So Real Married Life, Hein?

January 16, 2010- I got married to my best friend who I get to see all the time. Time is a great adjustment we have had to make. I love waking up in his arms, cooking dinner with him (since he changed to the morning shift), putting on my makeup while he pees, cleaning the apartment that we both dirtied and no one else, getting dressed together, getting undressed together, ya know, all the good parts of the day.

We got back to our apartment in Provo which was ours and nobody else's. That means no one is ever going to walk in uninvited and catch us making out and we don't have to clean up somebody's mess that isn't ours. We had our own belated Christmas since we spent ours in Mexico. We made a nice breakfast, watched "A Muppet Christmas Carol" and then opened all of our Wedding gifts. We got money and some helpful things like a tool kit and decorations and kitchen stuff. We spent that whole week before school started doing setop things. We shopped for furniture at this amazing store called IKEA where things are cheaper but you have to assemble them yourself. Andrew was the one who had an idea for a color scheme and he was so excited to decorate. We chose red, white, and black with a modern style. We bought a sofa with pillows, coffee table, kitchen table with red chairs, a red side table, cool lamps, a nightstand, and crazy curtains. We hung up a big picture of Christ and also the temple. We had a house warming party with some cousins and Meredith. I had to go through lots of name changing stuff and still am. It is going to take a while to get used to saying Ashley Beck instead of Rodgers. I love that I use Beck now because it links Andrew and I together when people see it. Andrew got a horrible parasite that caused him to have terrible cramping and diarrhea for like 5 days straight, but he got better eventually. That's when Ashley and Andrew learned that health insurance is necessary. BIG MISTAKE! But making mistakes together is what this learning process is about, and believe me we are learning everyday. We are having to grow up. We need to get car insurance, health insurace, pay rent, utilities and buy things all the time plus we need to balance school, work, scripture study, prayer, FHE church callings, temple attendance, and time for only each other. It is all great stuff but can be challenging. I am not going to do all of this new stuff perfectly, which scares me and is really hard for me to get used to. I know that if we do what we are supposed to and keep our temple covenants to the fullest, we will be happy. Happiness does not mean that life will be easy though. A lot of times we get the most joy from getting through and learning from hard things. Nothing is more important than God and the man that I am sealed to forever. I love serving the person I care about more than anything. God has already blessed us with so much. His mercies are incredible.