Before We Got Here...

Today, we woke up in Minnesota.

Well, we have been for over two weeks now...I know, I'm behind on my blogging! Anyway, we got here safe and sound and are alive and happy...and I would prefer not to talk about the day we left. So I'll catch up real quick and talk about BEFORE we left:

I turned 23.

We had a yummy dinner at Carabba's!

We played some tennis (Ben's brother & mom)...

Made some molten chocolate cake with my little brother,

(Isn't he cute?)

Went to a Real Salt Lake soccer game in the rain with my family (below are my brothers minus the green shirt friend),

(Two more brothers and my cute parents.)

...and we got soaked. But it was still fun.

Went to a Wade family reunion in Idaho, where Ben and I went on our own little day trip (Ben loved his huckleberry shake)...

Watched a cool thunderstorm...

(Isn't that a cool picture?)

...And my smart husband graduated from BYU (yay!) with University Honor's. Here he is holding his thesis.

My family came to Commencement...and I decided to close my eyes during the picture.

We also had Convocation the next day. Why is the lighting always bad at important events like this?

Here's Ben with his wonderful parents.

To celebrate, we tried a victory slide down the railing.

Ben misses his days at BYU, but is already loving University of Minnesota.

We sold Ben's Nissan Altima. Beauty was never her best feature, but she was very good to us (and Ben, before we got married). We'll miss her.

My friends, Lindsey and Melissa, were nice enough to throw me an early baby shower! It was a lot of fun.

I gratefully received some needed baby advice,

and my belly also got measured...a little embarassing...

Here's the whole group...family and friends. Thank you to everyone who came!

Here are my lovely in-laws...

...and my wonderful mother, who has raised plenty of boys and will be hearing from me very often for advice (oh yeah, by the way, we're having a BOY)!

I also had my last day at work. This was my first nursing job and I will really miss all of the cute, smart nurses I worked with! I spent a lot of time and had a lot of laughter and even some tears over my three years there in labor & delivery...they were all so good to me and even threw me a little party on my last day.

Ben's brother, wife, and their baby (Jordon, Brittany, and Kenzie) came out from Indiana to visit! We loved spending time with them...and now we live even closer!

We had one last little hoorah with our friends at Pizza Pie Cafe, where my little brother works.

We sure will miss them!

And this is the night before we left. My family hopped the fence over to Ben's family's backyard, where we played volleyball and had dinner and ice cream. We already miss them so much, but are glad we were able to live so close to them for our first two years of marriage.

Minneapolis has been good to us so far...we have met great friends already and are just about done getting settled in our new apartment.
More to come on that later...