The Ream's Bandits

So Tuesday as Andrew and I waited to take the bus home from campus, we noticed in the Daily Universe (BYU's Newspaper) that there were scratch and win coupons in every newspaper for Ream's, a local grocery store. Well, we had another ten minutes or so until the bus came so we decided to get to work and start scratching. It was about 5 o'clock so I feel like people had there fair chance to win already. So we tried to be inconspicuous about it and go through every paper and scratch the coupon to see what we could win. There were four things you could possibly win: an ice cream cone, a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk, or a $100 gift card. We were mainly going for the gift card but we ended up with about 30 scratched coupons, none of which were gift cards.



It was kind of disappointing not to win the big prize, it felt like we were looking for a golden ticket, like in Willy Wonka. But we were really excited to go and get all of the things we did win. The only catch was that you can only use one coupon per person per visit.

So Tuesday night we went and got ice cream cones. Each day since then we've gone about twice each time. So we've frozen two loaves of bread and given some donuts and milk and extra coupons away to Jessica and Laura.


Well the coupons expired today so we're going to miss our little visits to Ream's. We really like Ream's, we'll probably start doing some of our regular grocery shopping there. I think they've gained two new loyal customers.

Speaking of making memories in my last post, I think we accomplished that again this week with our little scratch and win coupons!

Making Memories

Last week for Family Home Evening we talked about family traditions and memories we want to create. We discussed some of the things we want to do in Utah that we've never done. I would hate to look back and think that I had missed out on some of the activities and sites to see around here, especially considering I've been here six years!

Anyway, we both realized we'd never been to Homecoming at BYU. So we called up a friend of ours to see if he wanted to double with us and go out to dinner and then to the dance. We didn't really feel like doing one of the fancy ones, so we chose the 80's dance in the Wilk.

Before going to the dance we went to Olive Garden. I really like Olive Garden, but I soon remembered that I always overeat when I go there :)

Here we are before dinner...


Andrew's old roommate, Nate and his date, Karen. She looked straight out of Full House, it was pretty awesome.

After dinner we headed over to campus for the dance. Some people went all out to dress up, it was quite the site. We had a lot of fun dancing to some classic 80's music and wearing glow stick bracelets and necklaces! Most of all it was just fun to get out and do something we haven't done before!

Honeymoon!

A little while after we got engaged we were throwing around some honeymoon ideas and I mentioned that I had seen round trip tickets to San Diego for $105 on Travelocity. So we decided that was probably the best bang for our buck. So we headed down to San Diego on Saturday morning. We stayed at the San Diego Hilton, which I would highly recommend to anyone visiting down there. It was beautiful. I should have taken more pictures around the resort, but I never really felt like tagging my camera along.

We kind of did one big thing every day....

On Saturday we didn't get to the hotel about 3:00 pm because of some rental car problems, so we were really exhausted so we just got massages at the resort's spa and went out to dinner.

On Sunday we went to church, where we actually ran into a girl who was in one of my past wards. It turned out she was on her honeymoon, too. Weird, huh? Then we went to the San Diego zoo. We justified it as seeing God's creatures...what better way to spend a Sunday? :) It was absolutely beautiful. I could have spent all day there. Well, I guess we kind of did. We were there from about noon until 5 PM. I took a ton of pictures, I will spare you all of the animal shots...just people shots.

Here I am with our souvenir cup we got. If you bought this nifty little cup for like $8 you could refill it at any of the little concession spots. I thought it was a great deal, because to just buy one drink was like 3 bucks. So we filled it up about 5 or 6 times, so I'd say we got our money's worth.



Here we are riding the little bus around the zoo.








Probably just filled up the cup...






We ended our day on Sunday by going downtown San Diego and eating at a little mexican restaurant.

On Monday we drove up to Orange and visited one of the law schools that we're interested in going to, Chapman. We went on a tour of the Law school and then, since Andrew wants to do a joint JD/MBA program, we went to an informational session for their business school.

