I Turned 28

I'm finally getting around to posting pictures from our amazing trip home earlier this month. We went home for my birthday as a good excuse to play with friends and family with a week. We started out the trip in southern Utah with some friends hiking for 4 days. I promise you'll see more of our adventures soon.

But for now lets focus on the important part, my birthday celebrations while home! I had my very first Swig cookie. I've heard so much about them since moving away from Utah, and when we saw Bountiful now has a Swig store, we decided to check it out. It was a darn good sugar cookie; but nothing can beat out Parson's sugar cookies. I can't find sugar cookies like that out here.

My mother in law and Hal made me the most delicious dinner for my birthday party. Cafe Rio style tacos were just as good as the real thing. She even made me a pavlova with fresh berries and whipping cream for my cake. If you haven't had pavlova before, find some, eat some; and you can thank me later.

We had a Peace Corps friend who happened to be in town while we were home, so we got to have a joining of two worlds, our peace corps family meeting our real families. We had a very rousing rendition of the drawing game, which of course is the perfect ending to a night.

As the final celebration for my birthday, my brother in law took us sailing on the Great Salt Lake. This has been on my bucket list forever. I'm kind of obsessed with all things nautical, so sailing has been a dream of mine forever. This was the perfect ending to the perfect birthday trip. If you ever have the chance to get out and try sailing, I highly recommend it. 

Birthday Wishlist

It's Birthday Month up in here and I couldn't be more excited. Birthdays are the best, and this year I'm going to be doing something extra special fun. In my oh so old age, I think I've reached the point where I want fun experiences more than things. But let's be honest, things are pretty fun too. Mostly it's fun to visit all my favorite websites and see what the new trends are, and what I fall in love with; so I put together a list of fun little items I'd love to celebrate my birthday with.

Fun Shoes

Via Modcloth

I've been on such an oxford kick lately. My favorite pair of shoes I own are some Steve Madden oxfords and I think it's time to add some more to my collection. And the mustard yellow will be perfect for spring and summer. I love having a little pop of color on my feet.

Designer Swimming Suit

Via Canyon Beachwear

I love a good swimming suit and I always tend to go for classic vintage styles with my swimming suits. I was recently introduced to Canyon Beachwear and loved a lot of the suits, but as soon as I saw this poka dotted ruched number I knew it had to go on my wish list.

Dainty / Geometric Jewelry 

Children of Flowers via Etsy

via Amazon

I know I'm kind of late to this bandwagon, and I'm usually not one to ask for jewelry ever, but I've totally been digging really minimal, dainty geometric jewelry lately. That ring is so beautiful I'd want to wear it all the time. 

Fun Sunglasses

Via Modcloth

I love sunglasses. Just like my shoes, I want my sunglasses to be a pop of color, and a statement piece, but I refuse to spend a lot on something that will probably break and or give me a headache. When I saw that these little numbers were 30% off at modcloth, they called my name a little louder.

Pretty Dresses

Via Shop Rouche

This is the first year there's not something I'm dying to ask for, for my birthday, but I feel like every girl needs a beautiful flattering dress in her closet that can be worn pretty much anywhere, and this dress is it. Super cute, can be worn to work, or a nice event, and has an interesting neckline in the back for a little surprise.

This Guy Turned 28

Saturday was Hal's 28th birthday. You'd think he was turning 40 with the way he talks about turning 28. He's deep in the throes of studying for his first CPA exam and only took time away from his study materials to play in three ultimate frisbee games in his league's tournament.

Happy birthday Mr. I love you.

I love that you highly enjoyed playing frisbee on your birthday even though you guys lost, and that you said you'd do it on your birthday again; because that sounds like death to me.

I love your unique sense of humor, where I can buy you this birthday card and you love it.

I love that you push me to be better and to go outside of my comfort zone, and that you tell me it's ok if it didn't work out, and that it's me making the effort and trying that matters.

I love that you love to vacuum.

I love that you have the best grumpy cat frown I've ever seen.

