beautiful karalyn. turning 51 today yet still looks 15.
born in san francisco. raised in the avenues in salt lake city.
cheerleader at east high.
pursued musical theatre at university of utah.
still in denial her first true love, Michael Jackson, is actually dead.
meet howard.
turning 52 today yet still looks 30.
born and raised right here in holladay, utah.
cruised around town in a Delorean at age sixteen.
hasn’t missed going on a morning jog in over 20 years.
avid skiier, vanilla swiss almond ice cream lover, and neil young’s number 1 fan.their story:
when my mom & dad were both attending the University of Utah my dads friend begged him to go see the musical production of Cats.why, you ask?
because he had a huge crush on this girl that was starring in the show.
right as the show began, the curtains opened, and my dad laid eyes on Karalyn Ball
(who just so happened to be his friends crush they were there to see…)
and knew it was game over.
my dad just had to have her.
on their first date they were asking each other those classic getting to know you questions and when my dad asked my mom her birthday she said,
“JUNE TWENTY FIRST”
and he said same!!!
from then on there was no going back.
it was love.
true, true love.
they have raised 5 (pretty awesome) kids.
owned the same charming home for the past 25 years in holladay.
traveled to just about every continent together.
gone on helicopter rides over volcanos.
casually eaten in a cave in Turkey.
and enjoy eating quality pizza & seeing movies more than any other couple i know.
they have supported us kids through anything we wanted to try.
dance teams, skiing, karate, modern, ballet, football, lacrosse, track, tennis, basketball, wrestling.. you name it. we have probably tried it.
and our parents have supported us through it all.
happy birthday mom & dad!!
thank you for blessing me with the life i live.
thank you for coming to EVERY SINGLE cougarette performance to watch me dance
thank you for raising me in the church and teaching me to make it a priority in life.
working at Google Fiber involves A LOT of long working shifts, early commutes to Provo, late commutes from Provo, missed dinners with Will, all-day into the night events and also working a lot of Saturdays.
this weekend, i was lucky enough to have the Saturday off and it couldn’t have been more needed.
i was EXHAUSTED. on Thursday i worked 12 hours straight and on Friday i worked 9.
luckily Saturday & Sunday were both a dream.
Will & I woke up at 7:30 a.m. (this is considered sleeping in for us haha!) and I went on a jog around beautiful Holladay and Will went and played ward ball with some of his friends.
after we were both done the saturday errands began!
-grabbing easels for the wedding that night
-new running shoes for me
-whole foods peanut butter stop
-barbacoa lunch date
-costco for our dad’s presents
– volkswagen for my car check-up
-a much needed snow cone stop at Hokulia
the coconut ice cream at the bottom?
NO WORDS
and we even made it home to take a power nap before the wedding festivities began!
my mother-in-law, sister-in-law and i helped plan this BEAUTIFUL wedding that was Saturday night.
i went to high school with the bride & her family is the absolute sweetest.
with a yard & home like theirs, our job was easy!
jeni and abby MADE these signs.
how amazing are they?!
@williviablog
my handsome date.
after everyone left the reception, the peaceful setting in the backyard felt like a shame to take down!
sunday was filled with sleeping in
*until 8:30 a.m. woo!*
making omelettes, going to church, and celebrating Dad’s the best way we know… EATING
my dad requested fresh salmon & king crab for his meal..
NOT MAD
i made him a triple chocolate cake with his initial on it!
Sunday night Will & I went on a walk around Holladay & found this dream trellis.
I mean, how beautiful is that?
so in all, this weekend was an absolute dream. i loved being able to spend so much time with Will & soak up the free days we do have together.
life can get so busy we can forget to slow down and take in the little things in life that actually matter.
like going to your favorite lunch spot you haven’t been to in forever, baking a cake, going on walks (in your church dress and new running shoes HAHA, and surrounding yourself with those you love most.
here’s to another long week at Google.
however, i couldn’t be happier to be busy as can be!
meeting Will at age 15 was probably the best thing that has ever happened to me
during my very first week of high school, i laid my eyes on him & instantly knew i would be the luckiest girl in the world if i could marry him one day.
