Becoming Seth and Julie: Newlyweds

Adjusting to being married was bizarre for me. I felt like I was living someone else's life. It took me 8 months to change my name because I felt like my whole identity had changed already. I was also still trying to adjust to life after a mission. I hadn't gone to church for very long before leaving on a mission so I couldn't figure out how to be Mormon without it being my 24/7 job.

Luckily, I had Seth. He was the one thing that I recognized in my new life. I was so emotional that whole first year as our relationship evolved. I remember having a pit in my stomach and not being able to sleep if I even thought Seth was mad at me. I felt so insecure and so afraid, which was tough for me because I had never felt that way with Seth. I think the magnitude of forever was just so overwhelming to me.

Don't get me wrong. I have NEVER regretted or second guessed marrying Seth, EVER! I was just so scared as I would think about our whole life together and I wanted so desperately to hold on to the magic that we shared forever. I didn't want us to become that couple that just got used to each other. I wanted to be in love with him every day of my life. (so far it's working)

We were so silly back then. We talked in ridiculous baby talk. We were always touching. We even planned our schedule so that we could go to school together in the morning, meet up between all of our classes and then we worked together. We looked for separate jobs at first but we knew we wanted to be together more so we both worked at Discover card. Then we would get home and stay up almost all night. As you probably know, we are not big sleepers in this family.

Thankfully during that first year as I suffered from temporary (no comments to the contrary, please) insanity, Seth was still Seth. He has amazed me from the day that I met him. After we had only been on one date he saw me at work. I was just getting there and he was just leaving. He asked what I was doing after work. I mentioned that I had to stop and get gas and then we could hang out. He didn't want me to go fill up my car so late at night so he took it and filled it up and brought it back to work for me. When my shift was over I went out to a tank full of gas and found that he had also left the money that I gave him to fill it up, tucked into the ashtray.

If that is who he was after one date, imagine what it was like to be married to him. He reminded me, not just in words, every day that he loved me. Seth is the master of special surprises and he is so good at letting the people around him know that they are important to him. Sometimes I would come home to find a new movie that was just released that day that Seth knew I wanted. Other times I discovered Godiva chocolates and red roses for no reason. Seth has always thought of me first. When we were dating he even gave me his bed (I didn't have one) and then he slept on a mattress on his floor. I know that should have been in a previous chapter but I am just trying illustrate who he is.

My insecurities quickly began to fade. I fell in love with Seth so many times in that first year. I bet you are all in love with him now too. He never believes me when I say this but I truly believe that I got first dibs on husbands or something because I have never known a better man than Seth.

For our first anniversary Seth surprised me by taking me to Anniversary Inn in Salt Lake City. When I got there he had put out candles and roses and a brand new super cozy bathrobe for me, which I still wear. I was just as excited and happy that day as I had been on our wedding day and luckily this time no one got sick.

By the end of that first year I finally felt completely married. And what's funny is that even though we were not as silly or cute as we had once been, we were something better. Something more real. I felt like we had always been together. It seemed like Seth was even a part of my memories that happened before I ever met him.

During our second year of marriage, Seth and I made our first "real life" decision. We decided to buy a house. We had so much fun house shopping and we finally found a town home that we were in love with. It was a total newlywed house. We were up on South Mountain so we had a view that I still miss to this day and our Master bedroom had a loft above it with a bathtub that we could have learned to swim in. It was the perfect house for us, for about 5 years and then we would sell it to start a family.

Of course, everything went exactly as planned just as it always does, right? Wrong again. Two months after we moved in I was pregnant!