Thanksgiving 2014

Oh, my heart. There is so much for me to be thankful for. Robbie and I celebrated Thanksgiving with the Bean family this year and had a total blast. One of my favorite things we did was our Thanksgiving devotional Thursday morning. We sang Thanksgiving hymns, my parents both shared some inspiring thoughts, and then gave each of us the opportunity to share what we were particularly thankful for this year. I love opportunities to share our hearts with each other, it's always a very strengthening and unifying experience. As I thought about what I would share, three things I was especially grateful for came to my mind:

1. I have never had so much respect and love for my body. Watching it carry two sweet babies has opened my eyes to the divine purposes our bodies have. I'm so thankful for a healthy and strong body that can carry out such an important work.

2. Robbie takes care of me better than I ever thought my future husband would. His kindness and compassion towards me is incredible and I just fall more in love with him every day. His excitement for being a dad about pulls my heart right out of my chest. I love going through life with him.

3. This past year has been full of a lot of growth opportunities. I'm grateful for a Heavenly Father who knows me and knows how I need to grow and develop to become my best self, and ultimately like His Son.

I wish I would have gotten more pictures of our weekend together as a family, but some highlights include:

• Richard & Emily flying in from California and having everyone from the family together
• Cooking in the kitchen with all the women
• Playing 8 player Super Smash Bros. with the whole family. "Guys, this is a little intense" -Elissa. It was complete pandemonium. 
• Trip up to the Traverse Mountain outlets to do some Black Friday shopping
• Going to see "Big Hero 6" Friday morning
• Dinner at Red Iguana and "A Celebration of Christ" concert at the Capitol Theater in SLC
• Helping prepare Thanksgiving dinner for the homeless at the Lindon Community Center Wednesday night
• Thanksgiving meal with the Bean side of the family at Grandma's house
• Seeing my family, especially my brothers, so excited about my pregnancy. Babies are a new thing for my family and it's so fun to see everyone's curiosity and amazement. You'd think I was some exotic animal from the way Todd kept poking my belly. "This. Is. Crazy."

There's just something about going home, isn't there? I loved waking up, walking upstairs, and getting a big good morning hug from my mom while she cooked breakfast. Some things never change, to which I am so thankful for :) Kudos to mom and dad for working tirelessly to make this weekend so memorable.

 Peeling potatoes in his "super cute" apron at the Lindon Community Center

Oh, Todd...

This boy. I love him more than I can say. I want to remember this picture forever and I still die laughing whenever I look at it. Get it, Todd.

"Hey baby gurl let's dance."

Robbie's Surgery

At the beginning of October, Robbie had surgery on his peroneus brevis, a tendon on the outside of his ankle. It had been bothering him a lot lately, especially when he ran or played basketball. He thinks that over the last couple years with various basketball injuries that it tore. We decided to get it taken care of before our babies come because heaven knows I'll need him walking and in excellent health! We found a great doctor and set the surgery date.

Robbie was a champ and the healing process has gone so smoothly, which we are very thankful for. Waiting in the waiting room while he was being operated on was hard! I felt like I shouldn't be there, that I wasn't old enough for this. Where was his mom? Did I know how to even take care of someone that had just had surgery? Haha gotta love these growing up experiences. Robbie was never in a ton of pain and has followed (well, mostly...) the doctor's orders of when to start putting pressure on it and when he can walk without crutches or a boot. As of today, he can officially start weaning himself from the boot and walk normally again. Hooray!!! He's been such a trooper and I'm sure proud of him.

 Going over the pain chart before surgery. Obviously, he can't wait for what's ahead.

 Recovery room after surgery. Such a champ! Unfortunately, he wasn't very loopy or hilarious, but I do remember him talking about noodles or something?

We got him all set him up in the laundry room so he could talk to me while I cooked dinner. Love this boy.

 Right before he got his cask off. We were so happy to get that blasted thing off.

Apparently the doctor who did Robbie's surgery is known for his beautiful incisions. Looks pretty good to me...I guess. It's amazing how much better the incision looks weeks later. He's almost back to normal!

Experiences like this help me be thankful for good health and strong bodies. We hope to not have to do another surgery like this that limits mobility anytime soon!

