Happy Birthday Ryan!

Ryan likes to claim that he was born on the best day of the year, in the best month of the year. Not because he was born on July 9th, but because he was just lucky enough to be born on that day in July.  Whatever floats his boat. :)  Anyway, today he turns the big 2-9 and festivities include dinner at Texas Roadhouse, an amazing marzipan cake with homemade ice cream, and night swimming.  Happy Birthday, Ry!!  Oh, and a happy birthday to Ryan's brother, Craig, and nephew, Jackson, who both share the same birthday with Ryan!!

Ryan, Craig, & Jackson on their birthday last year.

Ryan with his birthday loot before he left for work this morning.

Happy Birthday, Ry!  (Sorry for the blurry pic... the camera was apparently on night vision).

Frosting

I have a strange (or maybe not so strange) addiction to frosting.  Not even homemade frosting, but particularly frosting from the can... you know, by Betty or Duncan.  My favorite thing to do with frosting is put it on saltine crackers. Mmmm.... the perfect mixture of salty and sweet!!  I developed this liking from my grandparents because it was always a familiar dessert around their house. I was finally caught once during a mid-afternoon indulgence a few years ago, and found out that my love of frosting wasn't as uncommon as I thought.  Sooner than later, there were a group of about 5 of us so devoted to this sweet treat that we would get together at least once a week for C.N.F. parties (Crackers-N-Frosting).  We even ventured out beyond saltines and tried anything from strawberries to apples to carrots.  I've decided that frosting can make pretty much anything taste good.

There's really no point to this post, other than I have 1/3 of a container of cream cheese frosting in my fridge right now and I really want to go the store to buy some saltines.  If you haven't tried this before, you should.  (And for those of you who say you do this same thing already but with graham crackers, you're missing out.  Saltines are way better with frosting).

The "Marriage 15" and Primary

Remember coming to college for the first time and everyone warning you about the "freshman 15"?  Yeah.  Well, I think this concept applies to the first few months of marriage, too.  Or maybe it's just me.  Either way, what better way to get rid of those extra pounds than to run 180 miles, right? 

Ryan and I are officially members of a Ragnar Relay team. There are 12 people on a team and you each run 3 different legs, ranging from easy to very hard.  They have one of these in Utah, where people run from Logan to Park City.  The one Ryan and I are doing though starts in The Valley of Fire and ends on the strip in Las Vegas.  It's a beautiful route through the red rocks and around Lake Mead.  It starts at 9pm and you run all night until about 5am.  Due to the dynamics of the team, Ryan and I are both scheduled to run the "very hard" routes (long, uphill, etc.).  Yikes!  We just started our training program and will be running it on October 9th/10th!  

On another note, I've recently decided that Primary is the new birth control.  It is IMPOSSIBLE to entertain a bunch of 5-year-olds for longer than 10 minutes (on a good day).  Seriously.  The last teacher these kids had completely wore out ANY game... Simon Says, Tic-Tac-Toe, and even coloring.  And don't try hangman because they can't read.  Any time we mention one of those games we get a simultaneous "NOOOOOO" and the next thing you know, kids are rolling around on the floor, crying in the corner, talking to themselves, etc.  So, the point of bringing this up is to ask if any of you have any suggestions/games for keeping the CTR-5's entertained? Preferably something we can add a church twist to?  Thanks!

Ohio

Thursday morning, very bright and early, Ryan and I hopped on a plane to Cleveland to visit friends and family and to have our wedding reception out there.  As soon as we got in, we checked into our hotel and met up with my parents to go to Hot Dog Heaven, of course.  This little restaurant lets you put on just about any random condiment you could think of and they give you a huge load of fries and cheese, too.  It's a favorite of ours.  (We ate a total of 12 hot dogs in 2 days... this was apparently an important part of our trip).

