Goodbye Big Truck!

Or Denali was needing repairs. It made awful sounds when it drove. It had 200000 miles on it.
So, it was decision time: put more money into it? or get a new car?
We searched for used cars...
But, I fell in love with this shiny new car.
So we bought it.
What's funny is we bought it at the same dealership as we bought our Maxima... just ten years later.
I hope it lasts 200000+ miles like that great car of ours! They now sit next to eachother in our driveway.

CRUISE!!!!

Joe and I went on a CRUISE!!! It was so awesome! We went with our great friends, the Walls, the Eastmans, the Atkins, and our new friends the Harwards. We scheduled it before we even thought about moving to Utah. So, the week after we moved in, we ditched our kids on Sam, Kat, Owen, and Alyssa and took off for a week in the Caribbean!

The festivities began Saturday night. We flew in to Houston, where the Walls picked us up and we all went up to Joe's dad's place for an evening of pre-cruise luxury. We sat in the hot tub...


and in the morning, the boys thought they would join the Conroe Crew team.
Then, we headed towards Galveston to board our ship - the Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas. The best part of the boarding process was the cookies we ate while waiting and waiting and waiting....

We got to our rooms, ate dinner, explored the ship, and went to bed... pretty un-eventful. Then, we had a day at sea - where we just worked out and relaxed. It was very windy, but we still enjoyed ourselves. Joe, Me, Perry, and Nate signed up for a scuba excursion, so because we had to get up early, we went to bed early...

Then, we got to Cozumel. Our scuba excursion was to meet at the pier at 7:45am. At that time, we found out they cancelled our dive!!! We were pretty bummed, but decided to make the best of it. We met up with everyone else and rented scooters for the day! It was so much fun riding around the island exploring. We found a resort and laid out on the beach there... then, they wanted us to purchase more drinks, pay for a chair, or leave. Needless to say, we decided to leave. Randomly, while riding behind Joe (my personal windshield), I got stung by a crazy hornet right on my hand... Kindof a bummer, but all I could do was hope I wouldn't get some crazy Mexican hornet disease...We then found the most georgous beach and Katie, Nate and I went body surfing. The water was so nice, and it was so good to swim in the ocean!! It made me want to go to Hawaii again... but maybe another trip? ;)

While I was swimming, Joe, Becky and Greg went exploring and found an awesome blow hole...

We then jumped back on the scooters, drove back towards town where we did a bit of shopping before getting back on the ship. The scuba divers in our group signed up for the next dive in Grand Cayman hopefully to take place the next afternoon...

The next morning, we woke up leisurely and made our way to meet the scuba group. The dive was still going to happen! We were thrilled because there were HUGE waves on the other side of the island, and our ship had to actually dock in a different place. Most of the excursions were canceled due to the huge waves crashing into the buildings along 7 mile beach and downtown. Maleah and Katie accompanied us on the tender boat to the pier - they were going to lay out on a beach.

Joe, me, Perry and Nate then rode a bus about 2 miles, got on another tender boat (with our cruise ship still in sight) and then onto the scuba boat. The dive was AMAZING! I was a bit nervous because I hadn't gone since I certified way back 13 years before... Joe and Perry had just certified before the trip (so they were a bit more confident)... I had a hard time equalizing the first few minutes on the first dive, but after that, it was AWESOME! The second dive, I went down early with one of the dive masters to give me some extra time to equalize, and that was all I needed. There were some AMAZING swim through tunnels in the reef. We saw some amazing fish and the coral was SO neat! I accidentally bumped into some coral and got some of it stuck in my fingers, but I guess that was my souvenir! Our dives were over too quickly, and we had to change back to a little boat back to the dock, jump on a bus, then onto the tender boat back to the ship. Part of me wishes we could have just taken our scuba boat straight to the ship, but oh well!

Our Scuba boat...

Do you see our ship in the background?

I had such a great time! It got pretty cold on the way back... but it was worth it! I am ready to plan another scuba adventure!!! AWESOME day!

Here we are in our room playing games. After this, we found a game room and didnt have to squish in our little room for our activities.

The next day, we docked in Jamaica. Our group split up again and The Walls, Eastmans and us went on an excursion to Ochos Rios and rode the lift up the mountain to ride the bobsled. It was pretty fun.





Then, we ate lunch and headed over to Dunns Falls. Joe and Brent stayed on the shore and captured the rest of us in the water as we climbed up the 900 foot falls. It was so AWESOME! Unfortunately, it was VERY windy, which made me VERY COLD!!! Not too cold to enjoy the falls though... It really was spectacular. I cut up my shins (my souvenir from Jamaica) on some rocks in the falls, but not too bad. Nobody else seemed to trip and scrape themselves - so I think it just means I am a klutz!!! Joe videoed the whole thing, so I don't have any pictures...

We had 2 days in a row at sea on the way back. I LOVED simply relaxing and enjoying being an adult on a ship of fun! We ATE, mini-golfed, rock climbed, ATE, worked out, took naps, ATE, watched shows, ATE, laid out, ATE, played games, roller bladed, ATE, played more games, watched the sunset, and ATE some more.

These boys were posing for us...

Nothing beats the rock-climbing gear!

Formal night w/our waiters Razvan and Hasan. We loved them!

Watching shows...

Here we are across the promenade shops from the Atkins' room... It was so fun to go with friends! It was a wonderful trip! We had such a great time!

Absolute Favorites:

• Scooter ride
• Scuba diving
• Games - some of them had me nearly peeing my pants from laughter!
• Dodge ball - Greg roll tackled the cruise director...
• Long enjoyable dinners with friends.
• Lots of inside jokes that will bring chuckles for years to come!

It was kindof weird to come "home" to UTAH... I was very excited to see my kids, but not quite ready to call this place "home" yet. It just doesnt feel real yet.