The Texas Reception

After our cruise we were able to fly to Texas and have a reception there. My mom worked SOO hard to make it wonderful. I was not able to help her a ton with the planning because I was in the middle of a semester and busy with school. She did most of the planning and work on the reception by herself and with her friends. It was so fun to have so much of it be a surprise. It was WAY more than I ever expected! Thanks mom! I absolutely LOVED it!!

Me with the favorite child in our family. Lets be honest, we all know its true! haha

The family. Note the flowers: Kaylee made hers and Cami's. I made mine...with the help of my mom of course!

Isn't this place beautiful!

I wish I had more pictures of the reception. If you have some please let me know so I can add them. The whole thing was sooo beautiful! We served an Italian buffet with beautiful breads and pastas. There was also a water table with three different kinds of flavored water. And my personal favorite was the dessert table. There were about four different kinds of bunt cakes. They were a hit!

Another thing I loved about this reception was the band. Seven Car Pile Up was so nice to come and play for us. This was actually my one request for this reception. It was so fun to have them there. They played a few of Joel and my favorite songs including Only You Can Love Me This Way by Keith Urban. Its a jam.

Once again, the pictures that I have don't do this reception justice so let me know if you have some good ones and I will add them! Thanks to my mom and all of her wonderful friends for their hard work!! I REALLY appreciate it! :)

Utah Open House

I am trying to catch up on the past few months so that I can start blogging about our current life so bare with me! Especially if you have already seen all of these photos on Facebook!

Joel and I were so lucky to have 3 wedding events. I know, I know it seems overkill but we had too many friends and family in Utah, Texas, and California that we didn't want to leave anyone out! Our moms worked so hard to make them all AMAZING!

The first event was in Utah on Friday December 18. It was just a casual get together at the BYU conference center with some of our friends from BYU and Utah. Channing Rodriquez made us this amazing wedding cake. It really was beautiful and the best part was that it was delicious! Most wedding cakes look great but taste nasty. All of the guests were raving about her cake! Way to go Channing!
This is Joel and I with one of the girls that he baptized on his mission in Houston.

Everyone wanted us to hurry and cut the cake so they could eat it!

This is me, my dad, Linda Shirly, my mom, and Tyler. We have ALL enjoyed the blessing of working at the BYU testing center! haha Linda was my parents boss when they attended BYU. They were such hard workers that she decided to hire Tyler and I! As much as I loved the testing center I'm glad my proctoring days are over!

PS I must say that I LOVED my dress for this event. Thanks mom :)

*Honeymoon*-On the Ship

I wanted to add some random pictures of our time on the ship.

Joel and I LOVED the food on the cruise. Our favorite thing was this hazelnut souffle! :)

Tangles from so much ocean water!

One thing that I think of when I think of the cruise is NERTZ. We played nertz every single day! For those of you who dont know what nertz is, its a really fun card game. You gotta learn how to play! Here, Im taking a quick power nap with a deck of cards in my hand! :)

Another favorite: Ice cream sunday!

Going to dinner! (One of my favorite times of the day ha ha)

*Honeymoon*- St Thomas and Grand Turk

I'm so sad but we don't have any pictures of St. Thomas. We went on this really big power boat called like the mega blaster or something....Basically it created HUGE waves that SOAKED us as we drove around the ocean. I think that it would have been pretty awesome if it was really hot outside but unfortunately, it was 8 am and pretty cold. I just sat there the whole time with my snorkel mask and air tube on trying to dodge the waves. I think the mega blaster crew thought it was funny to watch us freeze as they stood behind their little wave barrier!

The crew redeemed themselves when they stopped at a beautiful little cove that we got to go snorkeling in. I was the last one on the boat because I was kind of afraid of the water. The captain finally convinced me to just jump in. When I was finally mentally prepared and ready to get in the water, a huge two foot barracuda swam by! I thought I was done for! I thought that I would never get in the water after that!....Ten minutes later I was FINALLY in the water. (For future reference: if you see a barracuda and it is dark grey or black then swim for your life! If you see one and it is light grey or white then you are probably fine. We learned that barracudas change color when they are mad) Anyways, I was really glad that Joel waited patiently for me in the water because once I finally got it we had a great time. The coral was beautiful and the fish was so colorful! I cant wait to go back! Joel, I promise to be more brave next time!! :)

The next day was Christmas and we were at my favorite port, Grand Turk! Every port was amazing but Grand Turk was so beautiful! We went on a snorkeling and sting ray safari. To be honest, the snorkeling wasnt quit as beautiful as St Thomas but the sting ray safari totally made up for it! It was such a fun experience. The sting rays were HUGE and they just swam all around us. I kissed one and now I have 7 years of good luck :) Joel was the brave one and he actually held a few of them.

*Honeymoon*- Princess Cayes and St. Marteen

We were so lucky to be able to go on a cruise to the Caribbean for our honeymoon! It was sooo fun! We traveled with Princess on the Emerald Princess. We first stopped at Princess Cayes where we got to do a banana boat ride and a glass bottom boat tour. This is a picture of Joel and I on the glass bottom boat at Princess Cayes. Too bad we didn't get too much of the beautiful scenery in the picture!

Our next stop was St. Marteen which was pretty amazing! We got to go horseback riding around the island and it in the ocean! FYI: The temperature change from the air to the water makes the horses go number two. I started to get a little grossed out when I was surrounded by it! ha ha