Mom's Surprise Visit!

Today my mom surprised Zach & I and came to visit! She was here for Women's Conference but came a day early so she could see us before we leave for California tomorrow. Hooray!!!

We love Indian food!!

 It's so nice to talk to my mom....she makes me feel better about all the craziness I'm about to go through for the next 16 months. It will be worth it. (Have I mentioned how badly I wish we lived by family? Being in Utah all by ourselves gets really lonely sometimes :(

Tomorrow morning we start our road trip to California to run our triathlon! Two people, two dogs, and one cat...wish us luck!!

Rue

Mondays suck. First day back(in a week)at work for me, Zach took another practice MCAT and didn't do as well as he wanted(but still did really well)aaand I have to go back to school in 2 days! (booooo!) But one thing that always livens our mood and keeps our home so much happier is our dogs! Just when we're getting stressed, Rue comes into the room and plops on our lap. It's like she knows. Really. Zach and I can never be sad or stressed or mad for more than a minute because one of the girls does something hilarious or comes to see us.

Zach's Birthday

This weekend was the best weekend ever. Our one-year anniversary AND Zach's birthday! We were originally planning on going to Vegas for the weekend, but having to take out a loan for my nursing program kinda dampened those plans. Nevertheless, I planned out our whole day and spared no expense at making sure Zach had the best birthday ever.

 First off: Kneaders. Anyone who knows Zach knows he LOVES french toast.

Then I surprised Zach and took him somewhere he did NOT expect, "Get Some", an indoor shooting range. Anyone who knows me knows I am the animal-loving, vegetarian, anti-hunting crazy earth-loving person, ie. the very last person who would go to a shooting range.

But Zach LOVED it.

There was a nice man who worked there that held my hand through it all and calmed me down about shooting. And to his surprise, after we finished one case of bullets I went out and bought another! Everyone was laughing at how quickly I changed.

Zach was so proud of this guy, he went home and hung it in our living room.... 

Rue desperately wants the paper towel. (can't do a blog post without one of the girls ;)

   Then, we went and saw Transendence (really really good movie), and planned to go out to dinner afterwards, but at 10pm everything is closed, so this ended up being Zach's "special birthday dinner" (oops)

At least he got his chocolate peanut butter birthday cake! (made by me :)

Turns out Rue likes peanut butter cake too ;)

ONE YEAR Anniversary!

Today was my and Zach's first anniversary! HOORAY! 

This morning Zach got his birthday present in the mail early, a longboard! We had so much fun riding around Provo with the girls. (they pulled us the whole way)

 longboarding with these dogs is seriously the most fun. they just run like the wind and you hold on!

Perfect climbing tree

Chillin with Harp

Later that night, to celebrate our anniversary, we went up to Salt Lake. We went out to dinner, shopped, and got Cheesecake Factory!

Ain't he the cutest? :)

We tried to get a picture us in front of the temple, but the person must have thought we wanted a close-up. At least you can kinda see the temple in the background, right....?

Told Zach to strike a pose.

Also, the frontrunner is the greatest thing about Utah ever! You can take the train all the way from Provo to Ogden for only $7! Plus there's free wifi and outlets, talk about luxury :)