City Creek

Last month while we were up in Northern Utah for our twin nephew's baby blessings (wish I had pictures to share) we also got to visit City Creek!  Seriously amazing!  It really made me wish it had been there when I had lived up there.  Especially when I worked downtown at Zions Bank.  I would have loved to be able to walk around it on my lunch breaks.  But no, back then I just tried to avoid the construction of what would one day be City Creek.

We first ate lunch at the Blue Lemon, which I thought was delicious!  Then we perused the stores.  I told Dan he should buy me a present at Tiffany's, but that didn't happen.  Still fun to window shop!

Here are my few photos of City Creek.  As you can see the place is filled with awesome water features.

Aside from having to wear jackets in April, we truly enjoyed the outdoor mall.

My sister, Jannifer, was our tour guide.  She works downtown and has been there a lot.  I was grateful she showed us around, that place is huge!

We'll be back, City Creek!

Yogurtland

I believe I have blogged about this lovely yogurt shop before... Yogurtland!  Yes, see my Las Vegas post and my Spring Break post (ok you really don't have to look back).  Both mention my most favorite yogurt shop ever.  I know there are a million frozen yogurt shops out there, but for some reason Yogurtland is my favorite.  They have awesome flavors and lots of toppings (fresh fruit is my favorite).  Any time we visit a city with a Yogurtland I make sure we stop there.  So anyway... why am I bringing this up again?  Because, great news... I just found out we are getting one in St. George!  I can't tell you how excited I am.  When I saw the signs in the store window I was literally jumping up and down in the parking lot (seriously, ask my brother and sister in law).  There was a time when I wanted a Yogurtland in St. George so much that I actually looked up how much it would cost to franchise one. Luckily someone else is footing that bill and I can just enjoy it in SG :).  I have a feeling I will be making weekly trips this summer.  Anyone wanna join me?

St. George now just needs a Zupas and I will probably live here forever.

the Backyard

I have been wanting to post pictures of our finished yard for a long time!  I think it's been done for a good month or so and we have been enjoying spending time in it.  Just last night we had neighbors over for some s'mores in our firepit and we'll be doing more s'mores this weekend with family.

Now for some pictures!  First, the before and after.  I forgot to take a photo before we started, so the before shot was actually taken while trenches were being dug for our sprinklers.  As you can see it was pretty much just dirt and a rock wall.  Now there's lots of grass, rocks, plants & trees!

I wish I could say our grass is always this green,
unfortunately it's not quite this beautiful now.

Now a few photos to give you a closer look...

Our patio.  We love playing games and eating dinner out here.

I mostly took this photo to show our orange tree!  It's growing in the brown pot.
I sure hope we get some oranges!

Our garden boxes!  Dan is a great gardener (he must have learned from his Dad).
He diligently waters our garden daily and our plants are much bigger now.
We have planted tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, pumpkin, watermelon, cantaloupe and honey dew.

Our fire pit!  One of my most favorite spots in the yard.
We look forward to many family and friend gatherings in this spot.

Our stairs made of stone.  Eventually we are going to put a gate at the bottom.

Lastly, my lilies!  These are my favorite flowers that grow here.  They love the heat!

And that concludes our backyard tour :).

Let the countdown begin...

Guess what?  Only a week and a half left until summer break!  I am getting so excited.  I am ready for a break.  I have lots of projects in mind for summer.

The end of the year has actually been really fun at work though.  We are past all the academic stuff and pretty much just do fun stuff every day.  Yesterday we had a water party for the kindergarten.  The kids had so much fun!  My job was to spray the hose for the slip and slide.  I ended up spraying a lot of the kids and they thought it was hilarious.  Then today the kindergarten had a penny store.  They all bring stuff to sell and pennies to buy other kid's stuff.  The teachers even buy a few things.  I scored a brand new bottle of bath and body works lotion for 4 cents!  Best deal ever!  Next week we don't even have kindergarten (they just having testing), and since majority of the kids I work with are in kindergarten, I won't have to go in very much.  I am however going to swim day with two of our kids.  It should be interesting!  Every grade gets their own swimming day except kindergarten (thus the water day).  We're also having an ice cream party in the special ed room next week because we have a little girl who loves chocolate ice cream!  She is always talking about it and one of her favorite games is to make us ice cream cones out of play dough, so we decided it's time we have real ice cream!  End of the year is so fun!

As for my summer projects, in case you are wondering what they are... sewing pillows and skirts, a few crafty home projects, cleaning out my closet, updating our 72 hour kits, working on food storage, making freezer jam, and once that's all done, i'll look at my pins on pinterest and actually do some of the things i've seen on there.  I also have plans to do a zumba class a couple of times each week and hopefully go to the temple every week.  My friend also wants to start water aerobics at our pool in the mornings.  Plus I've got summer shows (i.e. SYTYCD!)  We've also got a few trips planned.  Can't wait for summer!

The Johansens

Oh hello, yes we are still alive!  I know, it's been a while.  In fact, i've been meaning to write this post for weeks.  Back in the middle of April our friends, Alyse & Zach, came to visit!  They actually stayed at his parent's 2nd home in Hurricane, but we got to see them lots.  We had so much fun!  I told them they should just move down here and live in his parent's 2nd home, cuz why not?!  Alyse has been one of my best friends for a long time.  We've known each other probably since we were 3 and we've always been friends because we have the exact same birthday.  She is my twin!

While they were here we went to this fun restaurant and ate outside, went zip lining, went mini golfing twice, played games on our back patio, grilled delicious food, made s'mores in our firepit, and got huge shakes at Iceburg.  It felt like we were on vacation too!

Here are some pics of the fun times we had with the Johansens!

Zip Lining: 
Not sure what that is?  Basically you climb a tall tower, they hook your harness to these cables that are connected to another tower, then you jump off the first tower and ride down to the next tower.  Once I got to the top I freaked out a little, but we jumped and had a blast!  I am now ready to try another zip line (i'm thinking Park City this summer)!

In our harnesses and ready to go (the men decided not to do it though).

Mini Golf Game #1: 

See?  We are clearly twins :)

We love mini golf!

Alyse demonstrating her golf pose.  Zach was the mini golf champ.

Game Night:

I think we played our new game, the Logo game, three times while they were here.  And thanks to Dan's grandma, we had this awesome new patio set to play on.  That combined with warm evenings made it a perfect setting for games.  

Gamers and new patio set!

Check out the new outdoor lights we hung up.  I love them.  Thank you Target!

Mini Golf Game #2:

In case you were wondering, we went mini golfing on two different days.  All in the same day would have been a little much.  

Glow in the dark mini golf!  Couples pic on the zebra bench.

Glow in the dark golden gate bridge.

Always fun with Alyse & Zach!

And here's our creepy chicken.  Dan can't resist a good claw game.

Those are all of the pictures I took of our fun times.  Sorry if they are not the best quality, I have just gotten in the habit of taking pictures on my phone.  Thanks again for the visit, Alyse & Zach!