Welcome to Kansas City!

We finally made it! It's crazy that we have already been here over a month, so now I think it's time to post some pictures of our latest adventures. Be warned, there are a lot. I don't paticularly like blogging, so I'm doing a huge post so I'm covered for a little bit. We love living here so far; we live in the best neighborhood and are surrounded by the best people. Jeff has started school and he's doing great! But maybe I just think that because he's so optimistic and he hides his stress well. Anyways, life is good. Here are some pics...

We moved out of our home in Provo and stayed with my grandparents for a few weeks before we left. Jeff's parents were nice to let us keep all of our boxes in their garage. Once everything was boxed up and put together, we started to worry that the truck we rented woudn't be big enough. You never realize how much stuff you have until you move!!

We got one more camping trip in before we left, and it was probably the first time we've ever camped in warm weather. Every trip we have ever taken, I've turned in to a popcicle at night, so finally I told Jeff that I must have a zero degree sleeping bag. This was the first trip I used my new bag, and I slept on top of it the whole night because it was just too hot. Now we live in Missouri heat, and I don't think I'll ever want to use it again. Anyway...it was a great trip, we camped out right by the river, hiked, and made an awesome camp fire.

These pictures aren't going in order, but I don't know how to rearrange them. Before we left, we got one more night with our old friends Darcy and Erik. We love them and will miss them so much! I told Darcy I'd keep an eye out for a good-lookin, single, med student that she can marry. Then she can move out here and hang out with me. Jeff and Erik go way back to their mission days, and he's been a great friend to us.

I'm going to miss this girl! She's always been a great friend to me and I love her lots and lots! Come and visit Darcy! xoxo

Suprise! Apparently I inherited my mom's insane packing skills and was able to get our whole lives into this 12by8 trailer.

Off we go! I was a stress case the entire drive to Denver. We've never pulled anything before, so I was constantly hearing noises and imagining the worst case scenario. Jeff, being the wonderful husband that he is, went well under the speed limit to keep me sane. It took us around 10 hours to get to Denver. We never want to do that again that's for sure. But we were able to spend a fun fourth of July weekend with my family in Denver!

So jumping ahead a little bit...We sold most of our big furniture in order to make moving a little cheaper, so I've been on the hunt for some fun furniture to decorate our new house. P.S., don't expect any pictures of our house yet, it is pretty sad and empty looking since this is the only piece of furniture I have so far. Once I get a couch and get some stuff on the walls, I'll let you see it. Anyway, I got this dresser on craigslist for 20 bucks! The woman's daughter graffitied all over it with puff paint, so I have some major scraping and sanding to do. It was a fun project and it turned into this.....!

Good as new! The other day I was at a furniture store and saw the same exact dresser for $500! Not bad for 20 bucks! This dresser refinishing is inspired by my genius cousin Heather. Her projects have turned out way better than mine though, shes a pro.

This is the cool bridge Jeff passes everyday to get to school, it crosses the Missouri river and is really pretty a night when it's all lit up. Kansas City is a really fun city! I'll show more pictures soon.

Jeff's parents came into town for Jeff's white coat ceremony, and earlier that day we took them on a tour of Jeff's campus. Here's Jeff with his brother Joseph.

I was so bummed because I got the crumbiest pictures during the ceremony, but you can see him on the left end looking very handsome. The ceremony was really exciting!

Here's us on the front lawn. I'm so proud of him!

And another one...

Here he is, my cute medical student all coated up!

So if anyone ever comes to visit us, we will be sure to take you to Oklahome Joes. It has the wide reputation of being the best bbq in Kansas City. It's not the classiest place in the world (it's in a gas station), and the line usually goes out the door, but it is well worth it. Anyone who knows Jeff well knows that he's not the biggest fan of bbq, and I was sure it was going to take me all 4 years to get him to like it. But it only took 1 trip to this place to make him a true believer.

This is one of our favorite places in Kansas City. It's this great park where a civil war battle took place, and it is so pretty! The first time we came here I felt like Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music. The pictures seriously don't do it justice. There are tennis courts here, and fountains, and gardens, and a cute lake. Again, it anyone comes to visit us, we'll take you here.

Ok mom don't be scared! Last week we had the craziest storm I have ever been in. No tornado though don't worry. But apparently the winds reached 70mph and ripped down a lot of trees and other things. This is the yard of our friend's neighbors. They had this old oak tree that just snapped at the trunk!

