2013 Was a Year for Traveling (Kinda)...

I got looking through a bunch of our pictures from this year and realized how many fun trips we got to go on! We didn't really go anywhere exotic but went to most of our neighboring states at some point!!

I don't even really remember the order of all our trips but I DO remember that they were all great! I chose a few of my favorite pictures from them and even though I'm sure they've all been posted before, I wanted to put together one more tribute.

-NEVADA-
I went to St. George and Las Vegas with my family (plus Carter's friend Josh). This picture was us enjoying our yummy frozen hot chocolate from Serendipity 3 at Caesar's Palace!!

-OREGON/WASHINGTON/IDAHO-
Went ALL OVER Oregon and touched into Camas, WA for a few hours on a trip with McKenna and my dad. We are at Depoe Bay getting ready to launch out on our whale watching tour in this picture.

-IDAHO-
Somewhere in between the Oregon trip and our next one, we went on a weekend trip with Jared & Sam, and Ben & Carrie Sorenson to Lava Hot Springs!! I had my camera the entire time but since we were there such a short amount of time and were floating the river during the waking hours, I didn't get any pictures :( But we had a BLAST! We rented a 4 place tube and 2 single tubes and switched between them. We camped in the trailer and took Benny, too! He wore his little life jacket and hung out in the center of the 4 man tube on all of our runs!! What a trooper, we love that little guy.

-WYOMING/IDAHO- Can't forget our Jackson trip! We ran the river tons of times and took lots of great pictures! Can't wait till July 2014 to go again!

-CALIFORNIA/NEVADA-
Of course we also went to Anaheim, CA for Disneyland! This quick 4-day trip was one of our best memories of the year! -ARIZONA/NEVADA-
And then our most recent trip with just Riley and I to Phoenix! We already have a few trips planned for 2014 and we can't wait!! If they turn out HALF as good as the ones we were able to go on this year, we're stoked. We really have been incredibly blessed with the ability to travel and go on these trips. We can't wait till we have a family and kids to share all the memories with :)

Phoenix Trip-Zufelt Wedding

About a month or so ago we received an invitation in the mail to one of Riley's mission companions' wedding. At first I was bummed because they were getting married in the Mesa, AZ temple and I didn't think we'd be able to make it happen. Riley was determined to make it there, though! They had promised each other on their mission that they would go to the each others' weddings and Riley was not about to give up on that promise. I made plans to have the time off from work and he re-arranged his schedule so he could miss a few days.

I'll admit that I was NOT looking forward to the trip. It's a 12-13 hour drive each way and we couldn't miss any extra days from work. Which meant we left on a Thursday, went to the wedding and reception on Friday, and drove home on Saturday. We had to get home for Carolyn's boyfriend Caleb's mission farewell on Sunday, so it was one. quick. trip.

We woke up bright and early on Thursday morning and got out the door around 8AM. We dropped Benny off at Jared and Sam's house and started the trek!

We arrived in Gilbert at about 8:30PM at Riley's aunt Jolene's house. They were gracious enough to let us breeze in and out to stay!! That night we went and met my friend Kristi for frozen yogurt and spent way too much time chatting and catching up. We didn't get back home until 1AM but we fell asleep immediately and didn't wake up till like 10 or 11 the next day. We got up and went to breakfast with Cousin Tyler at the Black Bear Diner, came back and got put together for the wedding!



The sealing was beautiful and they looked SO happy! It reminded me of our wedding a few years back. I can't recall nearly a single thing that was said in the ceremony, which makes me kind of sad. But we were so anxious/nervous/excited/scared/happy that the whole day was a bit of a blur.







It's important to note here, that Riley picked a "lemon" from one of the trees at the temple. I was positive we were going to Hell for stealing from the temple (more on that story later), but he didn't think much of it.



We had a few hours between the sealing and the reception, so we ended up walking through the Chandler mall for a bit. WOW! What an amazing mall!! It makes all the malls here seem so small and pathetic. Riley's favorite part was the Lego Store, which I practically had to pull him out of.



