Mexico 2012

We're back!  After 7 days in paradise we are back to reality.  We went to Riviera Maya in Mexico the first week of October.  It's right between Cancun and Playa and we stayed at an all inclusive adults only resort.  It's the way to go!  We had great weather all but one of the days.  We went shopping, relaxed, swam a ton, ate a lot of course, and even went to see some Mayan ruins.  It was the best trip ever!

Outside on our balcony

LOVED playing in the ocean.  The water was super warm

White sand & blue water.  The ocean was full of giant fish that swam all around me.  I screamed constantly and jumped on Bryce's shoulders causing quite a scene, but of course they were friendly.  People would bring bread out into the water to cause them to swarm all around them.  Yuck.

These giant lizards were everywhere!

There was wildlife to be found all over our resort.  These giant lizards liked to bake on the rocks.  They gave me the creeps.  We'd see racoons & other mammals wandering about.  My friend Emily will enjoy the last picture of a GIANT spider we found walking into our building.  Again I was terrified.  It's a blessing I was not born in a tropical place.

Bryce with his friend shopping in Playa

Shopping in Playa was a lot of fun!  It's about 40 blocks of shopping.  We walked ALL the way down and ALL the way back.  We were beat!  It gets old being yelled at constantly that things are "almost free" or "we have just what choo looking for!".  We got hungry once & I was SO skeptical of every shop or restaurant so I made Bryce get me Mcdonald's fries & ice cream.  Gotta love the reliablity of good 'ol mcdonalds :).



Mr. Senor Frog



I love my bright colored New York shirt, but note to self everyone & I mean everyone will yell & ask you if you are from New York & you can be heckled even more than you already were :)

Ready for a nice night out!

The restaurants were a lot of fun!  There were about 8 different ones to go out and try & they didn't require a reservation or anything.  You also had to dress up which was kind of fun.  My top 2 were the steak house & the Japanese restaurant.  The steak house was surprisingly amazing as well as the Japanese restaurant where they cook in front of you like Tepanyaki/Bonsai here in the states.  My favorite part was getting up to leave right after we were done eating - felt like I was dining & dashing every night!

This is as close as I would get to the big lizard...

Yes I did get sunburned & yes I did regret it...

Ready for a day of sightseeing...

One of the oldest churches in Mexico

Swimming in a 120 foot deep natural well/cave.  Freezing and exhilarating!

I was so scared to swim in this well.  It was deep & the thought of some creature seeing my toes & swimming up from the bottom to swallow me just wouldn't leave my mind.  I held onto the rope at all times!  It was cool we tried this though since it's natural & can't really do it anywhere else.

Ropes to hang on to



Chichen Itza



After a LONG bus ride we arrived at the Chichen Itza ruins.  We had an interesting tour guide that filled us in on the fun facts & crazy creepy sacrificing going on.  As well as the famous Mayan calender that does NOT say the world is going to end.  It just starts over...kind of like when our calender rolled over into 2000.  We're experts on the subject now if you have more questions :).  There were lots of buildings to check out & another natural well that was considered sacred to see.  There was a big arena where the Mayans played a game against eachother & either the winner or the loser was sacrificed - that fact remains unclear ha ha. 

Sad day - you're not allowed to climb up the steps anymore

This is where the royalty sat to watch the games.  Bryce told me to pose like I was the queen so there you go :)



And for the grand finale...the spider that took my breath away.  The worst was when it started crawling - haunts my dreams.



Thanks fam for the rides to the airport!  It was a much needed vacation & I'm so glad we just went ahead & did it.  It's true that you can really let time get away from you talking about how you're going to take that grand vacation "some day".  Although our time in Mexico was so fun I really am so grateful for America.  It's sad how much I missed American dessert!  Holy cow we know how to use sugar.  It's just nice to live where we do & feel so safe & drink the water and understand what everyone is saying.  I love the USA. 

Turning 24...

I was once again excited for my birthday this year!  It snuck up on me...but I was ready to celebrate when it came.  Bryce gave me my present probably 2 weeks before my birthday - a new personalized ipad case - and I was so mad at him for not being able to wait so I could have a surprise on my birthday!  So he rebuttled saying he would plan 10 surprises for me and I didn't argue with that. 

Surprise #1 - Bryce took the day off!  This is very rare as he works 4 days a week and has school 2 days a week.

