2010

Well, I haven't been as faithful of a writer as in years past, but I'd say it was a pretty good year. Not gonna sugar coat it though...definitely wasn't my favorite. There were some good things and some bad things, and some really good things and some really bad things, but all in all we're (fairly) healthy and (very) happy.

January: Explored the freedom of being a college grad, visited mom for 3 weeks, grad school interviews, flights across the country.

February: More visiting with mom, more grad school interviews, Valentines day (which we honestly can't really remember so it must've been fabulous! ;)), Cate's last minute booth at the bridal fair.

March: visited Ashley in California for a week, got our acceptance letter to grad school!

April: Morgan finished his undergrad and we officially were sent our diplomas. Hooray! Officially assigned housing for our grad school experience, Cate's first weddings for 2010.

May: Moved to grad school, lost a few pillows on the drive up (driving with the trailer was a bit scary), settled in and ate good ole mac and cheese for our first dinner in our little apartment, shopped for new furniture, scored some really good deals in the classifieds/Big Lots/Wal-Mart/Ikea, celebrated our 1 year anniversary, drove and partied in Las Vegas, started classes, engagments, bridals, and a wedding or two.

June: weddings, weddings, weddings, editing, weddings, editing, school for Morgs.

July: weddings, and more weddings, trip to visit mom and welcome dad home, weddings, destination wedding in California, more editing, classes.

August: MORE weddings and editing, classes and finals, new job for Cate at an insurance company.

September: Last wedding of 2010, working full time, editing, new sememster for Morgan, clinicals.

October: Still editing and working full time, more school for Morgan and Halloween of course.

November: Working, schooling, eating, sleeping, surprise trip to Park City for a romantic get-a-way, Christmas decorations up Nov. 6th (an improvement from last year's Nov. 4th), family parties and Thanksgiving, Dad came to visit for a few days, the Holy War game (BYU vs UTAH).

December: working, school, finals, PASSING all finals :), etsy sales (hooray), Christmas parties, more decorating, visiting friends, driving around to see the Christmas lights, doctors appointments, flying to visit mom and dad and kids, Christmas at home for the first time in two years!, calling Kyle on Christmas, photographing flowers with mom, playing with Alli and Dev, and ringing in the new year.

WHEW! We've done quite a bit haven't we. I'd say it was a pretty good year...I hope you all have a happy and safe holiday weekend! See in you 2011!

Two Turtle Doves

In case you ever wondered what Cate tends to do in her free time, this video pretty much speaks for itself.

Gird Road

I was going through our pictures tonight while waiting for Morgan to come back from a late night at school when I came across a few pictures from our honeymoon. That's when I found this:

Do you remember your first argument as a married couple? Well we definitely do. It was hilarious. Well not at the time, but afterwards we couldn't stop laughing. In fact we still look back at that night we came across Gird Road and laugh our heads off. You see, Morgan planned our whole honeymoon...everything was completely taken care of. Until we crossed the California state line and our conversation went a little something like this:

Cate: "How much longer until San Diego?"

Morgan: "I dunno...a few hours?"

Cate: "What do you mean you don't know? How can you not know?"

Morgan: "Well as soon as we start seeing signs we'll know we're close."

Cate: "Wait...are you telling me you don't have directions to get to San Diego?"

Morgan: "I've been there before, I'm sure I can figure it out just fine."

Cate: *flabbergasted look*

Morgan: "What?"

Cate: "Are you telling me that you have no idea how to get to our hotel? You didn't print directions or get a map?"

Morgan: *silence*

Cate: "You're kidding me."

Fast forward a couple hours and night had come upon us. It was dark. Very dark. We were on a little side road that barely had any street lights. All stores and gas stations had closed for the night. We were slowly winding our way through one lane roads on the outskirts of Oceanside and I was starting to get a hunch that we weren't going to be reaching our destination anytime soon. We knew that the car we were borrowing (thanks Mom & Dad Sheffer) had a built in GPS system, so we tried plugging in our hotel's address (the only reason Morgan had that was because it was printed on the confirmation sheet.) but it wouldn't work. As we were making a pretty sharp curve, the road ahead forked. Morgan had a decision to make. Stay straight, or veer to the right. Now, everything in my gut was telling me to stay on the road we were on...not to make any turns. This was our conversation:

Cate: "Morg, do you see that turn? Don't take it. I think we need to stay on this road."

