It's the first day of school,

so naturally, I'm here in the library blogging instead of at home. :) Don't worry Mom, I'm still getting my homework done. Actually, I'm kind of twiddling my thumbs here in the lib trying to find stuff to do. Not much studying to be done on the first day, and I'm stuck here on campus for a while before my next class. Luckily, I get to meet Tyler for lunch. Every day, actually. That will be so nice. But I thought I'd update and put pictures up from the last few weeks before the craziness of school takes over.

Last week ended up a little different than we planned, and we LOVED it. We helped Garrett and Mitchell move into the dorms on Monday, and got our books and my new ID card. Tuesday Tyler had two job interviews (he found a job and is currently at work right now-- hooray for employment) and then we left for Vegas! Baby Dean was born on Monday night (the story is on Steph's blog, for anyone who hasn't heard) and we went down to spend a few days with the kiddos while Andrew was at the hospital with Steph. We loved spending time with Eva and Leighton! They are the cutest things, and I feel so lucky to be their aunt. Eva calls Tyler and I her "uncles." We got home late Friday night after Grandma flew in and took over so we could get all the last-minute stuff ready for school. Saturday was spent grocery-shopping, cleaning, organizing, and cooking! I've got an army of freezer meals ready for late-night library days. And I have a feeling I'm going to be using them.

Okay, on to the last few weeks' pictures. Here we go.
Biking to Utah Lake:


Relaxing after a long biking day:

Trip to Manti temple:
Mexican food after the temple:
Cassie's amazing performance at the Scera:


Hike to Stewart Falls:



Trip to the zoo to visit cousin Jake:


And now school is here. Can't even believe it!

Update much?

No, not lately. Ever since my last day of work, we've been having so much fun! This will not be a full update, as we are off to have more fun. Tyler's dad and two of his brothers will be here anytime from Houston! Garrett and Mitchell are joining us Zionites to attend BYU. We are SO glad they're coming! It's going to be so fun being close to them.

Here are some of our accomplishments of the past week:

-Bike ride to Utah Lake
-Pizza night with the Wrights
-Trip to Spring City to visit my grandparents
-Manti Temple with my grandparents and the Crandalls
-Watching my cousin Cassie ROCK her singing competition!
-Completing the first season of Lost
-Playing tennis with Austin and Giselle
-Hiking to Stewart Falls
-Trip to the zoo, thanks again to Tyler's awesome cousin Jake
-COOKIE MONSTER with Tiki and her Tyler
-Date night at Nickel City with the Sevy's
-Reading "The Hunger Games" out loud to Tyler... seriously I'm addicted to these books

I can't believe we fit all that in this week! It's been non-stop fun. Is school seriously only a week away?!?

So long, farewell

Goodbye AMP!! Friday was my last day of work and now I am a free woman! I'm glad to be done, but I really have learned so much from that job. I was thinking about it, and I was rarely just a receptionist... I became proficient in lots of trades, including (but certainly not limited to):

-mail delivery (it was amazing how many times I got mail for IHOP!)
-mediation/conflict resolution
-personal shopper
-food delivery personnel
-bus-girl
-botanist
-airport shuttle-driver
-beverage-retriever
-salesman-avoider


I think I'll add all of those skills to my resume. Then again, maybe not.

We definitely celebrated on Friday night! We went to Cafe Rio for dinner and then saw Karate Kid at the dollar theater. We loved it, but I think Tyler loved it best-- he left the theater punching, kicking, and hi-yaing. Hooray for a break!

Idea overload

My head is just buzzing with ideas! Tomorrow is my last day of work, and I couldn't be more excited. I can't wait to have fun these next two weeks with Tyler before school starts! I get this way a lot though. I get really excited about something, or a lot of things, and usually bite off way more than I can chew. Then, I get way uptight about doing the stuff and usually end up super-disappointed that I wasn't able to do everything on my list.

THIS time will be different. I have made a list of options of things to do, not absolutes. We will play it by ear and do the things we feel like doing, and I will not end up frustrated. Being a little sad that these next two weeks will fly by is inevitable, but only because they'll be great weeks!

Here are a few things we're maybe doing:

-Hike Timp
-Go to the Manti Temple
-Go to the zoo
-Hike to Stewart Falls
-Play lots of tennis
-Soak up the sunshine

That last one is a definite MUST. I need to photosynthesize.

