One Month Down, Eternity to Go...

Yes, it has already been a month since Loren and I got married. As I think about that day so much of it was a blur. I honestly don't remember everything Brother Portie said, but I can remember the feeling I had while in the sealing room. I remember being so upset because I couldn't wear my wedding dress. When Loren saw me before the wedding he told me I looked beautiful and I started to cry and said but I don't feel like it. As soon as we were in the sealing room though nothing mattered anymore, all that mattered was that in a short amount of time Loren and I would be sealed. Now I can't tell you who all was in that room either, but I can tell you how happy I was to see my old Young Woman's president Melanie in there. She was the only person I looked for, which probably sounds terrible, but she made such an impact in my life. I think that if she hadn't been there for me in high school who knows if I would have been sealed in the temple. Even though I didn't really get to talk to her it meant to world to me to see her there. And I know you're reading this Melanie so I hope you're smiling right now :) So in my past month of marriage it's been interesting. Something I'm glad Loren and I did was be completely honest with each other from the get go. Everyone says it's hard to live with someone because no matter how long you've been with them you still learn new things, and although this is true I haven't had a moment where I've thought man this is too much. Then again I feel like something I'm learning everyday is accepting Loren for who he is good or bad. Now I'm not saying there's all these terrible things about Loren, because there's not, but I've learned that I have to love him regardless of anything. I've also learned that my confidence has grown so much since being with Loren. I've never really felt very pretty in my life. When we started dating everyday Loren would tell me I looked beautiful and everyday I'd say no I don't. He'd always say he'd keep telling me until I finally started to believe it, and every now and then I look at myself and think man I look pretty today. It's actually a good feeling to like the way you look, and I'm so thankful to have someone who won't allow me to put myself down. Now I remember someone telling me one time the worst advice they ever got was don't go to bed angry. I can't tell you how many people told me this, and she said it was bad advice because sometimes you just need to cool down. Before you know it you're so upset you're saying things you don't need to when the best thing is to sleep on it and wake up the next morning and realize how ridiculous the argument was. I love that someone told me this, because I think it's so true sometimes more than anything else we just need to sleep instead of making things worse. I guess I'm no expert at marriage but maybe at the end of next month I will be :) What I can say though is I wouldn't trade this in for anything, I have no doubt in my mind I was supposed to marry Loren, and I can't wait to see what the future holds for us. Our adventure has just begin but I hope to fill our personal scrapbooks with so many wonderful memories all the while being honest, loving each other unconditionally, realizing sometimes we need to just let things go, and boosting each others confidence. This whole marriage thing isn't too shabby.

The Dentons

For some reason our house is the only one on the street that doesn't have our street number on it. This is something I've been wanting to fix for a while because when we invite people over they always have a hard time figuring out which place is ours. I also wanted to make a sign to hang on our mailbox saying "The Dentons" mainly because I feel like every other day our mailman asks what our last name is. Now he can just look at my beautiful sign :) Last night we went to Hobby Lobby and bought the stuff for the sign. I decided to include Loren in this project since it is his house too, and let him pick the colors. Of course he picks BYU blue and white, which I'm ok with but everything knows Kentucky blue is much better. That's pretty much his only contribution to making the sign although while I was painting he'd hand me the letters and started singing a song. It went something like this:
"D is for Denton cause that's your new last name
E is for the second letter of your new last name
N is for Nicole cause that's your middle name
T is for Thomas cause that's your daddy's name
O is for Ochoa cause that's your mom's old name
N is for Nicole because I love your middle name

T is for Thomas again because that's still your daddy's name
H is for Hoffpauir cause that's your old last name
E is for everyone loves Maggie!"

I bet you didn't know Loren was such an amazing songwriter :) He actually makes up songs all the time for me, which is fun because I make up songs all the time too. Between the two of us we're like our own little musical everyday, and that's how I know I really married the right guy. He likes to sing with me but most importantly he likes to listen to me sing :) Anyway here's the finished product, yes we know we need a new mailbox.

This was a fun little thing to do and I like the outcome of it.