May Days

Here's a look at what we did during the month of May! We started off the month with our 6th wedding anniversary! We celebrated by going on a date to Temple Square in Salt Lake City where we ate dinner outside at Blue Lemon and then went to see the Joseph Smith movie. It was fun to get to spend time with my sweetheart, and we owe it all to Jill and Russ for babysitting Charlie that night!

May is all about blooming trees and blue skies. I really do love spring! I also started doing a little sprucing up in the nursery with this cute new crib sheet! I've been trying to find an appropriate place for chevron in my house, and I think I've found it!

Excitingly, almost 3 months after it was started, the fireplace was FINISHED! I took a while deciding on which stone I wanted, but I finally made a decision and I'm extremely happy with it! We are truly enjoying the look of our fireplace, and eventually the function of it when it starts to get cold again, haha!

I took this cute picture of my sweet 2 and 1/2 year old boy's profile, so I can always remember. Even though he is getting ready to be a big brother, he's still my sweet baby. :) Also, for Mother's Day, my boys treated me to a massage at Sage Leaf Spa at Thanksgiving Point. It was truly wonderful, as I was about 35 weeks pregnant and feeling sore, tired, heavy, and stiff. 

Happy Mother's Day to me! I had to take a picture with the sweet, crazy boy who made me a mom. And then here's the official 36 week pregnancy picture. Getting close!

Houses have been going up like crazy on the street behind my house. It's really fun to watch the progress out my back windows. I think at the time I took this picture, there were at least 11 under construction on that street, and a couple more in other areas of the neighborhood!

We watched our neighbor's little boy Kellen, who is Charlie's age, for a couple hours one day. They had so much fun playing together! They played cars and trains and pretended to talk on the phone and made a general mess of Charlie's room. It was fun to sit there and watch. :) And, here's about how I looked at the time... 37.5 weeks pregnant! Whew! Full term!

Near the middle of the month, Trevor started getting on one of his healthy-eating-and-exercising kicks. He's an all-in or all-out kind of guy, so when he wants to eat healthily, he really means it. I benefited from this health kick, too, because he started cooking a lot! One night he made me this delicious salmon dinner complete with spinach, tomato, and cucumber salad. It was delicious. I kept joking with him that I wanted to eat at "Cafe Trevor" every night! But I'm not really joking... he definitely can cook when he wants to!
We also spent a few days of May at the pool, because I figured out that I had a swimsuit that could stretch over my pregnant belly! It was a nice break from the monotonous waiting and waiting I was doing for our baby girl to come. Charlie rather enjoyed it as well. He progressed from not really liking the water and sitting on the first step to wanting to jump off the first step toward me in the water and kicking and swimming around the pool with my help. We're still working on blowing bubbles in the water, but at least he's not swallowing mouthfuls of pool water every time his mouth submerges below water. Haha.

I also took an opportunity toward the end of May to go out shopping for a couple hours. It was really tiring with how huge I was getting, but it was also fun because I knew that it would be hard to go shopping once the baby came. I found a couple new shirts for both Charlie and Trevor. No shopping for myself, though, because who wants to try on clothes when you're the size of a whale? Not me. 

Our friends Cole and Meghan Ballard have lived in Texas for the last 4 years and just recently moved back to Utah, so we had them over to see our house and to catch up! It was a lot of fun to see them and the boys thoroughly enjoyed playing ping pong on the table we got in February. 

I was also busy with meetings and activities for my new church calling during May. In late April, I got a call from a member of the Stake asking to meet with me. I was a little surprised because I couldn't think of why they'd want to meet other than to extend a calling... and that seemed odd since I was 8 weeks away from having a baby! But, I met with Brother Maxwell in our kitchen while the living room was being painted (we were all crammed around the table with all our stuff sitting on it, too, haha). He asked me if I would accept the calling of 2nd Counselor in the Stake Young Women's Presidency. I was still really surprised and definitely nervous, but when it comes to receiving church callings, I have faith that the calling came from the Lord, and that He knows I am capable of such a task, even at this time. Even though I was hesitant, I prayed and told the Lord that I was trusting Him, and that I would need His help and support to be successful at accomplishing this calling. So far, things have been busy, but great, and the other women in the presidency are very understanding of my limitations. 

