Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

Merry (Late) Christmas!

It was a wonderful time!  Dan and I got to go to Rupert for Christmas this year and it was a lot of fun.  We got to make gingerbread houses from scratch, sugar cookies, play awesome games like telestrations, and just have fun with family.

We had so much fun helping with Christmas fun.  I think one of my favorite things that we did was make the gingerbread houses and the cookies.  Hannah, our cute little niece, was such a helper!  She helped me roll it out, cut out cookie shapes, and anything we would let her do!  It was really cute.  We also helped her and Carson decorate sugar cookies for Santa.  I sure hope Santa likes a LOT of sprinkles!  :-D  But it was fun.

On Christmas morning, my favorite part, was waking up to Dan!  That was one of the best presents ever!  But something really exciting was what we got for Christmas!  We got books!  And lots of them!  We got books from Dan's parents, and books from each other.  And we even got books from my parents, sort of.  "Santa" got us both our own Kindle for Christmas which means we got even more books for Christmas.  (If anyone knows of any great accessories for Kindles let us know!)  Dan also got seasons two and three of Big Bang Theory, one of our FAVORITE TV shows!  And also the game Qwirkle!  I got an awesome murder mystery dinner game, which we are excited to use sometime, and some color changing fingernail polish from Del Sol which I'm SO excited to use!  (Little did Kathryn know that I used some of the color changing polish on Dan this spring! hehe)

Other exciting news... WE BOUGHT A CAR!!!!  Dan and I have officially bought our first car together!  We have been having car problems lately and had been seriously considering buying a car.  Well, we did!  We bought a 2010 Pontiac G6 in Black!  We're very excited and thankful to be able to do that right now.

Anyways, I hope you all have had a fabulous holiday and that the new year brings you lots of joy and fun!

The First Week

Married life is AWESOME!!
Just saying...
But anyways, our wedding was fantastic!  It really couldn't have been any better!  (well, I'm sure some of our loved ones that couldn't make it would have made it better but we totally understand!)  The weather was perfect!  It was overcast, and around 45-50 degrees outside!  (Which was a little chilly for some people, but being in a wedding dress, it was perfect for me!)  But our ceremony was great too!  The sealer was fantastic, and ironically, he is in our stake leadership in our new ward!  We had a run in with him before the wedding when we were trying to find a place for the luncheon.  But the wedding was great!  The luncheon afterward was amazing too!  A bunch of Dan's family all made different soups and we had a soup bar.  I had the clam chowder and it was DELICIOUS!  But there was also a chicken noodle, a corn chowder, a sausage and lentil soup, a split pea soup, taco soup, and a bean soup.  From what I hear, they were all delicious too!  After the luncheon, Dan and I went and stayed at the Anniversary Inn in Logan in the Bridal Suite.  When we were there, we watched The Prestige and ate fresh popcorn, we went on a walk through Merlin Olsen park and jumped in the piles of leaves throughout the walk, and we fell asleep in front of the fireplace in our room.  It was such a great place to stay!  We even got breakfast delivered to our door!  It was a yogurt parfait and a strudel for each of us.  It was really rich but very good.  The Anniversary Inn did a fantastic job and I would totally recommend it to anyone! 
On Saturday, we drove up to Rupert for our reception.  We left only a half an hour later than we meant to, however, when we were driving, we got stuck in a mountain pass for an extra half hour making us a full hour late.  But while we were running around trying to get everything together for the reception and get ready, we still had plenty of time to get everything done.  The church was decorated beautifully!  It was amazing!  And we got the photobooth set up and it was just everything I was wanting it to be!  It worked out SOO well!  The food was great too!  We had mini grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup, popcorn chicken and shrimp, meatballs, and buffalo chicken.  We got to try everything before people started showing up and it was great!  We also had a cupcake buffet with eight different flavors of cupcakes.  I, sadly, didn't get to try any of the cupcakes there but there were a few left over so we got one of almost every flavor. 
The reception went really well.  And we even got to have a dance!  Our first dance was great, especially the part where Dan dipped me, I stepped on my dress and fell.  (It apparently looked kind of like he dropped me, but he didn't at all, I just couldn't get back up because I was standing on my own dress.)  But we got up with style and it was very us and very fun!  The dancing was great too.  We had some issues with the sound system but the DJ worked it out as best he could and it worked out fine!  We had a fantastic time at our reception!  It was a lot of fun and I couldn't have wished for a better time. 
We stayed the night at the Fairfield Inn in Burley, which we had a hard time finding because of the fog.  But we were so exhausted we pretty much laid down and fell immediately asleep.  In the morning, we woke up and went out to my parents house to open presents.  Everyone was VERY kind to us and are really helping us start out our new life together.  We ended up staying the night in Rupert instead of driving back to Logan that night because of the weather.  We watched the new Robin Hood with my parents and ate popcorn and licorice. 
The next morning, we got up casually, packed up the car and drove to Logan.  We must have left at the perfect time because we didn't have to deal with the storms that other people had.  We spent most of Monday and all of Tuesday in our apartment watching movies, eating food, and trying to organize our house. 
Wednesday, we went down to the Merkley's house for Thanksgiving.  We've been playing games and spending time with family and sadly, working on homework some.  Dan has a big project due Monday after Thanksgiving that he's been working on for part of the semester.  And this morning, I convinced Dan that he wanted to get up to go Black Friday shopping!  We started at Target and we actually got most of the things we were wanting.  We even got our Christmas present from Santa today!  Tonight, we are going to a play as a family, and in the morning to Harry Potter 7 part 1!  And tomorrow night is our Open House for Lindon!  It should be fantastic too!  Overall, I have enjoyed being the newest member of the Merkley clan!  I'm very thankful to have such a wonderful husband, family, and new family. 

