East Coast Trip: May 2016

We booked our flights at the beginning of March to go home and spend some time with my family, and I had a countdown on my phone. 

We strategically planned our vacation, taking 7 days off of work to spend a full 11 days traveling in total, with an extra day to recover (Memorial Day) before we had to get back to work.

We started our adventure by going to Las Vegas on Thursday, May 19th when Brian got out of class. In case I haven’t mentioned this before, flying in and out of Vegas is WAY cheaper than flying from Salt Lake City, and it gives us an excuse to go see Kevin & Amanda. We were greeted by 3 enthusiastic little boys who were more than excited to show us their new pool. Kevin & Amanda are cool parents who wound up letting them stay up an extra two hours when “just showing us the pool” turned into night swimming. 

Friday, we woke up early and hung out with the kids before Braxton and Corbin had to head to school. Then Amanda took Brian and I, Dylan, and Ella hiking at Red Rock Canyon State Park, which was totally beautiful. I’ll upload some photos of that because the rocks are incredible and they have some cool slot canyons. Mid-afternoon we had to head to the airport for our nonstop 4 PM flight. Because of the time change, we were scheduled to get to Baltimore at 11:45 PM, but made it in a little early and my dad was there waiting for us.

Saturday, Brian and I were seriously jet-lagged and slept until noon. To be fair it was only 10 AM for us, but we never sleep in that late, so we felt like our day was super short. But that day was the real reason we began planning our trip for the end of May, it was one of my best friends from college, Shanna’s, wedding day. So that afternoon we headed to Winchester, VA for their quaint, country-themed wedding. It was absolutely adorable and totally Shanna in a barn with hay bales for the ceremony, removed for a big dance floor after, and the best BBQ food. Our mutual friend, Sam, was a bridesmaid so we got to see her and her husband Jake, as well as my college best friend and roommate Erin and her boyfriend. Much fun was had by all.

Sunday was a relaxing day spent with my dad and stepmom, before my cousin Kimmy came for dinner. Because I have the greatest dad ever, my request of steamed Maryland crabs for dinner was upheld and I ate about 13 on my own. Literally the greatest thing on earth, and if you ever find yourself in Maryland, you should seek them out. But you’ll probably need a native to show you how to pick them, like we had to for Brian and Kimmy. It was quite amusing watching Brian pick 2 crabs in the same amount of time it took me to do 7.

Monday my Fitbit was in Heaven as we romped around Washington DC and I racked up over 12.5 miles. We took the metro in from the closest stop, bought day passes (which always winds up being the cheapest at $15ish if you’re traveling a lot like we were), and headed to the National Zoo. Last year when Brian came back east with me for the “meet the parents” trip, we briefly stopped at the zoo, but it was the last stop of our day and we mainly just went so I could see the elephants. But this time, we spent 3 hours leisurely exploring the entire zoo. The National Zoo is (in my opinion) hands down the best zoo in the United States. For starters, it’s FREE. Completely free if you take the metro so you don’t even have to pay for parking. Second, it has about every exotic animal you can think of. It’s about a half-mile walk from the metro, so it’s a no-brainer stop.

Next, we made our way back to the metro and took it into the heart of DC to go to some museums. My all time favorite (and most heart-breaking) museum is the National Holocaust Museum, and I really wanted to take Brian there, so we went.

I had to get my Panera Bread mac & cheese as well, so we stopped there for lunch. I don’t care what anyone says, Paradise Bakery does NOT compare to Panera. Then the rest of the afternoon was spent walking around to various monuments, before we met Kimmy for a Washington Nationals vs. NY Mets game which was a nice end to our day. I miss major league sports, majorly, considering Utah has like nothing. At least the Jazz are good to get cheap tickets to see other teams play hahaha.

On Tuesday, we headed to West Virginia to spend some time with my mom and stepdad. Every time I go back to my childhood home, I go through these stages of revelation. It’s like I’m back where I was in high school planning my life and I spend so much time thinking about how to improve myself and what is happening in my life. Whatever life changing thoughts I had while I was there seemed to carry over into the next day when a very exciting opportunity was extended to me. (But this I’ll save for a surprise post in a few weeks).

