Adventures of the Laundry Mat.

So, I'm sitting here at 2nd South Coin Laundry... straight up classy, I know, and I can't help but think about the last time I was at a laundry mat. It was when I was a little girl. I always LOVED going to the laundry mat with my Mom, Christina and Darren. I was probably around 6 years old. I think at the time we were in an apartment without a washer & dryer so we would make pretty frequent trips there. I loved it because they had a pac man arcade game and we used to take turns playing it. Also, sometimes my Mom would take us next door to get an ice cream cone...  maybe it was to rite aid... I can't really remember. I also loved the smell. Good memories!

Well, this is just embarrassing. Thank goodness I was 1 out of 2 people here... but I just messed up the simple task of going to the laundry mat. It's quite obvious that the last time I was here was when I was about 6 and that I spent the majority of my time eating ice cream and playing pac man. So, I get here with my big armful of bedding and first thing I see all along the wall are these huge front load commercial "washers"... just like the care instructions say on our comforter! I'm like, YEAH, this isn't so hard. So I throw it all in, dump my soap in (powder kind) and shut the door. I grab my quarters and am about to start dropping them in when I get the feeling I should stop. I look up and see a huge sign that says "30 lb. dryers". Oh great. I felt so stupid! I was just hoping nobody saw me! So, I try to hurry and grab my bedding out and walk it over to a washer. In the process I managed to leave a huge trail of powder soap allllllllll over the floor and some left in the dryer. At this point I just feel bad. I'm looking around for a broom and I see the lady that's working this morning watching me suspiciously. I finally decided to sit down in a little corner and blog about it. Every once and awhile I glance at my powder trail.

{Believe me, it's much worse in real life}

 I'm tempted to get on my hands and knees and start gathering it up! I'm such a problem solver. Okay, there are a quite a few older people here now. I'm going to gather my courage now and go ask for a broom. I'm afraid somebody is going to slip and fall on it and break their hip! I couldn't live with that! Oh, I'm so dramatic.

S'mores over a candle.

So, I just need to take a moment on this lovely fall day to brag. Yes, about my darling husband.

So, for WEEKS I have been whining about camping. "I want to go camping"... "Wouldn't it be so fun if we could go camping?"... "Why don't we have a tent yet!?" Precious, right? Well, my darling, DARLING husband was actually listening. I would've just tuned me out, but not BJ. He is the best. So anyways... it's starting to get chilly outside and the chances of actually going camping are getting pretty slim. . BJ came home for lunch last Friday and said, SURPRISE,  we are going camping tonight! I was pretty much ecstatic. We still don't have a tent but we have a JEEP which can act as a tent just fine So, we are trying to figure out where we want to go and what I'm gonna pack up when it starts raining.... well, it kept raining more and more as we are trying to ignore it and continue our planning. Finally, we had to decide it probably wasn't the night to go camping after all. The whole point is to be able to sit around our little campfire and sing and play guitar. Can't really accomplish that in the rain... so our plan was ruined! I was pretty bummed. BJ went back to work and I went on with my day.

That night he came home, we had dinner and were just relaxing in our little apartment when he gets up and says "stay there, don't move". I was on the couch in the living room and he got up and went to our bedroom. I was pretty curious, but I was a good girl and stayed put. About 15 minutes later he comes out and says "come with me..." He took me to our room and gave me some warm clothes to put on and said, "now stay here." I was so confused. I put the clothes on, got all bundled up and waited for further instruction. He came in a good 20 minutes later, grabbed my hand and said "close your eyes and follow me". We ended up outside in the pouring rain. We went on a nice little walk, got some ice cream, got drenched and had a great time. I love downtown SLC. We got back to our apartment and before we went in he again said, "close your eyes and follow me". I'm like WHAT IS GOING ON!? But it was so very exciting. Well, he took me to the room again and said wait here. A few minutes later he came and got me, covered my eyes and took me out to the living room. He told me to open my eyes (FINALLY!) and there in our living room was our very own campsite! It was so unbelievably thoughtful! I don't know how he does it. So, he had built us a "tent" out of blankets and chairs and our couch and had all the lights off and all of our candles in a little circle like a campfire right outside our "tent". He even went as far as stopping by the store after work to pick some stuff up for s'mores.

It was the BEST & most unforgettable campout I've ever had.

We sat around our campfire and made s'mores over the candles and then BJ played guitar. We didn't even use any electricity... (Yeah, that's how authentic we are :) Then we slept in our nice little tent. Side note: It collapsed on us early in the morning, but that's beside the point! I'm just so grateful I have a husband that cares so much. He really didn't have to do any of that but he did and he always does. He really does love me. I am so blessed.

