Our Life Lately.

Well, it's been a while.  I apparently fell out of this whole blogging thing for my entire final semester at BYU.  Yep, you read that right...MY FINAL SEMESTER!  In just a couple of weeks I will be a BYU graduate in Human Development.  It's kind of weird because I have been going to school literally my entire life, and now I'm basically done.  Onto new adventures including raising our baby girl and moving across the country.


Here's a catch-up of what we've been up to:

We went to the temple one evening and came out to a beautiful sunset!  So we decided to take pictures.

Colby was part of an Orem city softball team for a few months.  Here is a picture of their team after one of their last games.

The Halloween season was filled with lots of scary movies and time with friends.  We also went on a haunted hay ride and played with goats!  And we kept tradition from both of our families: Boo Burgers for dinner on Halloween evening.

We attended our last BYU home game as BYU students.  It was a bitter sweet moment.

For Thanksgiving, we went to Reno/Carson City and spent a few days with my family!  We went to Lake Tahoe one morning with a few adult family members and a bunch of our nieces and nephews.  It was beautiful up there.

Now onto more current things:

Colby has been working incredibly hard for the past couple of years to get into dental school.  He has an excellent GPA, got an amazing score on the Dental Admissions Test, applied to schools, and interviewed at five different universities.  So far he has been accepted to three different schools: Marquette University (Wisconsin), University of Michigan, and A.T. Still University (Missouri).  We are also waiting to hear from the University of Iowa.  Now's where the real problem comes in--deciding which one we will go to.  We've already decided that A.T. Still is out, but we still have too many to choose from!  It's one of those moments where I wish Colby was only mediocre so he would have only been accepted to one school and we wouldn't have to choose.  We have about 25 more days to make a decision and I know there will be a lot of serious talk and prayer involved.

On another note, things are going well with my pregnancy.  I've been told I need to start posting "pregnancy" pictures, so here's my first one (except it's a few weeks old).  Our baby girl is very active, always kicking.  It's somewhat uncomfortable at times, but also comforting to know she is doing well.  I can't wait for her to be here! (30 weeks down, 10 more to go).  

And now for my bragging time.  I am currently in a Family Life in World Religions class and have loved it.  For my final project I decided to make something similar to a Catholic advent calendar/Jesse Tree, but with my own LDS twist to it.  Here it is!  Between Colby and I the project took about 17 hours (we literally made everything from scratch).  It was exhausting, but worth it!  I am so happy we were able to get it done right before the Christmas season so we could start using it!  Each circle piece has a number on one side and a picture of Christ on the other.  Underneath each are corresponding scripture verses.  I love starting new family traditions, particularly ones that signify the reason for the season: Christ.  

Life is good, and we are so blessed.

Happy birthday Kelsi!

Happy birthday to my sweet Kelsi. 21 years ago on this day God decided to make my life a whole lot better by allowing one of his sweetest spirit daughters to be born on this earth. That is something worth celebrating!

Kelsi is such a calming presence in my life. She has mastered how to deal with my stress and frustration, which makes life much more enjoyable and easy. Never in my life have I had a friend who has been down to do so many crazy things with me as much as Kelsi. I never have to question her enthusiasm and energy to keep up with me. Even with her at 3 months pregnant, sometimes I feel I have to keep up with her drive to constantly be doing something!

 Often times I feel intimidated by the Christlike attributes she displays so often. Her sensitivity to others' feelings and selfless attitude and service to others make me realize it must have been a really hard thing for Heavenly Father to send her away 21 years ago. Man, I'm a lucky guy. Happy birthday and I love you Kelsi!

Our June and July (thus far).

 It's summer, and we are loving it.  Colby and I have been trying to go on plenty of adventures so we don't end up having television/movie marathons every day (although at times it is tempting).


I had never hiked to Stewart Falls, so we decided to give it a try!  It was a great hike--scenic, peaceful, and not too scary for me.  I think Colby is finally catching on that I love hiking, just not when there's a huge cliff right beside me.

The water was very cold, but we built up the courage to get a little bit wet.

