Provo Canyon Sunday Drive

This past Sunday afternoon, Chad and I jumped into the Accord and decided to take a drive on the Alpine Loop because it was such a beautiful day. The trees are starting to show the season more and more; some had yellow/red/orange leaves and others were losing their leaves altogether.
At one point, we pulled off the road and did a little adventuring down a small path into the thousands of aspens. Aspens are Chad's favorite!

I pretty much just love the season of fall in Utah. It's nothing like fall in Southern California where most trees stay green year round. Here is one of my goals in life: live somewhere where the leaves change colors and the season of fall is just as beautiful as it is here!

BYU vs. UNLV

This past weekend, Chad and I got to go to our first BYU football game of the year!!! Seeing as it was the BYU vs. UNLV game (Chad is from Las Vegas) it was an obvious choice for Chad to take a little bit of time of work so we could go to at least one game this season. Plus, Chad's sister Kaitlin and her brand new fiance Danny were coming up for the game and got us sweet tickets! We were at about the 20 yard line on the east side of the stadium, right on the field! When Cosmo ran by us, this is how close we were:

We love you Cosmo!

Go Cougars!

Some of the UNLV players... I seriously think they recruited Big Foot to be on their team, he had SOOO much hair sticking out of the bottom of his helmet it was crazy.

At half time, my best friend Tatjana Thorkelson came over for a visit... I love that girl!

It was a close game, tied almost the entire time, but BYU came out on top and we won!

After the game, we noticed that even though Chad had been properly sunscreened prior to the game, he still managed to get some interesting sun marks...

1. a big white spot on his neck
2. a superhero hairline. What a sexy beast.

MIDTERMS.

Today marks the beginning of approximately 13 days of craziness! Well, at least for me... Chad already took all but one of his midterms last week, I'm jealous he's done. In the next 13 days, I've got 6 tests (not small tests) as follows:

1. Tues. 10/15 Nursing midterm
2. Fri. 10/17 MMBio Application Test
3. Mon 10/20 Doctrine and Covenants midterm
4. Wed 10/22 Anatomy Lab Midterm
5. Fri 10/24 MMBio Dieases Test
6. Mon. 10/28 Humanities 201 Midterm.

Apparently this is going to be my coping strategy for the next two weeks:

Haircut!!!

I got a haircut today and now my hair is short!!!  It was kind of a big step forward to cut off all my long hair (aka. safety net) but I absolutely love it!  I haven't had short hair since elementary school, and it's nice to feel so carefree about my hair.  Anyways... that is the exciting news of the day!

My daddy ran a marathon!

Last weekend my best friend Jacie and I drove down to St. George to watch my dad run in the St. George Marathon!  He was absolutely amazing, and improved his time from last time by 4 minutes with a time of 3 hours and 2 minutes!!!  I still can't even believe it.  As if it wasn't enough that he was running 26 miles, but it actually rained during the entire marathon.  Jacie and I hadn't really prepared for the weather so we were able to run around all day in a trash bag.

After the marathon, we got to hang out with my family and watch general conference together.  It's been a couple of months since I saw them last and I loved being able to just hang out with them.  For dinner, we met up with our long-time family friends, The Cummings Family, and spent some time hanging out with them.  Overall, it was an awesome little weekend get-away.  I'm so proud of my dad for all the time and effort he put into preparing himself for the St. George Marathon.  

This is Jacie and I prior to leaving  Provo... Roomie Road Trip Part III!

Coolest billboard ever!  (aka. Jacie and I in 50 years, kicking it and living young)

First thing we did upon arriving in St. George= In-N-Out

I pretty much just love my mom...  She and McKenna apparently thought something was pretty funny.

... and she didn't feel like being photographed.

Driving to mile 18 to see my dad (all 4 of us squished into the back seat of the Honda)

She was happy, I promise.

We were the trash bag people!!!  (who knew it was really going to rain?)

Family!

There he is, chugging along at mile 18.

Luke ran the last 1/4 mile with my dad, he was excited for him to finally get to the finish line...

After the race, we met up with the Cummings for some delicious food at Jimmy John's.

Hanging out at the Cummings...

Ring #2

On a random Thursday night a week or two ago, Chad came home with a big surprise for me: my beautiful wedding band!!!  It was an amazing surprise and an amazingly gorgeous ring!  Now everyone can know that I really am married.

my best friend...

This is Jacie Bowen. She is my best friend, besides Chad Bennett (of course) and I just want everyone to know how great she is... pretty much my favorite. I think this picture tells it all: she has a passion for eating abnormally large vegetables and is not afraid to eat it right off the vine! Way to go Jacie!

Shooting: In the Dead of Night

Two weekends ago, we decided that for date night, we would do a group date shooting up at Hobble Creek Canyon. Unfortunately we didn't plan far enough ahead on the whole timing thing and we ended up having 15 minutes of dusk before it got to be dark outside; not exactly the most conducive environment to shooting firearms, but we made the best of it!

Hawken and Jacie... she was seriously frightening with the gun when she wasn't dropping to the ground everytime she heard a gun shot. I guess that's just what happens when you grow up in LA County!

I love shooting guns!

The other reason we wanted to go out shooting was to try out Shane's new "Clay Pigeon Shooter Thing" ( have no idea what the real name is). It was pretty awesome. We can't wait to go out again, this time when we can actually see the flying pigeons!

After shooting, the boys all made up a fire, and we got out our roasting sticks to make some Pigs in a Blanket. Yum!Jacie was pretty impressed.
This is a picture of the bullet that exploded in our fire and shot burning embers onto my arm. Good thing Hawken had the good sense to brush them off and only a 2nd degree burn ensued.

Kenzie Shae turns 1!!!

My favorite little niece, Kenzie Shae, turned one year old this September! Kaitlin, Courtney, Johnny, Luke, and Mommy Bennett seized the opportunity and roadtripped it back up to Provo for the occasion! It was quite the party, and Kenzie impressed us all with her new walking skills, sign language, and then stuffing large amounts of cake and frosting in her face. It was pretty great. It was fun to spend another weekend with the Bennetts, even if it was a little bit shorter now that school has started and everyone had to be home by Monday.

Extreme cake eating:



I got to hang out with Luke during Kenzie's birthday party, and after a little bit of crying, he just kind of passed out for an hour or so. The kid was totally asleep and adorable...


Still sleeping... But this time, with a party hat on!
Unfortunatley, Chad had to work during the birthday party, but he was still able to hang out with Luke doing what they both do best: sleeping!

Mini-golf!

A couple of weeks ago on a Friday night, we hopped in the car and headed to good 'ol Trafalga for date night. With our schedules so crazy, and Chad working every Saturday night, Friday nights have become the official night to take time off of school and do whatever we feel like doing. Apparently Trafalga has a date night package where you can get mini-golfing, a couple of game tokens, and (Chad's favorite) Dippin' Dots!

He was pretty stoked for this whole Dippin' Dots business... I pretty much don't see the point, but to each their own.

We're pretty hardcore golfers, I mean look at that stance, we mean business!This is me when I thought I was going to win, turns out we tied... exactly the same score!
After an exciting 18 holes, we went inside and played a few of the arcade games. I haven't done that in so long, and it was oddly entertaining. Chad was dying to play the skiing one; he's just practicing for the winter when we get to actually go ski/snowboard!