Thought of the Day

“Pray for the love which allows you to see the good in your companion. Pray for the love that makes weaknesses and mistakes seem small. Pray for the love to make your companion’s joy your own. Pray for the love to want to lessen the load and soften the sorrows of your companion.”

-President Eyring


Thank you President Eyring for reminding us all about what what we should be striving for!

Our time in the Caribbean

As you might have guessed, we have safely returned home from the caribbean.  While we're still pretty horrid at taking pictures, we didn't come home completely empty-handed and here is our post to prove it.

Our cruise made 4 stops: Belize, Isla Routan, Cozumel, and Costa Maya.  We decided early on that this cruise represented our big chance to try new things, so almost our entire spending budget went toward excursions and we enjoyed EACH and EVERY minute of it! 

One of the biggest things that stands about to me about our cruise experience and consequently one of the things I get asked most about is the food.  Imagine yourself being completely surrounded by food ALL THE TIME!  We're talking buffet lines, fancy eateries, room service, you name it.  It is ALWAYS there!  Ugh.  Seriously, I'm feeling ill just talking about it.  We knew instantly that we would be eating way more food than our bodies were used to so the first thing we did was outlaw the elevators.  Literally.  We did not touch the elevators the entire week (unless you count Tyler habitually pushing all the buttons every time he walked by them) and thank goodness that helped us out a little bit.  There were 12 decks on this ship so you can imagine.... just walking up to the 12th deck was a bit of a workout after eating an entire four course dinner.

Another thing that stands out is the tipping.  Oh the tipping!  Sometimes I forget how lucky we are in America to be able to look at a price list and understand how much money will be expected of us for a desired service/product; not so in other countries.  I've noticed this especially in Mexico but we still saw it in Belize and Routan as well.  Basically if you look at someone the wrong way, or the right way as the case may be, talk to them, or succomb to them volunteering to help you in any way, shape, or form, you owe them a tip.  It is exhausting after a while.  I think we spent $80 in tips outside of the cruise ship.  Of course once you're on the cruise ship, certain tips are automatically deducted from your account but overall I would guess that around $200 went only to tips.  Sheesh.

Instead of writing about all our experiences, I'll sum them up for you.  Here is a list of all the new things we tried:

• Cave Tubing
• Zip Lining
• Parasailing
• Snuba
• Exploration of a new-to-us set of Mayan ruins
• Duck (as in we ate it)
• Baked Alaskan
• Red Snapper
• Chilled strawberry soup
• Chocolate melty cake  mmm....
• Vegetarian lasagna
• Line dancing in a fancy restaurant
• Letting my hair stay naturally curly (Wow!  Talk about a red afro!  Please see pics below as proof)
• Living on a Cruise ship for a week
• Meals ordered in through room service
• Several different shows/musical performances onboard (street dancing was the ultimate)
• Sleeping with a down comforter in a room with zero lighting (heavenly)
• Water slides on the top deck in freezing cold weather (which resulted in Shaela screaming and jumping out of the pool)
• Seeing one of the most poisionous fish in existence hanging out in the wild
• Watching a shark and eel be fed by hand

Overall it was a glorious experience and we feel so fortunate to have been able to do this together.  We saw some breathtakingly beautiful sights, met some incredible people, and enjoyed learning about other cultures.

One more thing before I end this post: We spent a lot of time talking to three young men in Belize and it was rather eye-opening.  These boys know natural remedies for every ailment in existence (or so it seemed).  It was so cool to talk to them!  They told us all about how to combat poisonous plants, which bark to boil for which type of illness, which insects would be good in a tea for Tyler's asthma, etc...  Wow!  These people do not have access to great medical care so they create it on their own using Mother Nature.  I find it so fascinating!  Obviously you can't always rely on herbal remedies, but oh how I wish we could find a way to create a better mixture of both modern and alternative medicine.

A real Lamanite village!

The most beautiful beach I have ever seen!  But guess what?  There were naked people all over the place!

Remember what I said about curly hair?  Just watch the progression.  It took a few days to figure out how to tame it.

Zip lines in Belize.  Such a blast!

BEAUTIFUL!!!  We truly do live in a desert.

The only picture we took on our parasailing adventure.  We are terrible.

Tyler on a beach called "Banana Ramma"  So fun!

