Summer Lovin' Had Me A Blast!

Where to start!

I am warning you now. This post is L O N G! You think I hadn't posted in 6 months, but no, it's only been a month and a half. Aye, Aye, Aye!

I'll start with Memorial Day.
We wanted to go check out the town of Sedona. We heard it had great scenery and a fun little town to walk around in. We got some lunch and a little shopping and had a great day in cooler temps and just spending time with each other.

 Preston did his first round of rotations at a pharmacy in Basha's grocery store (a local grocery store in AZ)

 Doesn't he look handsome?!

In June we made our monthly temple date trip to Mesa. Best date night!

We also went camping up in Payson AZ. Definitely a needed little weekend getaway. Nice and cool, fresh air, relaxing, playing games for hours, sleeping in a tent, the smell of pine trees, hiking.. nothing beats that! Except for the lame part that we couldn't have a camp fire since AZ is all up in flames. But we still had a fantastic time and we didn't want to come back home.

Making dad's famous camp hash!

 

 We went on an awesome hike to see the Tonto Natural Bridge. It was more like a huge tunnel with a swamp on top that made a waterfall over the edge like seen below. Google Tonto National Bridge and read all about it. It's awesome and these pictures don't do justice for how big and awesome it really is. The hike to it took us about 45 minutes and the trail was really fun because it wasn't an actual trail, you had to climb over boulders and streams and who knows what else and follow little arrows that the park services had put in so you don't get confused on where you're going.

There were all sorts of places in the bridge that you could climb around on.

With the people in this picture, you can kind of get an idea on how large this bridge is.

On the other side on our way out!

Looking from the top.

It felt so good in here. With water dripping down everywhere and a nice cool breeze, we didn't want to leave!

We also went camping up in Payson AZ. Definitely a needed little weekend getaway. Nice and cool, fresh air, relaxing, playing games for hours, sleeping in a tent, the smell of pine trees, hiking.. nothing beats that! Except for the lame part that we couldn't have a camp fire since AZ is all up in flames. But we still had a fantastic time and we didn't want to come back home!

We love spending time with Preston's cousin Ashley, her hubby James and their adorable little girl Emily. They live about 20 minutes from us on the Air Force base so it's so nice to see them regularly and have family around!

 

Cute little Emily.

Now for the grand finale of this post.
We went to UT over the 4th of July. We were only there for 4 days, so the friends and family we weren't able to see.. I'm sorry! It was a quick trip and splitting it up between the two families, made it even tougher to see everybody we wanted to.

When we landed at the airport, we headed to get our rental car. Preston loves Subaru Legacy's so we asked if they had one, they didn't but the guy said "How about a mustang for being nice" He didn't have to twist our arm THAT hard. Check er out! What a beaut! 2012 Ford Mustang. This thing was smooth and a blast to drive. Preston was nice and shared the driving with me. Or should I say, I was nice and shared with him! Preston informed me a few times that I'm not allowed to have a fast car and that I better stick with the bigger family car. I have a lead foot, what can I say!.. I must get it from my gramps who always had the nicest and newest mustang. I missed him lots driving around in his favorite type of car! Enough about the car.. I have lots more to post about. Whew!

Thursday night we treated Preston's parents to dinner. It was so nice to catch up with them and eat yummy pizza!


Friday morning we went to Logan to the car show. Talk about awesome cars! I wanted pretty much every one of them.

This is just for my mother in law.. this was her favorite! She said that about all of them but when she saw this, she was serious!

How cute is this!?

This one is for my dad. He drove a car similar to this only a couple years different. Dad, does that make you feel old seeing the type of car you drove in a car show with "old" cars!

This one is for Grandpa Don!

Saturday morning we took my little sister to breakfast and got back just in time to see the SSL parade.

 

Dad and Chris driving a float in the parade.

Lili being, well... Lili!

The first time I had seen this girl in ages, well, 6 months but seemed like ages!

SSL Fireworks!

Playing war!

Uncle Craig, Kenna and Aunt Annette!

My cousin Nichole. It had been over 2 years since I had seen her. Best friends our whole lives. Love her!

When you asked Cadence what she was doing here she would say "Just hangin!" She thought she was pretty cool hanging out with her teenage cousin!

