beach sweet beach

wanna take one guess what our favorite part about California was?

if only Utah had a beach... then life would be complete. :]

CALI part 1

we've been living it up in California this weekend!

it's been non-stop fun and so great to have most of the family together again (missing Lori, Jim, and Chris).

we'll be here until Tuesday so this is just part 1 of the adventure! 

ENJOY :)

Audrey and Ruby about to build a sandcastle.

 I love you Will!

Evan collecting seashells. 

Jumping shots are a MUST at the beach. :)

 Mom and Dad had a long day.. haha

 Building a masterpiece with Ruby doo. 

 Violet and Mason. Baby girl can walk now!

 Buddy boys.

L.A. temple

 Elizabeth, Evan, and Audrey in the fountain.

 Rolling down the hill at the temple.

 Mom's famous skillet (She's made 100's of dinners in that thing during family vacations for years and years).

Cookies! (Of course this picture is filled with the girls..)

Baby Nathan the stud!


It's been awesome catching up with my family and meeting
my new nephew, Benson.
The distance between a lot of us stinks sometimes..
but having a big, fun family to visit is the best!
And being able to hangout on the beach isn't bad either.. ;)
It's nice to know I have an army of people all over the country who love and care about me and Will!

God bless America!

We had a super fun 4th of July (and day before)! The night before, we had a BBQ with our married friends, watched the fireworks in Bountiful, then camped out in our buddy Mike's parents' backyard. We're so tough.. This summer we're gonna do some legit camping , I promise! 

On the REAL 4th, we had a yummy brunch with will's family and got a surprise visitor.. his sister Hayley came from Tennessee for a few days! It has been so fun hanging out with her this weekend before she had to go back this morning. 

That night, we walked down to Sugarhouse Park and had a picnic with our buddies, then watched some more fireworks. Will and I ended the night with snow cones and cuddling up to a movie. That's always the best ending to a good night. :)

my dream guy

i've been reflecting a lot lately on all that has happened since i met will and we got married in March 2011. even though we haven't started having babies yet, we've been able to enjoy so much with each other! we've gone on road trips to Mesa, St. George, Kanab, Boise, flown to Hawaii, and about to go to Cali for a few days! we've hiked, gone fly fishing in a blizzard, been parasailing, snorkeling with the fishies, snowboarding several times, celebrated both of our birthdays together (twice!), shopped till we dropped, camped several times, he taught me some Ukranian and Russian words, set off fireworks together in AZ, bought 2 dogs, long boarded all over, enjoyed a few midnight showings and late night food runs, danced our socks off with our friends many times, and threw a few BOMB holiday parties (if i do say so myself). 

my love for Will has grown so much more than I ever thought it could in just 2 years (we met 2 years ago last month). he's funny, smart, hard-working, self-motivated, handsome (duh!), sweet, cuddly, a dog-lover, fun, forgiving, romantic, tender-hearted, has so much faith and a strong testimony, he's a great friend, an amazing person, and the best husband. (hmm.. that sounds like my "what i want in a husband" checklist i made back in young women's when i was 15. i scored big time.) i would go to the moon and back for my sweet man. love you babe!

new addition

me and will have been talking for several months about someday getting another dog. we were planning on waiting until we got a house though, because we A. weren't sure if we wanted a big or small dog.. and big would NOT work out in our cozy, little apartment. B. we weren't sure if will's grandma would be okay with it (we live in her basement apartment). well, yesterday morning we got talking about it again and started looking on KSL (it's like another Craigslist in Utah) just for fun.. like that ever works right? ;) will has been trying to convince me that english bulldogs are the cutest things ever but i just (sorry if you love them) don't agree. i mean every dog is cute as a puppy but when those guys grow up they are just a little too bulky and wrinkly for my taste. so we're scrolling down and we see some pictures of yorkies.. and right off the bat will thinks they're just as adorable as i do. neither of us has had yorkies in our families so they just never came to mind when we were thinking about which dog to get. looks-wise, we were sold. but we wanted to do some research and talk to will's grandma about it before we made a big decision.

we spent the next couple hours researching yorkie habits, grooming (we're not into the super long, show-dog hair style), how they get along with other small dogs (Banks is a chihuahua), and all the doggy basics. turns out yorkies are the #1 small dog breed on a lot of lists. we got a lot of questions answered and talked about all the things we learned from having Banks that we will or won't do and decided we wanted one! now all we had to do was ask will's grandma.. i was a little nervous since Banks was a little rascal and when he was a puppy he'd bark and whine a lot when we left or didn't let him sleep with us. will got the lovely job of asking permission and i just crossed my fingers and waited.. i heard him coming down the stairs.. he came in shaking his head and i was bummed. then he laughed and said she's fine with it (as long as we clean up after him of course). i was soooo happy! we called the lady selling them, asked some questions, and told her we'd be on our way in the next few minutes.

when we got there, there were 3 puppies left. 2 were only 2.5 pounds (normal weight for their age and breed) and 1 was a chubby who weighed about twice as much. all were boys, which we were totally fine with. Banks was about to get a little brother! they all had starting shots, clipped off tails (apparently that's common to do with this breed and it was all healed up but it's weird to think he'll never wag his tail), and dew claws removed. a healthy start is always a good sign i'd say. it was hard to choose! the chubby guy kept chewing on will's shoe laces though haha.. we eliminated him from our picking pretty fast. the 2 little guys though were just so much alike and cuddly cute we almost had to do eerie meenie minee mo! i left the final choice up to will and he picked out our little Milo.

here are some pics to make that long read worth it. :]

Banks is still getting used to him but he hasn't taken a bite out of him yet.. so i'd say we're off to a good start! if anyone has suggestions on getting them friendly faster, please leave a comment and help us out! we've been following a lot of things we read on the internet to adjust them both but we could use all the help we can get! Thanks! :]