HAWAII

Trent & I had the amazing opportunity to go to HAWAII!

Both of us had never been and had been dying to go, and finally got the chance!

My grandparents got to use a timeshare for a beach house in Hukilau Beach, Oahu and invited the family to come along!

It was a blast. I feel like we did everything we needed to, although we could have spent, well, our whole lives there! We decided we are moving there when we graduate. Half kidding, half serious. Why not?! I want to! Like really. I have this adventurous side to me and I think I would love to live anywhere, at least for a while. I need to get out of Utah and see more of the world :)

Anyways... 
Here’s some of the fun things we did. 
Here's the view from the back deck - amazing. 

 

The beach house :)

 

This guy was so funny. He made fire from 2 sticks & a coconut!

 So pretty there.

 Love my hawaiian lover!

 The fam on a canoeing tour :)

 we weaved these kissin' fish

 The famous pig we ate for the Luau!

 mmm

 three of my most favorite people!

they made us go up on stage and dance cause it was our anniversary month! I was laughing so hard for some reason!

 All of us girls!

We loved the Polynesian Cultural Center!

How cool is this?!

 sea turtles on the beach!

 ... and swimming with the sea turtles!

 At turtle bay resort

 the famous...

 

cute little fella

all the boys catchin' some waves!

 One morning I went to the Laie temple with my cute aunt Tami!

yummiest lunch of my life at Bubba Gumps!

 I think it is safe to say this is my all time favorite picture of him. mmm i just can't get enough of him!

 cute little army fighter man :)

 cute little army fighter men :)

 cute little army fighter couple (minus me about to fall off the not-moving... gun? is that what this is?)

 It was cool to see the American flag after seeing all of this. The two sunken ships are in the background too.

I always have fun with these three boys. We drove ourselves to pearl harbor all by ourselves with NO GPS - (I know, seems impossible right? I always wondered how our parents did it back in the day!) they all didn't bring their phones and mine had 7% left and still had to save power to call our fam when we were back to meet them, so we used a tiny little map of the whole island. Good times!

This was our favorite almost-nightly place to eat!

 I could definitely get used to that scenery!

 Trent LOVES the water & beach.

 I ran 9 miles on the beach one day, it was rough having all this to look at ;)

 THE best sandwich place at North Shore... Amazing!

 Somebody got a little too much sunshine. (PS in case your little wandering brain is wondering, yes he is wearing a swim suit.)

 Haunama Bay - the best snorkeling in Hawaii!

 The yard.

We all went kayaking, and it was so fun!! I had never been, so I was all excited for a nice little walk in the park (well, ride in the park), but it was SO hard!!! Haha! It is a serious arm workout people. Lindsay and I were laughing the whole time, we could never get in sync with each other! So we zig zagged down the river :)

I know, I know... I look prego, I have no idea why. Don't be getting any ideas. Let's be clear here, I am not pregnant. Maybe I ate too much pineapple. Or that hamburger you saw up there was pretty big...

we are all dorks!

Haaaandsome!

Easter Sunday

Our last day it was a little rainy (it made leaving a tiny bit easier - it would be so much harder to leave the sunny weather!). We all hiked Weimea Falls in the rain, I think it was actually more fun that way though :) Not to bring attention to it, but forgive my low tank top. I was simply trying to point out that the waterfall was coming from above, not to the left :)

 Jayne in the Rain - is she not the cutest?!

Summer, Lindsay, and I were laying out in the sunshine and all of a sudden comes this big rain cloud and we were like "it looks like it's gonna rain!" and then out of nowhere it starts POURING! We were wet before we even had time to grab our stuff and run inside! I came in and took this picture,

 And then realized, oh- who is still out in the ocean in the pouring rain? My husband of course. And Tyler and Riley. They are so funny.

My grandma made us this book of a bunch of pics from our trip! So cute!

I scored the jackpot in the family department, I love both sets of my grandparents so much!
Just look at them, how could you not love these two? She even autographed her pic for me :)


Trent took this pic with his GoPro, isn't it amazing?

Hawaii - be assured that your old friends Nat & Trent will be back soon! 
Thanks Grandma & Grandpa!! 

The Sofa We Won

Trent and I won a sofa!!! 

Thanks to Bride Access and IKEA!

Sadly, we won because they had an ugly sofa contest, and yes we had an ugly sofa (it's actually not THAT bad, but it was pretty bad. Notice I said Was... Thanks to our new sofa, it is no longer!)  We had to get lots of “likes” on our picture we submitted on Facebook, and ended up having the most! So we went to go pick out which one we wanted!

And here is the video they made about it

Side Note: Bride Access is so helpful for anyone planning a wedding, it helped me so much (over a YEAR ago!!) when I was planning our wedding, because they have a list of all the trusty vendors they recommend, for everything! Reception centers, florists, photographers, etc. They also have lots of helpful tips for the wedding planning, but also for after the wedding. Check it out here!

And here it is in our apartment! We actually won it forever ago, you all probably know because you all probably voted for our picture (thank you!) but we didn't know if our landlord would let us get rid of our current couch that came with the place, and we didn't have a truck (thanks grandpa!) and we didn't know if it would fit, haha. So we finally went and picked it up the other day! (Clearly I need to get pillows for it now, it's lookin' kinda bare. To the fabric store I go! And to Pinterest!)

Update

Other random things lately (like forEVER ago)

probably not even worth posting anymore cause it's so old!

but better late than never right??

(WAY back when... haha) We went to a BYU game to watch Trent’s home teaching companion (Noah Hartsock) play some ball!

After a million and a half computer issues and headaches and hours of frustration, we made the plunge and both got new Macs. Best decision we’ve ever made (besides getting married of course). Love them!

