Growing

I don't know about the rest of you married folk, but there are a lot of things I thought I'd never do once I was married. Oh, I'll NEVER fall asleep without my TV on, NEVER eat off-brand cereal! sidenote: Cinnamon Toasters...life-changing!-fully converted. And, I think the best one was I'll NEVER fight with my husband because we will just be so in love... HA! 

Another thing I get to add to the list is planting a garden. I never thought I'd see the day when I would be jumping for joy over tomato plants, and becoming as giddy as a little school girl while looking at flowers to plant. Especially since most of the flowers I had my eye on were the exact same ones I used to despise planting in my parents' garden.  I guess that's the black hooded figure of adulthood creeping up on me?

Chris and I are so excited for our little salsa garden! We planted tomatoes, green peppers, onions, green onions, and some cilantro. It's kind of become our little child.We are constantly worrying about it's well-being, and just last night, we took out our camping chairs and just sat in front of it and watched it with pure admiration. We're just praying the ground doesn't freeze anytime soon. Apparently you're supposed to plant after Mother's Day? Unfortunately, we didn't get that memo until after we bought all of our plants. We'll see what crazy mother nature has in store for us in good ole Utah. 

Whether we like it or not, the Gourleys are growing--growing up, and growing a garden.

Heartache

This is my thought process almost every morning when I wake up:

-Holy crap I gotta pee!
-I think I'll just settle for a ponytail today
-A ponytail will be good since I'm going to run today...
-Ugh, do I really want to run today? 
-We'll see how school goes, and then I'll decide if I want to run (somehow school always convinces me that I'm too busy to run, when I'm really not--I am a slacker of all sorts)

During class today when I was looking at Facebook (like I said, slacker!), I noticed a lot of people were posting about this Boston Marathon bombing. Bomb? What? Better Google that. As soon as I read that there had been a bombing and that several had died and been injured, my heart just started to ache.

Now I know that my morning thought process will never be the same...

My run today was for those who passed in this tragedy.

May God be with you all.

Quarter Of A Century!

Chris is officially 25 today! 

And yes, he's matured beautifully this past year. He hardly farts anymore, rarely shoves his stinky socks in my face, and doesn't talk about going poo anymore. 

Wait, no. He still does all that. 

In all honesty, I don't think Chris will ever fully grow up.

And you know what?

I pray he doesn't--I love that man-child of mine.

Happy Birthday, babe! 

Quarter of a century has never looked so good.

xoxoxo

Gone Turkey Huntin'

Ah.... I just love conference weekend.

What's could be better than  being spiritually uplifted in the comfort of your own home, in pajamas, while stuffing your face with food? Probably nothing. Oh, and on top of all that... two days without wearing a bra = heaven on earth.

After the last session of conference, Chris suggested that we go on a drive. Here's how the conversation went down:

Chris: (whisper) Hey babe, we should go on a drive and look for turkeys today.

Me: Okay. But I am NOT hiking for turkeys.

Chris: Okay, okay. We'll just go on a drive up the canyon and look for them.

Me: (sigh) Alright, let's go then.

After 15 minutes or so driving up the canyon...

Chris decides he needs to get out of the car to spot some turkeys. So I just wait.

Then he actually spotted a turkey! "C'mon, Shay! Hurry!"

I've never seen Chris so excited. Seriously, I never knew turkeys could bring so much joy to someone. I do have to admit, it was pretty cool. Even I got a little excited.

 Eventually that little bit of excitement led me to agreeing to hike up the mountain in search for turkeys. You know, the thing I said I was NOT going to do today. I'm sure Chris knew I would give in. That sneaky little devil.

Great hiking attire, right? Oh, the things I do because of you, Chris.

We actually did end up finding the turkeys, but it was just a quick, few seconds of them running through all the trees-totally worth it. 

I think my favorite part was Chris' excitement when he spotted all the turkey poo.

"Oh babe, we're close. That's really fresh!"

I think it's safe to say that I'm ready for some more turkey huntin' adventures. Minus the whole hiking in my pajamas thing.

Spring cleaning myself.

I have been full this Easter weekend. Full of....thoughts, tears, cadbury eggs, fresca, and um...cadbury eggs.

Me and Chris went to the BYU Easter Conference for date night (yeah, you read that right--gettin' spiritual over here!), and I actually was really glad we went. It was the perfect way to get ready for Easter. One of the speakers, Brad Wilcox, said some things I think I really needed to hear. It would be a joke for me to try and summarize all the great things he said, so I'm just going to quote the one thing he said that has been stuck in my head all weekend. 

"Turning to the Lord is not another thing to do, it is the only thing to do."

As soon as he said that, my eyes were full of tears, and my heart was full of guilt. You see, lately, I feel like I've had so much to do with school, nursing applications, and on top of those, trying to be the perfect wifey, with a perfectly clean house, and perfect homemade meals (curse you, pinterest!), that I really have felt like turning to the Lord is just another thing I need to check off of my to-do list. That simple sentence from Brad Wilcox made me realize that it's time to start worrying about things that matter, and keep an eternal perspective in mind.

So along with spring cleaning my house, I am going to try and start spring cleaning my attitude! Starting with keeping an eternal perspective. I also realized that I need to work on not getting so bugged about things I can't control. Actually, Chris is the one who pointed that out to me after I got really upset thinking that fast Sunday might be the same day as Easter this year. Who in their right mind would do that?! In my defense, I had just packed a bag of cadbury eggs into my purse. I should really consider spring cleaning my diet as well... SHOULD being the keyword. We'll see.

This Easter was a fabulous one for me and Chris! We got to spend time with both of our families. We celebrated Easter on Saturday with the Gourleys. We ate pizza, fed the ducks at the pond, had an Easter egg hunt for the little ones, and played red rover and steal the flag!

We celebrated with my family on Sunday at my grandma's. We had a weenie roast (weenie? weeny?- too afraid to Google that word), and an Easter egg hunt for the older kids. It wasn't an ordinary Easter egg hunt, though. Each egg had a number on it, which represented points. Whoever collected the most eggs with the most points won. It's a good thing Chris was on my team, because I only found two eggs which totaled to a whopping 23 points. So I combined my eggs with Chris', and we ended up taking fourth place! Fourth place got a $10 gift card to Subway. High-five for five dollar footlongs! 

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter, too!