{Here is just a little clip of BJ playing guitar.} 

Just him playing around with "Fire & Rain" by James Taylor.

LOVE this song.

{Not a great picture... but it was a GREAT tent}

           

My Carrie Obsession Continues.

The four best days of my life thus far.

1. April 20, 2012

{I married my best friend for time & all eternity}

2. May 20, 2008

{My first Carrie Underwood concert in Reno, NV with my Mom & Sister}

3. May 21, 2010

{My second Carrie Underwood concert in Reno, NV with my Mom & Sister}

4. October 10, 2012

{My third Carrie Underwood concert, WEDNESDAY NIGHT with my handsome husband}

So, I might be exaggerating... but not really. 

I L-O-V-E Carrie Underwood.

She is just someone with pure talent & I could listen to her sing all day long for the rest of my life! As silly as it sounds... 3 concerts in a row now, she has brought me to TEARS because of some out of this world note she hits, so perfectly. Ahhhhh.... nothing better. I wish I could do that.

Oh! And did I mention, she is straight up the GREATEST ENTERTAINER! Oh my my my. I've seen her swinging on stage while singing, her up in an old chevy truck flying around the arena and now her and her band on a floating stage! She puts on one good show. I'm pretty sure it's impossible for me to miss her concert if she is anywhere within 100 miles of me & I have no problem with that. Okay, I'm still so thrilled with getting to see her Wednesday night, the only way to get it out of my system is to post! Here I go.

So this is my favorite ever. I saw her sing this at the second concert I went to. It got me then and it still gets me now, every time I watch it. She is phenomenal.

{The hubs & I at the Maverick Center}

{The amazing floating stage. This excited me very much so.}

So, this was my favorite song from the last 2 concerts I've been too. Obviously this isn't my video... I was too enthralled to get my camera out! She has such mind blowing voice control!

Here is one I took. "I told you so"

Okay I'll try to stop now or everyone is going to think I'm crazy.... Too late?? Oh well. I just really admire her. Okay, I have lots of things to do on my day off today so I better get steppin!

It was a joyous occasion. I just had to tell somebody about it and how happy it makes me! I'm sure BJ is tired of me talking about her... He is such a trooper! I'm so grateful he took me!

Happy Friday!!

{I love the weekend}

OH! And P.S... Just so you know, THIS ----> "!" is an exclamation mark. I know, they look like the letter "I". So no, I don't end a bunch of my sentences with the letter "I". I end them in exclamation!!!!!! Silly font!

Oh! And one more thing! Happy birthday to my beautiful Geegee! 

You are such a great example to me & all of your family. Thank you for being the best Geegee around.

Oh how I wish I could give you a big hug today!!!

I love you. 

Life so sweet.

Sometimes I just stop & think about how lucky I am to be married to the best man I know.

Tonight we went on a date and stopped on temple square for awhile. We realized it's been just a little over a year since we did that together for the first time... so of course, we took a picture. Special little moments like that are what make life so sweet.

Conference Weekend 2011 & 2012

A whole lot of new.

Job. Bikes. Car. Fun. It's a whole lot of NEW!

So you have all heard enough about my NEW job that I... how should I put this.... LOVE! So I won't even go there... but just real quick, it's so fantastic. I love the people I work with AND (BIG AND!) we are going to the Dominican Republic next November for the "Give Kids Hope" foundation. We go for a week or so and donate our time and do dental work there! I AM SO EXCITED! I will finally get to use my passport!!!! And serve! I have ALWAYS wanted to participate in one of these types of service trips. I cannot wait. Oh something fun - we had a work party one night after work a couple weeks ago. We ordered dinner from Paradise Bakery (mmmmmmmm), went to Sugar House Park and played Croquet. It was a hoot! I haven't played since I was like 7! Well, I did pretty good. I got 2nd place, and Debbie the Hygienist was kind enough to award me this cute little trophy! It made my day. Have I mentioned I love my new job?

So now that I have gone off on a total tangent, let us re-route back to topic. New.

BIKES! We got new bikes and boy do we love them. Here's the story. So, sadly enough, our bikes got stolen out of the basement of our apartment. This makes me so very sad and a tab bit angry. Why in the world to people feel like they can just take other people's things and get away with it! This bothers me EXTENSIVELY! But alas, that's where our renter's insurance came into play. (So grateful to my Mom for suggesting we look into getting it! It sure paid off.) We made a claim on our bikes and had the money in about a week. It was such a blessing! BJ & I went and looked around some bike shops trying to decide what we wanted to get. We found some REALLY nice ones that we really liked but just didn't take the plunge that day. So, the next day I get home from work, I'm in the kitchen making dinner waiting for him to come home from work when I get a call from BJ telling me to come outside. I go outside and here he comes, driving around the corner with two brand new AWESOME mountain bikes on the back! BJ went after work that day and picked up the ones that we liked from the day before.

