails painted, but we explained to him that boys usually don't paint their toes. We were kind and let him join the picture instead :)

Then two weeks later, I had the conference I slaved away planning all summer!  And it went just wonderfully.  355 freshman successfully arrived, enjoyed Aspen Grove, learned about leadership, made some friends, and went back to start their wonderful years at BYU.  It was such a great experience!  I loved seeing all the hard work pay off and have so many people thank me for the conference.  I will greatly miss not being a part of FOL next year!

Next we hit our one year anniversary!  Can you believe it?  One whole year!  So crazy!  It was my turn to plan our anniversary plans and I spent quite some time trying to plan the best possible one year anniversary.  Finally I decided on a romantic sunset sail on Utah Lake.  And it was amazing!!!  First we went to eat at Little Gloria’s Italy, which was where we went to eat on our first date.  Then we went sailing.  Seriously check out the pictures.  It was picture perfect!  And then we went to Color Me Mine and painted a beautiful fruit bowl!  We painted it with a sail boat to remember our great one year anniversary celebration :).  It is quite adorable and looks pretty dang good too. It has been a great one year and we are so excited for the future!

Finally, we ended our summer with floating in the Great Salt Lake!  It was so fulfilling to finally after 4 years of living in Provo to do the famed floating in the Great Salt Lake.  And believe me, it is just as they say, you just float right up without even trying!!  It is wild and super cool!  It took a little while to get past the little shrimp and gnats everywhere, but it really was super cool and definitely something to remember!  Thanks Dan and Kristen for enjoying this wonderful experience with us :).

Now I started my last semester of school and Nate is just working.  We are one week in and we are trying to keep up with everything we have going on and so far so good.  I am mainly looking forward to being done with school in December and never having to say good-bye to summer again :)

Nate's Strava Updates for the Week:

Schooooool's Out for Summer

First we are proud to announce that Nate has graduated from college about two weeks ago now!  It is a very exciting thing to have completed.  I also participated in a fake graduation because all our family was here and I will be graduating in December.  So why not do it together and get some cute pics along the way!  For example: 

It was a lot of fun, as you can hopefully tell :).  So now off to the real world.  Nate is applying for jobs in the area for at least until I graduate in December.  Then he will probably start looking into some grad school options.  Until then, he will just be enjoying all the relaxation he can handle. 

The next hot item, is that for Nate's birthday I surprised him with tickets to see The Black Keys.  They are one of his favorite bands and they just so happened to be coming to Salt Lake City a week before his birthday.  So since February 21st, I have been really looking forward to this surprise!  So the night started out with Nate coming to pick me up from work.  When I got into the car I presented him with a piece of delicious cake with a candle in a box.  

Then we had to SLC where we found some fabulous Greek food at a place called "Yanni's Greek Express" that was a little off the beaten path.  We were quite impressed.

And he had no idea who we were going to see until the opening band spilled the beans by asking if we were all excited to see The Black Keys.  It was so fun to see his excitement!  And the concert was AMAZING!  They started out with the name sake song of this website.  And then the encore was especially epic as they shined lights on two disco balls turning the room into a galaxy.  We loved it and more importantly Nate loved it!

Finally, we started a garden today!  It really is a thing of beauty and hopefully it will stay that way through our constant care and devotion.  We went to Home Depot today and found some great items to occupy our little plot.  

We planted some marigolds, gardenias, roma tomatoes, green bell peppers, and watermelon!  We are expecting to have great crop and then a lovely feast at the end of the summer where we will be able to enjoy the fruits (literally in two cases) of our labors!

February Is For Lovers

Next thing we know February is long gone and we are in the summer-like month of March! We had a lot of fun in the last month and I figured I better blog about the highlights!

First, Valentine's Day, which was amazing! It was our first Valentine's Day married which is obviously special. Plus it was our six month anniversary just two days before! Sadly, we had school on Valentine's Day, but we made the best of it.

I slaved at a Relief Society activity in orde to cut out 43 hearts and write reason why I loved Nate. And when I say slaved, it really was fun. Then I woke up at 4:30 in the morning and spent an hour hanging the hearts from the ceiling. It was so fun to watch Nate read all of them when he woke up. Then we ate breakfast together and were off to school!

Then it turned out that Nate had skipped his afternoon class to prepare this delicious candlelit meal for us. He made Baked Chicken Alla Milanese and it was absolutely amazingggg. It was so fun because he came to pick me up from school and then had me wait outside while he lit all the candles and set the table.

Once we had eaten, we exchanged gifts. We gave each other each a budget of 25 dollars to get each other something fun. Nate got me these super cure salt and pepper shakers. I had been talking to him about getting some just about the whole time we have been married. So I am sure part of the reason he choose these was so I would no longer be able to talk about getting some. But they are so perfect and I am so proud of his ability to choose cute salt and pepper shakers! It is quite the valuable, hidden talent :).

I got Nate "Buddy's Baddest" CD, which if you haven't checked him out you should, and racquetball balls. We play racquetball pretty often and we only had one old, slow ball, so I decided I would get him some new ones. I chose green ones, because green is his favorite color. I was so excited because Nate loves racquetball and green. However, it turns out that the colors are related to their speed and green is the slowest of the slow on the speed/ color scale. So we will probably end up purchasing more racquetballs haha.

In closing, it was a lovely night to remember!

The next big adventure was going to Solider Hollow! It was the coolest thing we have done in a while! Plus we got a Groupon so it was two for one, total bonus. They have a tubing hill you can go down and then they have a system set up for towing you up the hill again. Basically endless fun and no work. We loved it because you could hold on to each other's intertubes and go down together. We got going super fast, spun around, and even caught a little air once!

