Brandon LOVES the Utah Jazz!

 

So my husband is a MAJOR fan of the Utah Jazz. Ever since he can remember he's loved and cheered for these guys. He still relives the glory days with Stockton and Malone. And if you know anything about NBA basketball right now you know that the Jazz aren't exactly the #1 team. But does that stop my husband from still cheering and caring and loving them? Ha! As if! 

As soon as we knew we were going to move to DC ,Brandon looked up when the Jazz would be coming to play the Washington Wizards and the big day was March 5th! We decided to splurge a little on tickets and make it part of Brandon's birthday.

 

And even though we didn't pay that much, we lucked out with some pretty great 6th row seats!  

 Brandon was pretty excited as you can clearly tell! 

 We had a great time and enjoyed sitting around a few other Jazz fans.

 It definitely felt like BYU/Mormon night at the Wizards Game! We realized that many of our friends from BYU and our Crystal City ward were also there!

Brandon even got me a new Jazz shirt for Valentines Day in order to be all ready for the big game.

 

Even though the Jazz lost to the Wizards, we had such a great night! I always joke that the Brandon is really passionate about 5 things: (in no particular order) wife, family, church, France, and the Jazz. I love seeing Brandon so happy and I'm so glad we got to go together. GO JAZZ! 

Welcome to Hershey's Chocolate World

  

A few Saturdays a go, we drove up to Hershey, PA to meet up with Tatiana and went to Hershey's Chocolate World! 

 

There are few things I love as much as chocolate, friends, and fun times. This outing had all three!! 

Tats came back out to the East Coast again to check out grad school options at Penn State and lucky for us we got to see her one more time! We loved exploring Hershey with this awesome friend. How I love Tatiana! 

 There are several different things you can do at Hershey's Chocolate World. We started out going on the free tour- complete with singing cows and free chocolate at the end!

 

These groovy cows were probably my favorite part of the tour. Something about milk, milk, milk was in my head all day long!

 We learned all about the lengthy process involved in making such delicious Hershey's chocolate.

 We may or may not have returned at the end of our visit and did the tour all over again before we left... it was just that great and it was FREE so why not?

 We loved all the sweets and delicious desserts everywhere we went!

After the tour, we walked around the massive gift shop with every chocolatey thing you could imagine!

 

 Chocolate pillows for heavens sake!

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup and Kisses Hats!

 My favorite was this little guy. 

We also decided to go see the 4D animated movie before we left. It was very cheesy and very awesome. They had a part where you could text in who you were and what you were celebrating so I texted in and said I was celebrating Tatiana's visit from Utah. Little did I know that before the entire audience the movie screen would zoom in on us and the narrator would talk to us about Tat's visit. haha It was pretty comical! 

We eventually left and drove around the town of Hershey. My only regret in our visit is that we didn't do the paid trolley tour of the Hershey town. I remember doing that in high school and loved it. But that's okay- we'll do it another time.

 We did drive by and walk through the fancy-smancy Hotel Hershey! It was quite the delux place I will say! The inside reminded me of the Titanic it was so ritzy. We walked around and whispered-- worried we'd be caught for being riff-raff and not hotel guests!

 

We ended our day grabbing some dinner at Applebee's before having to say goodbye to Tatiana. We got caught in some bad traffic coming back that made the 2 hour drive into 4 hours, but it was a sweet outing with one of our all time favorite people!

Brandon's B-Day!

Brandon turned the big 25 last week! We decided to make it a full birthday weekend and kicked it off with a movie on Saturday night.

We went to our favorite theater where the chairs recline into awesome couches and went to see this historical movie! We loved it! I'm fascinated with World War II and we both thought it was really well done. I definitely recommend it for all history buffs. 

On Sunday the birthday boy had all his favorites for a big Birthday Eve's dinner: marinated steak, rolls, Patti's potatoes, salad, jello, and koolaid! 

He is easy to please! (as you can see) 

We continued the party to Monday (his actual birthday) and we woke up early to have a big breakfast!

We opened cards before eating. So many kind wishes sent from across the country!

(I told you, we celebrate every holiday with FOOD!)

I found a Kneader's French Toast knock-off recipe and delicious caramel syrup (Brandon loves french toast) and we had strawberries, raspberries, bacon, juice, and chocolate milk! It was not exactly the healthiest breakfast we've ever had but it was tasty!

We both went to work and school during the day but went out to Olive Garden for dinner that night!

Then stopped by the mall for Brandon to get a quick 10 minute back massage! I gave him a gift certificate here for Christmas and his birthday seemed like an appropriate day to get some R&R.  

After opening presents and talking to family, we enjoyed some strawberry shortcake birthday cake!

Happy 25th Birthday!

There are so many reasons why I love this husband of mine. 

Here are just a few:

He's pretty much adorable in every way. Clearly. 

He loves to cook (no really he does!) and makes the most original creations, following NO recipe. SO impressive and SO nice to for him to give me a break from cooking! Seriously I'm SO lucky!! 

He also has some mad dance moves! He's a goofball through and through and continually makes me laugh! 

But most of all, I love Brandon because he treats me like gold. My Grandpa and my Father both told me to marry someone who treats me like a Queen and he truly does- every day. I've never met a more kind, thoughtful, sweet guy who loves me so unconditionally! I am so blessed to be sealed to Brandon for time and all eternity! I'm SO grateful he was born!! Happy Birthday Babe!