Monday, December 29, 2008

Cruise

We are finally home from out 2 week vacation! We went on a Royal Caribbean cruise the first week and spent Christmas at my parent's house for the second week. The vacation was awesome, but its also nice to be back home.
So, Fri Dec 12 we left Reno airport for Fort Lauderdale airport. The flight was extremely long, 3 different planes. But we did meet up with the rest of Kade's family in the Salt Lake airport. Friday night we spent the night at a hotel in Fort Lauderdale. Because we had been on a plane for hours we were starving. Sadly the fast food restaurants across the street from the hotel only had their drive thru's open. But someone managed to get some burgers, and we ordered pizza.
Saturday morning we headed to the port to get on the cruise ship. We were going to be on the ship, Independence of the Seas, for 8 days (Dec 13-21). The ship we were one was a new ship with tons of stuff to do on board. It took a while to figure out where everything was. On board there were three pools, about a million hot tubs, a flowrider, rock climbing wall, ice-skating rink, sports court, and tons of other stuff. The food was delicious, too. Our honeymoon cruise on Carnival wasn't nearly as good. For dinner I had some incredible seafood dishes (my favorite!) and heavenly chocolate desserts.
The first full day of the cruise was at sea so we got to do all the stuff on board. The third day we landed in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Kade and I had went to San Juan on our last cruise and wasn't impressed. But this time we didn't take the taxi tour, instead we walked to the awesome fort and castle and took the tours. Much better. For the rest of San Juan's pics --> click here!
The next day we were in St. Thomas. We took a taxi to Magan's Bay and swam in the ocean. The beach was awesome, great waves, just a little too crowded. This picture was on the road during the taxi ride.For the rest of St. Thomas pics--> click here!
The next stop was St. Maarten. We also went to the beach here and did some shopping. Kade and I rented the Jet Ski for a half hour. It was fun, but I got scared of falling off a few times... For the rest of St. Maarten pics --> click here!
After St. Maarten we had another day at sea and then we landed in Labadee, Haiti. Royal Caribbean owned the island, actually it was a peninsula on the island, so it was really nice. The beaches were kind of rocky though. The shops there were insane. You would walk through them and have a million people telling you to look at their stuff. We got a pretty cool picture of all the paintings against the hill.For the rest of Haiti pics--> click here!
After Haiti, we had a day at sea again. This day at sea was pretty fun; there were different sport contests going on all day. Like best flowrider, basketball, dodgeball, and volleyball tournaments. I entered the Rock climbing speed contest with Kade, Brandon, Brian, and James. And I got gold! lolOk, so guys and girls were separated. And there were only three girls in the competition...
The next day were landed back in Fort Lauderdale and headed to the airport for our flight to WV.....
For the rest of the pics from the boat--> click here!

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Ryan's Homecoming and Krista's Wedding

So, November 21st we all traveled to Salt Lake City airport to welcome Ryan home. Everyone was excited to see him and curious to see how he changed. After the tears and pictures were over at the airport, we went to Chuckarama for lunch.
After eating we all went to the hotel people were staying in so all the kids could go swimming. Once Kade and Brandon decided they wanted to get in the hot tub we went to the mall across the street to get them some trunks. Unfortunately, we did a lot of walking around, going from store to store. Who knew stores stop selling swimsuits in November... We did finally find some. After swimming, we all went to one of the hotel rooms. It didn't take long to get a headache sitting in a small hotel room with six screaming kids and twelve adults arguing about politics... haha family gatherings are the greatest :)
The rest of Homecoming pictures --> http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2227337&l=baa4e&id=17806428

On the 22nd Kade and I stayed in Utah for Krista's wedding. Her wedding was awesome. I was soo happy to get to go to her sealing in the SLC temple. Because we didn't know how long it took to get from Lorrie's house to the temple, we were running late for the sealing. And then we drove around temple square a couple times trying to remember where we were supposed to park. We ended up parking under the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and running to the temple. We made it just in time. I felt better when a guy slipped in the sealing room after the sealer started talking.. haha..
After the sealing we went back to Lehi for the reception. It was at the Northampton house in American Fork. The house was gorgeous! They did a great job, very impressive. I got there early for pictures but nobody was ready. Because I was a bridesmaid, I spent the time when we were supposed to be taking pictures to curl my hair. Too bad it didn't last long.
The reception was awesome, especially when Natalie and I (and our husbands) decorated Krista and Jared's car. I wonder if she knew it was us...
The rest of Krista's wedding pictures http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2227327&l=2e808&id=17806428
So, pretty much an awesome weekend..