My first fishing trip!

Brady and I had planned on going fishing with some of our great gear on Memorial Day. Wouldn’t ya know, it was raining when we woke up that day. We decided to drive down to Payson Lake anyway and see if maybe by the time we got there the clouds would be gone. We got our sunflower seeds and trail mix, and listened to some good country music the whole way down. The fates decided to smile upon us for a good 2 hour period! We were pretty much going fishing just to relax, so it ended up being perfect! It was so beautiful up there! While waiting for the fish to take the bait, I really enjoyed just sitting and taking in the beautiful scenery.


The Trout were jumping out of the water all over the place too! It was such a fun way to spend quality time with my honey! And a nice way to reflect on what soldiers past and present have done in order to give us the freedom and niceties we enjoy! We are so grateful for what they have done for us!
Brady had gotten a bite and started to reel it in, but being the gentlemen he is, he wanted to let me reel it in (he probably knew I wouldn’t catch anything).


I was nervous and apparently gave the fish a little too much slack and didn’t set the hook, because it wriggled free and got away. Ooops. This stick was the only thing we caught that day…
It was so beautiful up there! We loved it for the couple hours the sun was out! Then we had to pack up quickly because it was starting to rain ☺

We got the gear

One of mine and Brady’s favorite things to do is “window” shopping. I actually don’t know if that’s the right word cause its not like we’re actually looking in a window, but basically we go and look at all the things we wish we had and talk about what fun things we’ll do when we are rich enough to buy them. Well, since it was Memorial Day weekend there were some amazing sales going on, which brings me to mine and Brady’s other favorite thing to do: Buy expensive things at super cheap prices.

We went to Big 5 Sporting Goods where it seemed that everything in the store was on sale. We have been wanting to buy a tent for a while, so that we can go camping (if it ever actually gets warm enough, I’m a weenie). We were looking at some rinky dinky 2-3 man tents that were even more inexpensive since they were on sale. We didn’t really mind that they weren’t the nicest quality because come on, its not like we’re going to camp out on the side of a mountain where there’s 100 mph winds and -40 degree weather. We were about to buy an little tent, when Brady found a random 4 man tent that was a better brand and lot nicer than any of the ones we were looking at. We were just curious as to how much it was and were disappointed but not suprised when we found the red clearance tag was more than our price range. It looked like it had been on clearance for a while so we asked a worker how much it was (maybe it was on further clearance with the Memorial Day sale we hoped). She scanned it in and voila, it was around the same price as the ones we were looking at before! We couldn’t believe they had knocked that much more off the CLEARANCE price! To make a long story short, we got a great tent and the rest of the camping gear we needed (all at super prices) to make this summer a hit! Anyone want to go camping?





Brady checking out some tents








Me checking out the fishing poles

Everything is better in French. We miss our Jeffy!

This post is dedicated to my little brosef Jeff, who is in Switzerland speaking French as we speak! We have so much fun reading his emails about his fun adventures and awesome experiences, that we forget to actually write to him to tell him that we are thinking about him and miss him! Don’t worry, I know he will never see this so I finally wrote to him last week.

We really do think about him a lot though, and we want to dedicate this classic Flight of the Conchords video in his memory, because, apparently everything is cooler in French :)



If you can watch this with someone who actually knows French (maybe you can catch a little Mom!) and can translate, its even funnier, but we thought it was great either way. Plus its awesome when it gets stuck in your head and your singing French to you're husband here and there. And I can't wait to see if Jeff can talk with that sweet accent by the time he gets home.

A taste of the cruise....

This is just a taste test of our cruise pics! I made this little photo album and I couldn't fit nearly all my pics in it. It wasn't until after I was done that I figured out how to make an actual slide show, so the real slide show will come later.

Make a Smilebox photobook

I ended up having so much fun making that one that I made another one for fun:

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Allergic to the "real world"

So apparently we are allergic to the "real world". Our cruise was so much fun (we'll post pics later) and we seriously didn't think about work or any other obligations AT ALL. It was awesome to be able to forget everything and just relax on the beach (or boat)! However, the second we stepped off the cruise ship and started our journey home we both started getting a little bit of a sore throat. As we drove closer and closer to reality and the painful thoughts of grading papers, making phone calls, attending meetings, paying bills, doing research, etc. came back to our minds, our sore throats became much more than just a little itch in the back of our mouth. By the time we got home that night and into our own bed, we had aches and pains all over, and were congested to the disgusting max. We didn't sleep more than 4 hours that night, and needless to say, we weren't happy to be back. We diagnosed ourselves as being allergic to the "real world", the proof being that the severity of our symptoms coincided with the severity of our thoughts of work and responsibility (not to mention we literally got sicker as we got closer to home). Obviously the only remedy to our "allergy" is to live the rest of our lives on a cruise ship. After 2 tons of snotty toilet paper, 2 and half bottles of DayQuil, and 1 pound of cough drops we've accepted our fate is not to spend the rest of our days on a ship, and we are slowly recovering as we dive back into the "real world". 

If April showers bring May flowers, what do April snows bring?

A cruise for us! It snowed right through April, and now we’re having May showers. Luckily we will be gone next week on our cruise and hopefully when we get back it will be full blown summer!

Brady’s Aunt Kathleen asked us to do a little house sitting and kid watching for her this week while she and her husband took a little vacay. The kids are older (Jocelyn-5th grade, Riley-7th grade, and Jacey-9th grade) so we knew they wouldn’t really need much from us. We were excited to play some guitar hero and watch some movies on their giant flat screen t.v., plus there was the added bonus of feeling good about yourself because you’re helping someone else out! I mean, how hard could it be right?

I could probably summarize the week by simply saying “It’s hard to raise kids”, but I think I’ll just say a little more about it. It wasn’t uncommon to find a kid or two home a couple hours early from school because they were “sick” or point blank just didn’t want to go to school that day. We found out that Riley had hammered a dent into the fridge without telling us, had broken a chair that sits on the front porch, and he decided to just throw a bowl in the trash instead of washing it because he said it would be too hard. Silly kids! Despite some of the more frustrating experiences, it has been really fun to get to know these sweet kids and their fun personalities better. They were very kind to us, in fact, THEY made US dinner every night (we’ve never eaten so well as a married couple)! Now I just hope Kathleen won’t kill us for all the damage that has been done to her house while she’s been gone…

It has also been really interesting for me this week, seeing as how mine and Brady’s roles are very reversed right now. I feel like it was a good way to be able to understand how He will feel in the future when he gets home from a long stressful day at work, and he will understand how I will feel after having a long stressful day with the kids (and not being able to get all the things done that you wanted to)! It also made me appreciate my own mom and dad and all the shenanigans they've seen with 7 kids!

All in all, I’d say this crazy week was the perfect way to prepare for a nice relaxing cruise ☺