Reminiscing

Crazy to think that a year ago Dallen graduated college, I attended my cousin's bachelorette party and was part of her wedding, and we moved to Texas! So many crazy and awesome things happened within that short time frame.

Dallen's Graduation:

It was great being able to see a lot of Dallen's family come for his convocation. His parents, Grammy, most of his brothers (including their significant others and kids), some aunts and uncles, and my dad all came to celebrate.

It was also cool that we both made it to the Jumbotron for each of our graduations! For his graduation, one of his really good mission buddies (his mission tatay) took Dallen's graduation pictures, and one of those photos was featured on the screen and in BYU's Instagram story. (For mine, two of my photos made the screen and BYU Instagram story).

This is the photo that made the Jumbotron & BYU Instagram Story.
Photo Credit: JCBA Photography

Dallen's graduation was also, literally, cool. Temps were in the 40s and was rainy/snowy (thankfully the snow didn't stick!) Too bad, the weather wasn't as nice as my graduation (80s and sunny).

Getting good seats for his convocation makes up for the not-so-great weather. We were able to see him, and him see us, as he was in the line to walk across the stage to receive his diploma cover.

(Not the photo that made the Jumbotron)

Example of how great of seats we had.

A well-deserved ring of the Victory Bell!

Mandy's Bachelorette Party:

This was my first bachelorette party ever (didn't have one for my wedding). It was a great, chill time. We got to explore Kansas City. Ate at a local barbecue restaurant and diner the next day, walked around IKEA, hang out at the pool and hot tub, and went out.

My dinner from the local BBQ place.

My lunch from Winstead's, the local diner.

The Skyscraper Shake. That thing was massive! Mandy, Marissa, and I were able to dominate it, just barely.

One of neat things of this trip was running into other Mormons at the hotel! We (the bridal party) were on our way to the elevator, when a group of ladies commented on my BYU hoodie. We had a nice chat in the lobby and elevator about how the mom and her daughter were here to pick up the other daughter, who had just finished her mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I ran into them the next day at breakfast and shortly later at church during Sacrament meeting. It was nice seeing familiar faces in a room full of people that I didn't know.

Days Leading Up to the Wedding:

In the days leading up to the wedding, there were quite a few crazy happenings. First, Dallen and Buttercup drove cross country for the wedding. They made it safely to Iowa and a little ahead of schedule, despite the fiasco with getting our rental car! Dallen had scheduled a rental car from Hertz months in advance, and to be picked up at a specified time. Well, the specified time came and left and no one showed up. He called to ask when his ride would get to our place, but no one answered the phone; it just rang and rang and rang. He tried again and the same thing happened. Eventually he was able to speak to someone and they said it would be about 15 minutes (or something like that). Well, still no one showed up after waiting another hour, so Dallen ended up having to drive himself there.

Second, while Dallen was driving cross country we received notice from my friend that she couldn't get into our apartment to feed Little Fishy. The key Dallen gave her wasn't working. Turns out he gave her the wrong key. We called a locksmith and everything worked out and she was able to find the right key that way there wouldn't be any future lock outs.

Third, there was a major gas leak in our apartment. The landlady tried to get a hold of us, to tell my friend that the gas company needed to get into the apartment. Well, we had no idea of this because we had absolutely NO signal where we were. We finally were able to get some signal while we were on a hike. We were able to contact my friend, but they weren't home and couldn't get back until later that afternoon. Things managed to work out and the gas problem was solved. Surprisingly enough, Little Fishy survived! With how high the gas level was, I was concerned with how she was doing.

 While we had time before the rehearsal dinner (the same day as the gas leak incident) we decided to recreate one of our dates: lunch and a hike (it's one of my favorite places to go hiking). I just love the picture of Dallen and Buttercup overlooking the river. 😍

That was the end of the crazy happenings (for now). While Dallen was driving to Iowa, I was able to spend a day with my grandparents. It was fun hanging out with them. Grandma and Grandpa had some errands to do in town, so I came along. We then had lunch at the local drive-in. It was as good as I remember it being growing up.

The Wedding:

The day before the wedding was the rehearsal dinner. It was a lot of fun! It was Cinco de Mayo themed, since it was Cinco de Mayo. I was able to see an aunt that I hadn't seen in quite a few years and a cousin that I hadn't seen for even longer.

All the guys had to wear a mustache and the ladies the sombrero.

