Last Week's Activities

So last week was kinda crazy. My brother-in-law, Dallon, left on Monday to go back out on his mission after being sent home from Argentina in January because he developed Type 1 Diabetes. It was a difficult decision for him to make because he was home for four months and very comfortable here, but we are all proud of him for deciding to go back out. He has 10 months left to serve and he is now serving in the Las Vegas West Mission. He is currently in Reno where the endocrinologist can keep good tabs on him and his Diabetes.

After sending Dallon off at the airport, we all went back home and planted 200 trees around my in-law's house. These trees are meant to block the house from the crazy wind that blows out here on the farm. It was a lot of work, but it was also a lot of fun to do all of the work as a family. The worst part of it all, and which I am grateful I didn't have to help with, was reconstructing the sprinklers in order to water the trees properly. The boys broke the sewer pipe as well as another pipe in the process of digging up the yard. That wasn't any fun for them, but at least it is over with now.

One sad piece of news, the family Chihuahua, Mya, died on Sunday, which was the worst day ever for her to die since it was Mother's Day. The dog was only 5 years old, but it had been acting strange for a few days when my mother-in-law, Daneen, decided to take her in to the vet. It turns out that Mya got into some sort of pesticide while the boys were working outside on the sprinklers and she started having seizures. The vet had good hope for Mya, but I guess she was worse off than they knew. Del and Daneen have been taking this news very hard and it is really strange to think that she is gone when she was running and playing around the yard just a few days ago. She was such a joy in our lives. We will greatly miss Mya.

Hopefully this week will be a bit happier. I am back to my usual routine this week, but Alex left today with his dad to drive all the way to Calgary, Canada on their Harleys in order to attend a potato conference there for 5 days. I will miss my husband and I am already worrying about him and the long 10 hour drive there on a motorcycle. Hopefully this week will go by quickly so I can get my hubby back soon.

Cruising the Caribbean

Alex and I along with his cousin Bryce and his wife Sharee just came back from a cruise through the Caribbean April 13 - April 20. It was so much fun! This was the first chance Alex and I have really had the opportunity to go away since we went on our honeymoon and it was so relaxing. We arrived in Galveston, Texas on Saturday afternoon and we boarded the cruise ship Sunday. We were at sea for the first two days and on Wednesday we arrived in Jamaica. On Thursday we arrived in Grand Cayman and on Friday we visited Cozumel. Saturday we were at sea again and Sunday morning we disembarked the ship bright and early to catch our flight back to Seattle.

There was a lot of stuff to do on the ship including miniature golf, shuffle board, ice skating, rock climbing, and, of course, relaxing in the sun. It was awesome!

In Jamaica, we visited a pineapple plantation. This particular plantation grows 17 different types of pineapple and we were able to try 5 of them. They each had a distinct taste, but they were so delicious. I wish I could grow these pineapples and eat them all day long. It was so lush and gorgeous there. You can see the small pineapples in the bushes behind Sharee. This plantation had all types of exotic fruits growing there. There were macadamia nut, mango, starfruit, cashew, coffee bean, banana, passion fruit, and many other types of trees. It was paradise.

Here Alex is pointing to a starfruit. We are all posing in front of the plantation sign. Even though we loved the pineapple plantation, Jamaica was rather ghetto and we would not feel safe walking the streets on our own there. I was glad that we were on a guided tour.

This is a picture of our ship from Grand Cayman. While we were there, we went swimming with the stingrays. They were very friendly and I bought an underwater camera to get some closeups of them. They were huge and amazing! The water in Grand Cayman was incredibly blue and gorgeous. I still can hardly believe that the water was that beautiful color. Alex and I decided we could definitely live there.

We loved taking pictures with the giant stingrays and Alex even enjoyed kissing it. :-)

See how long their stingers are? If you ever visit Grand Cayman, make sure you swim with the stingrays. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and they are so docile and wonderful!

In Cozumel, Mexico we went to Playa Mia beach. It was beautiful and the weather was great. They even had yummy food. Sharee and I had to get our hair braided of course.

There were lots of fun shops to look at in Mexico and I love palm trees, so I had to have a picture with one.

The two Royal Caribbean ships docked right next to each other and I thought these were some pretty awesome pictures.

Overall, we had an amazing vacation. If you ever take a cruise, you must go with Royal Caribbean. This was my third cruise with them and they are a wonderful cruise line. There are a billion things to do on the ship, the shows were great, the food was fabulous, and the staff was friendly and accommodating. We had a great time and I am sad that it is over, but I hope we will get to go back again soon!

