Living in the Lonestar State

At the end of the semester, we decided we would go on an adventure and we've found ourselves living in Texas for the summer. We are living in the Fort Worth area and have been here for 2 and a half weeks. Clint is selling alarms for APX and is doing really well so far. He went out with APX the summer after his mission and installed the alarm systems, but this year he decided to try selling. He works Monday through Saturday and it's a tough and draining job, but he doesn't complain. And it helps that a lot of the people he has sold to love him. One lady gave him a $20 gift card to Wal Mart and another lady gave him a fingernail clipper set (so random). He actually sold to a lady that was LDS and in our ward. He saw a picture of the temple in her house and asked about it. Then he said "What if I told you I've been there?" and she held out her hand to shake his hand and said, "I would say 'Hello Brother.'" Haha my favorite story.

We've been able to do a lot of fun things while we've been here. We went to the Dallas Cowboys Stadium last week with the whole group of sales guy, technicians, and their wives. We got to tour the locker rooms of both the cheerleaders and the football players and also were able to go down on the field. Clint and all of the guys played a football game together and they even posed for a picture in the cheerleader's locker room.

 The boys playing football

 Player's locker room. Clint refused to stand by Tony Romo's

Me and some of the wives in the Cheerleader's locker room

My favorite picture. The boys copying the cheerleader's poses

The Stadium

Last week was Clint's birthday and so my parents flew out for the weekend to take us to dinner. The next day, we went to a Texas Rangers vs. Chicago Cubs game. We had a good time with them here. Too bad the Rangers lost.

Me and my parents at the game

My two favorite men

Since Clint and all of the other guys in our group are gone all day, the other wives and I plan a lot of activites to kill the time. We have had a lot of fun together so far and they're all super nice. We do crafts, pot luck BBQ's, go shopping, watch The Bachelorette together and of course go to the pool. Our lives are pretty tough out here ;) Right now, the boys are in a city that is a couple hours away so they're staying in a hotel for the whole week. So we have a lot of activites planned to keep ourselves occupied. We're going to go line dancing on Thursday which I'm super excited for. I had to sleep at one of the girl's night last night becuase I was way too scared to be by myself. But my cute brother is going to come stay with me later this week, I can't wait!

So far, it's been a great adventure for both of us- and we've only been here for two and a half weeks. More to come!

... and in case you're wondering, yes, I did bring my cowboy boots. :]

Happily Ever After...Our Wedding

I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about our wedding because most of the people that will be reading this were probably there. But I'll put up lots of pictures :]

To sum it all up, our wedding day was perfect. We were married in the Salt Lake Temple on October 15, 2009. I remember looking around in the temple and seeing so many faces that were there to support us and it was the best feeling in the world. I continued to feel this way throughout the day as we saw more family and friends outside of the temple, at the luncheon and at the reception. I was so happy to be with my new husband and some of the people that mean the most to us. So many friends and family were there and we feel and felt so blessed to have so many amazing people in our lives there for us. We love you all! Thanks for sharing our special day with us. And a special thanks to my mama who probably put up with more than she should have to help us plan everything out. I love you!

I'll let the pictures tell the rest! I don't have the disc with me, so I'll have to get it and put up more of them... you can never have too many pictures :] You can see the entire album at http://www.garzandphotography.com/

Clint and our niece, Hannah

Me and my papa

Me and my brother

Some of my friends at the temple

My bridesmaids, sisters, and best friends

Clint and Zach at the reception

The fight for the bouquet

Dancing at the reception

We had a photobooth at the reception (definitely one of the highlights of the night!) Here are some that I had on my computer. I have the whole disc so if anyone wants copies of theirs, let me know!

Our Engagement

In May, my family was going to the Manti Pageant and Clint met us there (he was still living in St. George). Before the pageant started, he asked to talk to my parents and they went on a walk while I stayed with the rest of my family. Clint and my dad are both pretty quiet people, and from what I understand, my mom kep the conversation going pretty much the entire time. Finally Clint asked my parents for permission to marry me. My dad asked him a few typical dad questions and then gave him a "yes."

