12 Days

There are only 12 days until the day that marks 12 months of me being married to the most handsome man in the world (who is Josh, by the way). And in honor of this historic occasion, I will be writing a post a day about the 12 best things that have happened in our 12 months together as husband and wife. Cheesy enough? If you feel like barfing now, just don't read my lovey posts in the next two weeks. Disclaimer: These may not be the most exciting things that have happened. They may not even be that interesting. But they are memorable to me, and so I am writing them in. I wasn't a very good journal writer this past year, so I'm hoping this can help the memories stay alive.

Number 12:
Hitting the deer on our way up to Oregon for our open house reception there.

Three weeks after our wedding, we traveled up to Central Point, Oregon. Where Josh grew up. We left after school Friday afternoon to drive to Winnemucca (sp?) where we would stay the night. Josh took the first shift to Wendover. I then took the wheel to drive the rest of the way. Josh settled down to watch a movie on his laptop (The Expendables. He says it's a lame movie...) It was dark. The road was practically empty of travelers. We were heading up a canyon hill road when I spotted the deer in the center of the two lanes. I didn't see it until I was only 20 or so feet in front of it. I swerved a bit to the right to avoid it. I found out later that deer apparently jump backwards when they are shocked, even if they need to move forwards. So it jumped right in front of poor Lucifer, the maroon Subaru Legacy Outback. It died instantly. Flying over the top of the car, the impact made the car swerve out of control until it spun 180 degrees and stopped on the shoulder of the highway, facing the opposite direction it should be. Perfect.

Did I mention that Josh was on the phone with his buddy from home as I hit the deer? When the car finally stopped spinning, Josh sat for a second..... "Uh, we just hit a deer. I'm gonna have to call you back."

Thankfully, my parents were only an hour ahead of us, and turned back around to come squish us into their car with Amy and Colin. Cozy. We stayed squished all the next day as we drove to Central Point, arriving at Josh's home in time for a quick nap before the open house. It was beautiful. Josh's mom is so talented.

Sunday morning we loaded up all our stuff into Josh's father's farm truck. So nice to lend it to us for a spell. We thought all was well on the way home, until the truck stopped responding to the gas pedal. We barely barely made it into a little town called Lakeview where we were told it couldn't be fixed until the next day. Lovely. There was a cute little antique store across from the autoshop, however. Amy, Mom and I had fun there, out of the rain.

My so very nice parents paid for a hotel for us to stay in until the truck could be fixed. We spent the afternoon watching movies, eating junk food, emailing professors about our plight and sleeping. Very restful after such events.

We arrived back in Provo Monday night safe and sound, through rain and snow. But the adventure wasn't over. A few weeks after we got home, while driving back from a friends wedding reception, the truck broke down on the freeway. Amy and Colin got Josh's truck to come tow the farm truck back to our apartment were it stayed parked on the street until April- a massive green truck taking up the most coveted spot for many months on the corner of 880 North and 87 West.