Memory Monday: Favorite/Random Branson Memories

We're back! Miraculously, we were all able to make it home last night, though not on the same flight. (Flying standby is always an adventure...). We're happy to be back in our own beds in the dry non-humid air, but we're already missing my family and the relaxation of vacation.

I took way too many pictures to put in one post, so today I'm just going to highlight some of our favorite (or at least most prominent) memories of the week (in no particular order):

-Jamming out to Tucker's favorite music on the drives to & from Missouri (including Justin Beiber's "Baby," "Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam," "Popcorn Popping," "If You're Happy & You Know It," and "The Wise Man & The Foolish Man")

-Giving Tucker a bath in the ginormous spa tub

-Riding PowderKeg (an awesome roller coaster) three times at the Silver Dollar City amusement park (& screaming my brains out every time!)

-Getting stuck behind old people driving r-e-a-l-l-y slow almost every time we went out

-Watching an amazing thunderstorm from our condo

-Waking up at 3:00 am after the thunderstorm to find water dripping on my head from the ceiling (my hair was completely soaked!)--our condo had major water issues (Note: this was definitely not my favorite memory at the time, but it's a lot funnier now that it's over!)

Just to show some of the water damage

-Moving to a new condo after the water problem, only to find that the A/C didn't work in the new condo, so moving to another condo after that

-My brothers trying to fit inside a storage ottoman (we were running out of ideas of things to do on the last day...)

-My brothers always wearing matching clothes (they say it was not intentional...but really we know they wish they could be twins!) :)

-Curt catching a frog/toad in a tennis ball container

-Curt going dumpster diving at midnight the night before we left, looking for the keys we had thrown away to our second "interim" condo, trying to find our DVD case. (and yes, he found the keys, and found our DVD case in that condo.)

.....and.....

-Flying standby home from Denver to Salt Lake City & having 10 minutes notice of when we had to leave for the airport, and then me being stuck in a middle seat with Tucker & trying to carry all of our luggage without Curt's help

Memory Monday: Graduation

Last year at this time, we were doing this:

And two years ago we were doing this:

It feels weird to not have a graduation ceremony to look forward to and family coming in town this week. It's hard to believe we've both been graduated for a year and two years already! We both loved our time at BYU, but we are so happy that we're done! Congrats to all you graduates this week!

Memory Monday: Baby Tucker

Tucker recently found some of his old baby items in his closet, and now he loves playing with them. It really doesn't feel like that long ago when he was just a teeny little guy using these things for the first time! Where did my little baby go? And when did he turn into such a big boy?

Bathtub: 19 days old & now

Play Mat: 2 months old & now

Bumbo: 2 months old & now

Tucker is truly not a baby anymore--he is such a little boy. He talks, he throws (objects & tantrums...), he laughs, he plays games, he has a definite little personality, he learns new things every day...he's growing up so fast!!! He is a sweet little boy 90% of the time, (the 10% being when he's tired, hungry, or teething...) and we love him so much!

You can click HERE to see a really cute video from when he started jabbering all the time as a baby (it's the last video in the post).

And here he is now--showing off some of his animal sounds and a few of his funny words. It's hard to get him to do everything in one sitting, so this is the best I could get.

This is such a fun age as he's learning to talk. He likes to mimic whatever we say, and he seems to learn a new word/association almost every day! It's so fun! His recent favorite has been "belly"; he notices pictures of bellies everywhere (the girls in bikinis on magazine covers in line, swimsuit & fitness signs at the store, etc.) It's amazing (and scary!) to see how well he associates things. One last story: A few weeks ago he was being super fussy, and Curt just looked at him & said, "Tucker, what would make you happy?" Tucker instantly stopped crying & started saying "happy, happy." He'd never said that word before then, but now it's one of his (and our) favorites. Funny little boy. We sure do love him!

Memory Monday: Our six Valentine's Days together

2005:

Barely engaged. Curt had to work late, so we just took a nice drive and exchanged gifts. (I didn't get a picture of Curt & I, but here I am with my roommates and all the flowers we accumulated that day.)

2006:

Married. Studied on campus for Curt's geology test. Grabbed a heart shaped pizza on the way home. Pretty exciting. (No pictures for obvious reasons.)

2007:

Married & managing apartments. Celebrated at home with a heart shaped pizza, and then went to the Anniversary Inn in Logan, UT the next weekend. Still no pictures, sorry. (pre-blog days, so I didn't document with pictures very well)

2008:

Barely pregnant. I made Curt a candy poster, he gave me flowers, and we carried on the tradition of sharing a heart-shaped pizza together.

2009:

First Valentine's with a baby. Decided to bag the heart shaped pizza & enjoyed take-out Outback instead.

(note to self: take a picture of the two of us together every year from now on)

2010:

In Colorado. (with parents to babysit!) Had a real night out!!!

We enjoyed a fabulous dinner at Trappers Chop House in Parker, CO. They serve your steak on a 700 degree slab of lava rock, and you cook it yourself. It was quite the experience! Curt was in heaven, and I enjoyed steak like I never have before! It was the nicest and most unique dinner we've enjoyed in years. (Thanks to restaurant.com for the $25 gift card that only cost us $2!)

