One More Celebration for July

     I am pretty sure looking back this whole month of July has just been one big celebration.  We started off going to Idaho for 10 days and that within itself is a celebration with all the delicious food consumed and family, the 4th of July, Ryan's national board scores for MD and DO, Ryan's 27th birthday, and now.....Our 2 Year Anniversary on July 23rd!!!!!  Needless to say on July 31 will be another celebration of our 2 year mark for moving/living in Arizona.  It is so crazy to see how fast time flies by.  It is pretty crazy to think that for pretty much the first 10 years of our marriage will be all consumed with graduate school for the both of us and residency, haha we joke about not knowing if we are going to be able to make it when we are finally done with school/residency, since that is all we know and have gone through together.

     Marriage is truly an amazing thing.  Everyone always tells your how "hard it is" but to be honest when you marry your best friend and both people are willing to put their spouse before themselves...marriage is just plain awesome.  Neither of us would take back any of our dating experiences and the things we learned from them, but when pondering over these last 2 years, I think of how much more fun and better life is with your best friend and why I didn't find them sooner?  As everyone says, "There is a time and season for everything."

     Ryan and I came upon this quote floating around on the internet and pretty sure it describes us to the T.  "I love being married. It's so great to find one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life."  Life is great and life is fun!

     We decided to celebrate the day, thanks to Ryan's preceptor for the idea, of Cheesecake Factory and then The Dark Knight Rises.  It was such a fun night and so fun to have it just be us with no school (no school does not mean no medical talk).

     I think one of my favorite things to look back on is to see how much you grow and change in the past year due to your spouse.  Ryan has definitely helped me achieve better qualities and has made me a more understanding person.  I unfortunately have rubbed off some of my competitiveness to him so now EVERYTHING is a competition.  But some of the best counsel given to us before the big decision to seal the deal was "Marriage should make you a better person".  Pretty sure that has stayed with me everyday and I am thankful for that counsel given to us.

One Year Older & Wiser Too!

     Happy Birthday Ryan!  This lucky guy turned 27.  I probably could have given him any age to celebrate, Ryan is not very good at remembering how old he is, but that is probably one of the least of his worries right now.  Unfortunately with getting older, comes more responsibilities and less time to celebrate the whole 24 hours.  He had to be at the clinic at 7 am and then didn't get back til 7 pm.  So we celebrated for 3 hours, woohooo!  Ryan has used golf as an out with his school buddies to relax from the stress of studying when they all have time, so I decided to do a golf theme for him.  Thanks to pinterest, I got some different ideas and made my own version of a golf cake...I didn't have the "grass" tip but I think it turned out okay.

At least he was happy/surprised about the cake

Opening up some presents, he got some new golf shoes, golf shorts, golf shirt, and some new shirts.

Ryan has been craving Olive Garden ever since he saw the commercial about 2 for $25 deal, so we hit that up for dinner, it was so good!

After dinner we came home, I sang to Ryan and we had some cake.

It was a fun, relaxing night.  Happy Birthday Ryan, you are the greatest!!!!  Love Ya

2447 miles of PURE FUN

WARNING: Picture overload for this post!

     Ryan and I had 10 days off (will probably never happen again) from school, so we decided to head home to IDAHO!  Im sure you all are so surprised, pretty sad that every vacation is to go back home instead of like Hawaii or Bahamas haha if only we had money.  But we LOVE Idaho and everything it has to offer.  This trip was a little different for us, because instead of flying home like we always do, we drove.....the long, dreaded, 14 hour trip.  We drove it once when we moved down for school and promised each other we would never do that again, but when gas prices are cheaper to drive then fly ya got to do what ya can on a student budget, it actually is a pretty trip, just nap thru Fillmore and Beaver Utah.  We were ready to get out of this dang Arizona heat and see some real mountains.  My nephews were currently with us so they got to make the long haul back to Idaho too!  I bet that was a dream come true for them, but with both having Ry and I's laptops they hardly made a peep.  We started our long journey at 6 pm, yep crazy we know, Ryan had class till then and couldn't leave sooner, so we drove to my sister's house in Salem, Utah (10 hours away).  We arrived at 5 am (time change added on a lovely hour) took a 5 hour cat nap and then were back on the road to cross that beautiful Idaho state boarder....

     For the first half of the trip we stayed with the Hess Honey's.  To our exciting surprise, my sister had an apendicitis attack and had to have emergency surgery, not to mention being 5 months pregnant!  So Ry and I got to take care of Harper Jo and Gunner who were both at my parent's house.  It was SO MUCH FUN!! Ryan and I set out for a day of adventure with the two little ones.  Here were some of the many activities we did with them..... (pretty sure we are the coolest aunt and uncle around)

We played on the bean bags

Went on tons of mule rides

Helped Pappy change the oil in the car

Helped Pappy move pipe

And of course there are always tons and tons of horse rides, have to start them young!

My brother-in-law Brad has been in the family for 9 years and has only been on a horse once or twice so since Harper Jo was cowgirlin' it up Brad put on his cowboy pants too...

Cowboy Ryan

     Up next for the Hess Honeys we headed to Jackson Hole, Wyoming for the usual anual trip and hit up the Bar J Wranglers.  It is a chuck wagon, cowboy singing entertainment.  My family has been going for years and we love it.  My dad always drops us off at the square and everyone shops while he saves us seats, then we come back when we are all shopped out and play some games till the fun starts.

     The next day, Ryan and I left the Hess Honeys and headed for Island Park to hang out with the Finn Clan.  On our way from Jackson Hole we hit up the Teton Mountain range and I took Ryan on a hike called Table Rock.  It is by far one of my favorites and a pretty famous trail.  I don't know if we were ready for the 14 miles round trip (it seemed easier when I was younger), but we conquered it in good time, 6 hours including a 40 minute lunch sitting on top of Table Rock.

Our destination point

Ryan was so excited to see snow, little did he know we would have a lot more to cross

Almost there, The Table Rock

Eating lunch at 11,000 ft

A Little Piece of Heaven, the three Tetons

Our feet were very tired so we soaked them in the cold river for a while and cleaned off all of the mud and dirt.  It felt so good, that is an understatement.

     After the hike we headed to Island Park to meet up with the Finn Clan.  We were a head of them so we decided to go the scenic route and hit Mesa Falls.  This place is beautiful, in the summer and the winter.

     We did a lot of road biking, playing in the river, building dominos, and enjoying the outdoors.  Tanner likes to come and ride horses, so we saddled up the boys and headed for a ride, this time baby sister Kennedy and Tiffany got to join us for a fun night ride.

Someone got a little tired

Nice try Jonathon, maybe next year??

After the adult ride, Tanner met up with us and showed us how to really ride, this kid has no fear.

Sometimes working out can be a little hard on you, when you only do it twice a year...

We were ready to go and play in the river, especially the kids.  Tanner was ready to catch a fish and the little ones (Jonathon) were ready to jump in head first.

I swear I just saw a fish!

     It was time to celebrate the 4th of July.  In the past, lets just say that people don't go up to Island Park for the fire works, but this year was different....they were SO GOOD!!!  Like actual legit, huge, multiple at a time, fireworks.  The weather was a little chilly for the Arizonians so we had to get some hot chocolate to celebrate.

     The boys went on mountain bike ride up off of Sawtelle, which is about 10,500 ft up.

     Unfortunately like every vacation, it ends way to fast.  We were not ready to come back to reality or the hot weather but life never stops.  I warned you about the picture overload, so if you made it...WOW you must really like us!  Thanks family for a fun vacation, see ya in November for the holidays Idaho.