Our Trip Home Part 2!

3. Wednesday (and Tuesday night) My mom (and Joseph, Jacob, Sarah, and the boys' friends Evan and Timothy) picked Dahl and I up in Delaware, and we drove to the beach! My wonderful friend Heather has a beach house in New Jersey, and although she was not there, she and her family graciously allowed us to stay there. 

  

Honestly, I think this was the funnest part of the trip! We played at both Cape May and Wildwood Beaches, both of which were beautiful. We started out the day at Wildwood. The sand there is SO soft, and we had a lot of fun playing Frisbee and boogie boarding. 

The waves were consistent but not super strong, but they were REALLY strong when we went to Cape May after lunch. Cape May has much rougher sand, but the waves are way more intense, although also less consistent. They break really close to shore, where there are a lot of little rocks that will scrape you up if you can't stop fast enough, but it was WAY fun! It was great to have all the boys around because then we could take turns watching Sarah and making sure everyone had a buddy. It was great! Dahl and I went to the boardwalk to look around a little as well. It is a really fun, cute beach. We had a blast!

That night after dinner Timothy treated us to a rousing read- aloud of Cinderella CTR, which is hilarious, by the way, and we went on a walk to a gas station. It was supposed to be  1.5 miles each way, but it ended up being about 3 miles each way... it was an adventure for sure!

Goofballs at the store we finally got to

Come on Jacob!

Jacob!!

That's better... kinda

4. Thursday: The next morning we went to watch the sunrise. It was pretty cloudy so we didn't see much of a sunrise, but we took some fun pictures and had time for cleaning up and getting on the road so I could be on time for some dental and eye appointments! They both thought I was awesome as usual, and it also gave my mom and I some time to go to lunch together. That night we went to DC to see the monuments at night with Nicole. She was an excellent tour guide! I love to see the monuments at night because it is less crowded, much cooler (temperature wise), and really neat to see them all lit up.

                                     

                                     

                                               

5. Friday: We hung out a lot around the house and eventually went down to the Inner Harbor with Joseph and Sarah. We took a ferry (that was free!) to the inner- harbor and took the kids to a yummy pizza place called Joe Squared. Then we met the whole family at the Orioles game! We were really blessed to get all student tickets so it was just $6 apiece! The Orioles won, and they got 4 home runs (3 were from the same player!) After that they had fireworks, which were really fun, too!
6. Saturday: we were supposed to go to Six Flags but that got cancelled due to super intense rain. So we ate  lunch in the car, went to Rita's as a family, and watched the Hunger Games together. Dad actually really liked it, so we were glad we chose it.
7. Sunday- We went to church together, it was really fun to see some old friends, especially Sister Walburger and Sister Hunter, my old YW leaders. It's sad because our ward has split up so much there were a lot of people I couldn't see, but I was glad I got to see some of them. After church we went to the temple to take a couple of pictures and the to my Grandma Connor's house. 

It was really nice to see her, she is doing so much better! We told her we expected to see her next time we come to visit for Christmas 2013. Is she not the cutest?! My mother in law, Brenley, says we have the same eyes, what do you think?? We were going to go to the zoo, but it was raining again so we just went home and had a delicious dinner of pot roast, mashed potatoes, crescent rolls, and jello, with apple cheesecake for dessert (made by Julie and me).

  

8. Monday- We said goodbye to everyone as they went off to their first day of school! It was a really fun vacation and we are so glad we got to visit! Thanks family and a special thanks to the Gallaghers for being so generous with their beach house!!

St. Jeezy!

Dahl planned a little getaway for us a few weekends ago. We went to St. George and Las Vegas. It was so fun! Friday night I left a little early from work so we could get to Tuacahn on time to see Aladdin. It was amazing, of course. I am so in love with Tuacahn!

Saturday, we laid out by the pool for the morning. We went to lunch at a Mexican place called Irmita's which was amazing!

Sombreros!

Food!

