10 years since high school...wow.

I just had my 10 year high school reunion.  (Yes, I am aware that I am old.)  I wasn't sure how it would go since I wasn't very social in high school...but I had a great time! It was held at the BYU Skyroom, which was a fun location.  We ate dinner and did lots of mingling, and it was so good to catch up with people.  I'm really glad I went, and I'm grateful for the people who put it together, because it was a great evening.

Unfortunately, the only pictures I took were in the car on the way home...

And one more random thing...I'm not quite 30 yet, but this is how I feel sometimes:

Goblins, Painting, and Books

Angela recently had her spring break and was sooo happy to take some time to relax. She spent most of the week painting, and she also read about 5 books.  Here is some of the great paintings she worked on during spring break and in the past few weeks.

This one was for a contest with Michael's with a theme of "Dreaming of Paris" and they even asked to feature it on their site!  

Mr. Turtle 

While she has been painting she has been watching Star Trek Voyager. I've never seen the show before but I was pleasantly surprised how fun it is. I've always been a Star Wars guy but enjoyed the dark side.  I think its a breath of fresh air from the current shows because its funny, has action, and drama without being dirty,crude, or full of sexual themes. So if you are wondering what to watch on Netflix this Voyager could be great choice for you. 

We decided that one day during Angela's spring break that we would take a day trip to Goblin Valley. I've never been there before so I was excited about the adventure. We were facing a decision a while ago about moving out of state and we talked about all the fun things we could possible do in this new location. It then dawned on us that here we were talking about all the things in this new location and we haven't even explored all of what Utah has to offer. The moving situation fell through, but we now have made it a goal to visit more parts of our state. 

This adventure was strangely enough the longest car journey that we have ever taken as couple. Maybe we were becoming hermits, but at any rate we broke out to hit the open road!  Goblin Valley was such a fun place. The "goblins" are fun to climb on and it feels like you have almost stepped on another world. (Fun fact they filmed scenes from Galaxy Quest at Goblin Valley) The weather couldn't have been more perfect and we were pleasantly surprised to see a fair amount of people enjoying the park as well. We adventured around for a few hours and took the trip back home. Angela decided that on the back she would read to me to past the time. She read aloud Treasure Island, one of her favorites, to which I have previously not read. It made the ride home fly by and got me hooked on the book. Our next trip we think will be a visit to Moab. 

I wanted to play hide and seek. Angela...not so much. 

   

BYU Traditions Ball

Jenner is a sweetheart!  He indulged me by taking me to the BYU Traditions Ball - and it ended up being very fun!  This year it was also the 50th anniversary celebration of the fine arts building, so they had a lot of performances going on all night.  First we saw Living Legends and the International Folk Dance team, and then we decided to see what the actual ball of the Traditions Ball was like.  It was all very formal dancing.  Jenner and I tried to fake our way around a bit, but that didn't last long.  Next we saw Theater Ballet and the Ballroom team.  I especially liked the ballroom performance - so cool!  Well, after that we made our way to where the a cappella groups were going to perform.  We got a seat early very near the front, so we had great seats.  And it was awesome!  First Noteworthy performed, and they were amazing.  Vocal Point was the last performance and it was totally fun.  By the time we left, it was past 11:30 and I was STILL AWAKE.  Which is totally crazy, if you know me well.  But we had such a good time and it was so much fun!

Here are some pictures:

Jenner cleans up nice...

March Musings

Well, I have been posting a lot recently. Why you may ask?

Because if we posted on a better regular basis than I wouldn't have to. It's my goal though to be a better blogger to all of our adoring fans! At this point it might just be grandma who is our blog fan but, we are working on branching out. One day we might just end up being blogging superstars! Probably not. If we are going to do that we really need to be funnier, talk about what is wrong with the world, be real celebrities or post something radical. Seeing how we like Disney, love Peanuts comics (well that might just be me), have no star power rankings or have not made it on the cover of Forbes, and the most radical thing I've done recently was get a gym pass ( I know!) I don't think we are going to be superstars. Well just not ones that we think we will be.

   

I never actually seen this movie or the skit...I know the reference. That kinda counts for something right?

What was I saying? I don't remember. So, recently a Trader Joes opened up nearby. Now we have been to Trader Joes before but having so close is really quite awesome. That means I never have to run out of cookie butter. We tried these frozen croissants with this almond filling. They were amazing. I would highly recommend them. 

