1 year.

When are you no longer newlyweds? Is the one-year mark the end of newlywedom? Somehow I blinked my eye and the year passed by. I feel like just yesterday we loaded up the car and headed to Savannah with more nervousness and excitement than I could even begin to describe. I remember every second of that day. I think that may be one of my favorite things about my wedding day, the fact that I can remember it all like it was yesterday. Everyone told me that my wedding day would fly by and it would be a blur, but most of my day was relaxed and calm and just fun. Yeah towards the end it got rushed and of course I made absolutely no plans at all, so I forgot that I actually needed to pay for the reception and had to use the carriage drivers cell phone to call my mom and tell her to run back to the room to get my wallet, but I still remember the hilariousness of that and every other detail. I remember every word the pastor said during our ceremony and every emotion I felt. My wedding day was absolutely perfect in every way.

But now a year has rolled around since then, and those emotions have only gotten stronger, and now we have survived a little more life and I know we will survive a lot more of life through the years, and I am beyond excited about that. Just tonight we were discussing what we were going to do after I graduate from my Masters program and what city we could move to next. I can only imagine where all our life together will lead us and I am so excited at the prospects.

The past year I've learned so much about my role as a wife and about what having a husband means and doesn't mean. I've learned so much about Jamey, and we've grown together in so many ways.

Here are the top ten things we have learned about marriage in the past year (in no certain order)

1. We've learned that shutting the bathroom door is key. Keeping a little mystery in the marriage never hurt anyone when it comes to bodily functions!

2. We've learned having a roommate of the opposite sex rocks! There is always someone there to reach the top of the shelves and make a fire. Also there is always someone to bake tasty cheesecakes and do the Christmas shopping.

3. Sometimes having a roommate of the opposite sex can mean adjusting. The toilet seat gets left up quite a bit, and there are feminine products under the cabinets.

4. Your spouse is your biggest encourager. They can see just the words you need to hear and give you the strength to keep going after a long day at work or a stressful time with friends.

5. Your spouse can also say the things that hurt the most. I think hearing something from your spouse hurts more than hearing it from anyone else. Be kind with your words. It is easy when you are frustrated to get the other where it hurts, but it is never the right way to go about things and you will end up feeling just as hurt.

6. Saying I love you everyday is important. Even when you don't necessarily feel like saying it. You need to hear that you are loved and so does your spouse. Say it often and mean it.

7. Figure out what speaks love to your spouse and make sure that you do that as much as possible. We all feel loved it different ways and you need to make sure that your spouse love language is being spoken into.

8. Communication truly is key. It sounds like an old cliche, but it is so true. Communication is important in all relationships, but most important in your marriage. From everything to how your day is going to how the money is being spent to more intimate things...

9. Understanding that the other person doesn't work on the same time frame as you and doesn't think the same way and that is okay. Things will get done and you don't have to 100% agree on how they need to be done to get them done. Actually, you can live life along side someone and not 100% agree on every detail of life. I'm a planner and Jamey isn't and we still both survive the days together. Sometimes the days are planned and sometimes they aren't. We've both learned that things will be okay without it going our way sometimes.

10. Whenever times get stressful or hard or too much to handle lean on the other person don't make them out to be the bad guy. Marriage means you have a partner in life, so when things get stressful remember they are a partner that can make things easier not someone just getting in the way.

11. (a Freebie!) Go to God with everything. He is your constant and you will never make it through the many years of marriage without Him. In the one quick year we have been married it wasn't hard to figure that one out!

Our first year of marriage has taught us so much and I know we will never stop learning new things about each other and new things about our marriage. Here's to many more years of wedded bliss!

The Holiday Season is Upon Us.

I have a serious problem and the holiday season always brings it to the forefront. I love baking. I know that most people wouldn't think that I would be into that and honestly I'm not really that great at it, but it is like therapy for me. Standing in the kitchen and making beautiful and tasty treats is just relaxing and fun. I like to cook okay, but baking is really what I enjoy. For some reason all the holiday treats make me even more excited and currently all I want to do all day is bake.

