Birthday Boy

Dan had a birthday a few weeks ago and one thing he wanted to do was go check out some fall colors before we had dinner. So we went to Brighton and walked around the lake for a bit. It was pretty chilly up there and we weren’t really prepared (hence the cheetah blanket Dan is wearing as a shawl), but it was really pretty!

Before I put on a sweatshirt, I had Dan take a belly shot. This is me at 28.5 weeks. Getting closer!

A dreamy house/cabin. It was huge and gorgeous!

Our walk was really nice and gorgeous and afterwards we enjoyed a good birthday dinner and opened presents! I love this guy and am so happy he was born! I am the luckiest girl ever and I can’t wait for the next stage of life with him!

Visiting the Monsens!

I got to go visit Shelley and her cute family back in Connecticut a few weeks ago and it was awesome. Dan is busy with work and school so I got to go on my own. I was weirdly nervous to fly by myself for some strange reason. I got really emotional leaving Dan and was just scared I would get sick or be really uncomfortable or not sleep on the red eye or something. I flew to Europe and lived there by myself for 6 months, but I had anxiety about flying to JFK alone! I will blame it on being pregnant.

I survived the flight and was so excited to get to CT and see these cute faces! We had a lazy morning and I took a nap then we went to Stew Leonards. Thad calls it the cow store and it is a really cool place just to walk around and check things out. It’s entertaining for the kids too! Thad is terrified of this animatronic cow so when I saw the guy dressed up as a cow (above), I thought he would freak. The cow kind of snuck up on him and he let out a squeal and said “Oh! You surprised me!” It was the awesomest and cutest thing ever. Turns out they loved the cow!

Holy cute kiddos. I would kidnap them if they lived closer but thank goodness I’m having one of my own! That is going to be Batman for Halloween and he looked great in his costume and wore it all day. Adorable.

The trip was a perfect mixture of chill and relaxing, mixed with a few busy and fun things. Shell and I mostly just talked our faces off about everything you can imagine. She is my bestest bestie and we can talk about anything. She is such an awesome mom and I had lots of questions about everything mom related. I totally trust her opinion and tried to get as much information from her as possible!

Thad loved playing games and we played lots of fun games on the computer and the Ipad. The below pic looks like I was asleep but I didn’t actually fall asleep! I was way sleepy but Thaddy pants kept me awake because we downloaded about 5 million free games and tried each one of them for 30 seconds before moving on to the next one. Loved it.

On Friday night and Saturday, Brian was amazing and watched the boys so we could have some girl time. Friday we all went to an awesome Venezuelan restaurant then Shell and I went to a movie. On Saturday, Shell and I drove into the city. We went to a session at the Manhattan temple and it was really cool! Shell is a pro driver and parked right by Times Square so I wouldn’t have to walk a ton. Love her.

We saw Bring it On on Broadway and it was really fun and entertaining! The tickets were cheap and we had decent seats for the first half and the second half we moved down to some unoccupied seats. We were only a few rows back from the stage and right in the middle! The show was kind of cheesey, but really funny and we both loved it. The people were so talented and we had a great time.

We had some yummy lunch before the show and wandered around the city a bit. Later, we took the subway to a dessert place I had seen on a food blog I read. We got some delicious desserts and they didn’t disappoint. Shelley got some sort of éclair with ice cream and I got a cookie ice cream sandwich. It was goooooooooood.

A blurry shot of us as we walked through Times Square on the way back to the car. I was pretty exhausted by the end of the day, but it was tons of fun!

Sunday was relaxing and Thad helped me make yummy cookies! I think one of the cutest things I have ever seen or heard was when Thad kept re-enacting a scene from The Lorax. He loves the show and sometimes when he was playing by himself, he would stand on top of the laundry basket and say in his adorable little boy voice, “I’m Ted Wiggins, and I speak for the trees!!” I seriously almost died and I need to record him doing it because it was so precious.

I left on Monday night and during the day we went to main street in Norwalk. There is a cute little Dutch store and I wanted to get some Dutch treats.

We had lunch at Panera bread and Thad got a pumpkin cookie to match his pumpkin shirt.

We went to the beautiful park near their house and just enjoyed the weather while Thad played. It was a gorgeous fall day.

I had so much fun vising the Monsen’s and they mean so much to me. Shelley and I have been friends for about 14 years now! Wow…she is honestly my second sister and I adore her and her family. I’m so glad I got another opportunity to visit them and I will get to see them again at Thanksgiving! It was a great trip and I can’t wait to go back with Dan and our new babe next year sometime!

Lovin’ Fall

 

A few weeks ago Dan and I drove up to MIrror Lake to check out the leaves and enjoy the beautiful weather. It took us a bit longer than we expected but it was beautiful! The BYU/Utah game was that night so we were rockin’ our colors. Things get a little heated around our house during football season because we’re both pretty die hard fans and always have been. Luckily the right team prevailed (again) so I have that to hold over his head all season despite my team’s struggles this far (not that his team has done much better).

We ended up walking around the whole lake.

More lake pics. We also sat on a bench and just soaked it up for a while before leaving.

