Two Years and An I-Do Later...

Today's pretty crazy to think that two years ago I asked Hailey to marry me, and we've been married for a year and a half now. Tomorrow is also the day I asked her out, so these two days mean a lot to us. Looking back, it's great seeing how even in two years how far we've come

First stop on the date for us was the Zoo. I'm still trying to get her a meet and greet with a baby monkey (her one of many life goals).

Next up: Santa Monica Pier

Now, this is where I open up about a story I haven't posted about, and only friends we've told in-person have heard. 

Hailey really shouldn't have married me. Not after what I did to her leading up to it. The entire day went great. Spent the day at the zoo, enjoyed the pier, and enjoyed LA. I had dinner plans at Charthouse in Marina Del Rey for us that night, and it was going to be awesome. But, because of a variety of issues, mostly related to family, I was scared out of my mind to ask her. I knew I wanted to, but I let the pressure of what my family would think get into my head and I nutted up in the worst way. Everything I was going to say or do just went out the window, and it fell apart. 

Well, you're probably thinking, "Jake, it couldn't have been that bad, I mean, she still said 'yes', right?" 

YEAH. It was that bad. To me it was. 

So, walking up to Charthouse, we saw this odd couple. The dude was incredibly short, balding, sorta fat, etc. chick was incredibly tall, hairy..just a dynamic that threw off the balance, y'know? 

Hailey leans over to me and says "what I was that much taller than you?" 

I replied, with no filter to my idiotic thought: "what if I was that much more bald than you?"

STRIKE. ONE. 

You see, Hailey has alopecia. Don't know what that is? It's basically a autoimmune issue where her white blood cells get bored and attack things like hair follicles. It's not really bad for her, but occasionally she'll get a bald spot, and we go to the dermatologist and take care of it. 

So, I just called my future wife bald, and made fun of her autoimmune issue. 

I somehow made it through dinner without flubbing anything, but afterwards didn't stop me from

STRIKE. TWO. 

We're walking on the beach of the marina, she looks over to me and says "hey do I have anything in my teeth?" I go...."yeah, a fake one."

Firstly, my wife is a badass. She lost a tooth to a basketball fight in high school. Like, how many chicks do that?! Second, I'm a jerk. Like, how many dudes say that?! 

You'd think I'd be good by now. I get the jitters out of my system and I proceed with the night..

You'd think that it'd be smooth sailing by now, and it'd be all wonderful, right? 

There wouldn't be anything coming up around the corner buuuuutttt.....

STRIKE. THREE.

So, Hailey's wedding ring is actually her late-grandmothers. It was given to me to give to her by her family. I thought this would be a brilliant idea. Why? I have NO FREAKING CLUE. 

But, I ask her if she wanted a surprise. She knew it. She had every idea in the world of what was to come, and I shouldn't have said anything and just dropped a knee then and there. Nope. 

I hand her an empty ring box. Told her that the ring could be hidden at the restaurant, at another location, back at home, and she had to guess. 

I WAS SO DAFT. It never occurred to me that this was a bigger issue than I had thought, all because of her late grandmother's ring being in the possession of someone else. I was just trying to find a fun way to do this. 

I told her to close her eyes, I got behind her and dropped to a knee. Told her to open her eyes and she turned around. I asked if she wanted to marry me, she said yes and cried (I think more out of relief the ring was safe and the torture was hopefully over...). I hugged her, we kissed, and stood there for a long time. After that, we drove back home, with Hailey calling as many people as she could, elated. Why, I don't know. I just struck out, and yet I still somehow hit a home run. 

But now, because I made such a horrific mess of the proposal, I now intend to find a creative way to ask her every year to be my girl all over again. A lifetime of different proposals makes up for one bad one, hopefully. Either way, I'm the luckiest guy in the world to have a girl that puts up with some massively bad blunders. 

No Bake Energy Bites

Hi everyone!
With all the stress of wedding planning, moving, school, and much more I found myself letting myself go. (No excuses though, purely my fault). However, I REALLY have no excuses now. It's time to get back into it! Jacob and I have been swimming and bike riding a lot plus playing softball twice a week. I have been doing a lot of meal prep and eating whole foods instead of processed. And we both have committed to drinking a gallon of water a day. And even within the last two weeks I've personally felt a difference in how I feel throughout the day. My face has cleared up, I'm not as bloated, my metabolism is getting faster, and I have much more energy.

But even with clean eating... my sweet tooth is still something fierce, even more so with eating right. So what do you do about it? Ice cream? A candy bar? Cake and cookies? Sometimes... sure. (No judgement here) But every day? NO. So this is one of my absolute favorite recipes to crave a sweet tooth in a healthier way.

