If and then, a process of realization

So I have officially been married exactly a week today. Weird, weird slash awesome. I just thought I would share my thought process the morning following my huge plunge into an everlasting eternal commitment....they were as follows

1: I have a new last name. So if I have a new last name, then that must mean
2: I am a married woman, if I am a married woman, then I have a husband
3: If I have a husband, he must be Garrett Bradham, if Garrett is in fact my husband, then...
4: ROBERT GARRETT BRADHAM IS MARRIED!!...If Garrett and I are both married then we are married to each other, then that must mean
5: We are no longer engaged..sing songs of praise!

We are married, not engaged but officially married, we belong to each other ....to infinity and beyond. Being engaged is a nightmare. Being married is wonderful. Differences???

1: He no longer has to drive me home at the end of the night
2: I don't sit and stress over wedding and he no longer has to exercise and insane nearly inhumanly amount of Patience.
3: I laugh now instead of cry
4: we don't fight!...okay fine, we fight over things like, who the real bed hog is, but does it count if you are laughing while you do it???

Also I should note that we are in love.....if you have a weak stomach and such talk disgusts you, please stop now. Otherwise, suck it up and continue. Anyway, like I was saying we are mushy in love. We have turned into one of those couples that kisses in public. Not the make out kiss, that is still gross. Just the sweet affectionate ones. Garrett tells me he loves me multiple times a day and at the most random times. Its wonderful and awesome and I love it. Garrett no longer annoys me. In fact some of the qualities that drove me to reconsider, are some of his adorable features that I now find sweet and endearing. ( just kidding about the reconsidering part by the way, I added that for dramatic affect ;) Anyway, when Garrett discovers something new he loves, he cant stop talking about it. The first day we got to really enjoy our amazing resort, he would not shut up. I mean every other thing he said involved how wonderful the resort was, the engaged me would have begged him to shut up already and get over it. The married me finds this adorable. Being married is awesome. I will be reporting all our wedding/honeymoon/reception adventures upon our arrival home. But that is it for now

Quick Update

Okay, so just a quick update...Garrett and I are now home in GA. I can NOT believe that in just 4 short days, we will finally be married. YAY! that about sums it up. Since we have been home, we have been spending time with Garrett's family since he spent 2 weeks with mine in Hawaii. Its been wonderful getting to know them better. I already feel like a part of the family. Today Garrett and I went Kayaking down the river with his mom and her friend. We had a blast! It was so relaxing and beautiful. Although I must admit, Garrett tied my kayak to his, so I pretty much just benefited from the fruits of his labor in the paddling department. We also got to spend some time playing with our very missed friends Scott and Darcey. It was soo good to see them, since we really miss having them so close. Garrett and I also enjoyed some Waffle House, a southern staple. MMMM it was good. I got chocolate chip waffles. Not that anyone really cares all the much what I eat, but this is my blog, so you get all those needless details :). I am so excited for all that is to come, and I feel so blessed for the beautiful family that we have on both sides. I can not express enough my gratitude for all the work my family has done. Really my cup runeth over. Even though Garrett annoyed me a little tonight...(I know you are reading this, and yes you know why ;)...anyway..I am the happiest I have ever been. I am so grateful to my father in heaven for all the wonderful blessings Garrett and I are receiving. Having our wedding in just a few short days, we could feel very overwhelmed and stressed, and scared. But we don't. We feel calm, relaxed, peace, comfort, and most importantly joy. It has been such a wonderful experience being home and I hope we are blessed enough for that to continue. Anyway, WE GET MARRIED SATURDAY!!!!!!!

The Dance

To start off this post, I would like everyone to know that you will find NO lies on this blog. I post things as they are, and not as I wish them to appear to be. So if you can’t handle things that are not perfect like on most other blogs you read, then please turn back now, you are in danger of great disappointment. If you like the messy stuff because it makes you feel more normal then, please continue.

So, being engaged…it really sucks in case any of my single ladies are reading and wondering, it is so NOT what you think it will be. Don’t get me wrong, its definitely an exciting time and a great opportunity for you to draw closer to your special someone..but ladies…IT IS NO PICNIC! Being engaged is hard, you start to argue about all the stupid insignificant things that do not matter. This is due to all the stress that is occurring trying to find middle ground in wedding planning in trying to accommodate all families involved, which in our case, would be three. Anyway, So seeing as how I am only ONE person, I am unable to speak for everyone else. However, for me it only seems natural that at SOME point it will hit you that this choice…is FOREVER! Granted, I may a little more fear than some others, seeing as how I have experienced my parents initial divorce, followed by a second between my mother and step father. It could also be the result of my failed previous engagement 4 years ago that went down in flames and left me with nothing but a shattered heart and debt, at the most inconvenient time in my life. At any rate, whatever the reason, fear sunk in. Now, it’s important that I state that there is ZERO doubt in my heart that Garrett is the absolute ONE for me….my head….that’s a little frightened. Once again going back to my previous life experiences…along with that,

a side note ***just for the record, I would chose this life again if I had the chance, It has brought people in my life that I would other wise not have the blessing of being so close to or knowing at all, So between that and it helping me to become the person I am today, I must say that is has been worth all the pain. Okay back to the original post.