This past Sunday we drove up to Logan and the leaves were AWESOME. They were in full bloom and just took my breath away! I have seen this canyon change colors many many times and it never fails to amaze me.

Clearly I’m not a photographer…but wow they were incredible.

We did several drives last year to see the leaves and loved it! We have a few more on our list for this year so hopefully we can do it before the colors change! I’m going to visit my bestie in Connecticut this week so it will have to wait! I can’t wait to see the Monsens and go check out NYC and the East Coast in the Fall!

Yellowstone for Labor Day

Dan and I love Yellowstone. He would go every weekend if we could and he constantly daydreams about having a cabin there someday. Dan’s family goes every summer and we have gone at least once every year since we’ve been married. The problem is that there are 30 of us in the family now with 14 (soon to be 16) kids! It can be a bit chaotic with all that and there is not as much flexibility as Dan would like. He loves to stop spontaneously and watch for animals and wandering around geysers is not our favorite thing!

So last year we decided to plan our own trip to Yellowstone over Labor Day and we loved it! We decided to make it an annual thing and we went again this year. Last year we stayed at a dumpy place that I hated so this year we planned waaaay ahead and I found an awesome place that turned out to be perfect! It was called The Evergreen Motel and it was GREAT. I highly recommend it. It was a perfect little place right in town with a cute cabiny feeling. It was updated and we had a small kitchen in our room so we could make lunches and eat breakfast in our room. It was spotlessly clean and had cable and WiFi. Sweet!

The best thing about this trip is that we didn’t have a set schedule. It’s just Dan and I and we did whatever we wanted and didn’t make any plans. The only plan we had was a covered wagon cookout thing. We slept in and I let Dan take the lead because there was nothing in particular that I cared to do and I knew that whatever he wanted to do would be great.

We stopped by the Firehole on our first day and it was actually open for swimming. Usually it’s closed because of high water when we come in the summer. It was really pretty and Dan couldn’t resist jumping in even though we hadn’t planned on it. Luckily he had his Salomon adventure shorts and Chacos and an extra pair of pants in the car! He was in heaven.

I pulled out a camp chair and sat on the shore and read my book, drink my diet coke and ate some cherry jelly bellies (yumma). We were both happy campers and I probably would have swam if I had clothes and a towel but maybe next time?

It started to rain after a few minutes and it was pretty awesome to see the raindrops on the river. I took cover under a huge pine tree and didn’t get a drop of water on me! It was a great spot to watch the rain and Dan in the river. He swam for a bit longer and we waited for the rain to pass then we moved on!

We did a lot of driving which is a bit hard on my pregnant back but the great thing is that we can stop any time we (or I) want to, we had lots of snacks and I took a few naps too! Unfortunately because of my pregnant bladder, I had to pop a squat a few times and I visited every nasty camping style bathroom along the way (I have severe anxiety of those things).

We visited Yellowstone Lake and the Yellowstone hotel. Two of the nights we were there, we did some wolf watching. We did it last year and loved it. The views of the valley are amazing and we just sat there for hours waiting and watching and talking to the other people there. The picture below is my favorite because I know how completely happy Dan is! I read my book and of course ate some snacks and enjoyed the beautiful views!

The weather was pretty awesome and felt like October here in Utah. It got pretty chilly by the evenings but we were prepared for it. We saw the wolves both times and it was awesome! We saw a lot of other animals too including coyotes which I’ve never seen before but no bears this time.

We also went one of the falls but it was a different view than we usually have. We decided to hike about a mile down to another lookout and we didn’t realize just how far down it actually was! The hike back up was realllly steep for this gal and we had to stop a few times to catch my breath! But it was gorgeous and a good workout for sure! And luckily it was beautiful cool weather so I really enjoyed it.

We did a covered wagon dinner cookout one night and it was fun. It’s probably not something we will do again and it was a bit overpriced, but we still enjoyed it. We rode these covered wagon things for a few miles and they had dinner for us. A guy was singing up front and the atmosphere was really fun.

Unfortunately it started to rain and hail just as we were getting ready to go. We were fine and loaded up the wagons but in the 40 minutes it took to get back to our cars, the storm got out of control! There was tons of thunder and lighting and it was a complete downpour. We were covered on top but we sat in the back row so our backs and bums got drenched and it was freezing! We also had to go through the middle of a herd of bison which was a little bit scary but exciting.

Check out Dan’s sick camo hat that he wore non stop…I think he wishes he were a redneck. The pic below was clearly before the rain started.

The view from the front seat of the car.

We came across a bunch of bison in the middle of the road and we were the first car to come up to them! I was kind of freaked out because a few of them were just staring at us in our car and they were honestly as big as our car! We waited for about 10-15 minutes then finally were able to barely creep around them!

We stopped for lunch at Mammoth and there were tons of elk on the lawn of one of the houses. There was one huge buck and we watched them for a while and talked to the ranger about them.

 

We had so much fun this year in Yellowstone. We really love it there and it went by too fast! We can’t wait to come back next year with our new babe and hopefully he loves it there as much as we do!