As we left the mall and were on our way back to the house, we were stopped at the mall exit waiting to turn right onto the main road. We noticed that several cars in front of us, a vehicle was parked in the middle of the road not moving. It was holding up traffic and several people had gotten annoyed and were honking. Riley got out of the car to see what was going on, only to find a young teenage girl sitting in the car, panicked because it had died and wouldn't start. Luckily he had packed practically his entire tool box in the back of our car, whipped out his handy scanner and was able to reset the codes for her long enough for the car to start and get out of the way of the other cars. By that time, her dad had gotten there and was so grateful that someone had stopped. You could tell that she was beside herself that people were upset they had to go on the curb to get around her. Her dad mentioned that it took someone driving all the way from Utah to help his daughter, and thanked Riley multiple times.

We went to the reception that night which was held at a friend's backyard. It was a beautiful night with lovely weather, made even better by the fact that they danced to the "What Does the Fox Say" song. Love it.

That night we met Kristi Lou for dinner at an Italian place called Oregano's. The portions were HUGE! Between Riley and I we ordered an appetizer and an entree to share and had TONS of leftover.

We woke up the next morning at about 7AM and were on our way! We stopped in Vegas and met our friends Cameron and Lorna for lunch at the Vegas Ale House and enjoyed catching up with them! We miss seeing them all the time, but hopefully we'll have the chance to visit with them again VERY soon :)

Even though it was a LONG time in the car for a very short trip, I wouldn't have had it any other way. I love being able to spend time with Riley, just the two of us. We had about 26 hours in the car to talk, laugh, and enjoy each other's company. I learned lots of things I didn't know about him (which I didn't know was still possible,) and it just makes me appreciate having him in my life even more.

One thing stuck out to me in a conversation we were having. I asked, "Do you remember the day you decided you wanted to marry me?" He thought for a minute, and said, "I have good news and bad news. The bad news is, I can't remember the exact day I decided I wanted to marry you. The good news is, I can't remember a day when I DIDN'T want to marry you." I about melted in my chair. He's an incredibly soft hearted guy even though he doesn't show it all the time. I'm one lucky girl!!

Remember the "lemon" from earlier? Well fast forward to last night when I took on the challenge of making a FROM SCRATCH pumpkin pie with my mom and grandma. The recipe called for lemon zest so I thought, "Great! I'll use the lemon that we picked from the temple!" I got to my parents last night and whipped out my "lemon" to show off to my mom. She looked at it for about .2 seconds and said, "That's not a lemon. That's a grapefruit." I denied it as I was SURE it was a lemon. Well, we cut into it and sure enough. Grapefruit. Awkward....

Time Out For Women! -St. George

A few weeks ago we had the opportunity to go down to Time Out For Women in St. George! My mom, McKenna, and I left Friday morning and made the trek down. We made a pit stop at the Scipio Petting Zoo and were so sad to see that it was closed. During the middle of the day? Boo. We spent a few minutes walking around the outside to see what kind of animals we were missing out on petting, snapped a picture and were on our way.



A few miles down the road we made another stop in Beaver for ice cream at the Cache Valley cheese factory! I had been telling them for months about the delicious ice cream but every time we were driving through it was either too late in the evening or it was a Sunday and they were closed. So they finally got to see what all the excitement was about, and it sure didn't disappoint! Love me some raspberry cream cheese ice cream *drool*.

We arrived Friday evening long enough to drop our stuff off at the house and get ready for the first night of the event. That evening the music was provided by Michael McLean and we heard from a few wonderful speakers, including President Hinckley's daughter!

The performance went a bit long so we didn't get out until after ten. We made our way to Cafe Rio and enjoyed some delicious dinner before heading to bed.




We woke up early the next morning after a pretty terrible night's sleep (for me, at least! I don't do air mattresses so well!) and headed off to the Convention Center for Day Two! The music that day was all by Jericho Road and it was amazing!! They were really fun to watch and listen to, especially the boy band tribute. Sure do miss N*SYNC... :) It was another day full of amazing speakers who all had messages I needed to hear.



After the event ended we went to Chik Fil A to meet my mom's high school friend Ralyn and her daughters Kara & Kieley. They were down in St. George for Kara's rugby tournament and my mom wanted to visit before they headed home. Afterwards we went and did some shopping at TJMax and had dinner at Benja Thai. I'm not usually a huge fan of Thai food but this stuff was delicious. I will definitely be going again.

