Davey Croquet

Since yesterday was a beautiful 60 degree day here in Provo, we spent the afternoon playing a little croquet and bocce ball. You know, your typical lawn sports. It was my first time playing croquet and I was quite horrible. Dave and Tom can play a mean game of croquet. I was pretty impressed. But when it came to bocce - Katie and I showed the boys up.

In other news, Halloween was pretty uneventful. Dave spent the night studying until 12 a.m. for an OChem test he had the next day, and I went grocery shopping. We are pretty hip these days. We did make it to one Halloween party that our friends Sara & James hosted. We carved a "Go Mitt" pumpkin, which later died an awful death when a friendly neighbor decided to stab it. They even left the knife stuck in it. That was exciting.

Election day on Tuesday! It was interesting to me that despite all the political hype going on, not a word of it was mentioned in our whole three hours of church. It was a good reminder to me that the world will keep turning, and the Lord's work will keep progressing no matter who wins. We live in a great country. We are blessed.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and I am getting way stoked because the Facers and McAffees will both be coming up to Utah. I'm pretty sure we are having three Thanksgiving dinners. Wednesday. Thursday. & Friday. Bring on the lbs!

Fall-ing

One of our favorite things to do last summer was to go wake-surfing with Uncle Dave and Aunt Kat. Luckily, we were able to get out on the boat at the very end of summer before it got too cold. It was the perfect transition from California to Utah. My surfing this summer seems to have made a difference, I was having so much fun out there, and did better than I had a year before. Woop woop. Dave always kills it, and it is really fun to watch him.

We've enjoyed a bikeride and a drive through the canyon. The Alpine Loop is a favorite. The fresh mountain air gets me every time.

Spent an afternoon with my lovey Clare. We diced and canned beets with Grandpa and Grandma Facer, and spent some time in their garden. There are so many things I want to learn!

Our friends are in a super rad band called The Strike. It's like a 9-person set up and sounds so sick. This show was on a nice summer night in Tom's backyard. So many people came! Sean and Jenny were grill masters and it was good to see them too.

Some of my girl friends started a monthly craft night, so I have been getting my craft on. Which has led me to start some projects around the house...more on that later.

And lastly, we enjoyed a wonderful conference weekend with all my family in town! It was awesome. I'm already looking forward to Thanksgiving.

Hope everyone is enjoying the fall changes! Say yes to sweaters.

oh hello world.

So I am crawling out of my cozy spot under a rock and I might actually start blogging again! Usually when people go absent from blogging for long spells it is because they have gotten pregnant or had a baby. Well I am here to inform you that neither of those is the case, we just had a crazy awesome summer in California.

California? Really? Yes. And it was crazy awesome. I got offered a job to nanny hang out with two rad kids in San Clemente for four months. Little skater-dude-surfer-groms, whose love of rocks and all things "boy" were right up our alley. We learned a lot, played a lot, and napped...a lot. Boys are exhausting!

Dave was down there shadowing, teaching surf lessons, and finding other odds and ends to keep busy and prepare for the scary of scary semesters (OCHEM!!). When not doing that, he was surfing, or with me, or surfing with me - just lovin life guys.

Outside of work we tried to live it up and soak up all that California had to offer - which was a lot. Family, surfing, and adventuring filled our days to the brim. The first half of the summer, my hours were lighter while the boys were in school. That meant we were surfing 3x a week and even squeezed in two road trips - one to Encinitas, and the other up and down the California coast. Serious memories were made. The computer I uploaded our pictures and videos on crashed, so I am anxiously waiting to see if I have any record of it. So sad.

The second half of summer things got super busy with work and I was working around 60-70 hours a week. Nutso. Instagramming even stopped (gasp!). But we made it out alive and still are so thankful and had so much fun.

Just for my own memory's sake, and for things I might elaborate on later, here is what we were up to from April to September...

APRIL
- Finished winter semester and my last ever BYU class
- Moved to California

MAY
- Kari & Luke's wedding (25th)
- TWO year anniversary for us (28th)
- Celebrated our anniversary in the radical Encinitas (I would love to end up there someday)

JUNE
- Birthday Bonanza: Mine (17th), Beaver's (18th), and Dave's (20th) - since our birthdays are three days apart, we have gotten in the habit of combining them...and we have done the same thing 4 years in a row (minus 1). We spend the whole day at Doheny. Surfing all day & night, and capping it off with a bonfire with friends and family. One of my favorite days all year.

