yellow canyon

we spent as much of our weekend outside as we possibly could, even though it was still pretty cold and gloomy. i decided to forgo the gym on friday, and we headed up the canyon on a hike instead. i thought we would be sacrificing a lot by moving out of the valley. in orem, we were 20 minutes away from some of the best hiking and outdoorsy stuff provo canyon had to offer. i wasn't quite willing to give that up. turns out, we're only about 10 minutes away from Herriman's beautiful Yellow Canyon and we love it already! we've spent a lot of time up there in the short time we've lived here, and it's become one of our favorite spots. it's a hot spot for horseback riders, and cooper's still coming to terms with those massive dog-looking things, but we are glad to have a place like that so close. i decided to take the fancy camera again, but i think i may be getting worse. so get ready for a bunch of mediocre photos with a ton of sun flare. it was a beautiful evening, even though these horrible pictures don't really show it. what they do show, though, is that my dog is a complete ham.

fitness friday!

i've been slacking a lot this week with everything that we've had going on, but i've still been eating good and i'm okay with it. instead of my usual posts, i thought i'd share my favorite fitness pins! some of these i've tried, some of them i really want to try, and some of them are just cool. but all of them are awesome.

tracy anderson is my hero. i'm sort of obsessed with this woman and her techniques...

this arm workout is SO BAD!!! i can't do it all the way yet! she's a genius.

 

toned and sculpted arms workout here

i get by with a little help from my friends

these past few days have been emotionally exhausting. i don't want to get into the details, but it has been a challenge. i have found that it's in these moments where i feel like i have surely failed that it is made clear to me what really matters in my life and who it is that i can truly count on. 

i'm so thankful for understanding coworkers. i had a conversation with a customer yesterday who was just awful. i had never felt so disrespected, and i expected the shop full of men to tell me to get over it toughen up. i am so grateful to have 20 men in my shop who all feel like protective older brothers. they are supportive and always have my back. they really have become family to me. without them, i would never be able to enjoy my job.

i am thankful for my father, who took care to notice that devin was feeling a little off in class this morning, and took time out of his busy schedule to talk to him and make him feel validated. i'm so thankful for the relationship i have with my dad and the friendship we have developed as i have matured. i am so grateful for the lessons he has taught me and the advice he so readily gives. i'm so thankful for the relationship he has built with my husband. it means the world to me that my dad and husband respect each other and have very quickly become true friends. 

i'm so thankful for thoughtful friends and family who have taken a minute to make sure i'm okay. to remind me they are here, and to tell me they love me. a text message is such a tiny thing, but makes a huge difference in my day, and i received so many sweet thoughts yesterday and today.

i am most thankful for my fearless husband. he truly is my rock. i am so glad we have a strong marriage and are able to face things together. he makes everything easier and so fully takes on the role of my other half. he is so incredible and does so, so much - i want to be more like him. 

this isn't the end of the world. it's not the end of anything. our problems seem so tiny to me in the scheme of things, but that doesn't mean we don't feel stressed and overwhelmed and scared and vulnerable. i am so confident in our ability to work together, and it has been reaffirmed to me time after time that what we are doing is right. it's okay. and it's not supposed to be easy. and it will get better. so don't freak out, guys. we are good. i have almost started to relish in our trials, because i love love love coming out on top. and we always do. i love how much stronger we get, and how much closer we become, and how much clearer we can see when we do the right thing and overcome our struggles. i love feeling the weight of a challenge lifted from my shoulders and the relief that comes with knowing it's over. it is worth it to me to learn those lessons and make those changes, because it only makes us better.

my favorite iphone apps

*first things first, you can now follow my blog with Bloglovin! go, now! i'm finally on there! (it only took me, what, 4 years? ha!)

Devin and I got our iPhones about a year ago, and we've been in love ever since. These phones are attached to us! Sometimes that's a good thing, and other times, it can be a distraction, but I like to think we mainly use them for good. ;)

I wanted to share my favorite apps because a) there aren't very many and suggestions are very welcome, b) most of them are photography apps, and i get asked a lot which apps i use on instagram, so... here! and c) because maybe you needed a cool new app? i know i do!

first of all, though: i didn't include facebook, instagram, twitter, pinterest or vine, because everyone has those and they're a given.

secondly: half of these are photography apps. you're welcome, maybe. maybe bear with me...?

1. UCCU - pretty sure every bank has an app now. this is the easiest and fastest way to keep track of our money. i feel like that's pretty self explanatory. we just discovered it has mobile deposit, which has come in handy a few times, and it helps with budgeting to constantly have access to your accounts.

