I love Halloween! All of the awesome decorations, cute treats, carved pumpkins and creative costumes are so fun!
I found a recipe for some jack-o-lantern cookies online a couple of weeks ago that sounded really cool. Unfortunately, there was no picture so I wasn't sure what they would come out looking like. Last Friday, Jeff and I gave them a shot They didn't come out quite as amazing as I hoped, but they were still pretty cool. I dyed the dough green and orange, shaped it into pumpkins and cut out jack-o-lantern faces. Jeff carefully filled the holes with crushed lemon drops before we baked them. The lemon drops were supposed to make it look like they were glowing. They looked okay, although they got a little deformed when we baked them and they didn't taste great. Oh well. It was fun anyway.
Maybe I'm crazy, but I think the one on the left looks like Winnie the Pooh.
Last night, Jeff and I carved pumpkins. Last year we had to use steak knives. It was NOT easy! Right after Halloween, we bought a pumpkin carving kit for super cheap and man did that make things easier this year!
I carved the Kool-Aid Guy
and Jeff carved an awesome dragon
I found some super cute Halloween cupcakes online and I was so excited to try making them. I decided to make them for Jeff's and my Sunday school class today. They turned out pretty cute and the kids loved them! We took the extras over to my Aunt Brenda's house after church for everyone over there. It was hilarious to watch my cousin Brooke's 2-year-old son Shawn bite the tips off the candy corns on his monster cupcake.
Making the spider legs (2 halves of a pretzel stick stuck together with melted chocolate)
Jeff cut the Necco wafers for the eyes on these monsters cause I was too scared I would crack them.
Even after I told two of the boys in our class that those little nubs on each side were tic tacs, they bit into them and got hilariously disgusted looks on their faces.
Those are truffles. YUM. My cousin Doug was pleasantly surprised when he realized the eyes were mini M&M's, not Red Hots.
Yesterday morning, I accidentally stole all of the hot water so Jeff had to take a freezing cold shower. It didn't help that our house is pretty cold in the mornings. He was shivering when he got out and I felt awful! I tried to help him warm up as I apologized a million times and I promised him I was going to come up with a nice surprise for him that night to make up for it.
After class, we rode our bikes home and then, taking advantage of the rare warm, sunny weather, took off on a bike ride for about an hour and a half. We had to wait until it was dark before I could set up the surprise I had planned.
When it was dark enough, I had Jeff go into the kitchen to play his computer game while I set everything up. We were going to camp indoors! I put the glow-in-the-dark stars under a lamp, hoping they would actually glow later, put on some loud music so Jeff wouldn't hear what I was doing, got to work. I set up our tent and put about 6 blankets in there to make it nice and comfy. Then I added pillows, flashlights, a few card games and a selection of wilderness-y movies for Jeff to choose from. On the way home from class, I had stopped to get graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate to make s'mores. I set everything out on a paper towel along with a make-shift campfire of 6 little candles. Earlier that day, I found an 11-minute track of nature sounds (crickets, a babbling brook, birds, wind, rain, etc.) online and I got that ready to play through the sound system. Then, I stuck all the stars up on the ceiling, turned off all the lights, lit the candles, turned on the "music" and invited Jeff in. He loved it! We made s'mores and snuggled up in our tent while we watched Jurassic Park: The Lost World. The stars even glowed pretty well when the candles were blown out and before we put the movie on!
The s'mores set up
Our camera isn't the best. I had to take a lot of the pictures with the flash on because for some reason, without the flash, the pictures came out even darker than they looked in real life. So don't be fooled, even though it looks like the lights are on in a lot of the pictures, the only source of light in the whole house is the candles.
It’s been almost a month since I’ve posted anything and I have incurred the wrath of The Mama.So here is an update on Jeff’s and my busy life during this first month of school.After an exciting and eventful summer, keeping busy with school and work has resulted in most days looking very similar to the ones before, with a few exceptions.
Jeff is taking 3 classes, working 20 hours a week and he is the TA for an Intro to Engineering class this semester.He keeps busy.Near the end of the summer, I left him alone for a few hours and even a couple of days a few weekends in a row so he decided to order a couple of fun looking computer games to keep him entertained at times like that.Of course, now that he actually has the games, he rarely has time to play them for more than a few minutes at a time.He is in a Products Design class, for which he is designing a water filtration system directed at the emergency preparedness crowd.Sadly, the rest of his group comes up short on their assignments most of the time so he has to work extra hard.He grades and creates quizzes for the freshman class he TAing for.He also came up with a project for them in which they had to use a little airplane kit to make a propeller-driven car.
Jeff has also been preparing for the career fair this week.He has researched several companies that will be there so he will be ready to ask them some good questions.Last week, Jeff interviewed with Exxon.They had recruiters out a week ago Thursday and after telling them that he had interned with Exxon before, they invited Jeff and I to a dinner that night at Carrabbas.It was fun going with him and getting some yummy free dinner.Of course, it was very long (we were there about 2 ½ hours), but overall it was a good experience and I learned a lot about what it would be like to have Jeff working for Exxon. He got a call the next day and had an interview a week later (Thursday).He knew his interviewer from his internship in Virginia last summer.He only asked Jeff a few questions since he already knew and liked him and then just wanted to talk sports for the rest of the interview.
I’m taking 5 classes this semester, but since they are all very time consuming, I have had to cut back my hours at work to only 12 hours a week (Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays).I was grateful to have such a sweet and understanding husband when I started to get a little overwhelmed and sleep deprived trying to do it all.He told me I should just quit my job.He is so good to me.I am also grateful for the large amounts of unexpected money we’ve been blessed with through grants and scholarships so I don’t NEED to work a full 20 hours a week.For the most part, I am enjoying my classes.I am in Parenting and Child Guidance, Adolescence Development, and Intro to Family Processes, all of which are very interesting.My Adolescent class in particular is a really fun class.My professor values creativity and class participation so we have some fun assignments and good in-class discussions and activities.I am getting ready to start a study in which I will have several BYU students fill out a survey I created to determine whether adolescent boys or adolescent girls engage in more risk-taking behavior (technically, ages 18-21 is still considered late adolescence and we would have needed permission to conduct studies on adolescents under 18).We were also given the assignment to read a novel directed at adolescents and present it, emphasizing certain adolescence themes, pretty much any way we want to (a film, poem, model, diorama, scrapbook, game, journal, etc.).I’m reading The Hunger Games.I’m excited.My other two classes are Critical Inquiry and Research Methods, which is pretty boring, but I’m required to take it, and Statistics, which I have heard is SOO hard, but I currently have over 100% in the class, thank you very much!
