one year!

On July 15 2008, I married Christopher. I feel like we've celebrated for an entire year, but we had the best time on our anniversary.

Chris left for work on Wednesday morning promising that he would be back around 5:00 so we could go out... 10 minutes later he rolled back into the driveway with beautiful lilies and a plan to play in Park City all day on the zipline, alpine slide, and the new alpine coaster. He took me to breakfast at my favorite bakery and then we got nice and sunburned playing in the mountains. During Harry Potter 6 (which I LOVED) we had a picnic lunch, and then found our quaint little bed and breakfast. We strolled main street and shared a caramel apple. Heaven.

The best part of the day was when Christopher completely surprised me with gorgeous diamond earrings. They sparkle like crazy and I can't believe they're mine. I open the box they came in every time I pass by, just to check them out.

I feel so lucky to have this guy for another year!

summer

I thought our Fourth of July festivities would be lonely. And admittedly, I really did miss boating and eating my mom's potato salad. But Christopher and I did pretty well for ourselves. We had pancakes with coconut syrup at our ward breakfast bash and laughed at an old guy wearing a flag imprinted gangster bandanna over his bald head.



Then we hiked to Timpanogas Cave and marveled at the stalactites before heading home to clean up and make it to Ruth's Diner for dinner. You guys. If I ever find out that you went there and didn't order the banana bread pudding for dessert, I'll be speechless. So so good.





After fireworks and listening to our talented friend Suzy Lind sing, we headed home and I fell asleep before we got there. Chris swears I was singing in my sleep to 'Mama Mia' but I'm sure he was imagining things. :) God bless America!

payback...

Here is my extra hot husband who made my morning by shaving off his beard in stages.

I'm nice

So today, just because I'm the best, sweetest, most gorgeous wife on the planet, I got up early and cleaned out Christopher's car for him under the pretext of being on my morning run. What can I say? Sometimes I just can't contain the goodness flowing through me.

changes

Since Latin is long behind me, I decided to change my blog title so that every time I look at it, I'm not reminded of Virgil and Ovid, even if mensa secunda does mean dessert. Christopher and I debated long and hard before I chose the super original title...Melissa and Christopher. I know, I know.

I'm back...

I think Christopher missed me while I was back East...

Because when I got home he took me here to eat the best pizza of my life, and then to Singin' in the Rain at Hale Center. The show was darling, and everyone got really wet.




On Saturday evening we went to the Utah Arts Festival at the SLC library. If any readers are ever in town at the end of June, they should definitely not miss this! We spent hours browsing the booths and talking to artists. We went to the Utah film show and voted for our favorites out of the top six short films of the year.






We went to the micro-writers booth where they provide a prompt and only let you write about it for 60 seconds. Not easy! It was hilarious to read everyone's finished products. Here was our favorite from the prompt "When she sat on the purple velvet couch..."



We left after eating steak tacos while listening to the finalists of the poetry slam. (yikes) and we talked about our favorite artists the whole way home.

It's really good to be back!

summer update

It's been awhile--thanks to my mac crashing and erasing it's hard drive when I had it open on the counter making a new chicken recipe I found online. Don't worry, the chicken pulled through, but my pictures, music, and papers probably won't. The nerve...

But I still wanted to update. On Memorial Day Christopher and I hiked and pickniked on the Pine Hollow trail in American Fork canyon. It was absolutely beautiful and it was great training too, because we're leaving for Havasupai tonight and that hike is going to be a million times harder. I got a pedicure to mentally prepare.

And here are a couple pictures I promised Lacey. We made candle jars for a barbecue we held last week for my cousin Danielle. The bbq probably canceled out any training the hike mentioned above could have done for us because we ate queso dip, chips, and ice-cream cake all night. Below that are some flowers I planted just to see if I could keep something alive. So far so good!