"Our love is rock steady" {Take 2}

The first time I posted this the pictures didn't show. So here is another post with more pictures. Leave me comment to let me know it worked!

Here's a question for you.

What were you doing 7 years ago?

Think about it.

Here's another one.

What were you doing when you were 18 years old?

For me they were one in the same and I was doing this.

I have to say when you are 18 you aren't really that mature or make the best decisions but I'm going to toot my own horn here for a second and say this was the most mature thing I've ever done and the best choice I've ever made.

Now to take you down our memory lane.

If you have not heard our fairy tale I'll give you the brief version. We met at Walmart the day before Halloween in 2001. Kurt was playing dumb, hitting on me and I thought he just wanted to introduce me to his friend. Turned out it was Kurt that liked me and we exchanged numbers. The next day, Halloween, I went to a party and my only thought was the guy I met at Walmart. I decided if he wasn't going to call me I was going to call him. Something I would never have done.

Girls are not supposed to call boys!

But he called and we were literally inseparable after that.

And now for some pictures that tells some more of our story before we had kids.

We went on a double date with Kurt's brother Jon and his then girlfriend Angela who is now his wife. This was in January or February and the water was frozen on the edges.

Before our first date Kurt took his car to get washed and while he was there he met another interesting girl. He got her number just incase I didn't work out.

True story.

I TRUELY hope this does not offend anyone.

If it makes any difference Alia might be deaf in one ear.

Kurt taught me how to shoot although I look L.A.M.E in this picture.

Our first concert.

We went with my sister, and her in-laws to an olympic event. I left my camera at the metal detectors on accident and didn't get any pictures of the event. When we went back they still had my camera but this was our only picture at the Olympics.

Another fun story is that when I met Kurt he was dating somebody else just so that he could hunt on her property. While they were hunting she saw a deer and was about to shoot it but her gun jammed. So Kurt gave her his brothers gun to shoot and the gun had a huge kick. She wasn't prepared and when she pulled the trigger the scope blasted into her face and made a half moon gash around her eye. He had to wait in the waiting room at the hospital for a couple of hours.

It was like a week later he met me and stopped returning her phone calls.

When my sister Nikki and her husband Mike we're having their reception in Hawaii and I was able to bring Kurtis. At the reception Kurt caught the garter,

and I caught the bouquet.

My sister and her husband, and Kurt's brother and his wife and us, all got married in the same year.

We went hiking Maunawili Falls and Kurt HAD to pick some bananas. Only after he ate them did he believe that they weren't ripe.

When Kurt asked me to marry him he took me up the mountain and said we were looking for deer. He was going too fast and it was getting too dark to see them. I thought he was crazy! He drove us up to his Aunt and Uncles' property and led me to a tent with this display. After realizing what was going on he poured us glasses of sparkling grape juice. He said after I finished my drink he had something he wanted to ask me. I downed that drink in a shot and it burned. But I didn't care!

These next pictures are after we got married, eleven months after we met.

On our first date we went to this park.

Our first apartment together. The rent was only $350!

Our first Christmas together.

Kurt worked for a company called White Wave where he made Silk soy milk.

Remember these?

These were the days when you could get hurt and you didn't have to think of the consequences.

Kurt had forgotten to get me something our first Valentines Day together so he made up for it on St. Patrick's Day.

When we were still dating Kurt decided we would spend our day at this open lot. He would be BMXing on dirt jumps and I would watch him. As he was jumping this kid no older than eight, comes running out from a nearby house. He started throwing huge, hard, dirt clods at me and yelling, "This is my dirt you get away from here." I yelled at him to stop and he wouldn't. I had to start running away from him because he was literally hitting me. I started yelling for Kurt like a damsel in distress, to come and help me. He went over to the kid and warned him that if he didn't stop he was going to be sorry.

The boy didn't stop and he was sorry.

Kurt grabbed him and started shovel piles of dirt, rocks, weeds, anything loose he could get his hands on, into this kids' pants and undies. He was screaming! When Kurt let him up it looked like he had layers of pants on and he was a big dust bubble. He started screaming and waddling home with dust trailing behind him saying he was going to tell his mom. That was when we decided it was time to leave.

My hero!

My first and so far the only time I've ever been ice fishing.

When you don't have kids you're able to get in the car and drive somewhere without a forethought.

The Grand Staircase.

On our way,

to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

For the first two years of our marriage, the weekend before Thanksgiving we'd drive to Colorado for a mini vacation. The last time we went we were able to go to the Temple.

Just found out we were pregnant.

My Birthday

We want to go to as many different temples as possible.

