Spring Break 2013

Last week Stephen and I were out of school for Spring Break so we made the most of it. We started off the week at Disneyland! It's my favorite place in the world. (warning, lots of pictures that we took of ourselves, which is great for me because I loved that it was just the two of us all week long)

We rode our favorite rides...lots of times

Stephen had some special needs but he did manage to beat me on the Toy Story ride, one time out of three that is. 

Cars land is adorable and wonderful.

We ate my favorite Disneyland food together.

Stephen ate his favorite Disneyland food...alone.

We got there early both days to beat the crowds and this was us on the Small World ride, just the two of us in our own boat and no one in front or behind us! We weren't this fortunate with short lines all day but the mornings were great. 

After Disneyland, We drove up the coast on the Pacific Coast Highway from Los Angeles to San Francisco. It was one of the most beautiful drives we have ever taken! I don't know why this isn't WAY more popular, it was amazing. Big Sur was breathtaking and although you can't really capture it fully in pictures, we took lots. 

 

Our last day in California we did some quick sight seeing in the bay area before heading back home. 

It was such a fun trip and so nice to have some time off and spend the whole week just with each other!

100th Post! Back in the saddle again...

I have been away from this blog for so long that I have debated lately whether I should attempt a gigantic update of our lives since October, or if I should just delete it and be done blogging. I thought it seemed like a shame to stop now, right when I am about to have something to post about that people might be interested in! Stephen and I are expecting a baby in August and I will blame my lack of motivation to do much of anything on the first trimester of my pregnancy. I am going to try to post more regularly again, so here is the ridiculously large recap of the past few months.

Stephen is half way through his MBA program and has traveled to Durham, North Carolina, Shanghai, China, and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. He has been posting pictures on face book but I requested picture from him from China and Dubai to put on the blog. Here is what I got:

The Shangahi skyline

Part of the Dubai skyline, this is the view from Stephen's room

This picture is really poor quality but Stephen was so excited that he went indoor skiing in the Arabian Desert.

The holidays are the other excuse I am using for being behind on my blog, so busy! For Thanksgiving, we headed to Las Vegas to be with my mom's extended family. We often don't go downtown at all when we go to Vegas because we are just there to see family but Stephen has a hard time feeling right about that so we went out one night. 

The Christmas season was so fun. Stephen and Bradley surprised Robyn and I with a cute little date ride on the Polar Express in Heber Valley. 

We spent some time with my family

And Christmas day with Stephen's family

We opened presents at our house, Stephen got me a beautiful bracelet and I made him a boy quilt.

After Christmas Stephen and I went on a trip together, just the two of us. It was heaven. We went to St. Kitts in the Eastern Caribbean. 

We hiked the volcano

And we did some sightseeing

But mostly we just relaxed on the beach, took naps, and read books for pleasure (no school books were allowed)

It's been an eventful few months and the next few will be the same. I turned 25 on March first and had a great birthday. Stephen's birthday is in just a few weeks. Stephen's next school trip is to India in a few weeks. The baby is due in August.

There is the big overview of our life right now and hopefully I can blog more regularly now that I am caught up!

Happy Halloween

In the spirit of Halloween, here are a couple of our favorite videos...

And...my coworkers are better than yours.

Autumn and Girl Time

It's fall and it's been a wonderful one so far! I have been loving the weather, the leaves, and even a little bit of football.




I went to the pumpkin walk with my family and it was adorable, as always.








Stephen has been in China for the past couple weeks for school and I have missed him a lot (and I'm SO excited he is coming home today!) but I decided to make the most of my time without him and have some really fun girl time.

Last weekend I went to Witchapalooza at Gardner Village with my wonderful teaching friends and had a shopping day with my mom and sisters.

This weekend I got to go to Time out for Women with my friend Robyn. I have never been to anything like that before and it was wonderful! There are some really talented and inspirational people out there and I got to spend the weekend listening to many of them.



My favorite presenter at the conference was Jenny Oaks Baker, the daughter of Elder Oaks. She is an incredibly talented violinist and was breathtaking to listen to live. Here are a couple of videos I found of her that I liked:

Champlin Family Pictures

We had some family pictures taken at the end of August with my family in Logan and they are finally back to us! I love the way they turned out, here are some of my favorites.

My Kind of Election Coverage

This video is from the last presidential election and I could not think it is any funnier now, with them bombardment of the current election, than I do.

(sorry if you're offended by the swear in the title or the content, but I have to hear things that offend me every time I turn on the news)

First Week of School

I was wandering pinterest (ok, ok, I was just looking at Adrienne's pinterest) and I saw (stole) this (from Adrienne's collection).

This is the perfect visual description of my first few weeks back at school. Here's to hoping that this year can only possibly get better. 

Wildflower Pedalfest

This weekend my friend Robyn and I rode in the all women's bike ride called the pedalfest. It was mostly in Morgan county and besides Trappers Loop, I haven't ever ridden in that area so it was great to have a change of scenery and some motivation to ride much farther and much harder than I would on my own. The ride was 75 miles with 3,000 feet of elevation gain.

Here we are bright and early (and freezing cold) at the starting line! These are all camera phone pictures so excuse the quality, we didn't want to carry more than we had to.

I've lived in Utah all of my life and I've never heard of or been to East Canyon, which is where a huge portion of this ride took place. It was beautiful. 

We could have gone back and done 50 miles but we went for the 75 plus a hill climb. That hill (canyon) climb was no joke. 

But we made it to the top! They took advantage of our exhausted delirium and slipped those silly leis around our necks. This is at the Morgan County/Salt Lake County boarder.

 We had a blast! Thanks to Des for cueing me in on this fun event!

July...and some of August

Warning, this blog post is massive. I have been slacking off so here are a bunch of things we have been doing in the past month...

The first weekend of July, my sister's baby (first niece) Lyla was blessed. My mom's entire extended family was in town at the same time so it was quite the party.

We just love this little angel. 

We celebrated the fourth of July with good food...

and by going to the Real Salt Lake game that night...

with fireworks after.

The next day was a sad and exciting day when we took Stephen's brother Jake to the MTC.

We got to go with our ward's youth conference to Zion National Park to hike part of the narrows. It was one of the most beautiful hikes I have ever done and I can't believe how many times I have been to Zion without doing it!

Our summer neighbor besties, the Moores

My friend/neighbor Jamie did the whole hike with us and she is six months pregnant. She is obviously hard core.

Robyn took this amazing picture, that's really what it looked like!

After many years of waiting, I finally got to see Wicked this month. It was just as amazing as I have always imagined it.

Spencer got cozy with some wannabes after the show. He was really diggin that blonde, for obvious reasons. 

I have been a complete Olympics junky the past couple of weeks. I am just loving every bit of it, especially gymnastics, track, swimming, diving, the marathon, and beach volleyball. 

  

  

And finally, I just got home from a wonderful weekend trip to the happiest place on earth with my oldest friend on earth. Cars Land is not overrated even a little bit, it was a dream land.