The American Dream!

So.....Chad and I are in the midst of buying a house this Summer and we couldn't be more thrilled! With the help of my awesome brother in law Dave Irving and the great Loan Officer Ryan Verno, we are on our way! We are looking in Murray, Holladay, and parts of Davis County (Bountiful, Centerville, and Farmington) on Main Street where lots of the old houses are. We both love those areas for their mature trees, nice older houses, and safe, quiet neighborhoods. If I got my way I would get a house in the old part of Farmington off of Main Street where there are orchards around, beautiful old houses, and a darling little center street community. I think it's so beautiful there and I love how it has an old time feeling without being a complete small town. But, I also love Holladay and love that it's an area I grew up in and it's close to so many of my favorite places. No matter where we live though, I am just so excited to be buying our first house as a married couple! So many great things are happening and have happened this year and it's all so exciting and fun! My dream home looks a little bit like these homes...




I love this yellow country kitchen! I love the paint color and the cabinets!




I love this white house and the huge yard and the trees!

I pretty much LOVE everything about this house on the right, and the house on the left has a g

reat porch that I could look out and watch the sunset on!

And, this house below is pretty much incredible!

Chad and I love houses that have a country feel and look old fashioned, but have been updated to be more modern on the insides. I love pastel colors that have a light airy feel, because basically they just make me happy! :)

If all goes well we will be in our dream starter home by the end of the summer when our lease is up! Can't wait!

Wedding Photos!

So here is the link to the website of our photographer Lydia Gravis, with our wedding photos on there. You can go through them and take a peek if you like. As soon as I get around to purchasing some and getting a DVD of them, I will post our faves on here. I will state that although I LOVED our wedding photos, I am very sad and disapointed that we didn't get more of our guests individually. There were WAYYYYYYYY too many of me and Chad during the speeches where I am basically blubbering and crying and look terrible! Those could have been ones of our cute guests that were enjoying the bubbly (non-alcoholic or otherwise) and munching on the yummy food! :) Oh and Ash (Weinegar) if your reading this, there are some really cool pictures of your Bobbi Brown make up and you doing my make up that you should use for your blog to advertise what a fabulous make up artist you are! Chad hates when I wear make up, let alone full on make up but he LOVED the way Ash made me look. She knows just how to make you look polished without looking cakey. Thank you so much for everyone in our wedding party being so wonderful and taking such good care of us and doing so many amazing things for us! Thank you all our friends as well that flew out to see us (Christine and Lukie) as well as the family members too! It meant the world to us, truly! It was such a special day, and I am really happy to have these awesome memories!

http://lydiagravis.lifepics.com/net/Pro/ViewEvent.aspx

Blogging Challenged

Just saying hello!

So, I am really "challenged" when it comes to this blogging business and I need a Veteran to help me!! I struggle with how to design my blog and how to upload pictures with messages underneath them. I also don't know why my posts have different font styles either. If you know me, I am really a technically stupid person with a cell phone from 1990! If someone can help teach me how to navigate this and make my blog cute like everyone else's I see, I would love the help! Chica my kitty sits on my lap and likes to put her paws on the keyboard (I think she thinks she is helping) but so far she hasn't done a darn thing! :) Here is a cute picture of her just being darling and one of us blogging. Don't mind I just got done working out where I sweat like a pig! She is just too cute not to take pictures of! My little baby........ till Chad and I have one (a real baby I mean)!

WE MADE IT OFFICAL!

Though Chad and I felt married long before we even got engaged, let along married, we could not be happier to have sealed the deal in April of this year! I will spare you all the details right now and do a written update later, and just get down to the fun part.....pictures! More wedding pictures are to come, since I didn't take any on the big day (too much going on) and the photographer still needs to get me some. For my friends out there that will read this and took pictures or videos, whatever you have would be greatly appreciated, so send them over to my email at ajoyclarkson@gmailcom!

Enjoy kids!

An Update

So here is a little update in the life of Ashley Joy. Winter's are not my favorite and never have been. Although I try and keep and open mind and a positive attitude each time the cold weather approaches (I always say I will try skiing AGAIN and NEVER do) I find myself every January cursing the fact that I live here. HOWEVER, you can't beat the beautiful Spring flowers that bloom here or the sunsets from up in the mountains when the nights get longer and longer. As much as I could complain about living in UT, I really couldn't imagine myself living anywhere else. As different and non-Utahish as I thought I was growing up, (and during my late teens and early 20's) I find that I am pretty much as "Utahish" as it gets. I love it here.

