Back from the CARIBBEAN MAN!

Sorry it's taken so long to post this, but I got sick after we got home and didn't really have the motivation to post as quickly as I would have liked to.

So I was lucky enough to go on a week long cruise with the office that I work for. It's the doctors way of saying thank you for all the hard work that we do. We went to the Eastern Caribbean and stopped in Nassau, Bahamas, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten, both are part of the U.S. Virgin Islands. We flew out from Boise on the 15th of February and I have a really embarassing story to share about that. So I stayed up way too late Thursday night trying to pack and make sure I had everything ready for my trip and didn't get to bed until 2:30. I had set my alarm for 5 in the morning, but when it went off I decided I needed just a few more minutes of sleep. I thought that I had reset my alarm for 5:10, but apparently didnt, because I got a text from Annie at 6:20 that woke me up. Panic mode set in and I was running around the house trying to shower, finish throwing the rest of my stuff in my bag and waking Heather up to take me to the airport. Needless to say I got to the airport at 7:32 and the lady at the counter said I was too late and couldn't get on the plane. Then she proceded to scold me, "why weren't you here on time, you have to be at the airport 30 minutes before the plane leaves, etc." Like I'm the first person to ever sleep through their alarm and get to the airport late. So now I'm getting frustrated and starting to cry, thinking that I'm going to get left behind and I'm not going to make it to Florida to get on the cruise. Fortunately there was another lady at the counter that was a little nicer, and they got me booked on standby for the next flight. I had to call Heather to come back and pick me up because the plane wasn't leaving until 2:00 p.m. And as if that wasn't bad enough, when Heather and I were driving home, around 8:15 or so, the plane that I was supposed to be on, that was supposed to leave at 8, was still sitting at the airport! I kept in touch with Stacy throughout the day to let her know what was going on with me. When I got to Minneapolis I went to the counter to double check that I had been put on the standby list to Orlando, and what do you know, I wasn't. So I explained to the lady my situation and what I had already been through, and bless this sweet woman, she took pity on me and bumped me up to first class! I could have hugged her! I still had to wait in the airport forever though because the flight had been pushed back and we had to change gates 2 times. I finally flew out of Minneapolis around 9 at night. It was great to be in first class though, I got to get on the plane first, was actually served a meal instead of having to pay $2-5 for a snack back in coach and I had plenty of leg room to stretch and sleep and I got to get off the plane first. :) I got into Orlando around 12:30, had to wait 30 minutes for my luggage, and then called the hotel to have the shuttle come and pick me up. About 1:45 a.m. I still hadn't seen the shuttle so I called the hotel again and was finally picked up around 2:15. Then the driver said the hotel didn't even tell him that there was someone there to pick up! I got to the hotel at 2:30 and when I went to check in the lady said she couldn't find me in the system! I so did not want to deal with this right now. I had to pull out my hotel voucher to prove that I was supposed to have a room there, told her who I was rooming with, and then finally she found my name. When I saw everyone the next morning when we were getting ready to take the shuttle to the ship, they all hugged me and said, "oh our lost sheep finally made it, we're so glad, we were so worried!" It's nice to be loved. :) I'm never going to live it down though. So here's some pictures from my trip, enjoy!

Hanging out in the hotel lobby, waiting for the shuttle to pick us up.

Me, Natalie, Colette, and Stacy

Everyone's so excited to be getting on the ship. Sorry it's blurry, we were moving.

Marilyn, Kenney, Krissy, and Dr. Moss

The water slide on the ship. It's not as fun when you have salt water splashing in your eyes and mouth.

Getting ready to set sail!

Colette, Stacy, and Me

Anyone recognize this building? It's the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral Florida.
Waiting to be instructed on the safety procedures.

Colette, Stacy, and Me

Get your own Stacy!

Enjoying a nice walk on the deck, sippin on my virgin pina colada, waiting for the ship to leave.

First sunset on the boat. It was so beautiful!
First night on the boat. It was super windy, but we had a good time walking on the deck.
Welcome to the BAHAMAS!
Anne, Colette, Me, and Marilyn

Colette and I taking the ferry over to Atlantis.

Aquarium at Atlantis
Don't you wish you could live here?

Who knew I would find Switzerland in the Bahamas?

View of the Bahamas from the ship, Atlantis is in the distance.
Our first formal night.

Colette, Me, Stacy, Jason

Dr. Hess and his wife Tammy

Dr. Moss and his wife Krissy
The whole group on formal night.

L-R front row: Krissy, Tammy, Michelle, Marilyn, Anne, Stacy, Me, Colette, Ellen, Jackie, Debbie, Natalie, Courtney, Sherry.

back row: Dr. Moss, Dr. Hess, Caleb, Kenney, Brian, Jason, Jake, Phil, Hunter, George, Chip, Andy, Tony, Randy

Stacy and Jason

Me, Colette, Marilyn, and Kenney. Trying to get some sun, but it was really cold and windy.