2. Etsy - as an etsy shop owner, this app is vital. it is so easy to use, and even makes adorable sounds when i make a sale. i love it. if you don't have an etsy shop, i would still recommend this app. i use it like pinterest, and it's an awesome, easy app to use if you need quick gift ideas. i can find a million things for everyone i know on etsy that i'm sure they'd love.

3. Couple - okay, this app is sort of really cheesy and we don't use it very much anymore, but it's the coolest idea. you and your significant other can download the app and connect on it and it's like facebook, but just for the two of you. you can send each other pictures, videos, audio files, you can draw pictures, you can "kiss" (hahaha. it's cute, i swear!) and it keeps track of all kinds of dates and anniversaries. we used to have a lot of fun with it, and we still send each other little notes every once in awhile!

4. Do! - hands down the easiest and most efficient and simple to-do list app i've found. i love the way it looks, and i love the way it works. i just wish i could have more than 1 list at a time, but other than that, i love it and mainly use it for grocery shopping.

5. KSL Weather - sometimes i want to know more than just what temperature it is outside, so the weather app that comes with iphones isn't a huge help. i don't feel like this app is super user-friendly, but it gives me the information i want and i think it's pretty accurate.

6. Ensign - guilt-free phone using during sacrament meeting. i also peruse this app when i'm waiting in a long line, or waiting on someone, or waiting to be seated at a restaurant. plus it's going to be awesome to have once the conference talks are printed.

7. IMDB - am i the only person who refers to this app ten million times a day when i am trying to remember what other movies that person is in, or how old they are in real life when they play a 16 year old on tv, or who is he married to? it's just constant. imdb has settled many an argument, and has satisfied many a mind-boggling entertainment question. it's necessary.

8. Myxer - okay. coolest app ever. this app allows you to choose any song you have on your phone (or whatever device you're using) and you can select any part of the song to make it your ringtone. you have to email it to yourself and then install it through itunes on your computer, but it's worth it to have awesome ringtones! (i'm so sick of marimba! haha)

9. VSCo Cam - i love this photography app. i mostly just use it for the filters, which i love, but it has other awesome photo-editing abilities that i'm usually just too lazy to use. i think this is the only photography app i've paid money for.

10. Diptic - best for making photo collages. this app was at it's best about 2 or 3 updates ago, and i think it's gotten too complicated and less user-friendly since, but i still use it every time i want to combine multiple pictures into 1 image.

11. Bokehful - this photo app just does bokeh effects, which i don't use that often, because i usually forget about it, but how cool are the little sun flare bokeh things you see on photos? so cute. worth it.

12. Instasize - this app is silly to me. all it does it resizes your photo so you don't have to crop it in instagram. it does both landscape and portrait and you can choose to leave the dead space black or white. that's all it does. haha!

13. Timercam - i'm still really confused as to why my iphone doesn't just have a timer already? i guess it's because it has the camera that flips both ways, but on my 4s, when i have the camera flipped to face me, it's pretty grainy and i hate it. so timercam it is! i'm pretty sure this app is japanese, but it does the job. i like that it lets you pick how long the timer will go. i think it goes anywhere from 3 to 30 seconds, so that's nice.

14. Over - my favorite. this app just allows you to add text to photos, but the fonts are really cute and it's super easy to use. plus the home screen for the app always has tons of cute ideas on it.

15. Fisheye Pro -  i don't use this app too often, but i've held onto it because i love the fisheye effect! it's not always a good option for photos, but it can be really cool sometimes! the app is a little complicated and hard to use, but i still like it.

16. Afterlight - i love love love this app. tons and tons of cute filters (too many, i think, though), and i love the film effects you can add, too. i think that's a genius idea! this app also allows you to crop photos into popular shapes like hearts, starts, hexagons, triangles and circles. i get a lot of use out of this one.

book recommendations, please

i so desperately need a new book to read. i have shelves full of old favorites, but i want something new. so i want your recommendations. here's the thing, though: i can't translate anything written over a century ago and i don't care to decipher any "deeper meaning" through symbolism. i just need a good story. an easy read. i'm all about easy reads. even if it's long, that's okay. i just like the easy stuff. i'm not really reading for anything other than some mindless entertainment right now. my favorite book may be To Kill a Mockingbird, but I think that's an exception, because I learned to love it at a young age, I was sort of tricked into loving it so much. My recent favorites have been:

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom (pretty much all his other books are on my to-read list already)

Is Everybody Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Heaven is Here by Stephanie Nielson

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins

most novels by Emily Giffin

Is that any help? Hopefully. Because I'm in serious need of some help over here! Our development's pool opens in a few weeks and I need something to take with me on saturday afternoons while I try to get any color at all in my skin! We also have lots of camping and traveling to do this summer, so books are a necessity! I'd love some gospel literature as well if you have any suggestions for deseret book!? (keep it light, though. I'm not looking for Jesus the Christ or anything (right now, at least).

