Happy Birthday!!!

On this beautiful Monday, the 22nd of March, I am excited to wish my little sister a very happy birthday!!! I love her so much---she brings so much happiness to my life. I am grateful to have such an amazing sister and have loved getting to know her these past 17 years. Some favorite memories and things I love about Kate:

She used to wear this Gap sweatshirt EVERY day. I'm not kidding--every day. It was quite simple for her to get ready in the mornings. I think she went through 2 or 3 of this exact same sweatshirt. The girl knew what she liked and stuck with it!

From the time she was 5 she LOVED chihuahuas. She used to make lists of what she would name her 101 chihuahuas! Well, she never did get 101, but she did get Tito for Christmas all snuggled up in a basket and left on the doorstep with a note from Santa--she bawled.

Kate and I were the only kids at home for two years until I went to college, and after two years of college I decided to move home and commute to school. We had so much fun just being "us two" all that time together.

I love this picture!!! During the time I was living in Provo she came and slept over at my apartment--she partied hard and conked out on the couch.

We have hundreds of pictures that look like this--us goofing off. We always have fun together.

I love that she wears the slippers my Grandma gave her--they seriously have holes in the bottom from her wearing them so much! They are so old ladyish and Kate just loves them.

I love that we both have green eyes :)


I love to watch Kate dance. She has a dancers body and is absolutely amazing!

I love that Kate continues to ski despite all of my pressure to try to get her snowboarding. Hey--as long as she goes with me I can't complain.

I love that Kate rocks at piano and isn't afraid to sing and play and perform for anyone who will listen.

I love that she likes to scrapbook with me :)


For her 15th birthday she let me embarrass her at Build-A-Bear--they stopped everyone in the store and she had to ring the birthday bell and we all chanted some cheesy birthday saying. It was great. :)
She is always there to support me through the big moments in my life.

She knows just how to cheer me up.

And its pretty cool that she looks ridiculously like Emma Watson from the Harry Potter movies.

Kate I love you and hope you have a great birthday! Here's to another great year of memories.

-Jacquelyn

A celebration to remember...

D and I just got home from nannying my four cousins for the week--it was a long week but it was fun to spend time with them. He is playing X-box (he turned it on the moment we walked in the door--I think he might have missed it all week) so I thought it would be the perfect time for me to post pictures of Clint and Melissa's beautiful wedding!

Coming out of the Bountiful Temple--their sealing was wonderful.

Her colors were pink, black, green and white. I chose a black dress with white accessories--I LOVED my dress! (below)

D looking sexy :)

The happy parents of the groom--my dad was goofing off as usual :)

so fun to have a new sister-in-law...isn't she gorgeous?!!

From the Temple we went to a wedding dinner at Joseph Smith Memorial Building to celebrate with Clint and Melissa's closest friends and family. I tried to take an artistic picture of our name tags with their favors--nummy dinner mints.

Melissa's sister designed the centerpieces--I thought she did such a good job! There were candles throughout the whole room which warmed things up and made the banquet hall glow.

Sisters :)

Sorry to not have one serious, normal picture of D. Let's just say I married someone very similar to myself!

Melissa has 3 nieces and they bought these adorable skirts for each of them--one in pink, one in black, and one in green. I loved them.

When I got married my siblings made a gift for D and me meant to "help keep me happy." It including things such as movie passes, gift cards to Nordstrom and CPK, Diet Coke, and Clint made me an amazing custom longboard. We decided to make it a tradition and made a similar gift for the newlyweds. Ours included a mix D made for them since Clint loves new music, a notebook to write down all of Clint's big ideas in, movie passes, a gift card to Texas Roadhouse (Clint loves their ribs), and some boating stuff. Clint is definitely the most into wakeboarding/boating in our family. We got him new swim trunks and a sweet Ronix hat, and then got Melissa a boating hoodie (to wear on our 5:00 am boating excursions to get the smoothest water) and a Roxy hat. They are currently on their honeymoon--a cruise through Mexico!!! I'm jealous.

I thought this would be the perfect picture to end this post.

I don't think it needs a detailed description. One word: Happiness. :)

Hope you all enjoyed a snippet of their wedding!

-Jacquelyn

Movies!!

Friday night we went to see Alice in Wonderland!

It was such a fun movie. I will admit it was slow at some parts--but I a loved Alice in Wonderland as a little girl and watching it Friday just brought me back. Tim Burton did a cool continuation of the original story and I would recommend it to anyone.

Last night we watched the movie Dragonfly.

It's an older movie starring Kevin Costner that D had seen before and he remembered thinking it was cool so we decided to rent it. It was a bit jumpy and even somewhat scary at parts, but definitely more of a drama than a horror movie. It was really entertaining and the plot was very creative. Another movie that is definitely worth watching.

Today we watched Michael Jackson's This Is It.

Wow. I am not a huge Michael Jackson fan, but the movie blew me away. The time and effort everyone, including Michael, put into planning his concert is unbelievable. And after all that work, he died less than three weeks before the 50 concert series was supposed to begin. All 50 shows were sold out with ticket sales totaling more than 300 million euros--around 600 million dollars! His passion for every detail of his music was meaningful to D and me because of our love for music. Michael was involved with every part of his show--I don't think any other pop artist on the planet has the combined musical, dancing, and artistic talent. He was truly one of a kind and the movie was an excellent tribute to him. It has been out for quite some time--I know we are a little behind seeing it--but if any of you haven't seen it yet, go pick up a copy. I really think you will like it.

