Disneyland and My 24th Birthday!!

I've been so spoiled this summer... Russ and I have been up to Washington for a week, to California for 5 days, and I just got back from Disneyland where I spent 4 days with the Mills family (the family I nanny for). This summer has been a blast!! And there's a surprise trip in a couple of weeks! I'm not giving it away until the end of this post, so you'd better read on. :)

As you can see, this year's theme at Disneyland is "A Year of a Million Dreams". What a fitting theme! This year has been amazing for Russ and I and we've been so blessed in a more ways than I can count. He's been extremely blessed in this new job of his and I've been blessed with my calling of being Relief Society President, as well as my job. We've been married for almost 2 years now (crazy!!) and are loving every minute of it! The Mills have been so good to us and I was really lucky to get to go with them. Our trip was a blast!

Me and the girlies on Disneyland's Main Street

Beauty and the Beast: My favorite!

We got to see all of the characters and Kenzie (the 9-year-old) and I went on almost every ride there was. We got passes to California Adventures, as well, and they have so many new, fun rides! Our new favorite is the Toy Story ride... it sounds way cheesy, but it's awesome! If any of you have ever been on the Buzz Lightyear ride in Disneyland, you'd LOVE this one! You put on 3-D glasses and shoot things. The next time any of you go there, be sure to check it out! Also, there's a new inter tube/rafting ride that gets you SOAKED, but it's so fun! Haley (the 8-year-old) wouldn't go on any of the crazy rides with Kenzie and I, so most of the time Kenz and I just split up and did our own thing, which was fine by me! I also got sung to at Goofy's Kitchen by all of the characters and staff, which was hilarious, and of course, I loved it! It was definitely more of a vacation than I thought it was going to be, other than I was away from Russ for 4 whole days. :(

The Girls and I on the Toy Story ride

Goofy singing "Happy Birthday" to me!

Which brings me to my next story.... MY 24th BIRTHDAY!! It's so weird to say that I'm in my mid-twenties now... I'm so old! lol We flew home from Disneyland on my birthday and I got a "Happy Birthday to Brie Schafer" over the intercom on the plane ride home!! :) I was so anxious to see Russ, so I had Russ come pick me up from the Mills' house. I was so excited to see him! We drove home and when I walked in our house, Russ had decorated it like a pro! He had streamers, balloons, each present wrapped carefully, and he even made a cake!! It was perfect! I seriously have the best husband in the world... I don't care what anybody else says, it's true. :)

My cute birthday presents and decorations!!

Me and my cute Russ before my birthday dinner

We went to dinner at Tuscanos first, and then came back home to have our own little birthday celebration. I was dying to open my presents!! My first present was long-shaped and when I opened it, I couldn't help but bust up laughing! He bought me a light-up wand because I'm his "princess" and it was MY special day. :) My second present, which was in a slightly bigger box, had a bunch of newspaper and at the bottoms, a box of chocolates. My third present, which was in a bigger box than the second, also had a bunch of newspaper and a pack of gum and a tube of Carmex at the bottom. Now, if you were me and you saw that you had ONE present left, and again, it's bigger than the rest of the previous presents, what would be going through your mind at that point? I'll tell you what went through mine: all right... I've got a wand, a box of chocolates, a pack of gum and a tube of Carmex. All of these boxes are pretty big, but they have these tiny, weird presents in them, so I'm assuming that the next one, again, has a bunch of newspaper in it with a rinky-dinky present in it, just to fake me out. To be honest, I knew he was saving the best for last and that he had something up his sleeve (he's notorious for doing stuff like this), but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it could be. I even shook the present and NOTHING shook or rattled... great.