Jungle Gym Opa!

Annette and Mom!

Christian and his Girlyfriend!! Ooolala!

Brotherly love!

Sunday we went to church with my parents. It was fun to see old neighbors and friends from the ward!

This was our Sunday afternoon for about 3 hours! Lovely!

 

Later Sunday, my grandma Palmer along with most of the Vielstich Clan came over to see us and to hang out.

Cadence and GG (great grandma)

Boys playing Video Games! Annette.. I see you!!

Jess, Cadence and Alexis.

Heather and Lili!

Aunt Melyssa, Opa and Uncle Ted!

Grandma and Me! What a sweet Grandma I have!

Dad snoozin away, Nichole and Oma!

These are the times I miss most in UT.. when everybody is together. With my family, there are never any dull moments and it's just non stop laughter!

A bunch of us watching Chris and Brady shoot off bottle rockets.

Macho, Macho, Man!!

Monday we were back up with Preston's family. We went to another parade (Layton City) and then went up into the Canyon for KFC lunch. A tiny bit of rain with overcast skies.. I didn't know what I was experiencing since it had been months since we'd had that here in AZ. Such a nice change!

Grandma, mom, dad and Preston!

Jess and Theron!

THERE YOU HAVE IT! Gosh, this took soo long. Either I was just getting more and more annoyed or Blogger really was acting up. If you made this far, congratulations, I know it was a lot to take in. See what happens when I slack on blogging!

 Preston is off at YM's camp so that is why I was able to do this. Now that I'm caught up on the house, laundry and have done enough packing and organizing for the move this next week. I am going to pop some popcorn and watch the original "The Parent Trap"


G'Night!

We Made It...

...Through the first year of Pharmacy school. Two more years to go. It sure went by fast! Preston did great on his finals and now has a week break and then he will do a 4 week block of rotations at Basha's Grocery store, in their pharmacy and then he'll have a 4 week break and then another 4 week block of rotations. I'm just super excited to have Preston home in the evenings and not have to study all night or the weekends for a few months!

Summer is definitely setting in. This upcoming week, we'll be up to 105... and that's still considered "cool" here!

We had a fun party at our good friends Zach and Steff's house. They had a big group come over for good food, great company and games. It's always so fun getting together with friends and we have definitely been making some life time friends down here. Preston and I are looking forward to this summer and spending time with friends, parties, camping (in Northern AZ that is, not down in this Phoenix heat), moving and going to UT for a few days.

Life is great and we are very blessed. Preston is loving school, I love my job, we love our place, our ward and the area we live in and most of all our friends! We miss our families and UT though (don't worry mom, we still miss UT!)

Here are pictures of the party :)

Just an update...

Well, we've been up to a lot but not anything particular to blog about so I'll just give a little update on what we've been up to since the last post!

I am still working at an attorney's office and I really like my job. The girls I work with are awesome! It's nice to make some money to help any student loan debt that we're accumulating. We came here (to AZ) with zero debt and now the student loans will be plenty of debt to last us for quite a while. But I'm not to worried about it. Preston will have a great job with great pay that will make paying off the loans a little easier. I'm grateful Preston will be in a field that will always have job opportunities. Everybody will always need drugs, right?!

Preston is really doing awesome in school. He's been on the Dean's list the whole first year so far. He studies really hard, so hard that I never see him during the week except for bed time! But it's worth it and I'm so grateful to him for all the LONG hours he puts in at school. He is also tutoring a lady in his class who is from Iran and has a hard time with the language when it comes to medical/drug terms so she offered to pay him some money and he helps her out anywhere from 5-6 hours a week (about an hour a day, give or take).

I can't believe that in 2 weeks, we'll have been here a year already! It's flying by. We still love it here in good ol' AZ. We've been trying to do as many outdoor activities as we can before it gets too brutally hot to not go outside. We've been hiking and hitting up the driving ranges and tonight for our date night we're going mini golfing! Woo woo! This winter/spring weather has been amazing. Makes me NOT miss winter in Ut. I used to really enjoy winter (for Christmas time) but I think AZ has ruined that for me.

