Our Mexican Riviera Cruise

So we are back from our cruise and it is time to reflect on the time we had...We had the best ten days of our lives! (Well Dave had the 7 best days of his life, 3 of them were spent feeling woozy.) No, the whole ten days weren't spent on the cruise but that was the best part. We decided to take our time on this vacation. We were in no rush and I think that is what made it one of the best vacations ever. I warn you now that this could be long and below you see a novel of pictures (which isn't even close to how many we did take and should have taken) but this trip couldn't have come at a more perfect time in our lives and was everything we hoped it to be and more. Going to Mexico is always a funny experience because you get so used to saying "No, gracias" that you bring it back into your normal life or back on the ship where everyone speaks english. I had a couple funny wake ups like that.

We left Friday, May 21 and drove to St. George where we stayed overnight. We stayed up late watching episodes of Man vs. Food (probably my favorite show of all time) and snacked. We woke up Saturday morning, went for a run, lounged and then packed the car to head to L.A. We arrived in L.A. around 5. We stayed at my uncles house in Glendale. We perused L.A.'s hot spots and sights with my aunt and uncle for a few hours then they made us dinner and we hung out. I wish we would of had our camera cause we went to the observatory which was cool; we found out it is in a lot of movies while watching some of them during the week. Sunday they took us to a few more sights and then drove us to Long Beach where our ship was awaiting us. Waiting in all the lines to check in and all took awhile but as soon as we got on that ship we went to our room, dropped off our luggage and then headed for food. Yep, we were the stereotypes cruisers already, there for the food. We were able to explore the ship a bit before sailing, too.

The first night we headed to dinner at 6 which was our assigned dinner time each night. We sat down, met our servers, ordered our food, got our starter and thats where our night pretty much ended...Dave officially started feeling the queeziness. Dave rested most of the night while the rocking got worse but that night was the worst of it. There were a few more times where Dave felt queezy but it wasn't half what the first night was. I think next time we'll try the patch that you can wear instead of the bonine.

Other than those few times Dave felt that way, the trip was great! The first two days we were at sea so we got to relax, get some sun, swim, and yes, eat. We also spotted some sting ray swimming next to the boat. There were dolphin and whale spottings during the trip too.

Since Dave served in Chile, he speaks spanish and knows his way with the bus system so we used the public transit while in Mexico because they can't rip you off. Our first stop was Puerto Vallarta. We wanted to go snorkeling and took a water taxi to a remote place that you can only get to by boat called Yelapa (later to find out we were suppose to be dropped off at another place). We followed our tour guide through his hometown to a neat waterfall and then lounged on the beach there the rest of the time. After getting back to Puerto Vallarta we roamed the towns streets, picked up a couple tacos at a taco stand and then stopped by Walmart to grab some Mexican Vanilla and some sodas before heading back on the boat.

Mazatlan, we had mixed feelings about. The beginning was rough because we almost turned around to get back on the boat after being haggled nonstop for 15 minutes trying to get on our own way through Mazatlan. I had to ask a guy to please, leave me alone because he followed us a block or so and was in my ear the whole time. After that the day was amzing! We enjoyed a long walk to see some cool things around the city, went to the aquarium, saw a seal show, went to the beach, and roamed some more.

Cabo San Lucas was Dave's favorite by far. We took a water taxi to a private beach called Lover's Beach and he was able to snorkel and he enjoyed every second of it. After, we roamed the streets and found some things to buy. I found some cool salt & pepper shakers. I don't know why but I'm obsessed with them when I see them anywhere. I also got to indulge in some bubble gum ice cream. YUM.

The last day was a bit windy and cloudy but we still go some hot tubbing in and Dave even got burnt laying out. I told him he would but he didn't believe me. That morning we tried to go running on the track on the top deck. It was funny because we got up there and not one person was around. I'd guess that the wind speed was coming at us about 40-50 mph. We had a blast trying to run in it. One side we'd be sprinting trying not to fall over from the push behind us and the other we'd be working on our stability trying not to be pushed to one side or another.

We left from my uncles house around 11:30 Sunday morning and arrived in St. George less than 6 hours later. It was a nice night in St. George so we went for a run, made some dinner, and lounged some more. We took Monday to drive the rest of the way and stopped at my parents for a bbq.

As I said before, the trip was everything we needed and hoped for. Now being back for a few days, I feel refreshed and as I could take on anything...knock on wood. Although we ate a ton, literally, we think since we made it a goal at the beginning to walk the stairs everywhere (only took the elevator maybe 3 times the whole week) we didn't feel the weight gain too bad. We walked so much my legs were sore by the end of the week. I'm looking forward to our next cruise, we just need to find a cure for my husbands weak stomach-any ideas? He called me a sailor because nothing affected me, I loved every second on that boat!

Day 1: Board and Sail

Good-bye America

Day 2: First Elegant Night

Each night they would come back to our room to clean again and leave us a treat and some cute towel friends.

On our way to the jacuzzis

Day 3: Day at Sea

Passing Cabo

Day 4: Puerto Vallarta

This picture cost us 2 dollars. The guy wanted 6...come on, I took the picture!

Yelapa

They had some weird statues. At first I thought these were the witches from Sleeping Beauty, boy was I wrong!

Day 5: Mazatlan

This is for Elder Price

The first time my feet have ever burnt

The fish that reminded us of Mater from Cars

The fish that reminded us of The Joker played by Heath Ledger

Day 6: Cabo and Last Elegant Night

Leaving Cabo

Our severs dancing. Ramoan, on the right, had some great moves!

