The Year in Review (2011)

Well, I may be 3 months late posting my year in review for 2011, but this is another tradition I don't want to break, so let's do this thing.

2011 was a big year for us individually and collectively. Here are some major accomplishments from Holly:

*Kissed three different boys (this number may seem low, but remember that I became exclusive with Matt in February)

*Managed to work for the same company (but in two different locations in three different positions) for twelve straight months TWO YEARS IN A ROW (but quit my job two months in to 2012)

*Had five different renters in the area of my house I rent over the course of 2012, in addition to the handsome man moved into the area where I live

*learned the real meaning of love and learned how to be in a healthy/blissful relationship

Major accomplishments/changes for Matt

*went from being in a funk in the beginning of January because I (Holly) had shot him down romantically, to being given a second chance in mid-January, to convincing me to be exclusive with him in February, to persuading me to marry him in April. (typing that makes it sound like it all went by pretty quickly, which really I guess it did, but I felt like I put up quite a fight for quite awhile.)

*worked his same job for the 8th year in a row (he is a lot more stable than I am)

We also fell in love (well, I guess Matt, technically was already in love), planned the best wedding reception ever, got married by Matt's grandpa, had an awesome honeymoon road trip including two nights at a five star hotel in Park City, Six Flags Chicago, a lovely beach trip at Lake Michigan, and visiting my family/second reception in Saginaw, Michigan.

Now I will just quickly share the pictures I've taken throughout the year for the purpose of eventually sharing them on my blog.

We took my three nieces for the weekend (this was pre-wedding) (and a nephew has been added to the group this year)

Matt did a lot of work on the house (pre and post wedding)

I almost bought a convertible, but then didn't (which, ultimately was the best decision). Someday!

I managed to find a wedding dress, which was pretty much the most stressful, tear-inducing thing of my entire life up to that point (for reasons of my mental sanity, I have decided against sharing a picture of the shopping process)

I enjoyed having three awesome wedding showers!!

One with my work friends

(can I also just say that when I started my new job in February of 2011, there were six single teachers and as of today, only one of those people is still single. I am good luck!!)

And a shower by my super awesome sisters-in-law (two of the three hostesses shown here):

And a shower by my sisters and Cousin Sally (which I don't seem to have any photos of).

We got married, which I already told you about.

The flowers I planted in December of 2010 came up beautiful in the spring:

We went to the Crawfish Extravaganza at Ikea (turns out I don't particularly care for crawfish)

We went to the State Fair and ate "Rocky Mountain oysters," frog legs, and alligator. Then we saw Weird Al in concert.

On the one year anniversary of our first date, we got to recreate the whole thing (but with kissing and groping). It was awesome!

Us in 2010:

Us in 2011:

We celebrated our first Halloween together, and although not one single trick-or-treater came to our door, we did have a jack-o-lantern carved and ready to go.

For Thanksgiving, we went with Matt's parents to visit his sister's family in Las Vegas. It was very fun, but not well photographed by me.

I was very excited for Christmas, and put the tree up shortly after Halloween. I've been collecting ornaments for years, but this was my first time putting up my own tree with my own decorations (shown here is the collection of Hallmark ornaments I've been receiving from my friend Jamie for every birthday for more than a decade):For Christmas Eve, we had Matt's parents over for a traditional Scandinavian rice pudding dinner, which was awesome. I had a tiny little sore throat while they were there, which turned into chills and fever (my first ever!) shortly after they left, and eventually evolved into me being sick in bed with a fever of 103 for more than a week, unable to swallow anything without extraordinary pain, causing me to miss Matt's family's Christmas gathering AND my family's New Year's Eve Party AND a week of work, which ended with me in the emergency room because (after giving me two liters of intravenous fluids, pain killers, and antibiotics, then oral steroids, then a chest x-ray) my doctor (who only four days early had told me there was nothing to be done and just go home and suffer) decided I might have blood clots. Well, I didn't have bloods clots, and my fever was down to 99.5 by January 3rd, and I went back to work. (sorry that my sickness/near death ended up being the longest story for 2011!)

So, that was 2011 for the Harkers! Our wonderful first year together! Love! Romance! Weddings! Vacations! Holidays! Everything a girl could want, and more! Stay tuned for more adventures!

