One of our new vacation traditions is to find a baby outfit from the place we are visiting. We enjoy looking at all the baby clothes, and look forward to seeing our baby wear them someday. When we were in Boston, we found a Boston Red Sox outfit and while we were in Hawaii, we found a cute Hawaiian dress. Now we’re ready for a boy or a girl!
Steve and I just got back from Hawaii! We went on a cruise and stopped in four different ports. We started out in Honolulu, spent two days in Maui, a day in Kona and Hilo on the Big Island, and ended up in Kauai. It was our first time to Hawaii and we loved it…especially being in the warm sun instead of the snow!
The first thing they always do on a cruise is the muster drill. Here we are in our beautiful life jackets.
We went downhill biking in Maui. It was my first time on a bike in a LONG time, so I was a bit wobbly at first, but I remembered pretty quickly.
In Maui, we took a tour of the Road to Hana. It’s a beautiful drive to this awesome little town. They do have free housing for teachers…hmm…living in Hawaii and teaching–couldn’t be much better than that!
We went on a jungle walk and saw the Black Sands beach in Hilo. I loved the black sand beaches. (The teacher in me loved learning about all the igneous rocks–I know I am crazy!) One of the jungles we saw was where they filmed part of Jurassic Park.
It was a beautiful day in Kona and we spent it relaxing on the beach. I got some crazy tan lines, because I forgot to put sunscreen on a few random places (like the back of my knees), but I still enjoyed our day on the beach.
Kauai was my favorite island. It is a beautiful place! We went on a boat ride and saw the Napali Coast. It is so amazingly beautiful. Our pictures don’t even begin to show how beautiful it is. We went snorkeling and saw a sea turtle. We also went zip lining. It was so much fun!
After the cruise ended, we were able to spend a couple more days in Oahu. It was kind of fun to just be on our own…although I missed the cruise food! We went to the Polynesian Cultural Center. It was so fun. We went to a Luau–fabulous food and they have a great show at night with some amazing fire dancers.
Steve had fun getting his fake tattoo at the Polynesian Cultural Center.
We had our official leis at the Polynesian Cultural Center. Earlier in the week we learned how to make them, so we actually had two leis throughout our time in Hawaii!
We also hiked to Waiama Falls. It’s a beautiful hike up to a waterfall that you can swim under. Unfortunately it was the day we were leaving, so we couldn’t go swimming because we woudn’t have had time to shower and get ready before we got on the plane. We went to the North Shore beach and happened to see a Sea Turtle right next to us. We almost didn’t even notice him, because he looked just like a rock.
Our last stop in Hawaii was the Dole Pineapple Plantation. We saw the huge Pineapple plantation and had some delicious pineapple ice cream!
Just to let everyone know, we’ve fixed the images in our blog. Apparently when using Internet Explorer, our images were all stretched out. Now you can see how we really look!
Coming soon…pictures from our trip to Hawaii! We had a great time. I’ve been trying to get caught up with everything, so I haven’t had a lot of time to post.
After 8 LONG weeks, we finally made it to puppy graduation. We thought it was going to be difficult, but they just had us do the basic commands and then they had us take pictures. It was more difficult to keep the hat on Maggie than to do the basic commands.
Then of course they talk up the intermediate class. I’m not sure if we’ll do that with Maggie. Life seems pretty busy right now, but who knows…maybe we’ll get brave in a few months!
Here’s our graduation pictures!
A couple months ago, we decided that we needed to enroll Maggie in Puppy School. She’s a cute dog, but she has a lot of energy. We knew we needed to figure out how to manage her, so that she would be a well behaved dog. When we started we thought puppy school would be for Maggie, but really puppy school is for us. We have learned how to better manage our puppy. So here’s how puppy school has gone.
Week One: We arrive at Puppy school. Maggie is very excited to see other dogs, so we have to keep pulling her back on her leash. After about 5 minutes…Maggie threw up. What a way to start Puppy School!
Week Two: Maggie loves puppy school when she gets to play with the other puppies, but she’s not a very big fan of waiting and listening to our instructions.
Week Three: Maggie started coughing during Puppy School–the trainer thought she might have kennel cough, which is a highly contagious thing for dogs. We had to leave the class early. We later took Maggie to the vet and found out she had a mild case of bronchitis–which is not contagious. We had to make up the class, so we went to the class again on Friday. Luckily we found a smaller class that has only three dogs. Maggie can focus a lot better, and we’ve been able to get a little more help from the trainer.
Week Four-Seven: Maggie has really improved. She now listens to commands like: sit, heel, come, down, stay, and wait. It’s been fun to see how much she has learned. She’s still really hyper, but she is much more manageable.
So next week is….GRADUATION!! Maggie has to pass all of her tricks off to the trainer and then we will graduate! I guess it’s quite the occasion..there are hats for both the dogs and the owners. We will definitely post pictures.
I love digital scrapbooking! When I first started, my sister gave me the idea to create a book for each year. So for the last few years, I’ve printed a book with all the pages from the last year. I love creating the scrapbook and I love having it printed out. It is so fun to be able to look back and be reminded of all the good times.
I know you’re thinking…this is March of 2010, but the site I usually order my book from finally had a really good sale. Last week was pretty busy, so I had to rush and finish the last few pages. I didn’t have time to finish scrapbooking all the pictures I had from last year, but I think it covered most of the year pretty well!
Here it is…2009 in review!
(It was too hard to get them in the order, so I just left it!)
We have officially booked our cruise to Hawaii! We will be able to go to four different islands. Last night we had a great time planning a list of things that we want to do: snorkeling, hiking to waterfalls, biking, walks along the beach, zip-lining, and maybe we’ll relax a little bit too!
Okay…I know that it’s only January and we still have quite a few more months until summer arrives, but we’ve already started planning some of our summer trips. It’s made me SOOO excited for summer! Here’s some of our fun summer plans!
Camping and Boating at Bear Lake
Camping at Jordanelle Reservoir
and we’re hoping to book a cruise to HAWAII!!!
Don’t get me wrong, the snow isn’t too bad…but I LOVE the summer!
We hope that everyone had a great Christmas!
Steve and I really enjoyed our Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve with Steve’s family. We had a great time playing games, seeing everyone’s talents, and having fun with the nieces and nephews. Steve performed a fabulous juggling act for his family! We were even able to have Steve’s sister with us via-web cam, since she lives in South Carolina.
Then on Christmas Day, we spent the day with my family. We had a great time playing Mario Brothers, trying out some of our other Christmas “toys”, watching two puppies play (at least we hope it was playing), and enjoying time with the family.
We are blessed to have two wonderful families with lots of fun traditions! We love spending time with them!
And of course, we are grateful for the birth of our Savior–the reason we celebrate Christmas!
This last weekend we picked up our new puppy, Maggie. She is a Puggle, which is a mix of a beagle and a pug. We both think that she is the cutest dog ever! We have been having a lot of fun with her. Having a puppy has added a bit of work, but a lot of fun too!
We also scheduled a puppy play date with my sister and her dog Ellie. They bought a dog just a few weeks ago, and after dog sitting her for a weekend, we were sure we needed a dog too!
As you can see, it took quite a few pictures to get both puppies together and looking at the camera! Poor Steve was trying to watch the BYU-Utah football game, and we just wanted pictures! He was such a good sport!