Utah/Vegas Trip...all because 2 people fell in love!

After almost 10 full days of a fun vacation I am back in Virginia to blog about it. We had a blast but it sure does feel good to be home. It is amazing how a year ago Virginia wasn't home and now we are both happy to be back and are able to call it home. Ben's little brother, Bry, was getting married so his parents bought us plane tickets to Utah! Here are the bullets of the main things we did...

• I visited with some awesome friends while Ben visited with some of his and sadly only got a picture of these amazing ladies! I missed my 2nd grade team from Riverview so it was AMAZING to be able to catch up. Love you guys!! (Special shoutout to Jess and Dave, Emily, Dre, Melissa and Katelyn, and Savannah! I had my camera and fully intended to take a picture with you all! Jess and Dave...thanks for driving all the way to see me, Emily-thank you for staying up way to late to visit with me, Dre: thank you for taking a break from work to walk around the mall with me, Melissa and Katelyn-Thank you for spending an entire evening with me! and Savannah...thanks for running my errands with me!) I've decided being a girl is tough because you have way tooo many friends to fit into a visit and you feel awful if you didn't get to see everyone you wanted to see.
  

• Majority of the trip revolved around these two!Bryan and Sarah were married for all time and eternity in the Vegas temple! We had many get togethers, 2 receptions, and a temple ceremony to go to for them. All of it was FUN!
  

• We went to the strip to gamble!!! SHHH...don't tell. I won a little. Ben lost a little but in the end since I married the guy we lost together so I guess we don't need to worry cause we don't pay tithing on zero dollars gained...

• We went to a baseball game to watch the Salt Lake Bees play which just so happened to be our first date 2 summers ago! The difference between this game and the previous game is we both watched this one a little more. We talked and flirted so much at the 1st one that neither of us knew what was going on in the game!

Life Lately

Well, Ben has been out of school for 2 and 1/2 weeks now. I am working on my last week of school and we are very giddy to get to Utah to see our family and friends again.

2 weekends ago Ben went paint balling for the day with a bunch of guys so I hung out with the Pattersons! Cara is the 3rd grade teacher I work with and her daughter is quickly becoming one of my favorite people. We went to a work party together, then went to see Aryana cheer, and then went to their church for a carnival.



This weekend I got to take Aryana for the night! We made a craft (we both love them), played games, and watched cartoons. I had a blast and she is excited to come back. (That may or may not be because she saw our pool and hasn't had a chance to get in it yet!)

We made a mess but we had fun doing it!

She made a magnet to put on the fridge with clips to hold her pictures.

Memorial Day Camping Trip! (Finally)

We went to Peeks of Otter in the Blue Ridge Mountains for a 3 night camping trip! It was so much fun to get away but it was no fun not taking a shower for 3 days. I think all the husbands secretly loved being dirty and getting away with not taking a shower but the women sure didn't. Here are pictures of our fun trip with our amazing friends.

We started off every morning and ended every evening with delicious meals. These 3 took charge a lot of the time to make sure we were fed :)


Our first day there we found a frisbee golf course (Ben is obsessed STILL). We played 18 holes which definitely starts to wear on your arm. I made it the whole way and surprised myself by having a very fun time.


That night we sat around the campfire and I brought out my favorite treats! I am not a smores girl at all (I don't like marshmallows). Camping and sitting around a fire is not right for me unless I have my oreos and twizzlers!


The next day we went on a hike and it was beautiful!



After the hike we went to a waterhole that Evan grew up going to. My husband is a goof ball and definitely gets sick of me taking pictures!


But I thought he was an even bigger goof ball when I saw he was sharing the water with a bunch of cows.


It may look like Ben and I were by ourselves for the trip but here are a few group pictures to prove we weren't. We've made some really great groups of friends out here. The group we went camping with is special to us because we have family night with them every Monday. We love them tons and appreciate their friendships!

"You know who I thought you was?"

I was pumping gas yesterday when I noticed a big guy staring out me from his SUV. He wasn't pumping gas so I was a little weirded out. He took off and then circled back around. Then I really thought it was weird. He rolled down his window and said, "You know who I thought you was? At that point I had an idea but I didn't say it. I said, "Uh...no." His response was, "I thought you was Kirsten Dunst. Man, I got the biggest crush on her. I had to come back around to get a second look."

I laughed and told him I've been told that my entire life. I told him I should on a celebrity look alike show. Ben has been around when when many people have told me and he just doesn't see it. What do you think?

Liar Liar...

Remember how in my last post I said I didn't feel like I needed a summer. Well I lied! I am soooo ready for summer break. :)

And we call ourselves grown-ups?

The grown-up part of our life is going well. Ben is hard at work studying and getting good grades. He has just one more week of school and then he can say he is a 2nd year med student! I have about a month left until I can say it is summer for me. This year it hasn't felt like I have as much work to do (no lesson plans and grading papers) so I am excited for summer but I don't feel like I NEED summer like I usually do. Haha...never thought I would say that!

Other than that we have been playing!!! Ben is still obsessed with frisbee golf...I think it is what makes him keep up on studying. It seems to be the way he rewards himself for studying when he should. I go with him sometimes and usually just watch. In the winter I NEVER wanted to go along but now that the weather is AWESOME and everything is green I am more willing :)

See the GREEN!


Last weekend our friend Lara threw a party. She is most definitely the BEST host and always shows us a way good time. We had an end of the year bash and played Bunko with the first year med students. It got crazy and LOUD.

The party didn't stop with Bunko...We stayed until after 1 AM! Our friend Dane said he had a game we could play. We trusted him and I don't think I have seen so many grown-ups literally on the floor laughing and not able to continue before. (The acronym ROFL suddenly made sense to me) He needed us to think of 5 farm animals. He wrote down 2 of each animal we named and put them in a bowl. We each picked an animal, got on our knees, and were in a circle. He told us to close our eyes and make the sound of the animal on the piece of paper. We had to listen and try to find the other person in the room making the same animal sound as us. Once we found them we had to stand up and whoever was first won. These pictures are a result of that game!

The beginning.

Ben holding another woman's arm!

Paige unable to stop laughing. I'm pretty sure my hair is covering my laugh.

What a fun night! Thanks Lara!!!

Here are some pictures from when we went to see Glenn Beck in April. (Thanks again Dane and Cassidy) We finally got our picture with him back and I stole some pictures from our friend Kayli's blog.

Color coordinated and everything!
My smile/glare looks a bit scary to me but Cassidy and Kayli look amazing as always!

Don't know what you got till it's gone

We had our anniversary! We can finally say we've been married for a year when people ask instead of saying, "Uhhhh, I think like...2 months, 3 months, 4 months," and so on. 1 solid year people!

We decided to head to DC to go to the temple. We thought that we started out our year together in the temple so it would be nice to start another year that way. It was a good day and we enjoyed spending time together.


After the temple we headed to Cafe Rio. I found out last week that there was a brand new Cafe Rio 10 miles from the temple. Ben and I were excited because we haven't had it since Utah. I knew I liked Cafe Rio but I didn't know how much I LOVED it until we moved to Virginia and no longer had it. When we got there it was Mormon central. It was funny to see that many people I could tell were Mormon in a place other than church. Ben even saw some people he knew from home.