Birthday Review

Do you realize that I only blogged FOUR times last year? That is what I call pathetic. (I am, of course, not counting wedding blog entries.) Of those four blogs, one was to announce my engagement, one was to introduce Matt, and one was to announce that I had switched blogs. That leaves only ONE blog with updates about my life and that one was a review of 2010. I guess my personal records for 2011 will just be lost in the sand of times. Except for my wedding stuff, which clearly is the most important thing anyway. Except I am super sad not to have a better record of our courtship. =( But no use crying over spilled milk. Let this be a lesson to us all. I think my life has settled down now and I will hopefully be getting into a routine of blogging and general computer use.

I hate to break my streak of blogging about my birthday (every year since 2007!), so I will take some time to discuss that here.

My birthday was on a Sunday this year, but the celebration started on Wednesday when my work surprised me with a day-long celebration. I walked in to open the office at 7:00am and was greeted by this:

And some super cute preschoolers came and sang to me:

My boss even surprised me with a lunch party for the whole office. To make things even better, Matt called to invite me to lunch that day to celebrate him being done with finals, so I got to invite him to come to the party. It was very lovely, but unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures.

So, all of that was very pleasant and unexpected.

As for my actual birthday, I was super excited to spend it with my husband. But I could never quite decide on what I actually wanted to do the day of, so when my in-laws called and invited us for dinner, I thought that sounded pretty awesome.

The day before my birthday Matt and I stayed up watching movies and around 11pm, I decided that in honor of my birthday, it would be super fun to go to Denny's. I have a not-so-secret love of going to Denny's at midnight and watching the weirdos there. I even worked graveyards at Denny's one summer in college for that very reason. Matt, however, had never taken a late night trip to Denny's. Between the excessive swearers, the insanely pierced, the angry-looking fellow who kept staring at us in an obvious attempt to intimidate us, the awkward double daters, and the extreme PDAers (that one might have been us), and the fact that (in true midnight at Denny's fashion) it took about an hour for us to get our food, the trip did not disappoint. It was everything I had hoped for. Matt, for some reason, did not see the fun in it like I did. Maybe it's just something you have to grow up with (by which I mean "experience in college").

After Denny's we stopped at Walmart to get some stuff to take to my birthday dinner the next day. It also turned into a Christmas shopping trip, since Matt had been working 60-hour weeks and hadn't had time to do non-internet shopping. I was delighted to discover that my sweet, wonderful husband had been keeping a list of everything I said I'd wanted for the past several months (which really was smart of him because I would never think of saying I wanted a tortilla warmer except when I am warming tortillas). He had a very comprehensive list full of things I never would have thought of when asked. We had so much fun shopping together.

When we got home, Matt decided to give me his birthday gift. He pulled out an expertly wrapped maroon box, which since becoming a married woman I have come to recognize as a box containing expensive jewelry from Shane Company. He bought me a BEAUTIFUL gold chain!

It was the perfect perfect perfect gift because two years ago, I really wanted a gold chain for Christmas, but my boyfriend at the time couldn't be bothered to go buy me one, so I bought myself one as a reminder that I couldn't bank of anyone else taking care of me and needed to take care of myself (you might remember me telling the story here. Wow! That post is AWESOME to read, knowing where I am now and remembering where I was. Everything I hoped for happened!). It is so so nice to have a man who really really wants to take care of me now. To me, the necklace was a great, tangible, symbol of that. Plus, the gift was especially perfect because there's a lifetime warranty if it breaks, and I have a tendency to break things (the necklace mentioned in the blog post above actually broke twice before I gave up on it). I love my husband!!

On my actual birthday, I got to wake up to this:

It was my first time waking up next to this studly man on my birthday, so I took a picture (good thing I sleep with my phone under my pillow). We went to church, taught our Primary class, took a nap, and then went to Matt's parents' for dinner. As always, it was a delightful evening with the best in-laws imaginable. They even bought me a birthday cake from the same bakery that did our wedding cake!

It was very fancy! And they even remembered my love of mint/chocolate combos. And the artist was clever and added holly leaves to the edging. I love when people do that. I have loved reading my birthday post from last year and compare it to this year. As hopeful and optimistic as I was, I never would have guessed things would work out so perfectly or so quickly. It is CRAZY how much can change in 12 months. My 31st year really was the best one ever. This year, I for sure am going to do a better job recording life as it happens. Especially because I'm pretty optimistic that 32 is somehow going to be even better.

