RAD days are going on and on Monday the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens were free to the public. Daniel had classes and wasn't sure if he could go but encouraged me to go check it out on my own. So I woke up got ready and headed out. I got there just in time for fairly good parking. It was absolutely beautiful inside. They have a couple of different sections to walk through. My favorites were the Orchid room because it smelled heavenly in there and the Discovery Pavilion because of this flower.

This past weekend we were able to go to The Frick Art and Historical Center. Clayton, the restored Frick mansion, has an art exhibit as well as the Car and Carriage Museum, and on Saturday you could tour the house for free thanks to RAD days in Pittsburgh. So we decided to spend our Saturday morning checking it out.
We went to the art museum first which holds Helen Frick's personal art collection. It also had a really neat exhibit by Vik Muniz. He had an idea to recreate the scenes that might have happened at Clayton in the late 19th century when they resided there. He took all these photographs of people dressed to look like they were members, servants, or friends of the Frick family. There were pictures of children playing, people working in the home, adults getting together for tea and a game of crochet, etc. He just had a wide variety of activities that would have happened at this time. He also retook photos that were taken in the late 19th century and they were included randomly in the display. It was amazing how he could recreate these pictures and you could not really tell which ones were old and which were his. It was super interesting. All the pictures were taken at the Clayton or around Pittsburgh so it was cool to be able to see that exhibit.
After the art we went to the Car and Carriage Museum. The Frick's owned 18 Carriages so they had some of them on display. They also had two of the Frick's cars and a lot of other old cars on display. Some of them were pretty snazzy.
Finally we went to the Frick mansion. It reminded us of Downton Abbey. In each room there was someone who could tell you a little about the room and what would have happened in there. I liked the dining room the most because it was a pretty big part of their social scene. It was fun to see and think about what life was like back in the day in Pittsburgh for this family and the people that worked for them.
Daniel and I both really enjoyed all aspects of this place. After we used a groupon a friend had given us   and went downtown to grab some pizza. It was delicious. Since you couldn't take any pictures in any of the places these are the only ones we have from this fun day.

I wouldn't really say baseball is my thing, it's cool and everything but often I wish there were only 5 or 6 innings instead of 9, especially when the game is going really slow. Before we moved out here my dad would send me text messages about how the Pirates were doing. It was cool that they were winning and we decided we might have to give baseball in Pittsburgh a try.
Daniel got some ticket for us through CMU for a Pirates game that had a firework show after. We had a picnic in the park with some friends from the ward before the game so we got to the game at the end of the third inning and didn't make it to our seats until the end of the fourth inning. At this time the Cubs were up 1-0. The last 5 innings were great. The pirates had two home runs and ended up winning the game. I felt satisfied having only attended a little more than half of the game. It was really fun and the stadium is pretty cool. It is right on the river across from the city and so there is a great view of downtown Pittsburgh. The firework show after was amazing. They shot the fireworks off from the middle of the river. They didn't go super high so it was really an up close and personal event.
I would definitely go to another Pirate game. It was a fun way to spend a night in the city.

One of the first nights we were in our apartment Daniel and I were just hanging out in our bedroom blowing up the air mattress and going through our suitcases and backpacks trying to figure out what we had to survive on until our cube came for unpacking. Daniel pulled out a stack of books and binders and then looked at me and said "I have a surprise for you." And I was like "What is it!" We went back and forth and he wasn't sure if he should give it to me then but I was persuading him to tell me because I thought he shouldn't just keep me wondering. But then I thought well maybe there is a better time so then I left it up to him and he was like now is as good as ever.
So then I am like where has he been hiding my surprise? Looking around I was waiting for a Costco sized teddy bear to be in our closet or something. Nope just two pieces of paper folded in half and slide across the deflating air mattress. I opened them to see what in the world it could be and I found two Rascal Flatts tickets! They were coming to Pittsburgh in September and Daniel had secretly bought a pair for the two of us to enjoy.
So one of our first weekends after school had started we made some grilled taco chicken, quesadillas, salsa, and grabbed some drinks. We ate dinner when we got to the parking lot and just hung out and watched people playing their bean bag games. We headed into the arena and waited for the concert to start. It was a great concert with a girl that won a season of The Voice to start the show, then The Band Perry, and finally Rascal Flatts. It was such a good line up and Rascal was as good as ever. I love singing my heart out at concerts. They did a lot of their older songs which I loved because those songs bring back great memories and those are the songs that made me love Rascal.
I love being there with Daniel too. He is so thoughtful. I love being able to share my love for country music with him.

