April

April has been a crazy but fun month. We've had some life changing plans, family in town, and we took a little trip to St. George/Zions.

Bret's family
The first week of April Bret's parents came into town. While they were here we carried on the same great traditions as usual. Some of our favorites include golfing and shopping. While the boys golf, the girls shop. It's quite fun. Another tradition is pedicures. This is Bri's favorite thing since it's so relaxing. Also, we know we're always going to eat well when they're here. Since Bret and I love our food, this was one of the best parts as well.
Although we loved doing these things, our favorite part during their visit was when they spent a night with us. We loved having company! We played a few intense games of Rummikub and talked for a bit. They were so fun to have around. Thanks mom and dad for coming to Arizona and making our week great!

St. George
After Bret's parents left we made our way to St. George where we met up with some of our "Utah friends" for some hiking, relaxation and good times.
On our way to St. George we got stuck in traffic for two hours at Hoover dam. Instead of driving the 6 hours it was supposed to take, we drove 8 hours. We arrived in St. George at 9:45 pm, which was just in the knick of time to hit Cafe Rio before it closed. It tasted so good and we were so happy we made it in time.
After Cafe rio we checked into our "classy" hotel the Cornoda Inn and Suites where we finally met up with our friends. It was so fun to see everyone again. Saturday morning we woke up to freezing cold rain and after some discussion decided to go to Zions despite the freezing weather. Saturday night we went swimming and hot tubbing. It was so fun! Sunday morning we packed up and left. Even though it was a short trip it definitely was worth going to see everyone again. We loved it. Thanks Steph and Trent for planning it.


Bri's Family
Before heading out of St. George we went to the St. George Temple for a few minutes. It is a beautiful temple! After we left the temple we drove to Hurricane to meet up with my mom and brothers (Tyler and Colby) who were on their way to visit us in Arizona. We then caravaned home. It was fun to have my family here. We played a lot of tennis, went swimming, relaxed, shopped, and went out to eat a few times. I had the chance to go to th Mesa Temple and perfom baptisms for the dead with my family. It was so neat to get to do that again.

Throughout the week our apartment got smaller and smaller as Trisha and Nate and dad showed up, but somehow there was enough room for 8 of us to sleep. Thanks everyone for coming down!! We loved having you guys here and hope you come back soon!!

Mesa Temple

Texas Roadhouse Birthday Celebration



Bret's Sim Lab
Claim Jumper - is that Harry Potter in background?!

An Update

So I've been a slacker at this blogging thing lately so I decided it was time for an update. Not much has happened since I last blogged, but the higlights are definitely my trip to San Diego and the disgusting pursuit of the best mustache in Bret's dental class.

California
The first of March Bret was nice enough to let me go to San Diego with my mom, sister, and grandmother. My aunt lives there and invited us to come down and stay with her and her 4 kids while my uncle was out of town. The weather was nice while we were there, but it definitely wasn't beach weather. In fact, most of the time we walked around the house with rice bags on our hands and feet. My grandmother even took her rice bag out of the house. It was pretty funny, especially since they're from Utah where it was in the 30s and San Diego was in the 60s.

Despite the weather we had a good time. We didn't really do much, but it was fun just hanging out with family. We got the opportunity to spend a lot of one-on-one time with my 4 cute cousins because my Aunt had appendicitis and was in the hospital and couldn't really move. Her kids are super cute. We went minature golfing one day and took a walk to the park. Alexis and Jackson, the two oldest, had a run-a-thon the day we left so we got to see them run. I even got to run with Jackson, which was pretty neat. That's basically my trip in a nutshell. It was a nice little vacation. Thanks Angie! (I will get more pictures soon)








Mustache March

Much to my dismay Bret's dental class declared the month of March as "Mustache March" The name is pretty self explanatory. Bret's always trying to find excuses to grow his facial hair and so he became really excited when he "had" to grow a mustache for school. Luckily I was gone for some of the growing out stage, but unfortuneately I didn't miss the Harley Davidson stache he shaved the other week. To his credit it turned out pretty good, but you can be the judge.

February

After we moved here and Bret wasn't required to shave for work, he started growing a beard. He definitely looks good with facial hair, but I like a clean shaven face better. So, after 6 months of facial hair, he surprised me and cut it. It's so good to finally see the face of the man I married again!! I love it. I doubt it will last long, but it's nice and smooth for awhile. Whoohoo!! (Bret does not want to be caught on camera so this is the closest I could get to a picture of what he looks like.)

This picture was taken at the amazing Valentine's Dinner Party we attended. Let me explain this party. Our friend Megan Armstrong put it on, and it was the perfect party. Every last detail was taken care of. The decorations were so cute. She made cute little nametags to put by our seats. The food was awesome. And she had the bar set-up with margarita and Pina Coloda mixes. During dinner we had background music, and the music had each couples' song on it. There were about 18 couples. Then we each got a CD of the background music to take home at the end of the night. To make the night even better, each girl got a rose with her initial to take home. It was a fun night and I'm thankful we were able to share it with friends. Thanks Megan!!

Go Suns!

Our conversion to the local sports teams continues. We had the opportunity to go to the Phoenix Suns game last Monday and had a blast even though our tickets were on the very last row. Luckily right after half-time we were able to sit on the sixth row by Todd and Ashley. It made a huge difference! Thanks guys!! The Suns ended up killing the Kings, but it was still fun to be in the atmosphere and see Shaq and Steve Nash up close!!

Do you see the wall behind us? Yeah, that's called the very top row

We received the opportunity to take pictures of the whole arena

Our seats were so high we got nose bleeds

6 Rows above the Kings Bench - that's what I would call good seats!

Thanks to our slow camera we got a pic of both Shaq and Nash

The Bret and Bri Show

A Football Season To Remember

It was a great year to be a University of Utah fan (Bret) and a great year to become a University of Utah fan (Bri). Bri finally saw the light and switched from blue to red. Well, mostly red with a little bit of blue. We enjoyed the historic undefeated 13-0 season and even though we were in Arizona, we watched every game! We were able to see one game in person though, and it just happened to be the one that mattered most :) And being in Arizona, we got to see a game that Utah just couldn't offer. The Fiesta Bowl!! Needless to say, it was a great football year and hopefully our Cardinals can cap it off with a Super Bowl win! That's right, OUR Cardinals. We've officially joined the bandwagon.

Bri sure does look good in Utah RED!

Utes getting ready to clinch another BCS game

Scoreboard says it all

One happy guy enjoying the celebration

At the Fiesta Bowl. O-H-I-O. Go Buckeyes.

Pretty good seats if you ask me

Action shot of Texas

Action shot of Ohio State

What Should Have Been Your Christmas Gift

I know it's way past Christmas, but I wanted to remember how ridiculous our first Christmas gift attempt was. We were supposed to make carmel apples like the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory carmel apples to give to our friends, but none of them got one because I totally messed up the caramel and the chocolate. The pictures pretty much tell the story.

Yeah, the carmel was supposed to be ON the apples The flimsy sucker sticks bent when we put them in the apples How in the world does chocolate split in half and crack? The rest of the apples that didn't even get a chance for chocolate Needless to say, all the apples, chocolate or no chocolate, were tossed into the trash can.