Bridal Session Video

Something that I will FOREVER be grateful to have! I can't wait to show our kids and grand kids all the videos from our wedding. They seriously just bring me to tears every time I watch them! (: Check the {our love story} tab for more!

Wedding Highlight Video

We got our wedding video back yesterday and I couldn't be more excited. I loved our "Couple's Story" video and our "Bridal Shoot" video, but I was most excited to see our "Wedding Day" video.  It was such a bitter sweet feeling watching that, because it truly takes you back to that special day and makes you wish you could go back and just pause time. What a beautiful day it is to marry your best friend and even though I am so excited about our future together, it kind of makes me sad to know that that day will never come again. So that's why I am SO grateful to have this video and to be able to watch it anytime we want. When my videographer sent me the link I was at work and thought about waiting to watch it with Jase that night, but the anticipation was killing me so I opened the link right up. I sent the link to our family and Jase to watch and the next thing I knew, I got a text from Jase telling me that he loved it and it brought tears to his eyes. (DO NOT TELL HIM I TOLD YOU THAT, he literally would kill me...so hopefully he isn't reading this). BUT the fact that it affected him like that...made me cry. So happy to know that he got that same feeling I did when I watched it. It was such a perfect day and I am so blessed to have got to share it with someone as special as him. He's a keeper and I am so lucky to have him as my husband.

Here the video is:


Jase & Kristen__Wedding Highlight from Rachel Aletta on Vimeo.

Honeymooners

Let me just start off by saying...honeymoons are the BEST things ever invented. After months of staying busy planning a wedding (and still carrying on with all the normal daily tasks)...I was BEYOND ready to have a getaway where I could just turn my phone off and relax for a change. But the best thing about it all, was that I got to spend that relaxing week with my husband. It was the perfect week. I wish it never had to end.

After our reception on Saturday in Hurricane, we drove to Las Vegas to catch our red-eye flight. It was awesome..we got there basically just in time to walk right on the plane (no sitting around in the airport...yay) and there was just the 2 of us on a row of 3, so Jase slept leaning against the window and I laid down on his lap. WE SLEPT GREAT! And we needed it. We both were just exhausted from all the wedding festivities.

Once we got to Florida (Sunday morning) we took a taxi to go get on the cruise ship. I had been on one other cruise before but it was when I was in 6th grade so I was totally giddy. I was smiling from ear to ear and squealing. Jase was just laughing at me. We got on the ship and seriously crashed for HOURS. We were still so tired and needed to catch up on our sleep. After that we finally felt rested and were ready for the vacation to officially begin!

Monday we were in Key West. It was the cutest little island that I love so much. All the old buildings were adorable. I'm prettty sure we walked around the entire island that day... (; The weather was nice and hot and HUMID! Holy cow..my hair suffered this entire trip from the humidity. It was always super frizzy and...not cute. But hey..you're on vacation...you don't have to get ready right? (: We mostly just enjoyed the sight seeing around the island this day and took it easy.

Jase's favorite part of Key West was the cute Wendy's!

I loved all the cute buildings in Key West..they were adorable & of course the grey & purple house would be my favorite (:

View of Key West, it was gorgeous!

Next stop (Wednesday) was Grand Cayman Island. We woke up that morning and it was completely down pouring. We got on the little boat that takes you from the cruise ship to land and it was probably the scariest 10 minutes of my life. It was raining so hard and we were trusting this little boat to bare the bad weather and get us to land safely. NOT FUN. Everyone was soaked and a bunch of people decided to just stay on the boat and head back to the cruise ship...but not us! We were not about to let the rain ruin our one day we had on this beautiful island. In reality, it was almost better having it be rainy and overcast all day because it made it not so miserably hot. We spent the first half of the day walking around the island and looking at all the little tourist shops. Then we decided we were going to go to "Stingray City" and swim with stingrays. Holy cow, I was SO NERVOUS! First, we were taking a boat ride out into the middle of the ocean when it was SO stormy that day. Second, you get out in the middle of the ocean and there's a sandbar that you just swim on and hold stingrays...no big deal right? Seriously, I was freaking out! Jase had done this once before so he was calm...but not me. It took me a while to warm up to the fact that we were swimming with stingrays out in the middle of the ocean. It ended up being an AMAZING experience and it was so beautiful being completely surrounded by water and not being able to see land anywhere. After Stingray City, we got to go snorkeling for a little and that too was amazing! At first, I was thinking that we wouldn't see much but the second we got our gear on and got in the water, I was pleasantly surprised. It was so cool to see all the different fish. I wished so badly that we would have taken a waterproof camera. We could have got some awesome pictures.