Wednesday and Thursday we spent time with my family, went and picked strawberries with my mom and made lots of strawberry jam, and went kayaking and boating down the river.  Oh! And my mom's cat had kittens! I'll definitely add photos of them because they are SO CUTE. And the baby goats :)

Thursday was my stepdad’s birthday and two days later on Saturday was my mom’s, so on Friday night, a lot of their friends came over along with two of my aunts who came for the weekend, and we had a huge dinner and fun night together. Saturday we had to leave, but we got to see my grandma and great-grandma before we had to head back to Maryland, and got to spend a little time with my dad, stepmom, and 3 of my nieces before we hopped back on the plane. 

Coming home always takes longer, so a 5 hour flight later and we were back in Vegas! Kevin & Amanda graciously let us house-sit while they went camping for the holiday weekend, so we got to wake up and hop in their amazing pool for the morning. I think I finally started getting a tan! 

Vacations are never long enough but it does feel good to be home. The 6 1/2 hour drive home was definitely a long one after a 5 hour flight the night before. Since we’ve been home, a lot of things have been changing and I am so excited to announce some changes in the next few weeks! In the meantime, I will attach some photos to this. Can’t wait to head home again at Christmas!

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The Start of a Crazy Summer...

May is already showing how busy this summer is going to be. I feel like Brian and I are always running all around the place trying to manage our crazy lives and still have time for fun! 

The first week of May, Kimberly and Austin were back in town for another wedding, so Brian and I were lucky to steal some of their time and have lunch with them one day. That same day, Sabra and I went to PaintNite in Layton! I have always wanted to do one of those events and I had a great coupon for it, so it seemed like a great time to stop making excuses and go. For those who don't know what PaintNite is, you go to their website, choose your location, and then look through all the different paintings they have. You choose one you want to learn to paint on a day and time that works for you, pay the fee, and then go to the class you signed up for. They have all the paints, brushes, and utensils you'll need already there for you. It's a fun atmosphere (although I didn't particularly like the location), and you leave with a canvas and knowledge you didn't have before. Sabra and I chose a sunflower painting; I'll include some photos at the end.

On May 4, Brian and I caved and bought another guinea pig (haha, it was only a matter of time right?). We decided that Winston was probably getting lonely hanging out alone while we were at work every day, and since research told us guinea pigs are very social creatures, we had to get him a friend. Because neither of us want to deal with baby guinea pigs, we got another male and named him Schmidt, obviously because what else could we name him? (I guess I shouldn't say that, Ferguson was in the running too....) He's very squeaky and much more active than Winston, so his name suits him for sure.

Our excitement over the newest member of the family was short lived, as disaster struck our house again on Mother's Day weekend. We went grocery shopping so I could begin the process of making 150 cake pops for the Baldwin Family Mother's Day party, and when we got home, we walked in to see a huge puddle of water on our living room hardwood, which was obviously coming from the dripping in our ceiling. We went upstairs to discover that our washer (which is conveniently *sarcasm* located between our master bedroom and the larger of the two spare bedrooms) had not drained properly. We still don't know how it happened, but it resulted in the water leaking into our laundry room, under the linoleum, through the flooring, into the ceiling below, and emptied through the smoke detector. The upstairs hallway was also flooded, and the water had seeped under the walls to the two bedrooms on either side. As a result, we had to suck out via steam cleaner 6-8 gallons of water out of our carpets (thanks Lindy), cut and pull up our brand new carpet (just installed with brand new padding 7 months ago), rip out all the wet padding and throw it away, rent two big industrial sized fans to blow the carpets dry, rip out the linoleum in the laundry room, and drill big holes into the laundry room floor to tape a shop vac in there to blow the ceiling dry.

I have to insert here that it could have been so much worse. The downstairs hard wood didn't get warped because we got home in time to mop it up. The carpet all dried in a matter of 2 days, and Brian has already replaced all the padding he had to rip up. The bad news is we don't know what's wrong with the washer and we'll probably have to replace it to be on the safe side. We laid the carpets back down over the new padding, and we'll deal with having them stretched and put back in when we get back from our big trip (starting this week, yayyyy!!!)

To make things more annoying though, our air conditioner decided to quit working the night before the washer fiasco. Luckily, Brian's awesome cousin ordered the part we needed and came and installed it for us the next week before it got hot again. The bad news is that he also discovered some of the wires had gotten fused together and started a fire in the wall in the garage. We still don't know why our house didn't burn down, other than the fact Heavenly Father is reeeeallllyyyyyyyy watching out for us it seems. We are so blessed that through all of these trials, we've actually not had anything too serious happen to us.

