Family Vacation

Dad, Julie, and Dan had a choir tour to St. George in June. Mom and I decided to go with as "groupies". Since we were so close, we also decided to take a slight detour to California to witness Lauren perform the marriage of two of her friends, go to Catalina Island, and drag Lauren home to Utah with us. Our first stop was St. George and a concert at the St. George Tabernacle. I loved this sign - I understand being cautious on steep stairs -but why do you need to be cautious on historic stairs? The second concert was at the OC Tanner Ampitheater right outside Zion's. It was a beautiful setting, but SO windy. Julie and Dad had to stand at either side of the accompanist to hold her music down.

After a fun weekend in St. George it was on to the wedding in California. Deputy Lauren and the bride. Lauren did a fabulous job. Enjoying the sun and the food (they had a taco truck in the front yard doing the catering). Lauren doing her best karaoke after the wedding, and yes, by the end of the night someone had fallen into the pool, a window was broken, and the cops shut down the band. A pretty eventful night for a wedding with no alcohol! After the wedding it was off to Catalina, we are incredibly excited to be on the boat! Playing a new game, lay on mom and make her laugh. Walking out to the casino. Such a gorgeous day, such a gorgeous place! Saying goodbye to the house for another year. Do we really have to go back? (We did see some dolphins on the way back to the mainland) Once the boat gets moving it gets REALLY windy - I had the strap on my hat twisted around my hair so the hat wouldn't fly off my head. Mom and Julie guarding all our luggage while Dad went to pick up our car. We loaded up three cars with our luggage, and all of Lauren's stuff to take back to Utah. It was a little cramped for part of the ride. Luckily it was only for the ride from Lauren's house to the hotel, that was the most uncomfortable car ride I have had!! The rest of the way was SO much better. We finally made it home safe and sound, family, luggage, dog, and all!

Lauren's Graduation

In May our family flew to California for Lauren's graduation. After marathon thesis writing, Lauren was ready to be done with grad school. We went expecting sunshine and warm weather, and were disappointed with rain and cold! The sun finally came out for the graduation, but under the tent all we felt was the wind, and it was cold! There were SO many graduates, we were freezing, and Lauren was bored, so as soon as her name was called and she walked across the stage, we left (we're real classy like that). Everyone was crowding around the front so we couldn't get a good picture of her on stage, so here is our own version of her moving her tassel over. Lauren worked so hard for three years to get her master's and I am so proud of her accomplishment! I know it's almost a year late, but Congratulations Master Laur!! Now, remind me again why you had these GINORMOUS glasses in your car?

Lindsay's Wedding

April was a pretty crazy month. My roommate Lindsay got married at the end of the month. After spending most of the year either out of town for work or in New Mexico with her fiance, it was a little crazy trying to get everything ready for the wedding. It turned out really nice and it was fun to see friends from our old ward. There was a slight mishap towards the end of the evening. A couple of her nephews got away from whoever was supposed to be watching them and found their way into the bride's dressing room. As we were taking pictures after Lindsay threw the bouquet, they came crawling down the stairs COVERED in mascara and eyeliner! A few months after the wedding, Lindsay, her new husband, and her two new stepdaughters moved to Germany! I sure miss my roommate!

Winter Fun

As promised, here is a post that is NOT about Disneyland! My friends and I decided we needed a girl's night out/sleepover in January to help us get through the January blahs.

We had a great time eating lots of fried food thanks to Wendy and her deep fryer (we liked the pickles the best).

Maggie enjoyed my little red wagon.

And we got to try on each other's hand me downs. It was a great night, just what we needed in dreary January.

In March I convinced Julie and Dan to go snowshoeing with me.

I didn't want to go with a bunch of pros for my first time and none of us had ever gone so it was perfect. We went up to the Spruces campground and had a blast. I can't wait to go again this year! Dan enjoyed going over all the natural snow bridges, Julie and I were a little bit more nervous about falling in the stream below.

It did backfire on him once, when he didn't quite make it over the bridge and got stuck, I had to go running up the hill to find a better place to cross over and help him (after we got pictures of course!My family fell in love with the newest Les Miz Anniversary special that aired on PBS, especially Alfie Boe. Julie joined his fan club and found out he was performing with the BYU-Idaho Symphonia, so she convinced us all to drive up to Rexburg to see him perform live.

We took the long way on the ride up and drove through Logan to stop at the Cox Honey farm, the cheese factory, and the Pepperidge Farms factory. We thought this Visiting Teaching bag was hilarious, it has the lesson and the treat all together, no need to visit, just drop it on the porch. When we got to Rexburg, we went to dinner at our all time favorite Chinese restaraunt - Fongs. One of my roommates from my first year at Ricks is living in Rexburg, so she and her husband and her little boy came to dinner with us, it was so fabulous to see Melissa!

Dan made the supreme sacrifice to come with us since it was in the middle of March Madness, luckily Julie had just bought an iphone, and there was an app to watch the games, so he didn't miss too much.

Is anyone tired of Disneyland yet?

I promise this is the last Disneyland post for awhile (Candice you can start reading again)!

Our Disneyland Annual Passes expired the third week of January. The first week in January we started getting emails about renewing our passes, and it was KILLING us that our year of Disneyland fun was coming to an end. So, we jokingly started saying that we needed to go one last time, that joke turned into more serious discussion, and finally less than a week before our passes expired, we decided to get out of the inversion in Utah and head for sunny California.

Lauren had work and class our first day there, so we had to muddle through without her for awhile.

Things got a lot more fun once she and Morgan arrived.

Swan Lake anyone?

For our last ride of the night we went over to Splash Mountain, since we were just going home and wouldn't mind getting wet. The first time through, none of us got wet. Since it was the end of the night, the ride operators just let us stay on and go through one more time. Lauren got SOAKED!! She was not pleased.

Dan and Lauren both got to do what they wanted, Dan got Bengal BBQ ...

and Lauren got to ride on the canoes.

One last ride on our favorite Matterhorn...

...and on the wheelchair (Julie was still recovering from pneumonia), and it was time to go.

Disneyland annual passes are the best!

I have no clue what we are trying to do in this picture, but I had to include it!