Ari H

Larson Wedding 2017 + my newest sister!

11:00 PM



The cutest

We got to celebrate with Danielle at the Grand America Afternoon tea

Then it was off to set up for the rehearsal dinner!





It's so hard being so cute.

Standing around waiting to be call for family pictures.

Couldn't be a cuter or grumpier ring bearer.

Grand America ballroom for the wedding dinner



Ezra + Shirley partying it up before Ezra's bedtime


Wedding photo-booths are my favourite

This is the kind of thing that happens when you leave your phone with your friends. Joke is on you, dears.
They filmed our musical number so thank you! If you want to see it, let me know.

But seriously, every Larson wedding needs a Jon + Susanna. These guys saved the day in so many ways! Love you guys.



Woot woot! It was a beautiful send-off

Selfie with sparklers is not a good idea



Great day, sad it had to end because I adore my family but beyond happy to have gained a sister!

Cute little babushka kept us smiling as we checked out of the Grand and headed back to real life.

adventure

Barcelona - the crazy beginning

9:58 AM

Let me tell you a little story. I check airline fares weekly. In Europe there are a few low-fare airlines (like RyanAir and EasyJet) through which European travel becomes beautifully cheap. Of course, you give up selecting your seat, free in-flight drinks and any semblance of leg room but hey, Germany, Italy and everywhere else is less than $100 away.
So my birthday was coming up and I decided to bring some specific flights to Taylor's attention. 
Milan! Copenhagen! Let's just pick a place and go!
"Ok, I guess we can," he said.
So this happy girl went about her normal life thinking a quick trip to Milan would be her birthday gift.

Fast forward two weeks...

We were in the Stansted airport worrying about the security line and when the gate for our flight would open when Taylor actually handed me our boarding passes.
I noticed STD>BCN but didn't have time to process what BCN could stand for. After getting through security, I scanned the departure board for the flight to Milan...but it didn't match the flight number on my boarding pass.
But it did match the flight and gate to BARCELONA....

"Are we going to BARCELONA?!?"

Moral of the story: Taylor is GOOD at surprises. A little too good...

Our hotel was in the center of the city, just a block from Plaza Catalunya.

Plaza Catalunya at 9:00am. A little to early for anyone to be out and about apparently.
The plaza filled up a couple hours later.

Palm trees and some Spanish balconies

I love the colours!



La Sagrada Familia from our hotel rooftop.

It was gorgeous weather, chilly but not nearly as cold as London. Look at all the blue!!!
This is just a teaser. All about our trip, favourite bits and all the pictures coming soon.

Suffice it to say while I'm working on the next post...we WILL be going back to Barcelona. Cracked into the top 3 trips we've made.

bridesmaids

Valerie and Eston 2015

9:30 PM



I adore this girl. From the first time I met her, we clicked. We were assigned to be companions while serving LDS missions in Argentina. I hadn't spoken English for nearly 9 months (other than emails home to my family, which were awkwardly half Spanish, half English anyway) and Valerie was still working on her Spanish. It was an awkward and hilarious time. So many experiences that bonded us like no other 5 weeks in anyone's life could have. Without going into Too Much Information, she took care of me when I was crazy sick, we survived several days without electricity to heat our apartment or water in dead of winter, weird food and broken toilets. Extreme bonding time.
So when she not-so-slyly told me that she was getting married in March, I HAD to be there!

President and Sister Gulbrandsen are some of my most favourite people on the planet. Steff flew in for the day and it was lovely to see her. We were all companions at some point. Love these people.

I mean, we're really cute. haha

Some of the friends that just hung around the temple for a while. Mostly because of our insane love for Val Pal. (Jess, Katherine, the beautiful bride, me and Steffannie)


Oh yeah! Eston was there, too.... haha

All photo credit goes to Mikki Platt, wedding photographer extraordinaire, who also did our wedding pictures. I will forever be obsessed with our photos and Valerie's are just as amazing! Mikki has photographed cousins and friends since our wedding and she's not only a talent behind the camera but the sweetest person ever!

Larson's in London

Wicked lovely Valentine's Day

5:25 PM

I am catching up, slowly but surely. I will be throwing these posts up whenever I feel like they are done even if it's out of chronological order (which is what has held me back) and it'll all sort itself out. Here goes!

My sweet husband likes surprises. Because of how incredible he is at planning and executing a heart-warming surprise, I have decided to try and be more like him in that regard. 
Valentine's Day 2015 was no different from his usual romantic gestures (2013 was amazing, 2014 included a rented puppy so... I am spoiled on V Day with Taylor)


All of London was dressed up for the holiday. Lovely flowers and tinkle lights everywhere. 

The sweetest card from my love! The message inside brought a tear to my eye. Inside was also my surprise gift!!! Tickets to see Wicked!

We walked to St Johns Wood after I got home from Activity Days (a church activity for 8-11's where do crafts or learn a skill in a religious setting)

St Johns Wood church and gardens (on a regular old overcast day in London Town)

These adverts make me smile every time I see one. It's like the whole city loves me :)

Victoria Underground. The regal Victoria in silhouette all over the station.


We changed up our reservation and decided to go for Spanish tapas instead of curry some other place. It was delicious and we've been back for more. The shrimp was delectable! 


La Tasca is in the Cardinal Place Shopping Centre just down the street from Victoria Station. 

Westminster Cathedral (not to be confused with the Abbey). 

Inside the cathedral. We poked our heads in because we had a little bit of time to kill before the show started. I love seeing cathedrals. So much beauty. 

Leaving the theatre, Oz says goodbye.