Despite being very busy with work and school, I am doing my best to get in a good three runs a week.At first, I let having a lot of homework get in the way of this, but soon realized the importance of getting out and getting some exercise every so often.It helps me to relax and stop stressing about my mounds of reading and assignments.Not to mention the fact that it feels SO good to get out and run after being cooped up in classes and the apartment doing homework all day.I’ve had to use the indoor track on campus a couple of times lately since its already getting so cold outside (I’m REALLY sad about this.It’s a sad sight already seeing snow on the mountains.)!I’m going to miss running my usual route to and around the beautiful park a couple miles from our house, especially because the last couple of times, a man has been there with his adorable new little German Shepherd puppy.
Our weekend activities these days usually consist of long bike rides, dollar movies, preparing and teaching lessons to our awesome Sunday school class (we love them), and football.We have All Sport Passes with a big group of friends so we all sit together at the BYU home games.It’s nice to see everyone since we rarely have time to get together otherwise.And if the games are away, we usually all get together at someone’s house to watch it.It’s a lot of fun.Most of the guys are on an intramural football team together too, so we all get to see quite a bit of each other these days.All the wives sit on the sidelines at each game and cheer and catch up.The guys are doing great!They’ve won their first three games by a pretty big margin each time and it looks like they might be headed for an undefeated season.Jeff plays quarterback and I love being reminded what an incredible athlete he is every game.He runs SO fast and jumps SO high!It’s amazing!Last week, I played team mom and brought Fall-shaped frosted sugar cookies for after the game (pumpkins, leaves, ghosts, bats, apples, acorns, etc.).Jeff and I found some really cute and cheap cookie cutters on Amazon and I had gotten them in the mail earlier that day.I was excited for an excuse to try them out!
Speaking of Amazon, Jeff and I LOVE that site!We buy everything on it!And lately we have been getting a whole lot of free money towards it.Jeff got us some Amazon credit cards in the middle of August and every time we use them, we get points that eventually translate into Amazon money.We’ve used them on some of the cruise expenses, tuition, books, and everyday expenses and have already racked up quite a few points. We’ve earned about $75 dollars.AND I use a search engine called SwagBucks whenever I need to look something up because you earn points for using the site.And every 45 points I earn, I can get a $5 Amazon e-gift card from the SwagStore.I have 5 unused dollars right now.It’s awesome!Gotta love free money!
In other news, Jeff and I were SO excited for Jared and Brynne, who had a precious little baby girl about a week and a half ago.We got to visit them in the hospital the next day.They named her Emme Kate Higley and she is absolutely adorable.We loved getting to hold her and visit with Brynne and Jared and the Maxfields, who were visiting at the same time.It made me even more excited for Jeff and I to have one of our own!I can’t wait to be a mom!Not too far away.
Our latest adventure took place this weekend.In fact, we are driving home from it as I type.Jeff and I spent the weekend in Denver.He had to pick up a laser for work.They already have one, but since they share it with the Physics department, they decided it would be nice to have a second one and a man in Denver, Rob Winters, was selling his for much much less than it would cost to buy one new.Since the Mechanical Engineering department was footing the bill (gas, hotel and food), Jeff and I decided it would be a nice little weekend getaway for us so he volunteered to be the one to pick up the laser.We left after class on Friday afternoon and arrived seven and half hours later at 11:30pm.We stayed in a nice Marriot hotel (Jeff found a great deal as usual) right next to an IMAX theater and about 6 miles from all of the rest of the entertainment (Mile High Stadium, an aquarium, zoo, and amusement park).
Saturday morning, we left around 9 to pick up the laser.Jeff and Rob tested and discussed the laser and then loaded everything into the truck while I hung out downstairs watching Food Network with Rob’s wife and baby girl.
On the way to get the laser
Mission accomplished.
For Daddy: We stayed only a couple of miles from Mile High Stadium. Too bad the Broncos didn't play until this afternoon.
We went to Chipotle for lunch and got massive, delicious burritos.Jeff was happy to eat the rest of mine when I couldn’t finish it.Then we headed to Elitch Gardens, the amusement park that used to be a Six Flags.Jeff, of course, managed to find a buy-one-get-one-free deal online so we got in for just $15 each.The park was all decorated for Halloween and played Halloween music.I think Halloween is so fun so I was excited.They had a few shows later that night that we didn’t end up staying for and a couple of haunted houses that cost extra.Jeff and I were so excited to find that the park wasn’t very crowded and we got through each line in about five minutes!We got through every ride we wanted to go on in about 2 ½ hours!Sadly, I don’t do as well with roller coasters as I used to.I used to LOVE them and they never made me sick, but Jeff and I had to alternate really loopy roller coasters with more mild rides because the more intense ones would put me on the verge of a headache or upset stomach.I did fine and enjoyed them all until the last ride we went on, which flipped us around and around really fast.It made me really dizzy and a little nauseous.I had to sit down for a minute afterwards.I felt bad for Jeff, who loved every minute of it and had not been the least bit affected by all the spinning and flipping, but he was very sweet and understanding, as he always is.It was dinner time and we decided we had been on all of the rides we wanted to so we left the park for dinner.For some reason, getting in the car brought back the dizziness and I tried to ignore it, but Jeff said, “You don’t look so good, babe.”Apparently, I had gone a little pale.Who knows why!I swear, my body has gotten so much more pansy lately!We got to IHOP pretty soon though and after I got some food in my stomach, I felt a whole lot better.
So excited as we walk into Elitch Gardens.
On the Dragon Wings ride (a lot like the swings)
The ferris wheel
After dinner, we went to the IMAX by our hotel and saw Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs in 3-D.It was really cute.Afterwards, we went back to the hotel to enjoy our last night in our nice room and I enjoyed a nice long back rub from my sweet husband as I fell asleep.
