Just an Update...

The boys didn't come home with anything on their hunting excursion.
Who called that one?
It was me!

"Michael, at one time men were hunter/gatherers. We're drawing on those instincts." -Dave Richards

Today is the day that Michael became a hunter. Or rather, today is the day my dad decided to make Michael a hunter and failed miserably. He tried to teach him to elk bugle and I recorded the footage:

My dad has been trying to prepare Michael for this hunting trip for a few weeks, but I don't think Michael was quite prepared for all that hunting with my dad entailed. Those backpacks that they are wearing are filled with game bags. Which, I think, is a little optimistic considering Michael's limited bugling abilities and my dad's dismal elk hunting record. Michael's just lucky my dad didn't break out the elk urine...

I feel good about this hunting trip.

Our Life Lately :)

Hello all you patient readers out there! Odd that I have such a hard time updating this blog since I am working as a writer these days. Or maybe that makes sense... either way, it is definitely time to update everyone about the goings-on of the Everton family. Seeing as how our last post was about our anniversary, I have quite a bit of ground to cover. Get comfy, because we have had quite a crazy summer so far.

May
Me and Jill ran the Ogden Marathon! It was both awesome and horrific. Probably leaning more toward the latter. 

Still looking happy at mile 8!

Looking a lot less great at mile 17... Sorry, the husbands didn't get a face shot.

Aaand I've pretty much fallen apart completely down the stretch to the finish.
I really feel like this picture captures my best side.
Jill, on the other hand, looks like she could go do it again.

SO happy to done with that painful thing.

We finished in 4:30 and are pretty stoked about it. Are we going to do it again? Eh, the jury's still out on that one.


June
In the first week of June we moved out of Wymount Terrace, our very first home. It was stressful to move but exciting to move on. All in all, we are pretty excited to no longer be undergrads. I might only be speaking for myself on this one... Michael sings the BYU fight song every night before we go to bed.


Right after we moved out of Wymount we went to Moab for some serious mountain biking and camping. It was actually pretty terrible... Like, 30mph gusts of winds terrible.

See how overcast it looks? Those aren't clouds, that's sand in
the air from how windy it was. Yikes.

On Sunday we went on a picnic near the Negro Bill Trail.

Aaand looked at some sweet fossilized dinosaur footprints.

And on Monday we did this. Of course.

Where Michael ended up on his face. Of course :)

Later that week, KENNAN GOT HOME FROM HIS MISSION!!! After 2 (long) years in the San Fernando, California Mission, my baby brother came home and my family could not be more excited about it.

best.day.ever.

Colten got the revenge he has been plotting for 2 years.

And on Saturday. ASHLEY & BOSTON GOT MARRIED!! We are just so excited for these two :) They are perfect for each other. And this day was absolutely beautiful. Ashley looked stunning (as per usual). I just can't say enough about how excited we are. I wish we were in Provo so we could hang out with them next year! Unfortunately, I didn't end up with a single picture from this day. Booo! Here are some pictures from their bridals to give you an idea of how the lovely couple looked :)

Not to brag or anything, but I did her makeup :)

Not that she needed the help.

Love this!

July
After some playing with the Everton family (including the two cutest kids under the age of 5 I have ever met), we went to HAWAII with my family! And sadly, I only got 1 single picture of this event. Fail. My skills in capturing history are seriously lacking.

I'll take the second one on the left, please :)

After Hawaii, it was on to Jackson, WY with the Evertons!

Yellowstone looks cool, but smells pretty disgusting.

  

Nate loves his grandpa!

This is probably my favorite picture ever.

Our close encounter with wildlife.

Old Faithful!

I like this boy :)

Family picture! We look pretty sharp, no?

Now that we're back in Seattle, it feels really good to just be hanging out in pajamas all day, watching Penelope, and trying to figure out what to make for dinner. So far the summer of 2012 has been filled with travel, adventures, and excitement. I'm quite ready for it to be filled with a little boredom :) That'll probably only last about a week though.