The other night we had friends over for dinner and I baked Marble brownies from Smitten Kitchen. They were pretty great and Jamey may or may not have eaten them for breakfast this morning. Cheesecake and chocolate are Jamey's favorite desserts so pretty much everything I make is either chocolate or cheesecake related. This did not help curb my addiction though and ever since then I've been looking up recipes. This weekend we are headed to Demopolis to see family since we didn't make it there for Thanksgiving, and we are eating breakfast with my dad. He works weird hours so we always try to squeeze in whatever time works for him when we are there which this weekend means a 6:30am breakfast! Breakfast is one of my favorite meals so I defintely don't mind. Also, for some reason breakfast and Daddy always seem to go hand in hand and bring good memories. Memories are so weird like that. It isn't like we ever made breakfast a big deal or anything and we didn't really eat it that often (mainly at night if mom was out of town!), but I'll always remember how my dad takes his coffee and that his deer sausage is the BEST!

Anywhoo, holidays obviously make me nostalgic too! I am thinking of making an Apple Yogurt Coffee Cake for this weekend. My dad is more of an eggs and bacon guy, but I thought it would be a yummy addition. I'm making Emily from Cupcakes and Cashmere's version. I'll let you know how it turns out!

What is everyone else doing this first weekend of December?? Decorating for Christmas? Truth time: we put up our tree before Thanksgiving... We are totally not big Christmas people, but for some reason I got into the tree this year. Have a good rest of the week and weekend!

Thankfulness

WOW! It has been ages since I've had time to sit down and update everyone. Jamey and I have been busy bees lately and it has been awesome, but definitely stressful at times. Lately we've been up to work and school and I've been studying for the CPA. I've taken two out of the four tests, and I haven't found out any of my scores yet which is driving me CRAZY! I won't find out for a little while longer....

Oh and if you only really care about pictures just scroll to the bottom :)

The holiday season is most certainly upon us and with the passing of Thanksgiving this past week and the quickly approaching Christmas I thought I would document a few things I am thankful for so in the years to come I can look back and see it!

I'm definitely thankful for the fantastic jobs both Jamey and I have. Jamey LOVES his job and I do too which is such a blessing during these crazy times. And even though I absolutely HATE studying I'm glad for the opportunity I have to attend grad school and sit for the CPA exam because both are fairly expensive and time consuming, and so many others don't have the money or time I do to do both, so that is definitely a blessing! I often forget that when I am in the thick of studying and I think I ask Jamey about 124563825 times if I can just quit and become a housewife which I'm totally kidding about (well sort of...), but I get frustrated and need to remind myself I have such a great opportunity which so many others don't have.

I'm also thankful for the amazing apartment we are able to live in and all the great things we have to fill it up with. I am so bad about wishing I had more, prettier, better, etc etc, but really I have a wonderful roof over my head and all the other stuff will come with time!! Everyday I pass so many people that don't even have beds to sleep on so I'm taking time this holiday season to be grateful for the comfy bed I get to crawl into each night.

This past week hanging out with my family made me realize what an awesome family and friends the Lord has given me. I don't even know what all I could say about them because it would never be enough to describe what all they have done for me or what I know they will continue to do for me over the years!! Let's just say I definitely don't deserve all the love my family, friends and even new family have given me over the years and I will continue to repay them forever!

And of course I could never forget to be thankful for my little family! Hewitt, Gandalf, and Jamey may be an odd little family but I wouldn't trade any of them for the world! Jamey has been more understanding than I could ever hope for! Right now he is working on our Christmas cards. I mean what guy would be pouring over the hundreds of pictures we took and making sure we picked out the perfect ones to send out for Christmas?? I don't know many which is just a small reason why I am so thankful for him in my life. In just two weeks we will celebrate our first anniversary. The year has flown by and I can't believe it! He has been my rock this year and I don't know where I would be without him!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving too! We spent the days in Gatlinburg with family and we are going to spend the upcoming weekend with more family! Have a good week!

Overwhelmed and Over-Blessed

Confession time: I haven't posted in a LONG time. I even left a cliff hanger blog post and promised I would update in a couple of days and then I failed. The fact that I failed is no surprise. Thank goodness that I am forgiven by a Savior that picks me up after I fail Every. Single. Time. because I do it often. But I digress...I'm here to sort of explain my failure and even more than that send a shout out to my best friends.

