2015 in Review

Well folks, Jordan and I have officially lived in Utah for a year now, and what a year it has been! It's always fun to look back at the end and capture all of the good, the bad and the ugly. So here goes nothing. (I'm going to organize it by month since my brain works better that way):

January

• Moved from Rexburg, Idaho to Salt Lake City, Utah
• Jordan started working two part-time jobs at Harmon's and National Life insurance company
• Had a second Christmas celebration with Chanel and Kathy
• I took and passed the NCLEX exam

February

• I received my official RN license
• Lots of job hunting for me
• Celebrated Valentine's Day with the Jameson family
• We received our first church calling as Primary 5 teachers

March

• I got a job at the University of Utah hospital
• Bought a new set of couches (our first big purchase together)
• Drove to Washington for the girls' spring break
• Celebrated Mom's and Grandma Shaftoe's and Grandpa Warren's birthdays
• Gave our first Sacrament meeting talks as a couple in church
• Jordan and I donated blood

April

• Celebrated our one year wedding anniversary
• Celebrated Easter with the Amparans/Webbs
• Bought our first car (2012 Hyundai Sonata)
• Celebrated Jenna's and Lydia's birthdays

May

• Jenna flew down for free to visit (since Dad got a new job at the airport)
• Attended a few of Kyle's baseball games here in Salt Lake
• Celebrated Sam's birthday
• Attended Beaux and Lauren's wedding
• Played the piano in Sacrament meeting for the first time in forever
• Watched "Avengers 2"
• Visited the cemeteries in Springville to find some Warren ancestors for Memorial Day
• Celebrated Mother's Day

June

• Shonna, Ronnie and Lydia flew down to visit
• Went to the zoo for the first time
• Played lots of games at Fat Cats
• Went to Boondocks for the first time
• Jenna and Sammie stayed the night on their way back to Washington from Hawaii
• Watched "Jurassic World"
• Celebrated Father's Day
• Jenna and Lydia flew down to visit

July

• Moved into a new apartment in Murray
• Jordan re-applied to LDSBC
• Celebrated 4th of July with Chanel and the Yenchiks
• Eric and Kyle stayed over for baseball games
• Alex came home from her mission, went to her final testimony meeting
• Drove to Washington for our annual summer trip
• Went to Silverwood with the family
• Took family pictures
• Attended the Columbia river temple with Shaftoe family
• Mom, Dad, Alex and Jenna flew down to visit
• Celebrated Mom and Dad's 23rd wedding anniversary
• Watched Sharknado 3
• Donated blood
• Ostermillers and Shonna stayed over for more baseball games
• Jordan registered for classes
• Alex flew down to get ready for college

August

• Ran my first 5k race
• Helped Chanel move into a new apartment
• Bought another car (2012 Nissan Xterra) since the 2004 Xterra was totaled in an accident
• Attended lots of wedding receptions
• Mom and Dad flew down to go through the Bountiful temple
• Signed a lease contract for another apartment
• Alex and mom flew down to set up for college
• Celebrated Grandma Jane's birthday

September

• Moved into a new apartment in Sugar House
• Mom and Dad flew down to help with the move
• Celebrated Dad's and Grandma Helen's and Shonna's and Chanel's and Jordan's birthdays
• Celebrated Grandma and Grandpa Warren's 50th wedding anniversary
• Bought a Sam's club membership
• Jordan started school at LDSBC
• Shonna flew down to celebrate her birthday
• Used my first sick call at work
• Jordan and I bought new glasses

October

• Family flew down for General Conference
• Attended General Conference at Temple Square
• Dad and Jordan attended the Priesthood session at Temple Square
• Ate at Red Robin to celebrate all Fall birthdays
• Jordan quit his job at National Life
• Attended our first BYU game as a couple
• Celebrated my 22nd birthday
• Attended Grandpa Lamar's funeral
• Carved pumpkins and watched scary movies
• Took a mini vacation to Park City-just the two of us
• Helped the Butlers move

