Brittany's Graduation and Yosemite National Park

The Wednesday before memorial day weekend Brittany (my littlest sister) graduated from high school! We were able to make it to her graduation. She had a solo and did sooo good! I am so proud of her. She literally amazes me, I could never get up and sing in front of so many people. I am bummed too because she is going to BYU in the fall and we have gotten to see her so much! Congratulations!

Yosemite

Over Memorial Day weekend Steve and I went to Yosemite with his family and their family friends the May's. These memorial day vacations are a long-standing tradition in his family. This last one was the 21st! We had a ton of fun in spite of the weather hanging between 40 and 50 degrees with intermitent rain the whole weekend. The only day that was sunny and nice were the day Steve and I got there (65 degrees), and the day we left (60 degrees)!

The whole rest of the weekend, the weather looked a little something like this...

We did a hike up to Vernal Falls which was only like 3 miles, but probably 3/4 of a mile is walking up 600 steep, wet granite stairs. We all felt it the next day. The nice thing was the falls were so beautiful it was worth it to climb all those stairs.
One day we went to see the Giant Sequioa trees. I had never seen them before but they were so unbelievably huge! None of these pictures really do them justice but if you ever get a chance go check them out, you might not believe your eyes!

This tree looked like the jaws of death, that's why we're scared. We could have been eaten :)

Steve's birthday was spent rafting the Tuolemne River. It was like 40 degrees and raining the whole day! One of our guides said that was the coldest he has ever ran that river. Needless to say, everyone tried as hard as they could to stay in the boat and not to fall in! I had done a little bit of rafting before and thought I sort of knew what to expect, ummm no. I had no idea! This river had all the way up to class 4 rapids, I had never been in such crazy water!

Keeping up... not catching up!

I have made a new resolve to keep up with the blog thing! So yesterday we went on another hike in Sabino Canyon. We went with our friends Amber and Scott, and had a lot of fun. We decided that it is probably our last one there until the weather cools down. We are going to have to move our hiking to Mount Lemmon. Mount Lemmon is always like 25-30 degrees cooler at the top than Tucson is. It is a summer haven! Anyways, the desert was still beautful. All of the cacti are blooming right now and there is still a lot of green plants. Steve became Mr. Artistic and took like a million nature photos, but I have to give him credit a lot of them turned out really cool. I survived this hike much better than the last one. Probably because we were only there for about 2 and half hours!

So I realize there are going to be a lot of pictures but I just want you all to know that Arizona can be pretty if you see it the right way!

This time I decided to just bring frozen ice packs to keep myself cool. It turned out to be a great idea! I was much more pleasant this hike!

We saw a ton of these little lizards running around. Steve wanted to catch one and bring it home but was afriad they were poisonous. We when got home we looked them up and found out they are called collered lizards, and they aren't poisonous. Upon finding that out, Steve has decided that collered lizard would be his pet of choice and keeps asking me if we can get one!

Woah, it's been a while!

Like I said in my last blog (that happened 2 and half months ago!) I have issues with keeping my blog updated! Ha so here is my third attempt at playing catch-up! So, since our last blog the following things have happened......

Spring Break

We spent spring break here in tucson and Steve's mom came down and spent the week! I have to admit I did have the mother-in-law jitters that everyone talks about. I made sure our apartment was super clean and all that jazz. But the '"jitters" were really unneccesary, Sandra came and we had a fantastic time! While Steve was at work Sandra and I got pedicures and ate out and shopped! Then, Steve took a couple of days off and we went to Mount Lemmon and hiked around a little bit and ate pizza at a famous little pizza kitchen up there! We also took our first hike in Sabino Canyon.

This is the beginning of our hike, as you can see we all started out happy...

The canyon was a beautiful desert scene when we went, everything was flowering and so gorgeous

Like I said, I started the hike happy but soon became hot and uncomfortable, this is me attempting to stay cool, hence the sunglasses, umbrella, wet hankerchief, and camelback.

