I really needed to get on here and write a quick update. The last post was very depressing so  I apologize for leaving it up so long. Clayton and I have been busy playing hard this summer, and working of course. We are loving this heat and summer swimming is keeping us extremely happy. We planted our first garden this year and honestly spoil the thing more than a dog. It has been fun to take care of something together and we honestly spend every single day outside weeding, planting, or just watching the growing progress from the day before. It is crazy that plants can grow so fast. We are already eating fresh salad each day. I LOVE IT!

 

Clayton and I both have church callings with youth which we both love to death. I get to go to girl’s camp this year so the planning is keeping me all sorts of busy. I never knew how much I could love a group of girls until this calling. I worry about them and remember those tough teenage years far too well. I am over the laurels and the girls are so extremely smart and tough. I have learned so much from them and their amazing examples already. Clayton is in summer school working hard in some tough classes.... and doing AMAZING I might add. He is so stinking smart it’s not even fair. We are excited for the rodeo's and Fourth of July fun to come our way. Mostly we are just trying to live up the summer and fit as many fun things in as we can. DANG WORK is always in the way. JK, we both really love our jobs and the people we work with. We are very blessed to have such great jobs while juggling school at the same time.

 

 

             Oh February
             I am very behind on my bogging lately and I am going to blame FEBRUARY for it, just simply because I can. Jan/Feb are such long months that seem to drag on. Mostly, I really dislike snow, icy roads, cold air, and cold and flu season. Past experiences in my life have caused February to weigh so heavily on my heart that I find myself just counting the days to finally have February be over with. I honestly tried to be optimistic about the snow this year. I actually looked forward to a white Christmas and happy hot chocolate, but no! Snow just means really cold weather, and car wrecks that make people late for everything. Enough complaining for me!   Obviously, I am pumped that spring is coming my way at last! The sun brings all sorts of happiness and excitement with it. Clayton and I moved once again this last week, we are nuts! I think we are setting a record for most times moved in 1^st year of marriage. This is move 6 if you can believe that. This time we are HERE TO STAY!

             I am so happy it is MARCH! Clayton’s birthday is this weekend and we are going to party it up. My sister Serene is visiting from Omaha with her sweet 2 year old, which I love so much. I love having them around so this makes for a sweet start to the month! I believe long-awaited pedicures are scheduled for Friday morning so my two sisters and I are pretty dang excited about that. My sweet hubby volunteered to watch their kiddos while we escape. (Love the hubby!)

            Overall, I have just felt extremely blessed lately and the blog seems to listen to the exact feelings of my heart.  It is crazy to watch the lord’s hand take care of me in my everyday schedule of work, school and family life. I have been able to take on things I never knew I could handle, much less all at once. I know that these things would not be possible without a larger power helping me, and giving me daily confidence to keep going each day. I know my straight A’s are completely because of the prayers offered before studying and then the prayers again before each test. I am so loved and just feel overwhelmed by the powerful love my savior has given me.

            Hurray for MARCH and SPRING to come!

Gingerbread Houses

 

 

Ho Ho Ho!





Cute klarise and her gingerbread house


Christmas Time!!!

Is here!!!
 



Our gingerbrad houses

 



Family night ( love mom's taco soup!

 

 

Vacation TIME!

                             One year already

Where better to celebrate a year of marriage than the Bahamas right? Yes, we planned our Bahamas get a way back in May so we had some time to plan and look forward to the trip coming up. It made our summer of hard work so much better knowing that the trip was coming soon. I have to say that everything went perfect! I guess it was like a second honeymoon, but if I can get away with that, there might be many more honeymoons to come. I LOVED being with Clayton all day and night for 7 days straight. Things have been so busy back home that we hardly see each other at all in real life. A sister told me once that it was important to invest in time together with family. SHE WAS SO RIGHT! Our week together might take the cake as one of the best weeks of my life. Everything went perfect and according to the plan. We played hard and loved every moment together.

