The Rest of Summer

I can honestly say this has been one of the best summers of my life! We had a list of all the stuff we wanted to do throughout the summer, and although we didn't accomplish all of it, we had fun doing what we had time for!

Josh and I went to Capitol Theatre and saw WICKED! It was such a funny, entertaining musical that we would love to see again. 

Josh and my step-dad Nathan went to the IRON MAIDEN concert at the Usana Ampitheater. That type of music is too extreme for me so I went out to dinner with them at Pat's BBQ and then left them to their own demise. 

(Pat Benatar)

  

(Journey)

We went out to dinner with some friends and then spent a beautiful summer night out at USANA watching JOURNEY, PAT BENATAR, AND LOVER BOY!! This concert was a blast and full of so many classics!

And of course, Vegas! We stayed at the Luxor and Treasure Island this time. Both were unique and fun in their own way. The Luxor is so cool on the inside, we had fun just wandering around looking at all the Egyptian stuff. At Treasure Island we got to stay in the honeymoon suite! We each got our own massive bathrooms with a big jacuzzi bathtub and free chocolate covered strawberries sent up by room service! 

We took a trip up to Bear Lake at the end of August to celebrate the end of summer. We stayed in a beautiful Inn not far from the lake for a couple of days and spent the whole time swimming and playing on a Waverunner in the lake, taking morning strolls along trails in the morning, eating really yummy outdoors breakfasts on the patio when we woke up and sitting by the fire outside in the night with the tiki lamps flickering in the gentle wind before we went to bed, overdosing on raspberry shakes (the Bear Lake claim to fame), and experiencing the amazing Maddox restaurant on our way through Logan (my first time!). 

Well, that about sums up summer 2012. Now bring on fall!!!

So Far This Summer

So far this summer has been a very busy one full of fun adventures and vacations and I don't really know where to begin. Let's start with June. 

BEGINNING OF JUNE

We celebrated our 2 year anniversary in the Las Vegas sun. It was so much fun and we were both so sad to have to come home. First we stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel and spent the days swimming, shopping, and doing a little gambling (don't worry, our idea of gambling is spending 20 dollars and calling it a day) and we both ended up winning more money than we spent! 

We got to see the Phantom of the Opera while we were there and it was incredible! I love the music so much and I loved it even more while hearing it in a beautiful opera theater! Afterwards we went to a little french pastry stand at the Venetian and bought mini-cupcakes as our anniversary dessert. It was a perfect night :).

We spent the second half of our anniversary vacation at the beautiful Bellagio Hotel. It was much more luxurious than the Hard Rock and didn't have the "party scene" going on constantly.

Our room was gorgeous and so was the view from our window! 

We spent a lot of time walking around and exploring the strip. The weather was hot (go figure huh?) so we took advantage of the shade whenever we could find it and spent a lot of time exploring the shops and things inside the casinos. The Bellagio garden was beautiful and so creative! Everything was made out of flowers!

We walked to the Coke Factory and sampled all the different Cokes from around the world. It was really fun. We couldn't believe how disgusting some of them were (ahem, Italy) and decided that we were glad to live in America.



MIDDLE OF JUNE
Josh and I saw the Poison/Def Leppard "Rock of Ages Tour" Concert and it was literally a blast from the past! They just don't make music like that anymore. And although the music was great, the people watching was even better! Gotta love the '80's crazies.

 

END OF JUNE
My little sister Briana came to stay with us for a few weeks! I was so excited to pick her up and so sad to have to drop her off :(. I took a little over a week off from work and spent the days with her. It was so fun having someone to exercise with (until she decided that I was too serious about it and didn't want to go with me anymore) and enjoy "girl talk" with.

We went to a SLC Bee's baseball game the first day she was here. 

We also went glow in the dark mini-golfing, bowling, and played the arcade games at Fat Cat's. 

We got a deal that included free bread twists and a pitcher of soda from the Pizza Factory with our bowling! It was time well spent and although Josh beat us at everything, we all did pretty good ;).

Briana turned 15 while she was visiting us! We spent the day shopping and doing "girl stuff" and then later that night had a BBQ, and cake. Happy Birthday Bri!

 

 

We went to a lazer show at the Clark Planetarium. It was so cool! They played music from U2 that went along with the lazers. Walking around the Planetarium was just as much fun and we got to try space ice cream for the first time....it was not bad at all. 

