JANUARY: William was in Houston with my family for New Year's Eve. This was shortly after he asked my dad if he could ask me to marry him. We flew back to Utah and William moved into his new apartment in Provo. I went back to work teaching at Westridge and William got a job at the Which Wich. We watched a lot of movies and ate a lot of Zupa's soup.
FEBRUARY: We got ENGAGED! I loved telling people our wonderful news. Wedding planning went into full-force mode. Valentine's day with my students was the bomb. Valentine's day with my brand new FIANCE was even better. We started our Thursday night Swamp People/Fried food parties with William's friends and their girlfriends (who we miss so much! We wish we could hang out with them all the time.). We found out William got into LSU and decided that's where we were headed!
MARCH: My mom came to Utah and we went dress shopping. SUCCESS! Bought my dress the first day of shopping. Adrianne and Sister Nuttall threw me the BEST bridal shower ever! I got to see almost all of my closest college girl friends (minus a few that had moved away from Provo). That is a memory I will always treasure. All the girls who had shaped me into the adult Breanna were in one room wishing me happiness. I had strep throat that weekend (of course) and William was working so two of my greatest guy friends gave me a blessing to help me get through my shower, and I did!
APRIL: The amazing Brooke Schultz took our beautiful engagement pictures. It was so fun! We flew to Houston for the first half of Spring Break and celebrated Easter with my family. Then we drove to Baton Rouge to check out our future home and go apartment hunting, and ended out Spring Break in Monroe with William's family. They were awesome and helped me make 1200 oz of strawberry jam and canned it all for our wedding favors. William turned 22!
MAY: May was filled with more wedding planning, lots of invitation stuffing, stamping, and licking, and goodbyes. Goodbye to my 3rd grade babies, goodbye to all our friends, goodbye to my loyal Enclave, goodbye to the mountains and goodbye to my great grandparents farm (a little piece of heaven on earth). Can you tell I miss Utah a bit? In May I got a brand new nephew! Jacob and Pierina had little Ian on May 15th. William and Jim drove all of our (my) belongings down to Houston. We went to a Stutz family reunion at Ink's Lake. William and I went to Austin for a few days to visit his grandparents.
JUNE: Everything that happened in June was like a whirlwind. My mom and I went and visited Kenny and Megan in Edmond, Oklahoma. William and his family went on vacation to Florida. Table cloth picking, lots of wedding DIY, and asking for a lot of help from the most wonderful friends and family. I went through the temple. Finally more family and friends came into town (THANK YOU everybody) and we had our rehearsal dinner. Patti and Jim did an awesome job, and the speeches were so fun. And then WE GOT MARRIED!!! On June 29, 2012 we got sealed to each other forever in the Houston LDS Temple. Photos by Brooke Schultz. The next morning we took off for our honeymoon in ARUBA.
JULY: We spent the first week of June in Aruba snorkeling, eating, going on tours, and swimming in the ocean. While we were there Kenny and Megan had their sweet twins (nephew #3 and niece #1), Benjamin and Charlotte! We flew home on my 23rd birthday, ran errands, bought furniture and packed up for a week or two, and made the move to Baton Rouge. Phew!
AUGUST: Averi moved to Baton Rouge! William started class at LSU and loves it! We built a LOT of Walmart furniture and spent a while setting up our first home together. We met a ton of new friends in our ward. August was hard for me because I job searched all day everyday to no avail. The school system I wanted to work for was on a hire freeze and no one was getting hired. I ended up finally getting hired 2 weeks into the school year at a charter school and had to wait a week to get my paperwork finished. I finally started, tried really hard to be grateful, but it really just took the life out of me. That school was not a happy place to be. Hurricane Isaac came through so we packed our bags and evacuated to Monroe. I continued to apply for other jobs.
SEPTEMBER: We spent the second half of our "hurrication" in Magnolia, where my whole family got to be together. We met the twins and took family pictures. William and I went back to Baton Rouge and had to throw out all our food because we'd lost power! I got interviewed and offered a new job in the public school system! I took it the day they offered it to me, quickly packed up the few things I had started to use in my first school, and told that principal I was leaving. It was hard but DEFINITELY worth it. My new job is at a MUCH better school and I am so grateful. It is definitely the hardest year I've had teaching yet. The first month with your students is VITAL and I missed it. But I am feeling so blessed to have income. William continued classes and I worked hard to keep up at my new job. We watched a lot of football.
OCTOBER: October was full of food, football, and family. Both of our parents came to visit during October and we enjoyed more than our fair share of Cajun food. We went to a few football games with friends and family, went to the Texas State Fair in Dallas with William's family, got our first washer and dryer, and ate a lot of Raising Cane's. William and I dressed up at Peeta and Katniss for our Halloween party and went to a late night movie with our good friends the Hash's and the Romney's.
NOVEMBER: More football. More school. I worked really hard to get all my Christmas shopping done as soon as I could! The last day of school before the break we had a serious dance party with all the students at Highland Elementary. It was fantastic. William's parents came for a football game and a quick visit. Then we headed to Monroe for Thanksgiving Break! It was so fun. We went and played bingo (thanks Haley), where we proceeded to be terrible at it. We also went Christmas decoration shopping and had a DELICIOUS Thanksgiving meal thanks to Patti and Cheyenne. I made the homemade rolls and helped decorate the house for Christmas. William watched a LOT of football upstairs with his dad. After getting back to Baton Rouge, we went to a New Orleans Hornets game with our friends.
2012 has been the best year of our lives. We have been so blessed. We got married and started our new life together. We've been blessed with education, employment, health, friends, and family. I received the blessing of the temple and we were able to be sealed together in our Heavenly Father's family. We have learned so much about each other and are learning more each day. We can't wait for another great year to unfold!