Finally, here's a fun little comparison photo I did on Instagram. There's Trevor as a toddler and Charlie. It seems they look more alike than everyone seems to think! Charlie, of course, still has my eyes, but he definitely looks like his Daddy, too!

Park City 5th Anniversary Trip

We decided to celebrate the big #5 in style! We finally got it together and planned a trip away for a weekend to celebrate. We left Charlie at home with my in-laws for a couple days and ran away to Park City to focus on our relationship and to celebrate our marriage. It was absolutely wonderful and we couldn't believe how much-needed it was. Trev also kept asking why we didn't do stuff like this more often (especially before we had a child to look after!).

Anyway, it was great and now I'll tell you about all the fabulous things we did so you can be jealous! Haha :)
We left home Friday evening around 6pm and headed around the mountain to our destination. Along the way, we took a detour up Millcreek Canyon to eat at a nice mountain restaurant appropriately named Log Haven. We filled ourselves with savory steak, grilled veggies, and bread until we couldn't breathe; we talked, we laughed, and we just relaxed. I'm pretty sure that's what heaven will be like. Not to mention it was super-affordable thanks to the $100 gift cards our realtor sent to us as a thank-you gift for using him to buy our house! Sa-weet!

We rolled into Park City around 9:30pm and checked into our house. It was huge! I'm pretty sure we only used maybe 1/3 of the space. The house is a rental owned by a friend of my family back in Raleigh. For our wedding (5 years ago) their gift to us was for one free stay at their Park City cabin house whenever we wanted. Thank goodness we finally got around to using it. It was gorgeous and perfect for our weekend getaway.

You may notice there are no pictures yet. That's because we were seriously enjoying ourselves so much that I didn't even care to take time to snap photos. ;)

The next morning, we didn't sleep in. *Gasp!* I know... who doesn't sleep in on vacation? Okay, well, it was sleeping in for Trev but not for me. We got up to go play a round of golf at the Lake Course at Wasatch in Midway. Beforehand we enjoyed breakfast at a nice cafe in town, where I proceeded to spill an entire glass of ice water all over my pants. That definitely qualifies as one of those "graceful" Alex moments. <Sigh>

Anyway, we got to the course and played nine holes. I was freezing at first (due to the wind and wet pants), but quickly warmed up as I got playing, the sun came out, and my pants finally dried out too. Whew. Check out the gorgeous views (and my hunk of a husband):

And our scores for the day! Trev played a perfect round of bogey golf. I noticed I tend to play at an average of twice par (for example, if it's par 3, I'll probably shoot 6 hahahaha). But, despite some pretty bad golf, I did have a few victories! I hit my irons pretty well on a couple occasions, had a few good drives (including one that made it OVER a pond *woop woop!*), and generally just had a fabulous time and didn't get frustrated.

After golf, we drove back to the house and cleaned up for the rest of our day. Next stop: the Tanger Outlets. Trevor knew he was badly in need of a new wardrobe and was prepared to spend some money. We shopped for hours and got pretty much everything he will need! Can I just say how much FUN it is to go shopping with your husband? I had a blast playing the "mom" role in the dressing room... getting the clothes ready to put on, hanging them back up, and sorting into "yes", "no", and "maybe" piles. It's also pretty awesome to see your husband in nice, new clothes. Wait, what's that? What about me? Yep. I got a couple little gems also! You didn't actually think I'd go shopping at the outlets and buy nothing for myself did you? ;)

Our next stop was Main Street in Park City. We grabbed an early, quick dinner at a place called the Main Street Deli. Mmmm cheeseburger and fries. Vacations are for eating really GOOD (and bad-for-you) foods, right!?!

Our final stop for the day was a new adventure for both Trev and me! We got to create a painting! There's a new place in town called The Paint Mixer where you go and everyone paints the same picture with guidance from the instructor. There's also a bar there, so people can "let loose". We didn't participate, of course, but it was pretty entertaining to watch and listen to all the people around us in very high spirits. :)

Here's how our paintings started out... pretty boring huh?

But with a lot of fun, hard work and a little goofing off we made progress on our masterpieces!

Here are our finished, signed products! It was such a blast! Although I did feel a little rushed for time. That's probably the perfectionist in me coming out and wanting time to make everything look just right. :)

And here's the whole group. Fun to see all the different interpretations, huh? By the way, the instructor (in the red apron) and the guy with the crazy one with the heart on it (on the right) had both had quite a few drinks... if you couldn't tell ;)

I was really glad that we decided to go and do something new. I'd recommend it to anyone going to Park City, and the price isn't too bad either, especially because you get to take an original painting home with you!