We also went to our first Orem Owlz baseball game of the season.  I love summer baseball games because they are nice and chill.

I attended my first Beck family reunion during the 4th of July weekend!  It was filled with lots of food, family, talking, activities, wiffleball, and jet skiing.  Tons of fun.

This last weekend we decided to go to Colorado to visit Skyler, Rebekah, Alicia, and McKay.  It was a jam packed weekend!  First, we went to a Rockies game with Skyler and Rebekah.  This was my second professional baseball game I have been to, the first being a Twins game.  Since the Rockies were playing the Twins in this game, Colby and I went prepared wearing our Twins attire.    

We also went to a bike park that Skyler helps run in Boulder, Colorado.  I was expecting it to be full of leisurely bike trails, but instead found myself riding fast on dirt trails with little humps and optional skills sections.  It was so much fun!  Although he doesn't have much experience, Colby was a bit more of a daredevil than I was.  He loved attempting all sorts of things.
At one point I was watching the kids with Rebekah while Colby and Skyler were off riding.  I randomly looked over to a certain trail--one that REALLY good bikers were going on--and watched a random guy go over one jump, and then flip off his bike on the next.  It looked painful I felt bad for the guy but was impressed that he jumped right back up.  Then he turns around, and I realize it was Colby!  It was such a coincidence that I was watching him right then!  Luckily, he survived the fall.

Here's some of his tricks that he learned.

And then here's me.  It doesn't look like much, but it was.  Trust me.

It has been an awesome summer so far, and I am excited for the many other things we have planned!

Also...

This is the very first time I have every contributed to the weekly "Throwback Thursday."  But I found this video on the computer and it reminded me of how great our trip to Europe was last year! 

This is when we were in Bulgaria.  Right before this video we went cliff jumping into the Black Sea--which was filled with jellyfish, I might add--and then we were walking back to our friend Eva's grandparent's house when we decided to stop at this festival.  Eva pulled me aside, taught me the dance, and then pulled me into the circle.  This is when Colby joined, too!
Ps, the music on this video is really loud, so I would recommend turning your volume down.
Pss, Colby is wearing a blue shirt and I am wearing a a bluish/greenish tank top with cream underneath.

Life is good.

Our April and May.

Colby is applying to dental schools today!  And he takes the DAT in less than two weeks!  Let's just say I'm extremely excited for all of it to be done.  Although Colby has been studying a lot lately, we've also been able to have some fun.  Here's what we've been doing the past couple of months!

I know Easter was forever ago, but I wanted to share all of the fun things that we did!  First of all, we dyed Easter eggs.  No matter how old I get, I still look forward to it. 

Our day was also filled with making a lot of food.  Colby made some amazing hamburgers with everything you can think of inside of them.  They were amazing.  We also made homemade ice cream for the first time!  It wasn't our favorite flavor, but we're excited to try more in the future.  We also made homemade strawberry shortcake with homemade whipped topping.  It was heavenly.

That evening we had an awesome Easter FHE lesson that Colby prepared about Christ--because that's what Easter's all about.  I loved spending time pondering the life of my Savior.  It was a great day and we had fun starting new traditions.

On April 27, we had our one-year anniversary!  To celebrate, we went on a camping trip to Moab.  It was so much fun.  My highlight of the trip was that Colby couldn't start a fire one night--but I could.  Apparently going to girls camp all those years paid off. 

In May, we went on a very impromptu hike with Kasey, Emily, Jimmer, and Jeffrey!  Hiking the Y is so tiring, and yet I still want to do it time and time again.

Don't mind Colby's sweat.  He carried Jimmer up the mountain.

We got a new nephew (Alexander) and two new nieces (Hope & Joy) all within a week!  I went and visited little Alexander over the weekend.  He is adorable; I wanted to hold him for forever.

We have also kept ourselves busy lately with intramural kickball (co-ed), intramural softball, and city softball.  There seems to be a game every night.  Although the softball teams are both men's, I love going and chatting with the other wives during them.  It's been a blast.

There's our life in a nutshell.  Life is good.  We are so blessed.

Our February & March.

Our life has been a little boring lately (hence the post drought).  But here's an update from the last two months.

