Alphabet Dating--A

Exactly one month from tomorrow, Phil and I will have been married for 2 years! It's crazy how fast the time has gone. It has been a fun 2 years and the good thing is that we still love each other more than ever. One thing we have noticed, however, is our creative dates have greatly diminished. Our "dates" usually include going out to dinner then coming back to our apartment and watching a red box or netflix. What happened to our creativity. So I had this brilliant idea. We are going to ALPHABET DATE. We will take turns planning dates A-Z and the date has to be focused around the letter. I started things off with our "A" date.

We started the day by go on A RUN together. Ok, that one is a stretch but oh well. After our run we watched ASHLEY on the Bachelorette. We missed it Monday night so I had to get it in somehow.

Phil and I had laundry to fold so Phil moved our iMac to the floor in front of our TV so we could fold and watch ASHLEY on Hulu on a bigger screen than the laptop. Great idea!!!

We got ready for the day and drove up to Sandy and went to the AQUARIUM! It is a dream of ours to have a salt water fish tank someday. More specifically, we want a jellyfish and/or a seahorse! We had so much fun.

Yes, we decided to ride the frog! Frog? I thought this was an aquarium? I guess they justify frogs because they live in water. I don't think they belong in an aquarium though. We also saw lizards, snakes, and spiders...go figure! Maybe they want to become a zoo someday.

Touching the sting rays totally made Phil's day. He thought that touching the sting rays alone was worth the $8/person to get into the aquarium. I'm glad he was so happy!

Don't ask me why my face is so white. No idea!

This is my friend, Milden. He got a little too friendly on our first meeting.

Yay for penguins! They seriously are my favorite. This one kept jumping in the pool to swim. He was very entertaining!

For dinner...APPLEBEE'S. It was either that or ARBY'S. I seriously could not think of any other "A" restaurants. Dinner was yummy, especially since we got the 2 for $20 deal. Gotta love that. Our waiter was an AIR-HEAD though. He was ABSENT AT our table ALL the time. What an AMATEUR. I wanted to ACCUSE him of ABANDONMENT AND ABUSE but Phil decided to leave an ABSURDLY small tip instead. That was a good enough punishment for me.

The final part of our "A" date was ARCTIC CIRCLE for dessert. We got a divine shake. All-in-all, it was a very successful first alphabet date. We look forward to finishing the alphabet. Phil's up next with the letter B!

Yay For Frozen Yogurt!

My latest and greatest favorite treat is frozen yogurt. I seriously love getting the little sample cups, trying different flavors, then putting together a yummy treat with my favorite toppings! Even if I already know what I'm getting, I have to get a sample cup. My two favorite FroYo places are Yogurtland in Orem and Orange Leaf in Highland. Favorite flavors: Yogurtland--Red Velvet cupcake batter, vanilla wafer and cinnamon Graham cracker... Orange Leaf--cake batter, pomegranate, pineapple, and raspberry! My mood determines what I actually get. The best part is that I've found a way to convince myself that frozen yogurt is actually good for me. Ok, well maybe not GOOD for me, but definitely not bad for me!

I went to Orange Leaf with my family on Memorial day and I discovered that they will turn your spoon into a bracelet! Sweet right? Of course I wanted one.

Tada!!!!

Now I have an Orange Leaf spoon bracelet forever and ever. I'm definitely craving some frozen yogurt now. Good thing its Friday. I bet I can convince Phil to take me ;)

Just Cruisin'

A little over a week ago, Phil and I got home from a cruise to the Bahamas! Neither of us had ever been on a cruise before and we had a blast. I am now in LOVE with cruises. We went with Phil’s parents and his sister and brother-in-law. It was a fun couples trip.

Waiting at the airport for our redeye flight Sunday night.

Despite our jetlag and lack of sleep, we were ready to party! Oh speaking of lack of sleep...Phil made a new friend on the plane with whom he talked to all night (is that the correct use of whom? I never know). Needless to say, Phil didn't get any sleep. Phil is really good at talking to anyone in any situation! This guy was actually a UVU student going home to Burmuda for the summer. To paint a picture, he was covered with tatoos and piercings. However, Phil did have a chance to briefly talk about the church so that was nice. We boarded the ship at about noon on Monday. The first thing we did was EAT and explore the ship until we could check into our rooms.

