day date to the street fair

saturday was "edgefest". a little neighbor hood party in our new neighborhood. our friends bianca and greg live just a couple of blocks from us also in edgewater. so we decided to venture out and get to know our new home. 

i think both bianca and i had larger expectations. in my mind edgefest was a lot bigger and better. but we always have fun with bianca and greg around. there wasn't much to see or do so we just walked around, checked out a few little booths, listened to music and enjoyed the amazing back up dancers (hilarious i tell you). we had a blast just hanging out. even though edgefest wasn't what we expected we still had a good time. 

lovin' our hater blockers. as we can tell we are as cool as we look.....haha not! 

sorry for the phone pictures....i need to learn to take my camera with me. but here is the group. this was taken mid laugh. i thought the random lady taking the picture said something completely different than what she said. apparently i thought it was hilarious. 

we entertained ourselves with finger puppets. why not right? i think my favorite part about this picture is the fact that it focused in on the awkward couple behind us. she was helping him put on a new bracelet. spence was sad i didn't get him a bracelet. 

we finished the night all tucked into our office. the mr. studying and the mrs. planning her lesson. maybe next weekend we'll learn to do our work before late saturday night so we can play instead...haha...or not.

now we just need to find another awesome street fair to hit up this weekend. rib fest anyone.....

completely smitten with chicago

there is just something about summer in the city that i can't get over. around this time every year i start feeling fall coming on. maybe it's all the back to school sales going on. whatever it is i want it to stop. i am loving chicago right now. the weather is perfect. everybody is outside. we have street fairs and side walk sales. seriously...amazing. 

on sunday after church the mr. and i decided to go on a bike ride. we pulled out good ol' howie and off we went. i do just fine on the lakeshore trail but getting there scares me to death. we finally ordered me a sweet new helmet that is supposed to get here today (yay). in the mean time we took the back alleys to the lake. to be honest i loved going down the back alley ways. they may have smelled (a little too much in some places) but they were so cool....neat backyards and garages lined cleaned pathways overgrown with ivy. if i couldn't smell it would have been perfect. 

we spent the next hour or so just riding along the lake. enjoying the most perfect weather. i loved watching all the families out enjoying the day together. i got a few compliments on howie (who doesn't love howie the bike) and even more on the fact that i was matching with my bike, and my nails. i think i have a slight obsession with this color....sorry not sorry?

for those of you who are confused...howie is my bike. i bought him while i was in college. we've since replaced his seat to a beautiful leather one and added a basket. but he is still the same ol' howie. he has now lived in provo, holladay, st george, bountiful and now chicago. he's a trouper. he was rattling a bit on sunday but still cruisin'  along at his one beautiful speed. you can read more about him here, here and he even joined us for our engagements here.

we really had such a blast just relaxing, enjoying the lake and riding together. it was the perfect sunday activity. i can't wait to make this our new weekly tradition. it was the perfect way to end our weekend.

we finished off the night eating a yummy dinner together. i tried this recipe and we both fell in love. so simple and fresh for summer. after dinner we headed over to our good friends who now live just a couple of blocks from us...so happy...and chatted the night away. they even let us join them in their weekly tradition of putting their feet in lake michigan. i think i'll let them do it alone come december, but on sunday it was the perfect ending to the perfect day. 

like i said, i am completely smitten with chicago in the summer. i just wish it could stay like this for the next 6 months. then life would be perfect. 

bahamas part 2

once my family got into town we were off and running. the boys played golf and scuba dived while the girls relaxed, played in the pool and laid out on the beach. perfect i tell ya. as a family we explored hidden beaches, went on drives around the island and took a boat tour around various islands. as you can see we got a little camera happy. i couldn't help but post all of these. still want to go back! 

cliff jumping was a highlight. i love that in the pic on the left you can see spence's face as i'm jumping in. he was so proud of me (and i was of myself). i would have done it again and again if it weren't for the rocks on our way back up....ouch. my brother saved me from being smashed into a huge rock (thanks brother) and i decided once was enough!

