Utah

If you were to tell me that you were headed to Utah, this is what I would tell you to do. Because this is what I did these past few weeks...

 

I was so incredibly ready to go home back in April that I kind of forgot how much I love and adore BYU and specifically Provo. So, you ought to head down to Provo and remember how much you like your school.

Perhaps even go visit your dorm so you can feel nostalgic and old/proud that you are no longer a freshman.

See as many friends as you can possibly can.

Take your sibs to your fave shaved ice place.

Try and see as many almost-missionaries as you can.

In fact, try and suprise-attend their farwell talks if possible and most definitly attend the gathering at their house afterwards (read: free food).

Then drive down to Panguitch Lake in southern Utah and hopefully it will rain which may hinder your outside activities but in all reality it will be very nice.

Play with all your many boy cousins.

 

Get life advice from your papa and try and figure out your life.

Cuddle with as many small children as possible.

Honorable mentions: hiking, chatting with the lovely Beus women, going on a handful of dates, swimming to get tan since that is no longer an option in Washington, teaching four small girls to 'use the facilities' in the woods, learning a couple of new card games, logging in hours of highway driving, getting updates from all of my loving, wonderful aunts, etc.

I'm headed down to California for my beautiful frand Brookie's wedding and get to party with Rachael, Lily, Avery and Sydney! Oh life is so good sometimes. Can't wait to see all these girls that I adore. Wahoo!

Roadtripping

I honestly love road trips. I'm happy to sit and play on my phone and read books and listen to music and ignore my carsick sisters. We drove down to Utah this past Saturday, and the mere 14ish hours was a pleasant change from the Texas - Utah trek of 22 hours.

Fortunately I was given the blessing of being able to sleep in the car, but unfortunately I missed the first four hours of the drive, which were the prettiest. Lots of exciting scenery after that...

  

We'll be in Utah for a few weeks then back to Wash!

We all know how hard it is for me to know where to look when you're taking front camera pictures.

The Washington Report

First, let's take note of my witty post title. Oh ho ho. Okay so part of me wants to stay loyal to Texas and say it's just awful here but it's not. We love it here. 

Here are some of the things we're loving...
(if you click on the pic you can see a hi-res version)

Fresh fruit! Blueberries, blackberries, cherries, nectarines, blah blah blah we have yet to try fruit that isn't fabulous. 

Downtown Seattle! We've only actually gone downtown once, that's how many things there are to do here in Bellevue. But Seattle is just so cool. So much to do.

Downtown Bellevue! It has some of the best shopping I've ever seen. Adorable little shops and a great big park that is very Central Park-esque. The fireworks we watched on the Fourth were spectacular too.

Hiking! It's been really awesome to have the great outdoors so accesible. We literally live on a mountain (weird weird weird) so trails are minutes away from our front door. The above pic is so heinous but I was trying to show that it was cold enough (42 degrees thank you very much) that we could see our breath. It was too funny not to put up. And the slugs... yeah they're everywhere it's disgusting. They're so so big too. Blech. Makes me feel sick.

We love our house. It's really pretty and the backyard is huge and perfect. We feel so blessed and very happy!

The wildlife. And I'm actually not loving it. I think it's weird and hilarious. This is a dead mole. There are cougars and wolfs and bears and snakes that have been spotted in our neighborhood. Wahoo!

And now that the sunshine has fiiiiinaaaaaaaaally come out, we can finally appreciate the reason that Bellevue  is French for 'Beautiful View.'

We are so grateful for the warm welcome we've received. There are so many good people here! But we miss our Texas friends very much! Visits are encouraged :)