It's Offical!!!

Our degrees are here and hung up on the wall!

The top one is Jonathan's Computer Science degree. The middle one is my Physics degree and the bottom one is my Natural Science degree. It's so nice to have them up! The next one will be Jonathan's Bachelor's degree!

St. George

On our way down to visit Hannah in Vegas, we stopped off in St. George to visit the temple. This was my first time in southern Utah and I must say it has stolen my heart! I still can't get over the beautiful colors in the stone. I've seen some pictures of places around there, but they don't do the colors justice. I hope to move there some day.

I still can't get over the beautiful colors in the stone. I've seen some pictures of places around there, but they don't do the colors justice. I hope to move there some day.

The temple was amazing. So far, we've been to 5 temples and I really love this one. When you first go into the temple, it feels like it's just another temple. It's beautiful, but nothing special beyond that. Then when we were in the ordinance room, you started to get a better sense that this was a unique temple. This temple was the first one completed after the pioneers left Illinois and so there are still much of the pioneer workmanship in this building.

One of my favorite parts was the celestial room. There are windows that let in the beautiful desert sunshine in. The details in the room were in some ways overwhelming.

The thing that I remember the most is the feeling that I had in that room. I just felt an outpouring of love. I was grateful to see such a beautiful temple. I was grateful for all of the labor that went into it. I was grateful that I could be there that day to do the temple work for someone I didn't even know. I felt a much stronger connection to this sister that I went through for than I usually do. 

Temples are such wonderful places. I love the feeling that I have when I am there. Things are just more clear.

We love to see the temple!

It was such a wonderful experience to go to the temple as we started our trip to visit Hannah.

Vegas Baby!

We finally made it down to Las Vegas to visit Hannah! We started planning a trip in August, but things got crazy until now. It worked out perfectly because she needed to come up to Utah for a job fair, so Jonathan and I went down and played and then brought Hannah back with us.

This was Jonathan's first time in Vegas and my second time. My first trip was a whirlwind trip with Sac State Marching Band. We didn't get into the city until like 3 am and had to check out of our hotel by 9. I literally only laid down for 6 hours in a 52 hour period of time. It was crazy!

My first Vegas experience.

The first thing we did in Vegas was meet up with Jonathan's trainer from his mission. This was the first time they had seen each other for about 10 years. It was great to see them catch up on all that has happened and remembering some great mission stories.

Thanks to Pinterest, I was able to find more things to do in Vegas than just hang out on the strip. First thing we did was head over to Hoover Dam. It was amazing and overwhelming how big it really is.

This is the spillway on the Arizona side.

I love how you can see how high the water level can be.

Jonathan's in Nevada and I'm in Arizona. After this picture Jonathan said he didn't like long distance relationships and jumped back on to the Arizona side of the dam.

After being at the dam, we headed back into the city so Jonathan could visit Fry's. There aren't any in Utah and he has seriously been missing it. Then we visited Hannah's classroom. It is so cool that she is a real teacher! Jonathan was able to better align her projector. She showed us her favorite spot to watch sunsets on campus. It was so gorgeous!

Then we headed down to the strip for dinner and to see some of Hannah's favorite spots. She took us to a secret pizza place inside the Cosmopolitan for dinner. There's no signs for it, so we had to search for it for a little bit but it was worth it! After dinner, we watched the fountains at the Bellagio. They are magical at night. We walked around Caesar's Palace and then headed back home because Hannah had work the next day.

The three of us taking on Vegas!

I pretended to be Buddy the Elf moment with the moving sidewalk.

On our final day in Vegas, we went to Red Rock Canyon. The scenery was stunning! We drove through the loop to get an idea of what the park would actually be like. We thought that it was a closed loop, well we were wrong. We were back out on the highway and a little upset that we didn't get the receipt to show that we had already payed to get into the park. We were prepared to pay the $7 fee again because it would be worth going through the park to take pictures. We pulled up to the same gate that we had initially paid at and explained our situation. The man was nice enough to let us go without paying the fee twice. We stopped off in the visitors center to get a better idea of the park and then we took a lot of pictures.

We each took turns wearing bunny ears.

Thanks to the visitors center, we learned that various people that lived in the area and left drawings in the stones. We were able to see a grouping of hand prints.

There are 4 hand prints in this picture.

Sorry Ty! That rock was too big to bring home.

It was interesting to see the layers of stone.

This looks more like a martian landscape.

I love how it looks like these rocks were painted.

I am so grateful that Jonathan and I were able to visit Hannah before she leaves Vegas. After finding all of these cool places to visit in Las Vegas, I can't wait to spend more time exploring the natural wonders in Utah!

Mount Timpanogos Temple

Jonathan and I are having so much fun visiting and taking pictures of all of the temples in the area. It's crazy how many are so close to us. Last month we took pictures of the Mount Timpanogos temple.

The first time we actually went inside was a super rainy night and we had to park really far away. We literally ran from the car and we still were soaking wet by the time we made it inside.

This temple felt really similar to the Sacramento temple. I really love the color and texture in these stain-glass windows.

I'm slowly getting used to how big the temples are out here. There are lots of stair cases and hallways, so I'm never really sure where I am. Thankfully there are people all around to help guide me or I would never get out! Anyways, even though each temple is different, the important things are the same.

I Don't Know Idaho!

This weekend, we made our first of many trips up to Idaho. Jonathan had a crazy week with tons of stuff due and late nights of getting everything done that we decided a weekend away was in order! Thankfully, my brother's family was prepared to indulge us.

The last time we spent time with them was back at Thanksgiving, so I wasn't sure how well the kids would remember us. Before we even got all of our things out of the car Seth came out and gave us big hugs. Clara and Annie were out running errands and when they got home, Clara ran right up to me and gave me a cuddly hug.

Both Seth and Clara have grown up so much since Thanksgiving. Seth absolutely loves everything Star Wars, with the exception of the Emperor who he calls the boss. Clara is just a little chatterbox! She repeats just about anything that she hears.

Clara in her Sunday best!

It was also a lot of fun spending time with Chris and Annie. We haven't lived close to them for over a year and so it was nice being able to talk with them. They taught us a card game they learned from their sister-in-law and we ended up playing it for about 3 hours.

We also had a tea party with the kids. I love having nieces! In the 10 years I've been an aunt, this was my very first tea party.

This trip, though quick, was so much fun. I can't wait to go back for another visit!

Three

Last week we celebrated our third anniversary. It's wild to think that we've been married for 3 whole years now. To celebrate, we made plans to go up to Salt Lake for dinner and then do a session in the temple. Things didn't quite turn out that way.

This was our view during dinner.

We were caught in some traffic and were a little late to our dinner in the Joseph Smith Memorial building. That made us miss the last session of the day at the temple. Instead we sat outside (it was only kind of cold weird for Utah in February) and talked.

We agreed that this past year has been the hardest one of our marriage, but it brought us closer together than we were before it. Looking back, if everything had gone perfectly according to our plans, we would have missed out on so many opportunities and chances to see what we could do together. I am so grateful that I have such an amazing husband at my side who is always there for me when life gets to be too much for me to handle. He loves me unconditionally and is such an amazing example to me. I am so blessed to have him and am so grateful that I get to keep him for eternity because we were sealed in the temple 3 years ago.