My first four months of partying in marriage

Here they are! The honeymoon/everything I've done since our wedding pictures!

The first two nights, we stayed in a place called Castle Creek Inn that we found in Sandy. We loved it! The breakfasts were great and everything was themed. We stayed in Rapunzel's tower. Very exciting.


Each night we were there, there were at least 3 or 4 cars that said "Just Married" on them. Quite amusing.

This was the first picture we took of California when we got out there. It was amazing to see the difference between Nevada (dry and brown) to Cali which was lush and beautiful.
A little Mexican man had stopped at the same place we did to take a picture. We had been trying to take it of ourselves, so we know he was confused when he turned the camera towards himself and said "Like dis?"

Mallory and Monica will enjoy this one. Steve did quite a few U turns in the few days that they were with us and I think they may believe that Steve is just lost all of the time. We enjoyed that they were legal here.

After we had driven all day long, I was exhausted and carsick, however, the Redwoods were absolutely gorgeous!

The beach!

We got to camp a night in the Redwoods. Here was one of the hikes we took the next morning.


We had a set plan on where we were going, but we ended up just winging some of it and we loved it! Here was one of the hallowed out trees that we could drive through!
We absolutely loved Oregon! It is a very beautiful place!
Some of the things we did on the coast:
Sandduning

Visited the sealion caves

Explored on the low tides

Took some awesome pictures

Went to the aquarium (don't ask me to tell you where it was cause I can't remember)

Built and extremely awesome sand castle


Visited the Tillamook Cheese factory, ate as many samples of cheese as they would let us and got some delicious ice cream.


Spent lots of time on the beach! This was after eating at Mo's where they have famous clam chowder bowls. I thought it was good, but not as good as the sour dough bowls and chowder in San Fran.

Went temple hopping. We got to go through Salt Lake and Bountiful (just before getting married), and Portland. We also visited Kirtland when we were in Ohio.

Here is our Ohio trip. For some reason, I don't have picture of Spokane.
When we camped, they had this giant pillow-like trampoline that we all jumped on. Mom and the kids all came with us to Niagara.

The falls:
Riding the Maid of the Mist. It was wet.
All of us became interested in the same little picture-flippers and mom thought it was funny.


Here is our post-trip life. We live in a studio apartment that is just perfect for us. Our storage space is our deck on the 4th floor of a complex. When we first went shopping for things we needed, we didn't think about needing the hooks for a shower curtain. I thought Steve was quite clever here.
First day of school as a married couple! We had originally decided to match all semester, but it just got too hard since Steve had to wear MTC clothes everyday. We were going to try and get into the Daily Universe, but maybe a different semester.
I think Utah and the mountains are beautiful.

Here is our Halloween pumpkin. Julie gave me the idea and since we don't drink and I was expecting, we decided to entitle it "Morning Sickness". Unfortunately, we didn't win the $100 prize, but we still liked ours the best.

Our matching costumes:
Just kidding. Here they are. We went to a ballroom party for Steve's team dressed as Tahitians.
Here is Dancesport. It ruled our lives only for two days and we both did really well in our competitions.
Camille married Jason Millar in Nauvoo. It was an exhausting trip (remind me never to fly overnight again) but I was very happy to be there. Note to self: next time I go to a wedding, take my husband. I was kind of a sap all weekend since I wanted to be with Steve.

We went up to Temple Square for the heck of it. It had some pros and cons that were different from last year, but it was very nice.

Steve and I have been working to perfect our rolls. Here he is working on the first of three batches that we made for Thanksgiving.



I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas season.

Some of you may be wondering...

So, after being extremely curious, I am wondering how many people actually check my blog anymore. If I were you, I wouldn't either. But those dedicated few who constantly wonder "Is Natalie going to post any time soon?"...well....not with pictures.
HOWEVER: here's whats going on.

--Thanksgiving was wonderful! Steve's whole family was here and his parents rented a nice house that we all pretty much stayed at for four days. We loved it! It was different being around SO many people when you are used to just the two of you, but we had a very enjoyable time!
--We have a baby due June 17th! We find out the gender in about 7 weeks so we'll let you know...in about 5 months...haha, just kidding. We got to hear the heartbeat of the baby just a few weeks ago and to see an ultrasound. That was an AMAZING experience! Up until then it had been like "Yeah, I'm sick and all signs point to being pregnant, but is there really anything in there?" Now its a "whoa!" experience!
--We are going through finals! Funny story. I am actually going to be intentionally failing a class this semester. :( Due to the above-mentioned news, I got extremely sick partway through the semester and had little to no motivation to go to school besides the classes I needed to be at. Since HEPE is not one of those classes, I completely forgot about it until about 2 days before the "final" exam. So, here comes failure and I will be taking it this spring when I have nothing to do except wait for the baby. :D
--We are taking finals this week! Hence the reason I am actually spending time on a computer. You know those times when you are trying to avoid studying and you are on a computer...those times you catch up on facebook and emails, and your sister's blog....yeah. Thats why I'm blogging right now.
--We are GOING TO HAWAII IN 8 DAYS!!! And we are super excited! Its kind of a nice motivation to do well in all of our finals! It snowed probably 4 inches last night and this morning and all we could think about was nice Hawaiian weather!


