coachellaaaa

I fulfilled a lifelong dream of mine this past April when Drew and I attended Coachella Music & Arts Festival and it was just that, A DREAM COME TRUE!!!

Rewind to sometime last fall, when Sigur Rós announced they would be performing alongside the L.A. Philharmonic Orchestra for a few shows in April aka the most magical set ever, right?! (Right). Because God is real, the dates of the shows coincided with Weekend 1 of Coachella soooo being the millenials that we are, we decided to wait until the Coachella lineup was released to determine if we would make a giant musical weekend in California out of this happy coincidence. You can probably guess what our decision was :) I should also add that not only was this BEST lineup in 5+ years, but this was also the first time I was not at the mercy of BYU finals week so I actually could attend without any other obligations. #BLESSED

TBH I don't have the energy or desire to recount all my favorites from the weekend, but just know there were A LOT! This is what I get for not posting this earlier...at this point I don't care to share lolwoops. Instead, here's a lil video I made from the weekend! Coachella was amazing and I would 100% go again!

an east coast christmas

Did you know this past winter break was our first prolonged visit back to Lancaster in over a year?! Unacceptable. My time back at home was so so necessary. Not only because 2016 was a shitstorm that desperately needed to end, but it was also the first time my whole family was together in over two years! There truly is no place like home for the holidays.

Don't ever think it's impossible to attend a concert that starts four hours before your flight from SLC --> PHL departs. It can be done if you don't have a problem with appearing homeless and bringing your luggage into the coat check room :)

Cute front door and even cuter mommy 

Christmas morning: before

Christmas morning: after 

*please note that this was taken from my dad's digital camera :) :)*

 Drew's first time to our nation's capital featuring Ellie, monuments, Library of Congress, Capitol Hill books (not featured: Ted's Bulletin pop tarts, National Gallery of Art, sushi in Ellie's cute hometown of Bethesda).

I'm getting emotional looking through these D.C. pictures because I'm thinking about the fact that the world is ending and every day since Friday has gotten worse and look guys it hasn't even been a week yet :') :') :')

YOU GUYS I FINALLY MADE IT TO TERRAIN. I have been not so subtly hinting to Vanessa and Caroline to take me here for at least a year now. It was just as dreamy and Instagram-worthy as I imagined.

I'm at this point in my life where people from my hometown have forgotten about me so I don't really talk to anyone from high school anymore. These two babies (see above and below) are the exception to the rule and some of the only souls outside of my family I make a priority to see every time I'm in Lancaster <3

But like when will you visit me in Utah???

 Me and my twin doing what we do best ((forcing our husbands to take photos of us in the woods to win free leggings because they are tired of funding our love for Outdoor Voices. We didn't win the leggings.))

i could dance to this beat

Hiiiii remember me and how I said I had a bajillion things to blog about from the month of August? Here's the last of it, I promise. After our perfect wedding weekend and our equally perfect honeymoon in Kaua'i, we flew to California for honeymoon week pt. 2 if you will, before starting real life in Provo. It started off with a few days of recuperating, followed by a day in San Diego, a day in L.A., and concluded with our open house. I just got all the pictures back from our open house, so I figured this was as good a time as any to talk about all of it.

After fighting off the jet-lag for two days, we decided it was time to leave the house. The San Diego Temple was high up there on my list of temples I want to visit, so our first day consisted of just that. We went for an endowment session in the early afternoon and it was completely empty. Considering it was an August day in California, we were pretty surprised. Shouldn't there be weddings going on left and right? Well, lucky for us we got the whole place to ourselves which was a really cool experience, plus we got a private tour of the sealing rooms. That temple is, in my opinion, the second prettiest temple of our church. Nothing beats D.C. though. Obviously ;) The architect is actually Catholic, which makes total sense because it is the most castle/cathedral-like of all our temples today. Similar to the D.C. Temple, it just pops up out of nowhere as you're driving on the freeway and is the most stunning and regal site.

 The next day was spent in L.A. as I anxiously awaited the main event of the week...Taylor Swift's 1989 tour at the Staples Center!!! (Hence this blog post title being T-swift lyrics. But which one?! 10 points to Gryffindor if you can finish them). It is a very long and convoluted story as to how I miraculously got my hands on a ticket the day before the concert, so HMU if you want to hear about it. In the meantime, we stopped by to play at the The Getty Center. This place is an architectural marvel. I was honestly more captivated by the buildings themselves than the actual artwork inside. And I'm a museum lover, so that is saying something! After walking around for a few hours, we hit up a chic little Thai-Japanese fusion restaurant in Santa Monica and then I said goodbye to Drew as he dropped me off at the Staples Center to party with Tay all by myself. Thanks Dad!! Seriously though, Drew earned so many dad points that night. Luckily he spent the majority of the concert hanging out with some old friends who live in L.A., but having to navigate back to pick me up amidst the insane post-concert traffic must have been brutal. It brought me back to the days of my own daddy dropping us (me, Ynna, and whichever friends came with us) off at Jonas Brothers concerts and having to kill three hours before picking us up again. So sorry guys. Good thing I married someone so patient and kind who knew how much attending this concert meant to me :)

But about the concert...it was such a party and I loved every second of it. Here's the thing, I have a weird relationship with Taylor where I actually think she'd be extremely annoying in person. Her girl next door, adorkable, gift-giving, cat-loving persona seems a little more forced each day, but I still love her and her music and her glam squad of friends. Say what you will about her, but she's a genius in the industry. Not to mention the fact that she puts on a great show. I've never witnessed so many pyrotechnics, moving stages, back-up dancers, or costume changes in one concert. It didn't even matter that I was dancing and singing by myself, THAT'S how much fun I had. I did however wish I had my mom or Ynna sitting next to me (the biggest T-swift fans I know), but I'm glad that by the end of the 1989 tour, we can all say we were in attendance at one of her shows in our respective cities.

