Mitch and Anchorage

Two posts in one, because I am behind, as usual. (How do you spell the abbreviated form of "usual?" Ushhh. Usxh. Us. You know what I'm talking about.)

Lish's dad came out for a few days a couple weekends ago. We didn't do much while he was here, besides enjoy the sunshine and some yummy eats. It was the weekend of mine and Lish's 5th anniversary (Happy 5 to us!) and it was Mother's Day (Happy Mom's Day to me and all the other mom's and soon-to-bes and will-be-somedays), so Mitch made sure I had enough ice cream to last a lifetime. Or at least the duration of a weekend. I love me some ice cream. It was lovely.

Then we had a few days before we boarded a plane to Minneapolis, then Anchorage.

(Sidenote: Somewhere along those flights I lost my camera. If you found it, please give it back because I miss it dearly. And I want to continue taking pictures and documenting our simple, happy life.)

(Sidenote number 2: Can you believe we flew through Minneapolis? It didn't take much longer in the long run because our layover was shorter than it would of been had we flown through Salt Lake.)

We spent almost a week with my brother and his wife. It was wonderful. We loved being up there with them and getting to see a little of the state. We spent a majority of our time in Anchorage, but we went into Girdwood, tried to see a glacier that was still covered in snow, and took a beautiful drive along the coast.

While in Anchorage, we went to an amazingly huge park, played disc golf (as is the proper name for frisbee golf), went to the Chugach State Park (which had an incredible view), would have gone on a hike if it wasn't still covered in snow, visited the zoo, saw the largest known chocolate fountain, saw a moose grazing on the side of the road, visited Troy and Beth's places of employment, played a lot of games and beat Troy in most of them.

When we got off the plane and met up with Troy and Beth, they had made a sign for us that had a list of things for us to check off as our trip progressed. We checked everything off that list, except seeing Russia. We didn't get to do that. I know. Bummer. I would have taken a picture of the sign, but if you read what I just wrote, I can't. And that makes me sad.

Moment of silence.

Moving on.

We are so glad we were able to do that vacation. We loved getting to spend all that time with them. They are good people. And Alaska is beautiful. The pictures, of course, don't do it justice. Thanks for hosting us guys! We can't wait to host you someday. Or better yet, be neighbors!

Decking 101

The first thing you should know about redoing your deck is that it's hard. Hard and time consuming. Especially when you are really redoing it. We are so, so grateful to our neighbors who helped us tear the awful, original deck down, and so, SO grateful for Scott and Karen who came down to help us rebuild.

Go figure I didn't get any great "before" shots, nor any really great "during" shots, since Yale and I were out of town for the major deck weekend for another special event. So, enjoy the pictures I do have. And if you saw the deck before, then you really know what we were dealing with.

I found this before picture online. 

Not too easy to see what a mess it was, but you can see how big it was.

Enjoying our new deck!

It's so nice to sit out there and not be afraid you're going to fall through.

4/5 Graduated

My little brother graduated last weekend. I'm so proud of him! This means that four out of the five of us siblings have graduated college, and the last will graduate in December.

Yale and I had the opportunity to go up to his ceremony and spend time with him. My brother, Brian, also came out for the party, and it was really fun to see and spend time with him. I'm so glad we got to go up! Definitely worth the trip!

(A look into our future with this little one? Uh-oh.)

Celebrate and Chickens

Hola. I'm catching up. Again. My bad. Again.

A couple weeks ago, Lish and I headed up north to spend some time with the family. Alisia was turning --, so we went up to celebrate with her. And celebrate we did! We had a fabulous dinner at none other than Chunk Chuck-A-Rama. I know you're jealous. It actually was pretty fun and the food was good, so bravo C-A-R, bravo. Courtney, Alex, Kyle and Chelsea all came down from Logan. Ashley, McLane and Mason, and Dallas were all in attendance. It was a par-tay. Good times. I'm so glad we got to go up and spend that weekend with everybody.

 (Kyle had this on his back from the time he walked in the door, through the whole dinner, and into the festivities that night. 

We had to finally tell him, after about 4 hours, that it was there. We're funny.)

Lish had to come back home for work, but I ended up staying a few more days and headed up to Bountiful to spend some time with my mom. She only had to work one day that week, which was lovely! While she was working, I went into Salt Lake and visited City Creek with my dad. It is pretty amazing what they've done with that space. I wonder how those shops will do, because I will never buy anything from a high majority of them. Though I will from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. And the Cheesecake Factory. I love food.

Anywho, it was great to spend that time with my mom. My aunt and uncle came into town, so I got some good time in with my aunt as well. (My uncle was at a convention most of the time I was there.) I love spending time up there and visiting with my mom. She's a pretty amazing lady.

 Watch Yale feeding the chickens here and here.

Some of you may be wondering how Yale and I got back home since we only have one car. Well, I found out that one of my friends from high school wanted to come down with her hubs, so I was able to hitch a ride with them and I'm so grateful they let us ride along! They spent a night with us, which was really nice. It was fun to catch up with her and get to know her husband a little bit since I hadn't met him before.

Sometimes I Run

It's official: I have signed up for the St. George Marathon on October 6th. I'm excited to accomplish this goal, but not so excited for training. Especially since the training months are over the hottest months of the year. But whatever. You can just remind me that I knew what I was getting myself into.

A couple Saturdays ago I went running with a friend. When we met up, she asked where I wanted to run, and I said, "I kind of want to run to Arizona." She said, "That's funny. I do, too!" So we did. It was longer than I expected it to be, and there was a cycling race on the road we were running down. I suppose it was motivating to be running with so many people passing us. As we were running, one of the race photographers took our picture:

Yes, we look lovely. It was a fun run and it's great to have this little reminder of it.

Easter Happiness

Happy Easter readers! Don't you love this holiday? Me too. Not only is it fun now that we have a little one to find hidden eggs, but I love getting to celebrate the resurrection of our Savior. As I logged into Facebook today, it was hard not to notice all the testimonies that my friends and family had written. And they were beautiful. Some of them quoted hymns, some quoted prophets and apostles (read a great article about Easter here), and some were just their own words. I loved reading through them and seeing what an impact this holiday has on so many people. While I don't feel especially comfortable sharing my own testimony on the blog-o-sphere, I wanted to share some words from one of my favorite hymns, I Know that my Redeemer Lives:

He lives! All glory to his name!

He lives! My Savior still the same.

Oh, sweet the joy this sentence gives:

"I know that my Redeemer lives!"

Beautiful. I couldn't have said it better myself.

Lish and I had fun getting Yale's Easter basket together last night. We did one last year, but this year we actually got to put stuff in the eggs. Last year I just gave him empty eggs because I knew he would like trying to put them in his mouth. Apparently not much changed, because he did that again this year, but he did get to eat the goodies inside. (Rather than putting candy in each egg, we put in Goldfish crackers and yogurt bites. He gobbled them up! We had a few with jelly beans too, because he is his father's son.) It was fun to "hide" them and help him find them. Can't wait to do it again next year!

We're heading over to my aunt's house for dinner and we decided it would be fun to make Easter baskets for each other. Here is a peek at their baskets. Can't wait to see what surprises are in ours!