1 year anniversary: Viva Las Vegas!

For our 1 year anniversary we went to Las Vegas for 4 days and had so much fun! We've both been to Vegas before so seeing the sights wasn't the top of our list.  We stayed at a great resort that had 3 swimming pools and a lazy river, so as you can imagine we spent many hours at the pool!  However, we did spend time on the strip each day and did some things we've never done before. 

 We had to stop at the Las Vegas sign for a few pictures.  There were 3 tour buses there, many cars and even a wedding party, so we snuck up on the side of the line to get some pictures and took a few goofy ones as well.  We both got a hat from the Hard Rock cafe and decided to sport them that day.  Elvis Presley was also at the sign and offered pictures but did say that he works for tips.  We choose to bypass the offer. 

One of our stops was the Hoover Dam right on the Nevada Arizona border.  Neither of us had been there before and it was breath taking.  There is a new road that was recently built that goes over the dam and its 880 feet above the water.  We drove down on the old road to take pictures from below and then walked across the new bridge above.  It was amazing! As we looked at the wall to the right we laughed about the movie "Vegas Vacation" with Chevy Chase and the part the dam plays in the movie. 

This is the view from the new road above the dam.  If you're afraid of heights its probably a good idea not to look down or even walk across it. 

The view from the old road.  Gives you some perspective of just how high the new road is. 

There is so much concrete here.  It took 30,000 cubic yards of concrete and 16,000,000 pounds of steel just to build the new road.  I can only imagine how much concrete was used to build the dam itself. 

We went on the roller coaster at New York New York and it was sweet! We both love rides and roller coasters of all types and are pretty willing to try any of them that we can.

Insanity, the ride at the top of the Stratosphere!

Our anniversary was Monday so we had a late night at the strip.  I get tired about 10pm each night and we got back to our room at 1:30 am, so you can imagine how tired I was.  We had to make a pit stop for some caffeine about 11pm for both of us haha.  However, we had so much fun playing on the strip and celebrating!  We kicked off the evening by eating dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe and it was delicious! After that we walked around the strip seeing sights and doing some things.  We had to stop at the M&M's world and get some random colored candies.  They were definitely the most expensive M&M's I have ever bought and ever intend to buy.                                                

Then we decided to head to the north end of the strip.  There we went to the top of the Stratosphere and it was awesome! It was about midnight by this time so seeing the lights was far better than being up there during the day.  There are 3 rides at the top where the viewing deck is and we went on the ride called Insanity.  You sit in these chairs and the ride goes out over the edge of the Stratosphere and looking down is kinda scary at first knowing not much is strapping you to the chair.  Then the ride spins you around for awhile and then it's over.  It was a great view and so cool to look down and see just far up you really are. 

If you look in the picture to the right you can see the cables behind us.  That is for those people that decide to Bungee Jump off the top of the Stratosphere.  We wanted to do it sooo bad but it was way to expensive.  We saw some people do it however and it looks like an amazing experience and it's one that been added to our bucket lists!

We also went to downtown Las Vegas that same night to see the Fremont Street light show.  There's 1 city block that is covered and a light show put to music is displayed above you.  It's pretty cool to watch.  There were all sorts of weirdos downtown though, so we didn't stick around to do too much after the light show. 

The Hard Rock souvenir shop had lots of sweet things we wished we could buy but we just stuck with a hat for each of us, shown in the pictures at the beginning of the blog.  Kevin decided to model this sweet hat for the camera but we decided it's not really his style haha.  He's so goofy!

This is us at our table at the Hard Rock Cafe  where we ate dinner in celebration of our 1 year anniversary!

One of the three awesome pools at our resort.  This was the largest pool but more kid friendly so we swam at a different pool most of the time.  We were fortunate enough to have the pool to ourselves most of the time.  We spent about 2 hours at the pool each morning as well as in the evenings some nights.  We even bought goggles and dove for coins a lot.  It's just fun to have something to do and I guess you can say we're still kids at heart haha. 

One of my favorite pics from our trip! I called this the 'love fountain' and it was outside of Caesar's Palace.  I sure do love Kevin, he makes me so happy, and I feel so fortunate that he picked me!! : )

We had some time to kill before catching our shuttle back to the resort  one night, so we walked around inside Caesar's Palace and stumbled upon this awesome escalator! It twisted around and took you up all 3 floors.  We didn't really have a reason to ride it but we did just so we could say we did!!