This is me getting my hair and back wet because I couldn't stay cool! My mother-in-law took care of me! I started getting really quite miserable at this point....

So this is like the biggest saguaro cactus we had ever seen, so I am your reference point. I was really miserable, so I put the my camelback in my mouth so I didn't have to smile! I was being such a brat!

Finally, like 7 miles later we made it to our destination 7 Falls. It was beautiful. It took me a while to admit that it was worth it. I had to be miserable for a while! Poor Steve and Sandra!

Steve LOVED this place... now he is just wondering if I will ever go back!

Easter

For Easter, Sandra gave us this nice basket and instead of an easter egg hunt we had a easter basket hunt. Steve won, dang it!

We got these cool really strong magnets in our basket, notice the end fingers, the magnets are just staying there! (ok i think its cool anyways)

For the rest of the weekend, we went up to Mesa to spend Easter sunday with my family. We had a family get together and we saw the Easter pageant at the Mesa temple. It was really fun to spend time with both of our familes at the same time! Sandra left on Tuesday morning, we were so sad to see her go. We had so much fun together. I feel very fortunate to have a mother-in-law I can love so much! We hope she comes back!

Mom's Birthday

So my mom's birthday was the end of March and my dad and little sister were going to be out of town. So Steve and I went up to Mesa and took her flowers and stuff to make dinner! She was super surprised and really happy. We were so excited to surprise her! Happy Birthday Mom!

Pima County Fair

We babysat for a couple in our ward for a night so they could go to the fair, and they ended up giving us a free admission to the fair! So we went and it was really fun. We saw all kinds of animals, (they even had elephants!) and we walked around all of the 4-H animals there were the craziest looking llama's you've ever seen! We saw some trained bears and African acrobats, and ate a funnel cake which was very tasty! We had a lot of fun.

This particular llama liked Steve a lot, I missed when he was trying to give Steve a kiss!

Just me being a dork!

Kiersty, Seth, Laura and Scott's Graduation!

So Kiersty graduated from BYU-Law and Seth graduated from BYU on April 25. Originally Steve and I weren't going to be able to go but at the last minute we bought tickets to go! We didn't tell anyone except Seth we were coming so we basically just showed up on the doorstep and surprised everyone! It was so much fun. My whole family was there so we spent the majority of the weekend with them, which was great because getting everyone together doesn't happen very often! We were able to spend a little bit of time with the Hales when we got there which is always fun. Scott and Laura were both graduating with their Master's degrees so we were happy we got to see them too!

Yep, we still love eachother

The happy graduates

Steve thinks he is a rockstar...

She was really tired...

Yeah for cute colored flats!

So Brittany decided to go to BYU for college, (which makes Steve so happy) so steve took her on a tour of campus and she bought the same BYU t-shirt that I have! It was special!

"Wakeboarding"

Last weekend our friends Troy and Nancy invited us to go wakeboarding! We were pretty excited to get in a run before Lake Powell. So the only lake near tucson, Lake Patagonia, is really little and like an hour away from us. So we drove all the way to the lake and apparently after May 1st, Saturdays and Sundays you aren't allowed to tow people. So we couldn't wakeboard! It was tragic. But we had a nice boatride and caught some sun so it wasn't a waste. Troy and Nancy's little 9 month old daughter Erica kept us pretty entertained. She was a lot of fun!

Nancee and Erica- she makes the funniest faces! We were laughing all day long!

Just me and Steve havin' fun!

Most Recently...

So most recently in our lives, on May 14, we hit our 10 month anniversary! I seriously can't believe it has already been 10 months, but at the same time I feel like we've been married so much longer! Also, Steve made a design at work for the tank round that he works on. It was tested and it worked! There is still a lot of testing to be done and stuff but there is a chance it could go into production. So we were really excited about that. Also he got promoted from and Engineer 1 to an Engineer 2. So it means he now has more responsibility and he is moving up! I am so proud of him he is a great engineer! Also I just finished school today. Well, I am done for a week and a half before I start summer school but I am so happy to be done with this semester. It has been kind of brutal, but I guess a good learning experience. This last school year is the first time since like the 7th grade I have been able to maintain a 4.0. I am really happy about that. I didn't think I would ever do it!

So in honor of my year of 4.0 Steve bought me a digital piano! I am so excited I have been dying to play the piano for a while now but never had a place to play, so it has been wonderful being able to brush up on those skills that have greatly diminished! I have given Steve 2 piano lessons and he is doing great. He can already play 4 songs and practices everyday! My little prodigy....

That is our lives up to this point. Basically we are soo happy and enjoying life! I couldn't ask for more really. Steve is such a great husband and so supportive of me in everything I do!

Playing Catch-Up

I have to admit that my attempt at blogging hasn't been very successful but I will attempt to catch up on the happenings of our lives since Decemeber! First of all Steve and I had an amazing Christmas in Utah, we did all kinds of great things like spend time with family, snowboard, played a million games of cards, and played in the snow!

Christmas morning.... opening presents

Basically I wrapped Steves most wanted christmas present first with wrapping paper, then with duct tape, then with packing tape, then again with wrapping paper. It was really hilariuos to watch him try to open his Garmin forerunner 305 Wristtop GPS running tool! (Every time steve says the name of this watch he says the WHOLE title!)

Christmas Day, Brent (Steve's dad) Steve, Annie (Steve' s sister) and I all went sledding at cheese park. I am ashamed to say that it was my very first time...

So my sister and brother in law have season tickets to the Utah Flash basketball team, and we went to a game with them and they have some hookups there that got us courtside seats! It was really awesome, we had a great time there. In the picture you can see Dale Strawberry's sons behind, thats how close we were! Steve also talked to the Ukrainian Jazz player, he got his autograph and said thank you in Russian, it was special! (The Ukrainian one is on the left)

We spent a lot of time honing my snowboarding skills, and I am proud to say I had A LOT of improvement, I can sort of ride down the mountain all by myself as long as I don't have to much speed!

Our last night in Utah was New Years Eve, and we just hung out with Steve's family some more and played games and a lot of cards!

After Christmas Vacation...

So like 3 days after we got home from Utah I had to get my wisdom teeth out (I have pictures but no one will ever see them!) It was really a terrible experience, I got dry sockets on both sides of my jaw and they hurt for like 3 weeks! The oral surgeon did try to help by putting medicated packets that taste like the worst thing you've ever tasted in you life, in my mouth. So my entire last week and a half of Christmas vacation was bascially spent on our couch in our living room watching movie, after movie after movie and eating nothing but applesauce and mashed potatoes. I was somewhat less than impressed.

When we got back from Utah Steve found out that the program he has been working on for Raytheon for about the last year was awarded the contract from the Army! That was good news. They had a really fancy victory party at the southwestern ranch here in Tucson. There was an open bar, and dancing. I think it pretty much goes without saying that drunk people are really fun to watch dance!

School this semester is tough. I am taking 18 upper division classes (two of which I do not have the pre-req's for). Enough said.

The day after school started Steve and I ditched and headed up the the White Mountains of Arizona to go snowboarding again. It was our first weekend getaway together. It was so much fun, and the weather was a whole lot different than when we went in Utah, I was so hot!

For Valentines Day I bought Steve a plane ticket to Utah to go snowboarding. Really I thought I would be just fine because we have now been married for 7 months. I was totally wrong! He left on Thursday evening and by Thursday night I wanted him home already! Haha, it's definitly the first time we've been apart since our marriage and I really don't like it! He had a great time though, he got to go snowboarding for 2 whole days, with people who were really good (...not me!) and said it was really fantastic, except for me not being there of course!

Well that wraps up our lives to date! I'm pretty sure this is like the longest blog ever but next time I will try to not wait three months before writing a new one!