My new motto: Once you get a Mac, you’ll never go back. 

 

haha dork!

Trent’s mom and sister came to stay with us for a night! We love when someone is willing to come stay with us! We all went bowling :)

(Take note: the first round, I tied my husband. Next round, not so much)

We have stayed with my siblings a couple times while my mom & matt go out of town. And I must admit, being the mommy of six isn’t so bad after all! We had lots of fun with them. We had lots of good food, (eight people eat a LOT more than two people!),

did lots of hair,

Melissa even did my hair and had us be in a “pageant,” haha

Trent used the snowblower,

went to the Treehouse,

I ran home (uphill! In the snow!),

as I was trying to ask Siri if Nate had a girlfriend, she said…

and Amy and I snuck away for some shopping, took lots of pictures, and did some crafts (see my melted crayon art post!)

Besides all these fun-filled adventures, our life mostly consists of school, work, school, school, writing multiple annoying 10 page papers, and more school.

Zupas Tomato Basil Soup Recipe & Tutorial

Zupas Tomato Basil Soup!

If you have some time and are dying to eat Zupas Tomato Basil Soup for a week, here ya go.

I love this soup at Zupas and I found the recipe (I’ve been informed that it is, in fact, not the EXACT recipe, but I think it tastes exactly like it and so I, in fact, don’t care.)

It actually took a lot longer than I expected, but if you want to save money and make way more soup than you would get at Zupas, then go for it! But just know you have been warned that it takes a little bit of time, like as much as it would take to make home made rolls. Both are amazing though, so maybe it is worth the time :) And if there are only two of you, you have also been warned that I had this soup probably six times before it was gone, haha.

But it was good and worth it and I would love to eat it six times, 

so here it is!

 Ingredients:

4 lb tomatoes, halved lengthwise (apparently plum tomatoes make the flavor even better, but I use normal tomatoes and it works perfect)

6-8 garlic cloves, left unpeeled

3 tbsp. olive oil

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp black pepper

1 medium onion, finely chopped

2 tsp fresh oregano, minced (only ½ tsp if using dried)

2 Tbsp. fresh basil, minced (only 1 tsp if using dried)

2 tsp sugar

2 Tbsp unsalted butter

3 cups chicken stock or low-sodium broth

¾ cup heavy cream

Directions:

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat to 350.

Cut all stems off tomatoes, and cut in half lengthwise.

Arrange tomatoes, cut sides up, in one layer on a large shallow baking pan and add garlic to the pan.

Drizzle tomatoes with oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Roast in oven for 1 hour, then cool in pan on rack.

 While that is cooling, cook onion, oregano, basil, and sugar in butter in a 6-8 qt pot over moderately low, stirring frequently, until onion is softened (about 5 min).

Peel garlic (should squeeze right out)

Add tomatoes, garlic, and stock and simmer covered for 20 min.

Puree soup in batches in a blender (be careful with the hot soup!)

then force through a sieve and into a clean pot or bowl. I put all the unblended soup into a bowl, and then put the blended and strained soup into the same pot

Please forgive my lovely kitchen... :)

Stir in cream, and salt & pepper to taste (you need hardly any, if at all)

Simmer 2 min.

Also, Zupas adds in orzo pasta, so I made some of that too for the full effect!

I found it at Winco in the bulk section, but you don’t need to add this if you don’t want to!

 We had these with grilled cheese sandwiches, and it was AMAZING. So yummy!!! Let me know if you try it!

PS If you're interested in more restaurant recipes, you may wanna check out this book with tons of recipes from good restaurants like California Pizza Kitchen, Olive Garden, Applebees, etc!

Now Sleeping With One Eye Open!

We had an incident in December I also wanted to post…

Trent and I were peacefully sleeping one night, 

when out of nowhere Trent gets SLAMMED in the face by something, and this something (or someone for all we know!) hits me in the nose too! 

So we both wake up at the same time, doing who knows what... just freaking out. 

He immediately thinks someone is in our room attacking us or beating us up or something, so he shoots up just about throwing punches, and I am clinging onto him having no idea what in the world is going on. 

We both sit up and he gets up to turn on the light. I started feeling around on the bed to see if I can find anything. I felt something warm, and when it hit Trent’s face I heard the slam! Like it made a crashing noise! So my first thought was someone had thrown a grenade through our window, naturally, and there it was sitting next to me on the bed, about to blow. (We had just had a conversation about grenades the day before, haha!) 

And can i just say... 

being completely asleep and then being suddenly awaken by something slamming you in the face... is just weird. Like you are not expecting it to say the least and are just completely out of it and can't see a darn thing and are really frazzled, for lack of a better word!

This all happened in a matter of like ten seconds.

Come to find out, it was the vent on our ceiling!! What the?!

We had been living at our apartment for a good 8 months, why in the world would the ceiling vent fall from the ceiling that much later, and what are the odds that we happen to be asleep, DIRECTLY UNDER IT!? And not only that, what are the odds it hits BOTH of us!? And the fact that we have vaulted ceilings doesn’t help either.

Poor Trent got a gash on his nose and eyebrow. Yes, eyebrow, see the pic! What if it had hit his eyeball?! I could have a blind husband! And by the way, those vents are heavy! And sharp!

Most of all, what if there had been a baby sleeping under it?! Could be death!!

SO…

Check your ceiling vents! Make sure they are nice and secure. First of all, make sure they are screwed in...!!! Someone, not to mention names Landlord, had not screwed it in…?? Looks like someone needs to take Landlording 101. We couldn’t go back to sleep for ever, about gave us a heart attack! I know, weirdest thing ever. 

 Sharp!!!

 Yes that is blood on the vent.