Thanksgiving!!!

There are only 18 days left until I'm officially Mrs. Bagley. Weird! I will have to change my name at school. But I'm soooo excited! I can't wait until all the wedding planning and long distance relationship stuff is over. We found a cute little 2 bedroom basement apt. in American Fork. As of right now that is where we will be living! We are really so excited and can't wait to move all our stuff in. I have been so blessed lately with a lot of things that I am grateful for.

#1: I'm getting married. That is a HUGE blessing in itself. I don't have to be alone anymore and I have a best friend to spend all my time with.
#2: I receive my endowments in like 16 days! I've been so anxious to do this lately. What a wonderful experience it will be. And I get to share this with my whole family! Spencer's brother Brandon who is going on a mission is going to get his the same day, too. We'll be doing it at the Salt Lake Temple on the 17th.
#3: I was able to see my family over Thanksgiving break. I really needed that time with my mom to connect with her about wedding plans. Everyone in my family was able to meet Spencer and get to know him better. He played with my nieces and nephew the ENTIRE time and they just ADORE him! We were able to visit a lot of his mission families and even spend some time with his mission president. He was a fantastic missionary...The Gonzalez's fell in love with him and it was really neat seeing how many people Spencer influenced while on his mission. I am jealous he had that opportunity. Being a missionary is a once in a life time opportunity! I hope to serve someday when we're older :)
#4: I have two great jobs that will help us stay on our feet. I enjoy them too, which is hard to come by!
#5: It's Christmas season and we'll get 2 and a half weeks off just to BE TOGETHER!!!
#6: I will have 3 bridal showers by the time I'm married. I feel SO INCREDIBLY BLESSED to have such a wonderful new extended family, and also to my best friends who are throwing me a shower that I know is going to be so much fun and full of LOTS of surprises haha.

I'm sure there is much, much more, but that is what I can come up with for now. I'm so grateful Spencer and I are getting married in the temple. What a blessing it is that we made it. It has not been easy, but it is TOTALLY WORTH it!!!

SO our Thanksgiving trip was such a blast. We left on Wednesday morning at 9am and drove straight through to Sonora. We only stopped twice for gas. It only cost $60 for gas the way there. Dirt cheap! We listened to a book on CD Where the Red Fern Grows. It is such a great book! Spencer joked around telling my family I cried the whole time. BUT I didn't cry at all. It was sad, but like not that sad. I cried the first time I read the book, but this time I already knew what was going to happen. Haha. It was so fun driving to CA with him. We had the best time and had some great conversations!

When we got into town we first stopped by my mom and Smokey's house to say hello. IT was really great seeing her and I really wish she knew Spencer better but hey it is a start. He and Smokey get along really great because Spencer taught him the gospel while he was on his mission. Spencer served for a total of 10 and a half months in Sonora. He got to know my brother Dustin really well because he was the ward mission leader. They are like bosom buddies already. Same senses of humor and similar sarcasm (which I don't always like haha). It's really neat to see Spencer connect so well with my family. That night we slept at my brother's house and the next morning awoke early to help set up for Thanksgiving. My whole mom's side of the family was there. We have the BEST food and I especially love the or derves (however you spell that). I'm a big fan of pickles and olives :) I was able to spend a lot of time discussing the Sonora reception with my aunts who are helping out a lot. Spencer played with my niece Kate like ALL DAY. It was really fun!! After the crowd died down we went for a drive down this old road called Wards Ferry. Spencer used to drive on this road on his way to Groveland where he would serve every Thursday on his mission. The road leads to Tuolumne river and also to a huge bridge that has graffiti ALL OVER IT! Pictures to follow. We rented Where the Red Fern Grows but fell asleep due to sheer exhaustion. The next morning we went on that same road up to Groveland and drove around for a while. We ate some really good pizza and attempted to visit some families but no one was home. Bummer! It was fun for me too because I grew up around that area and when I was a little girl I would play little league baseball and volleyball at the schools and fields up there. It's neat that we both have such great memories of Sonora :) On our way back I visited my mother and Spencer hung out with Smokey. We went through some old memory books and I realized just how much stuff I had left at my mom's house. ALL my childhood memories are there. I need to take it all and bring it to my NEW house. I'm sure I'll have to go through some of it and throw it away since we just don't have the space for it all. My mom and I talked wedding stuff for about 3 hours and it was really great!