Morgan: "Don't worry, I'll stay on the same road we're on."

*driving for a few seconds*

*Morgan jerks the car over at the last moment and veers to the right*

Cate: "What are you DOING?? I said stay on the road!"

Morgan: "I did! The road continued this way."

Cate: "Are you crazy? No it didn't....you made a distinct right turn. That was not "going straight ahead."

Morgan: "Noo....I'm pretty sure the road just curved to the right."

Cate: "Fine. I'll just fall asleep in my chair since we're never going to find our hotel. Thanks."

We drove around for awhile through neighborhoods, curving up and up and up through hills until we reached a point where the road was one lane, made of gravel, and not lit.

Morgan: "I think you were right. I'm going to turn around."

Cate: "You're just now realizing this?"

We turned back around and made our way slowly back to the main road. I told Morgan I thought the road we turned on originally started with a "G" but I wasn't sure what it was called. After a few minutes we both saw it..."Gird Road." The tension lifted and we laughed. Morgan saw the road and the turn he had made and acknowledged that I was right and there was no way on earth he should have made that turn.

A few miles later I made Morgan pull over at a gas station to get directions to our hotel. While he was inside, I discovered that the GPS system only worked when the car was in park. It found our hotel in a matter of seconds. Want to know the ironic part?

It was the huge building right behind the gas station.

Moral of the story: Cate is always right. ;)

Oh so domestic

Sometimes I put on an apron just to feel domestic.

I don't think there is any harm in that really...I mean, it keeps my clothes clean, makes me look cute, and boosts my wife-ly points exponentially.

Here I am being wifely after making my famous Oreo truffles and cooking something delectable in the crock pot.

Feeling an even stronger need to document my apron-wearing-wifeliness, I told Morgan we need a picture of us in front of the tree...so here were are:

(Sorry for the crazy glare...my point and shoot camera broke.)

L'amour

Yesterday we cleaned out our storage closet to make room for a little food storage. I found my bin full of mementos and these little treasures were in there. My wedding shoes and clutch. They made me so happy I couldn't help taking a picture of them. :) 

Let it snow!

This is mostly for my parents who are enjoying 80 degree weather and lots of sunshine. Jealous?

Please disregard my annoying commentary...apparently I sound like a huge dork on camera. Good thing I'm into photography and not videography. Yet. ;)

"Hang in there, you're gonna make it."

Today was a special day for our stake...Elder M. Russell Ballard invited our stake and one other to a special conference on Temple Square in the Assembly Hall. I had never been there before so I was pretty excited. We had already had stake conference, ward conference, and general conference, so it was a special treat to have another chance to be taught by an apostle of the Lord. We bundled up really good because of the 6 inches of snow that had piled up the night before and made our way over to the Assembly Hall. It was a wonderful meeting...full of great talks and testimonies. We heard a lot about gratitude and family. There was a beautiful musical number, and then Elder Ballard addressed us. It was so refreshing to see him in a new context...he was so relaxed and cracked I don't know how many jokes! He spoke a lot about loving your spouse and being strong. He said that he knew this was a hard time of life for many of us and that we should, "Hang in there, you're gonna make it." I loved that quote...it seemed to apply directly to me. The other thing he said that I loved was, "Never loose your capacity to laugh." That really reminded me of my mom. She is an expert at laughing. :) It was nice to be on Temple Square again...the Christmas lights weren't on yet, but you could see everything had been set up! I can't wait to go after Thanksgiving!

(PS: For the next few months I'm putting down my "big girl camera" to take a break from the hectic life of being a photographer. Instead, I'll be using a little point and shoot. It was so nice to just be a normal person again with a normal person camera this weekend!)

