Summer 2011 Part 2

Now on to part 2 of our summer adventures from last year. First up we have the trip to Fish Lake with my family. Let me start with a little history. We used to do a trip here with my Haymond cousins every other summer or so when I was little. I remember having so much fun catching fish, running around like a little ragamuffin, being so excited to sit on daddy's lap and "drive" the boat, and I will never forget going down to the tiny little lodge store with all my siblings and cousins to buy 1 candy each (someone would give us money and we usually went each day we were there it was so fun!)I wish I had access to some of those pictures right now bc they are pure hilarity(next time I'm home I will scan a bunch of my little kid pictures and give everyone a real treat.) Back to Fish Lake, I was so excited to share this part of my childhood with my husband and my sister brought her husband as well (our cousins weren't there this time so that ruined the magic a little bit). We stayed in a lovely little cabin and had our fishing boat and we were set to go. Let's just say it wasn't as amazing as it had been when I was little, I am realizing now how different things are through a child's eyes vs. an adults. We still had a blast spending time with family, eating amazing food, and of course fishing. I am so sensitive to this, i love catching a fish but then I feel bad. (like when I was bawling(literally and Matt laughs at me) on our honeymoon in Costa Rica as we were driving and running over soo many frogs(you couldn't avoid them).Anyways here are some pictures of that trip it was actually pretty cold. Getting ready to head out.

Here's Matt's fish haha

Yay I finally caught one!

We stayed with B and Q in the Beaver cabin, the rest were in a way bigger one.

Here's the whole crew

Had to rock our Fish Lake shirts!

We had lots of fun with my family and I am glad we had all of that time to spend with them over the summer and after this trip the adventures continue as we headed to Oregon to spend the second half of summer with Matt's parents. To be continued in part 3. (and yes there are going to be lots of parts, we were very busy this summer). :)

Summer 2011 (part 1)

Wow it has been almost a year since I posted anything but I wanted to have everything to remember so I am going to briefly catch up to the present. (I am going to right some stuff that yes we already know ie decisions but that we were going through a year ago if that makes sense) Well to start after graduation Matt and I went to the east coast to look at some law schools. We visited Villanova in Philadelphia, PA.

University of Maryland

William & Mary in Williamsburg, VA

We had also already vistited Pepperdine, UNLV, and Willamette. Matt did a wonderful job planning all our flights, trains, hotels, taxis, and rental car on our trip. We really liked Villanova University it was beautiful there!. Didn't like Maryland, and loved William and Mary. Matt was on the waiting list and we (ME) were really hoping that he would get in. I loved Williamsburg it was so pretty and such a wonderful area. We were grateful to stay at Matt's cousin Rebecca's house while we there. Well we didn't just visit law schools on this trip we also did the touristy stuff and I loved it. Here is a few things we did.... The Liberty Bell)

Rode trains

Colonial Williamsburg (It was so cool!) Here we are with Rebecca's family(her husband took the picture)

We went to Busch Gardens.

And we had a few days to spend in D.C.

We had such a wonderful trip and were closer to making a decision about law school. After we got back we were staying with my parents in Vegas for a bit, it was fun to be home and spend time with my family. One of the days Matt had been all secretive and I was getting so mad at him when all he was doing was planning a wonderful night for us! He got us amazing seats to see Phantom of the Opera at The Venetian, and he also got us an awesome suite at The Bellagio with a view that overlooked the fountains. :) It was a lot of fun and very romantic ;). I just love him!

Our view of the fountains with the music playing in the room :)

We also got to try out my new bow, which was so much fun (I should have played Katniss).

Went to the temple.

Made a music video with my sister Morgan

And of course we went to Disneyland! Seriously that place just makes me so happy :)

Waited a ridiculous amount of time for Space Mountain

I am obsessed with Tron!

Finally went on the Storybook ride.

Ok well this is long enough for now, I will finish up the events of the summer in my next post. (Which will hopefully be soon and not a year from now haha).

Graduation

Well it has been an awfully long time since I have posted anything. We have just had so many things going on lately, so its been very busy. I will have a few catch up posts shortly. First of all was graduating from BYU.

Matt and I both graduated and it was so fun to be able to walk together. Matt received his degree in Geospatial Intelligence and I received a degree in Exercise Science. It feels so weird to be done, it will be weird when Matt starts law school in the fall and I won't be starting school :( Hopefully I can get into a dental hygiene program wherever we end up and then I will back to school. It is so amazing to achieve this lifelong goal. Both my family and Matt's parents came for graduation and it was so much fun. We got to eat lots of good food and we all went to Texas Roadhouse after the actual graduation...soo yummy! And after that we had to pack up our house and move it into storage. We were lucky to have Matt's parents help us to pack everything and even help clean, we were so grateful for that.

We are both just so priviledged to have such wonderful and and supportive families who are always there for us and who have helped us to get to this point in our lives and we are so grateful for them. :)

Now here are some pictures from graduation.
Walking across the stage to get our diplomas.

Here we are with my family minus Blake who had a Basketball tournament that weekend.

And here we are with Matt's parents.

Of course we had to take pictures by these big signs on the way up to campus.

Posing with the cougar


More updates coming soon.....

Where in the world will Matt go for law school?!