In June we got to go on a trip to Hawaii with my family! It was Jeff's first time in Hawaii so it was extra exciting. Here's a picture of all 16 of us watching the sunset. Nothing better! We went with my grandparents, and my aunt, uncle, and cousins! They are the best people to go to Hawaii with! And Heather, I stole these pictures from your blog. I brought my camera, but I didn't even use it past the airport. I'm glad you and your mom are such good documenters!

Here we are on our snorkeling day. This was Jeff's favorite thing to do, he could have stayed out there all day.

Jeff has learned that when you go on vacation with the Willardsens, this is bound to happen. A lot. The resort staff called us "Camp Kaanapali." We liked the sound of that.

Here's Jeff, Collin, and Danny's heads!

We hiked through this pretty jungley area to get to the snorkeling cove. We felt like we were on the tv show, Lost.

Here's a view from the most amazing helicopter ride ever! The views we saw were incredible!

About 8 months before we went to Hawaii, my dad challenged all of us to make and accomplish a spiritual goal and a physical goal before we left for our trip. Anyone who achieved both he promised to take on a helicopter ride. Jeff and I had the goal to run a half marathon and read the Book of Mormon, and we were able to accomplish both! It was a great experience for us and the reward was well worth it! Thanks Dad!

We are loving our new city. There's so many great things about this place, and it has definitely surpassed our expectations. We are glad we moved out here a month before school started because we were able to explore and get to know the city a little bit before school began. Here are some of the things we love about Kansas City...

1. We love our neighbors and our new neighborhood. We have a little townhome surrounded by great people, most of which are in the same boat as us, dental or med students.
2. There are so many fun shops and restaurants: Back in UT, Jeff and I could never ever agree on places to eat, but here, there are sooooo many fun and unique places that we both want to try!
3. Kansas City is known as the city of fountains, and there are literally fountains everywhere! There are always live bands in the shopping centers and parks, and families playing with their kids in the fountains.
4. We love our ward! We feel really lucky to have such great people around us. We've both been given callings to serve the youth which we're really excited about. I'm sure we'll learn a lot and have a lot of fun with our new ward.
5. There are so many church history sites, we've only been out to Independence so far, but we plan on making the trip to Nauvoo as soon as we can, or whenever someone decides to come visit us! Also, the Kansas City temple will be dedicated next spring! It is so pretty!
6. It is so green here! It's so overwhelming that I haven't even really missed the mountains yet. Everything just seems to grow so easily here...except for my flowers that were officially pronounced dead last week. In July, we had a nasty heat wave, and they were just too newly planted to endure the intense heat. I'm blaming it on that instead of the fact that I've managed to kill every plant I've ever owned since we've been married. Oh well, maybe next year.
7. Call me crazy, but I actually love the humity. Notice I did not say the heat, the heat is ferocious. But we've had really mild weather this past week, and I love the feeling of walking outside early in the morning and feeling sticky, cool air. It makes my skin feel dreamy!!
8. This city is going to turn out the best doctor that ever lived! That's right, it will be Jeff.

We love and miss all of you, and we hope everyone has had a great summer! Come visit us soon!

Hello Spring!!

We ran our first half marathon together May 7 in Provo. We made the goal to do it at the beginning of the year and it was so great to accomplish it together! Jeff and I aren't runners whatsoever so we were a little nervous, but we had a blast doing it! We finished in just under 2 hours and didn't stop to walk at all. We didn't even feel sore until later that night after we went to a movie... we both hobbled out of the theater hurting pretty bad. Maybe one day we'll do a full marathon...maybe.

This was our first fishing outing of the season, we had a lucky morning and caught four fish!

We're going to miss these Utah mountains! Aren't they amazing?

We caught all these with Grandma Donna and Papa Dick! We had so much fun out on the lake with them!


Our first Home

Moving is so sad! We moved out of our first little home this week. Packing up all our stuff was a beast, but it was even harder walking out for the last time. We have so many memories in this house and I felt like we closed the door on our first stage of our marriage. On to new and different, but exciting things I guess! We are living with my amazing grandparents up in Lehi until we make the big move the first weekend in July. We are excited to move to Missouri and live somewhere new, but we'll miss our family and all our great friends here in Utah.

Last morning in our cute little house. We loved every minute together in this place!

All empty...

New Year!

This is our Christmas picture! I made those stockings myself! It was my first ever sewing project!

So it's already March I can't believe it! I promised to be better at blogging but I'm already such a slacker. It's mostly because I just think blogger is hard and confusing. It is seriously a huge feat for me to do a post! I have lots to learn.

