Post-Christmas Happiness

Merry Christmas, everyone! Yes, that was a few days ago, I know. I can't believe that Austin and I have been married five months! It seems both like we just got married and that we've been together for a long time. We have so much fun together-I love it.

Right now we are in the land of Katy, Texas, where Austin's family lives. They actually lived here for several years, then moved to Oklahoma (at the same time as my family, actually) and moved back to Katy just this summer. We were here for a week right before school starts, and let me say, the temperatures are much better in December. While everyone else is having blizzards, we barely need jackets.

I am having a lot of fun with the Miller family during this holiday break. We have watched a lot of movies together in the media room, played video games and board games, gone shopping, and had lots of fun. Right when we got into town, we went to Cici's Pizza. Austin's family has been eating there for every Saturday for more than ten years; it has a lot of meaning for them. My favorite pizza there is the one the family special orders-alfredo with pepperoni and pineapple. It sounds gross, but it is really really good. It is fun to be included in this family tradition of eating too much pizza and then looking at all the video games there.

After that was my new brother Darrik's birthday. We got him a book on Zombies (brothers are so fun). Can you guess what his other presents were?

Christmas week a lot of the other family members went shopping, though Austin and I had already gotten our presents for everyone so we spent a lot of time at home. With original mario and DDR, anime, no school and lots of yummy food here, I can't say that I minded at all.

One of the Miller family traditions (aside from watching tons of Christmas movies) is filming the opening of Christmas presents that morning, and also watching the highlights of all the previous' years' videos on Christmas eve. It is really funny watching the four miller boys opening presents each year, and watching them grow up. Austin asked what is was like for Christmas morning with girls, and I said it was basically the same but with less bodily function humor and more Barbies.

On Christmas, Santa gave me a sweet new laptop, which I am writing this blog post on. This was way nice as my old computer died at the beginning of last semester, and while I was using an old computer of the Millers, it is nice to actually be able to open documents from my professors (and have a bigger screen for watching Rurouni Kenshin). It was a very fun and enjoyable. Growing up, my family drove around a lot on Christmas (visiting three different families) and even though I loved it and miss my extended family, having a slower pace is rather fun.

For the last few weeks I have been working like crazy to finish Austin's surprise Christmas gift-BYU recently acquired a machine that prints and binds your own books, so I compiled all of mine and Austin's emails, all the way from freshman year until right before we got married. We emailed a lot, so it took a lot of time, but it was worth it. I hope we will enjoy reading it for many years to come.

My birthday is tomorrow, and Austin has some kind of surprise for me. I can't wait to find out what it is!!!

This is me wearing my new flannel shirt from Austin (yes, I really wanted a flannel shirt for Christmas) and my new headband from accessories shopping with my mother-in-law and Rachel. I know they don't exactly go together, but I love them both. Austin is just there to look cute :)

Everyone has trials, but my life is better for this wonderful person that I am married to. I am excited for this new year to share with him!

-Katie

For those of you who have been to BYU, this is Austin's interpretation of the Karl G. Maeser statue :)

Feliz Dia de Halloween

As you can tell, Katie and I carved a pumpkin. It was our activity for Family Home Evening on Monday night. We had forgotten to buy any carving knives but we made it through anyway with kitchen knives. Katie delighted herself in the de-boweling of the pumpkin and scraping its inards. In case you have a hard time reading the pumpkin, it has the letter 'A', the letter 'K', and a little heart. Pumpkin: 9 cents a pound. Carving love messages into a pumpkin: I charge $10 (that's a joke).

On Wednesday night, the 28th, Katie and I went to the Social Dance lab because I am in Social Dance 180 and thus was required to go. And since Katie loves dancing and I would much rather dance with her than any other woman, she came, too. We had such a fun time dancing the waltz, foxtrot, and cha-cha.

