{"It's Not Christmas if The Snow Don't Fall".. or is it?}

I have to take a moment to say how grateful I am to have been a part of this amazing project. It was a life changing experience gong to audition in Italy, and meeting such amazing people and lifetime friends. What is even better, is that all of the videos are FREE for all to see (I'm a poet.. yes) on Lds.org! It was so fun filming, and more than anything- I was able to gain a better knowledge of the New Testament, and of our Savior.

As Colbie Caillat says in her Christmas song, "It's not Christmas if the snow don't fall.." it has been extremely strange having it be December, and beachy as ever! I'll admit, it's been a little home..sickness-y.. (That's definitely not grammatically correct) not being in Utah during this time, but we will be there so soon for Christmas! It has been SO much fun having our first Thanksgiving as a married couple, and making memories of this incredible experience. We have had so much fun decorating our home for Christmas! Halloween has always been my holiday, but I can't deny how I will just sit and stare at our AWESOME Christmas Tree.. (A REAL one, I might add). I try to write down and take pictures of everything, because I know we will look back at this time, as we create traditions and make mistakes on the way. I'm so thankful for this wonderful time of the year, and for all of Y•O•U who show Cam and me LOVE!

This was at our Thanksgiving dinner with Cam's family, and Uncle Johns dog Rippie! HA! no no no..

 Here are some pictures of Christmas time at the Harris home .. ha!

 

                             

I totally copied my sister in law on this banister idea! Thanks Carly ;)

{Halloween and Things}

Well, I have quite the update of what's been going on out here. We have been so pleased to have several guests this past couple of weeks. First, Matt and Kaylynne (my brother and his wife) came and spent the weekend with us. It was so good to see them, and to have our first official visitors! We had a lot of fun together. Cam and I made them crepes on Saturday morning, of course. We are addicted to our new crepe maker. Later, we all went to the San Diego Zoo. It was so much fun! The only Zoo I've ever been to is the Hogal Zoo, which- don't get me wrong, is pretty SWEET! HOWEVER, this zoo is incredible! I saw things I seriously didn't even know existed! HA. My favorite was the panda bear. It truly was Jack Black in real life! KUNG FU PANDA. I am completely convinced that movie is real life, after watching this panda.

We had a lot of fun with Matt and K, but the goodbyes are always not so fun :( This last weekend, my sister Jenna came to visit. Let me just say- Every Halloween, we always dominate in costumes, right?..right?! Well, last year we (surprisingly) pulled off Barbie & Ken. This year, well- we went a different direction.. with Jen added into the mix! Us 3 went up to Disneyland for "Mickey's Halloween Party." First off, I HIGHLY recommend it. It is awesome! So much fun- and since they only give out a certain amount of tickets for each night, there are literally, ZERO lines! Best part, you get free candy(trick or treating) and you get to dress up! We, 3 fully grown adults (who knows how true that is) had WAY too much fun dressing up at Disneyland and PARTYING WITH MICKEY and friends! This is a must needed tradition from now on. WHO'S IN?

What a fun Halloween! right? Well we had so much while Jen was in town. The night before she flew in, Cam set up a "wall shelf" that I got from IKEA in the guest bedroom. I was so excited to put some books and decorations in it so it'd look nice when Jen came! So I did.. and Jen thought it looked so good (at least I think she did.) So, the first night she slept in our guest room, she took an ambien to help her get to sleep. So, she comes up to my room the next morning with a puzzled look on her face. She says, "So, I don't know what happened.. I mean I must have done it during the night, you know I sometimes do crazy things when I take ambien.." I'm thinking WHAT THE HECK did you do? ".. I completely re-arranged your shelf." What the? Seriously? "..Everything is moved around and the "LOVE" letters are rearranged. I somehow nailed the 'L' and the 'O' up on the wall." OK, I'm seriously thinking 2 things- either, our house is haunted! Or somebody came into our house last night. So we go downstairs, and when I see it.. I start laughing my head off, I couldn't even tell her why I was laughing, I was laughing so hard. She didn't realize that it was a "Wall" shelf, and it had fallen off of the wall onto the floor, so everything moved around. We were laughing so hard. Good times, good times.

