Decem-burrrrr

It has now officially snowed! This week had been my first real attempt at driving in the snow and I'm alive to tell the tale. Our winter wonderland is beginning to take shape as we get ready for Christmas.

This is our fireplace. Though we would like to be using it for a nice toasty evening watching TV by the fire, we decided that this is the only place that the tree fits. Plus the fact that we hardly spend any time in that room these days. Our big screen blew a fuse or something and no longer works. So unless we save up a few hundred $$ to replace it we are stuck watching movies in our room. Which actually is nice to cuddle in blankets but on the same token. We can't have friends over for movie night any more. We will have to see what happens, maybe we can find out what wrong with it and it will be a cheap fix.

This is a picture of us enjoying our "pink pomegranate ". It was really yummy and we can't wait for next year to try and steal more from Grandma Lyman.

This, my dear friends, is the BEAUTIFUL gingerbread house I made under the direction of my Mom in law. She sacrificed her fingers (and her sanity) by letting all the girls come over and make a big mess putting these houses together. We love you very much Mom, I know we all had a blast! Can't wait to do it again next year..... :)


Lindsay and I showing off our cute houses.



Zach and I at the ward Christmas party. We had so much fun! We decorated the HUGE tree behind us and really enjoyed our evening.


Lastly, we got to meet Bucky Covington. Zach won backstage tickets to a country concert. We saw Bombshell, Bucky, and Phil Vasser. It was a great show! So much fun and energy. My poor Zach started feeling sick in the middle of the concert so he was quite most of the night but I'm sure he had a good time as well.

My grown up christmas list...

Just thought I should share for those last minute shoppers that still need ideas...

*coughmomcough*

An assortment of DVD's for Zach and I. We love watching movies at home on our date nights but are running low on whats left to watch. We enjoy everything from comedy to drama. So you can never go wrong with getting us a movie.

I need WARM winter clothes for the first REAL winter of my life. Again, not picky just needs to be warm. :)

Yes, I know .. this one is but a dream. But a girl can dream right?

Most of all this is my number one on my list. I want my very own nativity for my new home. I love that every year my mom opened up her different nativity and placed them around our house. It didn't feel like Christmas until they were proudly displayed in our home. I especially loved the Nativity my Aunt made for each of her sisters. so it isn't something that can be bought in the store, its just something I get to steal when my mom old and loosing her memory. (love you mom) Of course that is a while off and a few years ago I fell in love with this one from Willow Tree and of course it is expensive so the only thing I can afford is the stars and the goat.

Novem-burrrr..

Well the weather is getting colder as the holiday season begins. It has not "officially" snowed yet but I know the white stuff is soon to come. I have been slacking quite a big on the blog updates because of course, life got in the way. We are both working a lot now which is nice, but never had to much time to do the fun stuff. Here are some of the big things in our life that happened in November....

* We finished Christmas shopping... We are all done with the shopping and almost done with the wrapping. Its really nice to just be over and done with it so you can spend the month of December enjoying your time with family and not running around the malls like a crazy person.

*We bought a new car... That's right everyone. My "egg" is gone. We found a great deal on a Jeep Liberty Limited and with a few Stern words to a bratty car sales men, it was mine! We decided it was the safer way to go, considering that I had never driven in the snow before. Its a beautiful black gas guzzling machine. I'm sorry environment but my safety is just as important as your global warming. This isn't a very good picture but you get the idea.

* We were called to be on the activities committee.. with a party only a couple weeks away.
Brother and Sister Lyman are now an active part of the activities committee. I think as soon as we were called there was a meeting 3 days later. We are having our ward Christmas party on the 5 and we had tons to go over. I guess they liked us lots because they put me in charge of the decorations and Zach in charge of picking up the food. We're kind of a big deal. :)

* Had a few game nights with friends...I have made friends at work and we've decided to invite them over for "Lyman game nights". We have been working on our game closet waiting for this moment. I am now proud to say that we have officially cracked into every game in that closet and are really enjoying the time we spend with friends and each other.

* I got a promotion at work...After THREE weeks on the job! I got promoted to Front End Supervisor. I can't really explain all that we do without boring you, so in short, more money, more power! *evil laugh*

* We spent Thanksgiving with the Lyman family... Which was wonderful! We actually had thanksgiving for lunch because Lance and I had to work that evening. It was so nice being with our family and we always have a blast when we are with them. After lunch everyone got ready to go see the movie Planet 51. I went back home and grabbed another snack with my side of the family and then got ready for work. It was a zoo there! People were actually lined up outside the door waiting for us to open! How lame! ugh! Then I worked black Friday, the following day and then cyber Monday. Thank goodness that I am already finished shopping so it wasn't a huge deal.