 I was so excited! BJ is even MORE excited though. The next morning, he got up early before he had to go to work, put on his "attire" and headed out. I got a picture of him before I left for work - he just looked so cute.

 Mountain biking is something I definitely want to get into. I can't wait to share that with BJ. 

Actually, funny story.... 

So on Saturday we went out on our first mountain biking adventure together, EVER! I was pretty excited to try this out but had no idea what it would be like. Ha. No idea. Whatsoever. Sooooo, BJ had this trail picked out that he wanted to try. In his defense, he did say he had NO IDEA what kind of a trail it was and that it may be pretty rigorous for my first time mountain biking, ever. If that was the case, we had a plan B to go to another trail that he knew was "Becky Proof", so no worries. So we get there, hop on our bikes and start out on this trail. From the first minute we hit the trail it was nothing but uphill. Not only that, but uphill on DIRT. SO DIFFERENT from pavement I found out real quick. So we are going, I'm feeling pretty good, it hasn't even been 3 minutes when we come across 3 ladies walking up this trail. It's a really narrow trail so we then had this awkward encounter where they tried to move to the side but we had slowed down so much at this point, mind you, going up a hill that I just lost it. Pretty much fell off my bike. So here I am trying to get back on my bike to get out of these ladies way when the strangest thing happened. I COULD NOT do it! I could not, for the life of me, get back on my bike and get enough momentum to continue up this steep hill. That is definitely something that I had never encountered before... but so embarrassing! I just grabbed my bike and walked up the rest of the way. At the top, there was this little semi flat area where BJ was waiting for me. He hops on his bike no problem and starts up an even STEEPER hill. I try to do the same.... Over and over again and just can't get balanced enough to get going! BJ gave me a few pointers that helped a lot and I finally, FINALLY did it. Slowly but surely I start my way up this hill. I made it about 20 feet when the trail got soooo steep that I lost it again. At this point, I'm getting pretty frustrated, trying to laugh about it, but that's just not happening. I decided to walk the rest of the way up. We make it to the very top of this hill to find yet another one, even steeper. I threw in the towel. Made the executive decision that this was NOT the trail for a beginner. We decided to head back down which didn't go so well either. I had no idea mountain biking was so tricky! Scary narrow loose gravel trails along a steep drop off into a creek is not my cup of tea I decided. Not yet at least. So, I attempted to head down this MOUNTAIN after BJ but lost control pretty quickly. I learned really fast that braking on loose gravely dirt is so so SO much different than on pavement. After trying to stop and my foot slipping of the edge of the trail (which resulted in a mini-heart attack) I somehow stumbled off my bike without completely eating it and yet again, decided to walk it. At the very end, I tried again and did better - I actually made it back to the car! So, after all of this, I still reallllly want to do it again. I love the idea of me & the boy up in the mountains on adventures together... I just need to start out on some beginner trails. The next day we did another ride and that one was perfect. I could get the hang of this!

We got a new car! It's our first "big purchase" together... with a loan and the whole deal. It's been good for us to figure all of this stuff out. I'll be honest, BJ did most of the work... okay, all of it because this is kinda "his car". I bought "my car" while he was still on his mission and that's all we've had until Monday night. It served us both really well until I got my new job and then we had to get something else. We weren't in walking distance of everything anymore. So, we got a 2006 Jeep Grand Cherokee and it's a great car. We are both really happy with it.... especially BJ. He loves Jeeps. Now him and his best buddy Derrik both have Jeeps. This is a very exciting time in their lives :)

Okay this blog post is about to get pretty random. In the last month, lots of fun things have happened so I'm just gonna hit some of the highlights. 

We went home for a weekend and got to see both of our families! It was such a treat for us. The weekend was jam packed for me with one of my best friends, Amanda's wedding & Ella's birthday party. Both were amazing and we got to see so many wonderful people that I've missed so much! On Saturday, Amanda was a stunning bride and it was so much fun to stand as her Maid of Honor with all of the girls we have shared our lives with! Sunday was full of FAMILY! My cousin Alecia just got home from her mission to Colorado about a month ago and she came down for Ella's birthday party. It was so good to see her. Love her! Ella was a princess to say the least. The party was so much fun.... as you can see - us Lee girls just love to over-do it. 

 My sister is so crafty! She bought an old wedding dress at a thrift store and somehow made this adorable thing. Aww isn't it the cutest thing you have ever seen!? The dress or Ella, I can't decide!

 The cupcakes and cake were so fun to make with Christina & Alecia.... at 6:00 am!

