GIVING THANKS

Darrell and i had a double celebration this thanksgiving. a year ago, on thanksgiving day, the love of my life, Darrell William Bryce , purposed to me. it's pretty hard to beat that, but this thanksgiving was still a great great great day.
heather and i teamed up and made the table decorations. i made my yummy apple crumb pie. Darrell played his Call of Duty Modern War Fair II game, which makes him happy. Debbie cooked up a feast--we could hardly fit everything on the table. the day was full of laughter and fun

i was totally in my element decorating the table

Darrell being a silly butt

so i came up with an idea of making thankful cards. i put one in front of everyone's plate. before dinner we each wrote something we are thankful for. we put them in my pioneer basket and at the end of dinner we read them.

pioneer basket. it took a long time make these summer and Darrell paper pioneers, but i enjoyed it. i saved them so i can have them for my future thanksgivings...if they will last

for the napkin holders i made pumpkins and turkeys. gobble gobble

our leaf tree. it looked perfect for our fall feast. plus it made up for the lack of colorful leaves outside =D hehe

after dinner we all talked and laughed playing cards until midnight (we didn't realize how late it was until we checked the time. oops). i love how Darrell's family is full of jokes making every moment an enjoyable, laughable one.

Taking A Trip To Honeymoon Land

(as a warning: this is the longest blog in the history of blogs; but i hope you all get through the whole thing)

So, Darrell and i had a wonderful, fun, relaxing, beautiful honeymoon about 3 months ago. i have tons of video of it, however, i have not yet posted them. shame on me. so, i have picked some videos for you all to see. ENJOY =D

Our honeymoon actually started in California. we stayed at the beautiful Hyatt hotel, in Valencia, for a couple of nights. it was a great location with restaurants, stores, a mall and theater all in walking distance from the hotel. it was a wonderful way to start off our honeymoon. i don't have any pictures to share of our time here though =(

then we flew to Oahu, were we stayed the night in Waikiki, before flying to Kona, Hawaii. here are a few videos of us in Waikiki.

there were lots of interesting things happening all around us. Darrell had been working in Waikiki at the time, so he wasn't as excited about everything as I was, but we still had fun and enjoyed everything together.

This little girl singing was amazing. we could hear her blocks away and i was like "do you hear that singing?" and when Darrell told me it's a little girl, i was blown away. by the time we got to her, she was just ending her song. that girl has some amazing pipes on her.

I had previously posted a couple of videos of Darrell and i arriving at our house in kona, Hawaii. we were able to stay at the house for free since it was owned by his dad's company. here are lots more videos of us during our honeymoon on the big island of Hawaii.

we had to do lots of driving to get to places from where we were staying. but, since the scenery was so beautiful we didn't seem to mind a whole lot.

the thing about Hawaii is, there are volcanoes, and some are still active, so that was cool and SCARY to think about. the second video is of volcano smoke coming up from the ground because of all the heat and lava going on beneath the surface.

we went on a trail to a lava tube. the trail was beautiful with all the nature around. the actual lava tube was cool to walk through, i felt like i was walking through a cave of mystery. but if i was to go again, i would NOT wear flip flops

seeing this waterfall literally took my breath away. i had never seen a big waterfall like it before. it was an incredibly beautiful sight.

OK, so on our walk back to the car, after looking at the waterfall, it started to sprinkle a little. i of course wanted to leave, but my wonderful husband wanted to walk to another waterfall. After some bickering, of me wanting to leave and Darrell wanting to stay, Darrell ended up wining, so we headed towards the other waterfall. Of course, it started sprinkling harder. and me, being picky about my hair getting wet, stuck my head under Darrell's shirt. we finally made it to the waterfall, but i didn't care to peek my head out from under Darrell's shirt to look at it. i hear Darrell say, "aw, this waterfall sucks", so we quickly head back. A couple of minutes pass, and it starts pouring rain!! i got sooooooo upset. i tried standing under a tree until the rain stopped, but it wasn't stopping and the tree wasn't protecting my hair from getting wet, so i was like "FORGET IT!!" and ran out into the rain. I RAN as fast as i could to the car. i was running so fast that my sandals came off and i didn't even turn back to get them (luckily darrell picked them up though). the trail consisted of stairs, so i got really tired from all the running, and had to take a break. during this break, i almost wanted to bust out laughing from the whole situation but i didn't. i kept a frown on my face, and continued running. lets just say, our drive home was a VERY quiet drive.