Looking really awesome in my 3-D glasses
Jeff looked pretty cool too
This morning, we got up, enjoyed a nice continental breakfast and headed out at 8am.We thought we had downloaded the two Saturday sessions of conference to listen to in the car in between the two sessions today, but somehow ended up with only a few minutes of each.So we’re going to have to listen to them when we get home and maybe next week.We’ve been listening to today’s sessions on the radio, though and it has been wonderful.I love general conference!We have the most incredible church leaders and the church is so true.
And for your viewing pleasure, a couple pictures of Jeff with a GIANT wad of gum in his mouth. My cousin, Doug gave us one of those 6-foot rolls of Bubble Tape in sacrament meeting a couple of weeks ago and after church, I dared Jeff to put the entire thing in his mouth.
I forgot to mention in my last update post that Jeff and I were called to be Sunday school teachers for the 15 & 16 year-olds in our ward. We've been teaching them for about a month now and yesterday was the first Fast Sunday since we received the calling.
For the past year or so, I've been struggling with Fast Sundays a little bit. For some reason that I can't explain, my body just has a hard time functioning very well when I go without food for an extended period of time these days. I used to have no problem with it, but now I get pretty weak. Some Sundays are better than others and I actually seem to be improving overall lately. However, yesterday just wasn't one of my better days.
I felt pretty weak when we got to church and an hour later, when it was time to teach our lesson on Joseph Smith, I didn't feel any better. My sweet husband told me to sit down and relax while he taught the lesson. But only one of our kids showed up. She went to the older class with her friends and Jeff and I were off the hook. It wasn't until after she was gone that Jeff told me, "My head feels like it's gonna explode."
That morning, Jeff had woken up with a sore throat and since I'm recovering from a mild cold, I assumed he caught it from me, but his symptoms had gone far past mine. He had a headache and when I felt his head, I was surprised at how hot it was. He was clearly in just as poor a condition as I was, if not worse. And yet he was willing to sacrifice for his pansy wife. My sweet, sweet husband. :)
We ended up leaving right after the sacrament was passed in sacrament meeting because Jeff's head was throbbing. Poor guy. But I'm happy to report that he is doing much, much better today. Nothing but a very mild sore throat. He was even up for taking a long bike ride to the movies and Target.
They are finally up after some technical difficulties earlier. You can find them here on my facebook profile. Just try to ignore the fact that the majority of the Dunn's River Falls video is focused on my butt.
It’s the last night of our week-long cruise to the Caribbean.It’s largely due to Jeff’s bargain shopping and deal spotting abilities that we were able to enjoy such an incredible one-year anniversary celebration!And we have his dad to thank for our free flights to and from Miami!
On Friday, the adventure began.Our always-reliable friend, Matt Maxfield, took us to the airport in Salt Lake in time for our 4:35pm flight.We ended up having to entertain ourselves walking around the airport and looking through shops for a while since our flight was delayed an hour.Having learned from my previous mistake, we got turkey sandwiches at Quizno’s right before we boarded and thankfully, I felt great for the entire flight.We landed in Dallas at about 9:15pm and took a shuttle to the Hyatt Regency near the airport (after we mistook the even fancier Grand Hyatt for our hotel first and were sent away).Jeff came through again when he found a fantastic deal ($60/night) that let us stay in such a nice hotel for the night.Our room was HUGE and the bed was SO comfortable.Jeff caught the end of a football game on our giant HDTV and was a little sad to be reminded what he was missing (we don’t have cable).Sadly, we didn’t have much time to enjoy our fancy accommodations because we had to be up early the next morning to catch our flight to Miami.We almost went straight to sleep in our massive and incredibly comfy bed.
The next morning, we were up at 5:15 taking showers and getting ready to catch our shuttle to the airport for our 7:00 flight to Miami.Everything went smoothly.We arrived in Miami on time and were met by the Carnival representative, who gave us instructions on where to wait for our bus to the ship.We got our bags almost immediately – the fastest either of us has ever gotten bags from baggage claim and soon after, we were on our way.Our check-in process was quick after we arrived at the port since my very prepared husband had already checked us in online.I love him.
Waiting to board our flight to Miami
Excited to be on our way to Miami
Something interesting happened before we boarded the ship.A man told us that everyone over 18 years old had to fill out a short information sheet.He handed one to Jeff and then looked at me and asked Jeff in a good-natured, jokingly skeptical tone if I was 18.I laughed and told him I was 21, but it wasn’t until after he walked away that it registered with me that he probably thought he was giving a compliment to a middle aged lady who would be tickled to hear that she looked 18.Apparently, I look old.
We entered the ship on deck 3 in the beautiful lobby.We took a couple of minutes to take in the magnificence and grandeur of it all and get really excited.We took a couple of pictures on the staircase and then headed to lunch.Breakfast, lunch and dinner were all served buffet-style on deck 9 – the lido deck – every day.The menu changed each day and there was a deli (where Jeff and I got several delicious turkey sandwiches), a pizzeria, and a fish and chips buffet open for lunch and dinner in addition to the buffet.Not to mention all of the desserts and the frozen yogurt and ice cream machines!With all of that delicious free food, I’m pretty sure I gained a couple of pounds on this vacation.Not a day went by that I didn’t get some yummy frozen yogurt.Jeff and I both have pretty simple taste though so a lot of the food that was served was just too fancy for us and didn’t even look appetizing so we passed it by.Of course, with so much to choose from, we could always find something we wanted.
Just as we got on the ship, taking it all in
I'm a pro at making giant frozen yogurt cones
Eating one of the delicious turkey sandwiches
After lunch, Jeff and I explored the ship for a while and went to check out our cabin on deck 1.It was pretty cozy in there, but we had a big comfy bed to sleep in and cable TV.The housekeeping staff was great!They were very friendly and smiley and the two guys who took care of our room impressively learned our names on the first day.We never quite got theirs down.I think they were from the Philippines and their very long names would’ve been hard enough to understand without the accents.
I realized pretty quickly that I could feel every wave that hit the ship and we hadn’t even left the dock yet.Although I never felt sick, I got the feeling that I was riding an elevator down several times and decided I should get some sea sickness pills.Lucky for us, they were free at the guest services desk and taking just one a day, I felt fine for the entire trip.I learned quickly after that first night that I should only take one a day, not two.I was VERY drowsy by about 9pm.