I thought this was funny- Very Spicy- Hot (We are not responsible), Medium- Hot (Comes with a kick, but not out the door), and Wimpy- Mild (It's okay, we're not looking)

More Sombreros- Just for kicks!

That night we went to Vegas! We went to the top of the Stratosphere and watched people go on terrifying rides like jumping off of it, which seems completely insane!

Dahl and I are both super afraid of heights, but I think we learned something about what kind of heights bothers us. For example, being at the top of the Stratosphere, which is so ridiculously high, does not bother me at all. It is the likelihood of falling that really does it for me. I am way more afraid of, say, climbing on a rock that is kind of high, but not that high, that I have the potential to fall off of from my own clumsiness, than being up intensely high in a safe building. But the exact opposite is true for Dahl. He loves to be high up because of the view, but he is way more tripped out by it than I am. And when we climbed on the red rocks (stay tuned for that), I was more of a scaredy- cat than he was. Interesting, huh?

Notice how he has to hold on to the binoculars... yeah. Haha.

We also went to the Rio Cafe, which was ridiculously delicious and expensive... next time we will definitely be going, but we will also definitely be getting a coupon! 

Sunday we relaxed by the pool and went to the red rocks for some quick exploring. Next time we will DEFINITELY be going back for more! It was SO fun! 

Then, we got some more great Mexican food, and drove home. 

On the way home, we stopped at a gas station that had a random petting zoo! It was pretty awesome.

The little lambs were so cuddly!

No big deal, just a cow, two llamas, and a zebra all hanging out in the same cage...

Peacock!

Dahl feeding the emu

All in all, we had such a fun time!! Sometimes getting away is the perfect solution to all of your worries!

Birthday! Birthday! Coming to Earth Day!

Sooo Dahl and I are almost birthday buddies! This year, mine was Sunday (May 20) and his was Monday (May 21)! I love having our birthdays so close together! Then we each get our days but we can have a fun-filled weekend together! Plus, this year I went a little crazy with birthday coupons... like I signed up for about 40 different clubs, half of them to restaurants I never go to, just to get some free birthday treats!

All wet from the Bumper Boats!

My birthday was mostly a lot of family time! Dahl made me a delicious cake (chocolate with chocolate frosting and cream cheese frosting in the middle), and we had lunch with the Lowe's (cousin's in law- one of them, Larissa, is my birthday buddy!), and went to dinner at Sarah's (Dahl's sister)! One of my favorite parts was when I walked into my Primary class and they all sang me Happy Birthday! How cute is that?! I love them : ) even though teaching by myself is driving me a little bit more than crazy... hopefully I get a new partner soon! I also got to talk to my cute family, and Dahl gave me a CRUISE! (It was actually our birthday present from both of us to each other, but Dahl did all the research and we are going in October.) We are PUMPED!! We also gave each other cards and I followed this idea and gave Dahl 25 balloons with people's messages on them! If I did it again, I would DEFINITELY have people put the notes inside on a piece of paper, because it sure did get messy! Still fun, though! (Don't worry, we bought a balloon pump so we didn't get all germed up!)

Batter Up!!

Dahl's birthday was the funnest! We found this deal for Boondock's where if it is your birthday you get a free  unlimited pass! AND even better, if your birthday is on a Sunday, you can use it the next day too! So we both got in for free!! We rode the Go-Karts (and I totally dominated!), rode the bumper boats, used our free arcade tokens, went to the batting cages, and had an awesome time!! Then we went to Chuck-a-Rama (for free! Thanks Sarah!).

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner :)

Go-Karts!

Basically, we made out like bandits!! I love birthdays :) Especially when I get to spend them with my love! 

Dance Date!

This Wednesday I planned a dance- themed date!! :)

Now, I have NEVER considered myself much of a dancer. But, I have always thought dancing was fun. I took several dance classes at BYU just because I liked them. Heather (my sister) was always better than me, but I made out alright. I asked Dahl to take a dance class while we were dating so I could dance with him, and he did, but it wasn't his favorite. He does, however, like to dance with me, and demonstrates it by grabbing me and breaking into spontaneous dance randomly and with great gusto.