Wedding Memories

Hi! I got married! And then I stopped blogging. Actually, I guess I had stopped blogging a little before I got married. Actually, I guess it was before I even starting dating Matt. Yikes! Anyhoo, I've been absent from blogging for awhile because 1) I have a new job (I started in February, sorry I didn't blog about that) so I don't have computer access at work, 2) now that I'm married, all I want to do is sit around and look at my husband (he is very dreamy) 3) I realize that the first thing I need to blog about is our wedding day, and I feel completely overwhelmed about trying to share the wonderfulness of that day. BUT! I am feeling inspired. Also, Matt is busy talking to his parents about what to do with the internet in their various houses, and I'm not qualified to be involved in the conversation, so I have some free time.

Instead of giving a play-by-play description of the day, I've decided to just share my favorite memories of the day and some of my favorite pictures. I will not bother myself with trying to put my memories in chronological order.



My wedding day was perfect. Just what I wanted, only somehow even better. Just perfect.

(like this picture. isn't this picture perfect?)

I remember waking up in the morning in my bed with my mom and it was the perfect morning and the sun was shining right on my face and I could not believe it was actually my wedding day. And everyone all day was so wonderful and supportive. My mom and Aunt Kathleen (who had come from Eastern Colorado) and friends Jamie (who came all the way from St. Louis) and Kate (who came all the way from Washington DC) went to the reception center first thing in the morning and worked to make things perfect.

(My totally awesome friends)

Since the reception decorators had my car, Corina drove me to get my hair done. It was awesome transforming myself into the pretty pretty princess. And I really did feel very beautiful all day, which I consider a tender mercy from the Lord because I had been feeling very unattractive leading up to the big day. But my prayers were answered and I felt very beautiful all day long.

(so glad I decided to go with a professional. my hair turned out perfect!!)

I remember showing up at the reception and my family and friends had taken care of everything and it was perfect. (My wonderful sister Heather, to whom I will be eternally indebted, had taken over all wedding planning several days before the big day when I became overwhelmed. I hadn't had to think about it for all that time and it still turned out perfect.) (Favorite engagement advice from Heather, "You spend all this time and energy getting everything perfect for your wedding day, but when the smoke clears and the guests leave, you realize that BEING married is easy compared to GETTING married." Very true.)

So many people love us!!!

My incredible sisters!!!

When I walked into the sealing room and all my family and friends were there and I was GETTING MARRIED, I was so overwhelmed that I just started crying and crying and crying. I just couldn't believe that I was actually GETTING MARRIED. (Matt told me several months later that he thought I was freaking out and wanted to change my mind, but he figured it was too late for me to get out of it. But he was wrong. I was just overwhelmed with the overwhelming wonderfulness of it.) When I didn't get my crying under control right away, my mom told me to take a deep breath to calm down. I thought to myself, "Yeah right, like that actually helps," but I did it and -- lo and behold!-- it helped! I calmed down and was able to enjoy the ceremony. (Did I mention that Matt's grandpa performed the ceremony?)




During the ceremony, at one point I noticed that my cheeks starting aching (like a lot) because I was smiling so big for so long, but I couldn't (and didn't want to) stop.


My nieces were SOOOO excited all day. All three all ran right up to me when Matt and I walked out of the temple (you can totally see them in most of the right-outside-the-temple pictures). An especially favorite niece moment was when we were doing the garter-- I sat down and Matt went to the DJ stand and gave a nice speech about how he had caught the garter I was wearing at a wedding during the time we weren't date because I'd turned him down for another man. When he caught it, he just thought of me and was sad that he couldn't be winning me over. (isn't that super sweet?). While he was making his heartwarming speech, my niece Ashley (probably seeing me alone for the first time all day), ran up to me and yelled, "Aunt Holly! I found a snail yesterday!!!" I said, "Now's not a good time, I'll talk to you later," but she just kept yelling over and over again (as if I did not understand the importance and significance of the event) "BUT I FOUND A SNAIL YESTERDAY!!! I FOUND A SNAIL YESTERDAY!!!" So cute.



One of my favorite memories during the day was slow dancing with Matt during the reception. It wasn't our "first dance" but an impromptu dance later to the song "Giving Up" which sounds like it would be a depressing song, but it actually really touchingly wonderful about finding someone and deciding you love them so much you want to stop looking for someone better and stop worrying that things might not be perfect. It was a song that I thought of a lot when I first starting date Matt, so it had emotional meaning, but mostly the moment was so perfect because it was a lovely few moments with Matt with no one watching (or at least it seemed that way) at the reception when it seemed like it was just us and it was romantic and perfect.



