Life as we know it..

So new on my life goes as follows:

• I am done working at the "Ranch" it was a long time coming and it feels great. I am now done giving all these meds to kids that are probably over medicated and because of that never learn how to deal with problems for real. 
• Grant and I have hit the one year mark.. we didn't really celebrate yet, however, I don't think that one year is a huge deal. 
• I moved my career to Cedar City at the Hair Boutique where I am six days a week from 9-5. 
• I took the semester off of college to get my clientele here.
• Grant is going full time and is going to get a 4.0 (hopefully!) 

Ok I am done with the bullet points and on to more interesting things. So on the second bullet point I said that Grant and I hit our one year... I also stated that I didn't think it was that big of a deal. I feel like this not because my life was a year of bliss and happiness because it wasn't but because I think in most cases with marriage you should at least try it out for a year or two.. I mean it is a commitment and in my case it is a huge commitment to God, myself and the hubby. So this year has been  eventful.. full of laughing, crying, some yelling, one swear word (from Grant), making tons of money, spending tons of money, being broke, getting a dog, and so much more. I think it has been life as we know it. I remember talking to one of my best friends one day (single friend) and she asked how was married life. I explained that I love being married and how I couldn't believe that I was so scared of it before I knew what it was like. I then said of course it is one of the hardest things I have done. I had to learn what bugged the husband, how he acted when he was mad (which is not talking or pretending he isn't mad) this makes it very hard to work it out!! I had to learn that I needed to be more patient, more loving, and I needed to make sure that Heavenly Father was in our lives. The husband ( I dont know if I want to refer to him as Grant or husband or hubby or mr. barlow so I will test them all out) is a great example to me of how to have the gospel in his life. He, as most who read this or will read this know that Mr. Barlow has gone through so much. He is originally from CC not cedar city but yes Colorado City. I won't get into much detail on this blog because I haven't asked him if I can make his story public or anything of that sort but soon I will post about it.. promise! Anyways you would be shocked, like I was to hear some of the amazing, terrifying, crazy things he has been through. I realize that a lot of people have been through a lot but I never have been so close to someone who has. What I am getting at is that the gospel saved his life and actually made my dreams come true. He was converted to the LDS church when he was 17 or 18 and then served a mission in Italy. Not even one year after his return we met. After two weeks of knowing him I knew and he knew that we would spend the rest of eternity with each other. Well the point of this blog was to one, get me excited about blogging because now that I don't work two full time jobs and go to school full time  I will have time to tell everyone about my life and mostly keep a journal. oh and ps my husband is a babe, here are some pics to prove it!!

 Oh and I almost forgot, my family had pictures taken without the spouses due to one being out of the country and my bro still isn't married!

A long time coming

So I was just going to write every month but then I decided that was kind of boring. So anyways I am not just going to write randoms. Grant and I have been busy little bees, in school and working! It is so different to be in school. We took the semester off when we got married and then had the summer. Wow it was great. Now it is torture! I have the crazy classes of organic chemistry and physics. Grant is working on his business degree and also working at the detention center and sports authority. We have been saved by my parents, and the food they always feed us! We live about 20 mins out of cedar so we never go there until we are done with everything. So we are at my parents about 80% of our free time! We are finally on our Thanksgiving break! It is about freaking time!!!! Here are some pictures of some of our recent and by recent I mean like within the last 5 to 6 months! Enjoy!

MaRcH

I honestly cant remember what happened this month.. sad. Grant and I both worked and continued to figure this married thing out. I think we maybe had our first argument this month.. who knows what it was about but  im sure it was my doing! It usually is. ok well that was easy and I am now upset with myself for not keeping up. I am sure something of significance happened this March but I dont know what. My dads birthday was in march and he is 57! What a great dad I have. He STILL works harder then anyone I know and has a great attitude. I honestly have never heard him once complain about working. Once when I was dating someone my parents didnt like... wont mention names! he said that his major concern is how hard of worker he was. He remembered when him and my mom had just gotten married and he didnt know how he could possible make ends meet. So at night he couldnt sleep because he was stressed and so instead he would go back to work. He worked day and night so that my mom would be taken care of. He is a great example to my whole family and we all love him so much! I am so lucky to have him for a dad! And did i mentoin his joke telling? well he cant tell a joke without laughing so hard he is crying before he gets through the first two sentences.. so basically we just laugh at him! Great guy I tell ya!

Now to the month of February!

Still no pics sorry.. still no internet either so I didnt have a way to put them up. Anyways the month of Feb. It was a great month. For valentines day Grant and I both worked so I postponed it for two days. I had cut out 100 hearts and wrote 100 things I loved about Grant and put them EVERYWHERE in our room. My family all joked and laughed about my idea and said I was doing it only because I am a newly wed. Hopefully not! I hope we always do fun things for eachother! It was fun to see him freak out about all the hearts and read each one. Anyways then I got him something else but I cant remember. haha! But he got me a large bag of my favorite treats.... AND....and IPhone! I was so excited and he totally beat me on the gift buying thing this year. My present was about triple what his was so I better step it up or he might have to step it down! We also enjoyed a nice mexican dinner that night and then went home and watched a redbox. (we love to do that!) Thats about all that happened on Valentines. It was our first month being married and I feel like it just flew by. It was so fun and I always was thinking how lucky I was. I loved waking up to Grant (still do) and just having someone I trust by my side always! Boy am I lucky. We made it to the temple twice in February and I was kinda scared out of my mind to go back because I was kinda in a daze my first time! We were so lucky because Grants best friend and his wife were there so she helped me with everything! I just love going. Grant and I have a goal to go every week if possible but at least twice a month. So we will see if we can meet that! We also started date night. I always have wednesday nights off and he has asked for that day to be his day off as well. So we take turns planning the date.. basically we go to a movie and dinner every wednesday nights! we love it so it works! I think that is all that happened in feb. just another month of pure bliss!

