Paul Gets Baptized!

Paul got baptized on Sept 6th, 2014. He was actually baptized Christian 10 years prior, so he calls this really a renewal of his faith. It was a great experience no matter what. 
Paul took the discussions with the missionaries in Utah at his friend Brandon's house. He and Brandon had been friends since like fourth grade in Washington, so it was all pretty crazy how things ended up. I basically had nothing to do with any of it, which was good because, as Paul said, it left it all between him and God. Plus, the Howell family is amazing, and being with them was awesome in itself.
Paul's parents are so sweet and are so supportive and flew up for the occasion. Just so happens, I was flying up, too. So my introduction to the parents occurred totally on my own. At the airport gate. Before our joint flight where they managed to seat my right between the two of them!! Luckily, we all hit it off just fine. Paul's dad Ralph slept the whole flight and MaryAlice and I just talked and talked. It was actually wonderful.
When we got there, his parents went to their hotel and I went to Paul's RV.
The baptism was the next morning. I wrote my talk while I was there (sometimes I can space things!)- I gave the Holy Ghost talk, Stephanie Howell gave the baptism talk. Brandon baptized Paul, and my dad confirmed him the next day.
Quite a few of my relatives drove down from Idaho, and a few of my high school friends even came to see us!
It was such an amazing experience and so wonderful to be surrounded by so much love and uspport
Paul's parents even went to church with us the whole 3 hours the next day, which I thought was amazing.
So....basically, it all was great. My parents even said "maybe his parents and us should take a trip without you guys sometime." I think it's safe to say we all got along. :-)

yes, we already knew

Olympic Triathlon!! TriRock Austin!

A week later, I was in Austin, prepared to run the longest triathlon of my life. For five years, I said I would do an Olympic triathlon, and this kind of felt like "now or never."
An Olympic is a 1500m swim, a 25 mile bike ride, and a 6.2 mile run.
The swimming part scared me the most, even though to be honest, I'm not good on the bike part at all.
Anyways, I got there a couple days early and was able to spend a few great days with Byron and his family. We went grocery shopping, ate at a couple great restaurants, and went to church together.
Sunday afternoon, I dropped off my bike. There were so many, I was seriously so scared. But oh well! I'm scared before every race.
I ended up finishing in 4 hrs and 30 seconds. My goal was 4 hours, but I realized later 4 hours is kind of a crappy triathlon time. 3hr and 30 min is much more respectable :). To be fair, it was SO HOT and SO HUMID and I had to walk half of the run because I was approaching heat exhaustion.

The swim was the best of my life. It was exactly 40 minutes, and they had us start 2 at a time and marked off every 100meters. Both of those things changed everything for me and made me so calm. The bike was hard, but the view of the capital was gorgeous, and that was so fun.
Byron was such a great supporter, and gave me a 5 gallon bucket the night before, some sunglasses, and made sure I had everything ready to go the night before. He even called Paul during the race to keep him updated.

Later on, we all went to Rudy's for bar-b-que dinner and I had my first deliciou Round Rock donuts.
It was an amazing trip, and was so awesome to have that all under my belt! Yay!

The boys and me 5 years ago and this year

DONE!!!

Jessica & Christin Take Seattle

At the end of August, Jessica and I went to Seattle! I hadn't been back in ten years, and we were so excited to go.
We stayed at the Hotel Max in a tiny little room that was actually so modern and cute. It was a great location, even though we walked SO MUCH. I think we racked up like 33 miles w
hile we were there.
Our first day there, we went to Pike's Place and bought the most amazing doughnut peaches. They were so so yummy. The guy who sold them to us was having such a bad day, and I will never forget that. He had just gone through a break-up and was so honest about how much it sucked. We almost bought him flowers!!

After that, we went and rode the ferris wheel and got ice cream. I was so excited about all of it that I didn't notice I had ice cream dripping all the way down my shirt while we were walking. Oh well. The ferris wheel is new since either of us were there last, and it was so calm and nice to just chill and take pictures with such an awesome view.
Then we went to Ivar's for Fish and Chips. Paul had made us a little list of things we should do while we were in Seattle, and this was on the top of the list. Also included on the list was feeding the seagulls a french fry. Jessica does not like birds. I was more nervous than I thought I would be. But we both did it, and it was so funny. And yes, the fish and chips were amazing. 

For dinner, we went to a cool vegan place called "Sutra" that I had seen on TripAdvisor. The place was kind of crazy. We all sat at long tables with everyone else and it was TIGHT quarters. But. The people we sat with were so fun and the food was incredible. There was a fancy non-alcoholic drink to go with each course. And the chef said a prayer to thank the earth and the growers for all the ingredients and then told us where each thing came from. It was so much fun. On the way home, Jessica had the idea that we should take uber, which was awesome. Our driver picked us up in like 2 minutes and told us all about Eritrea, the country in Africa where he was from. It was so nice.

