our easter and #ldsconf weekend

our weekend started early when tanner's parents and brother arrived to utah on wednesday. we went to salt lake to have lunch with them, and tanner's class got cancelled, and i was able to find a gymnastics sub, so we stayed all night and hung out. that's how we roll! 

the next morning i got to pick up my shelley mae who i hadn't seen since christmas! (technically we saw eachother in january, but it was for like 10 seconds-doesn't count). we did what we do best: errands, shop, and eat in n out. sadly, the only pictures i have of us are being weird and creepy with our hamburgers, but that's normal for us.

That night we headed back up to salt lake to be with the zylstra's, and have dinner at the roof in the joseph smith building. i always love the view of that gorgeous temple!

friday night i worked in the evening, but i was able to meet up with my parents who had just arrived, and tanner (who was paintballing with the brothers and he still talks about how much he loved it everyday) for dinner at brio. i just want everyone to know that i changed out of my work clothes into something for dinner, did my hair and makeup, all on the freeway. pretty impressive, right? i don't even think anyone saw either... :)

saturday morning we grabbed some donuts at the delicious banbury cross downtown, then headed to the afternoon session of lds general conference.

later that evening, the boys went to priesthood session, and my mom and i had a blast "walking" around city creek. don't tell dad...

here we are resting and chatting in restoration hardware

the next morning was Easter and it was so fun! the easter bunny (my momma) gave us some easter baskets with goodies, and then we headed to another afternoon session of conference. i'm really sad this was our "last" time watching conference in the conference center. I just love the tradition with my parents!

since we were staying at the hotel, we wanted to have an easter dinner, so we got to try the copper onion. SO good. must go. 

after, we drove around the capitol looking at houses, and came across this beautiful cemetary. my dad was also loving that he found a "Rogers" and reading all the names was cool!

we went home that night after a very fun weekend feeling blessed with amazing family and friends. 

Change

I recently saw this on my Pinterest board, and it was just what I needed to see.

It's sometimes hard for me to remember that every day I can make a small change to become better. Life is hard, and it isn't always fair, but it's through trials, that we can become stronger. I've been trying my best to be the person that I want to be, and eventually to become, but I think even at my age I'm still too young to know exactly who that is. I'm made plenty of mistakes, and I have a lifetime ahead of me for many more, but I hope I figure out who I want to be along the way-and not just on the outside, but most importantly on the inside. 

It was a great reminder to focus more on improving myself, rather than always pulling myself down. I know that takes time... maybe even years, but I'm up for the challenge! Who's with me?

Then We Went to NYC (Part 1)

I was so excited to finally be in NYC at Christmas. It's my favorite time to visit! I really wanted to take Tanner to see the Rockette's ("are those the girls that just kick their legs?") while we were there because the Christmas Spectacular is awesome and a must see during the Holiday season. If you search around, you can find really great prices on tickets! We went to the 9am show, so our late night partyin in the city the night before made us have sleepy eyes and a minor headache. 

After that, we headed to the temple, and went to the branch in the building. I love walking off of the crazy busy street into the peaceful temple building!

After the temple, we walked to Rockefeller Center to watch the ice skaters, and take a picture at the famous tree! 

We then finally went back to the hotel and changed, and on our way back, we loved seeing the #heisthegift billboard again! 

We then went to dinner and the 9/11 memorial and museum. The last time I was here it was still an open area getting ready for construction. I was nervous we wouldn't be able to see the museum, because I had heard people saying it wasn't open, but it WAS! We spent over 2 hours in here, it was absolutely amazing, and heartbreaking. We all couldn't stop crying, it was so hard to hear the voicemails left for family members, and see the news videos again. This is a MUST see. The fountains at the memorial are so breathtaking, there are no words to even say in that moment. 

The boys also loved taking pictures in front of the world trade center because of the neat angles, and for the awesome fog we had. 

Each one of those colored squares represents one of the people we lost on 9/11.

