fall fun.

A couple of weekends ago, Travis and I went out with two of our favorite friends, Sam and Livi. We made our way out to the corn maze, ate hamburgers and grilled corn on the cob, watched a pig race, and didn't get lost in the maze because I have the most brilliant boyfriend in town. After nearly freezing to death at the corn maze we went back to Sam and Livi's and enjoyed some hot coco motion and a lot of laughing (you can always count on that when you are with Livi)!







And then last night, Travis and I carved pumpkins together. Not only do I have a brilliant boyfriend, but a very patient one as well. He endured me trying to find the {almost} perfect pumpkin. Poor kid . . . he endures those kinds of moments often!





HAPPY HALLOWEEN, PEEPS!!

that takes me back.

While Andi and Aubry were here for the Jason Mraz weekend, Friday night we just hung around Andi's parent's house. Andi and her dad, Dellas, busted out the old guitar and sang this little duet. They sang, I cried. I have so many memories of laying on that exact floor as a high school girl, listening to Andi and her dad sing together! One of the best moments of the weekend for me!

mr. a-z

Most of you have already read about it here and here, but it was so great I think it deserves a whole other post. So here it is in my words (about a month late) . . .

It started out at work on a Monday afternoon, late in September. The phone rang and I noticed it said "URS Corp". Without any hesitation, I took the phone off the hook, handed it to Tyler (boss man) and said, "it's your dad". Next thing I hear is, "Cindy? Ya, just a minute", and Tyler hands the phone back to me. The conversation went a bit like this:

Cindy: "Aubry?"
Aubry: "I had to track you down immediately! I called your Mom and had to get your phone number at work. It is an emergency!"
Cindy: "Well, hi! How are you? What is going on?"
Aubry: "Hold on. Let me see if I can get my phone to do something fancy" {I hear clicking noises} "Ok, you there?"
Cindy: "Ya."
Andi: "Hi, Cindy Lou!"
Cindy: "Whoa! Andi! Hi! What's going on?"
Aubry: "What are you doing this weekend?" {I can hear Andi giggling and acting very excited}
Cindy: "Not much. Speaking in church and Travis and I are suppose to go on a date."
Aubry: "What if we came this weekend and we went to the Jason Mraz concert?"
Andi: "I'm ready to purchase a flight to Boise right now if you say yes!"
Aubry: "And I'm ready to purchase 3 tickets to the concert right now if you say yes!"
Cindy: "YES!!!!!"

So that's how it went and 5 days later Andi, Little Miss Olive, and Aubry were here in Boise chillin' with me for the weekend.

Saturday morning we went to the BODO Farmer's Market and shopped all around downtown . . .

I drooled all over Olive's cuteness . . .

Made a scene as we tried to get a picture with Mr. A-Z himself on the corner of Front and 9th . . .


We also hit up the cupcake shop in Eagle. That was my first cupcake experience and Aubry's 1,199th . . .

And that evening we hit up the concert. We were there nice and early, just as loyal fans would be . . .

And here he is . . . the one and only {and um, sexy!} Mr. Jason Mraz. The second he made his way on stage I felt like a giddy college girl again! I instantly longed for {dirty} green shaggy carpet, cold winter nights and Andi and her guitar . . .


It was so fun to have Andi in town for a few days, hanging out like we use to. I think this is the first time we've been back in Boise together since the college days and hung out the way we did. I love this girl . . .


And only as Aubry would do, she brought Robin along for the experience. What I would have given to have more of you Shanty girls there for real! Oh, the Shanty loves Jason Mraz!




Thank you, ladies, for making the quick trip to come see me. Ok, so maybe I was the added perk to Boise, but I'm sure glad Jason got you here ;)

labor day at gold fork.

With Travis being in school and both of us working A LOT these days, we don't see each other much. So, you can only imagine my happiness when I found out he didn't have school OR work on Labor Day. So, we took advantage of the little holiday and took a road trip up Highway 55 to Gold Fork Hot Springs and enjoyed a day in the mountains!

One of our favorite treats . . . fresh pico de gallo and delicious, locally made tortilla chips!

This place was awesome. It was tucked away in the mountains and had 5 different pools, all different temperatures! One of the pools even had sand imported from the beaches of Hawaii in the bottom. It made me want to go back to the islands . . .