A Romantic Get-a-way = One Epic Post

This weekend was my favorite weekend in a very long time. Morgan surprised me and told me on Friday morning while I was heading out to work that he was whisking me away for a romantic get-a-way to Park City, UT. I was so happy! Work flew by and I couldn't stop thinking about how much fun we were going to have. I really needed a little "vacation" and this was going to be perfect!

When I got home, Morgan had everything packed so we loaded up in the car and headed up the Canyon. As we were making the climb up the mountain, we weren't too excited to see the gas light pop on. OOPS! Guess who forgot to gas up before we left? Yep. That would be me. After a few stressful minutes (there aren't many exits on the way to Park City and it's pretty much an incline the whole way there), we found a lonely little Sinclair gas station and we fueled up. Whew! Disaster averted.

We pulled into the hotel parking lot and I waited in the car while Morgan checked us in to the hotel. I was admiring the building and the extensive outdoor heated pool when I saw Morgan walking back to the car laughing. He was also carrying a gallon of water. You can imagine my confusion. When he got back in the car I said, "What's wrong?" Morgan laughed and said, "Well, the good news is there is running water. The bad news is we can't drink it." I stared at him for a minute and then we busted up laughing. This is SO the kind of thing that happens to us whenever we plan little trips. Then he told me that the hot tub was broken, which was a bit of a disappointment. We had our swimsuits packed and everything! Not to worry, I knew we were still going to have a great time.

After settling in to our hotel, we went exploring. There were signs leading us to an arcade...I thought it would be fun to go play a little air hockey or pac-man, so we wandered around until we found it. Wasn't so much of an arcade as it was a single "shoot-em-up" game...it looked like this:

Not quite the "game room" we anticipated, so once again we laughed. After that we hopped back in the car to find something delicious to eat. We drove around for at least 30 minutes before we decided that for one reason or another, Park City does NOT have many places to eat a nice dinner (well, within our price range anyway). I wasn't too excited at first, but we decided to eat at Cafe Rio. Before you get all upset you have to understand that I have never EVER enjoyed mexican food. I was pleasantly surprised though when I took a bite of their yummy pork burrito. It was HUGE. And I scarfed the entire thing.

After eating our delicious meal, Morgan looked at me and said, "So...do you wanna see a movie?" I thought that sounded fun and agreed...and then I realized. It was opening day of Harry Potter! We had previously decided to wait for the movie to hit the dollar theater to save money, so I wasn't expecting to see it for a few months. I even told my sister-in-law that we couldn't go with them (sorry Becky if you're reading this...I promise I had no idea he was taking me!). We got a few snacks at Smith's beforehand and LOVED the movie. It was fantastic. I highly recommend it.

The next morning we slept in until 9:30 (heaven!) and watched some TV. This was a huge luxury since we don't have cable and decided when we got married that we weren't going to put a TV in our bedroom. It was lovely! After we got ready we headed out for a day of shopping at the famous outlets! We looked for breakfast for awhile but finally decided to just wait for lunch. We went to Best Buy to use up Morgan's gift card from last Christmas, and then we headed over to Bed Bath and Beyond because I had a $5 off coupon. This is our extremely awkward picture showing off our loot...all for under $11!

Next stop: Pizza! We spoiled ourselves a little (well hey, that was what the whole trip was about!) and got Papa Johns. It was scrumptious! Eating it out of the box in the car was even better. :) Last stop: Tanger Outlets. I had a coupon for a $50 gift card and I only had to pay $25 for it...so basically everything half off. Morgan found some 20% off coupons...so add that on top of the fact that we were at the factory outlet stores and you better believe we got some amazing deals! We got four really nice shirts (from Abercrombie  & Fitch, and Banana Republic) and a bottle of foaming soap from bath & body works (one of those little luxuries we miss since we're poor) all for $25! Considering most A&F shirts are over $50 a pop, we were ecstatic! I wore one to church today and felt super fashionable. ;)

We ended the day by watching the BYU game (go cougars) and making a giant shopping run (we had no food at home). By the time we got home it was practically blizzarding! There was 6 inches at least!