I have to put in a plug for Fernando. Fernando was our housekeeper and boy was he a good one! He came twice a day and I have to say he was quite the organizer and very artistic. The very first night I got ready for dinner and I left my hair and make-up stuff all over the desk. We got back to our room that night and my clutter had turned into this...

Fernando was also very good at making towel animals. We had a dog one night and what we think was Yoda the next. We didn't take a picture of Yoda because we weren't actually sure if it was Yoda. Here is our dog. We named him Fernando!

Once we could check into our rooms, we changed into swimming suits and hit the pool for some sun as the boat left Miami.

I think Jim’s favorite part of the whole trip was the soft served Ice Cream. He couldn’t get enough of it. I was pretty disappointed because the only flavors they had were vanilla and strawberry. No CHOCOLATE!!!

On Tuesday morning, we woke up at the Grand Bahama Island. We spent the day window shopping through the little stores and laying on the beach. We had so much fun in the amazing water and on the beach making sand sculptures. The boys made a woman and the girls made a sea turtle. It was fun watching people walk down the beach and stop to stare at our creations. I have to admit though, the woman was more popular than our turtle. A big group of 10 people even asked Margo to take their picture with it. It was a fun day!

Meals at the end of the night were always fun and the food was amazing. We also enjoyed shows every night. We saw a magic comedy show, a "Dancing with the Stars" competition, "On Broadway," and the closing night show. All of it was so fun.

The next day we landed at the Great Stirrup Cay. This is the cruise lines private island and it was probably my favorite island. We snorkled and had a blast. We saw a few note worthy things...several sting rays, squid, and a BARRACUDA!!! Like one of these things...

It was really cool. Snorkling was so fun. I love the sensation salt water gives you of just floating at the top of the water. The cruise line had fun music playing the whole day and they fed us a yummy BBQ buffet lunch on the island. Margo also rented this floating island thing, which was fun to have.

Our final destination was the beautiful island of Nassau. Our excursion that day was the amazing Atlantis resort. It is a beautiful hotel/aquarium/waterpark. We enjoyed a fun day of looking at all the fish and playing on the slides. They have two sweet slides that shoot you through a shark tank. It was an incredible trip!

Just an interesting fact about this hotel...this arch contains two suits that each cost $25,000/night with a four night minumum. Some serious celebrities have stayed there like Michael Jackson, Beyonce, and Tiger Woods! Thats a lot of money to drop for four nights!

Homemade Cafe Rio

Phil and I got home from a cruise late Friday night (more on the cruise to come) and unfortunately, Philip came home sick. We had made plans to have dinner with our neighbors, Drew and Natalie, Saturday night but Phil was really sick and we didn't want to make them sick. We felt horrible cancelling, but Drew and Natalie were sweet enough to bring us dinner anyway. The doorbell rang and we opened the door to the most amazing looking Cafe Rio salads and Brazilian lemonades. It was so nice of them and I'm pretty sure Phil felt better after eating the yummy dinner ;)

Seriously!?

Yes, today is April 30! Really? Because it doesn't look like it. I'm starting to wonder if spring/summer will ever come :(

Plastic Gun + Mask = Scary

I am excited to say that I finished the semester strong! The unfortunate part is that I'm starting back up on Wednesday for spring term. This semester was weird in the way that I didn't feel a huge lift off my shoulders when I finally finished like I have with other semesters, but it was still nice to check off my last final from my list.

I don't know why, but I have this horrible habit of pushing off my most dreaded final to the last day of finals. It is something I have done since my first semester of Freshman year (I don't foresee a change in the future).

On a night during finals week, I had just gotten home from Highland and I returned a plate to the Willmore's. Natalie knew that Phil was at work and she was in the mood to pull a prank. Ok...quick explanation... Natalie and I have this little thing in common where our husbands love to scare us to the point of tears, but we can never scare them back. So Natalie tells me to tell Phil that I'm going to go to the store so I probably won't be home when he gets home from work. Drew put on a wolverine mask and a hoodie and grabbed a fake plastic gun and his role was to hid behind the fridge while Natalie and I sat on the bed in the bedroom and watched. Phil walked in the house, took off his coat and got scared (for once) by Drew. I guess if I can't scare him, a man in a supposedly "empty house" with a mask and a gun is the next best thing.

