Halloween 2013

One of the perks of working for the children's hospital means you are encouraged to dress up on Halloween. My options were definitely limited this year what with having a ginormous belly and all that. 

So using a little paint and some freezer paper, here's what I guess is technically Baby's first costume(!):

The beak was 3D and definitely a pain all day. But the kids (and their parents) loved it so I'm glad it worked out!

Golf-cation 2013!

 We took our 2013 golf-cation this past weekend! And it was amazing. It poured on Friday, but we decided to just golf anyways. The first course we stopped at in northern VT was fairly new, built on the side of a mountain, and we had the entire course to ourselves because of the rain!  

After a quick stop at our hotel, we drove another 20-ish minutes to this resort that looked like a Victorian mansion to play their fancy schmany golf course. It was still raining pretty hard and some of the holes were flooded, so we skipped those and played what we could.. Again, we had a really nice course all to ourselves and just laughed and had so much fun the whole time (except when we had bad shots, of course….)  And go figure, right as we finished, it stopped raining.

 

Our mom/pop hotel was in a town called Littleton which was PACKED with people. We could not figure out why Littleton is such a tourist destination because there wasn't much to do other than shop on Main Street and walk by the river. (They have a TON of antique/consignment stores - is that something people usually do on vacation?) It was a cute little downtown with a great BBQ spot [AMAZING pulled pork nachos] and the river walk had the cutest covered bridge. Plus it had a candy store and homemade ice cream spots.  

 

Saturday morning, we took the scenic drive through the White Mountains. Probably one of the prettiest drives I have ever been on. We might even go back in a couple months JUST to see it when the leaves have changed for Fall. We oohed and ahhed at some really amazing views. They have a couple waterfalls you can hike to and we stopped at one called Sabbaday Falls. Very pretty and easy hike.

 

Then we drove ourselves on through Maine to the next golf course. Maine surprisingly has a lot of lakes. We found this little tiny town golf course (Cobbosseecontee?) that had all-you-can-walk for $10. They were busy so we ended up joining up with 2 old retired gentlemen and finishing the course with them. As much as I dislike playing with random people, it ended up being really fun.

 

We finished off the weekend driving the scenic route home through Maine. We stopped at the Portland Head Lighthouse, then took US Highway 1 through some of the cutest little beach towns until we reached the Nubble Lighthouse (*also, Brown's Homemade Ice Cream just up the street = AWESOME). It was a perfect sunny day, the beaches were all packed, people were fishing and painting and eating lobster rolls and it was great.

 

Even though it was so fast and we wished we could have stayed forever, work and our wallets needed us to come back to real life. But it was the best weekend. Getting up for work on Monday was tough. Good thing we are going on vacation again in a month!

Hey There. Also, Surprise!

It's been weeks since I posted. So I don't blame you if you've given up on me. 

But hey, we are still alive and kicking here in the good ole See-Tee.  Work is the same busy-ness. David passed another BIG INTIMIDATING EXAM back in June and is now focused on the "modules" - a.k.a lots of mini-classes with projects after each. (*allow me to gush for a split second -- He studies SO much at work and then again afterwards at home to finish these exams/modules. He will hate that I am writing this, but he is amazing and is finishing these so fast and I am so proud of him! Good thing he's going to be the bread winner and not me.)

Other than a few weekend trips down to see the NY family and when David's family came out to visit the east coast, our summer has been pretty blah. Which happens when you work full time and summer is non-existant unlike when we were students. Which was JUST last summer… RIP summer, I miss you already. 

We did go to the US soccer game that happened here in Hartford that we found out about the night before.... Awesome summer night, delicious fries. 

 We are also taking a mini-summer vacation this weekend - to Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine! We are both pretty excited to finallllllllly have a vacation from work and to see more of New England.

 

HOWEVER our summer has still been quite memorable anyways. We are so thrilled/ecstatic/ridiculously happy/excited/etc to tell the Internet world that we will be having a little baby boy this December!

He's even kind of waving to you......

 

We've kind of been keeping this to ourselves for awhile and just relishing in the moment. We even considered being like a celebrity couple and not commenting on it until after baby is born. :)  But we are too excited to NOT share it with everyone.  This pregnancy has been such a blessing for both of us and we CANNOT wait until to meet him!

I think this is the first time in my life that I wish that summer would go by quickly.

New York in a heartbeat

We love New York City! We mostly just hang out with family when we go down, but we snuck in a bit of the city when Lisette received her endowment. (And if you're on Insta you've already seen most of these pictures...)

We started out with some yummy Shake Shack (which I would have to say has better burgers than In'N'Out - fries are great too but not completely amazing). And then we decided to track down a waffle food truck. SO SO GOOD.

Before going to the temple we snuck over to Lincoln Center to watch their fountain show. And then we had a wonderful session at the temple!

It was so great to be in the city even if it was just for a few hours.

