memorial day weekend

well, the long weekend has come and gone.

i'm less than excited about returning to school tomorrow. 

now that my second practicum is over, i'll be in school monday - thursday from 8-3 (*cough*with no breaks*cough*) AND, because i put the "pro" in "procrastination", i'll also be taking a statistics class from 5-7. 

luckily, my fantastic weekend with family reminded me how much i love life. i'm happy, rejuvenated, and ready to crush the next 2 months of summer school. here is a little recap of what we did: 

FRIDAY: dinner at chili's, and game night

SATURDAY: costco, shopping, picnic in the park, playing in grass, feeding ducks, homemade pizza, games, and froyo date 

SUNDAY: spencer's farewell, spencer's farewell breakfast, eva's blessing, eva's blessing lunch, and family time in midway

MONDAY: sleeping in, homework, running, target, and more homework. 

... nothing exciting enough to take pictures of. 

i love my family, and i love three day weekends.

hope you all enjoyed your long weekend and are ready for the start of a new week!

upswing.

although i could hardly believe the saying three days ago, i'm finding now that "things get better." they really do. after the most hellish week of my life (add about 10 more things to the list from my last post), nothing could have felt better than a day date with my sweet husband. we spent the day together and met up with my aunt cathi and uncle kris. love them. we stuffed our faces at brick oven pizza and then cheered the cougars on at a baseball game. their son keaton has been pitching lately!

i guess the remedy for a crappy week is relaxing outdoors with family and soft pretzels. hopefully things are on an upswing in the marx household. hope everyone has a beautiful weekend.

general conference weekend recap

someone said general conference weekend is like a holiday for mormons... and i completely agree haha. we wait six months to hear from our prophet and his apostles, and we are thrilled at the idea of spending an entire weekend on the couch in pajamas eating crepes and cinnamon rolls. definitely a holiday-like feel. we are always surrounded by great friends and family and there is always plenty of food. this past weekend was no different! 

scotty's parents ron and kim came up on friday night to spend the weekend with us! we started off with a movie - oz: the great & powerful. it was good. i mean, it wasn't the most amazing movie we've ever seen in our lives haha but it was entertaining. on saturday we lounged around watching conference and eating cereal.  between sessions scotty ran some errands while kim taught me how to make jam! what up! 

it was surprisingly suuuper easy but i'm glad kim was there to guide me. it tastes amazing. after that, we watched the afternoon session. around 5:00, kim and i sent our boys off to priesthood session and enjoyed a little g.n.o.

our night was filled with pedicures, shopping, and chilis -- my favorite things. 

on sunday we woke up and ate a huge delicious breakfast before ron and kim had to get back to vegas. we had so much fun with them. scotty and i watched the morning session and then got ready for more excitement. jen and tony scored four tickets to the afternoon session! woot woot! we hopped on trax and had a great time catching up and sharing stories with them. 

jen and i were cracking up because we both wore a maxi dress, cardigan, flat shoes, a neck accessory, our hair down, and the same michael kors watch. we're definitely on the same wave length or something. 

my two favorite talks from this weekend were elder holland's and elder clayton's. sooo good. i love how powerful elder holland is. i loved elder clayton's advice and perspective on marriage. i can't wait to listen to both of those talks again. i'm so thankful for the technology that allows me to watch and read their words! i hope you all enjoyed this beautiful general conference weekend, i know we did! 

a weekend of mothers

how random is the fact that my mom and scotty's mom both planned trips to utah on the very same weekend? i'm still dying haha. so random. my mom came up on wednesday to attend a scrapbooking convention thursday-friday, and kim came up friday-sunday for some harp workshops and a concert! 

highlights with al-dog:

visiting angela & baby eva

shopping all afternoon

drooling in anthropologie 

eating at sixth & pine in nordstrom

(and later at coldstone with scotty) 

catching up & telling stories 

highlights with kim: 

eating a delicious breakfast (compliments of scotty) 

being showered with gifts

shopping downtown 

eating at olive garden 

designing our future homes in restoration hardware

discussing business ideas and political issues 

scotty and i are so blessed to have these two beautiful, selfless, fun women as our mothers. 

we love you! thanks for visiting!!! 

the saddest 30 seconds of my life

we dropped my brother off at the missionary training center on wednesday. prior to that, we had a great morning with a delicious lunch at zupas and fun times bonding with relatives. i struggled to grasp the reality of the situation - that those were, in fact, the last few moments i had with my brother for the next 24 months. it couldn't be true! my heart assumed that after lunch was over, we'd peruse the byu bookstore or get ice cream from the creamery like old times.

instead, we endured an awkward 2-minute car ride with tanner forcing back sniffles and tears, dad cracking jokes to redirect any thoughts of sadness, and mom giving her final last-minute advice. "follow the rules!" "be good!" and before we knew it, we were parked inside the mtc. 

suddenly it occurred to me that i was about to leave my brother on a curb, and drive away not seeing him for another two years. i choked. is he ready? did he memorize my email address? have i been a good sister? do i have any advice? i've never left the country for two years. i've never dedicated that amount of time to only serving the lord. i had one last chance for an interaction with him; whatever words came out of my mouth would be the last thing he heard from me! what could i possibly do or say to convey my feelings of love and pride to my sweet brother in a minute or less? 

 instead of giving him final motivating words or thought-provoking advice, i just cried. i hugged him and somehow managed to mumble "i'll miss you" and he replied with a "love you."

and then somehow, i was back in the van with my parents, scotty, and tanner. everything happened so quickly. mitchell was gone, and it felt like someone had blindfolded me and pushed me off a cliff. today, i am happier. i am happy mitchell is gone. i'm happy we have a forever family. and i'm happy we will get emails once a week and phone calls twice a year. i am so proud of my little brother! 

... but i will sure be happier when he's back.

christmas break highlights

aside from the christmas eve, christmas day, mitchell's farewell, and the movie watching i already blogged about, scotty and i did a lot of other fun things over christmas break!

i got pretty christmas nails

 we laughed at mitchell and tanner and their jokes

 we carried on our 21-year-old tradition of pictures with santa

 we visited the strip

 ... and got a pretty view of it from the new HOV lane :)

 we played fun card games with scotty's parents

 i enjoyed a wonderful fab 5 luncheon at BJ's

... and especially my complimentary birthday pazookie 

and meeting kami's sweet baby jack! 

he is a beautiful little baby. i'm in love.

i visited my mom's place of work at the world market center. she plays with christmas decorations all day, so i got a sneak peek at them :)

 after that, she treated me to farm basket.

scotty and tanner long-boarded from our house down to farm basket!

crazy boys. it only took them 22 minutes!

amidst all this fun, i got my wisdom teeth out and ate lots of fro yo.

and i spent lots of time with my husband.

we mostly shopped and munched on red velvet cafe chocolate chip cookies. 

leah did my hair!

i love it dark.

 and i hung out with these cute kids. i love my little cousins!

overall, it was a pretty successful trip. 

now it's time to get back into routine and prepare for school to start.