Halloween Festivities

Brandon & I have definitely been enjoying Fall and Halloween festivities together! Somehow all the typical Fall activities are way more fun with your husband. :) 

A few weeks ago we went to Yee Haw farms with our friends & had a fabulous pumpkin patch selection to choose from! 

Brandon with his new friend. :)

Just going on a ride on the big green tractor 

Some great friend: Hannah, Dan, Brooke ( & Mike took the pic)

LOVE THIS MAN!

The boys had a little rubber ducky competition. (cough cough, my hubby won)

Then the girls took their turn. (I may or may not have also won) :D

Still 5'2" unfortunately

Most important skill in a husband: balancing a pumpkin on your head. 

We also went on a little hike and enjoyed the fall colors in Rock Canyon.

Cool shot of the Provo temple no?

And on Saturday, Brandon spoiled me by cooking up some French crepes. We died the batter orange for a festive Halloween treat!

A Halloween spooky crepe. :)

On Monday, for FHE we also carved some sweet pumpkins! I think they turned out SO freakin cool!

pretty darn awesome

Kara's

Brandon's

And FINALLY! The big unveil! We wanted to do something cute and coupley for Halloween since we are newlyweds and Brandon suggested the Birds & the Bees and at first I dismissed it but the more I thought about it the more I realized how awesome it was! So thanks to much hot glue, duct tape, and many feathers we pulled off fabulous newlywed Halloween costumes.

A bee, a bird, & a chicken (me, Brandon, & Brandon's cousin Conley) at Grandma Gwen's house. 

Happy Halloween from the Chlarsons! 

Hello Honeymoon!

Well it's a little late posting about it, but Brandon and I went on the BEST honeymoon ever! It was so great to get away and head to warm and sunny Long Beach, California after all the fun but busy wedding day! Brandon planned the whole honeymoon by himself and did SUCH a great job. 

Our 1st full day there, Brandon & I went to Knott's Berry Farm- this amazing amusement park full of roller coasters. Brandon & I made sure we went on every single one. SUCH a great way to start our wedded bliss! 

That night, we walked around Rainbow Harbor- this fun bay on the ocean full of tasty restaurants and cute shops. We had dinner at this yummy Italian pizzeria called Stefanos! Rainbow Harbor was right by our modern and snazzy hotel- Hyatt: The Pike. 

Pretty cool hotel, ferris wheel, & bridge I'd say!

The second day Brandon & I decided to walk to the Queen Mary- an old ocean liner that has been converted into a museum & hotel. (you can see it in the distance)

The only problem was that Brandon promised it was a short 15 minute walk. Well, it turned out that it was more than 45 minutes! haha We definitely got our exercise walking to and from! (Brandon rewarded us with some ice cream to make it more worthwhile! :D haha Yes he's learning fast isn't he?)

This Ocean liner is bigger than the Titanic! They also had an exhibit about Princess Diana.

The ship also happened to have an old British phone booth! Time to recreate my favorite London study abroad picture from 2 years ago:  (Brandon's so good to humor me...)

After we went through the boat and museum, we bought a sandwich and cookie and split a tasty lunch while enjoying the view from the deck. However this annoying bird kept bugging us. I don't do well with birds (never have) and kept trying to shoe this one away. Dumb birds! 

My handsome husband

Brandon is so good at self-timers. Love this pic. 

That night we went to a yummy fast-food Mexican restaurant called Sharkies and stopped by a little candy shop to stock up for our movie date! (I have a mean sugar tooth and Brandon and I each picked out a few of our favorite childhood sweets).

While waiting for the movie to start (we saw Bourne Legacy- meh, not too great), we enjoyed walking around & seeing the bridge all lit up. LOVE being married!

Wednesday, we finally hit the beach! (please shade your eyes from our whitey awesomeness) When I told Brandon where I wanted to go on our honeymoon, I told him somewhere with a beach was my main requirement and BOY did he deliver! The beach was warm and the water wasn't too cold! Brandon even convinced be to get in for a little bit with him! However, we were both completely dumb and didn't put on sunscreen anywhere else except our faces! (trying to preserve our faces for our Utah reception in a few days) However, Brandon's chest & my back got TOTALLY burned! SO PAINFUL! #1 lesson to all honeymooners- BRING SUNSCREEN & USE IT!