Daniel, I love you!

Presenting...

Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Merkley!

 

I'm getting married in the morning!!!

Short Storytime

So last night, when I got home from campus, and Dan was going back into his office to work on some homework, he hadn't responded back to my telling him I made it home.  So I asked him if he made it to his office alive.  And what kind of response did I get back?  Practically the best one ever!

"Of course I did, and I only had to kill three zombies and run away from one vampire to do it.  I love you"

Totally made my night.  This is one of the many reasons I love this man!  :-)

10 days...

Not that I'm counting...
Actually I'm really not.  Its more of a, we are almost married.. its just next Friday, I don't know how many days that is though.  Haha
Anyways, we're so close!

I went to the temple on Saturday and received my endowments!  It was a very neat experience!  We're gonna go back on Friday!

Anyways, I just thought I'd write a post! 

For anyone that didn't get an announcement and wanted one, let me know, we have extras.  Also, if you just want the information about the reception and the open house, I'll post it below! 

Information about our wedding/reception/open house.
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The Reception in Rupert is going to be November 20. It will be held at the Rupert Stake Center (324 E 18th St, Rupert, Idaho 83350). There will be a receiving line from 6:30-8:00. Then we are going to dance the night away!!!!

There will be good food, good cake, and good dancing! We would love it if you would join us in celebrating!
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The Open House in Lindon is going to be November 27. It will be held at the
Wadley Farms (35 East 400 North, Lindon, Utah 84042). There will be a receiving line from 7:00-9:00.

There will also be good food, excellent cupcakes, and us!  So come see us!  (Even if you just want the cupcake!)
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FYI- We are registered at Target :-)
 

Sneak Peak

One month to go...

Well.. it's almost one month until we get married!  :-)  I'm really excited!
My best friend Ash, my sister in laws Allie and Brandi, and with help from my fantastic mother, threw me a shower last weekend in Rupert!  It was a ton of fun!  It had "The Game of Life" theme!  I loved it!  The invitations were super cute, thanks to Brandi!  There was a great game where we got to see how well I knew Dan, thanks to Allie!  And super bright and fun decorations all game inspired by Ash!  And my mother provided some DELICIOUS food and treats!  We had a chocolate fountain that got turned into a chocolate fondue!  And some great chicken salad sandwiches that my mom made up the recipe for.  And there were some excellent guests!   Thank you all for coming!  I feel very loved!  

We're taking formal pictures on Tuesday!  I'm so excited!  Dan hasn't seen me in my dress yet and I'm just excited to show him it!  We were joking today about how I expect his jaw to drop!  (I really doubt that it will but it should be good anyways!)

Also, we have invitations just about ready to send out!  We got our pictures today, now its just all the stuffing and sealing and shipping them out!  I really wanted to send out my invitations from Bridal Veil, Oregon... sadly I don't think that's going to happen.  Oh well, I'll survive!

But I'm GETTING MARRIED in just over 1 month!  I can't believe its getting here!  Soon, I'll be an old married person but honestly that sounds fantastic to me.

Until next time...

I am a slacker

I'm a horrible slacker that doesn't ever update my blog.  However, here's what's been happening. 
-School started!
-We took engagements!  (by the fabulous Matt Olsen!)
-We registered (at Target)!
-Got more wedding stuff accomplished!
-Wendy got moved in!

Anyways... also, while you are reading this, if you haven't gotten me your address send me a message with your address attached so I can get you an invitation as soon as we get them.  Thanks! 

