The Great Return

Last Friday, we woke up early.

Then we hit snooze.

Then I got up and Tom slept for another hour.

We packed up the last few little stray items into the truck we were borrowing from a good friend, said a prayer, and began our journey. 4 hours later, we made it back to our beloved Rexburg!

The place was crawling with new students, their parents, and all 5 of their siblings.

With the help of a very friendly neighbor, we unloaded all of our stuff very quickly. Eventually we removed all of Tom's sister's stuff from the house, and picked up our bed. Home sweet home!

Tom lived in this apartment for half of the semester in the Spring, so we spent time over here, but since we wanted to be obedient, we sat in the hallway together, and every once in a while one of us would trade potty time, etc. Oh it was so nice to finally be in there together - the place we had been dreaming of how to fix up, paint, decorate, it was finally ours!

Well that excitement wore off as we unpacked our boxes and bins and found ourselves in a landfill. Almost literally. There was so much stuff that we couldn't see the floor for 2 days. I'm pretty sure I almost had a meltdown every half hour because where the heck are we going to fit all of these absolutely necessary things? We took necessary breaks to use up some of our wedding money/gift cards, work out, and go to the temple, all of which were very helpful.

But guess what? We did it. You can see the whole floor, and there's only one pile of crap in the corner now. I wish you knew how awesome that is - maybe you'd give me a standing ovation or something.

This weekend was stressful and change is hard but I can't even tell you how nice it is to be here. Together. In our home. Making meals, cleaning, and relaxing together. Oh, and Mrs. Choice is here too, but we're fairly sure that he hates Idaho. That's fine.

I often find myself looking for the pause button. Is this my life? Did I really get him? Are those our photos on the wall? Did they just call us the Cook's? Those sorts of moments get me every time. Married life really is the best. But you know what? I'm not afraid to admit that it's hard too sometimes. Everyone I talk to who's newly married talks about how wonderful it is, and I totally agree! But I have to laugh, because I know that they're all going through their things too. And maybe that's what makes married life so wonderful! That it's so dang hard sometimes (yes, I know this in my glory and wisdom from one month of married-dome.), but you love them so much more every day! No matter how gloomy things look, you have each other. At the end of the day, no matter what happened that morning, you get to kneel and pray together, which seems to just melt away all the extra crap life tars you with. Then you get to go to bed together! Oh my heck, I swear that's never going to get old! I love doing everything and anything with my man.

Basically, life is still life, but it's on a whole new level of awesomeness! I couldn't have imagined anything like this. Somebody pinch me! On second thought, don't.