As previously mentioned, Mother's Day we had a big family dinner we attended. That week at church we also got a new Beehive join our class! I taught about the prophets Mother's Day weekend and about Patriarchal Blessings this week since we'll be gone the rest of the month! My Aunt Mary and Uncle Joe are visiting from Florida and cousin, Kimmy, from DC for Maddie's 4th birthday, so Brian and I went to Provo for dinner yesterday and got to see everyone and hang out. I'm so glad we decided to plan our tropical vacation this fall with a trip to Florida to see all my family!

Kimmy will be headed back to DC this week, so we'll get to see her a few times while we're home visiting my parents and I am so excited!! This week before we go will be super busy trying to get the house clean and laundry done (I can't leave knowing I'll come back to a dirty house), packing, and making sure everything church related is taken care of before we head out! We have a mother-daughter luau planned for Mutual this week that will be a blast, I'm happy I'm not missing it while I'm gone. When we head out, we're headed to Vegas to see Kevin & Amanda and the kids and then flying out of Vegas. If I haven't mentioned this before, flying out of Las Vegas is sooooo much cheaper (and it's a win-win because we get to see family!). 

Now before I wrap this up, I have to brag about my incredible husband for a minute. I think I wrote before about how he's taking a full load of summer classes that span the entire summer, but he's also still working and had applied to a lot of summer finance internships. I admit we fell a little behind the curve when he started looking at internships because most of them had deadline dates from before our wedding, and we definitely weren't on the lookout for them then. However, Brian found a great internship with Northrop Grumman's finance department in Salt Lake City. After many phone interviews and finally an in-person interview, he got an offer last week to join their summer internship program! Not only does it conveniently start after our vacation, but it pays really well, especially for a summer internship! I am so so proud of all the handwork he's put in and his dedication to getting school finished up in the next year, while prepping his resume for grad school ;). I'm one lucky wife!

I'll have many more posts when we get back with all our adventures, so I'll wrap this up now! Happy beginning of summer, everyone! :)

Now we just need the weather to warm back up...

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April 2016

I guess I’m going to backtrack a few weeks to catch up on daily life.. The weekend after general conference was stake conference. We were blessed to have Steven O. Laing of the Seventy speak to us Saturday, and again Sunday with his wife. Sunday morning session was held at the tabernacle beside the Ogden Temple and we walked around looking at all the beautiful spring flowers and enjoying a warm day. After that, we packed up a salad and dessert and made a trek down to Provo to have dinner with Christy, Matt, Maddie, and Lucy. We had a lovely dinner and went for a long walk afterwards. It was a very relaxing and uplifting weekend!

That week was a long one and nothing too exciting happened, aside from more chiropractic care from Brian’s uncle, Monte. I’m not sure I mentioned anything about this before… Apparently my scoliosis has decided to show it’s ugly face and my back has been causing me a lot of pain recently. My hips like to twist and get stuck, as well as two sets of vertebrae that keep twisting. It’s amazing how Monte can just pop two things into place and it’s all better (for a week… I have to keep going back until they decide to stop doing this). He owns Elite Chiropractic in Murray, UT and I highly recommend him for any friends in need around here! 

On the 16th, our super awesome realtor, Ruth Ann Combe Beardsley, gave us 4 tickets to see the newly released movie, The Jungle Book. Brian and I took his niece and nephew, Jaxton & Khloe, and we had a blast. We all loved the movie! That evening we had a wedding reception for a friend in Farmington and we got to see Kimberly & Austin and their families. 

The next morning at church, Brian and I both spoke in sacrament meeting and Kirk and Lindy came to listen and stayed for Brian’s lesson in gospel principles. My talk was on the power of the Book of Mormon in personal conversion, and Brian’s was on the power in daily living. Maybe I’ll contemplate posting my talk on here… 

The following week was eventful, and surprisingly fun. Wednesday night we had a stake young women’s recognition dinner and it was fun to see so many of our girls recognized for their accomplishments. 

The next day at work, we introduced a new wellness plan! I say “we” because I am a member of the newly formed “Wellness Committee.” Our company dished out a certain amount of money per employee for us all to order Fitbits! We’re setting daily step goals and earning rewards for the days we hit our goals, such as paid time off, Visa gift cards, casual dress days, etc. They’re also going in to pay 50% of any of our race costs if we choose to enter a 5k, 10k, half or full marathon. We got our Fitbits 2 days later and we’re all already obsessed! The best part about Fitbit is that it’s a very comprehensive health plan. It tracks your steps, calories burned, floors climbed, and sleep. You can log your food and drink intake and better keep track of your weight loss/gain. It’s slightly addictive and I advise it for everyone!

