Hellooooo Washington!!

This past weekend, Karl and I decided to take a spontaneous trip to Seattle. Technically... this is our first vacation together since we got married. It was such a fun trip. We left Friday afternoon and came home Tuesday night. The first night, we stayed at a hotel near the city. We rented a fancy white Corolla. Oo la la.

The next day we took a bus into the city where we met some very... interesting... people.

Everything was sooo green there. No giant billboards. No ugly designs on the freeway. Just green.

Karl insisted I take a 'sexy' picture on this truck. That's as sexy as it gets folks.

Downtown, we went to the top of the Smith's Tower and had an amazing view of the city. Inside there was also a 300 year old wishing chair. Apparently it is supposed to help single girls find their true love.

It was so weird to just see ocean wherever you went. Everything was so close to the coast. Even neighborhoods were like that. People just walk out to their back yard and sit on the beach.

Karl had an old mission companion that was in Seattle so we got to visit with him for a while.

After a very long day, we treated ourselves to a mess of brownies.

The next day we decided to take a trip to Canada, eh? On the way, we found a beautiful lake and walked around the park for a while.

We decided Canadians are weird.

We went to Stanley Park. It is a huge park on the coast that you can walk around and see different things.

The other 3 nights while we were there, we got to stay with Karl's sister, Chelsea, and her little family. Our niece Petra was kind enough to put a welcome sign on our door.

Little Rilla lovin on Karl.

Here is another pretty park we hiked around.

Karl on an adventure

Then we took a ferry to Whidbey Island!

Our car is on water?!

We saw a deer!

This is Fort Casey.

Our last night we went and had dinner with the family. Then we got ice cream and took a walk past the lighthouse and on the beach.

Our last day we went and saw the Seattle LDS Temple.

A waterfall.

And a a glass museum!

Then we had one last awesome lunch in the city at a place called Purple.

Then we flew home. And I finally got the window seat :)

An extra thanks to the Stocks for their wonderful hospitality and to my mama for taking us to the airport and watching Roscoe!

Happy 1 Year Anniversary!

Yesterday, Mr. Reed and I celebrated our one year anniversary. It was one year ago that I found my happiness.

We celebrated the day by just being together. First, we went to breakfast at TC Eggington's. After that, we went to Tempe Market Place and shopped around for a while. Karl bought me some fancy new earrings. :)

THEN! We went home and took a nap :) It was wonderful. After we were rested, we decided to go see African Cats at IMAX. How fun right? Surprise... the animals get eaten.

After the movie, we went to dinner at the Grand Lux Cafe in Scottsdale!! Ooh la la! And the BEST part is that our dinner was completely free! For my birthday a couple months ago, I entered a contest for 'Best Proposal' with The Wright House. I entered with our awesome proposal story and WON a $50 gift card to Grand Lux! Booyah achieved.

We decided to go big and order whatever we wanted. This smoothie was divine.

After dinner, we drove around Scottsdale and Phoenix for a bit. We found a nice nature walk and saw lots of other cool things. Later that night, we returned to the Hyatt Regency in Phoenix where we went for the first part of our honeymoon.

See that circle at the very top of the hotel? That is the compass room. A rotating restaurant!

It is soo fun! You get to take this elevator to the very top. As you go up, you can see outside and it goes pretty fast! I'll admit we rode it a couple times just for fun. When you get to the top, you get to have a nice window seat where you can see the city as you slowly rotate. As you go around, there are signs on the wall that tell you what you are looking at.

So we enjoyed some nice dessert and reminisced about our wedding day and our first year together.

I think this will be one of our anniversary traditions.

It was such a fun day and a perfect year. Everyone always says the first year is the hardest... but I honestly never felt like it was 'hard'. I love Karl so much and we have such a great relationship. I'm so glad I married him 1 year ago and can't wait to see what the years to come will bring. I'm sure I'll be smiling just as big.

El Living Room

BEFORE......

AFTER....

Roscoe decided he wanted to be in the picture too! haha

What's up $15 dollar couch!!!

Hello $5 mirror... let me give you a make over!

(I forgot to take a 'before' picture of the mirror... but luckily this lady did! Thank you google.)

I really liked the green color... but it's not what I needed for this room. So Voila!

I think Roscoe approves.

A special shout out to my friend Meagan for her inspiration, motivation, determination.... perspiration... all those good -ations.

1 Week....

Next weekend will be our 1 year anniversary! (awww) Am I mistaken... or are anniversary's not a big deal? I at least think year #1 should be. And then like maybe #10..#25... and #50 of course. So on our blessed one year anniversary, we will have an entire day together. An entire day to do fun and romantic things! The only problem is... we don't know what any fun or romantic things are. It's not that we are boring... we just lack creativity. Lately our nights out have consisted of eating food. Naturally... for our anniversary we thought of going to a nice restaurant. But I think we can do better than that. Or at least more than that. SO... if anyone has any fun ideas of cool things to do or places to see (that doesn't cost a ton of money) let me know!!!

Graduation Announcement

Look at this cute graduation announcement I designed! It's my favorite so far!