memorial day weekend 2013. . .

this memorial day weekend will probably go down

in history as one of the best memorial day weekends EVER!

my whole family was reunited this past weekend!

 (minus logan because teach for america decided to be awesome & schedule

a training on a holiday)

nevertheless, family was reunited and good times were had:)

my little brother has been in Russia for the past two years

serving as a missionary for our church. 

2 years is a looong time!

 he spent those 2 years of his life teaching people

every single day about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

in russian.

i was floored when i heard him speak the language.

now i'm not claiming to be an expert in anything russian, but i have to say

that he sounds pretty dang legit.

good job james:)

he picked me up from the airport friday night and the tears were flowin'.

he is all grown up!

it was so fun talking & catching up on everything we have both

experienced/accomplished over the past 2 years.

on saturday james and i did a few errands.

i love driving around salt lake.

i think moving away has made me realize how

truly beautiful and amazing it is.

oh how i miss it :)

i love seeing the temple when i go home!

it reminds me of when logan & i got married there almost 

3 years ago.

3 years guys!

on saturday night my sister (aka the big SJ) rolled into town!

i pretty much took more pictures of baby caroline

than of anyone or anything else during the trip.

she is just so dang cute i literally couldn't help myself.

bless the hearts of our poor future children-i'm definitely going

to be one of those crazies photographing every little moment

of their little lives. 

sunday morning the whole family went to church and we

got to listen to james talk about his experience as a missionary.

i honestly wish that every single person could have heard his talk.

i was a serious mess with all the tears!

i'm so proud of my little brother for dedicating that time of his life

to the Lord & i know that he was able to help

a lot of people by sharing the gospel with them.

after church we had an open house at the casa for 

family & friends to come eat & hang out.

the whole family!

looking at this picture honestly makes me so happy!

it is crazy to think about how much we've all grown up!

remember the time i took 10,000 pics of caroline?

she is precious i couldn't help it.

cutest baby award as well as cutest mama award to my sis:)

she loved hanging out with grandpa ted.

they were BFFs and they both loved it.

monday morning my mom, sister & i went for a run in the canyon.

we hadn't run together since the race in NYC so it was mucho fun.

my parents literally go to jamba juice every day after they work out

so we all headed over there & drank jamba to our

hearts content.

trader joe's was across the street so we ventured in there for a bit.

caroline was loving the shopping cart experience. 

trader joe's is one of the happiest places on earth

as far as i'm concerned.

they have the most amazing/random things!

cookie butter-enough said:)

we bought some pretty flowers along with some other

random things (i.e. chocolate covered potato chips) and then

headed up to the cemetery to visit the grave of my great grandpa & grandma.

after that we went home & my family got ready to head

to the pool while i got ready to head to the airport:(

i am so grateful i got to go home & spend time with the people

i love most!

i am grateful my brother is home safe & i am even more excited for

him to be going down to BYU!

my bet is he'll be married within 4 months.

jk mom;)

BFF weekend. . .

so i realized that my last post about my hair was

perhaps the most depressing thing i've ever written.

ha.

sorry to be such a debbie-downer:)

moving on!

logan's bff caleb came into town over the weekend,

so we tried our best to show him a good time.

we started our saturday off at a basketball tournament

that a bunch of logan's students were playing in.

even though the kids in his class can be little drama queens/kings

a lot of the time, their faces pretty much light up when

they saw him walking up to the courts.

it was pretty cute:)

after the tournament we were pretty hungry so we took caleb

down to the king william district to what we've officially decided 

is our favorite spot:

after our gigantic breakfast we decided to hop on some

bikes & take them around some of the missions downtown.

they have little bike stations all around town & you

 can rent a bike for super cheap so it was perfect!

fun fact: i haven't ridden a bike since our honey moon like 2.5 years 

ago, however i would hardly call that instance bike riding

because i ended up walking my bike down the mountains

we were on because i was a wimp.

back to saturday afternoon:

i literally looked like a crazy person.

i couldn't steer straight to save my life.

i felt like the phrase "it's like riding a bike"

did NOT apply to me in any way shape or form.

i felt like i'd never ridden a bike in my life!

luckily after about 10 minutes of very awkward   

& very slow riding i felt more comfortable.

we probably biked around for a good 2 hours or so before we

were completely exhausted & decided to head home.

we decided to go up to austin later that evening because caleb

had never been & we wanted to re-visit our favorite places there.

we ate dinner at torchy's tacos & tried their queso.

it.was.amaaaazing!

the best queso i've ever tasted.

 i never really ate queso before moving to

texas but i feel like it is one of the main food groups

here & i am not complaining! 

it's the bomb.

obviously we had to go to gourdoughs for dessert.

hands down the best donuts in texas we've discovered thus far.

i cannot get over how amazing they are.

if you ever come to visit us we will go here for sure!

i just decided that before we leave texas i want to try every

donut on the menu.

:)

after gourdough's we waddled around south congress & popped

into some random stores.

we saw some interesting people doing some interesting things.

austin is weird.

but awesome at the same time.

we are so glad caleb came to visit!

we had a blast showing him around & it made us miss all

our other friends.

we really want other visitors!

come now!