Sundance Film Festival + More:

Hello!!

It's been over a month since I posted on here - something I swore would never happen because an online journal is sort of completely worthless if nothing is ever posted... but moving on:

2nd semester of med school is hard! Why didn't anyone tell me med school is hard? ;) 

So studying is consuming my life, but thankfully I am LOVING what I am learning about, my classmates are pretty much my favorite people, and JP keeps me sane by forcing me to leave my studying cave and do fun things. 

Speaking of those fun things, we went to the Sundance film festival!

It's our sixth year attending (crazy!) and I think it was the best year yet. 

We saw three movies -- Digging for Fire, I Am Michael, and Z for Zachariah and they were all so different that I don't even know which one is my favorite. 

The best part about seeing movies at Sundance is that the actors and director are right there and watch the movie with you, then they get up on stage after and talk about the movie and answer any questions the audience has! 

^^^ Dinner in Park City at Vinto after a movie!

^^^ Hi Nick Miller!

 ^^^ James Franco on the left talking into the mic!

So that was really fun. 

See previous Sundance film festival adventures here, here, here, and here!

Then, last weekend, JP decided that we really needed a weekend away and so at 5:00 PM on Friday evening we decided to road trip to St. George!

We jumped in the car with our friends Eric and Kimmi and had the best weekend eating delicious food, laying in the sun, hot tubbing, and playing tennis!

And then last but not least - Valentines Day!

We had a pretty low key valentines this year - it started the night before valentines with our annual heart-shaped pizza group date (thanks to everyone who came!) which I will be posting about soon because I just realized that I didn't upload my pictures off my camera yet haha. 

But here is a picture of what I wore! Very festive.

Then the morning of valentines we went to yoga, played some tennis, and got Vietnamese food that night! And also watched half of Titanic.  It was basically perfect, and I loved every minute of it. 

Provo just keeps getting better and better...

Provo made food trucks legal about 1 year (maybe 2 now?) ago and it was the second-best thing that's happened in Provo in recent memory (the first best thing is a toss up between the Chick-Fil-A on the corner of bulldog and state street or the recent acquisition of Rock Canyon...), anyways... I digress:

Since they were made legal, a waffle truck was the first and now there's all sorts of unique deliciousness available from vehicles-turned-restaurants. 

There's so many now that they've begun gathering together every Thursday night at a little something called the 

"Provo Food Truck Roundup"

and it's the greatest dinner spot ever. 

JP and I went for our first time just this last week and met up with some friends and sampled all the different trucks (well not all of them, although we did manage to try three!)

We had a gourmet grilled cheese sandwich (it had pot roast AND bacon AND turkey), a sweeto-burrito that had tater-tots INSIDE the burrito, and finished up with a wood fired pizza. 

It was seriously amazing. 

If you haven't been, go. And we'll see you there because we're already planning on going again next week haha. 

More info about the food truck roundup can be found HERE!

A Night at the Opera:

JP and I classed it up this past weekend and attended the opening night of the Opera "Turandot"!

We honestly loved it and had such a great time (really, I'm not being sarcastic haha).

The opera is set in China but sung in Italian -- and they have the translation in English on screens so you aren't completely confused. 

The whole night was right up our alley -- we got to dress up, spend time in Salt Lake, eat candy, and try a new restaurant for dinner. It's like all of our favorite things! haha

 ^^^ They had a red carpet thing where they were taking people's pictures! And they insisted on taking one of us... ;)

^^^ Necessary. 

^^^ If you don't Snapchat it, were you really even there?

Valentines Day: All By Myself

The actual 14th of February was spent watching my little brother play in his basketball games and eating thai food with my parents (I totally third-wheeled their Valentines date... and loved every minute of it haha)

Since JP had to be out of town on the official day of love, we celebrated early! And with our friends Eric and Kimmi too!

We headed up to the J&G Grill at the St. Regis in Park City (a favorite of JP's and mine! We've been twice before - our first time was when we celebrated our first Valentines Day together while dating!) 

where I had the best short ribs and tuna tartar of my life, followed up by a salted caramel ice cream/popcorn dessert that 

a) they had somehow made classy

and

b) was absolutely incredible. 

It was the best night and the best celebration of love a girl could ask for. 

:)

And now I'm just excited for JP to get home tomorrow! Woohoo!

Valentine's Pizza Party 4.0

Since it's been like two full months since JP and I threw a party, we were getting a bit antsy. 

Luckily, Valentine's day is just around the corner so that means...

HEART SHAPED PIZZA + PAZOOKIES PARTY TIME!

See previous years here, here, and here!

Our friends Eric & Kimmi helped us co-host this year and it might have been the best year yet. 

I mean, if you combine:

>>> heart-shaped pizza dough, 

>>> enough pizza sauce to feed a party 5x's our size, 

(not a joke, unfortunately. Anybody need pizza sauce?) 

>>> half-baked cookie dough with graham-canyon ice cream, 

>>> and 9 couples, 

with our own version of the newly-wed game,

 hilarity has to ensue, doesn't it? 

There are probably too many pictures but there were so many good ones I couldn't narrow it down, so enjoy! :)

Now, I'm off to look up recipes on pinterest that involve pizza sauce. 

Fire & Ice Festival:

Here's what you will see of our Saturday night:

>>> kissing in front of ice sculptures

>>> kissing the ice sculptures themselves

>>> admiring reindeer and also trying to be a reindeer...

Here's what you won't see:

> the fireworks. They were AMAZING too. But you know what? Pictures of fireworks never do them justice, and plus I usually end up missing the fireworks show because I'm so overly concerned about capturing them on my camera. So now, I don't even try, and I have to say I enjoy fireworks a heck of a lot more now haha. 

> the marriage proposal that occurred in the middle of the fireworks show, it was beautiful and sweet and I didn't capture even one second of it because the camera was put away, as per the above reasons. 

> the delicious mexican food we ate afterwards. Why is mexican food so good when you're starving?!

> our attempt to be olympians, but you can see it here on my instagram. 

Here's to a new week! 

(and a new resolve to be more regularly about blogging! forgive me!)

Ice Castle Fairies

We joined the rest of the BYU student body (haha, not really, but whoa it was hopping!) this weekend and went up to the Ice Castles in Midway!

They use sprinklers to make these amazing labyrinths and mazes of stalactites and stalagmites (which are slightly terrifying when you're walking beneath them... but it's worth it). 

Everyone kept saying they felt like they were in "Frozen" 

(which I haven't seen yet... I'm still trying to wear JP down haha)!

We went with Eric and Kimmi and had the best time! 

Which was equally due to exploring the ice castles as it was to where we ate dinner -- we ate at the Snake Creek Grill afterwards and my goodness, it was my first time and I am sold. 

Get the gingersnap ice cream sandwich dessert, you'll die. 

^^^ yeah... we had to. ^^^