Happy Birthday to me!

What I love most about birthdays is spending it with family and having my friends wish me happy birthday. Although I don't have family super close we still got to see Tanner's sister, Kristy, when we went up to Salt Lake on Saturday to celebrate! We started out the day by sorta sleeping in (my curse is my body RARELY, if ever, lets me sleep in) and going to this awesome, hard core cross-fit gym class that totally kicked my rear. Afterwards, we got ready to go to the temple. One of the neatest things about living in Utah is we get to pick from a few different temples that are close to attend so I decided I wanted us to go to the Draper Temple since we've never been there. 

In front of Draper Temple

 After the temple, we went to Kristy's house to say hi and see her new car. She was so sweet to let us park at her apartment since she lives soo close to Temple Square and City Creek Mall which is where we went to dinner. City Creek has one of our favorite restaurants: Cheesecake Factory! One of Tanner's best friend's, Matt, met us there with his girlfriend Emily. Although we spend most of the dinner grilling Emily  (and she probably felt like she was being interrogated) she was a champ and we had a great time.

The cheesecake factory employees sang to me and the plate even said my name on it! That's our server in the background. She was awesome :)

BYU GRAD!

Tanner is a BYU graduate! Ok so his last semester was in December so his actual graduation year is 2011 but since BYU does not have a graduation ceremony until spring, he walked this weekend. It was such a fun occasion since it gives family an excuse to come see us. 

of course he drove away on his motorcycle in his cap and gown.

Tanner's family: Kristy, Dan, Kim

My family: Suzanne & Greg

THE WHOLE GANG

It was a neat ceremony to which Elder Dalin H. Oaks was the key-note speaker. Tanner didn't want to "walk" the next day since he had his diploma already so the boys decided to go shooting and blow things up while the girls went shopping. City Creek Mall in SLC is amazing. :)

2012 will be a big year for us. We're not quite sure where we will be a year for now but I guess that's the excitement of it all.

My Besties

These girls are my besties in hygiene school. They keep me sane. We spent HOURS on this project and made a poster for it.

Me, Carli, Ambria

We gave a presentation to a second grade class in Orem on good oral health. We taught them the proper way to brush and floss, and did a toothbrush exchange. It was a lot of work but we learned a lot. YAY for dental hygiene!

Last few weekends II

The weekend after Dani and her fam and everyone left the house, Tanner's Dad came to stay and visit with two teenage boys visiting the states from Denmark! Tanner's Dad is back from Afghanistan for a little while so he arranged for a friend of his from Denmark (a guy he converted while on mission there) to send his son and a friend to stay with them in California. Of course, they were not just going to hang around the Redding area. They drove ALL the way out here to Utah to hang with us!  We had so much fun showing them around. I think they thought we live in the wild west since Tanner & his Dad have so many guns! I tried to explain to them that not every American has as many guns as Tanner & his family. :)

We took a trip over to Tanner's office one night to get ice cream and play foosball and pool.

Red jacket: Mathias (Ma-tea-us). Stripes: Emil (E-meal)

Tanner and Dad N catching up.

 Friday, the boys hiked the Y, went shooting and ate at Rodizio. Saturday we woke up early and drove to SLC for conference! The Danish boys went to a session of conference and all the boys went to Priesthood together. We all walked around the new City Creek Mall (the old ZCMI center). It's AMAZING. I think I enjoyed myself a little more than the boys did. ;)

 It was such a neat experience having them stay with us. Some new things I learned:

•  When the Danish boys got here and used the restroom, they thought the toilet was broken because I guess we fill our toilets up with A LOT more water than they do. lol
• Denmark is a very socialist country-so their citizens are not allowed guns. They were amazed that people here are allowed to have guns in their homes and kept asking, "isn't that dangerous? Aren't you afraid people will go around shooting each other?" Dan did such a great job explaining that with freedom, comes responsibility. I could tell they learned a lot from him. 
• Because of their socialist country, getting a drivers license is extremely difficult. It costs them about $2000 US dollars and they can't drive until age 18. Cars and homes cost twice as much. They did mention, "well, we have free health care. We can get heart surgery for free if we need too." Dan explained to them that nothing is free. Their country taxes them 25% sales tax and 40% tax of their earned income to pay for someone else's "free heart surgery". 40%!!! I can't imagine having that much taken out of my paycheck!
• We taught the boys what a chinese fire drill is! SOO FUNNY!
• Tanner couldn't resist introducing them to atomic fireballs. We got some at the store, and on the way home the boys popped the candies into their mouths. About 2 mins in, I hear a lot of exaggerated inhaled breathing and all a sudden Mathias goes, "I'm sweating." Emil wouldn't swallow until we got home and he spit it out. It was hilarious! 