The Venetian Palace
View of Miami from Lido deck
When our bags were delivered to our rooms, Jeff and I put on our swimsuits and went up to lido deck to try out the pools and slide.The first thing we did was go down the slide.We were both greeted by a wave of salt water at the bottom and that was enough to make us remember to keep our mouths shut every time after that.The pools were filled with salt water too.Only the hot tubs seemed to be fresh water.We were sitting in one of the hot tubs when the safety drill began.We had to go back to our rooms, grab our life jackets and meet out by the lifeboats for in-case-of-an-emergency instructions.We had time to go back to the room and take showers before we finally set sail.Jeff and I went up to lido deck to watch.
Jeff being swallowed up by a wave of salty water
Setting sail
That night at 6:00 was our first formal dinner.We went to our assigned table and met the two other couples we shared it with.One was on their honeymoon and the other had been married for about a year and a half and were fellow BYU students.Jeff and I ate a lot of little bread rolls and drank a lot of water before we finally got our little too fancy dinners.We decided we would eat dinner at the buffet from then on and never returned to the restaurant.
A little after dinner, the drowsiness side effect of the pill began to set in and I took a long nap before Jeff woke me up to go up on deck and to the show in the Venetian Palace at 10:30.I was pretty out of it, but still enjoyed the show.Our amusing cruise director, Noonan (he went by his last name) pulled eight random people from the audience and asked them questions about themselves and good-naturedly poked fun at them and joked with the audience.Then, an apparently well-known comedian named JR came out and got the audience laughing pretty hard.It was a good show.
Sunday was a day at sea and since few of the activities offered on the ship appealed to Jeff and I, we spent the majority of sea days lounging around on deck or in our room trying to keep ourselves entertained.At 11:00 that morning, we went to listen to Noonan’s advice and information about our 3 ports of call and ended up being glad we went as he was very knowledgeable and gave us plenty of valuable information.We spent a few hours lying out on lounge chairs on the deck enjoying the sun and cool breeze.Naturally, I had some frozen yogurt and read some of my current book, The Pillars of the Earth.That night Jeff and I watched The Express on the big screen on lido deck before going to bed.It was the first time either of us had seen it.It was a good movie.
Monday morning, Jeff and I got up early to work out.He went to the nice gym on deck 11 while I ran up the stairs from deck 1 to deck 12 and back down ten times.While we were working out, the ship docked in Jamaica!We had breakfast, showered, put on our swimsuits and packed our camelbaks and Jeff filled them with ice and water.Then, we were on our way.We went down to deck zero and got off the ship about 9am.We met up with the group for our beach horseback riding excursion and were soon lead out to the buses.Our driver, Perry took us to the stables at the start of our ride and on the way taught us a little Jamaican slang.He taught us to answer “ya mon” instead of “yes” and that “irie” expressed good feelings and we could say “irie mon” if we were happy or felt good about something.
On the bus
View from the bus. We drove on left side of the road!
At the stables, we all mounted our horses and lined up for the ride.There were nine of us plus 3 guides.We rode for a while before we got to the beach and any time there was pretty scenery, one guide in particular would take peoples’ cameras and get pictures of them riding through it.When we got to the beach, we all dismounted and got into our swimsuits and put on our little floaty belts before getting back on our horses and riding into the water.We stayed, more or less in a line, but overlapped each other quite a bit.We rode around in a big circle a few times before getting back out.It was SO much fun!I was laughing the entire time.My horse made some pretty funny grunting noises while she tried to trample and shove the other horses.She was pretty feisty.We were pretty deep in water a lot of the time and got moving pretty fast so when we would unexpectedly run up onto a sandbank, it was very bouncy in the shallow water and we had to hang on for dear life.I was lucky enough to witness one guy who just couldn’t hack it fall clumsily off of his horse into the water.It was a pretty funny sight and of course he wasn’t hurt so I didn’t feel too bad laughing.His horse wandered off so one of the guides jumped off his horse and helped the fallen man mount it.Then he got the horse going towards the man’s runaway horse and held onto his own horse’s tail so that it would tow him through the water.He squealed and made all kinds of funny noises to draw attention to himself as it dragged him through the water.It was pretty funny.After riding around in the water for a while, it was time to head back to shore, but the guide who had been taking the most pictures earlier told me to dismount in the water and go and get my camera while he held onto my horse and waited there with Jeff.When I came back, he helped me back onto my horse and took a bunch of pictures of Jeff and I together on our horses.I don’t know why we got such special treatment!No one else got a personal photo shoot in the water!I felt so guilty later that we couldn’t tip him.He deserved it, but the smallest bill we had was a 20.Before we rode back to the stables, we got to see some of the pictures that had been taken of us by some guys on a boat in the middle of the circle we formed in the water.I was surprised by how well they had turned out as we looked through them on the computer.If we wanted to buy any of the pictures, we had to buy a minimum of 8 for $25.On the price sheet, the prices had all been marked down $5 to make us think we were getting a deal.When we went through and picked out all of the pictures we liked, we had 14, but before I could begin to narrow it down to 8, the guy selling us the pictures decided to strike a deal with Jeff.He whispered in his ear that he would give him all 14 for the $25 if Jeff would leave $5 with him.Sooo…14 for $30.I think the price list said 10 for $30.Jeff went along with it and played the part of the firm, commanding man who takes care of his woman.Damn the costs!He said in an authoritative voice, “We’ll take them all” and put his arm around me.And make no mistake; we did take them all.After we had our pictures burned to a CD, we remounted our horses and rode back to the stables to wait for our bus, which was late.
One of the pretty sights on the way to the ocean ride
Our guide/personal photographer friend is behind me
Excited to ride in the ocean in a few minutes
Waiting to get back on the horses and get in that water!