Russ, at this point, looked as though he was going to burst out of his seat at any moment, so as I unwrapped the present and took out ALL of the newspaper, to my surprise, there was a large manilla envelope at the very bottom that read, "Happy Birthday Brie. Love, Russ". I took it out and opened it and there were three pages inside. The first one was a confirmation page for two flights to LAX. I looked at Russ with this really confused look on my face and asked, "What's this?" He patiently told me to look at the next page, but the second page stuck to the first one, so I looked at the third page first and it was a large picture of a hotel on the beach. I was getting even more excited and just thought that we were going back to CA for a nice getaway trip before school started, but to my utter amazement and pure joy I realized that there was a middle page, and as I looked at it and realized what I was, I couldn't believe it!!! He got us tickets to go to Sea World in San Diego, and not only that, he got me a 2 hour swim with the dolphins!!!!!!!!

I'm so surprised with my present to Sea World!

AAAAHHHHHH!!!! For those of you who know me well, you know that I've been obsessed with whales and dolphins since I was a little girl. I've ALWAYS wanted to do this, but I've just never had the chance to, and my sweet, sweet Russ knew that and got me the present of my life! I honestly couldn't ask for anything better!

My Sea World Present that Russ put together for me

We'll be gone from September 5-7 and we're staying at a beach literally right on the beach! It's going to be the best trip ever! :) I'll definitely post again as soon as we get back from that! Hopefully I'll have a video of me swimming with them so you can all see it. I'm so excited!!! And thank you to all of our family for helping out! We love you!! (Especially me right now!)

Thanking my wonderful husband for all of the awesome
presents and for the best birthday EVER!!!

California Trip!!

We had a FABULOUS vacation in California this July with Russ' family! We were able to spend a whole day at Pismo Beach which is always one of my favorite parts of the trip because I miss the ocean! We're not pro surfers yet, but it's still way fun! Just being able to hang out on the beach is enough, right? :) We had boogie boards, too, so just riding the waves was awesome. And then eating at the famous Splash with their yummy clam chowder to end the day... It was PERFECT!

We also got to go see Meme (Russ' grandma) and Grammy (his 98-year-old great grandmother) up in Fresno for the afternoon. Meme made us all sing to the Nursing Home residents... so much fun, especially since I knew NONE of the songs!!... but they loved it, so it was more than worth it. Grammy had to ask us who we were about 5 times, but she's the sweetest thing in the world and we all just love her!

Saturday was the funnest day... for Russ and his dad, anyway. We went down to LA to the Dodger's game and Russ was like a kid in a candy shop! We were 4 rows back from the field, right behind 3rd base, and I swear Russ could have had a heart attack if he got any more excited. lol No, but seriously. :) We won, of course, and that totally topped off the night. (Even though they didn't have my churros at the game! Who doesn't have churros at a baseball game??)

We left on Sunday and didn't want to. :( It was a fun-filled vacation and we can't wait to go back in December for Christmas!!

From the Beginning

We met in the Spring of 2006 and, although Russ thought he was sly and clever at playing "hard-to-get", I had a few tricks of my own. :) It took a while for him to ask me out, let alone get my number, but when we finally did go out, there was no turning back. We dated for about 4 1/2 months before he purposed on Sept. 8 and were married on December 23, 2006 in the Salt Lake Temple on a gorgeous morning with fresh snow on the ground, which made it perfect for pictures! We moved right in to Wymount Terrace, right up the street from BYU and literally right across from the Provo temple, and we love it here! We've made so many friends and love the atmosphere. We love to hop the fence (try doing THAT in a dress!) and take long walks around the temple, or go to one of the nearby parks and star gaze (tribute to our first date... cheesy, huh?).

Since we've been married, we've been on a ton of fun trips to WA and CA (where we're from) and are always planning on our next one. I come from a family of nine and Russ comes from a family of 7, so we're super close to our families and try to spend as much time as possible with each. Holidays are always an adventure! :) We love it, though, and wouldn't trade it for the world.

We love being married... we think it's the best thing in the world. No more long goodbyes at the door, no more having to driving home at nights wishing you didn't have to, or super-long nights with no sleep because you don't want to leave each other and barely functioning the next day because of it! It's so nice to come HOME to EACH OTHER! Marriage is AWESOME!!! :)