Here we are with Ty's parentals and a lovely lady from Serbia who we loved getting to know during our meal times!  She helped us find food that Tyler could eat each night.

The room staff left us a lovely creation like this one each night on our bed.  So cute!

Anyone who tells you that the Caribbean is always warm is LYING!

These water slides were on the top deck and it was freezing outside but totally worth  the challenge!

How cool would it be to feed a shark by hand?!

Davis County Ballroom Dancing

I realize that because of your location, this is not going to be an option for many of you.  Sad day.  But for those of you who live nearby Davis County.....

Davis County Ballroom is hosting two dance nights for adult couples and it sounds like tons of fun!
 
If you've never danced before but want to try it out, this is a great opportunity because they are offering free dance instruction before the actual dance event starts. 

Unfortunately I am not getting any kick-backs for promoting this event so you can zap that idea right out of your little heads.  I just think it sounds fun and wish that all of you would come with me!  I'm not sure when we're going just yet, but it definitely sounds like something I'd like to attend.

Here is their flyer for more info (just click on the image for a full view):

Am I boring?

P.S.  One quick question for anyone who is brave enough to answer--  Ever since I started this blog, I've wondered why Blogger offered so few font options.  It felt like all of the offered fonts were so dull and displayed no sense of personality.  Today I noticed that my concerns were met; Blogger has at last joined the world of cute fonts and there are so many cute options to choose from!  Hooray!
The only problem is that each time I chose a font and applied it to my blog, I couldn't help but utter an unsatisfied sigh/grunt.  I found myself thinking in a grumbling sort of way about how I wouldn't take the time to read a blog if it required me to read long passages in fonts like that.  I've read about how sans serif is supposedly easier on the eye, but I also wonder if part of it is just that I'm a lazy reader and regular fonts require much less effort on my part as the reader.
Either way, this is the most exciting option I could come up with.  Does that make me a boring person?

I'm behind

As evident by our lack of posts here, I'm behind on my blogging duties.  Drat.  On the mostly plus side though, my time has recently been gobbled up by planning for our biggest adventure yet... the Western Caribbean cruise we've been dreaming about.  Rejoice!

Unfortunately I finally have a second to blog and I do not have my camera with me which includes the other Christmas adventure I wanted to post about.  I guess those will have to come later.  In the meantime, I do have access to some lovely images of my birthday trip, so let's skip ahead for a bit, shall we? 

Turning 24 this year totally rocked!  I don't know why I didn't start doing this years ago, but I decided to take the day off for my birthday in order to enjoy the sunlight and use our new snow shoes.  It was absolutely fantastic!  Snow shoeing is now one of my favorite forms of exercise and it was so beautiful!  Thanks to Tyler for making my day blissful and perfect!  He made every possible preparation- researched what kind/how many layers of clothing and gear we needed to wear, prepared sack lunches, readied my new backpack, etc...   I even made him dig through my parents' shed to find some ski poles for us to borrow and that was a pretty miserable thing to do in the cold, dark night.  In the end though, it was beyond worth it.

One of the many reasons I LOVE Utah!  Is this beautiful or what?!  It was so fun to trek deep in the mountains where we got to see beautiful views like this that were not accessible in the car.

We are kind of nerdy.  But we love it!

I was all geared up like this for about 45 minutes.  From that point on, I couldn't get enough of this super thick, warm gear off of me.  It was so hot!  But all it took was a resting break to remind us that the temperatures were actually well below freezing.

Can you say gorgeous? That applies to both Tyler and the view.  I loved this spot along the trail because we found a little river that was mostly frozen over but you could still see the water flowing underneath it.

These last two pictures represent my best efforts to capture our snow art on camera.  In my defense, I couldn't even see the screen on my phone because the snow was so bright.  Anyway, you get the idea.

I'm now two dozen years old and I have to say that if every future birthday turns out to be as good as this one, bring it on!

Now you're probably wondering what this last picture has to do with snow shoeing in January.  Allow me to explain.  If you don't hear from us for a while, don't mind us, we're just living life to the fullest on this giant.  Wish us luck and take care! 

Adventure #2: Family Christmas Party

Family Christmas parties are always a blast, but since this year's ugly sweater Christmas party included the best sweater I have yet laid eyes on, it was particularly memorable.

The competition was fierce.

Who needs a Macy's when you can handicraft your own attire using some hot glue and fresh-off-the-lawn pine cones?

