Temple Pics

Here are some of the pictures from the temple. It was an extremely cold and windy morning so my hair was all over the place but luckily, the pictures still turned out. We were freezing by the time we got done with pictures but it was worth it once I saw them. Here are some of the pics...

Ryan and his roommates/best friends

Me with my sister Megan, two of my sisters-in-law, Jamie and Andrea (Jenny was home with a very sick little girl) and my two good friends Mandy and Alisia

Me and Megs

Our photographer was great for many reasons but one of my favorite things that she always does is that she has two assistants with her that help her with different things but their main purpose is to take snapshots of different things and people. Some of my absolute favorite pictures are the snapshots...case and point is this one of Ryan's adorable niece Annalise (someone let me know if I spelled that wrong...): The ladies taking the snapshots also took some very cool shots like these:
I insisted on my feet being comfortable so I wore red Rocket Dogs and it was an excellent decision and choice! Plus, they really are very cute shoes.
They also got some great pictures of people in the crowd...

Reception Pictures

Our wedding pictures finally arrived in Virginia...I was really excited (just ask Ryan about my almost frightening exclamation of joy when they arrived). Here are some of my favorites from the reception, which we had at The Grand Ballroom on Main Street in Bountiful:

Me with my cute Mom (aka the best wedding planner ever!)

I promise my Dad really does love me :)

The Bessey Family

The Peterson Family

I really wanted a picture with all of my neices and nephews. I knew it would be difficult to get them all to smile but that is why it is so funny... My only goal was to not have any of them crying in the pictures...I accomplished that by holding marshmallows in my hand for bribery...

I can't remember who had the idea for this picture but ended up being hilarious to watch Ryan's sisters hold him up.

For our refreshments, we decided to have a hot chocolate bar (our caterer's idea). They had the hot chocolate in a big metal bowl to keep it warm and then they had regular whipped cream, chocolate whipped cream, crushed peppermint, chocolate shavings, sprinkles, cinnamon sticks, candy canes and, of course, marshmallows. It worked out well as far as I know...I never got the chance to try it during the reception of course and when I did have the chance after the reception, I was too scared to drink it in my dress since I still had to wear it the next day at the temple. Looking at all of these pictures, I wish I would have just thrown caution to the wind and guzzled a couple of cups... But, I did have one of the tasty cookies that we had...they were delicious!

I will put more pictures up tomorrow, it takes too long to upload them all so I need a break... Is that lazy? Possibly, but instead I will let anyone that reads my blog anticipate the rest of them.

Baltimore Aquarium

I love working for the government for many reasons, but most of all, I love that I get all of the federal holidays off. So, Ryan and I went up to Baltimore today to go to the National Aquarium since neither of us have ever been and have really wanted to go. We had to wait a little bit before we could go in the aquarium because they were giving people assigned times to go in. We didn't mind much at all since it was around 65 degrees and beautiful outside and Ryan got to take this sweet picture...

We also saw a very entertaining street performer that was very entertaining and cracking all sorts of funny jokes, some of which were political and I found funnier than most people around...but come on people, it was President's Day!

Our time came to go into the aquarium and we had about an hour and a half before our 4-D "Shallow Waters" movie started. We first went to the Australian Outback exhibit that was really cool. EXCEPT...why do they have to have so many snakes everywhere? I have this very large fear of snakes. Whenever I see one, regardless of whether it is behind glass or dead, I get really nervous and my heart starts racing. Ryan thinks I should get over the fear and asked what I am going to do if our kids want a pet snake. My answer is easy...NO. Snakes are just plain scary to me. But enough about my strong opinion on snakes...

We had a lot of fun walking around all of the exhibits and seeing the very cool looking fish. You can't really get any pictures of the exhibits since the pictures really just show your reflection in the glass...not what I was going for. So instead, we took a few self portraits of ourselves in the aquarium.

After we walked around for awhile, we went into the 4-D movie. I sat down and expected a low key type show...I was incorrect in my assumption. From the beginning, I was on edge! They sprayed water on us, poked our backs, blew air on our legs and blew bubbles (that was actually pretty calming...) It was still really cool, but somewhat creepy too...I just wish I would have been forewarned that I may have an anxiety attack in the show...

My favorite part of the whole aquarium was the dolphin show. I had never seen one before and I was as excited as a 5 year old. I was even kind of jealous of the ten year old boy that was chosen to help the trainers and got to touch one of the dolphins. :) One of my favorite parts of the show was when they had one of the dolphins swim on their back holding a rubber ducky between their fins. It was really cute! The whole show was very cool!

As we left the aquarium, we saw that our beautiful February day had turned into a typical February day and it was pouring rain and it was really cold. Ryan was nice and ran to the car to get the umbrella while I waited inside a building. Then we walked a few blocks to Little Italy and ate at Amicci's, which, as I discovered last summer, has the best gnocci. I have been craving it for a really long time and I was pleased to find it delicious as ever! All in all, it was a great day in Baltimore!

Valentine's Day Memories

In celebration of Valentine's Day 2008, I decided to reminisce about last year's Valentine's Day because it really is significant to now...A few days before Valentine's last year, I received an envelope addressed to me. When I opened it, there was an invitation for a date, from Ryan Bessey. We had been friends since we had both moved out to DC so I knew it would be a very fun and "just friends" type Valentine's date (funny how the whole "just friends" thing was me just being ridiculously stubborn about not wanting to date anyone, thanks Ryan for being persistent and extremely patient).

Matt & Ryan delivering the invitations

Funny enough, I actually saved the invitation...My favorite part about the invitation is that it said "Will you be my Valentine around 6ish on Wednesday night?" When I called Ryan to tell him I would go, I asked him to define "6ish" for me, if I remember correctly, my question was left unanswered. :)

I knew that the date was bound to be hilarious since my very good friend Mandy Jensen was asked to go on the date by Ryan's roommate Matt Fischer. So, Mandy and I were all ready to go around 6ish and then guys showed up. We had made them a Valentine's card to make sure they knew we were excited to be their Valentines. We decided to document the entire night with pictures which come in handy now that Ryan and I are married because now we can say we have pictures of our first date...alike so...

We first went to dinner at Hops, which is a brewery by where we lived that has really good food (well, they used to have good food...not sure what happened but they have really gone down hill...it is now gross and there have been sightings of mice). We laughed the entire time and tried to ignore the couple making out in the booth next to us. We were even kind enough to leave our waiter a note telling him Happy Valentines Day.

After dinner, our friends Lincoln and Callie joined us and we all packed into Ryan's car and departed for the next part of our adventure. We drove around the entire Capitol Beltway, which for anyone reading this that lives outside of the DC area is the interstate that goes all the way around DC through Virginia and Maryland. It is quite the trek around, even without traffic. The entire way around the Beltway, we sang cheezy love songs that Matt and Ryan had compiled on Ryan's iPod. As we came around the bend where you can start to see the Washington DC Temple, we decided to pull off and make a stop at the temple. It was freezing cold outside and there had been a big storm a couple days before so there was a part of the temple parking lot that was solid ice...so we decided we would slide around on it for awhile and we had competitions to see how far we could slide. It is a miracle that no one fell...




There were all sorts of adventures and Mandy and I decided that it was our best Valentine's Day ever!! A year later, I am glad that I decided to go out with Ryan, even with his He-Man length hair (which he misses...but I like it shorter...) especially since we ended up where we did...cheezy, I know :)