Sunrises and amazing views

It was dark as we drove up to the La Verkin overlook on Saturday morning. Our headlights cut through the dark in front of us, startling a couple making out. Within a few minutes of us being there, they had driven off, annoyed that we'd interrupted them. Sorry, not sorry.

We climbed out of the car, wrapped in a blanket, only to be pushed back into the car by the wind. My mood wasn't deflated, and we simply wrapped ourselves up in the back seat instead, waiting, as the sky gradually got lighter.

We talked and laughed and cuddled, his cold toes pressed against my legs. We both wore our fuzziest pajamas, his blue with stars, mine black with polka dots.

I didn't want to forget a single moment.

As the sun rose over the horizon, and the sky exploded into hues of pink and orange, Seth looked down at me and smiled. "So..." he started, diverting my attention from the marvelous sky to the marvelous guy I'd been dating for the past month. "We've had a lot of fun in the last month. I really enjoy spending time with you. And I think I'd like to only date you...and we don't have to put a label on it, we don't have to call it anything, if you don't want to. But I want to know that you're only with me." He looked down at me tentatively, not sure how I'd respond. A smile slowly spread across my face as I responded, "Does this mean I get to call you my boyfriend?" He laughed and kissed me, in response.

"Yes, you can call me your boyfriend."

My teeth touched his lips as he kissed me, my smile too big for me to kiss him back properly.

That was a year ago, October 11, 2014. We'd spent the previous month testing the waters, seeing if we wanted to make this a real thing. I remember getting jealous every time he mentioned another girl, whenever he hung out with another girl, and I know that he reciprocated those feelings towards me and other young men.

We drove down that hill later, as the sun shone, warming everything up, and I held his hand, an impossibly large smile on my face. Ha. He was mine.

That was a year ago. Exactly a year ago. Today, it's October 11, 2015. This morning we woke up and drove to the Sandy Amphitheater park, overlooking the city we live in, as we watched the sunrise. Coincidentally, this is the same place that he proposed to me.

I reflect over the last year I've had with this man, a year of adventures, a year of love,, and a year of many "yes"s.

Yes, I'll go on a date with you.

Yes, I'll be your girlfriend.

Yes, I'll wait for you on your mission.

Yes, I still want to date you.

Yes, I'll marry you.

Yes, I do.

I am so in love with this man, this man that is mine.

Our future is full of other yes's, other sunrises, other adventures.

I couldn't be more grateful for the experiences we've had, and I'm excited for all the experiences in our future.

When I Find Myself at a Loss of Words...

I often find myself looking at my husband, and I have a loss of words. I, someone who prides herself on being very good with words, can't think of a single word to describe how I feel.

There have been times that I've tried to explain to him these thoughts, these word-less thoughts. But I'm met with somewhat blank stares as the words struggle to leave my tongue.

I so badly want to be able to express the way I feel.

There had been so many times while I was a teenager, that I was ready to give up. There were times that I did give up. There were times that I thought my life was over, and that was how I intended it to be. I had my heart broken, by friends, situations, boys. I felt lonely. I felt the weight of so many things a young 13 year old girl shouldn't have to deal with. Or a 16 year old girl. Or an 18 year old girl.

And he makes all of that worth it.

I've always understood that we experience everything for a reason. Everything is put in our path to help us learn lessons. I've had nights where I sobbed in my bed, paced my kitchen screaming my feelings, and drowned my feelings in a bath, as I wished that I'd never had to learn these lessons. Getting mad at God for teaching me lessons is such painful ways. I knew I was supposed to learn these things. But I didn't want to learn them.

But as these experiences are in my past, and as I look at my husband sitting next to me as we eat breakfast on a Sunday morning, I'm grateful that I learned these lessons. And I'm grateful that he learned painful lessons as well. Because they shaped us into the people that we are now, and they prepared us to be with each other.

Getting to roll over every morning and feel his arms pull me closer to him, it makes me glad I never gave up.

At work about a month ago or so, a handful of my coworkers got into a conversation about "settlers and reachers" in a relationship. By their theory, in every relationship there is one individual that settles, and one that has to reach to meet the other. I mentioned it to Seth and we kinda laughed about it. The thing is, we each feel like we're the reacher. I look at Seth, and I think he is so handsome. I think he is a beautiful person, inside and out. I see the most tender and sweet man I've ever met. I've never had someone treat me as well as he does. And I ask myself daily how I got to be so lucky to get to have him as my eternal companion. But I know that Seth feels the same. Which makes me feel even more loved, even more valuable.

I've been having horrible nightmares over the past few months, waking me up with panic attacks and a cold sweat. Seth is always so patient with them, always waking up and coming to my side to comfort me. Just a few nights ago, I was dreading going to sleep because of a particularly bad nightmare I'd had a few nights before. So he held me in bed, and sang to me until I fell asleep. I felt so blessed to have someone who cared so much about me.