After that, Clint told my dad he had something for him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out ten plastic cows in trade for my dad's "ten cow daughter." This will only be funny to those of you who have seen the video Johnny Lingo. For those of you who haven't, basically it's a movie that takes place in the South Pacific. I'm not sure if it's really tradition or just in the movie, but according to village customs in Johnny Lingo, 3 cows will buy a "fair" wife, while 5 cows will buy a "fine" wife. The guy in the movie offers 8 cows to the father of the bride, which was unheard of. The moral of the story is... apparently I'm a 10 cow wife. (Good thing Clint didn't know I don't cook or else I probably wouldn't be worth very many cows. Even fake ones.) The funniest part is my dad has had the cows neatly lines up on his dresser ever since.

My daddy, me, and the ten cows

Clint and the ten cow wifey after his talk with my parents. I got myself a creative one :]

...

On July 3rd, Clint was in Salt Lake and we had just been hanging out at my grandparents house with all of my extended family. We went down town and ate and then walked around Temple Square. After a while, we were really just walking around aimlessly, and then I saw a little pioneer house that I wanted to go look at. Right then, Clint was all of a sudden in a hurry and took me across the street. When we got over there, there was a horse and carriage ride waiting for us. At this point, I thought that he was going to propose, but didn't know if he was just trying to trick me so I was a little bit anxious.

Clint planned the carriage ride so that it was at my favorite time of night, right before sunset when everything looks gold- I call it "gold time" :] So we rode around in the carriage for a while and to be honest, I don't even remember what we talked about. We got to a park and Clint proposed to me right there at gold time. Even though we had talked about getting married, I was still so excited because it just seemed that much more real.
 Just something funny that happened...When we got to where the carriage was dropping us off, my mom and cousin were there taking pictures. A couple of people walking by thought that we must be famous since we were being photographed, so they started taking pictures too. I can just see them trying desperately to figure out who these "famous" people were so they could try and sell them. Too funny. I don't know where the pictures are that my mom and cousin took, but I'll have to find them and put them up. I haven't even seen them yet, actually!

Once Upon a Time...Our Story

Clint and I met last year while we were both going to school at Dixie State College. I was having a blast with my 5 roommates, being single, just enjoying college- meeting the person I was going to marry was the last thing I expected to happen. Clint was busy working and going to school but seeing as he was 22, a return missionary and living in St. George, I'm sure he was on a constant look out for his future wife ;)

My roommate Amy worked with Clint and he started coming around our apartment. A little bit later in the spring, he was on an intramural softball team with my brother, Zach, and a few of my other friends. The more I saw him and was around him, the more interested I became. We went on our first date on April 28.

We had so much fun together, and after our third day of hanging out I came home and told my roommate Cassie that I was going to marry him. Apparently she is magic, because it happened. :]

Whenever people have told me that they got married after a couple months, or that they "just knew" I never really believed it. But that feeling of "just knowing" is really exactly what happened with us and it seems to come when you least expect it.

This is us at Dixie Rock with a bunch of friends the first week we were dating. My brother was creeping around with his camera as always (I love you brother) and took this.
...

My Vietnamese Grandma, who we call Ba (that's grandma in Vietnamese, go figure) has always had sort of a sixth sense for certain things. Knowing that I had met the person I wanted to marry was apparently one of them. Before I had told anyone in my extended family that I had even met Clint, she knew. The week I moved home, Ba told me (in her adorable broken English) that she knew I was thinking about getting married and that it was the right thing for me, even if things were tough with me being young and with both of us going to school. She said she was happy that I was going to do it before her and my grandpa passed away. Later I asked my mom if she had said anything to Ba, she told me she hadn't, and reminded me of how Ba senses things like that.

This part of the story may seem a little off subject, but it was just really significant and meaningful to me when it happened. What an amazing little grandma I have.