I have...

A NEW APARTMENT!!!!

And it is FABULOUS!!!!  I'm so excited.  Except for the moving part, which is what we are working on this weekend.  But we've already moved the big stuff which is great!  On to the rest of my room.  I will post pictures later!

Oh my goodness!

It's August already!  Can you believe it!?!?!  I know I can't!  But I'm excited!
Here are things that are going to happen, or already have happened this month!

- 1st Wally & Vicki Meiners Family Reunion!
- Kyle & Amy's Wedding
- Tamara's, Vickie's, and more Weddings
- Dan moves back to Moen
- I move into our new apartment!
- Engagement pictures!
- Hopefully going to the Hogle zoo!
- School starts!!!!

Now we just get to get them all done!  Woot!  Sad thing is, 1/3 of the month is already over!

Busy Busy Busy

I feel like there's so much to do!  Trying to plan a wedding is fun but stressful too!  I'm trying to get as much done as possible before school starts so I don't have to do as much of it during school.  So far, I've gotten a couple of things done.  We ordered my dress!  I'm really excited about it.  It was a slightly frustrating experience finding a dress because living in Utah, girls tend to get married when they are like 18-19 and they are super skinny.  While I'm not fat by any means, I have hips!  And it is really frustrating to try to find dresses when most sample sizes are a 6 or 8, when you need at least a 10 to at least be able to see it on.  But we ordered the dress I'm going with and it should be here in October!  (Then just alterations and we're good to go!)

We also set a date, in case you didn't know.  We are getting married November 19th in the Logan temple.

We've also decided on some of the food items for the reception, and I believe both reception and open house sites.

Now its on to the rest of the planning.  If anyone knows of a good photographer in Utah or Idaho, let me know. Also if anyone knows of a good DJ that would travel to Rupert for a reasonable price.

I'm engaged!!!!

I'm not even kidding!  I'm officially engaged!  And if you are reading this and didn't get a message or something from me, I'm sorry.  There are just so many people to tell.  But its exciting!

Here is the story.
July 14, 2010
After we both got done with work, we made dinner.  It was delicious!  We made open faced grilled cheese sandwiches.  Swiss cheese on rye bread with tomatoes on top!  Then we went to the zoo!  Logan's zoo is pretty sweet.  Its based on donations so its not too big but it has some cool stuff!  My favorite is the wallabies!  They are just SO cute!  Plus there are a lot of baby birds there right now!  Which are also incredibly cute!  After the zoo, Dan started this zombie application on my phone.    So we were heading to some destination and we ended up getting stuck in a dead end.  But there was this awesome park there that we decided to walk around while we waited out the zombies.  Well the zombies got too close and started chasing us so we had to run back to the car as fast as we could.  We almost had to peel out of the parking area!  Well then we ended up finishing our route to the amphitheater on campus!  This is a place where Dan and I have gone many times and talked and looked out at the Logan temple.  It's kind of "our place"  so it means a lot to us.  Well, we got there right at sunset and I was taking pictures of the sunset with my phone (while Dan was digging around in his pocket haha).  Well I turned towards him and he got down on one knee and told me that he loves me and that he wants to spend forever with me.  And then asked me to marry him!  I, of course, said yes!  And we hugged and kissed (gross I know) and then took a few more pictures!  It was perfectly us!  I love that man!  

 

Life is Fantastic!!!

It has been an awesome month so far.  I can't even tell you how great it has been so far.  I've been working on my thesis somewhat, mostly trying to get things figured out so I can actually make some progress on it later this summer.  And my professor is back from his Uganda trip which is great.

Earlier this month, Dan and I went to Rupert to meet up with my whole family!  It was nice to hang out with everyone!  We played some new games that Dan and I introduced to my family and played some scum as well.  We also got to go FISHING!  It's been so long since I've been fishing, 5 years in fact, and I don't really count that because it was at a planted pond.  But it was fun.  No one caught anything but it was fun to help the kids fish and we roasted these AMAZING marshmallows!  They were gigantic!  Not even kidding, its like the size of at least 4 marshmallows put together.  They were so yummy!  (Yummy yummy time!)  It was great!  On the way home, we stopped by Shoshone for ice cream!  I love the ice cream from there!  It's soo good!  And huge!
Here is Dan and I with our cones!  He got the large and I got the small!

The next week I got to spend in Rupert dog sitting!  It was nice because I got to go and visit with friends I haven't seen in a while, like Kristin!  And I got to play with baby Slade, (Ash's cute son!)  I also worked on my old bed.  I scrapped off the old stain that was on it and then painted it white and started to distress it!  It looked soo good!  I'm excited to use it this fall!  I still need to distress it some more but it was a lot of fun!  I want to work on more things like that!  There's this fabulous website that Brian introduced me to that shows you step by step how to do different things like that!  Its so cool!

