A Birthday, a B&B and a Baby!

I've been quite a blog slacker. But it's not for a lack of events to report. I just don't know where the time goes!

Bill celebrated his 29th birthday on June 1. His last year in the 20's! I still feel like I'm 25, so that sounds OLD to me! ;) We had a nice dinner at my parents' house and the next weekend we went to see Indiana Jones. I wouldn't recommend rushing out to see it, but it was entertaining. Happy (belated) Birthday Bill! I hope it's your best year yet!

Over Memorial Day weekend we drove up to Almo, ID. “Where is that?” you ask? It’s south of Burley in beautiful southern Idaho, near the City of Rocks.

Many of Bill's ancestors lived there and some of his relatives still own an old family ranch. We stayed in a cute little Bed & Breakfast, had a nice lunch with some extended family and visited the town cemetery. We also went water dowsing on some of Bill's aunt & uncles' land and it seems that both Bill and I have the gift! It's a very beautiful place.

And last, but certainly not least, we are officially announcing that we are having a BABY! We will welcome the little one into our 390 sq ft studio in New York in mid-December. What a merry Christmas it will be! We are thrilled!

Congraduation!

He did it! Friday was Bill's graduation from the University of Utah Law School. It was a very nice ceremony. After, we went to Little America for lunch with Bill's parents, Melinda & Jared, Carrie & Troy and my parents. It was such a fun day! Way to go Bill!

A little late, but she did great!

I meant to post this long ago and congratulate my sister, Ann for running her first marathon! My parents and I went to a couple of different points along the route to cheer her on.

Pete & Betty

Ann at mile 16.

Ann at mile 19.

Ann & Micah at the Finish LineBill ran the 5k earlier that morning.

It's such a fun atmosphere at the Gateway where the Finish Line is. I found myself cheering for complete strangers, just because it looked like they were really giving it their all.

Way to go guys!!

Eleven Years (and one day)!

Happy Birthday to my eldest niece Rachel! This is my favorite picture of Rachel and me. She has always been such joy in my life! I was on my mission when Rachel was born so I first met her when she had just turned 1. My mom and I went to the airport to pick up Becky and Rachel and after everyone had gotten off the plane I saw this adorable little redhead walking down the ramp with a little backpack on. We've been great friends ever since!

Rachel is an amazing sister, niece, daughter and friend and a wonderful example to everyone she meets. We love you Rachel and wish you a fabulous year!!

Good as new

A few weeks ago I walked out of the grocery store to my car and noticed this attractive dent. What kind of a jerk smashes a car and doesn't leave a note? I'm still fuming about it.

$600 later...

I just hope we can avoid any other car problems until we sell them both before we move!

New York State of Mind

NYU it is! We got the best surprise when we got home from our trip and looked in our mail! This school was Bill's first choice since it offers the top Tax LLM program. I'm so proud of his hard work! He also got in to The U of Florida, but we will decline. We'll be packing up and heading to New York in mid-August. We're so excited for this fun adventure!

First Anniversary Trip

One year of heaven! We can't believe how fast this year has passed. It has been great! We celebrated by going down to Zion National Park and Mesquite.

Canyon Rim Hike (above)

Emerald Pools (below)

We arrived in Springdale, UT Saturday afternoon. It was really mild weather, so we checked into our B&B and went for a couple of hikes. Then we had dinner at a fun pizza place. Sunday morning, however, was a different story. We woke up to a delicious breakfast...a yogurt parfait and a ham & cheese omelet with pesto & diced tomatoes. As we were eating, we noticed that it was lightly snowing. No problem. Until it turned to heavy snowing. We went to sacrament meeting at the local church and hoped that it would taper off by the time it was over. Nope. We went back to our room and dressed warm and headed out for a couple more hikes. My favorite in Zion is the Hidden Canyon trail. This time was a little scary because there was at least 2 inches of snow which made the rock pretty slick. Fortunately there are chains in the more precarious sections and we made it. It was beautiful!

Our B&B was wonderful. It is a huge house and they rent 4 rooms. Ours had a heavenly jetted tub and a beautiful view. The only odd part was the toilet that they conveniently put in the closet. I'm not sure anyone over the age of five could use the toilet facing forward with the sliding door closed. We had to use the side-saddle approach.

We woke Monday morning (our anniversary day) and enjoyed another delicious breakfast of baked grapefruit sprinkled with brown sugar and french toast stuffed with cream cheese and marmalade. I wanted to stick around for another couple of mornings just to see what they served for breakfast! We packed up and headed for Mesquite. On our way, we stopped at Grafton, an old ghost town where the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was filmed. Once we got to Mesquite, we decided it wasn't quite warm enough to go to the pool, so we kept driving to Las Vegas. Big mistake!

Now, I'm sure if we were drinking people, we'd love the idea of St. Patrick's Day in Vegas. Since we are not, however, it kind of left us with a bad taste in our mouths. We first drove to the Zappos outlet store. Out of the thousands of pairs of shoes they have there, I didn't find one that I was even slightly interested in. Bill found a couple of dress shoes, but the fit wasn't quite right. We left empty handed.

The Strip was crawling with green clad people carrying large plastic cups of their beverage of choice. We parked at one of the hotels and walked around a bit, stopped at the Bellagio fountains, had some dinner and then headed back to Mesquite. Tuesday morning, I went to get a massage and laid by the pool while Bill played a round of golf. It was perfect weather, but I can't say that I got much color. That evening we ate at the Casino's Buffet.

Finally, Wednesday morning we packed up the car and headed for home. We stopped at the St. George Temple for a session. Neither of us had been inside this temple. It is beautiful and was a great way to end our First Anniversary trip and begin our second year together! May it be as wonderful as the first!