After sliding down the hill at near-sonic speeds, we would tow our tubes back to the lift line. Because the tubes were equipped with a towing rope and handle, they made for excellent demonstrators of the fictional physical force: centrifugal (i.e. Nate enjoyed swinging his tube in circles). Once as we were walking back to the line, I was fortunate to learn about this 'fictional' force through experience, as Nate's tube swiftly swiped my feet from underneath me. Don't worry, I wasn't hurt, just laughing. All in all, it was a blast!! Then we finished off the night with a little BBQ from a restaurant that had just opened two months ago. It was delicious and we plan to return.

We also found this cool barn on the way to Soldier Hollow and decided to take a picture. I thought it turned out pretty cool!

Chiki Chiki Parm Parm, by guest author Nate

Our days of food revolutionaries began early in our relationship, when we would spend whole Sunday afternoons cooking and baking an array of delicious foods, aptly named: Delicious Food (take for example the hours that we spent making my mother's delicious rolls for the Superbowl party last year, which ended up being as dense a rocks). Both Rebekah and I thoroughly enjoy delicious food if not for the assortment and combinations of spices and tastes, for the boredom of a repetitive meal.

It is on this premise that we decided to make Chiki Chiki Parm Parm (Chicken Parmesan) for dinner this last week, to maintain the long-standing tradition of Italian culture that we both have running through our veins. We have on several occasions made lasagna, spaghetti, and other Italian foods, so to keep from repeating a dish, we decided on this delicacy, one of our favorites.

The subjective recipe, among fresh vegetables, called for 1 lb of fresh basil, which nearly deterred us from the dish, until Rebekah decided it would be worth the cost (I later reread the recipe which called for only "1 half bunch of hand-shredded basil; needless to say the entree was basil-y).

After a lesson on chicken breading, discussion of the total volume of 1/2 bunch of basil, how long "until the cheese starts to boil" is, and other seemingly trivial questions, we were happy to see the final product emerge from the oven. Rebekah had an evening meeting to attend, so it was my responsibility to finish the meal preparations, including taking the Pyrex from the oven, and finding an adequate place for it to cool.

The final product, lacking in presentation, but delicious nonetheless

The final product, including the Pyrex baking dish settled precariously on the stove-top

Doubting that the laminate counter-top would support the "cheese bubbling" temperature of the Pyrex, I decided to place the baking pan in the nearest non-burnable surface I could find, namely the stove-top, resting on two burners. I have placed many-a-baking dish on the stove top without consequence, but one of the key steps in breading chicken is the frying-of-the-chicken part. The chicken was fried in the olive oil in a fry pan until brown, and if one looks closely at the dial in the above photo, the burner was never relieved of its duties.

Just after the above photo, I sat at the table to partake of the delicious meal when I noticed a trace of burned chiki. While at first I presumed that the pan had been in the oven past the point of bubbling cheese, the smoke emanating from the pan confirmed my suspicion that the dish was cooking even outside of the oven. I noticed the burner dial had been left at the fry breaded chicken setting, and as quickly as I could grabbed hot pads from the drawers all the way across our 5 foot kitchen.

I placed the Pyrex as quickly as I could on the adjacent burners, and wiped my forehead of perspiration, relieved to see 3 hours of toil saved from the grasp of a greedy mediumly-heated burner, until...(each period representing one second), CRASH! (It sounded just like a misdirected baseball pitch through a neighbor's window).

3 hours of toil lost atop the saving burner

Look closely, there is glass everywhere

The splintered glass holding the remains

The entire dish literally exploded as I stood before it, many of its pieces hitting me directly in the abdomen. Fortunately, my glass-proof T-shirt was able to withstand the blows of dozens of pebble-sized Pyrex, and saved my life from Chicken Parmesan.

Shredding.

So yesterday we were lucky enough to get to go enjoy the snow at Sundance for half the price! Dan went to the BYU basketball game the night before and they announced that you could take your tickets from the basketball to Sundance and use them as a 2 for 1 pass. So we took advantage of that obviously! It ended up being 15 dollars per person!!! That is just about as good as it gets, aside from free!

It was also very exciting because it was Dan's first time to go snowboarding, ever. And he did a great job! He fell quite a bit on the first run down, which is totally expected. And we took him all the way to the top of the mountain for his first run, which was a little scary with the hundred foot drop offs on the side and him not really knowing how to steer, at all... I also felt super bad, because I was just laughing so hard at first because he kept falling and it was kind of funny to watch. Plus it reminded me of learning, which I still am... haha. There was one time when I wasn't laughing though because there was this girl in a red jacket (just like Dan) that I confused for Dan. And she fell SUPER hard, like the pin-wheel type fall. I was so scared he was hurt and would want to walk down the mountain and then go home. But luckily as I got closer, I realized it was in fact a girl, and not Dan. Anyway, but the rest of his run he did an awesome job! On the last few times down, I am pretty sure he fell less than I did. It was super icy up there and I just kept hitting the ice and falling! I was so mad, but still loved being there obviously.

It was also great because Nick came along with us. So Nate and Nick could zip downthe mountain at 50+ miles an hour!!! And then Dan and I could take our time down, at like 15 miles an hour. Really, it was just such a blast! It is always fun to ride the lifts together and catch up on life as well between runs.

Then of course the food after was the delicious choice of Pizza Pie Cafe. All the pizza you can and/or want to eat! And I would say we took advantage of that. I was especially impressed with Nick when he came back to the table at least eight pieces of pizza for his third plate and then ate all of them! It is fun going there because they have all kinds of creative pizzas like ones with potatoes on them, BBQ, and buffalo wings. Plus you get to sample all of them! And then there are the dessert pizzas, such as cookie dough and oreo. They were quite tasty as well. Half the fun of going snowboarding is definitely the food after! All in all I would say it is one of the best ways to spend a Friday night!

Snowboarder Dan

The Masters of the Mountain