Pregnancy After a Miscarriage

Having a miscarriage does crazy stuff to your brain. At least it did to mine.

Robbie and I both felt that one of the best things we could do to get over the grief of losing our baby was to get pregnant again. We waited until we both felt ready, physically and emotionally. We were crazy happy when we found out we were pregnant again in June. Instead of feeling overwhelmed and stressed about seeing a positive pregnancy test, like I had felt with the first baby, I was all smiles and immediately said a prayer of gratitude. I couldn't believe it. I was stoked and couldn't wait to tell Robbie. The moments after telling him we were expecting again were some of the happiest we've experienced together. You would have thought I just bought him an unlimited supply of Buffalo Wild Wings for the rest of the year. He was one happy guy.

But slowly, the anxiety and worry started to settle in for me. We lost the first baby, so what's to say we aren't going to lose this one, too? After all, that's all we had ever known. How do I know it's even alive? I can't stand to go through another miscarriage. I had a really hard time letting myself get super excited because I felt like the pain of losing this baby would be worse if I gave in to all of the feelings of joy and excitement. I felt like if I just approached this pregnancy with caution and was always on my guard, the let down of hearing we had lost this baby wouldn't be as hard. I was miserable.

But I soon learned that wasn't the best way to do things. Where was my faith? Not the faith that this baby would live, but the faith that no matter what, we would be okay and God would take care of us. God didn't want me to live each day cautiously. He didn't want me to hold my happy feelings back. He wanted me to enjoy every day I was given to be pregnant. I reminded myself about what I had learned about God being in control. If I really, truly believed that, then I could let myself be over-the-moon excited and have the faith to know that things were going to be okay. So that's what I tried to do. And I'm still trying.

Those first 12 weeks of pregnancy take more faith that I ever realized. First, you can't even feel the baby. Second, you're not even showing. You have no evidence there's a baby in there that's alive, except if you're sick or experiencing other pregnancy symptoms. And even then, those are hard to rely on. We made it to our 12-week appointment and I was super nervous. Would we see a heartbeat? Would we have to relive the nightmare of 3 months ago? But at the same time, Robbie and I both felt a sense of calm. We knew, really knew, that whatever happened we'd be okay. We'd be taken care of.

Doc: "So you're 12 weeks along?"
Me: "I sure hope so."
Doc: "Well let's check it out! Maybe there are twins."
Me: Eye roll. "Robbie has been teasing me about that from day one. We're not having twins."

Doctor fiddles around for a bit and immediately I see a little heartbeat. I felt the biggest sense of relief flow over me. Robbie and I couldn't believe it! We were so happy.

Doc: "Well I have good news and bad news. The good news is there's a healthy baby right there. The bad news is that there's only one."
Me: "Haha that's great!"

Doctor continues to move around and gets silent.
Doc: "Hmmm I lied. I have good news and good news. See that right there? That's another healthy baby."
Me: "What? No."
Robbie: laughing in the corner
Me: "No way. What? No."

I was SO shocked. Me? Twins? Robbie was super shocked as well, but he was instantly elated. It took me some time to grasp what the doctor had just said and to process what that meant for our little family. Woah. If I hadn't gained a testimony of the fact that God is in control, coming to terms with twins would have been a whole lot harder.

It's funny to think back on how shocked, nervous, and overwhelmed I was. Now, I am all excitement. I can't imagine anything different than twins. What a blessing!!! I can't be done sharing this story without meantioning how patient Robbie has been through all of it. To have a wife who is one day super stoked about having babies and the next day having a breakdown because she doesn't think they're alive must be pretty tough. He is such a rock in our marriage and I'm extremely grateful for his kindness, sensitivity, encouragement, and love. I married the best. He's going to be a wonderful dad.

Our miscarriage still affects me sometimes. When we started announcing to everyone we were pregnant with twins (around 16 weeks), so many people commented on how small I was, especially for twins. I did my best to take it as a compliment, but in my crazy mind, I instantly panicked about if the babies were doing okay, if something was wrong. I'm not as big as I'm "supposed" to be? That was hard. One lady even said to me, "You're having twins? Wow, you're tiny. Is something wrong with the babies?" Are you kidding me? Just because you were huge with one doesn't mean I have to be ginormous with two. Who's to say what the normal size is for any stage of pregnancy? Every body is different, everyone carries differently. Ugh. I've learned to just smile and nod. All you ever need to say to a pregnant woman is, "Wow you look great! I'm so happy for you." That's it. Keep it simple, people. Okay, rant over.