The trip was a huge success! I don't get too many opportunities to hang out with just McKenna and my mom, but every time we do get together I realize how much I enjoy being with them. We can talk for hours on end about nothing, and can joke about our differences. I sure was blessed with some incredibly family members!!

Fall Happenings+Halloween 2013!!

A week or so ago Carter and I went fishing with this guy.



He was the only one to catch a fish but he obviously was excited about it.

Giving the fish a kiss!!

We went to one of our favorite spots just off the freeway between Taggart and Croydon. Such a beautiful river!!





To get ourselves in the Halloween spirit we went to Frightmares and carved pumpkins with Jared and Sam.



Riley, Jared and I rode on the Skycoaster. Riley had never been but Jared and I had both been twice before. We figured we'd make him pull the rip cord as an initiation. We had a blast!





Riley and I dressed up as Mr. & Mrs. Aaron Rodger's for Halloween this year!!!





I guess I should mention somewhere that on October 30th we celebrated our 4th anniversary!! Can't believe that four years have already come and gone with this guy!

Since we both had to work the next day we didn't do anything too incredibly exciting. I made dinner at home and we went to Lagoon one last time before it closed. The lines were TEENY and we practically walked on to every ride. We are going out of town in a couple of weeks just the two of us so maybe we can count that as an anniversary trip?

Girls Night to THRILLER-2013

I really wish that I would've gotten more than ONE picture from this event! Even so, it's still worth noting.

A couple weeks back some of my high school friends and I got together for dinner at The Pie up by the U. We had a great time gabbing, catching up, and enjoying an insane amount of cheese...(with a side of pizza).



We decided that night that we should get a big group of girls together to go see Thriller down at Kingsbury Hall. I had never been but had heard how cool it was from tons of other people. We bought our tickets and set up the date.

We had SO much fun! All the dance numbers were amazing and we got pretty great seats. We were on the lower section towards the back and didn't have anyone behind us. Which was pretty great, because we didn't have to worry about annoying anybody sitting in back of us.



I'm so glad that I've lucked out with such awesome friends. They're all amazing girls who are doing some way cool things in life. It's crazy that we've been graduated for over 5 years and our lives have taken us in such varying directions. But that's what makes it all that more fun when we can get together and find out what everyone else is doing.

Disneyland With JayRad and Spam!!

Can I just start by saying that this trip was a LONGGGGG time coming?! We have been planning it since February of last year and we finally made it happen at the end of September. That was a long countdown (Trust me, I almost made a paper chain of days but figured it would be depressing).

We had been talking about a "friend" trip to Disneyland for almost our entire marriage so it was so fun to have it finally come together!

We left the day after my birthday around 11 to make the trek. Jared and Sam offered to drive since they have the most fuel efficient car. It was definitely good on gas mileage but it was definitely a bit cramped. We pulled out of their driveway after we had loaded everything up and the bottom of the car scraped on the cement. Nice. I bet we had 800 lbs of people and STUFF loaded in there. Good thing we are such cool people though or the drive would have sucked. We had a blast chatting, napping, and eating our road trip goodies.

We stopped in St. George for some lunch at Chick-Fil-A and then continued our adventure. We had to play lots of random car games but it went by fairly quickly. We pulled into the hotel late Thursday night and completely zonked out. We woke up FIRST THING the next morning to make sure we got to Disneyland/California Adventure when they first opened.

We thought about trying out our luck for a Radiator Springs Fast Pass, but the line was SSOOO long so we decided to just try getting on in the single riders line. We only waited for maybe 15 minutes and got on! We ended up utilizing the Fast Pass system for other rides, but the single riders line treated us very well both of those days. We almost always lucked out and got on in couples so we didn't have to ride with all strangers.

We enjoyed Dole Pineapple whips, Mickey beignets, and other goodies. We packed our own lunches to save some money which ended up being a really good idea. We ate dinner at the park both nights, which wasn't TOO expensive, but it was worth it to save where we could.

Both days we were there from 9AM until the Disneyland closed at midnight. It made for REALLY long days, but we sure did get our money's worth. We were able to get on every single ride we wanted to several times. The longest line we waited in was for the Haunted Mansion (which was decorated for Halloween, and it was about 40-45 mins. September is a really awesome time to go! The weather was a PERFECT 70 ish degrees, the lines were pretty short, and it's decorated for Halloween which was super cool.

