labor day.

elle stayed with my parents for 2 nights while we attempted to help jude sleep through the night (*sigh*)- which just so happened to be over labor day weekend! monday morning we woke up and after a little run w/ just the judester (who kept looking around like, 'what's the deal? where's the crazy little blonde girl?'), we realized it was much too chilly for our original plan to swim, so we decided on an impromptu trip to logan! we picked up elle from my parents', and headed up for an afternoon in one of our most favorite places.

coming out of sardine canyon, my heart instantly feels this strange sense of homesickness- not in a bad way though- does that make sense? i moved to logan from ohio when i was 17 and went to utah state. i thought i'd be there for a year, but i stayed for over 5. it's where i feel like i grew up in a sense- you know, heartbreak, awesome roommates, crazy roommates, walking everywhere, a wardrobe of all hoodies, graduating, being poorer than poor, meeting mike, dating mike, marrying mike, being a newlywed... all of it it seems happened in logan. i loved college and those years in that cold little valley...

^^ showing elle campus. she was much more interested in the squirrels than our trip down memory lane...

 ^^ campus looks really different! i feel old. one new sight was this awesome monument in honor of 8 students who died in an accident back in 2005 while we were attending usu.

 ^^ take that future girls who try to kiss my man and make him a true aggie! (jude looks overwhelmingly pleased to kiss me, eh?)

^^ we went back to edgehill where we met- those apartments on the bottom floor were ours! good times, good times.

 ^^ gettin' ready for a little sweet & sour chicken from mandarin garden.

 ^^ our first little place was actually in the basement of that little place. it was a 150 sq. ft. studio that was so small we could hardly stand up straight, our clothes were mostly in the trunk of our car, and when you sat on the toilet you had to sit crooked because your knees rammed into the washing machine. it was the best. i have such fond memories of that little basement apartment! isn't it strange the things you miss?

 ^^ feeding the ducks at first dam.

 ^^ that night we went to a "sofia the first" party at station park- which was really just face painting, balloon animals, and a visit by rapunzel & ariel. kind of confusing to an adult, but perfectly pleasing to an almost-four-year-old! (oh, and by this time we were aching for that swim- it was so hot!!)

(see our other visits to logan here. take note of how much our babies look alike! this is when we went to logan w/ elle at almost exactly the same age as jude is now. that hair!!! oh, that hair.)

a date! a daaate!

mike's mom (& moe) hosted a "grandkid sleepover" at a hotel just after christmas.

what? brave woman, huh?

there were 9 kids. NINE!

she was even brave enough to take the nocturnal tank we call elle.

AH! imagine that!

we waffled- what do we do? go home? get a hotel in logan? the hotel in logan won.

logan! our old stomping grounds. where we met. fell in looooooove. spend our first years of wedded bliss (???).

we stayed at the university inn on campus- it was cheap, and campus was like a ghost town! the little room felt like the room on a cruise ship- it had one tiny window. in an insanely awkward part of the room i must admit. it did have a good view, however. and we had free breakfast in the morning! i'm slightly sure we were the only guests that night?  

elle practically lept from the car when we arrived. she screamed, "tusins!!" (cousins.) they swam & ate pizza & played. i think they even slept a bit!? maybe.

we went to dinner at mandarin garden (shocker). walked around the fantastic logan mall (bah!). drove around to see our old houses, the temple, and main street. we always go to edgehill where we met (we were next door neighbors. our beds shared a wall. precious, huh?). we sound like an old couple as we talk of "those days." we walked around for about 8 minutes until we froze our bee-hinds off. went back indoors. cleaned my wedding ring. shared a malt at charlie's. oh, and we went to a cheap movie- "in time." we almost fell asleep before it started (hello, it was like... 7:45, and it was dark. we were sooo tired! told you we are old people these days). good movie though!

such a great little night away!

thank you pam & moe!

saturday in logan.

Just outside of Logan I realized I’d packed my camera for our day-o-family-fun…

but realized my camera battery was sitting, cozy in its charger, on our kitchen counter. Lame.