We reenacted it afterwards haha

Natalie and I were quite amused by the whole thing, Natalie so much that she wanted to pull a prank on someone else. The target... the Clark's. The Plan... Phil texted Ryan and said that he saw a man looking into their car window. Drew was going to be standing by the car and when Ryan opened his apartment door, Drew was to point the fake gun at Ryan and tell him to get back in his apartment. This whole thing would look a little like this from Ryan's point of view...

Let me just say, this was Natalie's mastermind plan, but it did sound really funny to me at the time. Unfortunately, we didn't think through the plan very well because we didn't expect the outcome. So Ryan opened the door just like we thought, he saw drew, and ran back inside and slammed the door. Phil booked it from our hiding place and started knocking on their door to let them know it was just us. Ryan finally opened the door and about 15 seconds later 911 was calling Ryan back. We stood in the doorway and listened to Ryan tell them that it was a mistake and give them all of his information. We felt horrible. I can't even imagine how he must have felt. Ryan told us later that he ran inside and told Courtney "There is a man outside with a gun!" and he quickly called 911. When he heard Phil outside he wanted to yell, "Phil, there is a man with a gun, get away!" The Clark's were nice enough to forgive us. Like I said before, it was really funny, but not very smart at the same time.

Good thing this wasn't a real situation

Once again, Phil and I are sad to move away from all of the great friends we have here in Provo.

Happy Birthday Philip! ...Two months early?

One of the things I love about Philip is how passionate he is. I'm coming to realize that this passion can greatly benefit me and I know that it will benefit our future family someday. However, this passion can also drive me slightly crazy depending on how it is focused :)

Lately, Phil has been obsessed with the iPad 2. He has recently convinced himself that he really needs an iPad. As he puts it, an iPad will "enhance my life." Just to illustrate how adorable he is when his passionate side kicks in, two days ago we talked about nothing but an iPad! No joke. Ok, granted we only saw each other for a few minutes before he went to school, 30 minutes after he got home but before I went to school, 30 minutes after I got home but before he went to work for the night, and 30 minutes when he got home from work before we went to bed. Oh, and then we did text about the iPad throughout his shift as well. So there wasn't tons of face time, but an iPad was the topic of discussion. See...cute right? But kind of annoying in a totally loving way!

I did a lot of thinking that day and I kind of came to the realization that he was going to get an iPad but I wanted it to be under my own terms. At 11:30 Monday night as I was washing my face, I realized that the next day was April 12th, exactly 2 months before his June 12th birthday. I kept thinking, and decided I was going to surprise him with the iPad as an early bday present. So yesterday I went to the BYU bookstore and bought the iPad 2 and a green cover, just like he wanted. Throughout the day, I decided that if I'm going to give him his present early, why not go all out and celebrate early as well. I sent out a mass text to lots of our friends and told them I was throwing Phil a surprise party that night. I know this was totally last minute but I was actually really excited about doing it. And more importantly, I knew he would be really excited about getting his iPad.

After school I went to the store and bought balloons, soda, and Chex Mix. I thought about making a birthday cake but I was already planning on making cookies for a friend and Phil knew that, so I stuck with cookies as to not raise suspicion. When he got home from a meeting at the U of U, I set him on the couch and this is what happened...

I didn't get the excited reaction I was hoping for on camera, but don't you worry, later he was jumping up and down all over the place. I was really glad he was happy. But I honestly didn't understand why he already figured I had bought him an iPad. He said it was because I was late coming home from school and I'm never late. I think that's a stupid reason especially since I had a totally legit lie for being late, plus I had told him over and over that I was still thinking about whether or not I even thought we should buy one. Apparently he knows me too well just like he said.

He might have seen through the first surprise but there was no way he was expecting friends to show up for a party. We had dinner and Phil spilt on his shirt so he decided he would just get in his PJs and settle in for the night even though it was only 7. Haha I thought it would be hilarious if people showed up and Phil was in his pajamas so I didn't tell him to change. Plus, I wasn't going to ruin this surprise and make him suspicious by telling him to put clothes on.

Although Phil claims he suspected the iPad, he was very surprised that I had thrown together a party as well. Even though it might sound kind of lame and cheesy to do all this...I like cheesy, and Phil definitely loved his Birthday Party. So Happy Birthday Phil...(oh, and happy Easter, fathers day, anniversary, Halloween, and Thanksgiving! We just rolled everything into this iPad. I hope it is worth it). I love you Phil and your passions!

This is Phil's cake made out of cookies!

He only got 10 candles instead of 24 because they were hard to put in the cookies.

Even my little sister Ali came!