(weird, i know)
we dated throughout all of high school & i will never regret that decision.
my heart was always full of love for him and then it slowly broke after May 5th when he received his mission call to leave for argentina on august 4th of 2010.
i could NOT imagine life without him.
not one day.
not TWO YEARS.
Will was the absolute best person in my life. i told everything to him. he knew everything about me.
he was my absolute favorite part of my life.
how was i going to survive without him?
luckily for him, he was off to have the best adventure of his entire life.
going to a foreign land, serving people, making everlasting friendships, eating strange foods, bettering himself every day, drawing closer to Heavenly Father.. the list goes on & on.
chaco, argentina 2011
and what would i be doing?
sitting around crying my eyes out waiting for him to come home?
little did i know, i would be having two of the best years of my life as well.
I WENT ON ADVENTURES
nile river, uganda
I WENT TO FOREIGN LANDS
prague, czech republic
nazakedde, uganda
I SERVED PEOPLE
my bff craig
testing for AIDS
I MADE THE MOST AMAZING. LONG LASTING FRIENDSHIPS
dance team at BYU
I ATE CRICKETS… so how is that for strange food?
I STILL BETTERED MYSELF EVERY CHANCE I COULD
and when Will came home, i actually felt like i had drawn closer to Heavenly Father in those 2 years than i ever had before.
by getting letters from Will, hearing of his experiences, and reading his testimony.. my testimony was strengthened in return.
and to be honest, i felt like Will & I had grown closer after being apart for 2 years!
i sent him a handwritten letter every single Monday for 2 years straight
a package for every birthday, october 25th and holiday
(the card sang a Taylor Swift song!)
and Will in return missed me more than ever.
he wrote me a letter every chance he could & we would mail memory cards back & forth so we could see videos of each other & hear each others voices.
we never knew how much we loved each other until we spent 2 years completely separated.
hardly any e-mailing (they weren’t allowed to e-mail friends when Will was out!), no texting, no calling… strictly letters.
but it was okay.
because i had two years of ME time (that’s what i liked to call it)
it was time for me to figure out the gospel for myself. to gain a testimony, for myself. to read the scriptures, by myself. to wake up & go to the temple by myself.
to know the church was true, for myself.
when Will came home from his mission in August of 2012 i felt like i had really made myself into the person i had wanted to be. i felt fully prepared to be married in the temple, one day raise my children in the gospel and continue to stay strong in the church the duration of my life.
in november of 2012, President Thomas S. Monson announced in General Conference that girls could now leave to serve missions at age 19 rather than at age 21.
i will never forget standing on the bleachers with Will at the st. george marathon and hearing the news and thinking to myself…. wait, should i go on a mission?!
i mean Will had sooo much school ahead of him still.. i could finish school before i left.. he could stay and make money for our marriage.. we lasted 2 years already.. i am sure we could last 18 more months apart.. we were going to get married no matter what so what difference does 18 months make?!
i felt sick for days.
ulcers & all.
suddenly i saw every single girl i knew turning in their papers and getting ready to go on a mission.
would it be bad if i just married Will and didn’t go serve?
would i be judged now?
obviously i think it is amazing the church decided to change the age for girls to leave on missions. this has gotten plenty of more girls out in the field & has impacted our church service immensely.
however, was a mission for me?
after much prayer, deliberation, fasting, getting blessings & going to the temple.. i found out a mission was NOT for me!
i sat in the temple one day and thought to myself… “who are some of the most influential, amazing women you look up to in life.”
after i thought of these specific women, i realized none of them served missions.
so what did that mean?
that means i can still be an amazing member of the church, mormon, mother, wife, friend and person without serving a mission.
i fear too many girls these day feel like if they haaave to serve a mission. fear that all of their friends are going out and if they don’t go they will be looked at like this loser that isn’t as strong in the church as they are.
