One Year

Ashlee and I have officially been married for a year. This blog is the closest thing we have to a journal so I wanted to use it to record memories from our wedding. When I think back to our wedding night the one thing I remember more clearly than anything is our first dance. I would be a complete liar if I told you I was looking forward to that dance. I’ve always held on to the opinion that at my height there are just certain things that it was best to avoid and dancing was on that list, so the idea of dancing in front of a group of people was nothing short of frightening.

The night of our wedding when the time came for Ashlee and I to have our first dance I was nervous, but only for a minute.. when the music started and I held Ashlee in my arms all my nerves vanished. I was too caught up in how beautiful my new wife was to even be aware that there was anyone else there other than us. As much as I thought I would dread it, and as much as my tall frame wanted to resist it... our dance ended up being my favorite moment from the night. While Ash and I were dancing there was a quote that came to my mind from one of my favorite books/movie “A River Runs Through It”. I think it popped into my head because of how perfectly it fit the moment.

“It is a strange and wonderful feeling to hold someone in your arms who is trying to detach you from the earth and you aren't good enough to follow her.”

This quote also pertains to our marriage. I will always feel that she is nothing short of an angel and that I am undeserving of someone as amazing as her. We had an eventful first year of marriage and I can't wait for what comes next.

I was hoping to create something nice for us to remember our first year of marriage, but unfortunately I had to change my plans. I started the week off sick then had oral surgery and now I’m stuck preparing for my finals. I still tried putting together this video with some of our memories from our first year.

Untitled from Nick Chappell on Vimeo.

In case you didn't already know...

I am not a good blogger.
And that's that.

I keep thinking since I have an office job now that Ill be a little better at it... but we will see. My OCD (or OCDC as my mom calls it) stops me from doing fun things like this sometimes (thanks dad). I get too caught up in the writing and format part of it that nobody probably even notices or cares about besides myself. Most of the time, just minutes after starting a post I usually give up and beg Nick to write one. He's much better at this than I ever will be. But since he is currently working a full time job, going to school full time, trying to finish remodeling our house and playing basketball 2 nights a week I figured it was time for me to step it up and give it another shot.
I make no promises.

I finally got some inspiration to blog again when my softball teammate and friend Chloe posted this wedding challenge on her blog. Basically what happened is a bunch of posts and pictures from her blog somehow got erased when she changed her email address, including her engagement, wedding, and honeymoon posts. So instead of trying to upload them all back into one giant post, she had the idea of doing them little posts at a time counting down to her 2 year anniversary next week. So since I never even blogged about our wedding or honeymoon and we are coming up on our first anniversary in April, I loved the idea. Here is the list of separate posts she will be doing and challenged her readers to do too:

1. how it all began: how you met, first date, first kiss, how long did you date? first picture together.....etc.
2. when you knew he was the one: self explanatory.. but how and when did you know?
3. proposal: how it happened, how long were you engaged for? was it a total surprise? pictures of that... etc.
4. the ring: tell us about it! did you pick it out? did he? pictures! tell us about his ring too!
5. engagement/bridal pictures: let's see em!
6. the colors: show some of the flower and colors you used
7. the dress: was it what you always imagined? did you have it made for you? white or ivory?
8. the little accessories: you know, veil? shoes? jewelry? what did your bridesmaids wear?
9. the reception: where was it at? show us some pictures! what day did you get married?
10. the cake/food: i love food. so tell me about what you had at your wedding!
11. favorite part of the day and least favorite part of the day: can be anything.
12. honeymoon: where did you go? was it good? ;) haha...jk.
13. thoughts on marriage: what is the easiest/hardest part? if you could change anything, what would it be?
14. first place that you lived together: pics if you have them!
15. kids: do you have any yet? if not, when do you plan on it? how many do you want? any tips on good/bad birth control?
16. most recent picture of you and your significant other and what you love most about them :) and any other thoughts.

I'm sure Ill change some things a little bit and mostly just post pictures. And I definitely wont be doing it all in a week. But I thought it would be a good start to get me blogging again. We'll see if it works....


Also, quick update:
- Nick went back to school in January. He does a really good job at figuring out how to juggle a full time job, going to school full time, homework, and my need for attention. I couldn't do it.
- I grew up (not really) and got a big girl job. I am now a receptionist at a printing company called Press Media.
-We moved from Payson to Provo in January and are in the process of remodeling the house. Im excited to get it all done and decorated.

