Utah Summer List

For the last year, Chase and I have had our ongoing (& unofficial) list of things that we want to do while we are in Utah. We've accomplished some of them here and there, but we never actually wrote them down and really tried to check them off. On a drive back from Vegas a few weekends ago, we started to make the actual list on my phone.

Well... minor problem occurred Friday night: my phone screen decided to quit working. So I am going to attempt to re-create our Utah Summer list on here. I figured that if I posted the list and blogged about our adventures, we'd have more incentive to actually follow through!

(And it'd sorta be like I'm a good journal-er... right?)

THE LIST:

Hogle Zoo

Silver Lake Hike

Mt. Timpanogas Caves

This is the Place Monument

Zion National Park

Outdoor Play at Tuacahn

Salt Lake Temple Session

Black Rock at Great Salt Lake

Sandy Aquarium

Cowabunga Bay

Camping

(Fly?) Fishing (and then watch A River Runs Through It.. of course)

Visit Daryn in Logan

Manti Mormon Miracle Pageant

The Frontrunner Train & Museums

Real Salt Lake Game

Lindon Pool

Ride the Paiute Trail

Lake Powell

Dinosaur Exhibit at Thanksgiving Point

Day in Park City (Alpine Slides!)

Eat at Porter's Place in Lehi

*I'm probably forgetting something... so I guess I'll just add to it when I remember them.

**I'd love suggestions... please comment if you have any!

year uno

Chase and I celebrated the big one year anniversary a few weekends ago up at The Grand America in Salt Lake.

We knew it was nice... maybe even reallyyy nice...

but I don't think we were prepared for how fancy schmancy the place actually was.

Walking through the halls, Chase kept saying how we were like walking on the Titanic.

(before the whole iceberg run-in and sinking thing, of course)

For real though. There were ladies everyday in the area that overlooks the lobby with big hats all chatting over afternoon tea. We tried hard to suppress the giggles as we walked past them.

{Fancy schmancy bathroom}

{Fancy schmancy tub AND shower... in said bathroom}

{Fancy schmancy bedroom}

{Fancy schmancy sitting room}

{With red plastic cups and sparkling cider... yeah... classy we know}

It really was a great weekend though with lots of relaxing, playing in both the indoor and outdoor pools, watching a few redboxes, and EATING for sure.

{us at the GA's famous Sunday brunch... Chase was in heaven with all of the pre-cracked crab legs}

{both pics taken at the Dodo Cafe... thanks Suz for the tip! Soo good!}

So... the traditional first anniversary gift is something "paper," apparently.

I spent forever trying to come up with something, but ended up getting Chase (well, the both of us really) this awesome Drives of a Lifetime book. It has the COOLEST drives to go on all around the world. We've always been a big fan of jumping in the truck and going for a drive.

Love, I can't wait for all of the roads still ahead of us. Happy one year anniversary!

(although it's about three weeks late on the blog post... ahem)

Continuing with all of the first year traditions... we got the top of our wedding cake from my mom who had stored it in a freezer this past year. I dunno who came up with this one, but they obviously didn't have a strawberry-shortcake wedding cake. Yuck!! The strawberries had like fermented... so gross. We both had one small bite each and called it good. Hopefully there's nothing in this tradition about eating the whole top layer. Just couldn't do it.

Overall, it was such a fun anniversary... and I'm excited for many, many more to come.

So happy to be with this guy forever. Love you Chasen Tyler.

Reno, NV

So this past weekend, we took a quick little trip to Reno to watch my brother's state soccer tournament.

When my mom told me that the finals would be in Reno, I figured we totally should go! The drive couldn't be too long... Reno's up north relative to Vegas and so is Orem... it would probably be a 4 or maybe 5 hour trip.

WRONG.

The drive took about 8 hours. However we did make quite a few stops along the way. We were bored and figured we might as well look around the small, northern Nevada towns (Winnemuca, Elko, Fernley... just to name a few).

Most of our drive looked like this... just the road, some mountains and then pretty much nothing else.