But most of all, I love that you are forever my partner in adventure.
                                                 
Happy birthday, ya old man.

The Big 27

I'm officially 27 you guys! Hal thought he was turning 40 when he turned 27, but it wasn't a big deal for me. Perhaps because most of my friends turn 27 before me, so I've felt like I was 27 for the past 6 months.

My birthday was great this year. It was very low key compared to my past birthdays. But such is life when you're living in a new place and don't have a ton of friends yet. But it was perfect, my birthday fell on a Saturday this year, so I got to spend my entire birthday weekend with Hal.

I kicked it off with giving myself a manicure to try out my new matte top coat. It's real subtle, but my ring finger has a matte top coat on it. 

Some may call me high maintenance, but I asked Hal to plan me a surprise as my birthday present this year. I love surprises, and he didn't disappoint this year. 

We woke up and had breakfast in bed and just lazed about. Hal told me my surprise was that he was going to go shopping with me and I could get whatever I wanted. Hal hates shopping, and I hate shopping alone, so it was perfect. I got this little number which has pockets and was on mega sale from Ann Taylor.

via

Then Hal took me out to my always favorite meal, Indian food! We walked around the Clarendon area, which is a great neighborhood and just had a great time being out in the perfect weather. We also picked up some macarons and cupcakes for later.

 It really was just a low key perfect day. We ended the night by watching The Secret Life of Walter Mitty in the theater room of our apartment complex. If you haven't seen it; you probably should. But I warn you, you may come down with an acute infection of wanderlust. Anyone want to pay for me to go to Iceland? I guess for now I'll settle for my awesome new kicks, which you might recognize from my wishlist, and will probably see in lots of future hiking posts.

Happy Birthday Mr. Hal!

Guys, I'm officially married to an old man. In Hal's mind apparently 27 = real old. You're welcome to roll your eyes right along with me at that statement.

Today marks 27 years since Hal was born in what could only be considered a supply closet in a tiny Minnesotan hospital.

I can't believe how much we have grown and matured over our almost 6 years together. I am so lucky to be with such an adventurous person, even if sometimes it about gives me a heart attack.

He is always excited to try new things and is always willing to do things that make other people happy.

And because he posted the worst picture of me ever on my birthday, I am lucky to be with someone who is endlessly silly and curious. I am so lucky to be married to someone who enjoys trying so many different kinds of foods, and encourages me to break out of my habits and try new things.

And lets be real for a minute. I'm real lucky to be married to such a hottie. So even though he might already be an old man, he's still my man; and I am so proud of all that he's accomplished over the last year. I am so excited for him and the next chapter in his life that he began when he accepted a job offer this week! 

Happy Birthday Halbean!

Fabulous Birthdays

Thanks for all of the birthday wishes guys! That was actually Hal's very first post on this blog. Lets hope that we can get him to come back sometime.

I had the most fabulous birthday this last weekend. I wasn't really feeling my birthday this year, normally I'm that annoying person who's telling you how many days until my birthday all month long. But this year, with Hal being gone almost the entire month and my sister moving away, I just wasn't feeling it.

Well my family threw me a BBQ for my birthday and it was fantabulous.

We raced boats down the creek in the park. They were all practically instantly shredded, but it was still fun.

I was so blessed and all o f my family came together to get me that bike I mentioned for my birthday, but even better. Basket. Check. Bell. Check.

I can't believe we didn't take more pictures of everyone who was there, it was so great to have my in-laws and pretty much my entire in state family there.
You know it was a good night when you end it by playing frisbee for hours in the dark. Our hand eye coordination may have gone downhill a little bit, along with the light.

Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday, it really was a happy day.

Happy Birthday to Sam

May 31st is a very special day. Why you may ask? It is the day that Samantha Jane came to earth and joined her family. Little did 6-month old Hal know that the love of his life had just arrived. Many years passed and Sam grew into a kind, beautiful young woman. Hal didn't stand a chance when their paths crossed-- they were meant to be together. Here are just a few reasons why he fell for her (in picture form):
Likes Rain


Loves Money ...which is why she married a student. ;-)


Incredibly Beautiful


Patient & Kind


Thank you for your love, honey.

