Bryant and Steph: The Beginning of Forever!

2009-10-11T21:24:00.000-07:00

Over Conference weekend we had a little family get together at Ang and Jimmy’s house. Michelle was in Utah for conference so her and her little guy,Hudson, came over. He is so adorable and such a sweet little guy. Well, I don’t know about little. He was 9 pounds 13 oz. and 22 ½ inches long when he was born. The nurse that delivered him said he was the 2nd longest baby the hospital has ever had in over 30 years. It was so fun to meet him. Michelle is such a good little mommy!
We had a yummy lunch and our traditional caramel apples. My mom made the best pumpkin chocolate chip cookies ever! I’ll have to get the recipe from her and post it. They’re a must this time of year!

Scottie- Ang and Jimmy's newest addition.

Carly feeding Honey Sophie's doll! Honey has the time of her life when kids are around. I guess Bryant and I aren't as fun!?? :) My brother brought their little dog Cocoa (a mini yorkee). It was so fun watching them play fight. I should have taken pictures!

So many kids!

Snuck a picture! Preparing for his own someday!

One Year!

2009-10-11T21:05:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago during my lunch the office called my classroom and asked if I could come quickly to the office. I figured it was one of my students that were in trouble or something, but to my surprise it was a dozen red roses from my sweet, thoughtful husband!! He remembered that it was our year anniversary of our first date! It caught me off guard a little! That evening we relived our date. We went to the Olive Garden (he even requested we sit in the same both which was a 45 minute wait. He was fine with that. I wasn’t!) After dinner he drove us to the same park where we played soccer. We had such a fun time playing soccer and talking about our first date and everything that has happened over a years’ time. The only difference with this date was we didn’t have to say goodnight and good-bye!

Olive Garden

Doesn't this picture make you happy?!!!

2009-10-01T20:36:00.000-07:00

I came across this picture and thought you might enjoy it if you hadn't seen it already!

Fun at the Fair

2009-09-30T19:04:00.000-07:00

The other weekend Brooki, Melody, Bryant, and I went to the Utah State fair. Here are some of the highlights:
· Deep fried snickers
· Carmel apple
· Pulled beef nachos
· People Watching. We actually came up with a scavenger hunt. Some of the things are our list included: all denim attire, mullet, belly shirt, plumbers bum, chest tattoo- a rose or name, missing teeth, and over-alls. We did come across everything multiple times!
· Spending time with my friends and sweet husband!
Here are a few pics-

Yummy Food.

Huge cow!

Huge Cow again!

Crazy drunk pirate. (I'm holding his gun if you can't tell!)

Monson, Johnson, Nielsen

2009-09-06T21:52:00.000-07:00

Bryant and I were privileged to have President Monson seal us in the SLC temple. It was so incredible! He called it the “Pink and Black Tie Wedding”! It was amazing being in the same room as him. The spirit was so strong. Bryant and I knew a couple weeks before that he would be performing the ceremony, but just in case things fell through we kept it to ourselves( SO HARD!).

When he walked in the room everyone was caught off guard! They thought maybe he was just popping in to say hi. But when he shut the door everyone was even more surprised!
He was just like how he appears in conference; sweet with a sense of humor. Although, he was much taller than I thought and looked a little older. He told lots of funny jokes along with touching stories and marital advice. His advice to us was the same advice he got when he was sealed to his wife- to kneel in prayer everyday together taking turns offering the prayer. He said he has been doing this since he was married in 1948 (61 years). He also said to attend the temple often. It seems like such simple advice but so important. He said he was going to write in his journal that night about the “Pink and Black Tie Wedding”.

After the wedding we took lots of pictures outside the temple. Then we went over to the Joseph Smith Memorial building for the Lunch-In. We had a nice program with yummy food. Both parents and all of our siblings stood up and shared memories and gave advice. It was very touching leaving me choked up several times. My best friend, Brooki, sang “Grow Old Along With Me.” AMAZING! Then we watched our wedding video. We took more pictures, and more, and even more pictures! Then we had the reception. It was so neat sharing this special day with so many loved ones!!! Relatives that I have not seen for years were there. I just wish now that I could have visited with them more!!

We went on our honeymoon to N.Y.C for 4 days and then on a 9 day cruise to the Caribbean! Soooooo FUN! It was fun touring around New York City, but by the fourth day we were ready to board the cruise and RELAX, and EAT, and Eat, and EAT, Relax some more, and eat some more! ! And that is exactly what we did with a few other things here and there. We are still working off those extra pounds we somehow put on by eating 24/7 and relaxing 24/7.

I’m so happy to be married to Bryant. I think he was the best catch out there!!

Here are LOTS of pictures from our wedding day, but really it's only a few of what our photographer took!!!

Our little Honey!

2009-08-04T08:06:00.000-07:00

Bryant and I bought Honey about 2 weeks before we got married from a couple in Paradise, Utah. She was only 6 weeks old and so adorable!! She had 2 other sisters and they were cute too, but Honey stood out to us. She is a mini daschund so she will stay pretty small. Her parents were very small. In fact, Bryant and I both thought that the parents were the puppies when we first got there until the owners opened the gate and these 3 tiny puppies came running out. It was was so precious! I've always loved puppies, but never really had any growing up. My parents weren't really dog lovers. They had enough kids to worry about let alone dogs! But we did have 2 dogs growing up. Both for a very short time. Taffy, a toy poodle, had some potty training issues and would leave us suprises all over the house. One of which my grandpa mistaked for his shoe. He had put his shoes under the bed while taking a nap. When he woke up he reached under the bed for his shoes, but instead of the shoe being in hand a Taffy surprise was in hand! So, we didn't have her for long. When I was in 4th grade my best friend Michelle and I were at the mall and saw some free puppy mutts. We couldn't resist and brought one home. We named her Tabby after my brother's girlfriend Tabatha. My parents weren't too thrilled about this new puppy, but allowed us to keep her after promising we would take good care of her and they wouldn't have to do anything for that puppy! That didn't last long. My dad was the one getting up with her in the mornings and taking her out. After a few weeks of having her she bit my nephew pretty hard and that was the end of Tabby being apart of the family. But it wasn't too terribly hard parting with her because Michelle and I weren't too aware of how much work she would really be! Well, I guess that faded away over the years and now we have Honey!