That night, we were both SO exhausted. So much so that we didn't even have the energy to enjoy the hot tub at the house. Boo! Maybe next time! That's what you get for having an action-packed, fun day!

The next day, Sunday, we grabbed a quick breakfast and made our way to church with the Park City Ward at 9am. It was testimony meeting and one lady got up to speak and I thought she looked familiar. It turns out she is Mary N. Cook and was the former 1st counselor in the General Young Women's Presidency... so I've probably seen her speak in General Conference. Small world, huh?

After church, we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon perusing Main Street again. We window shopped, looked at art, gift shops, and whatever else we could find. We finished up with a yummy lunch at a place called "The Eating Establishment" (yes... that's actually its name) with more burgers, fries, and a BLT. Once again feeling very stuffed and satisfied, we made our way back home.

By the time we got there, we were very ready to see this cute little face:

And who wouldn't be?

Anniversary #4!

My how time flies! I can't believe I've been married for 4 years already. But in some ways I can. For example, I just can't quite remember life before marriage. I mean, I know it happened, but it's that moment where you look back on your "past life" and it feels like you are just watching a movie. You can't quite wrap your mind around the fact that you actually lived that life, more like you're just watching someone else. Maybe I'm crazy and no one else feels that way, but that's how it feels for me.

But anyway! Anniversaries are very different when you have a little one. A lot more planning is involved. But, luckily, we have T's parents who live really close and they offered to watch Charlie on Saturday night May 5th while we went out.

But first! Our anniversary day was on Thursday, May 3rd, 2012. T worked in the office ALL day (from before I woke up until about 11pm), but he was sweet enough to find time to come home for lunch! :) So that was really nice. An hour or so after he went back to work, the doorbell rang (this was before I put up my ghetto doorbell note [see previous post]...) and there was a flower delivery for me! WHAT A SWEET HUSBAND! I loved the flowers - a combination of light green hydrangias (like we had at our wedding) and coral roses. So different and lovely. Here's a picture:

The rest of our actual anniversary was spend running errands, tending to Charlie, and trying to do laundry and realizing that our washer was broken. Blah. It was definitely just a normal day, but I knew I had Saturday to look forward to!

Finally Saturday night came, and after an hour trip as a family to T's work BBQ at 4pm, we came home and got ready to go out. I was SO excited. Don't get me wrong... I love being a Mom, but the prospect of having a night out and someone else putting Charlie to bed is like a dream come true every once in a while!

It was a little chilly outside with the wind, so we donned our jackets and headed out for our date. We hadn't really decided what we wanted to do, but we knew we wanted "putt putt" to be involved somehow. So we started heading over to Cascade golf course to play a round. On the way, we spontaneously decided to get some GIANT gas station sodas as a treat. And I got crunchy Cheetos too. Oh yum. Totally reminds me of middle school for some reason. I felt like a little kid in a candy shop. It's not every day I just treat myself to soda and Cheetos :)

Mini golf was a blast! It wasn't very busy, so we played each hole twice while we were at the hole and combined the score to make it more competitive. My talented mini-golfing husband KILLED me so bad that we had to start over scoring on the second half so I would care again :)

Afterward, we decided to go down the street to the Riverwoods shopping center to get some sushi and dessert at Happy Sumo. Before going in, I begged T to let me look around the fairly new Provo Beach Resort since I'd never been in it. Once again, I felt like such a kid! This place was awesome!!!! It had an arcade, ropes course, mini croquet course (what!?!? so cool!), bowling alley, surf wave pool, spa, and MORE! While we didn't participate because it was starting to get late, we decided we'd definitely come back one day soon and partake in the awesomeness! On the way out, by the surf shop, they have this little photo op, and I begged T to take a picture of me, and somehow convinced him to get up there too :)

Thanks for playing along, sweet hubby! The sushi at Happy Sumo was excellent, as usual (although a bit overpriced in our opinion). To top off the night, we got a sweet surprise: the MOUNT FUJI chocolate cake was BACK!!! A few years ago, shortly after we got married, they took this amazing dessert off their menu and replaced it with a sub-par fluffy chocolate cake. We were so devastated. We used to frequent Happy Sumo for the Mount Fuji ALL THE TIME when we were dating... so it felt like a little part of us died that day. (Ok, ok, maybe I'm exaggerating, but it was awful!). So, how appropriate that we rediscovered our favorite dessert to share in the whole world on our anniversary! Ooohh it was amazing. It's a little round morsel of thick, dense, warm chocolate wonderfulness, oozing in the middle. MMmmm heaven!

