Castlewood State Park

The Thursday (May 3rd) after arriving in Missouri we decided to do some exploring of our new hometown of Ballwin. Michael had heard that there was a State Park just a few minutes from our apartment, so we set out with a picnic lunch to find it. Unfortunately, Michael couldn't remember the exact name of the park so it took a little longer than a few minutes to get there. But eventually we found it and were surprised at how much we enjoyed it! We both agree its like Provo Canyon, minus the mountains :)

  We found a little picnic table by a creek, ate our lunch and had fun scaring the little fishes (we discovered they don't like shadows). Then we took a short walk to put our feet in the water and get a closer look at the fish. We took a little drive through the park and discovered that they had a beach! The park is along the Meramec river, so they created a little beachy area with soft sand. Just no palm trees :( On our way out we stopped by the ranger station and were able to pick up a map of the park and learned that they have quite a few hikes that we are excited to try out. We also got a great book of attractions in St. Louis. (It has been great to have as we have explored the area!) 

Anyways, it was a beautiful park, a little haven of mountainous land in the Midwest, and we can't wait to go back! 

Part 3 of our Journey to the Midwest

Thankfully day 2 on the road wasn't as long as day 1...only 7 hours! We got a little later start then we had planned. But I think the extra sleep was good for everyone :) We had a free breakfast at the hotel. I always love it when they have the yummy, fresh waffles! Then hit the road once again.

Traffic lights in Lincoln...I had never seen them sideways before.

A little more of Nebraska

Crossing the Missouri River...we actually crossed it quite a few times that day.

Popped into Iowa for a bit. The sign reads "The people of Iowa welcome you"

A little taste for the landscape of Iowa. 

Random body of water to the side of the road in Iowa. Was actually kind of pretty. 

Hello Missouri...FINALLY! 

 

Each city seemed to have its very own water tower. Its actually kind of cool to see them, especially when passing through a lot of small towns.

A quick peek at Kansas City...Hopefully we will be able to spend a weekend there this summer. 

Hello beautiful new temple! We had just barley missed the open house. They had just ended those the Saturday before and when we drove through it was being cleaned in preparation for its dedication the following weekend. 

Go Royals! We were thinking of the Terry family when we passed this! 

It is so much greener in Missouri! And its like this in the area that we are living too. We went to the mall the other day, which sits up on a hill. And from the parking lot you just see lots of trees with the occasional rooftop peeking through. We really love all the vibrant, green trees! 

Cool rock formations that we passed. I guess out here you could call it a hill. Not nearly as big as the mountains in Utah, but still cool. :)

Some highlights from the day:

• My very first meal from Sonic. Michael was shocked that I had never eaten there before. The chicken sandwich was the best fast food one and had had on the trip thus far. And the berry lemonade slush was very refreshing, especially since we were definitely starting to feel the humidity! It was also kind of cool just staying in the car and having them bring the food to us on roller blades :) 
• We hadn't been on the road long after leaving Lincoln and were driving along a beautiful country highway, I was starting to doze off when all of the sudden Michael starts pulling over and I hear "oh crap". Then I saw the flashing lights. Thankfully, it was a nice cop and he let us off with a warning. Perhaps he just pitied us with our extremely loaded and covered in bugs car. Moral of the story: Always use cruise control and be extra cautious the next time you are driving on Nebraska highways! 
• Making it to our new apartment around 4 that afternoon. Signing lots of papers and finally getting our keys. We did some grocery shopping. Unloaded the car. And settled in for the night with our sleeping bags and watching Netflix on Michael's phone. Don't worry our furniture was delivered the next morning so we didn't have to sleep on the floor again.
• Oh, and did I mention that I had a full blown cold by that evening. I am blaming runny nosed niece and nephews....its a good thing they are cute.

Part 2 of our Journey to the Midwest...

...equals one long day of 13 hours on the road! We left Logan Monday morning a little after 9 (remember we had to get the tire fixed). Then proceeded to make the long trip to Lincoln, Nebraska. Not many highlights from that day. We had Wendy's for lunch in Rawlins, WY. We made a quick stop in Cheyenne, WY at the Wells Fargo for a cashier's check for our apartment...which ended up being a good thing because there are NO Wells Fargo's in the St. Louis area, I thought they were everywhere! Arby's for dinner in I-have-no-idea-where. Some small town in Nebraska...except we were surprised to discover they did have a Walmart. I didn't have to drive much...I hate driving on long trips and in places I am not familiar with. And I think Michael prefers when I am not driving too :) The majority of the drive we listened to an audio book that Michael had downloaded before we left. He gets one before every long road trip. We didn't have time for any scenic stops, but I did manage to get a few pictures from the car. The scenery isn't much to Ooh and Aww over, but its still kind of neat to see it get progressively greener as we get closer to Missouri!

