This blog gives off vibes that tells that it has been neglected. Of course, it wasn't purposeful and I wish that I didn't feel the overwhelming urge to go back to document it. But, I do, because maybe it's important. This is a bit of a recap of some of the bigger things that have been happening in our lives.

-    Our final Disney trip as Annual Passholders. Sigh. As soon we finish up I always immediately want to renew, but this was our second full year with them and I think we need a change. Not to mention we barely have any free time as it is! So another year bites the dust and I already miss the snacks at Epcot. We will absolutely be back, c'mon yall know we are WDW lovers, but who knows when.

-     I was blessed to be able to experience General Conference in Salt Lake City for the April 2016 session! As a little girl I dreamed of my time in SLC, the only real destination I had to see, joyous with the though of hearing the organ and MoTab accompaniment. My Mama, sister Listi, Aunt Tracey and I spent one week out and about the area, too. We had such an amazing time in this marvelous place! We were able to ride snowmobiles on top of a mountain, which caused us to laugh until we cried & could barely walk for all of the layers of clothes we had on. We made the briefest of pit stops in Wyoming, check out the overalls. And lastly, we saw, hallelujah, the Prophet who was physically in much better condition than before, as well as other General Authorities. It was our last huzzah to commemorate Listi as a Sister Missionary.

-    We celebrated 3 years of marriage! Wait, for real? I scratched my head all day on April 13th trying to figure out how it has happened. Sometimes it seems like we just got married and walked into our apartment for the first time, but nope, 3 years happened somewhere in between. The weekend after the actual date Graham planned a fun little scavenger hunt to some of our favorite places! It was really Sweet (Pete's was one of our stops ;). We rounded out the night with a swanky dinner at Matthew's in San Marco- you'll spy ahi tuna with caviar in the last photo. Thanks Graham, 3 years wed and I still love you to pieces!

-    I was in a wedding! Miranda, one of my longest and most beloved friends, tied the knot last month and invited me to be her Matron of Honor. I happily accepted :) There was a gorgeous ceremony and reception on the beach in St. Augustine. It was truly a joy to be apart of it. There were also some very sentimental pieces in honor of our 3rd best friend Nicole, who passed in 2014. This one day was jam packed with so much nerves, love and celebrating, it was wonderful- congrats again Jeremy and Miranda! (Also, these pictures were all taken with my phone, one day I hope to add a professional picture or two,)

 -    If you've kept up with us on social media, you'll know that we recently got back from a big vacation in England and France. We love Europe, even with stress up to our eyeballs we enjoy it so much that we already are trying to figure out if we can go again next year to a new place to invite more stress! But it really is fun to just get away with just the 2 of us working hard to have a great time on the other side of the world. There is many photos and memories I hope to share in the next post, be on the look out! In the meantime you'll see a picture of us waiting to board a train into France from England where we very nearly missed our train by not understanding that we should have arrived 1 hour prior to go through security and 2 sets of Customs. Instead we showed up 30 minutes early, squandered 15 of that to find the right departure places only to find out about the necessary hou. The sheer grace of God was shown on us and allowed our train to be late enough to ensure that  we didn't have to go through the drama and anxiety of buying new tickets, re-evaluating plans and wasting time. These are faces of relief and happiness.

Southern Utah

    Two months ago Graham and I flew into SLC, Utah for a wedding, but decided to make a vacation out of it. It's always so much fun to reconnect with old friends. I completely forgot about making the video to go with it while writing all the stories up! Which, by the way, you can read all about it here, here, here, here and lastly here (Do ya'll understand why I would've thought it was already done by now?)

    Hopefully, the word associated with this video isn't: overkill. I enjoy looking back on snippets of our past vacations- it helps to remember, and even relive, them. The quality is not what I would normally expect, but I guess transferring from my camera to my hard drive is the cause? Anyone know how to stop that? I am kind of disappointed.

    Carrying on! Moab and Salt Lake are the primary locations for this vid- 2 completely distinct places. Oh Utah, why are you just sooo beautiful?





