Colorado

This one time Garrick and I decided we were gonna go visit our favorite Coloradans. Skyler's bike park and a big camping trip to the national park were on our to do list. We got there Thursday morning, slept for a couple hours to recover from the drive then we were ready to hit the park. We weren't sure what to expect but we were pleasantly surprised that it entailed a lot of mountain biking trails, Garrick was in heaven. He loved it, and I slowly became more daring throughout the day. Our very last run of the day, Skyler wiped out hard on his bike, to his credit it was a huge jump that he landed but then crashed shortly after. It was a sick fall and looked pretty painful, we came to find out that he had broken his elbow and separated his shoulder. 

Our luck had turned for the worse, the next day all of our plans had fell through, it was now turning comical because nothing was going our way. But the highlight of the day was getting delicious tacos and walking around Pearl Street Mall, that's where we experienced the hippies and granolas of Boulder.  Then, on Saturday we had the perfect day. We went to their reservoir beach, the sun was shining, the sand was perfect, we loved it. However, a couple hours into it rain clouds started coming in and it began to pour. We booked it to the car, waited it out, then rented paddle boards. Right as we finished paddle boarding it started to rain again. We had perfect timing! Once we got home we ate delicious food and made s'mores in the back yard and played Celestial Companions (aka best game ever) after the kids went to bed. It was the perfect ending for our perfect day. We're so grateful that we were able to spend some quality time with Skybekah and their adorable kiddies. 

 

This kid loved that water and had a crowd watching him. 

 I'd say s'mores were a success. 

We love them and will be returning to Colorado soon! 

Beck Reunion

The Beck Reunion came and went all too quickly. It was so fun chatting, playing games, eating lots of good food (thank you dad), and watching all the nieces and nephews play together. We've been very blessed to have an incredible family who not only loves each other but likes each other as well, that's a pretty awesome thing we have going. I still remember when Garrick first met my family, it baffled him that we could just sit around and talk for hours, it blew him away. Now he's gotten the hang of chatting it up with the fam and enjoys getting together with everyone as much as I do! Some of the highlights were soccer games in the backyard, wiffle ball, fireworks, game nights, ultimate frisbee, relay races, lake/jetski time, dodgeball, dance party, duck duck goose and musical chairs with the kids, and lots of chatting and chilling. 

This is the cutest. 

Kayla, Garrick and I are BFFs.

One of the most important things we did on this trip was convert Garrick to be a jetski fan!

Colby and McKay have sick moves. 

Coolest kids. 

I just think this is precious, Grandma and Grandpa love their grandkids.

Shout out to Kasey and Emily for throwing a successful reunion, we can't wait for the next one!

June to July

Summer is flyin'. I really can't believe July is already here, it's actually making me a little sad because July brings August and August brings September which means back to school...Ugh but I'll try to stay positive. Now that July is here Garrick is completely done with his Organic Chemistry course! He made it through triumphantly. And what does he do with his free time now? He goes to school and works in his research lab of course. That boy doesn't know when to take a break! O chem is checked off his summer list but now he has the rest of his list to work on which includes preparing for AT (uggggh), MCAT prep, resume building and application prep. That boy is very motivated (I can't even bring myself to take summer classes) But for now we are getting ready for the epic Beck Family Reunion! Skybekah arrived a couple days ago so we've been able to spend time with them pre-reunion (park time and temple trip) And everyone else should be here either tonight or tomorrow. We've really been looking forward to seeing everyone again, it stinks having everyone so spread out, but it makes us really love the time we're all together. Also it's our first real vacation of the summer (Moab excluded) I'm excited to be missing half a day of work! So the reunion post will be coming next. 

Until then here are some pictures of the Orem Festival we went to a couple weeks ago. One thing I really love about Utah is everyone loves festivals, it seems like each city has their own little carnival during the summer. With fireworks, rides, and parades-very impressive. But I must say that Orem's Festival has had the best firework show I've seen yet!

   We met up with Garrick's friend, Jesse (aka his best man) We hung out and played frisbee while waiting for the parade to start.

More waiting...

        Garrick's family saved us a spot for the parade, we had a perfect view. All in all it was a great day. 

                  Great  food, weather, friends, family, fireworks. I'm now a fan of the Orem Festival. 

And here's one more picture of Garrick because he's just the cutest thing in the world. 

Love this kid.

Fact Sheet

Things you might not know about Garrick and I (This is for our posterity folks).. ready go!

1. Our first real callings as newly weds were to teach Marriage and Family in our ward. We loved loved loved this calling and is part of the reason we had such a hard time leaving that ward when we moved (we stuck around as long as the bishop let us).But we loved spending Sunday mornings reading through the lesson, talking about our marriage and finding new ways to improve then giving the lesson and getting so much participation in our class. We also learned how to teach together which was fun for us.

2. Since we've moved we no longer have a dishwasher and we have both developed a small hatred for doing the dishes. This usually results in a mountains of dishes by the end of the week, at that point we knock them out together. Dishes always seem more bearable with your spouse by your side. We usually find a topic to debate with each other and the time just flies! It's now rare not to do dishes together, we like it. 

3. We LOVE Tillmook Smores ice cream (no other brand) and Sunny D otter pops, they are hands down our favorite treats. They are heavenly, seriously. 

4. We like to dress each other; we didn't have a mirror for a good couple months so we had get approval from the other person before we left the house to make sure we looked presentable. Now that we have a mirror we can defend our clothing choices but the other person still usually wins. 

5. We have a thing for medical shows. It probably has to do with the fact that Garrick is going into medicine, but we can't get enough of it. We just finished Grey's Anatomy and are now onto House. We like to think it's educational. 

That's all for now, until next time! 

Life Lately

Why is summer so great? We love everything about it and are having so much fun lately. We don't want summer to ever end!! A lot of people we know complain about living in Provo or Utah in general, but we are loving it right now because there is so much to do all the time. We are never bored or feel like we have nothing to do. With Garrick in school we make sure to make the most out of every free night and every free weekend. We feel like it's been a pretty good summer so far. 

We went to Moab twice! I learned and conquered the mountain biking trails, no big deal. 

Our second trip to Moab we got rained out our last night there, this is us eating inside the car. It was seriously crazy how bad it got out there-that story is for another day. But we survived!

We've loved going to the park with our "little brother", Tommas. They both love climbing trees, as I watch terrified. On the right is Garrick with his pan of homemade donuts. He has been on a baking kick-I don't mind a bit!

Memorial Day we got together with our Salt Lake friends and had a BBQ at Utah Lake. It was such a nice day, the food was delicious, the water was warm and we got to be with great friends. From left to right: Aly, Race, Garrick, me, Dianne, Eddy, and baby Marley.

Garrick has been on a fishing kick lately, and this past weekend he finally caught a fish! I'm so proud haha. He had gone a handful of times but didn't have any luck. But he caught this poor guy and ate it (gross). He's a happy man again.

This past weekend we went camping with the Hancocks and Becks. We had a great time eating food and playing games. We love camping and are excited to go every chance we get!

  

It was absolutely beautiful up Provo Canyon and we look forward to spending many more camping trips up there! 

We've been lucky so far since Garrick doesn't have drill and school hasn't been too crazy yet, hopefully it stays this way for as long as possible because we're loving it!