After soaking in the hot, mineral pools we headed into McCall and got some burgers and shakes at 'My Father's Place' . . . one of my favorite Ma & Pa burger joints, ever!

Such a fun day! Too bad we don't have any more holidays for a couple of months . . .

go, lara go!

it's been a long time . . . again . . . i know (grandma!). let's just say i sit at a computer each week for a minimum of 50 hours editing photos, with an injured back and the last thing i feel like doing when i get home is sitting down at a computer again to play with more photos. ugh. plus, it's just been one B-U-S-Y summer! fun, but very busy. and because of the busy-ness, i have a lot to update you all on! rather than trying to play catch up, i am just going to start with the most recent fun and work my way back, hopefully being able to catch up on the summer within the next month or so (no promises, though).

so, i'll just start with saturday. what a FUN day! my dearest lara (as most of you know) ran her first marathon in logan, ut. i thought it was a big deal and i wanted to be there to cheer her on. so, travis and i decided it would be fun to drive to logan for the day and surprise her! and surprise her we did! check out the moment of surprise . . .

pretty funny huh? we sound like a bunch of overly excited girls. although, i guess we were . . .

like i said, travis and i decided to just drive there for the day since he had to work friday night until 11:15pm and then again on sunday morning at 5:00am (yes . . . a.m.! what a trooper, huh?) so, we got up and were on the road by 4:45 am on saturday and arrived in logan by 9:30 am. just as we were pulling in to town, we saw the first group of runners, so we pulled over at the 18 mile mark and waited for lara. i got all teary eyed waiting for her, watching all of the runners going by. i was just so proud of her and impressed by this huge accomplishment!

it was so fun introducing travis to lara . . .

after watching lara cross the finish line, the rest of the day was spent eating delicious food, visiting, soaking our feet in really cold river water, playing frisbee, hanging out with two of travis's college buddies, eating at the utah state creamery, and travis showing me all around logan (he is an usu alumni, so this was fun for him . . . and me, really!)

it was a long (late!) drive home and boy were we tired, but it was definitely worth it! thank you, travis for sacrificing your sleep and getting work off to go with me!

and way to go, lara! you are amazing!

movie with my girl.

When Lisa and all the kiddos were here a couple of weeks ago, Sirri and Connor wanted to watch a movie for their "quiet time". Unfortunately the two couldn't agree on a movie and I found them on the stairs, both in tears because Connor wanted to watch "8 Below" and Sirri wanted to watch "Tinker Bell". So I came up with a solution . . . I took Sirri upstairs to my room and we snuggled up on my bed and watched "Tinker Bell" on my lap top together. It was great girl time with my number one girl!

lake powell!

It's official . . . Lake Powell is now one of my favorite vacation spots. It seems like my vacation of choice has always been places like Santa Cruz or Cancun . . . but I think I would take a week at Lake Powell, on a house boat, water skiing all week long over those vacations any day now. It was so amazing! The canyon walls were breath taking, the water so warm, the sun so hot, and there were so many great little day hikes. The only thing that was kind of a bummer was the 35 mph winds making the water ridiculously choppy . . . so choppy i didn't even water ski once :(. Honestly, no complaints though . . . it was a GREAT weekend!

One of my favorite things was the hike up the canyon wall we took on Friday afternoon. There were some Anasazi Indian ruins, way up on the canyon wall in what was called the "Forgotten Canyon". There were ruins of the homes the Indians lived in and some petroglyphs on the canyon walls. The view from the top was amazing . . . it was hard trying to imagine being an Indian in the 1200's living way up there. Ca-razy.

We spent most of our days just chilling on the boat, touring the different canyons, reading our books, listening to music, eating tons of good food, and hanging out while Travis's dad spent some time fishing.

Saturday night, just before dinner, Travis, myself, and one of the family friends, Ryan, all hiked back into the canyon we were camping in. Supposedly there were some old ruins back here too, but we couldn't seem to find them.

But we did find the 150 foot sand dune that was just chillin' right there in the middle of the canyon . . .

A view of our campground. Quite the beautiful backdrop, huh?

On our way home, we took the scenic route through Capital Reef National Park where we stopped to have lunch and Trav and I went on a baby hike. . . Southern Utah really is beautiful and so unique!

Thanks for the great weekend, Travis, Bill, and Janna! It was the perfect start to my summer!