Wednesday, February 13, 2013

5 years!


So on February 9th we have been married for 5 years now. We decided this year that we wanted to go away and do something special. We found a pretty sweet Groupon for a nice resort in Las Vegas. The best part was it was considerably cheaper than most of the hotel rooms we were looking at booking in the first place. We bought 2 of the same Groupons so that we could use them back to back since they were only for 2 nights. That meant we were going to have to leave Jackson for 5 days, from Wednesday to Sunday. It was quite the task, but my mom was up for being super Grandma while we were vacationing away. Our drive down to Vegas was pretty nice. We escaped the snow, and managed to see lots of pretty scenery.


My favorite part of the drive was getting to talk to Danny, uninterrupted for as many hours as I wanted. It feels like I can hardly ever just talk to him without constantly being interrupted by our 3 year old and him telling us to stop talking and come play. It was absolutely amazing to have peace and quiet for once! The next photo is what we saw driving into town:


It was late in the evening by the time we arrived at the resort, so we didn't get any good pictures that night, but the next morning we took some pretty amazing ones..





Isn't this resort like a dream come true?! It was very Italian inspired, and had a lake, a pool/hot tub, lots of restaurants and shops, and even an outdoor ice skating rink! It was all kinds of peace and quiet as well, since we went in the middle of the week. On Thursday we spent the day in Vegas. The resort had a free shuttle which we called and booked and were soon on our way there. We both realized very quickly that this "free shuttle" was a super bad idea. The driver was crazy and the van/tour bus type vehicle we were riding in was bouncing higher than a kid in a bouncy castle. After only a few minutes Danny and I both felt so sick. We could not get to the destination quick enough! It took forever and once we were off of the bus we had to sit down and get fresh air for like 15 min before we could get up and go sight see. We had to go pick up our tickets for  Blue Man Group over at the Monte Carlo, and then we just walked the strip and explored. Here is Danny in front of the fountains our front of the Monte Carlo:


One of our first stops was at the Coke Cola store. There you can purchase 16 different "cokes" from around the world! some were pretty tasty, some were horribly disgusting. My favorites were Fanta Magic from Estonia (which kinda tasted like grape soda), Bibo Pine Nut from South Africa (yumm!), and Smart Apple from China (tasted like a green jolly rancher in drink form). A lot of these sodas weren't sweetened so they tasted like nasty club sodas. Some of them made we want to throw up. Here is a shot of what they all looked like:


After we hit up the M&M store which was four floors of amazing M&M deliciousness. I even got my picture taken with the actual M&M's. lol



Then we made our way over to the Hard Rock Cafe, and had dinner, which was sooooooo good. I had the tastiest salad I ever ate. Yes it was that amazing!!! After dinner we wandered upstairs and read about/saw lots of music memorabilia and hung out in the VIP lounge...since no one was there but us. the view from out on the deck was pretty amazing..











After that we went back across the street to see Blue Man Group. The show was so amazing. It was one of the coolest things I have ever seen before. I laughed a lot. I didn't get a lot of pictures, except for this one right at the end when they told us we could get out our cell phones and nerd out. They were pounding on drums and making smoke rings! super awesome


The next day we decided to do some more sight seeing. We had been wanting to go to the Stratosphere ever since we came into town.



The elevator ride takes you up so fast, like 3-4 floors per second. It was a little scary. Not because I could see anything yet, but just because I knew I was going super high up. 108 floors later and this was the view. So amazing!! I have never been so nervous in my life. I also have never seen a view like this ever before!!!





then we went outside for a better view of things. you can't tell from these pictures, but it was crazy windy up there. So much wind! It was also a lot colder up there, but we got some awesome photos:





The last day at the resort we had been wanting to go see a waterfall that was there at the resort. So we decided to take a walk and find it. Not only was there a waterfall there, there was also a little beach and a private lagoon. pretty cool for being in Las Vegas...


















Then that evening was our Anniversary, so Danny and I went to this fancy steak restaurant inside of the Bally Hotel. It was fancy and delicious. We had a lovely time and we even got Cheesecake (since we mentioned that we were celebrating our anniversary).  We asked the waiter to take our photo so we could document this special day!



That was pretty much our time in Vegas in a nutshell!!! hope you enjoyed the pictures as much as we enjoyed experiencing it!!!

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Valentines craftiness

I love valentines day, but I don't have a lot of valentines decorations. So I'm fixing that right quick...





I'm sure there will be more to come, but for now, this is all!

Thursday, January 3, 2013

New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve was fun this year. In the evening we went to the Countdown in Provo. An event put on by the city of Provo. It's inside the mall and there's lots to do. Natalie and Brian were there of course, since Brian works for the city of Provo. We got Jackson's face painted, got a ballon animal, we went to a dance party, made sandy candy, posed in a photo booth watched a magic show and played on the playground!














Happy New Years to us!!

Jackson's birthday

As I mentioned before, we were pretty sick in December. Jackson had it the worst. He was even sick on his birthday. We managed to have a party over the weekend with his friends, which was a success. It was construction themed. Here are some of my favorite photos:




























A Happy birthday was had after all!

Christmas

Most of December we took turns being sick. Especially poor Jackson. He was even sick on his birthday. Now we are all finally feeling much better (cross your fingers) and so now I can post about a few things from Christmas and our activities over the last few weeks.
First Santa Clause:





This was our first Santa experience where he wasn't upset and sobbing! Yay for growing up! Santa read to him from his naughty and nice book and even gave him a candy cane.


I even took Jackson to the mall for a little Christmas shopping with my mom, although the only thing he was interested in doing was riding the escalators up and down. But hey! At least he was well behaved.




















We saw lots and lots of lights, including Zoolights, and the Riverwoods, and our very own Christmas tree!!


One of our friends in the ward did 12 days of Christmas to us. Here's Jackson playing with the marshmallow shooters we got on day 7.





Jackson wrote his very own letter to Santa and made him gingerbread cookies. Santa promptly ate the all:)








We went sledding...and speaking of snow, we just keep getting more and more, and it's so freezing, (around 5 degrees to be exact) its not melting!















Here's some photos of Christmas morning! We had a lovely time opening presents, eating orange rolls, and sipping hot tang (since I could barely talk).








We made a few fires to keep us toasty and warm. Trust me when I say it's cold, I mean really cold (right now it's -1).








Icicles are found everywhere in gigantic proportions! But we are all snugly inside our warm house curled up in lots of blankets! That was most of what our December looked like! Comment if you'd like