We loved staying in Times Square because it was always such a party when we got back at night!

To see our trip to DC go here

We First Went to DC

We had such an amazing Christmas spending time with family, eating great food, and my favorite-exploring new places together! We were lucky enough to get to go to the East Coast for my cousin's wedding, and then we spent Christmas and New Years in Mesa. 

I had never been to DC and Tanner had never been to NYC, so it was going to be new experiences for the both of us! We were worried we wouldn't be able to experience it all since we were there for such a short amount of time, but we hit a lot, and I really was able to check everything off of my list! I loved showing Tanner NYC at Christmas because it's my favorite time to visit. The next time we go back East we want to go during late spring/summer so we can see the cherry blossoms!

We started by taking a red eye to Charleston, then from there, to DC. Unfortunately, we had a lady with a loud, raspy voice talking the whole red eye flight, along with having her light on, so we didn't get much sleep. But then on our short flight to DC we each had our own row and totally conked out. From the airport we went straight to the beautiful LDS DC Temple where my cousin and his now wife were sealed for time and all eternity. This temple was absolutely stunning! And, to top it off, Tanner's old mission president from Florida is now the DC temple president, so we were able to have an amazing tour and experience with him!

it was seriously so so so so cold and windy when we walked out of the temple.

After the luncheon, we headed to the capitol. Our amazing Senator, Senator Flake got us White House & Capitol tours. He's such an awesome guy, and we are so thankful he did that for us.

When we first got there, we took an underground "train" to the capitol building and it was sweet!

We have our feet on the center point of DC right here. All of the streets lead to that spot. And at one point in time Washington was once buried in a room below it. 

How do we look in our future positions? JK

After the capitol we went back to the hotel to change and take a quick nap-we were exhausted!

We had pizza at We the Pizza and it was SO yum! I'll be doing a foodie post-don't you worry.

After we woke up refreshed, we headed to the National Mall to see the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the World War II Memorial. 

Lincoln Memorial-man that place was cool. It was so silent, and everyone was just in awe.

The Washington Monument:

And finally, the World War II Memorial:

(I was wishing I was in the warmer AZ weather at this point)

We ended the night with a trip to Shake Shack, and slept verrrrry soundly that night.

The next morning we woke up ready to see the White House! The amount of security there, especially the ones you can't see, is amazing. You even have to walk past dogs as they sniff you for security purposes! The White House tour consists of the East Wing, and that's where the President has most of the parties. I never thought we would actually see areas that they lived in. It was cool! I especially loved it smelling like pine, and all decorated for Christmas. It wasn't as long or as big of a tour as I expected, but it's definitely a must see! Especially because Tanner talks to every single secret service to ask questions that he probably shouldn't be asking-I just get nervous to have a gun aimed at me or something for being "curious". ;)

This teeny guy kinda looks like Grandpa Bill, so we were taking it to send to him!

Can you guess what room this is? It's the "green room".

Gingerbread White House

After grabbing lunch, we went to the Holocaust museum, which I would definetly reccomend going to. Every museum and memorial in DC is free which is so awesome. But, the history of that time was something great to experience. Sadly, we couldn't take any pictures. We felt very gloomy after it though, so be prepared.  

Something cool I found-our relatives were on the rescuers list! And, we sent these names to Oma and Opa, and they're actually relatives. So cool!

We "quickly" drove to New Jersey for the ring ceremony and reception, and it was cool to be on a road trip and see the history!

After the reception we drove to NYC, got in late, but then Tanner and I hit the town! 

#heisthegift billboard! There were 2 in Times Square!

We got back around 1-we are such partiers-but we slept so wonderfully in our Heavenly Beads. Seriously, Westin hotels beds are "Heavenly Beds" and they tell the truth. They're a dream. My parents have them at home :)

We woke up early the next morning for the Rockette's Christmas Spectacular, but I'll talk about that in a separate post!