Lightning Strikes 3 Times... In Very Different Places

So as some of you know, since Matthew and I first started dating, we have played on the same intramural kickball team, the Lightning Dogs. Laugh if you will, but it takes skill, creativity and most importantly an awesome sense of style. This was our third season as the Lightning Dogs took the field this fall to try to redeem ourselves from the demoralizing loss in last spring's tournament. Our first year playing, we made it to the quarter final found. Our second year playing, we made it to the semi final round. So, naturally, we were expecting to be in the final round this year as tradition predicted. We had a lot of fun doing dress up days throughout the season, including plaid day, crayon day, (which turned into volt yellow day when we all wore the same color "crayon" outfit), beach party day, and blackout days. So, to sum up, we won the intramural championship and ended the streak of finishing spot one higher than before, jumping right to the front! Special shoutouts go to our devout fans who watched in the rain-Brad Wilson, Liz's dad, Parker Mangum, brother and brother-in-law of several team members, and Karen and Michael Mangum, parents of two key participants.

Although the season ended successfully, it did come with a price. My foot. 

Always good to celebrate with this kickballer!

And now, for your entertainment, the video of the rushing of the field. Enjoy and be inspired! Love to all the dogs out there reading this, ch ch ch RUFF!

I'm back and i've got a new top 3

And this time we don't have to stretch the truth for our 3's.  (Last time I had bad information about how long we knew each other which led to the incorrect usage of the number 3.)

Top 3 trips we went on in July this year

1) Foxborough

2) McCall

3) London

(Purely chronological order people, don't be too jealous or upset at the order.  I don't want to have to read through comment after comment comparing the trips on your own.  It's ok, we love you all.)

Each trip will get it's own top 3, and then maybe some comments at the end.

Foxborough, Massachusetts top 3.

1) Going back to Boston we have to mention the Red Sox victory over the Evil Empire!!  Saturday night we got tickets from Uncle Mike and went to the Red Sox game when they played the Yankees (Is that the correct way to say it Bethy?) and you guessed it, we saw a victory for the Good Old Sox.  Relative no name and lifetime minor leaguer Pedro Ciriaco played out of his mind as the Red Sox needed all the help they could get and the Red Sox beat the Yankees 9-5.  Bethy's first victory at a Red Sox game.  Go Sox.

2) Family Dinner.  The last day we were there we had a huge family get together with a great BBQ Dinner, some swimming, the little Brandt girls bringing the water party to me, Corn hole, and fun family time.

3) Nantucket.  The first time I've been there since I was like 2 and a great few days.  The only problem was that it couldn't last longer.  We had a great time driving around and seeing beaches and lighthouses and doing a little shopping.  We also spent some time relaxing at the beach.  Few things are as picturesque as Nantucket.  It was beautiful with beautiful skies, and nice beaches.  Great time.

Top 3 pictures from the trip back East:

Top 3 from McCall

1) General water activities.  Like usual we rented some Jet Skis and had tons of fun with them flipping, jumping, and just causing trouble.  We also rented longboards and a kayak for people to row around with.  The Boat was a huge hit this year as lots of kids were able to join in the fun including Naomi and her waterskiing for the first time, Sunny slalom skiing for the first time, and MaryBeth just pretty much being awesome at tubing as always.

2) Family songs and crafts.  The crafts this year were very intense and really great.  Paintings, facemasks, bracelet making, lether stamping, Letter decoupage (yes MB just told me that word.  It's a good one though and deserves to be in here.)  As always, there was lots of time put into it, and the kids had tons of fun.  Not to mention our household made out with some new painting and things to hang up in our house.

3) Last, but definitely not least was just the fact that there were so many people there.  Almost everybody on the Price side of the family was there.  We sure missed Sarah Price Edwards as well as Grandpa Al and Grandma Barbara.  Next year they will be there so we don't have to go too many times without them.  Miss you guys.  This led to Bethy and I sleeping on the couch and not having an official room.  But it was totally worth the great time that we had.

Top 3 Pictures from McCall:

Now the top 3 from London, England

1) General sightseeing - From the moment we got there to the second we left, any free time we had we spent seeing the sights.  From Evensong at Westminster Abbey to a tour of Parliament we had tons of great things to see.  St Pauls cathedral, Tower of London, and the London Eye were all checked off the London bucket list as well as riding on a double decker bus, seeing a three wheeled car, and meeting a beefeater.

