Another Bike Race

Today the entire family did a bike ride together! The National Ability Center is a place in Park City that helps disabled people be able to do everything an able person can do! My sister has grown up going there and we have made such a special relationship with them.

Every year they do the Summit Challenge, a bike race to raise money. You can do 100, 50, or 18 miles. This is the first year every person in our family has been able to do it! My cute dad rides a hand cycle with Allie to make it easier for her. They started about 2 hours before us and we were able to catch them at the end and cross the finish line together! It was a great morning spent as a family!

xoxo

A Powell Trip, A Bike Race, An Anniversary

We were finally able to return to our favorite vacation spot! Our family headed to Lake Powell with our cute cousins a couple weeks ago! As always, it was perfect! Perfect water for skiing and tandem skiing, boat rides, exploring, surfing, tubing, and delicious food made the trip pretty great! Aside from a horrible cold that hit the night we got there I still managed to have a great time!

Saints to Sinners is a bike race that Daniel and I participated in last year and we were so excited to do it again! Creighton Rider is a dear family friend that was diagnosed with ALS about 5 years ago. The bike ride is from Salt Lake to Las Vegas in relay form and all the entry fees are donated to research for ALS. Last year we had 2 teams of 10. This year we had 5 teams of 10! It was an incredibly emotional event this year and made for an inspiring couple of days!

Daniel and I celebrated 1 year of dating, 1 month of engagement, and 4 months till marriage all in one week! We were so busy during the week we weren't able to officially celebrate. On Monday we decided to make a date night and celebrate! We ate dinner at The Dodo and then went to the drive-in and saw Despicable Me. It was a fun way to celebrate such fun milestones! 

xoxo

A Break from Life

After our engagement night we didn't have much time to recover. The next day my mom threw together a cute engagement party for our families since everyone was in town! It was a great way for our families to meet and get to know each other. After the party we had to pack and get ready for a 10-day trip!

Our trip began in Chico, California for Daniel's family reunion. His mom grew up in Chico with 13 siblings! This year would have been her mother's 100 birthday so they decided to get the family together to celebrate. It was overwhelming to say the least, but I loved getting to know the family I will be a part of in a few short months!

All the siblings with their Dad.

We love Harrison, one of Daniel's nephew's!

After the reunion, we headed to Lake Tahoe with Daniel's immediate family. We had an absolute blast! River-rafting down the Truckee river with water guns, beach days, paddle boarding, and a game of werewolf made for a great few days!

We got home the night before the Fourth of July did some laundry and were off to Sun Valley the next morning to meet up with my family. For those that don't know us, you could say we are just a tad patriotic! We love the Fourth and had such a great time celebrating in Sun Valley. We played croquet, racket ball, volleyball, ping pong, mini golf, took walks on fairway road and saw a couple of movies!

It was a great break and we loved being able to soak up being engaged with our families! Now, we are on to the wedding plans!!

xoxo

A Perfect Proposal

One week ago today the man of my dreams asked me to marry him and my smile is still as big as it was that night.

Here's a little back story about the two of us. Daniel and I have been dating for almost a year but have known each other for about 4 1/2 years. We became best friends, wrote during his mission and then began dating shortly after he got home. Our year of dating has consisted of many adventures and memories and new hobbies. One of those hobbies is biking. We got into it last year when we rode the Saints to Sinners bike race. A relay race from Salt Lake to Las Vegas. Ever since then, biking has been something we have done together!

Last week Daniel asked if I wanted to go on a bike ride to the Cotton Bottom after he got off work at 8:00, I thought it sounded like a great idea! He hurried home from work and we got on our bikes trying to beat the sun going down. I noticed Daniel was riding a lot slower than usual but didn't think anything of it. As we start getting close to the end I see two people on the side of the road holding up a poster as I got closer I realized I knew those people and the sign was for me! Two of my best friends, Lizzy and Kamrin, were standing there holding a sign that read "Carli, I love you..." I turned to Daniel in complete shock! Could this really be the proposal I've been waiting my whole life for??? We rode a little bit more and there was another best friend, Natalie, holding a sign that read "You're almost there"! Further down the road our two best friends Joe and Allison were holding a sign "Just a little bit longer"!

We reached the intersection and I looked up to see both our families and friends standing there with a big banner that read "Will you marry me?" We jumped off our bikes and Daniel got down on one knee. Of course by this time I was in complete tears! It was the proposal I had always dreamed of and I couldn't imagine it being anyone else down on one knee.

I loved that everyone was there to celebrate with us! It made it incredibly special. We are getting married on November 23rd in the Brigham City Temple where one of our first dates was going through the open house!

I have loved Daniel for a very very long time. He makes me smile every single day. He is my best friend and favorite person to be with. I can't wait for the many adventures waiting ahead for us! I feel so lucky to have found the person I want to spend eternity with and am so grateful it is somebody that I am completely head over heels in love with!

xoxo

A Reunion, A recital, A round of golf

Summer has been treating me well, very well. Last weekend one of my good friends got married and it could have been considered a high school reunion. We hate that it takes a wedding to get us all together but we definitely took advantage of it! What's better then dancing with all your best friends and then ending the night with a Hire's shake?

Lucky for us her husband and my boyfriend were at work so we got to be each other's dates for the night! It had been way too long since we've done that!

My piano teacher has an honor's recital every year for sophomore age and older. This year I was able to play a piece I have dreamed about playing for about 6 years now. We took our favorite parts of Rhapsody in Blue and put them together to make one awesome song! I have the best family, boyfriend, and his cute parents to come and watch!

Daniel and I decided to do a little spontaneous date night to Boondocks. We just laughed and laughed and laughed. It was fun to get out and do something and to be together just the two of us. Work has taken over our lives a little bit this week so it is nice to enjoy the time we do have together! I recommend boondocks to anyone looking for a good date night. Mini golf, go karts, and arcade games is all it takes for us to have a good time!

A mission companion's wedding

I got 2 holes in one!!!!

xoxo

A Little Red Bike Ride

Last year my mom and I rode in the Little Red Bike race and we had so much fun that we decided to do it again this year! They have lots of different routes that you can do and we decided to do 50 miles this year.

The theme was Bollywood and they always do such a great job with volunteers, decorations, and making it such a fun ride! I have really started to love biking and it was about 10x easier this year then last year so I guess I'm making progress!

xoxo

A Lake Powell Weekend

It doesn't feel like summer until we are in Lake Powell and luckily we get to go every Memorial Day. We had a fabulous trip with good weather, good water, good company, and lots of activities! It is the one place you can always count on all 5 of us making it down there together!

     

I'm lucky I found a guy that loves it as much as I do but then again how could you not?

xoxo