Cruise Take 2

We were lucky enough to go on our cruise before all the chaos of moving sets in! It was definitely a nice break after a very long and stressful April!
So we embarked on a 7 day cruise out of Tampa and went to Cozumel, Belize, Roatan (Honduras) and Grand Cayman! It was pretty much amazing!
After getting lost, twice, in the middle of the night somewhere in South Carolina ( I am not a fan of the roads in this state by the way), we made it to Tampa by mid morning and heading onto the ship.
By the time we got on the boat we just wanted to take a nap. So we did! This was the first of many!
The first day on the boat was fun we played some games and had a great table at dinner and made some new friends! The food was delicious, as expected!
The next day we were in Cozumel. We hadnt planned an excursion and had decided to just rent a scooter like last time and drive around stopping at beaches and ending at the Mayan ruins of San Gervasio. So we started out and went to a beach spent a couple hours and headed towards the Reggae bar on the tip of the island to eat lunch. We had eaten here last time and wanted to make another stop in!

After we left the Reggae Hut we started the ride to San Gervasio. FOr most of the ride you are right on the coast but then the road turns and goes through the middle of the island where its kind of a wasteland. There is a random house and cow but thats about it until you get back into Cozumel. So We finally get to The entrance for San Gervasio and there is another 10 minute drive to the ruins. The road is a long, dirt path, with lots of pot holes, and also a surprise 90 turn. When I say surprise I mean there are several signs that state in english and spanish, dangerous curve, slow down to 20 km.....
this is what happened there...



Ya so we totally crashed!! Not sure exactly what happened but we went to fast around the corner and the scooter hit a rock, I flew off the scooter stopped and fell over and 4 Jeeps full of people were there to witness it! It was pretty embarrassing!! They did give us free drinks and cleaned up my wounds though so that was nice of them! Other than the purple stuff didnt come off all week!!
So we still headed to the ruins and checked them out. They were cool but not as cool as the ones we saw the next day in Belize.

Here is a video of us cruising on the highway in Cozumel! It is so beautiful there! Just turn down the volume for this one!



The next day was spent in Belize! WOw, what wonderful people! Their way of life is so much different than ours and I know that they just look at americans as wasteful! Which we of course are! This is definitely a third world country. We took a bus tour of the city and then to the mayan ruins. We passed many houses (shacks) on stilts, side street restaurant tents, and tons of little kids in their school uniforms! We did not pass one single fast food restuarant (they had a subway but it closed because it was too expensive) and gas here was close to $6 a gallon, probably more now!
The ruins here were AMAZING! When I picture mayan ruins in my head, this is what I pictured!



You can tell how hot and humid it was by the nasty back sweat on Colby! :)

So after we walked around and heard stories of why the world is going to end 12/12 we went to the shops off the side of the road and bargained for a gorgeous hand carved wood bowl! Originally $150 sold for $40!
Then we went to find a magnet (we collect them) and the lady who sold one to us was telling us that she sees jaguars roaming across the road on her way home! Crazy!!

On the way back we toured more of the city and saw some of the parts that were destroyed by a hurricane this past year.
We also learned about cashews. Did you know that the cashews have a fruit attached? The juice is like bleach! ALmonds also come from a fruit which we learned in Roatan the next day!

All in all we really enjoyed Belize. We wish we could have gone out to the islands and seen more but maybe next time!

Day 5 - Roatan Honduras

By far our most favorite stop of the trip! We went to a private resort on a little island that had its own lagoon and beach! We were greeted by monkeys when we got off of the bus! They were adorable and right in your face!
We went snorkeling on the reef and it was so beautiful! The colors of the fish and coral were so bright! We saw a ton of fish and a pretty large nurse shark that Colby and I spotted! We were in the back of the group doing our own thing and I look down and swam back up really quick and started yelling shark!!! Colby started laughing and and the whole group came over to check it out! Since they are non threatening sharks! All of the snorkeling pictures are on an underwater camera that still needs to be developed!

