Our Story: Part One

Our Story: Part One

(How we met and came to be)

February 2015

It all starts with a mysterious Mexican man on the shady Provo River trail.
My roommate at the time Kylie came into the apartment one cold February night with grocery bags on her arms. She told of us of an encounter she'd had:
As she was struggling with her grocery cart on the rocky river trail path (yes- we were car-less and often had to push our groceries home in a shopping cart) she was stopped by a young man who asked if she needed help. They introduced themselves, he helped her with the grocery cart, they exchanged numbers and then they parted. Kylie told us, “I forgot his name. It started with a G... It was some Mexican name that I couldn’t pronounce.”

What was really going on: Giuseppe, being the cute, adorable social person that he is, was on the hunt for some friends. He had just moved from Orange County to Provo. He was about to start his new job in the state licensing department for Vivint, hadn't yet attended the singles ward, and was ready to make some friends.

On Saturday, February 28th, Kylie invited/asked him to give us a ride to the stake 50’s dance. He of course said yes.

My roommates and I spent an hour blasting music, perfecting our makeup, borrowing clothes, ratting our hair, and talking about our love interests at the time. (Unfortunately for Giuseppe, Kylie was only fixated on her now-husband Corey haha).

Then Giuseppe came up to the apartment. Somebody let him inside, and they all started chatting with him. I finished up my hair, walked into the living room and saw a tall, thin guy with perfect hair and adorable eyes. We introduced ourselves, figured out pretty quickly that he was just about as Mexican as I am (literally. We are both ¼ Mexican), and headed out to the dance. My amazing friend Emily Cortopassi was having a sleepover with me that night, but she was exhausted from work that day and decided to stay in.

Later that evening at the dance, Megan and I went into the bathroom to fix our lipstick. Kylie came in and told us that everyone was partnered up to learn a dance from the instructors, and Giuseppe didn’t have a partner!

I don’t know why I was so adamant that he dance with me and not Megan, but I ran into the gym and approached him. He asked me to dance, and I nonchalantly agreed.

We had fun dancing together. I remember thinking, “what if I married this guy?” and I spent some time wondering what it would be like. (I pretty much did that with everyone though, is that weird??)

We were having a really good time and then the dumb dance instructor told us we needed to switch partners. Before I could even do anything, a new guy asked me to dance and we learned the rest of the steps together. This guy was the worst, he was like a professional ballroom dancer and he had no patience with me. He took it waaaaaaay too seriously. Luckily, I didn’t have to be with him for too long before it was time for freestyle dancing. I broke away from him as fast as I could and met up with the roomies and Giuseppe. We danced wildly for about an hour, then Kylie wanted to leave to meet up with her sister for a bonfire.

Giuseppe drove us back, and came up to our apartment with us. While my roommates were changing into bonfire clothes, I turned on my favorite song- Style- and blasted it. Giuseppe and I danced around the kitchen crazily while singing along. It was the best. In that moment I knew that we had some kind of a connection.

Emily and I joined everyone for the bonfire for just a little bit. I talked to Giuseppe about his new life in Utah, as well as his mission in Italy. He told me he was going to start at LDS Business College in the fall, which of course grabbed my attention. In high school I wanted to go there so badly, but it just wasn’t right for me.

Emily and I left early, and we pulled my mattress into the living room. We were acting kinda psycho, making weird videos of each other and laughing about everything and reminiscing on the old days, and you know, all around college girl shenanigans.

Everyone (including Giuseppe) came back into the apartment and hung out in the kitchen. Emily and I ignored them, we had a grand old time with each other.

When Giuseppe left, I asked him to tell us goodnight in Italian. He did, and then he left.

The next day (Sunday) I started talking to him at ward prayer (haha oh the singles ward…). As we were chatting, another guy I was friends with came up to talk to me. Giuseppe started inching away. I don’t remember doing this, but apparently I leaned over and stepped on his foot, asking him to stay. He was thrilled by this.

We sat together on the bean bag, and he told me animatedly about his experience skydiving. Then he mentioned there were some people from his work going swing dancing in Salt Lake, and he invited me. Of course I said yes, and then we exchanged numbers. Just then, Bishop Redd came up and crouched down next to us to chat. He said, “well look at you two…” all matchmaker-like. Haha.

The next day at FHE, Bishop Redd and I were talking as I was on the sidelines during the dodgeball game. (Of course). We had this conversation:

“So Katrina, are you still going to go on a mission?”

“What?! Of course! Why would you ask that?”

“I saw you with Giuseppe last night! I think you might be planning a wedding soon…”

“What?! No way! We just met, and I am for sure going on a mission.”

“Okay….."