Another thing I want to remember about the trip was Riley's sunglasses getting lost. He brought them with us the first day in my backpack, but it ended up being pretty overcast most of the day so he didn't use them. He remembered seeing them in between California Adventure and Disneyland, but when we went to leave the next day, they were nowhere to be found. The backpack we were using has kind've flimsy straps keeping items in the front pockets so we determined that his glasses and the case must have fallen out on a ride somehow. It put a huge damper on Riley's spirits because they are his favorite pair. Not to mention they're Ray Bans so they were almost $200 glasses. Nice. Before going into Disneyland for the day we decided we would try our luck at the lost and found. Riley had pretty much already told himself he could kiss the glasses goodbye, because what were the chances of them being returned? The odds were pretty astronomical, but I talked him into checking JUST to be sure. Well, long story short when we went to guest services the lady was able to find them! We could NOT believe it!! I thought Riley was going to cry tears of happiness over someone's honesty. She had no idea when, where, or how they had been found but they were still inside the case in perfect condition! The case was a bit scratched up (probably from falling around on a ride or something) but the sunglasses were there. Needless to say the trip was made!

Now for the fun part... a few pictures!!







Before the "It's a Bug's Life" show! Riley and I were so excited to take Jared and Sam to see this show, since they'd never been. Didn't disappoint, it's always so cute!

Here is one from Splash Mountain. We rode this ride like 15+ times. Totally worth it. (Also, a few of our pictures from this ride "Washed Away". I'm pretty sure they didn't like our poses... HA!)

This photo was taken on one of the two times we broke down on Indiana Jones. Luckily we were at the VERY end of the ride, so when they had to turn the lights on it didn't take away any of the mystery. I was thankful for that because Indiana Jones is my hands down FAVORITE ride. (We also rode on this one like 10 times). We missed our Fast Pass time for Radiator Springs the second day sitting on Indiana Jones, but luckily when we told the ride operators they were nice enough to call over and make sure we got on.

Sidenote: We also broke down on the Tower of Terror. Which really was horrifying, because I was sure we would plummet to our deaths. We had the worst luck with rides, I swear!

The boys were in absolute heaven in Cars Land.

Please notice their matching outfits. Spam and I call them "Thing 1 and Thing 2" for a reason... Here is our favorite part of the trip: the ride photos.





















As you can tell we had an awesome time. We really lucked out with some good friends who put up with our crazy. (And are pretty weird themselves!)

The countdown to our next trip will begin soon enough!

Camping in the Uintas-W/Friends from the Ward!

I had a three day weekend in August which almost never happens. We decided we needed to make the best of it and take a camping trip before the weather got too cold. As always summer went by WAY too fast. I realized today that we never got to go out boating! Sad!

We were originally going to go camp up at Smith and Moorehouse Reservoir (we really like that place), but we got talking to the Sorenson's from the ward who told us they were also going and already had a spot saved. They invited us to tag along and since more people is always better, we accepted their offer. We ended up going with Jordan and Alyssa (who slept in the trailer with us), the Sorenson family, and the Owen's family who are also in our ward.

It was pretty much just a weekend full of riding the RZR! The weather stayed nice most of the time, although we did get rained on for a bit. The Uintas are BEAUTIFUL so the scenery was amazing.

Of course it's never a complete camping trip without something going wrong! We realized we had a flat tire in the truck once we got up there. Luckily we were at a place where the boys could swap in the spare!







The Hendrick's

Us!

The Sorenson's

The Owen's

My Hottie Husband :)

Everyone from our "Adult Ride"

Our little family!

The friggin' cliffs of INSANITY. For real. This drop off was huge. Gave me anxiety when Riley insisted on standing at the edge and throwing huge rocks down. Really cool view though!

Riley standing at the edge watching the boulders fall down. I know I tend to exaggerate (mostly because I have no concept of height), but Riley agreed in thinking the drop off this ledge was 1000+ ft. I wish there was a way to show just how crazy of a drop it was.

We had a great time! It's always fun to get out and get dirty camping. Makes you appreciate your shower that much more when you get home!

Utah is such a cool place to live! We have TONS of beautiful places right in our own backyard. We love exploring and finding new adventures.