for example, a mission was FOR my sister. her life was set out perfectly for her to serve. for me it was not. and that is OKAY!
but what i have come to realize is that some people’s life paths are exactly set out and designed for them to serve missions.
and some girls aren’t.
my life wasn’t.
and we need to be okay with that.
from that day i made that decision not to serve a mission and stay & get married instead, i haven’t regretted it for a second.
there is something about June that is so exciting to me
i don’t know if it’s the thought of summer coming up, warmer days, graduations and pool days..
but june is forever one of my favorite months of the year.
here are some little tidbits of june so far for me-
1. my little brother mitchell graduated from olympus high!
i don’t know why it was so emotional for me to watch him graduate.
my little brother.
little brother.
how is he old enough for this?!
at the beginning of the ceremony, the school choir performed “do you hear the people sing” from Les Miserables and Will looks over at me and I am bawling my eyes out.
of course he started laughing at me.
what was my deal?!
with that soundtrack + my little brother growing up way too fast… i was a big big wreck.
cheers to the class of 2014!
2. i did a photo shoot for portica cosmetics with my sisters & mom
my mom works at anthroplogie.. so naturally she meets the nicest people all the time
one day she met the woman behind portica cosmetics over in foothill village who asked if we would do a photo shoot for her to advertise their makeup line.
it was so much fun to get makeovers and then be able to have these pictures taken of my mom & sisters & i.
we will definitely cherish them forever.
3. after national donut day i ate too many & actually got physically sick
(as much as i wish this was a joke…this is not a joke)
me on my lunch break on national donut day.
no complaints here, right?
until that night when i came down with the worst sickness i have had in a long time….
4. i saw/stared/bought way too many peonies
p.s. this is trader joe’s last week with peonies!
you’ve been warned!
5. my sister bella & baker got engaged!
is that ring not to die for?
can’t wait for august 9th!
6. we celebrated birthdays & brides
7. and i finally saw the fault in our stars!
after working 13+ hours on Friday + 10 hours on Saturday I can’t think of a better way to end my short-lived weekend than going to Noodles & then seeing The Fault in Our Stars with some of our very best friends.
can that director just win an award already?
i really thought everything about that movie was perfect.
the soundtrack, the actors, the screenwriting, the cinematography..
flawless job if you ask me!
can’t wait to see what the rest of the 20 days of june bring
do you know how much it thrills me that doughnuts get a fake, made-up, national holiday set aside just for them?i mean, wednesday was national running day & that’s cool & all but TODAY IS NATIONAL DOUGHNUT DAY so you tell me which is cooler.
they get a whole day to get the respect they deserve!
a couple week ago, knowing june 6th (national doughnut day) was coming up, i decided to step outside of my current favorite donut places and try new ones around town to rate which ones i liked the most.i loved going to some of the new bakeries, asking them which were their most popular donuts, and trying a couple to see which one i really did love the most!
one day karli and i went on a run during my lunch break… to go get donuts.
it’s safe to say this has been 2 of the best weeks of my life
aaaaaaand it’s safe to say my pants don’t button anymore
NOT MAD
here’s my personal list of favorites!!
1. BANBURY CROSS
705 south 700 east. salt lake city, utah 84102
leave it to banbury cross to take the cake for #1.something about that cinnamon donut is so amazing to me.
i introduced my mom to it & she goes by and grabs one for the both of us every time she leaves her work shift at anthropologie downtown.
NOT MAD
2. ART CITY DONUTS
instagram: @artcitydonuts
location varies
like i said in my donut affair post, food trucks are the new fad.
they are starting to pop up on every corner and i couldn’t be happier about it.
this donut truck has gained so much popularity the last couple of months and is currently only licensed in utah county.
the cinnabomb donuts definitely live up to their name.
i love anything cinnamon so this was definitely my favorite choice.
they have other fun flavors like boston creme pie, muddy buddies, raspberry creme etc.
follow them on instagram & go check them out!
