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Summertime.

It’s SUMMERTIME!! But…Ben and I spend most of our time at school, working, in the library or the math lab…that’s ok.  We’re hoping this means that all this boring hard work and avoiding the intense temptations of forgetting school and surfing and playing everyday instead will someday pay off in the form of a nice big house on a nice pretty piece of land (ocean view, please).  And of course the satisfaction and fulfillment of being educated.  Speaking of which, I finally changed my major for the LAST time (and third time..) to MATH.  Yes, I am embracing the nerd in me and just going for it.  It’s very time consuming, but somehow I get a tiny thrill every time I get the right answer, and I want to do it again. Sometimes it's crazy frustrating though, but like I said, hopefully it will pay off someday. And Ben is still studying Accounting, and he likes it.  We manage to get out a couple times a week and relax at the beach.  On Saturday we spent the afternoon until sunset snorkeling, reading, and laying out at one of our new favorite spots, Three Tables. 

We are so in love with this place. 

How could you not be?

Luckily, since it is summer and all, BYUH gives us a little 5-week break in the middle of the semester and we were so lucky to be able to go to the mainland to visit our families in California and Utah.

This is Mason, my 3 yr old nephew.  I think he's pretty cute.

Mak (sister) and Trevor, our other cute nephew playing around after Tennis.

I really miss these two when I'm out here in the middle of the Pacific.  I wish they would come visit me....:)

It was so fun to get to spend time with these lovebirds.

Ben had to work a little longer than I did in Hawaii, so I flew home without him.  Before he was able to come to CA, we went to San Diego to visit my sister Kelley and her husband Rob.

We had a lovely time surfing all day, hanging all night... 

and goofing off a little too.

Back home in Santa Barbara, we went to one of Ben and my favorite restaurants, Brophy Bros. on the harbor.  While we wait for a table, we always watch the fishermen bringing in their catch of the day, usually sea urchins or crabs.

My mom and I left Ben at the beach with the boys to go watch Mak do a little dance performance down the street.  When we came back we found them like this!  All three happy as can be, Ben probably the happiest.  Brilliant babysitting, Ben.

 On one of our last nights, we spent time with my sister's family at their new house in Camarillo!  The boys now have a huge yard to play in, a swing, chickens, a little rock fountain, and the best part....a PIZZA oven! 

Ben and Shaun making our pizzas.

Trevor, the "Pizza Man" was so proud of his creations.

This toy is the new obsession in the Pike family.  It's called a goof board.  My dad made them to practice cross stepping on his longboard.  It's basically a piece of plywood that you balance on a pipe with.  It's pretty challenging.  By the time we left, Dad was able to cross step to the nose, hang five, and step back.  Pretty impressive!While we were in California, we spent most of our time hanging on the beach, surfing, stand up paddling (during which we had some pretty amazing encounters with dolphins, pelicans, seals, and even otters!), hiking, and just spending time with the family.  As I always do when I'm home, I went to a few workout classes with my mom's trainer, Christina.  Her workouts are evil.  But we love her.  And so do our bodies.  (After they're done screaming at us.)  I always tell Christina I wish I could put her in my carry-on so I can stay in shape during school.  I'm sure she wouldn't mind moving to Hawaii...In the middle of trip, we flew up for a quick stay in Utah over the 4th of July.  We had so much fun hanging out with Ben's family there.  Pictures from that to come soon.  THANKS FAMILY for letting us escape our busy lives here to come play with you, we love you lots and miss you always! 

