For Valentine's Day this year, we decided to pack up our tiny little suitcase and take a trip to Manhattan! The temperatures were frigid (wind chill factor had us at -11 degrees at one point) but we still had a great time despite being freezing. We would do it again in a heartbeat!

Top of the Empire State Building! Our butts were so frozen at this point - but we didn't care!

Gettin' my hands on some real authentic 'za at Grimaldi's. And if you eat lunch before 11am like a weirdo, no one else is in the restaurant with you!

Handsome Brett just being handsome in Times Square, as per usual...

Apparently no one uses Grand Central Station before 7 a.m.? At least it made me feel way less weird when I shouted up to Brett "Hey! Take a picture of me in this empty hallway! It looks cool..."

Museum of Natural History! Brett's personal heaven - my personal hell. Just kidding! It was actually really really fun. (Even though Brett got WAY too excited about the dirt and soil exhibits...)

Wind chill factor: -126 degrees. Happiness factor: Also about -126 degrees. That smile is fake. But, you know, when in Brooklyn... Also - I spent the whole mile long walk across the bridge trying to describe to Brett the plot of "Kate and Leopold" and how cool it was that we were on the same bridge and he couldn't have cared less.

The poor couple who had to take this picture for us like 7 times... The NBC tour was the highlight of the whole trip!

Dominique Ansel Bakery - Dominique HIMSELF handed me a rose while waiting outside. Also, CRONUTS.

Cheesy obligatory NY Valentines photo

Also, at the end of our NBC tour they made us put on our own talk show - the quality of the acting in this is superb. I don't know guys - this might be our big break. We have no dignity left.

The kids working the Laugh Track backstage need to be fired.

Fall has been good to us this year!

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After months and months of hard work and practice, our sweet young women were able to perform at the Indianapolis Temple Cultural Celebration this last month! It was a long day, but so fun.

We got up to Indy around 7:45am (which meant leaving Bloomington at 6:30am - talk about dedication!) and the kids went straight to rehearsing. It was hot and sunny and they worked all the way up until the performance at 7pm and it turned out AMAZING! My favorite part was watching how excited the kids were as they sat waiting for President Henry B. Eyring to come out and start the program - it was the best.

Waiting for President Eyring!

Our stake's dance was the Indy 500 - the kids were dressed as a black and white checkered flag with race car drivers dancing around them, it was so clever. All the kids worked so hard and it was such an amazing and spiritual event to be a part of. Us leaders kept getting choked up during the rehearsals because it was just so incredible to see all the youth there who worked so hard all summer to pull off this event, and you could just feel that the Spirit was there. That plus the beautiful temple dedication the next day was such a neat experience. The temple is gorgeous, you can see the photos here.

All the youth waiting for President Eyring to speak - our stake was in the gold T-shirts.

It was great to experience the event with our friends and with our young women. I am so proud of those girls, they are so special and did such a wonderful job. The church has a great re-cap of the event, you can find that by clicking here.

When we got married, Brett and I had both just started our jobs so we couldn't take a lot of time off so we spent a couple of days in Park City for our honeymoon. But we have always wanted to go somewhere tropical, so 21 months later we were finally able to take our tropical honeymoon to Hawaii!

Saturday we hiked up to Manoa Falls and even though it was 8am it was soo hot and humid! But the hike was beautiful and we were one of only a few people hiking that morning so it was nice to have it mostly to ourselves. The leaves were so green and lush, it looked like a scene out of Jurassic Park!



Sunday we attended church in Honolulu and the ward members were so kind to us! It was a small ward and we were the only visitors there. People were coming up to us and kissing us and shaking our hands, and were so welcoming. Afterwards, we drove up to Laie and visited the temple and the visitors center, it was beautiful - the pictures don't do it justice.



Monday we went to Hanauma Bay and went snorkeling. It was gorgeous! I have to admit, I was pretty nervous because the idea of a fish swimming up and touching me freaks me out (which Brett thinks is hilarious!). When I first stuck my head down the first thing I saw was an eel right in front of me so I ran back up onto the beach and had a mild panic attack, but Brett calmed me down and we were able to snorkel around for a couple of hours and it was really fun. We also went to the Polynesian Cultural Center that afternoon and that was an awesome experience. I highly recommend visiting the PCC if you're ever on Oahu!



Tuesday we went and did the movie sites tour at Kualoa Ranch which was pretty fun. We got to see where parts of Jurassic Park, LOST, 50 First Dates, Pearl Harbor and a lot of other movies and TV shows were filmed.



