Happy 4th of July!

It's a few days after the 4th of July, but better late than never, right? For the fourth of July I decided to be a little bit festive (mainly to be like Emily) and make a flag cake! It was a jello cake (just a yellow cake then you poke holes in it and pour jello, then let it set for a few hours) then i topped it with cool whip and decorated it like a flag! It was really fun, and I think I started a new tradition. This time around it was a little sloppy...but next year I think I can do a little better.

Andrew's sister Jessica came in town from Las Vegas so we had a little bar-b-que then we went to Stadium of Fire. Corbin Bleu from High School Musical performed, which I secretly enjoyed, then Brooks and Dunn performed, then there were fireworks. It was a lot of fun, and probably the best fireworks show I've ever seen.

Here we are waiting for the show to start

Me and Andrew during the fireworks

Seattle!

On Wednesday Andrew and I flew to Seattle for his cousin's wedding. His uncle was kind enough to buy a plane ticket for me because they all really wanted me to be there. Our flight was completely full, and my seat was unassigned so I got "bumped" to first class. It was my first time, and hopefully not my last, it was awesome!

Andrew is an ice cream fanatic, so like Jess and Scott buying a book every time they fly, I think we may have started our first flying traditiong, buying ice cream at TCBY in the airport.

His cousin Heidi was married on Thursday afternoon in the Seattle Temple. Afterwards there was a luncheon at the Bellevue Country Club. It was absolutely beautiful! I got so caught up in the good food that I didn't take any pictures inside.

Here we are outside the temple with Andrew's parents

This is outside of the Bellevue Club

(we might even use this picture for our wedding announcements)

On Friday there were even more wedding festivities. Friday morning Heidi had a ring ceremony for her hubsand's family, who aren't LDS. Following the ring ceromony there was a little brunch. And by little, I mean extravagant. I helped cut up so much fruit the night before I thought my fingers were going to fall off. As it always goes, there was too much food. But, again, it was very beautiful.

Then Friday evening was the reception at the Olympia Country Club. It was very beautifully decorated with candles and flowers and bows and almost anything else you can think of. It is amazing how much work some people put into their receptions. There was not a single space in the whole place that had been neglected of some type of decoration. It was very very beautiful, but at the same time I'm glad my reception will be relatively simple.

Heidi even planned an intricate program for the reception. After everyone had been served (again the food was DELICIOUS) she had a "Princess Dance"... she is the Sunbeams teacher at church so she had all the little girls come out on the dance floor and dance to the Disney song, "Some Day My Prince Will Come."

After the Princess Dance, she read a poem to her dad about how he was her first love. It was really sweet. Then there was the daddy-daughter dance. Next on the program was the musical segment. Heidi is a really good singer, so she sang about 4 or 5 musical numbers and she had 2 other people sing as well. Then we cut the cake. Here is a picture of the cake.

In the background, out of the window you might be able to see that this place was on the Puget Sound. Andrew took this next picture and he is really proud of it.



After cutting the cake there was the bride and groom's first dance, then they had all the couples join in on the next dance. Then they had every one sit down depending on how long they had been married. Andrew and I were the shortest (negative two months) and his grandparents were the longest (54 years).

Heidi and her bridesmaids (sisters and cousin)

Here's a picture of me with Andrew's family

On Saturday we got to see some sightseeing in downtown Seattle. First we went to the space needle, but it was a rainy and overcast day so we couldn't really see much from the top.

After the space needle we went to Pier 54 and ate at Ivar's.

Here we are waiting for our food.

I got somewhat of an eye infection, so I got to "sightsee" without contacts in (that's why I look a little wasted in this picture). I can't wait until one day when I can have lasik surgery.

My fish and chips...yummy!

Saturday night we flew back to good old Provo. Now we're just waiting for our big day!