March 2015

Our first date was SO GOOD! I had been on quite a few first dates during my six months in Provo, and the majority of them were blaaaaaaah. NOT this one. During the car ride he showed me some of his favorite songs, then I showed him some of mine. I asked personal questions about his life, made him uncomfortable, lightened things up and then we were there! (Okay, so far this sounds kind of blah but it wasn't. It was wonderful.)

We had so much fun at the dance. We went absolutely crazy- he was lifting me up and swinging me around and throwing me in the air and it was just insane. We have never been able to replicate what we did that night!

After dancing for an amazing hour, we were exhausted and he mentioned something about IHOP having free pancakes that day.

Yum… ;)

We drove to the nearest IHOP only to discover that the promotion had ended an hour ago. So he just drove away.

I remember thinking that was so weird, no food on a date?! He must be really cheap.

Nevertheless, he still left a really good impression on me.

We went on another date the next week. His State Farm agent had given him tickets to a jazz game. I don’t like basketball at all but I was excited to spend the evening with him. At the game I discovered he didn’t really care for basketball either!

I asked him about other sports and discovered he didn’t care much about ANY sports.

I loved him.

Haha just kidding, but it was a verrrry appealing quality. --He has since changed, watching late night football games with my dad and brothers whenever we are at my parent’s house and constantly checking his fantasy football app. Thanks, dad :(

Anyway, we had a really fun time at the game talking and laughing, and he even took me out for dinner afterwards!

We went to his evening institute class together for our third date. He made lots of comments and sat really close to me and he smelled divine. That’s all I remember. I took him to my favorite sushi restaurant afterwards!

We hung out a lot between these dates, movie nights with people from the ward, me bringing treats over to his apartment, him giving me rides places, hanging out at church activities, etc. We were constantly texting and trying to spend time with each other. It was pretty apparent something was going on between the two of us.

One Saturday at the end of March, I was in Heber, having just had another sleepover with Emily Cortopassi. Emily had gone to work, and I sat at my parent’s house wondering what I was going to do for the next five hours before they would take me to Provo. I decided to text Giuseppe, asking him to come hang out with me.

45 minutes later, he showed up at the house. I introduced him to my mom, felt horribly awkward, grabbed Giuseppe’s arm and yanked him out of the house. We decided to go on a drive through the mountains.

We ended up at a gorgeous, scenic cliff above the whole valley, and he put his arm around me.

Suddenly he said, “Katrina, I really like you.”

The first thing that popped out of my mouth was, “oh.”

Awkward silence.

His arm felt so heavy around my body.

“...I like you too.” But it was too late. The moment was gone.

We got back into the car, Giuseppe looking defeated. I felt awful.

We drove to Salt Lake to pick up my cousins and bring them to my apartment for a sleepover that evening. I lightened up the mood in the car, and then I reached over and held his hand. I had a lot to make up for haha.

We picked up Romney, Reagan, and Sophie and the five of us talked and laughed until we reached my apartment.

I felt soooo stupid for what I had said earlier, so I kissed him on the cheek before he drove away that night, hoping he would interpret it as an I’m-an-idiot-please-don’t-give-up-on-me kind of kiss.

ANYWAY long story short, he kissed me the next day. And then the day after that we had our infamous conversation…

K: About that kiss last night… You were going way too fast.

G: Oh. I’m sorry, maybe we are moving too fast. I’m really sorry, I-

K: No, no, no we’re not moving too fast, your mouth was moving way too fast! I didn’t like it.

G: Oh. Haha. Well, we can try it again? I’ll go slower.

K: Please.

And then all was well.

We spent the next week together, and I couldn’t make up my mind if I wanted to be his girlfriend or not. On March 30th, we finally had the discussion.

He sat on my couch and put his hands on my shoulders. Looking me right in the eye he asked if I could be his girlfriend. And I just decided to go for it!

April 2015

That first month was SO GREAT. We spent every second together, and it was a blast.

Obviously, it was a good call.

Soon, another call came: my mission call. I was SO excited. You don't even know. People were always questioning me like, "don't you have a real serious boyfriend? are you really excited for this??" Um, yes. I was.

I opened my call at the end of April. Giuseppe couldn't be there because he had a paint ball tournament in Vegas that weekend. I was secretly glad, I didn't want to mix the two at all.

I was called to the BULGARIA, SOFIA mission.

I was stoked. I wanted to learn a language SO BAD. And such an obscure one?! Yes please!

Even better, I wouldn't be leaving until August 26th! The second I read "Bulgaria" on my call, I jumped a few lines down to see when I'd be leaving. I wanted to have a lot of time you see...

Anyway, I told Giuseppe that late that night when he came home. His reaction wasn't as screamy-excited as all of my friends and family, but he was happy for me and excited that I would be going to Europe.

