ps

spring break day one:

driving 10 hours to indiana with this baby!

ps- driving long distances with a 2-6 week old=much easier than with a 3 1/2 month old...just saying :)

and happy st patrick's day!
i'm excited to share with you our celebrations of the day with the indiana cutlers

iphone update

life from the iphones over the past month

graduation.
yayyyyy.

our time in arizona.
bahama bucks. casey's 2nd love.
they had a new size even bigger than their biggest size and casey had to get it.
it pretty much took 3 days to eat.
more on how awesome bahama bucks is later :)
in-n-out and ned's krazy subs with our trusty companion, annalee.
her and phoebe went everywhere with us that week which was a blast.
sadly, phoebe was always taking naps when we did lunch.

driving.
ugh.
driving in separate cars, even ugher.
finally getting to indiana, yay.
more on indiana and iowa later.

our first weekend in nj.
we went to the god father brick oven pizza.
pineapple and ham, of course, and it was yummo.
that night we also went and saw the avengers=awesome.
sunday lunch=green pancakes

our apartment complex.
yay/boo.
a walk a took one day to the cemetery across the street.
you know how on headstones they always say something like "the mother who loved all", "always inspiring" "a father and friend"
ya know?
i was thinking what if we all did our headstones like the i'm a mormon campaign?
 a wife, a mother, a mormon.
i just thought it'd be funny :)

 

and there is a small update

guess what? now we live in new jersey!

at long last, we have settled in somewhere after graduation!

wow, it has been a whirlwind of events over the last 2 weeks.

we had an amazing graduation weekend with family,

we had a wonderful time in AZ with family and went to mrs brooke's beautiful wedding.

and we then spent 40 hours in the car trekking to new jersey where we will be working this summer.

we packed up all our stuff and took it to nebraska, visited family in wyoming, iowa, and indiana as well as mission friends in pennsylvania

i am just so relieved to be done driving.

but my bum and back are killing me from sitting for so long.

let's talk about new jersey for just 1 second.

it's different than the west.

YOU CANNOT MAKE A LEFT TURN ANYWHERE and right turns are once in a blue moon

i want to scream every time i realize i need to turn.

 at nearly EVERY intersection there are signs saying NO TURNS.

that means no left, right, or U turns.

it's driving me bonkers and i've only driven around one day.

seriously!

and then there are BILLIONS of highways, freeways, numbered things everywhere that once you get on it or miss your turn you can't turn for another 2 or 3 miles.

it is flipping ridiculous.

i cling to our GPS for dear life when i'm in the car,

it's pathetic.

the roads by far won over my emotions yesterday when i was in the car for nearly 45 minutes, at night, alone, trying to find my way home, and crying hysterically.

the GPS would not take me home!

like i said, you can barely turn anywhere and it kept leading me back to this one entrance to a highway that was closed and i had no idea how to get on it.

it was utterly terrible.

at this point, i'm not the biggest new jersey fan yet...

i'm pretty sure it'll get better it just might take a little while.

updates of the past few weeks to come soon.

more tids and bits

from the telefono:

dental school celebration day:
in-n-out
krispy kreme doughnuts.
that's right, we celebrate with class.

some more pics from courtney's wedding.
it was really fun, i got to wear a different dress each day i was in az :)
a dress without  tights!
my legs were jumping for joy in all their freedom happiness!!!

the drive back to UT was cray to the Z.
rainbows, crazy fog, and snow.
speaking of lots of driving, we are almost through with our books we wanted to listen to,
any must reads out there?
we've listened to hunger games and eragon lately,
but we have tons of driving in front of us this year.

 

i don't think i took any pictures of just hanging with the family in AZ crazy enough.
it was nice and low key.
playing with the girls,
2 bahama bucks trips,
games,
church,
ya know, the usual.
but it was a gorgeous 70 degrees out.
my arizona weather did not disappoint.

ps- we're really not home that much,
so because we're not home much at all, we don't really turn on our heater, as crazy as it sounds.
but the other nights we were home all night, twas wonderful.
so we brought out the wine and fancy dishes and turned that heater on!
do you how good it feels to get into bed and see the temperature is 65 degrees in your room and not 55!
big difference people, big difference
(will this change our heating behavior? probably not.)

some last tidbits about utah/end of the semester before we get into all the "holidays/family" posts that will inevitably come...

done with school.

yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.
utah teased us with alight dusting of snow last week (which was beautiful and completely welcomed)
i wore sweat pants everyday and may or may not have worn the exact same outfit two days in a row...
and then of course, the glorious tesing center/jsb lines

cody and camille came all the way down to provo from indiana just to see us!

well...kinda. there may have been some other people involved in the whole familytoseeinthewest ordeal...

our excitement to see jaden was like a kid on christmas morning.

