forwarding address

Since I'm all grown up and a married man, I thought it might just be a good idea to do a blog with the wifey....  From now on if you are interested in hearing about we're up to, you can reach us at the following site....

www.lindseyandrob.blogspot.com

Cheers!

Catching Up

Wow... Its been a while... I was just talking to a friend via text and she told me that I should update ya'll on my blog. (whoever reads this anyways....) There has been SO MUCH that happened since I last posted in February.

welp... heres a brief summary of my life through photos since I've last posted

Zion's trip with the boys. This was the last little Hurrah before I got married

Lu and I got married on May 10, 2012

This is one of my favorites from our engagements

Here is the first time that I had ever seen her dress. She came up
behind me and then we ended up getting shots right when I saw her
for the first time. I promise I am excited, and not nearly as stoned as I appear.

I love her shoes, so funny

Cheesy Shot

Ain't she pretty???

Coming out of the Temple

Now she's barefoot. She said her fancy shoes weren't very comfy
so she simply just took them off while we walked around outside.

We went to Zion's for our honeymoon. It was a great time. We went hiking...

Horseback Riding....

and River rafting...

later on in June we went on a family vacation with my family to the Bahamas
It was an awesome cruise with lots of delicious free ice cream,
unfortunately the trip wasn't quite as good as it could have been for me...

because I got ROASTED on the first day on the beach. This was a couple
days into the trip. It was a little worse than this at first... I swear I put on
sunscreen. Truth be told, I actually put it on more than once!
(sorry if this picture makes you feel uncomfortable...)

While the rest of the family was out paragliding and having a blast,
this is what I was doing. Moaning, Groaning, and not really enjoying myself...
Lindsey stuck around with me though, even though I was really boring.
She must love me

After we got back from the cruise, I got to go and work in the Salt Lake temple.
It was construction work... renovating the locker rooms and other areas. The
experience truly was one that I'll never forget. We worked 12 hour days for
3 weeks straight. It was hard work, but it was quite a blessing to be a part of.

Those are all the pictures that I have. The rest of the news is not really exciting anyways. School started up again, and I signed up for 18 hours of school Now I am looking at the final few days of class next week. I've been crazy busy, yet my grades this semester have been better than any other semester I've been through.

Life is good. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Til next time! (Hopefully its not in a year...)

Lindsey, My Wife to be (sappy...)

So.... I didn't do the amish project. I'm thinking about doing it after I'm married. Its too hard to get everything ready without the convenience of social networking. Who knows, maybe I'll do it after I'm married. By then there might only be one person I'd want to talk to anyways right??? haha we'll see...

I've been asked if I would post a blog about how I proposed to her. So, although its really not as spectacular as some of the stories you hear about, I liked how it went down because it was simple. A wise man once said, "simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." At least I think that is how it went anyways.

Here we go. So the week we were engaged we had planned to go to the temple to do a session on thursday, and we were going to go on a date that friday. She had kept asking me what we were going to do  on the date, and I kept it a mystery. I was planning on proposing on thursday, but I figured if I didn't say anything about friday night, that she wouldn't expect anything til then. (turns out she wasn't expecting it at all for a couple more weeks)

Well, we go and do our session at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. As we are doing our session, and afterwards when we were in the Celestial Room I was doing my best to remain as cool as possible. (wouldn't want her to suspect anything....) I was doing a great job at keeping my composure up until the time came that we left and it hit me that I would be proposing really soon... It was at this point that I got really nervous. I took a trip to the bathroom so I wouldn't wet myself, then changed, and met her in the lobby.

Once there, I took her bag. Which was really weird because we were going to different cars, and I never take her bag... and instead of going to the parking lot, I suggest we go to the front "because I've never seen the temple at night before." We get to the bench in front where I had decided was the place to drop my knee, and I give her a big hug. Its all romantic and all... just picture it, The temple is glowing with the night sky behind it, the valley below looks beautiful with all the lights, the sky had cleared up and you could see a few stars above, and it was like 10 degrees outside.

