Introducing

5.23.12

The day our life changed forever.

We are so blessed and loving every minute of it.

Baby Cakes

My 25th birthday was one that I will never forget because on that day we got a big {surprise} that a stork will be delivering us a {very} special present around May 26, 2012. 

That's right,  Grand baby #1 is baking in the oven!

We are all SO excited

nervous/shocked,

and thrilled

for our little baby cakes to join our family.  We are already so in love with that little peach!

One

On June 23, 2010 we were skipping out the Bountiful Temple and high on love.  Today, we're just as high on love, minus the literal skipping part.

I'm not sure why people say "The first year is the hardest."  Lucky for us, if this statement is true, we've got one good life ahead of us.  This year was, however, a big year of learning.  We have both learned a lot about each other over the last 365 days.

Here are some things I've learned:

1.   Justin is a violent sleeper.  After being elbowed in the ribs…twice…it was time to upgrade the mattress.  We are now king people. 

2.   I learned that the saying, “It’s not my favorite” has a literal meaning in Justin’s eyes…to the rest of the word it’s a polite way of saying, “I don’t like it.”

3.   Justin handles stress WAY better than I do.  He is calm and collected, I am emotional and vocal.  We balance each other out.

4.   I learned that Justin can get me to do things that I wouldn't normally do.  Ex:  I owned 3 bikes, that’s right, 3.  I drive a Hummer—sometimes.  I am attempting to jump the wake behind a boat.  I went jeeping in Moab—scariest thing I’ve ever done.  I skied 5 days this year—a 500% increase from last.

5.   I have learned that Justin is a clean/organize freak.  Every file is labeled, his desk is always spotless, and as I write this right now, he is cleaning the wheels on his bike.  I drive him crazy most of the time, but he is patient.

6.   He has taught me that I made a great decision with no regrets a year ago.  He’s one good catch, that Justin Casperson.

Here are some things that Justin has learned throughout the year:

1.   I learned that Ashley owns a retainer and when she comes to bed with it on it’s definitely time to call it a night.  Refer to the movie Date Night.

2.   I have learned to love the New York Yankees, which is hard for someone who believes in fairness and salary caps.

3.   Ashley can be very indecisive about the temperature in our house or car.  It has to either be freezing cold or burning hot.  She can never make up her mind.

4.  I learned that Ashley loves animals and wants a puppy more than a child.  I'm ok with this for now.

5.  Ashley’s definition of cleaning is putting things in drawers, closets, under the bed, or in the garage. 

 6.  But most of all, this year I have learned that I am truly the luckiest guy in the world to be married to Ash.   

Cheers to one year down, here's to many more to go!

Homemaker?

I grew up thinking that once I got married I would make dinner every night and that the house would always be clean.  So far, i'm struggling with the "homemaker" title.  I guess the gender roles are switched some days.  The husband does more cleaning and organizing than I do {love you!} and "making" dinner {with the help of Rio and Great Harvest} and true the wife goes to work.

**In Justin's defense he goes to school full time {18 credits}, works part time for his dad, owns 2 businesses-- pest control and USU insider, tidies the house, cooks breakfast...I married very well!**

My own mother quickly introduced me to the title of "homemaker" shortly after I was married with a sewing machine for a birthday gift.  I guess the days of skirts and iPods are over.  Shortly after this complex, fabric-eating device arrived on my doorstep I got ideas.  Skirts, aprons, curtains, pillow case...the list went on.  Those ideas were short lived and sadly the machine stayed in its cozy box for many months {sorry Mom!}.

In the attempt to be the ideal homemaker I decided to make curtains.

Step 1: A trip to Joann's.  Picking out the fabric...umm?  Is there a certain fabric that is suppose to be used for curtains or does color only matter?  I went with the color I liked best.  

Step 2: Open the sewing machine box.  Read instructions.

Step 3: Call a couple of friends to help me how to figure out how to thread the bobbin.  No one knew...it was pure luck when we finally got it to work.  {Haven't been able to do it smoothly...ever.}

Step 4: Cut, measure, pin, iron the fabric.

Step 5: Set the machine up for sewing time.

Step 6: Foot on the pedal, first movement of the needle...BREAKS!

**End of sewing career.

I guess I'll stick to cooking Sunday dinner.  

How do you do?