After the snorkeling we kayaked in the lagoon, saw a jelly fish, and met some pretty nice people!

Day 6 - Grand Cayman

We weren't too impressed with GC the last cruise we took. We had a much better experience this time! We waited until we got to shore to choose an excursion and ended up going snorkeling and to sting ray city! Basically you go to this sand bar and a hundred sting rays stay there and swim all around you! It was kind of scary! But really exciting! The craziest thing is you would just be standing there and all the sudden this slimy thing would be going across your leg! You look down and its a HUGE ray! We held giant star fish and snorkeled here too but it wasnt anything in comparison to the day before!

Still can't get over the bright blue clear water!!

We were wiped out afterwards and headed straigt back to the boat to take a nap!

Ever night we had a great time kareoking, eating great food, trying to avoid crazy girl, and checking out the shows! Everyone we met was so much fun!

I am so glad that we were able to take this vacation! It was a life saver!

Now we are almost all packed up and leaving in exactly one week to Phoenix!!

p.s. So if you read all that then you are awesome!

It's her birthday!!

Wow.. somehow my little sister has grown up and is turning 18 today!

She is so amazing and I love that I get to be her sister!

She has accomplished so much this past year, she is student body president at her high school, has great grades! Just landed her first job ever and will be life guarding this summer! Has an awesome personality that people just cant get enough of, is incredibly out going and awesome!

I wish you the best 18th birthday Karli Breanne!

I cant wait to see you for your GRADUATION!!!!!

LOVE YOU LITTLE SIS!

I'm a reading machine!

I know that I have talked about my Nook on here and how much I love it. The truth is, I have never read so many books in such a short amount of time!
In the past 6 weeks I have read at least 6 books! It's been amazing! So heres a rundown on a couple that I have read...

The Giver -by Lois Lowry

This book is very interesting and is set in a society of sameness. The people in the book have no choices. Their schedules and lives are planned for them, even down to the clothes that they where and the jobs that they take on as adults.
As I read this, I realized how grateful I am to live in a country where we are free and also for Free Agency.
I remember reading this in school and not really fully understanding it. It was an assigned reading of course..
but as I went back to read I was able to really appreciate this novel.

The Boy In The Striped Pajamas - by John Boyne

This book is set in Germany during WWII. The story follows young innocent Bruno as his fathers job as commandent takes them to a place called "Out-With". All Bruno know is that the Furor has sent them there and he has had to leave his lovely life in Berlin to come to a horrible place, just for his Fathers job.
This is a fictional story but is still very interesting to see the happenings through the eyes of innocent children.
I highly recommend watching this movie as well, but a fair warning, You will bawl your eyes out.

Water for Elephants - by Sara Gruen

I wanted to read this book because the movie was coming out and it looked like it was going to be pretty good. I was a little surprised when I first started reading the book for a couple reasons. First, I couldnt put it down. Jacob's story was so intriguing and had me wanting to know more. Second, The circus. I have never been to a circus but the way he describes it makes it sound so magical. Third, I am used to reading young adult novels and church books, and this book had a little more adult comtent than I am used to.
Anyways it was a fantastic book and I Highly suggest reading it!
Colby was sweet enough to take me to see the movie on opening day last Friday. We were surrounded by teenage girls and had to sit 2nd row but it was still a great movie. Another must see!

Well the next series I am going to read is the Girl with the Dragon tattoo. Has anyone read these? Are they any good?

Anyways, Kind of a boring update with no pictures! Sorry!

Big Big News!

Colby & I have an exciting summer planned! We thought we would start it off with a bang and go on a 7 day cruise!  We will be cruising with Brittany & Cade and have many fun adventures planned! Our cruise stops in Cozumel Mexico, Roatan, Honduras, Belize City, Belize, & Grand Cayman! We are so excited!
Then we will be continuing the summer by packing up a U-haul and the dogs for a cross country drive to ............

PHOENIX ARIZONA!!