WE COULD NOT WAIT TO SEE THAT KID.

he's gotten so big since 4 months ago when we last saw him!

he was obsessed with casey and wanted nothing to do with me.

i'm used to it, kids are obsessed with casey...as am i.

we went over to the grandparents for dinner, chatting, and GAMES.

games up the wazoo.

even the grandparents stayed up til 1 am with us playing games, ha!

oh, and when we left their house that night, 19 degrees!!!

blah! we couldn't have been more excited to be in AZ the following day!

mom sent up about a bajillion lemons with my brother to me.

i kid you not, a full bajillion.

i finally made time to do something with all them lemons.

lemonade.

my wonderful friend had a juicer so i juiced away!

the perfect lemonade is equal parts sugar and lemon juice, and twice as much water.

try it,

it rocks.

more cute pictures of abby girl while she was playing with us at our house.

she pretended to not be interested in reading books but as soon as you'd flip the page, she'd stop in her tracks and strain her neck to see what was next! 

so funny...

and lastly, we drove down to arizona!

yipee!

the drive was extra pretty this time around,

sunny skies with snow all around.

pretttttttyyyyyyyyyy.

we listened to the BYU v Baylor game (so close!!!!!!) and the 2nd book in the hunger games series.

and made it in 9 hours with exactly one stop.

woah, i know.

provo utah bucket list: stewart falls/canyon drive in the fall

so our original plan was to drive up the canyon,
back in all the pretty leaves,
and drive home.
but on our way back down we suddenly thought, why not hike stewart falls right now since it is on our bucket list?
and, oh, what joys we did have!

luckily we went last tuesday, the day before it turned rigid, cold, rainy/snowy here in provo.

the drive was utterly gorgeous.
we saw the mountain sides were alive with colors bursting out in flames.
the smell was incredible, it made me want to go camping right that minute and live out in the wilderness all autumn long.
i honestly couldn't take big enough breaths in. it was so wonderful.
we listened to our beloved country music the whole way driving (did i tell you i converted casey to country music? for all you country haters, it makes us happy and we love it it so don't judge.)
and of course the company was wonderful, i don't remember what we talked about but i remember being happy.


we turned up the canyon and enjoyed every mile.
casey was driving slow,
my head was stuck out the window like a dog taking in the smells and sights.
we'd go back and forth saying "oh look over, there, that's so pretty!"
we saw a huge moose cross the road when we got up to aspen grove.
it looked so majestic with the fall leaves on all sides of it.

after driving through all the aspens after aspen grove,
we turned around and that's when we decided to hike stewart falls!
to say it was pretty is the most boring word i could use.
i'm not much of a writer so i won't try to convey what it was like except that it was so glorious.
seriously.
all the leaves around us were changing colors.
little chipmunks squeaked and crawled up all the trees around us.
leaves littered the trail and looked like millions of little girls had gone before us and dropped their flower baskets.

we ran (on the flats and downhills) to make the hike faster.
it felt like we were in a movie, being chased, jumping over stumps, roots, and boulders in the fall time
it was so cool.


the falls were exquisite too with bright reds, oranges, and yellows trailing on all sides.
the air was perfectly crisp with a slight chill.
and we were out there all alone in God's beautiful creation.
we passed maybe 8 other people.
it was like our own, personal, intimate experience with nature,
one i will never forget.

 

if you live in provo you need to take your canyon drive asap before it's all gone!

ps- the picture above the bottom left picture, is the road we went and took our engagements in,
it was just as beautiful as we remember!!
it's this secret little road up the canyon, you pass a kinda bigger open horse field on your left and it's behind there.
my ultimate dream would be to have a quaint little cabin on the itty bitty road!

packing and driving = worst part of summer

packing=shoot me.

i never can beleive all the stuff we fit in that car.

poor husband has the toughest tetris game of his life.

see the top right pic? yeah i think i brought out at least another half that much.

but we fit it all in!!!

hallelujiah!!!

i've become much more efficient at this whole packyoursummerlifeintoonelittlecar gig.

aka i put my shoes in his shoes and rolled his ties into my shoes.

go me.

and while husband was busy tetrising it all into the car,

jaden was on the sidewalk pulling out all the shoes and putting them on his feet!

