It's Official

Well it's official! On May 7-14, Zach and I will be going back to Panama! Even when I was in high school I always said that I wanted to go back to my husband's mission with him. I just wanted to see where he lived for 2 years, meet the people he taught, and see what he saw. Zach and I were looking online to see how much tickets would cost and we were looking one day and the prices had dropped by $200! So we booked them! It's right at the end of the semester before the Summer semester starts so it was perfect timing. I'm not quite sure what all we're going to do yet because Zach is planning it all, but it should be fun! These are just some pictures of the city and Panama City Beach to get me excited to go! (As if I'm not already excited)

All Kinds of Colors

So one Saturday Zach and I had sort of a super Saturday. It was the Saturday right after my Spring Break, before I had to go back to school, and we decided that we wanted to do something fun. So that morning we woke up early and went to the temple and after that we were heading to the Festival of Colors down in Spanish Fork. I never realized what a big deal this was before! There were so many people there and we had to park like 2 miles away and just walk to it. But it was really fun and really messy, as you can see...

After the festival of colors we hurried and got showered and ready and then went to the Real soccer game. It was such an awesome game too! A little cold but we ended beating the LA Galaxy 4-1! So no one was complaining. Then we just decided to get a redbox movie and pop some pop corn to finish up the night. It was so nice to have a full day off of work to just hang out with the hubby all day.

Then last Saturday Zach had been mentioning that he wanted to know what I looked like with dark hair. I've never done anything to my hair before so I'm always a little hesitant to change things up but after looking in the mirror I thought why not? My hair wasn't really blonde and it wasn't really brown so we decided to just do it. We bought a box of hair dye at Ulta and on Saturday night we died it brown. It's still different to see myself in the mirror but it's kind of growing on me and it's a fun change!

Colorado Trip

Time for another update blog. President's Day weekend my older sister Angie was blessing her new little baby girl, Layla Bell, so a lot of people in the family decided to head out to Colorado for the long weekend. Zach and I decided to save some money and drive over together. Plus it was our first road trip! So we left on Friday morning and drove 8 hours to Denver. It was so much fun spending time with family and heading out there. Angie and Keith come out to Utah all the time so it was fun going out there for a change. We just hung out on Friday, Saturday we played at the park with the kids, went to the Children's Museum while the guys were golfing, and went out to Dinner. Then Sunday was the blessing and we all just ate together. Zach and I drove halfway on Sunday night, stayed in a hotel in Grand Junction and then finished the drive Monday morning to get back in time for work. Pictures are below. It was such a fun trip!

Zach and I at dinner Saturday night

Cute Makelle at the Children's Museum

Parker in the dancing room at the museum

The kids were out cold in the car after! Including Lauren in the backseat. haha

I realized the only picture I got of Jackson was him sleeping in the car! I guess that kid moves too fast for me

Parker at the playground. That's what he did when I said smile.

Grandma, Layla, and Makelle at dinner

Valentine's Day

This was our first Valentine's day together as well and I wanted to do something special. I heard about doing the 14 days of Valentine's from my sisters and I decided to jump in on it with them. You give them something everyday leading up to the big day. So everyday I wrote a little poem and he got a little gift.

This is our wall with our decorations. It has all the poems I wrote and the post-it notes are the 11 things I love about him for the 11th day.

These are the beautiful roses he got me for Valentine's

Day 13, Hawaiian breakfast in bed

Day 10, 1o $1 bills folded into hearts

Day 9

Valentine's dinner on Sunday. Homemade pizza kind of in a heart

First Christmas

This past Christmas was our first Christmas together. It was a lot of fun. We had enough Target gift cards left over that we were able to buy a nice Christmas tree and decorate it together. Along with doing Christmas for each other, we also did this 12 days of Christmas thing with my family. We found a needy family and gave them a Christmas. We gave them something every day whether it was a tree, lights, food, and the last day was presents. It was so fun and really put Christmas into perspective for us this year.

Zach got me some fun things. Blankets (I'm always cold), a Utah hoodie, and p90x!

Zach with his presents. BYU hoodie, scriptures, Jazz tickets with a Jazz jersey.

In front of our Christmas tree Christmas morning. Zach was sneezing. haha

I'm in love I'm in love and I don't care who knows it!

So my last blog was about Elder Zachariah Miller returning home from his mission and considering he's been home for about 3 weeks now, I guess it's time to blog about him being home. He came home on May 4th at about 7:30 that night. (The picture above is me right before I left for the airport) It didn't feel like it was really happening until right before I left for the airport, then I got REALLY nervous. I drove to the airport and met his family there and we all just hung out and talked for a bit while we waited for his plane to land. It was so fun being there with his family and began to feel real once I saw all the signs and the balloons and candy leis. We went and placed ourselves right by the bottom of the escalators to make sure that we saw him when he came down. I was holding a sign with Rachel and talking to her when she squealed and said, "There he is!!" I could not find him to save my life and I was getting so frustrated! Till Rachel finally said, "Kelsey, he's right THERE!" Then I finally saw him and my stomach did a flip and couldn't believe he was finally here.

Him and his family

His parents

The ultimate handshake

At first it was a little awkward seeing him because neither one of us really knew how to handle the situation. We couldn't hug or touch each other so we both stood awkwardly next to each other. Ha it was pretty funny but I was content just being next to him. He went home that night and got released and it was pretty late and he was doing things with his family so I didn't get to see him. The next day I drove down to Orem and we spent the entire day together. We went shopping, because he has no clothes, then we went to the Provo temple for a little bit, went to his little brother's water polo game, Rachel's soccer game, and ate dinner. He had some people that he needed to go visit so I left after that. It was a great day. (unfortunately we both suck at taking pictures so I have no pictures from that day... sorry)

Lately we've just been hanging out and having a good time. The Saturday after he came home my parents had an extra ticket to the ReAL game because I had to work and Zach went with them. You have to realize that he has never met any member of my family before and he was going to the game without me, with my parents, Lauren, Dustin, Kaley and Paul. What a champ! After the game they came back to the house and I was here waiting and then we just ended up watching a movie and hanging out with my family. He was a little nervous around them at first but he had just been home a few days and he's gotten much more comfortable around them since then.

This is what happens when I'm not around

At the game

In our matching jerseys from my parents

Other than that, we've just been spending time together and enjoying each other's company. We went to church together 2 weeks ago (pictured below) and his homecoming was yesterday (pictures soon to come... hopefully). Those 2 years were very long and waiting was probably one of the hardest things I've ever done, but having him back now has made it totally worth it. :)

FINALLY!!!

Well the time has finally come. This may be a stupid thing to blog about but it's something really exciting that is happening in my life and something that I've been waiting for a long time. Mr. Zachariah Miller is finally returning home from serving his mission in Panama City, Panama. This Tuesday, May 4th, he will fly in to Utah and I can't even wait. It still seems so surreal and I don't believe that he's actually going to be here soon but I'm getting really excited. I don't know what's going to happen but I'm ready to find out! Here are just a few pictures of him since he's been gone. There are only a few on my computer. After 2 long years, just 1 more day!!! :)