House in the fall

Joe and I are on fall break at our school. We decided to spend some of it at our house and some of it in St. George. We headed up to our house on Friday afternoon and it was so pretty! All the leaves have changed. We bought a pumpkin for our stairs and some Halloween clings for the windows.

When we got there, we noticed that the furnace wasn't working, but it was too late to call anyone. It was really cold that night and we didn't want to leave so we made a little nest next to the fireplace and slept on the floor (we turned the fire off before we went to sleep). The next day, we spent a lot of time trying to fix the furnace before finally figuring out that we just needed to turn on the gas! Oops! The rest of the weekend was much more pleasant and we cooked a nice dinner of salmon, mushroom ravioli, green beans, and wine- the first real dinner in our house.


Can you see our little pumpkin?


The leaves outside our bedroom- pretty reds and golds


Spiders and skulls


Dinner on our new dining room table!

Boys

Last week, Joe and I met my mom, David, Jessica, and James at the zoo. I got this picture of Joe helping James "climb" a tree. I love the way James is looking at his uncle. Joe is going to be a great dad. :) (Nope, not pregnant!)

Our House :)

I wanted to post some pictures of our cute townhome. We aren't officially moving in until May or June (after graduation), but we are planning to spend a lot of time between now and then on little projects to get the house exactly how we want it.

The house is about an hourish away from where we are now and it will kind of change our "goals" a little because neither of us want to commute to SL. But, I think things are actually going to work out really well. Maybe even better! We are both really, really excited. :)


Super cute outside


Living room/dining room area


Love the big, bright windows


Kitchen (with a dishwasher!)


The guest bathroom. There is also a full master bath and a small bathroom on the main floor. I am so excited for the bathtubs!


The view out of our office


We would like this room to be our future nursery


Back patio- the gate opens up to a big, grassy field shared by the community.

I don't have any good pictures of the master bedroom, but it's big and bright and has a huge double closet! There is also a laundry room and some good closets for coats and linens. We also have access to a club house, indoor pool, and hot tub!

It's pretty much all Joe and I talk about these days. Can't wait to move in!

Then and now

I am borrowing the idea of then and now from Jessica. The first picture is from April 25, 2009- the day we got engaged. This was our dinner at Fresco. The second picture is from August 14, 2011- the day we went on our wonderful river dinner cruise in Paris. The pictures look similar and are both from special and delicious dinners with my Joe.





I'll get back to Paris day by day soon. I just got the pictures on my new computer!

Our Summer

I'm taking a short Paris break to write about our summer (because school starts for both of us tomorrow). We had a really, really, really busy summer. I worry about things a lot and the end of summer 2011 meant a couple of long and scary plane flights. Instead of letting the worry take over though, I decided to cram the summer full of things to get my mind off the worry. It worked pretty well!

I signed up for four online classes which proved to be really challenging and busy. But, I also filled the summer with almost daily activities.

We grilled and ate outside a lot. We planted a pretty successful veggie garden this year so it was fun to have our own veggies at dinner.







June was a busy month with swim days, our anniversary weekend, dad's b-day, father's day, and a visit from Judy. We hosted a summer luau/ dad's birthday dinner when Judy was in town.



In July, we made it to the farmhouse with everyone. We had a super yummy Dutch Oven dinner that my brother made. Baby James was always so busy running around and being cute. We found some pretty flowers covered in bees. It was also the month for fireworks and tank battles.





This summer also had a couple of fishing trips. One Saturday, David, Joe, and I headed up to a reservoir about an hour away. The fish were all teases. They would eat the worms, but avoid getting hooked (which is ok with me!) We also took that wonderful last minute camping/fishing trip to Flaming Gorge.



One evening we headed up Millcreek Canyon for one of our favorite activities. We picked up some fried chicken and sides and s'more ingredients and had a picnic in the mountains. It had rained that day and was a little chilly, but I loved it anyway.







Right before leaving for France, my whole family got together to celebrate our "Christmas dinner." My Grandparents give our family a nice dinner for Christmas every year, but we often don't go until later. This year we went to Franck's. a French fusion restaurant that was really good!




We spent several afternoons at the pool and several days at Lagoon. We went to the zoo and the aquarium and the BYU art museum. And then we went to France! It was one of the busiest summers ever and I loved it.

Paris Day Two

Day two was very busy. We had breakfast (croissants, jam, coffee, orange juice). Then I wanted to go to a shoe store that I had found the day before. They told us they would be open, but weren't yet so we found a cute garden/recreation area to wait until the store opened.





After relaxing there for a bit, we went back to the shoe store which was still closed and ended up being closed for the rest of our trip. We had planned on Wednesday being our Versailles day so we got on the metro. One train that we needed to take was closed and someone who was trying to be helpful had us get on a bus that took us completely in the wrong direction. After fighting with metros and buses, we decided to scrap the Versailles plan and go to Sacre Coeur Basilica in Montmartre. Before we could go though, we had to pay our deposit on our dinner cruise. On the way, we saw the bridge over the Seine that people put locks on. The idea is that if you put a lock with your name and your lover's name on the bridge, you will be locked together forever. Of course I had to buy a lock! We paid our deposit and then bought ice cream to eat along the river on the way to the metro.




Our boat is in the background of this picture!


I had asked about Paris on a message board and everyone said that I HAD to go to Montmartre and Sacre Coeur. They said it was the epitome of Paris. After going up A LOT of steps, we found a church. It wasn't the one we were looking for, but it was quiet and beautiful. When we did find Sacre Couer, we had to wait in a very crowded line just to walk through.


St. Pierre


Sacre Couer



We did not like Montmartre. It was touristy and busy and full of pushy people. I would not really recommend the area, although it does have fantastic views of the city.





We were planning to stay in Montmartre for dinner, but we wanted to get back to the Latin District. We had dinner at a nice Italian/French cafe that became one of our favorite places.

Here goes- Paris Day 1

So day one was technically Monday, but it was all travel so this post is about Tuesday. Our flights were fine and we got into France at about 7:30 am. We got on a train and grabbed a map and tried to figure out where our hotel was. That was not an easy task. We were dragging all our heavy luggage through Paris in the cold rain. We kept asking for directions, but we didn't speak good enough French and we couldn't find anyone who spoke English. I got yelled at by some lady because I accidentally got in her way with one of my bags.

Finally! We got to our hotel in the Latin district. The Hotel Des Grandes Ecoles. It was a wonderful hotel. Our room wasn't ready yet so they sat us down with coffee and tea. Everything in the hotel was lace and wallpaper. The hotel itself was pink and set in a lovely garden. It looked so pretty and French. And we got a bath tub!










We rested for awhile and then went out to find lunch. We stopped at a bakery and I got a pizza and Joe got a really traditional baguette sandwich. The pizza was so good. The crust wasn't like anything I had had before. It was more like a flaky pastry with cheese and chicken on top.







Joe had read about a natural history museum in the middle of a garden so we went there to see it. On the way to the museum, however, we stumbled upon a zoo in the same park so decided to go there. It was a really wonderful little zoo. They had all sorts of interesting owls and other animals. These little foxes were my favorite.





We spent so much time at the zoo that we never made it to the museum. We went back to our room and changed for dinner. We picked Le Chalet L'Olivier. We got a lovely bottle of Bordeaux wine and had a yummy three course dinner.