Lately I’ve had a few experiences that made me wonder why I would ever buy anything new.

A while back, when I realized that JJ’s only pair of shoes were on their way to destruction thanks to his obsession with the outdoors, I decided to check out the thrift store to the north to see if I could find any good garden-worthy shoes for him. I left with a pair of hiking boots, a pair of sandals, five shirts, two pair of shorts and a toy phone for $12.75. And they all look pretty good. See here:

I couldn’t believe it. Even on their best day, all of that would have been at least $50 at Wal-Mart.

Not long after that, we saw some friends at a BBQ and they had their toddler in a portable high chair. They said they take it with them everywhere. After a messy wrestling match with our little guy that resulted in more food on us than in his stomach, having a portable chair for him sounded pretty good. They said they got theirs at Kid-to-Kid. I wasn’t familiar with it, but basically they pay you for your like-new kid stuff and then they sell it in their store. I decided it was worth a peek, so I stopped in one day and found this little gem (the chair, not the kid):

It was under a sign that said bathing, so at first I thought it was a potty. A second glance though, and it was exactly what I wanted. Even more than I knew. I mostly wanted a chair that was portable, but it turned out that this thing was infinitely easier to clean and took up so much less space than the monstrosity of a high chair we were using. It has been worth every penny of that $12, probably four times that. You can buy one of these new for about $25 online. I’m pretty sure it would work fine to start your kid in one of these, as long as they can sit somewhat well. Just say no to the high chair, and yes to one of these!

These were invigorating finds. The kind that you are just so excited about, because not only did they solve a lot of problems, but they were also a fantastic deal. They were some of those happy little finds that seem to be just a wonderful little gift from above.

Dustin and I got engaged 2 years ago today.  He did a great job of leading me on a scavenger hunt of special places we’d been, having his good buddy John take pictures of us everywhere.  It was great.  He even put together a scrapbook of all of our emails, love notes, etc.  How did he know that was just what I’d wanted?  Somehow he’s been quite good at figuring that out.  And I love him more all the time!

Boy, I tell you, I start slacking off in my blogging, and I hear about it. From my little sister who never even used to read it until she finished high school and actually had time to look at it every once in a while. Anyway, we’re back.

We’ve had a busy couple of weeks – we went to Rexburg a week ago for Dustin’s cousin Jon’s wedding and had lots of other fun and blog worthy things to do – a recap in pictures:

Bud is working on graduating to the cup – he likes it. Unfortunately it’s a little hard to take a cup like this to church. He also really likes our water bottles and let’s face it, just about everything else he can get his hands on. He just can’t really stick with it long enough to get adequate nutrition. We’ll keep practicing. (This was a cup of water, by the way).

The wedding in Rexburg was wonderful. Here’s Jon and Bethany coming out of the temple a second time, pretending it was the first since they came out too fast! They had a lovely wedding reception that evening, and we’re excited to get to know Bethany. Dustin and Jon are close to the same age and great friends, so now instead of Jon’s latest dating drama, we’ll be having a great time hanging out with the two of them.

Their reception was great, just a little windy! Everyone was counting their blessings though, because it had been snowing just a few days earlier!

Here is Bud with his great-grandparents Lawrence–we had a great time visiting with them:

Then this past weekend we finally got some hiking in, and returned to a favorite spot of ours – Bridal Veil Falls. I haven’t made any updates to the Dustin and Alicia story recently, but here’s a big one . . . we had just been happily dating up to this point 2 years ago, and ventured into the world of traveling to each other’s family reunions. It was the summer solstice on June 21, so we opted to go hiking after institute. We ended up hiking Bridal Veil Falls and it was here that I heard the words (after a long silence except for a pounding heart) “I think I love you.” So it was fun to go back there and remember that. We took some great pictures:

Another drinking adventure:

Bud’s taken an interest in the camera –

And I’m sure you’ve probably all been wondering why we haven’t changed out our header picture to include all of the members of our family. Well, we finally found a picture we like well enough to put up there.

It was on April 15th that Dustin first held my hand. We’d just gone to Divine Comedy at the JSB on BYU campus, and were starting to walk home down the ramp. He seemed to have no fear in grabbing my hand and then walking around the neighborhood for quite some time. It was great fun.