{Us about an hour into the drive... notice that we are still smiling at that point.}

It was so cool to watch my brother Blake play some soccer once we finally arrived at our destination.

I seriously love just going to all my brothers' games.

Soccer, baseball, football, whatever.

I really do think it's just fun. And it's one thing that I really miss being up here in Utah.

{Blake is number 9. Always has been. He's seriously a little stud out there. While his team ended up taking 2nd in the state... we did get to see Blake score a sweet header goal off of a corner kick. Go Blakey. You rock!}

After the Saturday game, we headed up to Lake Tahoe to see a cool little tribute to my dad.

Before my dad passed away, he had been working with developers at the Squaw Valley Resort to put in a high-end sunglasses shop. He developed a great relationship with these guys, and so they put a plaque and telescope thing next to his shop in honor of him. I had never seen it, so really wanted to make the trip up the mountain.

Things like this really mean a lot to both me and my family. It's nearly been 9 years... so knowing that his memory is still around in ways such as this is really a special thing.

The shop has since changed owners several times, but here's where his used to be:

It really is a beautiful place up there, and I would love to come again some day and stay for a while.

On our way back from Tahoe... we drove past this store:

{Cabela's.... aka Chase's favorite store ever.}

{Basically all things hunting, fishing, camping, shooting, etc. etc. that you could possibly imagine. Hence why it's just Chase's "place".}

My step dad Rick was down to take a look around too, so we went in for a while and took some cool pics with animals.

{Kade and I pretending to be scared of the giant elephant right behind us.}

Both Chase and I really wanted to go see the Nevada State Capitol building in Carson City while we were up north. We took a quick side-trip over there on Saturday night. It was pretty cool! But cold and rainy... so we just observed from the warmth of our car.

{Lunch at The Pizza Shack}

All in all, the unexpectedly long (and boooring) drive was worth it to hang with my parents and brothers for the weekend. It was good to be with my momma on Mother's Day too! Our route back home to Orem and my parents' and brothers' back home to Vegas took us both through Fernley, NV before splitting off in different directions. We stopped there at "The Pizza Shack" for some lunch before saying goodbye. Surprisingly, the place was clean and the food was yummy even though it looked at little sketch from the outside. If you ever (heaven forbid!) are traveling across northern Nevada... I highly recommend!

Happy Momma's Day!

Dear Momma Rosa,

I hope you enjoy your Mother's Day weekend!
So excited to be able to spend it with you in Reno for Blake's soccer tournament.
{BTW- You guys should hurry up and get here... Chasen and I are just waiting at the hotel and are hungry}
I love you so much and feel so blessed to have such
an incredible example of what it means to be a mom.
Thank you for all that you have done for me, still continue to do, and probably will do in the future. I might have "grown up", graduated, and even gotten married... but not TOO much has changed... you still are taking care of me in more ways than I think you even realize.

Love you.

Valentine's Day 2011

Here's a few pics of the V-Day festivities...

(yeah yeah... I know this post is about 3 months late...

I would have blogged about it earlier but that was when I was going to quit blogging, duh)

Chase had work until 7:30ish on Valentine's, so we decided to just eat in.

I was in charge of dinner and he was over dessert

Menu:

Steak

(yes... REAL red meat! obviously it was a special occasion)

Spinach-strawberry-mozzarella-pecan salad

French bread

(not enough time to make the garlic cheesy bread with it before Chase got home...

but worked out fabulously with oil and balsamic vinegar as an appetizer)

Restaurant style smashed potatoes from Pioneer Woman

(so good... like the quintessential "man food"-- ahem, the recipe calls for bacon)

Chase knows me well enough to understand that when I say dessert- I really mean red velvet cupcakes. Good job lovie.

Yep.. pushed the couch back all by myself and moved the table to make it fancy schmancy.

Even used our wedding china for the first time! yay!

Chase walked in from work (with red velvet cupcakes in hand), saw the surprise fancy schmancy dinner, and then came up with the idea of dressing up and putting a suit on....

JK! I was already all dressed up, however, and kindly suggested that maybe he could too.