Hawaiian V Day

What could be better than spending Valentine's Day in Hawaii? I don't know. Maybe spending it in London or Paris.  But since that would mean selling our car, our clothes, and ourselves to get there, that is slightly out of the question probably until we're senior citizens.  Then we might be able to afford that...Oh yeah and we're still in school, with the obligation to attend the majority of classes so...Not going to happen.  
Hawaii is the next best thing, or equal, maybe even better.  And we had a wonderful day. After classes, we drove about 1/2 hour up the North Shore to Haleiwa, where we had lunch at a cute little bakery, Waialua Bakery.  All of their food is homemade and grown on their family farm.  Ben got a turkey cranberry sandwich (to which he added bacon...sounds kind of gross to me) and I had a delicious roasted veggie sandwich with avocado and hummus on pesto wheat bread.  We shared a mint lemonade and it all tasted divine.  I was hoping for a cute valentine's treat display in the bakery window, but by the time we got there, it was all cleaned out.  No heart shaped cookie for us this year.  We walked around the cute little town and checked out some surf shops and art galleries and even some tacky overpriced tourist shops with absolutely nothing worth buying, unless you like shark tooth necklaces and discolored statues of hula girls....
An art gallery was featuring Heather Brown's work and we fell in love with her art! If only we could buy art right now! That would really help our cinder block walls out...haha.  
On our way home, we stopped at a beach to watch the sunset, which was stunning.  And as soon as the sun went down it started to rain. 

We're the luckiest kids around.

Wedding Reception: Part 2

And several months later...


...I give you the rest of the pictures from our wedding  Life has been nuts! Just before Christmas Ben and I wrapped things up in good old Salt Lake City and found ourselves living in a teeny tiny place in the middle of the Pacific Ocean! We spent Christmas with my family in Summerland and just after New Years we moved to Hau'ula, Hawaii to finish school at BYUH.  We absolutely love it here.  It is beautiful.  It's warm.  It's green.  There is an ocean visible almost wherever you are. We get to surf and snorkel and swim and play and work on our tans (which isn't going very well yet.  How long does it take us whities to get tan?  We don't know yet.  It's been a month and it still looks like we got off the plane from Siberia yesterday.) Hawaii is perfect and I already can't imagine leaving this place.  


So anyway, here is the grand finale, the big conclusion to the wedding posts.  Again, we are so grateful for our amazing family and friends who made this all possible, and came to celebrate with us.  We had a blast and hope everyone else did too!  And again, thanks to our wonderful talented photographer, Travis.  We highly recommend him...http://www.travisjphotography.com/blog...for anyone who wants engagements or wedding pictures or whatever.  You won't be disappointed!

Does everyone think their wedding is the BEST wedding ever? Because I do. So much fun.

Wedding Reception Part 1

 The reception was better than I ever imagined it to be.  It was everything I wanted, but fifty times better.  I have to thank my mom, my sisters, my mother-in-law and her friend Angie, my sister-in-law, my dad and father-in-law, brothers-in-law, my aunt and cousins, Ben’s aunt and cousins, and so many others for how beautifully everything turned out.  We had a LOT of brainstorming and setting up from a lot of different people and we were able to borrow a lot of wonderful things, which made it so beautiful and perfect. 

I decided on a country themed wedding, which made sense, as we were having the reception out in the country in good old Oakley, UT.  I wanted it to be rustic, homey, creative, cute and very country.  Our main dish at the wedding was pie.  Because Ben and I LOVE pie.  And it went well with the country theme.  We also had hot chocolate, fruit, and amazing cocoa dusted chocolate truffles.

My dad finds old bottles on his job sites in Santa Barbara, so I had him bring those up so we could hang them around.  That was one of my favorite details at the wedding.  The day before the wedding, my mom and I went to Costco and picked out all kinds of flowers.  We didn’t have much of a theme going, so we just picked out what we liked, whether they went together or not.  I LOVE how the flowers turned out. The bright colors made all the difference. 

My mom and I came up with the idea of giving mini jam jars as favors.  We had a lot of help making the jam too.  Thanks to Pia, Aunt Mary, Jaycee, Angie, Susan, Emma, Jamie, and Mom! I love how everything turned out and I’m so grateful for these photos, because honestly, I didn’t see a lot of this on the actual wedding day.  Too busy being a bride!

Wedding planning was so hard and time consuming, but it was definitely worth it to see it all come together into a dream outdoor wedding.