Spring Happenings

    Don't you just love spring in Utah? It is my favorite time of year, minus the allergies. I love seeing all the tulips and daffodils making their grand entrance and watching the popcorn trees pop before my eyes. I love it! It's also nice to be in Logan when it's above 40 degrees :)

     Petey and I have had a busy spring. We flew to Houston in March to find a place to live. We looked at 10+ apartments and fell in love with The Retreat at Westchase. We are really excited to live there. Compared to our Aggie Village apartment, our Houston apartment is a beautiful masterpiece. We had some fun while we were in Texas too. We went to Sprinkles Cupcakes (well Petey went because I wanted to haha), we drove to Galveston and checked out Paradise Pier, went to the Houston Zoo, and wondered around Texas trying to see what it has to offer. We had a great trip and are feeling more comfortable about our upcoming move.

Yummy Sprinkles Cupcakes!

     March was also a busy month for weddings. Two of my best friends got married 3 days apart from one another! Tayler married Scott on March 26. It rained like crazy when they got out of the temple, but they do say that rain is good luck :) They had a lovely luncheon and reception. I'm so happy that I got to be involved in the biggest day of their lives! Bailey married Tyler on March 29. Petey and I were both able to attend the luncheon and reception. It was such a beautiful day and Bailey and Tyler are perfect for each other! I'm so happy for both of them. I love my friends so much and I'm so grateful for them!

     I was able to go to St. George with  my parents and extended family earlier this month. We spent two days at Zion National Park and then swam and shopped the other days we were down there. The weather was AMAZING! The last time I went to Zion National Park I was 13. I appreciated the beauty a lot more this time around. Utah really is an incredible and beautiful place to live with so much diversity! I'm extremely happy that I was able to go on this trip and spend some quality time with my parents and extended family before Petey and I move. Petey couldn't come because he couldn't miss school, but I'm so happy that I was able to go! 

Angel's Landing hike

At the Weeping Rock

Hiking to the Upper Emerald Pool

Canyon Overlook

      I celebrated my 25th birthday on the 13th of April. I honestly can't believe that I'm 25 years old. Where has the time gone? I feel like I just graduated high school yesterday and now I'm approaching THIRTY!!!! Barf!!!!!!!!!! I'm having a slight quarter life crisis right now. Anyways... Petey and I celebrated my birthday in Payson with my family and my birthday buddy Jackson. Jackson was born on my 13th birthday and we've celebrated nearly every birthday together. I was sure spoiled! I was given an adorable dress, some clothes, some Hello Kitty paraphernalia (I love her!), treats, and Petey is bought me a plane ticket to come home and visit!!! Happy birthday to me! I'll be flying home in July to attend a family reunion and to hang out for about 10 days. I'm so excited. I'm truly blessed and I love my husband and family SO MUCH!! 

Petey and I after church on my birthday

My plane ticket home!

I'm in love with Spring Lake

Birthday Buddies! 25 and 12 years old.

 
This past Wednesday I got together with some of my favorite people for dinner! This might be our last roommate dinner before I move :( I love these girls!!! We were missing Stephanie! 

     Life isn't going to slow down anytime soon. This is my last week at Lee's!!! My last day is on Friday! Lee's has been a great job and I've met a lot of amazing people from working there. It will be a bittersweet goodbye. Next week is finals week for Petey and  then he will be DONE with college!!!! A COLLEGE GRADUATE!  His last final is next Friday and then the next day we fly to California for our trip. We are so excited for this trip!! It's going to be so much fun! Once we get home we'll have about a week before we have to move out of our apartment in Logan. We are going to be busy!!! Although I'm extremely nervous to move, I'm also kind of excited. I'm going to miss my family like crazy and I'm not looking forward to being away from them (not at all!) but I'm excited for a change. I'm so proud of Petey and know that he is going to do amazing things while working for Chevron.

     Life is crazy! Until next time...

The Happiest Place on Earth!

