My AMAZING Husband-A year in recap

I just finished my last class of the semester and since going home would mean hanging out all alone without TV or Internet until Josh gets home from work around 1 in the morning, I decided I would take a few minutes (and a TON of pictures) to recap our first year of married life and to brag about my awesome man!
Check out those dimples! With a smile like that you know he has to be good for something but until we were married I didn't quite understand just what an unbelievable, multi-talented, hard working man Josh Scadden is.

A few months after our wedding Josh got the chance to show off his baking skills and made me a birthday cake for my 21st! It just so happens that he did this one all by himself, frosting and all. It was the most delicious cake I have EVER eaten (mango margarita-go figure) and so totally cute. I was blown away.
Then periodically while he was on one of his long days driving a delivery truck all over southern Idaho, a florist would show up at my office and drop off something like this. :)

This is just one of the many bouquets that I have been privileged to receive in the last year.
Along with trying his had at cake making, our access to satellite TV in our first apartment and the FoodNetwork, Josh got a few fancy ideas for breakfast....


As the fall semester drew to a close and the snow settled in, we decided we needed a Christmas Tree. Now, being from the desert that is Arizona, the idea of trekking through two feet of snow to find a tree small enough to fit in our basement apartment that was not totally scraggly did not sound appealing in the least, but that is what Josh thought needed to happen. So he decked me out in new snow boots, gloves and hat and hiked through the snow as I hung out down by the car watching, laughing and taking pictures.



Finally we did find one that would work though and Josh chopped it and hauled it down the hill to the Jeep. Once we got it home he set to the task of getting it to stand so that we could decorate it. (You see the tree trunk only had the diameter of about a quarter-the tree was only 4 ft tall- and they don't make tree stands that little. ) We had some improvising to do.



In the end it turned out a very cute, sad, little tree that tipped whenever it got the chance-but what can you say, we had a lot of fun!


Shortly after Christmas was when all the real fun began. We were gearing up for the new semester and a test with the Pocatello Fire Department AND THEN found out our landlords were moving and selling our house so we had to find a new place to live. Who was awesome enough to go out in the middle of an awful week long snowstorm to inspect homes that had not been lived in for months that were surrounded by ridiculous amounts of snow, once again, Josh- I was tucked away in my cozy little office all day.




I wouldn't feel too bad for him though, he made some time to relax and do things he enjoyed.....


like buy me a new car!
We were hypothetically looking around car lots one night and I happened to mention that this little Sunfire was cute. The next day after work I was at the bank and the dealership signing forms and driving off in my very own cute little car! What a way to bring in the new year!



Now of course the fact the we had to find a new home also meant that my clock did too...


Yeah I really do have a clock almost as big as Josh and that is him hanging it in our second home in 9 months. What a trooper.




Another little gift that came along with the new home complete with yard, the new semester and the new work schedule that keeps Josh out all night and leaves me home alone was the first addition to our little family-Pike




I know Josh has already written about him but he is kind of a big deal and needed to be included. The last few months have been quite the adventure with this little (not so little anymore) guy. But I wouldn't trade him for anything.


Moving on....

In the few months that we have had our new car, we have managed to tack on quite a few miles- a few trips to Utah then Boise, my whirlwind non-stop road trip with Thor and Niki to get my mom and bring her to my dad's POST graduation in Boise, constant trips to Idaho Falls, and another trip up north to my sisters baptism-we decided that a little car with great gas mileage was definitely one intelligent purchase.
The trip to Artie's baptism was my favorite though, Josh was Superman! He got out of class at 10pm I got back shortly thereafter from Rexburg with Niki and we headed out. He drove all night after working and going to school all day. We made it to Nez Perce around 6AM.



That truck driving job gave him a lot of practice at LOOOOONG, LATE driving. That came in handy but I don't think anything could have prepared him for that drive with the dog in the backseat next to Niki who was still awake and telling stories at 3am (if any of you have seen my sister when she is sleepy, you understand)





When the big day arrived, Josh volunteered to help out with so much.....




Including taking the lady of the hour out in the new car for ice cream! (don't worry, there is a lot of trunk space)





As the year progressed, a funny little thing happened one day...
DAYLIGHT SAVINGS


and the subsequent adjusting and rehanging of the 3ft clock!






The most recent project that has dropped into our lives was the making of my first wedding cake. A favor for Josh's little sister. I'm sure you can't imagine how Josh possibly could have helped me make a wedding cake but he has his ways.


Most wedding cakes these days have the bulk made from styrofoam. Now as poor starving college students, we were not about to shell out the $60 it was going to cost to buy styrofoam from the only store in town that had it, so Josh came up with a plan.
He shifted from driving the trucks at work to loading them and every night came in contact with hundreds of cardboard boxes that were just going to get thrown out. This gave him the idea that we could use them. We could cut cardboard circles out and glue them together until the layers were as high as we needed. The only cost would be glue! Totally great plan right?

Well it worked out, but that ended up being a TON of cardboard circles that Josh traced, cut, glued and then sanded down smooth so that I could have a perfect base for this cake. I am pretty sure that if you ever need to know how many layers of cardboard it takes to get to one inch, my man has got your answer.
I was incredibly grateful for his help at the beginning of the cake process because it still took many hours for me to arrive at the perfect finished project and if he hadn't started it, it probably would not have happened.




My first (and let me just add LAST) attempt at a wedding cake.

While all of this was going on, Josh also was taking 17 credits and an EMT class that is worth 4 at UI but nothing here. He is now an Idaho State Certified EMT, he finished out the semester with b's and c's, managed to land a second job for the summer at Home Depot, put a pond with a waterfall in our yard, fix his motorcycle, train the puppy, and be unbelievably supportive of a wife struggling with depression.



In short, this has been a crazy year that there is no way I could have survived without the constant support and love of my wonderful husband. I have never met a man like him and am privileged to be called his wife.
I love you Josh!