Notice the tongue
I was in heaven
Our own personal VIP photo shoot
When Perry finally arrived, we headed back to the dock, where he dropped off some of the group, but for a $10 fee, we stayed on the bus and had him drive us straight back the way we came and drop us off at Dunn’s River Falls, a place that Noonan had mentioned during his ports of call info talk on Sunday.The fee included a ride back to the dock after we climbed the falls.The falls were inside a national park so we had to pay a fee to get inside.Then, we were led on a short walk to the waterfall.We were hassled left and right by pushy Jamaican salesmen trying to lure us to their shops or get us to by little wooden carvings and necklaces the entire way.They are definitely not shy.We made it to the falls and started the climb up the slippery rocks.Jeff managed to film almost every second of our climb.I was so impressed!I fell at least five times and each and every one of them was caught on camera.I definitely couldn’t have spared a hand to hold the camera or any of the concentration that would have been required to make sure that camera stayed dry.We made it to the top pretty quickly, even with the camera.We still had plenty of time before Perry was supposed to be back to pick us up so we decided to walk around the park and take some pictures.It was beautiful there.Of course we had to fend of aggressive salesmen the entire time.One man, however, asked us so nicely to just come and look at his shop that we couldn’t refuse.We followed him into the cluster of open shops and displays, but as we expected, we weren’t interested in buying anything from his shop.He was very understanding and we headed back out to take a few more pictures.As we were heading back towards the parking lot to leave, another man stopped us and asked if we would just stop by his shop on the way out.We agreed and started to follow him, but the first man who had convinced us to do this spotted us and in unintelligible Jamaican slang, warned the man we were following that Jeff and I were not very promising customers.The man quickly turned around and asked us, “Have you already shopped?”We told him we had already been through once and he immediately lost all interest in us.As we continued, alone, through the shops to the exit, a very persistent girl managed to lure me over to her display.She was very nice and actually did have some very pretty hand-made jewelry to sell.I had been on the lookout for something to buy for Katrina’s birthday that day.I thought a pair of black and white shell earrings would look great on her.The girl told me the shells meant prosperity in Jamaica.She asked me how much I would be willing to pay for them and of course told me they usually sold for $20, but she liked me and would give them to me for less.I asked $7.She said that was too low and suggested $12.I told her Jeff and I only had $10 left (true) so she took that.It was my first bartering experience and later, in a gift shop near the dock, Jeff and I saw similar earrings for $12 so I guess we did pretty well.And she threw in a simple pink “board” earrings (little circular pieces of what seemed like balsa wood, painted pink) and a necklace in for free.
Dunn's River Fall
Getting started
All wet near the top
Pictures in the park
If you can't tell, this is a picture of a MASSIVE spider! If I had known those were around, I might have hesitated to climb that tree or pose in those bushes!
Jeff and I caught our bus back to the dock and wandered around the shops and streets for a while before heading back to the ship a little early to avoid the crowds in the mad rush to get back on the ship by 4:30.We still had to wait in line for a while and we were STARVING!We hadn’t eaten since breakfast.We learned from this experience and got turkey sandwiches from the deli before it closed that night and packed them for Grand Cayman the next day.Once we were back on the ship, we relaxed and had dinner.At 8:30 we went to a magic show in the Venetian.These two guys called themselves The Village Idiots because they do dangerous stunts.They juggled knives, ate fire, and things of that nature.It was impressive and although a lot of their jokes and puns were a little cheesy, they were pretty funny overall.
Exploring around the port before getting back on the ship
This is just one example of the inappropriate items we found in the gift shops at every port. Apparently, they think tourists just can't resist this kind of humor.
I LOVED all the towel animals! Notice how out of control my hair got in the humid Caribbean weather!
After the show, we went to the casino to learn the choreography to “Thriller.”Jeff loves that dance.What are the odds that someone would offer to teach it to us??We had to go.Jeff did great!He learned all the steps.I’ve never been very coordinated when it comes to choreographed dancing so I struggled a little, but we had a great time.
Getting into it with the howls
This was totally candid
A little unsure of myself
The very next morning, we were pulling into port in the Cayman Islands while Jeff and I worked out.We got ready and left the ship about 8am.We had to take a tender (little boat) from the cruise ship to the dock because our ship was too big to dock.The Disney Magic cruise ship was docked next to us.I was a little jealous.When we got on shore, we found our excursion group and followed a guide to the snorkeling site.We got our gear (life vest, snorkel, goggles, and flippers), paid for a locker, and headed into the designated snorkeling zone.We spent about an hour and a half swimming around looking at all the fish on the reef and trying to take decent pictures with our underwater camera (it was REALLY hard to see through the view finder with the goggles on).There were some pretty cool fish and especially at first, it was cool to swim around above this magical little underwater world of colorful fish and plant life.It would have been nice if the water had been a little clearer, but overall we enjoyed ourselves.We decided we had had our fill after about an hour and a half and returned our gear and cleaned out our locker.When Jeff asked me which way I wanted to walk down the street we were on to explore, I decided I wanted to go right, away from the busier, more touristy area.We walked along hoping to get a little better idea of what the Cayman Islands were really like, beyond the tourist’s view.I really enjoyed just walking and talking with Jeff in a more peaceful quiet environment after being constantly surrounded by so many other people for the past few days.
On the tender getting ready to go to shore
So awesome!
Our underwater camera didn't capture the fish very clearly through the slightly murky water
Jeff captured this little gem without my knowledge
Check out the GIANT fish! There were only about 4 or 5 of those right by the shore.
We saw this HUGE tree right at the beginning or our walk
This horse was tethered to the ground in this open field full of chickens and roosters. He came over to say hi. I think he was hoping I'd have some food for him.
Our own private little beach
There were beautiful fake looking flowers like this all over the place!
Iguana road-kill.
After we felt like we had walked far enough, we headed back towards the dock and surrounding gift shops.We looked through several shops.Jeff was always on the lookout for a hat he liked since he left his at home in Provo, but he never found one he liked.In one of the first stores we came to, we were excited to find Cayman Islands t-shirts that we really liked.We bought them and continued on to multiple other stores keeping in mind that Jared’s birthday was only 2 days away and Patrick’s only a couple of weeks.I think they were easier to shop for when they were kids.We came to a Del Sol store, where everything changes color when exposed to sunlight.There are UV lights all over the store so customers can hold up the t-shirts, hats, and other merchandise to them to see what colors appeared.I thought it was really cool and although the t-shirt selection wasn’t great, I found two t-shirts I thought Patrick and Jared might like.Of course, since those were about the only two good ones in the store, they didn’t have the right sizes.I was so disappointed.I was excited to find something I thought was cool for the boys and I was even willing to spend some of my saved up “mad money” (Jeff and I each get $10 to spend on whatever we want each month) to pay for the shirts since they were a little more than the budget we had agreed on for the gifts.Sadly, we had to move on because none of the other shirts were worth buying.We looked through a couple more shops with no success.But then, lo and behold, another Del Sol!I don’t know why there were two so close together, but I didn’t care.I hurried in there and found the shirts I wanted in the sizes I needed.And of course I had to get Katrina some color changing nail polish in addition to her earrings so she could have a magical color-changing thing too.I was happy with my purchases and Jeff and I spent a little more time exploring the shops before we headed back to the ship just in time to catch a tender that was about to leave so we didn’t have to wait on the dock at all.