Waiting for the concert to start.

One of our favorite movies of all time is Despicable Me. When we were dating we heard it was pretty cute and rented it from Redbox one night. We watched it together and were surprised by how much we enjoyed it. Daniels birthday was coming up and as I was shopping for him I saw Despicable Me at the end of an aisle and it was the perfect finishing touch to his gift. So we watched it again and liked it even more. Now Daniel is ready to watch it anytime and all the time. So when Despicable Me 2 was coming out we knew we would want to see it in the theater. It came out at the beginning of our road trip but we thought we would wait and see if it was playing at a specific theater in Santa Barbara that was extra cool. Since it wasn't we decided that we would just wait until Pittsburgh and make it our first night out on the town. So we headed over to the theater after our first week in Pittsburgh and just relaxed after a long week of unpacking and building things for our home. It was the perfect night away. The movie was really cute and I think it will make it to our collection when it comes out on DVD.
It was kind of funny to go to a movie in Pittsburgh because when we left the theater I thought to myself "Oh yeah we live in Pittsburgh now."

Saturday morning we got up early and hit the road. We made it to Pittsburgh around noon. It was really strange to go through the Fort Pitt tunnel and then see the city and announce "We are home!"
After six weeks of traveling we made it. Here is a map that shows all the places we took pictures on our road trip. I think we also took pictures in OR and more places in CA but it is a pretty cool since it shows our route quite well.
Once we got to the city we went straight to the management company for our apartment and picked up our keys. Then it was the moment of truth, we were at the doorstep of our new apartment that would be ours for at least a year and we weren't sure what we would find on the other side. We walked in to a little entry way. To the left is a nice living room. We have a big dining room and a tiny kitchen. It is a one bedroom apartment so on the right is the bedroom and the bathroom. We also have a porch attached to our living room which is really big and nice. Thats about it. At first it just felt really big and since it is mostly hardwood floor and their was no furniture all the sound would bounce off the walls. Daniel was skeptical at first but I fell in love. The kitchen seemed brand new and it looked like we had new carpet in our bedroom. It also had way more storage space than I thought it would so I was really happy about that. I knew it just needed a little love and our furniture to feel more like home.
That week we made multiple trips to IKEA, Target, and Lowes so we could get a couple of things we needed like a dining room table, a dresser, some rugs, and a storage unit for kitchen stuff. Getting all of these pieces and unpacking our own stuff really made the apartment feel like home. Now we both love it and it is just perfect for the two of us.

The next couple of days we spend driving through Daniels mission. We started in Chattanooga where I got to see his old apartments, some of the places he went door to door, the church there, a great little park, and the city. While we were driving he told me lots of stories about who his companion was, people they taught, and crazy things that happened.
That night we headed up to where the mission home was. It was a really nice little city and someplace I would definitely feel at home. We went to a pizza place for dinner and had a pesto jerk chicken and pineapple pizza. It was so good and I want to recreate it someday. Then we went on a little drive to another area Daniel served and saw an incredible sunset.
The next morning we set our alarms wrong so when I woke up and saw that we were suppose to be on the road in 15 minutes things got a little crazy. We quickly got dressed and ate some breakfast and were on the road maybe 10 minutes late. We drove through other areas Daniel had served in TN. Then we went to Kentucky and stopped to see some people he taught and a member in the area. We were also able to stop by the small church in the area. It was fun to visit with a really nice family and their kids were really cute. Then we went to see a member in the ward and she fed us a delicious dinner. She was so spunky and fun and it was just a great afternoon visit.
We finished our day by driving to Charleston, WV to stay for the night so we could make it to Pittsburgh by the middle of the next day. Tennessee and Kentucky were really beautiful and different than I expected them to be. Something I have learned from this trip is that I have a lot of thoughts about what places should be like, the stereotype of a city, but I have found that lots of places aren't that different than what I know and many places are a lot nicer than I expect them to be.
Our last night in WV was kind of strange. After such a long trip it was weird to realize that we had accomplished everything we wanted to do and now we were heading home, in Pittsburgh. It was such a strange feeling but we were excited about what was ahead for us.