I'd always thought that receptions were sort of a drag and something you just had to do (which, coincidentally is what I'd always thought about marriage too before Matt), but ours was SO MUCH FUN. Even for us! It was totally a party! I think everyone had a good time. We had hot dogs, baked beans, pasta salad, chips, and watermelon. There were mocktails (non-alcoholic cocktails, for those of you not "in the know"). The centerpieces were colorful mini-beach buckets of Skittles and Starbursts with balloons tied to them. Bubble machines were going full-blast at the entrance. There was sidewalk art everywhere. We had a make-your-own-s'more station with a real fire pit. It was perfect! One fella I didn't know said to me that the hot dogs were better than steak. And my mission trainer said it was the best day of her three-year old daughter's life. A preschool student at my school who was there (I'm friends with his parents) still talks about it almost every day, four months later. It was fun! I was actually a little sad to leave. In fact, after we left and Matt had to sneak back in to get his shoes, I was telling his sister Meredith a super funny story, and Matt had to actually lift one of my feet into the car so we could leave. THAT's how much fun I was having (especially impressive considering how excited I was to start the honeymoon).

Smores!!!

my nieces enjoying the reception. also, a good view of the inside decorations

Thanks to Cousin Brian and Brother-in-law Jason for manning the grills!!!

Isn't our cake awesome! I totally stole the design and flavor from the reception where we met. It was partially a tribute, and largely because it was SUCH A GOOD CAKE. Matt's parents bought it for us. It was SOOOOO tasty.

Mocktails!!
I love the Martinelli's dressed like a bride and groom that was a gift from my boss Cindee. We still have them in our kitchen.

FAVORITE STORY ALERT!!!!
Okay, here's the funny story from above. The day before the wedding, we had a casual get-t0-know you dinner with family and close friends while we worked on decorating the reception venue. Matt's sister Missy was busy making a tree outside totally glamorous and beautiful, which required the use of a ladder.



I was inside sitting at a table with some friends when Matt's 10-year old nephew Mitchell ran up to and yelled, "Where's the pinata?!!!!" I said there wasn't a pinata. His confusion and disgust were obvious in his voice when he replied, "No pinata?!!!! Then WHAT is the point of having a ladder?!!!" Of course, we all thought this was hilarious. The best part is that the next morning, Jamie and Kate actually went and bought one. It was awesome. And it totally made the party. My only regret is that I hadn't thought of it myself. Good job Mitchell!

Kate with pinata

Corina helping with the incredibly awesome pinata celebration

Second favorite Mitchell quote of the day: "You said there would be two bubble machines, but there is only ONE bubble machine!!!" (I checked, there were, in fact, two.)

After the family photos right after the ceremony, I was starting to get a little overwhelmed with everything and everyone. Our wise and talented photographer Candice Andrus sent us off to be alone and recharge for awhile. It was so wonderful to have those few moments alone with Matt and just bask in our wedded-ness. Also, Candice got some really beautiful candid shots of us during that time.




Also, my sister Ann, knowing how I get when I haven't eaten in too long (although I DID try to plan well and avoid this) sent my brothers to bring me back a hamburger, which helped A LOT. Also, she had the foresight to tell them to order one without ketchup or mustard (because I can be a messy eater).





I wanted something fun for when Matt and I left the reception, but I thought bubbles were a bit overdone. Sparkler's were my next thought, but in addition to being a logistical nightmare, it wasn't dark when we left at 9pm. Eventually, the perfect answer struck me: pom poms. People doubted me (including Matt, but he was wise enough not to say anything until he simultaneously admitted he was wrong). Just because they'd never seen it done before. But it was perfect! Totally perfect. I don't know why more people don't do that.



You want to hear something weird? I didn't feel any different after the wedding. I thought I'd experience some sort of "twinkle" or something, but I didn't. It wasn't a disappointing feeling, I was just surprised. After a few weeks of being married to Matt though, I figured it out. It's because being married to Matt is the most normal, natural thing ever. We didn't have a transitional or readjusting period. Right away we both just felt like we'd been married forever and couldn't remember what it was like to not be married. I think I didn't feel different after getting married because it wasn't a "new" thing to me, it was like finally being what I had always been meant to be.

I am so so so glad I married this man!