Our final stop on the cruise was Jamaica (Thursday). We had heard in Grand Cayman that Jamaica was kind of a sketchy place and that we needed to be careful there, so I was semi-freaking out when we got there. But honestly, I never felt like we were in danger or anything like that while we were there. Jamaica was SO BEAUTIFUL! It was so green and I would absolutely love to go back someday and get the chance to stay for longer than one day. For our excursion this day, we decided to go to the famous Dunns River Falls. It was AMAZING! It's this beautiful waterfall that you get to hike. At first when we got in the water it was freezing but by the end it felt great because it was so so hot in Jamaica!!! Climbing Dunns River Falls was a great experience that everyone needs to do sometime in their life! The Jamaican people were more than I could handle. They were SO kind but boy do they pressure you into buying all their random trinkets that they have for sale. They kept saying "Come take a look at what I got, no pressure here to buy, just take a look" YEAH RIGHT!!!!!! They would not let you leave their little shop without buying something. We got suckered into buying so much random stuff. One guy asked what our names were and within seconds he had our names carved into these woods figurines ( No pressure to buy them, right?) So of course, we bought those and plenty of other stuff. I think we spent more money that day on souvenirs than we did on both excursions. I loved all the things the Jamaicans would say, they are funny people ("yeah man", "the Jamaicans have no worries, just situations", calling all the girls "boss lady"). It was great! I loved Jamaica!

Dunn's River Falls

The water was FREEZING!

 

Take me back!!

When we got off the ship on Saturday we had ALL DAY til we had our flight home. Seriously our flight didn't leave til 9 pm and we were not about to sit at the airport for 12 hours. We asked around about what we should do and found out that there was a free trolley from the airport to the beach. We decided to take that and go see the beach, do a little shopping, and get some lunch. I loved the beach in Florida so much, I wish we would have known that we were going to spend the day there so we could have worn our swimsuits, but we had already checked our bags before we knew, so that was a bummer. However, we made the best of our day in Florida and had some delicious nachos by the beach.

 

Seriously our honeymoon was the best week ever, we had so much fun and it was so great to spend time together, just the two of us. We made so many fun memories that we will never forget and we can't wait to plan another trip just the two of us (:

For some reason we were just loving all the towel animals

Wifey Status

So last night I decided to put my new "wife" skills to good use and do some baking. After work I went to the grocery store and got stuff to make banana nut muffins for breakfast the next day. I also thought I'd take my co-workers something to say "thank you" for taking care of all my clients while I was gone for the wedding and our honeymoon, so I got stuff to make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies too! When I got home I found out that at the car wash that Jase's dad owns in Hurricane, one of the customers was pulling out of the tunnel and instead of hitting her breaks,  hit the gas pedal and ran through the pay booth and also hit one of the workers. She hit him and he went through the brick wall, pinning him between the car and the building behind the wall. Miraculously, he is in a lot better shape then anyone thought and ended up with no broken bones...just a lot of stitches.  But I thought we would make a plate of cookies to take to him today as well to let him know we are thinking of him. So last night I spent my time baking yummy treats and not going to lie,  it smelled AMAZING in the kitchen.

Peanut Butter Banana Nut Muffins

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

So far they have been a huge hit! Jase texted me this morning once I was at work saying "I love those muffins :) they're  bomb" and everyone at worked loved the cookies.

Okay, fine. So what if the muffins were made from a $1.00 mix that you just add water too....and the cookies are made from 3 ingredients. It's the thought that counts right??

Just add 1/2 cup of water and I even added some peanut butter chips to the mix

EASIEST recipe ever!!

For those of you who haven't tried to make pumpking choc. chip cookies this way....you NEED to! It is so easy and the cookies turn out SO moist and delicious! Here's the recipe:

INGREDIENTS:

1 (15 ounce) can solid pack pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
1 (18 ounce) box spice cake mix
1 (12 ounce) package semi-sweet chocolate chips or 1 (12 ounce) package milk chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together pumpkin and spice cake until well blended. Add chocolate chips to mix. Drop cookies on greased baking sheet. Bake for 15-18 minutes.