One last thing. Me and Michael went on a hike at sunset to the Puget Sound last week. It was pretty incredible. After all of these pictures of places we have traveled to, here is one from our new home. We are a little in love.

ps: visitors are welcome!

dark mark

the other night i was walking past my mirror when i noticed something suspicious on my back. something that hadn't been there the last time i checked. it was a brand. new. creepy. mole.

i shudder.

well i might have freaked out a bit... unfortunately my discovery took place moments before i climbed into my bed. so naturally i fell asleep thinking about melanoma. and brightly colored banbandas to cover my chemotherapied head. and if me and michael would have time to squeeze in a baby before my untimely death. and my widower husband at age 23.

hi, my name is dani and i am a hypochondriac.

the very next morning i made an appointment with the dermatologist the moment the sun was in the sky and then skipped off to class filled with a new-found resolve to take tim mcgraw's advice.

by the time my appointment rolled around the next morning at 11:10, i was fully ready to go look for that bull named fu man chu, completely braced for devastating news. and after 30 minutes of waiting, i finally met the doctor, who showed absolutely zero signs of concern. all he did was numb me up, cut that creeper off of my back, slap on a tiny little bandaid and send me out the door. i have to admit, after 48 hours of frantically imagining the moment of devastation, it was pretty anticlimactic. but guess what, i'm very happy about that.

so here's my public service announcement for the day/week/month/year/lifetime: WEAR SUNSCREEN!! i wish i would have paid attention to this announcement when i was younger. and if you happen to have been dumb like me back in the day (or even if you weren't, actually): check your body for little black creepers. you do not want to find one of those guys too late.

just do it.

summer lovin

we love the summer.

and each other.

so i thought this was an appropriate title for this post :)

and turns out that we have been having quite a bit of fun lately.

case in point: moab trip, aka a story of mountain biking, sun burn, and soaring temperatures.

let's just say that we had way too much fun.

on thursday after i got out of class i got home to find the subaru packed and ready for some partying in the desert. shortly after taking off, though, we realized that the sube isn't quite ready for summer... before we even got on the interstate our little car started overheating. having dealt with this same issue last summer, i realized that we would have to drive all the way to moab without air conditioning. eek.

turns out that it wasn't too bad though. we drove all the way with the windows rolled down and country music and THE KILLERS blaring way too loud. i kind of loved it. i feel like that is the true meaning of a road trip. fun fun fun :)

right when we got to town, we ran around downtown trying to find a restaurant with a tv that was on espn so that we could watch the draft. michael wanted to know who the jazz picked and all i really cared about was where jimmer ended up going. the only places we could find were a sports bar (literally a bar. we would have had to show our id's to stay) and a reallllly expensive italian restaurant. our desire to watch the draft proved so great that we ended up staying at said expensive italian restaurant. we even ordered dessert because jimmer hadn't been drafted yet. turns out that our love for the jazz (michael) and jimmer (me) knows no financial constraints...

after our ridiculously expensive dinner, we got to our campsite, set up our cute little tent and then headed out to go on a bike ride at the poison spider trail that was really close to our camp. so. much. fun. but hard! dang, biking on all that red rock is not the same as biking in the wasatch mountains, tell you what. it was real fun though. we didn't get too far because the sun started setting, so we turned around to avoid having to come back in the dark. 

friday morning we woke up and hiked to bowtie and corona arches because the trailhead was right across the street from our site. it was way too fun. we just hung out in the sun for a little bit and admired the awesome arches before heading back. post-hike, we went biking again on the slickrock practice trail (as per the fact that i am really not the best biker in the world and not quite ready to brave the wiles of slickrock in full force). i think this was a good plan because it was so dang hot outside by the time we got there. like a hundred degrees hot. eeeeek.

post-bike ride(s), we found a (nasty) lake to cool off in, ate a picnic, and went to our new campsite (in town, with showers and a POOL!) to go swimming. after observing the other swimmers in the water complaining about how harsh the chemicals were, though, i decided to protect my hair and stay away from that business. michael didn't think twice about it though.

post-swim, we decided to enjoy the other anticipated amenity of the rv park: the showers. hallelujah. just to recap, we had gone on two bike rides, swum in filthy water, and languished in the sun for more than 24-hours without showers. they felt great. the cleanliness didn't last too long though, because we decided to go do the slickrock practice trail again... and it was amazing. it had started to cool down a bit and was absolutely gorgeous. loved loved loved it. 

afterward, we returned to the campsite to find that michael's family had arrived! we helped them set up camp and hung out for awhile before going to bed early so that we could go biking again in the morning.

which leads to probably my favorite bike ride i have experienced of yet: klondike bluffs. so much fun! and it wasn't too terrible for a newbie like me. it ended in arches, so it was gorgeous. i can't wait to go back to moab and do this ride again!