I have always loved the hymns of my church. Many of them are beautiful and powerful. I love to sing them as a congregation and just feel the unity among the members. Recently the hymns have had a powerful influence in my life and the words of the hymns have become more meaningful and personal. I have found myself on occasion in sacrament meeting singing a hymn when tears begin to form in my eyes. The words touched my heart and were a perfect reflection of the things I was feeling in my life. Today a line in one of my favorite hymns came to mind as I pondered where I am in life and where I desire to be.

On our way out of San Antonio we wanted to see Daniel's good friend and old mission companion Peter. Since he was living in Houston for the summer we decided to leave so we could hit Houston at lunch. It was fun to catch up with him and hear about what is going on in his life. He is a really good guy so we are glad we could meet up with him along the way.
After lunch we continued on to New Orleans. We really did not have a huge desire to see New Orleans but it was a good point to stop along our route. We went downtown to the French Quarter and walked the streets. We stopped to get some Beignets and boy they were good.
We watched a couple of street performers and called it a night.  New Orleans humidity was killer for me. It was hard to breath when we stepped outside. It was quick but I think we got in all that we needed to do while we were there.

Our drive from AZ to TX took all day, and it didn't help that we lost two hours but after hours of driving through the huge state of TX we finally made it just in time to hold Addie while she slept and chat with Brandon and Megan for a little bit.
We did some classic stops the first day including the Alamo and the Riverwalk. The Alamo was really strange since it is located right in the center of the city with huge hotels, malls, and building all around it. I guess I kind of imagined that it would be on some open plains or something.
On Monday we went to Sea World. I think we got our moneys worth since we hit all the shows, went on all the rides, and saw pretty much everything there is to see. The shows were my favorite part. It is pretty amazing how they can train the animals to do some incredible things. I also went on my first hanging roller coaster ride which was fun but also made me really dizzy. We also we to lunch at Rudys a BBQ place. You just buy the meat by the pound and then build your own sandwich. The brisket was really tasty and the creamed corn was delicious!
We packed Sea World in so we were exhausted. The rest of the week was filled with just quality family bonding and Daniel playing with Addie during tummy time.

We needed a place to stop between CA and TX and we could not think of a better midway point that Phoenix, AZ to see my Uncle Rich and Aunt Camille and their cute kids. We had such a good time seeing all of them and just hanging out.
Two of the kids were in school so while they were there we went to the MIM, a music museum. It has musical instruments from all over the world and you can listen to them being played. It is really cool. There is a little room at the end of the museum that has the instruments that you can play. It was especially cool because it has pieces of a gamelan set so Daniel got to break out his old skills.
That afternoon we went to Desert Ridge to swim in the lazy river and the kids joined us after they were done with school. I could have a lazy river and just sit in it all day long, it was so relaxing.
It was beautiful but hot in AZ. We are so thankful the Harts would let us stop in as we started our progress east.

After a week of camping it was nice to stop at Daniel's grandparents home in Santa Barbara, CA where we could shower, rest and just be tourists. One day we spent taking a little tour of downtown Santa Barbara. We went to the courthouse and we were able to lookout from the top over it city. It was a beautiful view. We walked all over and saw a lot of little historical sites and learned some random tidbits about the city.

