4 years...

Once upon a time, a young man and a young woman fell in love. The 2 of them decided to get married, and after 3 months of engagement, they were sealed to each other 4-ever.

Here are some highlights of the last 4 years together:

Our Happy Wedding Day! October 5, 2007

Year 1- Adventures living in Zion Notional Park

Year 2- San Diego (on the beach of Cornado)

Year 3- The Wind Caves!

Year 4- Livin' it up big on our Cruises (with fruit punch, of course)

A lot has happened in 4 years, and I can't wait for the many adventures we have yet to do together. I love you, Scott!

Gradumacation Maconkie!!!

Yesterday I completed my 6 year journey through school by Graduating from the University of Utah!! It was a great day altogether with inspiring messages from the speakers and great times with our families.

Author Mitch Albom was the guest speaker at commencement and gave an inspirational and very personal speech about his journey through writing his most popular novel "Tuesdays with Morrie". He brought tears to my eyes as he talked about the influence one professor had on him, not only through school, but through his example of enjoying life and living with no regrets to the very end. Scott and I both agreed that Albom's speech was even better than the one given by author David McCullough 2 years ago at Scott's graduation.

Although I am now officially a Ute, I could not be more grateful for the continuous love and support from my parents. They have been great mentors to me and I love them both so much!

My Grandma Groves was able to fly out from Napa Valley to be here for my graduation and I am so happy she was able to make the trip to support me! I'm glad she'll also be able to stay out here for an extra week to see Riley come home and give his Homecoming talk.
My mother-in-law Jayna was also at the ceremony (but for some reason I didn't get a picture with her:( She has put up with a lot from me during school, from playing my french cd's in the living room over and over and over again, to leaving my books and notes scattered about the house during the 1 year (or 3 semesters) that we lived with her.

I presented my stole of gratitude to Scott after my convocation ceremony. He has been my biggest strength and support through this journey. After his internship down in Zion, he turned down a permanent position at the resort because he knew how important it was to me to finish my schooling. He has put up with my high tuition payments and low energy for the past 4 years. This last year was the hardest with me trying to cram in as many classes as possible and reading up to 5 or 6 books at a time, trying to finish them within a few short weeks. Needless to say, many of our date nights consisted of Scott watching a movie by himself while I locked my self in the computer room to read, or even me taking my books along to a baseball game and trying to fit some reading in between innings (or fitting some baseball in between chapters was more like it). I am blessed to have such a supportive and understanding husband who has sacrificed a lot for me to stay in school. He's just awesome!!
We ended the day with a big Butler/Groves BBQ at Sugar House Park where we played soccer and ladder toss and our 8 year old nephew, Zach, taught Scott how ride a rip-stick.

Although I did graduate from the University of Utah, I couldn't have done it without BYU as well. My first year of college was spent on the beautiful campus of BYU-I and have many fond memories and experiences from that first year that I will never forget. My mom won't let me forget them either, as she tactfully hinted so on my graduation cake.
Who am I, sir? A Utah man am I. A Utah man, sir, and will be til I die: Ki! Yi!

2010 in a Nutshell

So I've decided I'm not very good at blogging. Since it's been a while since our last post, I'll just do a quick recap of what we've been up to recently.

We had a very busy summer and did a lot of traveling. Our biggest adventure of the year was traveling down to Havasupai in the Grand Canyon. The weather was HOT but the scenery was incredible.

The top picture is of Havasu Falls. It looks small but it was actually pretty big.

This next picture is Moony falls. I guess a few years ago it used to be split up at the top and created two waterfalls that came down this cliff, but in 2007 there was flash flood that nearly cleaned out the canyon and made this waterfall just one massive stream. You can't tell from the picture, but the fall itself is at least 100 feet tall.

The next picture is Beaver falls. It's not very tall, but very beautiful and fun to play in! The water was so warm! I'd say between 85-90 degrees, which felt really good after hiking in the 110+ degree sun.

There was one more waterfall we played in called Navajo falls. It's about 35- 40 feet high and had a really cool cave underneath it that we could jump off of, through the waterfall, and into the pool below. Scott was even brave enough to jump off the top of the waterfall. I'll post a video once I figure out how :)

Penny also had a good year. We bought her a pass to the Course -a-Lure obstacle course and it was fun to watch her time improve after every run throughout the summer! She loved it and we are definitely doing it again this year.

