U2 and the Fray!

On tuesday May 24th, we were able to go to the U2 and the Fray concert! It was soooooooooooooo awesome!
I love this guy!

The stage...

The groupies...
Us and our AWESOME t-shirts! Thanks to Melissa!

What an awesome concert it was! SOOOOO cool! I've been waiting my whole life to go to a U2 concert and my dream was finally fulfilled! It will be a great memory!

Mississippi Trip 2011

We had the awesome opportunity to take a trip to visit my parents in Mississippi! It was such a fun trip! Most of all, it was great to be with my parents and to see their place and all the people they associate with. It was awesome! Don't worry - this is a long post. :) We got there on Thursday afternoon and just chilled at my parents' apartment. It was fun to catch up and relax.

Friday morning we got up and headed to Vicksburg. We stopped first at the Mississippi river to check out the level. My parents mentioned that it was highest it has been and was supposed to crest that day. There was a lot of water!!



We then visited Vicksburg Military Memorial Park. When I took history, I probably learned about Vicksburg, but I don't retain information very easily, so it was nice to learn a little more about Vicksburg by being there! Cortney is a history buff and loves stuff like this!

Vicksburg was where one of the civil war battles took place which was an important turning point in the civil war. It's crazy to think about the civil war and how friends and family fought against friends and family. We took a cool driving tour to see all the battle sites as well as monuments that each state who participated in the battle have put up.









The ship "Cairo" which sunk during a battle and then was brought back up and reconstructed...
After the driving tour, we headed to the old Vicksburg County Courthouse and museum.

It was stuffed full of old artifacts and was fun to look around. There was even this cute bible that is teeny tiny! The width of it when open is about 2 inches.
It was a cool old museum! We then headed back down to the river to check out the flooding...


It's crazy how much water there is! The flooding here in Utah is hardly anything compared to that in Mississippi. We also saw where they had opened the water into the levees. And we drove into Louisiana to say we had been to Louisiana :)

After the nice drive, we ate a dinner of fried chicken and catfish at a delicious place called Pen's. Mmmmm. It was tasty! It was an eventful and wonderful day!

Saturday morning we arose and headed to the mission office to check it out. It was neat to see the things my parents do for the mission and to meet the other office couple.

Awww, fer cute!


We ate lunch and then headed to the petrified forest! The drive there (and everywhere) was beautiful! It's so green and there are tons and tons of trees!

It was a neat little place to visit! There was a cool hike/tour that we took that showed many petrified logs. It was cool! The forest was so beautiful!
This is a pretty tree called a Loblolly Pine...


At the end of the hike, they had a cool little museum which had tons of fossils and rocks. If I was a geologist, I would be in heaven!

And this sign was posted on the way out...

And yes, a lot of the people have AWESOME southern accents! I love hearing the accents :)

We drove from the petrified forest to Jackson to see the capitol building. It was spectacular!

Then we went to see the old capitol building. Here's the scoop...
And the beautiful building...
It was also a cool museum that was interactive. It was beautiful inside too! After visiting there, we headed to Joanna's house for dinner. She is a sister in my parents' ward who they helped get baptized. She's so nice and very pleasant to be around. It was fun to just hang out and chat with her. The dinner she made was great! It was neat to finally meet her!
Sunday was a nice day to relax and to attend my parents' ward. It was cool to meet all the people in their ward. The mission president and his wife were also there and we met them too! It was neat to hear all the people say how much they loved my parents and how much good they've done in the ward. This wasn't a surprise at all :) My dad talked me into playing a piano piece for sacrament meeting too. After church, we drove by one of the reservoirs near Jackson. We spent the rest of the afternoon having a nice meal prepared by my mom and just chillaxin. In the evening we had a family home evening where we talked about some of the conference talks and what we had learned from them.

Monday was our last day in Mississippi :(

To start out the day, my dad showed me this cool trail near the mission office and I took a nice run while he rode his bike. It was a beautiful trail through the trees! Gorgeous! Then I rode the bike back to the office. After we got all packed up and ready to go for the day, we all headed to the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum. It was super cool. It was like an old town with all the older buildings and a general store! (My favorite part :) ) The museum itself was cool and talked about logging as well as the cotton industry, etc. etc.. It had a bunch of trains and planes too! It was so cool! Then we watched a short video about the catfish production in Mississippi. Interesting! And delicious :) I love places like this! It also had this super huge rocking chair...

It was a cool place to visit! And I wanted to get a picture of the magnolia flower...

There are these beautiful magnolia trees everywhere! After visiting the park and museum, we ate some genuine southern food at a restaurant right outside the museum. It was fattening and delicious! Mmmmmm.

We then went home and got out luggage and then headed to the airport to go home.

It was such a nice trip and it was so good to see and be with my parents! We were spoiled to the maxx! Thanks, Mom and Dad for such a great time! We love you!

Adam's Canyon

A couple of Fridays ago (5/13), me and the girls headed out for a lovely afternoon hike! Both Lauren and Becky's hubby's were headed out for a boy scout overnighter and Cortney was still at work. We took advantage of this time to take a nice hike up Adam's Canyon in Layton. It was beautiful! When we got up to the waterfall, the water was pretty high. It was a magnificent sight!

We also saw this dog who had a heart print on him....

It was so much fun to get out and hike! Woot! Thanks, girls!

Riley's Graduation

On Saturday, with went up to Logan with the T family to attend and celebrate Riley's graduation! It was a fun Saturday. We went to the commencement exercises in the morning...
Random professor sitting all by his lonesome...
Where's Waldo? I mean Riley?

After commencement exercises, we commenced exercising/prancing around campus taking photos of the said graduate and the family peeps. Can you guess what he graduated in?

And, mom and dad, it seems to be that Utah State has gone under construction and no longer exists....So sad...

Just kidding! Here are some pics of places you might recognize...





Amber and Riley
The L Family
The T Family
Aww, fer cute!
Lenn taking a nap after commencement...
Random tree picture taken in the cemetery...
Random picture of Lenn taken outside the cemetery...

Random picture of girl blowing a bubble found on the sidewalk...

We then celebrated at Riley and Amber's apartment by eating delicious sandwiches and deserts! It was nice to just eat and chill with the fam for a bit.
Then we headed to the real graduation!


The fan club!

Congraduations, Riley!

The boyz!

Afterwards we headed back to their apartment to chill for bit and then headed to Angie's for dinner! It is a cute little home-cookin' restaurant in Logan and was delicious! They are famous for their ice-cream sinks. Yes, sinks. If you can finish a sink of ice-cream they'll given you a bumper sticker! We'll save that task for a later date :)
And as if we hadn't already eaten ourselves silly, we went to get ice-cream at Aggie ice-cream afterward!

I'd never been there before, so I was really excited!

Getting our ice-cream!

It was a definite win!


To top the day off, the T fam's expedition reached the 200,000 milestone on the way home! What a privilege! Awesome!

What a fun day it was!