Margaritaville, right up our ally ;)
This parrot knew how to say "Hello"
And it wanted to take Jeff's ear off
Immediately after we dropped our bags off at the room, I wanted to go up and get a frozen yogurt cone on lido deck.Then we took showers, had dinner and watched a weird movie called Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist on the big screen before bed.
In our room modeling our Cayman Islands shirts
Wednesday was another sea day and once again, we spent the day lounging around without much to do.We worked out in the morning and took our time getting ready for the day before going to around to get some pictures of the ship.Then we spent a long time lying out on lido deck, reading, playing computer games, going down the slide, and swimming.In the afternoon, Jeff and I went to “The Marriage Show”, hosted by the cruise director, Noonan.He brought three couples up on stage and asked them personal questions.He brought up a newly wed couple (I was hoping Jeff and I might be picked, but he wanted a really newly wed couple so he picked some honeymooners), a middle of the road couple (married 25 years), and the couple married the longest (55 years).He asked questions like, “Name everything your spouse is wearing right now” and “Give the date and place of when you first met” and “What is something your wife does that annoys you,” etc.If they both gave the same answer to a question, they got points.It was very entertaining.Later that night, we went to a hypnotist show.It was the hardest I’ve seen Jeff laugh in a while.The hypnotist did things like make all of the men believe he was a rich prince and they were all belly dancers who must win his affection and all of his riches through a dance contest, make everyone think they had lost their belly buttons on stage, and make one guy believe the hypnotist was a beautiful girl, whom he would dance with and try to kiss, but not be able to get past her horrible breath (he grabbed “her” butt instead).It was all really funny so Jeff and I decided to go back for the next show 45 minutes later so I could go up on stage be hypnotized.Unfortunately, despite my efforts to cooperate, the hypnotist only managed to get me really, really relaxed.So when he came by and tapped me on the shoulder, I did collapse involuntarily onto the person next to me like all of the people that the hypnotism had actually worked on, but I was still too aware of what was going on so I rejoined Jeff in the audience.It was another entertaining show.This time, instead of making all the guys think they were belly dancers, he made them believe they were in labor.He started out by telling them the contractions were getting stronger and stronger and it was crazy to see them all react like they were really in pain.One guy even yelled out “make it stop!”After the show, Jeff and I headed to bed to be sure to get some sleep before Cozumel in the morning.
This giant chandelier constantly changed colors
Does that screen look black to you?
Behind one of the bars
Thursday morning, we arrived in beautiful Cozumel, our favorite port of the ship.Since we didn’t have any excursions planned, Jeff and I decided we had plenty of time to walk to one of the popular beaches along the coast instead of taking a taxi.We weren’t even really sure where we were going, but we had a map of the island that showed a place called Chankanaab National Park, which Noonan had mentioned when he discussed Cozumel on Sunday, and we decided to head in that direction.The map made the distance look very short, but we ended up taking a long, hot, and sweaty walk along a road near the coast following signs to Chankanaab It probably took us about an hour and a half to get there, but it was totally and completely worth it.It was GORGEOUS!We had to pay $16 each to get through the gates, but we could see by the map of the inside that there was plenty to do in there and when we got inside, we were blown away by how beautiful and well-kept it was.There were beautiful man-made white sandy beaches (all of the coast near the port is very rocky and covered in reefs rather than sand) with tons of palm trees, umbrellas, and wooden lounge chairs, and the bluest water either of us had ever seen.At the front of the park we saw the Dolphin Discovery area and after we saw those dolphins, it didn’t take long for us to decide we were going to do one of the Cozumel excursions after all!We got a pamphlet explaining the three dolphin swim packages: Dolphin Encounter, Dolphin Adventure, and Royal Swim.We decided that if we were going to do this, we were going all out and signed up for the Royal Swim at 10:00.We were SO excited and pleased with our impromptu decision, but we had an hour to kill so we explored the park a little bit, walked along the beach, tried out the water, played on a playground, and swam in a very nice pool until it was time.We met up with the other “Royal Swim”-ers (two cute kids, brother and sister, from New York), got our life jackets on, and watched the instructional safety/signs and signals video before heading out to the dock where we met our two dolphins, Romulo (male) and Malinche (female).I couldn’t stop grinning.I’ve always, always, always wanted to do this!Every time I’ve ever fed the dolphins at sea world, I’ve seriously considered and imagined just jumping into the feeding pool with them.I LOVE dolphins.Jeff was pretty stoked out of his mind too.And just as we expected, we loved every second with those dolphins.We probably spent about 45 minutes in the water with them and in that time, we got to hug and kiss them (and have them kiss us on the cheek), shake hands/fins with them, sing and dance with them and take turns doing the “dorsal tow” and “superman” foot push.For the dorsal tow, we would each swim out a distance and then stop and float in the water in a “T” shape with our arms straight out to each side and our legs straight down.Then, the two dolphins would swim up behind us on either side and put their dorsal fins right into each hand.All we had to do was hang on for the ride while they towed us in.It was awesome!It’s amazing how strong dolphins are!They would get going fast pulling each person through the water and you could feel their strong tails beating back and forth the water by your legs.The foot push was even better!After swimming out, we would get into position floating on our bellies with our legs straight out behind us and our arms stretched out in front like Superman.The dolphins would come from behind and put their noses against our feet and push us fast through the water so that we would end up standing up.The only work we had to do was make sure too keep our legs straight by locking our knees.The dolphins did the rest.Once again, they are SO strong.Swimming with the dolphins was an incredible experience.I can’t help but wish that they had actually cared about us and were playing with us cause we were friends and not just doing tricks for fish, but that may be a little much to ask. JOf course Jeff and I had to buy the DVD afterwards.
You can watch it and the rest of the videos we took on the ship and at Dunn's River Fall on Facebook:
We found this little hermit crab walking along the street on our way to Chakanaab
Playing on the playground
Iguana!
In the fancy pool
There was a divider in between two pools that made the water really shallow. I insisted we take a Shamu picture
Jeff had a hard time bending his back like that. I'm laughing at him.
