Mexico!!

   I know, I know... it's about time, right? Sorry to those of you who have already read my mom and sister's blog about our trip. Beware of a very long post with LOTS of pictures! :)

Wednesday:
    We went on the most amazing vacation ever with my family to Mexico for a week over Thanksgiving. We left early on Wednesday morning and had an hour layover in Phoenix. We had fun playing some games as we waited. Then we had our long 5 hour flight to Cancun. Kylee and Brody had gone the day before so they picked us up and we drove about an hour south to a place called Akumal where we were staying. Our house we stayed at was right on the beach and we had the most beautiful sight from our front room (and our bedrooms). We didn't get there until it was almost dark, so we didn't have time to enjoy the scenery too much that night. We always ended the night with either some card games or some home movies.

Thursday:
   We spent this whole day (Thanksgiving) at a park called Xel Ha. They had so many fun things to do including buffets, snorkeling, rope swings, mini zip lines, riding bikes, cliff jumping, and... one of my most favorite parts of the whole trip....

SWIMMING WITH DOLPHINS!!! I loved every second of it and it was worth every penny spent.

We also ended the night with a topic presentation. Before arriving in Mexico, everyone researched an interesting topic that they could teach everybody about, and then presented it one of the nights. It was a fun to learn about a lot of different things, and to do something different than normal.

Friday:
   Friday was spent just having a relaxing day on the beach. We went into town to do a little shopping and then we came home to lay out, snorkel, swim, lay in the hammocks, and play some beach volleyball. We went to dinner that night at La Buena Vida (The Good Life). They have tree-houses that you can eat in, but unfortunately it was raining that night so we had to eat inside.

Saturday:
   Xplor was our next park to attend. We had a blast at this place, even though I had a hurt foot and could not walk very well. (I think I got bit by something, who knows what though) They had over 2 miles of zip lines which was so much fun. We also enjoyed driving the Rhino jeeps, rafted and swam through some cool underground caves, and of course eating 2 more buffets.

Sunday:
   We went to Turtle Beach to snorkel on Sunday. We saw three turtles, two sting rays and a few sword fish. Brad and I made a pretty sweet sand castle. Sadly, we got rained out after a few hours. We came home and get all ready to take some family pictures. Luckily, it had stopped raining, but it was not the blue skies we had been hoping for.

   After pictures, we headed to Tulum to see the Mayan ruins. The water there was so pretty and bright blue.

Monday:
   We had another relaxing day on the beach on Monday morning. Then we went to our last resort park, Xcaret, for a few hours. It was mainly just a zoo/aquarium so we did not spend all day there like we did the other two. It was cool to see a few animals that you wouldn't normally see and in such a beautiful setting. We also had our last delicious buffet. The baby turtles were my favorite!

Tuesday:
    Tuesday was the saddest day of all. We had to pack up and say goodbye to our beach house. We took Kylee and Brody to the airport (their flight was a few hours before ours) and then we went to Cancun to do a little more shopping and eat lunch.

Just For Fun Pictures:
   A few of the creatures that we saw. The spider was NOT ok with me. Kylee and Brody found it IN our house before we came and they saved it to show us.

And of course.. some of my favorite scenery pictures.

   Brad and I are already planning our next trip down there again. We love that place and we had so much fun spending time with my family.

Halloween

Well, we had a Halloween Party again this year. It's looking like that is going to be our little tradition, since this is the 3rd one in a row. It's fun to remember the day we got engaged-- I can't believe it's already been a year! My aunt and uncle were so kind and let us have it in their awesome house. We had about 14 friends come for it. We made all the food (which I won't do in the future). We had pumpkin cookies (they were the favorite and were gone within about an hour), oreo pops, vampire teeth (apples and peanut butter), spare-parts salad (grapes), cupcakes (that were left over from the halloween carnival at my work), chex mix, cookie monsters (nutter butters dipped in white chocolate), homemade root-beer and pizza from Papa Murphy's.  I'm so sad I was not good about taking pictures at all this day.

Ghost and Ghostbuster

Everyone...

More friends that showed up a little late.

The food... half eaten

Games: musical pumpkins

Witch Pitch- try to throw candy corn into each bucket. (This is way harder than it looks)

Pumpkin balloon darts: My uncle made this awesome wood pumpkin, we pinned balloons on it and everyone got a turn throwing darts at it and trying to pop the balloons.

Basketball in the gym.

Thanks to everyone that came and made it a fun time and thanks to Annie and Trace for letting us use their house and games! Looking forward to next year already. 

A Lot Going On

We always love babysitting the Hess kids, but this time was especially fun because it was over the twins' second birthday. We made sure to do some extra fun things this time. We went to the dollar store and bought a few toys.. their favorite being the bubbles. 