Here's Andrew at their campus entrance.


It is in a cute, quaint little town. After we were done touring campus we went and walked around their downtown area and ate at a cute little diner called The Soda Fountain. Apparently the movie, That Thing You Do was filmed there.

We really like it there and I think it is probably now on the top of our list. And the best part of all, we got a fee waiver while we were there, so that will save us $60 bucks for the application fee.

On Tuesday we went and did a session at the San Diego temple. It was so beautiful!



Then we drove up Pacific Coast highway for some sight seeing. We stopped at Del Mar and got out and walked around. It was such a pretty area!


Then we went and ate at Roy's Hawaiian Fusion. It is a steak house and is SOOOO delicious! Every time I see this picture I want to go back there.


Wednesday we took it easy and just hung by the pool and on the beach. We also got another massage. Needless to say, I am definitely sold on massages. Everyone should get to treat themselves to one at least once in their life.

On Thursday we headed to North Carolina so I could see where Andrew was from. We basically just traveled all day Thursday. We flew into Raleigh, then we went on a tour of Andrew's old neighborhood and high school in Chapel Hill. Now his parents live out closer to the coast in Wilmington. (So yes, we went from coast to coast all in one week!)

On Friday we rented a boat and went out on Intracoastal Waterway. It was so much fun, I love being out on a boat. Also there were all of these pretty beach houses we got to look at along the way.

This was one of my favorites.








On Saturday we rode on a ferry and went to Ft. Fisher. North Carolina is such a pretty place!
Here we are with Andrew's parents.



Look at those cute houses behind us.

I really like this one.


We came back to Provo on Sunday, and it was back to work on Monday. I guess you could say the honeymoon was over so to speak. We had such a fun time and it was so nice to have a vacation!

Sorry this was like the longest blog ever. I'll write about our new apartment later.

I'm Married!

Andrew and I were married in the Salt Lake Temple on August 17th! It was such a beautiful day and one that I will always remember! I was kind of worried that I would be really stressed out and not be able to fully enjoy the day, but it turned out so well and I couldn't have been happier! We don't have pictures back from my photographer yet, but you can go to Emily's sister in law, Shannon's website and see some pictures. She is starting a photography business so I invited her to come along and snap some pictures. She did an awesome job! Also Jessica and Emily have some pictures posted as well. I'll be sure to post some pictures when I get them back.

My mom and I headed up to Salt Lake around noon where me met up with Andrew at the temple. It was so nice to have my mom by my side, she was such a support and calming influence on me the whole time they were in town. Our sealing was at 1:40, and apparently there were 60 other weddings that day! So when we came out of the temple there were people EVERYWHERE because of all the weddings. We were able to get some pictures on the temple steps and then walk around temple square a little bit. The crazy thing was that it rained for about 30 minutes while we were trying to take pictures. But it was kind of cute, because we were able to take some pictures with an umbrella, so we'll see how those turn out. The only downside to the rain was that it delayed us a little bit and we only had about an hour window to take pictures between the wedding and the reception. So by the time we got to the reception I didn't really have time to "freshen up" so I'm a little worried to see what I looked like after getting rained on!

The reception was at Market Street Grill in Cottonwood. It was really lovely! I would highly recommend it to others looking for a reception site. The food was so good and the cake was delicious! Here are some pictures taken by the Gruwell girls once the photographers had left and we were able to cut loose a little bit.

Jessica, me, Eliza, and Christy


There's a wine cellar down in the basement and Levi, our fake photographer, thought it would make a good picture...


Eliza, Laura, me, Jessica (Andrew's sister), Jessica G., and Amy






Our fake bouquet throw. Jessica Gruwell "caught" the bouquet, so you know what that means! :)



It was such a great day! I could relive that day over and over again! I'm so happy to be married to Andrew...he is so kind and so loving and so handsome! Even if the reception and pictures would have been a flop I would have still been so happy with our time spent together in the temple and the fact that I was able to be married to him there!