Weekend in Island Park

Our 4th of July weekend was spent with the Hal Wright family. EVERYONE was in town for this reunion (Mitch and Kristi were here from Louisville). Friday morning started off with some early morning packing and rounding up of bikes. Our destination was Island Park, with a detour to Harriman Park where we would ride our mountain bikes on one of the trails. 

Lots of bikes! 

Getting all of the gear

This was taken by Silver Lake.

The trail was beautiful! We did the "Silver Lake Loop" which is about 6 miles in length, but it travels along the lake, with parts of the trail going amidst the trees.

Silver Lake, Harriman National Park ID

Friday night POURED RAIN. Literally. Something about Island Park rain storms fascinate me. They are so intense! The following morning was perfect for riding 4-wheelers (less dust, just mud puddles to dodge).

Boston and Alex. How cute are they!?

 The four wheeler ride....

Haha, I was debating about putting this up. But its a pretty good picture for taking it while going who knows how fast!

Boston wearing Alex's goggles. They just about cover his entire face.

We love spending time with family when we have the opportunity to do so.

 Can it be summer forever?

Part 2 - of Day 1 in St. George

The afternoon in St. George was filled with swimming/holding the kids in the pool, reading, playing games, and eating good food. 

Best combination ever.....

Haha, look how cute Carson is in his hat.

Quite the life... sleeping in a floaty on the water.

Look how cute both of them are!

St. George in pictures

Arrived in St. George last night. We are so lucky to spend the weekend with Trenton, Lauren, Carson, and Brynna! 

What a stud

Started the day off with a nice morning walk

Beautiful background!

He's gonna be a great dad one day!

zonked....

CUTE family! 

I LIKE TO RIDE MY BICYCLE...

What have we been up to? We've been eating sno cones, riding bikes, taking the MCAT, and spending time with Alex's family in St. George.  Alex has studied his heart out preparing for the MCAT, so immediately after he came home from taking it, we left for St. George to spend the weekend with the Wright Family. 

I had to show you this big sno-cone! It tastes better than it looks.

Went to the Tuacahn while in St. George. 

Not to mention, we spent plenty of time in the sun, playing in the pool, and going on biking trails. I wish I had taken a picture while we were in St. George on the bike trail. You would have been jealous.

haha, this pic makes me laugh

We LOVE to ride our bikes! Friday evening we took our bikes up Provo Canyon and rode them along the bike trail that begins around Bridal Veil Falls. It's so beautiful up there. The trees canopy over the trail. I like to think of it as a little piece of paradise in Utah.

And another picture... don't bother looking at
our faces, check out the background!

And this is Alex...Working on medical school applications. This is his full-time job as of right now.

We love living in Provo!

Till next time...

Alex's birthday and weekend fun

To start off... Alex's birthday was Friday!

23

A Baker tradition I loved while I was growing up was this: you could expect to wake up on the morning of your birthday to a door decorated with balloons, candy, or small gifts that could be taped to the door. I wanted to keep this tradition alive. So I used mini Reeses to form the number "23" and taped a handful of small notes to the door. Check it out...

He was a trooper and let me take a pic of him at 7 AM.
But doesn't he look good?

We had an eventful evening. Thanks to wedding gift cards we enjoyed dinner at Alex's favorite restaurant Macaroni Grill! He was in heaven. We then picked up a RedBox and celebrated with some delicious cake.

Now for conference...

This morning I woke up and made some multi-grain waffles. (Not from scratch, no, no). But I'm in love with them. However, I'm the kind of person who prefers wheat/multi-grain pancakes or waffles over Buttermilk. It was our first time trying this mix and it was a success.


                                                          After breakfast...

We live fairly close to a store called Sprouts Farmers Market. It's a natural foods grocery store that's sells produce for a decent price, and everything else for an arm and a leg. We woke up and decided to walk there this morning. It was a miracle we left without buying anything! I LOVE fruit so I was constantly pointing out some kind of fruit that we needed... mangos, strawberries, apples, kiwis. Next time I'll make sure he doesn't eat breakfast before we head to the market :) 



Saturday morning session...

Can you believe 65,634 LDS missionaries are serving? And 20,000 more have received their call. Incredible. And my sister happens to be one of those missionaries! 

In between sessions, Alex and I played TENNIS. We happen to live 3 blocks from a small community park that has 2 tennis courts. Easy for us, we grabbed our rackets and a few balls and walked to the tennis courts. We love living close to cheap and fun sources of entertainment. 

And of course we had to watch the Louisville vs Wichita State game following conference. Alex was a genius by having me fill out a bracket for the NCAA tournament. This is what I learned after doing so:

1. If you fill out a bracket, for some reason you are drawn into watching games you weren't wanting to watch. 

2. You start rooting for teams you didn't know existed (just because you predicted they'd win). 

3. Next thing you know, you've watched 5 basketball games in 1 weekend! 

4. Next year I can't fill out a bracket.

This is my prediction, come Monday night I will ask, "What do you want to do for FHE?" 

Alex-- "We could watch the NCAA championship game? :)" HA! you just wait... I'll be right.

Spring Break (oh wait, BYU doesn't have one)!

Saturday morning we Provo/Orem residents woke up to thick snow flakes falling. Alex is a part of the Cancer Awareness Group for BYU and they put on an annual Rex Lee Run (5K). He has spent a lot of time getting this run organized and it just so happens to snow the day of the race! Surprisingly there was a great turnout! The weather was freezing, but those who pre-paid (1,000+people) ended up showing. With Alex needing to be at the race all morning I decided to go and volunteer as well. I and 7 other people spent our time cutting apples, bananas, and oranges to hand to the runners after they complete the race. The feeling I get after serving/volunteering is so rewarding, I hope he and I do this again next year.

Have you been watching the NCAA tournament as much as we have? I've never watched so many basketball games in a period of 3 days. Alex and I both filled out a bracket (he insisted). This is what happens when you fill out a bracket: you now want to know what happens to each team, and then you find yourself rooting for teams you didn't even know existed until you had to fill out the tournament bracket. We've had a lot of fun with it!

As for Sunday, normally our Sunday's consist of homework and studying then an afternoon walk after church. But since BYU doesn't have a spring break like every other school in Utah, Alex decided this past weekend was going to be his "spring break." NO homework. YAY for me!

Now here's something that will knock your socks off... Alex makes better buttercream roses than I do. He and I watched a YouTube tutorial of how to do it, then decided we wanted to try; so we whipped up some icing and started piping roses. The first few had no resemblance to a flower of any kind. But after a few trial runs we were making presentable flowers.

Not too shabby for the first time right? 

Quilted blocks... Birthday banner

My newest love is sewing. Hard to believe, I know. I hated all the sewing classes I took in college and middle school. That was then, this is now.

Making this was simple, just time consuming is all.

I'm now looking for a new sewing project... Have any suggestions?