busy little bees

josh and i have been on-the-go these past few weeks but it has been fun! it all started with kim's bridal shower. kim is one of the girls who worked for us last summer in alaska. she met nick, who drove tour buses, and it was love at first sight. the two are super cute together and we couldn't be happier for them. the bridal shower was at firehouse and it was yummy as usual!

we were also able to attend their wedding reception at the alumni house at utah state. she looked beautiful and he didn't look too bad himself!

while hanging out at the reception, erin (another alaska girl) challenged josh to a smartie competition. he told her how obsessed he was with smarties and she bet him that he couldn't eat 30 packs of smarties in one sitting. well, he took the challenge and started chowing them down. he got to about 24 packs before he started realizing how many smarties it really was. he had to back out, but not before we calculated that he had eated 333 individual smarties. i'm starting a fund now for his dental bill.

brett and amber came up to visit us and we had a great time! we hung out all friday night and watched the opening ceremonies and then the next day we made breakfast and headed up to preston to float the river (again!). we had a great time and brett was so funny to watch on his tube. he didn't want to fall off and kept squirming to stay on even though at some points the water was only 2 feet deep. we were laughing so hard the whole way down the river. brett and amber are so fun and we were so happy to have them up to visit us.


the next day, my girlfriends and i headed off for a much needed vegas vacation! the reason for the vacation was that jaynann had her adorable baby emma a few months ago in cedar city and we all wanted to see her. so we decided to make a whole trip out of it. stacy flew in from houston, i came down from logan, and we were all on our way....
we call ourselves the fufu sisters (basically the jones drink was an obsession we all had all through high school and the name just kinda stuck with us. the drink pretty much tastes like carbonated jello mix and is nothin but suga!). we made sure to purchase plenty of fufu berry soda and this was the first bottle to be opened by yours truly. it was about 9:30 in the morning.
our stop in cedar was a successful one as we all played pass the emma. she was so stinkin cute and we even got her to smile at us. we kept her and jaynann busy we we headed to taco bell (another high school memory... 7 layer bean burritos) and we also hit up the sisterhood of the traveling pants 2 movie. classic chick flick, but we all liked it. after that movie, i decided for stacy that she is the only friend of ours to be able to have a destination wedding... so while cruising in greece next month she needs to scope out a place where she can tie the knot. then i have an excuse to go to greece. my dream.



after visiting the daly family and saying our goodbyes, we headed off to vegas. we made sure to bring plenty of music that would remind us of our high school years. i brought all of my "now" cds. they are classics. especially when you listen to them 7 years later. i didn't even download the music on my ipod and we used the cds because that made it feel even more like high school. we finally made it to our hotel... 2 blocks off the strip and fabulous! josh's cousin brandon has a time share with this company and let us use his points to get an amazing deal on a suite overlooking the strip.

backseat drivers
the official driver (with the help of gina, the gps)
the next day we lazied around at the pool in the morning (only crazy fools would be out in that blistering hot sun any later than noon), then we showered up and headed to the strip for some great food and shopping! we hit up all the designer stores... stuff we won't be able to purchase any time soon... as well as stores within our price ranges. of course we had to make a stop to cheesecake factory as well. it's a tradition even though i've worked there. the food was great (as always) and i even ran into a few people who had transfered there from the slc location.

of course we hit up the fao shwartz toy store with the infamous piano from big. stacy and i (the musically talented ones) decided to play chopsticks for everyone. this first picture is of me attempting to play it alone...
and this is the two of us playing together. we were absolutely terrible but it was so fun. stacy has a video posted on her facebook that is absolutely hilarious.

the pig with the pigs
my first slot machines. they were no fun. you lose your money way too fast.
the next day we spent more time in the sun...

we did more shopping that day and decided to hit up sushi for dinner. i had never eaten sushi before so i was super excited. we picked a place at ceasars that over looked the strip and it was fabulous. you'll have to check lindsey's blog to find out exactly where it was and what we ate because i had no idea! all i know is i didn't like the one with eel and avacado and i was a fan of the cooked ones. haha




we did more walking around that night and also decided to test our luck at blackjack. stacy and i were able to double our money but poor lindsey lost all of hers. better luck next time i guess!