Robbie and I feel incredible blessed. We know anything can still happen with these precious baby girls, but we know it'll all be okay. No matter what. We love our babies!

Welcome to Holland

In Relief Society last week, our teacher shared an amazing analogy about learning to deal with and enjoy the plan B's in our life. She has two disabled children, which were never in her plans to begin with, but she has learned to love the situation she's in and even be thankful for it. God has a wonderful plan for us all, one that will stretch us in ways we never imagined. But we have to have faith that it's the right plan, even if it's different than what we dreamed of.

Welcome to Holland

By Emily Perl Kingsley

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Colosseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plan lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have me.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills... and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going to Italy... And for the rest of your life, you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned." 

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, go away... because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things... about Holland.

Our Miscarriage

I always appreciate it when people are willing to share their lives with others. And not just the good stuff, but the hard stuff as well. I believe there's great power and strength in sharing the ups and downs of life with each other.

Robbie and I had a miscarriage in April of this year. I've been thinking a lot about it because this past weekend marked the due date of that baby. The miscarriage was something we kept to ourselves, only sharing with immediate family and a few close friends. I've never felt weird or uncomfortable sharing our experience with others. In fact, it has been a healing experience to share what we went through. It made me feel loved when people would ask me questions about what happened and how we were feeling. But on the other hand, we never wanted people to feel like they had to throw a pity party for us or act differently around us. So much has happened in the last 6 months, and I hope to do an adequate job conveying our feelings since then.

Robbie and I found out we were pregnant in January, which was much sooner than we had imagined. We were very surprised. Nevertheless, we were thrilled to embark on this adventure. Like, we were over the moon excited. However, for some reason I worried about losing our baby from day one. Robbie was full of faith and hope (like always) and expressed so much confidence in a bright future for us and our children. I eventually got to a point (around 9-10 weeks) where I stopped worrying and let myself get excited and share in his faith and hope. We knew miscarriage was an option; we definitely didn't deny that. But we chose to not focus on it, and instead enjoy every day we had to be pregnant. It was a happy time.

The day of our 12-week appointment arrived and we were so looking forward to seeing our baby's heartbeat. Physically, I was feeling great, and emotionally we were both optimistic. We met with our doctor and he got his little machine out. We got a beautiful glimpse of our baby, which looked pretty small. Babies are small at 12 weeks though, right? I watched with nervousness as the doctor quietly maneuvered the machine around. My heart was pounding. Thankfully, Robbie was holding my hand. He said the baby looked much smaller than it should at 12 weeks, and he wasn't seeing a heartbeat. I think both of our hearts sunk at that point. I remember saying out loud, "I knew it." The doctor told us he hoped he was wrong, but that he was going to send us over to the hospital to get an in-depth ultrasound to see what was going on. He left us both and said to come up front as soon as we were ready. I was surprised I hadn't cried yet, but once I was alone with Robbie the tears freely came. Robbie was strong as ever and was holding on to that small glimmer of hope that maybe the doctor was wrong. I, however, was convinced he was right and that my life was over. Emotionally, I was not in a great state whatsoever.

The ultrasound ended up confirming what the doctor had thought. There was no heartbeat and the baby was definitely not the size of a normal 12-week baby. They told us the baby only lived to 9 weeks 2 days. They called our doctor, who then could talk to me on the phone and tell us this news. I sobbed as it began to really hit me. He told me my options for moving forward (we ended up doing a d&c later that week), told me to go home and pray about with Robbie, and then meet back with him the next day. I remember feeling so angry. "You mean, I've had a baby in me for the past 3 weeks that wasn't even alive, and I didn't even know it?!" To think we had told our families we were pregnant when the baby wasn't even alive was so upsetting to me. At one point, I even felt stupid for being so excited for this baby the past few weeks, when in reality our baby wasn't alive. Satan really got to me and I thought and felt some pretty terrible things that day and the weeks following.