As I talked about in my previous post, the American Express site here in Greensboro is closing down. We had the opportunity to fly out to Phoenix to check it out to see if it was an option to move. We went down there thinking that we would be staying in Greensboro, and left there with almost no doubt that we would be moving to Phoenix. What happened in between? Colby was offered a promotion to be a supervisor! 

We were ecstatic and shocked! 

The written offer came through and we accepted it! 

We will be moving in the middle of June and will hopefully be making it in time for my sisters graduation! :) 

So we have lots to do between now and then, like renting out our current home, packing, and selling lots of stuff but we are looking forward to our new adventure! 

So thats are big big Big news! !

Last Minute Trip!

Colby and I decided last minute to head out of town for an extra long weekend to celebrate my birthday!
Destination: Washington DC
I absolutely love that city! It is so clean and gorgeous! Most big cities have a grungy feel to them but DC doesnt. The metro stations are really clean (nothing like the NY subway stations that smell awful!) and the streets arent littered, and everyone is super friendly! If it wasnt for high rent/housing costs I would totally live there!
Anyways... So we headed out early Thursday. We luckily missed the huge snowstorm by a couple of hours and were greeted with 6-8 inches of snow!
Our plan for Thursday was to go to the temple but the power was out so we couldnt do that. Instead we took a nap and relaxed then headed over to Colbys old mission companion Joseph Harrisons place which just happened to be a few miles up the road!
We went and ate Thai with him and his Fiancee then went back to his place to play Monopoly Deal! It was a lot of fun!
Friday was the day I had a ton of stuff planned! We didnt get to do everything, but pretty close!
To start the morning off we toured the capitol building

Inside the dome "George Washington Rising to the Heavens"

Painting or Sculptures??

Its hard to tell, but it is a painting!

Some of the beautiful mosaic tile around the capitol

Inside the original House of Representatives meeting room

The statue of North Carolina.. can't remember who he was!

The Desks in the original H of R meeting room

After the wonderful tour of the capitol, we took the underground tunnel (to avoid the snow and because its cool!) to the Library of Congress! What a neat place! We started a tour here but were so hungry we couldnt finish! We asked the greeters where we should eat and he led us underground again (thank goodness, it was still snowing!) to the Madison building cafeteria so we could grab a bite to eat! This was the cheapest meal we ate besides the fast food, and it was delicious! Funny part, the guy that was leading us had a crippled foot and was on arm crutches, he was flying! Colby and I could not keep up with how fast he was going!!! We kept looking at each other in disbelief!

After we ate we headed over to the holocaust museum. What an amazing museum. We happened upon another tour going through the special exhibit "German Propoganda". It went through from the beginning to end of the Nazi era and how the propoganda affected the German people and what their mindset was. It was very insightful. I really enjoyed this museum, but for some reason I didnt take any pictures.. In fact my picture taking become pretty non existant the rest of the trip. It was too cold outside and too many "no Photography" signs inside!
So after all that we headed to the Washington Monument for the tour! We were able to go up inside the monument and look around!

 The capito building and all the smithsonians "National Mall"

 The White house and one of the ellipses, believe it or not there used to be several baseball fields in that huge circle!

 The Lincoln Memorial and WWII memorial

The Jefferson Memorial

It was such a fun day! After the Washington Monument we headed back to the hotel to freshen up and go back to Josephs house where I was making pizza! We played life while we waited for the dough to rise and watched V for Vendetta (edited version)! Another fun night!

I did not have an itinerary for Saturday. I had some things that I wanted to see but nothing scheduled. So we headed out and went to the national archives to see all the old documents. I think one of the coolest was the magna carta and the cipher from John Wilkes Booths pocket the night he killed Abraham Lincoln! We decided to get lunch before we headed to the national gallery of art. We found this fancy mexican restaurant, checked out the prices and decided it was okay. Well it was just that, okay. If anyone know me they know that I am a plain food type of girl. Salad with just cheese and ranch, tacos, meat lettuce cheese, simple sandwiches... etc. Well none of this food was umm normal... I ended up settling for the smallest quesadilla I have ever seen in my life that had some part of a pig in it... Colby had 2 chicken tacos, that were filled with guacamole. The problem with that is that he is slightly allergic to avocados. SO the two whole avocados that were in his tacos did him no favors and he was miserable the rest of the day.....
We went to the Art museum for a little bit them headed to the zoo to check out the animals.

