April = My Birthday/Easter

Yay! I'm blogging! And it's only been a month since my last post...this is progress! I don't have a lot of time but thought I'd put up some pics of my birthday fun last weekend and the Easter eggs we dyed this week. Enjoy!!

We spent a few hours shopping at City Creek on my birthday.

One of John's gifts to me...I had to post it because it's so beautiful!!

We had lunch at Bruges Waffles & Frites. SO good!

Eating outside the cafe.

John's lunch. It was fun to watch him try to eat that hot dog.

Walking around downtown!

One of our Easter eggs. We had so much fun!

John with "Sloth" the egg. Heyyy you guysss!!

Another one of John's beautiful egg creations.

I have the cutest hubby! Also, don't mind us...we just got done working out. :)

Just a short time until we leave for our vacation to the BVI...and we can't wait! It's been so much fun planning for it and getting ready, and now we are ready for some R&R and island fun!! I'll be sure to post pics of all our adventures.

Where has the time gone?

I have been horrible at blogging for the last several months! The last time I wrote anything we had just gotten back from a fun weekend away and then the holidays came and went, winter came and went, and here we are...oops! I need to be better!

It's hard to remember all the things that have happened since last October, but life is good! John and I are both really happy with our careers and John is doing great in school. He will definitely be graduating in May 2015 with his masters degree.

Both of our families are doing well, and we've even had two additions to the Tanner side of the family, with my sister having a baby, my niece Serenity, and my aunt having a baby, my newest cousin Roman. They are both super cute and lots of fun.

We still have our cat, and it's been a lot of fun having a pet. I always thought it wasn't a possibility for me with my allergies, but if I keep things clean and vacuum a lot, then I do OK. I'm a neat freak anyway, so it's not that much different!

John and I are going on a really exciting vacation soon to the British Virgin Islands. This is probably the most adventurous vacation we've been on together, and I know it's going to be amazing! We can't wait to relax on the beaches, explore the islands and do a little snorkeling.

We have dubbed 2014 the "year of us" because we figure it'll be the last year where we don't have kids. We have decided to be a little spontaneous...but not too spontaneous since I'm a planner...and we are going on several trips this year, trying a lot of new things together and basically trying to really enjoy just the two of us being together.

I'll try to be better at updating. I can at least do it once a month, right?!

Capitol Reef

Earlier this month, John and I went to Capitol Reef for the weekend. Even with the government shutdown, we had a great time! We got to see a lot of really cool stuff, relax, eat delicious food, go hiking and see a lot of cool rock formations. It was beautiful!

Road Trip!!!

Chimney Rock

The Castle

 

Fruita Schoolhouse

Rattlesnake Cakes...made with real, free-roaming rattlesnake!

At The Saddlery in Torrey

We saw a whole heard of these bighorn sheep, so cool!

A New Addition to our Family

Before you freak out by the title of this post, don't worry...I am NOT pregnant. John and I recently adopted a really sweet little kitty. But in all honesty, she adopted us. We were out walking by the lake one night and saw a cat, so we stopped to pet it, and then it followed us home. And the crazy this is we were at least a half mile from home! Anyway, we ended up feeding her and now she won't leave. Whenever we put her outside, she always comes back that evening. We named her Fate, as in it was fate that she found us.

We took her to the vet and found out she LOVES car rides!

Such a sweetie!

She loves all her toys.

Moon Lake!

Back in August, me, John and my grandparents went to Moon Lake for a long weekend. We stayed in a very cute but very rustic cabin. It was so fun! We went fishing, horseback riding, hiking, for a long drive where we saw a million deer (and a BADGER!) and relaxed. Here's some pics from our fun weekend:

The entrance to Moon Lake Lodge

Moon Lake...as you can see, it was really low!

Look, it's John!

Aren't my grandparents cute?

John riding Magnum and me riding Fifty. They were pretty cool horses.

SPJ Awards

This week I got a nice surprise when I attended the Society of Professional Journalist's awards banquet. I received four first place awards for stories I wrote for the Tooele Transcript-Bulletin! It was so exciting to hear my name read and I am really happy to know that my hard work at the Transcript paid off. It was a great way to end my tenure at the newspaper. Several of my co-workers also garnered first place awards and the Transcript was named the best newspaper in the state for it's division (non-dailies). I'm so proud of the Transcript and that I could be a part of it!

