Happy Birthday, Jenn!

As most of you know, March 25th was Jenn's birthday. As usual, she wants to be the one to tell you all about it. But first, I wanted to say that I love her so much, and I seem to love her more and more each day. There are so many things that I wish I could give her, even though she asks for so little. (Or NOTHING at all!)

I hope you had a happy birthday, Jennifer. I love you with all of me, and I always will.


Adam spoiled me rotten! AGAIN! The thoughtfulness of his gifts is immeasurable and surprising. For my birthday Adam got me the movie "Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit", the next Star Wars book in the series I began at Christmas, a couple of Pern novels that I didn't have yet (now I am VERY close to having all the Pern books), a sand-filled lizard to replace the one I lost while we were dating, and the best of them all: A First Edition of DragonsDawn with a bookplate signed by Anne McCaffery herself!

The best part of that gift is the reason why he got it for me. When I first met Adam, I was invited to go to Park City with him and his family. I brought with me two books. DragonsDawn was one of them and Adam has remembered that this whole time. On top of that he knew that DragonsDawn is my second, and occasionally first, favorite Pern book of all time.

Even though Adam rolls his eyes at my preference for the fantasy genre, he remembered and got me one of the most thoughtful gifts ever. (I would have to say that the poem and rose he brought me while we were dating was THE most thoughtful, but that is another story.)

Oh...and he got me a pair of jeans and a Star Wars t-shirt too, but I knew about those on account that I picked them out for myself.

All in all, turning 24 was wonderful. Getting older isn't so bad when you have someone like Adam to love and be loved by.

Slackers

We are aware that we have been blogging slackers lately, but we wanted to let everyone out there know that we are still alive and well. We haven’t given up on our blog or J.A. Toons, we just haven’t had the drive to do it for a while.

For all of you waiting for a copy of our DVD, “The Adventures of JennAdam,” I did get the discs I needed. But then I decided I wanted to make a slight change to it, so I stopped making copies. However, the change I wanted to make didn’t work out so well, so I’m sticking with the original version, and production is back up and running. Eventually everyone in our immediate families will get a copy. Anyone else interested, just let us know.

Oops! Forgot the Pictures

We totally forgot that we had taken a few pictures at dinner with the Kenworthys. So here they are...


My dad hid in both of them, but he was there.

Lots to catch up on

Sorry we haven't blogged in a while. We have had some other things going on that have been taking up our time, many of which I would like to blog about today.

First, if you have visited MamaLlama Ding-Dong's blog, you would know that Adam is a creative (and hardworking) genius. From Christmas until Valentines Day, he had been working everyday on a slide show of our relationship titled "The Adventures of JennAdam". He wanted to get it done in time for my family's visit during the President's Day weekend. As a participator, wife, and fresh-Dr. Pepper-fetcher during this undertaking, I am the most qualified to hand out praise. Although my mom has given a raving two-thumbs up review, I'd like to add my two thumbs. (Haha that's my one for the day)

Not only does the slide show flow to the music, it matches lyrical cues. It is never skimpy on pictures used, as Adam had to filter many of them out because there were vast amounts to choose from. He touched up, edited, and fixed every photo used to be sure to bring out all the best parts and make the viewing enjoyable. Every song was carefully selected from a music collection so large he can't fit even a fraction on his iPod all at once. A couple of the songs were edited by my talented husband and I dare any of you readers to point out where the changes were made. Adam made the seams fit so perfectly that we use the edited songs on our regular listening playlist and I can never remember where the edited parts are. Even the credits are a treat to watch as he added personal elements and humor to a usually boring part of the movie-watching experience.

I could go on and on about this amazing video, but this post is already getting long and I haven't mentioned his other achievements yet. Such as... Valentines Day.

Valentines Day was perfectly romantic as my husband surprised me with his thoughtfulness and attention to detail. He gave me a bouquet of my favorite flowers (pink and white gerbera daisies), a stuffed doll of my favorite Pokemon (Pacharisu, in case you are wondering) which I was amazed he remembered which one I preferred, and picked out a wonderfully mushy chick-flick to watch after our romantic dinner (the dinner was my part to take care of). All in all, my hubby is the best in the whole world.