Snapshots (4/26/2013)

Remember this?! It's hard to believe it's been a year already. 
Here's what we are like as older, more responsible 25 year olds. :)

LAURA
favorite food: fried chicken
restaurant: Cubby's (I love their steak salad so much)
drinks: Diet DP!!
dessert: cupcakes from the Cocoa Bean
tv show: Alias (I'm so late to the party on that one) and The Mindy Project
movie: 42
hobby: making quilts
candy: Reese's
music (or song): Whatever new stuff Andrew emails me to try out.
free time: HANGING with Andrew since he finished FINALS!!!
dream car: Cadillac Escalade (in BLACK ICE METALLIC)
dream destination: Connecticut


ANDREW
favorite food: hamburgers
restaurant: Mountain West Burrito (otherwise: Tucanos or Red Robin)
drinks: Strawberry Lemonade
dessert: warm brownies and vanilla ice cream
tv show: Suits
movie: Remember the Titans
hobby: BYU Sports
candy: Snickers
music: Madness by Muse
free time: BYU Sports 
dream car:  Lexus 460 Sport, Pearl White or Metallic Black
dream destination: Thailand, or a Mediterranean Cruise where we visit Rome, Athens, Egypt, and Jerusalem

NATALIE
favorite food:  margherita pizza (which is going to work out GREAT with David's new hobby!)
restaurant: Grimaldi's (and Texas Roadhouse lately)
drinks: Diet coke and Sonic ice water
dessert: cheeeeeeeeesecake
tv show: The Voice (and catching up on 30 Rock and Fringe)
movie: Italian Job
hobby: Instagram? Taking naps and reading.
candy: red vines The big tub of them
music: Les Miserables. On repeat.
free time: hanging out with David, walking/running around our neighborhood
dream car: BMW 3 series
dream destination: Utah/Hawaii (basically the same place right?)

DAVID
favorite food: steak
restaurant: Candlelight Inn
drinks: Diet Dr. Pepper
dessert: Ben and Jerry's Half Baked Ice Cream
tv show: Breaking Bad/Arrested Development
movie: Shawshank Redemption
hobby: golfing
candy: snickers
music: "for the widows in paradise for the fatherless in ypsilanti" by sufjan stevens
free time: making homemade mozzarella cheese (not actually trying this til tomorrow but I have been excited for a couple weeks about it)
dream car: either the Audi A6 or the BMW 7 series
dream destination: Italy

6 months + a few weeks

It doesn't feel like we have been here that long. But 6 months went by really fast. I still feel like we don't know the neighborhood or the fun/secret/cool places to eat. We feel really settled here. And we are so ready for it to NOT be winter.

Work is work. David is in the Young Men's presidency and I am now the Sunbeam teacher so that makes Sundays interesting. David took one of his fancy schmancy tests in March and is taking another one in June instead of sticking to the normal "one every 6 months" schedule. So he jumped right back into studying every night. I am so, SO grateful for all his hard work and studying and also that I'M not the one doing it. Because he is way better at it than I ever would be.

We went to NY for general conference weekend and then again the next weekend for Lisette's endowment.
The biggest excitement the past month was the birth of this gorgeous baby girl, Alexa, to my brother and sister-in-lawe. They already have 2 little boys and didn't find out the gender this time around so we were so so excited for their little surprise. Love that head of hair. We can't wait to meet her!!

May is just around the corner and that will be a busy month for us: our anniversary, Nathan is coming home from Russia, and David's whole family is coming out and we will all finally be together in one place!

And here are a bunch of random photos from the past little while.

From General Conference weekend

Session at the NY temple

Messing with our telephoto lens:

This was the last margherita pizza we made. Probably our best one so far.

10 things we miss about Dallas

We were only there for a summer, but it was pretty easy to come up with these.

10 - shopping at every outlet mall + tj maxx/ Marshall's/ Ross trips
9 - super Walmart
8 - warm/hot + crazy weather (thunderstorms, hailstorms, floods, etc)
7 - an abundance of Dr Pepper everywhere
6 - happy people who say "god bless"
5 - freeways with signs painted ON the road
4 - cheap neighborhood pools (!) (really gonna miss this one next summer)
3 - grimaldi's + chick-fil-a + cigarz
2 - free sodas at work
1 - WHITE ROCK LAKE + running every night

10 things we miss about Provo

Maybe they are not YOUR top 10 but these are ours:

10 • married student wards
9 • byu cookies and cream milk + red cream soda
8 • cheap bowling + cheaper everything
7 • Mormons our age + Mormons who don't have kids
6 • real mountains (and camping)
5 • a temple down the street
4 • mountain west burrito + cafe rio
3 • super walmarts + ANY store open past midnight
2 • watching byu sports live in person
1 - hanging out with friends

Overstock fail.

I wrote this really long story out but I'll shorten it because we all know pictures > words:

Graduation + moving + new job = we can buy real furniture!

2 chairs are cheaper than 1 couch or loveseat, and fit better in an apartment.

Overstock has good deals sometimes.

Buy 2 chairs thinking that even if the color in the picture online is different, we'll still be okay.

Have chairs delivered: NOT THE SAME COLOR. At all. Chair 1 is lighter than chair 2.

Decide to return one chair, have THIRD chair delivered before chair 2 is picked up.

CHAIR THREE IS ANOTHER THIRD COLOR.

Shake head and roll eyes at overstock's foolishness.

Whatever. Close enough. Give up and keep chairs 1 and 3.

Take cell phone pics and share even though you have a dslr........

25

My sweet, sweet husband planned ahead and had my present ready a couple weeks before my birthday. Then while dealing with the whole chair situation, I ruined my own surprise -- I got a telephoto lens!! It is so great. I keep waiting for the weather to FINALLY clear up so I can go outside and really use it instead of just messing around in the apartment.

I actually was bummed I ruined the surprise. I know, I know - kind of childish, but who doesn't like surprises?!

But hey, no better way to ring in being a quarter of a century old than eating delicious Thai food and ruining your own birthday present.