First Date- Our story part 2

If you haven't read Part 1 yet, read it here if you would like :)

Fast forward a year and a half later.

I had completely forgotten about that strange boy that I had kissed on the cheek.

At that time I was a Jr. in High school and I had my eye on this "hot, popular" senior.

This boy and I had gone out a few times together and I was TOTALLY smitten. Man did I think he was the cream of the crop!

But, he being a typical guy, was hard to read. He would go like a month here and there completely ignoring me and then out of no where text me out of the blue and all of a sudden be really interested in me again. Ugh he was so annoying. But since I was just a naive girl at the time, I  let him come back every time with open arms. I'm pretty sure he new how much I liked him and used it against me. Jerk. He would put me on the back burner while something better (cough cough, cheerleaders) came along. And as soon as that ended, came running back to me. And I fell for it every. single. time.

It was January and during an "off" month with this boy. 

I remember getting a text from a unknown number.

"Hey, Lindsie! This is Alek Lund. How are you?"

"Um.... Who is Alek Lund?" I asked my friend.

"Isn't he the one who was going out with "So and So" awhile ago?

I knew who "so and so" was but I still couldn't picture Alek's face. I went home and actually looked him up in the year book. 

Ah. We'll just say, I didn't get butterflies. My young heart was still focused else where.

I texted Al here and there, mostly because I felt bad ignoring him. I never saw avoided him at school because I was scared of the awkwardness. We had never spoke in person.

Then, a couple weeks with this awkward texting, He sent me a text asking me to go on this group date with him. Yes, he asked me out on our first date through texting. LAME!

I couldn't find a way out of it, so I agreed to go. 

Friday night rolled around and I was dreading this date! To make matters worse, My dreamy senior texted me about an hour before Alek was due to pick me up and invited me to go to the high school basketball game with him. Ahhhh! I was DYING! Oh how I wanted to back out on this date with Alek so bad! 

I hadn't heard from mc-dreamy for awhile now and here he was asking me to hang out with him, on all nights!. I was so mad. And of course I couldn't tell him I was going on a date because that would be the end of Mr. Hot Senior. So, he kept texting and bugging me the whole night wondering why I couldn't go to the game!

Anyways... the date ended up not being so bad. We went to Crystal Hot Springs and actually I had a lot of fun! I was worried about the group because I didn't know anyone too well but if you have ever hung out with Alek's group of friends.. There isn't a moment when you are not laughing. They are hilarious.  

One moment of the night that really stuck out to me was when we were all sitting in one of the hot tubs. Alek all of a sudden jumps out and reaches out his hand for me to grab and asked for me to follow him. 

I am not a really touchy person. So grabbing his hand was a super big deal. I still have the slow motion vision of me reaching and grabbing his hand still in my head.

We held hands and he lead me toward the cold pool. 

Not going to lie holding hands made me feel like I was cheating on my senior but I still could't help but feel the butterflies. 

"We're going to jump in ok?" 

Ugh...are you kidding? I'm not a fan of cold. I stuck my toe in and just doing that took my breath away.

"On the count of 3." I rolled my eyes and decided.. whatever, let's get this over with.

On 3 he squeezed my hand even tighter and we jumped in. I have never been that cold! I couldn't breath normally for hours later. :)

After the date I was surprised with how much fun I had. It hadn't been half as bad as I was expecting. But, still I couldn't wait to get home and text Mr. senior.

Crazy thing is...

 I get home and My parents ask me who I went out with. I told them Alek Lund and both of them just stood there, mouths open, not saying anything.... "Did I say something wrong?"

"Did you say Lund?? Are his parents Kurt and Terena?"

"Uh... I don't know?"

"Does he live out in Mendon?"

"Yes...."

Turns out my parents use to be way good friends with Alek's parents. Went to high school together. Our moms danced together. They went on double dates. And when they were pregnant, they even joked about us growing up and getting married. We joke now that we had a pre-arranged marriage.

But at that time, finding out my parents knew who Alek and his parents were was an even more turn off to me. That's so weird my parents know more about Alek than I do! My dad asked me if I liked Alek that night and I immediately told him no and that I wasn't too interested in him. This bummed my parents  out.

Next up: Our first high school dance. Not what you're expecting. :)

Truth or Dare- Part 1

One of my favorite things to talk about is my husband and our story.

I got this idea from a fellow blogger. She told her whole story starting out how she and her husband met all the way until they got married. 

