The Adventures of 2011

Well, it's official. I'm not a very good blogger. :) Benn and I have had some wonderful times during our first months together. Here is a recap on our fun adventures!



My birthday was in October. Benn did an amazing job for that! He got us tickets to see the cirque de soliel show called "O". It was so amazing! I can't believe how those people can move! Prior to the show we went the restaurant The Melting Pot. It's a Fondue place (that's pretty spendy). But it was so good! It helped to give us some ideas of things we could do with the fondue set we got for our wedding.

We were able to go camping/hiking at Zion National Park. While there we stopped to spend time with my aunt, uncle, and grandma. We had a great time! We were able to see the beautiful scenery as well as enjoy not being in hot Las Vegas!

We had the opportunity to make friends with people that I teach with. It's been great to make friends with people that are in similar situations as us! We went rock climbing and carved pumpkins. We have really enjoyed spending time with other people rather than just each other. Don't get me wrong, we have a blast with each other and love spending time together. But the reality is that I only have so many jokes and after a while it's great to hear some new ones from friendly faces.

For Halloween my mom sent some great costumes. Benn got to be SPIDERMAN! He loved the foam inserts for muscles. He looked so manly it was hard to not stare. I went to school as a mad scientist and to our ward party dressed in black with a stamp. Can you guess what I was....? :) Black Mail!

In early November Benn was able to make a demo cd with 5 different hymn arrangements he has done. It was a great experience and he is looking forward to making a full cd soon which we are very excited about.

My parents are devout Boise State Bronco Fans. They happen to have played UNLV this year and it was great to have them stay with us for a weekend and go to the game. We got to stock up on some food and enjoy seeing the Blue Man Group (as well as the Bronco's beating the Rebels).

We got to spend Thanksgiving here with Benn and his family. It was fun to see different family traditions and get to spend time with people we love. Plus, we got to eat tons of great food so...we couldn't complain. :)

Benn surprised me in early December for tickets to see Mannheim Steamroller. It was an amazing concert! It was really great to help get us ready for Christmas. We got our first Christmas tree and had a great time decorating it. For Christmas, we took a trip to Idaho to spend a lot of time with my family. It was so great to see my siblings, parents, cousins, aunts and uncles, and of course my nephews. It was a really long drive, but completely worth it!

We made it back to Vegas just in time for New Years! We got to watch the fireworks the casino's on the Strip shoot off. I had a hard time staying awake that late....haha! It was great though! We are so grateful for the wonderful blessings we have received this year. We are grateful for our wonderful family and friends and wish everyone a Happy Holidays! It's a new year with exciting new adventures. We are grateful we have each other to spend 2012 and many other years ahead!

Our First Place

Well, we finally have gotten everything unpacked and set up in our little apartment. We have been in it for about a month now so we don't think it took us TOO long... It was great to know we had family that was willing to help us during our nomad days. However, it has been great to have our own place. It was so much fun to decorate! Only problem is that people who come over probably think we are stuck on ourselves because we have pictures of us up all over the place. Haha, so, here are some pictures of the place before, during, and after.

Living Room Before

Kitchen Before

Everything finally IN the apartment

Beginning of the unpacking...

Continuing unpacking...

The finished living room

The TV hiding our fireplace. I mean...who would use a fireplace in Las Vegas?

Our lovely kitchen

Honeymoon

We started our honeymoon with a stop in Salt Lake City to go through the temple there. It was a beautiful experience. From there we headed to Las Vegas for our open house there and then we hit the road for our honeymoon!

Benn and I bought Southern California City Passes which got us into San Diego Zoo, SeaWorld, Universal Studios, Disneyland and California Adventure. We were able to spend 1 day at each, but 3 days at Disneyland/California Adventure. Seeing that disneyland is Benn's happy place, you can see why Disneyland got such precedence. We had a blast and I think we both would agree that Disneyland was our favorite. We snacked on TONS of churros and tried to take a lot of pictures. We also bought bread, jam, peanut butter, and some other snacks so that we could save money by not eating very much in the parks since food prices are outrageous! (by pricey we mean, Benn ordered this meal that turned out to be fried breaded bread marinated in cajun grease = 17 bucks). All the parks were good with it except for seaworld. They made us throw away our sandwiches when we tried to get in, so when they told us to throw them away, Benn acted like he got both of them out of the backpack but throw only one away... we split the second :)

Universal Studios was very enjoyable. Besides the plenty of people to make fun of at our beckon call, waiting in line wasn't all that bad ( what can we say, they had "mist"ers). The jurrasic park ride soaked us to the bone and Benn got the goose pimples as we listened to the music as we waited in line. The only down side was the replacement of E.T. with a Mummy ride and Back to the Future with The Simpsons(which made Benn and I both little "queasy"nauts).

When we were at Disneyland, we were riding the Indiana Jones ride while it broke down. So we got to sit in our car for about 20 minutes with all the lights on. Finally somebody came and got our group and we walked out of the ride. It was really cool to see what the ride looks like with lights on. It was interesting to see shelves of paint cans and cleaning supplies just tucked away into the corner. Seeing that its almost pitch black on the ride who-da thunk? Totally different and not scary at all! Megan's favorite discovery of this experience is the scary snake about half way through. It turns out that the snakes head isn't connected in any way to the rest of the snakes body... "oh darkness, you tricky devil..." We saw things that we never noticed before, but when we rode it again I was able to notice them. Just proof that when you aren't looking for it, you don't even seen it!

California Adventure got a huge revamp as they added, and are continuing to add on to the park. THere was a new Little Mermaid ride(which Benn was really impressed with, it made him feel like a little princess under the sea), and A Bug's Life now has its own little mini theme zone. As we were walking around we cam upon a section of the park that was barricaded with an announcement for Radiator Springs (Disney's CARS) so we took a picture and sent it to Jessica to show the boys.

We also watched some shows at Disneyland and I'm not kidding when I say that I got a little choked up. We watched fantasmic, which gave Benn goosebumps. I'm starting to believe that he's more of a kid than I am. (maybe thats why he acts the way he does). Haha! I just remembered being a kid and loving those classic disney movies. The messages of the shows were to never give up on your dreams and they played some of my favorite disney songs.(except for the seemingly endless reaccuring motif of dysfunctional families... think about it, in every movie there is always only ONE parent). Besides all that our time there really was great and even those crazy/weird people there, gum every where, HORRIBLE wait times for rides, I was reminded how much I love Disneyland. Benn and I were even planning when the best time would be to take our imaginary kids there. :) We had a great time and it was wonderful!

The Start

So, Benn and I got married on July 9th, 2011 in Boise, Idaho (when we get our pictures back we will post some of them).  We have spent the first month of our marriage in a TON of places.  We had to wait a few weeks to go on our honeymoon while I finished a summer teaching job.  We were on our honeymoon when we talked about starting a blog because we wanted to be able to share what was happening with us to our friends without letting the entire world of facebook know. 

We are super new at this so if you have any suggestions or pointers of how to do this thing - let me know!  We are very excited to start our adventures of life together and hope you find them enjoyable!