So we took off from SLC and landed in Jacksonville, Florida. We of course had to go watch Clayton's lifelong football team, the Jacksonville, Jaguars. They are not doing so great this year, but we are still strong supporters and needed to go cheer for them. The game was so intense and fun to watch. After the game, we drove down to Orlando for the night. We had to hit Sea World since I have always loved dolphins and swimming, the crazy life of the Ocean that we obviously don’t ever see here in Utah. The shows were huge and way cooler than the ones at Sea World in Cali. We stayed in Orlando for the night and then set sail for the Bahamas the next afternoon. Such a huge adventure together!

 

 

Sea World- Whales are so cool!

Our ship

 

 

 

Freeport, Bahamas

Oh yeah!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Witchfest Night Out

Witchfest is an annual event held up at gardener village in South Jordan. As always, It was my moter-in-laws great idea. It was so much fun! Kaylene started the night out with us, but then decided she wanted to go support her friends (Who does that?) J/k Kaylene, at battle of the bands instead of going to the witchfest. Hope she can make it next year!  

 

 

 

 

Face paint. The artists were so fast and good!

 

 

The boys chillin in the background.

 

 

 

Oh boutiques are my fav!

 

Gotta love popcorn balls!

 

Amazing costumes

 

 

Head witch lady

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      We got door-bell-ditched!

     So Clayton and I came home to this tonight after a really long day of work and school! All I can say is my Byington family is awesome! My mother-in-law will not fess up to FANTASTIC crime so I am thanking her on our blog for making our night! And if I heard right from a secret source, Cam was in on this AMAZING action too! WE LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH!

      
                                                                                                              Happy Halloween to us! Look at all this loot.

                                                       Thanks Mom & Cam!


Look how cute they made our door.

Clayton still hasn't made it home yet. Lets hope there is some candy left for him to eat. Soup, decorations, a pumpkin to carve, and even false teeth. Pictures of those to come later.

                                                                              

Moving JOYS

    

           So Clayton and I just moved into our apartment here in Orem. It took a little while to find, but we are glad to be here and have a place for just us again. Schedules have been CRAZY busy with work, school, moving, and organizing. Such is life right. CRAZYNESS! Clayton won the battle of the big screen so we now have a T.V. in the spot of my entertainment center. I have to say that I have probably missed out on the excitement of T.V. shows my whole life, and not that I will ever admit it to my husband but the T.V. has been pretty nice to have- even if it does take up our whole living room. Wait, I have to tell about this T.V. When we were living at Raintree apartments he found this free T.V. on KSL. So he went and got it. I always had "just dance" parties down at his apartment because it made the game super awesome! So we ended up getting married and therefore I was supposed to take the huge thing with us for our living room. Well I won the battle and we had a cute entertainment center with pictures, T.V., a place for the DVD's and decoration. Haha, now our living room is THE T.V. THE END.  I secretly kind of love it. It has made entertainment in our home so much better.  

          So anyways, we were able to paint the apartment which started out being way fun to pick the colors, try different swatches, and start painting. We only had time at night around 9pm to 1am so it took a while but was very fun. We painted our living room a cute soft blue color which we loved. Then we painted the entire kitchen rainbow orange thinking it was a peach like the swatch. We just knew it would lighten up and it dried.We came back the next morning and were shocked to see that it truly was bright, deep rainbow orange. I made fun of the color for a while and then re-painted the kitchen the actual peach color we were aiming for that night. By that point, we were SUPER DONE with painting until 1 AM all week. We now have everything all moved in and for the most part set up. That's a lie, I am not unpacking half our stuff. We will see how long we end up staying in one spot before I think about unpacking things we don’t need. Our spare room will stay packed up for as long as we can get away with it. So there is the 411 on the Byingtons.

My parents leave for their mission here in just 12 days. I can't believe how time has flown. Ready or not, my parents are leaving the country for 18 months.

So we will work on our excitement level around here. We are happy with work and school treating us well. No complaints. I have loved being back here hanging out with Clay's parents again.

So glad we have them!