Also on Valentines Day, my family, who were in town (as I mentioned they would be earlier in the post) dropped by a surprise valentines package. Which was very sweet of them.

They arrived in town that Friday evening. Mom dropped by without warning to surprise us at our apartment, then we went over to my grandmother's place where they were staying to see everybody else. It was chaos. That is the only word. Well, happy too. Happy Chaos. The dogs were going nuts, so was mom, and we were all trying to catch up on 7 months with everybody at the same time.

On Sunday, Adam was very sick and we were only able to attend Sunday School. The rest of the day was spent at home, trying to get better. Poor guy.

Monday we went over to Ty and Cami's place where my family was also staying (Ty and Cami were in California at the time). I played my mandolin (very poorly, I might add, but I was nervous), listened to Noah play some of the songs he has written on the guitar, played Apples to Apples, and talked ourselves blue. We then all went to a delicious dinner at Sizzler with Adam's parents as our charming hosts. After that, my family toured their remodeled house.

Wednesday we loaded up a truck with all the rest of their possessions that were being stored in my grandmother's garage and they departed. It was a wonderful visit and we look forward to the next time we get to see them.

Our First Wedding Anniversary

January 29th, 2008 was the best day of my life, so it only seemed fit to celebrate that day this year. Being the slightly impoverished people that we are, we decided to make a nice dinner instead of dining out, and bought a gift for the two of us with the traditional theme of “paper”.

We purchased a poster for our living room as our gift to each other. It is a beautiful Mickey and Minnie painting entitled “True Love”. We have already hung it up and love it.

Adam and I had a wonderful anniversary. In the afternoon, we watched the video of our wedding ceremony and reminisced about that beautiful day. We laughed when Bishop Oviatt thought one of us (and we know who) was going to pass out. We got all choked up when we said “I Do” and kissed when we kissed in the video.

Dinner was Japanese Cashew Chicken served in beautiful Japanese dishes and eaten with chopsticks. We added some Japanese Lychee soda, a bottle of Meier’s, and some oriental cake things for dessert. We watched Pokemon the TV series episodes while we sat on the floor. Later, we each ate a slice of our year old wedding (reception) cake.

I am so grateful to have found, and married, my true love. Adam is more than I could have hoped for. I love him more and more every day. This last year has gone by so quickly, and all the bad times have already faded away, leaving nothing but happy memories of the first year of our eternal journey.

I love you forever Adam!!!!!!!!!!!!



“I can’t believe it’s been a year!” That’s what everyone keeps saying, but it’s true. It’s hard to believe it’s been a year. And what a great year it has been. Our relationship, financial situation, and our lives in general have had their ups and downs, but I have no regrets marrying Jennifer.

This year has been quite a learning experience. I knew marriage wouldn’t be easy. It’s difficult to take two lives and make them one. It has been hard and even painful at times. But those sad moments are mere teardrops in the ocean of love and joy I feel for Jenn, and because of Jenn.

While we spend most of our days with each other, we have also spent every single night with each other. No one has ever been asked to sleep on the couch or floor while the other sleeps in the bed. And our goal is to keep it that way. There were times that one of us felt guilty enough to voluntarily sleep elsewhere, but the other wouldn’t allow it. And even if we don’t actually sleep because of cold feet, kicking, elbowing, sleep talking, bed hogging, blanket stealing, etc., we are always there next to each other.

That’s the way it works. We fight, we make mistakes, and we say things we don’t mean, but we stay together. The hard work is so worth it. I’m so happy. I don’t know the last time I said that before Jenn came into my life. I feel like I’m only a year old now, because when this life began, that old one went away. My life is different. I’m different. I’m better because of Jenn, and want to be better for her. And I’m finally happy. Honestly and truly, down to the core HAPPY!

I love you, Jennifer!

J.A. Toons, Vol. 12

This is how our actual Christmas morning went. In fact, it happened more than this, but we ran out of frames. Looking back, I don't know why I said no. Normally, I would have been the one asking.


Click on the thumbnail to enlarge. Or you can download the printable, high-resolution image here. (Right-click and "Save Target As...")

For previous comics, check out our J.A. Toons Blog.