SO, I decided to try it!

This is what his invite looked like:

You are invited to an evening of dance with your favorite dance partner of all time, ME.

5:00:

I challenge you to a Just Dance competition! Winner gets to pick the dance movie we are going to watch!!

This is the one we picked!!

6:00-6:30: Let's let the fire do the dancing and grill up some dinner!!


6:30-8:30: Watch a dance movie. Options: Footloose, Step Up, Dirty Dancing... Anything dance- themed :)

8:30-9:00: Drive to the dance at "The Center"!

9:00-9:30: Dancing lessons!

9:30- Whenever: Dancing!!!

I think the game Just Dance is SO FUN!! Dahl and I had a great time competing, and he actually beat me once! But I won the rest of the times :) He even humored me and let me do a Britney Spears song. What a guy!!

Speaking of what a guy, look at this grilling man!! It was pretty fun letting the fire do the dancing :)

    

Dahl is literally the best griller EVER!  Does that not look amazing?!

At "The Center" (in Provo if you live in Utah) you can pay $4/ person if you get there before 9:30 ($6/ person after that), and you can get dance lessons for the 1st half hour you're there (9-9:30), so we got a couple of lessons first. They moved SUPER fast, so we mostly just had fun doing our own moves, and I taught Dahl some things I remembered from my country dancing class from about 3 years ago. We also ran into our old friend, Jaren, and he taught us a few tricks, too!! We DEFINITELY want to go again, the atmosphere is so fun!! We decided next time we will learn a few more moves before we go, and I found a video on Netflix that teaches basic country dancing, so we are excited to try that out, too!

Us at "The Center"- don't we look country in our plaid??

This is a way fun date that you can do even if you don't have a place that offers cheap dance lessons! If you look around, there are generally some places that offer group lessons for a small fee, and some even offer private lessons with appointments for a larger fee if you want to get more intense about it. Another fun alternative is going to a concert and just dancing there (summer concerts on the grass are the BEST for this-- the last picture in this post is from one such concert )! You could even find Youtube videos and learn from those if you want to make it cheaper and stay at home! If you don't have Just Dance, you can play a similar game like Dance Dance Revolution, or you don't have a Wii or Kinnect, do a Zumba workout video together.

Another fun thing I recently did that follows the dance theme is I decorated our room like a dance to surprise Dahl! I added some Christmas lights and moved around the furniture to clear out a dance area, and we had a little dance party to our favorite Pandora playlists. It was so fun, and we had a great time dancing the night away!!

It looked kind of like this! (source)

Dancing is such a fun and romantic thing to include in dating! Dahl and I definitely want to do it more often now!!

Not from this dance date, but I love this picture! He's my favorite dance partner ever!!

Cinco De Mayo Date

So, this is a really late post that I mostly wrote awhile ago, just had a hard time getting all posted :).

A few Saturdays ago was Cinco de Mayo!! So I asked Dahl on a Cinco de Mayo date.
First of all, I declared it an "all in Spanish... or Spanglish" night, at least for the dinner portion. So, we had a lot of fun trying to communicate. It actually wasn't too bad, because Dahl served his mission in Long Beach, California, Spanish speaking, and I took Spanish all through high school, and ended up testing out of 12 credits from it for college. Dahl is definitely better than I am at Spanish, but I was pretty impressed with how much I remembered, and we could have pretty decent conversations.

What would be a Cinco de Mayo party without awesome Mexican food? We first went to The Blue Iguana, which was SUPER good. Above are my fish tacos, which were basically to die for!

This weird huge black plastic grass garden place is so fun to me!

You can pull the "grass" back and it will fling into others and send them flying too!

That night, we went to Mi Ranchito with Dahl's parents and got fried ice cream! (We ended up getting two of what you see below because they accidentally gave us the small birthday one instead of the big normal one.) It was super yummy!

Hooray for Cinco de Mayo!

