Boy does time fly.

Where, oh where did October go?
It's been BUSY!
16 credits of classes plus 15-20 hours of work in a week...gets pretty hectic.
One day I will be an amazing blogger.  That actually updates more than once a month.  Maybe, that is.

Now that I'm done making excuses (again...), here's the good stuff.

Wayyyyy back in August, before the semester started, David and I took a weekend and went on a little getaway.

Arches National Park.

Probably one of the most unique places I have ever been.  And that's saying something.

We camped for a couple of nights and did lots and lots of hiking.
Naturally, I loved it.
Outdoors + camping + my beautiful Chacos + sun + good food + GORGEOUS scenery + David (maybe I should have listed him earlier...?) = a marvelous weekend that made starting school just a little bit more bearable.

If you look really close....you can see me!

Sunset.  Isn't this GORGEOUS?!?!

This was one fantastic trip.  And I am currently anticipating many more like this.  Complete with hiking, camping, and hopefully rock climbing.  If we ever get enough money to get some more equipment, that is.

H o n e y m o o n .

I guess it's time I filled ya'll in about my amazing h o n e y m o o n.

We left a week after we got married, and flew to Cancun, Mexico.

As soon as we got out of the airport and were waiting for our shuttle it started pouring rain. NOT the most exciting welcome.

It continued to be overcast through the next day, but then cleared up considerably.

Here are some pictures of the first evening. It was cloudy and such but there was an amazing rainbow. In fact, it was a d o u b l e rainbow...(although you can't see it in the pictures).



I'll just highlight some of the cool things we did.

We went parasailing. 300 feet above the ocean and pulled by a boat...totally sweet. Oh, and we saw a huge sea turtle from that height.



We went on a Mayan Encounter Adventure. We got to go ziplining and repelling in a cenote and then we got to swim in an u n d e r g r o u n d cenote. Awesome.




Then we went to Coba. And we climbed to the top of the temple. Way fun.




The unfortunate part of the trip occurred next. It was Thursday, and all of the sudden I jammed my foot into the doorway. Holy cow did it h u r t. And then swelled up and was huge, purple, and puffy.

But, the day after that we went snorkeling. However, my camera decided not to work on that day, so I have zero pictures of the coolest stuff ever.

The benefit of destroying my toe (which I found out after I got home was actually b r o k e n) was that I got to ride in a wheelchair through the airports and we skipped all the lines. AND we got upgraded to seats with more legroom. Freaking legit.

So, a special thanks to David's father for paying for our honeymoon and my parents for letting us use a week of their timeshare. :)

Way overdue...

Alright, so here is my WAY overdue post. Now that it's a good way into July, I think I'll finally post about my wedding day.

As most of you probably know, I got married in the Salt Lake City Temple on June 11 at 2:20pm.



Before the sealing, I went and got my hair done. (It looked really awesome by the way...). But, I had a small crisis. The headband planned to use was not going to work. Thankfully I have a super crafty cousin Chantel (cool alliteration, right?) who glued some pearl beads to bobby pins. Which worked wonderfully and looked great.



My now husband is David Hess DaCosta.
Sweet name huh? Yeah, he's Brazilian. :)



After the sealing we spent about a million years taking pictures on the temple grounds.

Here is a small sample. There are WAYYY too many to post all of them. If you want to take the time to look at them all then go to http://jameserickphotography.zenfolio.com/recent.html
the passcode is: kayla











Then we hopped in the car and traveled to the Wight House Reception Center in Bountiful, where we proceeded to take a zillion more photos before the reception started.










Then we had a beautiful reception. There was great food and dancing included. :)








A special thanks to everyone who came out to support the day. It was really fantastic!

April Adventures

This past weekend one of my very best friends got married.
So naturally we went up to Idaho for her reception.
I got to spend the entire day with David and my good friend from home, Ty.
I also got to see Victoria and her husband Jordan.
Although for some reason I didn't get a picture. :(








We decided to drive back on the same day we went up.
When we got to Ogden, it started to snow pretty bad.
So, I called up my Grandma at midnight and asked if we could stay with her for the night, since we were close to her house.
She said yes, and we made our way over there.
The unfortunate part of this seemingly wonderful plan is that we didn't have anything with us for a sleepover...
So, I slept in my Grandmother's nightgown (no picture of that one either....ha) and the boys had to sleep in their church clothes.

The next day I got to spend some time with my grandparents.
Then my cousins came over and we had a great time chatting and playing games.
So, while the detour wasn't initially part of the plan, it turned out to be pretty darn fun.

Engagement

Well, for all of you who have been waiting for this moment...it has come.

I'm officially engaged.

The next question that would come out of your mouth, if you were here next to me, would be, "How did he propose?"

I'll answer that before you have to take the time to message me or pick up your phone...

We went out to dinner. I had delicious pesto pasta and a piece of chocolate raspberry cake. Yummm! Then David made some weird random excuse to drop me off at my apartment again. After he left, I slowly made my way back to my bedroom. What did I discover?

A sign on my bedroom door with instructions and a pin. I had to pop my way through all these balloons to find the ones that were different than the rest.

In these balloons there were notes of some of David's favorite memories that we have. In the last balloon, there was a note telling me to contact one of my good friends, Wistie. Right about this point Wistie just appeared out of nowhere, which was pretty awesome. She blindfolded me and put me in her car, where we proceeded to drive in all directions and I had no clue where we were, although I did have a hunch as to where we were headed.

Eventually the car stopped, Wistie got me out of the car, took off the blindfold, and told me to go to the place where Dave first told me he loved me. So, I headed over toward the swings...

He was there with a flower and a ring. And then we were engaged...

Apparently while we were at dinner, Dave enlisted the help of friends and family to blow up all of those balloons. There were 500 of them...which is nuts.

Now that you have oohed and awed over such a cute and thoughtful engagement, the next question you probably have is when and where.

We're getting married this summer on June 11 in the Salt Lake temple.

And don't worry. If I need your help, I will let you know. :)

Christmas Break

Phew...

It's been a while. I don't have a whole lot of pictures, but here's how the fall semester went.

This was over Thanksgiving Break at David's house.

These are from my birthday.

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