THE BIG ONE!!!!

Yesterday was our one year wedding anniversary. The started by me waking up around 7:30am. I got up and let the dogs out and Mark was still sleeping heavily (which never happens). I had planned on making this huge breakfast for him that consisted of scrambled cheese eggs, bacon, grits, blueberry pancakes, and croissants with butter and honey. Well while I was debating on when starting this task of making a surprise breakfast I realized it was fast Sunday. So that plan was gone. I had gotten Mark a gift card for a one hour massage and a card and a couple of little things I thought he would like or at least make him laugh. Well those things were in our room under the bed and I realized that was dumb place to hide them because now i couldn't go get it because he might wake up when I am trying to walk out of the room with it. So I sat on our couch and waited for him to wake up. He go up right at 9:00. He went into a frenzy to get the smoker going because apparently it was suppose to get started at 7:30 or 8 so that it would be done in time. So in about 10 minutes the meat was on the smoker and he was tending to it up until it was time for church. As we were getting ready he was going out to "mop" the meat. This is just brushing bbq sauce on it and let me tell you, Sweet Baby Ray's bbq sauce is the absolute best. Well he was supposed to mop the meat every 45 minutes for 3 hours I think. So Mark wanted me to ride to church with Nate and Scarlett and then he was going to come late so that he could teach in elder's quorum. I didn't think this was a great plan but I didn't say anything. Well I guess he didn't think that was a great idea either because he went to church for all 3 blocks. I told him i thought that was a good choice and Heavenly Father rewards righteousness.

Church was great! I wasn't really looking forward to teaching my class this week because they are a hard class to be with. After sacrament, I found out that Diane (my teaching partner) wasn't at church. I was like oh great 15 rambunctious kids all to myself!!! In primary the boys sit on one side of the room and the girls sit on the other. One of the women from the presidency sat with the boys and I was with the girls. After primary we went to our class and started the lesson. the presidency was worried that I couldn't handle the class alone but I told them that I would be fine. I didn't want someone new in our class to distract the kids and I don't like teaching in front of adults. So with the help of our incentive program that we started a couple weeks ago, THE KIDS WERE ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL!!!!! When people dropped by to check on us it was just great. I fell in love with my kids all over again. So church was over and as I was trying to find Mark, Nate, and Scarlett (because we all rode together) Bro. Baldwin said he needed to speak to Mark and I. I thought we were about to get a calling together in primary. So I told him I was looking for Mark and when I found him I would meet with him. Well he found Mark and they found me. We met in the room I used to teach the Sunbeams in and I was given the calling of YW secretary! I couldn't believe my ears. I was so excited and yet so sad. I love my CTR 6 class even if they are a little wired most of the time. I never thought I would love primary but I really did love my calling in there. Some weeks I hated it but all in all I loved my calling and I will miss those little rug rats. I am really excited about YW. Amber Campbell is going to be the president and she and I were in YW together back in the day so I think it will be really fun and I will grow a lot in this calling. So we finally leave church around 4:30.

Mark and rushing everyone to the car because he is worried about his meat on the smoker that hasn't been mopped in hours and may very well be ruined. We got home at 5. The meat looked fine but what do we know, we have never smoked anything in our life!
We get changed, set up all our extra chairs and wait for the masses to begin arriving. just before 6:00 15 people got here all at the same time. talk about chaos!!!
the meat finished around 7 maybe and let me say, it was PERFECT! we had 18-20 pounds of meat and the 23 people at our small home totally destroyed it! All the food got eaten and there were no leftovers at all which was great because it made cleaning up a lot easier!

It was the perfect day. Mark said it will become our tradition and we will celebrate our anniversary in the same way every year. We love our family and our friends and I hope that we are able to continue this tradition and that the number of people able to come will grow.

At the end of the night after everyone had gone home and Mark and I were cleaning up, I told him that I didn't expect him to give me anything for our anniversary but it would have been nice to have gotten a card. He responded with he hasn't gotten me my present and that he has just been saying that our backyard was my present to cover up the real present. About 30 minutes later he came into the bedroom with the laptop and showed me the screen with the receipt for Martha Steward Living magazine subscription that he had just bought. I laughed and thanked him. I have wanted this magazine forever so I was glad he finally got it for me.

We got ready for bed and then as I was about to lie down I remembered that I wanted to make him a delicious breakfast before he went to work today. I went into the kitchen to set out some croissants and it was a good thing i did. He had left a pot with the bones from the bbq boiling on the stove for the dogs and there was no more water in it! Our house could have burned down! So after saving the day I went to tell Mark of this but he was already asleep. So I crawled into bed with Reagan and went to sleep.