2) USA! USA! Thanks to some excellent work by my mom and dad (and some helpful translation work from Matt) we were able to get lots of tickets to some awesome events.  We had tickets to some great events like weightlifting, fencing, beach volleyball, soccer, judo, gymnastics, and badminton.  We were able to see our new hero Kayla Harrison win the Gold medal and made it onto TV in the background during the National Anthem.  And cheered on Danell Leyva as he fought back from a poor second exercise to take the Bronze medal with an excellent score on the last exercise.  There's nothing like cheering on your country and watching them win a medal.

3) Pin Trading.  We really got into the Olympic tradition of Pin trading this year as I wore my pins on a lanyard around my neck.  I got the best of a few trades and ended up on the short end of the stick once or twice, but it was tons of fun.  I do feel like I really got my money's worth out of the Olympics by being a part of this tradition.

Top 3 pictures from London (Or more.  Don't blame me, I'm a math major and i can prove that 5 pictures is actually only 3 pictures.  Trust me.)

As you can see we had a great July.  Much love and thanks go out to both of our parents for helping make this a reality for us.  We love you guys.

MB + ME

Incase you were wondering....

Yes. We are alive. Alive, well, and having a blast as we kick off the summer!

 We've had quite a few fun little adventures already with many more to come as the summer progresses. Right after classes ended we were able to go up to Oregon and visit Meegan and Parker with my parents (MaryBeth) and get a weekend of nothin' but NIKE! I got to be a part of a Nike sprint study which was fun (and actually really tiring),

We toured Nike campus, found a family member, and got ourselves far too many pairs of shoes and other goods from the employee store (holla at being retired from collegiate athletics!) 

Overall an awesome weekend with the family, can't wait to be reunited again! We looked around downtown Portland and a few other fun things before it was back to Provo for the start of spring semester. 

We celebrated both mine and Matt's birthday's, 

pretended we were cool enough to be at the Kentucky Derby,

 

had our own memorial day "barbeque" (using that term quite loosely)

 and have managed to create an almost-perfect intramural kickball team. Almost. (number two)

Coming attractions Summer of 2012-RedSox vs Yankees game, Cape Cod, McCall, and the Olympics! 

Football, Futbol, Friends and Family!

One day we'll become more regular about writing in our blog, but we do like keeping people up in anticipation of the next post. We formally apologize for being so irregular in our posting!

The past few weeks have been so awesome! With the weather starting to warm up we've been able to get out and do some of our favorite things with some of our favorite people.

We got to be on a sweet intramural soccer team with some very very talented soccer players (Matt being among them, I probably should have left my talents in middle school). The tournament was a lot of fun and the whole season was a blast, including a not very deserved yellow card I received after falling down onto another girl. Don't forget these faces because you'll be seeing just about all of them again when kickball season comes around wahoo!

After many years of being unable to play on an intramural flag football team here Matt and his friends are on a team that is CURRENTLY in the tournament. Send out good vibes. It's been a lot of fun to get back on that turf!

The BYU spring game was a few weeks ago, and Matt was on the field, looking just as official as always.

We had the great fortune of being able to meet up with Meegan and Parker, my sister and her husband, as they were on their way to Mexico (unfair). It was so good to see them! Soon we'll all be together again when we go up to Oregon at the end of the semester.

We have both recovered from our various illnesses.

 I even found this kidney at the grocery store just incase things turn around for me again. A donor from, I'm assuming, a local cow. Awesome.

Finally, we had a total ball this weekend in St. George with Matt's family. We watched conference, went swimming, mined Gypsum (yeah this is real), hiked up some red rock, and had some friendly but seriously family vs family tennis match where team M&M was dominant over team gangly Edwards. We got to enjoy the conference talks and spend a much appreciated weekend with some of our favorite people!

Shaking hands after a well fought battle.

In the gypsum mine

Thats us, the little spots on top of that rock

All in all, life is great.

Happy Easter everyone!!!!!!

The Good, The Bad, And The Embarrassing...

