We made it to Bloomington! After approximately 1500 miles in the car, 1 speeding ticket and a bag of Sara Lee bagels later, we made the trip from Utah to Indiana!

We've only been here for less than a week, but we're already really starting to enjoy it. Everyone here is SUPER nice - like we stopped at Walmart for a minute and our cashier was like the happiest person ever. Then we went out to dinner and our waiter was like, the happiest person ever. And I emailed someone in the city government, and she was like - the nicest person ever. People here are AWESOME!

It's hard getting used to the flat landscape, we definitely miss those mountains. And I've never appreciated the grid system in Utah more than I do now. But we've done a little exploring around town and campus and its so awesome!

Campus is like this massive Hogwarts-esque campus tucked back into these gorgeous, lush woods. We've tried walking around campus twice and both times we've been too exhausted and hot to do the whole thing- but we'll get there. And can we talk about this humidity? Maybe they're just experiencing a humid spell, but MAN it's crazy humid here. As you can see from the picture below, my hair does not react well to humidity. Our car always has this perpetual moisture on the windshield. It's great :)

We are really excited for our ward! We've only been once, but everyone there is so warm and welcoming and there are several other couples moving in this month to start grad school, so it's comforting knowing we'll have friends who are in the same situation. I love how going to church makes me feel like I'm at home, no matter where I am. We are so blessed to have the Gospel in our life.

We're just starting this new adventure, but we're so excited and grateful for this opportunity!

We've prayed, fasted, prayed some more and have made the decision to pack ourselves up and move on out to the thriving metropolis of Bloomington, Indiana. Brett was offered an incredible scholarship to study law at the Maurer School of Law at IU! (side brag note from Abby: Brett applied to 14+ law schools and was accepted and offered scholarships at 13 of them! He's so smart!)

We had a tough decision to make. Brett was accepted to schools in Utah, Texas, Ohio, Michigan, Virginia, Maryland and Arizona. We would have loved to stay in Utah because so much of our family is here. Michigan would have been great as well because that's where my parents live. But after weeks and months of praying and attending the temple, Indiana just felt like the right decision.


I had an experience a month or so ago when we were helping someone new move into our apartment complex. We started talking with a man who was an attorney from Oklahoma, and we shared with him that we were preparing to attend law school in Indiana. He looked me in the eyes while shaking my hand and said, "they NEED you in Indiana" and I just got chills. I knew that it was the Spirit confirming our decision to move to Indiana. I received further confirmation when I was sitting in the Temple praying about our choices of schools.



We're nervous for sure, but just excited for the opportunity to be in a new culture surrounded by new people. What an awesome opportunity it will be for us to not only grow together as a couple, but for the many opportunities to be a missionary as well.

We did it folks! We made it to 100 days of marriage! We're basically veterans now, so feel free to ask us for any advice because we're basically pros. Just kidding :)

We're still learning how to be married, and probably will be our whole lives - but we've had a blast these last 100 days. Learning to live with someone of the opposite gender has presented some challenges but mostly just a lot of laughs. Here are a few of the things we've learned about each other from each of our perspectives.


I've learned that the phrase "Are you still hungry?!" is going to be commonplace in our lives. Even after a hearty meal of vegetables, meat, rice and fruit Brett still forages through the cupboards about an hour after dinner. I always knew that boys ate more than girls, but I never realized how much. I've had to learn to adjust our grocery budget a little bit to accommodate this new discovery of mine and I've realized that we're never leaving Wendy's without ordering at least 6 items off the dollar menu for Brett. It's a learning curve, but a fun one :)

Brett's gas tank never seems to be at more than a 1/4 tank, even though he fills up all the time. And it somehow lasts him forever! It doesn't matter how far we have to drive, it seems that his 1/4 tank will get us anywhere.

Also, Brett puts ketchup on his tacos.

No matter how weird his eating habits are, he's still the greatest thing that's ever happened to me. I'm so grateful for the last 100 days, and I can't wait for the MILLION MORE!

I (Abby) have always seemed to have pretty good luck. From small things like getting A's on tests I didn't study for to bigger things like winning an iPad or a car, I just got lucky. But about two weeks before we got married we experienced a series of unfortunate events.

