We were adventurers before we knew it. This is one thing I know for sure.

If you were to ask me in my youth if I were adventurous, I probably would have said not really. In college I lived in Seattle one summer for a 3 month internship. It was probably the most adventurous thing I had done in my life up to that point.

Then I married Daniel and I thought we were two peas in a pod on the whole adventure thing. It sounded fun but let's stay close to home. In the middle of our first year of marriage we learned that Daniel had been accepted to Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh and we decided to go. Yes I was about to move to a huge city that was so different than anything I had ever experienced... it was going to be an adventure.


We were young and didn't have any great responsibilities on our shoulders at the time so we thought it might be fun to take a six week road trip to the east coast, visiting places along the way that meant things to us. Of course when we talked about it I thought it was crazy and just something we would talk about but never do, but as the day of departure drew closer, we started making some more definite plans to make it happen. And so we made the journey from Provo, UT to Pittsburgh, PA. We went up through Idaho, Montana, over to Seattle, down the whole west coast through Arizona and Texas, up through Tennessee and finally making our way to Pittsburgh.


While we lived in Pittsburgh we loved to take weekend trips to places we had never been, often without a sure plan, just setting out to explore. When we moved to Maryland we continued our adventures. The summer we moved to Idaho we set out on 3 road trips across the United States and visited so many new places along the way.


Now I feel like I could adventure anywhere with Daniel by my side (okay maybe not anywhere, but I am so much more open to the world). We especially love exploring the United States, there is so much to see and do. And we have goals to see all 50 states and visit all the National Parks. We also have a few places we want to travel internationally, and the list keeps growing.

We love packing up the car and exploring. Adding Kennedy to the mix has only made it more fun. I hope our second baby is as much as a trooper as she is (I mean she spent over 100 hours in her car seat over the course of a month the summer we moved to Idaho, and was pretty good the whole time sans any electronic device, seriously).


So where will we explore next?

Daniel and Mallory lived across the street from each other during Mallory's sophomore year and Daniel's junior year of college. On a variety of occasions we passed by each other but it was not until we were put in the same FHE group that our apartments really became friends. Around my 20th birthday I started to really notice this blonde boy named Daniel. He started to notice me as well. After a night of flirting I knew I wanted to date that boy. I guess he was on the same page. We went on our first date on March 8th, 2011 and were officially boyfriend/girlfriend on March 19th.
I left for a summer internship in Seattle at the end of April and we enjoyed getting to know each other even better during our 3 and a half months apart. By November I knew I wanted him to be the man in my life for the rest of my life and we were engaged at the top of the Zion Bank tower in downtown Salt Lake City overlooking the Christmas lights on Temple Square on December 9th, 2011.
Then for the best day of all April 28th, 2012. We were married on a beautiful spring morning in the Idaho Falls Temple. It was simply happy and joyful. The love we felt for each other was so strong and the love we felt from family and friends was also overwhelming. It was the perfect start of our new life together.
Our first year of marriage was spent finishing up our Bachelors Degrees at Brigham Young University. In April of 2013 we walked across the stage together and celebrated a huge accomplishment in our lives. That summer we took a long road trip through 18 states visiting family and friends. Our destination was our new home for 2 years in Pittsburgh, PA where Daniel would be completing his Masters Degree at CMU. In January of 2014 we were excited to find out that we would be welcoming a baby into our lives. Kennedy Joanne Barrick made her grand entrance in September of that year. She brought a lot of love, joy, and sleepless nights with her. In May of 2015 Daniel graduated from Carnegie Mellon and accepted a job in the Baltimore area.
So we packed up and moved to Maryland!
After two fun years in Maryland we began to feel like we needed to be closer to our family. In August 2017 Daniel got a new job offer in Idaho and just like that we packed up our lives and drove across the country to make Idaho our new home.