Coconut Lane

My sister and her family recently moved to West Palm Beach, Florida. They still aren't quite sure how long they will be living there so they are renting for now. Lucky for them, they pretty much landed the nicest rental in the area.

They live on Coconut Lane (cute huh?) and just across the intracoastal from people like Tiger Woods, Celine Deon, and Ralph Lauren (what!?).
We LOVED our visit.
This is a view of the back of the house,
This is the guest house where we stayed,
This is the private boardwalk down to the water where we would paddle board and kayak,
Sadly, I forgot to take pictures of the rest of the house including my favorite balcony on top of the house. But for the first part of our trip Mitch and I babysat the four kids while my sister and her husband enjoyed a getaway to the Bahamas. It was totally crazy running a family of four, but these kids are so cute that we had a great time. Here is Anders after one of his last baseball games. He is quite the little hitter.
The kids loved running out in the rain during a crazy southern storm.
And we had to find things to keep busy like making crowns.
We also got to enjoy the beautiful beach,

and enjoy a day at Disney World thanks to some extra free passes my sister had (sa-weet!!)

Mitch and I went to this amazing restaurant on the water with this fabulous view of the lighthouse (we splurged with the excuse that we just graduated).
And then we were sad to come home. But I also had to include this cute picture of another one of my sisters and her family. The day after we got home I played a Beatles number with them in their ward talent show. This is them getting ready to walk over to it.
Thanks for a wonderful vacation B!

Florida

Mitch and I came to Florida yesterday to celebrate graduation and visit my sister who lives in West Palm Beach--such a good decision. We are in heaven here with family and a beautiful place. I'll try to document the family and the lovely VILLA that they live in. But till then, have a wonderful Wednesday!

May 7th

I still remember the first day of high school--I was covered head to toe in pink (no joke, pink sweater, pink pants, and pink shoes...what was I thinking?) and I was late for math. I slid in the back and sat at an empty desk. Slipping in right next to me was a short, olive skinned, dark hair, brown eyed girl--such a contrast to my own complexion. We looked at each other and this huge grin came across her face--she loved my outfit. I knew that day that we were going to be friends, but I never knew we would grow to be more like sisters than just close friends. We went through the good, the bad, and the ugly together. We discovered our sleeping schedules totally clashed when sharing a room but we were patient through the boyfriends, lending a shoulder to cry on, and shedding tears of laughter together.

Yesterday I sat in the sealing room and witnessed her get married. Tears swelled up in my eyes as I remembered that first day of class 7 years ago. When did we grow up? Anyway, May 7th was a perfect day to get married-the sun and flowers were breathtaking. They didn't even come close to the bride in beauty though.

The wedding couldn't be as great as it was without an awesome bachelorette party beforehand. Thanks to Becky and Chelsea we had a blast with drinks at Sparks,

a Girls Only dance in the SNOW (what!?!),

and fabulous creme brulee french toast for breakfast.

On the actually day Maddi was SO SMILEY. They looked so good together!

She had an amazing cake, I loved it so much!
And Mitch and I enjoyed dinner with dear friends.

Anyway, May 7th was a wonderful day to remind me how blessed I am to have such wonderful friends. I have the best friends in the whole world and I look forward to seeing how we all grow up together.
And let's not forget my best friend--he tags along to all of these weddings with me and faithfully takes pictures (most of the time). I'm so happy that I get to spend forever with him.

What a beautiful day Maddi! Congratulations!!!

Official

It's official--Mitch is going to the Y for Law School!

(I guess we couldn't get enough of Provo or something)

Congraduation

Well, as we all agree, graduation ceremonies are pretty boring. As exciting as it was to be a college grad, I still fell asleep. BUT graduating with Mitch was way fun--I'm so glad I got to walk with him. And Nathan and Adrienne made graduation so much more bearable as well. The best part was all the yummy food we got to eat with family each night.

Sorry mom--I didn't realize I posted the picture of you with your eyes closed. You still look great!

Anyway, its official--Mitch and I are now college grads. wohoo--bring on the real world. Not really though, since we still have more schooling ahead of us. . .

Last Day of Class

I didn't plan it this way, but it turned out that my last day of class of my BYU undergrad career consisted of one class: Eternal Marriage and Family from Professor Brooks. I loved this class, but I wouldn't say that it was my most life-changing class or my most favorite class. But I am so glad I ended up with this one as my last, because I got to end my undergrad education with an honest man bearing his sincere testimony about the truthfulness of the Gospel and how important we are individually in the eyes of God.

Sometimes I wonder what I was thinking picking a challenging major like Economics without ever planning on performing heteroskedasticity test in my life again, but this testimony reminded me that whatever it was I learned, the knowledge I gained is shaping me to become the best person I possibly can. And I don't plan to end my education here. Thanks for a fabulous undergrad experience.

M is for March

March was full of "M's" for me.

1. Mother--we had a mother/daughter/cousin date that included shopping, a delicious pot-luck dinner, and then Little Women, the Opera. Okay, I did not care for the Opera at all, its the new contemporary opera that is very tonal and Laurie was just flat out unattractive that it was hard to watch. Good thing I love the story so much that I could bare to sit through it. All of us had fun laughing about it afterwards. We missed you Natalie and Brooke, but we will do it again soon! I love my mother and sisters so much. I've been blessed with a wonderful mother-in-law and sister-in-laws as well that I could die of happiness with how much I love the women in my life (okay the men are great too).
2. Madeline--I consider her more of a sister than a friend. We have been through it all, the good, the bad, and the ugly together. And now it is her turn to get married! We threw a beautiful shower for her thanks to Ali and Kelsey's fabulous decorating skills and my awesome panini-making skills.




3. Mitch--I feel like everyone that has a husband and has a blog that I follow have been blogging tributes to their husbands lately. I feel Mitch and I are well past the newly married stage of life that some of them are still in, but still, Mitch--you deserve your own post everyday for how wonderful you are. And as a tribute to him, I had to post this darling apple pie he baked all by himself from scratch. (this was just before the BYU game where we lost in the sweet 16.)

4. Cathedral of the Madeline--my sister Megan played in a small orchestra for a children's choir concert at this cathedral in Salt Lake on a Sunday evening. It was such a beautiful concert I loved it so much. And the cathedral was really amazing too, I wish I had taken the time to get some good pictures in. I spent so much time in Europe looking at amazing cathedrals, I feel blessed that close to my own home we still have some beautiful cathedrals.

5. Okay, no M for this one, but I'm so sad to announce that my floral design class is over. This was our last lab--glass cube center pieces. I love flowers.
6. Moab with the McClellans--We went to Moab with Mitch's family this weekend for General Conference. It consisted of mostly playing but we did listen to conference as well. We got to go jeeping on Friday and hike a few arches on Saturday morning. I can't wait for the next family trip!


7. Mary, as in William & Mary (sorry no picture for this one)-- Mitch and I hit a deadline for accepting a scholarship to the U for law school which meant that all other acceptances needed to be withdrawn if we accepted the scholarship (since we haven't heard from BYU yet we still have the option of going there if we get accepted). We did a lot of praying, temple attendance, debating, crying, talking to other people, etc., and finally found that we would rather go to the U than William and Mary. It was so hard but we found that for us personally, it came down to family, no debt, and my ability to get more schooling by staying in Utah, whether it be at the U or BYU. So we are here to stay for a little while longer.