On Sunday, November 3rd Brett was walking me out to my car to say goodnight when we noticed a car speed away from his driveway, only to find that the passenger window of my car was broken into. To make things worse, I had left my purse in the car and it was gone. We quickly got my credit cards canceled and bank accounts frozen, but they were still able to use my card to buy gas. The police came and gathered information, but we didn't really hear much from them after that.

Here's a picture of the broken glass from my car window:

The next morning I was running around all day getting a new drivers license (I had to have ID to get our marriage license!), opening new bank accounts and I started to get sick. That yucky feeling when you can feel a cold coming on - the irritation in the back of your throat, headache kind of sick. It was frustrating but I knew a cold wasn't the worst thing in the world. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a terrible virus and I was in bed every night with a 103 degree fever for about a week. Keep in mind this is about 10 days away from the wedding - and with my parents being in Michigan and not flying in until a few days before, I was panicking a little bit.

One night as I was going to bed, I got a text from my bank saying my credit card was being declined at a hotel in Idaho. I was annoyed that those thieves were still trying to use my stuff, but I wasn't too worried about it because I knew it was canceled. Then I realized, "Hey- I know where they are!" I felt like I needed to do something about it, but part of me just really wanted to go to bed and just forget about the whole thing. But I really think I was prompted to follow through with it. I called the hotel in Boise telling them the situation and the girl at the front desk said, "Oh my gosh - I know who it is!" But for legal reasons, couldn't tell me really anything beyond that. So I called the Boise police and told them what was going on, but figured nothing would come of it. But sure enough, at about 2am an officer called me back and told me they had caught them! For brevity, I'll post the KSL link here instead of re-writing it all out, but it felt pretty good to know that these criminals were caught.

The next morning I was running on a high from all the happenings of the night before when I tried to buy something at IKEA for our new apartment, and my card kept getting declined! I was so frustrated because I knew I had several hundred dollars in there, so there shouldn't have been any problems. I got back into my car and checked my balance and I had a -$800 balance! I about fainted because I thought there was no way this could be fraudulent from my stolen cards because this was a new bank account I had opened up! Well, come to find out that after about 2 hours on the phone with the bank, they actually linked my old account to this new one, and the thieves managed to forge and cash a large check from my account. It was a mess! Here I am, days away from my wedding and I am completely broke. The bank verified that it was fraud and said they would credit the money back to my account, but it was going to take a week or so because they had to do an investigation.

At this point, I'm angry and frustrated and basically just exhausted. (I'm also still recovering from that virus). After work that day, I start to head up to Farmington to meet Brett to start moving our new furniture into our apartment, when BAM! I get rear-ended on my way to the freeway on-ramp. We both pull over and as I get out of my car, the other guy gets out of his car too and tells me to pull into the parking lot next to us. It was valid, seeing as we were on a busy street and I figured he pulled over so he wouldn't just speed away - but I was wrong. As soon as I pulled in he sped off. At this point I was crying (and screaming a little bit) but luckily I got his license plate number. I called the cops and gave them the plate numbers and got everything sorted out. At this point, I had three different police cases open in three different precincts - the Herriman Police, the Boise Police and the Midvale Police. Oh brother...

You'd think my bad luck would finish there, right? No quite. The night before the wedding Brett and I walked around downtown and ate dinner. I got back to my hotel and realized that I had left my wallet somewhere! We called around but no one said they had found it. I was so frustrated, but just had faith that everything would work out. The next morning Brett picked me up to head to the temple when a drunk driver pulled out behind us. The driver was swerving back and forth and eventually forced us off to the side of the road, but we were fine. At this point, Brett and I just kept saying to each other "We just have to get to the temple... we just have to get to the temple..." and we did. We had a beautiful wedding day and haven't had any bad luck since.

It's easy to see that I had some bad luck, but now looking back, it's even easier for me to see how incredibly blessed we were through everything. God was definitely looking over us - I overcame sickness, bank account problems were fixed and criminals were put away. But most importantly, I was married and sealed to my eternal companion and that makes me the luckiest girl in the world.