Paris in the Springtime

Wow! Just got back from 18 days in Europe, which somehow seemed like both a long time and not long enough. I think it's a good thing we didn't take Snoopi with us, because if we had her we might have been tempted to just never come back. It was amazing! We took almost 500 pics, obviously I won't put them all on here, but if there's anyone who wants to see them all (i.e. our moms), I'll include links. We left Salt Lake on a Wednesday morning and arrived in Paris Thursday morning. It was too early to check into our hotel, so we spent our first day exploring a little worn out and ragged looking, but it was still amazing. First stop was the Notre Dame cathedral, but much to our delight, just outside we discovered tents set up for the Fete du Pain. Steve later corrected himself to tell me the real translation was Bread Festival, but I preferred his original translation, Bread Party. Nothing better to start a visit in a new city than a bread party with free samples! Yum! Fitting for the trip, too, since for the rest of our time in Paris I ate pastries for pretty much every meal. Now that we're back home I'm still having major cravings for croissants and gelato (which I ate every day in Italy....how do Europeans stay so thin?). After Notre Dame we headed over to the Louvre, where we spent 4 hours, and probably would have stayed longer if we weren't so tired. It's a little overwhelming, but in a good way, it's hard to believe we were arm's length away from some of the greatest masterpieces in the world's history. We checked into our hotel room (tiny, but clean and cozy) and our little nap before dinner turned into a full night's sleep. The next morning we went to the Sacre Coeur cathedral, which was cool because it's high on a hill with great views. Then Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower, where we waited in line for a while to ride an elevator to the top. As amazing as it was to be on top of the Eiffel Tower, it was a little hard to enjoy because I was SO COLD! I had not been anticipating the cold weather in Paris, and hadn't packed for it at all, so while other people were bundled up in winter coats and boots, I was in a light cardigan and flip flops, and the wind on the top of the tower was chilling! I bought a scarf from a street vendor when we got down, but could not warm back up. So we went to the indoor venue of Les Invalides, home of Napolean's Tomb. There was a French war museum there, and Steve was in heaven, so we stayed for a while. As a reward to myself for the time in the war museum, the next stop was shopping ;) I found an H&M and bought myself a coat and some leggings to pull on under my dress. Much better! Then we walked along the Seine River and back to Notre Dame (in the hopes that the Bread Party would still be there, it wasn't). Once again, we went back to our hotel room to get ready for dinner and...fell asleep at 9:00. All that walking is really tiring. On our last day, we woke up early (easier to do when you're going to bed at 9) and took a train out to Versaille. The palace is a really good symbol of the opulence of the French royalty at the time, kind of ridiculous, but cool to see. Then we came back to Paris and hung out for a while on the Champs-Élysées (where we got crepes for lunch-yum!) and saw all the cool shopping and car showrooms, and then just wandered around the sitting taking in all the sights we could. That night we FINALLY made it out for a night on the town in Paris....unfortunately, we went out a little late, thinking that since it was a Saturday night the city would be bustling late into the night. Not true. So many places were closed! You can find open restaurants in Provo, Utah at 10:00, but not in Paris- crazy! So we got ourselves lost looking for a restaurant, it was raining, and we wandered around these empty neighborhoods full of closed restaurants until finally, close to midnight, I broke down and hailed a cab and had him take us back to the Champs-Élysées, where we found this nice French-Alsace restaurant and had a great dinner. It was a fun last evening in Paris, and Paris was a great place to begin our trip! So chic and cosmopolitan, and such a good example of a very European city, I'm really glad we had a few days to spend there, but I'd love to go back for more! To see all our Paris pics, click HERE.

Steve's Graduation

So it's 1:00 in the morning and in less than five hours we will be heading to the airport to fly to Paris, and I am sitting here writing a new blog post. But I know that when we get back we will have tons of new pictures and stories, and I didn't want to miss out on the opportunity to share the exciting news that Steve is a college graduate! Graduation at the University of Utah was last Friday, so Steve and I and his parents attended the ceremonies and went to lunch at Red Robin to celebrate. I'm very proud of my husband and excited for him to start the next phase of his scholastic journey at the University of Miami :)

Also, a few weeks ago, I ran my first half marathon! Running the Salt Lake City Half Marathon was definitely an accomplishment for me, expecially since six weeks earlier I was hardly running at all, and I decided to do the race just one week before it took place. I probably would have been a lot less sore the next day if I had trained more, but it was still really cool to know that I was able to accomplish that. Now I'm looking at doing my first full marathon, possibly in Miami in January.

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.