Park City

So in March, Alex, his brother Dallon, and I traveled to Park City, UT to have a ski week with my family. It was great because not only did I get to see my parents, and my sister Stephanie who is studying at BYU right now, but my older sister Miranda also flew up from Fresno, CA with my 3 month old niece, Leila. It was so great to see them and to hold my niece a whole lot. It was a really fun trip and the snow was pretty good for spring skiing. I even bought some new skis and boots, but I only got to use them once. I miss everyone a lot already.

Me, Stephanie, my dad, and Miranda on the slopes of Deer Valley.

My mom and Leila in her warm bunny suit.

Alex doing his best to hold the baby.

Stephanie, her boyfriend, Trent, me and Miranda waiting to eat at the best Italian restaurant, Grappa, located on Main Street in Park City.

All of us posing with beautiful Leila.

I'm so bad at blogging

Hey everyone....I just want to apologize for being the worst blogger ever. We were out of town about a month ago and then my laptop crashed and then we were out of town again, so life has been crazy. We figured out that my laptop was crashing because the wireless card freaked out for no reason so now I have to buy a new wireless card. I will hopefully accomplish that task tomorrow so that I can upload my new pictures and easily blog again. Once again, I am very sorry for being such a horrible blogger. Hopefully within the next few days you will have pictures of our trip to Park City, Utah and our cruise vacation to the Caribbean. We have some amazing pictures!

Also, my father-in-law, Del, has started a blog for our Harley Davidson riding group. I have added the link to my blog so you can check out our rides and some pictures there. I hope you enjoy it!

Las Vegas

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while. I just feel like nothing much has happened that is exciting until this last weekend when we went to Las Vegas. We trailered 8 Harley bikes down and there were 11 people from Mattawa that went. We left late Wednesday night and drove all night long and arrived Thursday afternoon. Thursday night we rode around the Vegas Strip and then Friday we went all the way to Death Valley, California. We rode about 300 miles on Friday and we were gone about 7 hours. It was a lot of fun. Saturday everyone but myself went to Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam for about another 300 miles and 7 hours of riding. I spent the day with my mom and dad because my bottom was rather sore after the first day of riding. We had some great meals and we took some awesome pictures. We left Sunday afternoon and arrived back home on Monday morning. It was sad to leave because we had such an awesome time, but it looks like we might be going back again soon. You just can't get enough of Vegas and the amazing sites!

Dallon, Alex and I stayed at my parents' house.

Death Valley: almost 300 ft below sea level.

You can see the Sea Level sign on the mountain.

Vegas lights from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

The whole Harley riding group.

You can see the Sea Level sign just above my helmet. It's really small.

Birthday Present

So...even though my birthday is still 3 days from now, Del and Daneen gave me their gift today and I got a gun! My very first gun. It is a P22 Walther. I went outside and practiced shooting it and it is great! It is light and pretty small and it shoots without much of a kick. I like it. Everyone thinks I should get my concealed weapons permit now. I don't know what I think about that, but we will see. I like my gun though! :-)

Another fun thing is that Del is going through his mid-life crisis right now and he decided to buy a few Harley Davidson motorcycles. We have been riding them around and it is a lot of fun. Even though it is about 45 degrees cold outside, we are enjoying the adrenaline rush of riding these beautiful motorcycles. We just have to dress up really warm.

Family History

So at church in our new area, I have been called to be a Family History Specialist. This year the stake president has asked that the adult members of all the wards look up 15 family names each and take them to the temple. This leaves our one ward alone with 2,205 names! This is a lot of names and I have been put in charge of coordinating the whole thing for our ward. It is a huge task, but things are going well so far, I think. I have actually really enjoyed learning how to do family history. It's quite addicting once you get into it.

Things here are starting to warm up a little bit. It has been in the mid-30's and 40's everyday now instead of 4 degrees. And the snow is melting which is good too. I hate driving in the snow. The other day I thought I was going to be driving over a large ice puddle, but when I started to drive through it, the ice cracked and I almost got my little Passat stuck in it. That was not a good feeling. I felt kinda like an idiot after that and my husband and father-in-law thought it was pretty funny when I told them about it too. For some reason, I'm just not smart when it comes to driving in the snow and ice. Hopefully I will get over that soon.