Camping Trip

When I was little my dad had a really cool tent- but we never really used it for camping. We only ever used it in our back yard for my birthday party, and watched movies, and stayed up late in there- but none of us could make it through the night haha.

When we realized that Sheldon had Saturday off of work this week SO, Sheldon took me on my first real camping trip. His cousin Kelsey and her husband Scott also came with us. First thing we did once we arrived in Bloomington was find a cute little place next to a quiet little stream and we set up our tiny tent. We didn’t have any trouble with that actually and we made it cozy with lots of blankets and sleeping bags inside.

I was in charge of food, so I cut up veggies and potatoes and hot dogs for tin foil dinners. AND I remembered a delicious 4- ingredient peach cobbler from girls camp that you can make over the fire, so I brought that too! And how can you have a fire without s’mores? You can’t! So we made sure those ingredients were available as well. Scott brought something that  changed the color of the fire so we enjoyed a blue-green fire most of the night. Pretty cool.

4- Ingredient Peach cobbler: Add the ingredients in this order, but do not stir them together so it can crisp up a little on top. Bring it to a boil to cook off most of the liquid, this takes awhile to cook on the fire, so just keep checking on it. It is really good to eat with vanilla ice cream, but we ate ours with thick whipped cream. still yummy!

• 1 large can peaches (do not drain)
• 1 package yellow cake mix
• 1 can of soda
• pinch of cinnamon

We really chose the best place to camp- the stream provided nice white noise and the views were beautiful! It was a little chilly at night and the ground was a little hard, but we actually slept pretty well.

The next morning we packed up camp and went to play in the lake! (Blomington Lake, not too far from Bear Lake.) The water was cold, so I only got my feet wet, but my crazy husband jumped in with the rope swing! He loves that.

Kelsey and Scott hadn’t been to Minnetonka caves, so we did that tour again. Our guide was very intelligent and though we just did the tour last month we learned a lot more this time around.

 

---

*Unrelated to the camping trip- We are sure playing hard these last few weeks of summer before school starts. Earlier this week we also did another razor ride up Mt. Baldy and we went skeet shooting. I was so impressed because I actually hit a clay pigeon! My grandpa would be proud.

 

BRIDALS

(Continuation from the previous wedding post, but this deserves its own post because of all the pretty pictures)

The day before the wedding (Thursday 21) we had our professional bridal pictures taken by Lavon at Luvography. We have already done several photoshoots together, so I knew the photos would turn out nicely. She is great to work with, and makes it so easy for us because of all her great ideas. Here are a few of my favorites she did for us:

 

I’m so happy with how they turned out! Thank goodness pictures last forever so I can always remember my excitement from our wedding weekend! My house is already full of wedding photos. This makes me so happy!

 

Wedding 04.22.16

Our wedding day. The day that we had been waiting for. That BIG day I dreamed of since I was a little girl. And it was all done in the right place, at the right time, with the right guy.

There are so many little details of our wedding festivities; rather than writing down the story chronologically I think I’ll break it down by explaining it piece by piece. (Sorry if I leave something out!) Here goes:

INVITATIONS

I designed the invitations with some inspiration from pinterest, then we worked with both Costco and Alphagraphics to get them printed and mailed out. Then the hardest part… we had to actually assemble the announcements with a strand of lavender tied with hemp. If I remember right it was like 400 total. We even made it into the Caribou county newspaper!

CRAFTS/ DECORATIONS

It was a busy week. After school got out in early April I left Rexburg to stay at my grandma’s house in Utah for a little while. While there I was the crafting woman. I painted, sewed, glued and cut all kinds of things to be able to have the decorations that we needed for the receptions. These ranged from frames, to tea-light flowers, paper pom-poms, burlap banners, and photo-booth props. Grandma was a good sport about having me take over her house and make a mess with crafty things. We also did lots of shopping which was fun. Grandma even took me to get my nails done with acrylics, they have never looked so fancy!

THE DRESS

I posted about this earlier (see HERE) but didn’t post any pictures because I didn’t want HIM to see! haha. Here are a few pictures of trying the dress on, it was the perfect combination of lace and tule. I felt like a princess in it, so thats what matters, right?

FLOWERS

My mom did an amazing job with my flowers! She made all the boutonnieres, corsages, floral decorations and the sister bouquets! We bought bulk baby’s breath from Costco and a few other loose fresh flowers from other florists. My temple bouquet we bought from Flowers on Main in Lehi, Utah. They did a great job to get the colors and flowers to be just what I wanted, while still staying in my price range. My colors: blush pink, lavender, mint green, and white!

FAMILY

My family all came out to Utah a few days before the wedding. We had several other family events going on from preparing for a mission, going through the temple, to College graduation. There are no dull moments. Luckily we were able to squeeze in a big family dinner at the spaghetti factory.

