Honeymoon Scrapbook

So lately i've been playing on Picnik.com when I get bored at work. This is a little project I was working on the other day. I decided to make a few digital scrapbook pages. Now i've never been really into physically scrapbooking, but I really like doing the digital stuff. So here are a few pages of our honeymoon.

Reflection

Today marks one year since my cousin JoAnna and her daughter Kayla passed away. Two of the most wonderful people I have had the privilege of knowing.
I'm so grateful I was married when I was. I didn't know it when I picked it, but Russ and JoAnna share the same anniversary as me and Kyle. It was a wonderful day and I'm go grateful we were all able share such a wonderful time in the temple together less then a month before Joey and Kayla left us.

JoAnna, You've always been someone I've looked up to and admired. You have a beautiful family, you are so strong in the gospel, and you cook like a master! Thank you for being you!

Kayla, I've loved you since you were a baby! You couldn't be a happier kid! Your love of stickers and animals are captivating. You were always so smart and mature for your age. Thank you Kayla for you strong spirit!

I found this poem/song last year when I was having a really hard time accepting their deaths. It brought me comfort and hope.

What is this thing called death
This quiet passing in the night?
Tis not the end but genesis
of better worlds and greater light.

O God, touch Thou my aching heart
And calm my troubled, haunting fears.
Let hope and faith, transcendent, pure,
Give strength and peace beyond my tears.

There is no death, but only change,
With recompense for vict’ry won.
The gift of Him who loved all men,
The Son of God, the Holy One.

-President Gordon B. Hinckley-

You can listen to it sung by the Mo Tab here

I am so grateful for the knowledge that I have of the plan of salvation. Glorious and blessed be the day we are reunited with all our loved ones! I thank God for giving me the change to know and love these two beautiful angels.

Thank you JoAnna and Kayla for being part of my life! I love and miss you very much!

Till we meet again...

Updates and Gratitude

Just a few updates as of late.


I got my hair cut :) Do you like? Its good to have a change. My friend Gillian did it, check out her blog, she's amazing!I went to a RS craft night with my wonderful mom-in-law! I made this darling little block thingy. We had a lot of fun! We also worked on a cute birthday board! I can't wait to see how it finally turned out!

My sis, Julie, and I went and got massages last week! I've never had one, they are wonderful! Thanks Ju for inviting me!


So I've never been that great at getting my visiting teaching done, but I just got a new partner who is really diligent. This will be good for me! We went and visited one of our sisters on Tuesday. I was in charge of the lesson so I thought well it's November, lets talk about gratitude. I pulled up one of the talks President Monson gave during conference. The Divine Gift of Gratitude. I'm so glad I went back and read this talk, it was really what I needed to hear right now! I need to show more gratitude in my life. I'm not ungrateful, but I don't express my gratefulness nearly as often as I should.

The sister we visited with on Tuesday said she doesn't like Thanksgiving much. She doesn't like the idea that we need a whole holiday to remind us to be thankful. She is so right! We should be thankful everyday. I'm glad we have Thanksgiving because it reminds us to be thankful. We get so focused on what we are lacking and forget to be grateful for what we have. Here are just a few quotes from his talk that I love!

"Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it."

"The grateful man sees so much in the world to be thankful for, and with him the good outweighs the evil. Love overpowers jealousy, and light drives darkness out of his life... Pride destroys our gratitude and sets up selfishness in its place. How much happier we are in the presence of a grateful and loving soul, and how careful we should be to cultivate, through the medium of a prayerful life, a thankful attitude toward God and man!” ~Joseph F. Smith

"To express gratitude is gracious and honorable, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live with gratitude ever in our hearts is to touch heaven"

Just a few things I am thankful for in no particular order:

1. A loving husband who loves me as much as I love him.

2. An apartment to call home.

3. That we both have jobs.

4. The opportunity to go to school.

5. A healthy physical body.

6. Two working cars.

7. A wonderful and loving family.

8. Great in-laws who love me as a daughter and sister.

9. The blessings of the temple.

10. The knowledge that this gospel is true.

There are so many more things I could put on this list. I have been so blessed in this life. I've had trials that suck when you are going through them, but I'm even grateful for those. They have made me a stronger person.

First Anniversary!

Our first anniversary was on October 24, 2010. This year it was a Sunday, so we did most of our celebrating over the weekend. We both were able to get work off on Friday. We had so much fun! We went to the temple and did sealings, which was amazing experience! Then we went to a Halloween party that Rich and Leesie were having. It was a blast! On Saturday we both have a class in the morning so we got all our stuff together and after class we headed up to Park City! We had so much fun, despite the cold rain we encountered. We were able to check into our hotel really early, we stayed at Park City Peaks Hotel. It was pretty nice, we enjoyed it! This is just a picture I got from their website.After we got all check in we decided to drive around and explore the town. We ended up walking up and down Main Street. It is the cutest street ever we went and looked at tons of the shops and galleries. Luckily for us it had stopped raining for us, but soon as we got in the car to go somewhere else the rain started up again. Here is a picture of Main Street from the car, see how wet and rainy it is! We drove around the city looking at all the places to eat and finally decided on a place called Zoom. It was really good and pretty expensive, but hey its our anniversary we can splurge :) It was really yummy! I had a pork tenderloin with a pistachio mole (sp?) and Kyle and some BBQ ribs! After dinner we couldn't think of anything else to do around town so we just went back to the hotel and spent the rest of our evening there.

The next day we drove home. It was a really relaxed day. We made a biscuits and gravy for brunch, one of our favorites! I decided i wanted to make some homemade french bread to eat with this amazing bottle of balsamic vinegar Kyle bought in Park City. It had been aged for 10 years. It was so good, it had a really sweet taste. It was awesome with the bread i made! I was very happy with how it turned out!

