Our productive weekend

This was a weekend of "FIRST"s for the Hardcastle's:

1. Lauren worked extra M-Th and Brad took PTO so we could take our FIRST Friday off EVER. No work, no school, no obligations. It was, simply put, amazing. We slept in, made a delicious breakfast of fruit, pancakes, and eggs, and then enjoyed the afternoon. We went to Costco to get prints from our cruise to put in the photo album we puchased in Honduras. We also had frozen yogurt (Lo) and a hotdog (Brad) for lunch. Gotta love Costco! Later that afternoon, Brad went to a discussion with a Korean family who is investigating the church. He loves being a little missionary! Then we had our FIRST barbeque dinner with corn on the cob, baked beans, BBQ chicken, and potato salad. The evening ended with a trip to Color me Mine. This is a sweet little place in Provo where you pick out ceramic pieces like plates, cups, bowls, etc. and paint them. They fire the piece for you, and you pick it up about three days later. Brad and I went here two years ago when we were just dating and had a fun time. I figured we needed to go back before we moved and make a second piece! We haven't picked up cup yet, but are pretty sure it will look fabulous. Here is a picture from our FIRST trip two years ago:

Doesn't Brad look thrilled?

2. I, Lauren, gave Brad a haircut. I have done it twice before, but Brad's mom (the professional hairdresser :) always comes in at the end and fixes up my *work*. This was the FIRST time I did it all on my own, with no help from anyone. I know most of you will not quite understand just how amazing this feat was, but let me explain Brad's hair: blond and straight. Ie: shows every flaw, every mistake. His hair is the hardest to cut I have ever tried. Needless to say I am pretty proud of my success!

This was the best picture he would give me. After an hour of me spraying him with the water bottle and pulling his hairs with the scissors, I don't blame him.

3. Brad and I (with much help from his Dad) refinished our FIRST dresser! I found it posted on the KSL classifieds for $10.00. And believe me, when we picked it up, it looked like a $10.00 dresser! It had a hole in the left side, was missing half of the handles, and had a broken drawer. However, after one trip to Home Depot all was well again. We fixed the hole with a whole new piece of wood, fixed the track for the drawer, staple gunned all other loose fitting joints, sanded, painted, and put on new handles, . (Okay, so Brad and his Dad did 90% of this and all I did was sand and paint...) And this is the finishing product:

Here it is! And I could kick myself for not getting a before picture. Oh well.

4. Finally, this was the FIRST time Brad and I took a picture of ourselves before church. Okay, so it doesn't really fit with the rest of our accomplishments, but I just wanted an excuse to post the picture.

Brad's 15 mins of fame

Although this picture was taken almost a month ago, I need to put it up. Brad went to the 50th year anniversay for Sharon Elementary School with his friend Marcus. (Marcus's wife Brittany is a teacher there). They got a yummy free dinner and also got to take a picture with Harvey Unga. For all you BYU football fans out there, Unga was the freshman running back that was absolutely amazing for the Cougars. Needless to say Brad was stoked for the picture.

Brad, Unga, Marcus, and Brittany

Memorial Weekend...

This past Memorial Weekend (yes, almost two weeks ago!) Brad and I braved the stormy Utah weather and went camping with our good friends the Bakers! We went to Hobble Creek in Springville, and the weather report for the whole weekend said rain, thunder, and lightening. But we didn't care! And it turned out wonderful- maybe a total of 15 minutes of rain the whole time. We were so glad we decided to go! It was nice to get away from Provo for a couple days and just relax. We kept busy with delicious tin foil dinners, starbursts, watching Brad fish, going shooting, playing some softball, and just hanging out around our camp. Speaking of which, our camp was huge! Brad and I were able to get to the campsite early on Friday and got the best campsite. It was at the end, completely secluded from all other campers, and right next to the creek.
Here are some pictures from the trip!

Brad fishing near the lake

Staying warm near the fire/eating our delicious tin-foil dinners! YUM!
Playing softball. You can see our huge campsite in the back.

Brad doing a little shooting

Me doing a little shooting. Although I was a little nervous, it was so fun!

Brad went on a hike for this beautiful view

We are so excited to be camping!

Needless to say Brad and I are excited to move close to the lovely California beaches, but sad to leave the beautiful Utah mountains. We will definitely miss having them so close.

I've been tagged!

3 joys: FAMILY! (esp younger siblings & other people's children because I have none of my own!) Camping in the beautiful Utah mountains/swimming in the beautiful California beaches, and vacations!


