On Potato Guns, Wreaths, and Unspoken Expressions

So it's no secret that our relationship while dating was up and down and all over the place (mostly because I have fully disclosed all events that happened during that time).

Side note: I actually came upon a brilliant idea the other day to go back as far as possible in Kolton's emails to see if I could find any he had written to his missionary brother while we were dating to see what he had said about me. Jackpot! He definitely had a lot to say. Unfortunately, most of it was not exactly what I wanted to hear. That's what happens when you get snoopy, I guess!

Anyway...

So all summer long Kolton had been a tiny bit (HA!) indecisive. That kid could NOT make up his mind and he was driving me batty. But I was pretty sure I knew what I wanted and wasn't going to give up on us so easily. Which I should maybe be a little embarrassed about. I should have made him work for it a bit, but I was never that type of girl.

ANYWAY.

All summer long Kolton hadn't quite made up his mind about where he wanted to go with this thing we were doing. When he tried to break it off two days before I left for school I didn't even try to argue with him to the contrary. I told him to go home and when he had made up his mind to let me know but that I was leaving and wanted a decision before I left.

Like I mentioned before, he was back the next day. After every almost breaking up instance Kolton told me he would go home, settle down, think about things and realize that he could relax and just see where this would go.

On the morning that I left for college Kolton came over to show off his potato gun that he had spent the morning building. We finally said our goodbyes and with my car stuffed to the max, I was off.

When I FINALLY got to Provo I was missing my family, missing Kolton, and wondering if I had made the right decision. I had been debating whether or not I should go back to school but had finally decided that it would be the best decision even though it would be hard.

But sitting in my car at the Riviera, all I wanted to do was turn around and drive right back home. I finally did get out of my car and headed up to my apartment. When I saw the pretty wreath hung on the door and said door opened to my favorite Kelsee giving me the biggest and best welcoming hug I could have asked for, I knew I had made the right decision.

My roommates all helped me unload my car and get settled. An hour or two into my unpacking, Kolton called.

And again, I knew that I had made the right decision in coming to school.

That boy MISSED me. Even though he never said it, I could tell.  

And that was a really good little minute. I realized that he would miss me just as much as I would miss him and that maybe this was going somewhere serious after all. 

Summer of Love III

 Summer 2010 was going to be the best summer of my life. It turned out to be the worst, but still had its moments.

Even though a lot of things happened, these are some of the things that I remember best from that summer.

1. Kolton and I went to dinner and a movie (Salt) with some married friends. The movie ended at nine and I figured we would all hang out for a bit afterwards. I was wrong! Those married friends were outta there! (I completely understand this now) Where Kolton and I were still unmarried we did not quite understand this and still wanted to hang out for a bit before heading home to our separate houses. We ended up going out for ice cream and sitting outside on Kolton's tailgate while we ate it. I don't know why this was so fun, but it just really was and I always think about it. We were just sitting outside, eating ice cream and visiting on a perfect summer night.

2. I worked at the Mud Lake Market that summer and I loved it when Kolton would walk in at the end of my shift to take me on a date or something of the like.

3. One day during my lunch break at the MLM, Kolton called me up and invited me to come with him and some mission friends to the wedding reception of one of his mission friends. Of course I agreed and ended up rearranging my schedule so I could get off a bit earlier than usual. He came to pick me up and after a bit of talking, we realized that the reception was a few hours further away than we had originally thought. We ended up still meeting with the friends and eating at Mama Inez in Pocatello. I'm pretty sure you have an idea how very much I enjoyed that.  

4. Another favorite is one night when Kolton was on his way home from a mission reunion. I hadn't seen him all day and he was headed home late at night. I'm sure all he wanted to do was go home and go to bed, but he stopped outside my house on the way home and said hey before going home and going to bed. 

5. One night when we were in the thick of second crop Kolton came out to ride with me in the baler. They had finished a few days before but for some reason he wanted to see how it was done on the Newman farm. I told him what field we were in and he came running to the tractor when I got close to where he had parked. He had brought plenty of snacks including popcorn (my favorite!) and some Motrin for my headache. It wasn't a super long baling sesh, but I loved visiting and snacking, and loved it even more when he told me I was going to slow, took over the wheel, and let me sit in the buddy seat.

5.5 Before we headed back to school, we had a bit of business to take care of. Mostly Kolton. He got a day off work and we spent it running errands like finding an apartment among other things. I don't know why I enjoyed this day so much but it was just fun to run around town and make semi biggish decisions together. Although I did think it was unfortunate we were looking for men's housing instead of married. 

