our cruise to baja mexico

as soon as cory accepted his job offer, we knew we'd have to be in chicago by may 1st or june 1st. since his offer was late, we figured he'd start in june. thus...we booked a cruise! it was from monday, may 12-friday, may 16. the weekend before we drove out to his grandparents in wrightwood with sienna so they could pet sit her for the week. they dropped us off in long beach on monday and we hopped on the boat, the carnival inspiration!

snorkeling at lover's cove! 

we were SO excited to lounge around, lay in the sun and enjoy the endless food...which is exactly what we did! tuesday, we docked at catalina island and cory and i went snorkeling at lover's cove. it was one of the coolest things ever! we had on wetsuits, which were the WORST to get on. i was so scared to only breathe out of my mouth and it took me a few minutes to get used to it. cory had on his go pro and we swam around together looking and touching all the fish! that night we had a formal dinner, which was kind of like every other night in the dining room. we always had appetizers, entrees and multiple desserts. i was surprised by all the mormons on board-many family reunions and honeymooning couples! the pool deck was very hot, but we managed to go out there several times and enjoy the sun and then the pool. cory got us me a pina colada (n/a obvs) and it was magical. i didn't eat as many soft serve cones as i thought i would. however, we did order room service a LOT. mostly cory though, getting several sandwiches and juice at once. wednesday, the boat went to ensenada, mexico. i tried to make cory walk laps with me on the upper deck track every morning and as we did, the boat pulled into the mexican port. we saw dolphins and it was so cool! none of the excursions appealed to us, so we walked into the downtown area and looked around at some of the shops, searching for some pullovers. we got one for me, sean and baby! basically, the cruise was us reading, eating and relaxing. it was perfect! 

sunset on the last night on board

cory's sweet aunt saundy picked us up, fed us and we got to see his cousin effie's cool band concert! one more day of rest at his grandparents and then back to provo for us so we could move to illinois the next day! 

graduation month

april was off to a busy start with general conference, finishing school, cory's accuquest interview in chicago, easter and our anniversary. and then came graduation!

general conference was so good this year and i loved how so many talks felt like they were just for me! visit lds.org with any questions :) of course we spent a session at aunt nicki's house for waffles. the next week, cory had to fly out to chicago for his final interview with accuquest. we were fairly confident they wanted him and he wanted this job, but this was the final test. he was told he had the job and would be receiving a formal offer by email a few days later. well, a week went by and the executive had emailed twice saying HR would be sending further information but cory still hadn't gotten the FORMAL offer. he finally called HR and the HR rep had sent his offer to the wrong email address. some other cory hill has been getting a lot of cory's emails...

friday night cory took me out to art city trolley for our anniversary. it was a fun place to eat and he bought frozen so we could watch it on the big hill on campus under the stars (awww). the next morning, we hit up great harvest bread for our bunny shaped bread and drove to granny and dorothy's house in cedar city! we had an italian lunch with them, the murphys and nicki's family. afterwards, cory, granny, dorothy and i headed to st. george where i so wanted to go to the st. george art festival! we got a beautiful plate painted/stamped with irises by a japanese artist. i've always said i'd love to live in st. george but i have to say, it was really hot for april! the next day the easter bunny came...even for cory and i! we had a nice church service and lunch/dinner with all the family. it was sad knowing it would be our last one.

monday was my last final and also our second wedding anniversary! cory got me some beautiful flowers and my favorite noodles & co. as we prepared our house for all our guest to begin coming that week!

my parents arrived on tuesday and we ate at the red iguana with aunt mindy (family classic). we went shopping at city creek where i got some awesome shoes for graduation. the next day we went to waffle love because ever since mom saw the pictures, she needed a waffle. we went to logan to put flowers on my grandpa's grave. we visited my great-uncle and his wife. after, we ate at maddox, a place my grandparents loved and another restaurant mom wanted to visit.

thursday i had to work, while cory went for a hike with his grandparents. we went to pupa's with them for lunch and then had to go home to get ready for commencement! it was crazy getting there, as we had lots of sweet family attending and lots of traffic :) president uchtdorf spoke, as well as my uncle tracy's mission president elder cardon. it was so fun to eat at the smoking apple, a bbq joint in lindon, with cory's granny, dorothy, his hill grandparents, his parents, siblings and my parents! so grateful they could all be there!

