Catch UP!

It's been a long time, so I'll make it quick.
1. We moved to Tennessee into a little cozy apartment. Nick now works at Macaroni Grill and I nanny.
2. We adopted the sweetest little puppy and named him Louie. My little brother Ryan Joseph was born and man does he steal smiles!
3. We had a bunch of summer guests. That was sooo fun!
4. Nick has been in summer school and I transferred to MTSU.
5. We are currently planning our Sealing.

Through it all we have to thank our parents for all the support we've received and the Lord for so many blessings. This fall will be the most memorable and life-changing of our lives. We are so excited!

Road Trip!

So it is official, we are moving to Murfreesboro, Tennessee. I am very excited to be back in a place with warm weather and trees. I am much more excited to move close to my family! I can't wait to be rid of Utah and to be back to my sisters (and upcoming little bro) again. Packing has been interesting. We are trying to fit everything into our little Civic, so we have been trying to condense. The thing about condensing is...you actually need to have enough stuff to condense! Nick is telling me I have to get rid of all our Christmas stuff, the very thought makes me want to cry.
We are also pretty happy to be able to stop in Texas and see all of our family out there. It will be nice to see all you strangers again, it's been at least a year.
We have found a little studio apartment on Historic Square of Murfreesboro. Which means we will be living in an old Victorian house that was one of the first homes built in the city. Our new landlord made the old little house into three apartments. We are stoked to finally have a yard again and to move into our second 'home' since we have been married.
We will miss the friends and family we have in Utah! But we will come visit ;) We leave Friday for our trip across the country!

Hiking the Y

Wednesday Nick got off of work a little early so we decided to splurge in the nice weather and go hike up to the BYU "Y". It was a lot of fun, and my legs are definitely sore today! We took up strawberries and sat up there for a while. It's nice to view the world from so high up every once in a while!
You will have to excuse how ragged we look, it was really windy up there!

"Recession"

So Nick and I have always disliked news broadcasts and people saying that we are in a "recession". To us, these assumptions have always seemed a little over dramatic. That is until this week. We know we wrote about our horrible week last blog, but this probably tops it! It turns out that my employer is filing for bankruptcy and has therefore closed down my shop. Along with that he is evidently unable to pay me for an entire months worth of work. That's a big deal for us college kids! It will be another 2-3 weeks before I receive my checks, at the very least.
Thanks to family and friends we were able to get some great legal advice and are now on the road to recovering our money. However it is going to be some time till we see any of it and this has got us thinking... Maybe we are now victims of the "recession". As I have been looking for jobs and asking friends to do the same it is a frightening realization that companies don't need more employees, in fact most places are firing not hiring.
Moral of the story: make sure you are working for a company who is run by trustworthy individuals, make sure you are invaluable in your profession, be financially stable, and lastly realize that this economy is a lot less stable than you realize. We are sorry for not being more sympathetic to others losing their jobs and realize now what a hard place this is.
Lastly we would like to applaud our great-grandparents and their generation for enduring the Great Depression. We know we are suffering a fraction of their problems and have to recognize that they were tough cookies! God bless all of you in similar and worse situations than us and may our government officials find a way to reverse this economic downfall!

The Disastrous Week

As you can tell from the title, this has been one bad week for the Martinez pair. We have lost a cell phone, not been paid by my employer, been charged a huge late fee for being late on rent (due to not being paid by my employer), been viciously gossiped about, my dearest friend in Louisiana laid her younger brother to rest, had family arguments, had car trouble, almost lost a job, were refused payment on work done at our apartment complex, lost trust in a couple we felt close to, been sick, lost a wallet, lost a credit card, broke out, almost burned our apartment down, got nothing in the mail but bills bills and more bills, went to drink milk only to find that all of it had expired, made Nick's boss drop the "F bomb", had our heater break, unable to get rid of a skin rash on my feet, had to sleep in a cold house on a twin sized bed (yes both of us on that little bed), got a B on a test because of a silly mistake, and much much much more.
Hahaha, Nick and I are both at our wits end! SO TGIF! We can't wait for this week to be over. Through it all we have to say we are both impressed that we have stuck together so well, even in moments when I wanted to cry and Nick wanted to punch a grown woman in the face. AND we want to thank you all who have kept us going; especially pictures of our niece and nephew in Texas and the Meyers family who sets such an example for us.
Accordingly we have decided that we are going on vacation, somewhere warm please! We are very excited to go South later this month and see friends and family even if all hell breaks loose to stop us from boarding the plane! In the mean time, we look forward to escaping February as it seems that the month holding my favorite holiday is determined to kill us both. So good riddance Saint Valentine, we will celebrate our love just trying to stay afloat.