Of course it took a few different posts to get all the details in but I loved reading all the funny and awkward things that happen through the time they spent dating.

Since I've known Al for a LONG time. I figured I would try this out. It's been so much fun to think about those good old high school days and take a trip down memory lane. :)

The first memory I have of Alek was 6 years ago, Sophomore year, 2008. My group of friends were over at April's house just hanging out like we did almost every weekend. My other friend Annie was crushing on this kid, Tyson, that just so happened to be pretty good friends with Al. Tyson came over to hang out with Annie and brought a few friends with him, including Al. I had know idea who Alek was at the time. And boy, he seemed like he did not want to be there. He kind of just sat back on the corner couch and didn't really talk.

 We all sat down and started watching a movie and Alek fell asleep on the couch.

After the movie was over, a game of truth or dare sprouted. It wasn't long before one of the other boys in the group dared April and I to kiss Alek (who was still asleep-or so he made us believe) on the cheek. You know how girls are at that age right? We started freaking out and blushing like crazy! 

"What if he wakes up?!"

"You go first!"

"No, you go first!"

We were definitely making a scene. 

Finally we both sucked it up and got the courage and both took our turns kissing sweet lil Al on the cheek. It was the fastest little pecks in history. It was a big deal to innocent lil' me because I just kissed someone on the cheek that was a total stranger! But, Alek didn't budge at all and stayed fast asleep.

Fast forward a couple years, when Alek and I were dating. 

Al brings up the time that I had kissed him on the cheek. I had completely forgotten about it and was completely blown away!!

"That was you??!"

He admitted to being awake the whole time. He was just pretending to sleep because he didn't want to be there and Tyson dragged him along. Al said he has never had to use so much self control in his life. He thought for sure at any moment he would bust up laughing.

I thought it was the craziest thing! I didn't even know that kid was that I kissed all those years ago and here we were dating and talking about it!  And still even crazier...who would've ever thought 6 years later we would be married with a kid on the way. So much fun to think about :)

Since I love pictures, but I have no pictures of that particular incident. I decided to put some of these throwbacks up of me and my girls. Love you guys! 

Stay tuned for the next post about mine and Al's first date!

It's a boy!

If you haven't heard the news... We're having a little boy! We can hardly wait!!

Alek is so excited to have a little boy to teach to snowboard and wakeboard. He talks about it ALL the time. I think it's the cutest:) 

^ Al says in this picture he is flexing :)

Originally, I didn't want to do anything spectacular when we found out the gender. I figured most people wouldn't care and it would be a waste of money. But of course, the day before our appointment, me and my mom went out to lunch and started discussing some things we could do to make a small "gender reveal" party. Now when my mom and I start planning something... watch out!! It never ends up being "small."

We did a little bit of shopping, buying balloons and decorations. We decided to do sugar cookies with pink and blue frosting, pink and blue kool-aid, and my favorite, cheesecake with either blueberries or strawberries for topping. Everything was either pink or blue. It was so much fun! 

 And my mom got everything ready and decorated everything.  A BIG thanks goes to her!! She is the best mom ever :)

^ We gave the people who were right "Sugar Babies"

While my awesome mom and sis were getting everything ready, Al and I were driving down to SLC for our Dr. appointment. Originally the plan was for both of us not to find out until we got back to the party. We were going to have the Dr. write down the sex and put it in an envelope and take it to the grocery store where the people there would fill up our box with which ever color coordinated with the sex. But Al decided he didn't want to wait until the party and he wanted to find out right away.

So, we get to Fetal Studios and were in and out within like 10 minutes. They were so quick, I was super impressed! I had to close my eyes, while the Dr. showed Al on the screen and pointed to what we were having. I thought it would drive me completely crazy having him know and not me but it didn't at all! I was strong :)  I was SUPER impressed by how well Al kept his composure. I even asked him, "Do you even know? Are you sure she told you? You're not acting any different." He seemed very relaxed. I was so confused? I didn't understand why he wasn't showing more excitement!!  He told me he was so nervous that he was going to blow it by accidently saying he or she, so he tried to remain calm and think of other things. The whole way home I seriously couldn't believe his self control! I kept saying, "Isn't it crazy that you know what were having????" And he would just smile and nod. Gads... 

On the way home, we stopped at Smith's and Alek went in with the big box and had them fill it with blue balloons. I waited out in the car and it took forever! I was so anxious to get home and open that box!!! Finally, he came back to the car and we were on our way again. I kept looking in the back seat and shaking the box. I was such a little kid! 

