I have to tell you the story of this photo...

because it is one of my favorite memories of my wedding and I never want to forget it. It is a little embarrassing of a story, but if if you know me, I don't get embarrassed easily.

I seriously was not stressed at all in the days and nights before my wedding. I knew that things were going to go wrong, and they did like when the wrong flowers were sent three days before, and that was ok with me because I knew that at the end of the day I was marrying Todd. That was all that mattered to me. So while most brides might be losing sleep or dreaming of the horrid things that could happen, I was not. The day before my wedding I woke up from what at the time felt like the most amazing magical dream, while in real life it is kind of silly.

In my dream I was standing on this really tall building looking down into a courtyard of people. I decided in my dream that I should put on my wedding dress and show it off to everyone down below, because why not right?

Now, I loved my wedding dress. It was a dream of a wedding dress that cost $3,000 and I got it on sale for $200. I had not been looking at such big, poofy dresses because none of them were in my budget. This dress was a magical dress. When I went shopping with my mom and sisters for dresses it was the last dress from the clearance section I tried on. Nobody remembered pulling it and fit like a glove, but at 50% off, it still was not in my budget. So even though everyone thought it looked amazing on me, I didn't think too much of it. That was of course until the sales lady told us that all 50% off clearance dresses were $200 that day. I didn't want to take it off after that.

I felt like I was wearing a delicious, beautiful cupcake all day long.


So in my dream I decided that I need show this dress off. I remember so vividly  how I put my dress on and walked up to the rooftop of the tall building. I then put my arms out and started spinning around to show how gorgeous my dress was. The crowd in the courtyard down below immediately looked up. They started to gasp and all started to say "ohhh" and "ahhh" and I even heard "so lovely." I just spun and spun in my dress on the rooftop as everyone below watched. I felt so amazing and beautiful up there. It was an awesome dream to wake up to. Then I started to feel a little silly about it.

I of course had to share that story with the girls in my wedding party, we laughed about it all day while we did our pre-wedding getting prettified things. When my wedding day came and I slipped on my magical dress in unison all the girls started to go "oohhh, ahhhh, so lovely!" as I started spinning around. It was our little joke all day.

I have to say though, I felt as pretty in my dress that day as I did in my dream two nights before. It was such an incredible day, to say the least.

-Mrs.J

Day 100

Todd and I broke the 100 day mark of marriage today and while I know we have still have a long road ahead of us and probably harder decisions, if the media can’t do a 100 day report on our President, I think I can do one on my marriage.

I think the first good thing is that these days really have flown by. It still surprises me that we have been Mr. & Mrs. for over 3 months now! It seems like just yesterday we got married, I still get calls for vendors trying to help me plan my wedding. But these 100 days have been great really getting to know each other in ways that you can’t get to know someone. From clogging toilets to sharing finances, nothing is hidden anymore and knowing that I have someone who loves me regardless of anything? That is such an incredible feeling.
Here are a few nuggets I have learned on being married, things that I think will continue to help us have a long and happy marriage.
-Todd and I have a “do it yourself” policy in regards to making things get done the way you like them. We never criticize the other person if they are doing something a way we don’t like it done, we just say “ok I am going to take this one on and be in charge of it.”
-Always go to Home Depot and look around even if you would rather stay home and watch MTV reruns. These moments show support and can be great memories.
-That 30$ necessary purchase at Target is not always as necessary to your husband.
-Rate it! Todd and I went to pre-martial counseling because we both knew our differences in communication and how we fight could potentially pose some problems in the future. We both wanted to be able to argue over things but be fair and feel like you were being heard. Our counselor gave me probably the best advice of my life. Apparently I am sensitive…who knew right! So whenever Todd would say something many times I would say “That hurt my feelings, you should apologize.” Now, that is not a bad thing telling someone when they hurt your feelings, but when it is happening all the time it can get tiring and Todd was becoming desensitized to when I really had my feelings hurt. Our counselor told me to rate things before I said anything. If it was lower on the scale, I should just let it go. No reason to get upset over small things that usually were just accidental anyways. We use this all the time whenever one of us gets upset, it really keeps us in check from arguing over every little thing.
-Always say “have a good day” first thing in the morning and “how was your day” first thing in the evening.
While I know I no expert on marriage by any means, I do think that Todd and I are going to have a long and happy marriage. We both above all love and care about the other person and are ready and prepared to put in the grunt work that married life can sometimes bring.
Even on the hardest of hard days, marrying Todd was the best decision I ever made. Here is to 100 days more!

Cheers!!!!
-Heidi

Welcome to our world

So I have been meaning to start a little newlywed blog for a while. I think it is going to be great way to keep our friends and family informed in what is going on in our life, but I also know I will love to look back and read these little nuggets about our life when we first started out.
So maybe I am a couple months late. Juggling my roles as wife, student, employee, sister, daughter, intern and friend is a little tricky. I think I am finally getting it all under control, but I am very much ready to drop my roll of student!
So if you are new let me give you the 4-1-1 on the Mr. and myself.
Todd and I met in 2005 in the little bodunk town of Lamoni, Iowa. We both were attending the private school Graceland University at the time. I saw him from across a the lawn and was immediately smitten. It took a little longer to realize how much he was smitten by me, but my persistence paid off. We spent the whole year together enjoying out time without putting any labels on what we were doing. Todd was graduating that year and heading back to California and didn’t think he wanted to do a long distance relationship. I took a class in the history of media and decided journalism would be my major, but Graceland didn’t offer it so decided to transfer to ASU. At the end of the year we tearfully said an uncertain goodbye as he went back to Southern California and I took off to a new adventure in Arizona.
It took about two weeks to realize how amazing our time had been and that we were a great pair. We dated long distance for about 2 years before we got engaged. Todd moved out to Arizona to be with me in 2008 and in January 2010 we made it official!
We didn’t live together prior to getting married, so this has been a new adventure to both of us. Stay tuned for our wacky adventure of marriage and life in House of the Jaramillo’s.

-Heidi J.