We are Family

A picture says a thousand words so I will let these pictures speak accompanied by four words of my own: I love my family!

The whole crew

The Taylor girls

The "Taylor Bunch"

Fonseca Family

The little ones

My cute parents

One is the Loneliest Number

"Number one is the loneliest number that you'll ever do

One is the loneliest, one is the loneliest,

One is the loneleliest number that you'll ever do

It's just no good anymore since [he] went away"

-Three Dog Night

This song has been running through my head for a week now. Danny got an internship working for the LDS church this summer in Santiago, Chile. Which is AWESOME for him. However, it makes for one lonely wife back in Utah. He has been gone for a week now and has 34 days left (but who's counting?!). So if anyone wants to hang out this summer, you know where to find me :)

Gift of Life and Breath 5k

My sister Julianne's father-in-law passed away from lung cancer a few years ago and his family has started an annual 5k fundraiser in Denver called the Gift of Life and Breath to help support early detection of lung cancer.This year Danny and I along with my brother Stephen decided to drive to Colorado to participate.

The crew after the race. Go "Team Zollinger!"

*I see now why people always thought we were twins.

The 5k was a success- Danny ran it in half the time I did- but I came in 5 minutes under my goal so I felt good about it. It was so great to be able to go up and help support such a great cause that hits so close to home. We also enjoyed spending some quality time with Julianne, Nathan and Addison.

The Ping Pong was Passionate and Powerful

The Addison was agitated and yet...adorable

Thanks for the great weekend Zollinger family!

A homecoming, a wedding, and a bowlathon

Three months in three words: homecoming, wedding, bowlathon. Pretty exciting eh?

My younger brother Stephen came home from his mission in Fresno California on February 9th. It was so exciting! So much has happened since he left two years ago (including me and Danny getting married) so it is so fun to have him back home. It was also really fun to see Russell's reaction. Russell looks up to Stephen so much and has missed him from day one. The week after Stephen left Russell was leaving "Welcome home!" messages in Stephen's room. This is a picture of Russell's face (pretty much all day) he couldn't stop giggling. (sorry its blurry)

When Stephen came down the elevator Russell ran up to him and gave him a big hug and then started crying. It was really sweet.

Another really sweet thing for me that day was getting to introduce Danny to Stephen as my husband. Stephen knew Danny before he went on his mission and has been telling me for years to marry him. So it wasn't really anything to crazy but it was really neat to see how well Danny and Stephen get along. Stephen said to Danny at one point, "I'm really glad you married my sister." That means a lot to me. Also Stephen wanted to go talk to a few of the inactive members in our ward before he was released and Danny went as his companion. Two of my favorite people out tracting together. Awesome.

Second big thing is that my best friend Amanda got married on March 11. It was so great.

I always love going to weddings, such a happy day.

Temples are amazing. It's also always so great to see all my friends that I never get to see anymore.

I love those girls (and their husbands).

Third thing, not really such a big deal, (but still fun) is that Danny and I participated in the Zions bank bowlathon.

The big news is that I beat him in one of our games! I took a picture to document the moment.

Danny and I have only been bowling together on our wedding day so it was fun to go bowling together again. Also, rumor has it that I had the highest women's score. Just goes to show us bank tellers aren't great bowlers.

Navidad y otras actividades

So I feel like I am just going to dump a lot of pictures and random stories on you right here, but a lot has happened during the holidays so I'm going to play catchup. My favorite thing about the holidays is getting to be with friends and family, and especially those who we don't get to see other times of the year.

It all started with the Christmas party with with my roommates from freshman year:

I love getting together with these girls, I really got so lucky with the roommates I had my first year here. We don't get to see each other very often but when we do it is as though no time has passed. We eat, laugh, watch some Gilmore girls, and catch up on the boys (not as exciting now that most of us are married), and laugh some more. These girls are awesome. This year we did a "favorite things" theme where we each gave each other one of our favorite things. So naturally, I gave each of the girls a live goldfish. None of which are still alive.

We also had dinner and played games with our friends Alyssa and Jake. This is not an unusual event but this night we had an epic game of Jenga. Here is documentation:

So the tower is no so huge here but check out Danny's face. We laughed so hard.