Attitude of Gratitude.

Morgan and I have been trying to hold Family Home Evening on Monday nights the past few weeks, and so far we are really enjoying it! I'm in charge of planning FHE on Mondays and Morgan is in charge of planning a date night...usually on Friday nights. Since we've started doing this we've really felt happier and closer as a couple...who knew! ;) Tonight we talked about gratitude (original I know...but Thanksgiving is the perfect time to talk about it). We read a talk by President Thomas S. Monson that he gave during this past general conference entitled, "The Divine Gift of Gratitude." (Read it HERE) He talked about so many wonderful things and made several fabulous points...but I think my favorite quote was this:

"A grateful heart comes through expressing gratitude to our Heavenly Father for His blessings and to those around us for all that hey bring into our lives. This requires conscious effort - at least until we have truly learned and cultivated an attitude of gratitude. Often we feel grateful and intend to express our thanks but forget to do so or just don't get around to it. Someone has said that "feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it."

I loved that! To wrap up or conversation on gratitude, Morgan and I each wrote down 5 things we are grateful for. Here are a few of the things we wrote:

Morgan:
"I'm grateful for an ugly car that has always been reliable."
"I'm grateful for good friends that are unselfish."
"I'm grateful for the Savior and his atonement for me."

Cate:
"I'm grateful for my awesome husband who cleans the house so when I get home I don't have to stress."
"I'm grateful for Christmas music because it makes me happy and excited for the holidays."
"I'm grateful for texting so I can keep in touch with friends and family."

A few other things I'm grateful for...in picture form! These were taken over the past year:

The temple:

Beautiful U-T-A-H:

Wildflowers:

puffy, swollen, crack-head eyes

Remember that scene in "Hitch" when Will Smith's face gets swollen and huge?

That's pretty much how I've looked for the past three days. Okay so I'm being a little dramatic, but my eyes have been swelling and PUFFING up...on and off, on and off, and on and off again for three days!

I've tried not using makeup, stopped using my moisturizer, asked if they changed the cleaning solutions at work...anything and everything I can think of...I've tried it. I even tried not touching my eyes at all today...seriously. I didn't touch them. At all. I thought I was home free...but then I got home from work and POOF. Literally.

Any ideas?

The necklace.

Morgan proposed on November 17, 2008.

It was cold that night. I didn't put on a coat or a cute scarf or any of the necessary winter garments because we were, supposedly, hopping in and out of a warm car to get to FHE at our Bishop's house. Morgan opened the door for me as usual and I huffed and plopped in the seat, making it painfully obvious that I was unhappy. As I was busy sending negative vibes and annoyed glances, Morgan abruptly pulled the car over and cut the engine. He gave me a sheepish grin and kissed me on the cheek. And then he blindfolded me.  

Once I knew what was going on, I couldn't stop smiling. Morgan opened my door, lifted me out of the car, and carried me towards the proposal location (a park in Orem). I was freezing but I didn't care. I was about to get engaged! When he finally removed my blindfold, I saw it. The table was beautiful...there were candles, roses, fine china, and of course pizza. (Have I mentioned we are perfect for each other?)

Fast forward through a beautifully composed and well written song on the guitar, a near attack from a runaway German Shepherd, and lots of starting into each other's eyes, Morgan prepared our dinner. That was when I noticed the necklace. It was draped over the tablecloth by my glass and glimmered in the candlelight. It was simple. A pearl. A few little crystals. But I instantly loved it.

As I rushed to get ready for work this morning I thought of the necklace. I hadn't worn it in months and needed something to jazz up my outfit. After fighting the tangles and knots that is my jewelry box, I pulled the necklace out and put it on.

Turns out today is our 18 month anniversary. Oh how I love my Morgan. And my necklace.

I more than sort-of-love the holidays.