So, despite the fact that our date wasn't necessarily extravangant, it was SO fun! We both decided that we fully enjoyed how it wasn't planned down to the minute, so we could take time to just enjoy the journey. Maybe life is trying to tell us something ;)

Date Nights in May

As usual, I'm a bit behind, but I wanted to write a bit about some of the fun date nights Trevor and I have been on this month. Just enjoying that time we have together as a "childless couple". Oh freedom :)

For our anniversary, we went to the local Scera theater production of Annie. It was really cute and wonderful! :)

Date #1 - On May 7th, we were able to join Dave and Heidi in SLC for some good tepanyaki (perhaps spelled teppanyaki?) style food at Benihana Japanese Steakhouse! Ohh man was I ever craving this food! And I wasn't disappointed, although I still favor Kanki back in Raleigh :)
The pregnant ladies:
After dinner we wandered around Salt Lake City on foot until we found some dessert. It was just really fun (as usual) to get to spend some time with friends and travel to the "city" :)

Date #2 - Last Saturday the 21st we FINALLY had a pretty, warm day and so Trevor and I took off to Saratoga Springs (west of Lehi) so he could hit 9 holes at Talon's Cove at the twilight price. These pictures were taking around 6:30 pm. Can you believe how light it still is outside? This is why I LOVE summer!! The scenery was great with Utah Lake behind us, draped by the Wasatch Mountains.
About to take the swing...
You really gotta love how pretty it is... it makes me wish I had a wide-angle lens and a wider blog so I could blow up the pictures nice and big for you :) I might have to update to Wordpress soon, especially with all of the annoying issues with Blogger recently. It'd be worth the few dollars a year.

After golf we hit up the local Chili's restaurant. I'm definitely noticing an increase in my appetite as of the last couple weeks. Baby is ready to grow GROW GROW!

But yes. I ate a lot. And it didn't even hurt. ;)

I just love the chances I have to spend time with my husband. I'm glad we enjoy being together after 3 years of marriage. And the best part is things have gotten even more fun and easier as time has gone on! Can't wait to see where the future takes us! And I hope you're taking time to have fun date nights as well :D

Two Wonderful Years

Trevor and I have been married for a whopping TWO YEARS! We had our second anniversary on Monday, May 3, 2010. That morning, I got up early, took my parents to the airport, went to work for about 9 hours... and then came home to spend the rest of the evening with my handsome date who had just gotten a fresh new haircut! That's probably the best gift he could have given me that day--it was about time! :)

So, to celebrate, we kept it low-key and went to have a FABULOUS dinner at Carrabbas in Orem. I stuffed myself full of fried zucchini, an amazing cheese/chicken/sundried tomato entree, a free dessert, and lots of wonderful conversation with my hubby.

It's nice to know that the second year was, in fact, easier than the first... and that they'll probably only get even better from here! :)

Our First Anniversary!

Trevor and I celebrated our ONE YEAR anniversary on Sunday May 3rd! We are so happy to have made it to this big first milestone in our marriage! :)

To celebrate, we decided to buy lower bowl tickets to the Jazz-Lakers Playoff Game #4. The game was a blast even though the Jazz lost by over 20 points! :( But it was still fun to be there together, cheer, take pictures, and eat yummy ice cream! Here are a couple pics I took:
Also to celebrate, we got an hour long couples' massage. Andrea, the lady who usually does my massages, was so sweet to grab a friend and help us celebrate. They decorated our room with rose petals and candles to set a romantic mood! It was a wonderful, relaxing experience.

Trevor and I also decided to attend the temple the day before our anniversary. It was wonderful to go back to the place where we were married a year ago (although we got married in Salt Lake and went to Provo this time, it was still a great remembrance of that beautiful day a year ago).

Finally, we went out to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Shoga, and spent the rest of the night cuddling on the couch watching TV. I really couldn't have asked for a better celebration. I look forward to being married for the infinite years to come :)