Thursday night, Brian and I finally got a date night in and we went hiking in the canyon and got some wings at B-Dubbs. I’m so glad it’s starting to get warm out. I was beginning to get the winter blues from all the cold weather and rain! It came back again the next week so we’re definitely looking forward to May around here, for many reasons!!

Saturday the 24th, I renewed my adult and child CPR/First Aid/AED with the American Red Cross. Everyone kept asking me why I needed that as a marketing director for a law firm and they didn’t believe me when I said I just wanted to keep it active! A refresher course is always a good thing, and I don’t see how it could ever be a bad thing to be ready to potentially save a life! :)

That evening, the most exciting thing happened! So Brian and I have always joked that we wouldn’t get a pet until after we have kids and they’re old enough to take care of it themselves because we love being able to just leave whenever we want to without having any responsibilities at home or having to have his parents watch an animal that requires a lot of care… Well, we sort of broke the one part of it. WE GOT A GUINEA PIG! Ever since I was little, I have always wanted one, but I couldn’t ever have one because we had dogs and a cat. I’ve been joking with Brian for weeks that I wanted a baby bunny or a small animal. So Saturday after a busy day of CPR, grocery shopping, church cleaning, and house cleaning, we decided to go look at the pet store for fun (one of our favorite things to do). We knew we were probably leaving with an animal, most specifically a guinea pig because Brian didn’t want a hamster. 

We began looking around at all the small pets in Petsmart and although they were cute, nothing stuck out and we decided to go to PetCo, just to check it out. We walked in and saw a white and tan guinea pig (male), in the cage with 3 others. Unlike the other three, this little guy was running all around, squeaking, and climbing on top of his dome. I wanted to hold him, and as soon as he was in my arms, he snuggled into my sweatshirt and that was it. I looked at Brian and he knew this was the one haha!

We named him Winston, from one of our favorite shows, New Girl. In the show, Winston Bishop calls himself “Winnie the Bish,” so Brian and I named our guinea, Winston, aka Winnie the Pig or Winnie the Guinea. He’s an active little guy and he loves eating his Timothy Hay and running all over us while we watch TV. We’re already considering getting a second one to keep him company while we’re at work, and the babysitting ship has sailed. Brian’s mom said she wouldn’t mind watching him when we go on trips and Jaxton and Khloe love him, so we know he’ll get plenty of attention while we’re gone! 

The last Tuesday of the month for mutual, we had a birthday party for our newest Beehive! We played games and had cupcakes and the girls and I had a blast! Thursday, we went to dinner at ABC Mandarin with Kirk and Lindy to celebrate the end of Brian’s spring semester. Only one more year!! I cannot wait, I might be as excited as him.

This pas Friday night we had what turned into a huge cookout with 20 of our closest friends (lol), with a fire and games and good times with friends. Saturday, we got up early and headed to Rexburg, Idaho, with a pit stop in Idaho Falls, to go through the temple with Brian’s cousin, Katherine. The temple was beautiful and it was so nice to see family. We all went out to dinner, then on our way home… disaster struck. Not really, I’m being dramatic, but Lindy’s SUV has been having problems with the fuel pump, so we sat at a gas station in Idaho Falls for 2 hours while it wouldn't start before making our way back home and getting home at 1:30 AM. A minor setback, but at least we had Sunday to recover! (Shoutout to Jared for getting it working for us!!)

It’s so fun that ever since we decided to go somewhere or do something new every month, we’ve been able to do so! Luckily we fit this trip in on the last day of April, and now I can say I’ve seen a lot more of Idaho and have actually spend a decent amount of time in the state. That’s checked off my bucket list, because honestly, Idaho doesn’t have much going on! I’m counting down the days until we head home for vacation! I’m so excited to see where we can venture while we’re there :)

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Recipe: Chocolate Strawberry Banana Baked Oatmeal

Attention: this is my new favorite breakfast recipe, super easy to make, and healthy! Plus, it has chocolate, and who doesn't love a little chocolate in their breakfast?

