Wedded Bliss

My sister is a married lady! How crazy is that!

I’ll post a few more photos when she actually gets back from her honeymoon and has all the photos, but here are a couple things for the time being.

Also it’s Matt’s birthday, so happy birthday Matt – welcome to the fam!

Here is the first look video I did for them a few weeks ago! I’m not a professional, clearly, but it’s fun to whip out the camera and remember some of my editing skills. Hopefully I’ll get to do a few more videos here and there and really hone my skills!

https://player.vimeo.com/video/177645014

The wedding week was great, things went pretty smoothly and the day of was magical.

Liv woke up early and had her hair done by Lexi McPherson who did fantastic. Her makeup was done by the incredibly talented Madelynne Morgan. She is seriously so fantastic, Liv’s makeup looked beautiful and she got there in the wee hours of the morning to make sure it was perfect. She’s truly awesome and I highly recommend her!

 Liv and Matt had a beautiful sealing in the Salt Lake LDS Temple and it was so amazing to be there with them and watch them be married.

Their photographer and videographer were so on top of it and I can’t wait to see the photos from the day of! For now, just check out these couple photos from the bridals/a few from the day of that the videographer snapped.





Photogrpaher: Meg Barlow

Videographer: Megan Owen
Megan Owen also snapped a couple pics the day of, she also does photography sometimes and she’s awesome! I can’t wait to see the video!

Both the Meg’s were seriously OUT OF THIS WORLD. So awesome and fun and they were so cute with our family and made sure Liv had all the shots and video she wanted.

The flowers were done by the amazingly talented Bailey Jo Lucas and guys she was a dream. Just check out that bouquet. She was so sweet and wonderful and so fun to work with.

Every single person my sister hired to do things for the wedding were wonderful. They made the day so easy!

Matt and Liv had their luncheon at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, where we had an introductory story as per tradition, the traditional song “When I Fall In Love” and some funny stories about the two newlyweds.

The reception was at the Lion House and it was a beautiful garden party perfectly fit for my sister.

Basically everything was a dream, and I am so happy for my sweet sister!

Message me if you have any questions about the vendors or anything!

I got my skirt from Cozy Boutique, Bethany got her dress from Piper and Scoot, and the groomsmen ties were from Tie One On.

Happy Tuesday everyone, happy birthday Matt and happy honeymoon to the newlyweds!

Summer Is Flying By

Can we just put a pause on summer really quickly? This has been the fastest summer of my life! I keep saying I have all these things I want to do, and for some reason I never get to do all of them!

I did however get to cross a bonfire and s’mores of my bucket list, thanks to Courtney and Tommy! We always have a blast hanging out with those two.

Thursday was Nannette’s Bachelorette Party! We had some delicious P.F. Changs with her close friends, and did some shopping. It was such a chill party but still so incredibly fun. I am so excited for her and Caleb to get married in just a week and a half! It’s coming up SO quick!

And speaking of upcoming weddings, my adorable little sister gets married on Saturday! It’s so crazy, I can’t believe it honestly. She is going to be the most beautiful bride and she and Matt are just perfect for each other.

Saturday our cute neighborhood threw her a delightful shower, we got to see lots of friends and it was so fun. We’ve been getting to hang out with my family a lot lately, which is super awesome especially since my brother is finally back from his internship in California, and my sister-in-law and niece are still around! We are going to miss them so much when they leave.

Sunday we went to my cousin’s mission farewell, he did so good and he will be so missed! We also had a big family dinner after a long airport wait, poor Matt was on the runway for an hour after landing back in Utah! Tip: never fly Frontier.

This week has already been so full, with our cute niece Candace’s birthday party! She turns one in September but we all got together to celebrate before they all leave to go back to Boston. They did an adorable smash cake and she got lots of cute presents. I just love her!

Guys aren’t they so cute?
Randy’s face here is my absolute favorite thing in the world.

Yesterday my cute sister went through the temple, and let me tell you, it was so wonderful to have my family there. Just missing one sister! It was so great to wait in the celestial room for my sister to walk in, all of us there with our spouses, a big happy family. I feel so blessed and lucky to have such a wonderful family, and especially a wonderful husband!