Anyways, we hope everyone had a fun Christmas! We sure did. December was a crazy month that went by way too fast. Jeff survived his last finals of his undergrad, and I worked a ton...even on Christmas Eve day! But we had a great time spending Christmas with Jeff's family, and then we got to go back to Colorado and spend New Years with mine. Is anyone else obsessed with Just Dance on the wii?? My parents got it for Christmas, so a lot of our time at home was spent doing this....

Guess what I got for Christmas!! A new mountain bike! Jeff has been wanting to get me a new bike for forever, and he finally found the perfect one. It's so pretty, I never thought I'd have such a nice bike! Jeff can tell you about all the awesome components and stuff like that, but I just love how it looks! Jeff has always been into biking, but now I can go too! I have never understood how much Jeff loves his bike... I mean, if he loves our kids as much as he loves his bike, I think they'll turn out ok. But seriously, when we moved into our house, he wanted to mount his bike onto the wall in our bedroom, but of course I said "heck no." But now that I have my own, I'm starting to kinda wish mine was mounted on the wall too! It will be a fun summer!






In January, we went to the BYU vs. SDSU basketball game with Kendyle and Steve. It was actually really fun! We had probably the worst possible seats in the whole stadium, but I thought they were the best ever! We were in the very very last row all the way at the top, but we thought they were great because we had the wall to lean up against the whole time. Totally worth $5.
A few weeks ago it was Jeff's turn to plan our date night, so he came home from work with two beta fish. His idea for our date was for each of us to pick a fish and then let them fight to see whose won. Is my husband sick and twisted or what!!?? Haha, I wouldn't let him do it, and he eventually felt really bad for having the idea. So, now I'm stuck with two pet fish. And guess where he put them? In my apothecary jars! And he loves them now too, and won't let me get rid of them! Oh how the tables have turned. I should have just let him fight them.
I almost forgot our biggest news of all! We've finally decided where we're going to medical school....Kansas City! This school is a great fit for Jeff and it will be fun and exciting to live in a new place! Missouri has lots of church history sites which I'm excited for, and apparently they have the best BBQ in the country. My goal is to get Jeff to love BBQ sauce over the next 4 years. Only downsides....no family, and no mountains. Good thing Southwest has $59 flights to and from KC! And as far as the mountains go, we will just have to force ourselves to be good navigators, which means strapping a GPS to ourselves permanently. But we're excited for a new adventure, and ready to get this med school thing underway. I'm so proud of Jeff for all he's accomplished! All of his hard work has paid off so far, and I know we have a really exciting future ahead of us because of him. Kansas City here we come!!

oops!

I guess I'm not a natural born blogger...I just spent forever doing a new post and just realized that it doesn't even show up on the front page. I guess its just under Pages titled "year one."

Engaged!

Jeff and I started dating back in March and it didn't take long for us to decide that we kinda liked each other. We finally started ring shopping which took a long time because Jeff, being a very thorough guy, had to go to every ring store in Utah...at least twice. Once we were experts, we decided to design our own ring and we had so much fun doing it! He did all the measurements and I did the art. We had planned to drive home to Littleton at the beginning of August so Jeff could check the ring mold and of course talk to my dad. So I didn't expect Jeff to propose at least until the end of August.

I went home a couple days before Jeff came, and I planned to pick him up from the airport on Monday morning. Right before I left to pick him up, my mom suggested that on the way home we stop for a quick picnic with the family at the park. I thought it would be fun, so after I got Jeff, we drove to the park and started walking around looking for a good picnic spot. Being completely oblivious, I started asking Jeff if he was nervous to talk to my dad that night. He said that he wasn't nervous at all, and started saying that he had already asked my dad. I didn't believe him at all for the longest time, until he finally said, "Seriously Paige, I flew here last weekend while you were at work and spent the day with your family. I already got permission from your dad, so now I just need to get one more person's permission." Then, he pulled out the ring from his pocket. This is the point where I started freaking out so I don't remember much, but apparently there was a lot of "Are you serious?" and, "You're joking right?" I was so flustered, I even forgot to say yes!

He was so sneaky! The Saturday before, I saw him at 6:30 in the morning and at 10:00 that night, so he had flown home while I was at work and had checked the mold and asked my dad. My cute parents were in on it too, they picked the ring up the day before and hid it under the front seat of the car so Jeff knew where to find it when I picked him up. It was such a fun surprise and made the proposal very memorable. Except I don't know if it's a good thing that Jeff is such a sneaky guy...I'll have to keep an eye on him.

It was such a fun day and I love having a fiancee, especially because it's Jeff! I'm so lucky to have him and I can't wait until he's my husband! We're getting married November 19th in the Salt Lake Temple.