Banquet at the Broadmoor

Every spring, Air Force hosts their annual football banquet at the beautiful Broadmoor in Colorado Springs...

...which means that, thanks to my handsome football-playing fiance, we get to enjoy a nice little date at the 5-star hotel.

It was kind of crazy to officially mark the end of Matt's time with Falcon Football at the banquet last weekend. Even with all the injuries he had to deal with, it was an incredible experience that we're both grateful he was able to be a part of.

(Matt's senior media day picture)

And now, with that said, I can get around to posting the rest of our engagement pictures. Stay tuned!

All the world is waiting for the sun

Although, a little rain never hurt anyone.

This would be a little preview of our engagement pictures, taken by the fabulous McKenzie.
Care to see more?

PS- the title comes from a Breaking Benjamin song that Matt sings to me with his guitar. Just in case you were wondering.

Sharks & Stingrays

So, after two years of begging and pleading, I finally convinced Matt to go to the Denver Aquarium with me. Everyone says it's a must-do in Denver--which was good enough reason for me to go--but we didn't know much about it other than that. I think we were both pleasantly surprised by how entertaining (and educational, of course) it was.

In fact, Matt was entertained from the moment he got to put on his scuba gear.

The aquarium takes you through different ecosystems, showing you which fish (and a few other animals) live there and providing some fun activities along the way. Matt went mining for gold in the mountains...

... and then we got the weather report in the desert. Bet you can't guess who's more excited about the warm desert sun.

We especially enjoyed the rainforest, which had a bunch of fun animals like a tiger, turtles, parrots and PIRANHAS! I dared Matt to stick his finger in their tank (because we're really mature like that), but he didn't (because we actually are somewhat mature). I think he was a bit creeped out by their beady little eyes:

Since the tiger was asleep, the turtles took home the prize for the rainforest section. Maybe we're just easily amused but they were cracking us up! They'd be sitting on their rocks and then carefully inch toward the water... and inevitably dive/fall in before they were quite ready. It was pretty cute.

Then we got to the "ocean," where Matt tried (unsuccessfully) to communicate with the fish.

The ocean section had a few of these tunnels, which are always fun.

Even more impressive, however, was the huge shark tank that let you get up close and personal with the, um, precious things.

Matt was a little apprehensive at first...

...but then he warmed right up.

And just when we thought our little aquarium tour was over, we walked into the stingray exhibit and got to pet the little guys! I may or may not have been a bit jumpy every time they'd turn and look at me while I was petting them.
Matt, on the other hand, didn't seem to mind.

It was a good time.

General Conference

Wasn't General Conference incredible? Thanks to the snowstorm that canceled Matt's track meet, we got to enjoy the sessions live at Steve & Jodie's instead of having to TiVo them. We loved the timing of it this year, just one week before Easter. While we usually think about Christ's birth for the entire month leading up to Christmas, we don't tend to spend much time preparing for Easter and the celebration of His resurrection. This Conference, we learned so much about our Savior and the Atonement (especially from Elder Holland), and it really puts things into the proper perspective. We're so grateful for leaders of the church and for the the opportunity that General Conference gives us to hear from them.

Spring Training & Sprinting

I was on cloud nine walking off the plane into 85-degree weather in Phoenix. Seriously, give me Matt & the sunshine and I'm a happy girl. Adding best friends and sports to the mix? Even better. Matt's roommate, Anthony, is from Scottsdale and was home for spring break, so we had our own personal tour guide of the city. We figured there was no way we could visit Arizona in March without hitting up a spring training game, so we ended up at the A's stadium to watch them play the Padres.

The next day, Clark & Shelley flew in with the same idea, so off we went to another baseball game. This time we saw the Angels take on the Mariners. Working for the Bees made me an Angels fan, so it was fun to see them play!

We had to leave the game early to get some pre-race pasta in Matt, so we enjoyed a late lunch at Macaroni Grill while catching the Sweet 16 action. Then it was off to Arizona State's Sun Angel Stadium for the big meet.

It was a night meet, beginning at 5 and ending at 10. Not only was this incredibly convenient with the heat, but it created a really cool atmosphere for the races. Matt tore it up on the track, placing 7th (of 40 big-school athletes) in the 100, shaving another two tenths off his 200 time, and running a solid first leg in the 4x400.

100 Meter Dash:

200 Meter Dash:

Prepping for the 4x400:

Fresh out of the blocks:

Impressive, no? I was glad Clark could be there to get these pictures of Matt--I'm always too busy cheering to focus on my camera, and he's always moving too fast for my little point & shoot to take a halfway-decent picture anyway.

After all that hard work, Matt definitely deserved the 4x4 meal he ordered at In-N-Out late that night. I'm not sure my sitting+cheering efforts were really worthy of the cheeseburger, fries & strawberry shake I devoured, but they sure were a great ending to a lovely little vacation.

