Holiday Season '09

This holiday season has proved to be a fun one. It started with Jono's cousin, Mary, getting married in the Newport Beach Temple to Eric. The reception was on the boat "Eternity" that went around Newport Harbor. Mary was absolutely beautiful and we had a fun time spending time with family and dancing on the boat!

Wednesday night when Jono got home from work we went to Ice Palace with Jono's brother Jeremiah. I forgot how cold ice was and we all had fun ice skating.

After Ice Palace we drove to a neighbor by my parent's house to visit Candy Cane Lane. It is at the end of a cul-de-sac and all the houses participate in decorating their whole houses and front yards with Christmas decorations. It is absolutely amazing to go around and look at all of it. Here is just a few shots at some of the houses.

Christmas Eve we went to the Gardner's house with the Castletons for dinner, the nativity scene, and the Christmas Eve gifts. The nativity scene was adorable and it was fun singing Christmas songs. When it came time to gift opening I wasn't expecting anything to open. But I got a gift handed to me with my name on it. Jono got one too. We counted down and we all opened our presents at the same time. I was expecting just a generic gift but I didn't want to look around at everyone before I got mine open so I wouldn't ruin the surprise. When I opened the box there was a t-shirt inside. When I looked at it I started cracking up. Here's what ours said:

Christmas morning Jono and I got to sleep in and open our own presents at our apartment. It was our first Christmas morning with just us together. We woke up at 9:30 and sorted the presents. We went back and forth opening presents and we both enjoyed the morning together. I have to admit there were a lot more presents under our tree than I thought there would be this year.

When we were done we went over to the Castletons for a pancake and waffle breakfast. Afterwards we opened presents from the Castletons and spent time playing with gifts. Then we all got in the car and met up with my parents at the movie theater and saw Sherlock Holmes. We really liked it and it was a fun movie to watch!

Last Saturday night we went out with my sister Claire and her husband Sterling to On Target to go shooting! I hd been wanting to go shooting for a while now and now I was finally getting to go. The closest I have come to shooting a gun was my grandpa's BB Gun at his cabin in Idaho. I was a little nervous at first but after that first shot I was hooked! We all had a lot of fun and I even got a really cool shot of Claire (the top left picture).

Jono and I have had a blessed and happy holiday season so far and we are looking forward to New Year's and more football games.

We hope you all had a happy Christmas!

A try at spontaneousness.

Last night at about 9:30 I'm reading in bed and Jono comes in and asks what's for dessert. I said I didn't know and he asked if we had any more cinnamon rolls. I said no. And Jono said, well let's go get some! I said OK! and hopped up and started putting on shoes and a sweatshirt. I could tell by the look on Jono's face that he was joking and he wasn't sure about going out that late at night to drive 45 minutes for cinnamon rolls. Now, these cinnamon rolls are not just any cinnamon rolls. I get them from the Farmer's Market in San Juan (they are the BEST!) So we get ready and head out the door...with a little bit of coaxing from me. We start driving and Jono asks, "Is this place even still open?" So I text google for their number and give them a call. No answer. At this point I could tell Jono REALLY didn't want to drive to San Juan only to find a closed store and no cinnamon rolls. So I throw out, "How about a milkshake from In N Out?" So we turn around and go through the drive-through. Jono got a chocolate shake and I got a rootbeer float. And we went back home, got back into bed and read while we sipped our dessert.

That is our attempt at being spontaneous at 9:30 pm on a Wednesday night. How did we do??

come home

Rico.

He has been missing since Friday afternoon and there's no sign of him. The rain did not help. We've posted signs, spent many hours searching in our complex, and shed many tears. Rico please come home. We miss you. We weren't done playing with you. The apartment is too empty and quiet without you.

The Cruise

Incredible. That's all I can say. Last September we went on a 7 day cruise to the Western Caribbean. And yes, I just finished the post, sorry for the lateness. We stopped at Montego Bay, Jamaica (yahmon!), Georgetown, Cayman Islands and Cozumel, Mexico.