I believe this was right after passing the Welcome to Wyoming sign. Not much out there, but at least we had nice weather! 

So many windmills. I was driving when we first passed these. I almost snapped a picture since Michael was sleeping, but thought it would be best to focus on the road. Thankfully we passed some more when Michael was awake and could get these pictures. 

More a little closer. Seriously, these were the most exciting thing about Wyoming! 

Hello Nebraska!! 

Hey look a little random clump of greenery! Seriously though, we would be driving along and there would just be a little patch of trees and such, then just flat again. 

I thought the fields were kind of cool. It was like giant stripes of green, then brown, green again, then...I think you get the idea :) 

A grasshopper!! 

Cows! Everywhere! And they smelled! 

We finally made it to Lincoln around midnight. We were both really tired. Thankfully Michael had already reserved a hotel for us so we didn't have to worry about finding a place. We took advantage of the WiFi, I took a shower, and then we hit the sack!

Part 1 of our Journey to the Midwest

The first leg of our Journey took us Logan, UT. Not exactly "along the way" but we wanted to stop and see my family there before heading out. We got there Saturday night, April 28th, and stayed until Monday morning, the 30th.

Some highlights of our time there:

• A late dinner with Corinne, Morgan and Bailey at The Blue Bird Saturday night. Drooling over all they yummy chocolates and ice cream sundae's after dinner and deciding that we weren't too full for dessert! We weren't too fond of the prices though, so Michael and Morgan stopped by the grocery store on the way home :) 
• "Dinner" or lunch according to most people, with my nearly 100 year Grandma Sunday after Church. The food there is always a little hit or miss. The BLT was a good choice, but I had never seen so much mayo on a sandwich! I seriously thought it was some melted swiss at first. Then Michael and I visited with her for a bit back in her room. 
• A yummy Sunday dinner at Jeremy and Tanna's with the family
• After dinner playing with the kids outside
• Discovering we had a flat tire Sunday right before dinner. Thankfully it ended up just being a broken valve that most places fix for free! Michael and Morgan were able to take it to get fixed early Monday morning. Funny though that it happened to us last August the night before we were heading back to UT after visiting my family in CA.

Thanks Corinne and Morgan for letting us stay with you! We always love coming to visit, and can't wait to see you on our way back at your new place...in Denver! And thanks Tanna for the delicious food. I can't stop thinking about that delicious bruschetta! It was really nice to relax for a couple days before hitting the road for our 20 hour road trip. We can't wait to see you all again in CA for Grandma's 100th birthday party!! 

Some pictures from the weekend:

Michael, and Jeremy and Tanna's new dog, Bo. 

 Corinne and I did a little photo shoot with Bailey in her adorable sailor outfit. Isn't she just the cutest?? It was hard to pick just one picture! 

This one was just so funny with her squinty eyes 

Looking up at someone...I think it was her daddy. 

My personal favorite! 

Austin and his neighbor friend with Evan's new wagon that he had gotten the day before for his birhday

Sydney showing off her awesome jump rope skills

Michael joining in the fun with Sydney and Keegan

Enjoying a few precious moments with Bailey Monday morning while getting our stuff together. She was kind enough to let us share her room, but it came with a price...a 7 am alarm clock every morning! It was ok though, we would let her lay in bed with us until she made sure we knew she was hungry, then we gladly handed her over to her Mama and happily went back to sleep. Just a little practice for the future! 

A cute video of Bailey chatting away. She is a little camera shy at first, but then she gets talking again. I am really going to miss her (and her mom and dad, too) when they move to Denver at the end of the summer :( 

A Whirl Wind Move

Brace yourself for a super long post and no pictures. Don't say I didn't warn you :) 

Michael accepted the internship offer in Ellisville, Missouri right in the middle of finals. And within 11 days we notified our landlord, began packing and cleaning, searched and searched for an apartment in MO, hauled most of our belongings to storage, and loaded the car with enough stuff for our 3 month adventure. It all happened pretty fast, and with lots of prayers it went pretty smoothly with only a couple minor kinks.