Pioneer Day Weekend

This weekend was a blast, and a much needed extra day off!

Friday after work Randy and I went to Cafe Trio in SLC. We got a super generous gift card from Jacob and Ammon Chung, two of our friends who we have helped do some web design work for (go check them out: Five Sushi Brothers) The flatbread appetizer was AMAZING!

That night my family all went to see the King’s Singers and MOTAB in an amazing Pioneer Day concert. It was seriously incredible! If you don’t know the King’s Singers go check them out! My family has been listening to them for years and they are so fun, we’ve seen them in concert before and every time is a treat. They are such talented vocalists, it’s a dream!

We then went and grabbed a piece of cheesecake together and it was so fun to laugh and hang out as a family (missing my brother though, who is still in California for his internship! BOO)

Saturday Randy and I got to go see Star Trek Beyond and I can’t even tell you how highly I recommend it!!! It was SO amazing and well done. Seriously, go see it.

We then came back to our apartment and it was roughly 10 million degrees. We live on the third floor and only have a wall unit AC so our apartment goes from comfortable to INSANELY AWFULLY HOT in just one second. We decided to run and grab a couple things from the grocery store, head to the mall to walk around and window shop, and then go grab some chips and salsa for dinner at Chili’s!

Sunday was crazy busy, Randy and I taught the youth in Sunday School and then both of us taught our third hour classes of Relief Society and Elder’s Quorum! It was a busy Sunday but it was so wonderful to teach together and prepare our lessons together. That night, Caleb and Nannette dropped by for curry and we chatted about their upcoming wedding – we are so stoked for two of our best friends to get married!!

Sunday night we decided to head to Kaysville to be there for the Monday morning pancake breakfast with my family. It was fun to chat with my family and hang out for a while.

Today was a delicious breakfast while we watched the Days of 47 Parade, games with the family, playing with my adorable niece, a wee bit of shopping, a fun afternoon with Randy’s family, and then home again for a relaxed evening.

I need to give a gigantic shout out to Randy. Friday he decided to go to the mall and buy me an adorable shirt, completely on a whim, because he found some money on the ground at school (don’t worry, he spent 45 minutes trying to find the owner of the money to no avail).

He is absolutely wonderful with my family and all the stress we have going on right now, he spent 30 minutes at my Aunt’s house lifting tile and didn’t have a word of complaint, I have been ridiculous and needy and whiny and Randy just lets me need him and is always there. He is my rock, has been so incredibly patient with me, and spoils me absolutely rotten. I am so so so so lucky.

And also, Pioneer Day. The pioneers are some of my biggest heroes. They gave up everything to follow the prophet, they moved to a brand new place where they could have a new life. They created something beautiful out of a desert.

Today I have seen a lot of people complaining on social media about Pioneer Day and why it’s celebrated here in Utah. I think we can be grateful for pioneers no matter what our religion is. We can be thankful that they moved here, created a beautiful city and state, helped their country with the railroad and fighting in wars, and respect their drive to preserve religious freedom.

Sometimes the world is a frightening place. But today, I’m taking strength from them. They faced trial after trial while always saying “All Is Well.”

We too are facing trials. But because of their example, and because of a loving Heavenly Father who has a perfect plan, I too know that “all is well.”

Floating The Teton River

This weekend we had an awesome time in Idaho with my family doing our annual fishing trip! My grandpa has been floating the Teton river ever since he was little, and it’s so awesome for our family to go and hear all the stories and catch loads of fish!

We drove up with Liv and Matt on Friday and jammed to Hamilton (my current obsession. if you haven’t listened to it, stop reading this and go listen to it now.) We then stopped at Reed’s for ice cream once we were in Idaho Falls which is seriously my favorite ice cream EVER!

We woke up super early on Saturday to drive to the river which is in Driggs (sorta).

It took us about 8 hours to float the whole thing, Randy and I each caught about 12 fish and that was about the number that everyone else caught, except for my sister and my grandpa who landed probably 20 fish each!