snorkeling on our boat tour....we had a blast. while the boys went out once i hung out on the boat with the lainers. 

apparently i struggle with the jumping picture face....um yeah

dinner on the beach sounds nice until you get attacked by sand flies. yes those are real and they are horrible. you can't really see them and so you can't stop them. we had bite marks on our legs for days. // during our free time we'd go ride the golf course on the golf cart. we took lainey out with us one day. she was hilarious pointing at all the house. she loved the green and yellow one. 

oh just a little hidden cave off of nicholas cage's private island. we also saw faith hill and tim mcgraws private island. they wouldn't let us come hang out with them though...no idea why. so odd. 

yes this thing is alive....oh my gosh can you believe this star fish. puts the little guys we found to shame. 

as you can see i'm hilarious. i've got two year old humor down....peek a boo is my speciality. 

oh just us and the yummiest water in the world! 

my whole fam. how nice it was to just be all together. love them and miss them! 

like i said...our little star fishes aren't as great as the HUGE red one. we were still proud to have found them. 

one night we went exploring and found this hidden gem. it was the most beautiful cove. the water was about 4 feet deep the whole way out and so crystal clear. we waded out about a half a mile and just hung out with the family on a sand bar. if it weren't for the sand flies i would have stayed all night. 

my family. and of course alex. thats his typical picture face. i'm surprised we have any pictures of him smiling....haha! love my family so much. 

we ventured out to this little island just outside of the main city. there wasn't much there but we enjoyed the "chat and chill" and beach. 

my cute parents. thank you for giving us this incredible trip! 

one night while waiting for our food to come we spotted this little guy.....we were too scared to go in and touch it. turns out we totally could have. creepy sting rays! 

just out adventuring! 

the bug wouldn't let me take a picture of her. so i asked her to show me her rocks while we were waiting for dinner. as you can see she was pretty excited about her rock! haha love this bug. 

we were so sad to come home. it didn't help that we were coming home to a house that still needs some love, year two of med school and a work trip for me. ugh. but at least we came home rested, a little bit darker skinned and more in love!

bahamas next summer? count me in!

summer sick

so i'm making our 2012 scrapbook right now
and boy of by is it making me summer-sick

you know....
sick for warm days
late nights outside
and short sleeves

it's about this time of the year that i long for warm weather
maybe one day we'll live in a place that has a warm january
maybe one day....

but for now i have to be okay with just looking at pictures of us in warm weather
and hope that the next 4 months fly by

summer come to me!

throwback thursday...summer lovin'

so it's not a long time ago but i'm missing summer today.
the weather was so great last night that both spence and i could taste relaxing summer nights.
back in july we went to st. geezy with our besties! i was so excited to hang out with mj and parks for the weekend.

of course we went and saw aladdin. and seriously was not disappointed. the show was fantastic. i loved the little changes they did and the music they added!

i love how spence has a normal smile. parks and meh are so meant to be together forever!

it was hot but the night ended up cooling off which was nice!

check out our sweet glasses. i loved that part of the show was in 3d. seriously...how they did it blew my mind. i never thought a musical in 3d would be possible let alone awesome!

us right before we took off for home!

our cute best friends!!!

we spent the weekend eating, laughing, playing games and just hanging out. it was such a blast being with partks and mj before we moved. they will always be our best friends! can't wait till the day when we have lots of monies and our weekend trips can be to hawaii or something awesome like that.

can't wait to summer 2013....only 8 months to go..haha!

oh summer

oh summer. how i love you. do you really have to end so soon? with moving and working i don't really feel like we spent enough time together. let's change that okay! thank you for giving me a beach to play at. i'll come this weekend. is it really only wednesday. maybe i'll watch fireworks to night. on a pier. to make me feel more summery. and maybe i'll buy a snow cone. and wear shorts. and ride my beach cruiser. oh please summer please don't leave me too soon. i'm not ready for the cool. just not yet.