Happy Birthday!

To Daniel!!!

I sure hope he had a great day.  I know I did. 

This weekend, we spent Friday night burning up almost ALL of my homework from the last FIVE, not kidding, five years of school... It was fabulous!  We had friends meet up with us at second dam and just burned it all!  We roasted marshmallows and had smores while we were at it. 

Then on Saturday, we went to Ogden to his grandparents, the Shirley's, 50th wedding anniversary.  It was a lot of fun!  I met almost all of Dan's family at it and can remember everyone name, even if I can't remember their faces.  The went to Lindon for the rest of the weekend.

On Sunday, Dan's birthday, we went to church and then came home and took a fabulous nap!  (Well, Dan did, I read.)  And then Dan's brother Kyle made dinner for the whole family.  Granted everyone helped but it was his ideas.  Dinner was amazing!  It was a Mediterranean type dinner.  Greek salad and such.  It was great.  Then we ate homemade ice cream and toppings and Texas sheet cake!  Then we played a lot of games! 

On Monday, we drove out to Tooele to spend Memorial day with Phillip and his family!  It was a lot of fun.  Phill cooked us burgers for lunch.  Then we went outside and played baseball for a really long time!  And Dan and I even raced on the wiggle cars!  That was awesome and I totally beat Dan!  Then when we went back inside, Dan and I made some cookies for the family and we played Sorry!  It was such a close game!  Phill ended up beating us though, but just barely.  Then Dan and I headed back to Logan.  On the way, we stopped by Zupas, which was Dan's first time.  He really liked it, but ended up getting food poisoning or something from there.  Which kind of sucked but he's doing a lot  better today. 

Overall, it was a great weekend, except for Dan getting sick.  I'm excited to see what this weekend brings because this will be the first weekend we've been home for the whole weekend this summer so far.  Should be fun!

One Day...

I'll get back into this whole learning to blog thing again.  I don't know why, but my desire to blog has immensely decreased since I started blogging a few years ago.  But one day, I'll get back into it.  Maybe I just need to have a set time/day that I blog and keep everyone updated on my life.  I'll work on that.

Anyways, here's what's been going on in my life.  I graduated!  If you didn't notice that from my last post.  I also moved down the hill into my new apartment.  And I started working last week.  It's been a great summer so far because I haven't had to do a lot but play and go to weddings.  I've had 3 weddings in the last 2 weeks.  And this weekend, I have a 50th wedding anniversary to go to!  Woohoo!  I think that's super cool!  You know what else is this week?  Daniel's birthday!  He turns the big double deuce.  And he even got another job!  Which is exciting because he's been looking for one this entire month.  The ironic thing is, the project he is going to be working on is the same one I'm working on.  Just different parts of it.

Speaking of which, I can actually explain what I'm doing for work now.  I'm basically trying to get three machines to tell me the density of particles in the air.  So right now, I get to just sample air with the machines and try to correlate them to each other.  It's a work in progress, especially since one of the machines keeps having issues and not giving me much information.  I think it just needs cleaned.  (I'm at work right now, which is why I'm thinking about it.) 

Other than that, life is fabulous!  Dan and I went to the zoo last week, it was a lot of fun.  We also got to go on a hike down in Provo Canyon.  And hopefully this weekend, we'll get to go play with Phill and Allie's family!  Not sure what we're going to do but it will be fun! 

I'll try to blog more!

All Grown Up and Graduated!

It's hard to believe that after 5 years of college, I finally got my degree.  I am officially a college graduate.  On May 8, 2010 I received my degree from Utah State University in Civil Engineering!  I could go out and be a real engineer now!  It's crazy to think that!  Anyways, it was a fabulous day.  The weather was great and the commencement was too.

Danny Glover, the guy who plays in Lethal Weapons and Angels in the Outfield, was the speaker at commencement.  I thought his speech started out well but got a little boring but whatever.  In the afternoon I got to go to the college of engineering graduation ceremony where I received my diploma, well sorta (the thing that holds it at least).  It was a nice day.  And most of my family got to be there!  Too bad Cole and Brandi had to work, they were missed!   But here are some pictures from graduation!

Cruise!