Again, we made lots of yummy crepes and had a great time at the beach 3 days in a row. Every day we were there, the dolphins were feeding on the sardines right on the shore, and so we got to watch them swim up and down the shoreline! It was truly magical.. I've never seen anything like it.

So.. if any of you want to come and visit- We promise you CREPES.. Lots and lots of yummy, fresh fruit filled CREPES :) How could you resist?


HALLOWEEN NIGHT.

Well, it was a Halloween I've never experienced before! HA. Cam and I dressed up in our skeleton morphsuits, and I totally decked the house out- hoping we would have trick or treaters. At least one or two, right? WELL.. we didn't get any, but we definitely made it a night to remember, by screaming off the balcony telling kids to come, smoking the whole house up with the smoke machine until the fire alarm went off.. (literally, we had to rip it off the wall to stop.) Happy Halloween :)

Cam ordered some new Allen Edmonds shoes about a month or so ago, and has been so excited to get them in the mail! They finally came yesterday, and while he was at work he probably texted me at least 4 or 5 times through out the day asking about them and wanting a picture of them. I told him he can see them when he gets home! So, I had the Box they came in on the couch, so he could see it right when he walked in. Of course he went straight for the box, only to see it was empty! There was a little note inside that read, "Clue #1".. I had about 5 or 6 clues around the house that finally lead up to his precious shoes.

I thought it was funny :)

Sorry so long! I need to post more often.

{The 99 Percent}

Let's see, it's been about a month since we have moved out here. It has been quite the adventure- I must say. I still don't think that it has completely hit me that I live here now. This is my new home. Whaaa? It's definitely been a lot of fun so far. I didn't realize how much I would appreciate having a garage door opener and a dryer- until we didn't have them. Luckily, we took care of that.

A couple of weekends ago, Cam and I had the opportunity to go to the San Diego Temple. It was amazing to actually be able to go inside. As a little girl, it had always been my favorite temple. The "Castle" temple. I always had this idea that I'd live in San Diego one day, and be close to the Temple. Again.. Whaa? Here I am. Here we are, Cam and I-- living in SD, close to the temple. It is such an incredible temple. It was so fun to go with Cam on a weekend. I'm so excited to be able to go to this temple regularly.

We also went into downtown SD with our friends Matt + Amanda the other weekend. It's so fun driving into the city at night, and seeing the beautiful skyline of the city. It's crazy to live so close to a big  city! Don't get me wrong, Salt Lake City is pretty rad.. :) So, we heard about this "World Famous" .. "Scariest in the nation" Haunted house downtown- "The Haunted Hotel." OF COURSE we are going to go! I was so excited, I love haunted houses. 16 bucks each, but hey- number one attraction, right? So we go downtown and have a good dinner together, and then head over to this haunted hotel deal. Yeah. So we got in line behind some drunk marine dudes. Every person around us was smoking- Literally, everyone. One of the crazy worker chicks with half of her face all "bloody and stuff", came up to us and talked with us for like 15 minutes. If you're going to bug us about who knows what and smoke right in our faces, can't you at least take us to the front of the line our something? Oh, but she said we should get in there in about 15 minutes, so it's all good. Don't worry, we finally got to the front an hour and 15 minutes later. AWESOME. For some reason the whole time the drunk marines kept calling Cam and Matt "Aussies" from Australia. Interesting. Of course, we were in there group to go through the haunted hotel. The best part was watching one of the marines try to hug and kiss all of the "haunts" . We were basically being pushed through the haunted house, and 10 minutes went by, and we were out on the street again. It was over.. Whaaaa? TEN MINUTES LONG? Wow. That kind of blows, eh? haha! Hey, it was all worth it to be entertained by drunk marines all night!

OH- But it gets BETTER. As we were walking to our car a few blocks up, we walked past the base camp of "Occupy San Diego." We all looked at each other with grins, and looked behind us to the sound of loud drums and passionate yelling voices. "WE ARE, THE 99 PERCENT. WE ARE, THE 99 PERCENT." There were hundred of them in the street holding up signs and telling us to join them. They were led by a stout man with a long beard and long hair. "WE ARE THE 99 PERCENT." All of the sudden, we found our selves chanting with them and walking in the streets! It was insane. WHO are these people! WHAT THE. Our friend Matt made a funny point as we were walking, that it is so ironic that we are in one of the most desired places to live (San Diego, La Costa, etc) and the people that are protesting live here! In this expensivvveeee place! We walked away and got into our cars and drove home.