3 fears: Snakes; Losing my husband or a child; Moving to a new place with no family, friends, job, or guarantee that all will be well. (Basically fear of the unknown!)


3 goals: To be an amazing wife and mother. Travel to Korea, Europe, and Nauvoo within the next 10 years. Learn to decorate a house! (I really hope this one works out!)


3 current obsessions/collections: Craigslist: madly searching for housing and furniture! De-junking my small one bedroom apartment. Otterpops.


3 random facts: I have a phobia of tripping on stairs and knocking out my teeth. Just typing it hurts! I shrunk ½ inch when I was 18 after major back surgery. I currently work hands-on appraising the Church’s most valuable items (Hyrum Smith missionary journal, original Book of Mormon, original D & C revelations!) The vaults holding all of these items is the most insured piece of property the Church owns!

I tag: Michelle, Brittany B. and U., Joella, Jenny, and anyone else who wants to be! :) Enjoy!

Graduation Announcement

We are sending these out in the next couple days, but between the two of us we had to cut back on the number we send out. Postage is so darn expensive now! So for those of you who won't physically be getting one (cousins, friends, etc.)-- we still love you and hope this is the next best thing!

Enjoy!

I hope they call me on a mission!

And they have! My little (but 10 inches taller) brother Bryant got his mission call yesterday. He will be serving as a missionary in the Colombia, South Carolina mission, preaching the gospel in the Spanish language! He is super stoked!! He reports to the MTC July 30- a week and a half after Brad and I move from Provo. What are the odds?

His mission puts him near the south, which is where my dad served 25 years ago. They will get to share stories of humidity, southern food, and southern baptists!


Congrats Bryant we are so excited for you!

More Caribbean pictures

* MORE cruise pictures can be viewed at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2181027&l=08913&id=17802543 *


Us on the 2nd formal night

Just for you Abby- my dad serenading (ie: embarrassing) my mom by singing "their" song!

Beautiful ruins of Tulum

I've never seen a beach like that in my life

There are our servers Hisanta and Renato. Brad got their email addresses and wants to send them BOM.... always a missionary!

Can't leave out Sir Elton John :)

Our lovely ship!

Great trip!

Caribbean Cruise

Well, simply put, we had a fabulous trip with our parents and my brother! The cruise was wonderful and I am already planning our next one! (Don't tell Brad!) We had a rocky start with a scheduled 2 hour layover in Dallas that turned into 5 hours! We got into Miami at midnight and then our shuttle never came, so we didn't get into bed until 2 in the morning. But everything else went off without a hitch.

Our port of calls were Grand Cayman, Roatan Honduras, Belize, and Cozumel Mexico. They were each beautiful and unique in their own ways. We swam with the sting rays and snorkeled in Grand Cayman. We didn't do any scheduled excursions in Honduras, but we ended up meeting a 10 year old boy named Alvin who showed us around the town. He was adorable. We ended up giving him 5 dollars and an apple (he really wanted it) becuase he was so cute. In Belize we went cave tubing and ate an authentic meal of rice and beans. It was unbelizeable!! And lastly, in Cozumel we went to Tulum and visited the Mayan ruins.

While on the ship, we enjoyed laying out by the pool, eating as much frozen yogurt as we could, playing mini golf, and of course- karaoke! Bryant was the karaoke king and ended up winning the role of Elton John in the ending show. It was a riot!

Hard to sum up 9 days in a few paragraphs, but the West Caribbean is amazing and I recommend it to anyone!

Enjoy some pictures! It will make this post quite long, but I'm not a fan of slideshows, so bear with me!

On the boat, downtown Miami behind us

Everyone on the first formal night

Swimming with the stingrays

Did I really do that?

It was so beautiful!

Mom and Bry with our little friend Alvin!

Cave tubing in Belize

Don't we look fabulous?


***Time for a new post!***

Cruising through Life!

More pictures coming soon!

Graduation!

We did it! We went and graduated. Real world here we come! It was so nice to be able to enjoy our graduations together and with our families. My parents and Bryant flew in the night before graduation so that they could be there. It meant a lot to us to have both sets of parents there.
Also, I was given special permission to walk with the Marriott School of Business, even though I was graduating from the College of Life Science. So our names were called right after each other! After graduation we packed up and headed to Brad's house in West Jordan for our graduation party. It was a wonderful couple of days and feels so good to be done! (At least for now.)