We went out to dinner on Friday night, then on a whim we went out Saturday to the late night showing of "Valentine's Day." (had to take advantage of the free babysitting as much as we could!) We enjoyed the movie & loved being out together. Having a baby definitely makes us appreciate getting out of the house and being together just the two of us.

Love you, babe!

P.S. I love that you can write posts ahead of time and schedule them to publish later. So even though we're busy driving home today, the blog is still up to date!

Memory Monday: Colorado

Remember how we were just in Colorado for 3 1/2 weeks? And how we haven't even been home for a month yet? Well, today we're driving back to Colorado again.

Work has still been slow for Curt out in Utah, so we figured we might as well take the opportunity to go back to Colorado and finish some of the work he left there. And my brother will be having his Eagle Court of Honor, so we're excited to be there for that.

So here's to Colorado! And to parents who are always excited for us to come out! :)

Memory Monday: The Proposal

This Wednesday, February 3rd, marks the five-year anniversary of when Curt proposed! I've never written the story out on our blog, so I figured now would be as good a time as any. (And I'll do my best to keep it from dragging on too long...!)

It all started on January 17th when I found an envelope taped to the window of my dorm room. (I was a freshman at BYU, and yes, I'm realizing now just how young I was...) The envelope said "Holly Kay Henderson" on the front, and inside was a piece of paper that said simply: "Reason #1 why I love you: You are darn cute. (reasons in no particular order.)" Obviously it was from Curt, so I called him & found out that he was going to give me 101 reasons why he loved me. He told me that the day he gave me the 101st reason would be the day he would propose--but he wouldn't give me any kind of timeline. (I was worried at first that it would take 101 days!)

For the next two-and-a-half weeks I got more envelopes with reasons why he loved me. Some days I would get just one, and other days I would get several. He would stick some to my window, slip one under my door, hide one in my backpack, have my roommates put one on my bed, etc. One day he gave me 2 dozen roses with envelopes tied to the stems! What a romantic. :)

Me with the roses & envelopes:

Like I said, this went on for two-and-a-half weeks. I tried to be patient, but it was hard at the time--I was very anxious to get the ring and make it official. Looking back though, I appreciate all the thought, time, and effort he put in to the proposal. It truly was one-of-a-kind.

Anyway, so on February 3rd we were only up to reason #51. It was a Thursday, and I was leaving to go home for the weekend the next day. Since I would be gone for the weekend, Curt told me he wanted to spend the evening with me and take me somewhere nice to eat. After keeping it a secret while we drove, we ended up at Sundance. We enjoyed a nice dinner and then went walking around some lit trails. We talked about our relationship and how that day was exactly 5 months since our first date.

He then said he had something for me and pulled out another envelope. I figured it would be reason #52, but it turned out to be reason #101! It said: "I love you because you're worthy to go to the temple and be sealed to me." When I looked at him, he was down on one knee with the ring in hand, and he proposed! I of course said yes, and the rest is history. (And in case you were worried he skipped out on reasons #52-100, he had them in the car waiting for me after he proposed.) :)

Taken that night:

Was I surprised? Yes, to a certain extent, but I had my suspicions. I obviously knew it was coming, and there were a couple of clues that made me think it might be that night. 1.) I was going home, and he knew how much I would love to be officially engaged and show off my ring; 2.) When he picked me up for the night he was wearing one of my favorite shirts, a coat & no hat--he almost never wore a coat (that's where he hid the ring all night) & he always wore a hat; and 3.) He had picked out the restaurant ahead of time and made a reservation--he usually asked where I wanted to eat & hardly ever made reservations. Suspicions or not, though, he pulled it off well and still caught me off guard. (I actually asked him if he was really truly proposing before I even said yes!)

It was a great night, and a fun memory to look back on. Marrying him was the best decision I've ever made, and life has only gotten better since!

Memory Monday: Curt's Makeover

If I had a dime for every time I thought of a different/creative blog post I could do, I would be rich. But most of the time I skip out on what I think are the creative ones (or I just don't have the time or the motivation to do them...), and I stick to the more basic journaling, picture-type posts. But starting today, I'm going to try to add in a little more creativity.

So without any further adieu, I introduce to you: "Memory Mondays" and "Funny Fridays." (I have ideas for every day of the week, but we'll just stick to these two for now.) Memory Mondays will include any and all kinds of memories: pictures, stories, random thoughts from the past, etc, while Funny Fridays will just be something I (or Curt if he wants to join in) think is funny: a funny video, story, something funny that happened that week, etc. I'm probably just setting myself up for failure and/or more stress to add these in, but I think it will be a fun way to sandwich in the week. We'll see how long I stick with it--could be just today, we'll see. :)

For today's memory I just have these pictures from when Curt first shaved his head (October 2006):

BEFORE:

DURING:

(His brother Chad did the actual removing of the hair while I freaked out on the side)

AFTER:

gosh, he looks so young!

Why did he decide to do it? He went on his mission for two years, and then he worked at the MTC for two years after that, and he got tired of always combing and parting his hair. So just hours after his last shift at the MTC, he came home and shaved it all off. And he hasn't gone back since! I, for one, think he makes a handsome bald man, and I love it.

***By the way, thank you everyone so, so much for all of your craft ideas for the post below. Keep them coming!!!