We flew out Saturday morning from LAX. We stayed the night at my sister's apartment which is about 5 minutes away from the airport and and our brother-in-law, Brad, took us to the airport (thanks again Brad!). We flew to Memphis and then flew back to Houston (whose idea was that??) and Jono's sister Kimra picked us up and took us back to her house. We hung out with the family and got to see our cute niece and nephew and let's not forget, Jamin! We talked and played and then got dinner to go from a yummy BBQ place. We stayed up much too late talking and went to bed. We woke up, got ready and Kimra drove us to Galveston where our ship was docked. We said our good-byes and thank-yous and got in line. After a long time of waiting, shuffling and checking in we finally got onto the ship and made our way to the bottom floor to our room. It was pretty nice and we were happy we did not get bunk beds (which is what happened to my sister and her husband on their honeymoon) so we couldn't complain. We were pretty tired so after we unpacked we laid down on the bed and turned on the tv. And lo and behold...Jono found a football game.(How do husbands always manage to find sports games everywhere they go??) He starts talking about what good games are coming up and how he wants to watch all the Sunday and Monday night football games. I said no because we did not pay a lot of money to stay in our cabin for 7 days to watch football. He did watch a few hours but then he buckled down and got to the important stuff...like watching me look at expensive jewelry :)

Anyway, the food was to die for, the hot chocolate melted my insides and every night we left full but still wanting more at the same time. Our table was tons of fun and it wasn't unusual for us to be the last people in the dining room talking until late....we seriously were. The magic and juggling shows were pretty good and I couldn't contain myself during the comedy acts. Our favorite thing to do activity-wise was grab our books and hang out on the deck while we read and watched nothing but water go by. Very relaxing.

So after 2 and a half days of sailing we finally reached Montego Bay, Jamaica. We planned our shore excursion to go zip-lining at YS falls. Oh my fun! We had to take an hour and 45 minute bus ride (which we also got a free butt massage because the roads were so bumpy) and then got pulled by a tractor into the inner part of Jamaica. We got strapped up and buckled in with harnesses, helmets and gloves. It started pouring right as we were about to leave so we waited a couple minutes and it calmed down a bit. Jono and I were at the front of the line and when we got to the first line I was pretty nervous.... This line crossed the river that came out of YS falls! Jono went first and I was to follow. But when I got up to the edge of the canopy my nerves kicked in and I thought "Why the freak did I sign up for this??" Well the Jamaican tour-guide was telling me to just jump so I did and it was pretty fun. There was another guide at the end of the line yelling "Pick your feet up!" so we wouldn't bang our shins into the very hard platform and he caught people as they zipped in. The next line went the length of the river and was very long (about the length of a football field). It was super fun and if you saw me I had a big smile the whole way down! The view was amazing as we flew down the river high in the air. The last line was a little short one to get us back to the camp. After we had a river guide take pictures for us as we meandered our way through the falls and jumped off rope swings into the falls. Soooo incredible and fun! After, we swam in a little pool area and then got dressed to leave. We were all wet from the rain and the falls, but happy. They took us to a little area where they served us lunch and the view was amazing. The ride back to the boat seemed pretty long, but probably because I was wet and cold and had to pee. But we made it back and along the way we waved at some of the school kids that had just gotten out of school. They were so cute in their uniforms! When we got back we showered and took a nap before dinner.

The next day we woke up in the Cayman Islands. We got on a bus that took us to the Turtle Farm. We got to see some huge turtles, hold some small turtles (which were so cute!) and see some tiny baby turtles. After we went across the street and got geared up to swim with dolphins! I was super excited to do this excursion because I have always wanted to swim with dolphins (Sea World did it to me). We got in the water and we each got to perform 4 tricks. The first was a kiss and the second was a dance. Next, two people swam out into the water and one person put their left hand on their right shoulder and their right arm straight out to the side. The dolphin would come up to us and turn on it's back with it's fins in the air and we held on to its fins as it swam in. I loved it! The next person was on a boogy-board and the trainer would send the dolphin out and he would put its nose on our feet and push us in. Jono and I LOVED playing and petting the dolphins and we will always remember it!

When that was done the bus took us back to the port and we found some guys who rented snorkeling gear and we went out for about an hour. The water was super warm and we had fun looking at all the shipwreck at the bottom of the ocean and the colorful fish. The water was absolutely amazing. We looked at a couple souvenir shops but didn't find anything we liked so we got back on the ship. Again, took a shower and napped before dinner. So exhausted!