Surprise #2 Breakfast at Ruth's diner!  We love this little gem up the canyon.  The breakfast there is SO good.  We've since gone there to dinner with our friends and it was delicious as well.  Basically you can't go wrong if you go there.  We got to eat outside and the weather was gorgeous.

Surprise #3 A trip to Utah's natural history museum.  It's the new one by our apartment and we've always wanted to go there.  Entry is free with our U cards so we checked it out.  It's pretty sweet!  The view was my favorite

Surprise #4 A trip to the zoo - I was very excited for this, but even more excited when I learned that...

Surprise #5 My nephews were coming!  Along with my SIL & BIL to join us.  That was really fun

Surprise #6 I got to go to the mall and pick out something fun to buy - I love when you can make guiltless purchases

Surprise #7 Dinner at the Cheesecake Factory - my favorite!  And even better when...

Surprise #8 Our friends, The Shermans, came down from up north to join us!  We have so much fun with them

Surprise #9 I kind of knew about this one because I'd asked for it...but watching an outdoor movie @ my dad's house.  We watched Stardust - I think this is such a great movie

and finally, Surprise #10 - my sister was there to watch the movie with us.  I NEVER see my sister.  She is so busy working and living downtown having a great time that it's hard to ever get her schedule to match up with mine.  This was a great birthday surprise and I'm SO glad Bryce knew me well enough to coordinate such a good one. 

I would definitely rank this as one of my top birthday days thanks to my husband Bryce who is just the best.  We were so tired after all of it that sleeping in on Saturday was pretty sweet as well!  Here's to being 24!!!

The end of one chapter brings the start of a new one...

I always knew we'd move out of married housing eventually, but I just never actually pictured the day actually arriving.  And I'm sad about it!  Of course I'm excited for a new adventure, but I'm so happy with our little place & routine that I'm always a little resistant to change, but of course end up loving it once it happens.  As most of you know we are officially home owners!  This experience has been such a blur, but perfect at the same time.  I think I was expecting so many speed bumps during the process, that I was almost in disbelief when there weren't any.  We met our realtor in May (?) and he told us to get looking at properties online and make a list of our favorites so we could start looking in the middle of June.  Easy enough right?  So we start looking at pictures and starring our favorites and I'm just dreading the thought of driving all over the valley, arranging appointments, looking at all these different places, and just not knowing what to do.  I figured that's what everyone did so I'd be fine. 

Wed May 30 - new house is listed, Bryce sees it, tells me to check out the pictures, I love it so we ask our realtor to go see what it's like - he says it's pretty awesome!

Thursday May 31 - realizing how awesome this townhouse is we drive out there the next day, love it so much, don't want anyone else to take it - so we drive to our realtor's house (we'll end up being his neighbor ha ha) and put in an offer

Friday June 1- offer ACCEPTED!  No counter offer besides moving up the closing date to sooner than we had suggested.  What just happened????  Now it was time for Bryce and I to actually think about it!

I could wash dishes and cook on the stove at the same time...

1513 was good to us!

The more we thought about it, the more right it felt.  Our families came to take a look and they liked it, we fasted and prayed and it was apparent it was right for us.  Everything went as smooth as butter and we closed on Monday July 2.  Literally a month from when we first saw it.  We moved our stuff over little by little and finally made the big move on July 14.  I can't believe it!  I LOVE this house with every fiber of my being (dramatic much? ha ha) and I can't believe I can call it home.  Our first big purchase (after the house) was our own washer and dryer.  I can't even express my excitement about that, about an oven with two racks and wide enough for a cookie sheet, about a DISHWASHER, and walls that aren't made of cinder blocks plus carpet that I can lay on and is actually too long to "sweep" clean.  It's just a dream come true!  Come visit!!!

Thanksgiving at our house this year...Susan's cooking of course :)

Anniversary

We've come to the conclusion that this was one of the best weekends we've had since we've been married.  It was just over the top great!  We started celebrating Thursday for Bryce's birthday BBQ at my mom's house.  We had our family over & enjoyed the outdoors!  My mom was a great host and made a delicious fruit pizza for the cake - it was devoured!  Bryce turned the big 25 and in honor of his age I walked into our bedroom to discover he'd fallen asleep at 9:30.  My sweet old man :)

Mom's fruit pizza cake - SO yummy!