I didn’t have bridesmaids- BUT I do have sisters. They looked great in their matching white lace top and pink flowy skirt combo. My dad also bought the perfect lavender colored suspenders just for the occasion. (I wish I had a picture!) It was awesome. Grandma and Mom had similar silver lace dresses that looked just stunning on them.

BRIDALS

We took our professional bridal photos the day before our wedding. (Thursday 21) We had them done by Lavon M. Click HERE to view the next post with all those pictures; there were too many great photos to combine them all together in this post!

THE TEMPLE

We were married in the Mt. Timpanogos, Utah LDS Temple. It was a truly special day. Sheldon and I signed official marriage paperwork. We spent some special time together there. It was beautiful, all of it. We had SO many people come to support us, and even some surprises I didn’t expect to see. I knew this day would come, but I was truly touched to be able to make promises with both God and Sheldon that day. We were sealed for time, and also for eternity. I love him THAT much!

Camilla S did some photography for us of family and friends on our actual wedding day (Friday 22). She was great at managing so many people and took some artsy pictures for us to enjoy. She really captured the emotion and happiness we all felt on such a perfect day. Here are a few of those shots:

OLIVE GARDEN LUNCH

After the temple ceremony and family photos we all ate at Olive Garden for a late lunch. They did a wonderful job, their service was quick and they had a great atmosphere for us to enjoy each other’s company, and of course the food was amazing!

GRACE, IDAHO RECEPTION

After our wedding night in a Paris themed hotel, we had to race back up to the Thatcher Ward Building to start decorating! Thankfully we had lots of help. It ended up looking nice, my favorite part was the rustic doors and lights above. We served cake and punch along the back wall. Someone…. even trashed our getaway car… haha.

If you haven’t yet noticed we decided on a bike theme- because  marriage is like changing from a personal bike to a tandem. We are now doing this life journey on a bicycle built for two.

Many people had a lot of fun at our photo-booth: we provided a backdrop and props for a little extra entertainment. We encouraged people to share their photos on social media with the hashtag #ForeverTheLloyds.

ST. CHARLES, ILLINOIS RECEPTION

The Illinois reception was done at a park district forrest preserve nature center. It was an old mansion house. It was an unconventional location but allowed for a fun atmosphere. There were different rooms; one for food, another for dancing, for the wedding line, etc. We were very well supported. Many of our family and friends came from far away, so thank you for those who made the long drive!

Also HUGE thank you to the kitchen help! We had many people who came to help with both food and decorations before the event. We didn’t have much time to do it, but it was ready on time. So thank you!

We had a beautiful birch tree cake made by CocoaBean in Geneva. Notice the little tandem bicycle cake topper! and the flower sprigs my mom made. The details were perfect! Plus it was a chocolate cake with some lemon and white chocolate embellishments. Yum! When we cut the cake we both made sure to be very careful to feed it to each other without any mess. 🙂

One of the fun parts about our wedding is that we got to celebrate with so many people we love. It’s hard that Sheldon and I are from opposite sides of the country but it made for double the party, and twice the love. Thank you to anyone and everyone who helped make these celebrations so special for us! Each event was made memorable thanks to your support. Most importantly thanks to my special forever man who has been with me through it all! I can’t wait to spend forever with you Shel!

Wedding slideshow link: HERE

Cross country ski date

So back for Sheldon’s birthday I bought us tickets to go Cross country skiing (in March) through the BYUI student activities. Honestly I was pretty worried it might be cancelled because we had been having warm weather and it seemed like all the snow had melted. Snow is important for skiing you know…

We had faith that the event would go through. So, Friday night we packed our lunches. I only really had peanut butter jelly sandwiches, granola bars, and little oranges to pack. We were ready.

There were only 5 people on the trip with 3 volunteer leaders. So 8. It was a fun little group. We all got fitted for gear and packed into the student activity van. We took off to Mesa Falls, in Targhee National Forrest, that is only about an hour away from campus. Not too bad. Best part is that the tickets were $10 each, which easily was better than renting the equipment and the gas to drive there. I highly recommend taking advantage of the outdoor adventures offered on campus.

Much to our surprise when we arrived there was PLENTY of snow. Funny how elevation has that effect.

It was a beautiful place. We overpacked warm clothes because we didn’t know what to expect so we brought heavy coats, gloves, and even snow pants. But we didn’t need all that. Throughout the ascent we began shedding layers. I quickly realized what a workout it would be. Soon we made it to the trail and signed in. This is where the back woods part of the skiing adventure began. There were lots of trees and slush/ice as obstacles along the way.

Little by little we learned the tricks to stay standing along nature’s path to the falls. But to be honest we all fell. A lot. It was pretty common, even for the volunteer leaders.

After so much wedding planning, Sheldon and I needed a fun all day activity for the two of us. It was a good quality date, but also quite the workout!

