Our Nauvoo Temple Trip

 These are the pictures I took from our drive from Iowa City to Nauvoo. They are all taken from the car so  some of them might have a little bit of a reflection. This picture is us crossing the Mississippi River.

 This is Tyler and I crossing into Illinois. :)

 This is the Mississippi River from the temple grounds.

 The Nauvoo Temple. Which was a lot smaller than I thought it would be. But I will say it is one of the most beautiful temples I have ever been in.

 This View was from the River bank. I just loved how you could see the temple from there. It was breath taking how the temple rose up from the trees.

 The top building is a random Building and below that  is the bank of the Mississippi River. (Which was really muddy and gross.) But mostly HUGE! I Couldn't believe that the river froze enough for the pioneers to cross it with wagons!

We found this little treasure on the way home to Iowa City. We both thought it was interesting that there are a lot of signs that just say JESUS on them here.


We didn't stop and look around because Tyler and I were so exhausted. But we will definitely look around old Nauvoo the next temple trip. (since it is our temple after all) Since Nauvoo is 2 hours away, it just makes the temple even more important and difficult to get to. I would encourage those who haven't gone in a while to go. Even if it is far away. It is a great experience to feel close to the lord and to surround yourself with beauty. You will have some of the most memorable memories there. Well at least I have. :)

Love,
The Mellings

Sweet Experience

Today I got a surprise! 3 Packages! :) One was a case for Tyler's Laptop, another a wireless router that M om and Dad Melling promised to send us [with a wonderful gift card to subway for William and I.... YUMMMM!!! BTW thanks Mom and Dad Melling! ;)] and the third package had binders with Tyler's memories and accomplishments placed carefully in sleeves. Mom Melling sent them with a little baby hat (that I assume was Tylers). I immediately started going through his binders! I just couldn't help myself! I guess I'm just a snooper! ;) It was fun going through endless choir announcements for performances, report cards, certificates of excellence, school pictures, and artwork that Tyler had made.  One binder had quite an enchanting story about an armadillo that lost his armor.(Which Tyler wrote and colored the pictures). I don't know if it's the pregnancy hormones or what but I found myself tearing up a little bit. I can see my son growing up just like his daddy. What a wonderful bond they will have too! Like father like son. Even looking at Tyler when he was so little made me think of how much William will look like him! The thought even came to my mind "I can't wait until William gets here and I can read his cute stories about armadillos that lose their armor." So anyway I guess I didn't really need to post about this sweet experience. I could have probably just said on Facebook that I felt close to William today, but I guess I just wanted to express the feelings behind the experience.That it is possible for mothers to feel close to their little ones before they are born. That they are already  sweet little people in our minds. With a bright future and most importantly the love we already feel for them. At least I know for myself that I love my son and I can't wait to hold him in my arms. So I guess here begins the countdown to that first meeting. 12 weeks and counting! :D

Miracles

Hello Everyone! Yes yes I know! I am terrible at keeping up with our blog. But Surprise! a billion and two things have happened since my last post. Lets see if I can go through them as fast as possible. 1.) I'm preggers and I'm having a boy 2.) We've moved to Iowa City, Iowa 3.) Tyler has started Law school and finally 4.) We survived it all! :)  (Hopefully we will survive the pregnancy thing oh and the law school thing too....)) and I guess that's only 4 major things... the other things must be in there somewhere  but it has totally slipped my mind now!
  But anyways, I really wanted to talk about the wonderful miracles that have happened this last week with all the moving junk and all that jazz. Miracle number one: I didn't get sick the whole two day UHAUL ride. Miracle right?!? In fact little William (the one I am currently incubating as we speak.) didn't complain much this whole week! And truthfully the UHAUL ride was a little uncomfortable but truthfully it wasn't as bad as people made me believe. In fact on Tuesday night Wayne (my father in law who drove the UHAUL) found one of the last hotels to stay in in that city. He used me as incentive and told the lady specifically that there was a pregnant lady riding in the truck and we needed a bottom floor. It worked for sure! ;)  Sometimes pregnancy has its perks!
    Miracle number two, I love our apartment! It's a two bedroom, one bath. But I am so grateful for SPACE! Before we were living in Tyler's uncle's studio basement which was fantastic at the time. But now that our family it growing this apartment is perfect for us! Nice and close to the law school and we're surrounded by church members which definitely makes making friends much easier!
     Miracle number three great church members! Everyone is so kind and welcoming I just can't get over it!  A lot of them are older than us with at least two kids, but I still feel as if I can relate to them and I just can't wait to make friends with them all!
     Miracle number four, on Saturday I was going through my things unpacking and seeing what we needed to keep and what to throw away. I found a box I haven't opened in I don't know how long. It had a lot of my bedroom things in it from when I was single and some bridal shower cards in it. I had the prompting to look into the cards and see if I wanted to keep any of them. Earlier that day Tyler and I were talking about how in the world we were going to make it financially through this first semester with all of the surprise fees and such. Well when I opened one card it had $15 in it. I was so Excited! I couldn't believe it! Had I not taken the money out before we got married over a year ago? I guess not! Then the very next card I opened it had $50 dollars in it! I was so happy and I truly felt like the lord was watching over us! I don't know if he made me forget on purpose or if I was just forgetful, but I do know that this money is going to go a long way to help Tyler, William and I get through this year. Even if it is only $65.
       The lord has been watching over us so much this week I just can't fathom his love and kindness! I'm sure there is to come a billion and two more miracles and blessings from him this year and I just can't wait for the wonderful learning experiences he has in store for us!