Deep down, I knew it wasn't my fault, but for weeks I still looked for any reason I could think of as to why our baby didn't live. Was there anything I could have done differently? Anything? In the end, the answer was no. Robbie and I had done everything we could. We hadn't done anything wrong.

Robbie and I told our families shortly after we found out, and spent the evening doing our best to wrap our minds around everything. I was so thankful we had each other. We both took our turns being emotional (I had many, many more turns than he did), but the other person was always there to offer comfort. By the end of that night, Robbie told me he thought he was done being emotional. Done? My tears had just started, haha. I remember getting to a point where I couldn't be in a different room than Robbie. Emotionally, I felt so unstable. Thankfully, bad days always come to an end. Even just a week later, I felt much better and could talk openly about our experience without crying. The emotions of our experience would creep up on me every so often and I'd breakdown, but Robbie and the power of prayer always helped me get back up on my feet again. Bless Robbie's heart. He was such a rock through all of this and was always strong when I didn't know how to be. He always knew what to say to calm my heart. He always knew when to talk me through my feelings and when to just let my cry. He was optimistic and happy, but once in a while the reality would hit him as well. We truly relied on each other to make it through those first few weeks.

During this whole experience, we had many tender mercies. Our doctor was the BEST and sent us flowers the next day. He was so kind and sensitive, gave me a hug every time he saw me, and genuinely cared about how I was doing. He brought the gospel into our conversations about the miscarriage and that brought me a lot of comfort. In fact, the last thing I remember before going under for my d&c is our doctor smiling at me and grabbing my hand. Such a good man. Members of both of our families sent flowers, fresh bread, jam, dinner, and thoughtful notes. We felt very loved and taken care of. Their service and care for us reminded us how much our Heavenly Father loved us and was watching out for us. Having testimonies of the Plan of Salvation and of God's love for us truly pulled us through all of this.

Through any hardship, we learn great lessons. Here are a few very important ones we learned:

• God is in control. And thank goodness He is! This experience truly humbled us and reminded us that God has a plan for our family. It is a "perfect for us" plan and the best we can do is go about our days seeking to do His will and live as He would want us to live. We have every reason to trust Him. Everything that happens to us is for our good. We have to learn to see that.

• God doesn't want us to worry. He truly desires for us to experience joy. Up until this point, I had never had something tragic happen to me or anyone that I was really close to. It really hit me hard. Trials are real and hard (and real hard) and can happen at any time. That's just how life is. We can't go worrying day after day about the bad things that could happen. That is a waste of our precious time on earth. God wants us to enjoy our lives and seek out and dwell on the good and happy. Sometimes we just have to let ourselves be happy and stop listening to the awful thoughts and feelings Satan puts into our hearts.

• Hardships present a choice to either withdraw or come closer together. The closeness Robbie and I feel, as a result of our miscarriage, has been one of the greatest blessings of our lives. We had to rely on each other in a way we hadn't before, and work together to pull through and be better people as a result of our experience.

Losing our baby was the hardest thing that's ever happened to me. It challenged everything I had ever learned about faith, hope, and trust. It raised some questions in my mind about life that I've had to work hard to find the answers to. But Robbie and I both know that God's hand was in all of this. We don't know why it happened, but we don't need to know why. God expects us to trust Him and keep carrying on and doing our best to be happy. And happy, we are!

Grandma Time!

I think someone is a bit excited to be a grandma.

I've over the moon happy for her. My parents are going to rock this whole grandparents thing!!

And Then There Were Four...

Holy moly, things are pretty exciting around here!! Robbie and I found out we were pregnant in June and were absolutely thrilled. We had miscarried two months before (a post for another day) and were pleasantly surprised that we got pregnant again so quickly. I remember taking a positive pregnancy test and just pouring out my thankful heart to my Heavenly Father. Robbie was out of town, so I told him the next day. It was Father's Day weekend and I said he could have one of his presents early if he wanted it (I knew he'd happily oblige). The news of our pregnancy was the greatest Father's Day gift I could have ever given him.

Well, a couple months later we went in for our 12 week appointment and were completely shocked when our doctor told us we were pregnant with TWO babies.

WHAT?!