the first video below is of Darrell and i looking at this road that's all broken and destroyed. but, the view of the ocean was surely perdy. and there was a fury little animal down in the rocks. i couldn't get video of it though =(

the second is of Darrell and I trying to drive to the Green Sands beach. it was a difficult drive since there wasn't an actual road to get to it. so here we were, in our little rental car, driving over some massive bumps and lumps and humps. it was fun-e


we couldn't make it all the way to the actual Green Sands beach, but we did find a beach along the way with some green sand. it was neat-o

Our honeymoon in Hawaii was only 5 days long, which wasn't enough time to do lots of things AND be newlyweds (if you know what i mean..wink wink) But, I'm happy that we were able to go to a beach and have fun in the water at least once. on the way to this beach we realized we forgot to bring, of all things, TOWELS!! so we stopped at a wall mart and bought towels. the beach crowded, but it was REALLY nice, so, hence the crowdedness. the sand was soft in and out of the water. the water passed my "clear water" inspection. and the weather was perfect for a day at the beach.

and that's the end of the videos. i have a bunch of honeymoon pictures on my facebook, but here are a few....

this is us on the plane to California to get married. this was the first time in our whole long distance relationship, of constantly flying to each other, that we were actually on a plane together. it was a very special moment for us to know that we no longer had to fly away from one another or have to be apart anymore.

Waiting to be seated for dinner in waikiki

Our green sand beach

Darrell spotted this old theater and thought it was the coolest thing.

we went to this really nice restaurant called Tommy's Bahamas. we decided to sit on the deck and I'm glade we did because watching the sunset and having the nice breeze was perfect. the food was pricey pricey pricey, but it was good good good. it was funny, when we first got to the restaurant, they asked us if there was any special occasion. Darrell said, "uh, no" and i was quiet for a second until i realized, wait a sec, it's our honeymoon, so i said "our honeymoon." I'm glade i realized to say that because they ended up giving us dessert for free. i can't believe we both forgot. Ooops

OUR FREE and very yummy DESSERT

i felt as though i was in another country. like Tuscany or Greece or something, i don't even know, but i felt it.

THE END

i hope you enjoyed the journey. Our honeymoon was a wonderful time for Darrell and I. I'm happy we were able to share a bit of it with you.

OUR VERY OWN BEDDY

The day after Darrell and I got back from our honeymoon we went out to buy a bed. We couldn't actually bring the bed home until a week later, so we had to sleep on a blow up bed. And let me just say, it was a very very good day when we got to bring our bed home.

market as husband and wife

One minute our cart was empty..........

.....the next if was FULL!! how did that happen? hmmmm......

the first day of our honeymoon in kona, darrell and i went to the market. it was our first time marketing as husband and wife, so it was a very special moment. that night darrell made me our first meal as husband and wife. it was his very yummy chicago pizza. i set the table all romantic, and we even had sparkling cider. it was the perfect first meal as hubby and wiffey.

honeymoon house

Here is a clip of us arriving at our honeymoon house in Kona. The house was beautiful, and it helped out a lot with saving money.

married is married is married....

I AM MARRIED!!!! Darrell and I had a beautiful wedding on July 24th. it was a little over a month ago, and i feels like 3 months ago. it was a day to remember. all my siblings were together at last (it only took us 5 YEARS!!!!).
although everything turned out great, it was stressful at first. when the reception started a leaned to darrell and wispered, "i want this to be over" i was getting overwhelmed with everyone arriving, and me having to say "hi" "hi" "hi" oh, and "hi".
After we made our greeting rounds, i felt much better. I started to actually enjoy the moment, instead of stressing over if people were having a good time or if the decorations looked ok or if i said hi to everyone.
once i started to relax and have fun, the time started flying bye bye. before i knew it, it was time for darrell and i to leave. i can't decide which is better: having rice thrown in our faces and down our clothes or finding my brother, brandon, hiding in the back seat of our car. hmmmmm......
it was a wonderful day from start to finish. the best part about it all is, I'M MARRIED TO THE LOVE OF MY LIFE, DARRELL WILLIAM BRYCE

Wedding plans...wedding cake

Now that school is over, I had more time to focus on wedding plans. Although i love planning for my wedding, it can get a bit stressful. I was really stressing over my cake, but after much thought, and staying up until 5 in the morning the other night (shh don't tell anyone), i finally got my cake figured out. And let me just say, I LOVE IT!!! Here is a picture to give you sort of a similar idea of what it will look like.

starting thoughts

So, lots of people have been asking me if i'm going to do a wedding blog or a newly wed blog and i guess the answer to that is "YES" (since i have created this blog and am now writing this). i wasn't going to, because it seemed so time consuming, but here i am anyways. So, to start this lovely blog off, here is a picture of me and my fiance.....who will be my HUSBAND in a matter of WEEKS!!!