     

Park City, Salt Lake, Home

     As Graham and I were awoken to our last day in Utah, we reflectied on all of the new experiences. It was sad to think that we would soon be back to ordinary things. (But as everyone else trickled off to their respective states, we knew it was time to go.) We had made plans to visit Park City after everyone we knew insisted upon going.
    We rolled up, meeting our friends Mitch and Abigail at the Olympic Park. We hiked a little hill, jumped on the ski lift and awaited for our chance to get on the alpine slide. It was so fun to race down! Afterwards we chatted about traveling, babies and life in general before parting ways. More friends bit the dust.
    Up next was to see the Jagtiani's. We had a present for the newlyweds that we hadn't delivered at the reception that we needed to get to them before their week long honeymoon. Sunny was thrilled that we came by so he could convert us over to his favorite pizzeria called The Pie. I gotta say, they double layered the cheese and that was alright by me! They seemed to like the personalized print, yay on gift giving, and I demanded a picture ;) We told them goodbye one last time and sped off.
    Our home for the entirety of our trip had been with our dear friends the Frailey's. We were (and are) so grateful they opened up their beautiful home to us and didn't judge as we ran around with 0 time to do anything! It just worked out perfectly that we could spend several hours at their home with them on our last day. It felt awesome to simply relax after the hussle and bustle of the trip- Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was playing, Dooley was drooling and chicken and rice was served. Thanks ya'll, our family loves yours!
    As the hours ticked down before we needed to go to the airport, we decided to stop by the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. It was pretty awesome to find that Utah was set up in such an easy way to get to it, much moreso than the intricacies of Jacksonville. We saw it from a distance, took a slight detour and found our way! As we went to take a photo we saw... well, I'll just say that it involved some other people romping around and a butt crack. On the temple grounds. Okay, moving on. Photo time! It was here that I hated myself for wishing that I would have just took the plunge and bought a selfie stick. (Insert cringing emoji.)
     As a final detour, Graham's best friend, yes another one, invited us to meet his new fiance. By now, we were relieved that we had unlimited miles on the rental car since we had clocked in our fair share. So away we went! We arrived, typically talked about guns with Russell, all of the talents of Rocio (the fiance) and, of course, about the possibilities of them moving back south. Graham was also invited to be a groomsman in his wedding in August :) The boy gets around!
    Then it was time to go home to humid Florida! After being in dry heat, I  concluded that I was born to be an East Coast gal. It took several days to recognize the crazy lip chapping action and ashy skin was due to the weird change my body had underwent in traveling. Not cute my friends. Plus all of the "you won't even sweat here" was lies as I soaked through every shirt I had brought. "It feels like the inside of an oven," -G. Yep, so get me back to the South where I belong!
   We arrived back at the airport 6 days after showing up with sunburned necks and hundreds of pictures. It was sad to close that chapter of another spent vacation. However, that will certainly not be our final SLC trip #GeneralConferenceAnyone? So we checked into the abnormally long line, and found out that who could be leaving from our gate but... Sunny and Lisa! Let me just say that they probably felt like they couldn't get away from us at this point. Graham savored his last few minutes of BFF time before they left for the Dominican Republic. We took a few final pictures to commemorate the irony of it all. It was such a nice closing point for this entertaining trip! As we took that red-eye home, I was excited to get to the second best state in all of America, my home. :)

Sunny and Lisa's Wedding Day

    After a wonderful ceremony in the temple, which we were honored to be witnesses of, here was everyone's first glimpse of the newlyweds leaving the temple (^). Congratulations to Sunny and Lisa Jagtiani! We have been, are and will be so happy ya'll found each other. A couple that compliments each other, that everyone can see the love between them; what a perfect match.
    We spent the morning at the Temple, enjoyed the evening celebrating the new couple nestled in the mountains and that night ate at Bruge Waffles. All in all, it was a g r e a t  day!

Sunny taking advantage of Graham's unawareness.

The burn of the snaps... and a rogue best friend.

Also, I must note that the two of us totally forgot about my purse when we left the temple grounds to get lunch. Inside it was BOTH wallets, debit cards, credit card, camera case, my only car key, etc. We went back about 40 minutes later to find the bag completely unharmed. Only in front of an LDS Temple, am I right?

For 3 days I demanded to go here, finally finding success, and behold: the Monster Waffle. It was crunchy with a soft center, specaloos slapped between the layers, ice cream to combat the warm waffle and strawberries. Perfection. 

The old gang together again! We can't wait until next time!