A trip down south

*Read at your own risk. This may or may not be THE longest post in the history of blogging.

Our adventures began when Tyler picked me up from work around 2, and we drove down to Hurricane, UT, and stayed in a hotel for the night. Our room had a jacuzzi in it! I loved that. We relaxed and watched Gilmore Girls that evening. :) I have a great husband. We woke up pretty early and drove down to Zion's National Park!! He didn't tell me that's where we were going until just before we went to sleep the night before... kept me guessing the whole time! We wanted to get there early enough to get a good campsite, and we definitely did. Just a few hundred yards away from the Visitor's Center and the shuttle service. Lovely!

We grabbed our walking sticks (hiking poles might be the official name, but I prefer walking sticks) and our water shoes and headed out.

We rode the shuttle up to the trailhead for the Emerald Pools. They were so beautiful!

Then we rode the bus up to the trailhead for Angel's Landing. A little bit harder than the first hike for sure! But the scenery was breathtaking.

It was crazy to look down and see how far we'd gone!

We also found alternative living arrangements, in case we decide this apartment isn't working out for us...

Wouldn't want to fall down there!


After Angel's Landing we ate lunch and rested at our campsite for a little while. Then we changed into our swimsuits and headed for the Narrows! It was a beautiful walk alongside the river, until the canyon narrowed down to the point where there was nothin' but river. Can't go over it, can't go under it, gotta go through it!


The water got pretty high in some spots, up to our waists. And despite some hiking pole issues, it was perfect! Probably my favorite hike of the day, once I got used to the cold water.

The canyon was SO beautiful... this picture is not edited at all!

After hiking around all day, we went back to our campsite and set up our tent. I was proud of our speed even though we'd never set it up or taken it out of the box before!!

Then we went on a drive through the tunnel. It was built in 1930 and it's over a mile long... pretty impressive! There are little windows randomly throughout the tunnel, and I snapped this as we whizzed by one of them:

By the time we got back, the sun had gone down enough that it was barely cool enough to build a fire. We were VERY hungry after a long day of hiking and we anxious to roast some dogs. Hot dogs, of course. :) This cool Israeli family asked to share our campsite, so we had fun talking with them and only having to pay half the fee!


Oh, I forgot something. When we first got back from our drive through the tunnel, there was a deer on our campsite. I for sure got within touching distance of him before he finally backed away! That fella wanted a hot dog or somethin. Pretty funny. That night was so miserably hot! Tyler and I had a hard time falling asleep in our tent. We woke up just a few minutes before it started pouring rain in the morning, and we only got a little soaked as we quickly packed up and got out of there. We stopped at a gas station to change and wash off before heading to the St. George Temple! We did a session there and it was great. That's one more down on the Utah temple list.

We went to the Visitor's Center and walked around for a little bit. Such a beautiful temple! We went and ate lunch and drove around Dixie College for a while (little did I know, Tyler was stalling). Then came yet another surprise--we went and got a massage together! I had never had a professional massage before, and wow, it was wonderful. After hiking a lot it felt even better! I asked Tyler to not get his degree in Accounting and switch to massage therapy, but I don't know if he gets how serious I am! :) We drove home after that, and spent the evening unpacking and doing laundry and relaxing.

You can't say I didn't warn you! Congratulations to the way-too-nice people who made it all the way down here. :) What a perfect weekend! Thanks to my hubby for planning all of that... it really was amazing!

A post sans pictures

Our trip was amazing! I can't wait to post pictures and tell you all about it. I'll have to do that when I get home from work today. But if I had to describe the trip in one word: perfect. I still can't believe he planned it all without me knowing. It felt like everyone knew except me!

We got back Saturday afternoon and spent the evening catching up on laundry and unpacking. We watched Australia, which was cool. Very different movie, but we enjoyed it. Sunday was our anniversary! It's crazy that we've been married a whole year. Church was especially entertaining and we laughed at the kids the whole way home. We love our calling! We ate lunch and watched some of Tyler's home videos. I sure hope our kids are as cute as Tyler was as a kid! Seriously, the most adorable thing ever. Then I took him on a drive to our temple. :) That's where I surprised him finally. After a weekend of surprises from him, it was my turn! I gave him a big framed photo (one of those ones that looks like a painting) of the temple to hang in our living room. He then surprised me (seriously, he's a little too good at hiding stuff from me haha) with a beautiful bracelet. We walked around the grounds a bit and then headed home. I love Tyler so much! It's crazy how fast time goes, and I can't believe a whole year has passed, but at the same time, it's the most natural thing in the world. We're just this old married couple now. :) Can't wait for many more years with you, honey!

