sunday strolls

this weekend my aunt and uncle, jeremy & sarah, and their cute dinosaur-obsessed little boy, elliot, came to utah for the before-mentioned wedding.  sunday, tanner and i met them at cascade springs in AF canyon to go on a little "hike" - a hike that you can wear a sandals and a skirt, which is really my kind of hike lately. anyway it was a fun summer activity {especially considering i learned so much about dinosaurs - did you know that pterodactyls never actually existed? i hope i spelled that right, elliot would kill me} and the drive was beautiful.  it seriously was stunning, i loved it.  i really forgot how pretty utah is until we drove through the canyon.  sometimes, i can't believe i live here. 

it's days like these i feel like i could live here for a looong time.

A&E: lovebirds

This weekend we were so excited to celebrate with our friends, Erica and Alex {now Mr. and Mrs. Fishler}, on their wedding day July 25, 2011.  It all started bright and early at the Timpanogos Temple and ended in their adorable-daytime-tea party-vintage-antique reception at the Bungalow in Pleasant Grove.  From my point of view, the day was perfect.  She was beautiful and smiling, the details at the reception were incredible, family and friends were brought together {seeing my grandparents and jeremy+sarah+elliot was a major plus}, and even the weather cooperated.

I've been friends with both Erica and Alex for a long time {some may say I even introduced them...} and it's a relief we all still live in Provo for now.

Congratulations you two! 

esther + angry birds

tonight my little niece esther was playing angry birds on my iphone and the contrast in photos is hilarious/adorable.

winning...

and losing.

the island

we just barely got back from our vacation to look-alike LOST island off the coast of southern California and let me tell you, it was won-der-ful.  we spent almost all of our time either laying on the beach or as my sister pointed out in her comment on my last post - eating eating eating.  fish and chips were tanner's personal favorite and i loved the endless supply of ice cream cones.  as i predicted, we laid on the beach, we read books {i started and almost finished The Help and am loving it}, we hiked to a view of the ocean, we peddle-boated {and had a seal swim right up next to us}, hunted for bison but never found any, relaxed and ate ate ate.  and i have to admit, we did spend an embarrassing amount of time comparing Catalina to LOST.  we might have even figured out where the Other's live.  

and of course, here are some pictures...

now it is back to everyday life and i am already missing the beach.

a checklist of sorts

we are off to catalina island in less than 2 days and counting, and you could say i'm having trouble sleeping with the anticipation of going on our first vacation just the two of us since our honeymoon.

so far i have...

filled my eyelashes
got my base tan ready to go
and my bangs all trimmed
{am i starting to sound at all vain?}
read up on all the travel sites for catalina
charged up my camera
purchased our ferry tickets to the island and back
reserved a hotel room for 4 nights
worked my last day for the next week
and started to think about packing

and when we get there i want to...

lay on the beach
read a book
bike through the island
kayak around the island
snorkel
or scuba
hike to find the free-roaming bison
eat yummy things at yummy places
and relax
relax
relax
relax
relax

i can't wait.

p.s. is it just me or does this look like LOST island?
p.p.s. does the fact that bison live in the middle of the ocean make this look a little more like LOST island?

the happy pale yellow room

I mentioned earlier that we painted our living room a "happy pale yellow" and although I forgot to take pictures of the actual process, I finally took some pictures of the final product this afternoon and thought I would post.  Originally, one of my goals this summer was to repaint {almost} every room in our apartment - to freshen our place up and to make it more ours since we are planning on staying here for at least 1 more year and {eek} possibly longer - but after painting one room, I am currently on leave from painting altogether.  Not that I didn't enjoy it at all, but it was a bigger project than I thought I was taking on...what with our "curly" wall {that's the name i gave our unique & difficult curved wall to paint {see picture below}}, the cost of triple coating a previously dark toned wall, and of course taping and edging and taping and edging and coating coating coating.  But after all is said and done, I love the end result - the whole place seems so much 

brighter. 

bigger.

 happier.

before...

...after

and as promised, here is the curly wall...

when i say a "happy pale yellow," i mean it's a very very very pale yellow.  but when the sun hits it just right, it really does have a hint of yellow and it really is so happy.  and at night when there is no natural light to brighten the place up, our living room is still happy, which is a very welcome change from the beautiful {i did really love the previous color, just not on the walls of my hard-to-lighten living room}  but too often depressing teal color the room was all winter long.  and for my next project...i am thinking of adding a little - like itty-bitty - round table with wire chairs between our couch and the coat closet so we can have a place to eat dinner together. 

kodak moment

 i just found/remembered this photo from a few weeks ago when i finally uploaded my pictures to my computer and i had to share it somewhere because it is so funny to me for some reason.  thanks to mr. matt clayton for catching this moment - although i'm sure this won't be showing up in his portfolio anytime soon.

road-trip-ing

last week amber, rocco, and i drove to vegas to visit chris&azy&gus and of course meet their newest little one, sully.  it was such a relaxing trip and so fun to just hang out and chat all day...along with afternoon lunch dates with chris and occasional pit-stop shopping trips.  {and i have to say, it was nice to escape the mini-monsoon season utah was experiencing for some vegas heat}  gus is so much bigger than the last time i saw him at christmas and i cannot believe sully is almost 3 months old already.  so glad i finally got to  meet him, being an aunt is the best.  and of course, here are some pictures....and p.s. rocco would not come near my camera when i had it out, so here are sully and gus!

as far as other roadtripping goes...tanner and i made a quick trip to st george earlier this week, we are on our way to california next, iowa after that, and probably a mini vacation to tahoe is somewhere in our near future as well.  we heart summer.