Grandma Smith...aka Smithers

I know this doesn't really count as an update. Today, Deven and I went to his mother's ward Christmas Breakfast. On the way there, we drove past grandma's old house. It has changed quite a bit. I always miss her, but especially during this season. I just wanted everyone who reads this to post a comment of one of their favorite memories of Grandma Smith.

Our little nut, already taking after Deven

We found out we were pregnant on Monday, September 7. I completely failed at keeping it quiet for a while. Haha...oh well. Anyway. My first prenatal appointment was on October 6, 2009. It was such a neat moment for Deven and me. We could see the heartbeat right off! It made things much more real for Deven, see things were already "Real" for me because I had been feeling pretty sick, but Deven has only had to hear me whine...not really THAT much. We are very much excited. I go in for my next appointment this coming Tuesday. This Tuesday, I will be 12 weeks and the baby is somewhere around 2 1/2 inches head-to-rump. I don't quite have a "baby bump" yet, but my tummy has thickened a little bit, really only noticeable to me. Sorry this is such a short post, but I bet you'll be glad all the same.

Our Story

Introduction

Well...as most of you probably know, Deven and I met on a camping trip or so I claim. I had seen him before, but never really had met him until that famous camping trip in May of 2008, HEY...it's famous to me anyway. The story then goes we dated off and on for a while because I was not about to commit to anything! I am soo lame...that is okay, I was really trying to protect myself and also Deven's feelings. Well long story short, it was a couple weeks before I was supposed to have my "farewell" (although they don't call it that anymore), also conference weekend when I discovered my true feelings for Deven. Yes, discovered, they were there for quite a while beforehand, I just was unaware. :-) I could not bare to think of leaving him. This started the long week! I prayed and prayed and prayed about it, went to the temple, and fasted about this decision to either go on my mission or stay home. For a while I didn't tell anybody, then I think by Thursday I talked to Beckey about it on the phone while in the car with mom. I had Dad give me a blessing Thursday night. Then, Friday I talked to the Stake President and then broke the news to Deven that I was considering staying home. He was thoroughly convinced that I was leaving. Haha...let's just say he was shocked. Saturday night is when I made my final decision, it was of course to stay home. Now, the fun thing about this story is the fact that I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE SNOW!!!!! Snow is so exciting for me and I think it is so pretty and calming. I secretly wanted a confirmation from Heavenly Father so I would know I was making the right decision. Sunday morning came and I woke up to a TON!!!! of snow. I had to meet with the Stake President to finalize the cancellation of my mission call. On the way there, I had a completely strange yet very distinct feeling that it snowed just for ME!!! I almost heard a voice say it, yes, this was the Holy Ghost. I knew that Heavenly Father was very pleased with me and loved me. There was even a newspaper article in the Standard Examiner about how random this snowstorm was. It was supposed to hit Salt Lake city, but it didn't. It hit Clinton, not Layton, very little in Roy, but it hit the worst in Clinton...in early October. Yep, it snowed just for me. Deven did not propose right away though, I'll get to that in a little bit. :-) I bet the suspense is just killing you right? Haha.

The Engagement

Deven wanted to propose in a way that would be very memorable to both of us. He also wanted to wait until he could get my ring. We talked about it all the time, and I was just waiting, waiting, ummm and waiting. I never really got frustrated during this time period, just more or less anxious. In mid December, many of our friends planned a camping trip, yes in December, we are nuts! The camping place was called "Meadows" up by Causey Dam. We previously had been up by Causey for a fun day with lots of friends. We went kayaking, canoeing, picnicked, etc. On the drive up to the camping trip, Deven suggested that we went a little bit further up to Causey. I started wondering if he was going to propose. I had the feeling he might, but I knew he didn't have the ring yet. We finally got up there and it was seriously soooo beautiful. I will never forget how pretty it was. It was dark already, the moon was full and very bright. There was this beautiful aura around the moon all of which was reflecting onto the smooth surface of the water. Snow was everywhere fallen perfectly. We started hiking in the snow. It got to the point where the path was lost and there was no room to walk. I didn't want Deven or myself to fall into the water, so I suggested to go back to the truck. We were almost back to the truck and Deven said, "let's go over to that place over there." I knew! I tried not to give it away by smirking. I wanted to let him have his moment and do it the way he planned. Once in THE PLACE, we kissed of course, then Deven started talking to me. He was soooo silly and put his hand in his pocket (where the ring was hidden :-)) He continued to talk to me for at least another 5 or so minutes. I thought to myself...just pull the ring out already! He finally did, knelt down in the snow and asked, "McKenzie Ann Jackson, will you marry me?" I didn't fully cry or anything, but I got choked up and faintly said, "Yes." We went down almost all the way to Huntsville so we could call everyone and announce our BIG news. Then, we met up with our friends at the Meadows campground. Now, at this point, there had been NO MAJOR snowstorms since October when it hit Clinton. We got to bed all snuggled up in the tent, and there was no snow on the ground where we were. We woke up the next morning and there had been a huge snowstorm. It was just another reminder to me that this was good and what I needed to be doing.
This was us camping. It was very cold, but we were all bundled up for the occasion.