After the rehearsal party, us ladies in the bridal party made our way to the bed and breakfast, where we were staying for the night. The bed and breakfast was very cute and there are few neat experiences that happened. The first being there was a room called Buttercup! I discovered this over breakfast the next morning. I debated bringing my phone with me, but left it in our cabin, since it had no reception. I should have because right when I saw it I wanted to take a picture of it. The second and third neat experiences also happened over breakfast: there was a statue figurine of what appeared to be the Christus and a picture on the wall that appeared to be of a temple. Those two experiences had me curious if the people running the B&B were LDS. I didn't ask them, but I got my answer the next day when I went to church. Turns out the branch president and his wife are the owners of that B&B! The statue really was the Christus and the photo really was of a temple. The reason I didn't recognize them was because they moved into the branch sometime after I had moved out.

A little tour of our cabin at the B&B.

The ceremony and reception were both nice. The weather was great for a wedding and pictures. I danced a lot and enjoyed sitting at the head table.

The dresses

Pre-Move:

After the wedding but before we actually moved, we went down to where we were moving to find a place to live. We had quite a few places lined up that we liked and were going to look at, but just days before getting there, all of the places we were interested in were rented out. We had to start from almost ground zero again.

As we approached our destination city, the air conditioning in our rental car went out and the windshield got a crack from who knows what (a rock maybe?). Being in the South, in May, it is just unacceptable to not have AC. We went into the car rental place to get a different rental. We ended up liking the new car a lot better than what we were originally given, especially since the original car was long overdue for an oil change (we didn't notice that until all of the problems with the vehicle started happening).

After looking at countless places (in person and online) once we got there and not having much luck, we finally found a place. The place we found (and currently live) was actually not yet listed. We were looking at a different place on the same street and the property manager/real estate lady (not quite sure what she was), mentioned that there was a different place that would fit our needs better. Sure enough, it was! It was like it was meant to be.

Shortly after signing the lease we were on our way back to Utah. The ride back to Utah was mostly uneventful, until we got to middle of nowhere, New Mexico when the tire on the rental car went flat. I think we hit a pothole wrong and ended up getting a big hole in the sidewall. Dallen was able to get the spare tire on, but it quickly turned into a long day trying to get the car replaced/repaired. We went to the closest Hertz car rental place and they didn't have any vehicles for us, so they sent us to another Hertz car rental that was an hour away (and not on our way home) because that was the next closest and they were more likely to have something. Turns out they also had nothing, but said to take it into a repair shop to get the tire replaced. We took it in and had it fixed. Thankfully, they allowed us to bring Buttercup inside. She was such a trooper through the whole ordeal. It was a bit frustrating, though, because there was a tire repair shop literally just down the street from the first car rental place we stopped at in New Mexico, and I felt they should have just sent us there, instead of on a wild goose chase, using up all the miles on the spare tire.

Buttercup waiting for the rental car to get fixed.

After the tire was replaced, the rest of the ride was uneventful, and we were so glad when we finally made it back to Utah.

The Move: 

The move was quite the adventure. The place we rented our moving truck from didn't have the size of truck we reserved. They had the next one smaller or next one larger (which also happens to be the largest truck one can drive without a CDL). To be able to adequately fit Dallen, me, Buttercup, and Little Fishy, we needed a truck with a bench seat. That meant we had to get the big truck. It was quite a bit larger that what we needed, but there was no extra charge. Plus, it provided us with ample space to sleep in the back at night! In addition to renting the largest moving truck, we also reserved a full car trailer. To give you all an idea of how big that all really is, we were almost as big as a semi with trailer.

Photo Cred: Dallen

Buttercup and Little Fishy did great on the move. I was concerned how Buttercup would do with the truck being so loud (she doesn't like our car for this reason) and how Little Fishy would do overall (movement and temp-wise). The first night I was worried that Little Fishy would freeze because the air got down to the 40s and goldfish are supposed to have the water be at mid 60s to low 70s. The temperature and movement didn't seem to bother Little Fishy and I actually think Buttercup enjoyed being a trucker dog.

A little fun back story pertaining to where we moved to: Back before Dallen and I got married we drove through the metro area of where we now live. I remember saying how I could never live here because I wouldn't be able to drive because of how crazy the traffic is here. Fast forward almost five years (almost six today) and this is where we moved to. I think it's Heavenly Father's way of compromise: Dallen came to BYU (my dream school) so I could graduate there, so now we live in a big city for his dream job. I think it's kinda funny.

I'm still adjusting to the traffic (drivers here really are crazy and so is the traffic!), but I love that is warm basically year round (could do without the big bugs), all the things that there are to do here (I'll mention some of what we've done in a future post), and getting to see aircraft take off/land right outside our place.

Education Week

Last week I had the opportunity of attending Education Week for the first time. I have been wanting to go for a few years and seeing as this may be my last opportunity to go while we live close to campus I decided to do it.