#nofilter. that’s how beautiful it is up here.

We also saw a bull moose from a distance, and then a mama moose and two calves not 100 feet from our boat! They were in the river to drink, and were smack in between the two boats that we had for fishing! We had to wait it out until the mama decided to leave because moose are SCARY and will charge you if you get too close. It was a pretty intense 10 minutes of our two boats on either side of this giant moose, trying to make some noise but not make her mad!

It was really windy so Randy got his workout in paddling against the wind so we didn’t float upstream.

We went to Texas Roadhouse that night with our family and my aunt and uncle’s family. This is the crazy thing, as we were walking out of the restaurant I turned and saw a guy falling towards the floor, and I heard him choking. Everyone in the restaurant was either silent or panicking saying “Call 911! Call 911! He’s choking!” My sister is a CNA and my dad used to be an EMT so both of them rushed forward when the family of the guy who was choking didn’t know how to perform the Heimlich Maneuver. My sister got the guy to talk a little which was good because it meant his airway wasn’t totally blocked. My dad then performed the Heimlich and eventually got the guy to spit out the food. It was SO crazy! We were all a little shaken up but it ended up OK and the guy was fine! It was so lucky that we were there!

Sunday we drove back home, ate some of the fish we caught and visited with my family a little more before heading home for some Muddy Buddies and Boggle with Caleb and Nannette.

It was really a crazy busy weekend but a very fun one, and the weekend of fishing on the Teton is one I always look forward to.

Cute Bridal Shower

Hello! So I haven’t blogged in about 30 years. Since the 4th of July which means I’m a horrible person. It’s been two whole weeks since I have blogged and I’m feeling pretty awful!

So let’s play a huge game of catching up and go over some of the things really quickly!

I helped throw my sister a fun bridal shower with her friends and it was a blast! I’m super sad we forgot to get a picture with everyone, but it was so wonderful!

We had all of Liv’s favorite treats for the shower; chocolate chip cookies, donuts, fruit, milk (in adorable milk bottles from Target) and we had the wonderful Lexie Faith do the adorable place cards, and she killed it! Seriously, go check her out, she was fantastic.

We also had a table of takeaway gifts of lipstick and kisses to help Liv “Kiss The Single Life Goodbye” We also had the girls put on some lipstick and kiss a piece of paper and sign their name, and we’ll get it framed for Liv to always have a cute reminder of her closest friends right before she got married!

We also did Liv’s bridals that night which was super fun. She had her makeup done by the FANTASTIC Madelynne Noelle who is absolutely amazing. Guys, she was in a car accident and still made it to our house in time to get Liv all dolled up and beautiful for her photos! She’s seriously the best. I also got to film Liv and Matt’s first look and formal video and I’m super excited to show you all how it turned out!

Randy and I also got to go to an Orem Owlz baseball game last weekend, which was a blast! We have Pass of all Passes from Seven Peaks so we get in for free, and it was a great way to spend a summer night. Randy always teases me about being nostalgic and sentimental about summer, and he’s totally right, I’m a sucker for fun summer nights and summer activities!

4th Of July

This long weekend was SO needed and chalk full of fun!

Friday Randy and I popped by Seven Peaks again after work – getting those passes was a great idea! We loved going down the crazy slides and racing and just having a blast.

Saturday Randy and I woke up and he went running, and then we went on hike! I had been needing some nature time and it was so perfect to get to the river and just listen and sit. Since I’m working full time and Randy is in school again, we don’t get to spend anywhere near as much time as I’d like doing outdoorsy, summery things. Plus our summer is super busy, so it was so nice to just go on a hike! We drove up to Kaysville on Saturday night to see Singin’ in the Rain performed by the city. They did such a good job, special shout out to our good friend Tyler who KILLED it as the diction coach. Thanks for getting us tickets dear Tyler:)

Sunday we taught Sunday School and visited with a new couple in our ward for a while, before napping and cooking lunch. We then went right back to Kaysville to start celebrating the 4th! We had dinner with Randy’s family which was delicious as always. Then off to my parents house where we played endless games of Rook and ate apple pie.