Dinner time! Mmmmm!

L-R: Kenney, Marilyn, Brian, Anne, Jason, Stacy, Me, and Colette

Our Elephant towel animal. When the cabin stewards turn down the beds, they leave little towel animals. This is one of the few that you could actually tell what it was.

St. Thomas.

We took a gondola ride up to the top of the mountain for this view, and it was amazing. Such a beautiful island.

In the gazebo at the top of the mountain. Me and Colette
There was a parrot show with all these parrots performing tricks. There was one riding a bike and another one that was racing to put rings on a pole. It was so cute to watch.
Another view of St. Thomas and our ship. Ours is the one in the middle.
Me, Stacy, and Jason, snorkeling at Coki beach.
Taking the taxi back to the ship. The drivers on all of these islands are crazy! They also drive on the opposite side of the road on Nassau and on St. Thomas.

Our taxi driver stopped to give us a photo op. The island of St. John is in the distance.
Sunset at St. Thomas, getting ready to set sail for St. Maarten
Colette, Stacy, and Me
The lights of St. Thomas
There was a show every night after dinner. They had singing and dancing, a magic show, a couple of comedians, and a talent show that guest performed in. This was us waiting for the magic show to start. The guy was kind of cheesy, and he totally messed up one of his tricks, it was pretty funny.
First view of St. Maarten. We docked on the Dutch side of the island, the other side is French.
Me and Colette
Driving to the beach!
Welcome to Baie Rouge Beach! This is on the French side of the island. It was fun to hear people speaking in French.
I could have stayed on this beach all day.
This was supposed to be a non nude beach, but there were quite a few people who were not following that rule. Needless to say, we saw way more flesh than we wanted to. :(

Taking the taxi downtown to do some shopping.
Me, Stacy, Marilyn, Colette, and Jason

Getting back on the ship. Ours is the one on the right.
Colette, Me, and Stacy

Stacy, Me, and Colette at dinner.
If you look close you can see the necklace and earring I bought on St. Maarten. They have a Larimar stone in them, which is a beautiful blue stone that is only found in the Caribbean and is called the stone of Atlantis.

Taking a picture with our server on our second formal night. He was so much fun and when ever you said Thank you to him, he would always say, "my pleasure." We're laughing here because we each had to have a picture with our camera, and Martin kept saying, take your time man, I'm ok standing with these pretty ladies.

Colette, Me, Martin, and Stacy

Mini Golf on our last day at sea.

Me, Stacy, Jason, Phil, and Colette

Picking Stacy and Jason up for our last dinner on the ship. :(

Colette, Stacy, and Me

Mmmm, escargot! They really taste good when they are prepared correctly.
Saying goodbye to the ship, heading to the airport.
Mmmm, I love hot chocolate! We had to get off the ship early, around 9:30 a.m. Our flight home didn't leave until 6 p.m. so we had a long time to hang out at the airport. We wandered around the shops and had a good time taking funny pictures. We had to do something to keep from getting bored. :)
Who's the fairest of them all?

Well I can tell you who's the tannest! Me! :)

Colette, Snow White, Me, and Stacy.

Finally, an update!

So, I know it's been a while, but give me a break! I have a social life to up hold that does not always allow me to update my blog as often as people would like. :) So here it is...what you've all been waiting for! It's gonna be a long one, so get comfortable. Here are my happenings for the last month and a half.

12-21-07

To start off, Me, Heather, our friend Heidi, and my parents went to the Gardens A Glow at the botanical gardens. It was fun, but very cold. The gardens are so beautiful with all those Christmas lights everywhere and I'm excited for the weather to get warm again, so I can go back when there are flowers everywhere. My dad got some 3D glasses that turn the lights into stars and snowmen when you look through them. It was pretty funny to see him be so entertained by them.

Heather and Heidi warming up with some hot cocoa.

My dad, seeing what the flash on the camera will do with the glasses.

12-24-07

Heather and I went over to our parents house to have fondue with them since Heather had to work on Christmas. It was yummy fondue and there's nothing like getting together with your family over a good meal. Mmmmm. Afterwards we went to this live nativity that some people in our parents ward were putting on. It was pretty cool, but I just kept thinking how cold I was. :)

12-25-07
My parents and I spent Christmas day over at my Grandparents house. The food was wonderful as always, and everyone ate too much. We were pretty small in numbers this year since Heather was at work, and my aunt and uncle that are usually there were spending Christmas in Hawaii. I miss the days where all of the extended family would get together for Christmas. We would have so much fun hanging out and looking at old pictures. How times change when you get older.

12-28-07

Tonight Me, Heather, our friends Annie, Heidi and Brandon all went over to my parents house for dinner and for the annual lighting of the Christmas tree. Yes, those are real candles and despite what people think, it is quite safe if the proper precautions are taken, and in all my 26 years we have never caught a tree on fire yet. It's been a family tradition since before my dad was born and something that he brought over with him from Switzerland. I look forward to the day that I will be able to do it with my children too.

