...upon the seat of a bicycle built for TWO!!!

I love the smells of spring, don't you? The sweetly fragrant tree blossoms and tulips, the freshly mowed lawns, the smell of fresh rubber on new bike tires...aahhh, there really is nothing like it!
This year for Easter, Brian gave me a brand new bike!!! It is so red and so shiny and SO fun! I'd been dropping subtle hints (for example: "Can I get bike?!") from the time that the spring sun came into Provo and for Easter, my wish came true!
Brian already had a bike that he used for school and I was completely jealous, so you can imagine my complete elation when I opened the door and saw my shiny Easter present sitting in the front room! I got thinking about it and realized that this is the first "brand new, just for Emily" bike that I have had in about 14 years. How exciting!
Its official - bike riding is our new favorite sport:)

Hey guess what...I graduated!!

I started dreaming about going to BYU when I was about 4 (I used to fight my mom to wear my BYU shirt to preschool, daily). Not only did that dream come true (the BYU one, not the t-shirt one), but yesterday I graduated!! After 4 1/2 wonderful years at Brigham Young University, I am finished:)
I have to admit, at first all of the graduation hulabaloo seemed anticlimatic since I actually finished my schooling in December and have been teaching ever since. But once I heard the orchestra start playing Pomp and Circumstance, I couldn't help but tear up.
It seems so surreal to be finished with college. My brother recently asked me if I feel old now - graduating from college and such - but the truth is, I think I'm too immature to feel old! Maybe I'm just in denial that the college part of my life is actually over, or maybe its that I hang out with 6 year olds every day - I don't know! But either way, whether I accept it or not, its done. I can't go back. Though life is so good right now, I don't think that I ever would want to:)
And hey, I can still go to the football games, right?!! GO COUGARS!

We LOVE Spring Break!

Brian and I have decided that spring break is the best thing ever invented! We got back 2 days ago from our "Spring Break Extravagana 2006" (as we lovingly dubbed it during the planning process)! I found out in January that I would have a full week off for spring break, so Brian scheduled to get the week off of work and we went 'planning crazy'! It so payed off:)
We spent the first couple of days camping at the Grand Canyon and then finished the week up at a gorgeous resort in Las Vegas. We had a BLAST!
Neither of us had ever been to the Grand Canyon, so that was our big adventure. We got to hike along a beautiful portion of the rim, we hiked down into the canyon (for about 3/4 of a mile), and we even saw MULES!! (Those animals are ginormous!) A word to the wise, however...don't assume that it will be warm in Arizona in April because its NOT! Although it was sunny and beautiful, the temperature never got above 70 during the day and it dropped to the 30s at night -- eeesh! It was COLD to say the least! We weren't exactly prepared for such elements, but we made do with what we had! In fact, our second night in camp had major improvements from the first for several reasons: 1. We figured out that if you build a fire before the sun sets, you can almost beat the cold; 2. We were able to patch the hole in our air mattress (a not so pleasant surprise from our first night) which made for a much more comfortable night's sleep. What a trip! We absolutely loved it -- it was so fun:) We've decided that we need to go back to the Canyon atleast 3 more times: once to ride mules down to the bottom; again to raft the Colorado River from Glen Canyon Dam (Lake Powell) to the Grand Canyon; and a third time to take the mondo expensive helicopter ride through the canyon (we'll be saving our pennies for that last trip for sure!)
The Vegas half of our trip was a stark contrast to our camping adventures. My parent's have a time share deal with a HUGE condominium place and they let us borrow some points to stay in a beautiful studio condo in south Las Vegas. It was SO huge and glamorous -- we felt like movie stars!
We were able to meet up with a good friend of mine and her new fiancee the first night in town and they showed us all of the really cool stuff on the strip; namely, the Bellagio fountain show (it was INCREDIBLE! Oceans 11 almost did it justice), the Bellagio butterfly and flower atrium, the MGM Lion Habitat, and a Ghiridelli Ice Cream Shop -- definitely a winner! We spent our second day in Vegas swimming at the resort -- they had 3 pools, 3 hot tubs (with waterfalls), and a lazy river! We basically pool hopped all day and LOVED it!
Several other highlights from our trip include seeing both the Glen Canyon and Hoover Dams (talk about GIGANTIC) and, one of our favorites, being able to attend 2 temples that we've never been to together: the Las Vegas and St. George Temples. They were both gorgeous and it was so neat to be able to participate in temple work twice in one week. It was awesome!

Well, I think that wraps up the big points of our trip. Have I mentioned that we love spring break? We could definitely get used to that kind of life...definitely. Do we really have to go back to work tommorow?