Driving to Powell

Here are the few pictures I was able to take on my phone before it died.

Us driving to Lake Powell!

Husband listens to his audio book, while I work on my lesson plans.

We were so excited the whole drive down.

It felt like Christmas morning.

We miss it already. :(

In love with Lake Powell

Words cannot begin to describe the fun we had at Lake Powell.

A big thank you to the Preston family (who we love dearly) for inviting us.

Taylor and I got some nice sun and had such a relaxing time enjoying the water.

A few things I'll always remember from this trip:

Waverunners, wake-boarding, boating, swimming, bathing in a lake, cliff jumping, playing in the sand, playing board games, sleeping under the stars on the top of the houseboat, beautiful thunder and lightening storms over the lake, and laying in the hot hot sun.

Some memories in more detail:

I'll always remember being so scared to jump off of the cliff into the water.  It looked so scary from up on the top! Sweet Karlee Preston (who had already jumped once) told me she would jump and show me how easy it was.  So...she jumped.  But she came up sobbing.  She had smacked her tailbone right on the water.  That was great motivation for me. Haha  But then little eight-year-old Mark jumped like it was no big deal.  So I knew I had to go.  I took a deep breath, and just jumped.  It was so scary, so exhilarating, and so much FUN all compiled into one!  (minus the fact that my ear smacked the water, and I thought I had blown out my eardrum...ha).

I'll always remember sleeping under the stars and being shocked at how much the Preston littles knew about astronomy...they made fun of me for knowing so little.  ;)

I'll always remember sweet kisses and "I love yous" on the lake from my best friend and wonderful husband.

I'll always remember beating my husband at wake-boarding skills.  There are only two things that I can claim that I'm better at than him: wake-boarding and ultimate frisbee.  Although, he doesn't agree with the second one.  So I guess in his mind, up until this trip, he thought he was better at everything than me. ;)  At least I can claim wake-boarding now. I just wish he wasn't so dang good at everything.

I'll always remember tubing with little Brooke Preston.  We hit a pretty hard wave...and being as light as we were...we went flying.  I did a complete back flip into the water after being thrown into the air.  Poor Brooke had some small injuries, and wasn't so happy about that experience.  But after she got some Mom-loving, we laughed about how funny it really was.

As for pictures?  Well, I decided just to bring my phone for pictures.  But I didn't really think that through....because it died on the first night. Ha.

But I know there were lots of pictures taken from other people, so once those are up, I can steal some and post more about the trip :)

Here's the first stolen picture (taken by Kristen Preston):

Taylor and I made two decisions while we were in Lake Powell:

1. We will have a house-boat (our goal is in the next five years).

2. Our kids will learn to fall in love with Lake Powell just like we have.

A trip together :)

There is a houseboat in Lake Powell that is calling mine and Taylor's names.

So, off we go to answer that call!

We leave at 2pm today, and we could not be more excited!

Boating, jet-skis, water fun galore.

I am so ready to wake up to this for the next few days:

Taylor and I haven't had a vacation together this summer since our short one to Vegas/Arizona at the beginning of the summer.

Our other two "vacations" consisted of scouts camp/girls camp, in which we had to leave each other.

That being said, we are so excited to take this little adventure together. :)

Look forward to some awesome posts about our trip when we return on Saturday!

WE ARE SO EXCITED!!!

The Mint Milano Story

Have you ever had these before?

mmm...I absolutely love these cookies.

I lived on them while I was in college. so YUM!

Well let me tell you the story of how I got lucky enough to eat these last week:

When my family was in town, we all decided to go to the BYU creamery for some delicious ice cream.

While there, I saw the milano cookies, and was telling my mom about how those cookies used to be  my everyday meal.

(she's never had them before! I almost died!)

I was telling her how yummy they were, and how her life would never be complete until she tried one.

Well, about ten minutes goes by, and the conversation subject has shifted to something else.

The next thing I know, my dear husband walks around the corner, mint milano cookies (and receipt of purchase) in hand.