Okay. I am wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I hope you are able to forgive the lack of blogging! :)

Coming soon...

Since Steve is my life at this point, I've decided that he is to be added to the blog. We will shortly be posting honeymoon pictures--just as soon as we can find the cable that sends the pictures between camera and computer.

The happiest day of my life

My wonderful twin friends (Monica left and Mallory right) flew out from Ohio for mine and Steve's special day!

We took the twins to the Conference Center and walked around Temple Square while they were here. It was really fun to answer all of their questions about the church!

After being sealed for time and all eternity, we walked out the side doors to greet our wonderful families! One of the best parts was walking out of the changing room where Steve was waiting for me. It was well worth his not seeing me in that dress to see his jaw drop. He looked so good in that white tux!! Wow!

Aw, who can blame us for kissing as much as we did? :)

Here are a couple of the pictures that I really liked:
Siblings in age-order:

Karen, Emily, Kevin, Natalie, Scott, Eric, Mindy, Janece, and Anna

My beautiful bridesmaids left to right:
Monica, Liz, Elise, Julie, Camille and Mallory

My mommy and sisters

He got a lot of cake in my mouth, so I 'shared' some of it with him...

I love him very much and I am excited to spend not only this life, but the eternities with him!

I have not yet downloaded pictures of our honeymoon onto my computer, so although I say it will be soon that I post it, I'm sure it is probably a long time coming. :)

A photogenic couple

Because I had intended on leaving for a while, Steve and I have gotten the majority of the wedding planned. We took engagement photos early, in case he wasn't able to make it out to Hawaii. It turns out that they came in handy. (Okay so I might be a little biased, but gosh Steve is good-looking!)
Here are a few of them.











(Solely for your entertainment.)








Ooh ooh! Guess what we did right after this was taken?!








Okay here's a real one.







Karen, here is a picture to adore the curly hair. :)

My fiance at last!

The moment you've been waiting for (at least what Karen's been waiting for...) :)

Some important dates to remember:
April 18th--8:15pm engagement to a wonderful man!

August 7th--10am wedding in the Mount Timpanogos Temple to my wonderful fiance, Steven Douglas Monson

(Fiance is a fun word to say! Did you know that, as a French word and Steve speaks French..., that if I were saying the word, it would be spelled "fiance" with an accent on the 'e'. If Steve were referring to me, it would be "fiancee" with an accent on the first 'e'. Just a fun fact for you.)
We didn't take any pictures up in the canyon when he proposed, but a few people took pictures just after church today.


This is the beautiful ring that Steve pulled out of his pocket when he proposed! He had contacted my roommate, Camille, two weeks before and asked her about the ring that I wanted, since I had picked out a ring that I really liked even before we were ever dating. So when he found out that the ring that I really wanted was no longer made, he went and picked this one out. I love it!



I feel like I'm allowed to kiss him in public now! Scandalous!



I'M GETTING MARRIED!!!!

Hawaii-bound and tapping again!

Well, I officially have my tickets for Hawaii and I will be there for three months in the summer! I'm SO excited!

My big news of the month--I am in another tap ensemble! We are based out of Lindon and have been rehearsing all month! It has been such a blast to dance with so many talented dancers! If you want more info, go to http://www.footpoetry.com/ and check out the website!

I'll keep him!

Jan 21 is a very special date for me. I started dating this tremendous guy and I couldn't be happier! He's a cutie, wouldn't you say?!

Camille and I had a double date in December--before I convinced Steve that he was crazy about me. But this is still one of my favorite pictures of us.

Steve and his roommate Greg planned a double date with me and my roommate Tami on Martin Luther King Jr's day. We went to the BYU library and picked out books that we thought we could "advertise" with the props and costumes that they provided. This was one of our books--I'm a pirate and he is some kind of gallant knight. This was the night we decided that we liked each other a lot and wanted to date. Needless to say, we both really like Martin Luther a little better.

Steve let me try tying him up. I "caught him" and I will definitely keep him.

We were ushers at a ballroom event.

This is from dating for a while--we went on a ward temple trip to South Jordan Temple. It was very pretty, but VERY cold! Especially since I had wet hair!