We love Christmas.

Our house smells like cinnamon. And pumpkin spice.

There are twinkling lights in every room.

Peaceful music is playing in the background.

It snowed today.

Tempus Fugit/Time Flies

Whoa!!! How has it been almost six months since I last posted? I guess time flies when you're busy working like a crazy person and forget to write down all your most memorable experiences like:

1. Moving to the University of Utah (don't worry, we're still die hard cougar fans).
2. Living in an even SMALLER apartment than before (in 1 1/2 years of marriage, we've lived in three apartments...each successively smaller than the previous)...amounting in 530 square feet of fun.
3. Photographing and editing 15 weddings and countless family/engagement/bridal sessions.
4. Supporting Morgan through his first two semesters of graduate school by helping him memorize anatomical terms, being a fake physical therapy patient and letting him test all my reflexes, range of motion, etc.
5. A fun trip to our Bishop's property = horseback riding, hiking, s'moresing, etc.
6. Adventures with bread machines...the first one died after three uses (Morgan bought it used on KSL) and the second one had water poured all over it from the vent in the pantry.
7. Baking and cooking up a storm...here are some of our favorites from recent weeks (and pretty healthy too!):

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Zesty-Slow-Cooker-Chicken-Barbecue/Detail.aspx

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Slow-Cooker-Beef-Stew-I/Detail.aspx

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Banana-Banana-Bread/Detail.aspx

8. Discovered a love for Chili's (not so healthy).
9. Celebrated our birthdays in high fashion...(Morgan took Cate to the Roof for dinner where they saw Elder Oaks, watched the sunset over temple square, listened to the Pianist serenade them with "their" song, and ate amazing food. Cate wasn't quite as creative but did decorate the house with streamers and balloons, gave Morgan lots of coupons to redeem for things like a homemade dinner of his choice, an hour of playing football together, etc.)
10. Decorated for Christmas on November 6th...which was an improvement on last year's November 3rd. I just can't help my intense love for the Holidays!!
11. Almost forgot to mention...I started working at and insurance company as a receptionist and am loving it. Full time, full benefits, great company and coworkers...we are certainly blessed to have this job. Things were getting tight there towards the end of the summer! Morgan isn't working right now because of his crazy workload, but he might try and find something small in January. For now he is studying like crazy and helping me stay sane by making dinners most nights and doing a lot of the housework. He's my favorite. :)

One of the things I have not been good at is taking pictures of ourselves...I have a lot of other people and their families, but not the two of us. We recently went out and took some fun family pictures for our Christmas cards this year...here is a sampling! If you would like a Christmas card this year, leave a comment or shoot me an email! :)

We are still crazy in love, in case you were wondering. 

why i love morgan

Fear

Hello friends.

I want to tell you a little story. Last night, my arm was dangling off the side of the bed a little and I just couldn't shake this nagging feeling in the back of my mind.

It said: "Pull your arm back stupid, before some terrible under-the-bed creature bites you!"

Strange thing to think as an adult, don't you think?

When I was little, I used to be afraid to dangle any body part over the side of the bed because I honestly thought something would chomp my hand off. I went through this phase where I thought ET was going to pop his eerily long neck around the side of my daybed. Those were some disturbing days. Did you go through that? You know, you would hop out of bed as far away as you could get without falling?

For some reason, I was never able to shake that fear. I still get nervous when my hand or foot tips over the edge.

Do you know what's under your bed? I do. It's probably ET.

Blog-stalking

It's 12:04am and Morgan's been asleep for over an hour. I just can't fall asleep these days! I don't know what's wrong with me. Okay. Well maybe it's because I sleep in until 10am. Or because I start thinking about photography and poses and locations and other such inspiring things. What's a girl to do? Well, in my case, I blog-stalk amazing photographers. I can't even tell you how giddy I get everytime I look at their work. No really, I get GIDDY. Morgan says that's because I'm so passionate about photography, which makes sense. But really guys, I start giggling and smiling and suddenly start wishing it were morning so I could run outside and try to replicate the amazing-ness that is their work. Here are my top three.