4. FRACTURED PRUNE
1090 north bluff street. st. geroge, utah. 84770
if you like cake donuts… this is your place!
although the name is QUITE ODD i absolutely loved these donuts.
they are all the same base cake donut & then you choose your toppings & glazes.
it’s a fun, different donut experience!
my absolute favorite was pebble beach (top left)
it is maple glaze with cinnamon & chocolate chips.
my dream donut come true!
4. DUNFORD DONUTS
8556 south 2940 west. west jordan, utah 84088
dunford donuts is definitely known for their chocolate cake donut
it’s always my first choice at costco or at the holiday gas station (my daily diet coke & donut stop)
HOWEVER, i am convinced this old fashioned cake donut is the best that they have
usually cake donuts are dry to me, but this one?
so moist!
their headquarters in west jordan are HUGE
definitely a fun visit.
5. FRESH DONUT & DELI
2699 south state street. slc, utah 84115
i have lived in salt lake city my entire life and have never noticed this donut shop!
but to many people’s recommendation i went & tried it and was verrrry pleased
these are their 2 most popular
a coconut crumb and a vanilla frosted with sprinkles
the shop was SO clean inside and you could smell the next batch of donuts in the works!
and the winner is……….
the coconut crumb.
just the right amount of coconut if you ask me.
6. GRANITE BAKERY
902 east 2700 south. slc, utah 84106
Will always loves a good blueberry donut so when they told me the blueberry & the maple frosted yeast donut were their most popular donuts i was relieved to say the blueberry donut won my taste buds over!
it was the perfect frosting (with real blueberries!) and Will was one happy camper when i brought one home for him too.
7. COUNTRY BAKERY OF LEHI
172 w. main street. lehi, utah 84043
this bakery was absolutely adorable
it’s right on the main street in Lehi and has the sweetest home town feel to the shop
they are famous for their square donut but i absolutely loved their buttermilk donut
it is made with half buttermilk batter and half regular cake batter
usually plain glazed donuts with no toppings don’t appeal to me too much but this donut was beyond anything i have ever expected
that buttermilk is the key peeps!
8. PROVO BAKERY
190 east 100 north. provo, utah 84606
during my lunch break on tuesday karli and i jogged on over to provo bakery to give it a good try
the two we got were the red velvet and the coconut
red velvet it was!
can we just all get it off our chests that red velvet is really just chocolate w/ red food coloring?
thank you.
i am a sucker for those chocolate iced chocolate cake donuts
9. BEYOND GLAZE
177 west 12300 south. south jordan, utah 84020
i was very eager to try beyond glaze due to the many things i have heard about these donuts!
they are definitely a little bit pricier compared to other donuts that i bought the last couple weeks but for these designs?
how could they not be!!!
their most popular was their maple bar with bacon!
i am not the biggest fan of that combination so the peanut butter, s’more & german chocolate caught my taste buds the most!
they definitely lived up to their name of gourmet and the s’more wins as my fave!
i LOVED the graham cracker on the donut.
definitely different. definitely gourmet!
10. DAYLIGHT DONUTS
51 east 11400 south. sandy, utah 84070
lastly, i really loved daylight donuts.
the maple ring donut was my favorite here!
daylight donut gives off a great, local donut shop vibe and the worker here wins the award for the nicest of all!
so aaaanyways…
i just wrote a blog post for 2 whole hours strictly about donuts…
should i be absolutely embarrassed by this?
or extremely proud?
today, since it’s june 6th.. national donut day, i’m very proud.
these were just my favorite donuts
i am sure there are more i donut know of…..
hahahahaha i’m cracking up
if you have any favorites let me know!
p.s. this app is amazing and a must for fellow donut lovers!