A Weekend of Birthdays

So I'm a week late in posting about or Birthday filled weekend, but you'll forgive me, right?

On his birthday I surprised him with tickets to see The Killers at the end of the month. They're his favorite band and he's never seen them, and he had no idea they were coming to town. Points for me! Then we fulfilled his shopoholic needs and went to IKEA and found him a desk he's in love with.

We started the weekend by celebrating Hal's 26th Birthday with friends and family at the delicious Thai restaurant Sawadee. My favorite is the Pineapple Curry. mmm. I felt super fancy because I knew how to bow correctly and say thankyou in Thai. I'm pretty much the shiz, right?

All that food was gone so quickly. Dang Thai food is yummy! We mentioned it was Hal's birthday and they came out singing and brought us yummy fried bananas.

Then we kicked on over to the Gateway to see the new James Bond. It was openning weekend and it was packed. The James Bond girl in Skyfall is like 1/3rd Cambodian. Pretty awesome, right? The movie was really good. I was the best James Bond I've seen in a while. I thought it was kind of a throw back to old school James Bonds. It was good.

The next day was our good friend Charles' Birthday. It had been snowing for over a day straight by that point and the snow had piled up over night. They went to play in the snow, but we missed that and went straight for the cake, literally, not figuratively. Charles' family is so sweet and hosted everyone for dinner and games and cake. I learned some new fun weird pig game. Ever played Pass the Pigs? It's silly, and easy, but I enjoyed it.

On Sunday we had a party for Hal at my dad's Almost everyone was sick and couldn't come, but Hal didn't mind once he got a load of the present my sister made him.

Hal and Organic homemade jello = Life complete.

My Mr.

So as most of you know I have this husband. His name is Hal, and he's a study-holic.

The main reason we're here in Utah right now is because of school. He got accepted into BYU's Accounting Program. This is a top 10 program. Like they have 100% job placement after graduating. How the program works is you have 1 year in the "Jr. Core" and then reapply and spend 2 years in masters school. So you don't actually even get a bachelors degree.

Right now he's in the Jr. Core program, and he's loving it. I'm loving it a little bit because he's loving it, and also not loving it a lot bit because he's kind of married to BYU right now. His professors call the wives of Jr. Core students "Jr. Core Widows". You have no idea how many times I've heard this term over the last two months. If that term was a real life thing I would have strangled it by now, and not felt sorry about it.

So even though I hate that term, on those nights when Hal's pulling an all nighter for the second time in two weeks, it sucks. I don't call myself a Jr. Core Widow....at those times I like to think of it as you have this pretty awesome guy living with you, and who's pretty darn good looking, but has an evil controling master who lives in his textbooks and doesn't let you spend time with him. That sounds much more accurate, right?

In all honesty his program seems amazing. He comes home at least once a week telling me about some amazing presentation he had today and how now he he wants to do some new fangled area of accounting for the rest of his life.

Even though there are some nights where I'm lucky if I get a half an hour with him, or if he even comes to bed, I'm still so proud of him. He is giving this his all. He is working so hard for our future. He is so unbelieveably busy and stressed that he lost 15 pounds in a month, but he has an alarm on his phone called "Sam Time" to remind himself he needs to stop what he's doing and spend time with me. It may be small to some people, but that's just about the sweetest thing a busy man can do.

Oh, and lucky him, it's his 26th birthday today! Last year I was sick on his birthday and we weren't allowed to leave our province yet, so I'm making up for it this year. We'll be patroning our favorite Thai restaurant followed by a screening of the new James Bond movie!

Happy 26th to my Mr. Thanks for being so dedicated!

