Fall in Arizona

We had a lot of fun adventures in Arizona this fall! 

Dressed up for free Chik-Fil-A

Visiting the Gilbert Temple

Nate's first day of law school!

Date night to LoLo's Chicken and Waffles and to the Diamondbacks game. It was a great night until our engine overheated! But we try not to remember that part...

LoLo's Chicken and Waffles was awesome!

Nate's pretty excited! 

Waffles-Syrup-Chicken-Hot Sauce

Date night at the Diamondback's game

Fireworks after the game

Conference at the Hymas' with friends...

Nate and Jordan were so proud of themselves for making those. All morning they kept saying, "These are amazing! You need to put these on Pinterest. Everyone will love them. How do you put this on Pinterest?"

Conference breakfast

Ward campout. It was really fun escaping into the mountains for a day. It was a beautiful day! 

The lightning storm rolled in during s'more time

The next morning was perfect! 

Ever since I can remember, Ryan and I have tried to find the smallest grape in the bunch. I found this one night during dinner and had to take a picture. Even from Argentina he said there was no way I could win because he found one smaller. Too bad he didn't have proof!

Our Summer Break

Originally, we thought that we would be able to find an apartment within the first week of being in Arizona. Well, that didn't happen, but we already planned our summer vacation trip to California, so we took a break from apartment/job hunting.

We spent two weeks at home in California and it was awesome! At first I thought that time would go slowly because we didn't have a major event (Christmas, graduation, etc.) but the time flew by! We were able to spend the mornings/days hanging out together and then spent the afternoons and evenings with the kids after school. We spent time playing tennis, watching shows, going to the beach, reading.

One Saturday my parents' ward had the men's softball game. We went to watch my Dad and the boys play. They are awesome!

Trey the Slugger

Dad's still got it!

Trey's double play

Dad's homerun! 

It was a high scoring game!

The game got pretty heated and some strong words were thrown around, but it made it for an exciting afternoon! I have missed seeing the boys play baseball since I moved away and they've grown up. It was really fun being able to see Trey and Dad play together in that game!

We also spent a day at the LA Zoo. Mom, Alyssa, Nate and I stole away for an afternoon and saw lots of cool animals. I hadn't been there in a long time, so it was a fun adventure! 

I love flamingos!

Alyssa loved this giant lizard statue 

The zebras were some of my favorites, but they just stood in the shade! 

The cute little orangutan made a show for us 

Mom and baby giraffe

The tiger was lazy in the heat

All of the elephants were painted to depict different countries

We ran all over the park to see the elephants! They are mom's favorites 

They liked to dance for us when some spectators played music from their phones. It was awesome! 

It was so fun being home, but the whole time we were in this weird limbo. We were staying with our friends, neither of us had found a job, we didn't have an apartment, and school didn't start for another two months.

I had been searching for a job since March, since ASU became an option for law school. I hadn't made any headway, there were no leads or even promising applications. Public health just isn't a booming field in Phoenix. I was getting really frustrated and a little panicked because I didn't have a plan. We had made it to the last step of our plan and now we were just flying by the seat of our pants! 

Anyways, no public health jobs. Non-public health jobs sounded fun, but my experience was not "adequate" for other positions. No one wanted me! I did not want an office administrator job. I didn't want to be a secretary. I started applying for physical therapy technician positions because I had experience in that from my internship. Within a few days, I got a request for an interview. Because I was still in California, we decided to do an interview over Facetime. Not too much later I had a job offer with Dynamic Rehab! I was so excited!! 

We headed back to Arizona after two weeks and the next week I started my new job! 

Moving Day

Two weeks after graduation we had our house packed up and our truck loaded. We were out of our apartment on May 15th and were on our way to a new adventure!

Packing was a little rough, but we got through it!

Living room

Kitchen

Bedroom

Apartment's empty...

All gone!

Thanks Trent and Kristen for your help! They're the best

The last time in our apartment

Bye #293! 

I always loved the view from our porch

We're ready to hit the road

So after our first 6 hours of driving, we stopped off in St. George to stay the night with my grandparents. We figured it would be good to give ourselves a little break and cut the trip into two legs. We were able to rest up, get some good food, and hang out with Grandma and Grandpa a bit!

