FloRida SPRING BREAK 2012

Spring Break 2012!

I was invited on a Girl’s Trip to Cocoa Beach, Florida March 21^st-26^th with Laura, her boyfriend Alex’s mom (Karen) & Alex's sister (Afton).  Karen’s brother has a beach house right on Cocoa Beach, and was nice to let us stay there for the week.

We took a direct flight to Orlando on Wednesday. I HATE airports/TSA/flying more than anything in the world. And of course I find out when I’m standing in line for security/handing the TSA guy my boarding pass that my driver’s license is expired (it apparently had expired the week before on my birthday). For a second I panicked thinking he wasn’t going to let me through. But he did anyway. And then came the scan part. My purse gets pulled out of the scanner & the TSA lady says she’s going to have to run it through a second time & inspect it closer, and do some wand testing thing with it, and run it through a 3^rd time. I’m racking my brain trying to figure out what I left in there that is causing so much alarm. I always get my bags searched- the best was on the way home from DC when the scanner made the large candles I’d bought look like bombs apparently & caused all sorts of alarm. Lesson learned, don’t bring home candles, esp when I ended up finding the exact same ones at Ross when I got home anyway.

Moving on.

The flight was pretty uneventful. They changed Laura’s seat assignment at the last minute which was annoying. I ended up having a six year old next to me, and her mom was on the other side of the isle. She slept most of the flight on my shoulder actually.

Thursday we went grocery shopping. We picked out cute beach towels, a beach umbrella, and pool air mattresses. We made lunch, and then went to the beach. After a few hours at the beach we came home and blew up the air mattresses and lounged at the pool. Uncle Jeff’s awesome beach house has a sweet full size pool with a diving board.

We went to dinner at Grill’s Seafood Deck and Tiki Bar. They have the best outdoor patio. I ordered coconut shrimp and clam chowder soup. Had to take advantage of the fresh seafood.

Friday we drove to Orlando (50 miles away) for the day. We went to the outlet mall (which are the same premium outlets as the ones I’ve been to in Vegas and Seattle). Love the outlets. I bought a bunch of jewelry, and a cute reversible bikini for $7 from Zumiez. (3^rd new swimsuit for the trip- one I’d bought before we left, Laura bought me one for my birthday, and then this one. Can you say obsessed?)

We went to dinner at Hard Rock Café, which apparently that location is the largest in the world!

Saturday we checked out Ron Jon’s. They have free parking for the beach, and then some metered parking too. The free parking was full, so we paid the meter while we shopped, but after shopping I decided that we should try and get a free spot since we were headed to the beach and didn’t want to have to worry about the time left on our meter. While Afton got the car, Laura and I stood in an empty parking stall we found to “save it”. I told her to hold her ground while people circled the parking lot looking for a space. I put on my best “dirty looks” face, and stood like I owned the place. LOL. Some cars just drove by us, but one guy honked at us and tried to get us to move. We held our ground for like 5 minutes until Afton returned. So worth it though.

After a day at the beach we came home and Jeff barbequed us some steak. We got Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and netflixed a funny movie, and had a relaxing evening in.

Sunday we went to the Pier, and played on the beach next to the Pier. (In previous days to the beach we were further North of the Pier.) Laura stayed back at the house and worked on homework. Afton and I took a lot of pictures though. We found huge pelicans! We went back to the house for lunch and played by the pool all afternoon, and took a ton more pictures- lots of action shots off the diving board.

We went to dinner at a pizza/pasta place literally 4 houses up the street from the house.

That night Laura, Afton, and I walked to the Pier since Laura hadn’t been earlier with us. The Pier was cool at night. I love walking along the shore at night listening to the waves crashing. It was a nice long walk.

That night we packed up all our stuff and didn’t go to bed until after midnight, and had to be up at 4am to leave for our early flight Monday. That was rough. The plane ride home was torture, and seemed way longer than the way there. Lots of turbulence. And since we hadn’t gotten much sleep all I wanted to do was sleep but I couldn’t get comfortable and the flight was FREEZING! I did read an entire book on the flight to/from Orlando so that was good.