And with the spirit of giving thanks in the air it would be wrong to close this entry without sharing all that we are thankful for...

Our health aside from the occasional sniffle. We have been so blessed to be happy and healthy this cold and flu season. We have so many friends and family members going through such tough times with their health currently. We continue to pray for them every night and know that they will be watched over through their trials.

Our families (of course) for the love and support they have given us as we start our new life together. They too have been a huge blessing in so many ways to us. We love and appreciate everything that they do for us. I am also thankful for my husband and the wonderful example he is to me.

Our Jobs. We were so lucky to get jobs right away once we got married. I know that was with a little divine intervention and I am so thankful for it! We both enjoy where we work and what we do.

We are thankful for the gospel and the direction it gives us in our lives. The safety net it provides and the comfort and warmth that surrounds us because we know the truthfulness of it.

I am thankful for the weather as of now. It looks like we will make it till December without any snow! The longer we can go without it the happier I will be.

Octo-buuurrrrrrrrr

Happy Halloween!

This year on halloween day I went to my very first auction with my in laws. It was actually really fun! We looked at several horses and watched the bidding for a while. It made me really want a horse though, and if I had $300 I would have bid on one in a heartbeat!

This is a fun little creation I made with my Mother in law. It was so much fun! We decorated pumpkin cookies and made spiders and these creatures.

This year Zach and I decided to carve two sides of our pumpkins to practice out carving skills.

This is the pumpkin that Zach carved.

He created a pirate and of course, the pirate ship.

Mine was a little more random. Wolves howling at the moon on one side....

The Mr and Mrs LYMAN pumpkin. I know its a bit cheesy but definitely necessary for your first Halloween as a married couple!



Hope everyone had a spooktacular Halloween!

The wisdom of a 5 year old.

Yesterday I decided to hang out with my five year old cousin Samantha. She is a doll and so much fun to be around. I surprised her when she came home from school and took her out to lunch with me. She loved every minute of it. Typically on our "girl dates" we have fun and random conversations about life and how fast she is trying to grow up. I've already been informed that she would like to start shaving her legs now because she is getting married when she is ten. After lunch she told me that she wanted to be a mother and asked how to become one. I told her that first she needed to grow up a little bit, find a boy that you love very much and then after a while you can have a baby and become a mother. Then I asked Sam when I should be a mother. She quickly responded with "Don't worry Jesus will tell you when its time." What a smarty pants.

We're employed!

Zach now works for UFRA and loves his job! He gets to blow stuff up, practice welding, and now can paint like a pro. haha. UFRA has taught him several different skills since he has been there. I'm glad he likes what he does.

I got a job working at Michaels craft store, so far so good. I love scrap booking and all that fun stuff so I know I will really enjoy this job.

So that's it for now. We are employed and happy. Life is good, marriage is great and we are still madly in love, of course.

Our amazing wedding! :)

Here is a little look at our reception, more pictures to follow!

Sorry Ladies, I won.

So this is the start of week three as a happily married couple. I will fill you in on the adventures of the past few weeks as soon as I find my camera cable so I can upload some pictures. We are finally starting to figure out the routine of how things work with each other and around our house. From the silly habits to the pet peeves we have. I need to give my mom some serious credit for putting up with me all these years and pray for Zach because he has NO idea the amount of crazy he just married.

I can honestly say that I married the BEST man in the ENTIRE world. Now I know that may sound a bit drastic considering how many men are actually on the planet, but Zach is amazing and I have no idea how I got him to fall for me. Let me give you a couple examples of just how wonderful my husband is... The other night we were having our "before bed snack" of Oreo cookies and milk and I mentioned that we needed to get double stuff Oreos next time because these single stuff ones just aren't doing it for me. Then without skipping a beat Zach grabbed all the cookies, pulled them apart and make them "double stuff" just for me. He kept the plain cookies for himself.

Another example of his wonderfulness was a couple nights after my family went home to California. The wedding stuff was finally over and we were starting to settle in. I tried to fall asleep one night but my mind was racing with the thoughts of family being so far away, missing my friends, my dog and anything else that popped into my mind. I decided to sit in the other room and try to clear my head so I could go to sleep. Honestly, I was an emotional mess, but in comes Zachary and without a word just held me on the couch and let me cry in his arms. It is the little things he does that lets me know how much he loves me. I love his selflessness and how caring he is. He makes me laugh every day, even when I am being a pill. He always knows the right thing to say when I am homesick or in a bad mood. In fact, it is currently a little after 1 in the morning and I can't sleep again. Zach is laying in bed and instead of bugging me to go play on the computer in the other room he is being a good sport and trying to sleep through it. I am so thankful for such a wonderful husband and I hope he knows just how much I love him. For now, I will get off the computer and let him sleep. :)

Sweet little note....