I think my favorite part of her stay with us was when she and I had a picnic at Memory Park and walked through the rose gardens and played in the stream. 

Then we went up to the State Capitol building and explored. 

It was so gorgeous inside! Briana decided that's where she wants to do her Bridals when she grows up ;)

JULY

For the 4th of July we went to Park City and watched the parade. Then we had a BBQ on the balcony and later went to the movie theater and saw Rock of Ages. It was a great day!

As you can see, I'm the only one in the family with enough patriotic spirit to wear red, white, and blue ;)

I could write a whole novel about all the details of everything we've done so far this summer but this will just have to suffice. I feel so lucky to have such amazing sisters and an even more amazing husband who doesn't mind being the only guy when he hangs out with us!

Seriously???

So, at work we have to keep up on our "education" and each month is a different topic. Well, this month's topic is "What to do if there is a bomb threat." I proceed go through the long list of boring slides until I reach the part where you take a quiz to make sure you understand what you have just "learned."

The question read: You answer the phone while working and the caller tells you they have planted a bomb in your clinic. What do you do?

Seriously? I would do what any other non-retarded person would do..... Tell the person, "Thanks Jerk for ruining my day" and then proceed to get all 50 of my patients the heck out of there!

Well, I failed. That's right, failed with a big, fat, F. And why did I fail you ask? Because I forgot to ask the caller the following questions:

1) What is your name? (Or should I just call you psycho bomb threat guy?)

2) Where do you live? (Just in case the police might want to find you and arrest you)

3) Why are you doing this? (I'm sure you never knew your father, but just in case there is another reason behind your idiocracy)

4) And last but not least, Where did you place the bomb? (REALLY???)

And of course the caller is going to answer all of my questions and give me all of his personal information. Heck, maybe I'll even get a chance to try out some psychology classes I've never actually used.

Again I ask, SERIOUSLY???

Ahhh...Florida

I've been meaning to write about our latest adventure but work has been really busy and when I get home all I want to do is cuddle with Josh. Since today I've got an extra half hour before the man of the hour arrives, I decided to use my time wisely! I feel like the luckiest (most spoiled) girl ever to even be able to say this, my work paid for me to go to paradise! That's right, Orlando, Florida baby! And what made me even more lucky was that they let Josh come along with me! Everything was completely paid for, including our AMAZING hotel room in the Walt Disney World Dolphin Resort! We enjoyed our much needed vacation lying in hammocks on the man-made beach, exploring Epcot and all of it's awesome attractions, and eating....and eating....and eating...(it's so hard when everything is free!)

Josh in front of the resort. We took a lot of walks around the beautiful grounds and couldn't get enough of the gorgeous Florida sun!

Oh the hammocks....I think about this moment a lot as I am running around like a mad-woman at work.....

Epcot was a blast! For those who haven't been there, it's a massive park that is divided into countries. So you can travel all over the world in a day! We ate sushi in the Japanese gardens, watched the acrobatics in China, ate a bratwurst in Germany, and were entertained by a belly dancer in Morocco! There was so much more than that but I will spare you the book I'd have to write to describe it all.

I thought this was so cool in Italy! 

We also spent a lot of time in Downtown Disney since it was just a boat-taxi away from our hotel! We had fun eating at the House of Blues and then later went to a Cirque Du Soleil show called "La Nouba!"

Taking the water-taxi to Downtown Disney. The beautiful town in the background is called the Boardwalk. We had a lot of fun walking around there at night and watching the sun set over the water. Josh's favorite part was definitely the ESPN restaurant where we got to be in live footage on ESPN while we ate our meal and tried to answer sports trivia!

And again, did I mention the food??? We made a deal to eat one unique thing from every country. It was a great idea to start with, until we made it half way and started feeling like our stomach's were about to explode. Don't worry though, we did it!

We also ate at Planet Hollywood while we were in Downtown Disney on one of the nights. I had never been there before, and man was I missing out! They had the coolest stuff from all sorts of old movies there!

Me and my handsome hubby hanging out at the Boardwalk on our last night in Florida. We couldn't have asked for a more perfect vacation :). Oh, and I enjoyed the American Nephrology Nurses conference as well.....