Accretive's Holiday Party

Andrew's company had their holiday Christmas party last week. 

They definitely didn't disappoint! We met in Park City, which is so beautiful this time of year with the mountains completely covered with snow. We went on a sleigh ride up to the top of the mountain to have dinner at The Viking Yurt. The sleigh ride was pretty cool. It was definitely cold out, but they put huge warm blankets on everyone to make it enjoyable! 

this is from their website--it was such an incredible view!

The restaurant was such a cute little place. We enjoyed a delicious 5 course meal that included butternut squash and pear soup, salad with smoked salmon, short ribs, potatoes, and veggies, cheese course, and apple pie for dessert! SO TASTY! 

how cute is this place?!

so yummy!

Cheese course--definitely some interesting ones. Our favorite was the flowered one from the monks! 

It was so fun to get to know some of the people that Andrew works with! 

We are so grateful for our wonderful jobs that we have to support us and allow us to save money for our future family!

BYU Graduation August 2012

A pretty big deal happened last month.....WE GRADUATED! It didn't actually feel very real to me since I kind of felt like I had already graduated last year because I was doing my internship teaching 2nd grade and not on campus, but it was still great to know we were done for good!! Well, maybe for a few years at least until Andrew goes back and gets his MBA.

Thursday afternoon we had commencement at the Marriott Center. We had to start lining up outside at like 3 and just wait until we walked in at 4. Worst idea ever. It was so hot outside that everyone was sweating when we finally got to sit down. The talks were short and sweet thankfully. It was nice to have both sets of parents out here with us! After taking pictures we celebrated by going out to Outback for dinner.

WE DID IT!

love my hubby!

my heels were sinking!!

Andrew and his parents

us with my parents

handsome man of mine talking to his grandma on the phone, thanking her for her huge generosity with paying for his/my schooling. Thank you Lauris! 

The next day was convocation. It was an early morning for us because ours was at 8 in the morning at the Marriott Center. I walked with Andrew's school so we could be together. He graduated with Economics. We were actually so grateful to have it then so we wouldn't be sweating again in the heat! It was a good day! We were excited to be done with BYU, but we were also kind of sad because we made so many great memories at school, especially together. It feels pretty weird to not have to be on campus at all for anything, no assignments to get done, etc. After convocation we took more pictures and then headed to one of our favorite restaurants for lunch Tucanos!

Andrew walking!

getting my fake diploma :)

happy to be finished!!

love these two so much!

us with Andrew's parents

Andrew and his dad

Now that school is over....we hit reality. We are both working full time and loving bringing in the paychecks! Andrew is working with Accretive Health as an operations lead, doing consulting in hospitals. Right now he is commuting to Salt Lake everyday, but just for a few more months until he can work in the Provo hospital thankfully so he won't have to spend so much time driving. I'm teaching 2nd grade again at Franklin Elementary! It's been great so far. I love my team that I work with.  However, we both definitely miss the summer where we didn't have a single care in the world! :) 

Skydiving in Moab!!!

Going skydiving has been on our bucket list for such a long time, so when we saw a deal for skydiving on Groupon last year, we just had to get it!!

 The deal was for Moab, Utah and our reservation was at 7:00 in the morning. We weren't sure if we were going to get a hotel room down there the night before or just drive down early that morning, but we waited too long to book a hotel so unfortunately we had to leave our house at 3:30 in the morning to go! As we were driving down, we were going through some serious lightning storms. Every 10 seconds huge lightning bolts were striking and lighting up the whole sky so we were starting to get nervous that we would drive down there and have it be cancelled. We kept driving through it anyways and got to the tiny Moab airport at like 6:15. We were exhausted so we took a nap in the car while it rained outside. Luckily for us the rain stopped about 6:45 in the morning and the clouds started to disappear. Couldn't have been more perfect.

We went into the airport and saw two young guys sleeping on these benches in the waiting room. One guy peeked open his eye asking if we were here to skydive....the other was still passed out. When we said yes, he woke up the other guy and the other guy responded with a few swear words and opened a red bull right away. I was starting to get so nervous and thinking in my head are these the people taking us skydiving?!? Andrew and I kept giving each other "the look" and I even whispered to him that if these were our instructors I don't feel safe! Once they woke up, they took us around back and we walked over to the plane. When we got there, they had some really ghetto rap music playing. At this point I almost wanted to go home. But we stuck it out and acted like we were all fine. There were 2 other people going skydiving so I felt a little better. When we got near the plane, we saw the actual people we would be jumping with. Thankfully they weren't half asleep haha. They started putting us in a harness and I was kind of confused because most pictures I had seen of people skydiving had been in  jumpsuits too, but they just put the harness on over our clothes haha. 

The instructors were purposely trying to scare us, not sure why....saying things like "if you don't arch your back when you jump then you'll die" "keep that gum in your mouth and you'll choke and die..." All very encouraging things!!!! 

Andrew was pretty calm, but I was so nervous at this point.