I think I said, "What?" and "No." so many times during that appointment. I also threw in a, "Robbie, I'm going to kill you." He had been teasing me the whole pregnancy that we were going to have twins and I would just roll my eyes at him and say, "Ya right." Apparently he's always thought he'd be a dad to twins someday (should have told me that before we got married, honey). Crazy! Despite the complete shock and the quick onset of overwhelming feelings, we quickly realized what a blessing this was in our lives and our excitement has increased every single day. Now we can't imagine anything else but twins. We still laugh that I happened to watch Parent Trap on the day of our appointment, and that we had been watching the TV show Full House ever since we got married. Twins were definitely on our minds. Never, ever, ever, ever did I think I would have twins. Did I say ever? It's like when I did my student teaching and said I could do every grade but 6th...and then I was assigned to 6th grade. I've told myself there was no way I would (or could) ever have twins. And here I am, pregnant with twins. I think Heavenly Father likes to give us experiences that open up our eyes to our potential. We hold ourselves back and set limits, but He knows how capable we are and He knows how much we can stretch to become who we need to be become. Robbie and I have both been so humbled as we've thought about what a privilege and blessing it is to be carrying two of Heavenly Father's precious spirits. Oh, how we pray for these two, and we pray that we'll be able to create an atmosphere in our home where their sweet spirits can thrive.

Just this past Thursday, we had our big 20 week ultrasound with Maternal Fetal Medicine at Utah Valley Hospital. They looked at each baby from head to toe. Pretty soon after the ultrasound technician came in the room, she was able to tell us that both of our babies are GIRLS!! This was a shock to us because we both felt like there was at least one boy in there, but hey. Bring on the frill!! She spent the next hour looking at their cute little legs, arms, brains, hearts, etc. Then she sent a specialist in to check a few other things and we were given the best news we could have asked for: that our two babies girls looked strong and healthy! There is so much that can go wrong in a pregnancy, and to hear her say that was music to this momma's ears! Once again, my heart was full to the brim with gratitude. I know we're only half way there and things can still go wrong, but if I've learned anything this year, it's that God knows what He is doing and I have every reason in the world to trust Him and His plan for me and Robbie and our family. Knowing that brings both of us immense peace.

We are SO happy. Prepping for these babies has become my favorite daily task. I love these little girls and can't wait for them to join our family!

Two beautiful baby girls, due February 2015, but will probably be here in January!

One Whole Year

Robbie and I celebrated our one year anniversary this past Saturday! What a wonderful year it has been. Because we knew we'd be traveling home from Disneyland on our anniversary, we celebrated it a week before by spending a weekend in Park City. Robbie planned it all ahead and we had a lovely time. We stopped off at Cheesecake Factory on our way up and got a free meal with some gift cards we had, and then shopped around for a bit afterwards. We also enjoyed walking around the outlets in Park City the next morning. I'm loving that fall clothes are in full swing! Something momentous that we did was finish the last episode of Full House. We started from the very beginning over a year ago and it has been our go-to show ever since. I think it's so hard to find shows on TV these days that are clean and wholesome. It was nice to be able to count on good 'ol Full House.

We recently just sat and reminisced about our wedding day while we looked through our wedding photos again. We have so many fond memories of that day. It was perfect (well, not really, but after a while you forget all the little things that went wrong and realize it was perfect). I've learned quite a bit this first year of marriage. Marriage was a harder adjustment for me than I thought it would be ("Wait, what? We aren't really the same person and we don't agree on everything? We actually get bugged at each other?" Very exaggerated, but still...). I felt like my weaknesses were brought to light more than ever in my life, and I even felt like what I thought were my strengths were actually pretty bad weaknesses. It was really hard. I was having some of the happiest times of my life, but also some of the most difficult times. Now, I wasn't concerned about the state of our marriage or anything, but we both had a lot to work through, especially those first 6 months. We learned a ton about communication, selflessness, and patience. And we are both so much better because of this first year.

Robbie is my favorite person ever. He is kind, sensitive, hilarious, encouraging, hopeful, positive, determined, and completely charming. I'm so thankful I get to share life with him by my side.

Happy one year, honey!

