First christmas!

Well this christmas was our first as newlyweds and it was a blast. We are blessed to have such wonderful family and friends.  We spent our day waking up early to read the story of Christ before opening presents. Josh spoiled me rotten. He sure likes to tease! He hid a present he knew I really wanted until later in the day and wrapped an empty box to trick me! 

We then headed to brunch with my family and to see my grandma. Christmas breakfast is especially fun with little nieces and nephews! 

After we headed to Josh's family party at the Edwards full of food, basketball, games and presents it was a blast! And here is our picture for our cousin sister Meyer in Bermuda. 

I'm just so grateful for a wonderful christmas with our families. Will be moving to Texas [and graduating!!] in four short months! Scary but exciting. This may be our last christmas living in salt lake for awhile. Our families sure made it special. Thanks everyone!

Couldn't resist, merry kissmas!

Merry Christmas

I just love this time of year. So many thoughts recently about Christ and the true meaning of Christmas. I love this quote from Neil A Maxwell: "Each of us is an inn keeper who decides if we let Jesus in." When Christ came there were many who could not see who stood rightin front  of them. Even many religious scholars who had been searching for Christ could not see Him. He was the savior they'd been looking for but because he did not come the way they had expected and He didn't agree with all of their teachings they turned their hearts away.

It seems crazy to me that people couldn't see Christ for who He was when he came.  I was reminded from Elder Uchtdorf's Christmas devotional talk 2009, what are things in our lives keeping us from seeing Christ? Worldly knowledge? Social media? Slothfulness? I know their are so many things I can work on and many weaknesses that can becomes strengths to me through the power of the atonement. Truly the greatest gift. 

Josh and I have been busy with family this Christmas season. We feel so blessed to have such wonderful people in our lives. 

We were able to go on a double date with Josh's brother Matt & his wife Amanda. 

We were able to attend Grandma Robert's annual Christmas party. Here we are with Santa (He told me he'd try to get me a puppy- fingers crossed!)!

We were able to visit my sweet grandma Pickett. She has been through much lately. Please keep her in your prayers. They are considering placing her in hospice. I'm so grateful she was able to meet my wonderful husband and for all my cherished memories with her. 

We brought her a Christmas card and cookies for her and to pass around to all her friends at the rest home. We met some of the sweetest folk. It felt wonderful to see the smile on their faces from our visit!

And temple square with part (a few were greatly missed!) of my amazing family! 

The salt lake temple is beautiful! Every time I come here I find a special peace and also am reminded of my favorite day, my wedding day! I will miss seeing this temple almost every day once we move to Dallas. We are so blessed to have many temples surrounding us here in Utah. 

Merry Christmas everyone I hope it's full of family, love & Christ.

Happy Holidays All (:

Well I'm sorry it has been so long!  The Hadley blog is back up and running!  Josh & I have had a busy semester - that thank heavens is over!  One more semester to go until graduation.  I can't believe it!  So exciting.  Here is the update for now:

Josh has been working on his own business, software as a service.  He has been dedicated to starting it up and all the hard work is paying off.  It has become our little project together I love it.

I have been busy teaching and going to school.  I start my students teaching this coming semester at the University of Utah lab school.  Should be exciting!

Great news - as of September we have 2 new nephews!!! Luke & Roren.  They are both just the cutest things in the world.  Luke has been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis and he is a fighter! Keep him in your prayers.  Couldn't ask for better nephews!

Roren & his big sister

Luke & his big brother.

Josh has accepted his offer from American Airlines so after graduation we are headed back to Dallas.  Mixed emotions, mostly excited... (:  I'm so proud of all of Josh's hard work.  American airlines sure is lucky to have him.  We are sure going to miss being around our families so often.  We have spent a lot of time with them this christmas season!

Ogden City Lights with the Edward's side!

Gingerbread building with the Pearson's!

Temple square with this handsome man.

Can't believe we stood here 9 months ago getting married!

We are excited for these next few months at home before jetting off to our next adventure!  Stay posted for more (:

October fun (:

I am so proud of Josh and all his many accomplishments throughout his college career!  This last thursday Josh was asked to be the speaker at the Eccles scholarship luncheon [a scholarship he has received the last 2 years].  It was an honor for them to choose him out of the hundreds plus potential candidates.  It shows how well known he is in the University of Utah community.  Here is the link to his awesome speech it's worth watching (:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpu7PAA2KsY

We have been very busy with school and life in general.  It is now our favorite time of year.  Conference time!  If you're interested our prophet and various other auxiliary church member will be speaking this saturday at 10am & 2pm and sunday 10am & 2pm.  It will be online, TV & radio!

Thanks to grandma Hadley I was able to go to the conference center for the Women's conference with my mom!  Wonderful messages shared!