 

Yeah, so the Haunted Hotel was a clear BUST, but the rest of the night was definitely a hit. I leaned over to Cam and told him I felt like we were in the movie Bruce Almighty, when the town was on fire and everybody was going crazy. Don't worry though, Occupy San Diego is still there, at their base camp downtown in their tents-- un-showered if you want to go hangout with them.

My life has been kind of all over the place this last year or so. Last summer I was in Italy, walking the beautiful ancient streets, this last summer I was at home in Orem, planning My wedding, now- I'm here, in San Diego, California, with my husband (yeah, still sounds weird to say it, but I love it! Husband! ) I miss Italy so much, it truly made an imprint on my heart. However, it is so beautiful here, with so many hills and vegetation- that it reminds me of Bella Italia.

  

{One Month ago Today}

 One month ago from today, I was sealed for time and all eternity, to my best friend and love of my life. I can't believe it's already been a month. I'm still trying to take it all in! It has definitely been an amazing month with Cam.

After we got married, we spend 8 days in Maui for our honeymoon. It was such a beautiful, relaxing and fun time. Now we truly know why honeymoons are needed after a wedding. It was exactly what we needed. We spent a lot of time at the beach, swimming at our resort- they had 9 pools with slides connecting each one, we took a helicopter ride over the island of Maui- it was incredible.

I wanted to get a couples massage so bad, from the first day. However, The Grand Wailea was definitely not going to get 600 dollars out of our pockets for it! So I had my eye out for massage places all week. One night, we went to see the movie The Help. We arrived to the theater about a half hour early, so we walked around for a little bit. As we walked past a nail salon called, "Lovely Nails", I told Cam that they have "massages" written on the window! Let's go get one! Everything happened so fast. They attacked us. The 2 Asian workers, and one white lady that worked there, sitting outside like a bum eating food, insisted that we come in and get massages! I told them we only have 30 minutes, and as they were dragging us by our arms to the back room of the salon, they said "We do 30 minute. 30 minute OK." The old Asian lady demanded that Cam goes into one room, and I go into another. . and we didn't see each other for 30 minutes. The big white lady that was outside eating, gave Cam a massage. The old Asian man gave me a massage, and all it consisted of was a lot of chopping my back up and down. Yep- just like how you're picturing it in your mind right now. Poor Cam. He had no idea what was going on, except a big waste of money. HA! Well, The Help was really good!

We ended the week with going to the "Old Lahaina Luau". It was a lot of.. fun.. and, interesting. The Luau food and dancing was great! The table we sat at.. mmm, not so great. It was cool how we sat on the ground at the table though, like the natives! haha. So, there were 3 other couples at our table. One was a white trash couple from Chicago, an Asian woman that was really annoying the whole time, with her Asian husband who didn't say one word the whole time. Last but not least, a 55 year old gay couple. Men. They were the ones talking the whole time and telling us about their lives. They're from San Francisco, they work in a flower shop, and they pulled out pictures of their "kids." This is where the interesting part comes in. They started telling us about how they have been together for almost 20 years, and they are really hoping to celebrate their 20th year- by getting married! Yikes. I was just WAITING for this to come up.. so the white trash couple from Chicago gets all excited for them "Oh, prop 8 just passed in Chicago!! We are routin' for ya!".. Of course the Asian woman is still talking, and boosting the gay couple's idea. One of the gay guys says.."Yeah, well ya know the Mormon church has been reallllly against us for some reason, with Prop 8.." Asian woman: "Who are they to judge?!" "Yeah!" "Yeah!!" .. I literally was silent and my stomach was turned upside down. I had all these scenerios playing out in my mind that I though was going to happen. They were going to turn to Cam and me and ask what we think, or somehow they would find out we're Mormon, what in the world would we say? Well, we kept our mouths shut, and the night went on. We thought about saying something, but we really didn't want to stir anything up. It was pretty dang funny, but quite uncomfortable. But hey, the Luau was great!

So our honeymoon was amazing, and pretty dang funny haha. We had a great time.