These past couple of weeks have overwhelmed me beyond belief. I began studying for the CPA exam a couple of weeks ago, but no matter how hard I tried to get everything together and stay on track with my studying I just fell more and more behind. We traveled on the weekends or I had things going on in the afternoons/nights and couldn't seem to fit it all in. Last weekend it came to a breaking point. I pretty much stayed in all weekend and studied non-stop to catch up. The worst part of it is that it is some of the most overwhelming and hardest stuff I have ever had to study. It is like taking a test a test on an entire textbook of material but only having a month to study the whole text book. Well if all I was doing was studying for the CPA it might not be so bad, but I also have to study for my classes in school which aren't altogether difficult but dfinitely time consuming. Writing papers and reading textbooks and doing online discussion boards just takes time that I don't exactly have. Meanwhile we are still pretty busy at work trying to get 10/15 returns out the door. I'm also supposed to be training for a marathon and I'm desperately trying to cling to some intimacy with God. Oh and lets not forget my poor husband who defintely gets the slighlty disyfunctional peice of me that is left at the end of the day while we are trying to make a pretty big decision ourselves right now.

I tell you all that not to throw a pity party for myself because as busy as I am right now I try to take a step back and think of how busy I will be one day when I have a full-time job, kids, and numerous other responsibilities to wrap my head around. I do tell you this to give a slight reasoning behind my absence from the blog and from anyone and everyone's lives right now.

I also want to say thank you to all my friends who have made the effort to keep up with me recently . I'm truly not the best at keeping up with people. I live more in the right now and the future and I'm just all around bad at making sure I'm intentionally with keeping up with the people most important in my life. I am truly blessed by friends that understand this and don't let me slip by the wayside when I haven't called to chat in awhile. I have had several friends who have texted just to chat and I'm the absolute worst at texting. If I'm at work and I'm in my zone I won't look over at my phone or if  I do I will just say I will text later and then later never comes. The same is true when I get home at night I often put my phone away and don't look at it again until the morning, which is also an effort not to spend my whole night on the phone and instead to enjoy time with Jamey. But the Lord has blessed me with friends who don't disappear when I take 8 hours to text back or when I forget altogether to text back, I really do appreciate each and everyone of you and I am more than blessed to call you my best friends. I hope this public display of affection is not irritating to everyone else reading my blog, but I wanted to share a little of my blessings with everyone!

I hope you all have dear friends like I do and I hope one day I can pay them back with a fraction of the love they show me all the time. My heart really is to be more intentional with everyone in my life, but I don't always succeed in those areas. LOVE TO ALL the friends in my life and a special thank you for being so understanding of my crazy life and making the special effort to keep in touch.

J&M: The Beginning of the End

Well we left off last time at the day Jamey and I met. Now we will pick up and tell our versions of the years that led up to our eventual dating. Oh and this post is quite long, but we have both already basically written the next post and I promise it isn't as long!! Bear with me through this one and I'll post the next one in a day or two! 

My Version:

Of course since Jamey is the story teller in our family I am sure his will be MUCH better than mine so I will try to keep this short so you can just move onto his version!

 Like I said in the last post the next few years flew by with us each having our own friends and sometimes our friends intermingling, but never anything serious. I guess I should pick up in more detail about freshmen year of high school. I think high school was about the time I began to take a little more notice of Jamey. We went to a small school, so of course everyone knew each other and were friends, but outside our small circles we didn’t hang out with everyone outside of school. Freshmen year our classes began to get smaller, and we had classes more with our friends than ever before. (Our school did advanced tracks and everyone that was in our friend group took the advanced classes so we all had them together, where as in middle school we were all a little bit more spread out.) One person that kept popping up in a large majority of my classes was Jamey. It was around this year though, that I began to discover that Jamey wasn’t just an unbelievable nerd, but actually a really smart and interesting guy. Of course if you know anything about me I was dating someone at the time, and I thought this guy was perfect. He was older and didn’t go to our school and was a little different than the other boys that I knew, so I was sold on him hook, line, and sinker, but somehow Jamey still stood out to me in a way a couldn’t quite put my finger on at the time. 

My best friend and I at the time began looking into going to a boarding school in Mobile and Jamey was looking into it also, so we all talked a lot about going to school there and if our parents were going to let us and all that, but alas my friend and Jamey went off to boarding school and my parents decided I would be better suited at home. So just as quickly as I had begun to notice Jamey he was gone and I thought that was that.

Sophomore year was just typical sophomore year, my boyfriend changed, I got my license, and at some point I learned that Jamey was coming back to school at Demopolis. Junior year began and once again Jamey was back into my life. He was dating someone from his boarding school and I was dating a football/ baseball player. That was the year that I noticed how much Jamey had grown up into a very smart and witty and handsome boy and not just the nerdy boy that would make fun of me in middle school. I’m pretty sure we flirted mercilessly throughout Junior year, and on more than one occasion I had to promise my boyfriend there was absolutely nothing going on. Although we snuck away everyday to have study hall together and did all our school projects together I was still in denial about the whole thing. I think the whole school knew better than we did that it wouldn’t be long before we were together. 