The last day we went to Cozumel, Mexico. When we got on land we had a couple of hours before our excursion so we asked around for a good place to go snorkeling. We took a taxi (that charged us wayy to much) and rented some gear. We went out in the water and the current was pretty strong so we had to be careful we didn't drift too far. The clouds came rolling in and it started pouring. The ocean water was warm and the rain was cold so we kept on snorkeling. We saw some cool fish and by the time we were done we were exhausted from trying to swim against the current. We got out and took a taxi back to the main port. We looked around the shops, bought some Mexican blankets and lined up for our excursion. We went parasailing!! It was both of our first times and we were able to go together. (Good thing too cause I think I would have FREAKED OUT if I was up that high all by myself!) The view was amazing and we both loved the experience. We just tried to convince ourselves that the parachute was not going to fail at any moment and just tried to relax. We had fun!

The whole trip was amazing and we can't believe it is over. We loved everything from the dancing, pictures, adventures and good dinners with our table. And of course we had to buy a few pictures from the formal nights to remember the experience...don't bring it up around Jono though...it's a tender subject.

We would definitely recommend this cruise to anyone who is considering going. It was definitely an amazing trip we will never forget!

Heart Strings

Jono and I picked out our FIRST Christmas tree on Tuesday, brought it home and finished setting it up last night. While at the lot we saw this little tree and it tugged on our heart strings. So that is what we are calling it now. I think it's a beautiful tree and it's perfect as our first Christmas tree!

Suits and Dresses

This past weekend was a fun one. On Saturday night Jono and I went to his company's Christmas Party in Huntington Beach. I met a lot of Jono's co-workers, talked with friends and ate delicious food and desserts!

Then on Sunday we drove up to El Segundo for my nephew, Connor's baby blessing. He is so adorable and we love him to pieces!

Fall Recap.

I know there has been a lack of blogging on my part. So I'm going to try to make this short, sweet, and to the point.

First up: Halloween. Yes we carved pumpkins. Yes we decorated. No we did not dress up. No we did not go trick or treating. Yes we passed out candy to our ONE and ONLY trick-or-treator. And YES, we did go out to eat at Corky's, our new favorite restaurant, with these lovely people.

Jono's pumpkin is on the left and mine is on the right.

Next: Solvang. Jono and I went on a road trip with Jono's sister, Kimra, and her son, Powell. We left on a Saturday morning and arrived at Solvang. We enjoyed walking around, visiting shops and eating the very delicious aebleskivers at Arnie's! Hmm.... We stayed the night at a friend's house in Lompoc and left the next morning. It was a fun little getaway. (ps. If you want to try some aebleskivers, come on over and I'll cook you up a batch).

And then: Garden project. That took way too long and we ended right where we started. Right outside our door is a little garden area that looked like this:

I will spare you of the close-up picture of the cat poop...and it did not come from Rico. One day I got really sick of it and decided to scrape off all the toppings including the poop. And then it became this:

Next thing you know I am making plans to put in plants and make it a lush green plant garden to beautify our porch area. I went to WalMart to look at plants and got some soil. Jono and I started the task of digging up the dirt, only to find that under the top inch of soil were roots as thick as branches. After a month and a half of having a huge dirt pile on our porch (and then turning it into a grave for Halloween as shown above) and all the large branches taken out, we put all the dirt back. By that point we were too tired to even think about putting in plants. Maybe we will decide on some nice (and cheap) flowers to plant.

Next: Mr. Preying Mantis. I saw him while I was at my in-laws and just had to take a picture of him. I don't think I've ever seen one in real life and up this close before.

Lucky for me the second time I got to see a preying mantis up close was when Rico caught one and brought it into the apartment. Rico was not happy when Jono took it away and put it back outside.

Later: The Big Orange Ball. My sister Claire and her son Jaxson and I went to take a ride on the big orange ball at the Great Park in Irvine. We had been talking about going for a while and we finally decided to go. Admission is free and you can go to the website to find out times. It was a pretty view at the top.

Next up: Paper Yoyo. I was at Pier 1, one of my favorite stores, and they had a table devoted to items on sale. One of these items was a paper yoyo going for $1. How could so much fun come from just $1? I decided to get it for my niece, Ru. We went over that night and taught Ru how to play with it and here she is by the end of the night:

Well worth the dollar.

And Last of all: RSM Lake. While Kimra and the kids were visiting we went for a walk around the lake and enjoyed the weather. I was watching Jaxson that day so he came along too.

Still to come: the roadtrip and cruise vacations from this past summer. I know, I know.....