a little slice of heaven, MT

hi.

Spent a weekend (and it was about a week too short) up in beautiful Montana with the WHOLE FAM. YAY. Got us all together!

(The brother in laws didn't realize how important FAM trips are, and well we had to reel them in and make them cancel all plans they had asap cause... ya can't miss out!! lol) 

This was about a week ago and let me tell ya, summer is FLYIN right on by! We've got a bunch of updates in our life but I'll save that for another day. 

Jord was able to take work off last minute and I mean LAST minute to be able to join us and I was so so happy that he could! Even though he had a nasty cold he was able to come and fish his little heart out! Which of course made my heart happy. 

Jord and I drove down a day after my family and had about 7 hours together in the car, my mom printed off directions for us to follow because you usually lose service and can't use your phone to GPS you. So we started off by following the GPS on our phone and once we started getting close to the "no service" zone we took a lookey at the printed directions and realized they were a completely different route than the one our phone had taken us!!! GAH. We only had like one minute of panic and called my parents and got it all figured out so we wouldn't get lost and then had a good laugh at ourselves after. 

Also, no music in the car so we had some fun singing our own tunes... acapella. I don't know why but whenever I'm in the car with no actual music, Moulin Rouge soundtrack, Phanton Of The Opera, and Pitch Perfect are the only lyrics I can remember. :) Jord was dying haha. 

We spent our time going on the most gorgeous hikes to lakes, fishing on the river, going to a rodeo!! Ok I have been to a rodeo.... zero times in my life before this! Haha and I guess this wasn't technically a rodeo but a "bull riding show." Oh my gosh. I was SO entertained!!! Those cowboys are CRAZY and those bulls are MASSIVE. Jord and I had a secret crush on the cowboy who would reign in all the bulls after their ride. He was this young kid on his horse and literally after the bull was so ticked off and stomping around the arena he would get is lasso and just lasso the huge bull and pull it into the kennel on his horse like NO BIG DEAL... He was a bad a for sure. RESPECT. 

(also sorry^ there just isn't a more perfect way to describe it)

Also I just love my grandparents cute little log cabin. It is magical! I remember coming here ever since I was a little girl and although I wish I could see them more I'm so glad we can go visit them here! One time when we were visiting a few years ago we were all eating dinner out on my grandma's covered porch and we look out the window and a mama black bear and her two little cubs came down the hill through the forest and into my grandma's garden!! It was the coolest experience!!! Granted, I was scared to go hiking up in their backyard for the rest of our visit but it was SO amazing to get to watch those bears!

ANYWAY, here are a few pictures (never actually just a few) from our magical weekend!!

We love you Darby, MT.  

 out of focus and whoopsie jord is in his underwear cause he just took a plunge in the lake :/

 my pretty little sister liv. when you are best friends with your sisters... life is good.

 My brother!!!! He's so dang cute. And he is leaving on his mission in HAWAII next month. Don't go. But go. But don't. GAH!! 

sweet sweet switzerland

Ohhhhh, Switzerland.

You charming country you.

We had SO MUCH FUN in Switzerland. We visited 4 different cities and ate so much good food. 

But can I just say that we had a rough start to this country??? If you remember from my last post about Denmark, a few of us came down with a nasty cold on our last day there. Including me. The next day we were in Switzerland & I was feeling ohhhhh so crappy. Plus our flight was at like 5:00 AM and needless to say I did not get enough sleep. Plus sick. Ok, you catch my drift?? So we land in Switzerland and are all excited with enough adrenaline still to get our rental car, drive to our airbnb, and make breakfast. AND THEN instead of being responsible and giving ourselves a couple hours to nap and refresh we decided to do what we do best in Europe.. go go go. Big mistake haha. We headed into Zurich and by now I had officially hit a wall and was feeling all cloudy in my head. We walked into town and started exploring and found ourselves in one of the tourist shops off the side of the road. Jord and I thought, what a great time to get our magnet for the trip! (We've collected magnets from each place we've traveled to together and it's our fun little traditional souvenir!) Started out great... but then. I came up with the great idea to collect a magnet from EACH of the cities that we would be visiting while in Switzerland.. instead of just an overall "Switzerland" magnet. Right? Ok so Jord didn't think that was such a great idea. Why not just get ONE to cover our entire stay in Switzerland? PLUS that didn't make sense since we didn't get one for each of the cities in Denmark? And for whatever reason and my lack of sleep and cloudy brains we got in the dumbest most petty argument over our stupid magnets. We are talking like $6 magnets people, you'd think they were all lined with gold! And then because I was now grumpy I blamed Jordan for not letting me take a nap and that he basically ruined my whole day because now I was tired and sick. Hahaha we ended up NOT getting a magnet and storming out of the shop and spent the next 2 miles of walking down the waterfront in Zurich in SILENCE. (Well only me in silence because I was the one still sulking.) Moral of the story is... Jessica doesn't do well on little sleep. And... why do humans get so petty over the dumbest things haha. We didn't want to "waist" any time while we were in these amazing countries but... a little nappy nap would have done us good. Also, I'm only sharing this story now because it is SO humorous for Jord and I to look back at how intense our feelings were in that moment over something so stupid!! Hahahaha. Please tell me we're not the only ones. Oh also because I know you are all dying to know we decided to get a magnet from each city and bought one the next day from Mt. Pilatus and then FORGOT to get one from each of the other cities anyway. hahaha so now we don't even have one that just says "Switzerland" but just one from a random city. Oh mercy!