"I dig a french bikini on Hawaiian island dolls by a palm tree in the sand"
My brilliant husband took these stills off of the DVD
After the dolphin swim, Jeff and I decided to go check out the gardens and Mayan replica’s we had seen on the park map.We didn’t realize that there were guides who would give tours of the replicas if desired, but lucky for us, one showed up with our little friends from the dolphin swim and their dad and uncle just as we were about to start on the trail of Mayan replicas.We joined their group and I was glad we did, even though by the end, Jeff wished we hadn’t.Our guide had an awesome Mexican accent and extensive knowledge of Mayan culture and history.I loved listening to him talk about each replica.A lot of the time Jeff was a little too uncomfortable in the hot sun to enjoy it, but I think he at least liked some of it, at least when we were in the shade.The path was beautiful, very green and tropical.Our guide was quite the photographer.He insisted on taking pictures of everyone with their cameras and he especially loved taking artsy ones with flowers and leaves in the foreground.He had all of the spots picked out.He would take our camera and say, “Come over here.I have a beautiful picture for you.”He seemed to particularly like taking pictures of Jeff and I because we’re a couple and he was a bit of a romantic.Jeff was a good sport and played along, but he had had enough by the end.It’s a good thing he likes me so much cause I think that’s the only reason he was willing to keep smiling for pictures after the first few.
The entrance to the Mayan replicas tour
Look! It's the game of the gods from the Disney movie El Dorado!
Our guide insisted on this picture
Free tortillas with yummy salsa-like stuff
Artsy photography from our guide
Our guide was really excited to tell us that this was a tequila plant and take our picture in front of it
The arch of fertility
Our guide thought this meant we would have twins
We are on the other side of this building and the guide is taking our picture through a little tunnel through it
My favorite
Our guide insisted on these too
He made me pose like this
The sun stone
Fish in the lagoon
The ones with the different colored scales reminded me of the children's book Rainbow Fish
The lagoon
One last artsy one
The water was so blue it made the ship look like it had been painted blue
After the tour, we decided to take a taxi back to the port and look around in the shops for a little bit before heading back to the ship.We didn’t find anything we were interested in so we headed back to the ship just early enough that we barely had to wait in line at all to get back on the ship, which was marvelous.After getting so much sun in Cozumel, we were happy to relax and take a long nap before dinner.That night, we went to a show called “Just Rock” in the Venetian that featured the same two singers and group of dancers that performed just about every night.We were a little disappointed.It wasn’t as much rock as it was flamboyant, cheesy musical.Sadly, the lead male singer seemed a little gay and made odd and kind of creepy faces while he sang so he didn’t even come close to pulling off the bad boy rock star thing he was going for.Oh well.Off to bed.
Friday was another sea day as we headed back to Miami.That morning, Jeff and I went to a debarkation info meeting with Noonan and learned about how to quickly and painlessly leave the ship the following morning.Then, we headed to lunch.After lunch, we decided to participate in a scavenger hunt that took us all over the ship and required us to be really obnoxious and disturb people.In high school, I would have been perfect for this.I didn’t have many qualms about being obnoxious, but Jeff and I felt bad bugging these poor people so after we had gotten pictures of 15 of the 20 items, we realized, a group much more willing to be annoying had probably already finished and we shouldn’t waste our time trying to get the last few particularly difficult and obnoxious tasks.We walked back to the lounge where we had started and just as we thought, a group was just finishing up having their pictures checked and they won.Jeff and I weren’t too disappointed when we saw that all they won were some little medals to put around their necks.We headed back to the room and packed and then walked around the on-ship shops to look at all of the final day sales on watches and t-shirts, etc.We didn’t find anything worth buying so we headed up to lido deck and sat at a table and talked and eventually got our laptops to start blogging and editing pictures and videos.After dinner, we continued this and then Jeff started to watch Quantom Solace on the big screen while I went down to the room.The movie had technical difficulties so Jeff joined me in the room and we watched some football and went to bed.
The next morning, we had breakfast and hung out until it was our time to get off the ship and head to the airport.We spent a few hours in the airport before our flight in Dallas and then spent a little time in that airport before flying to Salt Lake, where Doug and Tricia kindly picked us up around 8:30pm.Not exactly the most exciting way to spend our official one year anniversary day, but we figured we had done plenty of celebrating the week before to make up for it.And just so everyone knows, I married the most incredible man and I after a year, I still couldn’t be happier with that decision.He is wonderful.
Jeff and I are sitting on our plane waiting to take off for Dallas.We’ll spend the night there and then leave early tomorrow morning for Miami, where we will be taking off on our CRUISE!!!I thought I would post a quick update blog about a few things that have been going on since the last time I posted.
First, a follow up on the story I told about the wasp a couple of posts back:Just 4 days after my first ever wasp sting, as I was running some errands on my bike, I received a secondwasp sting … on the other boob!!What are the odds of THAT?!?!
In other news, I was very excited to find out that BYU has awarded me a half tuition scholarship for both fall and winter semesters!Yay!I’m finally contributing a little to Jeff’s seemingly constant flow of grant and scholarship money!
Jeff is working hard, as usual.It is never an easy task getting a hold of Dr. Blotter, the professor he works for.But he does his best to keep moving forward with his research and experimentation without much guidance or direction.And let me tell you, he does a fantastic job!He never fails to impress Dr. Blotter, Dr. Sommerfeldt, and Dr. Gee at their weekly meetings (this is about the only time Dr. Blotter makes an appearance and he sometimes even skips out on these)!Jeff has also been trying to get started on his thesis.This has also proved to be no easy task due to Dr. Blotter’s slippery nature.When he didn’t get any feedback, Jeff typed up a first draft of his prospectus without help and submitted to Dr. Blotter for review.This was three weeks ago and as you might have guessed, still no response.Dr. Blotter is a very nice man (it was his decision to use part of the grant from the National Science Foundation to pay Jeff’s grad school tuition), but experience tells us writing his thesis is going to be a very long and lonely road for Jeff.Fortunately, I’m sure that if anyone can excel in such a situation, my brilliant and hard-working husband can.
