Jenni's Temple Day

The day finally came in my life where I had the opportunity to go through the temple. For those who don't know about the Mormon Temples, they are sacred beautiful buildings for worship - but you have to be a worthy person to enter. You also have to go through a series of interviews with your bishop and stake president beforehand.

Will and I worked very hard to make sure that we kept ourselves clean and worthy so that we could be married in the temple - which meant we saved ourselves for our wedding night. It made the whole experience of the temple and the wedding so much more beautiful and worth it.

It was also really neat to have my parents there, two of my brothers, my grandparents (mom's parents), my best friend Dawn, and of course Will - the man I was going to marry for Eternity. There is a room in the temple called the "Celestial Room" and it is very white, clean, and pure with a big chandelier, and it so beautiful. Being there with my entire family brought tears to my eyes and I truly felt like I was in Heaven.

Bridesmaid Party

I wanted to have a "Girl's Night" with all of my bridesmaids. So I threw a bridesmaid party!

Above: Sandy (Will's mom), Tessha, Bridgette, Dawn, Alisha, me, Elizabeth, and Grace

We got our nails done, ate ice cream, watched chick-flicks, and I also gave them all a gift - which was matching necklaces for them to wear with their dresses for the wedding.

My good friend Dawn - whom I've been close to since attending Ricks College - was able to come all the way to Portland for our wedding. (She lives in Virginia and is married with 3 kids).

Will's Graduation Party

Will graduated from Portland State University!

Will has been hard at work for the past 6 years in school (8 years if you count that he took a 2 year break to serve a mission for our church). And he graduated just one week before our wedding.

His degrees are in:

Bachelors of Business, emphasis in Finance
Masters in Real Estate Development

To say the least, he has been really busy and really tired. He didn't want to walk in the graduation ceremony, but I figured he needed some sort of credit, so we threw him a graduation party tonight at our soon-to-be new home. Since both of our families were in town for our wedding, we got to celebrate with everyone. We had lots of pizza, ice cream, balloons, etc.

Congrats Will! I'm so proud of you!

Jenni's Bridal Portraits

I had my bridal portraits taken this weekend at the Pittock Mansion in Portland. My photographer was Sarah Balmer. The following are a few of the favorites...

Only 2 more weeks until our wedding day!

Climbing Mt. Hood

Will set out to climb Mount Hood with his brother Daniel and friend Nick this past weekend. They got up around 3:00 am and arrived at the base of the moutain with all of their gear - ice picks, cramp-ons, skis, nightlamps.


Will remembered everything except for his hiking boots. Poor guy - he ended up climing 6 miles up a mountain in his ski boots. If you know how stiff and non-flexable ski boots are, then you can feel his pain.


The purpose of arriving at the base of the mountain so early in the morning is for a couple of reasons. First of all, the snow is still nice and hard when it is dark without the sun hitting it. This prevents the snow melting and being too soft - which can cause accidents (climbers falling into cravases and snow drifts). The other reason is for the view of the sunrise at the top of the mountain.

Above: Will calling Jenni on his cellphone

I was worried that Will was going to fall into a cravas or something, so like a good fiance/future husband, he made sure to call me several times throughout their trek to assure me that he was safe. Don't worry - the other two guys also had to call their wives as well, so I wasn't the only one who made this request.

Below: Jenni's fear - a cravas. Will - please don't fall in one!

Below: The sun just starting to come up - beautiful!

Below: Nick and Daniel

Below: Getting close to the summitt - you can see the line of people following the steep trail to the top. To get a better idea of just how steep this was, see the following picture after this one.

Above: Nick almost reaching the summitt, with Will not too far behind

Below: Ahhhh the summitt!

Above: Will at the sumitt

Above: A view of Mt. Adams from the top of Mt. Hood

Below: Will's shins and feet were killing him from hiking in his ski boots, so he took a little well-deserved break before having to ski back down to the base.

And back down they go!