Tonight, Friday the 30th, our ward had a Halloween Party. Originally it was going to be a trunk-or-treat: classic LDS family ward tradition so that parents can take their kids trick-or-treating in a safe environment without having to walk very far. So that is like a win-win-win situation, right? Well, unfortunately, Utah weather disagreed with out idea so the ward moved the activity inside since it was too cold (particularly for the children). Katie was a Newsie although she looks like she could be the Newsies' attorney. I am wearing a homemade costume that was made 7 years or so ago by my mother; isn't she amazing? I was Legolas from Lord of the Rings. I have been wearing my cloak to school everyday since Wednesday. I get the ugliest looks, like I were a child rapist or something. Someone actually yelled to me, "Go back to Azkaban, freak." Don't worry, it isn't as bad as it sounds; I know who yelled it, he was just kidding....I hope. Anyway, back to the Halloween party: so as we walked in, I was asked to help with the children games. Little did they (or I) know, I was soon to be labeled as villain and I would also soon have 7 knee-height midget superheroes attacking me, ranging from Wolverine to Spiderman to Indian Jones. Even Ariel the Mermaid had her fair shot at me. I love playing with children. There were several really cute kids in costumes.

Katie and I are both really tired and need to get some sleep. But first, we are going to watch some Cardcaptor Sakura and Rurouni Kenshin. Yay anime ^_^.

We're so happy on our little piece of bread...

Today is our three-month marriage anniversary. Yes, we are aware that it's not very long, though time has passed quickly for us. In less than a month is the 1-year anniversary of when we offically started dating, which will be way exciting. Here are some pictures of what we've been doing lately...

These are of us using the chopsticks that we got as a wedding present from our friend Amy. There's an inside joke about chopsticks from our freshman days, but I won't tell it now...

Austin and I love to cook together,

and try out new recipes. One night we made barbeque chicken pizza- it was really really good. Just shredded cooked chicken, cheddar cheese, bbq sauce and apple slices on homemade pizza crust. One of my new favorite foods to eat!

In an attempt to be more crafty, I decided to make the ruffle headband featured on http://heart-of-light.blogspot.com/ My mom and I worked on it together during General Conference this year. I was happy to have my parents come out to visit us in Utah this year; as we'll be spending our first Christmas together with Austin's family in Katy, Texas.

My sister, who also likes the headbands on the aforementioned website, decided to make some as well. We had a marvellous time the other day going to Joann's Fabric store to pick out fabric and other crafty things together. I haven't put time into making my headband yet, but Sarah already made a belt version of the Rosebud headband for me. It looks awesome, and she is so cool she decided to give it to me! I can't wait to make my own version of the headband.

Other than that, Austin and I keep busy with school and church out here. We just were called to be primary teachers for the seven-year-old class. It's going to be an interesting experience. Some of the things we have done lately:

-go to the temple with my old roommate Aubrey and her husband Russell

-attend BYU's Lost and Found Sale (where Austin and I each spent nine dollars on new clothes...we're awesome like that.)

-make amazing desserts from scratch

-introducing Austin to classic musicals, such as Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

-take lots of tests

-an afternoon of me playing Boggle with my sister in law Rachel and Austin and his brother playing Halo/Batman games

-General/Stake Conference

Yeah, we don't get out much, but hopefully we'll do more when we don't have so many finals. I had two midterms this week and big presentation, and Austin also had two tests. Hopefully things slow down soon!

Other than that, we are very happy.

-Katie

Corn is no place for a mighty warrior....but Corn Bread is!

I think laughing has serious medicinal and verifiably pharmaceutical effects. Friday night (11 Sept 2009) was the BYU Fall Fest. I have gone every year but I never remembered so many people attending! Then again, what else do you expect when free pizza is offered on a college campus? None other than full-fledged stampeding. I think some people even wore their soccer cleats just to get better traction and get to the food faster. So Katie and I decided it was not worth waiting in line after hundreds of people for a slice of pizza. However, we did go to the Laugh Out Loud (LOL) show. LOL is an improvisational comedy club; for those unfamiliar with it, imagine "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" but much cleaner and yet still spleen-splittingly hilarious. Katie and I both thoroughly enjoyed it.

Today (12/9/09) was the Opening Social in Wymount Appartments. Katie and I volunteered to run the Kids Prize section for an hour. It was fun handing out balloons and the such; little children are really cute, or even older, less-young children are still fun. After we were released from duty, we ate some hot dogs that were delicious.

