Hey y'all!

We spent the weekend of September 11th in Houston with Mckay's family.  The occasion was his Father's retirement party (he worked at NASA for 20+ years).  We flew from JFK to Houston on Thursday night and got in reallllly late; his sister Texas offered us a comfy bed at her house for the weekend.  On Friday morning, we somehow managed to get up at a decently early hour (after a 3:30 am bedtime) and Mckay was off to golf with his brother and two brothers-in-law.  

While he golfed I had a girls day!  Love those.  We went out to lunch, did a little shopping, and ended our day at a specialty chocolate shop, where I accidentally spent $15 on tiny treats...those things add up fast!  I love my sisters-in-law, they really are so fun.  After our "girls day out" Rachel (his youngest sister) and I got our hair cut, which always feels so great.  She looked like a beauty queen with her long, thick hair and I was jealous.  

Then there was the infamous surprise party for Dale that night (amazing that it was kept secret for two whole months).  11 kids and all the in-laws and grandkids that come with them in the back room of a restaurant, "SURPRISE!!!"  It was great.  We spend the evening together eating tons of food, visiting, laughing and enjoying each other's company.  After all was said and done, Dale gave a brief "thank-you" speech and talked about how his family is his greatest accomplishment.  It was so tender and so sweet, it brought tears to my eyes.  He is a great man, I'm glad Mckay had such a wonderful Father to teach him how to be a good man.  They both are just incredibly good people. 

(Dale and Penny and their 11 children, best.)

Saturday we loaded up in Mckay's brother's RV and drove to Austin for the BYU/UT game, which was a riot.  You KNOW it was my first BYU sporting event, aaaaannnnndddd I even had a special shirt for the occasion.  A bunch of his family came and we "tail-gated' (it's for real) which was so funny and weird.  Pull up in RV, take 35 minutes to park it, pull out BBQ and get the meat going, watch pre-football game stuff/other football games... legit.  Oh, and do all of that when it's 106 degrees outside.  Welcome to Texas!  I was so amused and sweaty.

We love our cute nieces and nephews.  SO MUCH.  This little one (Alyssa) was a brand new baby at our wedding.  
This time around she was crawling all over the place.  

The game was sad because BYU lost, but we had fantastic seats, so that's a plus.  It literally (LITERALLY) makes Mckay sad when I tell people I don't like sports, so I'm making an effort now to try to broaden my horizons in the athletic department.  Watch out!

The next day was Sunday and we hung out at his parent's house & chatted with family.  Mckay's Mom made him a pumpkin pie because it's his fave.  So that morning he had french toast and pumpkin pie, part of a complete breakfast.

The entire Dale Dunn clan!  Minus 5 (3 grandkids and two in-laws).  Plus Vera and Dennis- Penny's brother and his wife.

We love spending time with family, it's so fabulous.  It just puts us in such a happy place.  Wish we lived closer & could see our families more often.  I guess seeing them so infrequently, although it's not ideal, makes visits so exciting and special!

Labor Day Weekend

camping in Rhode Island

blazing camp fire (isn't it the best?)

games

s'mores

tin-foil dinners

falling in love with the instagram app

talking and laughing until all hours of the night

the whole shebang

is there anything better?

i think not

except maybe

when the next day includes

morning canoeing

lobster lunch in Mystic, CT

fresh ice cream on the river

and shopping 

before a beautiful drive back to home sweet home

Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Rexburg anymore.

How you know you're not at BYUI:

• Everyone shows up to class on the first day with their #2 pencils and their Dunkin Doughnuts coffee.
• The professor is wearing flip flops with her two-piece suit.
• She uses four-letter words when the computer won't work... and a few other times, too.
• And refers to "God" as a "she".
• There was no prayer to start class... but I always thought that was a little much.
• The building is freezing from AC & I still got eye fulls of flesh I would have rather not seen.

It was a great first week! I say that in complete honesty. And no, I am not at BYU-I anymore. But that is okay, it's preferable even. There are some splendidly nice people in my class & every professor I've met so far is a hoot. They've all smiled and said funny things and tried to make the wide-eyed, overwhelmed, 1st semester Nursing students feel comfortable and excited. (Except one, who glared at me when I saw her in the bathroom. Awkward.)

Mckay made it a great first day for me, complete with a heart-shaped love/back-to-school note taped on the door for me to find before I left for class. And when I came home that afternoon I was met by that handsome guy and pretty "happy first day of school" flowers.

I am excited to be in this nursing program, I feel so fortunate and blessed.  I am a little book worm, already trying to stay ahead in my reading and notes and flash-cards.  I am going to try to get through these next two years in the most organized and un-frenzied manner possible.  The organized part is doable for me, it's the un-frenzied part that will take some major effort.

So here I go.  It's the start of months of CLEW plans, heavy books, heavier reading, stethoscopes, gloves, gowns, brain overload, new material, new people, Greenwich hospital, drugs and dosage calculations, and I'm sure an entire plethora of other things I don't have the slightest clue about.