Petey graduates from college in a mere 83 days!!! Can you believe it? The end is in sight. I can't wait for him to be done with school, but at the same time once he graduates I know we'll be moving to Texas. Can time speed up in a certain aspect of my life but slow down in another? Probably not :( Anyways... after I graduated from college Petey and I went to Disneyland for a celebratory college graduation trip. Well, once he graduates in May we are doing the same thing! We thought about going somewhere else, but at the end of the day we both love Disneyland and don't want to severely break the bank since we'll be moving so soon afterwards. So we are going to California May 3rd-12th! We are going to do 3 days at Disneyland/California Adventure, a day at Sea World, a day at Universal Studios, a day at the San Diego Zoo (or safari park.. we haven't decided yet), attend an Angels vs. Yankees baseball game, attend a television taping, and do whatever else we want to! This will be my 6th time at Disneyland and I honestly never get sick of it. Since I've been 5 times before I thought I would do a little look back at my past 5 trips and share some of my favorite moments.

Trip 1 - June 2006

This was my very first time to Disneyland! I was 17 years old, so I thought it was about dang time haha :) My family went (minus Tyler who was serving an LDS mission at the time) and my parents best friends and their kids went also. I was so excited and giddy. Once we entered the gates and started walking down Main Street USA I felt like a little kid. Disneyland truly is magical! Here are some of my favorite pictures from our Disney day!

 




Tip 2- My second trip to Disneyland was for Choir Tour in April 2007. I had so much fun with my friends running around Disneyland in our Choir Tour shirts. We were so tired by the end of the day from running around and going back and forth between Disneyland and California Adventure. Here are some of the highlights of this visit.

Trip 3- My 3rd trip to Disneyland was in June 2008. I went with my friends Amy and Ashley. Ashley and I are the same age and graduated in 2007. Amy is a year younger than us, so after she graduated from high school in 2008 we wanted to go and do something fun! I had also finished up my first year of college and wanted/needed a vacation. We had so much fun going just us girls. We laughed A LOT. We spent 2 days at Disney. I will forever remember this trip!

Trip 4 - My 4th trip to Disneyland was with my hubby on our honeymoon!!! We had so much fun! We are the type of people that like going out and doing things rather than hanging out on the beach all day. So Disneyland was prefect for our honeymoon! We spent 2 days at Disneyland on this trip. We had so much fun enjoying time together and having all the stress of the wedding behind us :) We wore 'Just Married' pins around on our first day at the park. Disneyland really is one of my happiest places to be and I was there with the person that makes me the happiest! Here are some of my favorite moments.

 Trip 5- My 5th trip to Disneyland was in May 2012 with my hubby. We went to celebrate my college graduation. This time we spent 3 days at Disneyland (with park hopper passes of course) with one Magic Morning early admission. Petey and I did many things at Disneyland this trip that we didn't do during our first trip together. We watched the World of Color water show and it was amazing!!!! It was the highlight of the trip for me. We had such an awesome view and the show made us feel like we were kids again. We also went inside Sleep Beauty's Castle, which I had never done before. We watched many parades, rode the Mark Twain Riverboat to Tom Sawyer Island, rode many of the kiddie rides (I still enjoy the kiddie rides!), went on Toy Story Mania & Finding Nemo for the first time, rode Ariel's Undersea Adventure ride, tried yummy Disney treats we hadn't had before, AND we tried the Red Wagon Corn Dogs and they were DELICIOUS!!! We think that 3 days was the perfect amount of time to spend at Disney. We were able to ride all the rides we wanted to, pretty much as many times as we wanted to, and we weren't rushed everyday since we knew we had time to enjoy the parades and little things that we hadn't been able to during our first trip to D-land together. During our Magic Morning early admission Petey waited in line with for more than hour to get my picture taken with Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella. It was a dream come true for my inner five-year-old self. I loved it! Here are some of our best moments from this trip!

Trip 6- Is coming May 2013!!! Less than 3 months... not that I'm counting or anything :) Petey and I are especially excited for this D-land trip because Cars Land is now open at California Adventure. WE CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and ringing in 2014!

We've had a busy past few months with the holiday season, so here is a brief update.