photo via

chicago feels more like home with visitors // weekend recap

momma barfuss came to visit us. she came to watch spence in his white coat ceremony but really i think she came just to play (or at least i like to think so). we loved having her here with us. it made me feel like i was not on a vacation and that i really lived in chicago. it was fun showing her around "our" places and neighborhood.

mom rented a car (lifesaver really) and on friday ran a few errands for me. we've been surviving well without a car but it was nice to have one for a few small out of way type of things. we spent the rest of the morning driving around and seeing fun neighborhoods. then was spencers white coat followed by a night out. we wanted to give mom the true chicago experience (even though she has been here before). we of course had to have deep dish pizza. pizzeria uno it was. we have been told that was the best place to go but to be honest it wasn't our favorite. still good though!

mom and spence. after we ate our life away in pizza....

sadly this is a typical picture for me. i try not to post too many of these but i couldn't resist this time. 

saturday we slept in (so heavenly) and went grocery shopping. again so much nicer with a car. our sweet mom loaded us up on all the important items including ice cream. how nice it was to not have to budget our groceries this ones. she was so nice to really take care of us!

we spent too long at the grocery store that we almost missed our architecture tour. luckily we made it with about 30 seconds to spare. sadly we couldn't sit by each other. thank goodness for little kids who were more interested in the treats downstairs that we finally got to sit together for the last half of the cruise.

welcome to our beautiful  city. we are in love.

it was so blasted hot on saturday...oh wow! i thought i was going to die. it was one of those days where we should have gone to the beach instead. it was still fun on the cruise seeing all the city.

my cute husband. this was towards the end of the cruise where we were all sweating to death. i'm impressed he looks so happy still :-)

again...i can't get enough of our city!

we had a blast learning some of the history of chicago and playing tourist. though i think we'll be playing tourist for a bit longer still. i'm still walking around wide-eyed as i slowly explore the city.

we spent the rest of the day shopping. again thanks mom for all you did for us. she loaded us up on birthday goodness (for the mr.) and some kitchen gadgets that we couldn't have afforded (for the mrs.). we headed home, took a nap and of course played games. like i said i feel so much more at home with mom visiting. just playing games made me less homesick.

on sunday after church we decided to get out of the city and go find the temple. you can read more about temples here.

we look the long way to explore some more. on our way we found this gem. oh wow was all i could say. yes those are glowing red eyes. and yes they had a line out the door (even with it raining). and yes we will be back to visit when it's not a sunday!

keeping myself entertained taking pictures. again i can't say how nice it was to have a car. yay for cars.

oh how i love to see the temple. this was one other place that really made me feel at home. too bad the gates were shut and we weren't able to walk around. it was just nice seeing the temple and knowing it wasn't so far away.

it really was an incredible weekend. mom really took care of us! she made us meals, stocked our kitchen, cleaned the place, taught us new games and really made us feel special and loved. our first visitor was a success. after this weekend it was officially decided we love visitors. so please if you would like to come stay we have a room for you! yay!

thanks mom for everything!

sun burns, heavy weights, and loads of laundry

the mr. and mrs. are back in action. sorry for the picture overload but it was the easiest way to get them all on the blog. despite the fact that all of our pictures are just the two of us (how did that happen) we just got back form a great family vaca onboard the "oasis of the seas". i can't say enough about this boat and the fun we had. with 7 "neighborhoods" to choose from we weren't ever at a lost of things to do. we ate way to much, but isn't that what you're supposed to do on a cruise. we saw awesome shows. gotta love being on the only ship with a full broadway musical, aqua theatre, flo rider and so much more. it was so much fun just being with the whole b. family. all 11 of us "adults"! what a great blessing for us about to leave.

we got back saturday night. had two sleepless nights with a broken ac. taught 13 primary kids. worked 3 10 hour days. found an apartment in chicago. finished an mph application. started loads of laundry.

i think we've had a pretty successful couple of weeks. so now excuse me while i put on a little aloe and change over the laundry. it's good to be back!