Friday morning I woke up and decided to go for a run. On the treadmill in the fitness room. After about 1 minute I realized just how horrible of an idea that was. I told Jessica I was going outside and took off. I ran 5 beautiful miles through people and parks along the water and it was just amazing. Probably the best run of my life. And definitely the most beautiful. My nano even said it was the fastest, but I think the altitude threw it off a little....
For lunch we stopped at Pamela's Fine Foods across the street where I had the most amazing sandwich ever. It was just turkey, mayo, sunflower seeds, and havarti, but it was so good! Unfortunately, they are also closed on weekends, so it was my only sandwich from there. (Jessica had gone there earlier and had breakfast while I was running.)
Our big adventure for the day was to go to Husky Stadium and rent canoes and go exploring a little sanctuary there. What made this adventure more fun is that Jessica cannot swim, and was actually quite nervous about this whole thing. And, she was totally up for it. To the point that she even lied point-blank to the rental girl and told her she could swim before we signed the waiver. And she was a great rower as we rowed through the boat traffic at one point that including some very large tugboat looking watercraft.
We ended up having an awesome time and saw some beautiful water lillies and even had a little picnic with our vending machine snacks. AND we also saw a guy sitting totally naked on a dock on our way back. He might have been on drugs, but I have to admit, I was a little jealous of his lack of inhibitions :)

 Later on, we went shopping and had amazing caramels at Fran's, enjoyed a snowball cupcake from Trophy, and went to a too-fancy restaurant where I had exactly 1 scallop for which I paid $20. They were very nice, but we won't be going back.

Also, I had a "messy bun" that day (my hair, people)- that I haven't been able to replicate since, but it made me feel so stylish. :-)
To top of the night, I accidentally asked a guy in the elevator what his room number was instead of what floor he was on so I could push the button for him. We all laughed pretty hard at that.
Good times.
Saturday we went to Bainbridge island. It was very quaint. And had fun bookstores and shops and amazing ice cream. I had coconut ice cream and cantaloupe sorbet and it was straight up heaven. Jessica and I bought little tiny glass bowls for rings that were so cute.
Sunday we visited Olympic Sculpture park, ate some more fish & chips, and headed home. It was a fabulous trip!!!

The Camp Verde, Meet the Brother Trip

Three weeks later, Paul came to see me! It was one of those trips where I was like, "Am I crazy? Do I really like him this much?" This whole long distance thing was getting to me, and we really needed to see each other again.

Someone from work was passing through town and dropped Paul off at my house at 2am on Thursday. I was so excited to see him! And hated to go to work the next day!

After work on Friday, we went out to eat at the Hyatt restaurant that rotates as you eat. Our view was kind of blocked by some other tall buildings, but the food was awesome. It was also really fun to realize that we both loved seafood and all the same things on the menu, so sharing everything was awesome. We got calamari for an appetizer, then I got sea bass and he got scallops. We both actually liked the other person's better, so we switched halfway through. And then had creme brulee. mmmmmm. 

 The next day we had his brother and sister-in-law over for breakfast and swimming. I chopped kale with his brother Jon and made sausages and we all just talked and talked. Sometime during breakfast, Paul dropped the info to his brother that we were getting married January 16th. To be honest, I don't know what day or what time or when exactly we had decided that. It just all kind of happened so fast. His brother was shocked, but happy. It was so fun to tell him.

Then we all went swimming in the pool with his niece and nephew Delaney and Brandon, and then they headed home.

After that, we got ready again and went to Camp Verde to meet his friends there, esp. KayLynn, who he had known since she was 17 months old. We went to a little auction first, then out to eat at Babe's Bar-b-que, where we told KayLynn. She was really happy for us and told him she really liked me (whew!)Then we drove to Cottonwood blaring country songs. We picked up KayLynn's boyfriend and went and got Hawaiian ice cream at a little place there that was SO DELICIOUS!

 Then we went to the park and went swinging on the best swings ever. Paul found a little glow worm on the ground that is somewhere in that picture of sand below. KayLynn got bit by a spider and couldn't bend her finger and said it was going numb so we ended up going to the ER where they essentially did nothing and said she was fine so we went home. 
The next morning we got up at 5:30 to go to the train park with Brandon and Jon. Brandon rides these cute little trains and it was so fun to see him put everything together and then take us on rides.

After that, we went to church together and then Paul went home. It was such a busy little trip, but such a good one. :-)

He Meets The Parents!!