All About the In-Laws

*This is another one of those it-seems-long-because-of-all-the-pictures-but-it's-not-really-that-long entries*


As some of you already know, Dahl and I decided to move in with his parents to save some money back in November. They have been more than welcoming, and we have really enjoyed it so far. I think a lot of people think that it would be a hard situation, and one that you should avoid, but I think they just must have in-laws that aren't as awesome as mine. I have definitely heard horror stories from friends about moving in with their in-laws, and I am grateful our experience has been nothing like that. They have been very sure to give us our privacy, and the basement is made to be its own apartment so we have a master bedroom with walk-in closet and bathroom, and our own kitchen. We even made ourselves a mini- living room in our bedroom with a couch and a flat-screen TV (Dahl's idea, of course). It's nice because when Dahl is busy with schoolwork I can go up and talk to Brenley and Savana and Eric, which is always fun.

Utah Reception that Brenley decorated super cutely

ANYWAY, that's not really what this entry is supposed to be about. What it's really about is how sweet they were to me a few Saturdays ago. Dahl had a test a few weekends ago, so he was down at UVU, and was going to be there until early evening.

With Jacob, Bro-in-Law

Mother- Son Dance

Daddy- Daughter Dance

I had resigned myself to a day of cleaning, laundry, and random internet-surfing, and had just started cleaning the kitchen when Eric came downstairs and asked what I was doing today. I said nothing, just cleaning and waiting for Dahl to get home. He said they were going to Cafe Rio, and did I want to come? I asked who was going and he said just him and Brenley. "Oh I don't want to ruin your date!" I said. "Oh no, it's fun! You should come!" he encouraged. "We'd love to have you!" So I said okay.

Being super supportive at my Graduation

First, they bought me Cafe Rio which was delicious. And while we were in line, Eric asked me if I like to shop at Kohl's. Yes, I said. He then handed me a coupon for $10 off when you spend at least $30 there. And then he handed me a $20 bill, and said, "You have to spend at least $30, so the coupon will give you $10 off, and here's the $20 to spend." !!!!! I was so touched! "You don't have to give me $20 Eric!!" I said in surprise. "Oh no, it's fun, it's fun!" he said. (He always says that... so cute!) So I accepted.

Is that not so nice?!?! He gave Brenley one too, so we got to go shopping together and I got a pair of jeans and a shirt. Brenley was a fun shopping buddy :) We had lots of fun all talking together in the car, at Cafe Rio, and at Kohl's.

San Francisco Trip

I just thought it was so nice, because they definitely didn't have to do that. I wasn't expecting anything like that. I was just grateful for some company! And they made what could have been a very "blah" day, really fun for me. They are truly the nicest, sweetest parents in-law I could have ever dreamed of having. They welcomed me into their home and hearts, and they treat me just like a daughter.

Sisters-in-Law Sarah and Savana

When I got a picture with my parents kissing my cheeks, this was the compromise for the matching picture. Haha. 

And it's not just them! Savana is just like a sister to me, and I love her to death. In fact, we just had a girls night together and we got dinner and watched The Lucky One and talked. Dahl's sister Sarah and her husband Bryan and daughter Jessie are always so kind to me as well. And Jacob is my buddy, too. He never fails to pinch my cheeks and shout KELLBELL! at me in the most annoying possible voice. The extended family have all been wonderful to me as well.

With Nana (Brenley's Mom)

Extended Family on Eric's side- His Parents and Janelle and Dale

I'm so glad I got such wonderful in-laws. They always make a point to talk about how cute and sweet they think I am, and how pretty they think my eyes are. It's kind of funny, actually, how complimented I always am. They always say how glad they are I married Dahl and how perfect I am for him. And Eric always reminds Dahl how lucky he is to have gotten such a nice wife. 

San-Fran

Kissss

Basically, I love my in-laws, and I feel so incredibly blessed to have ones that love me so much just for being me and for loving their wonderful son (or brother, or whatever the relationship may be)!

Both sets of parents :) Don't know how I got quite so lucky to get the best parents and in-laws, but it happened!