...Since the New Year...

Well I really am horrible at this. However Kati, my friend, just started to blog again so now her and I are going to remind eachother to keep it up! So in Jan. I decided against school point being my head would have exploded. You know the type of people that hate school just because it is school but really no other reason? well that isnt me. I actually love school but hate what it does to me. I let it over take all my thoughts and I am a totall head case. (in a very bad way) and my major being chemistry doesnt help. So now that I look back and think of all the credits I could have gotten done I dont regret it one second because I still have a husband and he didnt call it off before we got married! Anyways the wedding pictures are going to be posted soon but I dont have interent at my house yet because I dont know my address.. sad I know, but it is way out in the middle of no where! WE LOVE IT! It is so fun to live there! It is in good old Kanaraville and we do have our very own pond. yes pond. And it has fish. lots of fish. So Grant is in heaven and I am also in heaven because it is home and I love to be there. The wedding went horrible until the day. I guess that is normal for everyone to think the world is crashing down on them and their wedding until the day of. Then it was PERFECT! I loved being at the temple and being sealed to Grant. I Love him more everyday and I still look at him and wonder how I got him to marry me?!! I can remember looking at Grant and seeing tears roll down his cheeks. I tried so hard not to cry because i knew my makeup would be a mess so I held it to together for the most part. Now when i think of it I sometimes get a tear or two! Then I was so lucky to have so many people there that we loved and that love us. Grant has had an interesting life to put it lightly and I am so greatful to be a part of it now. I love everyone that has helped him get to where he is. Anyways on to the PARTY!! Ok but seriously I know I am bias because it was my own wedding but it was the best wedding I have ever been to! We had an amazing Hawaiian band.. (grants dad is hawaiian) and we just partied. I didnt even want to leave! So it was amazing and i couldnt have asked for a better day! Our Honeymoon was also a blast. Grants dad gave it to us for our gift and holy cow.. we stayed in the cosmopolotan in Vegas on the strip. Our room was a beaut! We had room services, couple massage, shopping, food paid for (at five star resturants) and i could go on. Basically it was the best trip we could have asked for and we loved every second of it. There wasnt an hour that we didnt just look at each other and giggle because we couldnt believe we were married and we couldnt believe our honeymoon!! ok so that was jan. Now next blog will be Feb plus pictures promise!

Oh the Holidays!

I honestly dont know where to begin! This holiday season has been very interesting. Starting out with a bang on Thanksgiving with my parents and my sisters family in Vegas is quite the story. Grants parents were in Vegas also so my mom didnt want Grant and I to stay in his house alone.. understandable right??.. well Grant had to work at 12:00 on Thanksgiving so basically we were going to be together for a couple hours that night which was basically driving to Vegas then we slept in and saw eachother for about another hour before he had to come back to St. George to work.. that was not so understandable!! That night Grant and I went downtown in Vegas which always makes me mad because of all the naked people but anyways I was not a happy camper due to just starting bc and also the lack of food didnt help. But on the plus side Grant lasted and actually stayed with me on one of my worst nights and we also found an Italian resturant that we will be trying on our short little honeymoon getaway! I felt bad for Grant because of working the next day but oh well Grant said the food was great here at work so that was good! I of course had a blast with my family and the food was fantastic! Anyways so after Thanksgiving was finals week.. not so good. I had ZERO motivation due to wedding, family, being so burnt out with school.. and did I mention wedding??? Finally after I got done with my finals I was on a mission to get all my wedding stuff done before going back to school next week. To be honest I think I have completed my mission! There is only a couple last minute things that need to be done but cant be done until next week or the week of! Anyways.. on to Christmas! My family always has an annual Christmas Eve party.. which of course Grant was working. I however had a good time but went to bed early because I had to get up at 5:30 to head to work on Chirstmas. So the plan was Grant would go home at eight from work spend time with his family before they headed up north, talk to his brother Jake that is currently serving a mission in Virginia and then at 2:00 he would meet me at my house and we would do Christmas then. As the clock was ticking and I believe it was seriously 1:57 Grant gives me a call. He told me his brother needed us to pick  him up in Vegas right when I get off work. That whole story will have to be a whole other blog. So what did I do?.. I jumped into my car and went to Vegas for Christmas. I got back at 11:30 PM!! and celebrated Christmas then. My whole family waited up for me to get home and to be honest it was the best Christmas I have ever had. Not because of the presents which were awesome but because I was with my family which I just love so much and because this was my first year with Grant! He is amazing and I just love him to death. So pictures about this whole holiday spill.. will come.. but as for right now I am lucky to be writing about it!

Counting down!

Our wedding is getting so close! I am so excited. All in one week we got out engagements, and bridals done! wahoo! I will tell you it was freezing. Anne Higbe.. or Westwood took our pictures and did such a great job! Here are some to take a look at! One thing I learned was that when taking pictures always smile.. never try to be serious because it looks like I am ready to kill.. which might not be a good thing when I am taking wedding pictures!!