Killer Bees

Oookay, so I know the bees we come in contact with regularly are not going to kill me, but you'd think by my response to bees that I did indeed believe that. It's kind of pathetic. From a young age, I've been afraid of bees. I think it all boils down to the fact that they can hurt me. Those stings are painful! I've tried to convince myself that I have the advantage in this situation because of my size compared to the size of a bee, but I feel like they can still fly around me and sting me all sneaky like and I can't do a darn thing about it.

There have been two incidents this summer where a bee has gotten into our apartment. Of course, they always get it when Robbie is not home, so I have to choose to either attack the bee with a weapon (a broom is my number one choice), or stick it out until he gets home. The first encounter a few months ago ended with me hitting the bee probably 14 times with a broom (had to be sure it was long gone), but not before hiding on the stairs and waiting for it to land somewhere where I could attack it. Victory!

My hideout from the stairs, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun playing in the background :)

The second incident was yesterday. A bee flew across the room to the window in the late afternoon and my heart sunk. Really? Another one? I don't want to deal with this right now! So, I didn't. Robbie came home from work a few hours later and the first thing he did (bless his heart) was kill the bee. I asked if he wanted me to get the broom, but he literally just grabbed a paper towel, walked over to the window, and smooshed it.

Seriously?

Dancing Through Life

Good music has always had a powerful influence on me. It can change a bad day to a good day or a sour mood to a sweet mood. It can help you blow off steam after a stressful day. For me, it takes me to a different place where I forget everything that's hard. All in all, music just makes me HAPPY.

Well, music + dancing = major happiness. Literally one of my favorite parts of my college experience was going to dance parties on the weekend, and they were doubly amazing when Todd came along. I have been blessed with a younger brother who is the king of expressing himself through dancing. Holy cow, this kid is amazing. When you're at a dance party, you want to be next to him. Heck, when someone plans a dance party for their wedding, they want to make sure Todd is there. He lightens up any room. He is so dang talented and makes you want to dance right along with him. No shame. I love that he just goes to town without caring at all what others think (and it helps when he's as good as he is).

I think that sometimes all we need to lighten our mood is a dance party. I'm serious. It does good things to people and is such a great stress reliever. Sometimes, Robbie and I have 10-minute dance parties (also, sometimes he sings girls camp songs with me in the car for 20 minutes, but that's a story for another day). Sometimes, I throw my own personal dance parties. Trust me, it's good for the soul. So hey, what are you waiting for?

I love this younger brother of mine.

School Girl

Well, this year marks the first time in 17 years that I haven't been getting ready for school. I'm sad, yet happy and relieved. Let me explain.

I have always been one of those "special" (as Robbie likes to call it) individuals that absolutely LOVE school. I love the learning, the structured schedule, the organization, the planning, and the coming home and getting your homework done right away (like I said, "special"). I loved planning out my first day of school outfit and laying it all out the night before. When we were youngins, Todd and I would even play school during the summer and I thoroughly enjoyed getting through my workbooks each summer. Can you blame a girl for loving learning so much?

The past two years of being in the teacher position hasn't been my favorite thing ever, as you know. I would much rather be the learner (which I did plenty of as a teacher, just in different way). This year, I'm feeling a huge amount of relief that I don't have to go back to that kind of school. I feel so blessed to move on and experience some needed change. However, my heart still aches for back-to-school shopping and planning and organizing. Those were fun, fun times, and hope I can help my children someday enjoy school as much as I did. That may not be possible, but I'm sure I'll have at least one daughter that adores it like I do. Right?

I couldn't find any absolutely adorable pictures of my starting my first day of school, so this one will have to do. If I haven't convinced you of how weirdly awesome I am, here ya go. I married someone weirdly awesome as well. We rock.

Now, excuse me while I go buy some brand new pencils and notebooks. I'll find a use for them somehow.

June/July in Pictures

The summer is flying by! Before we know it, school will be starting up again and guess what? For the first time in 16 years, I don't have school in the fall. Holla!

Here are some pictures of what our wonderful life has been like the past month or so:

I had a roommate reunion at the Adobe building where Cierra works, and Robbie had to stop and get his picture taken here! #nintendoforlife

 Park City with the Beans! Mom is comin' in hot!

 Alpine Coaster...minutes before my phone was lost along the track. Luckily, it was found the next day. Miracles happen.

 We've already been up to the Simons' cabin twice this summer and have loved it!

 Robbie and Ryan cruisin' along.

