I'm engaged!!!!

This will definitely be a July 24th I'll remember forever!! Jared proposed!!! He had picked up a bouquet of daisies and yellow roses and we were planning to picnic at Liberty Park and enjoy the fireworks for the 24th of July. We headed over to Liberty Park around 6pm and it was already jam-packed with people. We didn't really feel like braving the crowds and trying to find parking, so we headed up to Capitol Hill to try and catch the fireworks from up there. After a while, Jared goes to the car and brings the flowers down to where we're sitting. He kneels down and then proceeds to 'rap' the following:

You may have noticed I am right handed
I sometimes feel like it leaves me stranded
Before you, I didn't know which way up is
Don't matter now, I can get lost in your kisses
When you are around, I know who I am
I love you babe, I'm your biggest fan
I'd empty my wallet just to see you smile
To spend time wit you would be worth the while
Without you honestly I have no clue
No doubt I would be the bigger fool
I don't know what else I'm supposed to do
Honey, I'm going to have to propose to you
Cause you and I are meant to be
A few more verses of this poetry
Let me read it more seriously
Because the best poetry is you with me
There is nothing more in the world I'd love
If you would be my wife that would be the best
Elizabeth, will you marry me?

And of course I said yes!!

Here's me with an incredibly cheesy grin cause I'm SO happy!

And another cheesy grin!

Me with my beautiful flowers and the new addition to my left hand

Tried to get a picture of my ring - didn't turn out too good

Another view of my ring - I love it!

Our first picture as an engaged couple!! It was so windy up on the hill, so don't mind my fly-away hair!

Me and my sweetheart

Then we sat and watched the fireworks and couldn't stop smiling! It was a great night and I'm so happy to be engaged to the most sweetest, amazing guy ever!! We appreciate everyone's love and support with things!

So sweet

Jared writes poetry and he wrote this poem for me - I absolutely LOVE it! He is the sweetest, nicest guy I have ever met and I'm lucky that he's mine.

Love was once a four letter word,
a curious verb I seldom heard.
But now this word has a name.
My life will never be the same.
Liz, my love, you did it again.
I found my smile, a permanent grin.
Your mood ring eyes from blue to green,
more gorgeous than I've ever seen.
Your smile brightens my every day,
you always know just what to say.
When I thought I would never win,
my love, my Liz, you did it again.
Upon your sight, my heart rejoices.
"You forever," is what my choice is.
You will have my every breath.
I love you always, Elizabeth.

4th of July Fun

This week has been really fun so far! It started off Monday night with the Bees Baseball game against the Reno Aces. Jared and I met up with his 2 sisters, Jennifer and Becky and their significant others and enjoyed the game. It was great getting to meet them. It was a little rough getting to the game though. Jared's car had a flat tire and his jack was 'jacked' up (it's bent and wouldn't fit under his car), so I drove down to where he was and we finally got his spare tire on after a lot of heat (he was in the underground parking at the conference center) and a mishap. All's well that ends well, right? Once we got to the game it was a great rest of the night!

Jared and me enjoying the game - don't mind the slightly blue teeth - we had a blue raspberry snow cone :)

Friday after work Jared and I went to Cafe Rio for dinner and then headed out to Erda for the drive-in. We hung out at the Miner's for a little bit before we headed over to the show. We watched Shrek 4 and IronMan 2. Gotta love the drive-in!

Saturday I drove up and spent the day with Jared and his family. We met in Kaysville at 11:00 for the 4th of July parade. We had really good seats and had a lot of fun. Here's a few pictures of the parade.

After the parade we went back to Jared's house and had some good conversation over good food. After dinner we headed back down to Kaysville for fireworks at the park.

The whole gang - Jared's younger sister Angela, Jared, Jared's older brother Bob, older sister Jennifer, her son Josh and daughter Jorja and Jennifer's husband Richard.

Jared and me enjoying the fireworks. Poor Jared and his sunburned face and head...he even wore sunscreen :(

I tried to get a couple of pictures of the fireworks. These were the ones that turned out the best.

All in all it was a great weekend and I'm so glad I got to spend it with Jared and his family!

My Sweetie

Here's a couple pictures of me and Jared. He is the sweetest guy ever and we have such a great time together! I'll post more pictures of our fun times as we've got quite a bit planned in the next couple weeks.

