Happy Easter!

I have had a lot of fun Easters, but this year had to be one of my favorites! Steve and I spent the night before dyeing eggs in our pjs while watching movies, which was pretty silly, but fun (which is the phrase that could describe most of our holiday). The next morning we hid each other's eggs and hunted for them, again, silly, but fun. I had Snoopi the Easter Beagle wake Steve up in her lovely bunny costume to come down for the egg hunt and to enjoy our baskets full of goodies. The Easter Bunny even slipped some new shoes in my basket! Very cute, Italian, and yes, he picked them himself and they were a surprise! I have a great husband :) Then we went to a pre-church Easter Brunch at the Marriott, which was sooooo good! Ate way too much, of course, and got our picture taken with the Easter Bunny (yes, we are dorks). We had a delicious dinner with the Evans family, and spent the rest of the night being lazy with our bellies full of all the food and candy we stuffed ourselves with. Now that's a good holiday!

Valentines, Birthday, and St. Pattys

February was a fun month for me, because I had Valentine's Day and my birthday to celebrate. And Valentine's Day was the day before our 6-month anniversary, so we did a little overnight trip to Wendover to cover both occasions. I know Wendover might sound like a weird place to spend a romantic holiday, but it was actually really great! We were late to the Kansas concert we had tickets for, but at lease we were there in time for Carry On My Wayward Son :) Then we went back to our hotel...our room there was so nice! I didn't even know they had rooms that nice in Wendover.... I was a little shocked. We had a suite with a big jacuzzi in the room and plasma TV, it was awesome. We had dinner at the hotel and did some gambling (too bad neither of us did too well at the tables). The next morning we had brunch at the buffet before driving home. Other than the service being TERRIBLE (which we expected, hard to find good people to work in Wendover I would guess), everything was really nice. Great hotel, decent food, fun cheap blackjack tables - that spells romance! Plus I got some really pretty roses from my hubby :)

My birthday was so much fun, it was like a two week long celebration. The Sunday before we had cake and ice cream at my Aunt Brentz and Uncle Paul's with my grandparents and cousins, and the day after that Steve and I went out for a birthday lunch with my grandparents and Brentz. Then on my birthday Steve was so sweet! First he went and got me my favorite breakfast (biscuits and gravy) while I was getting ready for work. Then that night he picked up takeout from Olive Garden and we watched American Idol and a pirated copy of Twilight - what a perfect night! He even baked me brownies and put candles in them and sang to me. It was the best birthday to get to relax and hang out with my favorite person. And for my present, he got me tickets to Rascal Flatts the next night, which was a great concert! Then that weekend my mom came in town, and just having her come was a great present, but she really spoiled me by taking me birthday shopping and taking Steve and I out to Cheesecake Factory for dinner. Then the next week my girlfriends took me out to dinner at Outback Steakhouse for a joint birthday celebration for me and my friend Torrey. I love spending time with all my girlfriends, it was so fun! And then that weekend (yes, it's still going) we celebrated at Steve's parents house with dinner and cake and presents, which was so nice of them! So thank you so much to everyone for making my birthday so wonderful... I love you all! It was so great it even took my mind off of how old I'm getting! ;)

One last note, I had to include this funny picture of Snoopi on St. Patrick's Day. I love having a dog as a replacement for a child so I have someone to dress up...haha. I also dressed up myself and Steve, and made Shepherd's Pie and Bread Pudding for dinner. I'm so festive ;) I'm lucky my husband thinks it's cute when I'm kind of a dork.

The Big Apple

This past weekend Steve and I joined my family on a trip to New York City to celebrate my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary and to see my brother compete in a track meet. I hadn't been to New York in over ten years, and Steve had only ever been there on a layover, so we had a lot to see! We did all the typical tourist stuff - Rockefeller Center, Empire State Building, Central Park, etc. - and ate so much good food like giant corned beef sandwiches from the delis, New York style pizza, and lots of cheesecake. Luckily we did a lot of walking to combat all those delicious calories ;) One of my very favorite parts of the trip was going to see the musical Wicked on Broadway. It was a great show...I hadn't read the book or heard any of the music before, so it was all a surprise to me, but it was very well done and really fun to watch. The first night there we also went to a comedy club, which was an interesting experience. There were 6 or 7 comics, and they were all pretty funny, except for the last guy who was AWFUL! It was like he wasn't even trying to be funny, he was just trying to say the most disgusting things he could think of. Kind of awkward. But it was still a fun night, our favorite comedians were Judah Friedlander (from 30 Rock and Best Week Ever) and a guy named Godfrey (who I just found out is the 7-up spokesperson in their 7-up yours campaign! haha) who was so so funny. And seeing Parker vault at his meet was cool too, he is always so impressive. The best part was just getting to spend time with the fam and spend a few days doing something different. We came back to some good news also, Steve has his first law school acceptance! He's only heard back from one school so far, University of Miami, and he was accepted! It is really exciting, Miami is top tier law school with a good international program, so it's definitely a good option. And it's really cool that they accepted him so quickly, obviously they really liked what they saw, because it's only been a few weeks since he applied. I am really, really proud of my very smart and amazing husband, and so excited to know that he's for sure going to law school next year!