Awww.... (our attempt at being all cutesy) kind of a failure- oh well.

nothing like relaxing & putting your toes in the sand. 

Our last night in Long Beach we went to Tequila Jacks Mexican food. SO YUMMY! 

We had a great view of the sunset while we ate.

Nothing like churros & ice cream on the honeymoon! 

:)

To end our last honeymoon evening, we enjoyed a short ride on the Ferris Wheel! :) So romantic!

On Thursday, we were to fly back home to real life in the early afternoon but found out last minute that our flight had been delayed till that night. SO! We had some time to kill and decided to check out the Aquarium of the Pacific. A little pricey but very impressive. Check out Mr. Jaws over here. 

Brandon apparently loves tropical birds! Who knew!!?

And I obviously love me a good ice cream cone (probably my 4th ice cream serving of the whole trip)! :)

 Introducing Mr. & Mrs. Brandon & Kara Chlarson! 

Living the Life: Fall with the Chlarsons!

The last two months of married life have been so wonderful! SO busy, but so great! Before we finish up our various wedding posts- (haha don't worry, there's STILL more to come!) here's a few snippets of what we've been doing this Fall! 

After getting back from our honeymoon and finishing up our 2nd reception in Utah, we were trying to get by in our new little home with NO internet or TV. However, due to dumb complications with comcast, it ended up taking THREE WEEKS! I kid you not! We made many a trip to McDonalds & Provo library for use of their wifi. Between Brandon taking classes and me trying to student teach, we desperately needed to get out of the dark ages. The day we FINALLY got internet we were so happy we decided to bust out our Italian soda & champagne glasses! haha it was such a great day! 

Here's a shot to help you grasp how crazy our wedding gift opening party was! We were so incredibly blessed by so many people's generosity. But for real, we couldn't walk around our house after all the presents were opened- between the wrapping paper, boxes, tissue paper, and the gifts we were completely surrounded! We are so grateful for everyone's help as we've begun to set up our home!

For our 1 month anniversary, we decided to splurge & celebrate with a yummy dinner at Olive Garden complete with white chocolate raspberry cheesecake! Scrumptious! 

In between everything, I've been attempting to finally learn how to cook. Bless Brandon. He is such a good sport. I've had a few decent meals but I'm definitely still a work in progress. I was pretty proud of this breakfast for dinner we made complete with V8 strawberry juice, cantaloupe, bacon, and belgian waffles! 

Brandon also ran in the Dirty Dash with his cousins up at Soldier Hollow a few weeks ago. I hardly knew what to expect of this little 10K. I had missed the cut off date to sign up so I was the faithful photographer and occasional muddy hug recipient. haha it was a fun day!

Crazy mud pit! (I saw many a participant belly flop into it)

All the cousins at the finish line: Cami, Courtney, Katie, Matthew, Kim, Brandon, & Conley.

(after this picture there may or may not have been a group mooning much to their mothers/aunts delight). haha 

:) I look so clean compared to Brandon! Yes he totally hugged me- don't worry. 

On September 29th, Brandon & I were honored to attend the sealing of my cousin and both our friends- Kristen & Paul! Kristen (my cousin on the Priday side) and I went to London on our study abroad together and have done many fun things together. She's a doll. And Paul, Brandon, & I were all in the same FHE in our Provo YSA ward. (see pic below) We doubled with Paul & Kristen for a few Star Wars marathons and think they are perfect together.

Yah! Kristen was one gorgeous bride and we are so happy for Mr. & Mrs. Moss!

And finally! Last week we went and saw the Fall colors on the Alpine Loop with our friends, Dan & Hannah! It was gorgeous! I've been wanting to get in the Fall spirit for a while and this was such a beautiful drive!

The fog with the bright yellow aspen's my favorite!

Dan & Hannah were nice enough to take some pictures of us with the colors! We had such a fun time with them.

We celebrated our 2 month anniversary on Thursday- hard to believe it's already been 2 months! I told my 7th & 8th grade students that it was my 2 month wedding anniversary and they whooped and hollered for us. haha :) Life is pretty darn good I'd say!