I haven't been blogging in forever and am trying to catch up now, so here is my post on our 1st Valentines Day married!

On actual Valentines Day, Nate had a regional wrestling tournament that he was coaching, so he was gone overnight. I was very sad about that because I looove celebrating holidays! Even though he was gone on the actual day, Nate planned an amazing weekend for us and it was definitely the best Valentines Day I have had!

First, the day before v-day, Nate came home and surprised me with beautiful flowers and See's truffles, my favorite! I made us a fancy Valentines theme dinner that night. My mom always does that and it is so fun. We had 5 courses with chocolate fondue for dessert!

The day after v-day, I drove up to meet Nate in a hotel near Seattle. We had dinner at cheesecake factory and spent the night. Then we got up early and drove to Leavenworth, WA. It is a little German touristy town and it was soooo cute!!! It had snowed a lot there a day before, so there was a ton of snow and everything was so beautiful. We stayed at the best hotel, Enzian Inn. It looked like a little German Inn and was so nice and cozy inside. It is surrounded by a ton of huge mountains, which looked so pretty all blanketed in snow. We took a short nap and then headed out to get some lunch. We ate at an outdoor place called Munchen Haus. They are known for Bavarian Bratwurst, which Nate loved, and I got a gigantic Bavarian pretzel, sooo good! They had about 15 different fancy mustards and apple cider sauerkraut to add to everything. They also had the best apple cider I have ever had!! After eating, we went on a horse pulled sleigh ride which was so much fun!!! It was pulled by a beautiful Clydesdale horse. Next we headed back to main street to explore and look at the little shops. We got dinner at an Italian place and some gelato for dessert and then headed back to our hotel. We went in the hot tub and after a few minutes it started snowing so hard! It was so amazing to be sitting in a hot tub and watching the snow fall on us and all around us! It was one of our favorite parts about the trip! We stayed in there for about an hour, just watching the snow fall.

The next day we went to the hotel breakfast. It was so delicious! They had homeade pastries and hot chocolate and made you your own omelet. The breakfast area was on the top level of the hotel and had a beautiful view of the snowy mountains. They also had an old man, who originally built and owned the hotel, come and play the didgeredoo. Our hotel gave us free cross-country skis to use, so we drove to a spot by a lake to use them. At first we were going to go on this trail that was already cleared, but it cost about $20 each and there were a lot of professional looking people there. I have never done any kind of skiing before, so we decided to just go to the uncleared place by the lake. I am so glad that we did! We were the only people there and there were little hills to practice skiing down. This was my favorite part of our trip! It was so much fun to do something completely new and it was so peaceful and pretty. I couldn't stop looking around at everything! We were out c.c. skiing for about 2 hours. Nate was very good and fast and let me go down the hills over and over again. (:

Then we headed back to town and had lunch at Munchen Haus again. We looked in more little shops and then headed back to pack up. Overall, it was such a fun weekend and the best Valentines day weekend ever! I love being married to Nate and all of the fun adventures we have!

Our pre-valentines dinner

Nate is so sweet and always does the dishes.

Valentines breakfast for me made by Nate (: (at 5am, before he had to leave)

Cutest Valentine from Jenna!

Our trip!

**I wrote this post a few months ago, in March, and forgot to post it then!!

On Thursday, Nate and I both went to work at our schools, as usual. When I got to work, it started lightly snowing. It kept snowing and we heard that it was supposed to get heavier and heavier throughout the day. Then we found out that school would end 2 hours early, so that parents could pick up their kids before it was snowing too hard. We found this out at about 9:30am. I work in the office, as a secretary, so the next 5 hours were insane, trying to call every single parent with the rest of the office staff. At about 1:30, Nate came by and picked me up(I have never driven in the snow before and my car isn't the greatest for this weather). We headed home and spent the rest of the day watching movies and making homeade pizza and pizzokies. Then we found out that school would be cancelled the next day, Nate's wrestling meet all day Saturday was cancelled, and church was even cancelled! School on Monday ended up being cancelled too! It was sooo much fun to have a surprise break and for Nate and I to be able to spend so much time together. The past few months have been so busy because Nate coaches wrestling and they have all day meets almost every weekend. So it was extra amazing to be able to have a few days off with everything cancelled. Also, I have only lived in warm places before, so I have always dreamed of having a snow day!!!