Our 11^th grade history teacher got us to sign up for a summer program at Ole Miss and that gave us even more reason to talk and keep in touch, but I was still dating said guy, and I was distraught about having to end the relationship. The last real time that year Jamey and I talked I’m pretty sure we talked about the eventual end of my relationship, but then school was out and my boyfriend and I were off to Europe with other friends from school, and just like that Jamey was out of my life for the second time…

Jamey's Version:

The first few years of high school in regards to our relationship are fairly uneventful. However, I’ll share a few snapshots will help give you an idea of how we were before we started dating, to set the stage for our relationship, so to speak.

During my freshman year of high school, I was still a member of the “not-so-cool” kids. Morgan, in my memory, sometimes hung out in the not-so-cool group, but she was a full-fledged member of the cool kids. Queue up stereotypes of the guy, eating snack on the wrong side of the hallway, and the girl from Coach Sprinkle’s cool-kid homeroom falling for his Converses, etc. I do have one fond memory of us eating snack one day (if you could not tell, snack-eating was the crux of our high-school social makeup).

You see, Morgan has a tendency to stand very close to someone when she gets excited, way too close for American standards (she might fit in well in a European dialogue, however). One day at snack, she was talking to me and she was, I mean, close. Way too close for even Morgan’s European heated-conversation standards; we are face-to-face and she is filling-up-my-frame-of-vision close. That’s when it hit me. I wonder if she likes me…?

Well, not too long after said incident, I went off to ASMS for my sophomore year of schooling. I don’t know if I ever told Morgan (for fear of freaking her out when we first started dating) about how often I thought of her while I was at ASMS… But I found out sometime that year that she had another boyfriend, and that they were “kinda-serious.” So I resigned myself to not dating her.

I came back to DHS the following year and she was still dating said serious-relationship guy. Something had to be done. The attraction between the two of us was palpable. It could not be ignored, by any member of this high-school not-quite-so-licentious ménage-a-trois.

I was a library aide for third period that year, meaning I would sit in the library and do nothing for that period. She was taking a “study hall” in a class beside the library. There would be no harm in us studying for our AP class together during that time, now would there? After all, we were a very studious pair, and she would attend the library during third period almost without fail for the duration of our Junior year.

During these library study sessions, Morgan would giggle ceaselessly at my ceaseless quick wit, and we would pretend to not stare longingly into each others’ eyes while we talked about US history and the like. And in that same US history class, I chose a seat on one side of the room during the appointed hour for choosing seats, one with a vacant spot in front of me. You’ll never guess where Morgan began to sit…

You’re right: precisely in the seat in front of me.

The relational tension was mounting. People began to talk. During one of her trips to the bathroom, a US history classmate looked over at me and said, “You know she really likes you, don’t you?” “I do, but what about him?” He was taking note as well. My scheme was working. Our talks became as much about the evaporation of their relationship, and I was able to demonstrate my sensitivity – possibly even parting a few wise worlds to my distraught Morgan. It had begun to work, or so I thought.

I ended my Junior year with some dismay. They were still together, and to beat that, they were going to Europe with an elite group of “cool kids.” I thought I had failed… but…

You’ll have to wait until the next post to hear what happened next…

So there you have it! Sorry to leave you in suspense! Check back in a day or two and I will have the story of how we started dating up! 

Color Run 2012!

Happy Labor Day everyone! We had a bit of a rainy labor day here in Birmingham, but I wanted to show you pictures of the adventure we had even in the rain! We ran the Color Run here in Birmingham. Most of you probably know what that is, but if you don't it is basically a fun 5K run where you get blasted with color! Don't worry the color is just colored cornstarch, but every kilometer people throw the powder on you until you are covered in all different colors! Then at the end there is a big color party where you have your own colored powder tho throw. Jamey, Mallory, Jennie and Annie all did it just for fun and we had a blast! It rained the ENTIRE time we were there for the race, but we didn't let it damper our fun. Everyone just ran in the rain! We probably weren't as colorful as we would have been had it not rained, but I think we had just as much fun. One thing we weren't expecting though was the HILLS! The race was on the Barber Motor sports race track and we thought since it was a race track it would be flat the entire way. Boy were we wrong! It was practically hills the whole time, or at least it felt that way when you were running!! Mallory's and my goal was just to run the whole 5K and finish it and we succeeded! Jamey was of course the speedy one that clocked in at around 21 or 22 minutes. He probably could have ran faster, but there were thousands of people that ran the race so there was a lot of congestion and sometimes you couldn't go as fast as you would like. Well enough chatter here are the pictures!