We met up with family later that day for lunch. It was so fun to have Daniel's uncle Daniel and his wife Chris in town. They brought their five kids for a high school reunion so we were glad to spend some time with them.
After lunch Daniel and I went down to a park on the Shoreline. We were going to walk up to the wharf which was quite a ways away. While walking through the park we saw some stairs that would take us down to the water. We headed down and wondered if we would be able to make it to the beach portion of the walk where we were already headed running along the water. The only problem was we were right next to a cliff and the water was fairly high. We decided we would go for it anyways. We would wait for the water to go down before we ran around the cliffs that jutted out. We made it a good way down without getting too wet when we set out running around a cliff and found that there was no higher ground on the other side. It was too late to go back or forward and we were stuck. We got drenched past our knees. Since we didn't know how far we had to go we turned around and headed back up the stairs on our normal path. We made it to the wharf and I was exhausted. We decided to get an ice cream treat and relax before we headed back. The water was so beautiful and it was just a nice walk along the beach.
Another day came and we decided to go to the Zoo. It was a really nice Zoo and it was fun to see some bigger animals. One thing that I found out on this vacation was it was nice to be just the two of us on occasions like this because we really just sat and enjoyed whatever we wanted to for however long we wanted to. I feel like in the future we will not be able to do that as often. We were able to watch the elephants getting a bath and the monkeys who would every once in a while swing from tree to tree. We went all the way through the zoo and then hit all the exciting animals again and just took our time to enjoy everything.

Another day we were just hanging out with Mitzi and Grandpa and we decided to go to In and Out for some delicious burgers and shakes. Then we headed to Solvang for some aebleskivers. We decided to go back to the park on the beach and walk along the cliffs because I just fell in love with the beach while we were there.
One of the best days was the day we were able to take a trip down to Thousand Oaks, the place that Daniel grew up. He showed me his old house, school, church, soccer fields and all his old stomping grounds. We went up to the Reagan Presidential Library which was very interesting and just beautiful. We had lunch at one of Daniels favorite local places. Then we went to the beach and played in the waves. I do not think I have ever been to the beach and really gotten in the water so Daniel had to teach me how to catch the waves and not just get swept away and thrown into the shore (which happened lots too). We stayed in the water until we were exhausted.
It was such a great week in Santa Barbara. We enjoyed doing lots of things out on our own but we also enjoyed nights in with Mitzi and Grandpa. We played a question game every night and learned a lot about each other. That time was precious and we were thankful for the opportunity to have it.

I wouldn't really say I am the camping type. Once when I was a child my parents wanted to take us camping so we packed up our car, headed to our spot, made some dinner, slept in the car, probably made some breakfast... maybe lunch too, and headed home. We did that once in my childhood, called it camping, and the rest is history. So when I married a man whose family tradition of all traditions was camping in bear country for a whole week I was in for a wild ride.
The Barricks history takes them to Kings Canyon National Park for a week of family and friend camping. They haven't done it in a while and Daniel really wanted to bring the tradition back and introduce one of his all time favorite places to me. So when we planned this road trip it was definitely going to be a stop. We stayed at Kings Canyon from a Saturday to a Thursday-so I didn't have to quite last a whole week.
Our first night there was really beautiful It was peaceful and we got ourselves all set up.
We had a peaceful Sunday morning in camp and the Barrick parents arrived with more supplies for the real camping experience. We got quite a bit set up before the rain came pouring down. With just a few more poles to attach the heavens opened and we were soaked. We stayed in tents the rest of the night eating dinner and playing games.
Monday was also a rainy day with a lightning and thunder storm that rolled down the canyon. We decided to go to Boydens Cavern and do the guided tour through it. I love that kind of thing so we had a great time.
Tuesday we went on a hike to Zumwalt Meadows which was just a gorgeous hike that was not too hard. We also went down to the river-a favorite tradition/activity. It was pretty cold and kind of dirty from the storm so I was not brave enough to get all the way in. We sat on the banks and read, watched swimmers, and ate snacks. At one point Daniel got a wide eyed look on his face and said "Mallory, do not turn around." Of course I went into survival mode thinking a bear was right behind me in the attack position so I slowly got up and turned around as I walked behind Daniel. It wasn't a bear, but it was my least favorite animal, a rattlesnake slithering through the bushes I got as far away as I could while everyone else on the beach stormed close with cameras. Yikes, I hate snakes.
Wednesday was just the perfect camping day, the weather was perfect. We got up, had breakfast, hung around camp and read, had a bike ride to the general store for a ice cream treat, had lunch, went to the river, swam, jumped off the big rock, and played cards with friends. It was actually a lot of fun and although it was freezing at first it was fun to jump off the rock and swim around.
So camping, I might not choose it on my own, but it is definitely fun to do with someone you love and someone that loves it. It is a great memory and it was a great time.