here's the damage we did as far as shopping goes. we did quite well for ourselves (probably because we all spent the bulk of our money on makeup!) and everything fit in the civic quite nicely!
when i got home, my cute hubby surprised me with "i missed you" flowers. what a sweetheart. it was weird being away from him for 5 days and i definitely missed him!

that night however, he decided to get creative with his razor and shaved his facial hair into what i called the vendetta cut.
see the resemblence? yeah... pretty scary. i only let it last a day. that basically sums up all of the adventures for the last week or so. tonight we're heading to jackson for the weekend with some friends to do some camping, horseback riding, and river rafting so i'll have more posting to do when we get back!

juneau, ak... aug '07

i was looking through my journal earlier and realized that a year ago from today i was living in juneau, ak and my family was there visiting! my parents, siblings, grandparents, and uncle came to visit and we had a fabulous time. we packed the week full of excursions, sightseeing, good food, and fun. it was so fun to show my family the place that i had called home for 2 summers. it was also something that we had to look forward to and made the rest of the summer go by quickly! i decided i'd post a few pictures of the adventures we went on.

one day we took a day tour by boat to tracy arm. this is the south sawyer glacier and it is so fun to get close the glacier and hear and see it calve. i had been on this excursion a few times, but the weather was amazing and the glacier was calving left and right. it was fun to watch my family get excited about the scenery and the wildlife we saw.



after spending an entire day on a boat, we were exhausted and wanted to have a low key night. so we bought some candy and took over the lobby of my parent's hotel. we played poker all night and had a great time. i came out on top with armfuls of carmels and good and plenties.

we had great weather while the fam was visiting so one day we decided to go kayaking. my parents had never been ocean kayaking so it was way fun to show them the ropes. we were also lucky enough to have some of our girls join us in the fun. it was so sunny and the water was perfect. we made our way to sandy beach and were able to play around for a little bit in the sand and take some pictures. this day was super fun and one i will remember forever.



we made sure to plan a hike to the mendenhall glacier because hiking to the ice caves was one of our favorite things to do. i tried to prep my parents for the hike (it's a little difficult, especially when you have to climb the rocks) but they did quite well. i was impressed. being able to touch a glacier and actually get inside of it is an amazing experience.

we made sure to plan on going on many bear hunts and we sure saw our fair share of black bears. my parents came at the perfect time (as the salmon were spawning) so the bears were out and about looking for a good meal. it was fun to watch them catch the fish and shred them to pieces. bears were one of our favorite parts of alaska (besides the time that a bear broke the locks on our garbage, spread trash everywhere, and the police officer made us clean it up).
we also spent a day ziplining and it was a blast but sadly i have no pictures from that excursion. my mom was a hoot because she had never done anything like that before and laughed the entire time. there were a few days that i had to work so i sent the family out with josh to the visitor center at the glacier and to the hatchery and i also sent them on a hike up mt roberts to get a great view of the harbor, cruise ships, and downtown juenau. they were also kind enough to give us a hand when we got our shipment at our store. my grandma was in charge of putting out the hairclips and she took it upon herself to sell the items to our customers too. she's a crazy lady.

the last eventful thing that happened on their trip to juneau happened just hours before their plane departed. josh was trying to get up the nerve to ask my dad for permission for me to marry him all week and he postponed it to the last possible minute. so, while we were eating breakfast and saying our goodbyes, my dad and josh were having what could possibly have been the scariest conversation of josh's life. however, my dad seemed to be in a great mood after seeing his daughters and having a great time in alaska so he was easy on josh and granted him permission to marry his eldest daughter! :) ( haha my dad can be a little intimidating at times but he's a softy at heart and has welcomed josh into our family with open arms! ) all in all it was a fabulous vacation and we loved having everyone there to play with us!