I literally got these pictures off facebook and I don’t have any yet but it was great. Except for the minor downpour the entire day…ha but really, it absolutely poured rain and we all got completely drenched. Luckily it was Steph and she is really chill and just had fun. We saw another bride who was PISSSED. Dan and I were dying because we were sure her husband was trying to figure out how to un-do the marriage! Yikes. But things turned out great and the reception was incredible and she looked gorgeous.
I’m so glad Steph found Andrew and so glad to have another boy in the family (Dan loves staring into space while Steph, me and mom talk our faces off). They are so in love and I just pray she has as much joy in her marriage as I do because it’s a wonderful thing to be blessed with! Love them both.
Last weekend when it was super warm, Dan and I decided to do a little hike in the morning at Antelope Island. It’s literally about 10 minutes away from our house (we have lakefront property, don’t be jealous), so we jetted over there on Saturday morning. We knew there would be bugs and lathered up the bug spray, but we underestimated the biting gnats.
I started to get concerned when we stopped at the visitor’s center and saw other people come in with small black bugs covering their backs. I was a little horrified. We didn’t noticed bugs while walking to our car, but we decided to drive around for a bit before doing our hike. We stopped at a place that had a tall overlook about half a mile up a hill. Just a small walk up the hill, right? Well, only a few steps later, we noticed the swarms of bugs trying to kill us. They didn’t bite but there were tiny gnats everywhere. We were swiping at them and speed-walked up the hill. We stopped for about 10 seconds to take the picture above then turned around. They were everywhere and it was like a horror movie. We started to run and ended up jogging back down the path (at least we got a little exercise right?). Suddenly I noticed a HUGE snake in the middle of the trail and I almost fell over because I stopped so fast. I was gasping because I was so freaked out and probably inhaled half a pound of gnats. The snake was easily a few feet long and at first I thought it was a rattlesnake, but it didn’t appear to be. Still freaky and that would be the third time since we’ve been married that I have been inches away from stepping on a snake while on a hike/run/etc (the other two were rattlesnakes!).
I literally felt like that must be similar to what hell feels like except maybe hotter and you just can’t stop running; you have to run forever and there are bugs and huge snakes everywhere.
Luckily things were much better inside the car. We drove around the island and it really was beautiful. We will try to come back in the late fall when it’s still warm enough for a hike, but cold enough that the bugs are dead!
We bought a grill a few weeks ago (can’t believe we have gone so long without it!) and we LOVE it! We have been grilling up a storm and I have made pizza on the grill a few times too. It has always turned out well but we made some last week for the Jazz vs Suns game and it was just life changing.
Honestly, it turned out amazing and just perfect! I made the dough from scratch (not that hard at all) and then we did alfredo sauce, asian bbq chicken (marinated overnight), mozzarella, red onions, mushrooms and cilantro. Whoa. It was awesome! So so good. The exact recipe I used is here. Go make it now.
Here is a little update on my garden. So far, I have planted: red onions, white onions, green onions, parsley, peas, cilantro, carrots, and spinach. I still plan on planting: tomatoes, peppers, basil, lettuce, cucumber, beans, garlic, celery and zucchini. You can see my onions on the top right and they have grown a ton. They are looking good and there are a few others things popping up slowly. I have no clue what I’m doing so hopefully things go well!
I’m also really happy with our yard is looking and excited for more plans for the spring and fall. This is the side of the house and I still want to fill in more but the small hosta plants will also grow a lot and it’s looking really good.
This is the front of the house a week or so ago and it already looks even better now. I planted a ton of tulips in the fall and they all popped up and I’m loving them! I plan on adding a bunch more tulips, daffodils and lillies this fall to look forward to in the spring!
Our backyard flower gardens are still pretty bare so we are going to focus a lot on those and slowly keep filling things in. am excited to see how things come together and how much better it looks when all the plants grow a lot bigger (they are barely coming in right now). There is still a lot of work to do, but I’m really loving it so far!
When we moved in, the yard was a disaster and I really thought we would have to tear out the grass and start over. But we a lot of hard work (mostly by Dan), it has come back and now looks awesome. Our grass is thick and green and last week we ate dinner with Jon and Julie and the boys on the grass! That is something we never thought we could do and to have nice grass is such an awesome thing!
Mike going in headfirst..