May 2015

The next few weeks of our relationship were amazing- we of course spent every second together and became more and more obsessed with each other.

Then I started worrying that he was going to tell me he loved me.

Oh gosh. That would mean things would really be serious!

I remember the first time he called me ‘babe’. I ran to my roommates as soon as I got home and told them of the weird thing that had just happened. I didn’t like it at all. It sounded so cheesy. I mean I wasn’t a babe. Ew.

Little did I know that I would soon become overly obsessed with terms of endearment.

Pretty soon we were babe-ing each other like it was the most casual thing in the world- and it was.

(I was such a jerk to my sweet baby! The worst.)

Anyway, back to the first “I love you.”

We had just gotten out of his evening institute class together. We were sitting in the parking lot of the Branbury. It was raining really hard, so of course I blasted Taylor’s “Sad Beautiful Tragic” in his car. I didn’t let him speak during the song.

(The following is an excerpt from an email I sent to Liz right after):

Then later on my porch we were just sort of staring at each other and these are the exact words he said, "So... I need to tell you something. I've been wanting to tell you for a couple weeks now and I'm not really good with words, but... I love you. Like, a lot a lot."

AH, right?!

I giggled or something dumb and told him I loved him too. He told me how to say it in Italian, I told him how to say it in French.

I really started to love him after that point. Not only was I having a blast with him but our lives were meshing into each others and it felt so perfect.

The only problem? My mission….

Christmas Break: What We Did

Hey blog readers,

Sorry for the long absence. My excuse isn't lack of time or anything, more like a lack of content! My life has been feeling extra boring lately (you'll find out why at the end of the post), but I've compiled a little summary of what we did during our Christmas break.. Enjoy:

Here are the highlights of our 3 weeks without school:

The Saturday after finals week we headed to ELKO for Romney's homecoming! It was a blast. We hung out with family, stayed in a hotel suite with my fam, G went swimming with his clothes on, we hung out with Romney + fam for hours on end, and ate delicious Russian borscht. It rocked.

Sophie got a RIDICULOUS amount of Jimmy Johns loaves after her Saturday night shift for the luncheon. Sadie begged us to take some. I really hate Jimmy Johns, but G took a couple loaves. He snacked on one that night.

That next Monday I had a little Christmas party with my old roomies. We exchanged gifts, ate Costa Vida, talked about everything under the sun, and it was amazing. Ugh but why do we never take pictures?!

That night was THE BEST. We had a family Christmas party in Lehi and it was sooooo fun to have Romney back. We just had to make up a dance, for old times sake. Romney, Mallerie, Ava, Alivia, Landrie, Kate, Violet, and I even convinced Giuseppe to participate and it was hilarious. He looked so cute doing those ballet moves ;) It was amazing.

The next day G and I went to the Provo City Center temple with Romney and Sadie.

Afterwards G and I showed them the most delicious (and ghetto) Mexican restaurant in Provo. Sadie treated us to delicious burritos and we chatted for a long time. It was so much fun!

That evening we went to help out with Vivint's Sub For Santa. I LOVE Sub For Santa. It's like, my thing. We wrapped presents for like 3 hours, and then we got to actually deliver them! It was such a cool experience to surprise these families with things they desperately needed as well as some gifts for the kids. Wonderful.

One of the highlights of my Christmas Break was nannying for the Gordon's again! The drive to Heber wasn't too bad. I had so much fun going to the rec center, library, Walmart (their favorite), making movies, breaking up fights, witnessing meltdowns, and catching up with Heather :)

We had dinner with Luke and Hazel later that week. They have a cute little apartment in Salt Lake, near us! They told us about their adventures in France. I can't wait to go and get a move on with my French!

G and I babysat the bishop's adorable kids one night. Their two little girls reminded me of Mallerie and I when we were little. Showing off to the babysitter, making excuses to not go to bed haha. They are hilarious. The baby boy is the cutest thing in the world too!

On the 24th, we drove up to Brigham City to visit Mama Hess. Rob and Angela came as well! We ordered pizza, exchanged gifts, and played with the kids. It was so much fun! I love my in-laws.

That night we headed to Orem for our annual Christmas Eve bethlehem dinner with the Bocanegra's. 'Twas beautiful.

We went back to my parents house that night and opened pajamas and sibling gifts. Awkward that we forgot Callie's at our apartment... Luckily my mom has a stash of toys hidden away for her. Spoiled little girl... ;) just kidding Callie, you're the sweetest little girl in the entire world.

Christmas morning ROCKED. My parents surprised us with so many great things including a SWEET Fuji (Polaroid) camera!! I love it.

G and I also took Callie sledding during the afternoon. G is the cutest.

^those things are so fun, am I right?

