{raising the bar}

My favorite little brother took me out on the town! After helping my mom freeze 18 dozen ears of corn, he insisted we needed some shaved ice. I am not one to turn down a perfectly delightful offer, so we went to this fun little place down the street from our house. Talk about a bargain- for $2 you have a giant mound of summer goodness that's as big as your head!

Is there really an end to summer?

First off, I must brag for a little bit about the fact that this post is made possible by my own skills to get our new wireless router up and working. I am not well enough trained to be an expert at computer things and I never learned it in college either. However, I mastered my mini fear and actually set up a wireless network that WORKS on my ghetto computer in our little old house AND I actually think it's secure! I'm very proud.

On a different note, I cannot believe that another summer is ending. I got the summer that I wanted after a stressful school year. A very lazy, hazy, crazy summer. I'm going to miss the many hours of sleep each night, the pool, and HGTV. That was my schedule in Arizona. It was wonderful but near the end of July, I started getting a little antsy to get back to doing things, my classroom and this little house:

Before I got officially back to work, we had a fun weekend in northern Phoenix where we stayed here:

Then we made the long drive up and even stopped to see this:

We then enjoyed some beautiful days with Michael's family in Midway where the temperature is NOT trying to melt me. It felt so good and I love how pretty it all is. It was a great way to end a nice, lazy summer.

One Year Down. Only an eternity left to go!

Wow! I cannot believe I'm old enough to have an anniversary. One year ago we tied the knot for time and all eternity. What a day! Even now, I am amazed at how many people came and genuinely supported us and were so thoughtful. How blessed we are and as Dr. Seuss said, "Oh the Places You'll Go." Here's a quick little view of our adventures so far:

One of our first pictures together- Hiking- Summer/Fall 2007

We have gone to many BYU football games-


He still does little acts of service for me- I kinda like it.


Vegas Baby: (No, we didn't get married here.)

Boston- 2008-

Engaged- April 2008

San Fransisco- June 2008

Wedding Day- 08.06.08

Honeymoon in Naples, Florida

Bryce Canyon- Sept. 2008

Hawaii- Valentine's Day 2009

Moab- 2009 (And NO, I'm NOT pregnant in this picture.)


Arizona- 2009

Oh the adventures yet to come! I can't wait!

{the sunglasses game}

Oh the cleverness of Horito Royal has struck again. This time she adapted her idea from blog stalking and created this. And we got a turn to play! The gist is the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants meets sunglasses. So naturally I'm drawn to the idea. If only I had the wardrobe of Alexis Bledel and we were in Greece...

We got the sunglasses and took some pictures with them before we sent them on. Here's some of the fun we had with them:

I was so proud that Michael played along.

He didn't like the switch though. He says "they're girl glasses."

Naturally we took a little trip here:

And enjoyed a wonderful shake.

Truth be told, I am not a fan of the orange pair. However, I think he rocked them.

Visitors to AZ in 111 degrees?!?

We got some! Michael's family (minus Katie and Josh) came to visit US in ARIZONA during the SUMMER and right after their MOVE across country. Boy, do we feel lucky. That's true love folks.

We were excited to have visitors. They made it to our apartment on Friday after driving across country from Boston and getting to Utah on Wednesday night, unloading their moving van Thursday and then hitting the road again to Arizona. We had 8 people and a baby staying in our one bedroom apartment. All summer I have thought our apartment is a fairly big size with a lot of room for Michael and I. That big apartment quickly became nice and cozy with all that body heat! This is what our apartment looked like most of the weekend:

It was a relaxing weekend filled with games, swimming, treats and movies.

And we got to see the many faces of this handsome guy:

Isn't he cute with that red hair of his? He's so big and I love those cheeks! It was fun to have visitors for my last weekend in Sun Valley!