As I was going through a the final stack of wedding cards, I ran across sweet words of advice from our friends that I thought I should share.

Let me first preface this by saying that the outside of the card was a painting of a sail boat and my first thought was that this card was most likely from an older lady who was a little off in the head. Well I was half right, she is an older lady and though she may be a little off she still had some good advice for our marriage together.

"Dear Sara and Zach,

May you be blessed forever as you "sail off into the sunset" and begin your greatest voyage ever- eternal marriage. Just like sailing on the ocean - some days will be beautiful and smooth sailing and other days will be stormy and hard. If you will remember the peace you felt in the temple and always find it together, your voyage will be successful and you will have eternal life together."

Introducing the newest Mr. and Mrs. Lyman!

That's right, we're married now and completely loving it! September 19, 2009 was the best day of our lives. Thank you to our family and friends for their love and support. They have been so helpful throughout our engagement and we don't know what we would do without them. Our reception was beautiful, our family was amazing and the night could not have been more wonderful! We can't wait to see our pictures from both of our fun receptions. We are now currently living in Orem Utah and are both jobless. We are hoping to get a job here soon so we can take care of everything. So wish us luck as we start our newlywed life together! We will be sure to update more as soon as we have free time!

Our Mini Honeymoon

I know the blog lately has been all over the place but I still want to share more pictures! After our wedding Saturday we stayed in a little hotel near my parents house. We woke up fairly early Sunday morning to run by the house and finishing packing and then get on the road for

Las Vegas.

We stayed at Treasure Island on the Vegas strip. I secretly upgraded the hotel room that Zach got for us to a nice suite. It was so beautiful! We had double doors, it was impressive so I had to take a picture with it.

Our amazing room! I wish you could see the bathrooms because there were TWO of them!

Yup, we were spoiled.

Check out that beautiful view from out room.

Getting ready for dinner at the Steak House in Treasure Island. It was the best steak I've ever had. It was also Zach's first time trying lobster and he loved it.

After dinner we went and watched the siren show at the hotel. It was actually a pretty risky show but had cannons and fireworks so it was fun to watch. I randomly found out that a girl I used to work with was one of the dancers. She worked with me in my first salon in CA so it was completely random seeing here there. Anyways, after the show we walked around the strip a bit and after realizing that we are poor and everything there costs tons of money we headed back to the hotel room because we still had to wake up early the next morning and go home. So we fell asleep and around midnight the cannon from the show went off and scared the crud out of us. The entire room lit up with a HUGE bang! Seriously, it was midnight!!!!!!!! Why is that show still running that late? Ugh. Oh well, I guess we can laugh at it now but at the time we were just scared.

These pictures could use an explanation. So I've never had "squeaky cheese" and Zach decide that once we got to Utah we needed to get some. After explaining to me that it was cheese curds and the squeak when you chew on them, I was oh so thrilled to try them, NOT! The word curd just makes my tummy do back flips.

None the less, I tried one. Yes, I can be quite the trooper. They actually weren't to bad. I wouldn't eat them on a daily basis or anything but if offered again, I might partake. haha

on a side note:
I was so dang tan picture! I miss you TAN Sara, I'll see you again this summer, hopefully.


At the end of a LONG road trip Zach and I finally arrived at our apartment! We decided to take a picture with the best part of our place, the sweet blue carpet that covers the entire thing. Now though the color may be a bit much I have to cut the carpet some slack because he is extremely plushy and warm and my frozen toes.

Pre wedding festivities!

Warning: Contains Adult Content, Please ask small children to leave the room

Ok, they aren't dirty pictures or anything, just embarrassing. :)

I know this is a little late but now that the wedding is over I can catch up on so much due blogging and fill in the blanks from this summer. To say the least it was a BUSY one. Three friends getting married, 2 cousins get engaged, all of the wedding festivities to attend for each bride. But enough about them, the whole point of a blog is to just talk about yourself right? ha ha.