dating my husband

after an unusually long week for both of us, this weekend couldn't have come at a better time. we both needed time to recharge,  refocus and regroup. we seemed to do a little drifting during the week, so when friday came, we jumped on the chance to get out of the house and go on a real date. and then we just kept dating. all weekend long. i think it's so important for a marriage to continue to date your spouse. to take time to go out together, just the two of you, and reconnect. it makes the biggest difference, and gives me the energy i need to make it to the next weekend. having my husband to myself is huge to me. and he's really good at dating me.

on friday, devin got a big tip at work, so we decided to go out to dinner. we wanted to try something new, so we decided to head to The Gateway in Salt Lake city to finally try out Z'Teja's, which has come highly recommended by our favorite radio personality, Mr. Bill Allred. Once we got on the freeway, it didn't take long to hit rush hour / jazz game traffic, so we decided right then to get off the next exit, and head to the trax station. We took the train from Sandy all the way to Downtown and we're sold! I don't know why it's taken us so long to start using trax. There are a lot of stations really close to us! Free parking at the Sandy station, and the train stop was right in front of the Gateway. It was awesome! The food was delicious at Z'tejas. We walked around the mall for a little bit after, then took the train to city creek to browse a bit more before heading back home. We'll definitely make that happen more often now that we know the train system and how easy it all is!

on saturday, we slept in as late as we possibly could. we needed it! when we woke up, we made a big waffle breakfast and watched conference. that first session was amazing! i loved sister dalton's talk. i headed to the gym right after for awhile and left once my legs were shaking from too many kettle bell squats! devin's friend eric came over and they worked on some homework during the second session while i frustrated myself with some html / css coding (UUUGGGGHHHH. i hate it!! so hard!!!) and after 6 hours of homework, devin was ready for a break, and cooper needed to let off some steam. we headed to the dog park and decided to eat at Cafe Bella Rue at SoDa Row for dinner. We love the daybreak area so much. We took a long drive through all the newest neighborhoods and fell even more in love with the development before we headed to dinner. Which was delicious. we got dessert and ate outside and it was warm and the lady at the bakery gave coop a big dog bone and we had the greatest time. I think we'll be spending a lot of summer nights over there, if we don't just end up moving there! (i don't think either of us would mind!). it was such a relaxing night, and i felt like i won the jackpot getting two dates in a row with devin all to myself!

sunday, we slept in some more and then headed down to my parent's house to watch conference with my family. we usually go camping for every conference session, but the weather wasn't working to our favor this year, or so we thought. now that it's been a decent weekend, we wish we would have gone! we had a big enchilada lunch and watched the second session together and joked around and played like we always do, then we headed to devin's parents and took a quick nap while they ate dinner before going to devin's aunt and uncle's house to celebrate some birthdays.

we had such a good weekend and conference was especially good to us this year. i went into this conference weekend watching for a talk that i knew would be just for me, and i found it. and it was just what i needed to hear. i feel validated. i feel inspired. i feel esteemed and ready to take on challenges. i feel so blessed to have a prophet on this earth that can give me modern revelation. a prophet who can guide and direct me and help me to be my best and encourage me to follow Christ. i feel so blessed to have apostles and other authority church leaders that speak with the spirit on inspired topics that effect our lives today. i love this gospel, and the happiness that i find in it can't be found anywhere else. 

my go to's

i'm definitely not by any means an expert, or even that knowledgeable about beauty products, but i enjoy reading what people use and what works for them, and i love trying out new stuff. this is a list of my very most essential go-to beauty products that i can always count on and use almost daily.

1. Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain in "Cherish" - smells delicious, i love the color, it goes on great and truly stains your lips, so it lasts for hours. I'm not quite confident enough (yet?) to sport a bright red lip and be totally comfortable with it, but this color is noticeable while still subtle enough that I can stay in my comfort zone. 

2. Jergen's Natural Glow gradual tanning lotion - while I get really sick of the smell of this lotion, I think it works great. I can get a noticeable tan in only 2-3 uses and I think it looks natural (as long as you know how to apply tanning lotion and can avoid streaks and splotches). I buy this almost every year around this time, as my jeans and long pants make their way to the back of the closet, along with all my tights, so I can show off my legs without looking scary-pasty, before I've had the chance to lay the sun for a few hours.

3. C.O. Bigelow's Vitamin Boost Toner - I discovered this stuff while working at Bath and Body Works, and they've since stopped selling it, but I've continued to buy it on the Bigelow website because I love it so much. It smells amazing and can be applied before or after make-up. It wasn't until I started using C.O. Bigelow's skin care line that I started seeing permanent changes to my skin, and I will never turn back! Devin and I also both tend to use it when we get sunburned on our faces. It is very relieving and the vitamins help heal the burn quickly. 