I almost cried. If Mike wouldn’t have mocked me I would have cried (I could see his smirk when he realized just HOW off the hook he was- no camera?! ALL DAY free of a camera?!? I think he may have secretly sabotaged me). Thankfully, I remembered my phone. And still managed to take like 100 pictures? HA!!! Not that anyone should be surprised.

Elle was napless so we just shoved Dum Dum’s at her to try and keep all of our sanity. Really, we all just ended up sticky & exhausted by the time we got home. I’m not sure if there are any other children in existence who also refuse to sleep in their car seat (anyone? Anyone?). No matter how tired she is, she won’t sleep in the car. She’s been like that since infancy. It makes for long, loud car rides and yesterday was no exception! Screaming aside, it was a great day!

Highlights: walking around campus (including my freshman home, and where Mikey & I met); going to feed the ducks at 1st Dam; Gossners (Elle literally drank 2 milk cartons of chocolate milk in less than 2 minutes. So... we turned around and bought more); potato & bacon spring rolls from Hamilon’s; the “zoo;” and finally, a wedding reception for one of Mike’s best high school buddies!

a perfect saturday to enjoy logan.

whew!

sure do love that place.

mini roadtrip

we haven't been back to logan in a year thanks to miscellaneous events & pregnancy (aka: bed rest). sad! knowing full-well we wouldn't get to everything we wanted, we still tried...

first, we headed to tremonton to visit mike's family & get the car looked at (thanks nate [& mel]! we hope you made it out of town safe and sound!).

the weather was gorgeous, & we were able to get to some of our (*my*) desired cache valley destinations. dusk and a tired babe finally beckoned us home [she was amazing considering we had been gone ALL day.]

it was fun to see family, friends (thanks, love you schaef's) & meet my parents at Hamilton's for dinner- (thanks and) yum! oh, how i love that town.
next door neighbors.
we drove by edgehill to show elle where her parents met...
{*it's still strange to call ourselves parents. are you sure we're allowed?*}

mmm... love. fall. leaves!
i can't wait till all 3 of us can jump in next year!

dinner w/ the fam [mom & dad kopp not pictured].

{Saying Goodbye!}

What a week it has been! We started packing like crazy people last Friday night, and we actually were done in 2 days! We went out Saturday night to say farewell to our lovely Logan home we'd grown so used to over the years! It was a little depressing, I'm not gonna lie. Mike humored me and we took lots of pictures around town at some of our favorite spots--

We have some amazing friends! The Schaefs & Garretts came over Monday to help Mike load some big stuff in the truck-- aka: pretty much our whole apartment in an hour! They're amazing! Thanks so much guys! Mike's dad helped w/ the rest of the move, and by Tuesday afternoon, we were in! Our last night, after the big truck loading event, we went to Casper's for ice cream!

Some little old man driving in a big old man car, saw us trying to use the timer on our camera, stationed on the roof of our car (we're pros at the whole timer thing, really), but he stopped dead in the middle of the road to take this picture! So nice! Well, he actually took 5 of the same picture, but this one is the only image w/out the camera cord or his finger in the lens. So funny!

Didn't think this one through before we left... Lee's is the best place to get boxes- this day they had tons so we loaded up! I was pinned, no joke. Darn little car! They fit though! Trunk open and all!

Dinner @ Hamilton's Saturday night-- it was probably the best meal & service ever! We loved it!

If you know us, you know this is pretty much our favorite place on the planet. Well, close to it anyway. Mandarin has the best Sweet & Sour Chicken- better than in China I'm sure. Mike doesn't even like Asian food! This stuff though? Worth the drive. If you're reading this from the other side of the country, that means you should come too. It's that good.:)

We'll miss Logan tons and tons. How could we not? There's so many memories there from the last 5 1/2 years! We're super exited to be in Salt Lake now, and for a fresh new start on life! We're all unpacked, so come on over!