let freedom ring

we love the fourth of july! we had so much fun celebrating this special holiday together. we woke up and played racquet ball, went running, and cooled down with some swimming! then we canceled out all of our exercising with some lunch and homemade cookies & cream ice cream. 

yum! we spent the afternoon lounging around in our pjs (what's more american than that?), doing homework and watching tv. for dinner, we wished for a traditional fourth of july BBQ, but decided a bbq chicken pizza was the next best thing. i'd say i did a pretty dang good job. 

 after dinner, we grab some sparklers and headed out the door. i've had our special fireworks-watching location planned for weeks. 

 we went to my school at the edge of west jordan, overlooking the whole valley. 

 a perfect spot on the field with an amazing view! 

we played with our sparklers and watched the skyline of colors.

(amazing picture quality, i know. blah.) 

these next two are my favorite from the night. special thanks to the empty gatorade bottle we found on the field and the self-timer app. 

i love him. 

 it was such a beautiful sight. i love our country and the freedoms we have. 

god bless america, my home sweet home! 

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!

date night

people always advise newlyweds to "find things you both enjoy doing!" ... whatever. i go to scotty's things, scotty goes to my things. we take turns picking movies and restaurants. sure, there are places and hobbies we both enjoy, but a lot is just give and take. we love it. it ensures a wide variety of date nights :) HOWEVER, last week i was thrilled when i happened across something i knew we would both really enjoy: 

a lego art exhibit up in park city! special thanks to katherine rhodes for putting pictures of her visit up on facebook. scotty and i had a great time admiring all of the amazing lego art. take a look! 

(the castle is my favorite) 

(the benjamin is scotty's favorite) (obviously) 

then we headed over to the tanger outlets and i barely made it inside my second store before scotty took my credit card away. i still love him, though. and if you're ever in park city (or downtown slc), check out maxwell's east coast eatery. you won't be disappointed! 

i guess it is possible to find things a husband & wife both enjoy! 

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.

happy crap week.

[crap] 

it's really cold outside.

what happened to spring? it's been in the 30's and 40's all week.

[crappier] 

i got pulled over.

don't cops have anything better to do than sit at the end of an HOV-only freeway exit?

[crappiest] 

scotty's computer hard drive crashed.

can you imagine losing every single homework assignment, work project, picture, etc???

[crap hit the fan] 

scotty's brand new iphone 5 got stolen.

it was sitting on his freaking desk at work. really, people?

... i'm not normally one to make public complaints about my life, so consider this a desperate plea for any prayers, uplifting quotes, or comforting treats you may want to send our way.

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!