APRIL FOURTH

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TANNER! Yup, that's Raspberry pretzel salad Tanner wanted for his "cake". I sang happy birthday so he could blow out his candles.

Cheesy pic with our arms all stretched out trying to hold the camera. This was taken on Tan's bday. 

The last few weekends

 Tanner & I celebrated our fourth anniversary on March 14th this year! We drove to SLC and walked around temple square and the JSB and ate dinner at the Roof restaurant. It is so nice we don't have to drive far to feel like we "got away" for the weekend! Boy, four years really goes by fast! Excited for another year ahead with this absolutely wonderful man.

On their way down to Arizona, Dani and her kids and my Dad and Cameron stopped in Provo to split up their drive and stay a few nights with me! I'm sooo glad they came to see me!  Naomi and Sadie became good friends by the end of their stay!

 Sadie sure looks happy to have someone pay so much attention to her!

 On Saturday, it was a beautiful day so we decided to go to the park. Tanner & I live about 30 steps from the Provo River Trail, so we took the trail a while to a duck pond not far from my house. We took a whole loaf and bread and fed the many ducks that were there.

 Sadie definitely has the duck hunting bred in her. She REALLY wanted those ducks. Dad was nice enough to walk her around a different area of the park so she wouldn't go nuts and scare the ducks away while we fed them. After the bread was gone, we let Sadie loose... She went bazerk! She chased the ducks for quite a while, even into the water.

We finally got a hold of her and of course she shakes off right by Dad! :)

Playing with little Liv on the playground at the park.

Future Career

I haven't posted for awhile and my excuse this time is our lives are CRAZY busy and I forget I have a blog! So, I'm in my last year of dental hygiene school (my official graduation date is Dec. 17, 2012!!!) and my class had the opportunity on Saturday to volunteer for a community program called "Give Kids a Smile".  I was little grouchy about having to take the majority of my Saturday to be there but after it was all done, it was so worth it! This program is set up for low-income families to bring their kids to receive x-rays, an exam from a dentist, possibly treatment that needs to be done (ie. extractions, fillings, root canals) and then see a dental hygienist for a cleaning and sealants all for free. A lot of the kids that came had never seen a dentist before. I did cleanings and sealants on a bunch of kids and it was so rewarding and what's really neat is the program was recognized by the local news! The story showed up on Utah's KSL website this morning so I had to post it! I may not be in any of the photos but it was so great to see and help children that do not have the means to see a dentist in a private practice setting because of lack of financial means. I hope one day to continue to volunteer for similar programs to help local families and also travel to third-world countries and help people there. Check out the link! Really cool!
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=19371114&title=kids-receive-free-dental-care-from-volunteer-dental-experts&s_cid=queue-17

Majestic Mother-Earth

Northern California is full of amazing hikes and scenery. Tanner has taken me a few places here and there when we visit, but over Christmas break, we did two hikes. The first was before Christmas to Whiskeytown Falls. I forgot my camera that trip :( but we took out golden retriever, Sadie, and she had a blast! The hike was only about 3.5 miles round-trip; so nothing too strenuous. The picture below is one I took off a website. This is a little bit of what we saw.

On New Years Eve day, Tanner decided he wanted to go on another hike before we leave California. We jumped on California's I-5 going North to a State Park called Castle Crags State Park. What we didn't realize was since it was winter, the park was closed. This didn't stop us! We just parked the car outside the closed gate and hopped over the gate and got on our way to climb Castle Crags. 

Now, I'm not going to lie: I wasn't SUPER excited to spend our day hiking. Earlier that morning I had been horse-back riding and was a little tired. But, Tanner really wanted to do it, so I went along. When I found out the park was closed and our hike just went from 5.5 miles round trip to about 8.5 miles round-trip, I wasn't a happy camper.  Once we got started, I realized how beautiful it was up there. It starts in the dense forest area and as you climb, the trees thin and you see Mt Shasta perfectly. I can't explain in words how majestic and magnificent the site was. As you continue to climb, the path gets steep.... REAL steep and you wind around boulders and lots of rock. Finally, we made it to the base of the dome at Castle Crags! We took a few pictures-Dad was such a trooper and we didn't get any pictures with them but we had great guides: Tanner's best friend Travis and his girl Jennifer. I couldn't have done it without everyone pushing me along.

It started getting dark so we scurried down the mountain. We finally drove into Dan and Kim's house about 8:30pm. I'll remind you that it was New Year's Eve and I was EXHAUSTED. I took a shower, ate some food, stayed up for another hour or so and Tanner and I were dead asleep by 10pm... on New Year's Eve. We party hard apparently. :) We had such an incredible time earlier that day and I found myself thanking our Father in Heaven for this beautiful earth he created for us to enjoy. Thanks Tanner for dragging me along.