The next day, my dad treated the fam to Rodizio Grill to celebrate them finishing the BOM. The food was so good, I want to cry just thinking about it.

The next day we headed back to SLC.

I drove down to Provo and hung out with Liz that Wednesday! She shopped, I browsed, we tried delicious French pastries, and I tried to leave an awful review for the Sephora we went to. The music was SO loud and so obnoxious. It was the absolute worst music I have ever heard. Well maybe second from the time that G and I took a road trip to yellowstone with some friends when we were dating and Dominic blasted heavy metal the entire drive....

Haha but anyway Liz and I had a rockin' time :)

On December 30th I babysat the Gordon's. G was a doll and deep cleaned the entire apartment while I gone. He even organized the horrendous storage closet in our apartment! Oh how I love that boy.

As I was leaving the Gordon's, Brigham asked me if he could have a sleepover at our apartment. I thought, "why not?" and drove him to Salt Lake. He and Giuseppe had nerf gun wars for hours while blasting Brigg's favorite song, "Space Unicorn". It is just as hideous as it sounds haha.

We took Brigg's to our family's day-early New Year's Eve party and the three of us had a blast. Especially Brigham, he wowed us with his nunchucks and participated animatedly in all of the games! What a cutie, we loved having him with us.

My dad's side of the family sure can throw a party! We ate delicious tamales (my latest obsession), played games, and counted down to the last day of 2016.

Our actual New Years Eve was quite different. We said goodbye to Brigham in the morning, and decided to spend our evening being chaperones at the stake dance.

I didn't like stake dances when I was a youth, but I guess it was a little better having a cute husband by my side the whole time.

The kids' BO though... Oh man. That was hard to put up with. The cutest local band came and played 50's music the whole time (yes, the whole time), and G and I danced and danced. And I tried to teach him how to hula hoop!

After the dance we helped clean up and then gave some rides home.

Go service!

January 2nd was our anniversary!

FIRST ANNIVERSARY. 366 days of marriage. We're like.... old now.

How we celebrated: sharing a delicious sandwich at Aubergine, browsing Barnes & Noble travel section (instead of actually traveling. #collegestudentprobs), thinking about getting a dog and attempting to bond with some in the shelter (#nokidsprobs), driving in a snowstorm to see a movie in Lehi (Collateral Beauty. It was too sad for me), and having a late dinner at Cheesecake Factory.

Go marriage!

People kept asking me, "can you BELIEVE it has been a year already?"

Um, yes, very much.

It was the longest year of my entire life! It was a great year, don't get me wrong but oh my gosh summer 2016 went on for eternities. I am still scarred from it! Things are going to be much, much different this summer.

I will write more details about our summer plans later, but I will tell you that Vivint is taking us to Bentonville, Arkansas! I'm so excited to move to another city and do things differently. #saleswifeperks

Anyway, a couple days after our anniversary G and I decided he should snag an opportunity to work in Louisiana for the next few months. So we spent every second together and every last gift card and then... poof. he was gone.

I have since started school and I thought this dramatic selfie I sent to G last week pretty much sums up my life since January 8th:

Thank you to my wonderful friends who have kept me somewhat sane thus far!

G is coming to visit me next week, so all will be well soon enough! He's going to help me move too! I'm so excited for a change of scenery!

xoxo to you all

November '16

November wrap-up...

Free Movie Night

The Linguistics club got a bunch of tickets to the pre-screening of "Arrival".

IT WAS SO GOOD. It was one of those movies that has you captivated the whole time and you forget about everything going on in your life. At least it did that for me!

I highly recommend it.


Election Night

We ate barbecue and watched the loooong election process, while occasionally putting on an episode of Arrested Development. (our favorite)


Goodbye Dick, Hannah, and Harper Hess

The cutest baby in the world is no longer living within a 30 mile radius of us :(

Dick (G's brother) and Hannah moved to Seattle 2 weeks ago for Dick's cool job promotion.

THAT'S SO FAR.

However, now we have a good excuse to travel to Seattle, a city I've always wanted to see! Plus, they were verrrrrry generous with us as they gave away like 90% of their belongings to friends and family so at least we have that to console us ;)


Week Apart
Giuseppe spent a week in Louisiana. It was terrible for me. To make things even worse, I thought he would be getting home on Sunday night and I didn't find out until the night before that he wouldn't be getting home until early Tuesday morning. Isn't that TERRIBLE.

However, he made some successful sales and it was all worth it in the end! Thanks for working so hard for us baby.


Fantastic Beasts

I loved every second of it.



Thanksgiving

I LOVE THANKSGIVING! We went to my parent's house and my dad's side of the fam came over. The food was so good, I am almost tearing up just thinking about it.

