Weekend Road-trip to California

10:00am Friday Morning:

Christian: “Courtney, what are we doing this weekend?”

Me: “Nothing.”

Christian: “Lets go to California right now.”

Me: “Done.”

We were in the car headed south on I-15 45 minutes later. By 9:00pm that night we were kicking it with The Smoots. (Julianne and I were both wondering why we don’t do this more often! We are just a short drive away from each other. ) On Saturday Christian and I went down to San Diego to check it out. We looked for a place to live, visited Christian’s future place of work, and drove all over downtown La Jolla. We quickly fell in love with San Diego. Thank you to the Smoots for taking us in on such short notice and spending the weekend with us! We love you!

( I pulled out my camera to take our first picture of the trip, about 45 minutes into our drive, and I had forgotten the memory card at home! I was so sad...next time, I guess).

The Three King Girls

Oh the King girls...

So this wonderful little family from D.C. called me last year to ski with their girls after their Dad had torn his ACL on the first day of their vacation. And so I did. We had a great day and I really loved skiing at Deer Valley with them. - they are actually pretty incredible little skiiers. This year I've skiied with them a bunch of times and they've been nice enough to let Christian come with us too, which has been really fun. They were just here for spring break and so I spent the past three days up at Deer Valley with them. I'm exhausted, but I really love these three girls.

Family Ski Week 2010

There is almost nothing better than skiing with my family. All 32 of us were at Alta last week AND IT WAS AWESOME. It was crazy to see my little neices and nephews skiing with eachother, flying through the Albion trails and owning them. I remember so clearly the days when all my little cousins and I were flying through those same trails at their same ages. Time goes by too fast. I am so grateful to my parents for teaching us to ski at such a young age and making it such a meaningful family activity. Family ski week is officially the best tradition we have.

Some great pictures from the week...

Provo 2009-2010

I love Provo. There, I said it. I am so glad that Christian and I got to spend one more year here. We are graduating in 2 months, and it's definitely a bitter-sweet thing. We've had so much fun this year spending time with our friends and enjoying BYU. I wish I had pictures of all that we've done, but I've been horrible about taking pictures this year. Let me share some of the highlights:

Wednesday night girl's dinners

PBR in Vegas with the Checketts

Late night Glee parties at the Samuelians

#1 employee of Polka Dot Pots for 3 straight months

Nerts

Conference weekend with Dad and the Checketts

Christmas party in Park City

Skiing at Sundance

Valentines weekend in Vegas with the Samuelians

Half-marathon training with the girls

Dinners at the Dyers

Living close to David and Karla

Skiing in Jackson Hole

Charlie

Watching movies in our apartment on the floor

Spending time with Jay and Shannon

Ashley's 24th birthday party

Wing Nutz

and more....

We are going to miss Provo. We are working on a "things to do before we leave Provo list" and we plan on doing all of them. I'll be better about taking pictures. Until then, here are some that I do have from this year.

A Wedding Fiesta

In early October, Jeannine and César put on the most beautiful wedding party for Christian and I in Arizona. In honor of Christian's Mexican heritage, it actually wasn't a party; it was a FIESTA! We ate delicious Mexican food, enjoyed Mexican decor, and yes, even danced to the AWESOME mariachi band that was playing. The Peña's backyard looked so beautiful and the weather was perfect. It was such a treat to meet Christian's relatives from Mexico for the first time, whom I love dearly, and spend time getting to know his other grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I was so happy to have some of my family there, too, and to have them get to know the Peñas better. Thank you Jeannine and César for such a great party, your generosity, and love!

Cross Country Road Trip

At the end of the summer, we packed up a Penske truck full to the brim and headed off to Utah. We left at 10:00am one Saturday morning from Potomac and got to Provo at 5 o'clock the next night. We wouldn't have made it without David's brother in law, and MVP of the trip, Doug. Christian and I were in one car, while David and Doug were driving the other. David had a broken ankle and couldn't drive much, but that didn't stop Doug. A few too many Rock Stars and some sunflower seeds kept him going all through the night. Its a miracle we made it safely.

Our Summer in D.C.

Very fortunately enough, Christian got a job working at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD for the summer following our wedding. I really liked the idea of being in Maryland, close to my family. However, I didn't think that moving into my parent's basement the day we got home from our honeymoon was the most ideal situation. Thanks to my wonderful Aunt Amy and Uncle Haven, we got the best of both worlds. The Barlows, who live right next door to my parents, were nice enough to let us live in their apartment for the summer. That way, we could spend all the time we wanted with my family, eat my Mom's delicious home-cooked meals, play with my nieces and nephews, and still have a little getaway to ourselves. It was nice.

Our summer was wonderful. We both had great jobs, a great place to stay, and plenty to do. Some of the highlights were: A weekend to New York on the Vamoose bus, the births of Claire and Alex, playing tennis, visiting the Checketts in New Canaan, Spending time in New Hampshire, Christi's surprise birthday party, discovering new and delicious restaurants in D.C., and spending lots of time together. Here are some pictures from the summer.

Candace and Alex's Bermuda Wedding

Only 3 short days after getting home from St. Thomas, Christian and I went with my family to Bermuda for Candace and Alex Morris' wedding. Candace and Alex had so many people fly in from all over to support them- it was really neat to be a part of something so special. We had so much fun spending time old friends and family in such a beautiful place. Congratulations to the Morris Family!

Honey Mooners

We went to St. Thomas on our honeymoon and we loved it. We rented a scooter, which was AWESOME, and we scooted all over the islands. St. John was just a 10 minute ferry ride away, and so we spent a few days exploring over there as well. St. Thomas is the home of our new favorite restaurant in the entire world, Thirteen, and Christian has promised me a trip back someday for the sole purpose of eating there again.