FGP

I came back from lunch with a diet coke and soon my boss brought us all red bulls. Complete that with a birthday cupcake and I would say I'm having one healthy afternoon! YOLO! #fatgirlproblems

24 & 26

Aaron and I's birthdays are just two days apart... which ultimately means cake for days! Happy Birthday to us! Aaron turned 26 on the 26th, while I celebrated 24 on the 28th. The morning of the 26th we finished our last leg of driving back, we left St. George after a much anticipated trip to Swig (much to Aaron's dismay). 

We got home and did the usual unpacking, vacuumed our cars out from road trip crumbs and caught up on our missed mail. I had Aaron's presents wrapped and waiting, wanting to make this birthday special for him. His favorite gifts were the shirts I got him from the DI- which means I didn't spend too much of our money haha. I have to say though he has slowly been converting me over little by little to the DI. 

I had planned a surprise get together for our friends to come over later that night, so I was trying real hard to get him out of the house. He finally agreed to go to Tucano's for dinner. After eating, Aaron wanted to go to the driving range, so we had to go home and pick up our clubs of course. We got home and there were my friends waiting for us with balloons blown up and strewn everywhere. His friends showed up about 5 minutes later, sure glad they showed up! 

 His first very own birthday cake! 

All night and the next day Aaron kept saying he had just had the best birthday ever, so sweet!

For the past few years my parents have sent me the yummy Georgetown Cupcakes for my birthday. They are literally thee best cupcakes I have ever had and I look forward to getting them each year! So far we have had a cupcake every day this week! 

My birthday was spent catching up at work, meeting with our contractors and going to news segment appearances. Aaron was nice enough to meet me at Chipotle for lunch and take me to my favorite snow cone shack after work! 

We finished the night off with dinner over at my grandparents, watching the Bachelorette finale and eating cupcakes with Jake and Mary. So far 24 has been good to me! 

 

Vacation

It's always a bummer to come back from vacation. I've got heaps of emails and meetings to get back to, but we sure are lucky we got to go!

It was a blast road tripping with Jake and Mary. 

We had many pit stops on the way consisted of sleeping over at my grandparents St. George house, multiple McDee's drink stops, gambling in Mesquite and a temple trip right after in Vegas haha.

Oceanside was so pretty, and the weather was perfect, high 70's with a little bit of humidity, much better than the 90+ temps in Salt Lake, although I did have to deal with the dreaded humidity crazy hair. 

 Heading to the beach!

On Monday we trekked out to East LA to China town. We bargained for a few things, ate some great Chinese food and then headed to the Santa Monica Pier.

Literally sooo hard to get him to smile normal for pictures. 

After the Pier we went to an Anaheim Angels game. It's always fun to be at the ballpark, even though we thought the game started at 8... oops. We made it in time for 5 innings which was perfect. 

 The rest of the week was spent playing at the beach, grilling, playing games, eating lotsa treats, going to dinner with good friends and just relaxing. 

We'll miss you Califormia! 

Sharing

I am not a sharer. To be more specific I am not a food sharer. Appetizers, breads, snacks and other foods before meals are fine, but don't ask me to share my entree with you, and don't even question me sharing my dessert. If I want to try your meal, I would have ordered or made it myself. Sure you can have a bite or two to taste, or eat my leftovers, but that's my limit. 

On my 2nd or 3rd date with Aaron we went out to eat. We had the normal conversation of what we were going to order. Then he mentioned that we can order two different entrees and just share them. Dun dun dunnnnn.... My stomach sank that moment. 

I don't drink coffee, but you can insert any food or beverage in here and this is me! 

My no sharing tendencies have become more apparent the more Aaron and I are together. Case in point- I grab some ice cream out of the freezer and ask if he wants any. He says no, I'll just have some of yours. Okay I can do this I think, he can have a few bites of mine. Fast forward to 5 minutes later where I have had a few bites and he has eaten the whole thing. And I'm the one left with no ice cream! 

There is an easy solution people- order an extra side, grab your own dessert, spend that extra $1 to get yourself a soda, aaaaand keep to yourselves! 

Here's to hoping I get through our California trip without having any major food sharing breakdowns. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. 

Packin' up

Vacation is in two days! The longer I've been working the more I cherish vacation time. This week has been busy and I haven't been near as productive as I should be. We helped my grandma with some yard work and visited my Aunt and Uncle in West Jordan for a few hours, and then came home with some bev and watched the Bachelorette. By the time it was over I was tired and the day was pretty much over.  Side note: Josh for the win, Chris for the next Bach. Nick=Eww.

Yesterday I got my hair cut and colored, and so did Aar, haha he looks like a different person, I didn't realize how long his hair was! We talked on the phone with my brother David for a bit- he got a new job and wanted to talk to Aaron about retirement plans. He is working for the Georgia Bulldogs football team now, and we are so excited to go visit him over Thanksgiving along with my family and watch a game in the SEC. Between that and shopping at Target we got home made some dinner and before we knew it, it was bedtime. 

So these next few days I hope there is time to do laundry before the vacation and make sure our bed is made and the house looks good, because there is nothing worse then coming home to a messy house and an unmade bed after a long vacation, I just feel so much better. Packing is the worst. Plus I am having a surprise birthday get together for Aaron the day we get back. It's a little bit harder since I live with him, but hopefully I will be able to get some treats and decor a little bit without him noticing. Aaron and I are almost exactly 2 years apart- his birthday is on July 26th, and mine is the 28th, how crazy is that. We will be celebrating birthdays all weekend long! 

By the way I am loving this picture! Here's to hoping this is Aaron and I one day haha! 