It was also on this night that I told him I thought he’d be a great realtor. I was RIGHT!! It’s amazing to think that I had this thought when I didn’t know Dustin that well–I really think it was inspiration. Now here we are two years later and he is better than I  imagined. He keeps track of every detail and treats his clients like gold.  Real estate is a lot more complicated than most people think, and Dustin knows it inside and out.

It was two years ago General Conference that I decided I thought I would like to date Dustin. We took this picture, and it’s been a favorite ever since.

For conference this year we thought it would be fun to go to Salt Lake to celebrate the anniversary. Unfortunately, little JJ did not:

Yesterday was my birthday – the big 2-7 ! I have to admit, that I am feeling kind of old. There’s no denying it’s on the upper end of the 20’s, but I know, I know, I 27 is much younger than 72 or a lot of other ages.

I had a great day thanks to my sweet and sneaky husband. He had a campout Friday night and wasn’t planning on getting back until noon or so Saturday, so I didn’t expect a whole lot. We planned on getting some lunch and going shopping to pick out a few presents and I was happy with that. My sister insisted on dropping off her present (tickets to Women’s Conference! before we left and then insisted on baby-sitting. I was thinking we would shop first and eat later, but Dustin said he was really hungry and we ought to go eat. We got our Bajio to go and I said, too bad we don’t still have that picnic blanket in the back. Little did I know . . . We ended up at Rock Canyon, and Dustin pulled out of the back seat a big backpack and one camp chair. I couldn’t quite figure out why he only brought one chair, but didn’t think too much about it. He did have a blanket and we had our lunch. Then he said, “I do have one more thing . . . ”

He set up the chair and had me close my eyes. I could hear strange noises, but had no idea what was going on. Whatever it was, he was having a hard time with it. I probably sat there with my eyes closed for a good five minutes. He got things set up, and when I finally was able to open my eyes, he had a pedicure waiting for me, in ROCK CANYON. I know all kinds of things have happened at Rock Canyon, but a pedicure? It might just be a first.
It took forever because the plastic rubbermaid was stuck in the back pack.  He’d filled up two pop bottles with hot water in the shower.  Very sneaky!  He didn’t really know what he was doing, but he did know that I had been wanting one for a while and really needed it. So I coached him and now my feet feel fabulous! We found a spot that was fairly out of the way, but there was one guy that saw what we were doing and just stopped and stared. Funny.

We got our shopping in later and had a great day! Thanks so much honey!

Oh, and to remember this day two years ago is a key piece of the Dustin and Alicia Story. At this point we’d been on two dates and I got a phone call from him saying he wanted to drop something by. It was a sweet yellow gerbera daisy and a pad of post-it notes that made a little animated blast-off. The daisy lasted for a good two weeks – a miraculous sign of things to come, we think!

He came to my crazy birthday party that night, where I was inducted into the “Quarter-Century Club” The fact that he kept coming around after seeing me like this was also a great sign:

The guy in the picture is my brother, otherwise it looks like he wouldn’t be coming around anymore either.

Dustin and I ran the Rex Lee Run today for the third year in a row. It’s become a family tradition for us–here’s why:

Two years ago, in 2006, we had been on about two dates before the race (it was held more toward the end of March that year) and were a few days away from the third date when we discovered we were both running the Rex Lee Run that same upcoming Saturday. It was then that I learned that Dustin’s mom had had cancer and was just recovering from chemotherapy.

The race day arrived, and I think I ran into Dustin and/or his mom at least 10 times that day. I first saw them as I was just arriving at the race, and then it seemed that every time I turned around, there they were. It got fairly awkward after a while–we had pretty much exhausted the small talk after the first meeting or two. I really don’t think either one of us was trying to follow the other–we were just already on the same wavelength! It was the first time I’d met Dustin’s mom, and one of the few times she’d been out since her chemotherapy.

We ran the race, and both did fairly well. Dustin was incredibly motivated, primarily because he was running the race for his mom, but he’ll also confess that he was hoping to impress a certain attractive blond. I had done quite a bit of running over the previous two years, but had never been terribly fast. I’d started focusing on just improving my time, and made some good progress, but was also hoping to impress a certain blue-eyed guy.

That night we went on our third date, discovered that we had both spied on each other’s times and been fairly impressed. Our plots had worked! In case you like to spy like we do, we’ve saved you the trouble and posted our times at the bottom of this post. We had a great time that night, ending up telling each other embarrassing stories over sub-zero ice cream.

So now that we’re married, we’ve decided it’s a great tradition we’d like to keep up, both to honor Dustin’s mom (who’s doing great now!), to keep in shape and to remember that first year together.

