Monday, September 22, 2014

Our First Anniversary

I can't believe it has already been a whole year, but we celebrated our first anniversary over the weekend.  James came home from work on Friday with a surprise for me.  He had ordered a re-creation of the top tier of our wedding cake from the same place that made our wedding cake.  It was coconut cake with pineapple filling and it was just as delicious and beautiful as the first time!

Then we headed out the door to the temple.  We want to make the temple part of our anniversary traditions every year.
I love this place!
Our next stop was Midway, UT.  We planned a little weekend getaway at the Zermatt Resort.  It was so beautiful there and the resort was awesome!
This was the view from our window.
We ordered room service that night and watched football.  I was a little under the weather, so I wasn't much fun, but it was still great to get away and just hang with my best friend!  The next morning we wandered across the street to the Homestead Resort for breakfast.  Then we wandered around Midway and Heber trying to find a pair of cheap flip flops for me.  I had only remembered to pack my church shoes...not awesome!  It turns out that flip flops aren't readily available in mid-September, so church shoes it was for the whole weekend!  Midway is one of my most favorite cities in all of Utah!


That afternoon we had a BYU football game to attend.  It was so, so hot, but the Cougs won!  That was a great anniversary present!

The game was a white out, and James and I had no while BYU shirts.  We just happened upon these ugly ones at the grocery store for $4.99.  Matching ugly t-shirt day!  Be happy you can't see much of them.
After the game we headed back to the Zermatt and watched more football.  James had made reservations at a fancy restaurant at Deer Valley that evening, so we spruced ourselves up a little and took a beautiful scenic route through the mountains to the Stein Eriksen Lodge for dinner.  Holy smokes it was the fanciest place I've ever eaten and it was delicious!  The chef even sent out an amuse-bouche (A single, bite-sized hors d'oeuvre. Amuse-bouches are different from appetizers in that they are not ordered from a menu by patrons, but, when served, are done so free and according to the chef's selection alone. These, often accompanied by a complementing wine, are served both to prepare the guest for the meal and to offer a glimpse into the chef's approach to the art of cuisine...thank you Wikipedia!).  I have been watching past seasons of Top Chef lately, so I actually knew what this was when they brought it out.  It was very entertaining to people-watch here.  In typical Utah fashion, there were people in gowns and others in t-shirts and jeans.  Love it!

It was so fancy, I was a little embarrassed to take pictures of the food, but I did it anyway.

I can't even remember what we each ordered, but they were awesome!  The waitress surprised us with this after our dessert...
They were champagne tarts.  I couldn't fit in another bite, so James ate them.  We aren't quite sure all the champagne was cooked out.  James said they had a little zip to them...haha!

We got up Sunday morning and headed to the Grossen's to babysit while Amy and Dan went to the first Ogden Temple Dedication.  We went to the afternoon dedication.  It was such a fun weekend.  I've heard some people say that the first year of marriage is the hardest as you try to blend two lives together.  I can honestly say it has been a seamless transition!  Maybe it's because we are both a little older, more mature, more ready to not be living a "me" life, but I like to think it's because we love each other more than anything else and would rather be together doing anything and everything.
I love him one zillion bagillion times more than I did on this day...
...and that's saying a lot because I loved him to the moon and back a million times that day.  The first of many, many more anniversaries to come!

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Labor Day Weekend and First Home Football Game

We loved having my parents here for the long weekend!   We planned to do a bunch of unpacking and organizing around our house, but we ended up mostly playing, which is just fine with me!  We did find a rug for our family room while they were here. 
Wore my dad out!  Hahaha!
 We played at the park.  Look at all those big kids on the toys!
 
 And we had to go to Cafe Rio of course!  Lukester loves it!
 The first home football game was this last Thursday night, September 11th.  We started the evening with O'Crowley's Irish Tacos.  I love them!  We didn't even make it to our seats before I had to hoover them.  We set up shop on the nearest trash can.
 I thought BYU did a nice job of remembering and honoring this important day.  It was pretty powerful and I may have shed a tear or two.  God bless America!  And let's hope for a great football season!  We won this one...a good start!
 
 

Monday, September 1, 2014

Happy Birthday James and Other August Happenings

One of the best things about our new house (along with having a 2-car garage, a trash can that we can wheel out to the curb, lots of storage, a pantry, a kitchen that fits all our stuff, an awesome master closet, etc) is that it's approximately 2.7 miles from Dan and Amy's new house!  Woo hoo!  It really couldn't have worked out better!  So we get to see these little treasures quite a bit...
Sporting her new wings!
 
 
Every Grossen kid has made this face.  I am in love with it!
One evening, James and I joined Jake, Olivia, Sadie, Tricia, and Preston on a trip up to the Ogden Temple Dedication.   It was insanely busy.  We joined the line that wrapped around the whole block.  After waiting about a half hour, we were minutes away from entering, and a man asked to see our tickets.  Well, it was about 7:30pm at this point and our tickets were for 1pm that day.  There weren't anymore evening tickets available, so we just got some for that day thinking there was no way they wouldn't let us in.  They wouldn't let us in.  It turns out, we drove all the way to Ogden just to go to Zaxby's for dinner.  It was kind of a bummer, but it was still fun to catch up with besties and have a fun dinner together.

It sure is lovely!  From the outside anyway...couldn't tell ya about the inside...haha!
 James and I also made our way to Rio Tinto Stadium for a Real Salt Lake game.  We had been wanting to go to a game all summer, and Preston was selling his tickets to this game so we jumped all over it.

 And Nick Rimando broke the MLS shutout record at this game.  It was so awesome!  What a game for us to be at!
 August has been a busy one for the Taylor household!  We wrapped it up by celebrating James' birthday yesterday.
Purple cows for breakfast!
 My parents are in town for the holiday weekend and my cousin's wedding which was on Saturday, so we they got to celebrate with us.  We had the Grossen's over for dinner and presents.
 
 
 
Then we had all of James' family over that evening for cake and ice cream.  We got to take everyone on a tour of the new house. So fun!  Happy Birthday to my husband, best friend, and most favorite person on earth!