So far I'm loving this "wife" stuff (;

P.S. Be prepared for lots of posts about our wedding and honeymoon coming soon to our blog...I can't wait to share pictures and thoughts from the last couple of weeks (:

Bridal Shower #1

Last Saturday I had my very first bridal shower. It was such a crazy/exciting feeling being the one in the hot seat  for a change.  My sister, Shaylee, put the shower together and it was seriously adorable, she did an amazing job and I can't thank her enough for all the help she has been, not only with this, but the entire wedding. The bridal shower was such a fun memory especially because we had Jase's extended family and my extended family there, which was a good way to get everyone to finally meet. It was kind of crazy, with such a large amount of people in one house, but it turned out great and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

We are SO grateful for all the kind gifts that people gave us that day, we can't tell you all enough how much they will be appreciated once we get settled into a place together. Thank you to everyone who drove far distances to be there that day and thank you to EVERYONE who helped make that day happen. I'm so blessed to have the amazing family that I do, and to be marrying into another amazing one.

I have another bridal shower down here in St. George on Saturday, which I can't wait for! (: Oh and we got engagement pictures taken last night by the one and only Abbey Kyhl from AK Studio & Design and we can't wait to get our pictures back and share them with you all! Stay tuned...

We Need Your Addresses

Friends and Family...

It's August, which means... WE GET MARRIED NEXT MONTH! I cannot even believe that that's the case. Time is flyyyyyying by! We would love for all of you to be there with us on our special day to celebrate but we need your help with making that possible...(: We need your addresses so we can send you an invite! We will be getting married September 26th in the SLC Temple and having a reception that night in Layton. We also will be having a small reception on the 28th at Jase's parents house for everyone who is in Southern Utah. (We didn't want to leave anyone out)

Please click this link and enter your contact information www.postable.com/kristenandjase

                                             55 days til we get to spend eternity together... <3

How it all started..

Yesterday marked the 5 year anniversary of when Jase and I met...so I figured I would share how it all happened

{How We Met}

We met the summer before my Junior year of high school and Jase's Senior year of high school.

Every summer since I was 14 I would sign up for EFY with my best friend Kayla. This year we had decided to go to the one at Utah State.

Jase and all of his buddies would always go every summer as well and they usually tried to get in at BYU but this year it was already full so they ended up going up to Utah State.

I remember when Kayla and I got up there and had checked in, we were walking to find our group and there were 2 kids (Jase and his cousin Gordie) sitting against a brick wall by their group and I was thinking to myself "Wow..they look super excited to be here (NOT)."

Jase told me that when he saw us walking towards them he was thinking "Yes, finally we get some cute girls in our group."

But then we kept walking right past them and met up with our group that was next to them.

The week went on and that Tuesday night was the first dance at EFY. Jase's friend Patrick came and asked me to dance and he was such a nice kid. I had seen that him and his friends would just sit in the back corner and not do a whole lot of dancing, so once I got to meet Patrick I decided to go over and talk to the other boys. I told them that they were all lame and should come dance. So finally they came out on the floor, but they just stood there. I at least got them to slow dance so that's when I got to talk more with each of them. When they told me they were from Hurricane I had NO IDEA where that was. They explained it was by St. George and I told them that my family had a condo down there and that I was actually coming down in a couple of weeks because our football team had a game down there. So I told them we should all hang out while I was down and we all exchanged phone numbers.

On our free time, the boys would always go out and throw the football around and I could see them from my room window, so I definitely was keeping my eye on all of them. I even got brave and went out and starting throwing with them (flirting).

The last night of EFY they have another dance and I think Jase and I danced a few times together this time rather than just once.

At the last dance

 The next day before we all headed home we met up and all said goodbye...then Jase and I were texting on the drive home and I don't' really remember how it all came about but they ended up coming over to my house that day to hang out for a little before they drove to SLC to stay at Jase's grandmas house that night.

Our story is pretty cheesy and we usually hate telling people we met at EFY...but we did and I am SO grateful that we met! (Obviously)

We stayed in touch with each other over the years through text, late night phone calls, and we even got to visit each other quite a bit because he always had sports games up in SLC and I would go to St. G with friends whenever we had a break from school. We always knew that we liked each other, but lets be real...we were both in high school and we lived 5 hrs away from each other. I don't think either of us really though that in the end we would end up getting married. We both dated other people and had relationships but in the end we chose each other and even though we had our ups and downs, I wouldn't choose anyone else to call mine for eternity. (:

 

One of the many trips we made to see eachother

5 years later..we have TONS of fun memories together and are about to create a million more! <3

Last time hanging out before his mission

Jase's farewell

When I moved to Dixie

My 19th  birthday

Thriller

4th of July

Jazz game

Golfing

Jase's 23rd birthday

Lake Powell