Before the race

Right after the race, but before the Color Party

Showing off our tiny tats

He ran too fast for them to get him with color! 

Chest Bumps after the race

Color Party! 

I promise those aren't my panties just the shorts under my skirt!

Oh and here is what we have been doing on our night off at the Hurst household......

HAIRCUT!!!! 

J & M: The Younger Years

I figured the best way to start the story about the evolution of Jamey's and my relationship was to start from the beginning. Well of course I would start from the beginning, but I didn't want to start at what was the beginning of our relationship I wanted to start at the first time we met. Mainly because this is Jamey's favorite part of the story ;) Well, I guess I like it too!

When I was 11 years old and about to start 5th grade my parents made the decision for me to stop going to the private school in Demopolis and to start at the public school system. A few weeks before school started a girl was having a back to school dance for all of her friends. I wasn't really friends with the girl, but a neighbor was and so the parents all got together and decided that it would be a good idea if me and one of my friends who was also changing schools that year went to meet new friends before the first day of school. Well, my neighbor friend also had a bestfriend that was going to the party and that friend was a boy named Jamey, who I would grow to know and to dislike (but secretly crush on) over the next couple of years. We all road to the dance together and I really don't remember a whole lot of my thoughts other than the fact that I was pretty nervous that I was going to a dance with a bunch of kids I didn't know. Well there was of course awkward 5th grade dancing and a lot of standing around and maybe even a game of Honey will you kiss me (Which is a lot more innocent than it sounds). I don't remember all the details these days, but that is when we met as told by me.

Now here is Jamey's version:

On the weekend before school started (when we were going into the 5^th grade), there was slated to be a dance, as such was the tradition for 11-year-olds celebrating their birthdays in Demopolis. On that fateful day, I went over to the house of my best friend’s grandmother’s house. The plan was this: we boys not wanting to arrive at such a social event flying solo planned on traveling together. Our mothers (and the mothers of others) thought that it would be best if we could share the ride over to the dance with others our age. And so, two of my friend’s grandmother’s neighbors’ daughters came over to my friend’s grandmother’s house. It was none other than my beautiful Morgan and her friend Morgan (no relation).

The introductions went well. I stated my name and proceeded to be really cool. She totally dug me from the very beginning (LoLZzZ!!). We rode over to said dance in a Taurus station wagon (rockin’!) and then proceeded to talk to other members of our respective sexes. I don’t remember too many dances that I danced that night, but one stands out. I finally built up the courage to ask Morgan for a dance. It was a clumsy, stiff dance. A mating ritual for giraffe amputees might have been more graceful than this. It was a dance I might have scoffed at myself for dancing so awkwardly, but looking back it was beautiful in its own right. I still remember that dance to this day, and it was in that dance (somewhere near the third chorus or the end of the bridge) that I knew that I was dancing with someone special…

PS I had nothing to do with his story. I merely handed him the computer and a blank document and asked him to write how we first met. Just throwing that in there in case you all thought I added that part at the end haha. Kidding.. I know you all know how sweet Jamey is to me. 

Over the course of the next 6 years we both grew up, changed a lot, made some mistakes, learned some things, and lived out young adolescent lives. We had most all of our classes together over the course of the next 6 years. We had the same 5th grade class, and then when we went to middle school we shared some classes together. Jamey loved to pick on me in gym class, and secretly I loved every minute of it. I still remember all the names he called me and how I would sit and listen to him talk about quantum physics and building hover crafts even though I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. I think this time in our lives proves that God's timing works. When we were in middle school eveyone "dated" everyone. I think I had approximately 378274832 boyfriends during that time. I dated each one no more than 2 weeks and I never dated any of them ever again after that. I know it may seem silly to say that the Lord kept us from each other since we were only 13 and 14 years old, but looking back now that is the only thing I can say about it because while we were all busy dating everyone else we both had crushes on each other, but never actually dated each other. Maybe it was just because we were in different friend groups, but I think it was a little more than that too.

Coming Next: The Highschool Years