Weekend Get-away!

A couple weeks ago Mark and I went to Cedar City to spend the weekend with his family! Sooo fun.

First off- Mark and I had a crammed week full of studying and homework. We wanted to get all of our studies done by Thursday night, so we could head out Friday right after school, and just simply enjoy the weekend of relaxing.

We got to Cedar Friday evening, and I immediately felt so at home. I'm a pretty shy girl so I was a little worried, but Marks family took me right in and helped me feel so comfortable. Mark showed me around the house and the land and then his mom made us a nice homemade meal (which college students always love). We had a chill night of just relaxing and let

me tell you, I sure loved that!

Saturday Marks parents took us to St George and took us horseback riding through Snow Canyon. I have always loved riding horses growing up, but never went a whole lot. The Lyman's have four beautiful horses so they were excited to get me riding! We took it slow since I didn't really know what I was doing....but I started to get the hang of it :) One day I'll eventually learn the "up down"

motion when they start to run........ right Mark?

After riding we spent a little time in St George eating

yummy pizza and chatting.

I had so much fun riding and fell in love with horses all over again!

Later that night Mark's brothers joined us and we all went to Ninja's to eat. SUCH a nice meal and very entertaining!

I won't go day by day into detail here.......but basically I had SO much fun! We were able to watch movies and play games and if anyone knows me OR my family...... you know that I love my games :) It was fun to get to know everyone's personalities and to learn the traditional games that their family plays. I also was able to teach them a game that my family often plays so it was fun to mix and match!

The thing I loved most about this weekend was being able to see where Mark comes from. I don't mean 'where Mark comes from' in a ph

ysical sense, but more of the attributes that Mark has. Mark has great qualities that I absolutely love and I really learned where this comes from.

One moment that stood out to me was the first night we got there, we had family scripture study and prayer. We all sat together and read our scriptures individually for a while, and then followed with a family prayer. Mark and I read and pray together and now I see why that is such an important thing to him. I know that the gospel is number one in Mark's life and I love that.

Another thing that stood out to me was simply just watching Mark's dad. Doug reminds me of my own dad- having a lot of same qualities, sense of humor, spirituality and so on. The way he interacted with his wife, is exactly how Mark interacts with me. Watching this confirmed to me that Mark is sincere in how he treats me. From the day I met Mark, he talks the world of his dad. He really respects and looks up to his dad, and it makes me excited that Mark wants to be like him.

I had met Mark's family previously, but had never really got to spend a lot of time with them in a home setting. It was really good to see this side of them and I really felt that I got to know them on a personal level, and I loved it.

We had such a fun weekend and were very sad to come back to real life and school, But I'm so glad we were able to go. Thanks Lyman's for such a great weekend! :)

( Mark said to not get used to this cowboy look......but I liked it!)

Love, Bre

Day of Love

Oooh Valentines Day. The day that you're either dreading, or excited for. This year, I was excited.

First off, I have the best boyfriend around :) He sure spoiled me!I got a phone call just a little after 6:00 from Mark. He said"Will you do me a favor?" So I was a little worried. But then he said "Will you come open your door?" So I opened my door and there was Mark, with pretty flowers too!

Then Mark took me to IHOP for breakfast! We both love their Nutella Crepes......mmm! So good :) Don't judge this picture of me. Remember, he WOKE ME UP? :)

We hung out as much as we could all day working around class, but we did pretty well!

Later that night we headed to Salt Lake and went to dinner at Do Do's. (I th

ink that's how it's spelled??) Anyways, it was so yummy. Probably my new favorite, and their dessert is to die for as well! Very tasty!

After dinner we headed to the Lady Antebellum Concert! I have looked forward to this for SO long. Blake got me two tickets for Christmas, and I have been so anxious!! And ooooh myyyy........ it was the BEST CONCERT EVER! I absolutely LOVE Lady A, and have been to a concert before but they were with Tim McGraw and it was the outside concert, and a totally different feel. This time Lady A brought with them Darius Rucker, and Thompson Square. They were all amazing. I can't even put into words how much I loved this concert....... I'm speechless

Mark is not a big country fan. He doesn't mind it, but doesn't really listen to it on his own choice. However, I think I'm starting to convert him a little more! He especially liked the moments when Darius Rucker would sing songs from Hootie and the Blowfish, or Purple Rain. Haha

We had such a good day though and I couldn't have asked for a better Valentines!

This weekend we are headed to Cedar City to spend the weekend with Mark's Family and I'm so excited! Just a nice relaxing weekend, while getting to know his family better too! A little nervous? Yes.... But very excited to get away and have some fun :)

That post will come soon!

Love, Bre

Changes!

So it's been quite a while since my last post....Shocker, right?
But at least that means there is a whole lot to update on! Ok really, there's just a few things worth blogging about. Let's not pretend my life is THAT exciting.

