England Part:1

     Before Jason and I got married we knew we wanted to plan a trip to go back to England, where he served his mission. This plan remained to be just talk for quite a while. Earlier this year we realized it would remain talk unless we took action and just booked tickets to go. So for a couple of months I watched  several airlines for their prices to England. The prices would go way up then somewhat down. Finally, one day when I checked just to see, the price was lower than I had ever seen. So we did it, we booked them!! The timing of our trip was very important to us as well. Coincidentally, we got married during fall break. So this was not only a great time to take a vacation, because of the break from school, but it would also be on our anniversary. It sounded perfect to us! Once the tickets were booked we discussed everything we wanted to do and see. I wanted to see everything from Jason's mission and we also wanted to tour all the sites. We were so lucky to have great people to stay with. They were all so warm and welcoming to us. It was great to meet everyone and see who Jason's families were while he was in London. We feel so blessed that we were able to do this. It will be a one year anniversary to remember!

Here are some of the wonderful families we got to spend time with...

The Saab Family

 Kassinen's

 The Mitchell's

A flat Jason lived in, in Slough.  (3rd floor)

 This is Elder Deal. Jason trained him right before he came home. It was so great to meet him!

 Jason lived in this flat right about the wedding store ;)

...ThE SiTeS...

 Windsor Caste

For those of you who don't know, Jason LOVED living in Brixton. It has a similar feel to the Bronx maybe? Kind of a rough part of town haha. Jason loved it so much he wants to name his son after it. Even though it wasn't the prettiest city I had already agreed to this for him. So I attempted to find some signs that say Brixton that hopefully one day we can put up in a little boy's room. 

This is just a huge lion at Trafalager's Square that tourist take pictures on. So naturally we had to do it too.

 Hyde Park

 Big Ben

 The London Eye

 London Bridge

 Buckingham Palace

Harry Potter's Platform 9 3/4 

Jason had been waiting for so long until he could eat a Kabab again!

I was a slacker at taking pictures on our actual anniversary. We were so worn out from traveling. Our anniversary was on the last day of our vacation. We decided to spend it in heart of London. We shopped, saw any sites we may have missed, and then found a great little Italian bistro on the street that had amazing food! While walking afterwards we saw a street vendor making belgiam waffles. I have always wanted on of these! So we thought it would be a perfect dessert for our day. Hot waffle+chocolate+pistachio ice cream= AMAZING! I was in heaven. I can't wait until I get to have one again ;)

Happy Anniversary to Us!!

More to come from the countryside....

Happy Birthday Clayton!

     This weekend was Clay's birthday and two years since he passed away. The Hanks family has started a tradition of going to the temple on Clay's birthday and then going to his grave. Unfortunately, this year his birthday was on the same day as the women's conference session. So the temple closed after the 10 am session. We tried to go but it was closed so we went out to lunch instead. Then Jason and I went to Clay's grave to put some flowers on it. This is a difficult day. It's been over 3 years since Jason has seen his brother because of his mission. He misses him greatly. Clay is such a great person and we really miss him in our day to day lives. The good part of all of this is that we know that we will be with him again. It seems like forever when he is not here but we know he is close to us. Another bitter sweet part of this weekend was the Hanks family had to put their dog, Lexy to sleep. She was very old and very sick. Lexy was Clay's buddy. She loved him and would sleep in is room. He taught her some pretty cool tricks and loved spending time with her. As sad as everyone was to see her go, we all felt that it was a good birthday present for Clay to see his puppy dog again. Now he has his little buddy back with him. I'm sure they are watching over us now. We love them and miss them so much!

I made this frame for Jason. I wanted to give him a gift on Clay's birthday but I wasn't sure what. I've come across this quote a lot lately and it just seemed to fit so well. There's a different picture we want in this frame but it's being developed so we'll put it in soon. 

"When someone you love becomes a memory, that memory becomes a treasure."