We had a great time going to Las Vegas and although it was warm down there, we were lucky enough to have the cooler temps most of the days we were there, cooler temps being 95-100 degrees haha.  I can't believe we have been married for 1 year now.   Our love has grown so much over the last year, so much more than I could've ever imagined.  We have had quite the adventure over the last year and look forward to eternity together!

Sunburns and Mosquito bites

Our summer of family reunions and vacations has commenced and is quickly coming to an end. I am VERY behind when it comes to blogging.  I decided one post about the 4 trips thus far would be way too much so I split them up into 2. 

Our first adventure was at Wolf Creek in the Ogden canyon down in Utah with the Barber family.  All of the kids, spouses, and grandkids were there and we had so much fun!!  The resort was in a beautiful location surrounded by the mountains.  Kevin and I were only there for the first few days because of having to come back for work so we missed out on a lot of stuff.  The things we did do were lots of fun though.  We spent one day swimming at Cherry Hill water park and everyone got sunburned I think but it was fun.  I was surprised to see Mike and Tena (Kevin's parents) going down the water slides.  The resort had a great pool so we swam a lot as well as doing outdoor activities such as basketball, tennis, horse shoes, hiking, etc.  We, the adults, spent many hours playing cards after the kids had gone to bed and we had a lot of laughs.  When it comes to cards I'm a pretty good player and I think all of the Barber siblings and spouses now know that about me.

I somehow got roped into playing basketball with Tim, Todd, Chad, Kevin, and Emilee.  I wasn't too excited at first as sports is definitely not a favorite thing of mine to do.  I don't mind waching but when it comes to playing them I've never been any good at it and have decided I never will.  I got to play because Emilee played and they wanted one girl on each team (no hard feelings Emilee).  In the end I did admit to having fun playing with them.  They were of course nice and let me shoot and dribble the ball when someone was nice enough to pass it to me, but I didn't have a problem with just hanging out in the back of the court or the side lines and not touching the ball haha.  Emilee fell on the court and scraped up her leg pretty bad so Matt, her husband, took her spot.  I then got to guard Chad.  Now Chad gets picked on a lot by his brothers but he's a good sport about it.  I can't say I ever played basketball with the boys but now I can.  There was sweat flying and ball fighting but it was fun to watch Kevin and his brothers play.  When I played t-ball as a little kid I was hit in the face with the ball in the outfield and ever since then I have had this fear of balls coming at my face.   For this reason I never go under the basketball hoop.  Also, that seems to be a very competetive place to fight for the ball and I didn't want any part in it.  In the end, I did make a few baskets and had a great time playing, although I'm sure they were all laughing inside at how horrible my skills are haha.

I was horrible at taking pictures on this trip unfortunately but I did get a couple. 

                                            This is a picture of the dam below our resort. 

                                  Kevin and Emilee playing tennis against Chad and Kelsey.

Our next adventure was the following weekend at Copper Basin with my dad's family.  This is one of my favorite places ever! Growing up I can't tell you how many years of memories I have of being up there but I love the fact that now Kevin and I get to make our own memories up there.  At the campground we are about 1 hour from cell phone service and 1.5 hours from any sort of store and basically civilization and it's THE BEST thing ever! Four wheeler rides, hiking, lots of card playing, delicious food, and sitting around the fire making memories.  Here are a few pictures to enjoy.

 My grandpa Ed takes lots of naps! Him and Grandma are wonderful people and we all love them so much! What great examples to look up to of marriage, the importance of family, and having gospel centered lives.  I sure do love spending time with them and appreciate all that they do. 

 A tradition of ours is to hike up to Greek Lake each year.  It's always an adventure because you never know the condition of the trail.  Sometimes we can get a car up to the trail head and sometimes only 4 wheelers can get up the road so it's always an adventure.  We have to go through large creeks to get to the road that takes you to the trail head and Kevin loves to get us wet when we have the opportunity. This year we could get cars up the road so we had two vehicles and many 4 wheelers hauling people to the trail head.  At the bottom of the trail head is this cabin, seen below, that has been there for a long time.  Each year the roof falls in a little more but we can still get in there for pictures.  Another thing we always encounted up at the lake is snow.  We're sitting at about 10,000 feet so its chilly but beautiful!

This is my Dad and Lynn with most of their kids and grandkids.  It's nice to get together as we don't all live in the same places and states and visits are sometimes very spaced out.

 Grandpa Ed with most of his grandkids and great grandkids.  We had 35 people up at camp this year and that's probably the most that will ever be up there all at the same time. 