So I made the mistake of not taking in account the temperature outside... (my bad...) But what it ended up being like was us two standing there in each others arms. Her with her skirt, and me without a coat and holding her bag. she says, "can we go to the car now?" and I replied "no." (so romantic don't you think???) and we stood there for like ten minutes; just shivering away while I tried to muster up the courage to propose. Finally, after some sappy talk I dropped a knee. I told her that she was the one that I wanted to spend eternity with, presented a CTR ring (yep, I sure did! "choose the rob" kind of thing....), and asked her if she would marry me.

Then she looked at me, and didn't say anything for what seemed like forever... (she said later she was trying to find something smart aleky to say but couldn't think of anything) and then finally said yes! she said yes!!! then I gave her a kiss, and we went to my house and spread the news to all our loved ones. It was a great night.

Lindsey and I will be sealed for time and all eternity in the Oquirrh Mountain temple on the 10th of may. As each day passes I become that much more excited! World, I love this girl. I hope anyone I know and love who hasn't met her yet will get the chance to soon. I am certain you would fall in love with her too!

The Amish Project

Dear Friends and Family,

Just recently, in fact... an hour ago. I was just winding down getting ready to go to bed, when I decided to check my fantasy basketball numbers for the day. I did not get to them, because as soon as yahoo came up the front page had something that caught my eye.

It was about Jake Reilly (ESPN's Rick Reilly's son). Jake went on a very interesting adventure. For 90 days, he went without a cell phone, email, and social media. The article that interviewed him was very well done. See for yourself! Check it out!!

He is asked about his experience and most of his answers were inspirational. He talked about how he became so much closer to those around him, and how he found out which friends of his were actually as close to him as he had thought in the first place. Jake also learned that life is meant to be lived more fully than the little devices we hold in our hands.

Seriously though, this was so amazing that I have decided that I want to give it a shot. I want to see what its like to live without all these things that occupy so much of my time. I want to try it for 90 days. Looking at a calendar, If I start on February 1st, I could finish my 90th day and be back to the "real world" by May 1st. The more I think about it the more I really truly sincerely want to give this a shot.

However, I have a few obstacles in my way... a major one is the fact that I am getting married in May, and will likely need Facebook in order to get what info I need from certain individuals, especially those in Australia. (or is that just an excuse??? perhaps that is just an excuse? I could find a way possibly to work around that.....)

Next is my calling. I haven't relied on emails all that much until I received this calling, Everyone seems to be able to contact me best through emails... again, ways could be established to overcome this barrier...

School. Unfortunately there really is no way out of this one. I NEED to be on the computer for this one because my classes all require me to use the Internet to turn in assignments and/or get a hold of the professors. Not to mention the fact that I have an online class...

But those are really the only legitimate things that come to my mind as things that would hold me back from achieving this goal. I know that part of the reason life on the mission is so enjoyable is that you really are more aware of your surroundings and less occupied with technologies and other distractions. So I know I have done it before, I would love to do it again.

I am going to go for it. Today, the 31st of January 2012, will be the last of my social media contact until May. If you need to get a hold of me... call my house. ha ha! the number is... (801) 268-2021

I feel excited to see what the next few months are like, and can't wait to report them back to everyone who is interested.

Til Next time!

Rob

Thanksgiving Part 2

As promised earlier, I will now report on dinner with Lindsey's family.

It was really nice of them to invite me along and even more nice that they understand clearly my celiac diet. Eating dinner with another family that also is experiencing the blessings of a gluten free thanksgiving meal was seriously such a blessing. I did not feel singled out whatsoever, and everything was delicious.

Even better than the food was the company. I loved meeting members of Lindsey's family that I had heard of but never met before. One of these family members was her step mom Terri. Terri seems like a great woman, and from what I can see, she is very loving and concerned for all of her family members. As should be expected when you meet the family of the girl you're dating, you are on the receiving end of a hard time. Consider it a test; you pass, and you receive approval to keep dating, you fail, and well... it'd probably make a bumpy road for the future. It was Terri, however, that completely caught me off guard with this said hard time.

She cornered me in the kitchen, and dropped the question that seemed like a bomb being dropped. "So, What do you like about Lindsey?" No matter what I said, I almost felt like it was a losing situation. If I say some grade school answer, then she might not take me seriously, yet if I churn out some beautifully-poetic-chickflicky-answer, well... then I'm going over the top. ha! I replied that "I like being around her." I hoped that would suffice, and she'd give me clearance to leave with my dessert to the other room. I was wrong, she then said, "that's not good enough, I want to hear something thoughtful and sincere." To which, I replied that she would have to "give me a bit to think about it then." (cunning, don't you think?? I thought so too....)