Linds and Logan

Me and the birthday boy

This was completely coincidental!  We thought it was pretty funny

On Friday we had the day off to sleep in and get things organized for our weekend in Park City.  Once again Bryce's connections are nice and we had a free condo to stay at over the weekend that sleeps 12 people.  We didn't want the space to go to waste so we invited up our friends and about 8 couples came to celebrate Bryce's birthday with us.  We had fun eating pizza, sides, & chocolate cake.  Then we played my most favorite game, Rollick and died laughing at everyone's acting skills.  We kept playing different games, people hot tubbed, watched movies, and finally around 3 am everyone crashed somewhere or another.  We woke up Saturday morning and all went to breakfast together on main street.  It was so fun and I'm grateful to everyone who came!!


We continued the day by shopping with the Shermans at the outlets where I got my SWEET nike shocks.  I'm so excited for them.  Once we said goodbye to them it was nap time before our delicious night out on the town.  My mom spoiled us with a gift card to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse and it was the best dinner I have ever had.  The steak melted in your mouth, the sweet potatoes were amazing, and the free anniversary cheesecake was over the top devine.  I was like a fat cheshire cat leaving that place.  Thanks mom!  We spent the rest of the weekend hot tubbing, watching our wedding video (tradition), eating, shopping, seeing a movie (Dark Shadows - I would not recommend spending money to see), and just being in love.  It's been the best 2 years of my life and we have SUCH a big year ahead of us, I can't wait!  Love you Bryce.

Ready to party

The cake

Free dessert!

Celebrating the best 2 years of my life!

Ice cream on main street :)

Bryce's Graduation

What a fun day!  I know graduation commencements are the most boring thing on the planet, but I still love graduation days.  There's such a great energy at commencement with everyone and their family - so excited for the person graduating.  Seeing family you don't always get to see, so on and so forth.  This was a pseudo-graduation for Bryce in that he technically has summer classes to complete by Aug 1 until he's officially finished.  It still made more sense then him waiting to walk until April 2013 when we wouldn't even remember what he was graduating from :).  His college was the last one to walk around 7 o'clock that night.  It was fun to have family there to support him and cheer him as he got his diploma.  He was a good sport since I was primarily the one who "made" him do it ha ha.  Afterwards we went to Red Butte Cafe, which was nice since it was later and not a super popular place that we were able to sit right down and enjoy ourselves and some delicious food.  It wouldn't be a graduation post without mentioning the graduation gift Bryce accumulated all of his money for - a brand new TV.  His first-born pretty much ha ha.  He loves that thing and I still just don't get it, but I can't complain.  It's fun to watch movies with him and see him so happy about it!  Anyways - we will probably take a trip of some kind to celebrate him being truly finished in August.  Congrats B-MUNZ - so proud of you!

Looking studious

Our family!

At dinner after the ceremony

Bagley side

With the grad

Creating a mini "Ute"!

My parentals

Celebrating just the two of us with a trip via trax to City Creek

Arizona Vacation

Arizona vacation for me - business trip for Bryce.  It's kind of a sweet deal.  We flew in Sunday and drove to our jaw dropping resort.  Hands down the nicest place I've ever stayed.  We wandered around and were enjoying getting settled in and watching conference, until Bryce bit down funny and his front tooth broke off.  Literally half of it was gone just like that.  And his business conference hadn't even started!  Very bad luck.  He was able to keep the broken piece laying on the top of the remaining piece most of the time.  Unless he was eating or talking - it occasionally flew in my face during a conversation.  Attractive, I know.  But he survived!

We were able to go shopping while we were there at the mall and go see a movie (surprised? ha ha).  The movie theater was actually one of the highlights of the trip for me.  The tickets weren't that expensive because once you got to your luxurious love seat for two a waiter would take your order and bring you food during the movie.  It was pretty cool!

While Bryce was listening to boring speakers I was able to go to the gym and workout every day that we were there.  It was so therapeutic I can't even tell you.  After working out I'd head straight for the pool all day long.  That Arizona sun is intense!  I wore sunscreen the whole time and still had some lobster red going on.  The first night of the conference they had an opening mixer sort of thing.  We went for the free dessert and music/dance floor.  It's nice not knowing anyone there - you can afford to be completely silly and avoid embarrassment.  Other than that the trip was a blur of eating, sleeping, and relaxing.  I'm glad we had this opportunity to go on such a fun trip together.  I'm proud of Bryce for attending the conference and grateful he let me tag along to have a much needed break!  Until our next business trip :)

Dinner @ Cheesecake factory

Pool time - Bryce won't smile because of his tooth

Visiting me at the pool

Our public transportation tradition

3D movie time!