The Transcript is all over this poster!

And this one too!

My awards!

Aloha!

John and I just got back from an amazing week in paradise! We spent the whole week in Oahu, Hawaii with our friends Chris, John and Kristen. It was SO much fun and very much needed.

We did a lot of the tourist-type stuff, like visiting the International Marketplace, Waikiki, Pearl Harbor, etc., but we also spent a lot of time hanging out in the North Shore area, driving all over the center of the island, and relaxing at our resort.

The resort we stayed at in Ko Olina was absolutely beautiful! It had a few restaurants on-site, tons of swimming pools and it's own private beach (thanks Chris!!). Besides that our room was beautiful and had a great view of the golf course, which John loved.

Anyway, I posted a ton of pictures up on Facebook, but I'll put some of my favorites up here as well.

In other news, John started his master's program this week in healthcare administration. He is loving it so far, and I'm really excited for him. It's hard to believe that when I met John, he wasn't even in school and now just a few years later he's working on a master's degree! I am just really so proud!

I start my new job at Utah Business Magazine on Monday. I'm really excited! It was so hard to leave the Transcript office yesterday for the last time...but I know this new adventure will be worth it!

Ok, enough with the updates...here are some pictures from our trip!

Eating breakfast at the airport before our flight.

First time down at the beach!



John, Chris and John out to dinner our first night at the resort.

John and I at the beach at sunset

Pineapples growing at the Dole Plantation

John and I at the plantation

Enjoying a tasty pineapple juice/Dole whip treat. So good!

I thought this was so cool..this picture epitomizes North Shore!

At Waimea Valley on our way to the falls

These flowers were everywhere! I think they're called
birds of paradise.

Waimea Falls! So beautiful. The depth is 30 feet, and there are freshwater fish, crabs and shrimp in the water.
It wasn't cold at all and was so much fun to swim to the falls!

John and I before heading into the swimming hole.

Kristen, John and Chris on the way to the falls. Love Chris' pose!

All of us after swimming. Posing on a bridge in front of the falls.

John and I at Turtle Bay.

The boys at Turtle Bay.

We went sailing out of Ko Olina Harbor to see dolphins and
go snorkeling. This is the view from the boat.

Dolphins!

The sail on our boat.

John and me on the boat.

All ready to go snorkeling!

John on the beach at our resort

John and Chris golfing. I snapped these pics
from the balcony of our room haha.

Waikiki Beach

Me and Chris at Waikiki

John and I at the International Marketplace

John and I at House Without a Key - a delicious restaurant in Waikiki!

The North Shore Soap Factory, which operates in an old sugar mill.

Standing outside the soap factory. Don't mind
my face..it was really bright outside!

And here's John at the soap factory. It smelled so good inside!

We had lunch at Cholo's in North Shore one day, and had
to take a pic of these nachos. They were HUGE!

Shark's Cove. Hard to see, but this is where we did some amazing snorkeling!
We even got to swim with some sea turtles. Definitely the highlight of the trip!

John and I got shave ice at Matsumoto's in North Shore. So good!

Pearl Harbor

John and Kristen looking at one of the ship's anchors at Pearl Harbor

John trying out one of the ship's guns

Chris, doing something really important inside of a submarine. :)

The USS Arizona Memorial. It was beautiful, but sad at the same time.

You can still see oil leaking out of the sunken USS Arizona.

All of the names of those who died aboard the USS Arizona.

Driving along the east side of the island. Beautiful!

The east side has a lot of mountains, so there were tons of tunnels to go through.

A view from another course John golfed at, Ko'Olau, which is also near the east side.

Beautiful sunset!

Another great view of the sunset. It was so beautiful there in the evenings!

We saw tons of these little crabs along the shores.
They moved fast, so I was lucky to get this guy on camera.

My handsome hubby and me!

Another beautiful sunset!

Watching the sunset from Longboards, one of
the restaurants we frequented while at Ko Olina.

Love palm trees!

We could see these views right from our resort!

Yes, I took a picture in a bathroom...but look! It has all of these
settings for the toilet. I was too shy to use any of them,
but who knew that there were so many options for wiping?!
This was at a hotel in Waikiki.

I got some nasty looking mosquito bites during
our hike to Waimea Falls. They itched so bad!

John at the beach at our resort. He looks so handsome!

The beach at our resort.

Another view of the beach at our resort.