Our First Anniversary!

 The day before our first year Anniversary Dustin still had obligations at work, so, I packed him a special lunch in his companion cube lunch box.

Tee hee hee, he'll never suspect it.

After he discovered his little surprise I went to meet up with him for a tasty picnic.

The wind kept up enough that we were able to eat outside without getting eaten ourselves by the gazillion mosquitoes that are perpetually present. That was a pleasant surprise for our anniversary lunch.

This was what was inside.. hehe, just building up the anticipation for a later and more spectacular surprise.

And a little bonus to make it a bit more exciting at the moment.

THEN SUNDAY MORNING...

The gift that I'd been working on since our engagement was finally ready! All wrapped and finished up the long awaited surprise (that he didn't even know existed) was about to be revealed.

The Jerusalem Box!

Ta da! There it is! All the things that I'd gathered from the Holy Land categorized, indexed, explained, and backed up by scriptures, stories and pictures

More than a year in the works but was well worth the wait. Everything I learned and experienced in Jerusalem brought home to Dustin, an attempt to share the journey with him. 

Now time for CAKE :D

Dustin surprised me with the best kind of cake EVER and a genius idea for a tradition to keep throughout the years of our life.  A small book with hard copies of the pictures of the things we'd done that year together, a project that we'd get to do together just to remember all the good times we'd had. I loved it!

Then of course, GAME TIME!

Best first year anniversary we've ever had ;D

Happy Birthday Daddy

The time finally has come.

 The revealing of your new Strother Rush XT is soon at hand and what better timing then your Birthday!

Wait for it...

TADA!!!

:D HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY :D

(for a bow, a...you...paid for)

;D

Now for a closer look.

Alright, here's your QAD DropAway Rest...sweet stuff.

And your 5 pin Trophy Ridge Punisher sight :D

Light included :)

Fancy new 2013 Badger II Cams

And a weighted string for added velocity :)

A little bit of my handy work :D

The whole package.

...and there she is in all her beauty :D

Now for the birthday gift that's actually from me.

I've been working on this hymn for you, and since its your favorite I thought I'd play it for you on your Birthday.

I love you Daddy.

BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!!!

For the first time EVER I got to spend my birthday with my beloved Dustin. Every year before that I'd been either out of state or out of the country. So he decided to make it one to remember! We got up that morning and got in the car for a trip. I'd anticipated that Dustin might have wanted to use one of his days off but I didn't have any clue that I'd end up 10 hours away sitting in a chair on Hill Cumorah!

Dustin has a knack for surprises,

 but this one surpassed anything he's ever done EVER (accept his proposal:)

We started driving at six in the morning and by the time noon came around I was getting pretty anxious to get there. Knowing that I had work the next day I was worried that we'd only have a little bit of time to spend at the surprise destination.

Around about three I was still driving and Dustin was passing out. This was quite worrysome because he would give me no other directions but "keep going straight." On the freeway this wasn't so difficult but if he fell asleep I'd end up in Canada with those directions. So I begged him to turn on the Navigation app on his Ipad so that he could get some rest and I could avoid getting lost. But in his low cognitive state he forgot that Siri would say what the destination was once he started the rout. "Starting. Route. To. Niagara. Falls" So we WERE going to Canada!! hahaha oh I laughed so hard, all this time trying to wesle out some kind of hint as to where we were going without any success only to have SIRI give it away!

 

We found an overpriced hotel room after Dustin surprised me the information that he'd contacted the Archery shop and gotten me the next day off :D I love surprises :D

I also love pudding.

    And jello.

          And $10 all you can eat Chinese Buffet!





...Dustin does too. ;D It was like ten minutes before he could even think about sitting down in the car again after that buffet. hehe:)

     And there it is, Canada, and Niagara Falls. It was Dustin's first time seeing the falls and they did not disappoint. We got there just in time to see the fireworks over colorfully lit falls. :)

The next morning :) mmmmm a beautiful day

These are all the cute churches that surround the ..uh..casino. That big blue building in the background is the casino, also conveniently has free parking :)

Producer: Kieth Merrill.
    I know him! It was super fun to see the Imax movie he produced that is viewed by a ton of tourists every day. We felt special. Last time I was here with my family we also felt special cause we'd seen an interview with Brother Merrill explaining that his movie would soon be coming to Niagara. Well family, it was a pretty sweet movie:)

                                                       

SMURFS!!!

       Jared would be proud :)

                    All soaked now. Felt fantastic.

This time I didn't throw my camera into the falls(/actually just saturated it in mist). The camera had a miraculous recovery from that fateful day and has since taken pictures of many a wondrous thing. Yet, its suffered a lot because of it and is on its death bed I'm afraid, I hope it can make it till we get home to Rexburg.

mmmmm I love these pictures.

That sandwich was bigger than my head.

Cave of the winds now gives out free shoes! Wahoo now we get to have a souvenir :D

   My mommy always taught me to take pretty pictures of pretty flowers. :) She's the best at it though.

HILL CUMORAH!!!

Little did I know, that Siri didn't actually give away the surprise. Niagara Falls was just a cover for the REAL treat. Apparently I'm not very familiar with Northern geography because when Dustin said that we had some place to be after a full day of touring the Falls I had no idea what it could possibly be. Even after smelling popcorn, fresh cut grass, lots of people and hearing LDS hymns as Dustin covered my eyes, I still did not suspect what he was up to. Not until I opened my eyes to a scene that could be nothing else but the HILL CUMORAH PAGEANT!

  

..and THIS, is a taco-in-a-bag. A Doritos bag in fact. Sold exclusively my Mormons at the Hill Cumorah Pageant. We got a kick out of that :)

And so it begins! :D

That's only 9,000 seats. The Last Stand on Hill Cumorah we figure would have included 230,000 Nephites alone.

What a beautiful way to commemorate such an eventful place. Teaching the lessons of the Book of Mormon just as was prophesied by the men who walked and prayed on this spot.

We got to spend all day Sunday touring the beautiful Church History Sites. There's a special feeling about this place that I have never felt anywhere else.

The Sacred Grove

Thank you my dear for this beautiful experiance together.