Finally we got to my parents house just in time to have all our other family members start arriving. I am so blessed to have such an awesome family that wants to come support me even just for celebrating the gender of my first baby. :) It made it so much more special for me and Al to have so many people there! 

IT'S A BOY!!! :) 

Can't wait for my little man to get here! Just 23 more weeks!

Rambling

This is something that has been on my mind for awhile.

One of those things where I don't know if it's just me, or if everyone else feels the same way.

There are a few close people in my life, that I can point out specifically where I feel like there is this constant battle between us.

Their personality is the type where they have to prove they are better than me. At everything. 

Their hair is better.

Their clothes are cuter.

They cook better than me.

They are skinnier.

They have more money.

Their life is more in order than mine is.

Their opinion is right.

My opinion is wrong.

Seriously the list could go on forever!

I know that instinctively all girls do this. I'm guilty of it! Comparing every single thing of every single girl! Why do we have to prove we are better? Doesn't that just make us automatically worse?

Not only is comparing an issue. But when we put another person down, to lift us higher? Some girls really think that is the way it works. I honestly don't get it. Wouldn't it be the opposite? If I help build someone up, it will help build me up too, right?

We all know that one girl who thinks she is the best at everything, right? She is always bragging about how she got this and that. And that because she thinks a certain way, that is the only right way to think. And that everyone needs to be more like her. 

These girls drive you crazy right?

The few girls that are always competing with me the most, are really starting to drive me crazy!

I'm exhuasted of this constant battle.

 I'm still learning how to deal with it. The inner girl instinct in me wants to fight back. I often find myself with holding compliments. When I notice they are wearing a new shirt and yes, they know it's cute and there they are flaunting around you, just waiting for you to say something so they can gloat even more. (sounds really silly but it happens to me a lot)

But, I'm the type of person that will ignore it. I won't compliment them because I don't want their head to get any bigger. I don't want to give them the satisfying feeling that they were searching for in the first place.

How ugly and disgusting of a person does that make me ?

I'm always talking to my husband about this (poor guy) and he always says the same thing.

"Linds, be the bigger person."

I've been trying REALLY hard to be the bigger person. As much as it makes me cringe, I try and compliment as much as I can to these girls. Wow I love those shoes! Oh my gosh these cookies are delicious! You're hair looks amazing! Yes they might get a big head, but maybe, deep down inside they are really hurting and have a low self-esteem. They are just putting on a mask and not showing how they really feel. Maybe they look up to you and that compliment just meant the world to them?

Man, is this even making sense to anyone?

Sorry for the launguage. But can I just say.. AMEN!

I absolutely love Instagram, but with the world these day..... we seem to make everything complicated! Why all the competition!!! 

 Here is a conversation I have had now with at least 3 times with different people. One being the age of 12. 

Anonymous: How many followers do you have?

Me: uh.... I dunno? 

Anonymous: Don't you keep track?

Me: Nope.

Anoymouse: Well I just got 8 new followers today!!

Me: good for you!

Anoymous: Whats your average "likes" you receive on all your posts?

Me: Uh... who has time to worry about that?

Anoymous: How many people comment on your pictures regularly?

Me: I don't keep track...

OH MY GOSH! It drives me completely insane. Why can't I just post what I want, when I want, and not worry about who is going to like it? If they don't like what I post, they can just unfollow me right? and If they don't like what I post, why would I want them following me anyway? It's like we now have a number which "grades us" with how popular each of us are. ugh! It's like high school all over again.

I'm just me. If you like me, great! If not, I don't really care. Because I'm not going to change myself just for you. 

Easier said than done right? As much as I hate it, I even see myself getting sucked down into the crazy cycle. I take a picture and want to post it, but then I second guess myself...

"Well what if people judge me?"

"What if I don't get any likes?"

Lindsie! Stop worrying about that stupid stuff!

I tell myself that a lot during the day. ^

I love this quote.

 Why must we focus on trying to out do each other? When really all we need to do is worry about one person. YOU. 

Pregnant!

If you haven't heard the news yet... 

WE'RE GOING TO BE PARENTS!!

We are sooo excited!! July can't come soon enough! 

40 weeks really doesn't seem that long at all with everything that we need to get done.

BUT the weeks are going by soooo slowly!

I'm 14 weeks along, so officially out of the first trimester. 1/3 of the way there. WHOO!

