Thursday, December 27, 2012

One Year Together!

Daniel and I celebrated our first anniversary in beautiful, sunny Texas. We were getting kicked out of our room at his grandparents' house for a while anyway, so we decided to get a hotel in Austin and see the city.

We started at the Saltlick BBQ restaurant in Round Rock. They had some pretty good food, but we liked the pork ribs the best.


I meant to take before pictures, too, but... I forgot...


Outside the restaurant.

Next we headed into Austin and checked out the Capitol building. It's even bigger than the nation's capitol! So it's true when they say everything's bigger in Texas. It's also a very beautiful building! And inspiring to think of the dedication in building it before they had all the machines we have now. So much thought and work and care went into it and all the amazing buildings from that time period.


The central dome


It says "Texas" everywhere... the tour guide said "Just in case you forget where you are"


The senate room. 


These are the ORIGINAL desks and they are beautiful! They had some artists in there restoring them while we were there.


"Texas" in the lights, haha


The House was in session. There's something important about that tree, but I don't remember what it was, haha


The building from the outside. Does anyone know how to flip pictures?

Next we headed to "Mount" Bonnell. A whopping 106 STEPS to the top. Like literal stair steps.


But there was a nice view from the top. There was also a view of the city, but it was far away and didn't look that impressive in the picture.



The silly steps!

Then we checked into our hotel and checked out the Arboretum shops. We were still full from lunch, so we got some ice cream and rode the weird stone cows. I'm still not sure why they were there...


I'm firing guns. Because we're in Texas and that's what people do in Texas!


Daniel scolding the ashamed cow.

Then we headed to the Trail of Lights for some depressing Christmas cheer. We heard it used to be really good but the people who originally did it sold it and it got lame.

Our favorite was the tunnel of epilepsy:

So we tried to get out of there as fast as possible


All of the exhibits looked something like this. But at least this one has something to with Christmas! Not all of them did...


This was the one exhibit with Jesus. And he is creepily huge...


But there was a nice view of the city lights at the end!

After that we headed back to the hotel and relaxed in the hot tub for an hour before they closed it. The next day we saw The Hobbit in the morning. It was a really nice couple of days and we think we'll make a tradition of mini-vacations for our anniversary.


Saturday, December 22, 2012

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Happy Birthday to ME!

This weekend was a great one, most definitely because it was my birthday! I started it off right by skipping all my classes on Friday to celebrate. Instead I went to stand in the rain/hail/snow and listen to President Uchtdorf speak to all of the ROTC cadets. It was especially cool, because afterwards Daniel and I got to meet him!



After that, we headed home and cleaned up a little before my parents got here. Then we went up to a cool hibachi grill in Sandy and came back down for the basketball game! My parents were going to buy tickets, but some woman handed them some sweet ones (almost center court, 15th row) for free! And there were open seats near them, so we just sat there... haha.




Then when we got home... the power was out! It snowed really early this year so none of the leaves are off the trees and I guess it took out a few power lines nearby... My parents were going to blow up an air mattress to sleep on, but... no power! Luckily we have a comfy couch and a twin bed so they didn't have to sleep on the floor. So we sat around in the dark for a while and talked and they gave me my awesome present:



A 9-cup KitchenAid food processor!

The next morning we got up (and the power came back!) and went to Kneaders and saw Skyfall. Dang good movie... and Adele's new song is INCREDIBLE! After the movie my parents headed back to Idaho and we went to Texas Roadhouse with Rachel and Derrick for our combined birthday lunch.

That night, Daniel and I went to the BYU football game, even though it was 400 degrees below zero... We actually had amazing 9th row seats, but of course the game where we have good seats is the game where we get to practically stand on the field! Daniel was being recognized with the ROTC so he was standing down with the cannon crew, and I got to fire the cannon! It was pretty sweet and I got a free t-shirt!


He's in there... I promise!
I went home after the third quarter because we were up by 40 points and by that time our 9th string players were in and it wasn't worth freezing my toes any more. Daniel had to stay and do stadium cleanup, but because of the snow it didn't take as long as it usually does. We watched the Office, went to bed, and almost slept through church this morning. But we made it on time!

GREAT birthday weekend!

Oh, and what did Daniel get me? Well, I kept telling him what to get me, then changing my mind over and over again... so finally I just told him to surprise me. I figured he would get me one of the things I had suggested previously... but he didn't! I got this:



With a voucher for this:



I have ALL the Batman movies now! Best husband EVER!

Monday, October 29, 2012

FE, ROTC, FTX, etc!

As you can see, our lives are full of acronyms...