Katie and I had leftover ground beef for dinner today; it was delicious. We have lots because yesterday, Friday, we made spaghetti for dinner. We had cooked 1 pound of ground beef for some reason....I think we are just both bad judges of quantity of food. So we had lots of leftover. But then Katie also made some corn bread for dinner that was absoultely amazing! By far, the best corn bread I have ever had; no ordinary, mundane corn bread is worthy of its presence. Furthermore, it is so good Katie's corn bread is INDEED a place for a might warrior. It has transcended the heed for honey-butter. You get the picture: it was good. ^_^ Cooking together has always been fun. It is quite the experience to cook together.

Besides all that, things have been relatively quiet around here. We have been doing a lot of homework and watching anime. We are introducing one another to our own favorite anime: Katie is having us watch Card Captor Sakura and I have introducing Katie to Rurouni Kenshin. For now, we are both just settling into the flow of school. Isn't life grand? We are truly blessed to be alive, as I am blessed to be with her.

Wedding Pictures..on facebook

Since I'm rather exhausted from updating wedding photos everywhere, here are the links to my facebook albums. Don't worry, you don't have to own a facebook account to view them.

Pictures from the Temple:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2286173&id=17809652&l=0261ae87ff

Pictures from Forest Park:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2286403&id=17809652&l=4738b521df

Pictures from the reception:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2286407&id=17809652&l=09b74ac344

Give me a few days, and then I'll update everyone to what we've been doing in the nearly two months since our wedding. Ciao!

So, Austin and I are back in Oklahoma. We have been married almost four weeks (tomorrow) and we still like each other :) So I figure things are going well. We will be driving out to utah in just a few days to start school, but for now we're just relaxing with my parents. It is really exciting that in about a week, we will have our very own apartment all to ourselves! Tonight, we cooked our very first meal together as a married couple. We made a Pasta Chicken Lemon Toss that was pretty good.

For the listening pleasure of those who were not able to attend the wedding, and to get an idea of our thoughts, Austin and I thought we'd blog about our actual wedding day. It may take me a blog or two, and I don't have the professional pictures on my computer so Austin will have to post those, but hopefully it will be of interest to some of you.

July 18th, 2009

7:30ish am Though I start my day here, I should point out that my dear friends, Amy, Ali, and Jen were all staying at my mom's aunt sharon's house (who is really cool) having a last girl's night together, and we didn't go to bed until around 2am. Then I laid awake for the next several hours. I'm not sure how much I slept...it didn't seem like at all. I wasn't nervous exactly; the anticipation simply kept my mind too busy for sleep. Despite my brain buzzing, at seven thirty I was still a bit sluggish and had trouble finding clothes in my suitcase and getting ready. Soon enough, though, I was wide awake and was ready to head over to the hairdresser. My hair turned out really cute. My sister was with me, getting her hair done. After lots of racing around, going back and forth, getting my wedding dress, temple clothes, and other necessary items for the day, Dad, Jen and I drove to the temple. Austin and those few people attending the Temple ceremony would meet us there.

10:40am Despite often running late in my life, I want to point out that I was early to getting to the temple, and meeting Austin there. The people who work at the temple are so nice and so excited for you. Austin arrived, and then we were whisked away to change for the wedding. In the temple you don't do the whole not-seeing each other thing before the ceremony. Which is good because it was nice to be waiting with Austin. There we were sitting in this little waiting room for everyone else to arrive, and my stomach is doing a bit of gurgling which I'm sure was just nerves over this huge step that we were about to take. I was thinking, "okay, one minute I'm not going to be married, and then I will be married. WEIRD." There were two older ladies in the room who talked with us for a bit and then chatted to each other. Austin and I talked some, but really, what was there to talk about? Then someone came in and asked if we minded starting early, since everyone was already there. It was like wait, now? Go get married right this second? I think my heart started pounding then (and continued to for the next 15 minutes) but I knew it would be okay.