The 4th started with delicious breakfast and the 4th of July Parade with a bunch of my little cousins. The parade is always super fun, my sister was in it with the Davis Lacrosse team which was awesome, and it’s just such a hometown fun event. We then went and had a barbecue with my family which was awesome! Then it was off to the Low’s for some cake and video games haha. Then over to our friend’s house for a squad BBQ (I think we ate like 3 hamburgers that day!)

Then off to the Kaysville fireworks for some more hometown, family, and America love.

A lot of crazy and scary things are happening in this country. The 4th of July was such an important reminder that we’re all on the same team. We all are a part of this amazing country, we all live in place that people fight and give their lives for, we are all putting in the work to make it a safe and wonderful place. I am so blessed to live in this land, to have grown up in a small town in a free country, and for all the things that it means to be an American.

Home of the free, land of the brave.

This is my “Please one more picture” face

I love America! 

Weekend Shennanigans

Here’s the deets of a busy weekend:

Friday we went to dinner with our wonderful neighbor Charlotte, she’s the best!

Saturday we slept in, cleaned our house a bit, and headed to Provo for some quality time with Rebecca, some shopping for bridesmaid clothes, and then Seven Peaks for a water filled afternoon.

We went to Joe’s Crab Shack with some friends and then watched a movie with them Saturday evening.

Sunday was church and teaching, a long walk, and homemade curry with some of our other friends (courtesy of Chef Randy).

Summer is hard when you work full-time. Randy has a summer class right now on top of work, and my goal is to always do summery, fun things with our spare time, but it’s hard! So I’m considering us very lucky to have gotten to play so much this weekend! 

Father’s Day

My dad was out of town this weekend, so we celebrated Father’s Day last weekend. My brother also got to fly in and it was fun to hang out with him, and for him to get to see his little girl and wife!

Guys, my dad is awesome. He has overcome a lot in his life, and has always been so loving and caring. He has taught me so many things that have helped me be who I am. I honestly don’t know what I would do without my dad. He believes in me, he shows so much love to my mom, he supports all of us, provides for our family, cracks jokes, teaches, and testifies. Thank you so much Daddy!

Randy and I spent the weekend having dinner with friends, hitting up Boondocks, seeing Finding Dory (thanks Dad!) which was AMAZING. I highly recommend it. If someone tells you it’s not good, they’re wrong. It’s more serious than Finding Nemo but the new characters add some awesome humor. Seriously, it’s probably my second favorite Disney sequel, right next to Toy Story.

Sunday, Randy and I had the chance to have Father’s Day dinner with his family. It was a delicious amount of ribs, rolls, asparagus and bacon, and of course, PIE.

Randy is seriously incredible. I’m so lucky that he’s going to be the father of my children one day. He’s the best part of my life and I just love him more than anything!