On Friday, we went for a long walk out in the snow and then spent most of the day inside again, staying warm, relaxing and watching movies and the olympics. On Saturday, we met up with our friends, Sean and Erika, to go sledding. I love playing in the snow, but have never lived anywhere where it snows. Growing up, my family would usually drive to the snow about once a year, we would play in it for a few hours and then head back home.

First we headed to a hill we had heard about, it was small/medium size and there were about 15 kids with their parents sledding, and then the four of us! We hadn't been able to find sleds, so we had pool blow up rafts and tubes (they actually ended up working really well and didn't even pop). We spent awhile sledding there and then decided to drive around to find another hill. Erika spotted a perfect hill, it was by a deserted parking lot and no one else was there. We had so much fun sledding down in and then after awhile, the boys built a ramp at the end so we could get some air! Nate tested it out a few times, and was launched into the road and curb, before it was perfected. I went on it a few times and it was a little painful but fun! Then we found another VERY steep hill. You had to climb up the hill and hold onto a chain link fence to stay at the top, because it was so steep. Then at the bottom, you had to try and avoid hitting a rain gutter. I was so scared, but wanted to go on it. Nate was so sweet and helped me climb up and helped me be in the right place to sled down. I closed my eyes most of the way from being so scared, but it ended up being awesome and so fun! Lastly, we opened the trunk of our car and had someone in the backseat hold a rope and then someone sit in the pool tube behind the car to be pulled, holding the rope. It was soooo much fun! It was the best snow day ever!!!! Even though it has been hard living somewhere so cold and getting used to all of the changes, there are some amazing things about living in Vancouver. I have loved having a fall season and seeing all of the leaves change colors and it has been so fun to see beautiful snow falling and to be able to have snow days and play in the snow all day!

On Sunday, we had our own little church, watching Mormon Messages online. Those always make me so emotional!! Then we relaxed most of the day, which was so nice.

Monday we mostly did errands. Nate had been dying to go to Costco, he loooves Costco and hadn't been there in a while (: Then we made and mailed some Valentines packages. Nate had wrestling practice for an hour and then we had some chili and cornbread and brownies, and watched the Olympics. This morning, it is back to school. (It is a 2 hour late start though, so we did get to sleep in a little and have a nice breakfast together). Overall, it has been a very nice, lazy, and much needed and appreciated break!!!

Nate and I met, dated, broke up, got back together, fell in love, and then got married all in 1 year. We have been married 6 months now and it has flown by. We love the married life! I wanted to write down how we met so I can remember the details when we get older.

I had been living in Hawaii for about 6 1/2 years when I started dating a guy that had been one of my good friends the whole time there. He had gone to San Diego to get a masters degree and we had kept in contact while he was there, skyping and talking on the phone, and then started dating when he returned to Hawaii. We only dated for a short time and then he broke up with me. It was a hard breakup for me, mostly since we had been such good friends, and I had a hard time getting over it. This break up was one of the main things that got me thinking that maybe I should move somewhere else.

About 3 months later, I moved to San Diego. I had chosen California because I would be close enough to drive and visit family or have them visit me, I could still surf and live by the ocean, and I figured there would be more options in guys to date. I was planning on moving to Dana Point or San Clemente, but ended up finding a house to move into only a mile from the beach, in Pacific Beach.

My family drove up with me and stayed a few days. They left and I felt so sad and alone. I didn't know anyone so I spent the first few days surfing at the pier right by my house and laying out at the beach.

My first weekend there, my roommate, Natalie, invited me to a pool party. We also went with our new roommate, Michelle, she moved in right after me. We got to the party and they had a big pool and were showing a movie on a projector. There were no girls in the pool, all of the girls were dressed so fancy. I was in my beach dress and swimsuit (my usual in Hawaii) and so was Michelle, so we jumped in the pool. And that's where I met Nate. He says he noticed me right away because I was the most tan girl at the party.. haha! He started talking to me and we talked for about 2 hours.