Show of hands...

Um... that'd be me. While I was lucky to spend last weekend in sunny Arizona, there's almost nothing worse than leaving gorgeous weather and landing home in a blizzard. It's times like these I couldn't be happier that we're moving to the desert :-) Mother Nature isn't all bad, though--she was nice enough to give us a long enough break from the rain/hail/snow last Tuesday to take our engagement pictures. Sure, it was freezing cold and horribly windy... but at least we weren't wet.

On our way home from our little picture-taking adventure with McKenzie (our very talented photographer), we stopped by the Draper Temple (since Matt had never seen it). I'm still amazed at how beautiful our temples are.

The next day, we put my PTO to good use and headed down the street to do baptisms together at the Mount Timpanogos Temple. It's been neat to share those kinds of experiences with Matt throughout our engagement.

We spent the afternoon at Temple Square finalizing wedding dinner plans with Shelley and got to spend some quality time with my dad during rush hour. That night, we stayed up late playing with my family and our favorite brunettes.

And the next morning, we woke up at 4:45 a.m. to get Matt to the airport in time. Talk about a short spring break!
Good thing I got to join him in Phoenix the next day :-)

Basketball, babies & such

Matt's in town right now! He only has a short spring break inbetween track meets in Arizona, but I'll take what I can get. The main purpose of the trip, aside from spending some quality time together, is to take our engagement pictures tomorrow. Since this is our one shot, the weather is mildly unfortunate. Here's hoping Target carries cute umbrellas. Anyway, Matt flew in Sunday and we went straight up to Kaysville, where we got to hang out with these cute kids:

(Picture shamelessly stolen from Nate & Laci's blog)

Our newest niece, Annsli Claire, was born on St. Patricks Day and is such a beautiful baby. I'm lucky to be inheriting so many adorable nieces and nephews through Matt's side. We can't wait to add our own to that mix :-) From there, we headed over to Dave & Monica's to attend the Draper Temple dedication and spend the evening with them. Matt didn't get to come to Utah for the open house, so it was neat to share the dedication with him.

That would be my family at the Draper Temple Open House, if you couldn't tell.

And in other news... just thought I'd give a quick update on my pretty little ESPN bracket which, despite a less-than-perfect Day 2 (seriously, Cleveland State?), is still in the 99.4 percentile in the country and has every single one of my Elite Eight picks playing in the Sweet Sixteen. I remember when I used to be in the 99th percentile on all those standardized tests in school and let me tell you, this is way cooler :-). Go Tigers.

Perfect 16 for 16!

Excuse me while I interrupt the regular blogging schedule, but it's finally March Madness... and my ESPN bracket just went 16 for 16 today! I'm feeling a bit like my buddies over at Western Kentucky:

Here's a closer look :-)

K, fully aware that this is totally unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but still. Though I've had some pretty impressive brackets in the past (finishing in ESPN's top 2% overall in high school haha), I've never had a perfect first round day... And since I picked Utah State to win tomorrow (what?!), I'm living it up while I can :-)

Le Fantome de l'Opera

Once upon a time, I read The Phantom of the Opera in French (you know, back when I could speak a bit more French than just "quelle heure est il?")... and ever since, I've been dying to see the Broadway version. After all, Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom is a classic. So when we found out the national tour of Phantom was coming to Denver, we jumped on it! We got the tickets last fall in lieu of Valentines' gifts for each other and had a wonderful time at the show last weekend.

It was AMAZING. Mesmerizing. The part of the Phantom was played by John Cudia, who just finished playing the actual Phantom on Broadway for a few years. Let me tell you, he is impressive.

We originally bought our tickets with the Hendrickses, but Steve's brother came into town that weekend so we ended up going with Mikey Bear and Jaleah, one of my best friends who flew to CO with me this time around:

It was such a perfect night! I'm so lucky I got a fiance who appreciates these kinds of things. Other snippets from the weekend: We spent Friday night at the Pann's with Mike & J, Chase & Haley, and GP.

Matt and I had a friendly little game of pool, in which I blew a 4-ball lead because I couldn't get the 8-ball in. Typical.

And since Matt didn't have a track meet on Saturday (they had a break before outdoor starts next weekend), we had time to go to a ballroom dance class that morning to learn the basics of the Waltz. He is such a good sport.

Just Another Weekend in the Springs

Matt had his last indoor track meet. Can't wait for outdoor to start!

One of my favorite high school friends, Chelsey, runs for Utah so she was in town for the meet. We got to steal her from the team hotel for a bit on Friday night and had a great time just hanging out at the townhouse:

On Saturday night, we went out with Anthony and Caroline for New York-style pizza and bowling:

And since Anthony had to wear a sling on his right arm and bowl lefty, the rest of us did, too :-)

I don't think anyone broke 80. Since that's rare for me anyway, I enjoyed the company on the scoreboard.