Somehow that night I snuck out and never had to respond to Terri's question. Later on I found myself joking around with Lindsey about it. We talked about how we knew the next time Terri and I saw each other she would pick up right where we left off. We joked about what funny responses would be. Things like how Lindsey is a good kisser, or that she is a sugar momma. Obviously I do not see myself answering in such ways, But for a moment tonight (yes I know its way past my old man scheduled bed time) for Terri, and anyone else who cares, I want to share with you just one reason why I love Lindsey Taylor.

The past couple months that we have dated have been educational for me on my part. Lindsey has taught me moments that matter most in life, are not what I've been focusing on my whole life. For example, Sports. You ask anyone, and they will tell you my life revolves around ESPN and big sporting events. Since we've started dating, my St Louis cardinals won an improbable world series. I was so excited about this remarkable accomplishment, and couldn't stop talking about the whole ordeal. Although she could see my excitement, all she ever did was laugh about fat Albert's last name. "Poo-holes!" she would laugh about it all night long! Again and again something would happen in the sports world that I would just be so stoked about for some reason or another, and she'd give me the old, "that's great rob..."

It was Lindsey that got the point across, that at the end of the day, win or lose, it all really just doesn't matter. There is more productive things to worry or get excited about than silly sport results. So this last weekend, when the Utes totally blew their chance to play in the PAC-12 championship game, instead of being completely heartbroken like I normally would have been; I simply had an outlook like "oh well... maybe next time, its all good."

That may be the worst example to illustrate my point. But I want it to be known, that Lindsey helps me every single day, to realize the importance of the things that matter most. In all that she does and says, she always points me in the direction that I should be facing. As cliche as it sounds, she knows who she is, and what she stands for. She knows what is important in life, and has prioritized her life in ways to accomplish the things that she needs to get done. That is a great standard for me to follow. For me, knowing that she is going full speed in the direction God would have her go, is one of the greatest ways I know she is the one I want to be dating right now.

This video is a Mormon message from one of my favorite talks. It shows how I feel. Enjoy!

Thanks for reading!

thanksgiving part 1

So the past few weeks have been pretty interesting. Truth be told, if I filled this entry with all that could or should be said, It would likely be about 3 miles long. So to be brief, I will only discuss a few things. First things first....

I have decided that my days go by so much better when my mornings are as productive as they possibly can be. Lazy days are determined in large part by the mornings that I was a slob, and of course the best days happen when continued from awesome mornings. We are all big fans of awesome days, so it became very apparent to me that my mornings need to consistently rock.

To do this, I had the idea of going to bed earlier so I could wake up earlier. A LOT earlier! My new routine has me waking up at 4:45 every morning, and depending on the day I will either swim, read scriptures, then hit the train for school, or I will skip the swim, study scriptures, then get on the train. It is still a work in progress. My inner clock is all sorts of messed up, and I'm awake when I shouldn't be, and I'm asleep when I need to be busy. But I'm hoping that soon enough I will be on track and on the old man schedule.

In other news, I got to celebrate thanksgiving twice this year. I had a meal with my own family, and I was blessed to be able to eat with part of Lindsey's family as well. Thankfully the two meals were on two different days. I ate with her family on sunday, then on thanksgiving thursday I ate with my own. I will blog about Lindsey's family outing soon enough...

The meal with my family was so great. It was so great to be able to get together with all of my mom's side of the family again. It has honestly been at least a year since we were all together at the same place at the same time. Everyone is busy living their lives in various different spots. The short time we spent together was not enough to get around and really catch up with everyone, however it felt so good knowing that everyone was alive, well, and happy. And of course we were all happy, It was thanksgiving! Its food, food, gratitude, and more food! ha!

The food, although it was a great plus, would eventually turn into a painful minus as well. Not long after our dinner did we find that most of the family that got together to celebrate thanksgiving with dinner also got food poisoning from it as well. Last night and this morning were not very pleasant. Hopefully now the worst is behind us.

Thats about as brief as things could be told for the past couple weeks.
I need to get better at this blog thing.

This is me today