my happy place

In August my family took a trip to Lake Powell with some family friends.

Perfect weather, perfect 84 degree water, perfect week long trip in Paradise.

I want to go back. . . .

 Blake's pretty darn good at wake boarding. . . .

 That's my cute hubby

 I have the sweetest sister-in-law on the planet!  She's getting pretty good at the water sports!  Blake may be a small part of that ;) 

 Love my little mikelle

 My cute momma!  

 Matthew lookin studly

 I get MAJOR air.  I know. 

 This would be the "sand hill" 

 We walked all the way up it and ran. . . .  no, sprinted down it.  And seriously, it is SO much steeper than it looks!  I'm not kidding.  The picture doesn't do it justice. It was tough!! 

Awesome workout though :) 

 That little yellow and black speck is our boat.

Proving we all made it. 

We Love the Allens! 

 And then I tumbled :) 

This video is hilarious.  It's matt and camille's boyfriend Keato racing down the sand hill at full sprint.  They tied. 

This video just gives you an idea of how fast they were actually running compared to the girls. haha 

 All the gang! 

CLIFF JUMPING. . . yikes! I was a chicken. 

 My husband is seriously nuts, my family was impressed by him, I was just freaked out. 

Matt had to jump higher than everyone else. . . the cliff was not big enough for him :/ 

 Scared me to death

 Headed to go get some tasty grub at the restaurant at Antelope Point! 

 The food was amazing, but the portions were HUGE. Good for leftovers.  

 I can be cheesy sometimes 

 Last day Matt was here:( He had to leave the trip early to go back to work, I missed him the rest of the week!!! First time ever being away from him, it was tough I'm not gonna lie! 

 I love my sisters more than anything

 Gettin our tan on! 

 Classic, love her. 

Tubing through the channel- I haven't laughed that hard sense! 

  

 My dad is great. 

 He took this picture and thought it was awesome because it looks like the sun beam is giving our tube powers. . . totally dad :)  

I love this place. 

 Last night, all of us at the restaurant again! -minus the Allens and husband :(

 Mikelle asked for a "side" of fries, and because their portions are ENORMOUS, we shouldn't have expected to get anything less than a full on basket of fries. . . we all got to share them. haha

 Calzones, huge. 

 Pizza, huge. And delicious! 

Ready to EAT

 Goodbye Lake Powell. 

Until next time. . .

I'll be dreaming about you. 

The "Dying Rooster"

Back tracking to Labor Day weekend. . . . 

Saturday September 4th marked the one year anniversary of "the proposal." Crazy! We wanted to make it back up to Bear Lake to watch another show at Pickleville Playhouse, but our Labor Day weekend was so pack full of camping, boating and activities that we didn't have time! Bummer.  Next year we'll have to make it up there, even if it is just for a bear lake raspberry shake.  

For those of you who are married, you know how you get tired of telling everyone your proposal story? Especially right after it happens? Well, I'm not really feelin writing out the whole story.  So if you have never heard how it happened, I'll give a brief version.

***We were up at Bear Lake for the Labor Day weekend with my family and some close family friends.  We stayed at our condo that we've always stayed at since I was a little girl up at "Sweet Water" and just enjoyed boating and the hot sun.  Matt had 4 tickets to go see "Bandito Rides Again" at Pickelville Playhouse Saturday night and told me ask my parents to see if they wanted to come with us.  So all 4 of us went. Or so I thought.

 As we walked in to get our seats, we noticed that our seats were split up so we were sitting in the isle in extra chairs that they had brought in, sitting right behind each other going up the row.  I was a little upset because I wanted to sit next to matt! Instead, I was looking at the back of head.  So I sat there looking at the program and turned around to ask my mom a question when I noticed that she was crying! Wha???! But she tried to hide it and turned around to talk to my dad.  So I tapped matt and was like "Matt, my mom looks like she is crying. . . . what is goin on?!" He was just like uh, that's weird.  I was a little concerned!  So then I went to look back again at my parents and matt YANKED me forward right as I was doing so. After he yanked me he had nothing to say, it was awkward.  

A minute later a little boy probably 13 years old, was sitting next to matt and asked me if I wanted to trade him spots!  I told him that I was fine but he was persistent and said, "No really it's ok you should trade me spots! . . . . Uh okay?  I didn't want to spilt him up from his family but he insisted.  So that was interesting.