6. Not exactly a good memory, but still definitely important was right after Brody died. I remember thinking that someone needed to tell Kolton because I needed him there. When he did show up he just hugged me and cried and let me cry. He did this repeatedly over the next few weeks, months, and still does. He just hugs me, gives me the comfort I need, and lets me cry. He doesn't try to tell me that it's all going to be okay or that he knows how I feel, or that it will all work out some day, he just lets me cry. And that has meant more than anything.

7.  On the way home from yet another friend's reception, we were driving, laughing, teasing, joking, and I started thinking about how much fun I always had with him, how much I enjoyed being with him, and how easy it was being together. I realized that what I had been wondering about recently was true and I didn't have to wonder about it anymore. We went to my house and hung out for a bit. As he was getting ready to leave we were standing by the front door. Supposedly, this is something that should be easy to say, but it took me over twenty minutes to finally work up to courage to say it. He was trying to leave, but I wouldn't let him open the door until it was out in the open."I love you, Kolton." He said it back, but what meant even more was a couple weeks later when he was leaving and said it FIRST.

It's a Good Thing I Love Him

So since I started Student Teaching I have been a bit busy and super unmotivated to cook dinner. I had a hunch that this was going to happen and therefore spent a couple days during Christmas Break making up some freezer meals to stick in the crockpot or oven after a long day at school.

 

When Kolton saw me making these meals he made the comment that maybe I shouldn't stockpile so many because we didn't know for sure if we'd actually like it and he wanted to avoid a freezer full of unwanted meals. I didn't listen to closely to him because I figured having a meal that we had to choke down might at least be marginally better than Cheerios for dinner.

 

In truth, we have liked many of the meals that I made and they have been super nice to have around. However, (of course) one night I had stuck some honey, soy sauce, can't even remember the rest of the weird ingredients, chicken in the crockpot. It smelled okay when I got home and I wasn't as worried about it as I had been when I had prepped it that morning.

 

Kolton didn't so much like it, however. He informed me that the chicken looked too much like the formaldehyde soaked body parts he had dealt with in his cadaver lab at school to be edible.

 

Honestly, the chicken wasn't my favorite but it was fine. He wouldn't eat more than two bites.

I was tempted to be a little hurt or offended until I remembered (or was reminded) that he eats everything and never complains about the taste. If he wasn't eating this meal, it must really bring back unpleasant memories.

So I let it slide.

And I have no idea what I'm going to do with the other bag of frozen honey/soy sauce chicken sitting in our freezer. 

The Day of Loving

Is it bad that each Valentine's Day we have been married we have become more and more lame?

Probably.

On this Valentine's Day we had both been busy busy in the days leading up to it. Kolton had been trucking to Boise and I was busy wrangling 52 ten year olds every day. (He wonders why I come home EXHAUSTED every night...) On the 13th, I finally made it into Rexburg to do a little shopping along with a million other errands. I stopped by Deseret Book to grab a birthday present for Tylee and saw that they had a little display of Florence's Chocolates. We love chocolates and have been using our Christmas box as an after church snack. Every Sunday when we come home from church and are getting out of our fancy clothes and into our sweatpants ASAP, we allow ourselves to eat one chocolate apiece. (This usually turns into me sneaking another one and then talking Kolton into having another one too. It's near impossible to eat just one!)

 

But for this Valentine's I decided to really be choosy and give Kolton the "Nut and Caramel Only" box of chocolates (For real though-who even eats those cream ones? Usually they are the ones left in the box with approximately one bite taken out of them.) to replace our old box that we have finished the previous Sunday.  

I was hoping he would be sharing with me.

Obviously.

 

Then, when I ran to Wal-Mart to grab some other errands, after hunting through the ENTIRE store to find a big bag of Hershey Kisses (for my class party) I stumbled across the bin of $5 movies. After sorting through a bunch of trashy never-even-made-it-to-the-theatre-but-went-straight-to-DVD movies, I hit the jackpot.

I came home with Last of the Mohicans (Kolton's favorite-we have had his parents' copy for over a year now...) and by the way, DID finally find my kisses. After I checked out, of course.

 

When I made it home that night it was late and I crashed after setting my alarm for 3:30 the following morning. I was hoping to get my stuff set out after Kolton fell asleep but before he left in the truck that morning.

Bad Idea.

I did wake up on time and was efficiently sneaky, but after setting out my little lame gift I COULD NOT go back to sleep. I tossed and turned for another hour at least until Kolton's alarm went off.