Jared and me at Kevin and Megan's reception

Stacy and I stopped on our way up to Crystal Hot Springs and got some slurpees, so we made a stop by Jared's to say hello. :)

SOUTH DAKOTA!!

Crystal and I took a road trip to South Dakota so I could visit friends and take a break from work and school. We left early early on a Weds morning and rolled back into Utah late the following Monday night. The drive was shorter on the way out because we did a lot of sight-seeing and took 2 days to get to Sioux Falls. On the way back we drove the 15 hours straight thru, so we were definitely ready to be home! We have a running past of keeping track of funny random quotes, and this trip was no different. We had our quote book for the trip and got some good laughs over them as well....so I've included a few for your laughing pleasure!

Crystal and I at 5:30 am bright-eyed and bushy tailed :)

Detour through Wyoming at Independence Rock
Quote from me: "I can't smile, my face is shivering!"
It was about 35 degrees so we were very cold as we hiked out to the rock, and then we also had a picnic lunch.....silly girls!


Devil's Tower in Wyoming - It was super super windy!
Quote from Crystal "We'll pass another crazy woman!"

And Crystal was right - we did pass another crazy woman....sign at least! We stopped randomly along I-90 to take this photo and got honked at by some guys in a U-Haul.

We also detoured through the Badlands and took lots and lots of pictures. I got pretty good at driving and snapping photos. We stopped at most of the lookouts to get pictures as well.

We ended up in Rapid City on Wednesday and then Thursday was filled with sight-seeing Jewel Cave and Rount Mushmore (that's a quote from me - I kept messing my words up!)
Awesome Mount Rushmore

Scenery from Jewel Cave - it was pretty cool!


We also stopped by Wall Drug in Wall, SD to experience that. We walked around the shops and looked at lots of touristy stuff. There are billboards for Wall Drug ALLLL along I-90, basically all the way across South Dakota.


We got into Sioux Falls late Thursday night - an hour after Garmina told us we'd get there. My uncle Terry let us borrow his Garmin (it's a GPS system) so we nicknamed her Garmina and had conversations with her during our trip. ha ha! It was really nice to have - I think I want one for my birthday! :)

I went over to my best friend Jackie's when we got in and I was there till the wee hours of the morning! It was so great to see her and catch up on things! Crystal and I had a list of things we wanted to do while in Sioux Falls because it was also a vacation for us.

We stopped by Falls Park, for which Sioux Falls was named, and had fun walking around and taking pictures. Here's a view of the falls from the observation tower that you can climb up and look over the Falls. It's a pretty cool place!!

Another quote that Crystal caught me saying was in relation to the below photo. I had taken a seat by the buffalo and Crystal thought it was a sexy pose and she said something about it. Without thinking I responded "I don't want a sexy pose by the buffalo!" I've been teased endlessly about it since then!

We ate out basically for lunch and dinner both Friday and Saturday - so lots of good food. We met Jackie and her son Blake for Chinese one day at the BEST place in the world! He is THE cutest kid - I'm glad I got to meet him. We had a fun time trying to get some pictures where he was cooperating.

Auntie Liz and Blake :)

Friday night we went out to Granite City and had great food and great company. My closest 3 friends were able to come out and have dinner with me. We had some great conversations and laughs. I felt bad because Crystal didn't have a clue what we were talking about, but luckily she quoted to me "I can watch movies in my mind" so I think that's what she did while we were talking and catching up on the last 2 1/2 years :)

Me, my friends Robin, Jackie and Denae - I sure miss those girls!

We also toured the Great Plains Zoo and got some good laughs there as well. This sign was outside of the Rhino pen - we were looking at the rhino until he started turning around......

Cute little giraffe trying to get a drink!

Very very large turkey!

We went to the Washington Pavillion and the Kirby Science Discovery Center in Sioux Falls to see some exhibits and do some fun science stuff. The Science center is kind of like the Discovery Gateway, pretty fun. Crystal and I went to the 3D IMAX movie that was titled "Extreme" but we both fell asleep, so obviously it wasn't too extreme! ha ha ha I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up, so here I am fulfilling my dream!!

We drove out east of Sioux Falls and went to the EROS Data Center. Since Crystal is a geography nerd she was very excited for this place. :) It's the Earth Resources Observation Systems data center, they take pictures of the earth and lots of stuff with maps. And as we were driving there Crystal let me know "I LOVE the smell of maps!" I'm glad I'm now privy to that information.