doughbot is my new favorite to help track down my favorite local donuts
at a gas station, i have yet to see my dad leave without a bag full of donuts in hand
when i would come home from BYU on the weekends, my little brother and i would go on vespa rides to get donuts and it was our time to spend time together and catch up on the latest k-12 drama
if a BYU sporting event i danced at ended around midnight, you betcha my family and i would go find the nearest 7-11 to get their fresh donuts
(they come out fresh at 12a.m. & p.m. everyday, you’re welcome)
i was convinced that 7-11 had the best maple bar around town (don’t judge, just try) but thanks to the growing donut popularity, i am more and more pleased every single day
will & i live next to The Store which has fresh donuts every morning.
it’s both very dangerous and the biggest blessing
will loves a good blueberry donut so if you have a favorite out there.. let me know!
i couldn’t help but laugh this morning when i saw myself in the mirror at the gym
even the phone case!
don’t worry, i got a lot of comical looks coming my way today
and they are also the cutest little things to deliver to people!
i revolve my week around finding the best donut places and am in the works of making my own favorite list of donut places….
banbury cross
art city
fracture prune
daylight donuts
dunford donuts
you name it…
i’ll try it.
tonight i came home from celebrating my sisters birthday with my family and found this darling box on our porch
i didn’t think i was expecting anything from anyone but opened up the letter to see that it was a thoughtful gift from a girl who’s blog i designed last week
if you can’t see the last part of her note it says:
“p.s. if there’s one thing learned from your blog is that donuts are your favorite. “
so what was inside the darling box?
PURE HAPPINESS!
isn’t that the sweetest thing you’ve ever seen?!
it definitely made my day 100x better and i am one happy human right now
**as i have sprinkles spread all over my keyboard**
so thank you to Lauren!
you are the absolute sweetest and there needs to be more people like you on this earth
here’s to donuts and happy days
go get a donut this instant & i can almost guarantee your day will instantly be 231284389x better
all through college i knew i wanted to marry Will and knew he hoped to go to medical school one day.
so i realized if i married him i was going to have to be the breadwinner for a while…
which was perfectly fine with me!
i graduated from BYU a year early to get into the work force and wanted to start building my resumé up and become a working woman!
for the past year i have been working at a company called Orca Health and have absolutely loved my time there.
it is a start-up company that develops iPad apps for physicians & specialists to use in their offices for patient education and increasing retention rates.
however, in germany, my brother-in-law asked me what my dreamjob was.
i replied saying my dream job would probably be working for a company like google or apple etc.
so what did i do?
went ahead and looked into seeing if there were any positions currently open at google.
luckily for me, they were currently on the look for 5 new people to join the Google Fiber team to help establish more google fiber networks in neighborhoods this summer!
it was quite the interesting recruitment process including phone call interviews, face-to-face interviews and paperwork upon paperwork to complete prior to being selected.
one of the google recruiters told me how many applicants apply for this position everyday so let’s just say i wasn’t expecting anything to come from this.
but then on Tuesday May 13th i received a call at 3:04 p.m. from the recruiter saying they offered me 1 of the 5 contract positions!
i was ecstatic.
jaw dropped.
running around in circles.
shaking.
called Will jumping up & down
my dream came true!
they chose 5 new members to join the google fiber team on contract positions and i was one of them!
i was literally sooo happy i couldn’t even believe it.
my first day of work was today and let’s just say there was a WHOLE lot of training.
the rest of the week consists of training from 9-5 everyday!
for those of you who don’t know what google fiber is visit the website to learn more:
it started out with one of the best days of the year…
MOTHER’S DAY
oh how i love my mom as well as my new mother-in-law!
two of the strongest women i know
isabelle, alex & will and i cooked my mom her favorite meal for sunday dinner
….. all i’m gonna say is that the fire alarm went off only six times
so there’s that
we were running around the kitchen screaming and laughing so hard
but it was a successful meal of shrimp linguine, artichokes, bruschetta and broccoli
all topped off with our FAVORITE coconut cake!
monday night was one of my studios dance recitals
aren’t they the cutest?
they did so good and we’re the brightest little dancers on stage!
will & i were watching the food network last week and they were in Utah featuring the tin roof grill restaurant in sandy.