Couldn't believe this was the plane we were going to be jumping out of!! It looked so crappy. Even more crappy on the inside. The inside had some parts that were duct taped. We had the 2 guys go first so we could make sure it was a reliable plane haha. The instructors said that even though it looked crappy, it was a really great and smooth plane.



The other two guys got in the plane and off they went. We continued to wait nervously. We got to know the half awake guys a little better and started feeling a little more calm. We stood outside watching the other guys and saw their parachutes open and have a successful landing which made me feel better.  Finally, it was our turn. I chose to go with the guy who was trying to scare me the most, only because I had found out that he had done like 9,000 tandem jumps before so I felt the most comfortable with him. He was the one jumping out of the plane first so we had to sit right by the door of the plane. Except there was no door! I had nothing to hold on to while we were flying around looking at Moab. They told us not to hold on to the pilot, so I was holding on to Andrew's instructor! haha he kept telling me to calm down and that I'd be fine. It was so awesome up there though because we flew around Moab for like 15 minutes before jumping out. My instructor kept trying to point out the cool things below us but I just had to nod and smile because I could barely hear a word he was saying with all the wind!!

It was time to jump. I think he started getting a little frustrated with me because I couldn't relax my body. I was shaking and so nervous! I had to dangle my feet out on the ledge of the plane while he got his out. Then we just rolled out of the plane!! It was the most insane experience ever! I screamed (obviously) even though they told us to try not to because it is hard to breathe when you do that but I couldn't help it. After a bit he pulled the parachute and I was all smiles after realizing I wasn't going to die after all! He pointed out that Andrew and his instructor had pulled their parachute so I felt good knowing he was okay too. It was so fun!! He let me steer the parachute and then we landed. Check that off our bucket list!!!

I don't think I'd be the person to go all the time, but it was awesome going once! And I'd go again if we got a good deal!

When we got to the ground, they gave us our jump certificate!

After our jump standing next to one of their cool planes!

We had such a great time. So glad we finally did it! The drive home wasn't quite as fun because we were both so tired. Luckily, Andrew drove the whole way so I could sleep. We definitely recommend going skydiving at least once!

Summertime vacation to MD!

In July Andrew and I went back to Maryland to be with family for 10 days. We didn't think we would get to see the Harding family until Christmas, so we were really excited to get to be back with them for a little while.  I was mostly excited about seeing our nieces and new baby nephew!  We sure love those little kiddos! Andrew was most excited to see his brown man!!

The first night we got in, our brothers and sisters came over to the Harding home for a family dinner. First time we got to meet baby Christopher. I love newborns...so sweet and snuggly.

me with Christopher!

Meet Andrew's dog Bryant. Andrew got Bryant from his parents for his 20th birthday. He is the best dog I have ever been around. This is how we got woken up every morning :) 

We celebrated Andrew's 24th birthday on the 23rd of July.

handsome birthday boy with his favorite brown man

Andrew kept saying he was in heaven while we were there. He said he didn't want anything else besides being with his wife and his dog. haha he's the best.

Birthday lunch at Jersey Mikes!

Cute cousins!

All the cousins and aunts celebrating Andrew's birthday

Birthday boy with the adorable Miss Addie!

Andrew's birthday cake request was Costco chocolate cake! Emma putting sprinkles on it!

Emma helping Andrew blow out all the candles

Me and my cute hubby!

Me and Rach

Bros--just missing Mikes.

Sisters! I'm left out without a little girl!! What are you doing Emma??!

A lot of the time we were in Maryland, the weather was overcast and rainy. But there was one perfect day that was sunny with no humidity, so Andrew and I took advantage of it and went and explored DC a little bit. We went to several different museums. One of our favorites was the Air & Space Museum. DC is such a cool place! So many things to explore.

I'm so little compared to the huge National Archives.

trying to be like the people. success? maybe Andrew haha.

Went to the temple one night with some of the family. This temple is just gorgeous. It''s always fun revisiting it after getting married in it!

I took Bryant on lots of runs while I was there. I'm definitely going to have to whip him in to shape when he comes and lives with us! It was hilarious running with him because he would sprint the first 5 minutes, so we would look so ridiculous, and then after 20 minutes of running he would be exhausted...something we'll have to work on! 

how can you not love him?! cutest dog.

soaked up as much time holding sweet Christopher!

We also celebrated Andrew's parents 25th anniversary! We all got dressed up and went to this darling French restaurant called l' Auberge. No one could complain about the 7 course meal we were treated to. The food was delicious and everyone had a great time.

Dave & Glo

John & Rach

"We're men and we want dessert..." 

Happy Anniversary!

Our last day there, Andrew's brother took us all out on the Chesapeake Bay to go sailing. It started off really nice, but we had to go in a little early because of a big storm. It was a great last day with family though! 

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Andrew catching blue crabs!

sink full of crabs caught by Andrew and Dave!

Eating dinner right by the bay. delicious food!

It was a great trip and we can't wait to go back for Christmas to be with Michael who will be home from his mission!  :)