Such a fun vacation. I had fun with Laura’s “in-laws” on our Girl’s Trip. We took a ton of pictures, Laura says I’m addicted and joked that I need to do a 12 step program for my photo taking obsession. LOL. And we blasted fun music 24/7 practically. I loved dancing poolside, jamming out in car, in the beach house, and on the beach. Flo Rida’s “Wild Ones” with Sia was the theme song for our trip, and I’m not exaggerating when saying we probably blasted it 50 times, at least!

PS Thanks to Mace for house-sitting my house, and taking care of my pets for the weekend. Mic drove to Cali for a couple days with his friends while I was gone. Aside from weekend trips to St George three times with my friends, Mic and I haven’t taken separate vacations/been away from each other for more than 2 nights while we’ve been married. And actually being so far apart ended up being harder then I’d anticipated. Opposite coasts of the country, LOL. My trip definitely won ;)

I’ll have to add pictures later (this post is super long anyway) and all our trip pictures are on Laura’s laptop.

Me, Afton, and Laura at the Pier at night 

Makes me laugh, I have a thing for taking random pictures with these things on every beach vac-a 

I don't think we packed enough bikinis! And 3 of these 13 were reversible..

Karen, Laura, Afton, Me owning Orlando.

 

Who buys a swimsuit and snow boots in the same day?!

Happy Birthday to me.

It was a great day. The whole day was just me and Mic. We never have whole days just the two of us. And usually birthdays are whole family/friends affairs. But I liked that it was just us two. This weekend will be the family party.

For breakfast we went to my absolute favorite… Kneaders. We did our usual, and split an order of the (crack) French toast and the sausage breakfast croissant sandwich. I love the sweetness of the French toast, but I’m also obsessed with the sausage and egg so splitting both is perfect.

Then we went to Park City to go shopping. Mic was such a good sport and was super patient with me shopping, and trying on everything! I LOVE Park City. For some reason it always feels like a mini vacation when we go there for the day.

I found super cute snow boots on sale at the Columbia store. I can’t remember the last time I even owned snow boots, which is super weird since we get a ton of snow. This winter I just borrowed my mom’s snow boots, but really who shares boots? The best part of this story is that the boot on display was seriously the size of a toddler’s shoe but I loved it, and lucky for me I wear kid shoes anyway (size 4).

I also found a cute bikini at Pac Sun for my Florida trip. And sunglasses. You can never have too many swimsuits ;)

Who buys snow boots and a swimsuit in the same day? LOL.

After shopping we came home, and I opened my presents from Mic. All I’d asked for was a new vacuum. I HATE our vacuum! Forever ago one of Mic’s old co-workers had given him his old vacuum when Mic first moved out on his own. Back then it might have worked okay but that was years ago. It seriously smells like rotten smelly shoes when you run it, and it weighs a ton! I kept saying I’d get a new vacuum for Christmas but then found fun things I wanted instead.

Mic also surprised me with a new blow dryer. Mine was probably from junior high, and if you turned it off partway through drying your hair (even after only having it on for like a minute) it wouldn’t turn back on until it “cooled off” for +5 minutes. Super inconvenient. So my new one is cute and hot pink (of course) and it has a retractable cord. I’d mentioned once last summer when we were at my cousin’s in Seattle that I wanted her same blow dryer with the retractable cord, and he’d remembered. And I’m pretty sure it’s her exact same blow dryer.

Mic and I always “fight” over the radio stations when we are in the car together. We have totally different taste in music. But today I got to listen to all my country stations! Had I known that I would’ve planned a road trip for my birthday. JK.

We went to dinner at a Steak place. And for dessert we went to Baskin Robbins for free birthday ice cream. I usually only eat Rocky Road, but I decided I wanted something new. Since I wasn’t having a birthday cake it seemed more fitting to get “Icing on the Cake” ice cream. It was actually way delicious.

Best Birthday ever!

PS

I hate that I’m a year older, and since last year I “lied” about my age the whole year and subtracted a year...  so now I plan on subtracting two years ;)

Love taking car pictures for some odd reason

Love us! 10 birthdays now we've celebrated..wow!