Yesterday began my last week of working at this job! I am SO excited to be done. I've loved this job, but I'm just so ready for a change. This week is dragging on like you wouldn't believe. But I survived work, and went home to see some things in our apartment rearranged. Tyler moved the sewing machine into our bedroom! Probably a good idea, if he ever wanted to study in peace. :) We ate a quick dinner and then headed off to MV to play tennis with Austin and Giselle! We played a doubles match in couples like normal, then Giselle and I took Audie and Tyler on. We were unsuccessful for the 3rd time! This is absolutely unacceptable. We both taught our husbands everything we know about tennis, and then they turn on us and kick our bums. Not fair. We were all exhausted after 4 close sets of tennis! Tyler and I went home and crashed, but not before watching a Gilmore Girls episode. Gretchen gave us the first season, so we're starting from the beginning! He's so sweet to watch with me. :)

I'm trying to be patient waiting for this week to be over, but it's hard! I'm so excited to have some relaxing time with Tyler before school starts. We don't have tons planned yet, but one thing we'd like to do is go to the zoo! And, lots of tennis. No way Giselle and I are going down again... we have to beat the boys!

I am going away today,

*This is not us. And I probably won't be holding a map. In fact, I may be blindfolded. And we don't have a convertible.

though I don't know where. My cute husband is surprising me with this little fact as we run away from here to celebrate our anniversary. Little does he know, I have a surprise of my own! But he doesn't get it until our actual anniversary-- which is Sunday. I probably won't tell you either, just in case! You'll see in a few days.

Life is so good. We went to the Wright's on Monday night for dinner, and it was great. I brought peanut butter bars, so between that and the yummy steak, salad, and potatoes, I may have gained 10 pounds from one meal. Luckily, we went to good ol' MVHS and played tennis to work it off! We were halfway through the second set when the lights went out... bummer. Tuesday Gretchen and Heidi came into town! We loved having them here. We went to the temple Tuesday night with the Wright crew and Aunt Sheila, and it was wonderful. I love being in the temple. We ate at Cafe Rio and had ice cream at Spoon It Up afterwards, which was also wonderful. I love food. Wednesday we spent the morning running last-minute errands with Heidi and eating a yummy lunch at Zupa's before dropping Heidi off at the MTC! She'll be serving in Independence, Missouri, and we are so dang excited for her. We will miss her terribly but she'll be an amazing missionary. And Visitor's Center tour guide, of course! I had to go back to work after we dropped her off, but only for 3 hours. Pretty nice. Tyler picked me up from work and we came home to no electricity! We sat there in romantic candlelight for about 2 hours, playing Catch Phrase, eating chips and salsa, and listening to the thunder and rain. I love storms. It started pouring in Provo right as we were going to see if there were any dry tennis courts down there, so we gave up and went with Adam and Aubrey to get food at Teriyaki Stix and Pita Pit. We played Catch Phrase with them for a while too, girls against guys. Aubrey and I definitely dominated! We had so much fun. I packed for our mystery trip and we watched Juno. Weird movie. Probably won't ever watch it again.

Well, there's an update from the last few days. I am almost finished with Catching Fire, the second Hunger Games book. READ THESE BOOKS! I love them!

Bookworm

I have been reading tons lately at work. Things have really slowed down here a lot, and I kinda love it. Some of my favorites recently have been The Hunger Games and The Fixer-Upper. I wasn't anticipating too much from The Hunger Games because of all the hype, but I am totally on board now... can't wait to read the second one. Unfortunately, I'm at least 150 down on the library's waiting list-- it'll be a while. But I'm currently reading "Mom, Interruped: A Young Family Faces Cancer." It's about my dad's cousin. You should read it. I'm not even 100 pages into it, and I've already cried twice.

By the way, my husband is home. :) That lame smiley face isn't adequate to express my happiness! It was so great to have him sitting next to me at church, holding my hand. It's like he never left, but better. Pretty cool. We watched Charly yesterday (what is it with me and this self-inflicted cancer-related torture lately??) and bawled together. He ate ice cream with me (have you ever eaten ice cream alone? Pretty depressing) and we took a walk around the park. I love having my best friend back.