Stewart Falls

This weekend Rob and I finally fulfilled one of our summer bucket list items! We hiked Stewart Falls, which has been talked about by everyone we know living in the Provo/Orem area. I've been wanting to do it for two summers now, and we finally did it.

(This is the moment we spotted the falls for the first time.)

It was a beautiful hike, completely shaded 100% of the way, and not too difficult (if you're in shape at all, which I am not after having surgery). I got a fabulous work out because I haven't been hiking in a good year or two. To the average person it is a very doable and enjoyable hike. And once I got my second win, and had Rob pushing me from behind during the moment I thought I would just sit until someone came to carry me out, the hike continued to be wonderful. I was amazed at the falls themselves. It was gorgeous! And after a summer afternoon hike, the falls provided the best AC you could find. The mist from the falls hitting rocks was the perfect cool down.

All in all, we loved our hike and would recommend it to anyone. We saw multiple families with young children who seemed to be enjoying themselves. I will say that from the look of it though, I am NOT looking forward to carrying children on hikes. Rob will be fulfilling that parental duty :)If you haven't visited Stewart Falls, we highly recommend you do so!

4th of July

We had a great 4th of July weekend! And yes, since it's the 12th of July, this post is a little late. Three day weekends are what I live for these days. I went from being a full-time BYU student to married, and working full-time. What's wrong with this picture? Less free time, and time away from the hubby. Three day weekends are the little getaways that Rob and I long for! We have no plans, no work, no school, and we can do whatever in the world we want. Well, this three day weekend was perfect.

On Friday we went to the temple right after work. Going to the temple is one of my absolute favorite things to do! Especially when we can go together. After the temple Rob's little brother, Chris, slept over. We had already been planning to have a Nacho Libre themed night, so Chris joined in on the fun. We watched Nacho Libre and made some supreme nachos to eat during the movie! It was wonderful.

Saturday we slept in. The perfect start to a great day! After forcing ourselves out of bed, we made some waffles with fresh strawberries, syrup, and powdered sugar. MMMM :) Then the three of us made chocolate covered strawberries. But they were no ordinary strawberries, they were festive strawberries! I've seen lots of people do them this month, but I wanted to try them after seeing them on a blog I found. Here is our finished project!
Don't they look great! I think so, and they tasted great too. I was suppose to use blue sanding sugar for the blue end, but when I asked at the store, they had no idea what I was talking about. Therefore, we activated plan B- food color white chocolate to be blue. Then while Rob and Chris watched movies all morning I deep cleaned our apartment. And I loved it! I am my mother's daughter, which means I like a clean, organized, tidy house. And that is how we live. Luckily, Rob is a clean person :) After sweating up a storm from cleaning and the lack of AC, we spent the afternoon at the park, then headed over to Happy Hour at Sonic for some limeades!

Later the whole Draper Family came over and we played some games, and then headed over to set up camp in Ashlee's (Rob's sister) parking lot for the stadium of fire and BBQ. We were just outside the stadium and could hear the whole concert! It was wonderful. Brad Paisley :) One of my favorites! The firework show at the end was honestly the best one I think I've ever seen! (Aside from Disneyland, which is hard to beat.)

Sunday we spent the day alone together. Need I say more? It was pure bliss. Monday we headed up to Sandy to spend the official holiday with my family. It included family, Super 8, hamburgers, ice cream, games, and a firework show put on by the boys. It was perfect!

I hate three day weekends.... you want to know why? Because when they're over, it's off to another week full of work and responsibility. Yuck.

Stars, S'mores, and the Good Outdoors

Yes, you guessed it. We went camping this weekend! And boy did we have ourselves some fun! Last week we went up to SL to borrow a bunch of our parents' camping stuff, we went to the grocery store to load up on the essential camping food, and loaded all our stuff in the car ready to take off right after work. Much to our dismay, when we finally reached the campground after traffic delays and getting home later than expected, ALL of the spots were taken! Yes, TAKEN!! We were officially bummed out. As we made our way back down the canyon, we tried to have a conversation about what to do instead- both of us were too sad to actually imagine doing anything fun. So we decided to splurge and make ourselves happy. We each got our own foot long from Subway, rented and watched Little Giants from the library, and lounged around. It ended up being ok.
We decided to leave the car completely packed, and get work off an hour early the next Friday so we would be guaranteed a good camping experience. We did just that, and it was wonderful! We arrived at Diamond Campground up Spanish Fork Canyon and had our choice of whatever spot we wanted! We set up the tent and got out our love seat camping chair which was the best part of the night. Not having to sit far away, but being able to cuddle up by the fire under the stars. We played a few games, tossed a tennis ball around, watched some neighboring scouts, and finally decided to get the fire up to make some hot dogs!

I knew we had forgotten something... mustard and ketchup for the dogs! Such a disappointment. We had to turn the night back into a good one by making some DELICIOUS reese's s'mores!!! If you haven't tried it, you must. Replace the Hershey's bar of chocolate with a reese's peanut butter cup! To die for. We watched the fire die down, got ready for bed, and snuggled under the stars before actually heading to bed.
We woke up early and packed up to head home and actually be productive, but this little get-a-way was exactly what I needed right now. Absolutely perfect!

