City Creek Center

Preston and I went to the new City Creek shopping center in downtown Salt Lake today. It was amazing. They have so many good stores and a beautiful stream running through the whole thing. I took a lot of pictures so instead of telling about it, I'll just let you all see our fun day shopping!

Prest excited to be there

Beautiful fountain

Kids playing in the fountain

Since when were boy bands back in??

Just a real classy place

Us... love that you can see the temple from here

Dinner at Cheesecake Factory

Waterfall

Doesn't that look enticing??

Classic. They actually kept the old ZCMI's storefront

See the gold statue behind me? Not a statue.. it's real lady!!

Preston's cheesecake

So happy after getting some new purchases :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

So last Saturday I woke up early and remembered it was St. Patrick's Day, so I decided to surprise Preston! I always make something for breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays and he had mentioned he wanted french toast so I decided to make green french toast and milk! And here it is! Doesn't that look yummy??

If you can't tell I'm kinda bored haha.. But I'm so excited for tomorrow and Friday. We get to go see the Hunger Games tomorrow evening in an early showing that Preston's dad's company sponsors, so I'm way excited for that! And then on Friday we're going to the new City Creek Center in Salt Lake to shop and go to Cheesecake Factory! Preston and I have been so dang excited for it to open, it has so many great stores! 

Here's a link to the list of stores:

http://www.deseretnews.com/top/457/1/Macys-City-Creek-Center-shops-and-stores.html 

Exciting News!

No I'm not pregnant. But... We are moving to Arizona for the summer!!! Preston found out a little while ago that he got the internship that he's been wanting in Scottsdale, so we are going down as soon as school gets out. (We'll be back by the middle of July so it's not technically the whole summer.) Since my grandpa and his new wife live in Mesa, we will be staying with them which will save us a lot of money on rent and most likely we will keep our apartment in Provo.

I'm so excited for a change this summer. It'll be a fun adventure to go live down there for a while. I'm going to start looking for a job down there and praying that I can find one! I absolutely love being down there, even though this summer will be a big change with my grandma gone. It's going to be an adjustment, but hopefully it'll be okay.

So we're in for a HOT HOT HOT summer! But we're SO excited!

Saying Goodbye

One of my very best friends, Allie, left on her mission this last week. She's going to Peru where her dad is actually from, so she has some family there she has never met. She'll be in the MTC here for three weeks and then head off to Peru to the MTC and then to start her mission! I'm so excited for her but it was very hard to see her leave. It feels like a year and a half is a lifetime to not see her, but I'm just hoping it will pass quicker than expected. She is going to be an amazing missionary. She's fun, outgoing, personable, loving, and loves the gospel.

Last week was her farewell and the night before we got together with some friends and family for dinner at the Dock of the Bay. The next day she gave an amazing farewell talk, it really hit me that she was leaving at the end of her talk and I could not stop the tears. (Blame it on the birth control.. seriously though I'm a crazy person now!)

Monday night I saw her for the last time at McDonalds. She and her mom had been shopping in Provo, so she called me up when they were done to get some food and say our goodbyes. Somehow seeing her before she left and talking excitedly about Peru made me feel a little better. I'm so excited to hear about her experiences and see her when she gets back. I'm so proud of her for doing this and love her so much!

Our dinner at Dock of the Bay

Me and Allie in high school

With her wonderful mother

Beautiful Al

P.S. I saw these llamas at school the day she went into the MTC.. coincidence? You tell me...

My Beautiful Niece

Preston got me a new camera for Christmas and I've been anxious to get out and take some pictures! So, when my sister called me last week and wanted some pictures of her daughter for a contest she's entering, I was super excited. The weather was so perfect, so we went out and took pictures at the state hospital orchard and castle, by a warehouse we found, and at the train tracks. They turned out really good and I'm excited to see if she wins the contest!

Here's some of the pictures I took:

Kids say the darndest things...

Kauai

So we just got back from Kauai this last week. And yes I wrote down what we did everyday so I wouldn't forget. So now I'm going to blog about it and it might be kinda long (just a warning)... But it was seriously sooooo beautiful!! I had no idea what a jungle it is there. I knew Hawaii had palm trees and beaches but I didn't realize how many different kinds of trees/plants there are in a 20 foot radius!

Anyways, about the trip. The morning of our flight neither of us woke up to our alarms and had to grab everything and rush to the airport. Luckily we didn't miss our flight! We got to Hawaii at about 11 am so that was nice because of the time difference we still got most of the day to play. The first day there we just went and ate and played at the beach and got some groceries for our hotel room.

The next day we went to the beach again. Then we went to a waterfall called Kipu Falls. We picked up a local hitchhiker on the way there.. little did we know he was actually a monkey! But I'll get to that in a minute. So we get to this beautiful place and hike a little bit up to the waterfall. At the waterfall you can jump off and there is also a rope swing. It was so great watching people jumping into the water below. I even worked up the courage to jump off.. and it wasn't as bad as I thought! But this monkey boy was crazy on the rope swing and he was climbing a big tree out to the very end branches and jumping into the water which is about a 50 foot drop I think (I don't judge distances very well). So this was one of my favorite parts of the vacation. We went to the beach and a couple other places this day and then in the evening we went to the Marriot and played frisbee on the beach there and swam. We got this amazing dessert called Hula Pie... best dessert ever! It was an ice cream pie with oreo crust and macadamia nuts, whipped cream, and hot fudge. I'm craving it right now.

The next day we went snorkeling at Tunnels Beach. This was my first time snorkeling ever. Let's just say I didn't catch on immediately. I was so scared of that water getting in my snorkel tube. And so scared of everything basically. But when I finally got out there and saw the amazing fish and everything under the ocean I LOVED it!! We even swam with a sea turtle for a while!
Right after Tunnels we hiked the Na Pali coast. It was actually a pretty big hike, and all we had for shoes were water shoes that were falling apart so it was a bit uncomfortable. But it was so cool when we made it to a private beach on the Na Pali coast. It was just the most beautiful hike.

Saturday we played tennis at the hotel in the morning and then went to the beach. We played at the beach most of the day, and then went shopping and to dinner.

On Sunday we went to church in the morning. It was really fun to go to a Hawaiian ward. At the end of the meeting they stood up and sang all the visitors a welcome song and gave us a homemade lei! After church we went up to see spouting horn. It wasn't super interesting- just ocean water that shoots up from rock- but I'm glad we went and saw it. Then we went to see Waimea Canyon, which is called the "grand canyon of the pacific." It really was like going to the Grand Canyon, it was so pretty. After we went to dinner that evening we sat out on the beach and watched a gorgeous sunset. I have so many pretty pictures of it!

Monday was the day of our expedition! We were going on a sunset sail to the Napali coast. This was so much fun- mainly because I love boats. The boat ride over to the Napali coast was so much fun, there are trampolines on the front of the boat so me and Preston sat on those in the sunshine with the water misting us, while we were served fruit! We stopped along the Napali coast and went snorkling. There were so many fish around us! The captain of the boat would tell us about landmarks along the coast and where movies were filmed. We stopped the boat and had a dinner onboard and then we started back home. On the way back the sun was setting behind us. It was so great.

Tuesday is the day we came back to Utah. Our plane didn't leave until the evening so we went to the beach in the morning and then hung out by the pool until we left. We had a red eye flight on the way home that was pretty much the worst experience ever. We were so scrunched in the plane and couldn't sleep, so it was a long, long night! 

So that is our vacation in a nutshell! It was so wonderful and I am already dying to go back!