Let this be a warning...

Rooted from a school project last year, I started a blog and a small awareness campaign against texting while driving. Let this video be a warning: you're not as good at texting while driving as you think. Go to my blog to check it out: textinganddriving.blogspot.com

Ah, the weekend

Weekends are so renewing. I woke up at ten this morning (I blame it on still getting over mono...) and then I spent the day doing things I've meant to do all week: the laundy and spending all afternoon cleaning out the dust, grime, and other unsightly things from our basement apartment. Now I am clean, in a clean house, peacefully blogging while Christian reads Harry Potter (continuing to slaughter me in reading pace - he is way ahead). And tomorrow: Sunday. The ultimate renewal day. We humans couldn't survive without our weekends. And now tonight we are looking forward to watching another classic movie we checked out from the library! If you don't have your library card, please get one. Ever since I was a little girl I've loved the library but I hadn't gotten a Provo card until last night. Now we have hundreds of VHS and DVD's at our fingertips (not to mention books). It sure beats Red Box on a busy weekend night.

Let me mention another fun event from a recent weekend: Graduation!! Yes, after four busy years of reading, note-taking, test-taking and lots of walking all over campus, it came. Here's a taste:

I spoke at my college's convocation

Elder Ballard was the headline speaker at commencement

Better late than never

So, I just started the seventh and final installation in the Harry Potter series: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. To the horror of most die-hard fans, I did not even complete the sixth book (which made the end of the movie extra exciting) and did not join in the reading festivities when book seven came out two summers ago. Why you ask? I have no idea why!! I really liked the other books but for some reason I could not motivate myself to continue at the rate of everyone else. Yet, watching the most recent movie left me wanting more (where in the heck are all those horcruxes?!) and thus motivated me to get the book from my family and to read on my own. I have had to carefully avoid spoilers from my siblings and husband (he didn't read it but got all the gritty details from the fam) but I still don't know what's going to happen and I'm so excited to find out!

What about you? Are you a die-hard fan, simple movie follower, or none of the above? How did book seven compare to the rest?

Summer 2009: One never-ending vacation

Okay, so it hasn't been all play and no work. We get little spatterings of work in-between our fun trips and lately ours have been a little hectic: for me, a high-powered grant application and two-hour presentation to prepare and for Christian, never-ending and piling-up customer complaints to answer, but we have survived successfully and are doing well in that arena! Oh and to get the bad stuff out of the way, I got mono and resulting hepatitis a couple weeks ago but am very much on the mend. Now, on to the fun stuff!!

First: Canyoneering in Orderville Canyon at Zion's
So beautiful!! The most technical hike I've EVER done in my life and I was starting to get sick so that spoiled it a little but really - it was spectacular. A day long hike of waterfalls and towering red rock canyons. To see the adventure click HERE

Second: The beaches of Southern California
This was a mini Bennion reunion and most of the fam was there to enjoy good food, sunshine, and HUGE waves. They were unnaturally huge so they freaked me out a little, but Christian got me to brave the waves when they had calmed down the second day and I had more fun playing in the ocean than I ever have (actually, I don't think I've ever really played in the ocean. I'm from Oregon - the land of icy oceans). We mostly spent our days at San Clemente, but we tried one day at a Laguna beach. And YUMMY food. I got my appetite back from being sick at the perfect time :)

San Clemente
It looks like we're trying to dance in knee-deep sand

We're kissing across the sand. How romantic :)

Third: Timpanooke Camping
We just got back today from a two-day jaunt up American Fork Canyon with the Raleigh clan. Again, sooo beautiful. I am so grateful that we live so close to this beauty! But, of course there are the camping trade-offs of dirt and smoke. It was worth it and we made delicious dutch-oven dinners, hiked a little, explored, and endured a 1:00 AM cacophony of lost young adult campers who were trying to hike Timp. They were on a trail and had NO idea they were waking up a a whole campground of people. We hope they found their way! :)

Julie Andrew's Meadow

A closer look

I love my Mattie. Playing with him was one of my other favorite parts about the weekend

P.S. I'm speaking at convocation of graduation! Exciting stuff!

Summa Days

We just wanted to say....we love summer! We are soaking in the days and enjoying every last bit of our nice weather. Here's what we've been doing this last week:

Long walks and longboarding
Here are some pics we took on our way to a park that is in the neighborhood right behind our house. We are so lucky to have such nice trails and parks so close to us.




FOURTH OF JULY

We LOVED our Fourth of July Weekend. It was perfect....well, almost perfect. We woke up early to try to go up to the Y parking lot and see the hot air balloons - but of course, the streets were blocked off quite extensively. The parade would be starting soon and the Freedom Run races were going on so alas, no scenic view. Then, we tried to go get free french toast at the grocery store Macey's, but the line was much too long for our liking and we needed to get to Spanish Fork...so we got donuts instead and took off. Once the Raleigh fam was gathered in Spanish Fork, we loaded up the cars and headed up the canyon to hike to the hot springs. I've hiked it twice before, and so has Christian, but I'd never done it during the day and it was beautiful! We also were amazingly able to do the almost four mile hike with a three year old. Matthew wanted to stop and throw rocks and look at bugs more than we did, but he kept moving along and was a little trooper. In the end, Matt ended up beating me back because of course, I rolled my ankle. Not fun at all, but at least I had my dad and Christian with me at the time to help me hobble back the last half mile. Thankfully it's not gonna ruin my marathon training for too long and doesn't hurt anymore - just not pretty too look at.

Back out of the canyon, we had a fun lunch at the park and then went home to rest and recoup a little. That night we got to see the Bennions too! The fam flew in to go to the Bees baseball game and see the fireworks. We had a blast watching the game, fireworks, and stuffing all ten of us in a mini-cooper! We stopped at a park afterwards to do some fireworks and almost got beat up by a scary guy when some of Christian's brothers decided to throw a popper at his back (bad idea boys). After a shove and few expletives from him he walked away and we were alright...but good story! Here are some pics of our day:

The waterfall at the hot springs

Beautiful butterfly we found on the trail


On the baseball field waiting for the fireworks to start

Me with Mary Todd Lincoln and her good husband (we met them at a little celebration at the Freedom Festival)

We're ba-ack!

Yes, after after a long hiatus we are back! And we are married! Life is so good and a month has flown by. Here's a little itinerary of our last month's world tour:

May 23 Wedding- Mt. Timpanogos Temple
May 24 Las Vegas, NV
May 29 Fresno, CA
June 4-8 Hermiston, OR
June 18-21 Clearwater Beach, FL

It was a wonderful, whirlwind month but it's so good to be back in our new little home and start a normal routine. We are so excited for July but before we move on, let's look back at the highlights of our travels:

WEDDING!
The day was lovely. Everything went smoothly with no horror stories to report (the worst thing was probably the rain, but it started promptly at the end of the reception, so we had a quick clean-up and no lingering guests!) The ceremony was beautiful and all of our families were there to share the day with us - it couldn't have gone more perfect :) :) Thank you to all who were able to make it!! We really really appreciate your support and love. Facebook will highlight the majority of our wedding pictures soon, but here are some of our favorites: