Dan's Trip to Frisco!

Last week Dan had the opportunity to travel to San Francisco for a few days with the BYU Investment Banking Club. He had a great time, and I was super jealous I couldn't join him. Dan and I seem to travel a lot, but not very often together, we really need to fix that.

Apparently San Francisco is Dan's favorite city in the states, yet he hasn't taken me there...lame.

Disney and Seaworld!

Last week I headed down south for some quality family and friends time. Dan couldn't come because he is all responsible and had school and work....lame! I missed him so much, can't wait to do the Disney thing with him one day....he isn't as stoked about that as I am ....oh well. 

I started my week off throwing a bridal shower for Kelly, which was so fun. I am getting some pictures of that so look out for a post coming soon on that!

After spending a couple of days at home in South Carolina, my family and I headed to Orlando, Florida for a Disney trip. My cousin Bryce just turned 5 so this was his first trip and it was so much fun. 

We rented a house and 11 of us stayed there. My momma, Caroline, Spring, Courtney, Preston, Danny, Bryce, Emma, Dale, Teri Quinn and Me!

On Friday we hit up the Magic Kingdom. I can't help but just love the Magic Kingdom, it truly does just have such a fun magical feel to it. The highlight for me was....my turkey leg. Haha what can I say?

Mom and I rocking the Minnie Ears

Saturday, everyone headed off to different parks while Mom, Emma, and I played hookie. We read at the house and did some outlet shopping. It was a great relaxing day. 

Sunday the whole gang went to Seaworld. So, does anyone realize how cool this place is? Let me tell you how cool....I FED AND PET DOLPHINS! I was ridiculously happy about this. Definitely the highlight. 

Trying to convince Bryce to feed or touch him...he was having none of it

It was a great week and I felt to blessed to spend some time with the fam bam. We are a crazy bunch and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Just Living Life

I have been absent from the blog lately because, well, not much has been going on. Dan has been busy with school and watching football, and I have been busy with work and planning my bestie's upcoming Bridal Shower!

 

I am heading to South Carolina this Saturday for 9 days! First on the agenda will be Kelly's Bridal Shower I am throwing with Steph! It's going to be a blast but the best part will be seeing all my amazing friends!

 

Next up, I'm heading to DISNEY WORLD with my family! It's been a few years for me so I am BEYOND excited. My whole fam bam is going and it will be a blast. Dan can't make it because of lame school, I SO wish he could come.

 

Starting next week life will definitely be picking up. I've got SC, then we have AZ for a friend's wedding, back to AZ for Thanskgiving, back to SC for Kel's wedding, and before we know it December will be here and Dan will be DONE with college...FINALLY! Can't wait!

The Weekend Dan Became Old

This weekend was Dan's birthday and boy is he old. He turned the big 2-6. I really do love these two-ish months that I get to be married to a much older man. 

When I asked Dan what he wanted to do for his birthday he promptly responded, watch football, and watch football he did. 

Friday Dan went golfing with friends and that night, I took him out to dinner at Pizzeria 712, a delish local pizza place. Then it was on to the Chocolate where we went wild and got a piece of cake to go with our usual cazookie. Every good nights ends with a cazookie in my mind. 

Saturday morning Dan got to golf again. My parents got him a round of golf for his Bday, so he went with Jason and Dan Itri. They had a blast. After the golf was completed for the weekend, football watching commenced. Saturday was full of games. We went over to Dan and Kelsey's that night for the BYU game, homemade pizza, and a surprise golf course cupcake cake for Dan. Kelsey helped me make the cake and we had a lot of fun doing it.

This picture accurately describes our lives during football season...

Sunday, Dan's actual Bday, we went to church and watched football. We had friends over for dinner and more cupcakes. 

It was a weekend full of Golf, Football, and cupcakes. In Dan's world...perfection. 

I sure am grateful for my Dan and love celebrating another year of his life. He has accomplished an awful lot the past year, and has also faced trials with incredible faith. I am excited to spend year 26 with him!

