What a Blast!

...pun intended...

Independance Day is a great time of year. Not only because of what it represents, but because it is celebrated in such a fun way! Fireworks are awesome, and spending time with friends and family is even more awesome:) What with BBQ's, concerts, games, sun, and fireworks, I look forward to July 4th all year long!!

To kick off our celebrations, we got free tickets (compliments of Brent Brown) to the one and only Stadium of FIRE!! Starring none other than....CARRIE UNDERWOOD! She was ammmaaazing!! We were so lucky to be able to go see her live. It is crazy to me how unbelievably gorgeous some people's voices are.
It was pretty cool...we had field passes:)
The fireworks were pretty crazy too!


On monday, Richfield celebrated, so we drove down there after we drove a big truck in the Provo parade.(That was our price for gettin the tickets to stadium of fire)

And apparently it was a looonnng day for poor Grandpa Brown;) So he got a good snooze while watching Nick's cousins tear up a volleyball tournament.
Later that day we joined the Henries for root beer floats and fireworks!
So needless to say, the day ended with a BANG!
So thank you, founding fathers and all those who have fought and still work hard to keep our country free and fun!! God sure does Bless the USA:)

Baby Kai Fun!

I absolutely love the adorable offspring of Kasey and Garrett. She is such a fun little thing! I don't think Kasey knows how much Nick and I enjoyed taking Kailyn to Bridal Veil Falls last week. To her I think we were just babysitting for a few hours, but we really loved spending time with this little girl! I'm sure she is a handful sometimes, but she was an angel the whole time she was with us. We walked around the falls, nick dipped her foot in the water (which was much too cold for her taste), played with flowers, and ended with a taste of jamba juice and a nap:)

I'm pretty sure she was more interested in wanting to eat the flower than smell it..

The mini, pink version of Gilligan

Anyways, thanks Kasey and Garrett for letting us play with you daughter for a little while! You guys have definately been blessed with a wonderful baby girl. And she is lucky to have such loving and great parents! She makes us realize what we're missing in life at the moment;) We look forward to when the time comes for us to have a little bundle of our own! ...and no, this is not any sort of baby announcement on my part. Sorry mom and Natalie! haha!

Little bit 'o family time

After our trip, Nick had to go back to Utah. I stayed at my Dad's place in Miami for another day and spent some time with my Daddy, step mom, sister, and nephews:) We went on walks, played around with water guns, and took a quick trip to the beach. I get so sad being so far away from all of them, so I was really glad to be able to spend some fun times together.

Natalie got the gorgeous blue eyes in the family.. ha..could we look any more different?

Luke got a nice blue tongue from his superman ice cream...

and then decided to rip off his shirt and show us all his huge tan muscles!!

hahaa..and then there's little Jordan...I don't think he ever stops making me laugh!

And the day ended eating subway on the beach while Luke and Jordan played in the water.

OH YA! I also decided to add these pictures of my little sis, Katie;) I took her to get her wisdom teeth out this month..and couldn't pass up the opportunity to take pictures of her while she was drugged up!

She didn't swell too awful much, but we had some interesting conversations while she was coming out of the drug coma. She liked to repeat the same questions over and over...and over. And then laugh hysterically when I said something to her..even if it wasn't funny. The nurse described to her what all was in her take home package. It included some chapstick to which katie's response was, "oooo I love chapstick!" That night I asked katie if she had used her chapstick yet..."They gave me chapstick?!?" haha. So yeah, she was a fun patient and I'm glad I got to be there for her!

A Second Honeymoon:)

We got to go on another cruise!! It was totally last minute, and we were so excited! This time we visited the western Caribbean which included the beautiful Jamaica and Cayman Islands. We had some unforgettable experiences and an amazing time! Got a nice tan/sunburn and probably gained a few pounds...but it's ok, since we agree that tan chunk looks way better than pale chub! haha. I accomplished one of the things i've always wanted to do too: horseback riding on the beach! Nick enjoyed it too, but admitted later he would have rather spent more time at the waterfalls in Jamaica instead. Anyways, I'll let the pictures tell most of our vacation fun! (captions are under the pictures)

In Grand Cayman, the apparently famous 7-mile beach

They made towel animals every night on our bed and I took pics with them..this one is a pig

A pirate ship! In the Caribbean!

Jamaica

Dunns falls in Jamaica. This is only a section..they are huge! And you can hike all the way up them!

We only had an hour to spend at the falls after horseback riding, so we just played around a little bit.

Little did we know that the native jamaicans weren't just offering to take our picture to be nice..they expect to get paid afterward of course!

A really pretty part of the Island.

My horse, Ivan, and I

We even got to ride bareback a little bit in the ocean!

Nick and his horse, Spiff

Another towel animal..the elephant

All the ladies on the ship got a carnation for mother's day:) Nick thought it smelled really bad. This is his favorite picture from the whole cruise.. go figure

The mini golf course on the very top of the ship. It was pretty cool, and suuperr windy!!

So that pretty much sums it up! It was great fun, but the only thing that I would have changed is how much time we were able to spend on the islands. I think next time we do a big vacation, we will go to a resort and stay. You can't do everything you want to on an island when you only have a few hours!! But we still think cruises are at the top of the list when vacationing.

On another note, while we were gone, we got some very sad news that one of Nick's cousins, Jared, passed away. He was only 21 and drowned in Piute reservoir. We found out on our second day out and needless to say were devastated. Luckily Nick made it home for the funeral. But I just wanted to say we are so sorry we weren't there to help look for him or to spend time with and comfort the family. We will miss you Jared. Even though I personally only knew him for a few years, I'll always remember how kind and great he was to me and how supportive and brave he was on my first deer hunt when we all got lost:) We love you Jared.