The next week Paul met my parents. That would be 1 week ago from now.
Seriously I think I counted down every single day of the 20 days I went without seeing him, and it was terrible. (I mean, it was so exciting.)
Anyways, I couldn't take any more time off of work. (If you've been reading this, it might actually sound like I never go to work...mostly I've just taken a lot of Fridays off.) So I booked a flight at 8pm on Friday after work and the return flight for Sunday at 8pm.
I got to the airport early on Friday, and then there was a dust storm. A dust storm that delayed my flight for 5 hours. So while my boyfriend slept (kind of) in his truck in the Cell Phone Lot, I considered trying to sleep in the terminal as they teased us telling us hour by hour a plane was coming when it actually was not. I got in at 4am. We got to his place at 4:30. We had to meet his friends for breakfast at 8am (oh, Paul's taking the missionary discussions. And he's having them at these friends' house, so I really wanted to meet them.) Breakfast was great, and then we packed up and headed to Idaho for the family reunion. Probably 60 people came up to Paul and hugged him and said hello. I was actually a little embarrassed, but he took it like a champ and was so cool and laid back about it. We played bean bag toss and sumo wrestling and it was just so great.
At home, we ate dad's ribs and just talked. Paul crashed on the couch while I talked to Candice and Adam.
The next morning, church wasn't until 1, so there was more talking and chilling. Apparently I slept in, because my mom woke me up by saying, "Hey, your boyfriend's been awake for 2 hours, you should probably get up." The kids were getting a little restless before church, so without saying a word, Paul got up, got a soccer ball out of his truck and me and him and all the kids kicked it around the yard for like an hour. It was so nice and so fun. The kids were so cute and excited.
We walked to church later on, and Perri held his hand and told him she loved him and sat on his lap at church and we both just loved it. (Plus, he looked all sexy in his shirt and tie and that was fun for me.)
We left after sacrament meeting, went home and changed, and headed out. The ride home took longer than we thought, so my yoga pants and blow dryer are still in Utah, but this flight was NOT delayed, and I made it home by nine. 48 hours well-spent.
p.s. And to prove that it was insane, we have zero pictures of the whole trip. But it's pretty awesome for me to realize I went two days without checking Facebook at all. And that we were just....present.

Candice Comes to Visit!

Let me tell you how many times Candice has come to see me in the past all by herself: 0
Let me tell you how many vacations Candice has taken alone in the last 10 years: 0
Let me tell you awesome it was that Candice came to see me 2 weeks ago all by herself on a scale of 1 to 10: 10!
So Candice and I had planned a few months ago that she would come see me. She had never seen my house, and I hadn't seen my family since January, so....we booked a flight.
And we had so much fun.

White Chocolate Grill

We met up at the airport on Thursday night with Brea and Brad and all went out to dinner at White Chocolate Grill, where everyone's food was great except mine. Do not order mushroom crepes. That mushroom gravy tastes straight out of the can. bleech.
Anyways, it was nice to be with everyone. All the siblings hadn't hung out in quite awhile (1999?).

After Zumba

The next day was Zumba/spa day. We drove around forever trying to find a good Zumba class that wouldn't charge us $15 each to drop in and we found an awesome class at Fitness One. The instructor was awesome, and everyone said we did a great job (I thought so!).
Then we showered and headed to d'lish for lunch. I love this place so much and I think I've taken every one of my friends who have visited to it. I had the California club, Candice had the chicken pannini, and was in heaven.
Then- to the Valley Ho Spa where we had booked massages. I didn't realize this was Candice's first massage, and it's probably not the place to start as now every other massage will probably be somewhat of a letdown. The massages were amazing. When I came in the lounge afterwards, Candice was like, "That was amazing. I will no longer be coming to the house from the airplane. From now on , it is straight to the ValleyHo for me." Afterwards, we just laid by the pool and drank virgin pina coladas and enjoyed the fact that we had absolutely nothing else we had to do.
Then we stopped at Home Depot and picked up some planters for the seedlings Candice had brought me all the way from Idaho in the hopes that with a good start, I might be able to keep something alive.
That night was sushi at Pure Sushi and, well, it was awesome as always. Although, I think we didn't like the fire dragon roll so we'll skip that next time. :)
Saturday morning we met Brad and Brea at Snooze, which was incredibly delicious, and I danced with this adorable 8 month old (?) in her high chair next to us. SO CUTE!! While we waited, we went to a second hand shop called My Sister's Closet, where I found great shoes, a skirt, and a dress. Win. Win. Afterwards, we stopped at Nordstrom Rack where Candice found her birthday present from me and we found Paul and great shirt and tie.
Afterwards, we planted plants and installed the water filter behind my fridge. Saturday night Candice made amazing chicken sausage fettuccine for Brad and Brea and me. Then we watched Clueless and I fell asleep, but tried to make Candice think that I didn't by quoting the last 5 minutes of the show :-)
We went to the first hour of church on Sunday, and then ran her to the airport. I would have cried, but I was seeing her next week, so, well, we didn't. Such an awesome girls' weekend!

Sometimes Candice and I don't look much alike.
And then sometimes we do. 

Candice kind of looks Asian here, but most of all she looks very happy. 

Brad does not have a goofy eye except in this picture.