4. Bare Minerals. I bought the starter kit a few years ago (which, if you're going to start using this makeup, definitely buy the kit. It's super discounted and includes all the brushes, bronzer, mineral vail, brush shampoo, and foundation. It's the best option for getting into the line) and will probably never use another makeup for as long as I live. They have so many foundation colors that once you find a match, it's totally invisible on your skin. It's so light, you can't even tell you're wearing make up and I think the coverage is awesome. I never thought I would get that from a powder, but this stuff works! It's a little pricey, but you only have to buy it ever few months, instead of every few weeks, and it's good for your skin! I feel like this is another product that helped my get permanent results with clear skin.

5. Love and Beauty nail polish - this is the Forever 21 brand nail polish and i'm absolutely addicted to it. It's not the highest quality nail polish, but I've never been able to justify spending money on this stuff, and these bottles are only $2.80! They always have tons of colors. More than half of my nail polish collection (which is massive by the way) is Love and Beauty.

6. L'Oreal Studio Secrets Magic Skin Beautifier BB Cream - I have only been using this stuff for about 2 weeks. Before, I had been using the Garnier BB Cream and I really loved it. It covered well, it smelled good, but I always had to put quite a bit of powder over it because it made me look oily, no matter how little I had put on, and I usually avoided already-oily spots anyway. The L'Oreal brand is a weird texture and goes on white until it warms to your skin, but I think the coverage is better and it goes on very matte. I wish they had a few more tones, because neither the light or the medium shades match my skin very well, and mixing them would be a huge hassle, but I love it enough to just make it work! I can use this product by itself, with a little mascara and feel just fine, without putting on any other makeup.

7. Great Lash Mascara. I used to think this stuff was a joke and really cheap and for little teenagers, but turns out it's one of the best mascaras ever! It's cheap, it comes in every shade, and I get longer, fuller, non-clumping lashes with this then I have with any other mascara (and I've tried the lot of them!) I'm sure I'd be happier with a department store brand option like Clinique, but you'll never see me spending that kind of money. My first choice will probably always be eyelash extensions, but the cost and maintenance turn me off. I think Great Lash is an awesome option. I like that it's light and unscented, too.

8. Bath and Body Works "Secret Wonderland" lotion - I worked at Bath and Body Works for about a year 2 years ago and am just now running out of lotions, candles and other smelly things. I tried every lotion that store released for that year (which I bet was at least 100) and this is still my favorite. I'm also a huge fan of Dark Kiss. I love the formula of this lotion because the smell isn't overwhelming and it gives me exactly the amount of moisture I want. I'm really OCD about the way my hands feel and I always have lotion with me because of it. I don't feel like it leaves me skin oily or with a residue. $10 for lotion is pretty steep, so I tend to use it just as hand lotion. 

9. Victoria's Secret "Tease" perfume - my favorite smell in the world. I had sort of been looking for a scent I could wear forever that was mine. I had been rotating Bath and Body Works favorites for awhile, but I wanted something different and a little more serious. I haven't splurged on the actual perfume yet, and just have the body mist, which doesn't last as long as I'd like it to, but this smell, man. It's dang good.

10. Vaseline - Good old vaseline! I use this for EVERYTHING. Literally. I put it on my eyelashes to help lengthen them before mascara. I put it on my cheeks for a little glow. I put it in my eyebrows sometimes even! I put it on my elbows when they are dry. I put it on my lips over some concealer instead of buying nude lipstick. I use it on my cuticles. It does it all. Literally. I even use it in my hair as styling wax when I'm in a pinch. 

11. Tresemme Dry Shampoo - I haven't tried a different brand of dry shampoo because I've been good with this one! I can go about 3-4 days without washing my hair with the help of this magic stuff, and it's a life-saver on camping trips. It smells really strong, and you have to get some practice with applying it without giving yourself grey spots, but it works like a charm. 

12. Vaseline Cocoa Butter lotion - This is my favorite body lotion. I use lotion after every shower and sometimes before bed. I have a giant bottle of it at work, even. I love the smell and it's the perfect moisture. A basic lotion has to be on a list like this! I've tried other brands' cocoa butter lotions and I don't like them nearly as much as Vaseline's. 

There you have it! I'm not a big spender when it comes to beauty products. I like it to be simple, do it's job, and smell good, and all these products do just that! Hopefully this is helpful and let me know if you have any of these and love or hate them, let me know if you try them, and let me know if you have better suggestions! Every product on this list is under $10 with the exception of the bare minerals (which is about $30 for foundation).