 So far... (i'm going to get a lot of haters for this) but I have been feeling great! I'm one of the lucky ones and had a super easy 1st trimester. I never threw up or even got nauseated. I'm so grateful I got my mom's genes! I'm sure I'll make up for it somehow down the road. The bad luck is sure to come around at some point, right? I'll be the poor soul that is in labor for a week! okay, okay... KNOCK ON WOOD!

Anyways, the only thing I can tell is different is how much I sleep. I seriously could wake up from a good nice 8 hour night of rest, eat some Frosted Flakes, (yum) and then climb right back into bed to sleep for another 8 hours. Not even joking. I have been driving my poor husband crazy! When it's finally the weekend and he's all up for a nice date and a movie... Ya, I'm lucky if I'm still awake by 9! I'm such a party pooper! I have such a hard time motivating myself. It takes so much effort to do my hair and get dressed. If I didn't have to get up and go to work I could have easily spent the last 14 weeks in my PJs sleeping, eating, and watching TV. 

Cravings, Oh boy!

 I use to not be very picky with food. Like I could eat whatever, WHENEVER! But now it's so hard to make dinner and decide what to eat. Nothing sounds good. Here are a few things that stick out as super nasty:

Soup-any kind. Even my favorite from Olive Garden. ugh!

Chinese food. Use to be my fav... not anymore!

Enchiladas... the only time I came close to puking is when I made Al's favorite honey,lime, chicken enchiladas. Oh man, the smell was horrible! Even just typing that made me cringe...

Now a few of my recent favorites:

Fruit smoothies! HOLY COW! Jamba Juice has been my friend lately, if you want to be my friend... please bring me a Jamba.

Frosted flakes.

Ham and cheese hot pockets. MMM! One time... I ate 4 in one day. Yep. 

Sour patch kids. Which, I have never liked these until now. It's so weird how your body changes!

and last but not least... A Cripsy chicken sandwhich from Wendy's. It's to die for.

We decided to wait and tell our families on Christmas!! It was so hard to wait. But it made Christmas Day just that much more exciting! 

  

 This is my cute sis opening up the present we gave our family. Everyone was soo excited! :)

My cute Rorie was pretty excited as well :)

We sent Rhy this shirt in his Christmas package. It sure was good to skype him on Christmas! He is such an awesome missionary. It's crazy to think that our baby will be almost 7 months old when he gets home! 

Gpa and Gma Yonk (mostly Gpa) have been bugging us FOREVER to have a kid. They really wanted a "great" grandchild. So we even made a special present for them. 

 Not the best picture. But there wasn't a dry eye in the whole room. Everyone was soo excited!

Grandpa said, "Oh, that's definitely a boy." haha 

This is the shirt I wore all day on Christmas. Now one of my favorite shirts! 

It was so fun to announce to everyone on Christmas! It made it so much more special because everyone we cared most about was there. Al and I have been very blessed to have the two best families ever! and that they both live in the valley is a double bonus! 

It's fun that both Al and I are the oldest child, so this is the first Grandchild on both sides. I can already tell it's going to be a spoiled baby :)

 Just had to throw one more pic of my first child. She's going to be the best big sister ever!

We get to find out the gender soon and I'm DYING with excitement. Al says he wants a boy.... But i secretly think he is hoping for a girl :) he just won't admit it. I would be happy with boy or girl. I just want to find out so I can start shopping!!! But... just intuition or something of that sort is telling me it's a girl. Hmmm... We'll just have to wait and see!!

Home Sweet Home-part1

I have been wanting to do this post FOREVER! I just kept putting it off because I didn't have any of the pics organized. I consider myself a pretty organized person... EXCEPT when it comes to pictures. Ugh. It makes me cringe just to think about how many pictures I have and how they are just scattered everywhere. Even Al mentioned that very soon we should sit down and organize all our pictures on our computer. blah.... sounds like a huge, time consuming project!

Anyways, I finally took the time to go through a few pictures and with the help of my awesome husband, I got together all the pictures of our house remodel thus far.

For those of you who don't know... Al and I bought a house. I remember the day before our wedding (talk about stressful) signing and signing our life away. I remember thinking, "are you sure this is a good idea?"  

Rewind a few months before... Al and I were trying to making the lovely decision of where to live after we were married. Rent? or Buy? A LOT  of people told us it would be a HORRIBLE idea to buy. "Because you never know where life is going to take you." "Especially when you're first newlyweds." "Why? would you want to be stuck with a house?" We heard sooo many opinions! 