So it's been a while since we've updated our blog, and boy do we have a lot going on to update via cyberspace. We have decided to break down the events into three main categories: good events, bad events, and embarrassing events. We understand if you skip the top two and scroll down to the embarrassing, but for my sake (MaryBeth) please hear us out so the videos are at least justified.

Good.
1. MATT GOT THE INTERNSHIP WITH BYU FOOTBALL!!!!!!!! For those of you that know him even a little bit, you know this is the first step to accomplishing his long-term goal of being a college football coach. We are so excited, and so far it's been great! He can't wait to keep going and to see all the new responsibilities and fun things he gets to do! Congrats to Matthew!
2. Jayne Price Edwards, beloved sister, will be joining us come fall of 2012 at the Brigham Young University campus in Provo! Jayne found out she got accepted a few weeks ago and we couldn't be more excited to have our sister living in the same town as us! It's gunna be such a blast! Fellas, watch out she's a heartbreaker.
3. Sarah Price Edwards found out she will be doing her student teaching in Washington D.C. come next fall!!! So awesome and such an incredible opportunity for her! We will definitely miss her around Provo but she'll be bettering the schools in the D.C. area! Congrats Sar!

Bad
1. After a few weeks of being sick, I found out that I had a kidney stone/infection. Unfortunately I didn't do a good job of timing my illness and kind of spoiled the family trip to Sun Valley for a long weekend of skiing. Sorry family, please don't kick me out! (Shoutout to the most awesome father-in-law who used his medical expertise to help me out! Love you!!)
2. After a very long journey, we finished watching all 10 seasons of Friends together. This might count as good, bad, and embarrassing as there were so many emotions coursing through us when the finale finished.

Embarrassing
Finally. The one you've been reading for.
1. While in Sun Valley, Matt proved he is definitely a patient and loving and most importantly an able-to-function-on-no-sleep husband. He brought me to the hospital at about 3:30 AM and stayed there with me for quite a long time. However...he did take some unauthorized video footage of me on pain meds. 

2. As retaliation for the humiliating hospital footage, I took some footage of Matt as he tried to do a reverse 1.5 in our diving class. This one I think everyone can enjoy. 

3. Finally, the reaction Matt had at the end of the Friends finale. (Spoiler alert-if you haven't seen it you may not want to watch this video, he gives a lot away.) 

So we hope you have enjoyed our fun little self-humiliating post, because it did take a toll on our pride. But as our blog followers, you deserve to know us all too well!

Three years ago today...

Three years ago today MaryBeth and I met for the first time. It has been an incredible time filled with laughter, tears (though not too many tears, cause that would be bad), first dates, awkward moments, and of course lots of love. In honor of our three years I would like to give everyone a rundown of the time with some top 3 lists. These answers are listed in no particular order, and I'm sure I will forget some and MaryBeth will have to make a whole new post, or put in the comments her ideas. I will start us off with the top 3 first dates we went on.

TOP 3 FIRST DATES:

1) Our first, first date. 3 years ago. We met up on campus and went to the MOA for a quick lunch. It was honestly pretty awkward and apparently I told her that I had a girlfriend and that I liked the Pittsburgh Penguins. Neither of which are true.

2) Bowling and Costa Vida. Two things that MaryBeth legitimately hates wrapped up in one date. Not much better than the first first date.

3) Our last, first date went much better. We went to a Real Salt Lake game and this time we decided we'd be done with going on first dates.

TOP 3 FAVORITE TRIPS:

1) St. George. We went down with a couple of our friends and had a great time over Memorial Day weekend complete with cliff jumping, BB gun "horse", the most destructive game of croquet ever, and of course the first time we said we loved each other.

2) Foxborough. I went out to visit her and meet her family over the summer and it was an amazing trip. We got to go into Rhode Island, ride a boat, see Paul Revere's house, visit Fenway and Gillette Stadium, and of course meet her wonderful parents and extended family.

3) McCall. Extreme Tubing, Ice cream Alley and many other typical McCall activities made this trip one to remember.

TOP 3 TV SHOWS:

1) Friends. For those that know MB at all they know she loves friends. Therefore, I have had to get into friends, and it has been a great bonding experience for us.

2) Revenge. Seriously, if you haven't watched this show yet watch the pilot episode on ABC.com and you will be hooked. We should get some sort of kickback from ABC for this.