Day 7: Heading Back to America

This is the only picture we took on day 7

The Long Beach Port from our balcony

Girls Trip May 2010

Some (not all, but some) of my closest friends and I took off to St. George last weekend to get some good girl time in. We stayed at my parents; it's so great to have that place. We had a blast! Thursday night we had tickets to Brian Reagan and boy was he a great opener to our vacation. We all laughed so hard the entire time, some even to tears. We got some pool time in Friday and Saturday and we also went to the outlets and mall and all felt like we came away with more than we planned on, big surprise huh? Saturday most of us went to Fiesta Fun and played the arcade games. It was like we were little kids again. Alli won 200 tickets on one game! It was so funny to watch all those tickets coming out. Each night we tried new restaurants which has become one of my new favorite things to do down there. The first night, before Brian Reagan, we decided to try Mexican. Well the first place we went we ended up walking out of due to find too many creatures crawling on our table in the first 2 minutes of sitting down. We stuck with the Mexican food and tried the next on the list of choices, it turned out to be a winner, thank goodness. Friday night we tried the Brick Oven and oh my goodness, did we love it! The service was a bit slow but the food and atmosphere was great! I'll definitely be going back! Saturday night we tried this new American Cuisine close to the house...well let's just say none of us were impressed. Everything was ridiculously over priced for how much you got and there was a charge for everything extra you asked for...probably won't be going back.

Paula Cazuela's Restaurant

At the Tuacahn theater

Brian Reagan Brick Oven

The Pool

Fiesta Fun

Alli's winnings

Counting all our tickets, Alli's made up the majority

We combined them all and all picked out prizes for ourselves

Allison got handcuffs for her prize and chose me to be her prisoner.

We even made up a dance Friday night but I'll have to get permission from the girls to post that...there is some great stuff in there. I hope we can make this an annual thing or something! Thanks for the fun girls!

My Little Garden

I was finally able to plant all my veggies in my garden yesterday...we'll see how they do. I'm excited for the fresh veggies!

The Day I was Forbidden Chocolate

I've been having major problems with my stomach lately so I finally decided to get it checked out. I thought it might be stress related because of work this last year. I saw a gastroentrologist a couple weeks ago and he said he wanted to check out what was going on in there since there is so many different organs and places things could go wrong in the stomach area. Today they scoped me out. I wasn't really nervous because now that I have experience in the IV department and that I have gone under and was totally fine with it all. Well today was a bit of a different start.
We got to the procedure office and signed my life away pretty much, sat down and waited for me to get called back. I got called back and followed a nice lady back to the "prep" room I guess you can call it. She let me change and started telling me what the procedure entailed and all. Then she grabbed the IV supplies and started prepping me with the IV. Dave stepped out to get me my magazine so I could have it while I waited, I later found out he was getting a little nausious as well. So the IV is in me and I feel the pricking feeling still and I guess my head and body didn't like it. The nurse asked if my temp was good and if I felt nausious. As I shook my head and said no she got up to go out of the room assuming I was fine...well, I wasn't and it hit fast because all I remember is Dave walking in with the magazine trying to hand it to me, I started whining-almost crying because I felt so blurry and sick and didn't know what to do about it. The next thing I know a nurse is trying to coax me back to life and had me put my head between my knees. I remember moaning a little cause I still felt like crap but now my head was in a big blur and I felt like crap. Dave came with another nurse rolling in a bed and as soon as they got me on that bed lying down a big relief came across my body. All that happened probably within 5 minutes. I have never in my life passed out and I can tell you now that it is a WEIRD feeling! It's like being drugged under laughing gas at the dentist when they can get some funny things out of you, times 10.
Anyway, the procedure went well. I do like coming out of anesthia because you can't recollect what they did or what was in you swimming through your body and that comforts me for some reason. The results came fast and I'm glad that they found hopefully the only source of the problem, they are still testing other things as well but hopefully those will come back negative. I guess I have acid-reflux stage b and d is the worst. They gave me some strong medication and some other things I need to do to help my stomach heal so hopefully I won't have to take a pill for it the rest of my life. The doc also said I need to avoid alcohol, tea, coffee-those are a sinch, fatty foods-ok I just can't pick at the fries at work anymore, and CHOCOLATE!!!-what in the world am I going to do without my chocolate fix each day??? Dave even is on board and hid my m & m's from me on the way home! He also took my car to work cause he didn't trust that I wouldn't take it out...he knows me too well. I get checked out again in 2 months so I better be healing in there or I don't know what I'll do!
So since I can't drive today and can't go outside due to the crappy May day out there, Dave took me to get a popcorn air popper and a couple movies. I LOVE popcorn and always use the stove method but it take so dang long and you have to shake it and watch it and shake it some more so I am so so excited to have a popper that doesn't require fatty oil to pop the corn. I already ate a whole big bowl of popcorn and am trying to hold back from popping another batch.
That's my story today and the day's not even half over!

Lotoja 2010 Lottery

It looks like this year on September 11th Dave, Ryan, Bridget, and I will be cranking our bicycle pedals from Logan to Jackson Hole. Yep, you heard right, WE ALL GOT IN! We received an email around midnight this morning telling us we each had a spot in this years' Lotoja. Now this year Bridget and I decided we'd split the 206 miles and do a relay. It's still a whopping 100 miles that I'm still a bit frightened by but at least I will only be on the bike about 6 hours instead of the 11 or 12. We'll see how this year goes and I might just want more next year. Even with all my nerves, I'm pretty stoked to do it and put that Lotoja sticker on my car! Looking forward to a summer on my bike! Just wish they made the pads on the shorts a lot thicker!