I'm so excited for all of the adventures to come with our marriage. It's only been one month, but I know time goes by so fast, and I don't want to waste a minute. I am so thankful for everyone who helped out with the wedding, and all of our family who have supported us and made the reception so much fun! We love you guys so much. 

Happy one month anniversary to us!

 

{A new "Home Away from Home"}

WELL. Here we are. Cam and I have officially started our lives in Southern California, and to be 100% honest, we are loving it. I've been having a ball decorating the house and unpacking- I don't know if Cam can say the same while he's at work all day, but he always has a good attitude about waking up while it's still dark every morning. We have had so much fun exploring the city, and we are starting to meet friends! It really is such a different world out here. I have only lived in Utah my whole life,  and it is definitely a big  change to see the ocean when I'm driving to the grocery store! It's a lot better than seeing Utah Lake ;) I'm so glad that I have this opportunity to live here and start a life with my husband.

The weather is wonderful. Coming from Utah, where it is probably already snowing ;) .. this is paradise to me. Although, I miss the leaves changing this time of year in the beautiful mountains, and the smell of fall. It's October, and people are out at the beach surfing and the sun is shining, now- I can't complain about that, can I? The other night after dinner, Cam and I went down to the ocean and saw the red tide. I had never seen anything like it! We tried to get video footage, but it wasn't the best- so if you haven't seen it you need to google it. It was magical.  It has been SO fun being able to finally spend time with Cam's family. This last weekend, they took us to a Jazz concert. It was awesome, yet another thing I have never seen! We even got our own champagne glasses as our ticket! I'd say at least half of the people there were pretty dang close to WASTED.  Haha.. it was a great time.

A lot of people have asked me how I'm doing out here, without my family and friends and with Cam at work during the day. Of course- I tell them I am doing just fine, and learning to be a great homemaker and becoming more independent.  And ya know what? That really is the truth. I really have adjusted pretty well. I miss home. I miss my family and my precious nieces and nephews- But I wouldn't want to be anywhere that Cam isn't. I wouldn't change this opportunity for the world and everything that's in it! I want to learn to be a wonderful wife and mother, and I believe that this is my time to develop those things needed. However, I won't lie- I miss my little best friend Norah, tremendously! I think about her little face all the time. In fact, the other day I wrote on Tennille's facebook telling her to have "Norah to call me sometime".  Short after I did that, I get a phone call from a precious little voice in Utah- Norah! The best part is, Tennille didn't see the post until after they called me. Great minds think a like :) I know it's because Norah misses me too ;) At least I hope.

It's good that Halloween is coming up, because this is my favorite time of the year. Pulling all the decorations out, going to the Halloween stores, looking for costumes for Cam and I (yeah, I know what all of you are thinking- last year is going to be hard to beat..( Barbie & Ken) and decking the house out in spooky decor has really helped me with the big move. I've had so much fun the last couple of days (yes, I started decorating for Halloween the FIRST day of October.. why wouldn't I?) using some of my time to decorate for my favorite time of the year.

While my parents were on their mission in Italy this time, last year, I lived in their home. Although I was the only one living there at the time, that didn't stop me from using every last Halloween decoration (my mom has the best ones) and putting them out. I don't know what it is about this holiday, but it makes me feel.. at home. Ever since I can remember, my mom and I would decorate for Halloween together each year, and go out and buy new spooky decorations, and bake Halloween treats and we'd all watch scary movies (Signs is about all my parents can handle). I have developed such a "little-kid-at-Disneyland" feeling for this holiday. I love the coziness of the season, and the adrenaline rush of the chainsaw massacre chasing us at the haunted houses. Well, not really, but it all comes with the holiday, right? I know it all sounds pretty silly, but in all honestly- having Halloween coming up this month, timed with just moving here- has really helped me "feel at home", at my new home.

I am so excited to start this new adventure with my best friend, and do all that I can to support him and our new little family of 2 (yes, 2- just 2, for a lonnng time ;))  I can't wait to start traditions now, that we can do with our kids one day. We had our first official Family Home Evening lesson last night. We read The Family Proclamation together- what better way to start in a new home. Being married has been SO much fun so far. I know there will be tough times, but I know that Cam and I can do it, as long as we keep Christ in our marriage. Through him, "we can do all things."