I can't imagine that I'm an easy person to be married to. I love cooking but hate doing dishes, folding laundry is the bane of my existence, and I never replace the roll of toilet paper. I have anxiety and depression, and Seth leaves me every morning worried that I'll be safe throughout that day. Not just "I hope the roads are safe on her way to work", but he worries about my mental and emotional state, because what isn't keeping me safe is myself. He worries about me every single time I'm not with him. Because he wants to protect me and he wants me to be safe. But he knows that I'm a big girl and I can keep myself safe. It doesn't stop him from worrying, though.

Seth accepts every single issue I bring forth, and doesn't even blink an eye. He loves me, and all of my injuries, issues, and insecurities, and he does it all unconditionally.

I look over at my husband every morning as he's still sleeping, and my eyes look over his cheekbones, crooked nose, and messy hair, and I love every inch of it. I think he's breathtaking in those soft moments.

I looked over at him while we sat in a theater a few months back, and watched his face as he took in the music and dancing in front of us. I watched his reaction, witnessed the love that he had for the art, the desire within him, and felt his hand on mine. And I swear I'd never seen a more attractive being.

I looked at him on May 15th as I held his hands and felt tears come to my eyes, as we promised ourselves to each other. I looked at him and felt my whole body fill with so much love that I thought I wouldn't be able to stand. I thought I could never feel so much of an emotion as I did on that day.

But I prove myself wrong every day. Every day when I look at his beautiful face, my heart leaps forward, propelling me to him. I lose my breath as I am reminded of how much I love him.

I am finding myself, again, at a loss of words to try to describe the way he makes me feel. I guess this is what love is supposed to feel like. I can very confidently say that I never felt this kind of love before I met this man I am lucky enough to call my husband. I laugh when I remember the boys I once thought I "loved".

I don't think I'll ever be able to articulate my thoughts coherently enough to explain how in love I am with Seth. But for now, it is enough to just know he feels the same way.

McCausland Family Update

First of all, Seth and I are alive and well.

Look how happy and married we are!!

So many things have happened over the last few months that we've been married.

We got a dog. He is the sweetest dog, and a wonderful addition to our little family. I'm grateful for him everyday. He keeps us company when only one of us is home, he keeps us safe(we live in a pretty ghetto neighboorhood...), and he loves us so much that it makes us feel like a family. He's a rescue, and he's about 8 years old. So, he's a grumpy old man, but we still adore him.

This picture is SUPPOSED to make you scared of our dog. 

Seth and I both got new jobs. Or rather, I got a new job, and Seth got a promotion. We both enjoy where we work, and we're happy.

I'm sorry..

We got bed bugs. This was one of the most stressful experiences of my life. We'd been getting bitten since we first moved into the apartment earlier in the summer. But, we had a huge spider problem in the apartment, and we assumed it was that. Once the spiders went away, and we were still getting bitten, we started exploring all the other options. We didn't even consider it being bed bugs, until one day we went to go wash our sheets, and the bed bugs had gotten bad enough that we could see them. I'll spare you the details, just know it was disgusting. I was also sick that day, so we had to spend that day switching back and forth from me throwing up, and us hauling the infested mattress out to the dump. It was kinda a miserable week. Thank heavens, we are now bed bug free. We are able to sleep through the night without waking up to itch the myriad of bites covering our bodies. So, we're happy.

This is our "we're exhausted because of bed bugs" face.

I went back to school. It's just been part time(nothing like the 17 credits I was taking last year). It's been a struggle, trying to juggle part time school with a full time job, but now that the semester is almost half over, haha, I'm getting the hang of it. I changed my major to English/Writing with a minor in French. I am loving it.

I started writing more. I know I haven't been writing HERE very much, but I really have been writing. I started writing for LDR Blogs, which is a website based on Long Distance Relationships. Because my LDR has ended(since Seth and I are now married), I don't write here a ton. However, I also got hired on at Unwritten, where I write about 2 articles a week. It has been such a wonderful creative outlet, and it's wonderful knowing that I'm a published author. And it's been a wonderful starting point. I just recently got offered to write basically the same type of articles, but to get paid for it(!!!) at a similar website. So, I'm just beginning to dip my toes into that. We'll see how well it works out. I'm excited for this new adventure, though.

This is how smart I look when I'm writing stuff.

I lost weight, and Seth gained weight. Since Seth and I started dating(which is when I stopped blogging so much) I was about 40 pounds heavier than I am now. So, I lost quite a bit of weight. Most of it was before we got married. I am very pleased, though, that instead of gaining marriage weight, I've lost about 5 pounds since we got married. And Seth has been putting on some weight(I've been trying to feed him more caloricly dense food) and he's pretty pleased with that.

There have been other milestones and things that we've accomplished since getting married, that don't really seem like things that we'd share with he public. But Seth has gotten cast in Forever Plaid at a theater in Magna, I've gotten a better handle on my anxiety(which has been huge for me), and we have grown together SO much.

We are so happy, and I am so blessed every single day for the wonderful man I get to call my husband.

We are so blessed. I am so happy to have a wonderful partner who I have the opportunity to spend forever with.

We love you all!!