Nate's 25th Birthday

April 20th was my brother Nate's 25th birthday. Happy birthday, bro. Love you.

Nate, Hollie, and Hollie's friend Tammy after getting a little FroYo after dinner.

Austin and Krys practicing their smile for the photo booth

The photo booth showcased a few past photo takers. My brother pointed out that the girl in the middle looks freakishly like my 10 year old self. Thanks, FroYo for reminding me of that. YIKES and hilarious! (and a little creepy...)

Mom, Becca, and I crammed ourselves into the tiny photo booth for our 10 seconds of paparazzi

Yumm!

Yeah, we basically took over the little shop

Life: In Pictures (Finals May 2011 style)

Some things we're loving, Finals Week of Spring 2011 style:

Schools out for the summer! Not just a great song, a great state of mind.

The fact that it's been a YEAR since Becca moved in

Now that it is summertime, we can read books again! The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins completely blew us away. Such a fun, easy read that went by way too fast. And, for the record, officially the FIRST books I've read just because I wanted to since I started grad school. I'm back in the game!

Charlie Chow's is our local neighborhood Chinese Food dive. We're obsessed with this place and servers know us by name. Creepy? No. FANTASTIC. Perhaps we should start calling ourselves Charlie's Angels.

No explanation needed...

Mac n' Cheese--thanks for getting us through finals!

Tony Hawk Project 8 is my current "school is over" obsession. As for Becca? She prefers an afternoon of "Call of Duty".

Finally, we're loving the love sac. I almost gave this love sac away once. That would have been a tragedy. And this is the face of finals right here...exhausted. Another semester down!

Lazy Lazy after Crazy Crazy

This semester has been cray-cray. So much going on for both of us that it is nice to be able to follow up a week of absolute crazy with a weekend of completely lazy!

{Crazy}: teaching, classes, prospectus draft five, first week of full time teacher for Becca, lots of meetings, dog sitting all week, Saturday classes and Saturday presentations, bell hooks in town, student meetings, NAECY accreditation

{LAZY}: napping, French toast extravaganza (so hungry!), NCAA basketball (Becca even cheered!), Charlie Chow’s, Skip Bo (three rounds, Becca won two of three), Red Eye, and some good quality time together ;) WHEW. Finally.

Dog sitting

We have the opportunity to dog sit for some pretty adorable pups from time to time. We love them and therefore they had to make an appearance on our blog. Consider this our first ever dog blog.

Sweet Arrow

The always dapper Beau...how GQ is this picture?!

The ever curious and playful Gracie

Three pups on the bed and the little one said, "roll over...."

Hanging out with the pups in the study. This is what every day looks like with them. Love it.

Here's what a prospectus looks like! No better company than those pups and Becca.

Becca loves feeding the pups! Ha!

One of the best things about pup-sitting is that Ellie misses us so much she is actually CUDDLY when we get home. That, folks, is what we call a win/win situation.

Gaga Oooh La La

Ro ma ma ma!

Saturday, March 19th was epic. The day started with a 10K run and ended with the much anticipated Lady Gaga concert at Energy Solutions Arena. I haven't been too excited about the concert since Gaga showed up to the Grammy's in this:

I was feeling over it. I get it Gaga, you're pushing the limits, blah blah. I also am a bit of a Madonna loyalist and therefore held my own standing behind the material girl. Well, my name is Kathy and its been several weeks since my last confession: I ATE MAJOR CROW LAST NIGHT. This concert was in one word--EPIC. I still think the stuff she does is crazy town, but now I give her the same rights as one Celine Dion. Be as bat shit crazy as you want, just keep singing! I've been to many concerts in stadiums, but I have never EVER been to a stadium concert with this kind of energy.

From minute one of her set until the lights begrudgingly turned on around midnight, the entire stadium was electric. Even the nosebleed sections were on their feet and dancing the entire concert. Gaga is a performer and an amazing one at that. I lost count with wardrobe changes right around 8 or so. She played the piano often, including a mellow version of "Born This Way" out of a flame enveloped piano top that I went head over heels Gaga for. She also pulled out the cello, guitar, and some mad vocals throughout the evening. And did I mention the woman can DANCE?! She preached her gospel and I bought into every musical word. Becca and I danced and sang the night away last night and had a blast doing it. (When "Bad Romance" came on Becca peed a little in her pantalones, I'm sure!)

Thanks to Becca's parents for including us in this fantastic adventure. I stand corrected! What a blast it was. We had a ball at the Monsterball. Gaga? Oooh La La.

Arriving at the Energy Solutions Arena (it will always be the Delta Center to me)

Gaga takes the stage. Her set was incredible--so entertaining.

Probably the most I've seen of her face. Ever.

Becca's face when "Bad Romance" came on. :)

Thanks to the Swain's for inviting us to the Monster Ball. We sure love you!

10K--Leprechan Lope

Another stepping stone for training for our half marathon completed today!

Some friends of mine from high school are working toward running the Utah Valley Half Marathon on June 11th. In efforts to stay on track we've been running smaller races as well. Today we ran the Leprechaun Lope in SLC.

The course started at the state capitol and wound UP city creek canyon for what felt like approximately 9 years. I was the absolute LAST person to finish and got my special o'lope-ics award for it. :) A favorite memory is when I was still headed toward the top of the canyon (UPHILL) and a truck slowed down next me. A woman with dismay on her face and a leprechan top hat on her head said "I just closed the rest stop! I'd been waiting a while and thought there couldn't be anyone else. I'm so sorry! Do you want my Sprite?" Kill me now. No, I don't want your Sprite, thanks much. I got to the top at 10am, which was an hour into the race (Christina had finished by then!!!). The second half was down hill the entire way, so those three miles were amazing, minus the tornadic winds. My final time was 1:47, 11 minutes less than my goal of finishing in two hours. Listen, people. Baby steps! I beat my goal and came in under time, Christina made it in just over an hour, Megan was right after that, and Ashley whopped her goal of an hour and a half by coming in at 1 hour 19 min. Ladies, we're well on our way to a successful HALF!!! Thanks to Becca for being an amazing photographer. I love these girls and had a great morning running with them, followed by some fabulous $5 french toast at Kneaders.

Becca's a fantastic photographer so I got a a bajillion pictures. These pics are straight from Ashley's blog, so thanks for formatting! :)

{before the race, start at the capital..}

...its really really really cold

awkward bathroom pics ;)

we just got news its an uphill race..

...and we're off!

..and see that canyon? we pretty much ran all the way up it.

//christina

//megan

//ashley

//kathy

{end @ memory grove}