I'm sorry if any of these recommendations lead you to seeing a movie you don't enjoy--I should let you know we love love love movies and I can usually find redeeming qualities in any movie. I am not an intense critic. That being said, all of the movies mentioned in this post really were enjoyable and I don't think anyone would feel they wasted their time after watching them.

Amongst our movie watching this weekend, we attended my brother's wedding yesterday and it went beautifully. I will upload the pictures and post about it this week!

--Jacquelyn

Welcome to "Inspired"

Hello fellow bloggers and welcome to my new and improved blog (which will hopefully motivate me to blog more!) I was about to quit my blog, seeing as I hadn't updated since last October. I just never got in the groove of getting on and updating regularly. The fact is though, I have really enjoyed reading blogs, whether you are family, friends, or strangers--I have truly been inspired by you all. SO I have decided to forego deleting myself from blogging world and try to give it the chance I now think it deserves. I am excited to post on the many things in my life that inspire me day to day and also feature many of the blogs that have inspired me over these past few months. Wish me luck as I truly dive into the world of blogging.

I'm going to be an Aunt!!! (Well, sort of...)

Last Saturday I threw a Baby Shower for my beautiful pregnant friend Katie! I love her so much--she is going to be an amazing mom! I remember in high school, Katie and me talking about our futures and how we would have kids together and they would grow up and play together--well Dallin and I are not quite to that point yet, but hopefully sweet Kapri will still know to call me Aunt Jacque.

We had a really good time with old friends and new friends--all sharing our love and support for the Momma-to-be. Here are some pictures from the shower!

Katie with her mom and sister

Jerrica, Janz & Whit

Ashley with her adorable baby Ryder

Jesse, Jasmine and Britt

It was so fun decorating with pink and yellow for a little baby girl!

We had a tasty brunch that turned out great (after a few speed bumps...)

Favors were caramel and chocolate covered pretzels from Rocky Mountain Chocolate factory--they were so nice to do the white chocolate pink for me!

Busy Summer...Busy Fall

At the end of summer I thought for sure our busy schedule would start to die down, but I was wrong!! Between school, work, and trying to spend time with family and friends it seems like I don't have a chance to breathe some days! These past few weeks were busier than ever, but also the most fun. We started off our adventures by going to St. George with my family to watch Caroline run the marathon! It is her second one and she did so awesome with a time of 3 hours and 11 minutes (even though she got the swine flu just 3 weeks before the race!) It was so fun to be down there for Conference weekend. It reminded me of growing up--we went every October to watch my dad run the marathon. I think he had enjoyed watching his daughter do so well. She qualified for the Boston Marathon so we will all be going there in April to cheer her on!

From St. George, we all headed down to Lake Powell!! We had a great time, despite the COLD WEATHER! The water was warmer than the air so when you were wakeboarding it felt so good to fall...after 5 minutes your hands and feet started going numb but we all soldiered through and got some great water! Thank you Mom and Dad for letting us go :)

All bundled up on the boat!

Wakeboarding!

My mom cut off Dallin's head but it's still a cool picture...:)

The siblings

high school musical 4: the berry/cerva children (Dallin didn't quite make it...)

(...and then Kate sort of struggled. )

After four fun-filled days in Powell we headed home for Kate, Caroline, and me to get back to school and for everyone else to get back to work. Thursday and Friday were filled with midterms for me so I studied and studied morning until evening. Dallin and I had tickets to the Brand New concert Friday night but it was cancelled due to illness! Bummer...On Saturday morning we woke up bright and early to meet the Cerva's in Las Vegas!! We flew in about 8:30, ate a delicious breakfast at the beautiful Wynn Resort where we stayed, took Hailee and Savannah on the New York New York Roller Coaster (they road 3 times!), spent 6 hours at Fashion Show Mall shopping for Christmas Presents, went to a delicous Italian dinner, then headed to the 9:30 show of Beatles Love. It was so amazing! The Cerva's were so nice to fly us down to see the show--Dallin and I both love the Beatles so of course we had a blast. We got back to the hotel a little before midnight, woke up early Sunday morning to catch our flight to Salt Lake and by 10:30 in the morning we were home! We slept the rest of the day to recover from the past two weeks of crazy travel...We are so grateful to have such loving families who include us in these fun activities. Thank you!!! As for our lives currently, midterms are never ending for me, work is going well, Dallin is doing great at work and getting ready for school Winter semester! Love to you all!

The simple things in life...

I'm sorry I am not a frequent blogger and that my posts are random, I will try to be better. On my mind today: I don't know why I love getting flowers so much, but I do. I love how they smell, I love how they look...and I also love the thought behind them when you receive flowers. They are a simple reminder that life is beautiful and that you are loved. Dallin has always been so good about getting me flowers at the best times. Two weeks before he left on his mission I went to Lake Powell for a week. I came home to find the most gorgeous bouquet and letter waiting for me to welcome me home. That was so meaningful in those last few days we had together. The next time I received flowers from him was when he picked me up from the airport after Jess and I went on an adventure to Mexico last Fall. Since we've gotten married, he has surprised me with flowers on many different occasions. Once, during our stressful unpacking and organizing of our apartment.

Again, during my super busy finals week

(which was also the week I gave up Diet Coke for good!!)

And then most recently this past weekend, because I have come down with a horrible cold and have been miserable trying to keep up on school and work.

I love having the flowers on my table for a couple of weeks--they keep me cheerful with their bright colors and beautiful smell. I am grateful for a husband, who may not understand why I love getting flowers so much, but does it anyways because he loves me. I love him for it.