Then there was this little beauty-- a shirt with as big a personality as... dare we say it?  It's wearer.  Jake seemed a little too confident in this eyesore.

Aw the famous "Y"... at an ugly sweater party.  Bet you can't tell what school our family favors, can you?

Tyler is modeling our cowboy meets biker look here.  The practicality of nice flannel combined with the classy physique of leather accessories wrapped up into one bright package?  No, it's not too good to be true.

Don't let the ruggedly handsome appearance of this little number fool you.  This looker was in fact stolen from our model's Mother's closet.  What a find!

Complete with battery powered flashing lights, this sweater is sure to help you reminisce of yesteryear when every John and Jane had flashy festive sweaters that screamed out, "Pass the egg nog ladies and gents!  There's a new caroler in town!"

Who says this sweater is out of date?!  A little tinsel here, a little tinsel there, and it's hipper than hip.



As seen here, Kelsi is channeling the Great Southwest in her Native American-like patterns and desert color scheme but more importantly, her outfit reminds us all of one monumental fact: shoulder pads never go out of style.



 


 

True, each of these sweaters brought their own wonderful contributions to the party, but in the end only one could walk away with the coveted 2010 ugliest sweater title.  That honor was rightly earned by this piece of eye candy:



We love everything from the upside down, slightly tipsy looking Frosty, to the awkwardly placed jingle bells.  But mostly, we're fans of the best feature about this sweater-- the ten inch long stuffed carrot protruding out from the mid section.  Nothing brought me closer to spitting out my mouthful of root beer like hearing someone ask loudly, "Is that a carrot or are you happy to see me?" 

Game over.  Game over.



Since blogger keeps protesting my posting of the sweater on the right here and I wanted to find a picture with a better view of the 2010 ugliest sweater winner, I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone by displaying this pic instead.  Hopefully this one will give you a better idea of just what was so hilarious about this year's winner.  On his left, you'll notice another favorite among this year's stars; the cheermeister made an appearance at our family Christmas party this year and anyone who has seen Jim Carey in The Grinch will surely appreciate the authenticity of this replica.





I would love to post pictures of everyone on here, but I'm afraid I'm just not patient enough for that. This will have to do.  We are so thankful to be surrounded by such a wonderful family during the Christmas season and for all the laughs we were able to share with them this year.  Thanks to all who participated and we hope everyone else's festivities were just as enjoyable.



Temple Square

My original intention for this post was to include 3 different activities that we've been able to participate in the past few weeks.  Unfortunately I don't have my camera with me and I don't want to put it off any longer, so I guess we'll have to do this in short sets instead.  So... stay tuned.  There's more to come and I know you're all sitting on pins and needles waiting to hear about what exciting activities have consumed our lives as of late.

Adventure #1:  Night on the Town

Last night we went out with our friends Jordan, Steve, Eric, and Chelsey.  It was so much fun!  We all went out to dinner at Tucanos at the Gateway and oh my was it tasty!  Of course I didn't think to take any pictures of it, but it was a lot of fun to try new foods.  For any of you who haven't had a chance to try this place out, it's a lot like Rodizios.  According to Steve, our chicken heart connoisseur, their chicken hearts far surpass those served as Rodizios. 

After dinner we all headed to Temple Square where we walked around in the rain and admired all the beautiful lights.  We even ran into Tim and Amanda!  Why did we not get pictures with them??  Ugh.

Anyway, the lights were beautiful as always, but I couldn't help but notice that they seemed scarcer this year than they have in the past.  Has anyone else noticed this or am I just crazy?

At this point, you might be annoyed with my total lack of visual documentation of our night and I don't blame you... I'm terrible.  BUT I did walk away with these three beauties, thanks to our phones:

Check it out!  The glare in this picture creates the illusion that Tyler is carrying some sort of a satchel AKA man purse.  Do you see it?  I'm not sure how that happend.  Sadly, this is not the case.  The view is lovely though, is it not?

I'm including Steve and Jordan's picture because, well that's what they get for letting me take it on my phone.  The more pictures, the merrier, right?  We sure had fun with them!

Basically the night was totally awesome and we are so thankful for all the great people and wonderful friends we have in our lives!  Hopefully you are all gearing up for Christmas and cherishing this time of year.  Happy Christmas!!