Bitter Sweet

After I got home from Girl's Camp, we moved straight along to the next thing: getting in as much time as possible with my parents before they leave for their mission in the Hong Kong Temple.

We went swimming at the Lindon pool and then had a picnic in a park that's right by Heidi's group home. We had a lot of fun spending time with family.

Saturday was my baby sister Amy's birthday. She turned 20 and I seriously can't believe it. I felt so bad but with being at Girl's Camp all week I totally spaced that it was her birthday! I'm such a bad sister...


Poor Ammon broke his collar bone at the pool... He looks so cute though with his arm all wrapped up.



On Sunday we got up early to listen to my parents speak in Church and then spent all day hanging out at their house. They got set apart at 7:00 last night. Apparently Bryant couldn't hack all the fun. Ha ha ha.


One of our hundreds of self portraits.

We said goodbye to my parents last night instead of doing the new curbside drop off at the MTC today. They entered the MTC at 10:00 this morning. I can't wait to hear how they like it. I'm hoping I can go in there and have lunch with them sometime. Anyone know if they let you do that with senior couples? The MTC food is so good!

The last picture for a year and a half. Unless we go visit them over there! I need to look into that....

They will be great missionaries. I'm going to miss them so much but I know it will be worth it for all of us in the end.

Girl's Camp

Last week I spent most of my week at Girl's Camp and had an absolute blast. It was so much fun!!! We had awesome weather, great company, lots of stuff to keep us entertained and busy, and so much more. I had sooo many pictures to choose from. We made so many great memories! I debated forever on whether or not to go and I'm so glad I did!

Some of our girls boarding the bus bRiGhT and early on Tuesday morning (7 a.m.).


Glad we finally got camp set up... This is me with Heather and Erika.


Erika's grandma made these cute hats for all of us. If you zoom in on the picture you'll see that the flower was made from pop caps. So cute! Oh, and in the background those are the cabins we slept in. We went to Mia Shalom, it was my first time ever being there. When I was in YW we always went to a place in Heber canyon called Aspen Lakes.


Just me and some of my girls on the way to the lake. Sarah, Abbi, me, Heather, and Erika.

Me with two of my cute Beehives, Sarah and Abbi.

The lake was pretty small but I'll canoe anywhere, I love it so much!

Here we are canoeing our little hearts out. The stake leaders had a bunch of different games for us which pretty much entailed racing to the other side of the lake and back a million different times. It was a serious workout!

Steph, Abbi, and Sarah.

After waterfront time we played a big huge game of Twister. It was so much fun!!!

More Twister...

We ate so well while we were at camp! There was always tons of leftovers. I'm scared to stand on the scale now that I'm home. I think I'll wait a while...

The hike we went on was so gorgeous. Mia Shalom is in the same canyon as my cabin and I absolutely love it!!!

A shot from behind...

Sara, Sydney, and me.

The deer must be really used to people. They weren't very scared of us. We had one deer that kept walking through our camp while we were eating and stuff. It was so awesome! We also had a cute jack rabbit that came through our camp scrounging for food. Not to mention about a million potguts. The Beehives were lovin the potguts. Give em a few years and they'll hate em just like the rest of us. :)

Pedicures after the hike were a big hit! It felt so good to soak our feet in the water.

Meet Janice. Our sweet YW President who bless her heart, tried so hard to be crafty. :) (Love ya Janice!)

Some of the girls crafting. We made some pretty cute stuff that I will actually keep.

We made s'mores and also roasted Starburst in the fire. Mmm they were so good!


Here's a picture of the fire with those one crystal things you throw in it to make it turn cool colors. It was so awesome.

Sarah helping with dutch oven pizzas.

On Pioneer Day the stake leaders had all sorts of stuff planned for us. We played a bunch of pioneer games. This was a relay race hammering nails into a board. I think we got 2nd place. Out of 3 teams. :) Oh well.

They had a Days of '47 parade. Every ward was supposed to make a float. We didn't know this until the day before and of course we had nothing to made a float with so we told them ours got stolen. Ha ha ha. It was a good copout I think.

When I got home I was just hoping for a clean house, but instead I found out that Brandon had a big surprise for me that he had been planning for months! He tiled our bathroom floor and shower. It's not quite finished yet but I can't believe how much work he and some of his family put into it. It looks awesome!!! He is so amazing. More to come on that later.

As nice as it is to be back home, I really miss being up there in the mountains and just forgetting about real life and cell phones and computers and everything. It was sooo nice to be away from it all. Now it's back to the daily grind, work, cleaning the house, and about a million other things. I still need to post about my parents leaving on their mission and I need to go catch up on everyone else's blogs. I looked at a few today and I still have 47 new blog posts to read in my google reader. Sigh. Stay tuned for the next post.

Old School meets New School

We have recently had both sets of parents come over to play the Wii. I'm not sure which was more fun, playing it, or watching them play it.
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Brandon's mom and dad playing baseball.

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Brandon kicking Steph's butt at baseball.

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My dad bowling. He killed us all.

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Check out my mom's moves. Ha ha, I love it. So serious.

