One Amazing Year- Part 1

Well, we made it- ONE YEAR DOWN, only 95 more to go! To celebrate our first anniversary we took a much needed vacation to Salt Lake. Some of the places we went were the "This is the Place" Pioneer Village, Hogle Zoo, and the brand new City Creek Center mall! There was just way too much amazingness for me to blog about the details, but I did take a lot of pictures and videos! At one point Andrew requested that I stop focusing so much on getting pictures of everything and just try to enjoy everything. So we didn't get as many pictures of the zoo, but maybe that's why we had such an amazing time there! Because I wasn't as distracted with documenting everything. Sometimes I worry so much about remembering the experience that I forget to actually experience the experience....if that's makes any sense. It was our anniversary and so we focused on being able to just away together for a little while. Anyway, it was a lesson well learned. But here are some of the pictures we did get:

Pioneer Village

Andrew beating the crap out of that poor rug.

The lovely church building- kind of reminds me of the Avonlea church.

This was called the "Courting Couch." It was how a young man and woman would 'date'- very upright seats and a corner that prevented them from getting too close! The candle on the seat was for the father. If he approved of the boy he would raise the candle higher so they could have more time. If he didn't like him he would lower it so that the boy would have to leave sooner.

This was how they taught kids to milk cows correctly- with bears on strings!I turned out to be a pro.

One of our favorite parts of our whole little vacation were the Native American Dancers show in one of the village buildings. They were quite amazing, I absolutely loved it (and Mom you would've loved it too)! It reminded me of Northern Exposure so much that when we got home I had to watch an episode or two. Once I figure out how to upload videos on here I'll post the really awesome dances.

Main Street

And THE Monument

It was all so great! Andrew and I don't come from the same cultures completely, but this history- church history- is part of both of us. It was meaningful to be there and see the lives these people lived because of their testimonies of the gospel. We both can appreciate that very deeply.