Here is my face waiting for these delicious babies to rise

This month we have had some other fun outings. We went a concert with the Mormon Tabernacel Choir with guests Santino Fontana, Sylvia McNair, and the U.S. Air Force Singing Sergeants. The concert was the capstone of a week long choir directors conference that was in Salt Lake. We really enjoyed the performance. Santino is very charismatic and has a great voice. Check out him singing this Happy Medley! Its very fun! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oajv4N6qwA  McNair had a great voice but every song she sung was woeful and depressing. It would have been nice to see some different tones of song from her. We enjoyed it and I was able to get my family tickets too so we enjoyed being with them. 

  

Angela's dad has been very busy because he recently opened an exhibit of his work with origami at the BYU Museum of Art. He has been doing research on how to use origami in engineering, but particularly in using origami designs to be used in space. He gave a lecture at the Orem Library to kick off a weekly lecture series of science. It was very interesting to learn more about his research, and how it is being used. The possibilities of using origami designs are endless. Check out his award winning video http://news.byu.edu/archive15-feb-origamiengineering.asp

Connect Pass Adventure #2

We received a snow storm a few weeks back and decided that it was time for another adventure. The Connect Pass gives a tram ride in Snowbird and we wanted to go while there was still snow. We took the short little road trip up the canyon and enjoyed the beauty of our majestic mountains. We have recently been talking about going on a vacation and explore new things however, we realized that Utah has a lot to offer that we have not yet explored. For instance, I have seen been to Arches or to Moab. People come from all over the world to come to these places, yet even though its a short drive away I haven't been. So, we have been trying at being better of enjoying what is around us more and this trip reminded us of how beautiful our backyard mountains are.

We definitely felt out of place once we got on! The tram was full of skiers and boarders, but thankfully there was another family like us just going up to enjoy the view. The view was stunning and seeing the mountains at such a vantage point was truly breathtaking! While we were at the base of the mountain it was quite warm but I was glad I had my hat when we got to the top! We enjoyed walking around for a while and really enjoyed beauty around us. The tram ride back down was very nice because there was only just the other family in the tram. It was quite the change because on the way up we were squished in there like a kids mouth playing the chubby bunny marshmallow game! 

Me at the base enjoying the nice weather

At the top!

Let's go on a trip....to Logan?

Angela and I had a free day so we decided that we were going to go for a short trip. We decided that we show go spend some time in Logan. It wasn't too far away that we had to do lots of traveling but it also wasn't somewhere that we were very familiar with.

I had wanted to go see at the Leonardo the traveling exhibit Body Worlds. Angela was very nice and said that we could go on our way up to Logan.  In the parking area outside of the Leonardo we meet a man that pleaded with us to give him some money so he could return home to Texas. I wasn't quite sure if the man was putting on a theatrical show because he was very emotional or whether he was genuine. You always hear stories of people pretending to be in need, but we decided to give him some money. At first, I felt like I had just been conned, but the more I thought about it the better I felt. I know that I had tried to do the right thing, and that was all that was important to me.

We went to the exhibit and right before we entered the worker told us to not use our cell phones in the exhibit out of respect to the donors. Angela had a mini freak out. She had no idea that the exhibit featured real bodies.  I enjoyed the exhibit because it was fascinating to see how cool the human body was. Angela felt a little nausea after, and also so did I because of the nature of the exhibits. We crossed off that our list and we were off to Logan! We stopped by the famous Maddox restaurant for dinner. I might be stoned for the next phrase - it was good, but I does not live up to it hype. It was just ok.  We arrived in Logan and stayed the night in a fun room. The next day we were able to go the Logan temple and just enjoy the day. It was a short little trip but we enjoyed the time to just get away for bit and enjoyed our time in a temple we had previously never been in.

Connect Pass Adventure #1

Angela and I decided that we needed some better quality date nights. Now we do love binge watching some shows on Netflix or visiting our favorite restaurant, CousCous, but we decided we needed to spice it up. We decided that we would get a Utah Connect Pass. This pass gives you entry to 13 places all over the valley and their various amenities. This would give us at least one fun date night every month.

Our first stop was the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point. We also invited Matt and Larry to join with us since it was close to them. We had a fun time seeing all of the cool bones and various exhibits at the Museum. It is mind blowing to think how large some of these animals were! There were many exhibits that had to be two or more stories to showcase the ancient life! We had a great time. Matt almost got eaten. (See the picture below) We were excited that our first connect pass adventure turned out well, and are hoping that the others will be just as fun!