The semester is almost over, and we are definitely ready for a break.  Plus, I only have one semester left after this one.  Onto bigger and better things.

We have become little chefs recently and like to try to make everything!  I now make a weekly loaf of bread and we make our own tortilla chips (thanks for teaching us, Garrick and Jamie!).  We also love making pizza, bread sticks, marinara sauce, cookies, turkey burgers--basically anything and everything.  Making random food is a favorite of mine and Colby's because it's cheap, tastes good, and we get to spend time together while making it.

Here's one of my beautiful loafs of bread!

We are loving this weather and I spend every minute I can in it.  We have one little patch of grass in our backyard and I've officially claimed it as my spot.  I often set up a camping chair and read or do homework on my spot while soaking in the sun.  Although Colby has been busy studying for classes and the DAT recently (he's taking it mid-June!), I am still able to get him to take breaks with me and ride bikes every once in a while.  A couple of weeks ago, we went up to Bridal Veil Falls.  It was fun although Colby thinks I'm a wimp.  I have become more and more terrified of heights the older I get.  Needless to day, I didn't go as far up the waterfall as he did.  Maybe I'll be brave someday--or maybe not.

We also love going to BYU games!  Recently we have gone to baseball games and a rugby game.  Since Colby has brainwashed me to love baseball, I figured I need to brainwash him to like rugby.  I think it's worked. 

Also..WE'VE ALMOST BEEN MARRIED A YEAR!  It's crazy how time has flown!  Only 16 more days until we are no longer considered newlyweds.


Okay, so I guess our life has been a little more exciting than I thought--we just don't have many pictures to prove it.  But life is good.  

Our January.

Well, January was an exciting one.  It started out with me cutting all of my hair off!  Okay, not really.  But I did cut off 8-inches.  I was incredibly sick of my hair the day before, and so I just decided to go for it.  And who knew I cut off enough to donate?  I guess some places only need 8-inches instead of 10.  So I did a good deed by cutting my hair. 

And wallah!  Here's the after-shot!  (I'm sure Colby is going to love that I posted this picture.  Also, my hair looks abnormally uneven; I promise it isn't in real life). 

We went bowling with each other for the first time ever!  Weird, right? 

Colby was a champ.

Although Colby beat me, I was pretty proud of my score.  Oh, and Colby was the one who typed our names on the scoreboard, obviously.  He's Colby.  I'm Kdawg.

I have two pairs of footsie pajamas, and so I made Colby wear a pair with me one night.  He has to deal with a lot in our marriage.

We celebrated Colby's birthday this month!  It was his "Golden Birthday" (which means he turned 23 on January 23--who knew?  Colby did, but I sure didn't).  Because of this, I did a play off of the number 23 throughout the day.  I gave him presents to open at 10:23 am, 1:23 pm, 4:23 pm, and 7:23 pm.  I am really excited for one of the presents--it's a groupon deal to go snorkeling in a crater!  I didn't even know something like that existed in Utah!  Sadly, Colby got sick the night of his birthday.  He was up puking all night (which kept me up a lot of the night, too).  He was then sick all the next day.  But crazy enough, he got himself to go to his intramural basketball game that evening, which he played awesome in.  He was full of 3-point shots.

I learned I am really bad at remembering to take pictures.  These are ones that our friend Lindy took at the little party our friends threw for him!

Colby has done so much for me lately.  First and foremost, I got him to go to the ballet with me.  He was a trooper--he only fell asleep once during the entire 3-hour performance.  We volunteered to be ushers for the ballet, and so we got in for free!  It was such a steal of a deal.  I'm pretty sure we saved at least $40 doing that.  We were also ushers a year ago for Phantom of the Opera and got to see it for free, as well.  Free is the way to go.

Another reason why Colby has been the bomb-diggity lately is because he has been helping me study for my ASL test!  The main thing I have been worried about for the test is fingerspelling.  When a name is spelled slowly, I can usually get it; but when it's spelled quickly, I am lost.  Colby has been learning the letters of the ASL alphabet so he can help me practice.  If that's not love, then I don't know what is.