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While we were on our trip, Braxton turned the big 2-5! We were lucky enough to be able to spend it with his family in Ames and have a great day with them. We started the day off right with some breakfast pizza from Casey's, which I crave on the regular. I ate mine so quickly that I didn't get the chance to take a picture of it, but just imagine: pizza (already delicious) but with a light layer of cheesy sauce and then topped with scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, and more cheese. It's delicious.

Braxton and Honey celebrated in style. (Neither of them liked it much, to be honest.)

Later that night Steve made us a big family dinner of steaks and dutch oven fries. He made Brax what was literally the biggest steak I had ever seen someone eat in my entire life. 30 oz.  It was huge. And B amazingly ate the whole thing!

Here it is next to a strawberry for comparison. 

We finished the night off with some cupcakes and bowling for a very happy birthday boy. :)

July

Oh, is July over? And it's been a month since I blogged about anything? Weird. I guess I've been a little too busy doing this:

Just kidding- we really have gone out and done things besides just hanging out on our couch singing to our food. (Although, I don't think that L.L. is bad company to be in. Just sayin'.) Let's start at the beginning.

Early in the month the Huang family, who Brax taught and baptized on his mission came out to visit Utah for a week, and we got to spend the day giving them a little tour of B.Y.U. Plus, it was a great chance for Brax and I to practice our Chinese! (They actually asked me if I spoke any Chinese. Embarrassingly enough, I've tried to learn a little bit, and all I can ever remember is the number two. So luckily their English is much better than my Mandarin.)

The Huang Family- Cherry, Louise, and Henry. 

Their daughter, Cherry, is going to be a senior this year, so we even got to ride around campus on a golf cart with a guide from Admissions. Personally, I think Brax and I gave a better tour than our zoobie guide, but every time I was walking across campus as a student and saw one of those golf carts, a little part of me was dying for a ride, so it was good to finally fulfill that dream.

(Excuse the baldy in the middle of the picture- its even more impossible
to take a classy selfie while riding on the back of a golf cart)

The next week, we decided there would never be a better time than right then to go on a trip and visit our families! We had been thinking about it for a while, and realized it would probably be an even longer while before we would both have as many days off together as we did. So we packed up the car and headed out for about 15 hours of this:

(This picture actually makes it seem even better than it is in real life. It's rough.)

It was a long drive, but Brax was a great sport and we made it to the blessed land of Iowa in record time! We spent the first few days in Ames for some quality Excell time and lots of trips down memory lane for B. He went through all of his boxes of things from his mission and downsized so that we could bring it home with us.

The glory that is an Iowa cornfield.

Then we headed up to the Cities for a few days to hang out with my family- which was basically us touring around town during the day when they were all working and then seeing them for dinner. (Which is to be expected when you tell them the day before you're leaving that you're coming out, to be fair.) But we did get to go see a lot of the sights that I hadn't taken Braxton to before, since we've never been out when the weather's warm enough to spend much time outside.

 The White Sox just happened to be playing the Twins at home while we were there, so we got to go with the family as a part of Braxton's Ostler birthday celebration. Normally we have to make bets on these games and try to find them streaming on the internet somewhere, so it was great to be able to see our two rival teams go at it in person! (I lost the bet by the way. So instead of Brax watching the next season of the Bachelor with me, I'll be wearing his Sox shirt to school when we have a sports day this year.)

We decided that for the vacation we wouldn't worry about eating healthily-- there's just too much good food in the Midwest that we can't ever get in Utah! I couldn't even get pictures of all of it- but here are some of the highlights:

Top: Red Cow in Mpls- Brax got the 60/40 burger topped with onion rings AND bbq pork. I got the "Breakfast Burger" which had a fried egg, bacon, cheese, and peanut butter on sourdough. Sounds weird, tastes delicious.
Bottom: Eating a huge cheeseburger in Ames with the girls; sushi- which I totally eat now sometimes; and a cookie from Insomnia Cookies in Dinkytown- the picture is blurry and the cookie is half eaten because it was just THAT good. 

Food Truck Fever

This past week we caught food truck fever.  A few weeks ago Brax saw the Macarollin' (gourmet mac and cheese) truck parked around the corner from our building and we've been waiting for it to come back ever since. Finally it came back! We couldn't NOT try it, amiright? We settled on the Bacon Mac: classic macaroni with crumbled bacon and corn. 

As  many of you already know, the first Friday in June is National Donut Day. I'd heard about the Art City Donuts truck from some friends at work and was dying to try them. We called Erik all the way up from Provo to come get them with us that night, and when we got there, apparently their generator had gone out. So no donuts for us. There is no emoji to show exactly how sad we were. So, when they announced that they'd be back in Orem on Thursday, we finally got the donuts we were waiting for. And they were worth the wait.

We got all of their specialties for the day- Blueberry Crumble, French Toast, and Sweet Pig. Seriously the most full and happy my stomach has been in ages. 

Summer So Far

I made it through another year of first grade! It seems like the year went by in no time at all and it's kind of weird staying home instead of going to work and seeing by kids every day. I've gotta say, I already miss those little buggers...well, most of them. But especially these:

Are love notes like this not the cutest things in the world?

Yes, those are leggings with pictures of kitty faces all over them. They were the greatest first grade fashion choice I have ever seen. (And yes, she worked it in them. Hard.) I've thought about making Brax start misspelling words and wearing cat leggings, but luckily for him he's kept me too busy. Here are some of the things we've been up to so far this summer.

Preparing for life at the country club

A couple of weeks ago we decided to be  healthier (not watch so much Netflix) so, he took me down to the tennis courts to learn how to play so we can have something a little more active, yet more fun than going to the gym, to do together. So far, I wouldn't say I'm quite a Williams sister, but I have illegitimately won one game! (Set? Match? The terminology is a little lost still.)