It's A Circus!

   Yup we went to the circus! It was a great time had by all. Our good friends Jessie and Peter Tolman invited us to go to the circus with them last night. We thought it sounded fun but didn't really know what to expect. Well we were blown away with the amazing acts. I couldn't believe how well trained all of the animals were. We saw horses, zebras, tigers, and elephants. It was so fun and entertaining. We were happy we decided to go!

Utah State Fair

   A few weeks ago we went to the Utah State Fair. I don't know what it is about the fair but I just love it. I don't know if it's all the yummy food, or the unbeatable people watching but it's always a blast. Unfortunately I didn't take to many pictures but I did get just a couple.

For those of you who don't know, Jason is an avid corndog lover! He could eat these for every meal every day and be happy, I swear. The fair has quite the selection of corndogs. We managed to find the longest corndog there and that's the one we had to try. I will admit I had a smaller one but it was delicious. So this is Jason, pleased with his choice and ready to eat!

There were seals at the fair! I loved them. When do you see seals in Utah??

Can't wait until the State Fair comes again next year!

Lost Fish...Please Return if Found....

    So this past Sunday an unfortunate thing happened in our home. Around 5pm I cleaned our fish, Batman's, vase. I then put him back in the vase once it was clean and fed him. He was in the their after I cleaned it, no doubt! (I've been accused of loosing him while cleaning the vase but I know for a fact I put him back in it!) Once Batman was happily swimming in his clean vase it was time to head to my parents house for Sunday dinner. So we left to their house, and yes we brought Max with us. He was not at our condo with Batman. (Max has also been accused of eating Batman.) We returned home around 9:30pm. While getting ready for bed I hear Jason ask from the kitchen, "Where's the fish?!" I though he was just retarded and couldn't see him in the vase so I just said he's in there I promise. But Jason insisted he was gone so I came into the kitchen and he was right...BATMAN WAS GONE!! What the heck! We looked at each other for a minute shocked to see that our fish was missing. So yes my first thought was to ask Jason if he locked the door while we were gone. (People are weird these days, you never know what someone will steal) He just laughed at that assumption and insisted that Batman had jumped out of the vase. Ok, so if he jumped where is he??? Wouldn't he be on the floor or counter? Well we looked everywhere, and no Batman! It's just stupid. I want my fish back! How can we manage to not loose Max but we loose our fish? I'm stumped. I've lost my keys, shoes, earrings, but never a fish. I promise we are responsible pet owners. Batman was stolen or vanished, that's my opinion ha but Jason will tell you differently. I just don't understand why Batman would jump out of his vase. It was a perfect home for him. He had regular meals and pretty blue marbles to look at. Why on earth would he want to leave us?Case and point! So if anyone sees a bright red fish who answers to Batman please let us know. We miss him and would like our fish to be returned immediately.

This little guy is too sweet to eat his friend Batman.

It's a Party!

   This past Friday was my good friend Michelle's birthday. Turning the big 2-3! So she decided dinner at Cafe Rio and then and adventure to Nickel Mania would suit her birthday wishes. I don't know if I have ever even been to the Nickel Mania, if I have it was a very long time ago. Dinner was good as it always is at Rio and then Nickel Mania was even better. I honestly felt like a kid again! I was completely focused on winning as many tickets as possible, while Jason just wanted to play all the shooting games, that win NO tickets I might add. So we had to divide our nickels up so we could play our different games. It was so much fun playing games like ski ball again. I loved that game when I was little. We had a blast being with all of our cute friends. We didn't win the most tickets but we were a close second ;)

 April from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, she was always my fave ;)

 Liz and I getting ready for our Jurassic Park adventure

 Ski Ball!!

 Lots of tickets ;)

 Yup we won 316 tickets!

 We used it wisely too. We bought fun dips, parachute guys, and marbles!

 Happy Birthday Miesh! We love you, thanks for letting us spend your birthday with you!!