Bring on the Sunshine!!

Well hello there fellow bloggers and followers.
This week has been such a fantastic week! Do you know why? SCHOOL IS OUUUUT!!!! Seven weeks to relax and hang out with my hubby. Best. News. Ever.
I'll do a quick recap of what has been going on.
4th of July: We actually didn't do much in the morning except for go to the Rexburg parade. We saw some sweet floats and some awesome dances (like Thriller which was a little random) but we had fun. Later we went to Idaho Falls with Mark and Maren, Aaron and Stephanie, Lindsay and Sam, Nate and his wife, Bryce and a couple of Aarons family members that I don't know. Of course the boys played frisbee while the girls talked for a while but we all ended up playing Battle of the Sexes. Guess who won :) Yup. The girls!! It was kind of a miracle though because the guys questions are sooooo much easier. The fireworks were so fantastic and I actually got some pretty cool pictures of them!

{The 4th}

We were also able to see Patriots & Pioneers with Alex Boye! He was so fantastic!! I could have listened to him all day.

Wednesday 7/18 (Finals) : Still in School but this was the craziest day for Mike and I. I had to start studying for my awesome math final (where I was teeter tottering on an A- and a B+.) Needless to say I was a little nervous. I took my Environmental Stewardship final online and ended up with a 97% in the class. HOLLA! He had to take his Spanish test in order to start studying (the next day) for his Accounting test.. Well he was in the middle of the test online and it kicked him out. He was certainly freaking out but thankfully his professor let him continue with it.  

Thursday 7/19 (Still Finals): Mike and I took our most dreaded tests- Accounting and Biostatistics. We both ironically got the same score on our tests and I stayed at an A- (tender mercies) and he got exactly what he was shooting for. I believe it was a B+ that he ended up with. Smarty pants! After we were done it was like the weight of the world was lifted off our shoulders. We had nothing to do. Absolutely no responsibilities whatsoever. If we wanted to be couch potatoes no one would stop us. We celebrated with frosties from Wendy's - it was fabulous.

{on our way to Wendy's}

Friday: We left for Utah and on the way down we had some fun taking pictures. We saw a trio of olypic cars driving by (we lost them for a bit but got lucky when another came driving beside us. It got us so stoked for the games coming up!!) AND guess what we did at 8 o'clock pm that night. We saw WICKED!!!!! Oh my gosh I thought I was going to lose it. I was laughing so hard I was crying (in most parts). I loved it. I loved it. The funny thing is I hadn't really looked into the plot line of the play so I didn't really know what it was about. I knew it was about the Wizard of Oz and the witches but I had no idea what to expect. It far exceeded my expectations and I wanted to stay and watch it again. 

{Utah bound}

{at Capitol Theatre}

The main reason we went down to Utah was because my cousin came home from her mission!! WAHOO!! She's so beautiful! Not to mention she did fabulous on her talk. It was great to see my whole family. 

Saturday: I went running with my mommy and my Uncle. Wow, are they in shape or what!! It's crazy how fast you lose all the work you've put into working out. I ran 13 miles a little more than a month ago and I could barely run four. Stupid school.. and knees. (Good news is I have a cute new running buddy!! I'm so stinking excited. She's fabulous. AND I'll continue to have a running buddy when we get to PA too - yes Allison I'm talking to you - she'll whoop my butt into shape so that'll be great.) Later we went to visit the other side of the family Dave, Shaylin, and sweet little April. She's getting so big and her hair is getting so long! It was amazing to see them - even though Dave was grumpy ;) - because we all just hung out and talked. No pressure to entertain or anything, it was so relaxing. We also went to Wingers- much to the dismay of Shaylin. She wasn't feeling the spicy foods. (We're rootin' for her baby to come soon though!! I hope she comes before we go to PA!) 

Tuesday: We went shopping! First time in forever and I actually was disappointed with what the mall had- nothing that I wanted. So sad. But I did find some awesome pink capris and we got Mike some shirts that fit!! This is seriously fabulous news. He looks Grrreeeaaaat in them I must say. :) He's a cutie.

{the new outfit}

Wednesday: So, our dishwasher is horrible. It spits out all of this crap (it looks like bits of green seaweed.. right? Gross.) and have resorted to washing them by hand. It's so strange though because we wash our dishes off before we put them in the dishwasher!! Well, you can probably imagine how on top of it we have been because we have nothing to do. Haha. No. It took me an hour and a half to do dishes (not because there were so many - well there were a lot- but because the green seaweed would not come off anything) and now my hands are all pruny. Mmmmm. But I'm so glad it's done because now we can focus on packing...we are going camping!! I'm stinking excited!!! 