Bling Bling

Ok, so it's been a while since I last posted. But I thought now would be a good time to post and share some great news...last weekend I got engaged! Here is a picture of my ring. It's hard to get a good shot, but it is absolutely beautiful. It's a round solitaire with a tiffany setting on a thin white gold band. There is also a pave wedding band that goes with it that is also beautuful!

Last summer Andrew went and worked for his uncle in Washington and his uncle encouraged him to set aside some money in a CD so when the time came that one day he was ready to buy a ring, he'd have some money saved up for it. Well little did he know that he'd be needing that money so soon. The money could be taken out at the end of any six month interval, so the first six months was up at the end of February. We went and picked out the ring last Wednesday. We just picked out the diamond and the setting, so it still had to be mounted and wouldn't be ready until Friday afternoon. Well, I knew he wouldn't be able to wait very long to propose so I figured it would happen that weekend.

We'd both been wanting to go to Tepenyaki, a hibachi grill like Benihana's, so we had planned earlier in the week that that's where we'd go out to eat on Friday. Earlier in the week he had also planned for us to go to a comedy show on campus with another couple in our ward. So Friday when he picked me up I had a feeling that it was probably going to be the night.

We went to Tepenyaki and had a delicious dinner then we headed over to BYU for the stand up comedy show. Well we were a little bit early so we just walked around for a little bit and then we got to the Maeser Building, which is one of my favorite buildings on campus. Then he was like, "wouldn't this be a cool place to get engaged?" Then right as he said that the other couple that we were going to the show with came walking up the hill, so I guess he decided to postpone his proposal. So we all went and watched the show. Then after it was over, the other couple asked if we wanted to go get ice cream. Andrew kind of hesitated because he was probably trying to figure out how he was going to propose, so he told them that we would meet them at Cold Stone. So on our way back to the car we took a little detour through the new building on campus, the Joseph F. Smith Building. Right outside the building there's a really pretty fountain which is especially beautiful at night time. At this point I figured that's where he was going to do it, and I could tell he was kind of nervous so I got out some pennies and was like "let's make a wish," thinking that this would help ease some of his nervousness, but apparently it didn't help because later he told me that he didn't even make a wish because he was too busy thinking about proposing. So anyway after we, or should I say I, made a wish we sat down and he told me how much he loved me and he pulled out the pretty little ring and asked if I would marry him, and of course I said yes!

Here we are at Cold Stone.

Jessica was so excited for me that she brought me a cute little goodie bag of wedding magazines and a cute red fluffy pen.

It was fun to look through all the bride magazines and get some ideas. I'm pretty sure I just want something simple. So we'll be married on August 17th in the Salt Lake Temple. We're really excited for our big day!

Home Sweet Home!

Jess, this one's for you! Mom knows you love to be included in everything fun that's going on. So we just wanted to say we miss you and wish you and Scott and Ethan and Grace were here. BUT, since you aren't, here's a little bit of what you've missed. We'll be sure and keep you posted! Love you!


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Jacob made up that song all by himself. You'll have to ask him to tell you the lyrics to it...it's pretty funny. Sorry it got cut off a little bit there, I guess you're only allowed 2 minutes. The end of his song goes, "everyone says I smell nice. Because I wear my old spice." I thought it was pretty clever. Hope you liked it!

Back in the Big Easy!

So Laura and I got back to New Orleans Wednesday and we've been having a blast already. Emily and Jeremy get in tomorrow so we're all excited to see them! On Friday Laura and I went up to Baton Rouge with Meagan Appling. Well actually, our first stop was to her parents restaurant and they fed us..yumm! THen we headed to Baton Rouge. Meagan had to run some errands on campus so we got to pretend like we went to LSU for moment. I was wearing Freddie's Ole Miss sweatshirt, so we're pretty lucky we didn't get beat up.

It was kind of funny because in the bathrooms we saw all these different flyers about rape and herpes, and just random things you'd never see at BYU, so naturally had to take a picture...
After Meagan was done with her errands we went to the Mall of Louisiana, which was a zoo! I don't ever want to go to the mall again the weekend before Christmas...talk about claustrophobia. After the mall we went back to Meagan's apartment to hang out and wait for everyone else. Then we headed over to the cutest little restaurant, Boutin's.

