4th of July Festivities

I LOVE the 4th of July! We had so much fun celebrating this year. I guess technically the first thing I did to get festive was paint my nails in honor of the holiday. Those are little white stars on them in case you can't tell.


The first activity we did was our annual BBQ and mini golf at Cascade. It's always so much fun. The food seemed especially good this year. Here are a few pictures...






Thursday morning me and Bran woke up early and went to see the hot air balloons with Kristi and Ben. It was so awesome! We took like a million pictures. Brandon said me and Kristi were like kids at Toys R Us. :) It's so fun though. I want to do it every year! So fun that we ended up going back on Saturday morning with Brandon's parents and Tara and Gary.










Here we are waiting for the balloons to come back for their competition, but they never made it.


Smokey the Bear landed right over by our house.


The actual day of the 4th was so awesome. It was great having work off and we sure made the most of our day. I started it out running in the 5k. Kristi, how did you and I not get any pictures together?!! It was so much fun. I want to try for the 10k next year, but we'll have to see.




This is the AMAZING bagel sandwich Brandon brought to me after the race. I'm so glad someone in our house knows how to make good food. It certainly isn't me.


So then we watched the parade, which was awesome.


The big blow up balloons are one of my favorite things about the parade.


I had to include a picture of the Strawberry Days float since I grew up in Lindon.


This picture was taken for a certain someone. I think you know who you are. ;)


Later in the day we went swimming but I didn't take any pictures there. And we watched fireworks of course at night. It was an awesome day.

On Saturday we hiked up to Stewart Falls. It was harder and longer than we remembered but it was still a really fun hike. If only we knew what we were getting ourselves into, we probably would have let Shannon (5 months pregnant) and Haley (4 years old) stay behind. :) We had fun with everyone together though.








Later that day we went to the Freedom Festival in downtown Provo to get our two favorite things: Twisted Potatoes and Funnel Cake. I didn't have my camera with me so I don't have any pictures but man, they are so yummy! Here are some pictures courtesty of Google Images in case you guys don't know what these are. I highly recommend them!

Funnel Cake:


Twisted Potatoes:


Anyway, we had a fabulous weekend and now after work today we are headed off to Canada for a week so stay tuned for a post about our trip. :)

River Pictures

I'm so glad my cousin Ryan had an awesome waterproof camera that also takes quick action shots. I'm sure there is technical terminology for all of this but anyway, check out these pics!!

I LOVE cliff jumping. It was a little different into the Colorado River though. The water was so cold it takes your breath away when you first get in. And even though in the pictures it doesn't look like there's much of a current, it was strong enough to start pulling you down the river before you could even reach the surface again. It was so fun!

Me and Bran were lucky enough to get to go in the kayak for a little while. It made the rapids a lot more exciting. Too bad no one got a picture of us during one of those rare rapids. :) (Side note: I felt as frumpy as I look in these pictures with my long shorts and Brandon's t-shirt so I didn't get burned.)


This is a picture of us up on Sand Dune Arch. It was quite the climb to get up there. Brandon climbed up and then literally pulled me up there. It was cool.

Soakin Up the Sun in Moab

Last weekend we went down to Moab for a family reunion with all the cousins on my mom's side. We have these reunions every two years. So at the last one, Brandon and I had only been married a couple of weeks. :) Last year we were in tents and something I ate made me sick so I was throwing up the whole time. This year was much better!

We spent a lot of time in the pool, hiking to some of the arches, floating down the Colorado River with a few occasional rapids, hiding in our cabin from all the mosquitoes that swarmed us the second it cooled down at night, and of course visiting with cousins. It was so fun to see everyone!

My grandma got cabins for all of us and me and Brandon had finally been married long enough to deserve not only our own cabin, but one with a TV and fridge! We loved it.

Here are some pictures from our trip. My cousin Ryan had a waterproof camera so hopefully I will be able to post more pictures of the river run and cliff jumping later.

If I was still single,

292 people would have the same name as me. But here are the stats for my married name:

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 31 people with my name in the U.S.A. http://howmanyofme.com">How many have your name?

Results for Brandon:

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 20 people with my name in the U.S.A. http://howmanyofme.com">How many have your name?

Random Memories

What I was doing 10 yrs. ago: I was 16, just finished with my Sophomore year of high school, which was my first year on the volleyball team. I think I was probably working at Western Watts with Natalie and playing all sorts of pranks on our supervisors and stealing candy from the closet downstairs!

5 yrs. ago: I was 21, and very busy secretly planning going on a mission. I was living in a BYU ward and just working with my bishop there to get everything all taken care of. I think it was in June actually that I got my mission call, which is when my parents found out I was going on a mission. It was awesome!! Sometimes my mom would just burst into tears randomly because she was so worried about me living in the Philippines (and for good reason). I don't know how I survived it. But I sure miss it now.