After feasting, my cousins and sisters and I participated in TAYLOR FEST. Taylor Fest is a game involving all Taylor Swift songs. Giuseppe played a 3 second clip of a Taylor Swift song and we had to name it within 10 seconds, along with the correct album. Carly, Rachel, Samantha, Ava, and I played. Callie and Jamie kept score. It was too easy for me, so G had to switch to 1 second. And hey, what do you know, I still won. ;)


Snowball Fight Gone Awry

Mallerie convinced Giuseppe to run Midway's annual "Turkey Trot" with her on the morning of Thanksgiving, so Graham and I decided to come and watch. After they took off we played in a nearby small field of fresh snow. Cute little Graham did some snow angels, and then he started pelting me with snowballs, so I fought back. This went on for about 10 minutes until I reached my hands in my pockets and realized my phone and G's phone WERE NO LONGER IN THERE.

I looked across the field at the tracks of footsteps and knew I was in for trouble.

Graham and I began searching immediately, looking for a rectangle shape in the snow, and kicking away the 3 inch snow from around our footprints. After about 5 minutes of doing this, 2 little girls came running to play in the field and I asked them to tell me if they found a pink or black iPhone in the snow. They ran to their mom and told her of my predicament, and she and her husband helped search. They are THE NICEST PEOPLE I HAVE EVER MET. She once lost her phone on a snowy mountain while snowboarding and she found it! After about 10 or 15 minutes of no luck, the husband yelled, "I found it!" I yelled back, "Is it the black one?!" IT WAS!! Yay! Giuseppe's phone had been found. Just a few minutes later G ran through the finish line and I supportively yelled, "Go baby! Go baby!" and tried to hug him but he was NOT having it. Now was not the time to tell him about his phone! So I handed it to him, told him to get some water, and ran back to the field to find my phone. After making NO progress and after the kind family left, and after Graham stopped helping me, I realized I could use the "find my iPhone" app on G's phone to find mine. I should have thought of that LONG before! So I found G, told him of the predicament, assured him repeatedly that his phone wasn't in the snow for very long, and then used the app. A few minutes later and my phone was found! And it's working fine.

Prayers were answered and miracles happened that day.



Black Friday

More like Black-Thursday-Night. G took Ava and Callie and I to the outlets and we got some beautiful clothes at G. H. Bass & Co, Banana, and Old Navy. I love shopping.



Savannah
Savannah, the girl that I nannied for six years, spent last Saturday morning with us while her parents went car shopping in Sandy. She's 13 now. We went to her favorite stores at City Creek, ate at the foodcourt, introduced her to Anthropologie, and watched a Pokémon movie. Savannah is the cutest!



Temple Square Christmas Lights
We met up with Rob and Angela, who we haven't seen in FOREVER to see the Christmas lights! I feel like I hardly saw any lights because we were talking the whole time haha. Happens every time I go, and that's they way I like it. Sky, their cute six year old son, is in French dual immersion at his elementary school and so I always try and get him to speak French with me, but he never does. I pointed out a sister missionary from France, and she started speaking in French to him. It was so cute when he responded, but after a minute he told her, "Can we just stop this now?!" and ran away. Hahaha.


Well that's our November wrap up! It's been a great month.

Here is some exciting news:

I don't think I've mentioned yet that I'm the YW secretary in the ward! I LOVE IT. I love the girls, the leaders, the weekly activities, the Sunday lessons, the presidency meetings, everything! I have been in this calling for about a month and a half now.

The even cooler thing is, yesterday Giuseppe got called as the YM secretary!! Haha isn't that perfect? So now we get to hang out on Wednesday nights once or twice a month.

This is what we do

Conference

We spent conference weekend with my fam, but we did go to temple square for the Saturday morning session and met up with some of Giuseppe's California friends and had lunch. G and I watched the session in the Legacy Theatre at the JSMB. It was great, except for when a child behind me dropped a bunch of heavy books on my head.

This is a picture of us in North Fields where we helped Ava find some bugs for her science project.

Vivint Bro

Something you need to know about working for Vivint is that as time goes on, more and more of the things in your house will have Vivint's name branded on it. Clothes, water bottles, camping accessories, shoes, backpacks, hats, blankets, speakers, pens, and more. At first, I thought this was pretty annoying.

But then Pep (one of Giuseppe's new nickname) brought home this awesome coat, and then I was like, "okay... this ain't so that bad." And a cool camping chair.

He has even started wearing flat brim hats, but don't worry, I am still attracted to him.


Tithing Blessings

So get this: Our poor $2K car has been through a lot this year- you know, driving across the country twice and whatnot- and its tires have been shredded up. Literally.