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This weekend was quite eventful. Friday night we spent the evening at Brandon's parents house hanging out with Ryan and Jess who are back again from Canada. We brought the Wii over there and played a few games on it and then we did an outdoor movie but I slept through most of it.

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Saturday Brandon and I got up really early and went and walked 5 miles on the river trail. We came home and made waffles for breakfast, then went and test rode a few bikes. I am getting really excited and I think we might actually make our purchase this year!

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Saturday afternoon we went out on Utah Lake with the jet ski's and had a blast. We went to a picnic after that and then my friend Jessica and I hiked the Y while Brandon went and hung out with his friends. This was Jessica's first time hiking the Y.

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Here we are at the parking lot before the hike.

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Up at the top of the Y with red, sweaty faces.

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On the way down from the Y we walked right by a rattle snake and it rattled at us! We both screamed so loud and just ran as fast as we could away from the snake. It was pretty scary. It was on my side of the trail, probably about 4 feet away from me. We were so freaked out the rest of the way down. Neither of us had ever seen a rattle snake before and I hope to never see one again!!!!

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Sunday we went to dinner at my parents' house. I am trying to get in as much time as I can with them before they leave on their mission in exactly 1 week from today. Yikes!

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Tomorrow I am off to Girl's Camp for the rest of the week....wish me luck.

How Did I Ever Get This Lucky?

Just an old picture for fun...

Last night I went to go pick up a redbox. When I walked in the door Brandon was peeking out the blinds to see if I was there yet. I looked over to the coffee table and saw why he was so excited. He had prepared this cute surprise for me. How did I luck out and get the best husband ever?!!

4th of July

We had a great 4th of July weekend! I extended my weekend and started it on Wednesday at noon. I went down to Spring City to my cousin's wedding and then we headed up to the cabin for a night. It was so pretty and green at the cabin and we took a nice long hike while we were there. Here are some pictures.


On Friday Brandon and I went to see the hot air balloons. I never get tired of watching them take off. Saturday we slept in instead of running the 5k but then went to the parade. After the parade we got to check out a bunch of classic cars that were pretty darn cool.


We played a fun game of croquet with my parents in their back yard.


After that we went back to Provo and watched Brandon's brothers and sister play soccer. Then we had some fun with water balloons and a water balloon launcher. We also got to watch Ryan's brother-in-law launch a bunch of rockets.


Later that evening we went swimming and then at night we climbed up onto the roof to watch the fireworks. The 4th of July is such a fun time of year!

Update

I don't have a lot of pictures from what we've done lately, but we've been busy as always.

Last Friday night after Brandon's soft ball game we dragged the mattress downstairs and had a sleepover in our family room. It was so fun and we also learned that we will never have a TV in our bedroom! Otherwise we will never sleep. :)


We went to the Oquirhh Mountain Temple open house last Saturday. Didn't take any pictures.

Sunday we were able to spend time with both of our dads. Why anyone ever moves away from family is beyond me. I'm lucky I married someone whose family lives close to mine.

I woke Brandon up on Father's Day with a breakfast of bacon, hole in the wall, and orange juice. I resisted taking a picture. I was tempted though. :)

I also bought him a Wii for Father's Day. If you come over to our house you might find us doing a little of this:




Next up. Buying at least another controller and some more games. Suggestions are welcome.

I Love Living in Utah

I know a lot of you think that sounds crazy, to love living in Utah, but I think this place is the BEST and I never want to leave.

Last night we went to a dinner in Salt Lake with Ross and Haley. We go to a lot of these dinners with Nu Skin tickets. Last night it was a Larry H. Miller something something Diabetes Awareness night. It was at the Grand America Hotel. The food was amazing, the program was actually good, and we were surprised to see that Elder. M. Russell Ballard was speaking. How cool is that? And when does that happen outside of Utah?


Yes, I took pictures of my food. :)

3 Years

Yesterday Brandon and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary. It was the best day ever!

When I got to work in the morning I saw these flowers on my desk and I was like wow, Brandon got me flowers! I can't believe it. But then I read the card and realized they were from one of the doctors I work for who is leaving us and wanted to thank me for everything. Ha ha. Good timing though! They are beautiful.


I worked a total of 3.87 hours yesterday. That, in and of itself, would have made it a great day. But there was so much more to it.

Brandon came to my work and we enjoyed sandwiches from Jason's Deli. We left work early at around 3 I think, went home and relaxed, walked on the Provo River Trail for about 5 minutes before we were swarmed with mosquitoes, went and did a little shopping (you can tell you've been married for 3 years when the items you look at in the store are a shower curtain, shoes, blenders, toasters, and vacuums....so romantic).

Here we are at the river before we {literally} made a run for it back to our car to escape the mosquitoes.


Later in the evening we went to eat at our very favorite restaurant, Tepanyaki. The only place on the planet where meat melts in your mouth. We ended up sitting at the same table as my cousin Jenny who I haven't seen forever. It was random, but really fun.


After dinner we went and saw Angels and Demons (highly recommend it) and coming out of the movie we saw Jenny and her date AGAIN. So funny.

Thanks Bran for such a fun day yesterday! We sure have been through a lot these last 3 years, and I know no one else in the world could handle being married to me so I'm very grateful to have Brandon in my life. He is such a great husband!