That night we visited a family Spencer loves (The Glaves) in Ponderosa Hills. They were Spencer's biggest fan on the mission. They grew to love each other and they even went to his farewell in Fresno. I'm so lucky to be marrying someone who is such a great missionary! That night we hung out with my brother and sister-in-law and watched Mall Cop which is SUCH A FUNNY MOVIE! We all talked and laughed and before we knew it, it was time for bed. The next morning was our turn to say goodbye and get back on the long LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG road back to UTAH. You'll know why it was long in just a minute.

I hadn't seen my dad at all yet so we made sure to visit him. We met him at an IHOP in Ceres where Spencer also spent four months on his mission. It was so wonderful seeing my dad. He is getting over a sickness that has lasted way too long. I'm grateful he is starting to heal up because we were all getting very worried. After we visited my dad we went and visited some families Spencer knew really well on his mission. The Marshall's are two very old nice and lovely people that Spencer spent some time getting to know. We also met Sister Cash, a lady who Spencer helped to reactivate and who went to the temple to receive her endowments. She is such a fun, loving, talented woman. She takes care of her mom and is remodeling her entire house. I hope she is able to come to the reception. After her visit we made our way down to Fresno where we had a SPECIAL treat of visiting Chelsea and Jed and her family. We immediately played Catch Phrase and the boys killed us. They fed us a nice leftover Thanksgiving meal and then we were on our merry way. Our last and final visit was to President and Sister Gonzales's home (the Fresno mission President). They were so excited to hear our story of how we met. Spencer was SURE to make sure that President knew we did not have interest in each other on his mission. I met Spencer one time over Christmas break and didn't think anything of it. It wasn't until AFTER he got home that we went on a date. And that's only because my brother Dustin made him promise to call me. Haha.

The visit with his mission President was nothing less than fulfilling and uplifting. They showed us pictures, talked about mission opportunities and growth, and the President even sang us the LUCY IS JUICY song on the piano. It was so awesome I can't believe how much fun they are. They loved Spencer and told me he was such an amazing missionary. By the time we left it was 9pm and we still had a 7 hour drive to St. George where we were staying at his grandparent's house for the night. Little did we know we took a wrong way and it ended up taking over 9 hours to get there. Instead of following the I-15 we took the 195 through DEATH VALLEY. I was so confused as to WHY no one was on the road to LAS VEGAS. The directions from Google MAPS were totally wrong! We didn't arrive in St. George until 6:30a.m! We were so exhausted. Spencer kept hitting himself to stay awake. He asked if I wanted to drive but I was too tired so he had to pull over. I'm so grateful we didn't get into a wreck!! Spencer had never seen the lights at Vegas. He was like "are those the lights?" and I said "you'll KNOW when you see Las Vegas lights." I was right. They are gorgeous! The drive through AZ to St. George was so long. I DO love Southern Utah though. It is such a magical place and I have so many memories down there. We are staying in St. George for our honeymoon so we got some great ideas of things we want to do while we're there.

We got 5 hours sleep and then made our way to Salt Lake which took about 4 hours. By the time we got home we were so exhausted and hungry! Spencer's mom fed us some leftover turkey and stuffing and it was definitely to both of our liking. We had a wonderful trip. I forgot to mention that we had some really great conversations in the car. It's nice to know I'm marrying someone who I connect with really well and we can understand one another. Life is going to be so wonderful and I'm so excited to face the new adventures and challenges!

Marriage here we come!