"One of Those Days" Cure

I have just realized that I am a blogger. I live and read blogs. I search people's blogs I don't even know, and they inspire me. I look forward to coming to work, finishing my assignments quickly and getting on to reading more blogs! Well, on my journey of blog reading today I found the next project I am going to complete.
I was introduced to a new blog called The Dating Divas. They are great! It's a blog of LDS Mom's who's slogan is, "Strengthening marriages one date at a time." Everything they write about is related to dates, little acts of service to do for your husband, or talking about their husbands. It's wonderful! It has helped me in my journey to become the ultimate wife!
Today their post is titled, "The Husband Survival Kit". I highly recommend reading it! Especially if you're looking for something CHEAP and EASY to do for your husband to show him you love him.

Read it here: http://www.thedatingdivas.com/you-me/show-him-the-love/the-husband-love-kit/

It is exactly what I needed today. Rob just started his very first day of school as a BYU cougar! We were so excited for him to have finally gotten accepted and start his career as an official BYU student. He's only taking two classes, but during Summer semester, the material is covered twice as fast. And he's taking one of the most time consuming classes offered at the school- Human Anatomy. Every student who has taken this class would agree that it is a lot of work and time consuming! Well, he was feeling very overwhelmed yesterday with the workload. So we're working hard to focus on school and put studying first. I took the class two semesters ago, so it's fun for me to help him study and remember all of the terms. Luckily it is something we can do together, but I'm so excited to give him this survival kit! I think he'll like it, and he needs a little motivator and pick-me-up to keep him going strong :) Thanks Dating Divas!

Come What May and Love It

So I finished a craft for our new apartment quite a while ago- about 4 months. I wanted to make one of those sayings on a board to hang on the wall crafts. You know those? That all the cute people have in their cute houses? Well, I wanted to join the group and be cute.
One of my absolute most favorite quotes is from Elder Wirthlin, "Come What May and Love It". This quote inspired the design of the plaque. With the help of my sister Erin, I was able to make this VERY affordable. She has a vinyl letter printer and was kind enough to print it for me and make sure it was in cute font. I bought the board from Roberts for only $4 by the time I used my weekly %40 off coupon that they graciously give all their customers. It's because of Robert's coupons that I can afford to do crafts :) It was painted and everything-required no work on my part other than swiping the credit card. Rob enjoyed helping me put the lettering on, and now it hangs beautifully in our little apartment that we call home. We are decorating our home one craft at a time.
Total Cost of Craft: $7.00

Mucha Do About Nothing

I'm at a loss of what to write about... and a loss of words. However, I always give people a hard time when they don't update their blog regularly, and in return was given a little nudge from a good friend. She kindly reminded me that it was time to blog. Get with it!
Well, I have many, many crafts that I am either in the middle of working on, or have accomplished and not blogged about! I shouldn't say such things! That goes against all craft blogging rules! To make something and not blog about it? It's unheard of. SO... for yours and my sake, here is a list of things I'm going to take pictures of TONIGHT so I can blog about them at work tomorrow. Cause heaven knows I don't stay busy at work and always look for things to do.

1. "Come What May & Love It" vinyl letter board
2. Our DECORATED apartment that we've been living in for 4 months
3. Father's Day cards

Something else that has consumed my life lately is my new obsession with recipes and cooking. I love finding a new recipe that looks delicious! I have found a few that look like they are to die for! Are you craving something sweet? Well... does this look appetizing?

Check out the recipe here: http://www.beckybakes.net/2011/01/20/oreo-stuffed-chocolate-chip-cookies/

Or does this make your mouth water and look delicious?Check out the recipe at:http://annies-eats.net/2009/11/06/chocolate-peanut-butter-cupcakes/

So... this is what I will be cooking next! And the wonderful thing is... I think I have all the ingredients without going shopping! Woo woo for being a wife! And a decent cook :)

Colorado Springs Trip

We finally got a vacation! We were needing it badly, and Mom and Dad were gracious enough to let us tag along with them on their trip to see Kristen's family in Colorado Springs. We were worried about bad weather, but fortunately for us, the only bad weather we experienced was the crazy wind they had goin' on. Other than that it was nice and warm! We did lots of fun things while we were there including:

Visited Garden of the Gods which greatly resembled Southern Utah National Parks. Gotta love the red rock beauty!
And took family pictures there...
We also...
Stood on top of one of the highest peaks in the world at over 14,000 ft.... PIKES PEAK...
Stood in 17 degree cold weather and wind...

Ate green jolly ranchers which caused green tongue on cute little girls...
Rode a cog to get to the top of the peak and seeing so many gorgeous views along the way...
Saw Minnehaha Falls on the way up (it's just a fun name, that's why we took a picture)
And of course took an official picture of the place and height to give proof we were there! We also...
Took a tour of the Olympic Training Center where we saw some Olympic athletes at work training for the next Olympics...
Hung out in the Olympic rings...
And imitated as many statues on the tour as we could.

We did some other fun things such as sleeping in as much as possible, reading books, watching movies, playing games, playing basketball, making s'mores, driving in the country, eating yummy homemade food, and just doing whatever in the world we wanted to do, when we wanted to do it. It was a great vacations and we officially love Colorado Springs :) Thanks Kristen for always being a great hostess and making sure we have fun when we visit!