Going home - @ the airport!

March Madness

Even though March Madness has to do with basketball, it truly describes our month as well!  With snow finally showing up Bryce was swamped at work while school was in the heart of the semester.  I was also going all over the place and trying to remember what day it was.  We did have some fun times despite it all.

Ski day!  Last year we took my dad skiing and he enjoyed it so much he did what he does best - invites the rest of the family for the next time!  Chris and Shea came up for spring break and Lindsay was able to come as well.  It was a beautiful day of spring skiing!  I was impressed with my sister who hasn't skiied since junior high and what I remember of that day was her throwing a tantrum on the mountain side and fighting with my mom.  Needless to say I was nervous what was going to happen!  She did excellent - everyone did!  Even Susan who brought us hot chocolate, hot soup, sandwiches, chips, drinks, and treats.  It was amazing - I don't know how she does it.  We skiied the whole day and then went back to rest and later had dinner that Susan once again whipped up for all of us.  I justify it saying we burned a lot calories.  I'm so grateful to Bryce for getting us all of the passess and equipment - it makes skiing an activity all of us can do!

Star Valley Wyoming - our friends, the Jessens, invited us to their parent's cabin in Wyoming and we happened to have the 4 days off when they said they were going.  The cabin was beautiful and so was the landscape.  There are a lot of Bagleys in Star Valley and at the first place we stopped when Bryce paid for something with the credit card he was bombarded with questions asking if he knew so and so's friend or so and so's teacher, etc ha ha.  Unfortunately Bryce doesn't really know anyone there ha ha.  We went shopping in Jackson Hole one day and I loved it!  Especially the boutiques where there are a lot of cute items that are one of a kind.  We ate at unique places to the town and walked all over.  We saw mountain goats, tons of elk, and a moose on our drives from place to place.  We rented a ridiculous amount of movies and played SO many board games.  We must've played Sorry at least 10 times and I learned that Taboo gets my adrenaline pumping.  We slept in every day, we also got to go sledding, and even went to church which I loved.  Sarah had overly planned our meals and one night we had grilled salmon, grilled asparagus, and cheesy potatoes.  I'm drooling just thinking about it now.  They grilled chicken especially for me because I don't like fish, but once I tried it I actually liked it!  The Jessens love to fish so it was what they'd caught themselves.  We kept saying we didn't want to go home, but alas the time for that came as always.  They said the summers there are fun as well so hopefully we get to go back!

Kelly Clarkson - My mom and sister have birthdays just days apart from each other at the end of March.  I always try to go see Kelly Clarkson when she comes to town because I love her so much and I was glad my mom's birthday was close to it so I could use it as an excuse to buy tickets!  My mom took me to her last concert for my birthday so I thought it would be fun to go again.  Of course Kelly rocked the house sounding EXACTLY like she does on her album - maybe even better because she does all sorts of freestyling.  We had great seats and sang ourselves hoarse.  It was such a great concert!  Lindsay turned 20 a few days later and we celebrated by going to Red Robin and eating disgusting Key Lime cheesecake that Lindsay wanted ha ha.  She's probably the only one who likes it, but that's what birthdays are for!  On Sunday Susan cooked dinner for 20 people to celebrate Lindsay's birthday.  It was definitely chaotic, but fun!  I can't believe she's already 20 - that means I turn 24 way too soon.  For her birthday we decided to do something fun together so it looks like pedicures and Zumba will be happening sometime in April!

And finally - we are Hunger Games fans (of the books not the literal event) and were so excited for the movie.  I had to sleep after a night shift the day it came out, but woke up so we could go to a matinee showing at the Gateway.  I loved it - it sounds like most people did as well.  Of course there are always those comments that the book was better, but that's why you have the option of doing BOTH.  I was surprised by my emotions that I felt during the movie that I hadn't in the book.  It's interesting that the different media can change that.  It was uncomfortable and heart wrenching to watch some parts of the movie even though they depicted exactly what the book was saying.  We took trax up to Cafe Rio and met the Leishmans there - delicous as always.  I could eat there 7 days a week - not kidding.  Then we went to the Jazz game vs the Denver nuggets.  We got to sit in a suite and it was pretty awesome!  We cheered a ton and watched them win the game.  It was a great night!