A year ago from this weekend I met a boy named, Justin.  I planned to go the Demolition Derby with my college friends and then decided last minute to pay a visit to Randi (sorry USU friends).  When I got there he was sitting next to Tyson on the couch.  I sat on the round chair and talked the night away.

Little did I know, he liked what I was saying...

'Our' Hawaiian Honeymoon

Now I know the wedding post is suppose to come first, but as I patiently wait for the good pictures, our Hawaiian honeymoon post will have to do. Let me just first say that married life has treated us pretty well so far. I like to consider our whole summer our honeymoon as we live like gypsies between Twin Falls (life at the pool and Snake River), Cabin in the Sawtooths (life in the woods and on Redfish Lake), and Connecticut (life in the Candlewood Lake Club).

But to officially kick off our new life together we took a little trip to a place we like to call 'Paradise.' A week of fun in the Hawaiian sun just wasn't enough for us beach bums.

When we got to Honolulu on Sunday evening we drove to the North Shore and checked in to our amazing hotel, Turtle Bay Resort! A must for prospective vacationers.








Over the last four weeks and I tried changing my thoughts from: me to we...Hall to Casperson... her to they... my to our. Although I have no problem sharing titles now...it's going to take some time breaking this habit of 23 years. So in the attempt to help myself become use to the "we" concept, I've put together my honeymoon post into our honeymoon adventure.

So gorgeous! I mean who would get sick of looking at this every day? Not us. We slept with the sliding doors completely open every night so fall asleep to the sounds of the waves. True paradise.


We decided to beach hop everyday and found some pretty good hang-outs.  They were all so beautiful.  Here are some of the places where we hung out everyday.

Haleiwa was probably one of my favorite places in all of Oahu.  It is a little surfer town with shops, amazing seafood, home to the famous matsumoto shaved ice, and where we swam with sea turtles! The day we went to the beach was the cloudiest, but it didn't dampen our Aloha spirit.

Spotting some of our friends on Haleiwa beach.  There were 10 sea turtles swimming around us! I would've grabbed onto their shell and started swimming with them if there wasn't a $500 fine for touching them. Man, they are high maintenance.

Pipeline Beach is where the big surf competition is every November.  Lucky for us, the waves were bearable this time of year.  The whole time I was there, I couldn't stop thinking about the movie, Blue Crush.  A definite fav. I wanted to walk across the bottom of the ocean carrying bricks, just like Kate Bosworth.  But unfortunately, it was only about six feet deep until I freaked out about being in shark territory.

Sunset Beach was gorgeous! We had fun just floating around in the water.  One major convenience about this beach was that it was located across the street from the delicious Ted's Bakery! To make the beach even more enjoyable, we ate our chocolate hupia pies with our feet in the sand.

We spent our last beach day on Pounders.  The waves on this beach were not a joke. After every wave I came up looking like the sandman.  But trying to be a good sport, I kept going. We rented boogie boards so to catch some waves. I'm usually a pretty good wave catcher, but this time I just couldn't seem to stay afloat when the waves hit. After being knocked down several times...the final hit did me in. You know the feeling of being pulled under and while you're fighting for breath you're thinking, is this it? Well for me it was...I was officially pounded.

I feasted on fish every day and was in my own Hawaiian heaven. After a week of pineapple pancakes with coconut syrup and macadamia nut butter for breakfast...and too many new lbs later...we knew it was time to head back to the mainland and Gold's Gym once again.  Here are pictures from some of our favorite local finds.

We had so much fun! One of the highlights of the trip was going to the Polynesian Cultural Center to our first luau. We ate delicious kula pig and danced on stage, with all the others celebrating anniversaries, to a Hawaiian wedding song. Other personal highlight was on the way to the airport when we stopped at the Dole plantation. Everything in there was made out of pineapple or bananas. We learned how to properly cut a pineapple and being a total infomercial sucker, bought a box of pineapples that I hand carried on the plane...well worth it! While we were there, also being a sucker for pearls, I opened a freshwater oyster with a pink pearl inside. After looking around I found earring posts and the woman let us open another oyster to see if it was a pair. Justin picked this oyster and when we opened it, we found 2 pink pearls that matched the other! Side note: pink pearls are the symbol for love. I married such a great catch!

Overall, a gorgeous location + my best friend = a perfect vacation. I can't wait to do this forever!