Wicked is such a fantastic show and even though we've seen it before, seeing it in England made it a little different. The songs were sung in British accents and some British slang thrown into the dialogue. The talent was astounding! Great costumes, great dancers and unbelievable leading ladies. Elphaba and Glinda rocked the house. The actress who plus Glinda is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints! So we felt an extra special connection in supporting her performance.

I love spending time adventuring with Taylor. We have a few of shows lined up to attend in the next couple of months. I love being married to musical theatre lover.

I recently read an article about being married to your 'opposite' (like, opposites attract). While Taylor and I have many things in common, we are incredibly different. But that makes life, like the article describes, a little more colorful and exciting. If we were into all the same things, we wouldn't have as much opportunity to find new things to experience. 
Bottom line: Taylor is crazy romantic and he loves things I love being exposed to and we couldn't be happier. Life is good. 

dark short hair

He may not be perfect, but he's perfect for me

7:23 AM

In my last post, I mentioned that I had not been a Valentine's day fan until my husband, Taylor, converted me. 
He loves it and he wanted to change my mind about the cheesy, commercialized, pink, heart-filled holiday. 

We had been dating for almost 4 months when February rolled around. 

We were at the point in our hearts that we attended each other's ward and family Christmas celebrations. I say that we were there in our hearts because we really hadn't been dating that long. In fact, it wasn't until January 20, 2013 that I really started to believe he was going to be the love of my life. (I remember weird dates like this but this one was significant. Perhaps that date will be my bonus info at the end of this post.)


Taylor asked me what I wanted to do for valentine's day. I honestly didn't have an opinion. My sweet love broke it down to deciding what I felt like eating and doing as an activity. Much easier. 

Sushi, obviously. 

Then I challenged him to beat me at racquetball. I used to play every week with my dad so I was pretty confident. Let's call this a momentary lapse of judgement because Taylor is good at every game/sport. That's all. 

I had to work right up until our date. I literally ran home, changed in record time in order to be ready when Taylor came to my house to pick me up for our racquetball court reservation. 

On our way in, Taylor handed me the bag with our rackets, goggle and other equipment and directed me to court 15. He'd be there in a minute. 

He had to use the facilities. (Otherwise known as lie #1) 

I am trusting to a fault. NOT gullible. Why would I assume everyone is lying to me or manipulating me? I can't. It goes against who I am.

So while Taylor was in the 'little boy's room', I walked down the hall to the mini sized door to court 15. The light was off (not unusual) so I grabbed a PURPLE ball and my racket as I flipped on the switch and ducked inside. 

What??? I only knew it was mine because 'Z' is Taylor's nickname for me. (And yes, I know. BYU really needs to spruce up the floors in those courts...)

The ball looks kinda blue in the picture but I promise it's purple. My all-time favorites color. 

Along with tons of chocolate, including those hearts that were literally one pound of caramel and chocolate each, I got a huge laugh out of Tay's creativity. The hat. 

A trucker hat. For my bus driving time in Alaska :) too cute. Good thing I was already sitting on the floor when I opened the box because I found it hilarious and I rolled around on the yucky floor happily for a while. 

Taylor had been setting up this surprise while I was at work. He absolutely destroyed me at racquetball but I was enjoying myself so much, I didn't even care. 

We went to our separate apartments to shower and get ready for the rest of the date. I don't think he realized it takes me a long, long time to get ready if I have to wash my hair. Whoops. 
He was getting antsy that we'd be late for our reservation and kept yelling questions up the stairs to me. He actually asked me what I was choosing to wear. Weirdo. Or so I thought. 
When I walked downstairs, he was wearing a purple sweater. I thought he might have wanted us to be matchy purple guys but I was wrong. He wanted me to match something else...

We went to a little sushi place I'd never been to before. Taylor had me try all sorts of things and I ate them without complaint. I even discovered that I really love unagi! Yay for eel! 
After trying a few different things, Taylor became extremely distracted. I thought it was because of the basketball game on TV. When were through with the meal, he had a hard time trying to catch the server's attention. I was still enjoying the last bit of sushi (slowest eater ever) when the server out down a small silver plate on my right. I barely glanced at it while saying 'thank you' because I thought it was the check. I did a double take when I saw a small black box sitting on the platter. 

For what seemed like 10 long minutes, I stared. Not understanding or refusing to think of possibilities (valentines day? Most romantic holiday...he wouldn't propose now....would he?) I just kept staring until he spoke. 

"Well, are you going to open it?"

Phew! It was bigger than a ring box but a girl just can't be sure. A beautiful pandora bracelet with all these purple charms. (This is what he had wanted me to match. Purple? Get it?) 
He gave it to me saying that it was his bracelet to put charms on. Charms that would serve as symbols of events together. 
The picture above has two significant charms, one for our first date at the University of Utah football game and the other is a Z. 

(As I'm thinking about it, I realize that our love story video at our wedding dinner might not have made ANY sense if you didn't know our first date was in the Rice-Eccles stadium.) 
We took this picture after dinner. It was meant to show off my new bracelet but thanks to my CTR ring, it looks like we're engaged. Whoops. (PS I had already warned him that if he proposed on valentines day I would say no. Way too cheesy.) 

The reason Taylor was so distracted during dinner: he had dropped off the bracelet with a different server than the one we had! He hadn't seen the same girl the whole time we were eating and he was silently freaking out! (If you know Taylor, he doesn't do silence.) It all worked out in the end. 

I should upload a recent picture of my bracelet that carries new charms for our engagement, our reunion after a long summer apart and the most recent addition of a Big Ben charm. London. Our next great adventure. 

Except school feels like it will never end...

Until next time. 







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