Now that I have ranted and raved about my home state, I guess I should actually give an update on what is going on in my life. Christmas was one of the best ones yet and we feel very blessed to have such a great family to share it with. I am getting to the home stretch of wedding plans which really excites me! The fun stuff can be started...like planning the center pieces, the DIY decorations, and how I should wear my hair. Chad and I are going to be looking at houses starting now and applying for the loan around late Spring (Mayish). We like the area by the U, Sugar house, Murray, and Bountiful. I can't wait to buy more furniture (we don't have anymore space in our apartment to purchase much else) and decorate our first home together. Just the thought of planning my future with Chad makes me SUPER happy and feel at peace.

We are also taking a pre-wedding trip back to San Jose to see our friends Kevin and Cheryl and their dope apartment! Chad's boss is giving us one of his 27 free flights from his sky miles to take a little trip to warmer weather. We love the Silicone Valley and I can't wait to go back to Santa Cruz, Monterrey, and spend a little more time in Carmel. I think that part of California is so incredibly magical. I have a soft spot in my heart for Orange County after growing up with a family beach house in Laguna (I fit in so well with those laid back So Cal surfer types) but ever since my brother moved to San Fran, and I have been fortunate to visit MANY times, I just fall in love more and more with that area and all it has to offer. Not many places are that diverse in such a small area...and although I have been a lot of places, I always count SF and the surrounding area as one of my top places I have been.

I am super excited for my niece Elsie Sophia's 1st birthday party in February and I can't believe how big she is getting! She is so fun and Chad and I love every minute we get to spend with her. She is such a little busy girl and it is so funny to see her sparkling personality grow with each day. She is going to do great things one day...I can feel it :)

As much as I feel our life is busy, it's really not, and I thoroughly enjoy that. I like that things really don't change and that we have a routine set already. It's the simple things in life that are the best. So much truth to that phrase.

As much fun as it is to read my blog posts it's probably a lot more fun to look at the pictures. I am a camera-a-holic....but I am TERRIBLE at uploading the pictures. I hope to post some this weekend of Christmas and our activities of late. Till then, I will just bore you with my words.

Chica

We our now the proud parents of a darling little kitty named Chica who is 5 months old. We adopted her from the Humane Society on Election Day (yes we still made sure we voted that day of course). She is just the cutest little thing ever, with white fur and light orange ears (Chad says she looks like a devil cat from the back...haha) and a light orange tail. She never shows her claws, and she loves to cuddle. Last night as I was reading she was stumbling on the blankets on the bed and then came up to the crook of my neck and snuggled up right there and started purring immediately. That is love. I am so happy that we adopted this little bundle of furry sweetness, she makes our days and nights just that much more enjoyable. I'm sure I will have daily updates of how cute she is and how hilarious she is at the same time! The way they play, crawl in the weirdest spaces, and attack shoe laces is so funny! This is good parenting practice for Chad and I before we have the real deal one day! :)

Pieces of crap can win things too!!!

Last Friday on my way home from work I was listing to ZHT, which is weird because I normally don't really like that station's music (except their morning show with the Zoo I like them lots). Anyway, I have a fascination with media (probably because I graduated in Mass Media from the U) and radio and I love listening to morning shows and in my head I compare which DJ's are better than others. Normally I can't STAND listening to AJ on ZHT on my drive home from work, but for some reason I was and all of a sudden I heard "Be the 97th caller and win backstage passes to the Nickelback concert on the 20th!". I don't know what posessed me, but I was like I AM WINNING THOSE TICKETS and so I kept dialing the number over and over and over and over and over (you get the picture) again like 50 times and finally it started to ring! I had to pull over in the nearest parking lot because I was driving and that obvioulsy wasn't safe. Then AJ came on the phone and was like "hello you are our winner!". I started freaking out and screaming like I was 16 again! I'm sure an outside observer would have thought it was hilarious (that girl you see freaking out on her phone in her car haha). Anyway, he was like "so I guess your excited" and I was like "No you don't understand dude! My phone is like circa 1995 and I serioulsy dialed the number over and over again till it rang. I literally punched in the number each time and somehow I won!". He was like "wow I guess that proves even pieces of crap can win things!". I was like "um....yeah!!!!!". Anyway, I got the backstage passes and tickets and I am SOOOO excited! I don't know a ton of people that like Nickelback enough to want to see them in concert, but I seriously love them. I have never met a Rock Star and so I am sure I will get star struck (I always have when I have met famous people...which is silly I know) and probably ask for like 10 pictures! haha. I will definitely post them on here.

On a side note, I know I am HORRIBLE at posting pictures on this blog. I have no problem just blogging away, but the picture part I suck at. Not very good considering all people want to do on a blog is look at the pictures (who reads anymore haha jk). I promise I will get better at posting the pictures in the future! :)