First update: CHRISTMAS! I love Christmas time so much. I remember my first Christmas without Brooke and Blake. Blake was on his mission, and Brooke was with Aarons family this year. I was a wreckless 12 year old and I bawled all day because I missed them so much. It's safe to say that this year was my first year I really realized the true Christmas feeling. The spirit of Christ and Family are what truly makes Christmas great. This year we went to Brooke and Aarons in Colorado and it we were all together. We had such a good time! My favorite part had to have been watching Hunter and Paxton walk into the room where Santa had come! They were so excited! Ok, actually Paxton seemed kind of confused. But Hunter was sure stoked! And Paxton loved his thomas toothpaste that santa put in his stocking, so at least he was stoked about that! :)
I love my family and I love that Christmas gives us a reason to spend so much time together!!

Second update: New Semester! New semesters are always nice, and this one has been especially nice. I am loving my classes for the most part... and I even found a new love for ballet. Yep...I want to be a ballerina. haha. Ooh how much work I need to get there, but it's a good thought :)

Third update: You ready for this one? It's the big news........ about a.... Boyfriend! Yep. I said it. I'm not going to lie it's a little weird for that word to roll off my tongue, but I'm not complaining :)
Let me introduce Mark :) Here comes our story, you ready for this?
Mark and I met in October through another friend of ours. I immediately hit it off with he and his roommates and found myself constantly over at their house and always hanging out with them! Mark became my absolute best friend. I would tell him my guy problems, and he would tell me his girl problems. I could go to Mark for anything I needed and trust him with my life!

I wasn't going to stick the picture of us right here, but for some reason it's stuck here so this is obviously where the picture wanted to be. So, this is Mark & I at a Halloween party :)

Back to the story. Funny little side note: Mark had told me once that if things didn't work out with the boy I was kind of chasing at the time, that he'd love to take me out (cute, right?) But....later on I told him that I just wanted to be friends..... which I feel terrible for now..... because little did I know..

Anyways... As time went on I have been with Mark more and more, and I find myself only wanting to hang out with Mark. I'd even get home from a date, and immediately text Mark!

Well, secretly in my mind I had wondered about my feelings for Mark, but told myself it's just because we're such good friends. One day Mark was texting me and he was telling me he was thinking about moving. I then had a little meltdown and started crying. I can't believe I'm admitting this to the world, but yes, I cried. I thought to myself What in the world would I do without Mark?! He's honestly the best thing that's happened to me since moving to Provo. He was only talking about moving to Salt Lake, but still......that was too far for me to handle right then. Maybe it was an emotional day for me? But I learned a lot about my feelings that day.
Mark came over that night and hung out with me and the next morning I got a text from my roommate Kati that said something to the extent of "You and Mark are so cute. I have never seen you act yourself so much as you do around him!" This was yet ANOTHER thing that really got me thinking, and from then on I knew I needed to talk to Mark.

SO... I told Mark right then that I needed to talk to him. He came over and had a nice little chat where I told him that I was starting to have feelings for him. We had a really good talk and decided that we'd go out and just see what happens. I think we were both a little nervous because our friendship was SO strong, and we didn't want to ruin that! But, that week we went to a jazz game together, and we started spending even more time together. The following week we hung out EVERY SINGLE NIGHT!

Friday came around and I found out that my Sister was coming to town for the weekend! So I wanted to go spend some time with her so I told Mark and we decided we'd go spend the day in Brigham City on Saturday. So I took him to Brigham and he met the family, and spent some time at my house. Mark had talked to his mom and found out that they were staying the night in Salt Lake at his grandparents, so on our way back we were able to stop and meet his family as well! We had no idea it would be such a big day! haha. But at least meeting the family is out of the way now, right?

His family was awesome by the way. I felt right at home with them playing cards like my family does :)

Ok......if you REALLY don't care, you're probably extremely bored reading this detailed story! :) BUT like I always say, this is another journal for me, and I want to remember this week. So if you're bored, feel free to stop reading. ha!

On Sunday, Mark came to church with me. After church we went to his house to do homework. We try not to do homework on Sundays but since Saturday was such a big day, we didn't have time to finish. So we worked on our homework and Mark had a priesthood meeting to go to. So I stayed at his house and continued homework! When he got home we headed to my place to have dinner with Kati & Reagan, Tayler & Daniel, and Kristen & Bryce. We played some Farkle (in which I did terrible...) and then we went back to Marks and watched a movie that night.

Basically what I'm saying is, Mark and I literally spend ALL weekend together. And I wouldn't have had it any other way!

Monday we had busy days till 8 or so, but still made time to see each other.

Tuesday we went and did baptisms for the dead in the Timpanogos Temple. Mark was able to baptize me even though we had to wait 2 hours for the 100 mutual groups that night..... but it was still a good experience as always in the temple :)
After the temple we went to dinner and that's when we decided to make things official. I always hate the term "official..." but, everyone's gotta have their DTR sometime, right?

And, that's how it began :)

Mark has such a sense of humor and is always, always making me laugh. He's so very smart (even though he'll never admit it..) but he is, and he has great goals in life that I know he'll achieve. And most of all, Mark is the most spiritual, selfless guy I know. His testimony is so strong and he makes me want to become better every day!

Dankeschon Markas! (Mark speaks german and russian and has taught me a thing or two! haha)

In english.....Thanks Mark =)

Life.Is.Good

Love, Me