on friday, our graduation ceremony was at 11 am. i was surprised by how quickly they moved things along. cory and i had had priority seating and had previously arranged for me to graduate with him and the japanese majors. they loaded us into a hallway and the two of us walked up a ramp (woohoo) and shook some hands and got our diplomas! it was so surreal! everyone came home to our house where we had kneaders sandwiches, chips, pasta salad, fruit, lemonade and....3 gallons of graham canyon ice cream! what a whirlwind two days! lots of eating too, as we ate at texas roadhouse with cory's parents and family later the day and cracker barrel the next morning with my parents. mom, dad and i went to the sacred gifts exhibit at the MOA, then i got a pedicure with jodie, candice and shelly. we all went to the provo temple where cory and chad did the baptism and confirmation for their grandpa darrow. finally, we finished off the weekend eating at la jolla groves with my parents where cory indulged in hazelnut italian soda-his new favorite drink. WOW. i don't even remember what happened after all that action-just work for a few days (for me) and two weeks (for cory) and packing up the house. i'm so grateful for our time in provo. we certainly had a blast, loving our cute little house (most of the time) and our dog and our family and friends and BYU for the most part. i can't think of the last few years without much fondness and a little desire to go back. mostly, i'm so glad cory and i both decided to go to BYU, where we were successful in our educations and had the opportunity to meet each other. i'm sure we'll drag our kids around one day to all our old haunts while they roll their eyes. i have no idea when we will return back to provo!

MINNESOTA.

one day i was having a really hard time being away from my family and i was talking/sobbing/complaining to my mom about hard it is not to see your loved ones more than once  year. well, that good woman said she would come visit. and then she said that cory and i should come to minnesota instead! so thanks to dad's airline miles, we scored tickets for the president's day weekend/valentine's day/dad's birthday (a whole four days to be with my family)!

i have to say, growing up in chicago winters and living in utah, i feel like i know the cold. i was SHOCKED when i went to minnesota! it was like a race to get from the car into the house into a store into a car, where there was heating. we spent friday exploring my parents' awesome new house. it's already gorgeous with several acres of beautiful land, but mom has been redoing several of the rooms. there's columns and lots of huge windows and fun hexagon tile and a pool and hot tub and a basketball court and double doors everywhere and a butler's pantry and two fireplaces and a five-car garage! they had to buy a john deere riding mower/snow plow because their driveway is SO long and it can't be shoveled!

erik came down from minneapolis that night and we had a dinner and cake for dad's birthday. the next day, we went to a downtown area with little shops and looked at those until we got too cold :) we had a tasty dinner at redstone restaurant, with the most amazing banana cream pie. ahhh, what i wouldn't give for that right now!

sunday, we went to church with mom and dad and spent the day lounging (a nice break from classes) and monday, we couldn't figure out what winter sport to do! snowmobiling is fun (we did it in logan) but so expensive. so we settled on snowshoeing! i was SO bundled up in about ten layers with mom's eddie bauer coat on. i was sweating while we were snowshoeing around lake cleary. it was really fun but not when you fell over! it would take the assistance of someone else to pull you up!  we went to the mall of america and mexican food! mom bought me a beautiful red wool coat that i only got to wear a few times as the weather in provo became unseasonably warm! too bad i'll have a big belly next winter! it was such a wonderful time spent with my family. i love them so much. i love the ease and comfort of being together. of playing family games and eating mom's delicious meals. i can't wait to be with them again!

my favorite recipe blogs

once upon a time (pre-pregnancy), i loved to cook! and my two greatest sources for recipes never failed me.

1. mel's kitchen cafe
2. prevention rd

these two blogs have so many fabulous recipes that are usually healthy, always tasty and pretty easy!

some of my favorites from mel include: stacked enchiladas, sweet and sour chicken, lemon/garlic/spinach pasta

favorites from prevention rd are as followed: tikka masala and taquitos

christmastime!

i have to admit that i was kind of sad this christmas because it was my first one without my immediate family and all the traditions of the christmas season...we stayed in provo because jodie's baby was arriving in the weeks after the holiday and cory desperately wanted to be there for the birth! also, cory's family was coming to utah to celebrate the baby and the holiday, so we figured it'd be best to work through break and spend time with the hills! :)

thus, i bought us cute stockings off etsy and cory had to go in the crawlspace under the house to get the "6 foot" tree that really was like 4 feet tall. we decorated it with some lights and ornaments from costco, classy, and created a wrapping station in our guest room! earlier that summer, i had made a 25 days of christmas gift/note thing for cory, so each day he would get one of his favorite things or a coupon or a note. it was fun for the first part of the month and then i stopped doing it. poor cory! at least he got some good presents out of it and we had a few fun activities and date nights together! aside from the birthday cake oreos, iTunes gift card and reeses, i think he enjoyed coloring and baking the white mugs with sharpie markers! i even made one for my mom saying "master gardener". too bad the marker came off in the dishwasher! that was a sad day for all! 