Last year went well – although we were not quite as motivated to impress a member of the opposite sex nor quite as well trained (somehow marriage does that to you), we had a good race although not quite as fast.

Today’s race also went well. I was just sure I would exceed my very first and all-time slowest 5k time of 40 minutes and that I would only be able to run a few minutes here and a few minutes there. I had a million excuses not to do well, and in all my pride wished I had a shirt that said on the back, “I just had a baby, what’s your excuse?”. I’ve wanted a shirt like this for some time, although the excuse tends to change. It’s interesting how we often want to make excuses for what we perceive as our lack of ability or accomplishment. All things considered, I was doing great for me and that’s all that matters, isn’t it?

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised that with a slow but comfortable pace, I was able to run the entire race. I honestly don’t think I’ve run for three miles straight since last year’s race, because, heck, I was having a baby.

Dustin also had a good race. He ran hard and we don’t think the timing chip did him justice – he was hoping it wouldn’t start timing until he crossed the start, so he started a little further back than he normally does. It doesn’t make much difference for me, but for Dustin, every second counts. So that was unfortunate.

2006: Dustin: 18:38.3 Alicia: 26:23.5

2007: Dustin: 20:13.56 Alicia: 30:43.44

2008: Dustin: 20:33.80 (2nd in his division!) Alicia: 37:19:97

Little JJ got to stay home and have his morning nap – much thanks to my cousin Erin for coming over at 8:15 on a Saturday morning to watch him!

Thanks so much to Emily for sharing these pictures. You’d think I’d just won a gold medal. But Dustin is much better than a gold medal!

Getting ready for the big event:

The reactions:

It’s kind of funny.  A lot of people don’t want to catch the bouquet and try to avoid it.  I was the exact opposite–I always tried my best to get it.  And, let’s be honest, this was the fifth one I caught.  Eventually it worked!

Well, I’ve gotten a little behind in the highlights of our story. Some key things happened in February and March of 2006 that led to our getting together.

My sister Julia went on a second date with Dustin. This was pivotal, because she walked in the door approximately 30 seconds before Dustin arrived to pick her up. Amazingly enough, I was around and ended up entertaining him while she got ready. He asked about things I was doing, work, etc.–I was pretty surprised at how interested he was in my life. I liked it.

Shortly after this date, my sister hooked up with someone else. So when Dustin called to ask her for a third date, she was no longer available. Dustin began thinking about asking me out, and got some opinions from family members and friends. Just about everyone told him it was a crazy idea, but thankfully a friend or two told him to go for it and he did. He called up Julia and asked her if it would be okay if he took me out. Talk about guts!  I was impressed.  I always liked a guy who had backbone.  I had just flown home to Colorado for a visit that week, so she called and told me and I told her sure, go ahead! I had a feeling we’d be good friends and good for each other at that point in our lives, but I thought that was it!

She called him on Friday, February 28 and left a message with my phone number and the go ahead to call me. On March 1, my cousin K.C. married his wife Emily.

(Sorry, I know this isn’t the best picture, but it’s the best I’ve got. I’m sure there’s one of me with that bouquet somewhere, but I don’t have it!) It was at their reception that night that I caught Emily’s bouquet. I had to be a little tenacious–I jumped forward and reached in front of some relatives to get it. I was ready to get married! To quote K.C., “Hey you’ve got to put yourself out there, that’s what I did.” I’ve always felt a little bad for Emily that someone she knew didn’t catch it (let’s confess, my sister and I plotted for a long time to make sure she caught my bouquet), but the good news is that it worked! The following Monday was when Dustin called and asked me out, and we went on our first date on Friday, March 10 2006. The first date was fun–we built model rockets and launched them. It was a cold snowy night, and most of them didn’t work because the engines got a little cold and wet. Here is a picture of us reliving the first date when we got engaged. More about that later.

But it was fun, nonetheless. I came home and said, “I don’t think I’m going to marry him, but I do think we’ll be good friends.” Famous last words, I suppose.

It was Valentines Day 2006 that I came home to a sweet Valentine at the door from Dustin . . . for my sister! They’d finally managed to go on one date, and he had cleverly written a simple Haiku to ask her out again. I’d post it on the website, but he might get embarrassed.

That’s pretty much it for Valentines Day. Maybe not such a key day, but fun to remember nonetheless.

I love you honey!