The Wedding

Deven, McKenzie, Kaitlin, Abigail and Easton at the Logan temple. It was such a perfect day for the wedding. I secretly wanted snow, but I decided not to pray for it. The reasons for this are 1) my photographer has a condition where his hands start hurting and turn white if they get cold, so I wanted him to be comfortable 2) I didn't want to risk getting my dress dirty and 3) I didn't want anybody to get in a car accident in Sardine canyon and die! These I think are good reasons.

Kaitlin, Easton and Abigail. They were all so excited to be there for my wedding. The twins were obsessed with holding my train and also my bouquet. They were a lot of fun.
This is the soon-to-be-married couple. We took all of our stuff in like my wedding dress, my bag of all the stuff to get ready with, purse, temple bag, etc, then we went back outside together to get this picture. I was so excited.

The Luncheon

Maggie, Moi, Emily, Jana and Amanda. We had so many people at the luncheon. These are my friends that were able to make it up there to the temple. Kira is not in this picture and I do not know why. Sorry Kira. :-( The luncheon was amazing. The food was spectacular. We had it at The CopperMill in Logan right across the street from the tabernacle, I think. We had salads, amazing potatoes (I am not sure what kind they were), Chicken Paprika...was divine...oh myyyyy goooodneeessss, and for dessert we had Banana Cream Pie (Deven's favourite) . Lol.
This is addressed directly to Madison and Brooklyn, just so you know, once you get to know Deven, you will love him to death. You will be begging your mom and dad to let you come over to visit so you can play with Deven, not Nan. I mean, I know you will still love me, but you will love Deven. ;-) JK...I still think you will love me more, you BETTER, OR ELSE!!! :-) JK. The twins absolutely love Deven. He is so crazy, and funny and will make you giggle all the time. He makes me giggle all the time.
Deven is feeding me! Yay. This was supposed to look somewhat sexy, I don't know how well it played off. Someones finger is in the way at the top, but oh well. I started laughing instead of doing the serious look I was going for. I had a great time at the luncheon. It was a lot of fun and it was tasty eating for sure.

The Reception

I wanted to have a picture like the one Beckey does of her, me and baba on her wedding day. The twins were totally game for a photo shoot, but for some reason they never would look at the camera the same time. This was the best one in my opinion. The lighting in the cultural hall was very dim so many pictures didn't turn out that well anyway, and then the ones that did...well you understand.
This is my love, Deven on the left punching his former room-mate Dave. They are quite the strange pair, but they get everyone laughing when they get together.
This would have been the reception line had we really had one. There were quite a few bride's maids and groomsmen. My bride's maids were Maggie, Haleigh, Emily and Mackenzie with Bailee Danielle as my maid of honor and Jana Lynn as my matron of honor. Deven's groomsmen were Colton, Darren, and Shawn with his best man Dave! Note: This line in not including 3 sets of parents, so there was no way that all of us would fit. We decided that only the bride and groom and all the parents would be in line. After about 30 minutes, the parents decided to go mingle with the people waiting in the very very very long line. So then it was just Deven and me in line. I didn't expect to like this part of the day. We expected to be so anxious to get home, but we both had so much fun talking to everyone who came, which was A LOT. I got to know a whole bunch of people I didn't know before, Deven...likewise.
Yay! My car was decorated very cute. There were a few obscene pictures on the front of the car, but what can you expect. On the rear window, they drew little baby twins, haha. There is a joke that we will have twins because I want them badly. Who knows, maybe I will get them someday. I thought this amusing because people may have thought that we got married because I got knocked up with twins. :-) There was nothing mean about the way they decorated my car. We left Deven's truck in the garage at home. We pulled in and immediately got very upset, me more than Deven. They totally bombed our truck! They freaking broke into the garage and trashed it...like so bad it belonged in Grouchland. :-) They used shaving cream, dish soap, goldfish, sugar-puffs, Oreo s, Vaseline underneath the handles, and toilet paper. I am sure there was more stuff used but I can't remember. The worst part about it was the smell. Somehow the mixture of all of those items created a smell that could wipe out an entire country. We had to wear gas-masks so we didn't die. JK. I was very mad and put a not-so-nice comment as my status on face book. I later had Bailee delete it for me because I felt a little bad afterwords. YES, we know who did that to Deven's truck. We spent two hours of our first night together cleaning the cars off, mostly just Deven's truck. I slipped on some soap while standing on the truck trying to clean crap up and smacked my head really badly on the garage door. Not only did my head hurt but I seriously almost threw up, I started dry-heaving. It was bad. Just the other day, Deven lifted up the hood of his truck and found some sugar-puffs. If you could gauge your popularity upon how badly your vehicle gets trashed on your wedding day, then we would be more popular than the Beatles, Hannah Montana, and Einstein combined! YEP. We are freaking rock stars!