SO, just when Giuseppe decided we couldn't wait another mile to get new tires, HE WON A $300 GIFT CARD. All because he used Vivint's hashtag on twitter.

And what do you know, the cost for the tire replacement was $316. Sixteen dollar tires definitely fit in our budget. :) Thank you Vivint. Thank you Heavenly Father.


City Creek

We love living minutes away from the city! Especially City Creek, where we go often.Although we usually just end up buying Chick-fil-A. This is a pic of me chilling/judging in the children's play area.

Dinner Parties

We have started having dinners with friends! It has been super great. First, the LeBaron's, Lacey + Sterling, and the (future) Goodwin's, Rebecca and Parker. I love my Heber 6th Ward girls! And their husbands/fiancés are pretty rad too. We ate baked polenta and pao de queijo.

Then we had Mama Hess over for Taco soup and she told us the woes of working at Costa Vida. :( Good riddance to that job!

Then we had the Albright's (Kylie + Corey), and the Sorensen's (Stephanie and Landan) over. (Some of) my 307 girls!! We had barbecue and brownies and played a vicious game of Catchphrase, which the girls won ;)

Last Sunday we drove down to Spanish Fork for dinner at the Fox's (Taylor and Kaleigh)! They were our good friends in our singles ward (where they also met) and they got married 2 weeks before us. We ate chicken teriyaki and played Catchphrase (classic), which the Fox's won. (NOOOOO!!) Haha anyway it was a LONG overdue visit. We love the Fox's!


Treat yo self

(Parks & Rec reference anyone?) We are a fan of trying new places to eat, so when we saw a cute gelato place by the U, we tried it. This is G in his sweet new jacket eating the fruits of his homeland.

Elizatate

Liz & Tate were MARRIED on October 20th and it was a fantaaaaaastic day. Liz named me Matron of Honor. Even though being their third wheel in high school was totally fun, it's pretty cool that I have my G babe now for our future Hess/Stone adventures. The reception was SO fun. G and I got craaaaazy on the dance floor.

Extra wedding flowers left our apartment smelling all mmmmmm...

Mama Hess turns 60!

After window shopping at city creek, which is always a blast when your mother-in-law is hilarious, we treated her to our favorite Italian restaurant, Settebello. I am still crying over the delicious margherita pizza I ate and the mouth-watering passion fruit gelato afterwards. If you are ever in downtown Salt Lake and you are looking for an amazing fire oven pizza, you know where to go.


Sales Husband

This is my cute baby mid-date on the phone making a sale! How could I be upset about that?! He's so smooooth.

A Day In the Life at The U

Walking to my phonetics & phonology class.

Don't be fooled, this walk isn't as lovely as it appears. My Syntax class ends fifteen minutes before this one, and I have to BOOK IT across the entire campus to make it to class. It's the worst.

One time G and I met at a park during the day and we found a cute little art museum.


Albright Halloween Party

We celebrated Halloween with some of our favorite people! (The Albright's, the Sorensen's, Madi, Ally, and Siera)

And NO PICTURES WERE TAKEN. You will just have to take my word that it was the cutest Halloween party you ever-did(n't)-see. Kylie is the cutest hostess. We chatted and played catchphrase (I know, I know, enough about this game in this post) and ate food and witch's brew. :) And then after the scaredy-cats left, the Albright's and Hess' watched The Forest. CHILLS. It was a late night and a great one.

G and I dressed as a squabbling old couple. Hahahaha oh the fights we had :) This is a pic taken a few days earlier at Olive Garden where we met up with the Stone's for like 15 minutes. We ate their breadsticks and chatted and left. We are sitting down in the pic, so G's old man stomach doesn't look as great as it did. :(

Turn It Down

To my faithful blog readers,


A lot of you have told me that this blog is enjoyable to you, and I'm glad that this shenanigans can bring entertainment to your life, because it sure is fun for me to write about :)

I am a blog stalker. I love reading about people's lives, even people I don't know. I also love reading autobiographies. It is just a weird interest that I have.

I especially love reading the blogs of people who have horribly difficult things thrust into their lives and they share how they overcome these things- or at least live with them.

One of my favorites is Emily Meyers. Just, please... Go check this girl out.

Giuseppe just thinks I'm "obsessed with other people's sad lives", but he doesn't get it.

Reading about other people's lives is like making new friends. And who doesn't like that??

Anyway, I really would like to post more on this blog. Not for your sake at all, but as a little online journal for myself. :) I'd like to remember the small moments and what it was like to be a newlywed living in Salt Lake with my adorable husband.

So, here is a random moment in the life of the Hess'.

One afternoon I accidentally took a very long nap (don't you HATE that??), which subsequently led to me having a hard time falling asleep that night. My restlessness and whispered questions were really getting on Giuseppe’s nerves, so I decided to distance myself from the exhausted boy and listen to my new favorite song, Still Falling For You on my headphones.