So I thought I'd start with a couple pictures of Daniel's ranger challenge competition last weekend. Turns out they beat the other teams by more than 2 hours... they're kind of a big deal.



 Daniel is really good at making awkward faces in all of his pictures...

This weekend the army took him away from me again, and he ran off into the woods with his army friends for a field training exercise.

 Telling other people what to do (it's what he's best at).
And they got to ride in helicopters!!! I'm pretty stinkin' jealous. I told him to promise me that I would get to ride in one some day, and he wouldn't! I guess I'll just have to get life-flighted out of the mountains on a camping trip or something...

My weekend wasn't nearly as exciting... I got to take my 8-hour Fundamentals of Engineering exam. Basically one test that determines whether I get to be an engineer or not... and it's comprehensive of pretty much EVERYTHING that I've learned in my last 400 years of school.

I don't have any real pictures, but I think these can kind of portray how painful it was...

I'm pretty sure we studied 400 hours...
I'm not an Asian teenager, but you get the idea. It was awful. But I feel like I did well and I'll get my results in 8-10 weeks!

I got a new calling in church teaching the 16-17 year-old girls. It's fun, but takes a lot more time than teaching the 6-year-olds... Daniel is still stuck with them, but he secretly loves it :) Ok so maybe he doesn't love it so much, but he still does a good job preparing lessons for them.

And we have some exciting news! Daniel got his branch preference, so he will officially be a Medical Service Officer after graduation! (read about it here) So we'll be with the army for six years and then he plans on going into hospital administration. This also means that we get to spend the summer in San Antonio! We're both pretty excited about that. We're also EXTREMELY excited to get out of Utah and spend some more time with Daniel's family.

We're just full of exciting news here, hopefully more to come soon!

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Oh hi, blog...

Sorry about the lack of posts here... Our lives right now consist of school, work, more school, army, and more school. And those are boring things to take pictures of...

In fact,  I think I can sum up all of the fun things we've done this semester in less than 30 seconds. Depending on how fast you can read, of course.

-Football games
-Intramural basketball (me)
-Intramural frisbee (Daniel)
-Bridal/baby showers
-Eulerian and Lagrangian Flow Descriptions

Oh wait, that last one probably shouldn't be part of the "fun things" list...

Daniel and the Army ROTC won their ranger challenge competition this weekend! I guess won is an understatement... to use Daniel's words, they "pwned." I would go with "destroyed" or some similar word, since they beat all the other teams by more than 2 hours. This means that next year they'll be going to the Sandhurst competition in New York!

Next week I have my comprehensive exam of my entire college career (which is why I'm procrastinating and writing this post). That is definitely not going to make the "fun" list either...

Hopefully we'll have nice, fun "birthday" and "Thanksgiving" posts to liven up this dismal space... until then,
Go BYU!

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Red Rock Relay

Ok I have one more post in me tonight... This weekend we headed back down to southern Utah to run the Red Rock Relay! With a 12-man team, we ran 187 miles in 2 days. I only ran 12.something miles, but Daniel pulled in a whopping 22.3! Our team captain, Jessica, was 4 months pregnant and couldn't finish hers, so Daniel helped pick up the slack.

The first day we started at the Brian Head Resort, and I ran a mile before I got to the lodge and rode the chair lift up... before I ran just right back down to the parking lot. It was a fun little trail run, though. From there we ran to Cedar City, then through St. George, and on to the finish at Zion National Park.

 Ready at the start line! Also, there's a creepy dude behind me.
 Finishing up the first leg!
 Epic handoff!
Daniel finishing his first leg.

Overall, it was a great experience. I had a ton of fun and Daniel LOVED it. We would definitely do this again!

Canadian Border Patrol

I have been laughing my butt off watching and re-quoting this video the last couple of days... hilarious!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFcIH2tK2iM

Fun side note: if you google search "Canadian border patrol," that video is the first result. Not the actual Canadian Border Patrol!!! Poor Canada... :)

Come to Zion, Come to Zion!

Last weekend we had a fun-filled trip down to Zion National Park. Of our group, surprisingly I was the only one who had ever been there.

We took off from Provo late Friday afternoon and found an INCREDIBLE free campsite outside the park. We were in a "campground," but really couldn't see anyone. We also had an awesome view of a canyon and the boys had fun throwing rocks off the cliff face.

(Dead) tarantula we saw the first night... creepy...
 Our new ad for Toyota... we think we'll get rich off it.
AWESOME campsite!