November

• Celebrated Alex's and Ronnie's birthdays
• Jordan registered for next semester's classes
• Bought a leaf blower for the massive amount of leaves at our apartment
• Donated blood
• Lots of shopping at Old Navy
• Decorated for Christmas
• Watched "Mocking Jay Part 2"
• Celebrated Thanksgiving with the Evans and the Andersens/Stewarts
• Splurged and bought a 60 inch smart TV on Black Friday
• Attended our first Jazz game as a couple

December

• Saw the lights at Temple Square
• Jenna flew down to visit on her way to Hawaii
• Lots of Christmas shopping
• Used my second sick call for work
• Started snowing in Utah
• We received our second calling in our new ward as Primary 5 teachers
• Flew to Washington for Christmas
• Celebrated Christmas with the family and Grandma Shaftoe and Grandma and Grandpa Warren (while Alex was in Brazil)
• Ate at Shang Hai twice
• Participated in the annual Fast Food Frenzy
• Watched "Star Wars: The Force Awakens"
• Had a pizza night with Cameron, Dallin and Connor
• Watched "Daddy's Home"
• Flew back to Utah with Jenna and Gma and Gpa Warren

And that about sums up our year! We love living here in Utah (especially with the mountains surrounding us) and we love visiting family as much as we can. We feel very blessed with everything God has given us this year, including stronger family relationships and friendships. With our two incomes we've been able to do a lot of things we've always wanted to and we can't wait to do more.

Life hasn't been a piece of cake during the last year. In fact, many days it's felt like a piece of crap more than anything. But we realize that the hard times won't last forever and that this is just a phase of life that will pass. Our marriage has grown stronger over the last twelve months and we've cherished every bit of time we've been able to spend together, especially considering how busy life has been lately. It's been fun having family fly down and we're so grateful to Mom and Dad for all of their hard work that allows that to happen.

As for now, we don't have too many big plans in the near future but we're excited to see what 2016 will bring!

Happy New Year from the Stewarts!

A Weekend Getaway

Jordan and I finally took a mini-vacation getaway, just the two of us, since our honeymoon. With him working and going to school and me working full-time at night, our schedules don't mix very well and we don't get to see each other very often (if we do get time together, it's usually spent sleeping). And with other stressful events taking place recently, it was much needed to just get away and not have to think about anything.

We decided to make our trip during Halloween weekend. Since we didn't have very much time to take off, we figured it would be best to not travel too far away so we could make the most of our time. With that in mind, we decided to spend the weekend in Park City. The last time we were there was for our honeymoon but the weather wasn't too great so we weren't able to do some of the things Jordan had planned. So we thought we would give it another try and reminisce about our honeymoon 18 months ago and make new memories as well.

Friday, October 30
Since Jordan had Friday off of work, we spend the majority of that day helping some friends move into their new apartment. After that, we supported another friend at his ward Halloween party and enjoyed participating in the kids' games haha. Once Jordan finished the homework that was due, we finished packing, ate dinner at Training Table (one of my favorites) and headed to Park City. Since we weren't spending too much money on gas and traveling, we figured we could splurge a little on the hotel. So we stayed at the Marriott Mountainside resort in Park City, right next to the Alpine slide and only a few minutes away from Main Street. It was gorgeous up there! The only compliant I have is that they were doing construction on the hotel so that was a little inconvenient. But other than that it was a great place to stay. We checked in around 11 pm and just relaxed, watching some TV until we fell asleep.

The donut game at the Halloween party

Our room!

