First Years of Marriage

For the first year of our marriage we lived in Provo in a condo my parent's own.  It was a nice starter place, gave us some time to settle into married life, and save some money.  I remember my friend Bobbi telling me multiple times before I got married that "Marriage is the best, it's HARD, but it's the best."  Bobbi's always been one that's very straightforward and says things how they are rather than creating a fantasy picture like so many do, and I sure have appreciated that!  Another great word of advice came from my mom.  She said if you are happy 90% of the time, you're doing really well!  I remember we had only been married for a month or two and the little irritations that come with molding two lives together started to arise and thinking gees, we're still in the 'honeymoon phase' and we're getting irritated with each other already, this shouldn't be happening already.  But talking to Bobbi and those little words of wisdom really helped me through and to realize, this is normal!  It's never easy for two people who have lived life in different ways to suddenly be put together; you have to know there are going to be trials that come along with it!  I don't want to paint the picture that Jared and I were always fighting through this time, because we weren't, most of the time things were great, we were still falling into my mom's 90% of the time happiness, but there are major adjustments and learning how the other does things that come with moving in with someone.  For me, it was those first 6 months that were the hardest and required the most adjustment.  But with those challenges came great growth and learning.  Learning about different approaches to life, learning about better ways to show my love for my husband, learning how to be a team player and working together rather than total independence.  These were hard things to learn, and I certainly haven't mastered them yet, but it's definitely made me a better person.  All around, Jared has made me a better person and I still strive to be more like him and to follow his example.  I just feel so dang lucky that he's my man, he's the one I get to have by my side forever, he's the one I get to hug when I get home, and he's the one that my littles will call daddy.  I'm just so lucky!

Cheering on the USMNT during the World Cup '14

Roho Family Pictures 2014

Loving my man 2015

Midway Ice Castles 2014

So after being in the condo for approaching a year, we decided to look into buying a home.  We figured we knew we weren't going to be moving for work or anything, so let's start paying a mortgage instead of rent.  We started with one realtor who kept showing us homes that were above the price range that we had set and kept trying to convince us why it was a good idea.  This got real old real fast.  Our friends the Browns had recently bought a home and recommended their realtor Mindy Fung.  I gave her a call and instantly loved the way she worked!  She took us out to see a few homes and the first one we viewed we fell in love with!  We went around and saw others but none of them touched the first one.  We did more research at home, went out and viewed some more, but nothing in our price range was comparing to the first home.  So we made an offer. The process went back and forth a few times with counteroffers, and then we came to an agreement.  We were so excited!!  We loved the house, the location, we met the neighbor across the street and she was so friendly and you could tell how much she loved the neighborhood and the ward.  It was just so perfect.  So we ended up moving into our house in August 2014 and have had no regrets!  It really has been the perfect place for us.  And we really do have such an amazing ward/neighbors!

The day we signed for our new home!

When we got married I had told Jared how much I wanted to go on a really fun, adventurous vacation before we started a family.  I was fortunate enough to be able to do a fair amount of traveling before I got married, but I wanted to be able to experience one of these fun trips with my husband.  So we planned a trip to India.  We went in January 2015 and had an amazing time!  We went for about two weeks.  We did things in true Angie fashion and booked flights to and from India (which I found a great deal on) and just showed up, went to the department of tourism there in New Dehli and planned out our trip there.  I have always liked doing it this way cause then you're booking through the local companies rather than American companies so it's cheaper and more authentic.  It's also nice cause they know which hostels are safe and in good, close locations.  I feel like I have saved a lot of money and seen what really is worth seeing by doing trips this way.  We ended up spending time in New Dehli, Pushkar, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Agra, and Varanasi.  We got to see the Taj Mahal, ride elephants, play with monkeys, ride camels out to the wilderness where we camped, learn and see Hindu rituals, tour through all sorts of amazing palaces, and so much more.  It was a really neat experience.  The great part about it is that Jared totally fit in there!  When he wasn't by me, locals would speak to him in Hindi and then be surprised or not believe him when he said he was American and only spoke English.  My cute husband and his ethnic confusion.

Taj Mahal

Classic Indian Man Smoking His Opium

Riding Elephants

Camel Safari/Camping In The Wilderness

My cute Indian Man

Jared and I found out in August 2015 we were expecting a little one to join the family in April 2016.  I really wanted to get one more Disneyland trip in before we had a baby that would change the way we Disney for a long, long time.  So I talked to my OB and they didn't seem too concerned with me going to Disneyland at 11 weeks.  So we went out there for an early anniversary get away and had a great time.  We stayed at a cheap hotel about a half a mile away so we could just walk there and we were fortunate enough to have connections through a friend of Jared's to get two day hopper passes for free.  It was so great!!  So we enjoyed a few days out in California doing Disneyland and the beach to celebrate our 2 years together.

Disneyland


The Blue Bayou at Disneyland.  So yummy!



We ended up making the baby announcement to everyone when I was 13 or 14 weeks along.  I wanted to wait another couple of weeks before announcing, but Jared and I were headed down to Vegas for one of his company's events and I was going to be staying with my sister Mindy and felt like she would be able to tell.  So we went ahead and made the announcement a day or two before heading down there.  I just find so much humor in the fact that Jared looks to be about anything but Caucasian, so we had to do a play on that!  This is what we did.  I think most people caught on fine, but I know a few people on Instagram didn't catch on that this was an announcement, not just a funny speculation.  They must not have read my caption saying, "Even the baby predictor app is confused about Jerry's ethnicity!  Baby Roho coming April 2016!"

Baby Announcement Picture

The beginning of December is when we got our 20 week ultrasound and found out its a little boy joining our family.  We were thrilled!  But really, I would have been happy either way, but I'm very pleased I don't have to worry about doing girls hair.  I'm sure I'll have to figure it out one day, but that's one thing I really don't look forward to.  I do bare minimum with mine cause I hate styling hair so bad!  But anyway, I really didn't care to do some big gender reveal party like so many do.  I wasn't blessed with a cutesy, crafty gift, so simplicity is the route I take!!  So this is the little announcement we threw together and selfie'd a picture of after the ultrasound.

It's A Boy!!

And this is our little guy posing for us.