Jen's Baby Shower

On Saturday we threw a shower for Jen.  Her baby girl is due next week.  This is the first baby girl shower we have thrown, and I think it turned out pretty cute.  Everyone chipped in and made this a great event. 

Outside Play

Nolan loves to be outside, playing in the dirt/sandbox.  He would do this for hours if we let him.  I'm glad he loves to be outside so much!

Nolan's School Pictures

These are pictures of a picture, but we couldn't get over how good these turned out.  Picture day was on a Monday, and I totally forgot.  We are amazed they got him to sit still long enough to get a good picture. 

I Love to See the Temple

Lately, Nolan has been asking to drive past the temple every day.  One Sunday afternoon, I took him to the temple grounds and we walked around.  He loved it.  We heard the organ playing in the tabernacle, a bell on the grounds went off. 

Utah beats Stanford and other Weekend Happenings

It was a great weekend and having the Utes beat the #5 team in the Nation helped with that.  Saturday afternoon @ 4:00 pm we went to the game.  Lauren watched Nolan at our house.  I didn't have high hopes going into the game, I just hoped we would keep it respectable, and keep it close if possible.  The Utes were very prepared, and beat Stanford 27-21.  The students rushed the field and we stayed in our seats for a while after the game, just to soak it all in.  It was great!  

The rest of the weekend was spent, running errands, shopping at Target, dinner at my parents and doing laundry.  Friday night we met up with Nik and his family at Seven Peaks Fun Center in Lehi.  Since we have the Pass of All Passes, everything was free.  We tried to take Nolan on the airplane rides that move up and down, but he climbed out before the ride even started.  Then we waited in the long line for the go carts, which was really fun.  I don't think Nolan knew what to expect, and I don't even know if he liked the ride or not since his face was the same the entire time.  That kid keeps us laughing, that's for sure.  It was a great weekend with the fam!  Tuesday we went to the coaches show at City Creek and I got my picture taken with 2 of the players.  They were the players of the week, Carl Williams and Nate Orchard.

Graduate School Expo

I wanted to remember my first graduate school expo. I like to call it the tour of Utah grad school edition.  It started at BYU on Wednesday, September 25.  We met at work and drove down early to get everything set up.  We stopped at Jamba Juice on the way out of the building.  UVU, Thursday, September 26, I went with Sarah from work.  We left from there and drove to SUU.  Ryan was on his own with Nolan, which was good practice for when i'm in Boston during the first week of November.  We had dinner at Applebee's and went to a movie.  It was Sarah's choice on the movie, Austenland.  Not my favorite, but it was alright.  Friday, September 27 was at SUU and we got back around 6:30 pm, just in time for Ryan and I to go out for our anniversary.  Weber State on Monday, September 30, USU on Tuesday, and the U of U on Wednesday.  It was a fun week and I enjoyed seeing all of the different campuses around the state.  

Celebrating 7 Years

On Friday, September 27, we celebrated our 7th anniversary.  I was away on a work trip and got back around 6:30 pm.  Ryan had arranged for Macy to come over and watch Nolan so we could go to dinner.  He had flowers and cookies to surprise me when I got home.  We went to dinner at the Dodo in Sugarhouse.  It was a nice night and always a fun thing to celebrate.  Here's to many more years together!

B & S; L & N; S,R & N Together Again

All was right in the world, for a few days at least.  Bonnie and Scott came to Utah Friday, September 20 and left Wednesday, September 25. We loved having them in town and showing them around Utah.  Here is a recap of what we did while they were in town:

Friday, September 20

Their flight came in at 4:00 pm so Ryan picked them up from the airport.  They came up to get me from work, and we went to pick up Nolan.  We met up with Noah and LaShae for dinner at Sawadee Thai on South Temple.  It was like we were never apart for 1 1/2 years.  They spent the night up at Noah and LaShae's house.

Saturday, September 21

Ryan, Scott and Noah went up to Park City to go mountain biking.  They took Nolan with to drop him off at Collie's house.  LaShae's mom, grandma and sister came to pick me up to go to a baby shower in Ogden.  The shower was at Roosters in Ogden and it was a fun place.  LaShae received a lot of great gifts from everyone.  After dropping the gifts off at LaShae's, her mom drove us back and dropped us off at our house.  We were going to take my car up to Park City to meet up with the boys for dinner and to show Bonnie Park City.  We had dinner at Main Street Pizza & Pasta, and walked along main street.  We left there and went to Collie and Zach's house to watch the BYU/Utah game.  It was a great game and i'm happy to report the Utes beat the Y! We don't play them for a couple of years due to scheduling, but we have the WIN for a few years!!!

 

Sunday, September 22

We wanted to take Bonnie and Scott to Music and the Spoken Word at the Tabernacle.   I met up with them to attend the performance, Ryan had primary program practice so he took Nolan to nursery.  I hadn't been to Music and the Spoken Word before and it was fantastic.  I was amazed at how fun that performance is.  We walked around temple square a bit and headed back to our house. 

 We changed our clothes and headed for Capital Reef in southern Utah.  We all thought it would be fun to show them the red rocks and a different part of Utah.  The drive down was fun and our first stop was on 4th south at Taco Bell for lunch.  :)  We borrowed LaShae's mom's suburban so we could all fit in the car together.  We made it to the motel, had dinner and drove around the park for a bit.  It was beautiful! A little chilly, but so pretty!

Monday, September 23

We took our time getting around in the morning.  Ate breakfast at the motel and went back to the park.  We walked around a bit.  There was a lot of rain that came through on Saturday/Sunday so a lot of the trails were wet/covered over due to the runoff.  On our way out of the park, we stopped to pick some apples.  This was probably my favorite thing we did there.  Nolan was free to run around, he saw a deer and chased it around the orchard.  The apples were delicious and it was fun picking your own apples.  I hadn't done that before.  Because our husbands are explorers, we had to make a few detours on the way back home.  We stopped at an overlook, and to have dinner in Torrey Utah at El Diablo.  It was a yummy place!  It was a fun get away!

Tuesday, September 24

Ryan had the day off, but everyone else had to go back to work.  Ryan took them to the Great Salt Lake, around downtown via car, up to the Natural History Museum, the Pie Pizza and drove around Sugarhouse.  We went to dinner in Bountiful at El Matador.  Ryan and Nolan stayed home since Nolan was tired and in a grumpy mood. 

Wednesday, September 25

Everyone had to go back to work - they explored downtown on their own.  I got off work a little early thanks to the grad school fair.  The girls went up to Hatch's Chocolates for some talk time and of course food too.  We stopped at the store on our way home to pick up food to make for dinner before Scott and Bonnie took off.  We made spaghetti, salad, garlic bread and had cake to celebrate Bonnie's and Ryan's birthday's.  We said our goodbye's and just like that we 6 days of fun were over.  It was so fun being together again!  Can't wait until the next time we are all together....