3) Friday Night Lights. We got an awesome present of netflix for our wedding (Thanks Meegan and Parker. Let's hope you read this so you can feel good about that). And this is the first show we really have started watching together on there. Again, look it up if you aren't already hooked. Texas Forever!

TOP 3 FAVORITE HOMEMADE MEALS:

1) Stuffed Pork Chops. Made back when we were dating, but still. Unreal.

2) Breaded/crumbed/altogether amazing ravioli. Wow, I think this was made before we were married as well. But again, so good. I ate so much I made myself sick. Literally.

3) Chicken Picatta. Very good, ate so much. I ate my full plate, then about half of hers. Wow.

TOP 3 COOKING DISASTERS:

1) Anytime I try to make anything in the kitchen. There would be too many to name.

2) Anytime we try and make cookies. Seriously sometimes I think we are being punished for trying to make sweets. It's the only cause I have come up with.

3) Last night we made pizza and I covered my whole side with pepperoni, when it came out of the oven there was cheese showing. I was devastated.

(As you can assume from this posting. MaryBeth is an amazing cook and we don't have any cooking disasters.)

TOP 3 WORST SPORTING EVENTS SHARED:

1) The Celtics losing to the Heat in the NBA playoffs. She literally cried even though I didn't see it. I was being a terrible boyfriend and probably joked about the Celtics sucking as she was crying. Who knows why she stuck around. But I am very grateful she did.

2) The night the Braves and Redsox officially squandered late wild card leads and lost on the last night almost simultaneously. Seriously one of the worst nights ever.

3) Sunday when the Patriots lost to the New York football Giants. Right when I start cheering for the Patriots they decide to lose. Boo.

TOP 3 FAVORITE WEDDING PHOTOS:

TOP 3 MOVIES SEEN TOGETHER:

1) 17 Miracles. It is one of her favorite movies, and we saw it once in theaters. Another reason it should be up here, she stayed awake for the whole movie.

2) War Horse. It had a lot of things going for it. It was about an animal. (Bethy loves animals) and had war and action (Guys love war and action. haha.).

3) Dolphin Tale (or is it tail, or shark tail? I can never remember). It took us about 5 months of talking about this movie until we actually rented it from redbox and it didn't let us down. Great movie.

TOP 3 THINGS WE WANT TO DO IN THE FUTURE:

1) Drive a Buick.

2) Serve a mission together.

3) Sit on our porch and swing with our grandkids.

TOP 3 FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT MARYBETH:

1) She is always so supportive of things that I do. It doesn't matter what it is.

2) She is driven, and has her own wants, wishes, and desires.

3) She loves me just as much as I love her.

This is just a small sampling of top 3's that I could go on all day doing. But I feel this might be just about good. I don't want to bore you, the reader of the blog with too much to read. Thanks for reading. And we'll blog again soon.

MB+ME

New Kids on the Blog

After our first month of marriage, we've officially taken the plunge into the blogging world! We're very excited (and slightly intimidated), but have decided to grab the bull by the horns and hopefully we'll get the hang of this thing soon!

With no further introduction, welcome to the Edwards Blog! Here's a little catch-up since we tied the knot.

Got sealed in the Bountiful Temple on December 17th....

Had a blast at our reception that night at the Utah State Capitol Building!

Had a quick honeymoon to Park City where we got some time to relax, watch movies, go shopping, and even a little bit of tubing at Soldier Hollow.

Spent an awesome Christmas with the Edwards in the NSL, filled with time with extended family, ping-pong tournaments, great food and lots of fun.

A quick trip to Dallas for the bowl game where we got to go to a Mavericks game....

And see our favorite Kardashian cheering on her man....

Watch the bowl game win with these ladies....   

While this guy played in (and won)  his last football game...

Flew right to Boston for our second reception at Patriots Stadium, where we ALMOST met the Patriots! Okay not really, but they were on the field while we were there. 

Made our sojourn back to Provo and "moved in" to our apartment (picture to follow when its all the way unpacked. It could be a while.)

Said goodbye to this missionary who will be on her way to Portugal VERY soon... 

All in all, an awesome first month of marriage. A special shoutout to Sarah Price Edwards who is the official sponsor of this blog, and Matthew's haircuts. Thanks Sar, you rock!!