Anyway, so okay, it wasn’t the most wonderful day Garrett and I have ever had, so we decided to take some time together and go on a date. We went to dinner and saw the movie 300 Days of Summer, which by the way is AWESOME! I loved it. It was real, and I LOVE real. Okay so getting back to the story. We get to the car and I start to cry, I know..shocking. I am a woman so give me a break okay. So Garrett, being the sweet wonderful caring fiance that he is, asks me what is wrong…I tell him the truth…I am sad…and scared. I am scared of it not working. We get back to the house, and as I am crying while wrapping a gift for our friends new baby, all of the sudden I hear some sweet song…and Garrett takes my hand and dances with me. It was a song I had never heard before by Ben Harper, called Not Fire, Not Ice. It’s about how nothing can change how he feels about the girl he loves. Umm Of course I bawled my eyes out, again and I felt like I was on fire and immediately knew how silly it was of me to be scared…give me a break people okay, forever is a long time…and it was just like a 20 min. of lapse of judgment. I am not perfect, but Garrett is. Really, he is…..okay fine…that’s kind of a lie. He is not literally perfect, but so perfect for me. As I cried and we danced he said some of the sweetest most wonderful things anyone has ever said to me..I also continued to realize the extent of my idiocy. Oh and NO I won’t tell you what he said, that’s personal…geez. Anyway, he also played me songs on his guitar including one he made for me…aww I know…Yes ladies, BE JEALOUS!! I’m pretty much the LUCKIEST girl ever. So the moral of my little story Being engaged sucks, but a long with the bad days, we have really good ones. We didn't dance under the stars or in the rain, just in our soon to be house tears streaming down my face, and yet I think it was one of the most romantic and sweetest moments of my life.I still would have appreciated it if our day had been good, but because of the bad,it made the sweet so much....sweeter. I guess what I am trying to say anything worth having, is worth fighting for and sometimes things are hard so we can appreciate them. Yes being engaged stinks, but getting to marry Garrett…nothing even comes close to comparing to how awesome that is. Anyway, I am so grateful for Garrett and his strength, I know I am marrying a strong priesthood holder whose faith far surpasses mine.

Date Nights

So Garrett and I went into the bishop for my pre-temple interview. He gave us some much appreciated marital advice.

1: Never Stop Dating
2: Go to the temple often
3: Go to bed mad

So we decided to go ahead and initiate the first, which to be honest we had already talked about it before hand and decided to make Friday night's our date night. We also decided to take turns planning. SO this week, was my week. I decided do a picnic by the river followed by going to see the Terminator. So here are a few pics of our little adventure.

So I decided the food of choice would be Sushi. Garrett had been talking about sushi all week and how bad he had been craving it. So we stopped at Sushi Ya, which is our favorite on the way to the "spot". Side note *Sushi Ya is amazing! Its delicious and has decent pricing. Okay moving on, So we get to the river and sit down to eat, when ..the sprinklers go off..yes. I know I am awesome at picking good spots, so we quickly grab all of our stuff and move as fast as we can. At this point I think its important to note that I had also brought Martinelli that was not fully open. Anyway, once we had cleared the path of spitting water, we enjoyed our sushi...to the fullest.



and here is a picture of Garrett with his fake bottle of booze
It's also crucial that you notice how this blue shirt accentuates his bright blue eyes...WOW he is good looking....okay continue...



SO...as we are blissfully walking back to the car having enjoyed a delectable substance....Garret points out that I have red grape juice...ALL...OVER...my KEISTER!! umm okay, so girls, you can understand my pain. Since I had planned so precisely, we needed to make the movie and my loving wonderful fiance REFUSED to let me go change :(. So as punishment, I made him stand/walk DIRECTLY behind me, so that my red juice would neither go noticed, or mistaken for a worse accident....Here lies my documentation. ...By the way..this is also CLASSIC Meagan


Anyway, the movie was AMAZING! It was completely action packed and I was enthralled every second. So if you haven't yet, you should see it. The End:)

Yay ME!