The end of September I went with my mom for a girls getaway in Park City. It was so much fun! We shopped at the outlets, walked along Main Street, and went to Thriller. I love my mom and I'm so grateful for the getaways that we take together!

Thriller - love it!

In October Petey and I went to the zoo over Fall Break. I love the zoo and he gladly goes with me at least once a year. The weather was beautiful and we had a good time. He's so good to me!

'Baby' Zuri

For Halloween I dressed up as a 1920's flapper and wore my costume to work. This year we had our most trick-or-treaters ever, with a record of 5! It will be nice when we live in a better location and kids will actually come to our place on Halloween. Petey and I also went to the North Logan Pumpkin Walk, which has become a favorite tradition of ours. 

Pumpkin Walk

In November Petey and I went to one of the RSL vs Portland Timbers playoff games. It was nuts!!! RSL went up 3-1, before traveling to Portland for their second leg of the playoff where they ended up defeating Portland 5-2 on aggregate goals. Our seats at the game were awesome and we sat by a lot of crazy fans. We had so much fun! 

On November 25 we lost my amazing Grandpa to cancer. I'm still in shock of how quickly he passed. He was officially diagnosed with cancer in September and less than 3 months later he was gone. Honestly, I'm still struggling with his passing. I get sad thinking about how the last few 'good' months of his life Petey and I were in Hawaii. Hawaii was amazing and I wouldn't have changed it, but I wish I could have spent more time with him before his passing. My family moved in with my Grandparents when I was 11, and I either lived with them or next door to them until I moved away to college. Having his house empty and not being able to call him to invite him over to family dinners anymore has been hard on my family. I know that he has been reunited with my Grandma, but it is still had not having them here. He was an amazing man and taught me many things. I will be forever grateful for the time I grew up in Spring Lake with him near! His funeral service was beautiful and I know my entire family has been grateful for all of the love and support. The floral arrangement that lay on my Grandpa's casket had corncobs in it, which he would've loved! 

My parents and I with my Grandpa in September

For Thanksgiving we spent the day with Petey's family. It was a nice day and we enjoyed the company of family and good food! For the rest of Thanksgiving Break we spent it with my family since my Grandpa's funeral was that weekend. Although it was a sad time it was nice to spend so much time with family!

We spent Christmas with my family and it was amazing! It was weird though because this is the first year ever that both Tyler and Tanner weren't there for Christmas morning. And my Grandpa wasn't there :( Tyler and Jennie spent Christmas with her family and Tanner is on his mission in Kentucky. It was strange for Petey and I to have all of the attention, but we had fun :) Petey spoiled me! I took a week off of work for the Christmas and New Years holiday and I loved it!! Here are some Christmas pictures.

We lit candles on my Grandparents grave on Christmas Eve.
There are candles lit throughout the cemetery and it really
is a beautiful experience. 

Christmas morning!

Our sports shirts

My parents got Petey and I a Houston City Pass! When we
get to Houston in May we'll have a lot to see and do! We
thought this was such a creative present. Thanks parents!
We love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The BEST part of Christmas Day was being able to Skype with Elder Newbold! I miss my little brother bear like crazy!! It was so amazing to see his cute smiling face! We had a few little snags getting Skype to work (my mom was in tears), but luckily my computer savvy hubby was able to get everything working! We Skyped with Elder Newbold for nearly an hour. He is doing so good!!!! We can't wait to Skype with him for Mother's Day!

He's so cute!! Love him!!!!! We're so proud of him!

My parents and my hubby gave into my desire to go see
the Festival of Lights in Spanish Fork. It just makes my
heart happy :)

For New Years Eve we went to my aunt and uncles house and ate pizza, played games, and laughed. It was a fun night! My parents came up so we were able to spend more time with them. I love spending time with my family, and Petey is all for it since he knows that we'll be moving in May. He is so good to me :) 2013 was an amazing year and we are so grateful for everything. 2014 is looking like a bright year and we can't wait to see what the future brings!!!

Ringing in the New Year with sparklers!
of course :) 

Happy 2014 everyone!!!