We went to McDonalds Play-place for lunch one day and all three kids had a blast.

We went to the park with them on their birthday after taking them to church. Brad is going to be such a great daddy! :)

Then, that night, we had my family over for some cupcakes and ice cream. Lucy was being stubborn and wouldn't blow out her candles, so Ruby helped her out a little. The boys and Charlie got in the pool/hot tub afterwords. 

 Brad, Jake, Cam, and my dad enjoyed biking down Richards Hollow one Saturday. My mom and I drove them to the top of Mt. Logan and then drove over to Blacksmith Fork Canyon to pick them up when they were done. 

We love going to USU football games, even though a few of them have been a bit heartbreaking. Unfortunately, since I am not going to school anymore, I was only able to get into the first game. 

We had a cookout with my family a few Sunday's ago. We went up Logan Canyon and found a nice place by the river. We had delicious tin foil dinners, played card games and had s'mores. My mom and I coincidentally wore the same shirt.  

Vivint held their annual 'Black Tie Party' last friday. It is a fun night were we get to dress up. We had dinner, as a team, at Tucanos. It was so delicious; I definitely recommend going there, as long as you don't mind spending a lot of money. Then we went to the Salt Lake Country Club with the rest of our Region. For entertainment, they had break dancers, a comedian and fire dancers. You could play poker and win raffle tickets to win prizes. We asked some lady if we could just have some tickets at the end of the night, and she let us take as many as we wanted. Brad and I had over 100 tickets, and we put them in the prize buckets of new tires and rims, and a 5 day cruise for 2, but did not end up winning anything. We had a dance party at the end of the night. It was such a fun night, but I was so ready to get my dress off by the end of the night. (Thanks mom for taking our pictures beforehand.)

Check out the videos of the break dancers and the fire dancers.

Labor Day Weekend

This post is long overdue, I know.

We had such a fun filled labor day weekend! It was great seeing lots of family members we hadn't seen since before the summer. 

Saturday: We spent the day at Lava Hot Springs with my family, Annie, Casperson's, Peterson's, and Bundy's. I got brave, after going off the 2nd platform, and went off the 3rd. I only did it one time however, because it hurt my ears so bad. I'm glad I did it though. We also floated the river and had such a fun time. We loved it so much, we did it twice and decided to go off the bigger waterfall the second time. I was on a four man tube with my mom and two cousins the first time and Brad was by himself. He got a few scratches so decided he'd come with us the second time since we were told the four man doesn't flip. We went down the big waterfall fine, but when it came to the smaller one, we flipped and Brad and I were in the back of the tube so we got the worst of it. I got a pretty nasty cut on my knee and some scratches. Brad got some bruises and scratches. We decided to be done for the day after that. But, it was still such a fun day.

The left one is my knee the day of. The white stuff is just some medicine we put on. The middle is Brad's back, and the right is my knee a few days after. I'm a little embarrassed to say that this is the worst injury I've ever had, but it's true. (Or is a fractured elbow, that didn't hurt much, worse?)

Sunday-Monday: We spent the rest of the weekend at the cabin with Brad's family. We had some fun shooting bow and arrows, going on a 4-wheeler/motorcycle rides, playing games and eating lots of yummy food. Brad's sister and brother-in-law have an exchange student living with them for 10 months. She is from Denmark and she is so fun and cute.  We were sad Brooke and Elgin had to leave Sunday late afternoon and we only got to spend a few hours with them. 

Life after Texas

Life in Utah has been busy, but great! We flew my mom out to Texas to help me drive home. It was so nice to have her come and to be home a few days before Brad to get settled in a little. We stopped and spent the night at Kylee and Brody's since it was almost exactly half way. We went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse, then did a little shopping at Charming Charlie (our favorite). Ky and I had fun trying on some sweet hats. 

We went for a walk and got some ice cream, which is right across from their apartment complex. 

We got a picture of all the hats that I've made during the summer. I can't believe how many I've done. Shows how bored I was! 

Brad and I went boating with some of our friends. It was so much fun. I had not been for a couple of years so I was afraid I wouldn't remember how to wakeboard, but I got up just fine. :) I was not near as good as Brad though. 

And of course I've done some babysitting for the Hess'! The girls have gotten so big. Lucy was not even walking when I left. And Charlie can swim all by himself! It was so fun to hang out with them. 

Brad got himself two new toys when we got home. The first is one that he got a good deal on, and he is not sure if he is going to keep it. He's had fun riding it a few times though. 

The second is one that he earned as an incentive during the summer. If he got 12 sells in one week, his boss told him he would buy him a mountain bike of his choice. 

I've decided to take the semester off of school so I have been very busy working. Brad with his second to last semester of school at USU. We are enjoying life back in Utah very much.