4th of July croquet game with the Beans.

 Provo Beach Resort with the Beans. Robbie was such a natural.

 And he's down.

Hand 'n Foot with Grandma Bean! This is how we shuffle.

OneRepublic Concert

Robbie and I were stoked when we heard OneRepublic was coming to perform at the USANA Amphitheater in Salt Lake. They are one of our absolute favorite bands. Robbie told me he had scored some awesome seats for pretty cheap, but I didn't realize how awesome they really would be.

A Snapchat we sent to some family members. 8th row, baby!

The view was incredible, but if we ever sit that close again, we will not forget ear plugs. Robbie had trouble hearing in his right ear for a day or two after the concert. Yikes. But oh my goodness, the concert was SO good!!!!!

American Authors and The Script opened for OneRepublic and we especially enjoyed American Authors. 

American Authors

 The Script

We thought this guy looked just like my cousin, Spencer Bean. Bald and bearded.

It's so weird to me that the concert "starts" at 7:00, but the main group doesn't come on stage until at least 2 hours later. Go figure. The crowd went absolutely wild when OneRepublic finally came on stage. Speaking of the crowd, Robbie and I were so entertained. Everyone has their beer and they even pose in pictures with their beer as the focus of their picture. Once they've had a few drinks, they're dancing and singing at the top of their lungs. It gave us a good chuckle. At one point, Robbie turned to me and said, "I'm so glad you're you and I'm me." They live such a different life than we do. We are so thankful for the life we choose to live.

Man, such a great concert.

Beans in Bean Town

The week after school ended, I flew out to Boston with my parents for Mark's graduation from HBS. We had the best time and it wasn't too hard to say goodbye because we knew Mark & Elissa were moving back to Utah the following week (best news of 2014).

Mom and I got on the plan and realized we had brought the exact same book. Typical.

Let's talk for a minute about how proud I am of Mark. He gave us a tour of Harvard and I instantly felt smarter being on this remarkable campus. Harvard is a special place. It was so interesting to hear of his experiences and the people he made close friendships with. It's hard for my brain to comprehend the hard work and time he's put into this accomplishment. He's always been an influential role model in my life and I have such high respect for him. He's going places.

 Touring Harvard

 Mount Auburn Cemetery

 We walked up to the top of the tower to overlook the cemetery

Mark was given 2 tickets to commencement, so Elissa and dad went. Mom and I watched it on TV with 15-20 other people on campus. However, later we were able to meet up with them and sit together for convocation. Mark was one of the first to be called and it gave me the chills to hear his name. We then waited a couple more hours for the rest of the names to be called (let's just say I got pretty far on the book I brought) and then met up with him for lots of hugs and pictures. He found his LDSSA group and took oodles of pictures with them. After their smiles started to look fake from the hundreds of pictures, we walked down to a tent area where they had so many food choices. Holy cow. I felt like I was at a super nice wedding reception. They had tables and tables of desserts and finger foods. Thanks for dinner, Harvard. It rocked.

Mom and I watching Commencement together! Winner picture on the left. She's just on her phone way too much.

 Dad keeping it classy in the heat

 Isn't Elissa so cute and classy?

 HBS Graduates

 Harvard Library

Besides the big graduation event, M&E took us to some of their favorite dinner places each night. We loved walking around town and crossing the Charles River. The day after graduation, we drove to Maryland to see a lighthouse, which was breathtaking. We drove to Louisa May Alcott's home where she wrote Little Women, and our final stop was Walden Pond, where Mark proposed to Elissa last year. It was beautiful and the pond was more like a lake--much bigger than I pictured. Our trip wouldn't have been complete without multiple stops to bakeries.

 Was this before or after I slipped and drenched my whole left foot in water?

 Little women in front of Louisa May Alcott's home

My favorite part was just being with Mark and Elissa. They truly compliment each other and are the kindest people you'll ever meet. I loved getting to know Elissa better and I'm so happy she's a part of our family. I learned that M&E are going to live the longest out of our whole family. They eat super well, exercise every day, and stretch any extra time they have. Seriously, you're having a conversation with them and they just start stretching...well, mostly Mark. Haha, love them.

*Many of these pictures were taken by the talented Elissa and I give her full credit for them!