Well I had my own little scary moment. I was getting pretty good at riding the little bumps in the route, until we came to one that was particularly close to the edge of the cliff. I lost balance and fell, and my heavy backpack was dragging me down with it. I felt so clumsy and helpless there. The only thing between me and the edge was a thin little tree that would have caught me had a have fallen down even a few more inches. Stuck and scared I just sat there for a minute to gather my strength and balance again. Needless to say, I stayed very far away from the edge the rest of the trip. That sometimes required I take the long way around.

I think what kept us going was the hope to see the waterfalls, and also to have a lunch break. They kept looking at a tiny little map saying its only another mile-ish. Which was said many times… until we just decided to stop for lunch and skip seeing the falls. OOPS! I think the leaders got us lost. Oh well, it’ll have to be a hike trip in the summer.

Anyways after lunch we were all just ready to be done and were all tired. My legs especially were giving out and arms were shaking. Yet I was determined to make it back. Sheldon was my awesome support the whole time, he kept me going when I didn’t think I had the strength to make it back. But we did. We all made it back alive. I think they decided it was about 8 miles that we ended up doing total.

That evening we went to Idaho Falls and joined a few others from my ward to volunteer at a local soup kitchen. We made chicken noodle to give to the people there.

After all that hard work, we celebrated the Birthday of one of Sheldon’s best friends. We met up with a bunch of people at Texas Roadhouse. Food has never tasted so good!

We always like being busy and packing our short weekends full. We don’t have too much time together, so we have to enjoy the time that we get. This was a very full weekend, so it was a very good weekend!

Less than 40 days until the wedding!

A Koch Family Christmas

First off the travel home was enough of an adventure on its own. A completion of the whole “planes, trains, automobiles” thing was necessary to make it home for Christmas. I even met a funny harmonica musician at one train station.  Nice thing is that my sister and I were on the same flight back. So I left cold and snowy Idaho for a “spring time” Chicago. I couldn’t complain.

The next day after all the travel was Sunday, So a before church family selfie was a must!

Family Home Evening done right as a chocolate fondue party (this was later repeated in the week because #chocolate.) You would never think you could feel so sick of chocolate but its a thing. But so good! This is one thing I really wanted to make sure happened while I was home.

 

We also have this favorite family tradition of going to help organize/ weigh/ stock food at the bishops storehouse for a few hours then after we go to eat at cracker-barrel. Yumm. This time I was on the bag tying duty while these other little kids bagged and counted tomatoes and pears.

Another day our family decided to try out a new place on 3rd st. in Geneva- its called Doughocracy. Think of the line up in Chipoltle or Subway… but in a pizza place. You get to make your own personal pizza down the assembly line then it is cooked at like 520 degrees for 3 minutes.

Bam. delicious.

 

On Christmas Eve we all took the train downtown Chicago to go to the Christkindlmarket at Daley Plaza. It has many venders that sell things from around the world. Mostly out of our price range, some ornaments were more than 50 bucks a piece. But its one of those things where you soak in the experiance; the sounds, smells, and pretty colors. We also walked around the annual Macey’s display windows and up to see the tree in the walnut room. I don’t know what it is, but the city/ train experience always tires you out.

Later on that Christmas eve we did our little family devotional. This helps us to remember the spiritual side of christmas. We watch the “Joy to the World” video from the church and read the nativity story in Luke 2. Then we went on a little drive around the neighborhoods to admire the Christmas lights and decorations. Upon returning home from the drive us girls opened one gift- PJs of course!

Christmas Day was beautiful. My mom always does a great job at decorating the house, it has a warm and festive feel about it. So when we woke up there is always a magic feeling about the place. It was our last christmas that we would have just as the Koch family for a little while, so I knew it would be a special one.

Funny story, when I was 5ish years old alllll I wanted for christmas was a remote controlled T- rex dinosaur that growled and walked around. I thought it was the coolest thing. Well I got it for christmas that year. I always played with it around my sisters dolls, it kind of became the family joke. Well it somehow resurfaced this year in a new box. That was my joke gift. It caused some good laughs….

That was followed by my real gift of a sewing machine! Yay! I’m so happy.

The day after christmas we all got dressed up and went to a chicago musical production of “White Christmas” at Drury Lane. There was a pre- show dinner dinner too. We all felt so fancy.

 

We also did lots of baking. Mostly Rebecca, because of her famous cupcakes! She made mint oreo, candycane redvelvet, and gingerbread cupcakes for a Sunday gathering.

New Years Eve we have another fun tradition; it includes a movie marathon, random junkfood dinner, and to end it all…….. the Balloon Drop! Our movie selection this year was: The Cokeville Miracle, Ant Man, and the new Cinderella. Follow this post to get the recipe for my chocolate peanut butter balls we had as part of our spread.

 

Our home style balloon drop (116 balloons) falls with the new years count down.

Happy 2016! This will be a great year!