1 yr ago: I was celebrating my 1-year anniversary with Brandon at the Little America in Salt Lake. Other than that, I was still in the same job and so was Bran. I think the only thing that was different was that we were living in Jason and Shannon's basement.

Yesterday: I worked all day and then hung out at home and pretended to help Brandon put up a little brick retaining wall in our front yard. Then I was totally bugged at some people who came and tried to sell us a $2000 Kirby vacuum. After that we went to keep Tara company for a little while before we all went to bed.

Today: I am excited it's Friday! I'll probably end up leaving work early and tonight we get to babysit Haley! We're taking her swimming tomorrow and we're so excited about it.

5 favorite snax: Airheads, starburst, skittles, jelly bellies, and I actually do like real fruit too. :)

5 favorite books: I don't read much these days but I did like the Twilight series. When I was little it was Nancy Drew and the Boxcar Children.

5 places I would love to run away to: The beach, the Philippines, Australia, Hawaii, any nice resort with a pool.

5 bad habits: Forgetting EVERYTHING I need to do, eating too many treats, being lazy with flossing, going to bed without washing my face, worrying too much.

5 things I would never wear: (you can hold me to this if I ever break down) Pointy shoes, skinny jeans, massive jewelry, high heels, long shirts with spandex underneath.

5 pet peeves: People who are late, people who don't do what they say they'll do, I really can't think of any more than those two.

5 things I like to do: Hang out with Brandon, sleep, go swimming, go on trips, have BBQs in the canyon.

5 favorite TV shows: The Office is about the only one I really care about.

But Wait...There's More

So I totally thought we were done celebrating our anniversary after that awesome weekend but boy was I wrong. Yesterday was such a fun day! Brandon surprised me in my office at 2:30 p.m. and told me we were leaving early for the day. So we went home and put on our swimming suits, picked up Haley, and headed over to my grandma's pool. We swam for over two hours and had such a good time.

After that we went to Pizza Factory with Brandon's parents for dinner. And....(drum roll please), Brandon bought me TWO DOZEN roses! Wow, talk about shocked. They are so beautiful.

We ended off our night by going to see Kung Fu Panda. It is a must see. I haven't seen Brandon laugh that much in I don't know how long. I laughed a ton too and I don't usually laugh out loud in movies.

So anyway, we had a FABULOUS 2 year anniversary!

How Has it Been 2 Years Already?!!

Well, today is June 9th. Which means me and Brandon have been married for exactly 2 years. And when I say exactly, I mean 2 years ago to this very minute we were in the temple sealing room. If I remember right.

So anyway, we celebrated over the weekend in Salt Lake and had such a good time. We stayed at the Residence Inn (thanks to Brandon's dad) and had a nice room with a little kitchenette and everything.

We did a session in the Salt Lake Temple (Brandon's first time) and loved it.

After the temple, we had dinner at the Olive Garden (all for me, but Brandon loved it too). They even gave us a free cake to celebrate our anniversary. How cool is that?

When we got back to the hotel we just went hot tubbing and then watched a lot of TV and relaxed. For breakfast in the morning, there was a free gourmet breakfast that was so yummy! We didn't even know if there would be breakfast at all so it was a nice surprise.

On Saturday when we got back home we spent a couple hours swimming with Haley. We are loving the warm weather and take advantage of it whenever we can.

This last 2 years has flown by, it's hard to believe it's been that long. I am so grateful to be married to Brandon. He is such a good husband and is so good to me when I have my crazy mood swings and sudden meltdowns. One of the best parts about our weekend was that Brandon planned it weeks ago and basically it was all the things I wanted to do! He is so patient and kind. I have learned so much from him and still have such a long way to go. I love you Bran!

"Guess What Year It Is"

Okay, so this is a really random post and I'm sure it will be one of the ones where no one leaves a comment, but I wanted to put it on here anyway.

So every now and again when we are at Brandon's parents' house he decides to go through the fridge or the freezer and clean things out. Food tends to get lost in the back of the fridge or bottom of the freezer long past its expiration date at their house.

Well last Saturday we were over there and Brandon went on one of his dejunking the freezer crazes. He pulled out a ton of stuff but the one thing that none of us could believe was a big frozen chunk of pork. Pork shoulder to be exact.

So...as we have done in the past, Brandon said, "Guess what year it is?" Me and Shannon were there in the kitchen and I think we guessed some years around the year 2001 or 2000. Brandon said nope, you're never gonna believe this. The expiration date was 11-24-95. Yikes! Can you believe that? That's like 13 years old. And this was in the upstairs freezer, not in the deep freezer downstairs in the food storage room. We just died. Back in 1995 I was just 13 years old and I still lived in Australia. Anyway, here's a picture. You can't see the date perfectly, but I promise, it says 11-24-95!! Enlarge it and take a look.



I don't know where the pork shoulder is now, but I have to say, I wouldn't be half surprised if it made its way back in to the freezer.