He wasn't even part of the conversation! But he overheard us talking, and without saying a word he decided to go buy those cookies for me, right then and there. 

Don't I have the sweetest guy in the world?

I just love him!

...and my stomach loves him too. ;)

That's the kind of person my husband is.  Always surprising me in the littlest and sweetest ways.

Happy birthday...kind of.

Last Wednesday was Taylor's 23rd birthday!

But, since I was at girls camp, we celebrated it two days early.

(How much of a bummer that I missed his first birthday as a married couple?)

I told Taylor that I would be thinking about him all day on his actual birthday.

I didn't even have phone service to wish him a happy birthday.

But I wished him happy birthday lots of times in my head. :)

To make myself feel better for missing his birthday, I told Taylor that I was going to pretend in my head that the day we celebrated was his actual birthday.

I greeted him in the morning with a "Good morning, birthday boy!"

And called him that multiple times throughout the day.

I even sang "Happy Birthday" to him over and over.

Taylor would always respond with "kind of."

For example:

Me: "Good morning, birthday boy!"

Taylor: "Kind of."

or

Me: "Happy birthday!"

Taylor: "Thanks...kind of."

or

Me: "Today is your birthday! Yay!"

Taylor: "Kind of."

or

Me: "Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday dear Taylor! Happy birthday to you!"

Taylor: "Kind of."

It kind of just became the running joke for the day. He'd put on his sly side-smile every time he'd respond with his "kind of."  Thank goodness that my sweet husband was so patient with me and my silly ways.

Here's the nerd in me: It is always so hard for me to keep gifts a secret. After buying his gifts, I would tell him over and over again how excited I was for him to open them. Then I would tell him what his presents were in a gibberish/mumbled tone so that he couldn't understand. For some reason, it made keeping the secret easier. ;) I was sooo excited for him to finally open his gifts!

Here are some pictures of our "kind of" celebration:

The "kind of" birthday boy with his presents ;)

His new spiffy sports coat :)

Keeping with tradition. Every year on his birthday, I make him a photo book of the things I'll always remember from the past year.  The first year I made it for him, he asked me to make one every year, because he loved it so much. :)

Happy birthday (kind of) to my wonderful husband, my very best friend, and the man of my dreams.
I am so lucky to be spending this life with you.
I love you!

Back!

Ha, my husband is so sweet to blog while I was gone!

I'm back from my week at girls camp!

I had a blast with all of the girls.

It was a little weird being there as a leader and not as a participant.

Being there reminded me of all of my wonderful memories at girls camp growing up.

I love girls camp!

But I'm also so happy to be home to a shower, bed, and a cute husband. :)

Little bit of reminiscing here:

This is a picture from four years ago of the last time I was at girls camp.

So many good times!
Now moving on to a relaxing rest of the weekend with the very much missed hubby.

Bedtime Stories Part 1

So here I lie in the middle of my bed.

Sounds like the beginning of a poem, right? Wrong.  It is just the musings of a husband who has not spent a lot of time in the middle of the bed.  Why is this you may ask? That is because my beautiful wife has no concept of what it means to share a bed :).  

On the first night we shared our bed (now mind you this is not a little double we are talking about, this is a big giant king sized bed) we decided that I would take the right side, and she would take the left.  So we get in bed, we read scriptures, say our prayers, say goodnight and I rollover to fall asleep.  As I'm drifting away I feel this warm body hugging my back.  I think, "oh that's nice" turn to kiss her on the forehead, tell her I love her, and roll back over.  Only to find that she is still latched on to me. I roll back over to see this face.

Minus the food, of course, but the expression is spot on.

I believe it was at this point that I awoke to the realization that that little warm body was not going anywhere.  I have decided that really there is no reason we have a king sized bed, we occupy 2 1/2 feet of it on a good night. I had a friend email me this picture and I think it represents pretty well how our bed is divided. 

How she can sleep like that every night I cannot begin to understand.  Yet even more baffling is the fact  that this week, with my wife at Girls Camp, I am actually missing that warm body at my back.