25th Birthday

Guys, this is really weird to me. Last week I turned 25! I even had to be a big girl and work on my birthday. I met with a director in Siem Reap, which of course was then a good excuse to spend the rest of the weekend in Siem Reap.

For my birthday Hal took me out to one of our favorite restaurants, Il Forno. It's owned by a great Italian family, and they have sister restaurants in Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville and even Vietnam. 

Our favorite thing to eat there is the gnocchi. SO good. It's practically dripping in butter, just how I like it. 

 It's hard to feel pretty in Cambodia when you're often wearing grungy clothes because hand washing them is awful, and you're sweating your brains out, so it's so nice to get dressed up every once in a while and remember what it's like to feel normal. Since it was a pretty big birthday Hal and I decided to get all dressed up. I wore my fancy dress he bought me for Valentines day and he wore the fancy tie a friend sent him for my birthday. A tie with an anchor on it = great gift idea. Hal was awesome and thought ahead and bought me the cutest shoes from Zara while we were in the UK. 

I had such a fabulous month celebrating my birthday between Koh Rong, and Siem Reap. I don't think it could have gotten any better. Good food, cheap hotel rooms, and good company is all you need to make me happy. Oh just kidding, I need one other thing to make me happy, a little mille feuille from Blue Pumpkin (possibly the best dessert ever).

Birthday trip to Koh Rong

All of us K5 (5th group of volunteers in Cambodia) decided we wanted to go somewhere awesome to celebrate our birthdays all together, and that awesome place was Koh Rong. Koh Rong is an island 2 hours off the coast of Sihanoukville.

To get to Koh Rong you have to take a 2 hour boat ride. That's at least 2 hours, more depending on the weather. Going to Koh Rong we had lovely weather and a nice relaxing boat ride.

On the island we stayed at Monkey Republic. The bungalows were nice, we got one with a shared bathroom, and I'd say if you're not on a volunteer's budget go for the bungalows with their own bathroom. The staff at Monkey Republic were really nice. And they just dropped their prices on the boat ride to $9.50 round trip, so if they try and charge you $10 each way make sure and inquire about their new prices.

Our second day there we tried to take a boat to the pristine side of the island (you know, the #32 most beautiful beach in the world). Our friend had a hurt foot, and couldn't do the hike so we rented a boat.

We got going and it was nice and sunny and beautiful.

We were having a good time being driven by this little 9 year old (no joke, he steered the whole way back and the 16 year old captain just hung out)  when all of the sudden as we were making our way to the tip of the island the waves started getting real big and we were all getting wet as the boat would splash through the swells. Finally after about 45 minutes the driver said we had to turn around. Blast! He said he'd take us the other way around. Ok...He didn't take us the other way around. He took us to another stretch of beach about 45 minutes to the other side of our hotel. It wasn't pristine, but it was beautiful none the less. The sand was white and gorgeous.

Then we saw this big path over the mountain. Oh, this must lead to the pristine side, right? So we hiked it. 3 people hiked it without shoes. One of them being Hal.

So he busted out his boy scout skills and made his own shoes. How baller is that?
After hiking we realized that side just led to a small fishing village, and was in fact, not the pristine side. So we never got to see it, but we still got to see some stinking beautiful stretches of beach.

We had a lovely birthday dinner celebration by going to Treehouse bungalows down the beach, as we heard they had excellent pizza. It was indeed excellent.

It was on the brink of raining when we boarded the boat to head back to Sihanoukville. Hal and I took motion sickness medicine which proved to be a good choice as soon enough we were in the heart of the storm and it was raining inside the boat. Every inch of pretty much every person on the boat was soaked, including most of the bags. The waves were very large and were causing the boat to rock, a lot. A large portion of people on the boat threw up over the side. I'm pretty sure every life vest on that boat was being worn as a lot of people were generally scared for their lives. We were all very happy go reach land. It's one of those moments where you just say "Oh Cambodia" and then get over it. Hopefully all of those tourists weren't scared off.
As a suggestion, don't go to Koh Rong in the rainy season.