Oh my goodness, a cruise was just what the doctor ordered.  I had so much fun on the cruise!  We were on the ship the Grandeur of the Seas and it was awesome.  It had a rock climbing wall, a casino, a spa, a theater, a couple of pools.  It was great!  My favorite part?  Dinner!  You have no idea how great dinner was.  We had the best table. Our waiter was great and the food was AMAZING!!!!! I can express how much fun dinner was.  It was made up of a basically a bunch of parents and their graduating girls.  We had me and my parents, the Jilek's (mom, dad, Amanda (college grad), and Lauren (high school grad)), and the Wallace's (mom, Leslie (college grad) and their cousin.  And the funny thing, we were all from Idaho, Iowa, and Ohio.  What are the odds that all of us would be from the states that everyone gets confused about!  It was a really fun trip though!  This picture makes it look like we are all one big happy family, and by the end it felt like we were!  It was fun!

It's Official!!!!

I am going to grad school!  I'm so excited!  I got my very first acceptance letter today! 

Dear Wendy,

With the approval of the School of Graduate Studies, the Civil & Environmental Engineering department is pleased to inform you that your application has been approved and you have been accepted to begin graduate study at Utah State University.  You are to be congratulated for your achievement.

Your acceptance details are as follows:

Student Number:	Starting Term: Fall 2010	Advisor: David Stevens (david.stevens@usu.edu)
Department: Civil & Environmental Engineering	Program: Civil and Environmental Engineering	Degree: MS
Additional Comments:

Please inform the SGS of your intent to accept this offer in order to attend Utah State University, by e-mailing to: kami.mcneil@usu.edu. Please allow at least 24 hours for processing.  Please do not attempt to register until you have informed the SGS of your intent.  When you contact them, please include your student number.

You can log into http://www.usu.edu/myusu/  to access your own student records and class schedules using your new student number.

We wish you success in your academic pursuits and trust that your experience here will be both pleasant and rewarding.

Sincerely,

Civil & Environmental Engineering

cc: The School of Graduate Studies

Wow!  It's been a freaking long time since I've blogged!  I'm so sorry!  I really will get on that again I promise.  I've been meaning to. 
Anyways, what has been going on for the last month plus?  I went to Phoenix for SWE and it was awesome!  I have had a lot of programs and such going on for the month of February so I've been super busy.  During presidents day weekend, I got to go to Rupert and spend and awesome weekend celebrating all my families birthdays!  A couple weekends ago, I got to celebrate my friend, Steve's, 21st birthday at Keys on Main in SLC.  The next weekend, I took Dan with me to Benihana's to go to dinner with my brothers and their wives!  It was a lot of fun. This last weekend, I got to dress up for the south campus Speak Easy (see picture) and go to USU's last home game of the season!  We kicked trash!!!!  And next week, I am going on a caribbean cruise!  We port at Costa Maya and Cozumel!  I'm so excited!  Its going to be a blast! 
Anyways, I really am sorry I haven't posted anything else for a while, I will get better at it I promise.  After the cruise!

Oh, P.S. in case any of you are wondering, I graduate on May 8th from USU.  The big ceremony starts at 9:00 am and the college of engineering ceremony is at 2:00 pm.  (If you are planning on coming, the University Inn has rooms that you can book for $54 for two queen beds but you should probably book soon.) 

Beautiful Cache Valley

Every once in a while, something happens that makes me happy.  Today, instead of doing my availability hours, I took my new camera and went and took some pictures since it turned into such a gorgeous day.  Here is the only one I loaded onto my laptop and messed with on Picasa.  But I like it a lot.  It was a lot of fun to practice taking pictures with my camera.  Hopefully, I'll get better and I'll show some more.  Till then, enjoy.

Ava's Blessing

Last Sunday was Ava's blessing!  It was a lot of fun!  The food was great and the company was even better!  I even got to use my new camera taking some pictures of everyone.  I got this incredibly cute picture of Hannah!  And Carson was hysterical for me to take pictures of.  I love my family and am excited that Ava is the newest member of it! 
 

Ice Skating

A few days after I got back to Logan, Brian and I went ice skating with our friends Matt and Mandy!  They brought their dog Milo along!  He was so totally cute.  It was really fun.  Merlin Olsen park is a park down in the Island that during the winter they will create an ice skating ring.  Its so much fun because you are outside and you are right below the temple.  It was great!  I can't wait to go again!  (Thanks for a fun time Matt and Mandy!)

Back To School

On the first few days back to Logan, a few of my residents thought it would be fun to decorate our RA's door.  And let her know how much we missed her!  It was a lot of fun

New Years Eve

New Year's Eve, I spent the evening with my family.  We had a lot of fun.  We played cards and at midnight, we had a palooza of silly string and poppers!  It was a lot of fun!

Christmas!

Here are some pictures from Christmas.  I loved spending time with my family!  It was great!  My new camera is also great!