 Kevin and I with Green Lake in the background.  It's all glacier water so it's freezing cold but glistens green and beautiful year after year. 

               Grandpa Ed with the grandkids and three grandson-in-laws that were there this year. 

 This is kind of difficult to read, but last year Kevin carved our names into the log by the lake, where everyone carves things, and put "KG 11", adding a 12 this year.  I hope that one day we can have our kids intials added next to ours!

We went on many 4 wheeler rides and found a lot of snow this year.  Snow and tress blocked many trails forcing us to turn around but we had lots of fun exploring and going through the creeks. 

All in all, we had a fun 2 weeks in the sun and the mountains with our families.  We feel so blessed to get to spend time with them and live close to most of them.  Thank goodness that we were blessed with such wonderful families that have great traditions and love spending time together.  We look forward to the day that our children will get to make memories of their own with cousins and aunts and uncles. 

Summer is finally here!!

Well summer is finally here...at least summer break! Gretchen was able to get a job at Mountain View Hospital and is very excited!! She has to be work at 5:30 am and that is definitely going to take some getting used to. I'm pretty sure I will have a regular nap scheduled each day after work haha. Kevin's job at Fall's Fertilizer is going well and he has successfully finished many (like 70) levels of PipeRoll. He tends to have some down time at work depending on the weather, but is still working hard! We have lots of fun trips planned this summer for vacations and fmaily reunions, and we couldn't be more excited. Wolf Creek with the Barber's, Copperbasin with the Reese's and Island Park with the Howard's. We also recently booked a trip to Las Vegas for our 1 year anniversary!  We can't believe we've been married almost a year but what a great one it has been!

Here's a nice picture of our adventures at copper basin last summer.  Gretchen's family has been going there for years and the memories we make there each year are great!  Kevin especially enjoyed playing in the mud and water last year.

It was Kevin's birthday is April and we went to Famous Dave's for his birthday dinner with our great friends Mary and Ty. 

 

With gas prices continuing to climb and the nice weather we have, most days at least, we decided to start riding our bikes to work and anywhere else we can. Kevin has quite the ride, it's about 10 miles round trip while Gretchen's is only about 6 miles. It's been lots of fun to go on bike rides at night and to take them other places we go around town. Our only complaint is that our landlord won't buy a bike rack and we can't lock our bikes on the rail coming up our stairs, so we have the bikes in our apartment. It can smell like a bike in our home but you get used to it after awhile haha.

 
Well, for now we are looking forward to Memorial Day weekend and the extra day off of work.  Soon we will have more pictures to share as our vacations are quickly approaching!

Spring Break

Well it's been awhile since my last post but I have lots to say this time!  Things have been going great lately! We've been pretty busy with school and Kevin's semester was coming to an end...lucky...so he was studying a lot.  My spring break just happened to fall the week before his finals so he had to spend a lot of time studying.  All I wanted to do was play and have fun but he didn't have much time to do that so I ended up spending a lot of time with my mom and sisters.  I hardly touched my homework and it was the best thing EVER!  I got a stupid sinus infection towards the end of the week so it ended kinda crappy but I still enjoyed sleeping in and doing a whole lot of nothing!  Kevin's semester ended last week and he did great on his finals, what a smarty pants!  He got a job at Fall's Fertilizer and will be working there full time for the summer and we are so thankful he got that job, it was a great blessing and just what we needed at the time.  My semester doesn't end until the first of May so I'm still chugging along doing homework and all that lame stuff that takes all my time haha.  We are very excited to have the summer to work and play and we are LOVING this warm weather!

We decided to play an April Fool's joke and it was pretty good I have to say.  On my facebook I posted "Guess who's gonna be a mommy?!" and Kevin posted "Guess who's gonna be a daddy?!"  Throughout the day we had people texting us and commenting on our statuses, telling us congratulations.  At the end of the day we finally updated our statuses and said "April Fools, we're not going to a mommy or daddy".  Neither of our siblings really believed us because they figured we would tell them before we told everyone on facebook (which is true) but we got lots of other people.  The best part was that my aunt Stephanie in Georgia commented on my status saying congratulations and that I would be a great mom.  Then she called my grandma Reese and told her I was pregnant.  Now my grandma was not very happy because we had just been at their house for Sunday dinner and she couldn't believe we hadn't told anyone. She called me and proceeded to tell me about her conversation with Stephanie and I just had to laugh.  I told her it was an April Fool's joke and she was appalled haha.  She told me that she better not have to find out over facebook and I promised her that she wouldn't.  It was so fun! We have to come up with an even better one next year!  Oh and all the credit goes to Kevin for this one, it was all his idea haha. 

