the usual catch-up!

Sorry I have been such a bad blogger-- I know I don't really have an excuse because I don't have a job nor do I have school or really anything to do all day. However, I have been busy exploring Boston and making friends- So there you have my excuse! I will make this one short with a lot of pictures so I can catch up to what's going on lately!

We took some family pictures with the Hales before Lake Powell. It has been two years since the WHOLE family was together and there has been a new addition to the family since. We had a lot of fun taking them and I am really happy for some new "couple" pictures of Steve and I!

We also celebrated Steve's 29th birthday while we were in Utah! I can't believe another year has gone by! He already got his birthday present back in February (Recall his mountain bike aka his mistress). But Sandra made him a delectable birthday dinner and a really yummy cake! Abbie and Landon helped him blow out the candles on the cake because 29 candles is a lot of candles :)

This was the first time we got to meet Mike and Erin's new son Noah-- He was ADORABLE. He was like the happiest, most smiley baby ever! Aww I miss him!

Next we left for Lake Powell and had a week full of soooo much fun! It was awesome to be with the whole Hale family and lay around in the sun, play cards and play on the boat! There isn't much to be said except for Wow what a great vacation!

Steve taught Abbie how to fish!

Sandra got duped into taking a crazy tube ride with Erin- I just feel like her face says it all!

Just Steve being awesome on the wakeboard- what's new!

The beautiful canyon in the early morning...

I had a major face-plant on the first run of the week. I didn't really want to do that again so I wasn't very adventurous on the wakeboard this year. I did enjoy the new girl's wakeboard though!

Hahahahahaha

Steve doing his traditional 'party trick' on the slalom ski

The May's, some the Hale family friends came with us and one of them set up a huge rapel! I didn't try :)

Girls special swim! haha.

We did water weenie wars and jumped from tube to tube. No one was hurt and we had so much fun! I think everyone came away with some awesome bruises though.

That's the end of lake powell! I will get caught up soon!

Recent Happenings....

Over Mother's Day weekend we got together with all of my family for a quick reunion before Steve and I took off. We had a great weekend filled with good food and lots of fun. We hung out played games, went to the zoo, watched movies and ate at Bahama Bucks twice... yum. We spent Saturday at the Phoenix Zoo and saw all sorts of animals. Unfortunately it was sooo hot and the animals were all quite lethargic and were mostly being boring. The orangutans we super cute and very entertaining to watch though! I am soooooo glad we got to do this before we moved so far! Love you guys!

Me and my beautiful sisters!

Trying to be tigers... :)

Keeping cool at the splash pad, really it was meant for kids but we took full advantage. The only bad part was we were always dry like five minutes after we soaked ourselves.

Random frog picture-- Mom Hale this one's for you again :)

I'm a college graduate! It all seemed a bit anticlimactic but I am glad I walked anyways. I can't believe I'm done. I keep trying to think of all of things I want to cram into the next week before I have to "go back to school" but I have three and half months until I start again, woohoo! Luckily my graduation was only about an hour and half. Then Steve, my mom, mom hale, dad hale and my aunt nanette went out for a lovely dinner at the Olive Garden to celebrate. The next morning was moving day.

We started our road trip to Boston on Friday morning and drove to Amarillo, Texas that night. The next day we went through Oklahoma, and stopped in St. Louis, MO. The next day it was onto Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and stopped in Pennsylvania for the night. Monday we drove the rest of the way through PA, then into New York, Connecticut and finally Massachussetts! I have never ever driven so far and I'm not sure I want to do it again. We had a great time driving with Mom and Dad Hale though. Thanks so much for all of your help guys!

We stopped for some Braums Ice cream, we had heard that it is really good and we weren't dissapointed!

What I looked at for the better part of 4 days...

Almost there...

When we got to Boston at like 5 in the afternoon, the traffic was CRAZZZZY. It was like there were no rules and we were driving in Mexico or something. I couldn't believe it. When we pulled in to our apartment our new ward was there to help us unload the truck and they were GOOD. We had it unloaded in like 45 minutes. It was awesome! I will post more pictures of the apartment when it is all put together. It is coming right along.

Graduation Celebration dinner #2. We went to Ruths Chris steakhouse in Boston and got a yummy steak for dinner after a very LONG day of trying to figure out how to register our car... It doesn't sound that bad but it was terrible!

We went to a Boston Red Sox game on Wednesday, everyone there was super into it! The red sox won and we had a great time! Thursday we left to head back to Utah for Lake Powell with Steve's family. So in one week we crossed the whole country in a truck, and flew halfway back on a plane. Call us crazy-- We know it! I will try to keep this thing updated about what is going on! But this is what i have for now! Love you all!!!

New Do?

Maybe you know, maybe you don't but I am NOT very experimental with my hair. I like it long and layered with some bangs, and I have had that since forever! Today I got it cut and decided to be a little crazy... for me... She cut off at least three inches and put a lot of layers in and cut some more bangs. I just think it's funny that this "new do" is being dangerous for me! Haha, I am kind of a dork but it works right?!

P.S. We move in 9 days!

Weird, Weird, Weird.

I just noticed that the last post I did was when our move was 5 weeks away. It is now two weeks and two days away. I am starting to get a little weirded out by the whole thing. I am so close to being done with school, only two tests tomorrow, then a paper and a final next week. After that, my family comes in for the weekend (woohoo!), then mom and dad Hale come (woohoo!), we pack (umm... boo?), I graduate (woohoo!) and then we leave (umm...). Holy Cow. Tonight we are selling my car, which is a blessing that we have been able to sell it so quickly but that is really making this move real for me. Is it strange that this is all just starting to sink in?

Anyways, I am really excited about our move and everything it just hasn't quite hit me that it is so soon. Wow.

Behold our future

We went out to Boston last week for the MIT admitted students weekend. It was really fun. It really reaffirmed to us that this move is going to be a good thing for us. We really enjoyed Boston too! It rained pretty much the whole time we were there. It was a strange kind of rain, it would just mist and you would hardly know it was raining. It was like this every day except the last day when it POURED- which was a bummer because that was our site-seeing day. Needless to say we didn't get a lot of site-seeing done because we were carting all of our luggage. We did go see Emerson and walked around the Boston Common. We are excited to get to see more!

This is on the Boston common- there are a bunch of monuments around it.

These pictures are for you Sandra-- there is a "frog pond" at the Boston Common-- it was empty while we were there though...

Emerson is right in the middle of downtown Boston! It is well disguised amongst a host of skyscrapers and theaters with huge marquees, it is right smack in the middle of the theater district! My building is an old renovated bank and the program is housed on 3 floors- that' s it!

In front of the Harvard library... I think...

In the subway station by MIT there are these pipes in the middle of the tracks and you swing the handle (what steve is doing above) and you try to get the hammers to hit the pipes and it makes music! We entertained ourselves with this a lot while waiting for the train!


These Pictures are our new apartment! We looked at probably 20 apartments without finding anything we really loved. This was the last apartment we looked at and as soon as we walked in this apartment we were pretty much sold! It is the third floor of a three story home. The house is a super cute old white house with yellow shutters. It was one of the nicest apartments we saw for the money. It's a one bedroom, 1 bath with a little office space and right outside of Harvard square which seems like a really nice safe area. We are really excited about it!

Bay window in the living room

Living room/ dining room

Little Bathroom

Kitchen

Bedroom closet

Bedroom

Office Area


We really had a great time and are getting really excited for our move! It is coming right up- we have five more weeks in Tucson!