Saturday morning, we were all pumped and ready to hike the Narrows! But we got to the park and they said they were going to close it because of flash flood forecasts... so we were kinda bummed, but we did Angel's Landing instead and it was amazing as always! Check out my last post for our sweet video...

 The last little trek to the top!
 Our group on top. I put my arm around Sean for one of the pictures, but he tried to rip it off so I didn't risk it again.
View from the top! So pretty!

Sunday we slept in, spent time at the campsite (this is when most of the rock-throwing happened) and rode the shuttle all over the park. We also hiked to the Weeping Rock. Daniel and I went slow so we could read all the signs along the trail talking about the wildlife and plants. Did you know that what we call "snake grass" in Idaho has different names in both ZNP and Yosemite? I can't remember the names right now, but that was weird to me. Why can't everyone just call it snake grass??

Our group at the rock.

Monday morning we packed up and headed back to the park to tackle the Narrows... oh and by the way, there was NO rain on Saturday! Anyway, we only hiked part of it since we didn't want to get back to Provo too late. It was a nice little hike and everyone was jealous of our Chacos. As they should be.


 Sean being an awkward 5th wheel... :)
Cool canyons!

A very fun weekend, and a very fun park! We came back this weekend, I'll write about it when I get around to the next post...

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

A little preview...

Here's a little preview of our trip to Zion National Park over Labor Day weekend... it was awesome!


Sorry about that annoying "watermark," I didn't really feel like buying any video editing software...

Also, this is totally legit!

California!

So this post is actually about US!

Right before school started, we wanted to do something really fun and we decided to take a trip down the coast. We started in Yosemite, drove down to San Luis Obispo, and finished the trip in San Diego.

We camped in Yosemite and drove around the park and hiked a bit. That park is HUGE. I want to go there again, but for a week or so and do some exploring in the backcountry. Two days was NOT enough time there! And we were definite minorities there... Americans... Most people were visiting from foreign countries.
The first day we mostly just drove around and this was a really pretty lake off the side of the road.
At first Daniel was a little offended that I wanted to make tinfoil dinners with chicken (his family ONLY does ground beef), but after it was delicious he forgave me.
Our big hike, Vernal Falls. Beautiful!
And I REALLY wanted to see the sequoias, so luckily we got to stop in Mariposa grove on our way out!

Daniel was born in San Luis Obispo and lived there until he was 12, so we stopped there and had some great BBQ and gelato the first night. Sunday we went to his old ward and everyone was so excited he was there. Most remembered his parents, but a few remembered him, too, as a little punk kid. His primary teacher was upset he didn't remember her, but who remembers their primary teacher from when they were 7???

That day we went and saw the beach at Montana de Oro and played in the tide pools. Then we had dinner with the Greenleys (friends of Daniel's family). They told us that some whales had been spotted at a nearby beach and we were going to check it out that night, but we stayed way too late talking!

Monday we headed over to Avila beach and saw three humpback whales right off the pier! Then we tried to get gas, but California is WAY too confusing... ok so we finally did get gas and we headed down to San Diego.


 Beach/pools
Whale!!

We stayed with Canada and Michael in San Diego (mcphiego.blogspot.com). We didn't get to see a lot of them, since they both had to be responsible adults and go to work... LAME!

So the first day we went to Sea World (but decided it's definitely more fun if you're there with kids) and hung out at the beach afterwards. But before we went to the beach, Daniel took me to PANERA BREAD for lunch! I have missed that place so much... it's just a sandwich shop, but they don't have it here and I went there all the time in Maryland! When they got off work, Canada and Michael joined us for hot dog roasting and s'mores on the beach.
Daniel's new life goal is to go dolphin surfing... haha
 It's not Sea World without Shamu!
 I wish I could go to the beach all day every day...

Day 2 we headed to see the Midway (by the way, military discounts are awesome... Daniel got into both of these places absolutely FREE!). The aircraft carrier was AWESOME! Daniel was more interested in the "history" side of it, I was more excited about all of the airplanes and their engines...
 I just love this picture.
 Exciting plane number one... also, can anybody name the movie????
When we got home, I realized we didn't take any pictures with them, so here is my awesome skill at Photoshop. Amazing, right? It's like they were actually there!

So after the Midway, we headed to the beach again and then we went out to dinner with our hosts. I took a shower and it took them FOREVER to decide where to go... but eventually we settled on Outback and it was delicious... but we forgot our leftovers in their fridge... I'm sure they don't mind :-P

The next day, we packed everything up and headed home... but first we got a hot chocolate from Panera :) Going home was so sad... I wanted to be on vacation forever... But school had to start sometime and we're done soon enough!