Well here's a little run down of my spring break adventures..

Mom and Wayne babysat for Natalee and Adam for a few days.  I went out there one afternoona and we took the boys on the 4-wheeler.  Austin has loved the 4-wheeler since birth so he's always anxious for a ride.  Brody was itching for a ride like his brother go to do so I took him down the street and back.  Grandma was a little nervous..

One night Kevin and I went to Cal-Ranch...my least favorite store haha...looking for work boots for him.  He decided instead to try on cowboy hats.  It kinda looks like he's wearing an earring too haha.  I think I'm glad he doesn't wear those types of hats.. :)

 On Monday of spring break I babysat Natalee and Adam's 2 boys Austin and Brody for a few hours...it was an adventure!  Brody is so mild compared to Austin so it's fun to have one on one time with both of them.  Brody is starting to talk and his little voice is so cute! He loves his blanky and rolls around in it all the time.  Austin was sick that day and didn't want ANYTHING to do with me.  He just wanted his mom and I felt so bad for him.  He finally realized that I was the only person home and decided he would lay on the couch by me, but I couldn't touch him haha.  He is growing up so fast and says the funniest things. 

 Kevin has been trying to watch all the March Madness games he can and this is pretty hard since we don't have any channels at all, even local ones.  We were at my parents one night helping move furniture for their new carpet and wood floors to be laid and Kevin decided to catch the end of the one of the games.  Their TV was covered to protect it from the dirt and dust, hence the table cloth he is hiding under haha.  He ended up getting 1st place in the league with my family (I got 4th) and 2nd place in his family's league.  Go Kevin!!

We got to babysit Summer for a few hours one night and to entertain her while Kevin was studying, I painted her fingers and toes...she's such a girl haha!  It was really hard to get her to hold still for a picture.  She likes Kevin a lot and loves getting his attention.  She wanted to watch Thomas on Netflix so I told her yes and Kevin said no, so she looked to me for help and we both just laughed.  Kevin had a church basketball game that night so Summer got to go for the 1st half.  She would yell, "Go Kevin (she says it like Kenin) Go!" For everyone else on the court she'd yell, "Go people!" She's fun to have around and is always saying funny things.

Well needless to say, Spring break was an adventure. Kevin's birthday is coming up and I'm so excited to give him his present!  I'll be posting again soon...hopefully!

What we've been up to!

We spent Labor Day weekend at Meadow Lake camping with Grandma and Grandpa Reese and my sister Natalee and her family.  We had so much fun!! We set out on our first 4 wheeler ride and had so much fun exploring.  It was our first time up there and it beautiful!

Adam and Austin (who loves the 4 wheeler).  He's the only kid I know that falls asleep while on a ride. 

There's tons of old mines up there that you can get to on a 4 wheeler.  Kevin tried to convince me to get in this one but I said NO WAY because there were probably bugs and all sorts of crawling things that would get me. 

Kevin and I went on a hike one afternoon and he was exhausted so we had to take a break so he could sit down haha jk honey!  It was more of a nature walk and not hard but the view was great right here and it was warm...kind of..

This mischevious squirrel got up on our table and into grandma's delicious rice crispy treats.  He also enjoyed the Cheetos Kevin and I fed him. 

Natalee, Adam, and Austin (Brody stayed at camp with grandma and grandpa)

So one day I had this genuis idea that we should go golfing and use the gift card I got Kevin for his birthday. I tried to convince Kevin that I was better than him but he didn't believe me and we have plenty of witnesses to side with him haha.  We had lots of fun laughing at my golf skills, or lack there of, and I proved that Pine Crest is not the place I should golf, at least until I get some practicing in. 

Kevin won the award for best golfer that day...at least out of him and I. 

 Our cute, $10 Christmas Tree! Kevin did most of the decorating and it turned out great!

We were both very excited to open presents! Kevin had one box that was really big and was getting the best of him!

I caved!

Well...I caved and decided it was time to join the world of blogging.  Kevin and I are enjoying married life, it's been quite the adventure!! We tend to keep very busy with school and working but date night is VERY important, even if we're sitting on the couch watching one of our shows! Oh the joys of being poor and married, but we couldn't be happier!