This is the tower at its highest point. There was literally not a single block that could be taken out so Danny completely moved the tower to one side.

I consequently lost the game the next turn.

Next up was our Christmas get together with my friends from high school. This is another group of incredible girls. Always a pleasure. And of course the typical normal and crazy face pictures (just for the record I thought BOTH of them were crazy face pictures, my smile is not usually that weird).

And then of course there is the real deal of Christmas. The sad news is that as Danny and I were having our Christmas I went to take a picture and my camera died. My charger is lost somewhere between Logan, Utah and Raleigh, North Carolina. So I didn't get any pictures of our Christmas, or the Fonseca Christmas. But thanks to my sister-in-law and her handy dandy charger I did get a few of the Taylor family Christmas. It was so great to have so much of my family there. Everyone lives so far away so I don't get to see the nieces and nephews very often. We have a blast together. (I guess I didn't get any pictures with Samantha, Collin, and Owen but I have a blast with them too!)

This is one of the shirts I made for all the nephews for Christmas. To give credit where credit is due, the idea came from one of my favorite blogs, I Am Momma Hear Me Roar.

Here is a picture I snapped a few days later before Danny and I took our Christmas tree down. It is the only one that even resembles our little Christmas (sorry I'm always in gross sweats). Feliz Navidad!

High School Dance

You heard me. Danny and I went to the Viewmont high school Christmas dance a few weeks ago, and we (and by we I mean mostly I) had a blast. Russell got asked to go by a girl from school and Danny and I went as their chaperones. Here are a few pictures from the experience:

A few of my favorite things about the experience:

-I decided to "ask" Danny to the dance like all the high schoolers do. I did it all tricky though so I was home pretending ot be asleep when it was all delivered. I just had a bunch of balloons with notes inside of them (one with my name on it) and a sign that said, "Don't burst by bubble, go to the Christmas dance with me." To make a long story short, he thought it was one of our friends playing a joke on us and had no idea it was from me, so he wanted me to pop the balloons. I finally got him to pop the balloons and he was so confused when he saw my name. Needless to say, it didn't go as planned. I was laughing pretty hard though.

-Watching Russell dance. He has no inhibitions and it is awesome. We should all be more like that.

-Russell and his date both voted that I was a better dance than Danny :) Although I gotta admit, Danny has some sweet moves!

-If you want more details and you follow Russells's blog, go here for more: Gafugamugabub.

ONE YEAR!

We made it. haha. Danny and I have been married for one year, as of yesterday. They say that the first year is the hardest, and although last year was pretty tough at times, if thats as bad as it gets I'll take it! I love being married to Danny, I don't want to be cheesy but I really am so grateful to be married to him. Every day I realize he is even more perfect for me than I could have known. I'm a pretty lucky girl.

So because of school and budget we didn't get to do anything too exciting for our anniversary (we REALLY wanted to go on a cruise), but we did get out of Logan. My parents were out of town so we went and house sat for them and did a few fun things in Salt Lake. On our honeymoon we went to the Desert Star Theater so we went again this year as tradition. This is us before the show. We LOVE the Desert Star theater, it is always a good laugh.

I asked Danny to give me the Harry Potter movies for my anniversary present ($33 for all six at Costco-Thanks for the tip Michele) so we had a little Harry Potter marathon and then went to see the new movie.

It was awesome! And I found out that I totally married a Harry Potter nerd. If you ever have a question about the logistics of Harry Potter, Danny knows the answer.

We really just had a relaxing weekend away from work and school and got to spend some quality time together.

We had to go back to Logan on Sunday (our real anniversary) for church but after church we ate the top of our wedding cake and watched our wedding video (Thank you Julianne and Nathan!) This is us reenacting cutting the cake at the reception. We are both a few pounds heavier, in our pajamas/snuggies, and this is the worst picture ever but I think it makes it even funnier)

It was great to reminisce on the wedding day and how wonderful it was. It all went by so fast but looking back I am so grateful to have so many incredible friends and family that were there to celebrate with us that day. So thank you! Here's to many more wonderful years to come!