Our new home sweet home (:

So Josh and I have officially moved to Salt Lake to the U married student housing!  We are so excited!  Thank you to everyone who helped us move in this last week.  It is still under construction decorating inside but I took some pictures to share anyways.. Hope you enjoy!  That was basically the extent of our weekend moving and of course the Holy War.. Go Utes!! (:

first place together (:

here is our living room, pictures not hung yet!

Our first little couch (:

More to come later! I'm trying to keep Josh and I's blog up to date with our lives in Salt Lake so keep checking back!

Cruising ⚓ & home sweet home

Hi friends! Sorry for the late post! We have officially made it back to utah and have been playing catch up in school! 

We had a blast on our cruise! We left from Jacksonville Florida on the carnival fascination! 

We spent the first day at sea. It's an incredible feeling to be outside and only see ocean around you on every side! 

We spent our day playing cards, reading, relaxing and joining the various activities and shows provided by carnival. 

Here we are at the comedy show! 

Here we are at dinner in the "Imagination Dining Room" our original dinner time was scheduled too late so we got it switched. So glad we did! We were moved to a table that had another LDS couple who were attending byu so we ended up playing games with the four of us and attending shows together it was a lot of fun! 

Here we are at the 21 and older  "Serenity" area ( yes I just barely fulfill the age requirement!) we loved to read here and watch the ocean. 

Last but not least here is our silly Bon voyage picture from day one (:

Day two we arrived at carnival's private island Half Moon Cay. Absolutely incredible. White soft sand and turquoise clear water! Our favorite activity here was snorkeling. We saw so many fish! We saw a huge school of fish with hundreds of them together that would quickly part if anyone got too close! In the middle of them much to our surprise was a giant barracuda! 

He was at least three feet long and you could see his giant teeth! It was terrifying! 

After spending our day snorkeling in the overcast it started pouring rain with thunder and lighting dangerously close to us so we were all evacuated and had to return to the ship ):

Snorkel!

The water! 

Back to ship): 

It's okay though! We spent our night at dinner with our friends and playing games. We also discovered our comfy robes and towel animals! 

Day 3 we ported in Nassau Bahamas. Also incredible and full of history! 

 

Nassau was amazing. They are celebrating forty years of independence! We spent our morning exploring town and shopping for souvenirs! They have carriage rides that reminded us of home sweet home temple square! 

After exploring town we headed to the famous "Atlantis" hotel.

 They have a Michael Jackson sweet there that he apparently stayed in. If you're curious rates start in that room for $25,000 a night with a minimum of 5 nights. Crazy! The hotel is beautiful. There are pools of sting rays and sharks swimming throughout all the walkways. 

They also have a pretty cool aquarium we went through. After Atlantis it was beach time! All of the excursions were shut down due to weather ): but we were still able to play in the beautiful ocean! 

Josh had a blast playing in the waves. He's so funny he's like a kid at Christmas in the water! 

Once again an incredible beach. We played there all afternoon (: 

Back to the ship for the night! That night there was a "Hasbro Game Show" (Hasbro is the company that makes all the games like monopoly Yahtzee etc) and our Joshua got to participate!! His team was shooting basketballs into a giant connect 4. He made some key shots! 

His team won so he got to choose a monopoly piece to put into this machine (he chose the dog, I'm rubbing off on him!) whichever piece ended up being worth the most cash was the winner. Josh's dog was almost the winner! But not quite. So we got to take home a 20$ Hasbro gift card and monopoly card game. So fun (: 

On stage! (In purple) 

Winner winner with the host! 

It was a very fun night!

Day four we were on the water again so another relaxing day of games with our friends, reading, and of course, food! I think being able to go get however much food we wanted and whenever was one of our favorite parts! 

We also loved seeing the beautiful sunset from the boat every night. 

And all the towel animals we tried to collect! 

Sadly day five we had to go home ): we ported back in Jacksonville. We had a "random immigration screening" we were required to go to so we ended up first off the ship. We ran into trouble in Florida! Josh's flight benefits had been taken off a day too soon so we couldn't get our boarding passes at the airport until he made several phone calls! But we finally were able to fly back to dallas! 

Once in dallas we visited American airline head quarters and picked up our stuff and hit the road for utah! Long drive!! We stopped in Denver and stayed with some friends of mine for the night then the next day from their recommendation had lunch in Vail, CO. It's beautiful it's like another park city but prettier! 

20 + hours later in the car and we made it to Utah! Oh home sweet so home!! So grateful to be back. And we made it just in time to go see my new nephew Luke who was born! 

Josh and I have had an incredible summer full of fun and adventure. We'd like to thank all of our family and friends for their support and keeping up with us on our blog! As I mentioned josh received  an offer so we will keep you posted on if he takes the job and we head again to Texas. 

We are back in salt lake for the school year and I will still be updating our blog during our last 2 semesters at school so keep checking (: we love you all! 

Congrats Matt and Amanda!