Mic's typical face when I tell him to pose for my pictures..

my new snow boots 

Trying out my new vacuum. LOVE!

I didn't realize Mic was taking my picture when  I tried on my sunglasses. They are cuter in  person.

3 years ago today-- best Friday the 13th EVER.

Three years ago today I got engaged! How time flies.

It was a Friday the 13^th. I had gone to work that morning, and because the census was low I was able to go home early. I was super tired so I went home and went back to bed.  Mic text me that he wanted us to go up the canyon and have his mom take our pictures, because we had no winter pictures really of us. I was super grumpy, and remember wanting to just rest and not take pictures in the cold. Hence why over the last 7 years we’d known each other we didn’t have “winter pictures”.  Mic showed up at my dad’s house, where I was still in bed, and convinced me to get dressed and come with him.  I begrudgingly agreed, and asked him what he wanted me to wear. He picked out my shoes (cute tan heels).  We drove up Big Cottonwood Canyon, to a place called Moss Ledge that we went to a lot in high school.

I asked Mic how his mom was going to find us since we didn’t have cell service. He assured me that she’d see his car pulled off the road, and would find us just fine. We started hiking up Moss Ledge. (Me in my heels, which resulted in Mic carrying me on his back for most of it- in the snowy/muddy ground).

The rest of the story is super fuzzy because I was so surprised/caught off guard. But sometime at the top of the hike he got down on one knee and opened the ring box.

Side note: even though we had gone ring shopping, and I had picked out my dream ring, the jewelers said it would take +6 weeks to come in since it had to be custom made in my super small size (4.15 ring size).

So when he opened the box and low and behold there was my ring (and not the solitaire temp they said I’d have to use in the meantime) I was so surprised that I pulled it out of the box myself and put it on my finger. LOL. I still feel bad about that, and that he wasn’t able to finish his sweet speech and slip it on my finger like what typically happens.

He’d brought a camera with him and we took a few pictures (his mom was never coming, that was just the story he told me so that I wouldn’t suspect anything; which had clearly worked).

We headed back down the mountain to his car, and at the bottom I noticed the knee on his pants was muddy and pointed it out and he said “…well I did get down on my knee…” in the whole surprise of the proposal I’d totally missed that detail as well.  

When we got back in the car to head back down the canyon the song that was playing on the radio was Josh Gracin’s Unbelievable. And I just started crying from being so happy, and I loved the lyrics. So I told Mic that that was going to be the song we danced to at our wedding. And it was.

Love you cuddle bugs & I’m so glad you asked me to be your wife.

“Everything I am, and I wanna be You see in me” “Late at night, can’t believe when you lie next to me, ‘Cause I know this is more than I deserve.” –Josh Gracin, Unbelievable.

Moss Ledge, Big Cottonwood Canyon

took this myself while getting a piggy back ride. Talent.

Is it Summer yet?

Today was such a warm day. It made me super stoked for summer time. I have a lot of camping trips I want to go on. We only went camping 3 times last summer (Moab, Ephraim Canyon, and Lake Powell). This year I want to go to Bear Lake for Raspberry Days and Flaming Gorge. I've never been to Flaming Gorge but the pictures look beautiful, and its not too far away. I hear Bear Lake is crazy for raspberry days but I do love raspberries, and always wanted to go so maybe we'll go? We are also planning a family camping trip with Mic's family to Lake Powell this summer. I love looking at our pictures from our Powell trip with the Ware's. That was seriously one of our best trips. I think this summer's trip will be fun, even though we won't be on a house boat. Afterall, it's Lake Powell...
On a side note, my girl's trip to Cocoa Beach, FL is coming up! So excited. I haven't been to Florida since Michelle and I went to Miami for our high school graduation trip. I LOVE the humidity and the warm Atlantic Ocean. 

Bear Lake

Cocoa Beach!

Flaming Gorge

I took this picture on my phone in Lake Powell. LOVE

My countdown chain I made for the spring break trip... LOL