Down on the Farm

Dan's Oma's birthday was a couple of weekends ago so we decided to make the drive to Idaho Falls with Nick and Kendall to visit her and help her celebrate the big 89!

Side note: Oma thought she was turning 88 until Aunt Sherry pointed out to her that she was in fact turning 89. To this she said, "Wow, that year sure flew by." Oma has some of the BEST one liners. 

Dan's uncle and aunt live in Aberdeen, just about 45 miles away from Idaho Falls, so we stayed with them. They have a farm so us city folk had a grand ole time getting down on the farm.

We DUG OUR OWN POTATOES (Kendall and I could NOT get over how cool that was), shot skeet (everyone else actually shot skeet, I shot AT skeet), and even ate some elk sausage. We are bonafide farm people now. I know I was converted. I mean, who wouldn't be with this view?

This little farm kitty followed us around everywhere, I loved it

We spent all day Saturday in Idaho Falls with Oma. She had no idea we were coming so it was fun to surprise her. We went to Olive Garden for her birthday lunch, surprised her with a cake and a rousing round of Happy Birthday, went on a walk, ate dinner with her dinner cards she has won at various games around the retirement home, and played an extremely competitive two hour game of dominoes. It was a really great day.

We also couldn't miss a chance to hit up Scotty's the local drive-in in Idaho Falls and the old stomping grounds of a teenage Carol Gould. They have delicious fries and shakes and we loved imaging Carol hanging out there with her friends.

We had a great weekend with Oma, Uncle Terry, Aunt Sherry, Sarah, and Jill. It is great to be around family and we had a blast!

Labor Day Hike

On Labor Day we decided to use our day off to appreciate some of Utah's beauty. We are only here a little while longer and still feel like there are several things we need to do before we leave. 

A hike to Stewart falls in Provo Canyon was on our list, so we packed our lunch and off we went! Dan and Kelsey decided to join us and it was a great time!

Can I just say that Utah is truly a beautiful place? Especially in the early stages of Fall....I die over the leaves changing.

We seriously live here!

Back to P-Town...again

Well, this is the third time Dan and I have moved back to Provo since we have been married. I won't even go into what number it is for me coming back total. I must say it feels good to be back. Provo seems to be our home base as a couple. We met, dated, and spent our first 4 months of married life here. We are comfortable here. 

We moved our stuff into our apartment last Saturday. We are living on campus and have no A/C which has been a bit rough. To say we have been hot would be an understatement, but we are troopers. In a few short weeks Fall will be in full swing and the days of  not wanting to cook dinner because the thought of turning the oven on makes you want to vomit and sweating in bed while trying to sleep will be a far distant memory...hopefully. 

We also do not have cable. We didn't have it for the summer in NYC also and I have grown to actually love the fact that our TV is never on. We have spent so much more time talking and doing other things together. I now see the huge distraction that the TV was in our lives. We have been going on more walks and spending a lot of time on the Provo Temple grounds. 

I do feel bad for Dan and his football however. Luckily we have great friends who let us crash their house to watch the games. 

We watched the first games of the season over at Dan and Kelsey's on Thursday. It just happened to be a back to back games with Carolina playing in the first game and BYU playing in the second, PERFECT! Both of our teams won so that was great. We cooked up a meal of sliders, mozzarella sticks, spinach and artichoke dip, fruit (b/c we are healthy like that), and dessert. It was so fun to be back with our friends. 

The Gould and Itri boys chowing down before the game!

Other than that School is back in and I am back at work. Life has gone back to normal. December is right around the corner and I smell a lot of changes for us then. 

Two Years Ago Today...Life Began

Today Dan and I have been married for two years. I think my favorite part of anniversaries is the reflection that occurs on them. I love reflecting on our two years of marriage and the day it all began.

Two years ago, Dan and I were sealed for Time and All Eternity in the Columbia, South Carolina Temple. I love how clear and defined eternal marriage is in our Church. Families are absolutely together forever, and it all begins with the sealing bond of marriage. There was no mention of "Till death do you part" in our ceremony, and I thank my Heavenly Father every day for that tender mercy. I get to go through this life, and the next, with the love of my life, not to mention our future family.