The real reason we were in California was to get everything ready for our open house which took place in the Tekulve's backyard. Besides our families, we had so many people come to help during the day to set up and it was all thanks to them that it turned out so beautifully. It was such a pleasant evening meeting so many of Drew's friends from his home ward or high school that I had heard so much about before. It was so awesome to see everyone that wasn't able to attend the wedding come by to offer their love and support for us! *Bonus*: it gave me another excuse to wear my wedding dress <3

All open house pictures by Kylie Chevalier

Welp, that concludes my stories about August and all the craziness and happiness that it was. Definitely the best summer of my life thus far. Thanks for reading and hopefully I'll have some fabulous upcoming posts all about ~*newlywed wife*~ so stay tuned if you're into that kind of thing.

(every)body likes you when you're 23

ANDREW'S BIRTHDAY WEEK 2K14 went a little something like this:

Monday: As one of Drew's birthday presents, I bought us tickets to see First Aid Kit play in Salt Lakc. We went with one of Drew's friends Colin and met up with some other friends at the show as well. This was the ~*dreamiest*~ concert and I loved every second of it. These Swedish sisterly songbirds were absolutely incredible live and I adored everything about their set, from their gold wardrobe to the glittering backdrop. So glam. And what concert would be complete without post-In-N-Out? To ring in Drew's birthday at midnight we of course had to go and sing him happy birthday on the ride home.

Tuesday: Mitt & Ann Romney graced BYU with their presence at our Tuesday devotional. Naturally they came to wish Drew happy birthday. I brought the donuts. Best quote from the devotional? In regards to receiving a lot of advice throughout his campaign: "Someone told me I should go a few days without shaving so that I would look more sexy...as if I needed that." LOL claaaassic Mitt.

Communal is for birthdays. I took Drew out to our favorite restaurant in Provo for a delicious meal and more presents to open. We saved room for Sodalicious and spent the remainder of the evening watching episodes of 'Goosebumps' and then 'The Nightmare before Christmas'. I dk, it was his choice.

Wednesday: Since Andy's birthday was two days after Drew's we decided to host an Andrew Birthday Bash on the day in between their respective days of birth. So on Wednesday night we picked up Chipotle burritos for a birthday dinner, followed by partying with birthday pies and friends. ALSO, that night we posted the full-length promo vid for Provo Yacht Club's launch party. In case I haven't told you about this already, it's a music blog started by Andy and Drew. Not only do they (and other blog contributors, including me) post new music on the site daily, but they will also be hosting a number of dance parties in Provo as well. SO CHECK IT OUT NOW: www.provoyachtclub.com and Facebook for the event info. I promise it's cooler than my blog.

Friday: So Thursday was spent doing all the homework we neglected to do during the week. But on Friday we went to see Vance Joy who put on the most chill show. We met up with a bunch of other people there and enjoyed dancing and singing and meeting new friends. It was the perfect ending to the week. Happy birthday Drew, I'm really glad you were born. Blink 182 is dumb, because EVERYbody likes you when you're 23. Especially me :)  

nothing comes close to the golden coast

This past weekend I was ~*C@Li4ni@ dR3@miN'*~ and by that I mean I road tripped to California with Drew, Desireé, Andy, and Thaddeus. I've never been to southern California before this trip so I was super excited to leave Provo for a weekend of daisy dukes, bikinis on top. Just kidding, but I still had a blast with this bunch on the legendary #CAroashram2k14.  

This is how we feel about being at the beach in CA instead of work in UT.

N*gg@$ in Newport

Earlier last week Kishi Bashi released his newest album 'Lighght' and I listened to it non-stop at work that day. I found out a while ago he has a show at The Urban Lounge in Salt Lake City this month, but it's a 21+ venue so I just became even MORE bitter that I couldn't go after listening to his new music. I checked his website in the hopes that by some miracle he changed venues or something and saw to my happy surprise that he was playing an all-ages show in L.A. on Friday. HOW LUCKY IS THAT?!? I freaked out and told the rest of the crew so we could buy our tickets. So after leaving the beach on Friday, we drove to L.A. for the concert and it was absolutely incredible. It was so fun singing and dancing to his electro-poppy, violinist sound that is unlike anything I've ever heard. My favorite song of the night (and in general right now) was The Ballad of Mr. Steak and Drew deemed that song the summer jam of 2k14 which I agree with wholeheartedly. Since the Fonda Theatre is on Hollywood Boulevard, we walked around after the concert looking at the Walk of Fame. I was determined to find Audrey Hepburn's star because duh, she's my favorite person. I finally did and it was the perfect ending to such a fun, jam-packed first day in California.

Did you know I've never been to Disneyland?! Well, Drew did so he took me on Saturday for my very first Disneyland experience because he's the sweetest and it was the best day. Not pictured is the pair of Mickey Mouse ears I purchased and wore around the park for three minutes. But I did document how calm, cool, and collected we were on Splash Mountain. 

I may or may not have teared up during the fireworks show. Sorry that Disneyland

 is the happiest and most magical place on Earth.

After attending church at Drew's home ward with his parents, we made one last stop before 

the drive back to Provo at the Newport Beach Temple. This is one of the prettiest temples

I've been to and I love the peach color of it, making it unique to most other temples. 

The #CAroashram2k14 crew. This weekend was the chillest and I had the best time with these kids. It was so sad coming back to work and back to Provo on Monday. Hopefully I can go back again soon. However, I'm still excited for the rest of my summer here full of more adventures, trips, and summer lovin'!