Although she has gotten bigger and is learning some new tricks, old habits still die hard. She's had her share of getting into trouble, but it's hard to look into those big brown eyes and stay mad for too long!

We spent our 3 year anniversary in San Francisco and had a lot of fun visiting Alcatraz Island, eating seafood, and even catching a round of golf with Grandma and Grandpa!

We had a very peaceful and relaxing Christmas. I worked a lot during the month of December while finishing up with my last semester at the U. I am now officially graduated!! With ski season and Sundance in full swing, Scott has been putting extra hours in at his job. But he still finds time to make it up to the slopes about once week.

2010 was a great year for us, but we have a lot in store for this year as well. We are looking forward to a great 2011, and hopefully I'll be better at posting as well!

Not-so-Fairy-Tale Ending

Every little girl grows up with a dream; a dream of someday finding the perfect match. The match that would be love at first sight, a match made just for you and no one else as if created in heaven. You'd be the perfect fit for each other, like Cinderella and the glass slipper. A love that you know will last for decades, nay, centuries of complete bliss and triumph. I'm not talking about prince charming here, I'm talking about every girls dream of the perfect pair of shoes!

I found my perfect match just over a year ago. It was as if they were calling my name. We've spent many nights together strolling and even dancing at weddings and parties. I always took good care of my treasures in hopes of spending those timeless moments together throughout my mortal existence.......

......but my dreams were soon shattered in an instant.

Lucky for me I was able to identify the culprit quickly and she was placed safely behind bars, for the time being. Sadly, this had not been her first offense.

Ode to the JEEP

So many times you carried us and dropped us like a rock

You spent more time with your friends- the mechanics

Every time we fed you high octane, flooded you with synthetic oil and bandaged your broken parts

We cared and cried for you when you left us stranded in the middle of the road...

And now you pushed us TO FAR!!

Away from us you go

Enjoy your friends forever more that will probably separate you to salvage the few good parts left, or worse, you end up with some other unfortunate soul to have you cause pain to.

You gave us nothing but headaches and empty pockets with nothing in return

Goodbye forever and never come back, enjoy your last ride on the back of a truck as we wave goodbye and celebrate!

Time- Never enough for everything

Life is busy as it always seems to be, whether your battling out those final semesters in school or even planning a vacation, time always seems to keep you going and it sometimes seem there isn't enough of it. No different for us, Carynn just finished out her second to last semester at the University of Utah and looks forward to a summer away from the text books and into more novels, working at a garden nursery and choreographing for community theater. I am in the middle of a run of 'The Three Musketeers' at Hale Center theater and am also looking forward to a break. As both of us were hitting the limit with work, school, shows, work and everything else; we planned an impromptu vacation for four days to Las Vegas. It was all revolved around relaxing and we got exactly that. Fun at the pool enjoying the nice 80 degree weather, fun shows to enjoy and just being with each other as that seems to be a rare commodity in our lives right now. We are both looking forward to summer and our exciting vacations planned to Lava Hot springs, Bear Lake, and Havasupai (most excited for that one). Not to mention a summer of Bees Baseball (as long as the weather holds out which it hasn't been)! So as we push on coming to the end of our busy schedules, we only find ourselves jumping into yet another pool of time envelopment and enjoyment. We wish everyone the best this coming summer and hope that all your time is used in the best way you think possible. One idea- turn off the T.V. and get outside (that is if the rain will give us all a break)!

Our new addition

For those who don't know, Carynn and I were awaiting the arrival of our new family member just over a week ago. We were planning and ready to adopt a little Cairn Terrier into our family only to have it end in disappointment. The day before we were supposed to go pick her up we were informed that one of the puppies she was living with came down with parvo, a very bad disease for puppies, and they had to keep a two week watch on our future puppy to see if she would come down with any of the symptoms and so they could treat her. We waited the two weeks only to receive the bad news that she did contract the virus and didn't make it. It was a sad time for us but turned out alright in the end. We were lucky enough to find another Cairn Terrier and were able to pick her up and she couldn't be a sweeter puppy. We have had her not even a week now and we have loved every minute having her in our little family.

So say hello to Penny, our nine week old little puppy :)