Ingredients:
- 2 cups rolled oats
-1/3 c. packed brown sugar
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/2 c. almonds
- 2 c. strawberries (sliced)
- 1/3 c. chocolate chips (I used mini's)
- 2 c. milk
- 1 large egg
- 3 tbsp. butter, melted
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1 banana, peeled and sliced in 1/2 inch pieces

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees, generously spray the inside of a 8" by 8" baking dish with cooking spray or butter and place it on a baking sheet (in case of overflow. I didn't have any, but you never know).

2. In a large bowl, mix together the oats, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, half the almonds, half the strawberries, and half the chocolate chips. Add to prepared baking dish, then arrange the remaining strawberries, chocolate, almonds, and the banana on top.

3. In the empty bowl you just used, whisk together the milk, egg, butter, and vanilla. Pour over the oats and fruit into the baking dish and shimmy the dish to gently mix the milk mixture throughout the oats.

4. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until milk mixture is set. I also sprinkled brown sugar on top and put it under the broiler for about 30 seconds to make it crispy on top!

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Easter 2016 & Such

Following my birthday is St. Patrick’s Day and we celebrated the Sunday after with Kirk (Lindy was in Vegas with the grandkids) and Grandma and Grandpa Baldwin. Kirk made corned beef and cabbage and we had a wonderful dinner together. I taught Young Women’s that Sunday for my beehives and we had a great lesson on the Atonement of Jesus Christ, along with yummy green cupcakes that I conveniently came up with an object lesson for.

The Friday before that, Brian and I had planned to go listen to presidential candidate John Kasich speak at Davis High School and Randy and Sabra came with us. We were interested to hear what he had to say because he never gets time to speak during debates (because he’s not arguing with Trump) and although we knew he has the experience to balance the budget, we needed to know where he stood on other important issues. It was neat to hear him speak and although the Governor of Utah is fickle and came out supporting Ted Cruz publicly 2 days later, he was at Kasich’s rally and openly supported him, saying he would be voting for him (liar) and talked about some of Kasich’s great political wins. Kasich made some excellent points and it’s a shame he isn’t higher in the running considering his experience and proof of outcome is higher than all the other candidates combined, but alas, that’s what happens when you don’t play dirty in American politics. Hopefully Cruz is actually considered an American citizen when it comes down to it. But I digress.

The next day, we went to Antelope Island to model for a photographer friend (photos can be seen in the previous post). That Sunday was the Provo City Center Temple dedication and Brian and I attended the first session at 9 am. During this session they dedicated the cornerstone which I had never seen happen before, so that was pretty neat. It’s a beautiful temple and I’m glad we took the time to walk through it during the open house.

The next week was very busy: voting in the Utah caucus, YW visits, visiting teaching, and an Ogden Mustangs playoff hockey game on Friday. Weekends are now spent grocery shopping, cleaning, doing laundry, gardening, and trying to relax unsuccessfully. #adulting. That Saturday night, Brian and I went over to his parents house and made dinner for his brother and nieces and nephew. We then dyed Easter eggs for the following day. It was the first time I have dyed eggs in forever. The next day, Easter, we attended church, then headed to Kirk and Lindy’s again for egg hunts and Easter dinner. Brian’s parents have always done a money egg hunt, which we enjoy that much more now that we’re adults. It was a nice holiday spent at church and with family.

The last Monday in March, Brian and I attended his old YSA ward to give dating advice to the single adults in his ward. That was highly amusing. I’m not sure why they thought it was a good idea to ask us, but hopefully we got the point across that they need to chill out and stop worrying about getting married. We had a good laugh when we left.

April Fool’s Day I was blessed because Brian forgot it was April 1. That evening we went out to dinner with Glen and Carly at a cute Italian restaurant on 25th St. with live music and yummy food called Rovali’s Ristorante Italiano. I would recommend it! It’s been forever since I’ve had good pasta that was homemade recently. Probably not since my Italy trip in May of 2013.

Tricia highlighted my hair the morning of General Conference weekend so I’m officially blonder, and we watched conference together at home in between tending to our garden and finishing our front flower bed. We removed the bushes, added a retaining wall on the right side, added white marble rocks to the left bed to make it not a bed, and planted a variety of flowers in the right bed. Spring is coming! Sort of. The weather was beautiful for conference weekend and we got to spend a lot of time outside, especially Sunday. 

Lindy’s birthday was Monday and we had a nice dinner at Ligori’s in Ogden. I’m so ready for warmer weather and vacations! Only a month and a half until we’re headed to Vegas, then flying out to see my family for 9 days!

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