We had grilled alligator for an appetizer, it was actually pretty delicious!

This makes me feel so old, Laura and all her friends are like 4 years younger than me and Meagan...

Christina, me, Helen, Meagan, Laura, and Sarah V.

Meagan got the same shirt as me....this is kind of like our christmas card picture!

Here's a little video of some cajun dancing and food from Boutin's....

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After Boutin's we went to downtown Baton Rouge and just walked around. Here is a shot from the roof of this cool building. You can see the Mississippi River behind us.

It's Birthday time!

So last Thursday (November 30) was Amy's birthday so we all went out to Happy Sumo, a cute little Japanese restaurant. Here is a picture of us after eating all of our sushi.

Here's some shots of us all goofing around outside of Happy Sumo because the lights and snow were so pretty...

We also tried to take some cute apartment pictures by our Christmas tree...we took several and I still don't think we got a good one.

My birthday was a week after Amy's. So once again we decided we'd go out to dinner to celebrate. I chose Macoroni Grill because it is one of my favorites! I got the Carmela's Chicken Rigatoni...yummy! Then one of the waiters came out and sang happy birthday to me in Italian. It was kind of hilarious, I had to try really hard not to laugh.

After dinner we headed back to our apartment and had some peeps over for cake. Amy made a delicious four layer chocolate cake, also known as "Perfect Chocolate Cake"...mmmm!

These boys are in our Sunday dinner group. I told them I wanted a new car for my birthday so they got me a cute little blue minivan (just like our road trip rental car)..."Maria Minivan" from Chevron.

Jessica got me a cane because two days before my birthday I sprained my ankle at kickboxing...

I had an awesome birthday and I'm excited to see what my 23rd year has in store for me!

Go Cougars!

So in my ward we have quite a few sports fanatics. They even go to some of the away BYU football games. We have a few of them in our dinner group so we've gotten to be pretty good friends. For BYU's most recent away game, vs. CSU, they made an announcement at ward prayer that anyone was invited to come along. Jessica and I were feeling adventurous so we decided we'd go along. Well they had been thinking about renting a big van, but since I had rental reimbursement because of my wrecked car, I suggested that I upgrade to a van and everyone could just pay the difference. So we got ourselves a blue minivan and headed off to the game in Fort Collins, Colorado. Luckily a girl in our ward is from Boulder and offered for us all to stay at her house.

So we headed to Colorado Friday afternoon, got there around 10:00 pm. The girl in our ward lives in this gate community with huge homes! When we got to her house her mom had made dozens and dozens of different kinds of cookies and had ice cream for us. The next morning for breakfast there was again a smorgasbord of food. There was cider, orange juice (probably fresh squeezed), and milk to drink. There was a huge fruit tray and dip. It wasn't your typical fruit tray of canteloupe, honeydew, and grapes -- It had blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, and pineapple as well! Then there were bagels, muffins, and danishes galore and her mom had made this big omelet type of thing that was so delicious, it even had avocados in it. I should have taken some pictures of all the food and their house. It was like a vacation!

After breakfast we headed into town and went to an outdoor mall to kill some time. I took this picture of a lady doing yoga on top of a van.

Then we grabbed some pizzas and headed over to the CSU stadium to make some posters and tailgate.

The boys had me do the posters for them...

Sonny is the name of Colorado's coach...

Our cable provider, Dish, doesn't broadcast BCS football games...

So two of the girls we went with, Chelsea and Whitney, saw these guys and asked them if we could take a picture with them. It's kind of funny because it sort of looks like they are wearing blue shade shirts...

Here we are before the game...

Kickoff...

We beat CSU 24-3. BYU is actually doing really well this year -- they are ranked for the first time in a little while! After the game we headed back to good old Provo!