Zion's National Park (Honeymoon)

Zion's National Park was sooo beautiful and the weather was perfect for us while we were there. We hiked Weeping Rock, Emerald Pools, part of the Narrows, and best of all Angels Landing. It was so amazing.
This is a picture of some of the falls at the second pool of Emerald Pools. It was so pretty. I had such a great time on this hike until I dropped my camera and thought it was broken. It wouldn't work for a while after I dropped it...I truly thought that I would have to get a new one, but it started working after a few hours. The lens got scratched up a little bit.

We found this really cool rock that had a split down part of it as you can see. We think that somehow the root of some tree made it divide that way a long time ago, no traces of roots are found in the crack now.
So pretty. I loved this picture because of the dark contrasting trees against the brightness of the day and the beautiful red rock cliffs.
This is a view from part of Angel's Landing. We were not quite to the top yet, but look at that view!
Also from Angel's Landing. Deven was so nervous this whole hike. He has a fear of heights. To make matters worse about one week before the wedding, Deven had a dream that we were hiking Angel's Landing and I fell off. He watched me fall and there was nothing he could do about it. He wasn't so keen on going on that hike after that, but I made him. It was seriously so beautiful. We met some wonderful people who seemed to love giving advice for us newlyweds.
This is me, can you see the drop off that was right behind me...YIKES. Deven thought so anyway. If you blow up this picture and look to the bottom left, you can see a chain fence type thing. Once you get to a certain point, they have bolted and drilled these chain fences on the path that you have to hold onto while climbing. It is quite intense. I couldn't get pictures that do the hike justice. It is very scary to many people. In fact, you get to one part of the hike where a lot of people turn around and give up. Google pictures of Angel's Landing in Zions and Walters Wiggles (which is part of the hike). It's pretty cool.
Finally, I had to put this picture up. In the middle there is a fuzzy spot, this is where my lens got scratched. Sucky, I know, but I thought this set up of trees was cool. I know it is cheesy, but it reminded me of where it talks about in the Doctrine and Covenants where marriage is between Husband, Wife and God, a triangle. These three trees reminded me of the promises that I had just recently made...and I was very grateful.

Wedding Stuff

So, I really wanted to put some pictures up of my dress; however, I am not sure how often Deven looks at our blog. I don't think he does anymore, but I have to be careful. Maybe I will just email some pictures. I half don't want to because my pictures won't do it justice. There are so many details that my crappy camera wouldn't pick up. I want to wait until I get bridals then I will send pictures. How about that? I have accomplished tons of things so far. I have picked out my cake, it will be my imaginitive creation...Anna's real creation. It will be gorgeous. I have finally started getting the finishing touches on the brides maids' dresses. Things are going well I think. We are going to be renting a backdrop from somebody in the ward along with a gazebo and the little linked lights that will lead into the church for the reception. Amy will be decorating the backdrop and doing the centerpieces. I think it will be really pretty. The reception will be at the new church that just barely got dedicated, it's down on 2300 past the Patterson home. I haven't seen it, but I guess it's really nice. So, I am excited...46 days. I still need to make an appointment for engagement pictures, but that will probably be at the end of january when I get my other ring. Then, there is bridals. I am just excited to get to wear my dress for a little bit. Deven feels a little short-changed because he won't get to see me in my wedding dress unitl after we are married, cuz I am getting married in my temple dress. He told me that most guys get to see them right before they get married...sorry Deven...that is just the way it goes. So I started getting some "Fun" gifts...how funny. Anyway, Deven still needs to pick out what tuxes he wants and I need to go with his mom to pick out my flowers and help design my bouquet. It's official, I got the letter from the Logan temple. We will be getting married on March 3, 2009 at 10:00AM, or 1:00PM Halifax time. We also need to get the marriage license, but we won't need to do that for a while. Lots to do, sorry this is a post without pictures. I love pictures, but I am posting from a computer that doesn't have a USB port, so sorry. I miss everyone, I've been so busy that I haven't had a chance to talk or hang out with hardly anyone but Deven, of course. I have been crazy busy working on all of the above and making wedding list for invitations and making lists for showers that people are throwing me. Crazy. I gotta go, love ya!