we enjoyed having cory's family close by and went to vernal for a day and a half for my cousin haley's wedding! it was a beautiful winter wedding with fun pb&j's and donuts at the reception! i loved going to temple square and starbucks with my in-laws and nick's family to see all the beautiful lights! on christmas eve morning, jodie's water broke, so all the plans were on hold for christmas! i finished up a sour cream pumpkin cheesecake and my favorite winter salad and we headed up to nick's for a christmas dinner-one that shelly, craig, adam and jodie were noticeably absent at! cor and i took some food over to the hospital around 9 that evening and stayed for an hour or so while jodie labored and then we went home to sleep, with dreams of nieces dancing in our heads! 

around 3 or 4 am, we got the text that our first niece brierly michele murphy was born! we were so excited, we decided to celebrate by opening all our christmas presents! it was quite an atypical christmas, as we headed to bed after unwrapping all our carhart clothes and fine china. we woke up later and went to a gas station to get some hot chocolate to take to the hospital to jodie. i remember us telling the gas station clerk "merry christmas! we're off to see our new niece!" it was so fun to hold tiny brierly! we went home and kind of sat around for awhile not knowing what to do...everthing was clean and it was quiet and it didn't really feel like christmas! that night, cory and i went out to yamato for christmas sushi-a tradition i doubt we will partake of again. unless of course, there's another christmas baby! 

later that week, we had a little celebration at jodie's house with cory's whole family, including #chandice where shelly and craig spoiled us all with presents and stockings. it was a christmas i doubt we'll ever forget! 

that next week, i threw jodie a baby shower for her baby girl, thanks to my mom who sent a baby shower in a box! it was so cute with pink everything and a little luncheon and lots of people showed up considering how late notice it was (sorry!). brierly was blessed the next day at church by her dad and it was perfect because all of the family was there for it! 

one of my presents was a big recipe binder from granny and/or dorothy....and as my goal was to meal plan for 2014, this was the perfect place for me to store all my recipes. i curated all the recipes i love from my computer, online websites, pinterest. cory's goal was to coupon and so we would look for coupons that matched meals and i have to say, we were very successful at it all of winter semester! i'm hoping to pick that back up once we are in our own place again! life is in limbo, here in the hotel :) our winter break was definitely relaxing as there was NO snow, and i was able to go home early most days due to NO one being at the office. i'm so grateful we have so much family to spend our holiday with and especially grateful for this season to remind us all of christ and the spirit of giving. 

#chandice wedding week!

cory's little brother chad's wedding was scheduled for november 30, 2013, two days after thanksgiving. cor and i looked at our schedules and were able to get monday and tuesday off of work and both only had to miss one class out of the two days of classes! we drove to wrightwood, california on friday after work with sienna in tow. she was so good and got some free steak from a nice cafe rio in cedar city. the drive would've been easy, except there was a horrible freak snow storm outside of cedar city and a fedex truck slid through a guardrail and shut down one lane of a two lane highway...so that threw us an hour behind schedule. we made it through the rainstorms in nevada and california towards wrightwood, where the police monitoring the mountain traffic took a look at cory's utah license plate and waved him on into the snow :) sienna sure loved playing in the snow at grandma and grandpa hill's house!

it was a cozy weekend at their house, eating, napping and watching movies and quite a change when we headed down to hot, sunny corona on sunday! we stayed with cory's sanchez family that week, so we could travel to family in yorba linda with ease. it was a blast! i'm so lucky i married into a fabulous family!

monday, cory, his aunt teri, and cousin sara made our way to disneyland where cor and i had the time of our lives! i had surprised him with tickets to disneyland a few weeks earlier and could not wait for this special day! one of the perks of a degenerative eye disease is that you get a pass to skip all the lines at disneyland, soooo. yeah...we went on every ride we wanted to by 1 pm. it was AMAZING. we had a good lunch and loved the atmosphere of disneyland where everything is so magical! sara was such a doll, and as a yearly pass-holder, is quite the disney expert. she would find us spots to sit and take us through secret, quicker ways to get places. at the parade, cory was totally solicited by one of cinderella's stepsisters for a good five minutes. our chicken strips and fries filled us up for most of the day, but we still ate dinner and watched the beatles impersonators perform (so great)! sara rode space mountain again with me. cory and i got mary pippins and merida ornaments because we had seen mary pippins at tuacahn earlier that year and merida, because cory LOVES "brave". i was holding out to try my first dole whip-very good! we watched the magical show at the end of the night and it was the perfect conclusion to a perfect day-even though my feet were KILLING me. i solemnly swear to wear shoes with arch support for all future disney visits!

