Christmas in Salt Lake

Engaged!

I am engaged! YIPPEE! Ryan and I have been talking about getting married for a while now. When we went to Georgia for Thanksgiving, we asked mom and dad for their blessing in our marriage. Branagan and McKay were cute and we did our first 6 way hug with Ryan. When I wrote Brady in Chile, he said, "Well, hell done froze over!"We got back to Los Angeles and had a perfect day planned when neither of us had to work. I started off the day by being a brat and freaking out about getting married. Ryan was smart and politely left and told me to pick him up when I was ready. I pouted and took a nap. I picked him up and we went to the Observatory in the Hollywood Hills. It has just reopened after 4 years of renovation. It is a planetarium and has a great view of the city. On the hike up, my brattiness continued and I told him I wasn't ready to get married. While walking around the observatory, Ryan suddenly grabbed me, hugged me, and told me that he loved me. He said, "Cheyney, I want you to be my wife. Will you marry me?" Suddenly all my anxiety and fear vanished and I knew what I have always known.... I am madly in love with Ryan and want to be with him for eternity! YES! YES! YES! We went outside, looked at the massive city and hugged and kissed. Then the next thing on my mind was let's go get a ring! We went ring shopping in the Jewelry district downtown and then to an Anita Baker concert at Universal Studios. It really turned out to be the perfect day, even though I tried to ruin it!

Cheyney's Neighborhood

This is a picture of my ghetto. I am getting a real taste of L.A. I get woken up by produce and ice cream trucks and loud Mexican music. We are also constantly getting drafts of marijuana, cloves and cigarette smoke in our apartment from our neighbors, who also beat their 4 children. The boyfriend of our neighbor is in jail and their "stolen car" has finally left our carport. Our apartment building is constantly getting tagged by gangs. If it is painted over, they will retag it by the end of the day. We also have lots of street rats running around. We have adopted them and have them over to make cookies, Christmas decorations, and cards. We also occasionally help Dyamon (the leader of the street rats) with her homework. We have rules in our apartment:
1. No bad words
2. No hitting, fighting or biting
3. No going back in our rooms.


What a fun place to live!

BYU Wins The Las Vegas Bowl

And we were there. BYU 38 Oregon 8. It was so fun to see great Cougar football. And what a season with the Cougs finishing in the top twenty for the first time in ten years! After the game Cheyn and I rushed the field. My favorite part was seeing Cheyn chant BYU. The conversion process has begun.

Cheyn bought me tickets as an early Christmas present. We drove up to Vegas with our friend Dan who also attended the game. We were in the Oregon section and their fans were nice, but disappointed in their team. BYU was on fire. After some hard years, the program seems to be back.

Ryan's Neighborhood

This is where I live in Hollywood. People leave their old couches and furnitureout on the side walk (Someone even left an old toilet once). There is a homeless man below in the yellow blanket (first picture) that sleeps next to where I park my car. He seems nice from what I know of him. Notice also the fresh graffiti. They usually clean it up within a few days. My "hood" definitely has personality. I live in the brown apartment building with Hubbel (second picture). If you ever have an hour I have lots of stories about living here.

Venice Beach

This morning we went down to Venice Beach to go rollerblading and shop a little. These are a few photo's we took.

Congratulations Hubbel!

My roomie and best friend's movie got into Slamdance. http://www.sltrib.com/food/ci_4783222 for the announcement.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0790612/ for more on the movie.

Slamdance is another festival that is concurrent with Sundance. Hubbel...I knew him when he was just a semi-normal guy. I think the movie will be great and look forward to seeing it succeed.

Bowl Game and Nine Months

Well, I'm super excited for Christmas. Cheyney and I got tickets to the Las Vegas Bowl on Dec 21st on Friday. http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=682669 I'm a loyal BYU Football fan, and am excited to see their best team in ten years play. Thanks for the early Christmas present Cheyn! We're going to spend the night at her friends home in Las Vegas and then drive up to Utah for Christmas. It will be fun to meet some of Cheyney's relatives and friends in Salt Lake and to have her meet some of mine. It will also be fun to see snow again. We'll drive back on the 26th.

Also, today is the nine month anniversary of Cheyn and me "going steady." Were into double digits as far as months of dating goes. I'm happier than I've ever been. Life is just so fun with Cheyn by my side, and me by her's. We have FHE together. We giggle and have fun being silly. We calm and comfort the other when we're having a bad day. We plan and schedule. We've grown so much together. I just can't picture a good life without her in it. I'm definitely keeping her (if she'll take me!).

Georgia Trip

This is a picture of us with Wendy and Justin's kids at their home in Newnan, Georgia. It was fun to play with and spoil the kids. We came here after having Thanksgiving with Cheyney's family in Bainbridge. Cheyney won over the sister and her family quite easily with her wonderful smile and general kindness.

The presents went over well with the kids. Around two in the morning Alexander woke me up momentarily to tell me I was his favorite, before he took off to who knows where in the house. As requested he got a six dollar set of Christmas lights from Target and a box of candy canes. I guess that is what helped me take the lead as his favorite person, over the parents that support and provide for him, and the sisters who spend most of their time playing with him. Elizabeth enjoyed her Little Mermaid doll, even though she thought she needed a shirt to make her look more modest. She also received a baptism activity book just like her sisters. Emilie ended up having a stroller for the talking baby doll and took her on the walk that we went on before church on Sunday. Emilie was baptised on Saturday and it was pretty special to be there. Congrats Emilie!

Howdy

So this is a little experiment with blogging. Hopefully this will motivate us to do fun stuff and let you know what is going on in our life and see some pictures and such.