After dinner we decided to pull out our cake from our wedding. My mom had saved the top layer and froze it for us. I was so excited because it looked so pretty still! And you know what?! It still tasted pretty good! Not as moist, but taste was still great. Here is a picture of it along with the beautiful flowers Kyle got me!

I'm so lucky that I have Kyle. He fills my life with so much joy and meaning. I know its cheesy and mushy, but he is my whole life and I love him with all my heart and soul! Thank you sweetie for a wonderful year of marriage! I am so excited to spend the rest of my forever with you by my side!

Updates and such...

I'm having a hard time keeping up with this blogging stuff. I read everyone elses, but I don't write nearly as often as I should. So this post might seem somewhat odd.

Kyle and I have been married for a year on the 24th of this month! Its really crazy how time flys. Our anniversary falls on a Sunday this year so we decided to take Friday off work and head up to Park City for the weekend. The only sucky part is we have school on Saturday morning, boooo school you ruin my plans! Its ok though, we will have all Friday to do what ever we want! I'll make sure do a post after our little trip. :)

Oh lovely Sunday afternoon Kyle and I decided to go and take some fall pictures with all the pretty leaves! It turned into more of a Michelle photo shoot then anything. I only got a couple pics of Kyle. Here are a couple of the pics. The top two are straight from the camera and the bottom two are ones I edited.

If any of you didn't know I am back to school this semester. I am only taking 2 classes right now. I still work full time so sometimes its crazy. I'm taking Biology 1010 and Humanies. Can I just say that humanites is retarded! Not the class or the material exactly, but my teacher is so lame and boring! He thinks he's an English teacher, but isn't! He says I use "!" to much when I write about something I'm passionate about. I think for my next paper I will make it as boring as possible to please him. He bothers me!!!!!!!

My brother Craig made Allstate choir! I went up with my mom, dad, and bro Scott to watch his concert! It was really good, we had alot of fun while we were up there. I liked going with Scott, we walked around temple square before and he told me about all sorts of stuff I didn't know. I was fun!

So this last Sunday was kind of a rough day for me. I was extra emotional/hormonal because it was "my T.O.M." The day was full of tears, pain, and even some anger. In RS I usually sit alone and try to keep to myself, but I was feeling a bit outgoing and decided to ask this girl if I could sit next to her. She said yes, so I sat down. Not 3 minutes later she got up and said I'm going to go sit by my friend. She moved, leaving me alone. Now normally this kind of thing wouldn't upset me at all, but i was bothered. After church I told Kyle about it and started crying. I mean who does that?! I felt retarded, cuz I couldn't stop for a long time. My sweetie Kyle helped cheer me up and let me get it all out.

Later in the day Kyle helped my make dinner. We made homemade pretzels, steak, and mashed potatoes. So good! When I was taking the pretzels out of the oven I burned my arm on the pan! Man it hurt so bad I yelled and called myself a retard! 2nd degree burn, booo! Kyle being the sweetheart he is ended up finishing the rest of the food while i cried and iced my arm. I really do have the best husband, he makes me feel so much better and knows just what I need.

Lion King!

Kyle and I got tickets for Lion King back in February. I have been so psyched for this!! It was amazing! One of the best shows I have ever seen! It was so visually exciting to watch. All the actors were exceptional! Not to mention the percussionists, some times you got stuck watching them instead of the show. It was way cool! When I was getting the tickets we were trying to get into the same showing as some of my family. I was able to get the last 2 tickets for the show. Which means we were in the very back row on the end! I am not exaggerating that one bit! We could still see pretty well so it was all good.

Before the show we met up with my parents, Craig, Julie, and Matt and had dinner at this fun place called Tony Caputo's. It is this really good Italian restaurant! Julie and Matt went to the mattinee showing and the rest of us went to that night, it was fun to meet up in between to pass off the baby and have some dinner!

Kyle and I decided to take trax up from Sandy, this didn't turn out to be such a great idea. After the play we hopped on trax only to find out they don't go all the way to our stop that late!! They stopped like 2 ahead of where our car was. As soon as we found that out I quickly called my mom, and luckily they were still in Salt Lake! Woo Hoo!! They were able to pick us up at that last stop and take us to our car.

Overall it was a wonderful night! Full of food, fun, and a little trax mess.

Kyle and I on our way up

The puppet costumes were so cool!!!

Rafiki was so awesome!

If you get the chance to see this, do it!!!

September 11th 2010

September 11th holds a special place in my heart, not only was it a day of great loss for our country, but it is also my Grandpa Bradford's birthday. I also found out that it is also my Great Grandma Warner's birthday as well.

My grandpa is listed on the Wall of Honor for his service to our country!

Keith G. Bradford, my hero! Miss you grandpa, can't wait to be with you again one day!

At the Spanish Fork cemetery they have "The Moving Wall" memorial right now. This is a wall that is on a moving display all through out the country. Spanish Fork is lucky enough to be on the tour! Here are a few pics I took. Enjoy!

I love this picture and how the words reflect upon Craig's face.

This wall holds the names of every soldier that died in the Vietnam War.

Just a little fact about this memorial: "The Moving Wall" is the half-size replica of the Washington, DC Vietnam Veterans Memorial and has been touring the country for more than twenty years. When John Devitt attended the 1982 dedication in Washington, he felt the positive power of "The Wall." He vowed to share that experience with those who did not have the opportunity to go to Washington. (http://www.themovingwall.org/)

1959 is the year that the first American casualty occurred and 1975 is at the bottom of the panel because it was the year of the last American causalities.

Dad's reflection on the wall.

Reflection of those that gave their lives.

The wall was so big, it was hard to get a picture of it all at once.

ALWAYS REMEMBER