the graduate

We've had a whirlwind of a couple weeks! Tanner had finals, I quit my jobs, we packed up our house and moved to CA, said goodbye to lots of friends and family, but most importantly, Mr. Tanner graduated from Brigham Young University! Tanner majored in Exercise Science, and minored in Business. he did so well on his finals, and throughout his college career-I'm so proud of him! Now we are living with his family in California for the next two months, before Tanner starts school again. So, we are working hard, but still letting ourselves play and have some fun for the one break we have together! This is the first summer we have that I'm not working full time, and that Tanner isn't in school or studying for the DAT, so I'm excited to have some adventures together! 

Here are a bunch of pictures from the graduation dinner we did for Tanner, followed by Graduation pictures. We had dinner at Alamexo in Salt Lake with our family, and it was a fabulous celebration for our future dentist! 

this picture makes me laugh because of my face, but i just think it's really cute of when Tanner first saw his dinner set up...and me ;)

we had fun with our toothbrush cookies made from Dippidee

After dinner we walked over to City Creek and had a fun time. The next morning we headed over to the house to get ready (in our empty home :( ) and headed to graduation.

Scott's graduation was before Tanner's and we were so excited we were able to meet up with them in between for a picture. We couldn't let those boys graduate college without a picture, since they have lots of graduation pictures together! :)

We are so excited for them to move to AZ to attend ASU, because then we will be able to see them a lot!

Graduation selfies for the win!

he's the cutest ever

it was so windy and rainy after we walked outside!

we are so grateful all of Tanner's siblings were able to be there!

our good friends from our ward that we are going to miss so much!

YOU DID IT, TANNER! I love you!

getting ready to move

we move in approximately 10 days (depending on what time zone you're in) and i'm really starting to freak out. I don't know how I'll be able to pack up our house in that amount of time, but i know it will be ok! because guess what... spending time with my friends and family before we leave is all that matters to me. on sunday we made tacos and ate outside with our friends, and it was just what we needed. i may have shed a tear when they all left. the Friday before that we partied at the BYU grad night. the other night we had dinner with family, and i'm never going to have enough time with my baby girls before we leave. ;(

it snowed today, and i was really hoping we had gotten our last snow a couple of weeks ago......

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. 

carrot cake poke cake

last year I made the delicious carrot cake poke cake and it was so good, that I made it for our family Easter dinner again! and this time I took a picture of it!!

Carrot Cake Poke Cake

Followed from Something Swanky

I used a boxed Betty Crocker Carrot Cake. I was able to find the Cream Cheese Cool Whip frosting, and don't go without. The topping on this cake will make you die and then wake up, and eat some more. I did not use nuts on top, because some of our friends are allergic.

Ingredients

• The 9x13 Carrot Cake recipe of your choice, baked and cooled (I used a box mix)
• 14 oz sweetened condensed milk
• 8 oz Cool Whip
• 10.6 oz Cool Whip Vanilla Frosting (Cream Cheese flavor if your store carries it, mine doesn't)
• 6 oz (half a tub) of whipped cream cheese (must be whipped)
• Approx. 1/2 cup caramel sundae sauce (just pour on as much or as little as you'd like)
• Approx. 1 cup chopped pecans (sprinkle on as much or as little as you'd like)

Instructions

1. Leave the cake in the dish it was baked in-- this is not a free standing cake.
2. Poke approximately 20-25 holes, spread evenly, over the top of the cake with the bottom of a wooden spoon. Pour the sweetened condensed milk over top, trying to fill the holes as much as possible.
3. In a large bowl, use a hand mixer to beat together the cool whip, the cool whip frosting, and the whipped cream cheese until smooth. Spread over top of the cake.
4. Pour the caramel sauce over top of the cake, and sprinkle with chopped pecans.
5. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours, really overnight is best.
6. Cut into 12 squares to serve (you can cut more, 1/12 is a pretty large piece!).

cool whip frosting is not the same thing as cool whip, but located right next to each other. I was able to find it last year, but it wasn't available this yer, so I don't know if they stopped making it?? anyways, I just made a basic cream cheese/cool whip frosting, and it was still delish... but what isn't when it has cream cheese! right?