after getting back, we went rafting down the colorado river. this was so fun, but i got absolutely fried. i don't think my thighs have seen that much sun in awhile... i think everybody was a bit sunned-out by the time we got done, so we decided to head home. again, with the widows rolled down :)

best. vacation. ever

what's been goin on

(title from this awesome song)

so michael has been partying it up at ragnar with his family for the past 24-hours and i have been sitting at home, all alone. this is our first night of marriage that we have spent apart! i was thinking that it would be relaxing to have a night to just read like a maniac, not feeling guilty about neglecting michael. in actuality, i have  been waaay too bored for my own good. in fact, last night i went through every. single. wedding & engagement picture that we have (roughly 1,000) and ate a bit too much ice cream. pretty pathetic, huh?

in the meantime, my cutie husband is off running in this with his awesome family (a few of them, anyway):

the wasatch back.
i have never been more jealous in my entire life.
he was sick all last night but will be finishing his last leg really soon. that boy is hardcore. aaand pretty cute.
PLUS the bryce canyon half marathon is in exactly 28 days. i'm so excited!

---
life lesson learned this week: only two more finals weeks left for each of us until we graduate!! while this isn't necessarily a "life lesson," per se, it is something that really, really, really awesome. i can't wait :)

A Hell's Angel's Taste in Music + 2 Other Points of Interest

1.

Around 12:05 pm today, I was running (late) to an English class up on campus. While walking along the western side of the Talmage building, fully resenting the fact that I was heading off to class and not watching Survivor back at my apartment (ps: I'm rooting for Boston Rob!), I faintly heard the strains of a pop song playing in the distance.

As I was craning my head around every which way trying to identify the source, I noticed a gigantic (seriously. GIGANTIC. Think Hagrid-sized) motorcycle, manned by a grizzly, old man that was quickly approaching me on the road.

Now, for those of you who have never experienced the… I want to say conformity, but that has negative connotations. Insert a neutral synonym for the word conformity here… of the BYU campus, you should know that this sight was seriously, seriously odd. There are no old, bearded men riding their hogs through campus. At least not that I have ever seen. Either way, it was an odd enough sight that I took notice of the fact that it was odd.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I realized that the pop song (T. Swift's "Love Story") that I heard immediately prior to seeing him was absolutely blaring from his speaker system. Blaring, I tell you. I passed a bunch of strangers and we all cracked up laughing.

2.

St. Patrick's Day + an alarming development. Three times today, I have found myself mid-stride, walking in the direction of a stranger who was not wearing green. With the intention of pinching them. Not a joke. I realized that this was a problem when all of a sudden I though, "Dani. What are you doing?" And then realized that I was rapidly approaching a bespectacled professor who was not wearing green. Eek.

3.

BYU plays Wooffard today. Wooton. Woffles. Whatever that team is. Either way. I predict that we will win. I also predict that San Diego will lose in the first round. Ah yes, sweet vindication.

---

Life lesson learned this week: Brick Oven Pizza. Not a great place to let your sister throw you a bridal shower. Especially when you start opening gifts... Let's just say that I blushed more last night than I ever have in all of my life combined. And it was all witnessed by a couple on their first date, two families, and one creepy old guy who kept glancing over his shoulder to check out the action...

okay okay okay.

i know we're not (quite) married yet, but i am waaay too excited about this new blog to NOT say hi to the world from behind it.

so hi :)

in 16 days me and mikey are going to be married!

i only have one thing to say about that: hallelujah.

i had always heard that being engaged was majorly stressful, but turns out that being engaged and planning a wedding in the middle of the school year is virtually impossible.

yikes.

but i'm all about building character these days, so i know that it will all be for the best at the end of the day (16 days from now...).

the most exciting news around here is that while michael is going through a testing week (i feel for that kid, by the way. i'm so SO glad that i am not in his place. he's amazing though, i have to tell you), i am getting ready to (finalize plans with the florist, seamstress, baker AND videographer/maintain a wedding diet (not possible as per the fact that i am definitely, definitely a stress eater)/shoot bridals) go through the temple!

whew.

much to everyone's surprise, i got all the signatures necessary.

ha jk. i hope not too many people are surprised...

i am so excited!

in 10 days i will be here:

i feel like i've sung "i love to see the temple, i'm going there some day" about a million times over the past 23.09 years, but the "some day" is just right around the corner these days. exciting stuff, no?

---

life lesson learned this week: brush your teeth. every day and night. if you are interested in how this life lesson was learned, please direct your questions to mr. michael james everton, my soon-to-be husband :) but i think he wouldn't be too happy with me if i revealed any more information...