The Best Place Here On Earth

2009-08-03T09:05:00.000-07:00

"I promise you that all who faithfully attend to temple work will be blessed beyond measure. Your families will draw closer to the Lord, unseen angels will watch over your loved ones when satanic forces tempt them, the veil will be thin, and great spiritual experiences will distill upon this people." Vaughn Featherstone

What a great promise!

My KSL Purchase

2009-08-02T21:21:00.000-07:00

For those of you that don't know, I lost our camera on the Subway in NYC while we were on our honeymoon. Not only did it have all of our honeymoon pictures from NYC and our cruise, but years of other pictures on it. DEPRESSING! After all my sulking I decided it was time to look for a new one. Well, I was looking on KSL and found this brand new, still in the box, Casio 9.1 mega pixels for only $65. I called the guy to see if it was still available and it was. I even talked him down to $55. I called Bryant and told him the great deal I found. He thought it sounded kind of fishy, but said we could go look. Just as we got to his house another couple got there to buy a brand Xbox for $150 (way good deal!). This guy had 4 brand new cameras, a ton of new T.V.'s, and lots of other things for sale. Who knows where he gets it all?? And why he sells it so cheap...Oh, maybe because they don't work!!! We studied the camera over and it looked legit so we bought it along with a 8MB memory card for only $70. (on Amazon the exact camera was going for $229, not including a memory card) We got home and plugged in the battery to start charging and after 6 hours it didn't have a single charge to it. We even let it charge over night and still nothing. We're hoping it's just the battery. The batteries aren't too expensive. I think they are around $30. I guess we'll find out if the camera even works once we buy a new battery.

Some Engagement Pictures :)

2009-07-20T17:18:00.000-07:00

The Proposal

2009-07-20T16:50:00.000-07:00

Bryant took me to a restaurant, Flemings, at the Gateway. The food was amazing. They brought out the best bread ever with a dipping sauce while we waited for our entrée. We both ordered steak and shared 3 sides. One being the best Macaroni and Cheese I have ever had! While we were eating we started chatting about a relationship book we had heard about. I suggested we stop at Barnes and Noble when we were finished eating to see if they had it. When we were finished eating we walked over to Barnes and Noble. As we were looking through all the books I came across a book with the Author of Bryant Nielsen. Totally confused, I pulled out a professionally hard bound book titled “The Day I Found You!” I was not expecting this at all!!! I thought I was the one who wanted to go to Barnes and Noble, but he really tricked me into wanting to go there! He sure is smooth! He took my hand and told me to follow him. We went over to the little kid reading section and he sat me down. He began reading it to me. It began with this poem he wrote:

Before I met you I dreamed of you!

I Dreamed of the perfect girl for me!
I Dreamed you would be beautiful, smart, and fun to be with.
I Dreamed you would come from a good family and have a strong testimony of the gospel.
I Dreamed you would be a good mother and wife, and that I could take you to the temple.
I Dreamed that you would be my best friend.
I Dreamed that we would be sealed for the eternities and that I could spend the rest of my life with you.
I was told a girl like you didn’t exist, but I kept on looking for you anyways.
On September 17th, 2008 I found you!

After he was finished reading the book to me he reached behind me and pulled out a bouquet of beautiful flowers and got down on his knee and proposed!

How We Met

2009-07-19T18:33:00.000-07:00

Bryant introduced himself to me at church one Sunday by asking if I had a boyfriend. I did at the time so I told him yes and he responded with “Oh, well I just think you’re really cute!” and walked away. I thought he was good looking as well, but didn’t think too much about it. A few months later as I was working out at Gold’s Gym this extremely attractive guy came up to me and asked if I was in the 90210 (Willow creek) ward. He looked familiar, but I wasn’t quite sure from where. I told him I used to be in that ward, but recently moved. He told me he used to be in that ward too, but had moved recently as well. He asked me if I still had a boyfriend and I told him no. He was caught off guard by my response and wasn’t quite sure what to say. The only thing he could think of was “DO you have Facebook? I’ll look you up on Facebook”. He looked me up on Facebook and sent me a cute message asking for my #. I sent him a message back with my phone number. He called and asked me out. We went out on date on September 17, 2009. He took me to the Olive Garden and then to the park to kick around a soccer ball. We hit it off so well it was like we had been friends for a long time. There was never that weird moment of silence. From that first date I knew there was something different and special about Bryant than any other guy I had dated. I didn’t want the date to end, and when it did I couldn’t wait for the next!

A few dating pics:

Circus

Nephew's football game

Halloween

Christmas Concert

Cheesecake Factory

Ugly Sweater Christmas Party

Joking around at the hospital

CPK-New Years Eve

Ensign Peak

Bryant's Graduation from the U of U

Bountiful Temple

Idaho Falls