The next morning we're about to head out when our trailer starts making a strange noise. We stop to check things out, and don't see anything wrong, so we get started again hoping there aren't any major problems. The trailer only makes noise when we turn or slow down, so we figure that some parts just need oiling. As we're heading to the freeway, some nice man in a pick up truck waves us down to tell us we have a flat tire! AH!! As we get out to look, we find out that it's not flat, the back axel is breaking/broken.

YIKES

This is very stressful, to say the least. Literally everything we own is now stranded on the side of the road, practically on the freeway onramp. We call Penkse Truck Rental company to see if they have a location close to us to come replace the trailer. The closest one is in West Las Vegas and was going to take THREE hours to get to us! So now we just have to wait. Thankfully we (a.) didn't get on the freeway and start driving, and (b.) my grandparents live in town.  After calling the local police department to see if we can leave the truck (I didn't want to get it towed/booted as well!), my grandma took us back to her house for some lunch and to wait it out. After about three hours, we headed back and waited for the trailer to come.

The guy finally came and replaced the trailer. After about 5 hours, we were on our way! Another 10 hours of driving in the middle of no where, on a two-lane road, and a few missed turns later, we finally made it to Mesa, Arizona. Thankfully we had some family friends living there who were willing to let us stay for a few days as we checked out apartments. More on that later...

We were so grateful to have a friendly house to stay in after such a long and stressful day! The Bentons were so kind to let us crash at their house! Nate had never met them before and I hadn't seen them in a very long time, so I was afraid we would be awkward. A few weeks before I had randomly called up their daughter to ask if we could stay there for a few days, so I was nervous we should seem intrusive and like freeloaders. If we did, they didn't show it because they seemed just as happy to have us there as we were to be there.

Originally we had planned to stay for a week while we decided on which apartment to move into. I already has a spreadsheet (yes, another) full of complexes to check out and thought it would only take a few days! Little did we know it would take a little bit longer than that! 

End of Life as We Know It

So once we decided where to go to law school, April just sped by!

I finished up my internship at Elevate Utah Fitness and Rehabilitation. I worked as a physical therapy tech and taught weight loss classes and helped a little with nutrition counseling. It was really fun! I always thought I would enjoy PT and was able to spend four months working side-by-side with a therapist learning about the field. My time there made me want to become a PT and really exposed me to the profession.

Nate and I also finished up our last few classes at BYU! It was crazy and busy and fun and sad all at the same time. I had been working hard for a long time and the end was finally coming! To commemorate our graduation, I had our friend Kristen take some pictures as I drug Nate around campus :)

The view from our balcony. Provo is so beautiful in April! 

Flowers planted especially for graduation 

In front of the Y. We loved hiking up there!

So excited to be graduating! 

My favorite graduation picture

Our best buddies Trent and Kristen

Love her!

Our awesome friends Landon and Keisha

This explains just about everything

Mom and Dad. Couldn't have done it without them!

The family (minus Ryan)

I loved living in Provo. It was such a great city to go to college in. There was always something going on! They had tons of restaurants, sporting events, movie theaters, and other attractions that were so fun! And, everything was cheap or free because there were so many college students in town. We are bummed to leave some of our favorite one-of-a-kind restaurants behind (we LOVE food), but will always find new ones! 

But to be honest, I was SO ready to get out of Provo. I feel like I had grown out of it and was ready for something new. I really didn't want to go to law school and be in town for another 3 years, but was prepared to do so if I had to. I made Nate promise that we would get a new apartment if we stayed there because I needed something new! And new is what we got!

The hardest part about leaving, and really the only reason I'd have wanted to stay, are the friends we made there. We had some great friends: some from back home, some significant others that joined the group along the way, and some great new ones as well! I knew we couldn't stay there forever, especially because a lot of them were leaving too, but it was sad to think we were leaving them to go to a place where we really didn't know anyone. That was much harder for me because I love people. I need friends around! I could hang out with friends every night of every weekend see them during the week too, and be perfectly happy. Nate is more of a homebody, which never ceases to blow my mind.

It was a great end to an awesome era of our lives. I will always have fond memories of Provo, of Brigham Young University, and of the friends and experiences there. 

View from on top of the "Y" you can see the Provo Temple

Love those mountains!