When he was walking out the door I did manage to stumble, bleary-eyed, into the kitchen to wish him a happy day. Only then was I FINALLY able to go back to sleep. (Nothing irritates me more than lying awake in bed)

 

When I woke up again, I saw that Kolton had left out a pretty little potted rosebush. (It's kind of tradition.) and wrote me a sweet little note on the whiteboard. (That he erased when he got home that night. Not happy about this!)

 

Teagan came over to hang out with us and we played a couple thousand rounds of Wizard, popped in a movie, and that was our day! Nothing too exciting, but it definitely worked for us. Nice and relaxing worked just right for this year. 

Summer of Love II

The following post contains a comprehensive list of all the times Kolton tried to break up with me during our Summer of Love-2010

 

1. Kolton and I attended the singles ward together when we weren't attending family functions or missionary farewells. He was a good little buddy to have on my arm through all of that. After a few weeks of attending that ward, the bishop came up to us after sacrament meeting and asked if we would be interested in attending the marriage prep/temple prep class together. We both looked at him in shock and then silently nodded our heads. This put us in a bit of a tailspin. Neither of us really knew what to think about this and therefore did not really discuss it until a few days later. I had attended one of Brevan's baseball games so Kolton picked me up at the school to go on a little date. At the end of the date we were again at the school as he was dropping me off at my car. Right there in the school parking lot we had ourselves a little chat. We started off by talking about the bishop's invitation and how we felt about that. I felt like the conversation was heading in a very nice direction. We started talking about the possibilities and the "what ifs" of getting married. We talked about possible dates and options and then the conversation took a dramatic turn...for the worse. Pretty soon Kolton was making a little list of all the reasons we weren't compatible and shouldn't be getting married. His reasoning? I didn't like riding motorbikes, I didn't know anything about pickups, etc. (I had to gently remind him that I am in fact a girl and that those kind of things just don't do it for me...along with almost the entire female population.) The conversation did eventually end, with my head still spinning, and me still thinking of reasons as to why we shouldn't break up and why we should keep dating and just see what would happen. We didn't talk about this conversation much again, but it was still in the back of both our heads.

 

2. The next instance was after a lovely weekend spent in Island Park. I had invited Kolton to the Mickelsen reunion and we'd spent the time boating and eating and doing other family reunion-ish activities. My entire family had been cracking jokes all weekend about us and asking when they could expect an invitation to the wedding. We just laughed it off but I was kind of liking their way of thinking. At the end of the reunion, we were ready to head home when Kolton and I got in a bit of a tiff. He'd made a sarcastic remark and I hadn't laughed it off like he'd expected but instead took a little offense to the comment. I thought it was meaningless but freaked out a bit when Kolton didn't speak two words to me the entire way home. When we pulled into my driveway all of our passengers jumped out of the pickup but Kolton and I stayed in the driveway and I asked him what was the deal. This eventually led again to him saying maybe we should back off and that he just needed to go home. I was a bit freaked out by this and argued my case a bit. We didn't come to any conclusions, so he just left.

(Not to worry, he was back on my couch eating ice cream less than two hours later)

 

3. The third and final instance was exactly two days before I was to head off to school. We had still been spending a ton of time together, but I was getting awful nervous about heading off to school and what would happen to our relationship once I was not so easily accessible and was 300 miles away. One night we had a little talk about it and what it eventually led to (of course) was Kolton getting all confused and not real clear on what exactly he was wanting. There were a lot of "I don't knows" coming from his end of the conversation. He threw out the idea that maybe we should date other people. Instead of arguing my case with him like I had always done before, I just shrugged and told him to let me know when he figured out what he wanted, but that I was leaving in two days and expected him to let me know before I left. He left that night with both of us still confused but (of course!) was back at my door the next day.

Those are all the major instances. Can you see why that man drove me halfway to crazy during our courtship?! 

Student Teaching

It's been a while.

 

Life has been a bit busy lately.

I started my student teaching on January 2nd after a wonderful, relaxing, family and food filled Christmas break.

I was so nervous the first day, but have settled in pretty quickly and have been teaching probably about 3/4 of the day.

I am teaching in the 5th grade when I teach Spelling, Reading, and Language Arts to a morning and afternoon class.

 

It's definitely been an experience so far! Not as easy as I thought it would be, but not as hard either. I've definitely laughed a lot, cried a lot, prayed a lot, and learned a lot. And I still have two and a half months to go!

This has definitely been an adventure and I have learned and done something new everyday.

 

I have to say that teaching is definitely the most rewarding and frustrating thing I have ever experienced. Some days I want to just pull all my students into a great big love hug and other days I want to pull my hair out. Basically that dichotomy has been ruling my life as of late and taking up most of my time. But I will definitely try to give a little more attention to writing and keeping caught up. We'll see how it goes...