girl's camp

...I am away this week at girl's camp. I am the ward (church congregation) camp director for church and I am so excited to go to girl's camp with the 12-18 year olds I've gotten to know over the past couple of months. they are awesome girls and they have some awesome leaders, too.

...I will miss Dean a ton, but I know that this may be the last time in a long time that I will be able to be away from my family for as long as 5 days at a time. we've made all our preparations and are headed up to the lds ranch in st. cloud, florida! I'm way excited to go there and have fun with the gorgeous girls in our ward.

best bbq in town

this week, we went to Shorty's: hands down the best bbq in Miami. there is always a line outside, even for lunch, which is when we went. it's a really casual place with benches and long tables for seating. Dean liked the chicken and french fries and I enjoyed my pulled pork sandwich. Tom introduced me to this place back when we were engaged. there is more than one location, but this one is the original and according to Tom, the one on US-1 is the best one...

the fair

over the weekend, we went to the fair! 

even though Dean was pretty tired the whole time, he enjoyed watching all the people and lights. we got some greasy fair food for ourselves and Dean to try and he loved it (no surprise there). while our friends, Zach and Val went on plenty of rides, we hung back and went on the only one I cared about; the ferris wheel! Dean hated it and cried the whole time. poor kid; I really didn't expect him to notice we were on a ride. hmmm...other than that, we had a really great time and I loved taking a billion pictures because we went right at that perfect time, from sunset into evening...

...Val was a little scared to go on that ride.

...thanks for the invite, Zach and Val!

say instagram!

a bit of my life lately, from my iphone...

walk around our block

happy friday everyone! 

Dean and I go on walks when we get bored...which is about every day. we especially enjoy them when the weather is what it was today; perfect! not humid, not hot, but sunny and warm. Dean likes to play at the little park in the neighborhood and I like taking his picture. it's what you call a win-win.

...reaching for the leaves

...we were swarmed by some pigeons today. someone in the neighborhood feeds them and did so right before we got there. I captured some of the madness below. it was just like 'the birds', except nobody got hurt.

3 years

for our anniversary, Tom and I took a mini-trip to orlando! we planned on going to the keys, but when we realized it would be too cold to be in the water (and raining), we decided to go north and make a trip to the temple. we left saturday morning and barely made it to the orlando temple in time before it closed; literally, we were the last ones in the doors...and we didn't stop once.

that evening we went to universal's citywalk, where there are shops and restaurants and walked around all touristy-like. it was our first trip away from Dean since he was born, and it was admittedly nice to sleep soundly through the night and wake up whenever we felt like it...

we spent the next day at universal studios and had a great time, even if it was seriously cold. it stayed in and below the 50s our whole trip and that day was by far the coldest (and the one we spent outdoors). we learned a little trick about theme parks while we were there; when we asked the workers where a ride was, she offered to go on one of the best roller coasters with us (the hulk). she took us through the exit and we skipped the entire line! then, she took us on another (dr. doom)! it was so amazing and since we saved so much time waiting in line, we were able to go on some rides twice.

the trip was so much fun, but we were happy to see Dean again. thanks Grandma and Grandpa for watching him!

...gotta do cheesy surfing photos, of course. tourist.