Merry Christmas!

I always enjoy reading my friends' Christmas letters and though it's too late to mail out letters, I thought I would share ours on the blog.  To all of our friends and family reading, we love you, we're thankful for you, and wish you the very best Christmas wishes.

2012 has been a wonderful year for us.  Daniel and I met at the beginning of the year in our singles ward in Ogden.  I was living with my brother up there on the weekends and Daniel had just moved home to save money for graduate school. 

This past summer was a great one.  We got engaged and we ran our first marathon together (Daniel's first marathon ever).  We also spent lots of time with family, watching Monk (the T.V. Series), enjoying the outdoors, and visiting the temple. 

In August, Daniel started his first year of a Ph.D. program in clinical psychology at the University of Utah and he is well on his way to achieving his dreams.

In October, we experienced the best day of our lives as we were married for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake Temple.  We honeymooned in Florida and have settled in Holladay, Utah.

I have been working at Pearson Butler for about 10 months now and it has been going really well.  I like this lawyer job better than the two previous jobs and it is a great environment to work in.  I manage my own caseload and am still specializing in bankruptcy.  I am also starting to branch out into estate planning, probate, guardianships, and social security disability (elder law in a nutshell). 

A couple of weeks ago, Daniel and I were called as team primary teachers at our church and we are excited to serve together and teach little children.

On December , 2012, we had the opportunity to go to the Conference Center in Salt Lake City and see the First Presidency Christmas Devotional of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  This was a wonderful event and the words of President Thomas S. Monson have stayed with me:

"Christmas isn't just tinsel and ribbon, unless we have made it so in our lives. Christmas is the spirit of giving without a thought of getting.  It is happiness because we see joy in people.  It is forgetting self and finding time for others.  It is discarding the meaningless and stressing the true values.  It is peace because we have found peace in the Savior's teachings.  It is the time we realize most deeply that the more love is expended, the more there is of it for others."

We hope that you will feel the true spirit of Christmas and enjoy this beautiful season.  Merry Christmas!

Love,

The Brides



Our first Christmas tree

The Thankful Tree

Daniel and I have been starting some fun traditions in our family and this is one of them.

Every day for the month of November, we added a leaf to our tree and both listed one thing we are thankful for on the leaf.  It was a great way to feel the spirit of Thanksgiving!

 

(PS - Yes, those may or may not be stockings next to our thankful tree.  Christmas began immediately the day after Thanksgiving in our house). 

The Big Day! (October 5, 2012)

I am overwhelmed at the thought of even writing about this day.  In short, it was the best day of my life.... One completely perfect day.

I hope to someday have the time and energy to write about this amazing day, but in the meantime here are some photos of some of our sweet moments caught on camera:

Just Another Day at the Firm

Overheard at the office:

Special Moment #1
Madi (my assistant): I am sooooooooo sick of the IRS!  They keep claiming they never get anything I send them!
Me:  I know, but what can we do?
Madi: Throw rocks at them.
Me:  But then they'll claim they never received the rocks we sent them.

Special Moment #2
Len (my boss):  Hello (insert client name here).  I am calling because....
Client: click click click
Len:  What's that?
Client: click click
(later in a chat with Madi and Kylie)
Len: There's something different about that guy.
Kylie:  Yes Len.  He's Black.

In other news, I looked in the main conference room today and this is what I saw staring back at me:

The best part was that his owner said absolutely nothing about it, like it was the most normal thing in the world to bring a massive dog to an appointment with his lawyer.

Details Details

We had our engagement photos taken this week and they turned out great!  Head on over to Crystal's blog to check out the sneak peak: http://www.envisionimage.blogspot.com/2012/08/daniel-and-maryanns-engagement-sneak.html.

And just to update you on details, we have an official date!  We will be getting married on October 5, 2012 in the Salt Lake Temple.  We have decided not to have a reception and to just have a small dinner after the ceremony with our families and a few close friends.  Surprisingly (at least surprisingly to me) I feel like this has turned out to be a bit of an appalling thing to some people.  I guess it makes sense because we're living in a culture where everyone invites everyone they have ever met to their wedding reception. We hope no one will be offended and everyone will understand our desire to have a small wedding.  I will post pictures though!

Lastly, since the blog is now about "our story" rather than "my story" I thought I should change the blog name to something other than "Maryannland."  Any suggestions?  The blog address will not be changing.

Engaged!

I know this is slightly outdated, but Ru Ru took these photos just after Daniel asked me to marry him and I thought they should make it onto the blog. 



This is the actual spot where Daniel proposed.

Bride Family Cotillion

Every summer, Daniel's family hosts a formal dance in their backyard.  I think it's such a great tradition!  

My friend, Kate, is the head of the Cinderella Project in the Salt Lake Valley.  The Cinderella Project is a non-profit that lends formal dresses to low-income girls to allow them the opportunity to attend prom.  Kate told me that she would be happy to let me wear one of the Cinderella Project dresses and that there were a ton of them in her office.  When I showed up, I realized there was a whopping one dress that had sleeves, so this is what I ended up with.

It's really something isn't it?  One of the little girls at this dance actually thought I was a real princess!  



As a side note, the Cinderella Project NEEDS more dresses, especially dresses that are modest and bigger sizes.  If you have dresses that you would like to donate, please let me know and I can put you in touch with Kate or you can give them to me and I'll make sure Kate gets them. 

 

Here we are with Daniel's three sisters (Helen, Abby, and Maria), and his brother-in-law (Scott).

Here's all of my sibllings minus Launce.  

I'm so in love with this man!

Daniel's parent's (Terrence and Lucy).  I think they are so cute!

And, here's a few more pictures just for fun.