 This was not at the zoo. THe squirrels are so tame and will come right up to you if they think you have food! THis one was basically climbing up his jacket to get his food! I almost caught one by holding my hand out but he figured out I didnt have any food...

Animals at the zoo... We sat and watched the gorillas for a while. They are very entertaining! THe brother and sister were swinging around and the silverback (pictured) just sat their. And thats the momma in the background.
We finally made it back to our car via longest ride ever on the metro! found a wendys, and headed back to the hotel where we layed around and did nothing the rest of the night! It was awesome!
I am so grateful that we were able to go on this last minute trip! We had a great time and made some great memories!
Once again I have written a book... Oops!!!

The best gift giver, life, and other things

I am not a good gift giver. If you tell me too far in advance what you want then I will more than likely forget..and get you socks. It is just not my gift... haha
Colby on the other hand is the Best gift giver! Although he can never wait to give the gifts!
For Christmas/(beginning of November) see what I mean! He gave me a Nook! I had heard about the e-readers but never really thought twice about them. I love to read, but books are pricey, especially for a one time read! The nook solves those problems! Thousands of books are available FREE online and tons of newer books are available for a fraction of the cost of a real book!

I have read 6 maybe 7 book since I got the nook! I recently started The Hunger Games series.... seriously awesome! If you have not read them yet I suggest you do!

Then for my birthday Colby gave me an external hardrive! I have been asking for one for a while now to store my thousands of pics on and now I have one! And on top of it he is going to take me to DC for some fun! I am super excited because I booked a tour of the capitol building & the washington monument! They are too packed in the summer but not a lot of tourists in the dead of winter! :) Now if only we could tour the White house too! That would be awesome! What makes it even cooler is that I just finished Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol (also so awesome, couldnt put it down!) and its all about the symbolism in DC, so I am excited to go and see it from a different perspective!
In other news... I was called to be the YW basketball coach! Woohoo! It is so much fun, the girls are great, there havent been any fights :), and I love it! I was also called back into the primary to teach the 9 year olds! THe first lesson I had to teach was on Mary & Joseph how Jesus is the Son of God. I of course am super awkward and find the most awkward things in the lessons. I never realized the Bible talks about "being together" so often. Hopefully I did it with more grace than I felt I did and they didnt go home and ask how babies are made...
Colby has been going through some changes at work! He is currently in a temporary role as a Coach for the training class. He loves it (He loves to tell people what to do :) haha ). Then we had a huge blow last week when we found out that the AMEX center here in Greensboro is closing down. They are being awesome and really don't want anyone to lose their jobs, so they are offering 3 options: 1. Relocate (Phoenix/Ft Lauderdale/or SLC) 2. Work from Home 3. Severance package
Colby is hoping that he is going to be able to work from home. He meets all the necessary requirements! He is hoping that this will give him more opportunities to eventually open his own business (whatever it may be)!
We feel incredibly blessed to have all of the options available to us, they could have just said everyones losing their jobs effective .... but they didnt.
I am also currently working a small part time job, after my full time one! Its fun and I enjoy it. Since Colby works until 130 in the morning my nights were being filled by laziness, but no longer! I feel incredibly blessed to have this opportunity!
So as you can see life is a little on the hectic side! Colby and I enjoy our weekends together (our only days together)! The house is still coming together, we havent done much since it has been so cold out but once it warms up we will hopefully get most of it finished! (especially the kitchen... right?? )
Well since I wrote a novel I will go ahead and leave it at that!!