friday favorites 2.0

let's try this again, shall we?

Things we are loving this week:

Honing our baseball skillz playing catch at the park

Honey Lime Enchiladas, Homemade Applesauce and Peach Raspberry Ice Cream (Happy 11-monthiversarry to us!)

Reading NieNie's book Heaven is Here. I've never gotten into her blog but felt I should read the book to be a good Mormon wife. Half-way through her incredible story and loving her openness about faith and church related things, especially to a non-LDS audience.

With the impending doom of starting church at 2:30 in a few weeks, the heavens opened and we move to 9am on Sunday. Hallelujah!

Wishing we were riding this on its opening weekend

And ok, I'll admit it--with our dinner group out of town, we have eaten dinner almost every night on the couch watching the Olympics swimming trials. You guys, I just love the Olympics. And we have our favorite swimmers and cheer them on, but I mostly get sucked in whenever any version of this commercial comes on:

east coastin'

 We had the best time spending a week with the Treasure family on the east coast. We rented a large and vintage lake house in Virginia for the perfect week of relaxing, exploring, and spending time together.

Some highlights:

We loved spending time on the water! Kayaking was a fav, and we may have scared away the neighbors with our lively game of catch the watermelon. (Instructions—drop a watermelon in the lake and have fun throwing it around. Kind of redneck, but super fun)

The Olympics André and I planned were a hit!

After years of hearing about Rita's Andre's favorite treat on the mission and an east coast exclusive, the entire fam had to check it out. We loved it!

We adventured to beautiful Monticello one day and even took a detour to check out the UVA law school.

Visiting the Luray Caverns in our matching shirts and deciding we could never be cave explorers of yore.

But we really just enjoyed spending time together. André is in the running for favorite uncle and we had a grand old time. And of course, what vacation isn’t complete without a trip to urgent care? (Don’t worry, André is fine)

Our last day we got to go into Washington DC for a bit so I could show Andre around and of course get a toasted marshmallow shake from Good Stuff (heaven on earth). I loved being back in my favorite city, if only for a few hours.

A wonderful week with my favorite people. Now if only we didn't all live so far away from each other!

the search is on

Last summer, we went on a quest for the best shaved ice in Utah Valley. But with wedding prep and all the festivities, we didn't make it far on the delicious path. This year, however, we are re-dedicated in our new search for the Best Fries in Utah Valley.

Competition with be rough, but we are saving our pennies to sample the best the Provo/Orem metropolitan area has to offer.
The contenders:
Sammy's
Gurus
Smashburger
In and Out
and more...


We kicked things off with our out-of-state write in, Good Times, when we were in Colorado last weekend. A Broomfield and Kaiser family favorite, I had long heard about the wonders of wild fries but had yet to taste them myself.

 The verdict? These fries were incredible! The fry places in Utah have some big shoes to fill. And the fact that we ate in the middle school cafeteria made it even better.

Any recommendations of fry places we should try?

equation for memorial weekend

evening at the batting cages

-

battle wounds from wild pitches

+

a little shopping with some wedding gift cards

+

restful Sunday with delicious food and an evening stroll

+

a trip to the copper mine (it was huge!)

/

asian tourists

+

a picnic in a quaint town, window shopping, smoothies

=

a weekend that makes it hard to head back to reality on Tuesday

(p.s. happy 10 month-iversary to us!)

and then we went to Colorado

Six reasons our trip to Colorado last weekend was da greatest...
1. Spending time with the Kaiser fam.

2. Becoming a cake ball master
3. Touring the CU Law School and imagining a life in Boulder (crazy, right?)
4. Re-visiting the middle school years. It's a miracle I made it out of four years of middle school with my ear drums intact.

5. Taking a lovely bike ride with my husband
6. Rooting the Mariners to victory in a sea of Rockies fans. What's that they say about a house divided?

they say it's your birthday

Andre's birthday was nearly two weeks ago, but better late than never, right?

I'm no longer a cradle robber, now that my dear husband has joined the 23 club! We had lots of fun celebrating Andre's birthday, including decorating the apartment, going on a picnic dinner, a Brazilian feast at Tucano's and dinner and cake with friends. Happy birthday to Andre!

Birthday boy on a picnic

He even wore the birthday crown I made him. What a guy!

And of course, it would be Andre's special day if he didn't take advantage of the birthday clubs. He got free ice cream at Coldstone and Baskin Robins and free lunch at Noodles and Company plus a free Redbox. Plus we took advantage of the buy-one, get one free meals at Tucano's and Red Robin.

this one's for the ladies!

Happy Mother's Day to the best moms out there!