rushley & crew

Last weekend was a good weekend for some bucket list tasks . . . I worked on 3! But only finished one haha :) 1. Go to at least three different national parks or monuments 2. Do work in all the temples in Utah 13. Go camping I really love having this bucket list because it makes me do  things. I get so stuck being boring, when there are so many fun and exciting things I could be doing with my life! That was the case with this weekend. Normally, I'm not much up for planning. In fact, that's why this weekend didn't happen back in the fall--because I just never got around to really planning for it. But a few weeks ago I sat down with Russ and said that we had to make these plans so we made them and stuck to them! So this last weekend we went down to Zion National Park and St. George. Though the weather had been pretty nice up here, we were excited for the getaway down south and the also-sunny weather down there. We invited Russ's parents and sister Lacey alo...

The joy of having a brother who is good behind a camera (and who has a nice  camera)  is that I can sometimes convince him to take pictures of me and Russ for free or in exchange for babysitting :) The difficulty with using your brother as your photographer is that sometimes it takes quite a long time  to get your photos back . Although, as a non-paying customer, I really can't complain too much. He devoted time and effort to photographing and photoshopping, so we're definitely grateful.  I've been trying to get pictures of me and Russ in every season, so Brandon (my brother) graciously agreed to take pictures in the summertime  and again in autumn shortly after. Here are a few of our favorites :)

Start a successful crafting group--a group that consistently has at least four people attending is #9 on my 23 before 23  bucket list. You see, goals are supposed to be specific and measurable, and since the list that first got me into one-year bucket lists had items that were very non-specific and not really measurable, I wanted to make sure my items were pretty specific. However, I was apparently overreaching because this goal has been a difficult one! I started my craft-group efforts in May-- right after my list's creation. I would post about it on my ward Facebook page--advertising friendship, treats, and fun times crafting--but it was less successful than I would have hoped. Every month, from May to January (I may have missed a month or two), I have had a craft day, but of those 8 months, there were only four people there (besides me) twice. TWICE! And despite my efforts to revamp the group in November [switching from a general broadcast to a more specific call for crafte...

Russ and I are trying to be better about going on dates. Sometimes we're successful, sometimes we're not. And then sometimes, I think we try to over-compensate for those times when we don't go on real dates, by having one giant marathon date. A few weeks ago, we got Jimmy Johns for dinner, then went climbing at the quarry, then walked around ShopKo for a while, then got ice cream at Cold Stone, and then topped it all off with Interstellar at the dollar theater. In case you're wondering, the date was about 7 hours long. Ha! We are old married people--we don't stay up til 1am anymore! But we sure did that night. Last weekend, I caught up with my girlfriend, Kari. We met in 6th or 7th grade, became best friends, and then I moved away a year or two later. We've managed to stay good friends over the past 8 years, and hanging out with her was so fun :) We went to the Draper temple together (still checking off temples for my bucket list !). Then we went to...