Me with a big globe out at EROS

While we were there, we drove over to Garretson, SD and checked out Devil's Gulch. This is the famous gulch that Jesse James jumped over with his horse to escape authorities from Minnesota after he and his brother robbed a bank. We walked around the trails and took lots of self portraits.


We didn't have to jump over the gulch, we just walked over the bridge :)

It was great to see everyone and be able to do some sight-seeing and vacation while we were in South Dakota. On the way back home Monday, we did make one detour through Mitchell, SD because we couldn't leave without seeing the famous CORN PALACE!! Too bad it wasn't open that early! :)

We stopped in Chamberlain, SD to take some photos of the Missouri River. Crystal thought it would be a good idea to take a little hike down to try and get closer to the river.....so we hiked down and down and down and really didn't get anywhere. But it was fun!! :) Here's a pic of Crystal and I in the middle of the forest 'closer' to the river!

All in all it was a fantastic trip! Definitely not long enough time to spend in Sioux Falls seeing everyone and doing everything we wanted, but it was nice to get away and enjoy a break from work and school.

A few other quotes that made us laugh are as follows:
Crystal often has eruptions of sound as she called it and she had an eruption of sound as she tried to say "I have a tootsie" referring to her tootsie roll pops. ha ha ha

As we were in traffic somewhere I was caught quoting the following "You're lucky I didn't honk buddy, because when I honk I shoot darts out of my car!" ha ha ha - this is what driving in a car ALLL day long will do to you!

As I was driving again, I felt the need for us to go faster, so to warn Crystal I said "Ready? Warp speed! (insert warp speed sound effect here)"

It was a fantastic trip and a much needed break. Thanks for a great time Crystal!!

BRIAN REGAN

For Christmas Rachel and Shawn got me a ticket to see Brian Regan - the funniest comedian alive!

Rachel and me before the show - hence my cheesy grin!

3rd time's a charm for pictures - here's Shawn and Rachel waiting in anticipation for the show

We were informed while we were there, that this was the night they were doing the 'live' recording of the show! That was pretty cool.

Here's a few links to clips of Brian Regan on Youtube

Seatbelts, Log trucks, Blasting Zones, Evel Knievel

Horns and Windshields

You Too and Stuff

The show was awesome, I was laughing SO hard!! We had a great time! Thanks Rachel and Shawn for the ticket! :)

My girls!

Stacy and Meg are my two bestest friends ever! Meg got married back in January and also quit working at Harland Clarke, so I don't get to see her very often anymore. We planned a girls night and got together for some good food and girl talk! :) We were laughing so hard we were crying and we couldn't hardly breathe. I'm so lucky to have met these 2 girls and I'm grateful for their sweet personalities and great examples in my life!

Adria's 4!

I had the chance to go up for the last little bit of Adria's birthday party last month. I had school stuff, so I finally made it up there about 6:30. They had already gone out to eat and were opening presents when I got up there. I can't believe she's 4! It's been really fun living so close to Rachel and her family these past 2 1/2 years. I always get great big hugs from Adria when I visit! :) They're the best!

Cute little birthday girl

Adria and me with her My Little Pony present I got her

Rachel makes the most awesome cakes for her kids! Here's Adria's Ariel cake.

I love Adria's little grin in this picture - she's so cute!

I had a good time visiting for Adria's birthday. Since it is the middle of March, Cade's birthday was on the 17th, but I had class till 9:00 so I didn't get to make it up for his birthday party. I can't believe he's 11!! Time is going by so fast. I can remember when we visited him in Kansas when he was tiny tiny. He's growing up fast too! It's fun being able to be so close to these kids!

Ogden Fun

I'm a bit behind on my blogging....work, school and the gym are keeping me busy. I went up to Ogden a while back and enjoyed hanging out with Crystal and Alicia. We had lots of treats, went to see Sherlock Holmes (which is way good!!) and played lots of games. We had a great time!

Crystal and I demonstrating how to properly eat oreos with forks - this way you can dunk the whole oreo and not get your fingers messy. It works great! :)

My Grandma Frieden had The Christmas Game and I loved playing it with her. Alicia found this one online and had purchased it, so we played a game. It brought back lots of memories of Grandma Frieden and all the fun things I did with her.

We had lots of yummy treats and had Cafe Rio before we went to our movie. I love hanging out with these two girls - we always have such a blast!