Hey, the important thing here is that he happily complied people.

Thanks Chasen for humoring me :)

I also should mention (because those of you who know me well will laugh) that during the day I had this fabulous surprise planned out for Chase's present. You see, he was supposed to have class all morning until 12:50 where he would then have to rush to work in Spanish Fork at 1:30. Bummed though I was that we wouldn't hang out much together on Valentine's... I came up with the perfect scheme to have chocolate covered cinnamon bears, BYU creamery chocolate milk (his absolute FAV), and a large stack of dirtbike, jeep, motorcycle, and maybe one or two sports magazines waiting for him at work when he got there.

Well... the little stinker decided to skip his last class and take me out to lunch instead... RIGHT when I was planning on setting everything up perfectly at his work. In true Haley fashion, I was a bit bothered when he ruined my big plans... but then I chilled out when I saw how happy he was to see me and go get some lunch together. I didn't tell him about it and tried to shake of the disappointment of my plans being ruined, and then ended up surprising him at work with all of it a few hours later.

All in all, I got to see the husband TWO times during the day on Valentine's Day... instead of none with the big ordeal surprise.

Lesson learned for Haley: sometimes ruined "plans" actually work out better in the end.

And one last funny V-Day story:

My mom sent us up a package for Valentine's about a week beforehand.

I like surprises so much (obviously... see above) that I'd rather wait to open presents on the actual day... not snoop into packages... etc. etc., so I hadn't opened it yet.

My mom called and I said we had gotten it, but were waiting to open it. She then proceeded to tell me something like, "It's not all for this year though... maybe next."

Umm....? Huh?

Well... turns out that one item among the goodies was this:

(Toddler-sized UNLV cheer outfit)

Moral of this story:

Cheryl wants grandkids... but also can't come to terms with the fact that she's actually old enough to have grandkids... maybe she thinks she'll be ready in another year ;)

So I was going to quit blogging....

...and then a few of the people who actually read my blog said I couldn't.

So I guess I'll keep going.

Even though my life isn't too exciting...

& I'm not sure that anyone (other than those mentioned above) actually read it.

But oh well. It's not like I've got anything better to do these days...

I GRADUATED.

Woah. It's done. All over.

I kind of am in shock even still.

It was a blast to have some of my family up here to celebrate it all though!

My mom came into town a few days before graduation

to help me get ready for Megan's Baby Shower

(post coming soon...)

She took Chase and I out to Cheesecake Factory one night

{sidenote: the Red Velvet Cheesecake is to die for... seriously my

favorite thing ever. You must try it sometime.}

And surprised me with a pretty pearl necklace as a graduation gift!

Right before we left for dinner I had just told Chase something

about how watches and pearls necklaces are traditional graduation gifts.

My mom overheard and thought Chase had ruined the surprise!

But all was well... I was just totally a few steps ahead of her.

And was very excited when I opened a box with the

"traditional graduation gift" that I had just been talking about.

Thanks to all for showing so much love!

And a special thanks to my momma for playing with me all week,

helping so much with the shower, and for the set of pearls that

will make me think of you whenever I wear them!

{Oh... and Ricky too ;) }

Best Friend.

Meet best friend Megan.

Once upon a time Megan and I were roomates.

Then, she was leaving for a study abroad in beautiful Paris.

I even threw her a surprise "Bon Voyage" Party

Well... little Miss Megan Barnes flew across the deep blue for Winter Semester 2009

only to be visited by Mr. Matthew Morgan on her birthday March 1st

Magic happened during the visit and voila!

They were engaged in June and married by the end of August.

Well... now the cute Morgans are

EXPECTING....

and I couldn't be more excited!

Megan, thank you for letting me be an obsessive friend and already start planning your baby shower the minute you told me and listen to me go on about how we are just going to have to fly out to Hawaii to visit the cute little thing next fall (where the Morgans will be living) so I can spoil and love the heck out of the first baby out of us girlfriends.

Baby Morgan, the McCormicks already love you, and couldn't be more thrilled for your momma and daddy... our best friends.

See you sometime after September 10th baby!