Just For Aubrey......and anyone else who might wonder!

Ok Here we go! My friend Aubrey (who I have lost contact with until recently) posted on her blog what she has been up to since high school graduation. She also asked me what I have been up to. I wasn't sure she was referring to me because my life has not been so interesting and I thought it looked pretty self explanatory, but then I realized that if you haven't seen or heard from me in 5 years you would know any of it! (feel free to skip if you'd like. I do know many of you know this, but I thought it would be great journaling)

I met Josh right after Graduation, June 2003! I say met, yes we are both from the same small town, but we never attended high school together so I didn't really know him. I knew of him and who he was but never really had any contact with him. I had taught dance with his 2 older sisters for 2 years. They talked my whole senior year about setting us up but it never really happened. In june he came home from Chicago for a weekend and we were supposed to go out. I happened to be getting my wisdom teeth out that weekend so it didn't work out. However, My dance girls that I taught had a recital that weekend as well and we both ended up there. I was a little doped up on pain killers and don't really remember the night, but I obviously said some fantastic things because the next day he brought me ice cream. We talked for a couple of hours, and he said he really came by to see if I was feeling up to going to lagoon but could see that wasn't going to happen. ***on a side note: I found out later that he already had another date for Lagoon! He was just being a player!**** But wondered if I wanted to watch movies when he got home. So he came and picked me up and midnight that night and we watched movies until 4 am and cuddled! I tell this story so detailed because this is the night that started it all. He left the next day to go back to Chicago. We talked on the phone all summer long and really started liking to talk to each other. We would talk for hours, and he had $400 phone bills. We had both decided that we wanted to see if this was JUST a friendship or if there was more... so he flew me to chicago for his birthday at the beginning of August. We spent 5 days together! We had our first kiss in the airport, we went to nauvoo and went to the nauvoo temple, and we cuddled a lot! We both knew after this weekend that we were in love.

On August 19th 2003 I left for Dixie State College. This is also the day Josh told me he loved me! I was in southern Utah for a year, just going to school. Josh was in Provo going to school, but we continued to have a long distance relationship. We drove back and forth every weekend. I think we only missed 1. My adventures at Dixie were short lived, Josh and I got engaged on New Years Eve! We got married May 7 2004!
We moved to Chicago like 4 days after we got married. Josh was doing summer sales and I worked in the office. This didn't last long. We were only there for like 6 weeks when we packed it up and moved to Utah again. We moved to Provo. Josh was going to UVSC, and I don't really know what I was doing. This is the phase of my life were I look back and wonder what I was thinking. We found out we were pregnant in Provo, just 3 months after we were married. We lived there for 6 mos. In an apartment that we like to call "the HOLE" It was a tiny one bedroom basement apartment. Josh transferred to the University of Utah, and we moved to G-ville! We lived with joshs parents because we were planning on moving to Arizona for the summer.
We had our first anniversary, then 4 days later we welcomed our first baby, beautiful little Brielle Taylor! She was born in May of 2005! It, of course, was love at first sight! We couldn't get enough of her. We were moving to Arizona for the summer for one last hurray at summer sales. Josh was already late and had to get there and get going so he left when Brie was just 4 days old, and I cried and cried. We followed behind him a few days later when Brielle was just 10 days old. This is a bad pic, but it is us on the airplane.We LOVED Arizona! At least Brielle and I did! Josh liked it, but had to walk around in the hot hot weather! Brielle and I just hung out at the pool all day! She loved it, despite the picture!
We lived in Arizona until August of 2005. We then moved to Stansbury Park, where we lived in the town homes behind the Benson Grist Mill! Josh was going to school at the University of Utah, and working full time laying carpet for his Dad's carpet business. I was home with Brielle, and so grateful that I could be. Aubrey you asked about the photography, this was about the time I fell in love with it. Josh got me a nice camera for my birthday before I had Brie and I loved to pose her and take pics of her as a baby. I would set up sheet over my couch and improvise with whatever I had. I would look up tips online, and any photographer who would talk to me I would pick their brains apart. It is hard to find a photographer willing to share secrets though.


We found out we were pregnant with number 2 when Brie was just 10 months old! I was already 10 weeks along when we found out, so the pregnancy seemed to fly. Just a short 17 1/2 months after we welcomed Brielle we brought home another princess!
Hope Mckell was born in October of 2006! We loved having a new addition to the family! And she was such a sweet little baby!The whole first year of Hopes life is still a blur to me. Having my girls that close was definitely a challenge. I just remember 4:00 pm rolling around and I would realize I hadn't eaten all day. I would just get so busy with the kids and getting them fed, wiped and then put down for naps. They were on different nap schedules so I always had one awake and I just went from one thing to the next.
We just did the school, work and mom thing for a couple years. We of course had birthdays, Christmases, anniversaries, and other fun events. I eventually woke up to life and came out of my mommy haze. I think it was when hope was like 8 months old. I started taking pictures for like family and friends around Grantsville and Stansbury in like late 2007. Word just kind of spread and I just kept practicing. I still LOVE it!
Josh graduated from the University of Utah in May of 2008. This was not as exciting to us as it should have been because we knew it wasn't over. We knew we were going to go to law school the whole last year of his undergrad and we had a difficult time deciding where to go. Josh had kind of always wanted to go to school in Virginia, and we eventually ended up deciding that that is where we wanted to go. It was so hard for me to pack up and move aways from my friends and family. We had some great friends in Stansbury and both of our families are in Grantsville. But we also felt that we needed to go to Virginia.

I will never forget the journey across the country with 2 little girls. We were moving blindly. I had never been to Virginia, and neither of us had seen the school or the apartment. We were going on faith. That gets us up to the present. We are currently living in Virginia Beach Virginia, and we are loving it. Josh is in school full time and is crazy busy, and I am still home with the kiddos! Brielle is almost 4 and Hope is 2! We have great friends here and a great support group, that I think of as our family. If you are still with me I am IMPRESSED! Sorry this was so long, once I got going it was kind of fun to reminisce. Thanks Aubrey for asking, it was fun!