August 6th

On August 6th, 2011, Taylor Ray got down on one knee and asked me a question I was so excited to say "yes" to.

The cute boy had me completely fooled.  I thought for sure, I would know when he was going to propose.  But he did such a good job at fooling me the entire day!

I'll have to have a blog post dedicated to that story.

See here for more details on our love story :)

Taylor proposed to me at the beautiful Stewart Falls.  We decided after we got engaged, that we would make it a tradition to hike Stewart Falls every year on August 6th.  No matter where we are in life, no matter what state we may be living in, I plan to take a trip to Utah to hike Stewart Falls on August 6th, until my limbs are too weak to make the memory-filled hike.

Here are pictures of Taylor and I celebrating our one year engagement anniversary at the top of Stewart Falls.  There was no one around to take a picture of us, so we struggled taking a good phone picture of the two of us together. But, here are our best attempts:

You know you spend too much time with someone when you make the exact same face, completely on accident, in a picture!

Hi, pretty ring!

Taylor's showing off his muscles...I'm just pointing to the waterfalls. Haha

Thanks, husband.

Don't really know what's happening here, but this one made me laugh.

Look closely... see that water bottle in the brush? Taylor and I joked that this was the same water bottle that I dropped from excitement after he proposed.  Ha...it very well might be! (see video at the end of this post and watch for the water bottle drop!)

As we were huffing while hiking, Taylor jokingly turned to me and said, "Why didn't I propose to you on a wave-runner?"

I could not stop laughing after that.

He told me that after years and years of hiking this, our future boys would ask him (in their best whining voices), "Dad, why did you have to propose to Mom at the top of a mountain?"

And Dad will reply, "So I could teach you how not to propose. I did it for you, boys."

Haha...even though he joked about it, we both loved every second of reliving such a beautiful memory. :)

Here is the video of that special day one year ago :)

Dear husband, Thank you so much for proposing to me. Thank you for giving me the most beautiful ring. Thank you for being my very best friend and eternal companion through this life. Thank you for making me want to be a better person every day. I love you.
"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same." -Emily Bronte

Memorial Day Weekend!

Oh, how I love holiday weekends!  This particular memorial day weekend was spent with lots of family.  There was a lot of extended family visiting Utah this weekend to welcome Seth home, so the Gilbert's had a full house!  I'm bummed that we're back to the regular grind of things, but excited to relive our fun weekend through this post.  Here we go:

Evenings were spent around a fire-pit on the patio or swimming in the pool.
The weather was a little chilly...but the pool was heated.  Hence the choice between a fire and a pool.

The cousins enjoyed a few games of Ninja (a great game!)

Not surprising, each game usually came down to Seth and Taylor as the final two.

On Monday, the whole crew embarked on a hike along the Great Western Trail (which supposedly leads all of the way to Canada!).  We decided not to go to Canada though, because we had plans in store for the rest of the day. 

 Look at these views!  Utah is such a beautiful state!

On the hike!

My silly husband in his babushka...don't ask.

Showing off the beautiful landscape! 

You better believe there was also a girls shopping trip, lots of good food (even a few batches of yummy chocolate chip cookies...my favorite!!), a trip to the movie theater to see The Avengers (love it!), and of course lots of laughter!  We loved our memorial day weekend!

Oh, and guess what? Exactly one week until Taylor and I get to see Fun in concert! We are can hardly wait!

Keeping my promises

I promised to upload a few more pictures from our camping trip this last weekend.  So, here they are!

Here's Taylor during our blow-dart gun matches!

Blow dart game continued...Taylor in the trees

This game was so fun! We played for hours!

Me and my man by the campfire

Tom started blowing darts high into the air.  The game was to try to catch the dart in your hat before it fell into the fire.  I think Taylor's long arms were a large disadvantage to the rest of the crew! Ha

Bag-O tournament!  I wasn't very good at this...during the first round we had 3 losses, and zero wins.  But then we came back for a season and actually started winning just a little!

City or wilderness..I just love this boy!

Me and Marce 

On the hike!

I grew these things for this reason and this reason only.  A great and comfortable way to wear my backpack ;) Yes, I really did wear it like this during the hike.

All eight of us slept in one tent!

This trip was sososo fun!! I am pumped and ready to go camping again! I love Utah...and I love summer!