Preston has been called as the 1st counselor in the Young Men's presidency in our ward. He's way excited about it and has already gone to some activities and really thinks he'll have a good time getting to know the boys... (I mean MEN, in the program). As for me, I'm still in primary teaching the 10 and 11 year old's and I am still loving serving in the Activity Day's program.

In July, we will be moving into a house!! Yippee!! There is a couple in our ward who is going on a mission for our church and they will be gone for 2 years. They have asked us to "house-sit" for them. We are so grateful for this opportunity. We'll be in our same ward and we are just moving a couple blocks behind where we're at now. It's a nice home with a pool and nice yard and with really nice things. Since we're house-sitting, we'll be having there stuff also. We'll be storing up as much of their stuff as possible to make it feel like our home while living in their home. So if anybody ever wants to come visit, we'll have plenty of room :)

Well, as for now, that's about all that is new for his within the last month!

Life is good! We are very blessed!

p.s. sorry no pics! haha

Another trip down...

Over Preston's spring break, we had the awesome opportunity to go visit my grandparents, Grandma Bev and Grandpa Don. Grandma Bev is my mom's birth mom and Grandma Bev found my mom when I was just a baby so I have been so lucky and blessed to know her my whole life. She is one amazing woman with such a great heart. Grandpa Don is so great. He always gets the crowd laughing and is such a sweet man. The two of them are such a happy, loving couple. We spent 3 days with them and it wasn't long enough! We learned a new game (I'm racking my brain trying to figure out the name, it has totally slipped my mind) but take my word for it, it's so much fun. We had a day where we checked out a beautiful park with so much greenery and had a little farm there, later that day we went to Berkley Marina for lunch that looked over the bay and the weather was perfect. We also had a day where we spent the day in San Francisco with Grandpa Don and their friend Ernie who grew up in San Francisco so he was able to show us around. Preston had never been to S.F. so I was really excited for him to check it out. Again, we lucked out with perfect weather! One of the nights we went to dinner with my Aunt Treacy, her hubby Uncle Jay and my awesome cousins! We Skyped the ones we weren't able to meet up with. We spent a rainy day at their house playing that game I can't remember the name and enjoyed a great lunch at one of their favorite restaurants and even went along for the drive for the group they volunteer for, Meals On Wheels. Later that day it was still rainy so we spent the evening by the fire with a delicious home cooked meal watching American Idol. We made some more great memories with them and we hope to make it back to see them sooner rather than later!

Now for the pictures (Sorry mom it's taken me so long to get them up!)
Whats better than taking road trip than loading up on all your favorite junk food?! Nothing! Here is Preston pulling a Kramer and doing the cigar/beer trip except obviously with Sun Drop and a Slim Jim (gross!!)

I, of course had my staple snack, skittles!!!

At the mini farm. I love cow's I think they are so cute! This cow even smiled for this picture. "Happy cow's come from California"

Our afternoon at Berkley marina


We met a lot of these cute little guys! I know, I know... don't feed the animals, but they were just too cute and probably hungry. A few chips won't hurt, right?!
And to your left, you have the Golden Gate Bridge.
Dinner with the clan. What a great, great time!
Aunt Treacy and myself, she would be my mom's half sister! Resemblance? I think so!
My adorable and funny cousin Hollie. I love this girl!!
At the top of Lombard street (a very windy, narrow street)
At the bottom of Lombard street.
Coit Tower
Alcatraz (we'll be making that stop on our next trip)
The inside of Coit Tower have murals like this covering every space. Amazing details.
I shouldn't have to tell you what this is ;) (Grandpa Don, my hunk of a husband, myself and good friend, Ernie)
This is a replica of a cable used on the bridge. If you click on this picture to make it bigger, it has all the details of it.

This building was for watching over the bay for predators. Out of those window's used to be cannon's.
They had these all along the bridge with a phone to call for help..
Starting the mile walk across the bridge.
I collect shot glasses, this is my newest addition.
Sutro Bath House ruins. One of my favorite parts. This just takes me back in time for some reason. Google Sutro Bath House in S.F. Some cool history!

enjoying the scenery and breathing in the great ocean air!
What a view!! This is on top of Twin Peaks.


What a great trip. Sadly, it ended and school and work started back up so fast! We're so glad we were able to make this fun, fun trip! Thanks again Grandma Bev and Grandpa Don!