Next thing I know matt is raising my hand for volunteers up on stage to help them with a sing-a-long. Are you kidding me?! Great.  We both were pulled up on stage. Long story short, they asked me to make the sound of a "dying rooster" in the song "She'll be commin round the mountain." But my verse was "She'll be killin the red rooster when he comes..." then I had to make the "dying rooster noise. . . ." OH my EMBARRASSING.    

So I did it, made a complete FOOL out of myself, and looked at matt like "Oh my heck. . . this is so embarrassing!" 

Next it was his turn. YES!  But his verse was "She'll be wearin pink pajamas when he comes" and he had to say "Ohh la la."  Much easier that making the sound of a DYING ROOSTER!!! Next thing I know, the guy is handing matt the microphone and saying "Alright Matt have ya been thinking about this one. . .?"  And matt is on one knee. . . . with our song playing in the background, asking me to marry him.

WOW!  It is still so weird to think back to that moment in time, I couldn't believe it was happening!  Of course the audience all make the "Awwwwwwwww" sound when it happened.  

I said yes by the way. :) 

We went and sat back down and I kept looking at my finger in awe and giggling with matt, ecstatic! Now I knew why my mom was all teary, now I know why that little boy traded me spots, now I know why matt yanked me forward. . . all my siblings were watching from the balcony and he didn't want me to see them!  I was so happy my family was all there to help celebrate this moment with us!  

Needless to say, we couldn't pay attention during the whole play, so we left at intermission to go call our friends/family and to go celebrate! Come to find out, they kept cracking jokes about getting married and stuff during the 2nd half of the play but we weren't even there.  Then they started making jokes about "Well why did they leave? Did they need their alone time?  Did she change her mind??" haha so funny.  

I have always loved Bear Lake, but now it holds an even more special place in my heart! It was one fantastic (yet embarrassing) weekend. :) 

Here are some pictures from that amazing weekend! I do have the video of the entire thing, but seriously, it is wayy too embarrassing to show. 

 "The Before" 

"The Before" 

"Engaged!" 

date night + a twist

Life has gotten crazy again.  I am back in school and busy as ever.  I've come to realize that weekends (Mainly Sunday) will be my "saving grace" day in the business of the week.  Matt is also busy working full time and taking 4 online classes... yuck!  Needless to say, summer came and went too quickly for us.

We recently got back from Lake Powell, which is unfortunate, because honestly it is one of my favorite places on earth.  I never want to leave.  I took lots of photos, so one day when I have time to upload all of them I will.  It was SO great to get away for a week.  The weather was absolutely perfect and with 84 degree water, there was not much to complain about. ;)

As for matt and I's "eventful weekend."  We have a story for you. . . .

Friday night date-night took a interesting spin by the end of the night.  We started the evening with dinner at Iggy's which was quite delicious, and then headed up to Capital Hill for "movie under the stars."  If you are not aware of what "movie under the stars" actually is, well, it is where hundreds of little families come and enjoy a free movie and popcorn, bringing blankets, coolers, treats, friends, dogs, and whatever else to enjoy a movie on a HUGE blown up screen out on the grass of the capital.  Kinda fun.  Well, this was our first time this summer and we definitely didn't realize that we needed to be there an hour early to get a spot on the grass! We were a tad bit late, causing us drive for about 15 minutes around the capital looking for a parking spot, and than walking around for about 15 minutes trying to find a spot to lay a blanket down.  It was crowded.  We end up finding a spot up higher in-between these two trees where we could see most of the screen, with the exception of a few tree branches.  (Good thing we have seen Tangled enough times to where we have the whole thing practically memorized. It's a fave)  So the movie ends, we watch the hundreds of little families file out, and we grab our blankets, throw them in the jeep, and head home.  Needless to say, we didn't know we'd have quite the exciting night ahead of us.