Kink #1- Finding an apartment complex that would do a short term lease, and that wasn't ridiculously overpriced was a challenge! Then one night Michael came across an add on Craigslist for a sublease at an apartment complex that we had looked into but was way out of our price range. The lady was moving closer to her new job and it was cheaper for her to sublease at a discounted rent (only $500!!) then to pay the fee to end her lease early. We replied within 2 hours of it being posted and got a response right away. Michael talked to her the next day, Saturday, over the phone. She was excited to have it subleased so soon and we were thrilled to have an apartment! She even sent us some pictures of the apartment and was willing to leave some furniture that she wouldn't need at her new place. Since it was the weekend she said she would contact the office on Monday regarding the official paperwork and get back to us after. Well Monday rolls around and around noon Michael gets an email from her saying sorry but she had a deposit from someone else and would let us know if anything changed. We were pretty frustrated! She never said anything about wanting a deposit yet or any other interested people. Well that was Monday and we were hitting the road in 5 days, so that began our mad search for an apartment! Thankfully we found a place that was in the $700 range that had open units! It was truly a blessing and we have been fairly happy with our new home in Missouri!

Kink #2- happened on Saturday, May 28th, moving day. And thankfully our landlord was really understanding and it only just pushed us back a couple hours. Michael had borrowed a moving dolly from his boss and arranged for him to hold onto a couple things that we didn't want in storage all summer. Well he lived pretty close to where we were returning the U-Haul so he was going to meet us there. Well we made it just in time to return the U-haul by 2. Michael texted his boss. We waited a few minutes. No boss. We called our landlord to let him know we were going to be a few minutes late for our final check out. He said that was fine, since he was running a little late himself. We waited some more. Michael called and texted his boss again. Still no response. Now we started getting a little worried, maybe he got in an accident on his way over. Finally we decided that Ryan would drive me back to the apartment so I could clean out the fridge and do the final walk through with the landlord. Well I cleaned the fridge. The landlord, Kerry, had already looked over the rest of the apartment and said it looked great. (Sidenote: Kerry said he had never seen a cleaner oven. Michael was very excited when he heard that since he had spent a lot of time cleaning it the night before!) We did all this and still no Michael. Kerry had a couple other things to take care of around the complex so he said to find him when Michael got there. I called Michael and still nothing from Tom, his boss. He had tried calling a couple friends with cars big enough to transport the dolly, but only got voicemails. He asked me to go ask Kerry if he could pick him up. Kerry said sure. My mistake was that I forgot to call Michael back soon enough to tell him Kerry was on his way. By then Michael called to say a guy from the ward was coming. Now that meant 2 people were coming for him...opps! Michael called Kerry to tell him the mix up. The guy from the ward got Michael and drove him to Tom's house. It ended up that Tom was waiting for Michael's call, but his phone was on silent and he was working on a tractor and never noticed all the missed calls. Thankfully it was all just a silly mistake and nothing serious :) We got everything wrapped up with our landlord, handed over our keys, and said our final good byes to our 1st apartment as a married couple. Bittersweet, but mostly sweet after a crazy busy morning of moving. No pictures :( Like I said it was too busy to think about pulling out the camera. 

For journal purposes here is a rough timeline of the events on Moving Day, Saturday May 28th:

1am-ish: hop in the shower after a late night of cleaning, final packing, and loading up the car. 

2 am- finally in bed, but just sleeping on our mattress with a couple blankets since sheets have already been loaded into the car :)

7:30 ish- wake up and throw on the only clothes that have been left out of the suitcase

8:00- pick up the U-Haul. We have it until 2pm! Take it home and do some reorganizing to our car. And start taking some boxes to the truck. 

9:00- guys from the ward are supposed to be there, but they don't actually get there until around 9:30...typical MST (Mormon Standard Time)!

11:00- everything is in the truck...Finally. We munched on some cinnamon rolls as a thank you for all their hard work and help. Then Michael and I got to our final cleaning and vacuuming of the apartment (since we needed to put the vacuum and broom and such in storage) 

12:00- Ryan and Aaron showed up to head to the Storage unit in Spanish Fork (we would have gotten a closer one, but we found a really great deal at this place!) to help us with the unloading. We finished up the last of our cleaning and through the last minute stuff in the truck.

12:45- we finally got to the storage unit with less than an hour to get it all unloaded and moved in! Here was our game plan. I went into the office to sign some last minute paperwork. Michael and the guys went through the gate, and started unloading things outside of the unit, when I was done in the office the lady then took the lock off the unit. Then it was just like a game of Tetris :) We had decided that if we were running out of time then we would get everything off the truck and Michael would head back to return the truck and I would stay with Ryan and Aaron and finish putting the things in storage. Thankfully it didn't result with that and we finished in the nick in time and got to the U-haul place with 10 minutes to spare! It was a miracle- I still can't believe we finished that fast! 

