we did it!!

We Graduated!
I have been dreaming about the day I would write this post for a loong time. You see, I never really wanted to go to "real" college (a university). I opted for hair school instead. Well, turned out I did not really love doing hair in a salon after school either. I went on a mission and knew when I came home that I needed to finally go to "real" school. I gave myself 3 years to finish.

And guess what?!?

I did it. I graduated with my husband.

As excited as I am to graduate, I am also pretty sad. I love this University more than anything. I have loved being involved in everything possible and while I may not be the most traditional student, I am so happy to have completed this.

I get down on myself a lot because most of my friends graduated from college 4+ years ago, but then I realize how many things I have accomplished in my life and realize the path I took led me to my husband and he is the best part of my life.

Our families got together and we had dinner at my parents house. David's dad got us an ice cream cake and we all just hung out and spent the day getting ready for our European adventure we were going on the next day.

newsies!

Let's interrupt Europe for a minute to talk about NEWSIES! I have seen many Broadway shows (not traveling, actual Broadway in New York), but Newsies is definitely my favorite. The combination of the catchy music, incredible choreography and fun story gets me every time. I love it. I love it so much I saw it twice in New York. When I heard they were traveling to Salt Lake, I knew that would be a show we would have to go to.

It did not disappoint. We may have had to miss class for a night, but it was completely worth it. We LOVE Newsies. 

European Adventure Part 3

Paris-> Brussels

This is a baby post because we had less than 24 hours in this city but Amsterdam was so wonderful it deserves a post of its own.

We hopped on a train to Brussels and fell in love with this city.

Brussels was incredible. I had heard so many negative things about it when planning locations for this trip and almost didn't go but I am so glad we did. It was gorgeous and the architecture was amazing. What a fantastic city. It was very interesting to see how they were remembering the attacks that happened not so long ago. With Shrines set out in front of churches among many other things. You could just tell the city was United.

 We explored the grand place and a bunch of other unique building as well as the man skin de pis.

We had a waffle.. Or two, or three and they were seriously the best of my life. Waffle love has nothing on the real thing. 

We tried Belgian chocolate, which was also easily the best chocolate I have ever tried and we wandered some more. We had 12 hours in Brussels and felt it was ample time to explore.

I included this picture because David could tell I was tired of carrying my bag and walking and he so kindly took it. 

European Adventure part 2

London-> Paris

After our time in London Town we had to catch a train to Paris. The train was delayed and it was pouring rain when we arrived to we quickly found food and slept. That rushed meal actually turned out to be one of the best meals of our entire trip.

Lets just go ahead and excuse my poor photography for the rest of these posts.

We got super lucky and were upgraded to this massive room with two bedrooms where we were greeted with a gorgeous view of the twinkling Eiffel Tower. The next morning we headed to Disneyland!

 The first time I went to Disneyland Paris was kind of awful. It was fun but was so busy and just blah. This time was awesome! It wasn't busy. We rarely waited. It was just so much fun. It poured rain almost the whole day but we still loved it.

There were so many random characters there not found in the parks in the states. Like Abu, and baloo also showed up in the parade as well as the lion king. We loved it.

European Adventure part 1

6 airplanes, 3 trains, countless public transportation rides, and another epic Price vacation under our belt! 

David and I graduated and to celebrate we originally were going to do an epic east coast road trip but a trip to Europe seemed more appropriate. When we first started dating we both had these huge long lists of places we wanted to travel to and knew that traveling would be a priority in our marriage. We make a lot of sacrifices in order to save the money to do so. Europe was a dream and we loved every minute of it (well almost every minute).

 We took a flight to lax landed at 7 am and had a layover until 7:45 that night so what do you do when you have 12 hours in California other than Disneyland... Go checkout the new Harry Potter world. 

 We had a fun day and loved Harry Potter land, universal studios on the other hand was not that impressive.

(click to read more of our adventure)

love story part 1

One of my favorite bloggers once shared part of her love story on her blog. My sister and I were obsessed with her beautiful story of love and we could not wait to read the next piece as soon as she shared them... but they she stopped and never finished. Well ever since I had read hers I knew one day I would want to share mine so that I can always remember those fun details.  Since this blog is my piece of the world to do what I want with, here it is. I am warning you now, it is not really epic, and it's not super dramatic, but it's mine and I love it.

It started in probably July of 2011. I was in Clinton, Mississippi serving an LDS mission. My companion and I had district meeting with two other sets of missionaries each week (known as our district). The District Leader happened to be David. I do not remember much about David, other than the fact that my companion and I helped him write love letters to this girl he was writing. We gave advice, we wanted this girl to be impressed. It was our fun while being away from home. I think he was only the district leader for 6 weeks. I can't even remember. We crossed paths a few times but that was that.

Flash forward to 2012, I got home in October, he got home in June (I think). We became facebook friends and that was that. We had a conversation in messenger that went a little something like this:

Me: Price, what's up? How are you? I see you are going to the U, how do you like it?
D: It's great, I am enjoying it. Life is great.

There were a few more exchanges but that was pretty much all.

Flash forward another maybe 6 months and my sister and I realized we needed another group of friends to hang out with. Most of ours had dropped off the planet in their own marriages and new relationships and so we decided to go through facebook and figure out if there was anyone on there with a potential fun group of friends. David came to mind and I messaged him again inviting him to go to Utah gymnastics....

fly with the utes

The University of Utah has an ongoing promotion with Alaska Airlines where one person before each sporting event gets picked to win an opportunity to win a free flight. The person gets a big airplane and they have to land it on one of 7 circles with different locations written on them. I have seen it won maybe 4 times in the 50+ sporting events attended over the years.

Well...I got lucky and was chosen to attempt to win a trip at one of the gymnastics meets. Of course I did not have high expectations because it seemed almost impossible. But....I won! I did it. I have no idea where I am going to go, but it was definitely a huge highlight of the year that I want to remember. This also serves as my "I love gymnastics post" for the year.

 I took over the MUSS snapchat for a night. it was so much fun!

 right before i won my flight!