I told Giuseppe my plan, but he told me that would be even more annoying because the light from the phone and the faint sound from the headphones would REALLY bother him. Even worse, he said, I had already listened to that song 10 times that evening and he couldn’t stand to hear it one more time.

Is it just me, or is a new Ellie Goulding song impossible to listen to only once?? I told G that if I used his beats he wouldn’t hear any sound, and that the light on my phone would be very brief. He told me I wasn’t allowed to use his beats for this purpose, but I decided to go find them anyway. After searching noisily (not on purpose) around in the pitch black bedroom for the headphones, I finally found them and I got back in bed. I could feel Giuseppe’s (loving) annoyance in the air.

I then proceed to choose my song and make sure it was set to repeat. As the song began, it was really loud so I turned down the volume.

Giuseppe complained, “I can hear it!! It is SO LOUD.” So I turned it down some more.

“It is still SO LOUD.” I turned it down even more, but at that point I couldn’t even hear it.

“Honey, TURN IT OFF. IT'S WAAAAAY TOO LOUD!”

“Are you kidding? I can’t even hear it!!”

“It’s the loudest thing I have ever heard!”

“Oh my gosh it’s like not even on!! I need to turn it on.”

“No!! How am I supposed to sleep?”

And that’s when I realized I hadn’t plugged the headphones into my phone and the music was playing out of the iPhone speaker. :/

That outside noise-reducing feature on the beats headphones really works!

Anyway, I will bring this long and pointless story to a close and inform you that Giuseppe wasn’t able to hear my music once I had the headphones plugged in, and I was able to fall asleep after a few rounds of Ellie.

And that was that.

***

An Afternoon Surprise

Yesterday afternoon, as Giuseppe and I were folding laundry, he told me he had planned a surprise activity for us. I love surprises, and I immediately started guessing. Everything I thought of was apparently way off.

When we were done folding, he told me to grab a photo ID and come with him.

I was surprised when he said we wouldn't be getting in the car, but that we would be walking there. So we walked, hand in hand, out of our apartment complex and into the lovely (sarcasm there) city of South Salt Lake.

I was sooooo confused, but as soon as I saw a building across the street with huge red lettering, I knew where we were going. The building read:

CSL Plasma

"What a horrible, horrible surprise!" I wailed and wailed, yet I didn't stop walking. As we walked closer to the building and I couldn't stop talking about how scared I was. I HATE going to the doctor's or giving blood or anything of the sort.

"I know things are tight, but pay day is in two days. We can still scrape by. It doesn't have to be like this!" I told him.

But Giuseppe went on to explain all the additional expenses that would be coming up and he finally convinced me that there really was no other way. With fear in my heart, I kept walking forward. There was no other way.

I should have been mad about being dragged into this, but I was actually kind of grateful I didn't really have a say in the matter and that it was so sudden. Less time to think about it and freak out, you know?

We talked about what it was going to be like and he kept assuring me it would be all right when I started to back out.

About halfway there, Giuseppe turned the opposite direction of the plasma donation center, and into a car dealership.

"What are you doing? This isn't the turn!" I told him, trying to yank him away.

"Yes it is," he said gently. "You're going to test-drive a Subaru Crosstrek," he said.

"What? I am? Did you arrange this?" I asked.

"Yeah, I called in earlier. They have one here you can drive!" he said.

"But what about the Plasma center? Didn't you say it was going to close soon?"

"Baby, we're not going to donate plasma!"

"WHAT?!"

"Of course not. That would be a horrible surprise! No, you get to test drive your favorite car!"

"Yay!!! This is SO MUCH BETTER! Thank you thank you thank you!!"

"So you were planning on tricking me about donating plasma?" I continued.

"Nope, you just assumed that's what we were doing so I went along with it."

What a relief! Unfortunately, during all the trickery, we actually both convinced ourselves that we need to start donating plasma.

So, after test driving my favorite car (which ROCKED), we headed over to the plasma place to get some more information.

We'll see how our appointment tomorrow morning goes. I'm really hoping I get denied.

Simpsonville 2nd Ward

One of the highlights of our summer in Greenville was the WARD. I wanted to share a few experiences I had being in this ward.

First of all, being nursery leaders was the greatest thing ever. The babies were really well-behaved, and during the third hour (after the sad ones had been weeded out and diapers had been changed) the atmosphere was quite pleasant. The best part was at the end when we'd blow bubbles. The babies LOVED it. I will always remember the face one girl made every time the bubbles were brought out. Her eyes would twitch with glee, and her tongue would hang out as she practically drooled with excitement. Haha greatest reaction ever.