Hot Dog Heaven:

After sleeping in on Friday, Ryan, my dad, and I drove to Kirtland to do all the tours.  We went to the visitor's center, the N.K. Whitney Store, the Kirtland temple, and the John Johnson farm.  It was beautiful weather and rained for a just a few minutes in the afternoon, making everything even greener and prettier than it already was.  There weren't a lot of people touring today, so by the time we got to the John Johnson farm, we had our own private tours, which allowed the guides to give us more details and stories.  After all the Kirtland stuff, we joined up with my mom and went out to eat at an awesome Cleveland pizza place, Danny Boy's.  

Saturday was the day of our reception.  It was so fun to see a lot of family and friends that I haven't seen in years!!!  Not only was it beautiful outside, allowing us to go out on the patio for a bit, but my mom made it beautiful inside (the pictures don't do it justice).  

The Birch Room at the Fairview Park Recreation Center:

The sign-in table:

The beautiful tables:

The Centerpieces:

The food table (raspberry-almond torts, triple chocolate cake, key lime pie, cheesecake w/ strawberries, cream puffs, eclairs, twizzlers, peanuts... basically the whole shebang):

Nicole and Tyler came all the way from Pennsylvania to see us!  Nicole and I were in the same group in the MPA program and became great friends through late-night stats studying and a lot of non-MPA stuff too!  Apparently the pictures of us with my mom's side of the family is on my dad's camera.  I'll have to post those later.

After church on Sunday, we met up with some extended family for a late lunch before heading to the airport back to Cleveland.  It was a quick trip, but definitely fun and definitely a good break from school and work!

Baby Blessing/Goodbye

Ryan and I had the privilege of heading back down to Provo today for the baby blessing of sweet little Adelynn Rose Robinaugh.  Not only did we go to listen to the blessing, but we went to say our last goodbye before Dave and Tiff head out to Seattle for good.  As lame as it may sound, this could be quite an adjustment as Tiff and I haven't been apart for longer than 2 months since we were about 14. While it was a sad moment for me to realize we were finally saying goodbye for an indefinite amount of time, I am so happy for all of the other exciting adventures we both have in our future!!

Thanks for all of the good memories, Tiff (and Dave)! (Girl's/scout camp; sneaking out; "they just have no clue"; water fights; "his teeth..." you know the rest of that quote; middle-of-the-night Jess runs; vacations to Tennessee/Seattle/Victoria/Boise/AZ/Mexico/lot's of places; setting our alarms to go "running"; extremely embarrassing class presentations; our last-minute move out of Hampton Court; let's be honest, this list could go on forever, so I'll stop for now).

Free Fishing Day

This last Friday was free fishing day in the state of Utah.  Since I had never been fishing before and Ryan loves to fish, I thought this would be a good chance to go.  We went up to Tibble Fork Reservoir in American Fork Canyon.  We sure caught alot..... of moss and other people's lines (whoops).  Besides the fact that it was freezing cold, swarming with people, and we didn't catch any fish, it was still fun to learn how to do it and the scenery around us was beautiful!!  This quick outing got us really excited to go again at the end of summer on our Warm River camping trip!!

UP! and Free Root Beer Floats

So yesterday was several anniversaries for Ryan and I.  It was both of our one-year anniversaries of our internships that turned into jobs, as well as the completion of our first full month of marriage.  Since things were looking pretty "UP!", we thought we might go see a movie to celebrate (lame joke, I know).  

So I'm REALLY scared of heights and particularly of flying and airplanes.  I also used to be terribly afraid of thunderstorms (when I was younger, now I'm a lot better).  Another thing I am scared of no matter how calm I try to be around them are dogs.  Not only was this movie all about flying around like a hot air balloon and in a blimp (with a lot of close-calls of falling), but there were crazy thunderstorms and ferocious dogs.  And in 3-D.   My heart was racing the entire time and my palms got so sweaty that Ryan gave up holding them.  Don't get me wrong though, it's a cute movie.  Just beware if you're afraid of heights, thunderstorms, or dogs. 

On another note, Sonic is giving away free 10-oz. Root Beer Floats tonight from 8pm until midnight while supplies last.