About a week and a half ago (Tuesday, the 11th), Jeff and I enjoyed a wonderful day at Raging Waters in Salt Lake.We arrived just after the park opened and spent hours going from slide to slide and swimming around the lazy river.Our favorites were Blue Thunder (a slide we went down on a double tube cracking up the entire way – and in the pool at the bottom, I got thrown off the front of the raft and Jeff ran me over with it every time), Acapulco Cliff Dive (a slide that we went down on a little foam raft on our stomachs.The drop was almost straight down!), and The Rampage (a very steep and short slide that we went down sitting up on very heavy plastic rafts, which skimmed across the water in the pool at the bottom).We may be trying out Seven Peaks water park memorial day weekend.
We threw Melissa a bachelorette party at Macaroni Grill August 7th. It was so much fun to get together with a bunch of girls and we had a great turn out. This is most of the group.
Melissa was embarrassed to open all of the risque gifts in the restaurant, but she was a good sport. Then we had the waiter bring out the cake Melissa and Emily decorated with all kinds of naughty things and it was just the icing on the cake. Her reactions were priceless and the cake confirmed for our waiter that our bachelorette party was better than the one a couple of tables away from us.
The cake. Apparently, when Melissa first realized how serious she was about Dan, she walked into Emily's room and said, "I want that."
Last weekend, I got to fly to Dallas, to be a part of my old roommate (for our first 2 years at BYU), Melissa’s wedding.I left Thursday afternoon and came back late Saturday night.Jeff and I were very sad to be separated for what seemed like soooo long, but I had so much fun in Dallas.I stayed with Melissa’s family and loved getting to know them.They are all SO nice and really fun.And I absolutely love her now husband, Dan.No other guy Melissa has dated in the time I’ve known her has even come close!They are perfect together so we are all so glad they found each other.My old roommate, Emily and I shared a room at the Mitchell’s house.She, Melissa and I lived together for our first 2 years at BYU and Laurel (She and Melissa knew each other from high school so she stayed with her family in Dallas for the weekend of the wedding) joined us our sophomore year.Emily, Melissa, and Laurel all continued to live together for their third year at BYU after Jeff and I got married and I moved out.Emily had a lot of fun hanging out at the Mitchell’s the day before the wedding and swimming in their pool.It was nice to spend time with her since we hardly ever get to see each other anymore.
The wedding day was a very busy and eventful day.Melissa and Dan were scheduled to be sealed at 9:00am in the Dallas temple, but when we arrived at the temple, we were all surprised to find out that the sealing would have to be rescheduled for some time after 3:00pm!Apparently, it had not yet been 72 hours since Melissa and Dan had gotten their marriage license and according to Texas state law, that is the minimum amount of time that must pass before a couple can be married.Melissa and Dan took the news well and managed to laugh it off.Everyone just stayed calm and ran with it.Dan put on his ring and we took fake coming-out-of-the-temple pictures and a few pictures in front of the temple before heading to Fairytale Manor for the reception at noon.It was a beautiful reception.We all enjoyed plenty of good food and Emily, Kelsey (one of Melissa’s best friends from high school), and I hung out around the chocolate fountain for a while.We barely got the bridal party pictures in before Emily and I made a total mess of ourselves!I somehow managed to get chocolate from the fountain on my dress despite the fact that I only had one pretzel before the pictures and I was as careful as could be – so I thought!Luckily, I had a Tide Pen in my purse.Not long after that incident, Emily spilled some of the bright red punch on the floor so it splashed on our white shoes!We told the photographer she had better hurry and get us out there!We couldn’t be trusted!
After the reception, we headed back to the temple, where we hoped Melissa and Dan would finally be sealed at 5:00pm.As it turns out, the mishaps weren’t quite over.Melissa has the worst sense of direction of anyone I’ve ever met and Dan isn’t familiar with Dallas.This wasn’t a good combination as the two of them drove alone from the reception to the temple.They got lost!And no one could get a hold of them!We all waited and worried in the temple until they finally got there.There was a bright side: I got to spend all of that time talking to Kelsey and getting to know her better.She is a great girl!Sadly, she and her husband of 5 months live in Idaho so Jeff and I can’t hang out with them.The happy couple finally got sealed at about 7:00!It was a wonderful ending to a VERY long day!The ceremony was beautiful.Kelsey and I both teared up almost immediately.I am so happy for Melissa and Dan!I loved getting a reminder of some of the things that were said during Jeff’s and my sealing and remembering that day.It made me miss him even more!We left the temple just in time to get me to my 9:35 flight back to Utah.
Melissa and Emily outside the temple taking the fake just married pictures
Laurel, Dan, Melissa, Emily, and I at the reception
This is Dan's adorable little brother, Nate. Emily and I fell in love with him immediately and even though we knew it would embarrass him, we couldn't resist asking him for a picture. Just look at him in his little tux with that little smirk!
Remember, they aren't married yet...scandalous!
The bridesmaids' bouquets were gorgeous!
This is Jamison, Melissa's sister-in-law, with her adorable baby girl, Avery. Avery was such a sweet happy baby and just seemed to love everybody! I just had to get a picture of her!
The eventfulness of the day didn’t end there.As soon as the plane took off, I started to feel light headed and a little nauseous like I might pass out.On my way to Virginia to visit Jeff last summer, I started to feel that way when the plane began to descend and passed out the moment the wheels hit the run way (I had felt fine for the entire flight up until that point).I hadn’t eaten breakfast and decided that was the reason.This time, I hadn’t eaten since the reception at about 2 or 3 in the afternoon, but since I had eaten so much, I wasn’t hungry and figured I would be fine on the flight.Wrong.This time, I felt faint from the very beginning and I ended up fighting to stay conscious for the entire 2 hours and 20 minutes of the flight.It was a VERY long flight!I managed to keep myself from passing out by concentrating on my breathing and keeping my knees up, but I will NEVER make the mistake of not eating right before a flight again!
Maybe I'm crazy, but I think the one on the left looks like Winnie the Pooh.
I carved the Kool-Aid Guy
Making the spider legs (2 halves of a pretzel stick stuck together with melted chocolate)
Jeff cut the Necco wafers for the eyes on these monsters cause I was too scared I would crack them.
Even after I told two of the boys in our class that those little nubs on each side were tic tacs, they bit into them and got hilariously disgusted looks on their faces.
Those are truffles. YUM. My cousin Doug was pleasantly surprised when he realized the eyes were mini M&M's, not Red Hots.