Bridge School Benefit Concert

Ashlee and I just recently made a trip to attend The Bridge School Benefit Concert. The concert is a 2 day event put on by Neil Young that has been held for the past 24 years in Mountain View, California. It's unique from other music festivals in that all bands play strictly acoustic sets, and with it being a benefit concert they let all the kids who attend The Bridge School up on the stage for the best seats in the house. All the kids in the school have severe speech and physical impairments, but in-spite of being limited in their movements you could often see them in the back with big smiles dancing in their own way.
The weather for the weekend was very wet. They announced in 24 years this was only the second time it had rained. You can imagine how thrilled we were to have had that luck. Specifically Ashlee... who does so well in the rain. During the first day of the concert we more or less froze after the sun went down. It started raining so hard at one point the group of us were huddled up on our soaking wet blanket taking shelter beneath a child sized umbrella.

The second day of the concert we came much better equipped. We stopped at Home Depot and stocked up on some ponchos and a couple tarps. We were glad we did because when we made it to our spot on the grass it was raining even harder then it was the day before. We used our tarps to create what ended up being some sort of makeshift bed since we all just hopped in between the tarps and hid inside them. We looked like the grandparents from Willy Wonka and The Chocolate factory with all of us sharing what looked like a big bed. I'm sure we looked ridiculous to everyone around us but we did stay warm. Our friend ended up buying an industrial strength rain suit. So while the rest of us were hiding under the tarp, this is how he took his nap....
(It may sound strange that we all took naps but during an all day festival full of excitement you do what you gotta do.)



The actual bands and music were fantastic. The lineup was incredible with the most notable act being Pearl Jam (most notable according to me). Some other notable bands were Neil Young, Elvis Costello, Elton John, Jackson Browne, Modest Mouse, Billy Idol, and Buffalo Springfield who played their first show in over 40 years.

Here is Ashlee's favorite song of the night:

And here is a video we found on YouTube of some highlights of the concert:

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to this handsome guy.

I am so lucky to have such a wonderful husband. He is my favorite person in the world and I am so happy he is mine forever.
I love you Nick!

Do you believe in magic?

{September 23-25}

We had so much fun at Disneyland this year. We are so lucky to be able to get the entire family together each year to enjoy the happiest place on earth! It's such a fun tradition and I'm already looking forward to next time.

Nick made a fun little video of a few clips I got during the trip. He told me I couldn't post it unless I wrote a disclaimer explaining a few things.
So just so you all know... I took about 10 short clips with my shaky, not HD point and shoot camera. Little did I know, when you are shooting video, you have to shoot it all horizontally. Obviously I didn't realize that until we got home, so try to ignore the big black gaps on the sides of the shots I took vertically. Also, sorry if it makes you dizzy when people are moving too fast. That's the cameras fault, not mine... I think.

So basically I didn't really give Nick much to work with and he made the whole thing in about 20 minutes. But I still love what he did with it.

Another tradition we all love... new shoes! Every year, on top of paying for all the Disneyland tickets and our hotels, my dad buys the whole group a new pair of shoes. Isn't he great?

THANKS DAD!
We love you so much... and the socks too :)

Fish Lake

{August 21}

We went to Fish lake this year for the Chappell's annual camping trip. Nick's dad is from Loa so their family goes there every year for the town's celebration. Nick had to work on Saturday so we had to miss the parade and fair, but based on the large amount of candy the kids had in their grocery bags it must have been a good one.

(We all got a little split up throughout the day so I'm sorry I wasn't able to get pictures of everybody.)

The kids fished, the boys swam in the freeeeeezing cold water, we ate lots of great food and yummy snacks, and then... went to the demolition derby.
Never in my life did I think I would be going to a demolition derby, let alone loving every second of it.
They are so entertaining! I was honestly disappointed when it was over.

We had such a great time. I couldn't ask for better in-laws. They are so nice and fun to be around.

Happy Birthday Mom!

You are the most loving, kind, humble, selfless person in the entire world. And everyone who knows you agrees. You are my greatest example and my best friend. I love you so much!

She's beautiful right?
Then and now.

{Mom and her kids}

PS- Yes i know, we are horrible at blogging lately. I have big plans to get better at it but I guess we'll see.
New posts coming very soon (maybe).
:)