Cruise Day 4- Aruba!

 What? I missed day 3 you say? Well, you're right- I didn't devote a blog post to day 3 because the picture below is THE ONLY picture we have of the day...It was a cruising day and so we had a lovely late-ish breakfast that consisted of a granola buffet! I was SO happy- I LOVE granola! and Kelly too!

 Anyway, then he had a super serious basketball game with some of the guys from the company- after they were done, some young twenty-something year olds challenged them to a game...they were pretty good, but Kelly and team won! I watched for all of a 1/2 hour or so before I had to go put my suit on and go lay by the pool!! It was a very relaxing sort of day.

 Aruba, on the other hand, was not what I would classify as relaxing.  We rented ATVs and explored the island!

 We convinced Uncle Mark and Aunt Marlene to come with us!  They didn't have 3 ATVs, so Mark and Marlene got this sweet Gator to cruise around in!

 And here are the Flecks...you'd think they would have learned their lesson about hanging out with us, but they are gluten for punishment! :)

 when we stopped at the Lighthouse, we bought a coconut...sucked out the 'milk' and then watched the crazy guy with a machete cut open the coconut and give us the 'meat'- so tropical.

 We had to stop every so often just to take in the spectacular waves that would crash against the rocks and spray every where!  Kim and I are getting totally soaked in this picture!

 Kelly jumping for joy...ATVs + beautiful view = happy Kelly!

 The next stop we had to make was at the rock formations!  So crazy to be driving along and all of the sudden, every where you look are towers of rocks! Big, small, intricate, basic...there were thousands and thousands of them!!

 Here I am sitting by the tower I built.

 This little chapel is SUPER old...I think it was built in 17__ ? Anyway, it was a nice little stop in the journey.

 Seriously awesome.

 Finally we found a beach, and though there was some cloud cover that afternoon, we had a great swim!

 Notice uncle Mark is the cactus!!

Ready to set sail again- another A-MAZ-ING day!!

Cruise Day 2- St. Kitts

 We knew we wanted to hike in St. Kitts...the island is one big volcano and that sounded awesome...so we got off the boat and found ourselves a guide (cause doing it that way cost 1/2 as much as doing it through the ship) Our first stop was this overlook where you can see the volcanic rock...a lot of St. Kitt's beaches have black sand because of the volcano!

 Beautiful!

 Our guide Henry...56 years old and could run up the mountain if he wanted to...he kicked all of our young butts!

 Taking a little hiking break to take pictures...good thing too, the hike was REALLY challenging- but SO cool, a true rain forest!

 Boy Band pose with the Flecks- they had only met us the night before and we convinced them to come with us hiking! We had such a good time together, we hung out in Aruba too :)

 Crazy trees! Unlike any we've ever seen before!

 This is an "after" shot, it rained pretty good when we got to the top of the mountain, so we are SOAKED! (nice that I chose a white T-shirt that day!)

 We were SO muddy! and pretty exhausted by the end, but we could still appreciate a good view!

 Nasty muddy legs...

4 Happy Hikers!

Cruise Day 1- St. Thomas

 Okay, I guess if I'm being technical, Day 1 was actually Sunday evening when we boarded the ship.  But all we did was have dinner and skype our kids, and then call it a night...so let's just pretend that it all started on Monday when we got off the ship in St Thomas! We rented a car with our friends Ryan and Ja'Nette and followed a map to all the spots we wanted to see! We found a radio station with an awesome DJ playing all the 90's hits you can think of- we sang our guts out!

 This is the view from a hill top looking at Hull Bay...

 And this is Hull Bay!!

 Heaven! that is what I was thinking!!

 Kelly soaking in the beauty of his life in front of a HUGE aloe bush (maybe? that's what it looked like)

 And thankfully he saw this little guy hanging out on the rocks just before he almost put his hand on him! He acted like he was totally used to having his picture taken!

 Next stop was Lindquist beach where I insisted that we go because it looked the prettiest on Google Earth...you think I'm kidding but I'm not.  Seriously, I think I made a good pick- it was my favorite beach of the whole trip...SO BEAUTIFUL!!

 Finding some treasures...

 Ryan and Ja'Nette snorkeling...

 I decided this must be a grandpa sea urchin because he was white-haired...

 Can you believe the color of that water??!!  It was unreal!

 We also visited Sapphire beach, but must have been too busy snorkeling because we don't have pics of that one.  We did try our Birch and Sara's underwater video camera though and it worked like a dream!  Maybe there will be some video on the blog soon huh! I can feel your excitement.

