Summer Reminiscing

This is about 16 days late of the official end of summer, but we had such glorious days of the sunshine season that something simply must be said about it. We had quite the adventure on our way home from our wedding tour (the month-long vacation we took to get married and celebrate the blessed event with fam and friends). First, we flew back from North Carolina to Wisconsin, but only after a 4 hour delay in Raleigh, which put in Chicago at 12:11am...like 15 minutes after the last fligh to Minneapolis left in the night. You know what happens after you miss the last flight out, you and about 300 other people whose flights all got delayed? You spend a scary night in the airport on a cot. Yeah. It was an adventure to say the least. I shivered all night because I refused to use the blankets they distrubuted. You would too. Eventually we made it out of there, and once back in Wisconsin left Wisconsin that same day and set out for home sweet Utah.

Does this look like English to you? I didn't quite feel welcomed...

But we laughed so hard when we saw the dog in the "Cone of Shame"! We love UP!

When we got home, earwigs were waiting for us! It was gross. I couldn't sleep at night. I killed bugs like crazy. Then we fought back like men and Raided the entire apartment. Jeff says I went a bit crazy, but we haven't seen the devils since. Ha!

He really is sleeping. He is smiling because he loves camping :)

Our trip to Strawberry Reservoir for the 4th of July. Jeff taught me how to catch a fish and be a hick

We only caught these two fishies all day! And Jeff had to lure my fish in towards my hook. Lame. But at least I brought snacks (and it was still fun to be out with Jeffrey)

S'mores!!

Jeff's neck was getting burned. This was our solution

The rest of our buddies joined us for a yummy dinner of chicken terriyaki, watermelon, and peach cobbler!

This was Jeffrey's favorite dinner of the summer:

Lobster tails with sauteed spinach and tomatoes, and

baked potaoes. I also made this yumm-o herb butter

for dipping...soooo good!















Jeff's cousin Dave, a.k.a his twin, at his mission farewell. He's in Brazil now, go Dave!

Jeff's favorite summer date night was to go the very unpretentious Nickelcade. It kind of scares me when the first thing you see when you walk in is a huge vat of hand sanitizer, but hey, every game takes nickels, and it's suprisingly very fun.

This is Pioneer Day with my family. We went to Spanish Fork's little carnival, where Shaner got deep-fried oreos (!), Krista and I got corn dogs, and Steve and Jeff wanted to go somewhere else for burritos.

The day after Pioneer Day Shane, Chelise, Krista, Steve, Jeffrey and I went tandom bike riding down the Provo River Trail. It was SO fun! Especially when Jeff and I beat everyone else in the Tour de Provo, and when Krista and Steve got a flat tire.

Hey Lars-look! It's where the sidewalk ends!




I love my monster, he really is quite sweet.

During the summer, I came up with the idea of doing a "culture night" for our date on some weekends. So usually we'd pick a country, then I'd look up a signature food dish of that country and make it for dinner. We also tried getting books on the country that talked about the culture, and once I tried to get a documentary about one of the countries, but usually we jsut followed dinner up with a movie that was somehow connected to our themed night.

One weekend, Krista and the gang joined in the fun and we all went to Mexico together!

We had authentic (yes, the recipe and technique were provided by a Mexican, and yes, they are de-licious) burritos, roasted corn, and guacamole.

And I more my Latino dancer dress! Which, ironically, is from Italy...

In August my Mama paid us all a little visit, and in her honor we had a picnic and played bocce at Deer Creek Reservoir. We also had a pre-birthday party for Jeff, and one of the gifts my Mama got him was Yahtzee, which we of course played, and Krista shocked us all by getting not one, not two, but three Yahtzees!! It must have been my lucky sunglasses. I was too busy smashing bugs to roll a Yahtzee.

To cap off the summer, Jeff got some fish. I'm not a pet person, and pets in the house is a crime to me. And while fish seem pretty nondescript and unintrusive, even these I was a bit reluctant to share space with. I have to admit though, the fish are beautiful and Jeff takes really good-REALLY GOOD- care of them. And they don't even stink! Or make messes! And that's perfect for pleasing me.

When we first got the fish, Jeff watched them like a fat kid watches TV, seriously. He would get up in the morning and run to his tank. Evidence here:

There you have it! Some flavor from our summer! Don't you wish you were here?