what a big help.

and then onto the driving.
the confoundit driving!
5 hours to iowa and then another 23 hours to AZ with NO STOPPING!
except for a) potty breaks b) gas c) treats d) all the above
i don't know how we did it.
starbursts helped much (thanks kerri!)
and so did a little penny surfing.
kansas did not help.
kansas was as boring as a white sheet of paper, and it took FOREVER!

see the dumb cowboy hat behind me?
yeah that fell forward and hit our heads about 51038320 times.
and to make it worse, we didn't even go to a rodeo this summer so i didn't wear it!
how LAMO is that?!
the drive took forever.
luckily i have nearly perfected my sleepinreallyuncomfortablepositions skills and slept for at least 11 hours of the drive.
i'm a rockstar like that.
once we saw the AZ cacti though, i was a happy camper.

 

ps- see the bottom right pic of the blue mirror?
can you guess why our mirror was blue with a hint of red?
yes, we indeed had not 1 but 2 visits by the friendly policeman on our journey.
i was stopped first in whocares, kansas.
results: warning for a broken brake light, WAY TO DANG GO KIMBER!
casey was then stopped aobut 2 hours later in whocares, oklahoma.
results: warning for a broken brake light and going to 46 in a 40.
YAY FOR WARNINGS AND NO TICKETS!
this is our first official summer with no tickets
knock on wood, we still have 10 hours left to provo! yikes!

i missed you provo

it's nice to be home.

we had yet another uncomfortable card ride, ha

this only rates 3rd worst overall though.

we had 3 boxes of reeses puff cereal that kept hitting our heads,

it was annoying,

and casey's church clothes kept falling on us,

annoying

my feet were still on the dashboard the whole time, but for some reason it was just better.

it was pretty rainy so we kept seeing different pretty landscapes,

the sun was not in my face for 3 hours straight bc the rain clouds covered him.

the ride wasn't bad just LOONNNGGGGGGG,
the last 4 hours took forever, we just wanted to be home!!!
side note: i have way too many shoes, and i took way too many shoes with us to california too! for both drives to california and back from provo, the only way we could fit all my shoes in is if at the last minute we fit them into all the crevices! haha, so that's how my shoes worked, therefor all the shoes pressed against the window! i was so afraid we were going to accidentally roll down the window and i'd have to pick up a bunch of my shoes along the highway!!!

today we're moving the apartment all back into our glorified attic!

we missed it :)

we were fortunate enough to have casey's family members help us (grandparents and cousins, and my bro stepped in for a bit too), it was a HUGE help!

we took the kitchen pic after almost everything was done in the kitchen but casey insisted we still document it :)
at this point i don't think we had started on our bedroom!

guess where we are?!?!

AIREEZONAH!

we drove all night long,

packed the car until there was not a crevice left to be packed,

had the most uncomfortable car ride ever!

this car ride was the most uncomfortable seating ever! remember the last car ride was the worst ever bc the way i felt. both dominate in their own categories :)

my seat was pulled up as far as it would go next to the dashboard, and the chair was literally angled at a 90 degree angle. death. ha, i rode with my feet on the dashboard the whole time bc even the area at my feet was totally full! ha! 11 hours later we made it to arizona at 4 in the morning!

by the time we went to bed it was beginning to get light outside! oh my heck! ha!

poor casey drove nearly the whole time bc he didn't fit in my seat!

so excited to be playing here for a week!

worst drive EVER

reasons why this was the worst drive ever:

1. remember when i talked about how horrible the sun is on road trips? this time we were driving into the sunset (west) so instead of the horribleness lasting 2-3 hours it lasted like 5 hours! death!
2. we lost a hubcap on one of the wheels :(
3. a car with red and blue flashing lights decided we were driving too fast and gave us a pretty little ticket :( mmeh. cruise control was totally set at 84!
4. my tummy started hurting after about 4-5 hours and lasted the whole rest of the 6 hours even between all of our "stop the car casey!", open the door, yada yada yada, you know what happens next moments. life stunk beyond stinkiness. then i just tried to sleep through the pain which meant casey had to drive the rest of the time with no naps! i felt so bad!
5. the drive should'e only taken us about 10 hours and turned into like 12 with all of our stops. mmeh :(

even though the car ride home was horrible the reunion was so fun and worth it!

i will be updating about a million awesome pictures as soon as i feel up to it!

ps- only 3 more weeks of summer/this job and then back to BYU/provo!

yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

we are so excited :)