Last Saturday, we woke up early to go down to Spanish Oaks and get me started golfing. Basically the only golfing I've done since like 8th grade gym class is mini-golf, so while I like to think I'm an expert putt-putter, it made for a long nine holes. Luckily the weather was beautiful and I got a great instructor/caddy. :) 

Domesticating

If Robin Thicke can use it as a verb, it's legit. With all of this summer time on our hands, we're becoming quite the homemakers.

So far we've made banana bread with this recipe that uses agave nectar and applesauce, but tasted like actual normal banana bread! A good find, since we always buy bananas but never actually eat them. Now we can let them go bad with a purpose. :)

We also started a tiny little herb garden on our balcony. I've had a less-than-awesome track record with caring for plants (like the flowers I got from my students and from the ward on Mother's Day), but I thought that if we planted something that we can actually grow and eat, we'd be a little more invested. So far we're on day three and going strong.

Our babies- Rosemary, Basil, Oregano, Cilantro, and Chives.

Salt Lake day trips

I seriously thought this Saturday was the first week of the farmers market in downtown Salt Lake. So, in my grand plan to go out and have a good time on a day when Braxton's out of class, we got up early and drove up to Pioneer Park. It turned out the farmers market starts next week. Which we found out when we walked around a hella disorganized park, which basically looked like a bunch of people selling junk. Because it was. What looked like the farmers market at first glance, was actually a giant yard sale. Kind of a let down, BUT, we did score some new records for a dollar a pop. 

Nothing else was open for shopping for another half hour, so we decided to cruise down to Chinatown. Yes, Salt Lake has a Chinatown! Almost. Basically, it has a strip mall with an almost-completed supermarket and some Chinese restaurants, and this gigantic gate in front of the parking lot:

We found one dim-sum place that was open for breakfast, and we had to see if it was any good. As with any legit Chinese restaurant, I just let Brax order whatever he thought would be good and waited to see what came out. He did a good job of ordering basically anything off the menu that wouldn't have seafood in it for me (which I guess is hard at a dim sum place?). That's true love. 

Red Bean Ice.
 We had this in SF and it tasted like Reese's Puffs milk-- no joke.
 So, I subtly hinted we needed it again.  Looks weird, tastes delicious.

There was beef in the middle of those weird, gelatinous noodles.
It was actually pretty good, but we were so full by the time it came out that we couldn't finish it.  

That face pretty much sums it up. 

A Trip to the Museum

We've almost made it! I have two more days of school left and Brax has 3 more weeks. (Not that we're counting.) Surprisingly, somewhere between school, work, and Netflix, we've actually managed to go out and have a little fun. This past Saturday, we planned on going up to the Natural History Museum to check out their exhibit on the history of chocolate. We actually did go all the way up there- but the line was out the door and we decided we could better spend our time at lunch than reading about a food that would just make us hungrier. So we grabbed some BWWs and went to the Museum of Contemporary Art instead. It was about what you would expect from a contemporary art museum-- weird and mostly incomprehensible, but in an entertaining way. They had everything from a clothesline with lingerie and rocks to a video of "Mars". Our favorites were the video of the Guatemalan Civil War being reenacted in a Home Depot parking lot (again, pretty much impossible to understand what was going on, but entertaining), and Yoko Ono's wish tree.

I mean, really, I dare you to Google image search "teacup pig" and NOT wish for one.

Month One

Yesterday marked one whole month of married life! Here's a look back at some of the things we've been up to since we became "The Excells."

BYU Graduation. Braxton took a hellish load of classes this last semester- including an online class and cramming for days to pass the Physical Science exemption exam, and planning a wedding. So even though he's still finishing up his last three classes this Spring term, we still used graduation as a time to celebrate all B's hard work. Steve and Kelli got to come out from Ames to celebrate with us, we couldn't be happier they took the time to make a long trip out for it!

We like to think we're becoming the chefs now that we're breaking in a kitchen and supplies of our own. So far my job is find the recipes (thanks Pinterest) and Braxton's is to cook them. :) Although, he has a pretty great sous chef, if I may say so myself.

We found a recipe we love for P.F. Chang's lettuce wraps (here) that we loved so much we didn't take the time to take a picture, but a close favorite is mongolian beef (here) and fried rice.

It should come to a surprise to no one that our list of favorite family recipes so far consists of like 85% Chinese food. We actually got more than one wok as wedding gifts-- some couples get multiple toasters, we get multiple woks. And we're okay with that.

The Big Day- part two

Of course we couldn't leave out the party! My sister, Paige, dubbed it "the party of the decade" which is probably half her love of us, and half credit to her party planning abilities. Even from Minnesota. She found the perfect venue for us, The Chase Mill at Tracy Aviary in Salt Lake, and along with the rest of our dedicated planning team, made sure every detail came out perfectly. 

I had my students draw pictures of Brax and I on the wedding day to display.
Some of them turned out better than others (although a Seven Peaks swim wedding would have been fun, too).

We couldn't have celebrated without our families and closest friends, obviously.

Braxton's extended family--minus ShayLin, who had to go finish taking finals and prep
to speak at her convocation the next day. Big weekend for the Excell family and we couldn't be prouder!

THE BOYS- Devon, Erik, Brax, Marshall, Zach, and Luke

THE GIRLS- Tien, Kirsten, Chelsea, Kellie, Janelle, and Paige

A big shout out to EK Studios for all of our beautiful photography. And an even bigger shout out to everyone who shared their love and support with us on the best day ever. :)