Long time - No see!

Wow! It's been awhile since I've been in the blogging world -but I'm here to update all my friends and family on what Jess and I have been up to over the last couple of months! We have been so busy - but thankfully, still managed to make time for one another aside from work, school, and all the other chores in life! During the cold months, we found plenty of time to do a few of our favorite things... snowshoeing and ice fishing of course!!!
Jess surprised me back in February (yes he did something for ME during his birthday month!) and took me snowshoeing. That wasn't the surprise part -duh - because I knew we were going. But I had packed a lunch together for us and so about half-way into our hike up the mountain we decided to stop and eat our lunches. Well Jess had brought along an extra backpack that I didn't think enough to ask him what was in it. So while we were eating the sandwiches and snacks that I had brought for us, Jess whips out his backpack full of cut-up fruit and chocolate, a thermos, and a pan to heat the chocolate up on - and we had a little fondue dessert up on the mountain; it was so thoughtful of him! He always has something new up his sleeve, I just love him!

(please try to contain your laughter from this awful picture of me, I know I look so stylin', but I had been riding in a car for ...um let's see... 6 hours straight... before this picture was taken)..
I'm not a big fan of winter (OK, I hate the winter) but this year I tried extra hard to find the beauty of the outdoors, even during the below zero temperatures. Jess and I took a trip down to my cousin Nate's house and went ice fishing with him and two of his boys - Ty and Graycen. It was a blast!!! We had to wake up at 3am to drive down to Nate's house (in Spanish Fork Canyon) and then drive another 3 hours to get to Fish Lake... but it was so worth it because we caught over 30 fish in our day trip down there!

This is Jess and my cousin's son Ty. These boys adore Jess!

Graycen caught more fish than anyone else there! NO joke - this kid would catch a fish, then put his line back into his fishing hole, and within 30 seconds or less, he would have another bite!

This was mine and Jess' catch for the day... not too shabby!

Then it was Jess' birthday on the 26th of February, he turned the big 2-5! I wanted to make it extra special since he was turning a quarter of a century old. I may have gone a little overboard on the whole present thing, but I don't care because we had a great weekend for his birthday. I had a present in each of these bags for him that spelled out HAPPY BIRTHDAY. Some of them were small little gifts like a homemade coupon for a free footrub from his sweet wifey, a DVD, or a hunting t-shirt. Then some of the other gifts were bigger and more exciting, like a night stay at the Alaskan Inn on the night of his b-day, two lower-bowl Jazz tickets for that weekend, and a couples massage.

For Christmas, I had given Jess front row tickets to see Brian Regan! On March 12, we were able to see him perform at Abravanel Hall in SLC. We had SOOO much fun together, we were laughing 'til our cheeks and stomachs hurt from laughing for almost two hours straight! We couldn't get a picture of him because they wouldn't allow cameras, but we both got to shake his hand afterward which was pretty cool!

Then - a few days later, we celebrated my little sister Matti's SWEET 16th birthday! I can't believe my baby sister is old enough to date and drive! It seems like I just barely got my license and that was almost 7 years ago, holy cow I'm gettin' old!!

The following weekend, McKinli, my mom and I were able to go to Jason Aldean and Luke Bryan in concert in Salt Lake. (Matti went to the concert too, but she had tickets with one of her friends). Kinli, me and my mom had 2nd row tickets and we had tons of fun together! We ate at Crown Burger beforehand and had so much fun dancing, singing along, and watching crazy drunk people during the concert! Such good memories were made =)

That's a wrap-up of what we've been up to lately. I'll try and be a bit more devoted to this blog. Only two more weeks of going to school 4 nights a week! So after that I may have a little more free time to update all of you on the going-on's of our lives... until then, enjoy the warm weather... summer is almost here and I can hardly wait!