We have officially booked our cruise to Hawaii! We will be able to go to four different islands. Last night we had a great time planning a list of things that we want to do: snorkeling, hiking to waterfalls, biking, walks along the beach, zip-lining, and maybe we’ll relax a little bit too!
Okay…I know that it’s only January and we still have quite a few more months until summer arrives, but we’ve already started planning some of our summer trips. It’s made me SOOO excited for summer! Here’s some of our fun summer plans!
Camping and Boating at Bear Lake
Camping at Jordanelle Reservoir
and we’re hoping to book a cruise to HAWAII!!!
Don’t get me wrong, the snow isn’t too bad…but I LOVE the summer!
We hope that everyone had a great Christmas!
Steve and I really enjoyed our Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve with Steve’s family. We had a great time playing games, seeing everyone’s talents, and having fun with the nieces and nephews. Steve performed a fabulous juggling act for his family! We were even able to have Steve’s sister with us via-web cam, since she lives in South Carolina.
Then on Christmas Day, we spent the day with my family. We had a great time playing Mario Brothers, trying out some of our other Christmas “toys”, watching two puppies play (at least we hope it was playing), and enjoying time with the family.
We are blessed to have two wonderful families with lots of fun traditions! We love spending time with them!
And of course, we are grateful for the birth of our Savior–the reason we celebrate Christmas!
This last weekend we picked up our new puppy, Maggie. She is a Puggle, which is a mix of a beagle and a pug. We both think that she is the cutest dog ever! We have been having a lot of fun with her. Having a puppy has added a bit of work, but a lot of fun too!
We also scheduled a puppy play date with my sister and her dog Ellie. They bought a dog just a few weeks ago, and after dog sitting her for a weekend, we were sure we needed a dog too!
As you can see, it took quite a few pictures to get both puppies together and looking at the camera! Poor Steve was trying to watch the BYU-Utah football game, and we just wanted pictures! He was such a good sport!
Recently Steve and I decided that we needed to start planning a weekly date night. We realized that as the weekend came around, we would be too tired to plan anything to do for a date night. We just ended up doing something that was easy–fast food and a movie or something like that. Now each Monday night we plan a time and a date for our date night. It has been so much fun! This week we wanted to learn how to cook something new. We decided to make Rachel Ray’s Sticky Orange Chicken. We had a great time making it! Of course it didn’t turn out exactly like Rachel Ray’s, but it still tasted great! 
We’re looking forward to many more date nights!! If anyone has any good (cheap) date ideas…let us know!
My grandparents have an apple orchard in their backyard. As we were picking apples a few weeks ago, my sister Katie and I decided that we wanted to try canning some applesauce. We borrowed all the necessary equipment from my mom and had her give us detailed instructions. After 7 hours, 2 trips to the store, and numerous calls to our mom, we had 33 cans of applesauce!
While I was out of school for our Fall Break, my parents invited me to go on a drive in the mountains to look at the fall leaves. I haven’t done that for a few years, so I was excited to go. We drove through the canyons and saw all the changing leaves. It was the perfect fall day, blue skies, warm temperature, and beautiful leaves. I love Fall!
When I was growing up, one of my favorite traditions with my family was our Fall Picnic. Each year we would go somewhere to look at the leaves and have a picnic. We had so much fun with this tradition that even though we’re all grown up, we still have to have our Fall Picnic each year.
We had some new pictures taken a few weeks ago! Holly Hyde did our pictures and they turned out great! We’ll be putting some of them on our adoption website!
Last week Steve had a work Conference in Boston. After the conference ended, I flew to Boston, so we could do a little vacationing together. It was fun! I’ve always wanted to see Boston, so I was really excited. (I love American History)
One of our favorite things was to go on the Freedom Trail. It has different points that are important to the history of our country. We took a guided tour for the first part of the Freedom Trail. It was really interesting. We learned a lot of the things they don’t teach you in school. For example, Paul Revere really wasn’t the one to announce that the British were coming. He was one of the people that started out, but he got caught by the British, so the other people he was with announced that the British were coming. Apparently Paul Revere actually ratted out all the people that were with him.
We were going to rent a car, but we decided to just use public transportation. We got pretty good at figuring out the bus and the subway…thanks to Steve’s excellent navigation skills.
We spent Labor Day weekend in Wyoming. We had a great time four-wheeling, hiking, and just relaxing! Here’s a few pictures of our fun weekend!
Steve always comes back from four-wheeling with the dirtiest face!! He likes to ride fast, right in everyone’s dust!
My niece and nephew had fun riding the four wheelers (or as my nephews calls it the “bike.”).
Every year we have the traditional “Grandma Games.” My Grandma always comes up with a game that involves prizes. We always have a fun time. This year we had to throw a dart and hit a balloon. We then looked at the number and got the present that corresponded to that number. I got a lunch box, which I really needed, and Steve came away with $20!
We also had a “Grandpa Game” this year. We all had to play the hand-held deal or no deal game. The person who got the highest amount won $20. I thought I was doing really well with $250,000, but my cousin beat me out with $450,000.