These two years have certainly been an adventure. Since the day we were married we began working hard on pursuing Dan's goal of working in the Sales and Trading Division at Goldman Sachs in New York City. We spent hours emailing contacts and working on his resume. We were shocked to get offered an internship from January to July of 2011 in Miami, Fl. We took it and had a great six months living at the beach. The next step was to get an internship at the U.S. Treasury, after hours of interview practice, he got that. We spent 4 months in Washington, D.C. We headed back to Utah for another semester at BYU while preparing to apply and interview for the Goldman internship. The Lord once again blessed us and off to NYC we went for 3 months.  

It seems appropriate that this post should be where I mention the fact that a couple of days ago, Dan officially accepted an offer to work full-time in the Sales and Trading Division of Goldman Sachs. Dan reached his goal, we reached it together. It is overwhelming to see the Lord's hand in our lives and how He has directed our thoughts to help us make every decision to get us here. We feel so blessed and are so excited to start our NYC adventure next summer.

Work hasn't been the only thing we have done through these two years though. In the mean time we cruised to the Bahamas, spent hours with friends laughing and watching sports, attended the wedding of Nick and Kendall, saw Jake off on a two year mission to Hungary, enjoyed Thanksgivings and Christmas's with both of our families, spent both Easter's with Caroline, traveled to Hawaii for two weeks, enjoyed visitors to all of the cities we have lived in, saw 4 Broadway Shows, got a personal tour of the United States Capitol, driven across the country, and much much more.

I can't wait to see what the next year brings. And as Dan says, Two years down, an Eternity to go!



Hey Kel....

This past weekend my favorite engaged couple came to visit us. Darryl and Kelly got here late Wednesday night and left in the wee hours of Sunday morning. I loved every second of them being here. I adore these two and have for lots and lots of years. 

Thursday morning I had to work so they brought me a bagel and we enjoyed catching up while I worked. Once I got off we headed downtown. I showed them where Dan works and we had lunch at Shake Shack. Dan got to sneak out for a few minutes to visit with us. Then we headed to my favorite park in Battery Park City. Also known as my fave spot in NYC. From there we went to the World Trade Center memorial. It was pretty hectic to get in and involved some long lines in the heat, but it was definitely worth it. It was very humbling and an amazing memorial for those who lost their lives in that horrific attack. 

Thursday night we met Keith, Tara, and Dan for dinner at Grand Central Station. It was Restaurant Week so we had a delicious three course meal. It was fun to catch up with friends and we had a lot of laughs. 

Dan and I with K-Money!

Friday I had the day off work which was fab. We once again had bagels for breakfast then headed out to Rockefeller Center. We had fun roaming around and shopping in the NBC store. I broke down and HAD to buy Dan a Seinfeld T-Shirt since he was working and missing all the fun. He is now the proud owner of a SERENITY NOW shirt. I'm sure he will wear it with pride. After that we went to Times Square. We ate lunch at Junior's then stood in the line for discount theatre tickets. After an hour in line and much stress over which show to see, we got tickets for One Man, Two Guvnor's. We saw the play that night and it was SO FUNNY. I have not laughed that hard in a very long time. We had so much fun! We also had our first NYC celebrity siting at the play. Stephen Colbert sat in front of us with his family. It was pretty cool to see him. He was a master of sneaking in and out though so we didn't get to talk to him or anything. 

Saturday we spent the day at the Seaport Festival downtown. There were TONS of food trucks and street vendors selling all sorts of stuff. It was a blast. We also walked down Wall Street to the famous Bull statue and saw the NYC Stock Exchange. That night we hung out at home and went out for an Italian Dinner. 

Kelly and I with the Brooklyn Skyline

I already miss those two tremendously. I am so excited to start their wedding festivities with a shower in October, and the actual wedding in December! 

Now I am on to packing up our little apartment as it's time for us to bid farewell to the city for a bit. We are moving out on Friday. We will spend a couple of weeks in AZ before we head back out to Utah. 

Yay Moving!.....not.