Happy Holidays!

Okay, so I am officially a horrible blogger. January is almost over and I haven't written anything since November. I'll try harder. I have a little bit of an excuse- the past couple months have been so busy for us! In a good way. Spending the holidays with my new husband was wonderful! We were in Denver for a big, crazy Thanksgiving, and then back again for Christmas. My Nanny and Dano came up from St. George to spend Christmas with us, which was fun. We all went out to dinner on Christmas Eve at Outback Steakhouse (family tradition), and spent all day Christmas hanging out in our matching pajamas playing xbox and wii. The weekend involved lots of eating and shopping- always a winning combination! We also got to celebrate Christmas twice with Steve's side of the family, once at the big family Christmas party in December, and then again when we got back from Denver and got to go eat dinner and open presents with Steve's parents. What a great way to make the holidays last! Steve and I also had people over to our house for a little Christmas get-together, we all went and saw the lights at Temple Square, and then came back to our house for soup and Rock Band. It was really fun to have all our friends come to our house to celebrate the season. For New Year's Eve, we went to a party at Tucanos with my cousin Vicki and her husband Mike. We ate a big Brazilian buffet and then danced in the new year. We were unaware when we bought our tickets that this party was a predominanty ethnic event. Most of the music was in Portuguese, and everyone there seemed to know line dances to all the songs. We felt a little silly, but it was still fun to get dressed up and go out with our friends.

It was nice to get to spend some time relaxing over the holidays, because there hasn't been much time for that in January. My very smart husband got his LSAT scores back right after Christmas, and this month has been a crazy blur of getting law school applications sent out. They are FINALLY done, as of this week, and now we just have to wait. He applied to a big variety of schools all over the country, so I really have no idea where we might end up. There are things that would be cool about every place he applied, so it will be a very tough choice when it comes down to picking one. I know I could drive myself crazy thinking about it the next couple of months while we wait for acceptances, so I will try not to worry, because I know wherever we go it will be great.

Luckily I've had some distractions. I'm just finishing Week 4 of my fitness bootcamp. I've been getting up at 5 every morning and going to this really intense fitness class to try and get back in shape after the holidays. It has been so hard to get up so early and push myself physically harder than I ever have, but it feels really good that I've made it through! Steve and I want to start our own at plan at home once I'm finished with this to keep the good results going. And my most exciting news is that last week Steve and I booked tickets to go to Europe this Spring! We're leaving right after his graduation in May, and I am so, so excited! It will be the perfect way to celebrate his graduation, and planning the trip will be a great way to keep our minds off waiting to hear back from law schools. Sometimes it's hard for me to believe how wonderful my life is.... I really have everything I could ever want, and more, and I just feel so thankful and happy every day.

Oh, one last thing, I never posted all the cute pictures that my friend Kristin took of Steve and Snoopi and I for our Christmas cards! She did such a good job, so you can click HERE if you want to see how adorable we are ;)

Happiness is a Warm Puppy

Just in case I ever needed more proof that my husband really loves me, he gave me the perfect early Christmas present: an 8-week old beagle puppy. We got our new baby Snoopi almost two weeks ago, and she is so fun and cute! Even Steve, who had to be persuasively talked into the idea of a dog, has found her too adorable to resist. He's started taking her on walks, which at first really terrified her, but now she's starting to like them (especially if they run into other people who will fuss over how cute she is - she's such a show off). We brought her to a puppy playdate with Steve's brother Dave and his wife Aspen and their two dogs. She loved Dave and Aspen but was a little timid around Bart and Ruby. She starts puppy obedience classes tomorrow morning though, so hopefully that will help her feel more comfortable around other dogs. She seems to be really smart and easy to train. She's been pretty good with housetraining, and she likes to sleep in her crate. Her favorite toy is a little squeeky stuffed raccoon that I bought her because I want her to start practicing scaring away the raccoons we sometimes see in our yard (they terrify me!). You can tell she has a beagle's hunting instincts because she definitely treats her toy like it's prey. She will do this funny army crawl under our coffee table and lie there for a minute before jumping out and pouncing on it, and then she'll violently shake it back and forth in her mouth. She uses the same hide and attack method on our shoes as we walk by the table, especially my furry slippers, so we need to figure out how to teach her the difference between shoes and animals. But her very favorite thing to do is snuggle up with us on the couch. She's really sweet and affectionate, and we think we definitely picked the right pup for our family.