Lessons were always difficult, but one Sunday we got them sitting still (AT THE SAME TIME!) and we shared a very brief story about the Holy Ghost. For once it seemed like they were actually listening! One girl was quite frightened by the ghost-talk. We tried to explain that the Holy Ghost is a "nice feeling" but she wasn't convinced. Later, she summoned all of the babies to the window, pointed out a "ghost", and got them all scared. Some babies, whom I had never heard speak before, walked around saying, "ghost! ghost!" Haha so there's that.

Bishop Jone's wife was pregnant with her NINTH child and was put on bedrest, so I offered to help with the kids and the house. What started out to be a simple service turned out to be the biggest blessing of the summer! The Jones are my favorite family. :) Cute kids, sassy kids, hormonal kids, the works. Their house is always loud and chaotic but in a good way. The kids are all best friends, even the teenagers. Sister Jones is super chill and fun and super great to hang out with! I spent most of my last three weeks in South Carolina over at their house or out shopping with Sister Jones (after she was off bedrest of course!). Their lively house and fun personalities were such a BLESSING after my lonely summer of staring at a computer screen or a book. They have served me more than I served them, and we will be life-long friends for sure.

It was actually a pretty neat experience during the week she was on bed rest. Practically the entire ward came to the rescue, bringing in meals and visiting and randomly showing up to help with the kids or the house. Her bedroom became a ward social place for a bit as people popped in and stayed for a few minutes or hours. It was so cool how the ward came together to help their family. The greatest part was that it was so comfortable!

One afternoon I was at the park with the three youngest girls (ages 1, 3, and 8). It was cloudy, and as it began to drizzle, I herded the girls under a pavilion. Minutes after we reached the pavilion, a raging hail/wind/thunder storm started! It was the most intense storm I have witnessed in my entire life. There were several other people under the pavilion, and we each had a corner to ourselves. As the storm grew worse and worse, we all inched more inward until eventually we were all smashed together on top of a table in the middle. Although the storm was insane, it was kind of a fun experience. I mean who doesn't love a good thunderstorm? I was enjoying the situation for a while, but it definitely wasn't ideal to be in charge of three babies. I had the two youngest in my arms and they were being pelted with rain. The water level underneath the table was getting higher and higher, and it was rushing fast. The thunder was getting pretty intense too- it sounded more like bombs than actual thunder. A mom was there with two little kids, and they were screaming their heads off in fear. But Everly, the cute little 1 year old I was holding, was laughing crazily while violently shaking each time the thunder hit. It was pretty much the cutest and strangest thing I have ever witnessed! Eventually, the hail stopped, the rain calmed down, the flooding finished. Sister Jones picked us up and that was that!

I looked forward to the ward temple trip for weeks. I have never lived outside of Utah before, and the reality of what other people go through not having a temple nearby hit me hard. The nearest temple, the Colombia temple, was too far away for Giuseppe to be able to go with me in the morning and make it back in time for work, so this was really my only shot. The morning of the trip, I was SO excited. Like bouncing-out-of-bed and singing-while-brushing-my-teeth excited. Giuseppe took me to the church that the morning, and waited with me for people to show up. We waited for quite a while before I started making phone calls. Apparently the trip had been cancelled!!! But because I wasn't on the email list yet, I hadn't been informed. I was seriously craving the temple, and when I realized I wasn't going to be able to go I just sobbed. It was the worst news everrrr. But Sister Taylor, the greatest relief society president ever, got wind of this and offered to take me to the temple that weekend! YES.

The long drive was so fun, she is absolutely hilarious and has some great stories. And of course the temple was amazing. It was super small. Like smaller than a church building. But so beautiful of course! A temple worker asked if we could do some baptisms for family names before the session started, and we gladly accepted. I really needed that temple trip and I am so grateful for Sister Taylor's willingness to take me. She has such a fun personality! And she is the most service-oriented person I have ever met. It's so inspiring.

The rest of the ward was also super kind to reach out to us so often. Several families invited us over for dinner and offered so much desperately needed help.

I love the examples of these members. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints should be a place of service and acceptance and this is exactly what this ward was!

And although I am sad to leave behind this place, our ward in South Salt Lake is equally as inviting and welcoming. And of course I could never forget our Provo YSA 136th Ward, where Giuseppe and I meant. Some of the most incredible, sincere young adults I have ever met have lived in this ward. I love the gospel, but I also love the church!

I don't really want to end this post on a "Yeah, my church is so cool" note though, because I should also mention that most of the people I met in South Carolina weren't members (obviously) and they were some of the most friendly, hospitable, and accepting people I have ever met. Seriously, Southern Hospitality is a real thing and the people over there are full of so much love. :)

I will miss you, South Carolina!