Wednesday morning we took a catamaran out to Turtle Canyon and went snorkeling with the turtles! It was unreal! The weather was perfect, the water was clear and we saw at least 5 or 6 turtles that came right up next to us. The catamaran was also fun and we met some great people. Even sat next to a girl who lived in Bloomington - small world!



Thursday we went kayaking around Shark's Cove and Waimea Bay which was incredible. We are definitely feeling sore after going against the wind and the current for an hour, but it was still really fun. We rewarded ourselves with the famous Matsumoto Shaved Ice! We also went to the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor which was really amazing.



Last but certainly not least, late Thursday night Brett told me he had an "errand" to run, and 45 minutes later he came back with the most delicious Pineapple drink in the world! The whole time we were in Hawaii I kept telling him "All I want is a fancy drink in a Pineapple!" and apparently they're pretty hard to find! Brett ran all over Waikiki asking different vendors if they could do that. He finally found one that was willing to make one that was non-alcoholic. It was the sweetest gesture and the perfect end to our perfect honeymoon. Brett always finds a way to surprise me and pamper me, just one of the million reasons why I love him.

Ya, I know my hair looks crazy. But I had a sunburn covering 80% of my body and I had just given up on personal appearances at that point.

Just playing catch-up a bit, but this summer has been AWESOME! Brett's summer internship was in Salt Lake, so we got to go out to Utah for 10 weeks and live with his parents in Herriman! It was great to come back to our old stomping grounds and to see friends and family again, and we definitely didn't waste any time hitting up all of our favorite places. Pictures are worth a thousand words, so here's a butt load of pictures to describe our summer months:

Hiking Bells Canyon with the newest member of our family - the Selfie Stick!

Bees game with Brett's law firm

Basking in the glow of best friends

Hittin' up Bear Lake for the 4th of July (Do you like how I cropped that picture? Rule of thirds my friends!)

Getting treated like rockstars at the Deer Valley resort - props again to Brett's law firm

Got family pictures taken - we didn't even plan the color coordination! (Jk)

We drove all the way back to Indiana and found this in our apt when we got home - b/c we have awesome friends!

Then we went to Chicago just for fun! Oh, also Brett had a huge important conference there too, I guess

There you have it folks. All in all, it was a pretty swell summer. And the best is yet to come! Hint: Honeymoon 2.0. That will be my next blog post. Let's be honest, it may take me 4 months to post it, but I'll get to it eventually. Motivation!

We did it! We finished our first year of law school! Now that we are 33.33% done, we compiled our list of the 33 things that we discovered that helped us survive this past school year. Some were to help me survive, some were to help Brett survive but all of them made for a memorable first year in grad school.

1. Frozen yogurt runs. Gotta have my Orange Leaf.
2. Sunday night board games with our friends!
3. An episode (or two, or three...) of the West Wing to break up hours of studying.
4. Going to the mall to play with the puppies.
5. Quadcoptering.
6. Going to our favorite restaurant Dats when we were too lazy to make dinner.
7. Driving Brett's lunch to him on campus because he forgot it at home... again...
8. Taking day trips to Indianapolis.
9. Driving around Bloomington window shopping for dream homes.
10. Walking around Brown County Forest.
11. Driving two hours south to Louisville to visit the Temple.
12. Regular RedBox runs.
13. Tennis to help get the pre-test jitters out.
14. Joining the intramural ultimate frisbee team.
15. Learning we had to filter our tap water during the summer.
16. FaceTime with family.
17. Cleaning the church building every few weeks.
18. Getting passes to the IU Gym to swim laps.
19. Weekly Hobby Lobby runs. I think they know me by name at this point...
20. Having to drench our house with insect spray regularly (we live in a dark basement apartment).
21. Taking walks through Dunn's Woods in between classes.
22. Rock climbing.
23. VITAMIN C. Every. Night.
24. Picking up every quarter we can find to pay for laundry.
25. Aldi. The greatest grocery store ever! Seriously.
26. Visiting family in Wisconsin & Michigan.
27. Supporting our Pacers in Indianapolis.
28. Making homemade laundry detergent.
29. Frozen pizzas. Ya, we're lazy.
30. Brett's winter coat. It's huge, it's yellow and it's uuugly but I'm pretty sure it saved his life this winter.
31. Dressing up as Simon and Garfunkle for Halloween.
32. Painting my nails. All the time.
33. Shrink wrapping every nook and cranny of our apartment during the winter to stay warm.

Here's to two more wonderful years! We love IU and Bloomington and we're excited to start this next chapter of our lives! Go Hoosiers!