Our First year of Marriage Part 1

For those who have not been updated on the things that Mark and I have been up to in our new life together I will give you a little review of our first year of marriage. Mark and I after getting married on August 1st 2008 in the Sacramento Temple we had three receptions or open houses. The first and the best one of course was in California at my parents house in Wilton. It was a huge success despite all the stress before hand. I had people tell me all the time that it was one of the best receptions they had ever been to. My parents do know how to throw a good party. We had a lot of help from people in our Ward and I cant say I know all the names of those who helped but, I do know a handful. I fear to name them would make others feel left out so, I will play it safe and refrain from saying any. After the reception in California on Aug 2nd Mark and I drove to the first little spot of our honey moon in Angels Camp. My Grandma had a condo there that she gave to us as a wedding gift along with a temporary membership to Thousand Trails Camping since we would only be spending three nights in Angels camp, and then we would have to start the drive up to Washington for our Open house in Issaquah. I personally had high hopes to rent some Jet skis while we were in Angels Camp but it turned out that we were to young to rent them. I guess 24 just didn't make the cut. I was kind of mad because they wanted us to be 25 so, Mark was short by 6 months. Well with those plans spoiled we just walked through the old western town up there and had lunch in the saloon. Being as poor as we were we didn't feel motivated to spend much money. The jet skis were the only thing I was willing to splash out on. Everything Else like the horse and carriage ride through town, caving, and other things like that just didn't entice us enough to want to spend the money. It was OK though because we just played ping pong and pool in the condos club house and kicked it in the hot tub. We bought a few movies and played a game that Tiffany gave us. She knows what the game was. It was a game that was a gag gift but, Mark and I played it and made bets on who could win. A few cool things happened while we were up in Angels Camp because of our car being decorated with all the wedding stuff still. One morning we found a card on our windshield that was from a group of random strangers who saw our just married writing on the Bronco so they left us a card with well wishes and some marriage advice. We were both surprised, but thought it was nice. So Sunday was the last day that we spent in Angels camp and I am sure that most people wouldn't think to go to church on there honey moon,but I felt like it was no excuse to miss church. I looked up a ward in the area and we got dressed and and went. We stayed for all three hours of church and so a couple of the ward members new we had just been married. A few were shocked that we bothered to come to church. I thought it was funny, but looking back I am surprised that I wanted to stay for all three hours. Well When church was over we got into our car and slowly started to drive away. There was a stop sign next to the church parking lot and we were behind a big SUV with a family from the ward at the stop sign when the wife jumped out of the car and ran up to us and gave us a $20.00 dollar bill. She wished us well and then jumped back into her car and drove off. We were shocked, but very happy about the generous gift. We laughed about it and thought that it was a nice blessing for going to church on our honey moon. We also appreciated the fact that someone at our reception wrote on the back of the Bronco " Poor Students Give Us Money!! " Good times.
Well Monday morning we left Angels Camp and started our long drive up the coast on hwy 101 for a more scenic drive and camping spots from Thousand Trails. It was really beautiful. As it got dark and late we tried to find free place on the beech to camp and almost camped at this one location but chickened out the last minute because it was dark,foggy,and we couldn't tell if we were tress passing or not. It was just a scary place and we could hear the ocean, but couldn't see it. We ended up rolling into a camp ground that we were supposed to pay for, but we pulled up at 1:00am ,so no one was around. We thought that if we set up our tent and and woke up early enough we could leave before they knew we were there and not pay. Our plan almost worked because a ranger pulled up and snagged us just before mark could get the last of the tent packed up and into the car. We ended up having to pay $15.00 bucks. I scrambled through our wedding cards to find money to pay the ranger thinking to myself " We shouldn't have slept in we almost made it! now I got to pay 15 bucks for sleeping on the ground for 7 hours! " I liked the days when camping was free. We packed up and kept driving but on the way out we saw a bunch of Elk, so I took a few pictures. We made a few stops along the way and took some pictures here and there, but for the most part we were trying to make it to our next camping spot in the Thousand trails camp site where we could camp for free. The only thing about the Thousand Trails camp grounds is that it is not really camping. It is like an RV park. Camping for old people. We didn't mind though because it had nice things like club houses, pools,hot tubs,basket ball courts, tennis, and games like shuffle board and pool tables. Mark and I played a lot of Pool and even more shuffle board. I was always the loser at pool. I have never had someone beat me at so many games like Mark has. So I played shuffle board because I won more often than not. Near our campsite there were the Organ dunes and so there were places that rented quads for a good price. We finally found something that we wanted to spend money on and both agreed to do it. It was a long wait, but we payed $45 per quad for two hours. It was a ton of fun! Well worth the money.