Okay, so it looks like I am about all caught up!...or almost...so since the camp out here is what has happened. I started a dance class with my new pal Jessimica. Its Tahitian/Hula and I HEART it! It's a great work out and a whole lot of fun. Garrett got us both a gig volunteering at the BYU culture center on Monday's and Wed. we get to photograph and tag artifacts, which is awesome. We have been trying really hard to be more active and find cheap fun things to do. So far we have hiked to Stewart falls (well nearly), done the alpine slide, and enjoyed several walks with the pups. I have managed to finagle my way out of bike rides thus far (YESH)!! We are both still working and rushing like crazy to get all of our wedding things complete. I can NOT believe its so close. It weird waiting your whole life for something, then having it be so close...AHHH. Garrett also finally settled on a honeymoon spot. We have selected Tulum Mexico. We are staying at an all inclusive resort, which is awesome for me, since I LOVE eating. The kitty has grown a little but is still such a joy. Okay, so I will do my best to keep this up to date...wish me luck...and ENJOY!!

Oh the Great Outdoors

We decided that it was time to take a break from Provo...so when you are poor and can't take off work but wanna escape..where do you go?? CAMPING of course! Garrett, Beonj, Bruce, and I all took a little trip up American Fork Canyon. It took forEVER to finally find a good camping spot. But the like everything else in life....patience in a virtue. We found an awesome spot, the only problem...we had to forge across the ice cold raging river. It was a struggle to make sure we got all of our supplies across. Beonj even lost a shoe in the process...but it was well worth it. We discovered the river made a good deterrent against unwanted "visitors"...which would be the creepy red necks camping in the next spot over. They had been checking out our place before we snagged it, boy that was a close one ;) We enjoyed fishing, and delectable campfire food. Well..almost. Garrett and I had prepared what had the potential to be the most delicious silver turtle ever created...except I had to substitute tortillas for cabbage leaves. Note to self and my very few readers....TORTILLAS do NOT substitute or cabbage!! It literally took an hour and half of our stomachs began to devouring themselves before we finally gave up. We ended up dumping the contents of the turtle into a pot and cooking the old school way. ...If it hadn't been for the burnt pieces it would have been a treat. The smore's however, completely made up for our dinner mis hap. We also enjoyed a wonderful night sleep followed by tasty eggs in the morning. We had wanted to hike timp, but as it turns out...you need to plan ahead for that. We settled for a soothing drive up alpine loop and stopped for a leisurely stole through cascade springs. It was an enjoyable experiance :)

Sawyer!!!

So we went to wal mart to pick up some cleaning supplies and needless to say I fell in LOVE...with...a kitty. I know, I am SO NOT a cat person. But seriously when I picked up this tiny black and white thing my heart melted. We brought him home, thinking he was a girl for about 2 weeks until we realized otherwise....yea I know. Dont worry that I called poor cat Roxie for 3 days, followed by Scarlett for the next 2. Once his gender was properly confirmed, he went from Pachi, Chino, Marlyn, socks, and piccalo before I finally settled on Sawyer.I know, poor little fella! He is so adorable and so much fun. Even the pups love him, or Chauncey rather. They are besties, they nap together, play together and give kisses. Sawyer thinks he is a puppy and enjoys chewing bones and cuddling...now that's MY kinda kitty!!

4th of JULY!!

For 4th of July, Garrett and I decided to enjoy the patriotic styling of Provo. We rode our bikes, along with Evan to center street to set up camp for the early morning parade. We headed down center street for some fun. We thoroughly enjoyed stopping at all the tents and touching everything we saw :)We ended up not camping on the street because I got sick, but it ended up being a good thing. The only bad part, was that when we went back the next day, my favorite blanket was stolen :( so much for being able to trust the good people of Provo. We again enjoyed the other parts of center street we missed the day before with Rich and Kari. We ended the celebration with fireworks at Thanksgiving point with the pups. All and all, it was a pretty good 4th!

Hawaiin Photos

Okay, so as I said, we took some pictures lol...Some professional ones! We had Adam Palmer, who had done our family photos who did our previous trip to Hawaii's family photos. Garrett and I also got some engagements out of it! WOOWHOOO...so enjoy the family, engagements, and also some engagements my wonderful dad took

Aloha Baby! pre-honeymoon in Hawaii

So Garrett and I were very blessed to be able to get the opportunity to travel to Hawaii with my family. We started off on the island of Oahu for the first week. We stayed at a beautiful house up on the hills above Shark's cove. We spent that first week snorkeling, swimming, shopping, eating snow cones and taking pictures. We were also able to go to the PCC and watch some fireworks in Honolulu. It was a total blast!

The Second week was spent on the GORGEOUS island of Kauai which is my favorite. It was lush and green. We spent most of our time on that island exploring. We went on a crazy hike down to a gorgeous waterfall, took a catamaran on the breathe taking Nepali coast, were we are able to snorkel with SHARKS, and enjoyed the picturesque beaches.

I got to spend a final week with just my family on Kona. It was nice because we stayed at the Hilton on Wiakaloa and just relax and enjoy the final days of paradise.

This trip was amazing and could not have been any more enjoyable. My dad and Garrett were able to bond through their love of snorkeling and I got to spend quality time with my sisters and step mom before I got hitched.