87 West: February

February was a busy month for us. Ryan's birthday, Valentine's Day, our 6-month anniversary,
random adventures, and the nice long President's Day weekend. Here's the corresponding photodump.

We finally used up alllll of our Bed Bath & Beyond gifts cards
from our wedding. Ryan was over the moon about it.
I was a little sad ):

Stress was high in the dendro lab.

Ryan got tickets to a Jazz game through his work, so we made it a date and got Mountain West Burrito and Cinnabon to eat while we took the FrontRunner for the first time. That thing is awesome.

PF Chang's for Ryan's 25th birthday.

My dad came down to visit us over President's Day weekend. Things started out pretty mellow.

We walked around campus and I showed him what I did in the dendro lab.

Stud muffins.
We met up with Ryan for dinner and talked about what we wanted to do for the long weekend.
We decided on this: We would go back to our apartment and sleep for a few hours. Then we would get up at 2am, get in the car and drive ten hours to California, get to L.A. at roughly 11am and ride some of the world's fastest, spinniest, vomit-inducing roller coasters for the following seven hours at Six Flags Magic Mountain. Clearly the most logical thing to do after four hours of sleep and a ten-hour car trip. Then we would drive to Vegas that same night, stay with our cousins, then leave the following afternoon and spend the day in Zion National Park before driving back to Provo. Two days. Over 1,300 miles. I'm sure Ryan was sitting there wondering what he had gotten himself into with this insane family.

Sunrise as we passed through Nevada

We made it.

And boy did we party hard. Ryan got sick, I got close to being sick.

But was it worth it? Heck yes.

Zion was beautiful as always!

Merritt loves hanging out with us. Obvi.

Stargazing with my phone. SkyView is probably one of our favorite apps ever.

Sunday passed and we enjoyed a day of rest at home.
Monday came and the adventures commenced once again.
This time, Capitol Reef National Park. Ryan had to work so he couldn't come ):

We found some horses. [: Boy do I miss those soft noses and that horsey smell.

And that's how the Krops spend a three-day weekend.
Which for me resulted in a three-week flu that I was struggling through in a past post.

The last adventure of February was part of Ryan's gift to me for Valentine's Day.
It had three parts. 1) A pedicure 2) A 1.5 hour massage 3) Tickets to Celine Dion's show in Vegas.
Cue the fangirl screams. I practically grew up listening to her stuff.

Best husband ever? Indeed.

So the weekend of the show we headed back down to Vegas to stay with
our cousins again. We spent time at Red Rock, the Strip, and still trying to catch up on sleep
from the previous weekend.

Ryan and his best friend Andrew have this tradition where whenever they go someplace cool, they pick something in the distance... and climb it. We scrambled up petrified sand dunes and squeezed through tiny slots in between the rocks and had an all-around blast of a time. It was so much fun.

CELINE!!!!! Or at least her stage.