 My dad was the one who actually found it the house. He's like pro at house shopping. He knows what to look for and knew a great deal when he saw one. He sent me the link while I was at work and on my lunch break I went and drove passed the house. It didn't look too bad on the outside. I thought it was a pretty cute house! My dad said it was a GREAT price and something we should definitely look into. Al and my dad walked through the house a few days later. They said it was in pretty rough shape. But after discussing our options, we decided to put an offer on it because it really was such a good deal to not pass up. Keep in mind... we put an offer on it before I had even stepped foot in that house. How freaking trusting am I?? haha! I had way too much faith in those boys. ;) All I had seen were just a few pics and the outside when I had driven passed it. I just took my Dad's and husband's word and just jumped on board. Phew! It was a scary jump. 

However, long story short. We bought the house. Al and I both talk and laugh about the feeling we had after coming home from our honeymoon and walking into that house. "OH BOY" pretty much sums it up. It was in pretty bad shape. The biggest thing for me was the smell. The previous owners had 3 BIG dogs inside the house... that were not potty trained. The entire house smelled like pee. :( and well old houses never smell that grand anyways. So a mix of a lot of pee and old house. YUCK! 

Our plan was to remodel everything and make it look purrrdy :) and then turn around a sell it. Hopefully to make enough money off of it to then be able to build our "dream house" We got started right away. I can tell you, it has been A LOT OF WORK! My awesome husband is so handy! I tell ya, there seriously is nothing he can't do! Plus, we have been sooo blessed by the amount of help we have receive. both of our dads have just been rock stars! They have put so much of their time into helping us. Also Alek's friends have been so great to volunteer their time to help. We seriously cant thank them enough!! 

Okay, how about I stop talking and we just marvel at the pictures now?  In the 16 months we have lived in this house we have completed just over half of the house. Well all the big projects are done. Pretty good right?

The very first thing we did, was replace all the windows! 

 First off, check out the awesome wallpaper. Now this was the first window they did. It took them 6 hours!! I remember thinking "if it takes us 6 hours a window.... this is going to take forever!" We have over 15 windows, if I counted right. But once everyone figured out what was going on and got the hang of it, process started moving a bit more quickly! 

We got most of the windows done that weekend and finished up the last few during the week. 

Once the windows were completed, we started on the Living room and what we call the "game" room.  We had to re-mud all the walls and ceilings to cover up the nasty lath and plaster that old homes are built out of. But first, we had to steam off that wonderful wallpaper. 

This is what the living room looked like before-this was even before windows too.

Looks like so much fun right?

Paint!!

Two days before Christmas last year we  got carpet in those two room! Best present EVER! It's so crazy how much paint and carpet will change the look of the room.

The next project was the kitchen. This was the big one! Took FOREVER!

Before:

The demolition:

If you and your spouse can live like this for 3 months and not kill each other... you will be able to get through anything! No joke! It took so much patience to get through that time. Mostly for Al because I was the one going CRAZY. He seriously had to deal with me for 3 months and I'm sure it wasn't the easiest. It was just sooo hard for me. Yes the Kitchen was a disaster but trust me... dirt travels. The ENTIRE house was covered in dust. I remember having nightmares about suffocating in dust. Yes it was THAT bad! We had the microwave in our bedroom and lived off of T.v. dinners and hot pockets and ate out A LOT!  Finally, finally we finished. We got through it! and by looking at the pictures below, you can see that is was oh soooo WORTH IT! 

This summer we started working on the siding. This was a pretty fun project, probably because it was all outside and inside the house wasn't in a disarray. 

Before:

In the process:

My brother, Sis and I had some fun. We talked Syd into squeezing in this box. It was a tight fit but she was a trooper! Skinny minny!

Gads, made me so nervous when they were up that high!!

The finished product:

Pretty sweet huh?! I'm pretty proud of all the work my Al Pal has done! And I am so thankful that I own this house and that we have the opportunity to fix it up. It's been quite the adventure and lots of work/money but its been so much fun to be able to work as a couple with the help of friends and family and get it done! 

We are currently in progress of adding another bathroom upstairs. Then all we have left to do is finished mudding the two bedrooms downstairs and the rest of the bedrooms upstairs, then carpet and a few small, random projects. We should hopefully be done... well our goal is August. (fingers crossed) That will be two years we have lived there! What an accomplishment it will be! :) I will keep you updated as we keep completing projects, so stay tuned!