Back From Camping:

Wow was camping an adventure or what!! I haven't been outside in the "wilderness" in so long! (I mean "wilderness" because it was 10 minutes from our house hahaha!) But really, I haven't been in so long that all the bugs were driving me absolutely insane! I felt like such a girl, it was embarrassing and I'm sure Mike was hating it, but I couldn't help it! Especially the bees. I hate those little buggers. So we drove a whole 10 minutes to get to the campsite called Beaver Dick - Mike got a couple laughs out of that one... He's definitely an Engel :) - and found the perfect campsite! It was down a little path away from all the other campsites and it had so many trees and flowers, even a trail! We thought it would be perfect. Before we could, or wanted to, start setting up we had to pay the $5 fee at some sort of drop box that they kept telling us was around. We could not find it anywhere. We walked around a couple times, saw a couple guys working on something at the campground - dang construction, and finally called the lady again because we had no idea where to get it. She told us that there was a separate building that we had to pay at (that was back on the road we came on) so we got back in the car and left. We asked one of the workers there what the directions to the building was because the lady didn't even give us that great of directions of even the name of the building. Anyway, we got to the building (which was called Mesquito & Fertilizer or something like that) and the guy said that the only fee we had to pay there is if we were going to get a reservation not a campsite. Awesome. We called the lady back and she was like "oh I totally misunderstood you... you pay that campsite fee back at the campground. There should be a blue drop box right when you drive in". Hahaha! We told her that we looked for it and couldn't find it and she said it should be right where she said. So we drove all the way back and do you know what we found? The blue drop box right when we drove in! We do have an excuse for not seeing it though. The construction I told you about, yeah their truck was blocking it because they were doing some work on it. We weren't just retarded. :) Finally we got the paper, filled it out, and headed back to our campsite- which could have been taken by then. Luckily we got it back. Finally we started setting up camp for real. The tent went up first, we filled it with the pads and the sleeping bag, the pillow and blanket, and we were pretty much set! Then the fun part, cooking! I had made turkey burger patties before we left- the recipe was for Italian Turkey Sliders - and we started grilling them to make burgers. It took a little longer than expected to cook them though :) We were both pretty hungry so when we finally got them, MMMMMM so beautiful. Exploration was next. We went down the the river, headed to the trail and it was absolutely beautiful!! The contrast of the hike was pretty cool because one minute we were in a green grassy area with tunnels of trees and the next we were in the African Savannah (according to Mike)! It was absolutely stunning out there and if it weren't for something rustling in the trees.. I probably would have stayed forever. There was a mom and a girl riding horses on the trail that came back just after us. We were talking to them for a bit and I guess they were on the same trail we were and they saw a herd of goats and they saw a couple wild dogs. They had their dog with them and didn't want anything to happen so they turned around. I was feeling pretty lucky that nothing happened with that rustling in the bushes (although it probably wasn't a wild dog... but still) Oh and we also had to start the fire for S'mores!! It was a beautiful fire but it burned out pretty quickly so we had to keep feeding it little twiggys and branches - but eventually we got to S'more time and oh was it fabulous! Even Mike seemed to enjoy it more than usual (probably because the last time we had them the marshmallows were roasted over our oven burner). :) After sitting a little while and enjoying the bugs being gone (thank goodness for fire smoke) we got ready for bed. I must say sleeping was sure an interesting time. We got a big enough sleeping bag that both of us could fit in it... just not very comfortably. I usually sleep curled up in a little ball on my side but that didn't work out so well. Not to mention that any time either of us moved, the other had to move too. It was so fun!! We woke up pretty groggy. Even though we got zero sleep we were both still very happy to have gone camping. It was so relaxing and beautiful out there! The weather was perfect and I was with my best friend. I couldn't have asked for anything more (except for someone else to pack up for us hahaha. That is the worst part.) 

{camping adventures!!}

 This wood was naturally purple - SO COOL

 Hahaha I love this one :) 

One last thought. Today a very exciting thing happened: we ran out of pancake mix at the same time we ran out of syrup. Mike: "THAT NEVER HAPPENS!!" He was pretty stoked. :)

Thanks for reading!! :)