1. Jonathan Canlas - Excuse my french...but this guy is FREAKING amazing. He shoots 100% film...which let's face it...is a dying art form. The way he captures his subjects...mmm! AMAZING!

2. Ashlee Raubach - Stellar. Amazing. C'est magnifique! If you are into interior design, check out her commercial work. HOLY AMAZING, BATGIRL! As a side note, she did this amazing bridal shoot at a place called Sleepy Ridge. I have a wedding booked there in April and cannot even contain my excitement.

3. Allison Cox - I've been following her the longest, and probably love her the most. Not just because of her work (which is fabulous) but because she seems like a real person. A lot of amazing photographers are in a sense "deified" by us normal folk...but Allison is so down to earth. I feel like if I met her on the street I could just be like, "Yo Allison, what up."

Sigh.

I love love love photography. Please don't hate me because I write about it so much. It's like Morgan says...when you find something your passionate about, you want to share it with the world! :)

G'night world.

Ding, Dong! Anyone home?

Hello again! It's been awhile, and I sincerely apologize...I do have a reason though...the past few months have been filled with big decisions, and I didn't really want to write anything until they were all finalized. Here is what we have been up to:

1. Morgan applied to grad schools. He was accepted into two schools, The University of Utah and Shenandoah (in Winchester, VA). It was a difficult decision to make since we both felt passionately about both schools. We even talked about how we hoped it wouldn't come down to choosing between Virginia and Utah because we didn't want to have to make that decision! :) Go figure...I guess the Lord knew we need the test. After some serious prayer and discussion, we have decided that we will be attending.....................................................................................................

The University of Utah!

(Don't worry though, we will still be Cougars at heart.)

School starts in mid-May, so we will hopefully find housing and move up there around May 1st. It will be a new adventure...but we are looking forward to it.

2. I was in the Provo Bridal Fair in February and was lucky enough to book 7 weddings! I am really looking forward to them...there is a wide variety of venues and types of weddings, so it will be an adventure! :)

3. I opened a shop on Etsy selling fine art prints, and yesterday I made my first two sales!! :) It was a thrilling moment, let me tell you!

4. I was able to visit my mom and siblings for three weeks during January in Virginia! That was so much fun...we were snowed in a lot but were able to keep ourselves entertained. I love my family!

5. I was also able to visit my best friend Ashley last week in California. It was so fun to see her and hang out again. Love that girl!

Anywho, that is what's going on in our lives these days! :) I hope you are all doing well and loving life. I can't wait for it to be Spring! :)

Better week

Sorry for the past few posts...I've been a bit of a downer lately. Life just caught up with me and it seemed so hard. The good news is this is a much better week! Morgan got an interview with Shenandoah University and I'm going to visit my mom on Saturday for two weeks! I've successfully kept up with my New Year's Resolution for SEVEN DAYS (huge, I know.), and I even had someone request a newborn photo session!

Life is good.

Rough Week

This is my first week as a college graduate.

Still no job.

Two interviews this week; both refused me because I can't give a two year commitment.

I can't even give a 6 month commitment.

On the bright side of things, Morgan has two interviews coming up for graduate school, I have remarkable friends, and I will be watching my buddy Ethan for two hours a week on Tuesday evenings (I used to nanny for him regularly).

Life is wonderful, but at the same time, so incredibly hard.

New Project

With no job, no school, and no children...I have a lot of time on my hands. This is one of the things I've decided to do to fill the time. I'm pretty dang excited about it.

http://projectcate.blogspot.com/

Here I come world! :)

My little best friend

This is my friend Andrew. We played together almost everyday for six months. Then I graduated and couldn't work in the BYU preschool anymore. And my heart broke. You see, Andrew became one of my best friends. Isn't it strange to think that you can become friends with a 4 year old? Well, it's true. You can.

I look a little drugged, but this is one of my favorite pictures EVER. Hooray for best friends! :)