so we had to try it!
their pesto is to DIE for
we were able to babysit this little angel and her siblings on wednesday night!
it is our favorite thing to do in the world.
watch croods, eat some sugar, watch frozen, go on a walk, repeat.
thursday called for a classic eggs in the city breakfast
their mama burrito: the best!
my cute grandpa.
thumbs up for no cancer again!
on friday night they served Hire’s at a wedding… we were one happy couple
our favorite saturday lunch spot downtown ^^
i’m realizing right now i post way too many pictures of my food.
i need to do a post of just all my favorite places to eat in slc!
there are too many!
fresh flowers are straight from heaven
a busy saturday of a morning jog, soccer game, soccer breakfast, gardening, errands, and playing tennis called for a large tropical diet coke and banbury cross donut to end the week successfully!
once the weather starts warming up even just a littttttle bit i am instantly the happiest person on the planet
one day i walked to the nearest gas station just to buy my favorite candy because my favorite candy melted in my car because it was too hot!!
since when does that make someone happy?!
easter sunday with william this year was the best yet!
we finished babysitting those 5 angels and then had dinner after dinner after with our families.
we also found out my older sister Eliza is having a baby… girl!!!
i am seriously ecstatic that i am going to be an aunt!
two months ago, Eliza went through a huge scare and had to undergo emergency surgery to remove over 6 feet of her dead (charcoal black) intestines.
how crazy is that?
just an absolute freak accident.
her bowels twisted in a way that cut off all circulation to her other intestines.
luckily her baby survived it all!
already a little fighter.
will is taking both physics 1 and 2 over the summer which involves him at school every day of the summer as well as working at the bone & research lab at the VA medical center.
7:30-5:30 everyday of the summer..
yikes!
he had 2 weeks off before his summer semester started and i was still in europe for 1 of those weeks.
SO
i made it my goal this past week to make it a memorable week for him and to have as much fun with him as possible.that is, before his summer was completely filled with equations and experiments.
we had a lunch date every day and too many ice cream dates to count.
for example this was last weeks line up:
monday: barbacoa (cinco de mayo, duh) tuesday: sushi yi wednesday: simply thai thursday: pizzeria limone friday: cubby’s saturday: outback steak house
we tried to hit up every cuisine!
and always topped it off with a delicious dessert!
we finally hunted down the art city donut truck
i have eaten a lot of donuts in my lifetime
like a lot
but these donuts might be the best i’ve had…..
bold statement, i know.
the cinnabomb far exceeded anything i could have ever imagined.
maybe because i am anything cinnamon’s #1 fan in the first place.
but man, they were worth every dime ($6 to be precise)
don’t get me wrong… i love traveling and feel so grateful i had the opportunity to go to europe with my family…
but after two weeks, i was giddy the whole airplane ride home.i watched movie after movie after movie because i just couldn’t sleep.
i was hours away from seeing Will, smelling fresh air, being by the mountains again, getting an ICE cold DIET coke, and finally being at the cottage again!
since we babysat for 10 days right before i left, i hadn’t slept at the cottage in almost a month and missed that little place so dearly.
prior to leaving, castine and i put together 14 little presents & notes for Will for each day i was gone.
she was the best helper!
they were just little, teeny presents of his favorite things
his mom was nice enough to set each present on the cottage porch to surprise him everyday.
ya ya ya it’s a little obsessive i know i know.
i realize some couples are apart a lot longer than 2 weeks but it was our longest time apart since being married so give me a break!!
once i landed on sunday, i bolted through customs and ran out to the curb to see Willie standing there with 2 of my all-time favorite things
(well, 3 including himself)
then when we got home, i walked into the cottage to see he had now arranged all my favorite things together to welcome me home.
then i went to bed and saw this
and then i woke up to this
hahahaha isn’t he the best human?!
he makes me the happiest.
i’m happy to say that willivia is back in action.
fully loaded.
** apologies for the sappy post. i’m just reeeeally happy to be back, alright?!**