JULY
- Tom & Katie Hall's wedding in Sacramento - roadtripped up the coast through Big Sur, Carmel, San Luis Obispo, Santa Cruz, San Fransisco, and other cool scenes. The loveliest road trip of my life. Big Sur stole my heart.
- We left for our roadtrip on the 4th of July, so we got to see how different cities celebrated it on our way up the coast. We stopped in Ventura and ended up in Cayucos for fireworks and a bonfire with new friends.
- Dave did a 10-day work gig in central California, being apart is the pits.

AUGUST
- Work work work
- Last minute bucket list check marks

SEPTEMBER
- Back in Provo
- Me starting a new job, and Dave starting the hardest semester to date. Three cheers for Dave!

We are getting back in the Provo groove, and I have to say - It's good to be back. Utah is beautiful this time of year, and I can't help but get excited for what lies ahead. I mean let's be real...I'm already listening to Christmas music...I'm one of those people.

Hopefully I will be back on here more regularly. In the meantime - cheers. And thank you to our families back home who hosted us this summer and made us feel so loved. We love you back.

sun sun sunday

It feels like summer today. We got to go over to Tom Hall's casa today after church for lunch. I drove there and back in Dave's car. Why the big deal? I spent two hours yesterday learning how to drive stick so I will be able to drive our car finally. And by George I think I've got it! But put me on a hill and all confidence in my driving abilities end. I will get better though. It's pretty fun!

Anyways, at Tommy's we had lunch with him and his fiancée Katie. She is rad. Hoagies were prime. Weather was prime. 60s all week people! We dragged out the futon mattress to the backyard and just laid in the sun for a while and poked bugs with sticks while we talked about life and marriage. I love days like this.

I can't wait for summer...

leap year.

Februaries Past

February 2006 - Just friends here

2007-08 Dave Mission, Me BYU

February 2009 - Dating (we were about to ride his moto down to Thalia)

February 2010 - Engaged, Laie, Hawaii

February 2011 - Married, Provo, UT

February 2012 - Provo, UT (still)

Well today is leap day. And I got to thinking about what I was doing 4 years ago the last time this happened. It was 2008. I was at BYU and Dave was on his mission. I would read his missionary letters that his family would forward to me, and in the back of my mind I wondered if we would fall back into being good friends after his mission. I wondered if we would even live in the same state. I wondered if he would ever ask me on a date. He promised he would...back when I was 16. And I was still waiting on that promise.

The leap day before that would take me to 2004. My freshman year of high school. The Facer family had moved into our ward in Mission Viejo, CA. Our parents had been good friends when we were all little, so when they moved into town our families became close.

I remember the first day that I met Dave, for reals. His family was unloading a truck full of stuff from the move...their 20 surfboards were scattered all over the lawn. I was sitting on their front brick steps when suddenly this hunk of a 16 year old with long blonde hair came up and just started talking to me. I was like WOAH. This guy. He is fanTAStic. That night our ward had a beach bonfire at T-street. Ske, Luke, and Dave stayed out in the water surfing the whole time, they were a little anti-social that day. All the girls in the ward called dibs on Ske...he had long blonde hair and played guitar...and they were all about it. And I was OK with that. We all know why. My fire was already burnin'. And so, my secret crush on Dave started.

Within that first year they became my second family. I was at their house everyday. Clare Facer (Dave's little sister) was three years younger than me, but we became best friends. She taught me so much about actually living and enjoying life. She was my soul sister. I could laugh and laugh with that girl. She still is my best friend...and now we are sisters (look at what two leap days can do!). Kari Amundsen, my other best friend, also became really close with the Facer family..so close that her and Luke (Dave's younger bro) hit it off and two leap days later they are getting married! And I get to be sisters with her now too! Score. Who gets to have that. Seriously. OK back to the story. So high school...we were all such good friends. The boys had their surf crew. Sometimes us girls would tag along. At this time I mainly hung out with Clare, Luke and Kari. Dave had a girlfriend for most of junior and senior year of high school, so that kept him busy. Looking back I am glad that he did. Because of it we were able to develop such a great friendship with almost no flirting! We just genuinely thought each other was "cool." I still had my secret crush on Dave but I tried to keep it mellow. People since then have told me it wasn't so secret...I guess it was pretty obvious. Oops.