Honeymoon #2 - Mexico

We had such an amazing time in Mexico! It really was the perfect honeymoon- beautiful beaches, wonderful resort, and plenty of time to relax and enjoy being newlyweds. We stayed in the Sandos Playacar Riviera resort, which is the new addition (just completed this spring) of a larger resort. It's an all-inclusive resort, which was so perfect for a honeymoon, because we didn't have to worrry about a thing the whole time we were there. The beaches in Playa del Carmen are AMAZING, and our resort was the last one down the beach in a whole row of resorts, so if we walked down the beach south from our resort it was totally isolated with nothing but the beach and the jungle. One day Steve and I walked pretty far away from the resort down the beach and it started pouring rain. We had left our towels and bags and everything back in front of the resort, and there were no buildings anywhere near us, so there was nothing we could do but just enjoy walking in the rain. The first two days we were there it was sunny in the mornings, but rained all afternoon. After those first couple of days though, we enjoyed nice weather for the rest of the trip. The ocean was too rough to do any snorkeling or anything like that, but we still played in the water some almost every day, and spent A LOT of time just hanging out on the beach (my now peeling sunburn is evidence of this). Steve taught me how to play chess on the giant poolside chess set, which was fun, even though I could never beat him. The resort also had shows at night, which were kind of entertaining, and a dance club. One crazy thing about being in the middle of the jungle were the strange animals we saw wandering around the resort grounds. There were lots of really big iguanas, but then some other animals that we had no idea what they were -- one looked like a gigantic rat with a long nose and short stumpy tail, and another looked sort of like a ring tailed lemur, with a super long tail that pointed straight up. It was a little spooky to be walking down to dinner at night and see one of these mystery creatures just a few yards away, but it added to the Mexican experience. Speaking of the Mexican experience, I was SOOOOO happy to have my spanish speaking husband there! I thought that the resort would probably be mainly English speaking since its catering to tourists, but that was not the case. Steve spoke in Spanish to everyone there, plus he was able to figure out things like bus schedules. The food was great; there were a bunch of buffets for all meals, plus four reservations-only restaurants for dinner. We tried out a different one every night- Brazilian, Asian, French, and Steakhouse. Our room was really nice- it was a large suite with a plasma TV and big jetted tub in the room, which was nice to relax in on the rainy days. On our last day there we went to the Mayan ruins at Tulum. They were really cool to see, totally unlike anything I'd ever seen before. They also made for great photo opportunities, so if you want to see more of our pics, click HERE. Then that night we went to Casino night at the club where we played blackjack and craps and won a hat and a fanny pack (such great prizes...lol). It really was one of my best vacations ever - everything I could imagine a honeymon being - and I am so appreciative of my wonderful husband for taking me on such a great trip!

Newlyweds

Since I haven't written anything for a while, I thought I should catch up on everything we've been up to for the past couple months before writing about our latest vacation. Being married is so much fun! Steve and I both keep saying that it's even better than we thought it would be. It's been really nice settling into our home together and adjusting to being roommates ;) We went on a Labor Day trip to Colorado to hang out with my family and celebrate my mom's birthday, which was very fun. The picture on the right is Steve and I in front of the John Elway statue at the Denver ESPN Zone where we went to watch the Utah game. We also visited the CU campus in Boulder since Steve is thinking about applying to law school there. I would love to live by my family for a few years, but it would be hard to move away from our home and Steve's family. There are so many things to consider, but I think wherever we end up it will be a fun adventure for us to share together and grow from. Steve has been very busy with school and studying for the LSAT. He takes it the first weekend in December, and even though I know he's nervous, he has been doing a lot of preparing so I know he'll do well. It hasn't been all work and studying though, we've been up to a lot of fun things as newlyweds also. We've gone on a couple of fun double dates, to Biaggi's with our friends Mark and Torrey, and to the Melting Pot with my cousin Vicki and her husband Mike ("Where's Ben Wade?"). Steve's birthday was especially fun! First we celebrated with the fam with a delicious dinner at the Evans house the Sunday before. Then on his birthday, I took the afternoon off work and we went to the Sanctuary Day Spa to use our gift certificate for a couple's massage that my boss gave us as a wedding gift. It was sooooo nice and relaxing! Any couples living around Salt Lake should definitely check it out for a special occasion, it is a really nice package- after the massages you get to relax in a big tub with refreshments....it was very fun. Then that night we went to dinner at Flemings, which is where this picture was taken. Neither of us had been there before, but we would highly recommend it now- delicious! Then we went home to open presents and other birthday surprises. I gave Steve half-season Jazz tickets, which is kind of a present to me too because we have so much fun at the games. We went to the first one last night (preseason) and are excited to be there the rest of the season.... Go Jazz!