But, happy ending because as we went along the waterfront we found a cute shop renting out paddle boats and all four of us shared one out on the lake and I was able to leave my grudge on the shore. ;)

I could tell a million other little funny stories about being sick and still trying to make the most of it.. like on the third day when we ALL caught the cold and had planned to go on our biggest hike on that day hahaha all of us were trudging through each step trying to make it to the top of the mountain in Interlaken. Like the pressure was building in our heads the higher elevated we got and we all wanted to pass out... once we got to the top we crashed on a picnic table for like 20 minutes before even going over to look at the view. Which, by the way was definitely worth it. 

We spent one day each in Zurich, Lucerne, Interlaken and Bern! Hiking, eating, sightseeing, tower climbing, paddling, walking, riding and singing for joy. We loved each and every place. It was GORGEOUS. Felt like a glorified Park City, Utah. Felt like home!! Let't move to Switzerland babe ;) 

Perks of renting a car- we could stop wherever we wanted to get out and take in the BEAUTY.

"The Top" of Interlaken where we could barely muster the strength to take a picture!

 The top of the Swiss Alps!!

Rode the steepest Cogwheel in the world to get up here... just glad not to be hiking this time ;) at least with our head colds anyway! Any other day in good health... I love hiking! Like a lot!

 On Sunday we got to attend LDS church!! We love finding that the church is the same and true and wonderful no matter where we are :) Also... The Bern Temple! Are you kidding me.. it was so beautiful. So white and actually like blindingly bright. We had a nice little picnic in the shade under a big shady tree and looked at the beautiful temple! Plus this was Jordy's birthday!! What better way to turn 24 than traveling around Switzerland. 

Cheese Fondue! Request of the birthday boy.. I love you Jord!! Thank you for being the best travel partner, best friend, lover husband anyone could ask for!

Feelin' dandy in Denmark

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK

Taking a break from the endless house hunting to write a little post about Denmark! But seriously, is anyone else trying to move to Davis County right now?? Do you feel my pain?!? Send good vibes our way please! And someone with a cute house will you please just sell it! ;) 

When we visited Europe this last month of the 4 countries we explored Denmark was the first and dare I say, my favorite!?!?!? Guys! It was soooo enchanting!!! Copenhagen was adorable and the country side was soooo pretty. It felt overall peaceful. There were hundreds of people zooming by on their bikes and making their daily commutes but even the city was soooo quiet! At one point I felt like I had to whisper as we were walking through town! haha I loved it!

We scored with having our friend John with us, he served his mission in Denmark and was able to speak Danish and be our own little tour guide and also help us order the best pastry of course. 

Our time in Denmark consisted of waking up at the break of dawn and grabbing a pastry from the bakery outside our apartment, then GO GO GO til we dropped. We wasted no time in Denmark and were out walking around until we couldn't go any further and would come home late and just crash. We literally wore ourselves right out and on our last day in the country half of us came down with a nasty cold that lasted almost the rest of our trip... but when in Europe no time to take a sick day! 

My favorite thing about Denmark was when we were driving through the country and would pass all these rolling fields full of bright yellow flowers. It was soooo pretty. I don't have any pictures because we were always driving by when I saw them but they made my heart so happy.

I wrote like 15 pages in my journal of experiences we had in Denmark and things that we did in just 3 days! There was so much to see. I'll just include the highlights. :)

Nyhavn!! I mean just so picturesque. But really the cutest street with colorful buildings on either side of the canal and old ships sitting in the water. So cute. There are restaurants lining the street and gelato and pastries! It was fun to walk up the street and cross the bridge taking pics of everything!

A Canal Tour! Granted this is extremely touristy... but hey we were tourists. Plus the canal goes all through Copenhagen and we were able to see a loooot of the famous landmarks and learn some history about them as we just rode by. It was SUPER nice to get to see everything while sitting down and relaxing. :) We even saw The Little Mermaid statue which is one of the landmarks Denmark is known for. Plus we were able to make note on locations that we wanted to go back to by foot and spend more time in! 

WHATEVER This place is called!!!!! haha just a cute little park outside one of the castles... everyone just hanging out with their lover, playing frisbee on the grass, eating a picnic. I loved it.

Church of Our Saviour. Visited this church just so we could walk up the spiral tower. An amaaaaazing view!! And unlike other towers that we've climbed instead of having a platform to stand on at the top, the spiral staircase just literally gets smaller and smaller and eventually runs out at the very top! 

Frederiksborg Castle. Favorite castle!!! Complete with a moat, castle gardens and the cutest ballroom. We loved walking through and I loved that it was a little bit chilly on this day... haha not sure why just made it seem more enchanting and eerie? I don't know. I liked it. 

Also whatever this cute little town is called. Within the first couple hours of landing in Denmark we drove to this town where the houses are 300+ years old and had the original thatched roofing... it was adorable. And the quietest town I have EVER stepped foot in haha. It was so peaceful. It was right next to the ocean and we walked out by the water where there were fields of windmills in the water! 

COPENHAGEN LDS TEMPLE. We love finding pieces of home when we are away and traveling! So cool to have something so familiar to us so far away. This temple in Copenhagen was originally a chapel! 

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