 Sunset over St. Thomas...A-MAZ-ING!

 That night was "formal night" for dinner...so we wore our best duds...okay I wore Mary's best duds...and we had a lovely dinner.

 With Bart and Melissa who are incredibly funny.

Towel creation number one...the standard swan.  Love coming back to the room to a new one of these each night!  WHAT AN INCREDIBLE FIRST DAY!!  LOVED IT!

While we were out...

 The kids had  a great time without us. THANK YOU Mimi! (my little sister Mary) for giving up your life for a week to stay with the kiddos.  WE LOVE YOU and the kids LOVE YOU!  You are THE BEST aunt in the world!!

See, no sad faces while we were gone...maybe we should go more often...

Hello, and Goodbye!!

 We said "hello" to a new niece and nephew this week!  Becca's little girl, Olivia Mae, was born Tuesday morning at almost 35 weeks. She is tiny! 3 lbs. 9oz. but she is healthy and hopefully they will get to take her home in a week or so. She is a miracle, and although everyone would have loved to see her a little bigger, we're so glad she's healthy!!

And last night we said "hello" to our new nephew...no name...I'm sure Logan and Julia will come up with a great one soon! :) He was the opposite of Becca's baby, weighing in at 8 lbs 10oz!  Way to go Jules!

 Because Nana and Papa had Becca's kids and because Spokane is sort of on the way to Utah from Seattle, we also said "hello" to cousins!  Ella and Clay were here...but only for a night.  The kids savored every moment together!  They love each other!!

And finally on Thursday we said "Hello" to Mary! We love her so much and are so grateful that she is here so that we can say "GOODBYE" and leave for our cruise...in like 8 hours!...I'M SO EXCITED!!

Happy President's Day!

You will never guess what just happened...I am standing here in the office putting Maren to sleep- and I hear the garbage man. Am I the only one that panics when they hear the sound of the garbage truck?  Every time he comes down the street I think  "Did I remember to put the garbage out??!!" and most often the answer is yes. TODAY HOWEVER, I panicked and then panicked even more because I HAD NOT remembered to put the garbage out! and then the most remarkable thing happened- the Garbage Man was suddenly walking up my driveway, grabbing my can, and emptying it- CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?  I layed Maren down and scoured my house for a treat to give him when he came back down the opposite side of the street...I found some M&M's and wrote him a little thank you- seriously, that just made my day! What a nice guy!!

My Happy Maren is just about crawling. She can get up on her knees and rock back and forth- but then drops to her tummy again and scoots to where she wants to go.  She has been eating everything! She is so happy to be around her siblings- they make her laugh...and sometimes cry :) 

 Speaking of them making people laugh- Here are Addison and Laynie making themselves fat. They think they are so hillarious!  They stuffed their clothes with other clothes (the ones they were supposed to be picking up so I could do laundry) and then laughed and laughed at each other.  After family prayer our song was "we are a fatty fat family."

We had a nice weekend that consisted of a little shopping- Old Navy had some amazing deals!  A new haircut for me- woohoo!  I feel like a new woman!

Kelly's scout auction was Saturday night and it was a huge success- they had some great donations and made over $3000 for the scouts to go to camp this year! Just for the record, my cake pops went for $55 :)  We also bought a big beautiful white chocolate raspberry cake that we shared with friends and family after Sunday dinner!

How was your weekend?

More Mustaches for Valentines Day!

 This year I tried something new for Valentine Breakfast...gone are the days of pink heart-shaped pancakes, noooo...Let's go for TWICE the fun and flavor (and at least twice the calories) and do heart-shaped cinnamon rolls!!! (once again, thank you pinterest!) Here some pics of the process:

 I rolled the dough from each side towards the middle, cut it, and pinched the bottom to form the heart shape.

 I was a little scared that they wouldn't hold their shape after rising/baking, but...

 THEY DID! and not only did they look great, the tasted SOOOO good! (my mom's recipe, so anyone who has had her cinnamon rolls knows exactly what I'm talking about.)

 And now for some of the more personal Valentine's wishes that were given this morning; one from Laynie:

 (I love you Addison, I thought you would like a Valentine)

Is that heart-melting or what??

And one for me:

Dear mommy, I love you. But I am so sorry I was ignoring you. I promise I will try to do better. But I love you. And you are my favorite person in the world. Please Please Please forgive me thank you.

triple love, (your only son) xoxo Addy

Also melted my heart.

Happy Valentine's Day.