No Bake Energy Bites

In a medium bowl mix oats, coconut flakes, peanut butter, flaxseed, honey, vanilla and chocolate chips.

When you choose your ingredients, remember CLEAN EATING! So with coconut, either buy your own coconut and roast it and shred it yourself or get unsweetened organic at the store. The other important ingredient to get clean is the peanut butter. Don't go with Jif or Skippy with all of the extra unnecessarily ingredients, go with a much natural peanut butter. Take a look at the difference in ingredients from Skippy on the left, to what I used on the right...

Once you're done mixing all of the ingredients together, use your hands to make ball shapes. I make mine about an inch by an inch.

Then pop them in a big ziplock bag and refrigerate them until you are ready to eat them. I usually like mine in between breakfast and lunch as a little pick me up. They're SO good and very filling.

Ingredients:
1 cup of whole wheat oats
2/3 cups of unsweetened coconut flakes
3/4 cup of peanut butter
1/2 cup ground flaxseed
1/3 cup of honey
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/3 cup of chocolate chips (you can add more or less depending on what you like)

You can add more or less of whatever ingredients you'd like. I usually add craisins, chia seeds, or any type of nut as well. Since they are no bake, there doesn't have to be an exact ratio of anything. I like to substitute honey for agave nectar sometimes too. The possibilities are endless!


Happy Healthy Eating!

-HW

Young, Wild, and Married

I got married 5 days after I turned 20 years old. Because of that I got a lot of "Wow you are SO young" "Are you sure you're ready!?" "You already are getting tied down THIS young!?" A lot of the comments I got were pretty negative or doubtful. And I know that some may look down on young marriages, but honestly, I don't get it. I found my person that I want to spend the rest of my life with... without having to search for very long.  I didn't get my heart broken a bunch, I didn't sleep around, I didn't have a ton of failed relationships. It's not a negative thing, it's a blessing. A big blessing. Not only did it save me a lot of heartache spending many years to find the one... but it also means that I get more time with my spouse (God willing). Do I regret getting married young? Not one bit. I am so incredibly in love with my husband and best friend.

Marriage has honestly been the best thing to happen to me. While Jake and I have a lot of similarities, we are also pretty different in some aspects. It's these differences that make life interesting. Before being with him, I think I lacked every possible ounce of compassion where he had plenty of it. He was patient, I wasn't. He was kinder with his words… I wasn't. But never once did he look down on me for that, or love me less because of it. Instead, he used his compassion, patience, and kind words to help me. We grew together, and that is a beautiful thing. I have been blessed to see many wonderful marriages in my life, and I always prayed that one day… someone, somewhere, would be able to look at my marriage and think the exact same thing. And I truly believe that that will happen.

At the moment, Jake and I are simply a family of two. Our own little Williams family. One day, not anytime soon, but some day… we will expand our family. Until then, Jake and I are working to create that strong foundation for them. It is our job as husband and wife to love and live deeply. To set our family rules and beliefs into place now rather than later. To work hard and play hard. We are only four months into creating our family's foundation… and by golly I think we are doing a pretty damn good job.

So to all the "haters" who questioned, doubted, and thought we were stupid… you were wrong. I'm not in this to "prove anyone wrong" because ultimately that isn't my goal nor my intentions. My goal is to have the best marriage possible with my absolute best friend. And while doing that, sharing my revelations, recipes, DIY projects, thoughts, and anything I feel like on our blog. And maybe that one person… somewhere… someday… will stumble along our blog and be inspired by our marriage and our love.
-HW

The Adventure Starts Now...

Hi there! Unless you're a random internet user who happened to find this site, you're more than likely friends and family of Jake and Hailey. We're just two people who fell in love young and are getting married on March 22nd, 2014.

This site is designed to help everyone with the wedding details and follow along with our journey as we prepare to get married!

You can click on the links below our photo at the top to find the church location, the "who are we" is our story of how we met, and how we got engaged, and the contact info is info to get in contact with either Hailey, myself, our mothers, or our Maid of Honor, or Best Man. We tried to make this as simple and straightforward as possible, so it should be pretty easy to find what you'll need. Also, coming soon (later this week, hopefully) we'll have a registry up online as well.

For now though, the first update is this: Last night we spent the evening with an amazing friend of ours. Makenzie is a great photographer here in Bakersfield (check out her site here: Makenzie Photography) , who spent a couple hours with us taking engagement photos. We should get the prints in about a week or so, but here's a shot of the 'behind the scenes' from yesterday!