Let me just say that Education Week was so much fun! I'm so glad I went. I didn't do classes all day because Buttercup needed to go out every few hours, but I did do 2-3 classes per day which I think was plenty for me because I was exhausted by the end of the week.

For those who don't know or haven't been to Education Week before, let me give you a brief description. It's like school, except it's all the really cool and fun classes that aren't usually taught at school and there is no homework. There were classes on anything you can think of: religion, media, political-ish, gardening, organization, family, stress relief, cooking, you name it! For all you Upward Bound-ers out there, it's like UB but only a week long instead of all summer.

The classes I took were on time management, home organization, media, a cooking demonstration with Chef Brad, family history, personal finance, safeguarding homes from pornography, and square foot gardening.

I hope to implement the things I learned from these classes to help me become a better version of me. I also hope to come back again sometime and learn even more about neat things.

A Chef Brad creation!

Devotional with Elder Holland

Look at how full it is!

Second time for him and first for me!

Growing a Green Thumb

After seeing 2 tulip plants and a hyacinth plant, Dallen and I decided to put in a flower bed alongside the fence at our apartment. This is the first time we had a garden of any sort. Ever since I took Floral Design a couple years ago I thought it would be great to someday grow cut flowers. Our apartment already has rose bushes, so I enjoyed making mini-bouquets (really just cutting one here and there when they bloomed) with them.

I look forward to seeing the asters, dahlias, lilies, and Liatris spicata blooming. So far we got all the asters and dahlias in. Tomorrow we'll put in about half of the lilies and liatrises. There is a lot of purple/magenta/pink going on with the flowers we chose. The tiger lilies break that trend with their orange. It'll be good to have something a little different, especially come Halloween.

The reason we chose the flowers we did is because they are pretty low-maintenance since most of them are perennials, so they'll grow back year after year (with the exception of dahlias--they can be though if you put mulch on top of them at the end of the growing season to keep them warm throughout the winter). Since we already had a few rose bushes and tulips, we wanted flowers that got along with what we had. Dahlias and asters fit that qualification. As for the Tiger lilies, we chose those because they have some medicinal properties and are edible, but the main reason is because that is what my grandma had when I was a little kid and thought they were pretty cool flowers. As for the liatris it provides another line/filler flower. I wanted flowers that would look great in a bouquet.

I hope all the flowers will blossom, as this is the first time ever gardening on my own. I also hope after we do all the initial weeding that the weeds will stay at a minimum. Weeding is sure a lot of work (I used to hate doing it as a kid--always afraid of pulling out the actual plant instead of the weed), but it is rewarding when I see how far we have come.

This is only the first half of the first section. There are 3ish other sections.

Where Did Summer Go?

It's crazy how fast time can go. It's been nearly 3 months since my last post. Since my last post, Dallen and I adopted a dog from the rescue we volunteered for. We fostered her for a couple weeks before deciding to make her part of our family. She is super cute! We were originally told she was a Chug (chihuahua pug), but when we took her to the vet for an orthopedic exam, the vet believed she has dachshund in her because of her bone structure. Now I call her a Chugshund. Her name was originally Tipsee, but we changed it to Buttercup, as in Princess Buttercup from The Princess Bride. She learned her new name very quickly. I think she likes it better than her old name.

Here she is!

Can you see the resemblance?

Because we adopted her it means that we can no longer foster anymore pets due to having to pay extra money to have more than one pet in the apartment. No worries, though, because someday when we'll get our own house we'll foster as many animals as we like without having to pay extra money. :)

Over the summer Dallen and I took a day trip to Arches National Park. It was a lot of fun! We didn't do any extensive hiking because it was already getting late when we got there, but it sure was cool (the only lame part is that they didn't have any mugs with my name on it--or any names for that matter). I took a whole bunch of photos that I still need to upload to my computer and put into a scrapbook before the end of September. We were originally going to try and hit up all the national parks in Utah, but that didn't happen. Partly because they are not very pet friendly and because other plans come up. We do have a goal though to travel to all of the national parks in the US, starting with the rest in Utah.

My mom came to visit for a few days last month and it was nice having her around. We mainly just chilled at the house, went to visit the animal rescue that Dallen and I volunteered and fostered for, we went out to eat, and attended the temple. 

This week Dallen's parents will be visiting, so I'm looking forward to time with them as well. I'm not sure of all that we'll do, but that's okay. :)

It's crazy to believe that school is starting at the end of the month and that summer has basically come and gone. I look forward to learning new things and finishing my final semester (that's right Fall is my LAST semester of college! CRAZY!). Plus, school will keep me from Netflix-binging. :P

We'll see if I'll post again before school starts...I'm looking to do one post on a couple movies Dallen and I watched over the summer, as well as movies that I'm looking forward to seeing this upcoming year.