12-31-07

Me, Annie, Heather, and Brandon rang in the New Year by going to the institute party that was at the West YMCA this year. It was pretty much the same as it is every year, not quite sure why we keep going to it. Annie really wanted to shake her groove thang though so we went. We were there for about an hour and decided to go home. We rang in the New Year by drinking martinellis and falling asleep to a movie.

1-03-08

I went over to the Bodily's today to spend some time with my friend Allison. It was so good to spend some time with her since she lives in Minnesota now and I don't get to see her as often. It was fun to see her little baby Rees. He is so cute and growing up so fast.

He kept turning everytime I tried to take a picture of him, so it's a little blurry. At least I caught him smiling. :)

Heather and I saw this squirrel hanging out in the tree outside her bedroom window and thought it was so cute. It looks like it's so cold though with it's arms all tucked up into it's chest.

1-7-08

I went over to the Bodily's again to spend some more time with Allison and say goodbye. She wanted to share a French tradition with us. France has some Christmas celebrations that take place after Christmas and the one we were doing tonight was their King Cake. Allison explained to us that it is a holiday to celebrate the three wise men. They make this special cake and put a dried bean inside. Then the youngest person that can talk sits under the table and calls out the names of everyone that is there in the order that they want them to receive their cake. Whoever ends up with the Bean gets to be King/Queen and then they select their Queen/King. It was really fun and the cake was yummy. Afterwards we went downstairs and rocked out on the Bodily's new game Rock Band. If you've played guitar hero, Rock Band is 10 times better. What could be more fun then involving everyone in the game? Allison was on the bass, Gary on the guitar, I was on the drums, and Jeff did the vocals. It was a blast, and I wish that I wouldn't have had to go to work the next day so I could have stayed and played longer. :) I got some really good smiles and laughs out of Rees that night too, which made me feel good. Just can't get enough of a cute kid laughing over the simplest things.

Could I be any cuter? (If you look real close you can see his two bottom teeth, so cute!)

Jeff got the bean in his slice of cake and was crowned King, then he of course made Allison his Queen. I guess that would make Rees their Prince. :)

Saying goodbye to Allison. Isn't that smile on Rees' face so precious?

1-13-08

Tonight we celebrated my dad's 60th birthday! Me, Heather, Heidi, and Brandon went over to my parents house to have dinner. Then at 7, as a surprise to my dad, my mom invited a bunch of his friends over for dessert. It was a lot of fun to visit with some old family friends that I haven't seen since I was probably about 18 and to see my dad in his element. He is such a people person and can talk to anyone.

Aren't my Grandparents cute!

My dad playing Happy Birthday on his trumpet.

Boys conference. (My dad showing off his iphone)

1-17-08

Me, Annie, Heather, and Brandon watched Stardust tonight. Anyone that has not seen that movie, I would definitely recommend that you rent it. It was so funny, had a good struggle between good and evil, and a happy love story. It is a fantasy movie, but even if you aren't into fantasy, I think you would like the movie. To prove it, Annie was very anti watching the movie, but we decided that's what we were going to watch, and by the end she said that she really like it, and was glad we watched it. I would even recommend buying it, I liked it that much. So if you happen to be having a movie night and don't know what to watch, go out and rent Stardust. You won't be disappointed.

1-18-08

Tonight was girls night! Me, Heather, Sheena, Annie, Gabby, Renee, Katherine, and Jodi went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. I've never really been a big fan of the Cheesecake Factory food, I've always thought it over priced and not that good. Tonight my opinion was slightly altered. I ordered their Crispy Chicken Costolleta and while I still think it was overpriced, it was a wonderfully delicious dish. It is chicken that is pounded thin, breaded and friend, garlic mashed potatoes, and yummy yummy lemon sauce to top it off. The sauce is to die for. It was so good that I asked for some more because there just wasn't enough on the plate. It was so good that Heather kept trying to steal my food, and was even hoping that when I got it boxed up the server would give her my food by accident. After dinner we went to the movie 27 Dresses. It was a cute movie. Good chick flick with some great laughs. Definitely check it out.

1-19-08

So a while ago the City of Boise moved a train that was in Julia Davis Park up to the Train Depot and I have been meaning to go up there to take some pictures, and just haven't gotten around to it until today. I was a little disappointed because they have a chainlink fence around the train, which is understandable so people don't play on it, but it makes it difficult to get some cool pictures with a fence in the way. I took some other pictures of the Train Depot and some landscapes of downtown while I was there before I had to go home because my hands were freezing.

The sun was setting on my way home, so I stopped by the pond that's by our house and got a couple of pictures of the beautiful sunset. I just can't get enough of a beautiful sunset.

Well hopefully this blog will satisfy those of you who have been bugging me to update my blog. (Meagan :) ) Hope you don't fall asleep reading it because it's so long.