12:00 noon (or a little earlier) People probably wonder a lot about what goes on in the temple. While I can't relate certain details because the temple deals with very sacred things, I will say that not a lot actually happens. We were given marriage advice by the temple sealer, though honestly Austin and I don't remember a lot of what he said...the day was very overwhelming. We shall have to try and remember what advice he gave us. Then we very simply made covenants with God in our marriage and made promises to each other as husband and wife. Then Austin and I kissed, and Austin jokingly said, "Ew..." He was kidding (I think). Then we spent some quiet time together in the temple, simply being married. It was wonderful, but very strange. We were married? Then we ran into my old college roommate Rachel and her fiance Felipe in the temple (they were married a week later)! It was wonderful to see her there, particularly on such a special day.
Then Austin and I went to change into our clothes that we would take pictures in and wear to the reception. For the temple I needed a simple white dress, but the dress I wore to the temple was a bit fancier. It had beautiful crystal and embroidery on it. Standing in the bride's room in the temple, putting my dress on, getting ready, was rather surreal, something I had been waiting my whole life to do. I was excited to get out there and see all my friends and family who were waiting to congratulate us, but I also wanted Austin to see me. We had been joking for months about the dress I had bought back in March that he had never seen a glimpse of, and how I was afraid it would be anti-climatic after all those months. When I came down from the dressing room, however, Austin looked at me and smiled and it was perfect. He held bobby pins for my mom while she put my veil in, and we got ready for our grand exit from the Temple!

Okay, tune in next time for some pictures and the rest of the day! I will be much briefer in the next portion; in fact, I think parts of it I will simply tell in picture.

3 Week Anniversary!

This is Austin, reporting live from the Miller household in Katy, Texas. I can't believe that we have been married for three weeks already. It still seems as if we were married yesterday. My life is completely different and yet it still feels the same. Now that I am with Katie forever, I can't imagine my life any other way. We have so much fun together! And a wonderful part of being married is that I don't have to say goodbye at night and wait until the next day to see her. So in short, being married is amazing. You probably all think that I am just in that "honeymoon phase" that will wear out after a year or so. I think love that waxes cold is the saddest thing; perhaps mine and Katie's love with evolve or change, but I hope with all my heart that it will never grow dim. I'll do all I can so my love for her doesn't :)

Hopefully Katie hasn't been too bored here in Texas. I am pretty bored of the weather. I know you guys probably will not believe me, but I am excited to be back in Utah. Here in Texas, it is 97 degrees farenheit, but the 95% humidity, the heat index is up to 105 degrees, in the SHADE. In sunlight, the heat index is upward of 123 degrees Farenheit. Katie and I thought it would be a fun activity to try and bake muffins by leaving them in my car during the day, sort of like a slow cook oven.

I received my pell grant today. To be honest, I still feel slightly bad for taking government money. Does anybody else know what I am talking about? I feel almost...guilty for just getting $5,350 for doing nothing. If we look at it technically, I guess it is Uncle Sam's wedding gift for us. That money is not coming from nowhere; in fact, if we are extremely technical, it is like all of you paid us that money because pell grants come from tax dollars. So I thank all of you for paying your taxes so that we can afford school without goig into 7 years of servitude. I feel indebted and I want to pay back; I want to be rich so I can give lots of money to poor couples and people who need money. That would be so fulfilling.

Anywho, I am going to go get some lunch. Cheerio (and Frosted Flakes, for good measure).

Post-Wedding Life

Welcome to the new blog of Katie and Austin Miller. So that we still maintain our inviduality (For you, Muscle Mike), we will be doing indivdual postings, but this way our friends don't have to hear the same stories twice. I'd like to think we are more entertaining together than we are apart, but for now, we'll see.

We have been married about two and a half weeks, and I suppose we're not acting too sickly-sweet newlywed like, because someone asked us how long we had been married and they were surprised. On the other hand, the people at the bank thought we were really young to be married (though it wasn't so bad when they found out we were older than we looked).