After the party, we went to Gardnerville for the night and got to see BJ's family. It was such a good chance for us to just catch up with Moms and Dads, Grandmas and Grandpas, brothers and sisters. We really had a wonderful time. Can't wait for the holidays so we can go back! 

Living in Salt Lake is pretty great. There is so much to do here. This summer we enjoyed a couple outdoor movies & concerts. One of our favorites was Cherie Call & Tyler Castleton. Both BJ & I have spent lots of time listening to her on Sundays so it was fun to see her live. Here is a little movie clip I got of one of my favorites.

Oh good grief, this has turned into another novel. This blogging stuff has turned out to be extremely relaxing for me. Well, duty calls. I need to make dinner now... the husband is on his way home from work in a bit. Yay! 

Blessed.

I feel like every one of these posts could use this title... but this one is going to take it.

1. Life is beautiful. Every day BJ and I live our little life together, learning something new about each other, laughing, living and loving. Marriage is wonderful - it's a constant learning experience & I love it. I'm grateful to my Heavenly Father for the love that we share and that we get to live this life of love together forever.

2. BJ has been home from his mission for ONE YEAR today. Talk about a busy year for that boy! I am so grateful that he served a mission. He learned so much in those two years and hasn't forgotten. He's taken those things and not only used them on his mission to change lives of so many people in Texas, but has made OUR lives better also. He is the greatest example in my life. He amazes me, day after day.

3. I started a new job this week and I couldn't be happier. Long story short - I've been in two different offices since I moved here to Utah last December and neither of them felt right. There were so many other things that factored in to the reasons they didn't feel right, but all in all - working in a bad environment was effecting everything. It was effecting my everyday life, & mainly my attitude. I didn't feel good... and I needed to make a change. So, I finally went back out and started looking. (Fun fact about me: I really dislike, AKA: HATE, job hunting, interviews and starting a new job. It terrifies me! But I just had to do it.) Well, despite all my worries, everything fell right into place - I got two working interviews where both offered me the job that same day. I prayed about it and talked to BJ and knew without a doubt which offer I needed to take. This new office is everything I was looking for, as close to the Struve's (my old, most AMAZING job in the whole world) as I can get here in Utah. From the first minute I was there I just felt comfortable. I'm normally pretty shy at first and as much as I don't like to admit it, I struggle with my confidence in a new situation. But, MIRACULOUSLY, at this new office I fell right into place - no uncontrollable nervousness, no uncertainties, no gut-wrenching temptations to flee the premises! I WANTED to be there. Frankly, it was strange. I haven't felt this way about working since I moved here. Inside, I know I'm good at what I do but for the last 8 months since leaving the Struve's, I have been scared to show it. This new office makes me remember why I love my job and why I love dentistry. It is a huge relief that I can't even begin to describe. BJ & I have been praying that something would come along and all I can say is, our prayers were answered - beyond anything we could have hoped for. I can't even explain what this means to me! My Heavenly Father loves me and will always be there for me. I see it everyday.

4.We love FAMILY!  BJ's sister, Shannon just moved to Price, Utah to go to school! BJ's Grandma, Pat & Shannon were here last weekend on their way to Price to get her settled. It was such a wonderful weekend. We are so excited that Shannon is closer now. She is coming this weekend to stay with us & we can't wait. She makes us laugh a lot. She should consider majoring in Comedy :) Also, we are headed home next weekend for one of my bestest friends, Amanda's wedding! It's going to be so great to see everybody. We will be there for my niece's 1st birthday party! Ella is beyond beautiful and I can't even begin to describe how much I love that girl! We can't wait to see everyone next weekend.

5. We love being so close to SO MANY temples! It's been such a blessing for us. The Salt Lake Temple is breath-taking, always, and living 2 blocks away is one of my favorite things about living here. We pass it everyday, get to walk through temple square often and get to go there as much as we can! Also, a few weekends ago, we went and did a session at the Bountiful Temple. It was so wonderful! We really would like to go to all the temples that we can while living here in Utah. We have a goal of attending 100 temples together in our lifetime! So far we have attended 4 together... we have a long ways to go! But we are excited to make it happen! It's a huge blessing in our lives. We love the temple!

We are so very blessed. I wonder if it's possible to over-use that word... if so, I most definitely have in the last year. It's been a wonderful one.

Loving Life

Ok to start of this is BJ's blog post and I'm not too sure how to do all of this. I'm getting ready for work and I remembered that yesterday Becky was saying how she needed to do another post...so I took that and ran with it! Life is going great and we are really excited for my sister Shannon and my Grandma to come later today. Shannon is attending college in Price, UT and so will be staying with us for a few days before heading down there. Thanks again for all the love and support from our family and friends! Love you guys.