Madderdays

Free slurpees. Iceburg. Swimming. Car washing. Movies. Summer is in full swing.

We have a 7-11 literally next door to our house so I had to get a free slurpee in celebration of July 11!

Aaron was busy doing financial planning work so I did a little bit of birthday shopping and wrapping while he was gone at late appointments. I think I may be getting a little carried away with birthday gifts for him, but he definitely deserves it. PS, I am thee world's worst wrapper, actually second only to Spencer.

I wasn't feeling too great later that night, so of course we go and get a shake at Iceburg. I went barefoot in my sweats, and Aaron mentioned how I am mirroring my college days, where prettymuch all I would wear was sweats, I loved it then, but definitely not proud of it now, glad I got out of that rut.

Aaron likes to call Saturdays "Madderdays" because we prettymuch do anything/everything I want. Mostly it's running errands and cleaning the house, but usually it includes eating out and doing activities together. This past Madderday we slept in, washed the car, went swimming, visited Ikea and then went and saw Blended at the Water Gardens and gorged ourselves with overly buttered theater popcorn.

We also got to visit my grandma at her care center. It's good to see her even though her sentences don't make sense, or that there are people walking around talking about going to a circus. But there are always cookies there and I am still a little bit familiar to her.

We are leaving for a trip to California this weekend and ironed out our plans and then watched an episode of Naked and Afraid. I can't wait to stop by Swig, hit up a Vegas buffet, swim in the ocean, ride bikes on the pier, go kayaking, visit new temples, eat at local restaurants, make fires on the beach, have a cold drink while laying out, road trip with Jake and Mary and catch up on some reading. Vacation, I'm ready for you!

Loooong weekend for the 4th

Holiday weekends are thee best. A day off work, fires, swimming, s'mores and fireworks all in one weekend? Yes please! Thursday night Jake, Mary, Aaron and I went up to my family's cabin in the Woodland-Kamas area. They spent most of the daylight fishing, while Mary and I relaxed and started a fire. We then roasted hotdogs (and the fish Aaron proudly caught), ate Doritos and s'mores, drank Mountain Dew and Diet Coke and lit some sparklers. We stayed up playing UNO in the refreshing mountain air and fell asleep watching the Bourne Identity.

Jake and Mary doing the sparklers.

We woke up and made yummy breakfast burritos cleaned up and headed over to a fishing hole with the boys. Aaron ended up catching 4 fish! Ha he's not much of a fisherman, but this weekend sure made him one. Jake caught one fish, and I think was a little let down that Aaron beat him out since he's the one that really fishes.

 Fishin the Provo River.

 It's tradition to ALWAYS get ice cream here when we are up at the cabin. I tricked Aaron a little bit on the directions home, at least he makes me think I tricked him. 

We headed back down the canyon and went swimming at Jake and Mary's pool. The weather is nice and hot, I love it when you can get out of the pool and not be cold, and that's exactly what it was like this weekend. Aaron and Jake can entertain themselves with just about anything, and they sure do at the pool. They played with the rescue floaty, used the rescue rope to play long jump into the pool, submersed the pool chairs in the water and swung Mary and I around on the rope around the pool.

After swimming we went home and got ready to go see the Holladay fireworks. There's nothing like watching fireworks to patriotic music on the 4th of July. Best feeling ever. The fireworks show lasted about a half hour, the only downside was they played Les Mis and The Phantom of the Opera during the show, definitely not patriotic music! Afterwards we drove up to Wasatch Boulevard and watched fireworks pop up throughout the valley. At first we couldn't see any, but the more we looked you could see tiny ones appearing all over the place, it was pretty neat.

 Sometimes it's hard to get him to smile or pose normal... 

 Mary and I and our 4th of July gear!

Obligatory fireworks picture.

The next day we slept in until 11 am! We were wiped out. We spent the afternoon laying out by Jake and Mary's pool again, drinking McDonald's large soda's and relaxing. We ran some errands and got ready to go up Millcreek Canyon to cook some tin foil dinners. Madi and Gavin came up with us along with Jake and Mary. Right off the bat Jake and Aaron were off to fish while the rest of us tended the fire and ate our yummy tin foil dinners Madi prepared for us.

It was a perfect night and Aaron and Jake even caught and cooked some fish.... Naked and Afraid is really getting to Aaron haha he is always thinking of ways to survive. We ate plenty of s'mores and enjoyed the night up the canyon. Around about 10:40 a cop came by to ask if we were staying the night or not. We said no (there is a sign that says no overnight camping) and quickly put the fire out and cleaned up our stuff since the cop said he was closing the gate. We raced down and there we were stuck inside the gate. Definitely a jerk move if you ask me! 

After some deliberation Jake and Mary were able to hitch hike down the canyon and find the cop(there was no cell service). He begrudgingly opened the gate, but was totally rude about it.... as Madi said- he was the kind of cop that got made fun of when he was little.  So glad we figured it out cause it was a longer ways down the canyon than we thought!

A glimpse of the Beast

Just to remind myself how bad the Spartan Beast was, here's a few pictures of the race. 

 Sweet Aaron in the corner duct taping my socks/shoes before the race.

 Anticipation, goop chews and duct taping before the race. 

 The Kassing Andrews team clean and ready to go. 

 Let's GO!

 Aaron and I in the middle under the barbed wire. Second to last obstacle of the race, 200 yard barbed wire crawl. It was harder then it looks, aaaand there were plenty of rocks to scratch up my arms and elbows. 

 I'm camouflaging into the mud!

One of the hardest with slippery, slimy mud everywhere. Aaron pushed me up, while someone else pulled me over. 

Glad we are done with this! Our next race is any easy peasy Color Run 5k in August... child's play compared to this.