5 years and a month ago...

...I married the most wonderful man alive. Yes that's right Cahlan and I just celebrated our 5th year anniversary about a month ago (June 26). We went to see Transformers (really romantic I know, but we both really wanted to see it). Then we went to dinner at the Melting Pot it's this really cool fondue restaurant in Salt Lake. Then we went to The Anniversary Inn. This is what we do pretty much every year for our anniversary, but we always have a blast.
I love my sweet husband so much and I am so grateful that I get to be married to my best friend for he truly is my best friend. I'm so happy that we still stay up way too late sometimes just chatting and cuddling. I don't mind losing a couple of hours of sleep when they're spent that way. He makes me laugh everyday know me better than I know myself sometimes.
When I think about our relationship and the love and friendship that we share it helps me see how marriage can be such a wonderful and fulfilling part of life. I can't imagine my life without him and I look forward to spending the rest of our lives together.

The happy couple

My yummy Caprese Salad

This is how you cook your food. It was pretty cool, not the best food ever, but it was a really neat experience.

Kelly Graduated!! YAY

My little sister Kelly just graduated from high school (this was the beginning of June by the way)(Ihave some catching up to do). And I got to surprise her for it I showed up at her Grad party my parents threw for her it was awesome. My mom got a stinking magician, random Right? Anyways here's the video.

P.s. Cohen's not quite used to my extremely loud family yet.

I'm so proud of her. You did it Renee! I've been pushing for her to come up here to go to school and although it was a bit of work she finally agreed to it, but not until after she goes to Russia! That's right Kelly will be going to Moscow, Russia in August to teach English to little kids (just like I did in China :). It will be such a good experience for her. I just know you'll love it. Then in the Winter I get her up here I'm so excited. I'm already planning out her housing stuff.

Kelly and her Best friends Shannon and Mallory.

The siblings that could make it Ashley, Ricky, me and Kelly of course.

At the graduation Ashley took about a million pictures of my face these are just a couple. We almost got into a fist fight. :)


Here are some random pictures , of my parents back yard, that I envy right now, and Kelly feeding Cohen in a traditional Meraz fashion.

I remember bathing Kelly and duct taping her to chairs. I remember coming home one day to find that Kelly had shaved her bangs off, although it was sad I laughed hysterically. Kelly has grown into a BEAUTIFUL , sweet young woman and I am so proud of who she is. I know I'm way to old but I love that when I go home she makes me go wrapping houses with her. I love my my sisters and my handsome brother I'm so lucky to be so dang close to all of them. Love you KellBel. Congrats!!!!

Just stuff. ...

So this is probably going to be the most random post ever but I've been thinking about A LOT of random stuff and before I forget it I thought I should write it down.

First of all I realized the other that I'm not always right. Wow was that a news flash. Yeah believe it or not I can be wrong. If you're shocked it's ok it does take a little time to absorb. :) Seriously though I think sometimes I get it in my head that what I am thinking or feeling must be right because I thought it through and it seems logical. Well I just stared reading a book called To Draw Closer To God By Henry B. Eyring. And in the first few chapters I felt like reading this book was inspiration for me. I think that I sometimes don't really try to listen to others because I think I might know better or more than them. So my goal now is to try to push my preconceived ideas aside and actually try to listen to others with the spirit.

Secondly (and remember I said random) I've been thinking a lot about getting old. I love older people, I really do. Val Shields is a friend of mine she lives right below us, she's 86 years old and just went into the hospital the other day with pneumonia. Went I went to visit her she was her funny little spunky self. Cracking jokes and telling stories.
I think about Val a lot, she is really inspirational to me. She 's made me think about the kind of person I want to be when I grow up. Not in the way people are always thinking "One day I'm going to be this amazing person and do this amazing thing. ..one day." Instead I think more about the actual, kind of person I want to be when I turn 86. I want to look back and say I tried hard at life. I want to dance with my sweet Cahlan at our 50th anniversary be able to say that my husband and I had enough love to last for eternity. I want to say that I played in the mud with my kids sometimes. I want my children and my sweet husband to say that they knew every day of their lives that I loved them with more of myself than I did anything else. I want them to say that ours was a home that was filled with laughter, happiness and joy. I want to become stronger from trials and learn to overcome my weaknesses. I want to learn to love my Savior as much as is humanly possible. I want to look back on my life here and say I didn't miss out.

Lastly, and this will be mushy, I want to gush about my sweet Cahlan. When I was younger I used to dream about my future spouse and what he would be like. Cahlan looks nothing like the man I always pictured but is everything I could have hoped for and more. I feel so blessed to be his wife. He treats me like a queen, and I don't even ask for it. He is truly my best,best, best friend. We laugh together SO MUCH, in fact we sometimes have to force ourselves to bed because we can stay up for hours and hours just talking and laughing with each other. My heart is absolutely his. My friend Alaina and I were talking about outliers (an outlier is a statistical reference to an anomaly, I have a picture)
I sometimes feel like we are the oulier, in a very good way. We have a relationship that I feel is so different and wonderful. Maybe everyone feels that, and I think they should. I don't know if I could love any man as much as I do Cahlan. I loved him like crazy before we had children and then when we had Emmy he became even more amazing and my love for him grew even more. I absolutely believe in happily ever after. Cahlan if you read this "Meu rizo e tao feliz contigo".

OK that's it for now. I'm going to start doing this more often, I think it's good for me.