Big News :)

Before I talk about Tyler and My news, I just want to comment that I've been thinking of getting a blog for awhile now. Not because everyone else has one but because Tyler and I live far away from my family at least... and will probably soon be far away from all our friends and family. So I decided to make a blog so people would know what's going on in our lives. Enough said on that subject. :)


I know a lot of you already know about our wonderful news. But I decided I wanted to talk in detail about the subject to reassure some individuals (cough cough family) that where we will be moving is a wonderful place.
Tyler has been looking for law schools for a while now since he is graduating with his undergrad in May. If you know Tyler at all... he always over prepares which in this case was a good thing. When we were looking into schools we were thinking about BYU, U of U, a couple places in California, and even University of Idaho. But none of them felt quite right. We knew BYU was a good choice because it was between Tyler's  family and mine. Heck my oldest sister lived in Pleasant Grove and our good friends (Tyler's best friend from Texas Eric and his wife  Emilee) is currently going to BYU. It seemed so logical to go there. There has been a lot of pressure to go there ever since we started this process. One day I was sitting in my Human Anatomy class and the professor was talking about how he got his degree in the Mid West. He said there were tons of private schools there and lots of universities to choose from. I told Ty that we should probably start looking into Universities in the Mid West. Tyler didn't take my statement seriously until his adviser told him he should look into Nebraska.(Which turned out to be a terrible school for us) Tyler started looking around the states surrounding it and found University of Iowa. I started looking at  their website and was amazed at their music program as well as their law program. I immediately fell in love with that school and knew we were supposed to go there. We found out that there was a law fair at BYU and a representative from U of I was going to be there. So we toured BYU campus, U of U campus, and talked with the representative from U of I. I didn't feel good about any school other than Iowa and Tyler was very impressed with Iowa and thought the BYU law school was decent.

Tyler then took the LSAT and GMAT. Which he did fabulous on. And we waited for Iowa to accept him. They accepted him two weeks ago. We were both so happy and excited! A couple days afterward we went to Iowa City to see what it was really like. I was imagining it being totally flat, no trees, a tiny town, and absolutely nothing to do. But when we arrived it turned out it was hilly (no mountains but hills are better than totally flat!) There was a ton of trees, it wasn't too humid (I've heard the summer is the worst though), the town was way bigger than Cedar City (it was probably more like St. George size), campus was two times bigger than SUU, all the buildings were old with red brick (it just oozed historical to me which I absolutely love.), and most importantly I could imagine Tyler and I living there. Everyone was so kind. Tyler and I went to go see the representative that went to BYU and he directed us to the scholarship award lady. When we went down there we ended up sitting in on a class and then getting lost but eventually found our way back to the scholarship office. The lady there said she was glad we came back because she was able to review Tyler's application. She then looked at us very seriously and said, "Congratts you are being awarded a full ride scholarship!" I squealed into my hands trying not to embarrass myself and instantly we knew we are going to become IOWANS!  A full ride scholarship equals to about 90,000 Dollars. We are so happy and just can't wait for another stage of our life to begin! That night we went to a married institute activity which was fantastic. We felt so included and loved! One particular lady gave us her number, her husband's number, the bishops number and told us to call if we ever need them to look at apartments, moving, if we need a place to stay, if we need a ride from the airport ect. It was overwhelming how nice she and others were! So we decided University of Iowa is for us! We'll be moving in August and we've already begun to look into cost of UHAULS and things we need to make the 22 hour journey to Iowa City in the summer. (Which is UBER expensive but things will work out!) We are also deciding on an Apartment we looked at while we were there which we think we're going to live there. So everything is working out and we just can't wait to go back to Iowa City! :)