Well we have been married for six months now...a whole half a year, who'd have guessed we'd ever make it this far, haha. It is awesome I think I can speak for both of us when I say "Marriage Rocks." Being single is freaking hard, why does anyone ever have to do it? So to all of you single people who may be reading this blog, get married cause it's the best. Anyways enough of that and my lecturing. Since we got married our life has been a fun ride. We moved to Springville, Utah....right next to provo...which is 45 minutes ouside of Salt Lake for anyone who isn't in the know. While living in Springville, Matthew worked at Tucanos as a meat server, and I worked at Goodwood (in draper) as a server/bartender. During this time we made a bunch of trips back to Boise, for weddings, family reunions, and for just because we like Boise...LOTS!!! Although we were comfortable with our life, a much better opportunity arose. Matthew was told about a job through the military. Oh wait I didn't mention that Matthew is in the military...well he is! He is in the Utah Army National Guard. Now back to this job. It was a job as an NCO Supply Sergeant. I know that's a mumble of who knows what, so to clarify... this job entails being in charge of all the supplies that a certain group of soldiers needs, either for turning it in or ordering it to give to them, and some other stuff but that's what is important. However the job was located in Vernal, Utah (for those of you who don't know where Provo is, it's highly likely you have no idea/haven't heard of Vernal). Vernal is located in the North Eastern part of Utah and is a small town with maybe 20,000 people. It is three hours from any major city, and walmart is considered the mall to the locals who don't know what a real mall is. :) So we thought, why not, it's a good job with awesome perks so we'll try. Try turned into success, so here we find ourselves in Vernal living the small town life dream. Now don't let that comment fool you, we actually love the Vernal small town dream. Everyone in Vernal is super nice, and believe it or not a lot of people move to Vernal for new jobs, so we weren't alone in this boat. Vernal is best known for being an oil town so although it's a small town it is not a thrifty place. Everything is super expensive including the gas, it's like 20 cents more here than in the Salt Lake area. Which if you ask me that doesn't make sense since it is a oil town, but what can ya do? Houses are not expensive, although real estate is pretty well priced everywhere right now due to our current situation, but renting is insanley expensive. You see since it's an oil town, there are times where the oil is great so there is a huge influx of people and rent goes skyrocketing. For example a three bedroom apartment with two baths would be about 2,000 bucks in rent a month. But right now thankfully the oil isn't so hot so our rent is not as outrageous, but that still doesn't make it cheap. The rent is still probably 200 dollars or more than what you would pay in the Salt Lake or Boise area. But we feel very fortunate for this opportunity and know we are blessed with our situation and are very thankful for it. So now that I've blabbed about all that nonsense, lets move on.
So this summer we did two family reunions. One with the McMullin clan, which was in Cascade/McCall, and the other with the Bryson clan which was down in Southern Utah. Both were a blast. The McMullin reunion was at a cabin, where with such a large family lots of tent camping took place as well. But there was fishing, hiking, swimming, hanging out, horseshoes, and delicious food. As always there were lots of people and lots of exciting moments, which always makes for a good time. One of the days a group of us hiked to a beautiful lake, sadly I don't remember the name of it. It was a fun hike with a good amount of adventure involved and the lake was so worth the hike, it was so beautiful, it's one I won't forget. When it came time to leave we all packed it in and said our goodbyes and made our way home. The Bryson reunion was also at a cabin, but it was located in southern Utah. While we were there we did other cool adventures. We traveled to the Grand Canyon to see the phenomenon there. We walked along the canyon rim and looked in at all the crazy wonders of it. Another day we went to Zions Canyon and drove through the fun tunnels and toured the neat sites therein. One of my favorite things in Zions Canyon was the Narrows. It's where the canyon narrows so close together that the walls are only around 20 feet apart. Through this part of the canyon there is a constant flow of water (a river) which is not deep when it is the middle of the hot summer. So Matthew and I abandoned the rest of the Bryson clan and hiked up the river in our tennis shoes and clothes cause it was such and irresistable experience, covered in loads of fun. We also ate delicious food, played games, and went swimming. It was also at this reunion we learned that Matthew got the job in Vernal, so there was loads of excitement to remember. At the end we all said our farewells and made our way back home.
Then moving mode came because it wasn't a job that was a few months off, it needed to be filled right away. So we packed everything up and eventually made our way to Vernal. Now don't be fooled we had no idea what was in store. We had no where to live yet, and as newly weds money isn't growing on trees, plus moving isn't cheap. So for our first night living in Vernal we camped in a tent. For a lot of you reading this you may think, oh how awful that would totally suck, but we didn't mind at all. We actually really enjoyed ourselves. The next morning we started hunting for a new home, and what do you know by noon we had the perfect place. Now Matthew has a Mon-Thurs job and I don't have to work...although I am looking for a job just to have something to do, and we get our evenings together. We spend lots of our freetime here in Vernal, watching movies together on our couch with popcorn, sitting on our patio at night chatting drinking hot cocoa, fishing, thrift shopping, and playing games with friends and each other. We couldn't ask for anything more! Life is wonderful, and there could be nothing better for us than what we already have!