Eye Wrinkles

Recently, (March 24th) was Nick's 25th Birthday!! Yes, he is getting so old. I always tease him about the wrinkles he has around his eyes that are most visible when he wakes up in the morning and how that shows that he is certainly aging. He isn't so fond of them, but I just love them! I think he will age well:) So anyways, to celebrate his special day I invited some friends over the weekend before to play games and eat junk food and brownies and such. Because Nick isn't a big fan of cake. It was a semi-surprise and we all had fun. On his actual birthday, a bunch of us went out to Chili's-our favoritest restaurant-and then went bowling. My idea was to do skittles bowling where each color skittle represents how you have to bowl (granny, backwards, opposite hand,etc) because I thought that may be a little more fun. However, all the guys were much too competitive for that and insisted on bowling seriously. So they did...and they're scores weren't much higher than we who skittled it;)

So excited...about to blow out his candles

Some of the friends we invited..Kasey, Garrett, Eric, Debbie, Elizabeth, and Chad who you can't see. But yay for birthday fun! Thanks to everyone who came that night and the actual night of his birthday!!

Post-Grad Life...What now??

The other day, Elizabeth, Kasey and I got to have a little craft day with a borrowed "Cricut". Elizabeth picked up some wood and we all got creative and painted our own slat, looked up some fun phrases we could use, and this is my finished product! Eventually it will be put up in my bathroom.

However, I got to thinking about how this kinda sums up my life right now. Since I've been done with school I haven't exactly known what to do with myself...and it was making me feel pretty down for a while. It still does sometimes, but I watched this movie called "PostGrad" and the girl in it was feelin' kinda like me. But the message at the end of the movie made me feel a little better. It was summed up to be, It's not so much HOW you spend your life after graduating, but WHO you spend it with. That's what is most important to figure out. And since I already have that part down, it cheered me up quite a bit!! I found my Nicholas who I adore and am more than comepletely satisfied to spend my life with! And I couldn't be happier about that.

But I am still going to have to vent a little bit. I mean, ya I have a job but it's pretty part time. Although I love it, it pays barely above minimum wage and shouldn't I be making much more than that now??? FOUR STINKING YEARS OF COLLEGE!!! I can't be completely negative about it..I had a great college experience, met lots of awesome people, learned tons of cool and useful junk, and learned to live on my own. But really, are bachelor's degrees even useful nowdays?? It seems to me the answer is more of a no than a yes. They are almost too common place in today's society. Or maybe at least here in Utah. And I feel like even though a lot of employers may appreciate having college educated employees, they don't want to pay them a decent college-graduate salary. Because even though we may be more qualified, they could hire on an average Joe and pay him lots less. College was hard! It was a lot of money, and required a ton of time and work!! I just feel like after all of that I deserve to earn a decent living. I suppose I could look into a different field of work and make a little more, but I really do enjoy what I'm doing now.(Physical Therapy assisting, for those of you who don't know;) ) And that is more important to me than making bank I suppose.haha. I think now I am forced to agree with the common adage that to get on top in life, a lot of times "It's not about WHAT you know, but all about WHO you know".

Anyways, so yes, this little plaque sums up what I do much of the time now. I have a lot of relaxation time since I only work about 20 hours a week. Nick works ALLLLL the time, so not much of my time is spent with him. I suppose I should enjoy my down time while I can though becuase i know it won't always be this way. I'm trying to find hobbies since i'm just not sure what to do with myself.haha. I've started working out a lot more. I'm actually training for a sprint Triathalon at the gym I work at. It includes a 10 min. swim in a pool that pushes you with jets and gets set at a certain speed, a 13 mile bike, and 5k run. It's in March and I still don't feel prepared for it at all, but my goal is pretty much to finish:) So I should at least achieve that! ha. Other than that though, I'm really not sure what to do next. I suppose many postgrads feel the same way. But well, I guess for now I will just try to 'enjoy' my 'relaxation' time:)

Random, Kinda Recent Happenings

Once again, I've been gettin complaints about never updating my blog! ha..imagine that. Well, it's not that we haven't been doing anything, it's just that I never take pictures! Halloween was pretty fun. Jodie, my mother-in-law, threw a great party the week before. Lots of yummy food, scary decorations, and fun costumes! She made costumes for the whole family:) We were all a different holiday. We had a father time (new-years), father christmas, cupid (Derk..ha so funny), lepruchan, a witch, uncle sam, a pilgrim, and an easter bunny. They all turned out really well..sorry i didn't get pictures. On Halloween we went over to Beau and Steph's place for another party. It was super fun too! Again, lots of good food and good company!

Last week, Kasey had her beautiful baby girl, Kailyn. I was able to go and visit her in the hospital, so that was a great experience. Kasey looked beautiful as well, and made it seem like giving birth was no problem! I'm so happy for their little family:)

Ok, so here are a few things that I have taken pictures of in the last few months that may be of interest!

So Ammon sometimes likes to pee on his tail and it makes him rather stinky. Nick loves it. He has lotsa fun watchin Ammon struggle and meow all weird while he washes his tail off.

His tail smelled fruity fresh afterward:)

This was what I woke up to find on my birthday! Nicholas decided to decorate the whole kitchen and got me a gorgeous bouquet! I especially liked how he taped the balloons in random places on the cabinets and tv;)

Nick got himself a deer on the hunt this year..I's so proud of my lil guy;)

Most recently, a few of us got together and went to a Jazz game up in salt lake. Nick's cousin does a lot of the marketing or advertising for the Jazz so he gets tix all the time. He gave us 4 in the lower bowl, so it was pretty cool! I could actually see the players faces without lookin on the big screen!

Preston just had to wear the wig...apparently he wanted to get put on the big screen, but sadly it didn't draw enough attention.