Estes Park trip, Laser Tag, and family

There are 60 days until our little dude is due.  What. The. Heck.

Anyway.....

-On a random day that Neal and I both had off, we decided to drive up to Estes Park.  We hadn't been up to Estes since the floods happened.  Driving up the Big Thompson Canyon was CRAZY.  It has changed so much.  As we were driving up we talked about how weird it is that our kiddos will never know that drive like we did.  Viestenz-Smith Park is GONE.  I am SO glad that we took my Trash the Dress photos there so that we have a memory of what it looked like.

-Later that week I did some visiting teaching, and then some of the girls in our ward had a girl's night at Cafe Rio.  It was enjoyable to just sit and talk about a bunch of different goings ons.

-That Saturday Neal went snowboarding.  Once again, I'm thankful he was wearing his helmet.  The last run of the day he came off a jump wrong and landed square on his back and smacked his head.  Oh my husband.  Needless to say, he was sore for the next couple of days.

-The next week was the Candlelight Dinner Playhouse holiday party (a little late I know, but way fun).  We went to Loveland Laser Tag.  I didn't play laser tag, but I enjoyed watching Neal's score on the score board and listening to him get so excited about the games.  They also had an arcade, so we played a bunch of arcade games.  We played Ski Ball a LOT.  It was pretty entertaining.

-We had a baby appointment - little dude is measuring right where he should be, and his heart rate is 155 bpm.

-The next day Neal's cousin Jenn was in town, and offered to take us out to dinner.  We ate at Enzio's downtown.  She got us some of the CUTEST clothes for little one!!  There is a Tommy Hilfiger sweater/jeans outfit that I cannot wait for him to wear!  It was so much fun to see her and enjoy her company :)

That's about it for the last two weeks.  Again, I failed at taking pictures (but I'm already doing better at that this week!)

4 Wheeling

Last Monday and Tuesday were really enjoyable for us.

Shauna and Sam got into an accident in Sam's car, and the rental car she was given was a 2013 Jeep Cherokee.  On Monday, Sam asked us if we wanted to come help them take the top off, and go drive in the mountains.  So we went down there and took the top off the Jeep.  It looked pretty stormy directly to the west of us, so we tried to drive around it.  We headed up to a spot that Neal had gone 4-wheeling with his friend Porter.  We got rained on on our drive up, so when we got to the 4-wheeling trails, they were quite muddy.  Neal, being the driver, decided it would be fun to go drive through the puddles.  And basically, IT WAS!  We had SO much fun speeding through puddles, and climbing over rocks.

Shauna and Sam and I stood up in the back seat, and got splashed and bounced around.  The inside of the car got a little dirty, and the outside looked awesome. Then we headed to Estes and got pizza at Bob and Tony's.  It really was an amazingly enjoyable day :)

Our dating story

In April 2010 I started hearing a lot of rumors in the Single's Ward I attended about a guy named "Neal Johnson" who would be returning from his mission in Manchester, England soon.  I even had a few people I was talking to at church ask me, "Do you know who Neal Johnson is?"  When I replied that I didn't, they chuckled and said, "Oh don't worry.  You will."  I became very curious and so I found this mysterious guy on Facebook.  As I searched through the pictures he had posted on Facebook before his mission, I thought to myself, "Wow...this guy is kind of a dork.  Why is there so much hype about him??"  Nevertheless, for some reason, I was extremely interested in him, and thinking about meeting him when he came home made me nervous, and even gave me butterflies a few times.  I found it very odd.  I knew he came home on Friday, April 23rd, so that following Sunday I put on an outfit that I thought made me look good (because for some reason I was trying to impress a man I'd never met, and who didn't even know I existed) and went to church. (Note: I found out later that Neal really REALLY did not like this outfit, and that he thought it made me look 7 years older than I actually was).

This was his profile picture when I stalked him

The following Tuesday our Relief Socitey was having an activity.  We were going to our bishop's house to watch movies.  I found out that the Elder's Quorum decided to play Ultimate Frisbee during the Relief Socitey's activity.  Now, I wasn't a huge fan of the movie the girls decided to watch, and I LOVE Ultimate Frisbee. So, I decided to ditch Relief Society and go play Ultimate Frisbee instead.  I found out when I got there that Neal has the same love for the game that I do.  We were on opposing teams, and no one was guarding Neal, so I started to guard him.  Apparently this impressed him, and so we started talking.  After the game, Neal announced to everyone that he wanted to go to Sonic.  I, of course, was ecstatic.  My friend, Erika, and I rushed back to the bishop's house to get her car, and then rushed to Sonic.  When we got there, it was literally 1 minute after 10:00 pm, and Sonic had closed.  No one from the frisbee game was there, and I later discovered they had all left already.  I was bummed. (Note: Neal swears I never showed up, and that I, in fact, ditched him.  Erika - help a sista out, will ya?  Tell him I did!!) That night I requested to be Neal's friend on Facebook, and we talked for a while on Facebook about a whole bunch of things.  He then told me he was getting a phone the next day, and I gave him my number so he could call me.

The next day Neal texted me and asked if I would like to go get ice cream at Baskin Robbins with him and his family.  I, of course, said yes, and rushed up there.  He also invited his friend, Troy, and Erika.  After we ate our ice cream, Neal asked if we wanted to come back to his house to watch the Nugget's game.  We headed to his house and ended up getting in a MASSIVE pillow fight instead of watching the Nugget's game. It was honestly one of the most enjoyable dates I've been on!  As I was leaving, Neal gave me a high-five goodbye.  Now, before you go making fun of him, this is one of my absolute favorite parts of the first week we knew each other.  This was unbelievably endearing to me, and showed me how fresh off his mission he was. I LOVED it! (Another note: I later found out that Neal doesn't like basketball, and that his intent was merely to get us to come over to his house.)

We hung out for the next couple of days, and on Sunday, Neal came down to my parent's house for my birthday party.  That night as I was saying goodbye to him, I looked at him and said "Neal, I'm kinda sorta attracted to you." (That's right....say awwwww!)  After that he looked at me and said, "Do you kinda sorta wanna be my girlfriend?"  I (obviously) said yes :)

Our first picture together at my birthday party....awwww!

We dated for 7 months before we got engaged.  We did all kinds of things together: Elitches, celebrated Neal's birthday, went to a few concerts, hiking, wakeboarding, went to dances and other things.  We also found one of our favorite places to visit: Estes.  We found one of our favorite shows, Bones.  Neal taught me how to snowboard after many tears.  Here are some pictures of the fun stuff we did while we were dating!

A picture of Neal and I at his birthday party

Neal and I at Elitches

At Millie's wedding reception

Boys Like Girls concert

Celtic Women concert

Going dancing!

Hiking in RMNP

Snowboarding!