Happy New Year!!! We are very excited for 2009 and want to thank our family for such a joyous holiday season. Even though we couldn't be with you for the holidays, we hope you know how grateful we are for the cheer and gifts you were so generous in spreading to us.
A little announcement: we found out in early December that my Mom is expecting a boy! We are sooo excited. Nick wants my parents to name him 'Nick', haha to be expected I guess. He is such a cutie. But the truth remains, my little brother will be one handsome dude. :) Congratulations Mom and Dad. It'll be fun watching you adjust to a boy. ;)
Most of all we want to thank God for each other, at the turn of a new year I feel it especially important to reflect on the changes of the passed year. I am very grateful that I made the biggest change of my life, getting married. Cheers to us married folk! I love you Nick.
Happy New Year everyone, may we be able to help you in every way possible throughout this year and may our relationships strengthen through love with every day of 2009. Cheers!

Christmas Pictures!

Nick is OH SO happy that I made him sit through a photo session for Christmas cards this year. Haha it is a tradition in my family to take pictures every Christmas and I decided we ought to implement the same traditon. I am not going to upload all of the pictures, just the ones Nick is actually smiling in. He was not crazy about this idea! Merry Christmas Baby! and thanks for enduring another of my wild ideas.

Nick, the Old Man

So this weekend has been hilarious for me. Nick has decided to start working out again, and this past week has worked out twice with a trainer. Consequentially he has been unable to walk, sit, stand, or bend like a normal person! We spent the weekend in the hot tub, with the scent of Tiger Balm throughout our apartment, and I have arthritis now from giving massages. But luckily all that effort worked and he is feeling much better this morning. I just love to see other people endure my weekly lifestyle...being too sore to move! And I am very proud of him for working so hard. Tonight we are back at it!

Our Wild History

I think our story is incredible so I really want to share it. Nick and I met when we were both Sophomores in High School, and didn't like each other at all! I felt like Nick was really full of himself (and he is!). Nick thought I was, "interesting, mysterious and unreadable". He lived in Mauriceville, TX and I had just moved to Lake Charles, LA the two cities are about 40 minutes from each other, crossing the state line. We were both part of the Orange Texas Stake. About two years later we both attended the annual youth conference for our stake.

I think the first thing he said to me at the conference was, "Azzi, lookin' good!" (How typical Nick) We hit it off at the conference and spent a lot of time together. We were on a charter bus headed back from a lake at the end of this conference when we had our first kiss. :) It was by far one of the most memorable moments of my entire life.

From then on we dated, and dated, and dated! Nick dedicated himself to driving every weekend to Lake Charles, a trip total of about 1.5 hours, to see me for about a year straight. We dated about 2 entire years before our wedding. 10 months of these two years we were separated; Nick was in Texas getting his E.M.T. and I was starting my first year of college at BYU. Nick moved to Utah (for me;) the day after Valentine's this year. We were engaged by the end of March! I left to spend the summer at my parent's in Tennessee on my birthday, April 28. But by mid-May I was desperate to be back with my Baby again.

I bought a ticket to go back to Salt Lake and on June 18th, Nick and my Mom's, and my sister Karianne's birthday, I flew back to Salt Lake. We were married the same day in Provo, Utah.

We have been married almost 4 months now, and we know it was the best decision we ever made.

I think it is amazing that we dated for so long and even endured 10 months of separation, and still knew after all of it how much we love each other. We have known since we first started dating that we were going to have a big future together.

Our Blog Is Taking Some Time!

This is a work in progress! I am still trying to completely figure the site out. So bear with me. I hope to have pictures up soon.