It's fun to look back and remember the moments and memories that have led me to now. I love how my life and Dave's life have been intertwined since we were wee ones. I find so much joy and purpose in that. Leap years are rad and I hope every leap year I can pause and reflect on year's past. I didn't really make new year's resolutions this year, so maybe I'll make leap year resolutions. Goals or milestones I want to make happen in the next four years. I'll think about it and maybe I'll be back on here to share them. Here's to 2016!

valentine's day.

I loved Valentine's day this year. It was Dave's turn to plan it, and he nailed it. We don't go out to eat at nice places, so P.F. Changs was a real treat for us. The food was yummy and the conversation was so good. Because it's my dear. We said no gifts this year. But we both couldn't resist getting each other a little something. I got Dave two records - Mason Jenning's new album Minnesota (we love) and The Shin's older album Oh Inverted World (a favorite). Dave pretended like he didn't get me anything and he was all bummed. Then the waiter came over with our check and brought along with it a bouquet of the prettiest peachiest roses and a card (with a See's Candies gift card - he knows me well). The card had the sweetest words I'd ever read. I asked him if he wrote it all at once or if he wrote it in planned out snippets. He looked at me confused. I explained. Me - I cannot be clever in letters/cards/etc. I always have a "scratch" piece of paper to write my thoughts down until they seem clever, funny, and sweet enough. Then I simply transfer the final draft onto the card. Smart right? Dave doesn't do that. He just starts writing and lines of romance are penned permanently right there on the card. I'm a lucky little lady to have such a poet for a husband.

After dinner we hit up Color Me Mine. We were just going to town painting our little ceramics and we were so into it that we didn't finish before they closed shop. So we get to go back another night to finish (free date! yes!). I'm excited to see how they turn out after they're fired. Dave's work is the one pictured above. I love the way he paints.

I just love him.

the bird.

These pictures are actually from Thanksgiving of 2010 when we went to Snowbird with the Facers. We just went to Snowbird two weekends ago with them again, but none of us took any pictures...so I figured I would post these ones. Only difference - Beav and Luke weren't with us this year.

It was a super fun day. Some memorable moments:

• We went over to the "Peruvian" lift side...you get to ride a little conveyor belt through a tunnel in the middle of the mountain. We were stoked...until we ended up in a "cliff" zone. All of us ended up hiking/traversing across the mountain a ways until we found a spot where we could head down. Dave, Clare and I were the snowboarders so we stuck together and had some good laughs as we demolished some moguls on our way down.
• I took a gnarly fall on one of the runs and slammed my knees on some ice. My knee is still sore and a little swollen 2 weeks later. Go big or go home! I would like to say that this happened after I got 10 feet of air off a kicker...but no, I was just cruisin and BAM...next thing I know I'm eatin snow.
• Conversations in the car. Dave and I had to give talks the next day in church (which we hadn't written yet...and church is at 9 a.m.). Our topic was family history so we asked the fam what they thought about it. Let's just say the conversation included a new version of the primary song "Genealogy" and went a little something like this.."Family history...I'm not doing it!" Oops.

Thank you Facers for a great weekend!

skate till you dry.

This was a super rad day. Dave had to get an oil change done on his car, and it just so happened that the mechanics shop was right near the Provo River trail. So we thought we'd make the most of our time and we brought our skates along. We skated the trail for a good two hours. We could actually feel the sun this day, it was amazing. Dave was showing off his cross stepping (I've finally learned!) and other groovy moves, and he helped me gain the courage to go down some of those steep hills under the tunnels. On our way back we crossed a bridge over to a park. The park had a frozen pond. The frozen pond became our ice skating rink.

Here is a video of some of this adventure...I don't know why it won't fill up the whole video area, oh well. (I wasn't planning on making an actual video...otherwise I would have gotten better footage of Dave's sick skate moves).

Here is the link to watch it full-size...along with our other videos: http://youtu.be/oPTCiBluh8Y



rock canyon nation.