Bear Lake Adventure

Life has been a lot of fun the last few months :)

A while ago, during Nurses' Week, I was oh-so-lucky to win a prize! At work, we are encouraged to donate a themed "basket" of some sort to be put in a raffle for someone to win during Nurses' Week. There were all kinds of baskets ranging from spa days to gardening kits to movie nights, etc etc. I think we each got 4 raffle tickets (or more if you donated a basket) and we got to choose which baskets we put them in. I was real excited when I saw one for a Bear Lake vacation. Brian and I had spent part of our honeymoon there and went back for our 1 year anniversary to get their famous raspberry shakes! 

We really do love it there.

We hadn't ever been there in the winter, however, and I was THRILLED when I won the basket! It included some ski/snowboarding passes, pancake mix and delicious syrup, a spatula (which we actually really needed), a gift card for a restaurant there, and a 2 night stay in a cute little condo! It was donated by the sweetest girl at work - thanks again, Erin!!

So, that was back in the spring and we'd been looking forward to going ever since. So, once Brian got done with classes and finals, we were off!

And let me tell you, it was no picnic getting there. I was afraid for my life. The roads were terrible. Every other small car we saw turned back or were slid off the road because they couldn't make it up the mountain. We also didn't make it up one of the mountains the first 2 times we tried. But, we were determined to go on our vacation and went really fast in order to get up the mountain. To say I was terrified would be an understatement. Brian was driving or we would have never made it. Want to see what the roads looked like? Check it out:

I was terrified

Anyway, we were SO grateful to make it there and settled right into our cozy condo :)

Isn't it cute?! For dinner we decided that we'd grill some hot dogs on the grill outside (the blizzard only made that more adventurous and fun). We wrapped them in bacon and they were pretty good despite the burned hotdogs. Sorry, hun.

For the next few days we got to relax, play in the snow, rediscover the town in the wintertime, go sledding and snowboarding, and eat delicious food! We felt very spoiled. It was a much appreciated vacation after Brian's super difficult semester!

The perfect little winter town - looks like it came right out of a Christmas card.

We were the only ones in the whole restaurant! Aaaand... the raspberry shakes were as good as ever!

All the boats beached for the winter...

We saw some real live moose! We were just out driving around looking around town when we saw an emergency vehicle go zooming past and up to this huge cabin. Using the zoom lens on the camera, we were able to see that there were moose in the cabin's yard! They came running down the hill right towards us and we were able to get a few good pictures. They were really quite cute... though I've heard they are super not the cuddly type. More like the attack you type. Especially because it was a momma and her baby! My first moose siting!

We can't wait to go back!

our first anniversary :)

Brian and I had a very eventful weekend! 

We had thrown around a couple of ideas as to what we wanted to do for the big one year, but still hadn't decided on anything as of Saturday. Friday night we went on a campout with our ward and that was lots of fun... but then... I got food poisoning.

Ew.

So, I spent Saturday morning ralphing and Brian went and took a practice DAT exam (which he did well on, by the way :)). By Saturday night I was feeling better (and significantly more thin - the only benefit of food poisoning) and we decided it was time we made some plans! So, we looked into a few options and decided that we just wanted to get out of Provo at all costs!

We ended up going to Logan to the Anniversary Inn (yes, you may roll your eyes and gag at this point because of the unoriginality of this idea)... and let me tell ya, it was awesome! Maybe it's because Brian and I are such kids at heart, but we thought the themed room was so much fun! We stopped by Brian's uncle's house (Martin) on the way and picked up the amazing wedding video he made for us last year. We had actually never seen it because our copy never made it from the reception, and it was neat to watch it! I may or may not have gotten a little teary-eyed. He did such a wonderful job - THANKS MARTIN! I tried to figure out a way to post it on the blog, but no luck so far.

Monday we hung around Logan for a while and then headed up to Bear Lake where we had spent the majority of our honeymoon. We took some cheesy pictures: 

I got the idea off of Pinterest (where else?) to take a photo on every anniversary and then it will be really neat to look back and see how we've changed as the years go by. I'm sure we could do that with normal pictures too, but I think it will be really fun to do it on our anniversaries. So, we took a few and we'll decide which one is our favorite later. Probably not the kissing ones, but because this is a blog post about romanticy things, I just couldn't leave them out, right?

We, of course, went and got the famous raspberry shakes that Bear Lake had to offer. We got our two favorites from last time and man alive, they were tasty. I could've probably eaten 10. The first picture is of Brian eating the deliciousness last year and the rest are of this year. Still delicious.

I simply had to pose with the same ferocious bear too... again, last year on top, this year on the bottom.

After hanging around Bear Lake for a while and reminiscing, we headed back to Logan where we ate at the oh-so-delicious El Sol (not to rub it in your face, mom), and then went to my grandma's for a visit and to stay the night. I worked Tuesday so we got up a the crack of dawn and headed to Salt Lake where I put in a full day of work and Brian put in a full day of studying! It was a very eventful day at work, but I'll save that story for another day :).

I really can't believe that it's been a year since we got married. It has been such a great year and I am so grateful that Brian asked me to be his wifey. We have learned a whole lot this last year and I love him more than ever before. Here's to many more years to come! I blogged about our wedding and honeymoon here, here, here, and here

And some wedding pictures for good measure :)

pics from the Honeymoon!

outside the condo at Bear Lake

FAMOUS raspberry shakes in Garden City - every restaurant claimed to have the famous one, so.... we tried almost all of them to find the best one. The winner? Merlin's Drive In! 

skipping rocks - he was really good at it

mine just kind of plopped :/

After jet-skiing... we're a bit wind-blown!

haha :) 

grilling on our condo's porch! DELICIOUS hamburgers - best I've had in a long time!

Pickleville playhouse - we saw Joseph and the Technicolored Dreamcoat - it was fabulous!

Then off to St. George where it was over 100 degrees outside! The temple was so beautiful!

We couldn't go to St. George without seeing Tuacahn's show! I was so excited that the Little Mermaid was playing - it's my favorite Disney movie! It was an incredible show!