As we make our way home, watching for the hundreds of pedestrians, matt drives very cautiously, stopping and slowing down as people cross the street...as anyone would right? Well, as we make our way down Victory Road in Salt Lake, matt is noticing this car behind us riding our tail.. huh.  That's annoying.  So as we make it to Beck Street matt continues to notice this man still riding our tail. Still annoying.  Making the same exact lane changes we were making. OK... Something is up. As we head towards Bountiful to get off 500 South he continues to follow RIGHT BEHIND US.  This is where matt now tells me, "Hayley this guy behind us has been following us since we left the capital...."  And this is where I start to get weirded out.  So, obviously we don't head straight home, but we pulled into the a-fresh parking lot . . . . and so does he.  We stop and park, he stops and parks.  We then drive over to the man and shine our lights on him to ask him uh....why he is following us?!! He's in a nice BMW, on the phone, and completely ignores the fact that we are trying to talk to him.  At this point my heart is pounding.  We pull out of the parking lot and yes, he does the same.  We then turn into a Smiths Parking lot, well lit up and lots of people.  I pull out my phone and take down his license plate number getting ready to call the cops as Matt t-bones the guys and asks him to roll down his window to ask him just WHY IS HE FOLLOWING US!!! The man is STILL on the phone and completely ignoring us. It was so weird! So Matt pulls the car in front of his car blocking his again, and takes two steps out of the car.  Before you know it we hear "Sir get back in your car!  Step back and get into your car!"  5 cop cars are now surrounding us and yelling at Matt to get back in the car.  What is going on?!?! We were completely confused as to what the heck was going on. The cop comes up to our car and asks us if we are ok?  If we'd had anything to drink?  If we were tired?  Uh . . . no, no. . . What is going on?! Apparently, this guy had watched us leave the capital and supposed that matt was driving impaired. Haha. Funny.  He said that he had floated across the line?  Was slowing down and speeding up on the free way?  (There was a bad accident with a semi on the freeway by the way--so that would explain the slowing down with the traffic..) All we could say was "uh... okay?  I don't think I was..?" The cop was kinda funny actually and said that matt was probably just distracted by a pretty lady and that this would be a great thing to put on facebook ha. Awesome. Then he left us and said well let me go talk to this guy and see what's up.  We gave him our car registration and things and start laughing.  There were about 6 cop cars surrounding us at this point.  This was a joke!  The cop came back and talked to us for a bit, actually a really nice guy!  Then he told us we were fine and to have a good rest of our "Friday night date night." haha

Oh man,  it caught us for surprise!  It was seriously hilarious/freaky all at the same time.  We got home and couldn't start laughing about it.  We keep making jokes about, "hey remember that one time you got jumped on by 5 cops?!" haha so funny.  The only thing that would have made the night better was if he would have made to the breathalyzer test, or walk the line or something.

It was a good end to date night I suppose???

Has anything like this ever happened to anyone before?!

Now Satuday night was less exciting. . . in a good way.  Me and Matt doubled with one of matt's best friends from high school Kyle and his wife Emily, who were recently married! Woo! I had to work until 2 and then we headed up to Pine View right after for a night on the lake.  It was a lot of fun!  Me and Emily enjoyed getting thrown around "double tubing" and I've got the battle wounds to prove it! I did some wake boarding, skiing, and enjoyed the company of my husb as always. He's so great.  He pulled us all around the lake like a pro and we had a great time.  It makes me sad that we are nearing the end of boating season. . . . it's a depressing thought.

This was a great weekend filled with fun surprises!

I hope everyone had a weekend as eventful as ours!  ;) 

One itsy bitsy obsession

If anyone knows me at all, they know that I live, sleep, and dream dance. . . always.  It is one thing that is practially always on my mind. (if i'm not with my husband of course. And side note, he's wonderful for sticking with me through all my dance stufff.... I love him for that.) If a lovely song comes on, I start choreographing a dance in my mind. I don't tell my mind to do it it just happens.  I'm always picturing 'dances and steps' in my head. . .  It's not like I'm trying to get away from it (because clearly I'm not) but I seriously can't get away from it! Is this weird? I have no choice but to let it swallow me up completely.  

A little over a week ago I went and took some dance classes in Park City with a friend, and we had a blast.  I've been teaching all summer long and so I am somewhat dancing myself, but there is something about taking class from amazing teachers that seriously makes me so happy and inspired.   I was reminded again why I am still dancing in college because believe me, some days it can be rough and I have my doubts. . . 

Speaking of dance. . . . . . . . .

Have any of you been watching SYTYCD this season?  Do any of you watch it? Well. . . . Melanie is my favorite.  Just sayin.  If you haven't seen her dance, um. . . do.  :) The finally is this week.  Woo! 

(I hope those videos work, if not watch some of her dances on youtube. They will blow your mind.) 

As cheesy as it sounds, sometimes it just takes one good dance or dancer to remind me why I do what I do everyday. . . .  I love teaching little girls (or boys ha) that have the same passion and desire for dance that I do.  I love it. 

(One of my favorite dances I ever did to "I'm gonna be a Super Model" haha just found this little gem)

I know this was kind of a random post but I was so inspired this last week and I had to share my thoughts. :)  I may be alone on this one but anyway. . . . I'm done. :)

Happy Monday!