Cape Cod

 the famous lobster pot in provencetown

 we love good taffy: coconut, pb & chocolate, butterscotch.

 face plants in the sand are so yucky

 the edwards

 plymouth rock

The first weekend in August we stole away to Cape Cod with our good friends Megan & Braden & their little girl, Eve.  We stayed in Sandwich Friday night and spent Saturday in Provencetown and at Meadow Hills Beach.  We had the. most. fabulous. lobster/sea food feast for lunch on Saturday, then loaded up on taffy and fudge, and fell asleep to the sound of the waves.  It was wonderful.  Sunday we got rained out, which was such a bummer, as I wanted more gorgeous beach time.  Instead, we drove to Plymouth and saw Plymouth Rock and learned about the Pilgrims.  It was cold and rainy so we made it a quick trip before we were back on the road to sit in lots of traffic.  It wasn't all bad, we munched on treats and snacks and had lots of time to talk to each other.  Love a fun weekend!

i made that!

Mckay isn't a huge fan of pies (barring his Mom's pecan and pumpkin ones)... actually he's not a huge fan of any fruit + dessert combination.  Which is really disappointing to me sometimes.  For him its cookies, cookie bars, cakes, ice cream, brownies... that makes him happy.  But I love tarts and pies and sorbets and crumbles.  I decided I wanted to try and win him over to my side by making a delicious pie.  I chose strawberry, his favorite berry, to up my chances of him liking it.  Then a few girlfriends told me, "it has to be strawberry rhubarb".  So not even knowing what rhubarb looked like, I went off to the grocery to find some.  If you're naive like me, it's basically over-sized, sour, pink celery.

I found this recipe & it turned out beautifully.  I didn't use her pie crust recipe, only the filling.  This picture is my pie before it's baked.  I opted out of a top crust & just did crumble instead, which was fantastic to have the super sweet crunch top with the juicy-tart filling.  There is no after picture because we devoured it.  1 pie, 2 people, 24 hours and it was GONE.  That is sad, but it was irresistible.

I've always been a coconut cream pie kind of girl; now I have completely reconsidered my allegiance. 

& those beautiful hydrangeas were borrowed/stolen from the "gardens" of a medical office building on my street.  Hydrangeas have been in bloom all over these parts and I love them.  In a moment of covetous weakness, I decided I would steal.  I figured a medical office building was a much less offensive choice than a random neighboring house.  And they had  20+ bushes anyway... aren't they lovely?  I loved the bushes that were pink & purple on the same blossoms!  Flowers in my kitchen are one of my most favorite things.

Scones & clotted cream, please.

Being in the city was amazing, but so was the second part of our trip, the countryside.  We put over 700 miles on our rental car.  We left London and drove south to Dover & then wound our way through Canterbury, Hastings, Battle, Salisbury, Bath, Stratford-upon-Avon, the Cotswolds and Cambridge.  It was a dream.  I loved driving the tiny roads with Mckay & taking in the beautiful scenery together.  The beauty of this place was astounding to me.  

Dover Castle.  We spent 4 hours here.  It was amazing.

Medieval castle wall at Dover Castle.

The White Cliffs of Dover.  So romantic and breathtaking.  This was my favorite "countryside" part of our vacation.  It was peaceful and picturesque.

Canterbury Cathedral.

Jeake's -the most adorable house we stayed at in Rye.  Our room (the Apothecary room) has been standing since 1589.  Charming.

Herstmonceux Castle.

Jane Austin's home where she wrote & finished all 6 books.

Jane Austin's grave site, Winchester Cathedral.

Stonehenge.  Unbelievable.  

Bath Abbey & the ancient Roman baths.

17th-century farmhouse we stayed at 5 miles outside of Bath.  Every night of the countryside we stayed in a different B&B.  They were so beautiful.

Avon River in Bath.

Castle Crown voted "most beautiful village in England".  It was too adorable.  There was one street, named "The Street".  

Antique shop in Stow-on-the-Wold in the Cotswalds.

 Driving the countryside was so fun.  I loved the sheep grazing everywhere.

 He became the best wrong-side-of-the-road driver.  & I the best navigator (with the help of our best friend the GPS).

Ended our trip back in London & saw the wonderful Wizard of Oz!

Anne Boleyn & Harry Potter stompin' grounds

I don't have many pictures from this day but it was a great one!  We started the morning off by going to the Tower of London.  Along with over 100 others, the Tower is where Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, Jane Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey were executeed.  Three Queens of England in there!  The Tower of London is also where the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom are housed as well as an impressive armory full of hundreds of years worth of swords and armor worn by fancy people.

On our way back to our hotel we stopped at King's Cross Station because we just could not pass up an opportunity to get this picture:

We grabbed our bags, checked out of our hotel and took a long, stinky, uncomfortable, crowded ride to the airport via underground (rush hour).  At the airport we rented a car and Mckay so bravely tackled the challenge of driving on the wrong side of the road!  He adjusted fairly quickly, but navigating out of the airport (which is hard in your own country!) was extremely tense.  We drove Southeast to Dover, England to start our tour of the English countryside!

Day 3 in London

Highlight of Mckay's day:  Traditional English breakfast -fried mushrooms, fried tomatoes, fried bread, poached egg and beans.  Okay, that is a big fat lie, he was actually quite frustrated with the breakfast selection during the entirety of this trip.  He did love the British War Rooms: learning tons about WWII, seeing the underground space from which Winston Churchill directed the war, & listening to every word of the audio guide.

Highlight of Nicki's day:  Mckay being done with the audio guide (kidding!).  Being front and center at Buckingham Palace with a million crazy people pushing and shoving at the gate.  Eating dinner at a French restaurant (Cote) where we indulged in the best fried calamari EVER.