tuesday was a low-key day-i think cory and i slept in and went to a japanese restaurant for lunch. we drove up to yorba linda to head to the newport beach temple for candice's first temple session. it was lovely to be there with her on that special day!

cory and i got to spend the afternoon with cory's dad and his uncle greg, aunt saundy and their kids at their huntington beach home. we took sienna to the beach for the first time and that was an ADVENTURE! cory strapped his go pro camera to her and as soon as she was off the leash, she ran full-speed into the ocean and bam! there went the camera into the ocean! cory sprinted to save his precious go pro (he saved it). and we just gave up and let sienna run around and said cory staying dry was a lost cause. she ran for what seemed like forever while cory's dad and uncle played catch and effie and i just played in the little waves. one thing neither of us knew was that dogs swallow a lot of saltwater which apparently creates instant diarrhea. TMI and gross, but probably someone out there needs to know. sienna had a bad five minute walk home from the beach and spent many minutes being hosed off in the front yard where she stayed for a long time.

thursday-THANKSGIVING! in the morning, we woke up early to be one of the first people at candice's family's turkey bowl. jodie and i sat and watched the family play flag football for awhile and then we all headed home to get ready for thanksgiving! we showed up at aunt steph's house for their thanksgiving extravaganza of thirtyish people! it was intense and hard to wait while starving for everyone to show up and then pass the food around! luckily, we had lots of pie. afterwards, cory's family talked about black friday shopping but cory has this thing about crowds and i have this thing about no peripheral vision, thus making crowds not fun...so we went back to corona :)

we helped set up for the #chandice wedding and then parted ways as cory headed off to BWW's for cha'd bachelor party. jodie, shera and i went to one of candice's bridesmaid's house for a nice dinner, games and bachelorette party. it was so sweet!

i really wanted to get my hair done for the wedding and figured a local great clips would be cheap and easy....NOPE. it took the girl nearly an hour and half to do a half up-do. it was insane and crazy and i didn't spend nearly as much time on my hair for my own wedding. poor cory had to speed to get to newport beach where we made it five minutes before the sealing ceremony. it was lovely and intimate and so great to see candice and chad married together forever :) lots of pictures later, we were on our way to a luncheon of yummy tacos and then a reception of dancing and seeing friends and family! jodie, adam, cory and i had to head up to wrightwood after the reception, so we had to leave right after the couple. we had breakfast with grandma and grandpa hill at the classic rick's and then headed home back to the last stretch of school!

autumn 2013

i'm writing about this season months after it actually happened, but i'd like to have a little record of our lives since journaling isn't my strong suit and i doubt my husband secretly making scrapbooks...

fall 2013 was our last in provo, utah and the beginning of our last year at BYU. cory and i have been SO fortunate since being married to receive pell grants, as well as numerous scholarships, so the last two years of school actually made us money! which, we had to pay back in taxes later, so let's not talk about that. we both had heavy course loads that semester, yet were highly motivated, so it seemed to fly by, even though i probably read over twenty books in four months. we both were working at our respective jobs-front desk secretary at the department of visual arts in the mornings and cory, as lead student on the grounds crew for the southeastern part of campus (i hope that's right). 

we had lots of fun playing with sienna at a local park down the street and hiking all over the region with her. sienna loves food, car rides and sneaking on to furniture when we are asleep or away. she loved our long driveway on 9th east and would run up and down it with sticks in her mouth. 

one of my favorite things about last fall was the pallet headboard cory designed and mostly made himself. i helped sand and stain it. i arranged all the boards and would hold them up while he nailed them in. it is gorgeous and i'm so sad it's been in storage all summer. 

my birthday weekend was low-key...we went to the cheesecake factory and i had a fun shopping spree at the outlet mall in lehi! cory made me a funfetti cake on my actual birthday and he and sean sang to me :) it was a fun surprise the next weekend when cory's family (mom, jodie's fam and nicki's fam) had ANOTHER cake and sang to me. SO sweet! i miss them all terribly now that we aren't in utah anymore! 

halloween was spent at the beatty's house with pumpkins and treats and our lame costumes (construction worker and gingerbread woman). we aren't exactly the type to really GET into halloween, except for buying a bag of candy for ourselves (seeing as no trick or treaters came). 

overall, it was a beautiful autumn in provo!