It's interesting, because Austin and I have talked about it and we both feel like we've been together longer than just a couple weeks. Time has gone by fast. In the last few weeks we have been in Missouri, Oklahoma, California, and Texas. After the wedding in St.Louis, we drove to Stillwater, Oklahoma, then had our honeymoon in Newport Beach, California, then helped Austin's family move from Oklahoma to Texas. It has been a lot of fun getting to know Austin's family. We've been bowling twice and we play video games and are all anxious to get access to the neighborhood pool.

We will be in Texas for another few days, then we will be heading up to Oklahoma to spend a few days with my parents before making the long drive out to Utah to start another year at BYU.

Sometime soon we will post more details/pictures about the wedding and California, but this is good enough for now, I think.

-Katie

Kind of Like Salvador Dali...(he's a surrealist, get it?)

So...I know pretty much everyone already knows, but...I'm getting married! I'm really excited, if you can't tell. I figured I might as well tell the story in my own words here, since most people are hearing it secondhand.

Austin and I have been officially dating four months! Or as he calls it, our 1/3 anniversary :)

Despite that short amount of time, we've actually known each other for quite a bit longer. We were in the same ward our freshman year at BYU, and then at the end of the year he went off to Chile to serve as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I was kinda bummed that one of my best friends was going to be gone for two years, but I was so proud of him. This last summer, he came back to the United States and adjusted to non-missionary life. Despite the fact that I'd liked him for the past few years, and we went on lots of dates, we still took awhile to finally get together. Things have been fantastic and we couldn't be happier.

About a week ago, we decided to go to the Draper Temple Open House, where the public can tour the temple before it is dedicated, after which only worthy members can enter. It is one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen; the rooms are white, and this temple had wooden benches and paneling, and tons of gorgeous lighting fixtures and chandeliers. Every single room I would stare at the ceiling and say, "oooh, pretty." During the tour, we stopped in one of the sealing rooms, a room in the temple where couples are married. We sat down in a row of chairs while listening to someone talk to us about the sacredness of temple marriages; it was a very spiritual moment for everyone and also a very personal moment for Austin and I; apparently we were thinking the same thing, only I didn't realize it at the time.

People start leaving the room at this point, but we're not leaving! On the drive up to Draper, I had asked Austin, "So, where are you planning on living next year?" "Oh, I'm still figuring that out..." So while everyone else is leaving the sealing room, Austin leans over to me and says, "Actually, I lied earlier. I know where I want to live next year; with you." And I think he's just going to say that and that would be it, but then he gets down on one knee in the sealing room and asks me to marry him right then and there! It was the most romantic of my life. I was so surprised/excited/freaking out that I didn't respond automatically, but then when I realized that, I said, "oh, of course."

And...we're getting married sometime this summer. We can hardly wait :)

Aren't we cute? We are so excited to have our own (tiny) apartment in the fall and to start our new life together.

Thank you to everyone and their loving support!

love Katie

By the way, do people think Austin and I should start our own blog together, or would no one read it?

Our song is the way he laughs...

I've been told that I need to blog, and really, I haven't properly blogged in ages. I've been very busy since school started up again this semester. One major change in my own life is that I've decided to not only complete my bachelor's degree in Marriage, Family, and Human Development, but I also want to do the Family Life Education Certification. BYU's program is so cool that I don't even have to take an exam to qualify, just get a C or better in all the required courses. I've taken a lot of the classes already, but I need to take a few more, so instead of finishing classes next fall, I will finish next winter and graduate next April. It's a little unfortunate because it is different than my original plans, but I think it's for the best. After all, I love BYU and I really think it's a scary thought to not be a student anymore, so I will just put that off for a little while....

I love my life and all the wonderful opportunties it brings. I am taking a cooking class this semester and I am learning all kinds of cool things. I am gaining a new appreciation for things I didn't really like before, like vegetables and fish. Who knew they could be so good???? Today our group make macademia encrusted tilapia and also chocolate pudding cake, and I have to say, I think our group had some of the best recipes. There certainly wasn't any cake left at the end of the day!

School can be very trying and hard, but I don't want to give up; I want to do well. Sometimes all you need is the right motivation...so thank you :) I hope all of you don't give up on dreary winter-spring is on the way!
*Blog title from "Our Song" by Taylor Swift