I promise he's not really going to the bathroom. Just trying to be funny haha

Saturday, October 31 HALLOWEEN!
Well, we slept in that day until noon haha. Obviously we were exhausted. But it's not a vacation unless you catch up on some sleep, right? We got ready, watched some Beetlejuice while getting ready, then headed to Main Street for lunch. We decided to eat at a pizza place (Main Street Pizza and Pasta) that we had tried on the honeymoon that we really liked. But this time, it was way more crowded with families since it was a holiday and that was fun to see all the cute kids in costumes. We stuffed our faces with pizza then decided to try the Alpine slide since it was closed (due to weather) on our honeymoon. But just with our luck, we came a little too late in the season and it was closed again haha. Next time we're going to try it in the summer and maybe finally be successful. Since that idea didn't work out, we went back to main street to join in the Halloween fun. Apparently, Park City has a tradition of trick-or-treating on main street and there were a TON of people there. It was so crowded! There were both local families and visiting families walking up and down getting candy from the different stores and even though we don't have any kids yet, it was still fun to see all the costumes enjoy the festive environment. Once that was over and it started to get dark, we decided to eat dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. Our goal for the trip was to only eat at places we had never eaten before (aka, places we usually eat at in Salt Lake City). Then we enjoyed the beautiful and very warm outdoor hot tub area at the hotel. That was the best part of the hotel for sure. We also figured we should do something Halloween-y so we watched Halloween 5 which was on TV. The only reason I agreed to watch a scary movie was because 1) I had seen parts of those movies at work since they were constantly playing on TV and 2) Jordan is just too convincing and too cute to say no to. So yeah, we watched a scary movie and ate white cheddar popcorn on Halloween, da best.

Main Street Pizza & Pasta

Main Street Trick-or-Treating

Cutest little kid costumes we saw

Easiest costume ever haha

Love this dork

Best way to spend Halloween!

Sunday, November 1
Since that was Daylight Savings day, we ended up only sleeping in until 11 am haha. It's kind of rare that both of us to get to sleep in together so we definitely took advantage of that. After our typical routine of getting ready we found a cute little Mexican restaurant in Kimball junction for lunch (don't judge us for eating out on Sunday...technically we were on vacation and we didn't want to buy groceries for a 3 day trip so those were our justifications haha). After lunch, we spent a few hours at Tanger Outlets, trying to convince each other that it was okay to buy Columbia jackets that were on sale haha. We watched the last Twilight movie that was on TV (Jordan half slept/half watched haha) and then we ate dinner at another restaurant in Park City called Squatters. We enjoyed our last night in the hot tub and then watched more movies on TV. It was just fun being able to watch TV on a really soft and comfy king sized bed without having to worry about ANYTHING. And cuddle. Cuddling relieves a lot of stress. If you don't believe me try it out for yourself. It was a good Sunday.

Lots of delicious Mexican food

Day view from our room

Night view from the hot tub

Monday, November 2
We had to check out by 10 am so we actually got up early that day! Haha. We checked out, ate breakfast at Kneader's, did a little shopping on main street and bought a souvenir this time (since we didn't buy one on our honeymoon haha. It also helped that we had a little more money than we did back then). After a few hours we decided to head back home, cause ya know, it was such a long drive back. We got home, did some cleaning and laundry, ran a few errands and went over to Kallen's to catch up on the Walking Dead. And that officially ended our vacation.

An apple pie apple from Rocky Mountain Chocolate

It was a great weekend. Even though we weren't very far away from home, it was still far enough to just focus on each other and spend some quality time as a couple without the worries of home. Plus, it was fun to go back to Park City and relive some of those new, exciting feelings we had as newlyweds. I think sometimes we get so caught up in the busyness of life and work and school and family and friends and work and school (did I say that already?) that we forget we're married and that it's okay to focus on each other every once in awhile. We see each other as financial partners or business partners or just people that live together and say hi as we pass. We forget that it's okay to flirt, to kiss and hold hands in public and have real, deep conversations with each other. I'm glad our little trip was able to add a little bit of that spark back into our marriage. I know, I know, we've only been married 19 months and I talk as if we've been married for 40 years. But I've learned in that short time that rough patches like these can happen to any relationship of any age.

Honestly I wish we could take short trips every weekend but that's not realistic or affordable haha. So until we're filthy rich and retired, we'll just make the most of the days we do have together and keep that little romantic spark alive.

P.S. If you've never been to Park City before--and you love to ski or snowboard or look at mountains--then I would highly recommend it!