Once we made it to Washington we hooked up with my parents who were driving up on the 5 for the open house. We drove the last stretch together after meeting up at my moms cousins house, Kim Katwick. Clayton wanted to ride in our car so we let him. At some point we hit heavy traffic so we were moving kinda slow, suddenly we had people reaching out there hands towards us waving money! Mark rolled down his window and grabbed the money from the person and said thanks. Clayton was freaking out because random people were just in traffic giving us money while we were still moving and he thought one person gave us a $100 but it was just a $20! Still $20 bucks is $20 bucks! Another car had a woman yelling out her window with lotto tickets in her hands saying, " Take them take them they are winners!!" Mark grabbed them and they were the scratch tickets that were worth about $10.00 dollars. It was pretty fun to have that happen to us along with people honking there horns for us. Clayton said that he is going to get a girl dummy and write just married on his car when he gets older to get some money. Mark and I just laughed. We had the open house on August 8th and celebrated my Dads birthday in Seattle since the 8th was his day.
Mark and I continued our drive back to Utah but picked up a new travel companion from Washington. Marks Brother Scott was going to test out a used motorcycle that he had fixed up but it didn't have a speedometer that worked or a working gas gage. Scott wanted us to drive along side him on the way to Star Idaho in case he broke down. Well sure enough he did, so we rented a U haul and loaded up the bike. A funny story about Scott riding with us is that while we were driving through a small town Scott was in the front with Mark while I was in the back seat. We had our car stuffed with so many gifts that it was piled up past the windows, so I was not in view. Because our car still had the writing all over it on one of the side windows it said, " Mark and Sam Honk if you think we will make it!" A guy and his girlfriend pulled up next to us at a stop light and saw Mark and Scott in the car with all the just married writing all over it and he laughs pointing at them with his girlfriend and honks his horn for them. I am sure they looked like a Homosexual couple because it said Mark and Sam Just married. I got a good laugh in the back seat because Mark and Scott felt pretty embarrassed. They tried to point in the back to say that I was back there, but no one could see me behind all the presents. Well those were the high lights of the trip as far as I can remember and When we got to Utah we had our third Open house at Marks Uncle Mark and Aunt Paula's home in Orem UT. It was nice just like the one we had in Washington and we managed to get nearly everything that we registered for and more. We sent out 600 invites and had maybe 400 or so at the wedding reception and 60 at the dinner after the temple. I don't know how many at each open house but it was nice to see all those who came.
Mark and I lived in Provo only a mile south of BYU in an Apartment complex called Heritage Court. We had Cannon Live with us for about two weeks while he got a job at UPS and found an apartment in Salt lake. We had a lot of fun hiking and rock climbing in the mountains that were so close to us. Mark was finishing up his under grad and I was trying to get some business credits for a business degree. I got a job cleaning houses for a while and Mark worked in the Lab at BYU. We attended the BYU married ward just for kicks. We thought it would be an interesting experience which it was. Like a singles ward but more strange. Mark never got a calling in that Ward and I had a calling to be the Relief society music coordinator. After one semester passed by Mark and I felt impressed to have baby sooner than planed and so I got pregnant and was due on September 9th 2009. I quit my job with Spic N Span cleaning and got a desk job at EMG thinking I can do that better as a pregnant person than I could cleaning houses. It was a job Roxanne was doing in Arizona and she convinced me that it would be a good idea since I could transfer to her office when we move and keep my job. I ended up getting so sick from the pregnancy that I was in bed or throwing up all the time. I managed to be well enough on occasion to still play on the Co Ed BYU intramural Soccer Team though I was not much use. TO BE CONTINUED...