Disneyland 2016

Don’t mind this GIGANTIC post of all the fun things we did while we were in Disneyland. Sometimes this blog is more like a journal, and this is one of those times. I want to remember every detail and be able to look back and reminisce, so you’re just going to have to bear with me!
Monday:
Monday consisted of waking up at 3:00 AM to get ready, pack the last few things, and head out! I drove in the dark and listened to music and books while Randy slept. We stopped at 8 AM in Saint George for some Chic-Fil-A, and it felt like we had only been on the road for 10 minutes. Next time we have a road trip I’m totally going to wake up early and drive again, it made the drive go by so fast! Randy and I then took turns driving for the next little bit until we got to California! We walked into the Grand Californian Hotel which is absolutely gorgeous. Our room wasn’t ready yet, so we met up with Randy’s parents and younger brothers and grabbed a sandwich in Downtown Disney, and then Randy and I shopped and just mused about how fun it was to be in Disneyland together! We got checked in, went to dinner at Tangaroa Terrace, and Randy and I crashed early so we could gear up for the next day at Disneyland
Tuesday:
We woke up early and had breakfast, and rushed right out for Magic Morning at Disneyland! We seriously went on all the big rides within the first 4 hours! We established a pattern for our days at Disneyland and California adventure; get in at around 7:15, ride everything because there were short lines until around 11:30, have lunch, go home and get our strength back, then head back to the park. We ate at Randy’s favorite restaurant Rancho Del Zocalo so he was in heaven! We had a blast riding a ton of stuff in Disneyland, then we got to see the Paint The Night parade which was so wonderful, and then the fireworks. The fireworks on Main Street were INCREDIBLE! Real snow falling during Frozen songs, the whole nine yards. I’ve seen Disney fireworks a time or two, and this one was out of this world. We also found out today that Randy was most like the character Mickey Mouse, Sam is most like Scar, and I’m most like the Queen of Hearts. So that’s good to know!
Wednesday:
We spent the morning at California Adventure and pretty much rode every single ride, got to have some hot cocoa at the Ghiradelli factory, went to the Plaza in Disneyland for lunch, saw the Frozen show after BARELY getting tickets, oh and we met Stich. Randy’s favorite moment was when we went to see the show “It’s Tough To Be A Bug” and a little girl behind us hadn’t ever seen the show, and was so scared! The show squirts water and sprays air at you and the poor girl behind us didn’t know whether to laugh or cry the whole time! The Frozen show in my opinion wasn’t as good as Aladdin, but the set and technology used was absolutely incredible. Really high quality and very professional. This was another jam-packed day that was way too fun. At the hotel we had a full working kitchen, so we got to have breakfast and dinners at the hotel. We grilled up steak one night and had spaghetti the other. While we waited in line we played a charade and guessing game similar to “Heads Up” and were acting out random stuff, quoting Disney and Star Wars characters, and just laughing. Randy also performed magic tricks that made us all laugh.
Thursday:
We went back to Disneyland for the morning and got on the last few rides that we hadn’t been on, and rode all our favorites again. Over the three days in Disneyland I ate a TON of Dole Whip and bought some souvenirs for my family and friends. For lunch on Thursday we got to go to the Blue Bayou, which was so fun and delicious. Randy had the Monte Cristo which he has been dreaming about for FOREVER! After hitting our favorite rides as much as possible, we all went back and got our stuff from the hotel, and while the Low’s set off for Hollywood, Randy and I set off for our second hotel in Anaheim. We grabbed some Panda Express and watched the fireworks from our hotel room, which was fun.
Friday:
Friday Randy and I woke up early to drive from Anaheim to Hollywood. We checked out and started the 45 minute drive. It went by really quickly and we got to Universal Studios a little before our early entrance. We rushed right to Harry Potter World and got on the ride immediately, which was so awesome! Harry Potter World is so cool and it was so fun to use Randy’s dad’s interactive wand to make things move, see all the castles up in the skyline, and go to the joke shop. We rode all the rides at Universal including the Mummy, Jurassic Park, Transformers, the Simpsons, and we did the Hollywood lot tour. We all agreed that the projection rides with screens made us a little sick! The Hollywood tour was really cool, it was so awesome to see the huge sound stages and outdoor sets that look like entire cities. We went back to Harry Potter World for lunch and had a frozen butterbeer, which is my absolute favorite. At about 3:00 we had done all the things at Universal, and so we parted ways with Randy’s family as they got ready for their flight, and Randy and I got ready for our drive home. Our drive was INCREDIBLY long on the way home, it took us two hours to drive the first 50 miles. We were not super happy about that! But we finally got to our hotel in Las Vegas and crashed for the night, after finding some late night pho, of course.
Saturday:
Saturday we got up and made our way into the city for a couple hours. We love wandering around the giant and expensive hotels, gawking at the price of suits and shoes. We had lunch and had a sing along dance party drive home. Road trips have never been as fun as they are with Randy!
HUGE thank you to the Lows who made sure we had the best time and gave us the chance to go to Disneyland with them! It was SO fun to hang out with the family and we had an absolute blast. Until next time, Disney!
It’s hard to see, but this is the snow!!



The beloved monte cristo