St. George Temple with Kurts Grandma Kay

Hawaii Temple

SLC Temple

I realized I didn't take as many pictures before we had kids. Now I look back and wish I did. I seriously can't believe it's been seven years since getting married and almost eight since meeting Kurt. When we met I was going to school at Southern Utah University and Kurt had just gotten off his mission. Before I started the school year the family that I was living with were great family friends that had lived in Hawaii previously. The dad of the house, Joel, gave all of his kids blessings before the first day of school. I was lucky to be considered one of his children and he gave me a blessing. In that blessing he said I would meet life long friends at school. I distinctly remember that because I thought it would be fun to meet a girl that I would be friends with forever. I didn't realize then, because I hadn't met him, that that meant Kurt.

Happy 7th Anniversary Kurt!

September 28th 20o2

6 months old already?

This Little Girl, Goosabean, Booshana, Baby Alia, brings the biggest smile to our faces. She turned 6 months old this month. That's half a year old already!

This was the first time I put shoes on her and she was so interested in those things I put on her feet.

Right now she rolls around like crazy. None of my other kids rolled to get anywhere or anything but she does. Kurt put her in the living room and walked out. When he came back in a couple of minutes later she was on the opposite end of the room.

"Wow! She gets around!"

She loves to be held and go where we go. She loves hanging out outside. She could totally be bawling and the second I walk outside she's happy. She's finally eating more. After the novelty of rice cereal wore off she started gaging on her food. Now she can and likes to eat more. Alia's still this petite baby with little rolls on her thighs but no where else. She wants to sit up so bad but pushes back when we try to sit her up. That's just fine by me. The sooner she sits the sooner she'll be walking and the sooner I'll have to chase after another kiddo. She really has this personality with a punch that fits right in with her looks. Instead of a sweet coo she's graduated to a yell. She's still happy but she realized that if she wants to be heard in this house she has to yell. I LOVE it. Especially in church! This past Sunday our class had sharing time and I think Alia stole the show with her yelling. But even so our boys were awesome! I'm SO grateful for her and her little spirt!

Oh and we have a cow in our back yard just waiting to be eaten by Kurt's brother.

GO MEAT!

Photo Box

To make this photo box you'll need at least 5 sheets of cardstock and any embellishments you want. I'd recommend getting patterned cardstock but you could also use plain colored cardstock and glue colored paper on it.

While making this tutorial it was only my second time making the cube and I made a mistake by folding my paper the wrong way. I took apart my first lid and figured out what I did wrong. So these pictures consist of two different lids. Some pictures my paper has lines that shouldn't be there and the other pictures the paper is cut before it should be because that's the one that I had to take apart. But nevertheless my instructions are accurate and you should be able to get it. :)

The lid:

First you find the center of your 12 x 12 inch paper and mark it. The side that you mark will not be shown.

Then you fold all four corners to the center dot to make a square.

After you've made a square fold the east and west sides into the center line to make a vertical rectangle.

Open it back up to the square and fold the north and south sides to the center line to make a horizontal rectangle.

Unfold your paper and position it so a corner is towards you. Now cut on the line up to the center square on each side of the corner facing you and the one facing away. NOT on the corners facing east and west.

So it looks like this. Remember I made a mistake and some of those line you see in my pictures are not supposed to be there so don't freak out!

Fold east and west corners to the center dot.

Now bend the east and west sides up. These are two out of the four sides of you box lid.

As you fold the sides up turn the flappy triangles that are connected to these sides, inwards.

Now you have a swinging gate on the north and south sides.

Next you fold the last flaps, north and south, up and over your swinging gates.

The final lid should look like this but a lot less blurry.

The box:

The first piece of cardstock you use for the box will be the outside of it. Whatever color or pattern you want for the outside of your box face downwards. So this picture my outside of the box would be white. Fold each side of your 12 x 12 paper four inches all around.

After you folded all the sides and opened it up your paper should look lined exactly like this.

This is when you start getting creative. With each corner you cut and fold to create your pages. This example I cut the horizontal east and west lines, and folded them over the north and south middle squares. Now you can put eyelets on the flaps and tie a ribbon through it, you could cut the corners at an angle and glue the sides down. It took me some trial and error but the most important thing is that you don't cut off or through the middle north south east or west squares.

With your next paper you want to cut two sides down a quarter of an inch. But when you fold the paper you still fold each side four inches. You want the page leafs to stay the same size and the middle square to get smaller. With the third piece of paper you cut a half inch on two sides, and the fourth, three quarters of an inch and so forth. So you cut a quarter inch smaller than the previous paper. Again only cut two sides of the paper and you still fold four inches on every paper.

Here are some of my pages. You can probably imagine how I cut the corner square to get a flap over the middle one.

Another thing is that you will see the back side of every page except for the center square. The only center square you'll see is the top one which is your smallest.

When you have all of your pages decorated you glue all your pages together in the middle.

Then you fold all the sides in.

And put your lovely decorated lid on top.

The finished product.

On all the paper and in all the pockets you made you can put a picture on or in. You can put pictures, or embellishments on the the backs, under the lid, on the sides, or on the top. Also on your pictures that are in the pockets you can but string or tags on them to be easily pulled out. This was not my idea. I'm not that creative. We did this at a Relief Society activity