So this post will be long just a warning. To start I want to talk about our last minute trip to Vegas that we took the week before graduation. We had no school on Thursday and Friday so we decided to drive down to Vegas and then California to go and look at Pepperdine's Law School and UNLV's Law school. I am so glad we took this trip because it has helped to narrow at least 1 decision down. So we packed up and left Utah at like 7:30 pm Wednesday to get to Vegas. We got there at like 12:30 and then we left Vegas at 3:40 AM! to drive to Malibu, CA. Luckily my husband is awesome and I had a little bed in the back seat while he drove that first stretch. We had a meeting at 10:30 with the admissions lady at Pepperdine to take a tour and sit in on a class. Let's just say we were less than enthused with Pepperdine. It has a beautiful location and is a very good school but we just didn't click with it.

So we went into this thinking it was definitely where we would want to go and came out of it knowing it is not where we should go. We just did not get a good vibe here, the school felt like a high school and people were so inappropriately dressed. We just expected that people in law school would try to be a little more professional and take their schooling seriously. Anyways we have decided that we will be turning down Pepperdine it just was not the right fit for us and we really do not feel like that is where we are supposed to be, plus I don't care to deal with the traffic, crazy drivers, and ridiculous living costs. So yay we have made at least one decision! So after our visit we drove to Beverly Hills to see my sissy in law Rachel and go to lunch. It was a quick visit but it was fun and we were glad we got to say hi :) then we drove back to Vegas and of course hit the awful 5 o'clock LA traffic :(. We got home at like 10:30 exhausted.
Ok ya still with me?.... So on Friday morning we went to take a tour of UNLV's law school. I was almost like let's not even go but I am so glad that we did. We met with the admissions director and he was soo nice. He knew Matt's file and commented on his essay, it was so nice to have him be personable with us. We loved it! I have actually never been to the campus before and I really liked it.

We had such a better feeling about this school and the students we saw acted so much more mature and were dressed nicely. The school is very young and isn't as well known as some of the other schools we have looked at but there are soo many more perks to going to UNLV.
1. Matt has a bomb scholarship offer to UNLV
2. We would be close to both our families (mine in Vegas and Matt's in Oregon)
3. We could buy a HOUSE, and finally get a dog :)!
4. I can get back into horse back riding :)
5. I can apply for dental hygiene school and hopefully get in :)
6. We have lots of friends in Vegas instead of moving back east and knowing no one :(

I think I'm sold but we still want to take a trip back east to see our other school options there. So we are working our last 2 weeks at our jobs in Provo and then we are moving to Vegas for the rest of the month to my house until we can figure out where we are going. We are planning a trip during that time. We are going to look at Villanova in PA (where we have another scholarship offer also they have a sweet study abroad program in Rome!:) ), University of Maryland, American University in DC (pretty sure we are turning this down, it is a very liberal school and just doesn't sound like what we want), and William and Mary in VA. I forgot to add that we may take a trip to Texas to see University of Houston, and we will most likely drive to Arizona to look at ASU. We were also accepted to Willamette in OR with a scholarship but we have turned that one down. It is going to be a busy trip and we have a huge decision to make very soon. So that is plan for right now, I am very excited to finalize our decision and get started on this next step of our lives. Anyone who has gone to any of the schools or visited them etc. let me know what your impressions were/are.

Ok lastly I am gonna finish up on the rest of our time in Vegas. Friday I was able to get my hair done yay! Seriously I don't know what I am going to do if we move far away I just don't trust anyone else with my hair (Leslie has been doing my hair since I was like 10 or so and has known me since I was a baby). We ate Raising Canes, their chicken fingers are soo good! Also Friday night we got to go and see Le Reve at The Wynn. My dad got us tickets and it was a sweet show. All of the acrobatics and effects of the show were really fun to watch, we were both lost on the story line though. But I am glad we got to go see it, I had no idea that the whole stage is a big pool!


After the show Matt wanted to walk around a bit (great idea since i was in heels...not. Here is the Wynn fountain.

We went as far as Caesars Palace and then came back. I was trying to take Matt to the Nike Store in the forum shops but it is closed until summer they are like renovating it. So we walked all the way over there for nothing :( Well not for nothing it was still fun just walking around with Matt.

(Ok im getting on my soap box here but I just have to defend my hometown for a minute. I am sick of people always bagging on Vegas and saying its soo sinful and gross. Um hello ya if you spend all your time on the strip that is what you will find but your asking for it there because you know what to expect before you go so its no big surprise. Also can I please point out to these Vegas haters that what you see on the strip is not Vegas those are all the tourists! The tourists bring the trash to the strip, get drunk, act slutty etc. You can ask just about any person from Las Vegas and the majority of them will say they never really go to the strip except to see a show, try a nice restaurant, spend a night in a fancy hotel for a special occasion, to show visitors around because they want to go, or to go shopping. Also there is a HUGE LDS population in Vegas so its not all bad. Once you realize that Vegas is not the strip you see that it is a nice place with nice homes, people, and things to do. Im sure all of my fellow Las Vegans have been irritated by this too at some point or another so you know what I'm saying.) We love it there that's why so many of us have gone back!

Ok back to the trip...On Saturday it was so nice to sleep in a little although my body clock is still set to wake up at 7 am :(. We went around with my dad to look at storage units, and then we all went to dinner with my grandma and Aunt Edyth to Lindo Michoacan for my dad's birthday.


Afterwards Morgan, Matt, and I went to grab Yogurtland for everyone :) We watched the new Narnia movie which was lame. On Sunday we had to leave pretty early to get back by 7 to show our house to some potential new tenants. It ended up being too expensive for them but we fulfilled our contract so we don't have to stress about finding a renter just show the house to interested couples :)

Well that wraps up our trip, we have a lot of big decisions to make in the next month wish us luck!! Oh ya and I have graduation to blog about next :)