Here are a few pictures from my Bachelorette Party. Now the heading says warning because seriously, there are a few pictures of things that may not be appropriate for the youngsters in the room. Now in my defense, I didn't plan the party so I can't be held responsible for any of it! :)

One of my very good friends threw me a Pajama Bachelorette party at her house the Thursday before the wedding. It was such a fun idea. All of the girls were asked to wear there pj's to the party and just to come and have a good time! She spoiled me rotten and ordered all of my favorite foods, desserts and drinks! I was in heaven! She decorated her condo with the all sorts of fun stuff. I guess at the party store she could only find confettie that said "SARAH" so she spend a couple hours cutting off the "H" on every piece! Talk about above and beyond!!!! She made little "boy part" ice cubes for all of the girls drinks. Of course we played "pin the macho on the man" but we will only show the edited pictures. Really no one wants to see a bunch of cartoon parts anyways. We all had so much fun playing games and enjoying each others company. We decided that night to have all the bridesmaids and I sing to Zach on our wedding day. (that's right 2 days before the wedding we are planning this, we're crazy) Anyways, we came up with a song and dance that was just hilarious! After that we all snuggled in the couch and watched the movie 27 dresses. Such a fun night, I will really miss all of my girls when I'm in Utah.

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My mom is going to be so ticked I posted this picture but it was a fun night of pampering with my mom! I sure love her! Thank you for everything Mom!

Oh yeah, we have a blog

So in all of the craziness that is wedding planning I have completely forgotten to update the blog. Perhaps it is because this has taken over my life...

On top of finishing things for the wedding I have had to fit my entire life in a few boxes so I can move to Utah. I never realized how much stuff I had!!! So I have been working hard at cleaning out my room and downsizing all unused clothing.

In other news, we are now only 8 days away from the big day. I'm not freaking out.. yet. Honestly I'm not worried about the marriage at all. I love Zach with all of my heart and I know he will be a wonderful husband. I'm worried about everything coming together in time for the wedding.

And with that said, this is about all the time I can spend online. I have to get back to work and get everything done. Grooms have it so easy!!!

Another Update...

It's almost wedding day with September creeping just around the corner. We have had SO much to do! I was very grateful that Zach was able to come down for one last week before school started. I don't know what I would have done without him. We got so many things done. In fact we were so busy running around that I got sick. Aside from the sickness it has been a wonderful week and our excitement is growing by the minute!

Our first stop of the week was to the Old Orange County Court House to get our marriage licence. We missed our appointment because Zach missed his flight early that morning and got put on another flight two hours later. After battling the horrible lines at the court house (not!) It was super fast and we were both very tempted to just make the whole thing official for an extra 25 bucks! We went to Claim Jumpers to "celebrate"our almost marriage. I know it sounds cheesy but since when have we been normal?This is after I went through the temple and received my endowments. It was such a wonderful experience to be with my fiance, family and friends inside the temple. I am really looking forward to getting sealed for time and all eternity in just a few weeks. We forgot to take a picture outside the temple before the session, so we decided to take out at In N Out afterwards. haha.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZACH!!

Friday was a very important day for a couple reasons. Most importantly it was Zach's birthday! I thought it was only fitting to post a cute baby picture of him so we can all see how cute he was and the extremely handsome man he has become! I love you Zach, I know your birthday this year was a bit hectic with all of the stuff we had to do for our friends wedding but I promise next year will be much better.... cuz we will be married! :)

It was a very fun and BUSY day! We were able to go to the sealing in the San Diego temple for our friends Joey and Alicia Mascio!

Just practicing for our big day. How do we look?

We had to say good bye to our sweet little boy Bentley. No, he didn't die. I had to find a new home for him. Which I did. He now lives with the Louder family in Orem Utah. I will miss him greatly and am having a hard time with him not being here. He is such a good dog and I wish he could have stayed with me. Honestly giving him away was probably the hardest thing I have had to do this entire wedding. I'm sure Bentley James is very loved in his new home.

And on a happier note.. look who came for a visit! My favorite (and only for the moment) niece Finleigh! Well, she isn't my niece yet but she is so stinking cute! I just love her! I had lots of fun splashing around in her little blow up pool with her!

Showered with love

Tonight was my bridal shower and it was so much fun! Since a "picture is worth a thousand words" I just decided to mainly post pictures about it because I don't have much time to blog about it. I will be sure to edit it later with more detail but for now enjoy!

During the "how much do you know about Zach" game. I aced it!

Me and the "maids" with a couple flower girls thrown in there.

My group gift was a HUGE gift card to target so I can buy my Dyson Vacuum when I move to Utah! I was soooo excited about that!

Mommy and Me
and a fun "bow"quet.

and of course you have to open something a little naughty, I didn't put up all the pictures of the "fun" things I got. I didn't want Zach to see them and spoil the surprise.