2:00 is when our Kink #2 began :) 

4:00 we were finally on the road to Logan

5:00 stop in Kaysville to say goodbye to Michael's family. Both his parents were home, the house was pretty quiet (very unusual) and his parent's were feeling particularly talkative. We talked for a bit, I helped his sister finish getting ready for prom. And left after staying a little longer than planned...oops :)

6:45 ish- when we left Kaysville and made the rest of the trip to Logan. 

8:00- met Corinne and Morgan at the Blue Bird for a very late dinner. Can I just say how nice it felt to eat after such a long day. Unfortunately, after not eating much throughout the day, I wasn't really that hungry. But it was still pretty nice to chill and relax and the food was delicious! 

9:00- we headed home to Corinne and Morgan's. Ate some ice cream, talked watched some TV and finally went to bed probably around midnight, or maybe it was 1...I can't remember :)

Like I said, we were very blessed that our many prayers were answered and everything fell into place in such a short time! Our Landlord was very generous and gave us a really good deal when we only gave him 11 days notice when it should have been 30. And it was a beautiful day! And no rain- everytime I have moved since coming to Utah it has rained...seriously! 

Next up Part 1 of our Journey to the Midwest

Mother's Day

I am a very lucky girl. Even though I am not a mom yet, I was still treated like a queen by my lovely husband on Mother's Day!

Church was wonderful. It was our second week in our new ward here in Missouri and I continue to be in awe at how kind and welcoming everyone is. Sacrament meeting the primary children sang and it always makes me smile hearing the cute singing voices of the little kids. The young men passed out a little bag of treats for each of the sisters. At first Michael and I thought they were brightly colored gum balls. Which we thought was an odd choice for a Mother's Day gift, especially considering the many older sisters in the ward. Later, when we got to the car we were relieved to discover they were just large malt balls! In Relief Society they arranged to have all the women be able to meet together. They had some yummy crackers and dips, and fresh fruit for us to enjoy as we visited for a few minutes before the lesson (which was perfect, I always get so hungry when we have 1 o'clock church!). I was lucky enough to sit next to two younger sisters, one of which lives in our same apartment complex, and the other, her sister-in-law, who I discovered also lived nearby and who graduated from high school the same year as me. It is always nice to discover other young married girls with so many similarities to me- she and her husband were married just a couple of months before Michael and me.

After church we came home to a delicious smelling apartment! That morning, before leaving for church, Michael had gotten some boneless pork ribs started in the crock pot. He even researched a rub he could put on them, then smothered them in some yummy St. Louis bbq sauce. We also enjoyed a yummy salad and fresh (from the freezer to the oven :D ) bread! It was a delicious meal that Michael did all on his own and he even did all the dishes afterwards! He is a great cook and I love when he treats me to a special dinner. A lady at church asked me what we were doing for Mother's Day dinner and she was so surprised to hear that Michael had a dinner planned. She thought it was so sweet. I truly am lucky to have such a thoughtful (and handsome) husband! It was a wonderful day and I am so glad I got to spend it with him. And someday I can't wait to spend it with a houseful of kids, which Michael says we aren't having, but I know he is just joking! ;)

We got to talk to both of our wonderful Mamas. It was nice to talk to both of them, we just wished we could have been in 2 places at once to celebrate with them both. I can't wait to spend some time with my Mama in just one month!!  We then finished up the evening with some episodes of Saved by the Bell and Psych...some of our recent favorites! Thank you to both of our loving mothers and thank you to my wonderful husband for loving me and making this such a wonderful Mother's Day!

A quick picture Michael snapped before digging into to our yummy dinner! 

Wedding Pictures...FINALLY!!

15 months later and I am finally sharing with you some of our wedding pictures. I am embarrassed that it has taken so long for me to do this post. Granted we didnt get them until 5 months after our wedding. But thats another story. I am very pleased with the way they turned out. We got a lot of great shots, even though we had to take them inside due to the rain. We were truly blessed that we were able to use this beautiful house! And it made all the hassle of dealing with the rain worth it when we started taking the pictures at the grand piano...those are my absolute FAVORITE!! I can't wait to someday own a piano and have those hanging by it. Anyways there are way to many to post on here, but here are just a few, ok maybe a lot, of my favorites. If you want to see the rest you can go here

Sad this is the only picture of the back of my dress. I LOVED it, just wish I had gotten a full length shot. 

Had to get a picture with our purple umbrella. It was a perfect match with our wedding colors!  

Love this picture of M. I think he is just the handsomest man alive!