As we were talking, I found out that Nate had been roommates with my ex-boyfriend from Hawaii, whose break up had been a deciding factor in me moving. It is so crazy to me how the world is so small and how things just fell into place for Nate and I to meet. There are so many things that happened in us meeting, dating, and getting engaged and married that I know Heavenly Father had a hand in everything working out for us.

The next day I got a message on Facebook from him. When we had been talking, I mentioned I wanted to buy a bike. He sent me the couple of links to some bikes for sale on craigslist. That caught my attention and I just thought it was so sweet of him to try and help me find a bike. (I didn't end up buying any of the bikes because they were road bikes and I hadn't told him, but I wanted to buy a beach cruiser). I said thanks though and then he sent me a message asking if I wanted to go on a bike tour of PB, since I had just moved there. I said sure and I remember begin excited and nervous when he came over. He brought a bike for me and we rode all around, through neighborhoods, by Mission Bay, by Seaworld, and everywhere. We stopped by Trader Joes, got pesto chicken wraps for lunch, and ate them on the grass of an apartment across the street. If anyone knows me, they know I LOVE Trader Joes, so it was a good sign that Nate did too. When Nate was about to leave, he told me he was starting a teaching program at SDSU that week and it was going to be super busy for him. I figured I wouldn't really see him anytime soon then.

The next day, I got a text from Nate asking if I wanted to ride the ferry to Coronado island and ride bikes around the island. I of course said yes. It was our first date and we both had so much fun. Nate brought bikes again and we put them on the ferry and rode to the island. I have never ridden a ferry before and it was so much fun! We rode bikes all around. We went by The Del and rode through all of the cute neighborhoods looking at all of the beautiful houses, there are so many amazing ones!! We stopped by this grassy area and put our feet in this huge fountain (it was pretty hot out!) and then lay on the grass, looking at the clouds. I remember Nate kept saying, these clouds are AMAZING! I still tease him about it, but they were huge and fluffy and looked really cool. Then we rode the ferry back. It was such a fun date and ended up being the way that Nate proposed 9 months late (another post). It is crazy to think back on that day and where we are now. I am so thankful that I moved away from Hawaii and met Nate, it was 100% worth it.

A few pics from our first date

I had so much fun with Nate and we went on several more dates and always had a lot of fun, but Nate didn't want to be too serious or be to committed. I liked him and had a ton of fun with him, but I had kind of moved from Hawaii to get away from dating guys that didn't like to commit, so we had a talk and I told him he either needed to be committed and only want to date me or we should break up. He said maybe we should break up then. I was really sad and the next few days went by so slowly.

I went to a stake luau and it was very depressing because there were no guys that seemed even close to as fun and sweet as Nate. I kept wondering if I should have just not said anything to Nate about being more committed, but I decided it was better to not date him then to date him and feel bad about him not being sure how serious he was about us. Nate was going to help me pick up a dresser for my room and after we broke up, he told me he still wanted to help me pick it up. A few days after we had broken up, he came over to help me load it and take it home in his brother's truck. He kept being so sweet to me, and it just made me more sad that we weren't dating anymore.

The next day evening Nate called me and said, "I don't know what you're thinking, but I'm not ready to stop dating you." I was sooo glad to hear those words! I had wanted to call him and say that I missed him so many times, but I didn't let myself. So we were broken up for a total of 6 days and it ended up being such a good thing for us. Our break up helped us both realize how much we really liked each other. We both missed each other a lot more than we had expected.

After we got back together (the day before Halloween) we had a much stronger relationship and it was so much easier on both of us. We went on so many fun dates and had so much fun. San Diego is really such an awesome place because there is so much to do, beautiful weather, pretty beaches and fun surf, and sooo many good places to eat. We had so much fun dating there and I have so many good memories from there (good thing we can visit there lots since Nate's family lives there!)

A few pictures from some of our dates

Ice skating outside The Del on Coronado Island


December Nights at Balboa Park

Driving to look at lights- Candy Cane Lane

At the beach, on Crystal Pier

Matt Costa Concert

Extraordinary Desserts- I love this place!

Riding bikes around Mission Bay

Riding on a tandem bike on my birthday!

Padres game

San Diego Fair!

I just love this guy!! (: