.. a pioneer day buddy ..

{ me and j*}

so every year on the 24th of july in the great state of utah, is pioneer day. yes it is a legit holiday, although i don't ever get it off of work - sad day. ever since i was a little girl and first moved into my neighborhood my neighbors and their families have had a block party. now we are talking a pretty large block party. like 40 houses worth of families. oodles of people. we have had things like rock climbing walls,  bouncy houses and even live bands. we all congregate across the street from my house and have a huge BBQ. everyone brings a salad and dessert to share and your own meat and it is just a fun time. i have done this every year since i was 12. this year is no different. so we started up the party and had a good old time. my neighbor's kid, j*, is my buddy. i taught him in sunday school since he was 18 months old. he is a cute little fella. so we hung out. we ate food, including cheetos, played ball and hide and go seek. and of course watched our famous firework show. he doesn't like the noises so i got be ear muff person. i got to hold his ears for about 40 minutes. love this kid. meet j*

{ we made the craziest faces we could}

{ oh and again, except all he did was go cross eyed}

this kid is hilarious. love him to pieces.

.. a race, a first ..

{my race number}

so a few months ago my mother in law talked to be about doing a 5k with the family. i told her i was game. it could be loads of fun. so i started training. my plan was to run all of it if i could. of course that is when work got the craziest and i got the sickest. my body was rebelling, but i was determined to try. on saturday the race was on, the whole week building up to it there was trash talk between cody and his brothers about who would win and all that jazz. it was bound to be a fun one. we got to springville high school on saturday at 7am. we stretched ate a granola bar and chatted, and the nerves hit. i was so nervous. but i was doing it. i plugged in my ipod and made sure i was good to go and it was on. i did great until about the end of mile one, where we hit a huge hill. i tried running up most of it and only got half way, cody pulled me the rest, but after that it was all good. i ran the whole thing, with only that small bout of speed walking up the hill. quite an accomplishment. i admit, i shed a tear - i was so proud of myself and being able to reach my goal. we finished in 38 minutes, not super fast, but that is okay with me. we placed 2 & 3 in the family competition. cody's little brother beat us, he did it in 23 minutes. It was fun and we have plans to do it next year. 

{cody and i after the race, i was pooped.}

{me, e*, mom}

{ brothers : c*, j*, r* and cody - one brother d* didn't come}

{boys will be boys..}

{ family }

{from left to right : beverly, kristy, j*, amy, mom, e*, cody, me, dad, r* and w* - there are 3 missing from this one, codys brother c* and his girlfriend e* and c* cody's brother j*'s girlfriend}

and don't you worry i was sore for about 3 days after, and took a 3 hour nap that afternoon. you heard me 3 hours. yum. 

.. le circus for bebe ..

so as you might have seen from my baby shower preview, a few weeks back my sil e* and i threw a baby shower for my sister k* who is due with a baby boy this month. don't worry there will be baby pictures here when he comes :). we decided on circus for the theme and went to work planning. we planned and worked on it for about 2 months. phew! but all the hard work paid off, the end result was so cute!

{ game at the door, it was guess how many circus peanuts go around her belly}

{ after the game, another game! matching mommies with babies. and part of the spread, cupcakes! }

{ chocolate cupcakes with buttercream icing, yum! }

{ pop of color with napkins }

{ fun little spot, we gave the suckers to the winners of the games }

{ no circus is complete without popcorn! }

{ drink bar, we had these little sodas and mini waters }

{ treat bar, we had little baggies and candies for them to take home, yum! }

All in all it turned out great, she got a bunch of cute clothes and goodies and we can't wait until he gets here. With any luck it will be in the next few weeks, she is already making progress - dilated to a 2 and 50% effaced. Almost baby time :)

congrats k*!

.. planes, planes and more planes. did i mention planes? ..

the last stop on our cruise was to st. maarten. cody had done alot of research on this island and couldn't wait until we could get there. if we could have stayed there the whole time i am sure he would have loved it. we woke up around 7 and ate breakfast and were off the boat as soon as they would let us. 9am. we found a taxi driver that would take us to the infamous beach, Maho beach. he drove us around the island to the french side, this island is half and half one side is dutch the other french. he dropped us off at the beach around 10 and we stayed there until 2p. yeah, lived there you could say. here is why.. 

{welcome to st. maarten!}

cody, as you know is a pilot and studying to be one so naturally this would be the ultimate island/ beach for him. so we stayed there all day.


{m* & cody waiting for the plane}

lucky for us girls the beach and water were way nice and so it wasn't terrible being there for a while. we watched about a million planes land and take off, ok probably like 20 but still.. a lot.


{girls r to l c*, e* & me}



{we could hear it and didn't know how close it was until right after this picture}


{side view so you can see how close it gets..}

 the boys even got daring and went and held onto the fence when the planes took off and got sand blasted in the process. goofballs. after being there the better part of the day we left.


{board is updated daily with the flights coming in}

 we stopped at a mcdonald's there cause we were all hungry and needed to decide what to do. m* and e* wanted to go to a nude beach and t* and c* wanted to get on the ship and cody and i just wanted to shop. so we were tossed. well we asked the cab driver if he could take t* and c* to the boat and then just drop cody and i off near town and we would walk and then drive m* and e* to the nude beach. sounded great, until we hit traffic. we sat for a while in just a line of cars waiting to get out of the town. they only had a one lane road so no way to side track that one.


{girls in the back of the van!}

so, after debate m* and e* decided it wasn't worth the risk of being late to the boat to go see the beach. so we found another flea market and they got out with us. t* and c* went back to the boat. we shopped for about 45 minutes. way cool shopping, i wish we had more time there. we started to walk back and then realized that we had about 15 minutes to get on board.


{took this right before warning honk}

we entered the harbor and heard the ship honk giving us a warning to get on in 10 minutes or they were leaving. so we ran. we made it on, barely. after getting on we headed straight for the pools and showers to get all the sand off from maho. after we dipped in the pool we showered up for dinner.

tonight was a special night, it was our last dinner on the ship. we had grown to really like mario and jr. they were awesome. predicted our needs and were fun to add to it. so we decided to give them an extra tip on top of what we were charged for already. when the guys pulled out money to give to them, mario started to cry. he didn't want to take it but we told him we wanted him to have it. he told us that it meant a lot and he was so grateful for it. it touched my heart, i felt so bad. he has a family and kids that live in nicaragua that he never gets to see because he is on the ship and he just sends money for them to live. how sad! so we were all emotional. after this we decided to cheer up with another stop at the comedy club. after an half hour show cody and i headed back to the room to pack. our flight we were trying to catch left at 11 and we had to be off the boat by 8 to make it in time. so we packed and hit the hay. we got up the next morning around 6.

we did the self assist off the boat which was nice cause we each only had a backpack and a carry on bag. however some people trying to get off with us had like 17 bags and kids, what were they thinking. the cruise offered to take your luggage off and have it for you when you got off. should have done that crazy lady. we found a cab to take us to the airport and got there around 7:30. we got through all the customs and what not and to the gates. we realized there were two flights that left at 9 and 9:30 that we could try and catch. so we decided to try for it. we missed the atlanta flight, it was full and ended up making the NYC flight, yep 3 weeks in a row in new york. love my life. we didn't get to sit next to each other but that is alright. we made it to new york and ran straight to the direct flight to salt lake. it was pretty tight and some how we both made it on and sat next to each other. what are the odds? we got home around 6 and to our house by 7. it was so nice to be home but i seriously missed the vacation.

so we highly recommend a cruise if you haven't been on one. it rocked. we for sure will be doing another one!

.. take a picture, it will only cost you $20 ..

so since i had bad heat rash and the last day of the cruise was st. maarten and cody was dying to go there we decided that on st. kitts we would stay out of the sun and have an easy day so my heat rash would go away or drop a bunch so i could have more fun on st. maarten. so e*,m*, t* and c* all went to a beach and we stayed close to the ship.



we got off and walked around the shops there. immediately a guy with 2 baby monkeys walks up and drops them in cody's arms. he tells us to take a picture.



so we do, then he takes them and moves them a few more times and more pictures,




then he puts them on me.


oh yeah, nice. the little on clenched on to my boob, nice and the older one went for my earrings.





what the? the guy took them back and then told us we owed him $20. for reals? lame-o. cody paid it although not sure why we gave him $20. any how we walked around the marina and shopped a bit. we stopped at a handmade ice cream parlor and got a scoop. really good ice cream!

{cody also go a lime soda, he said it was the best the whole trip}

after the ice cream we shopped a bit more






{cody read this as "comin" powder and laughed for a good 5 minutes in the store, perv}

and then went back on the boat. we decided to take a nap and ended up sleeping for 2 hours, but it was so nice! we got up and ready for dinner and met the rest of the gang at the dining room. we ate and somehow the girls got duped into doing a dance with the waiters, something they did every night. our waiter mario thought it was fun to pick on us and have us dance with him every night. so he would pick either a person, the guys or the girls. it was our night. so we danced and laughed the whole time. too funny!!

after dinner we decided to try the comedy show, the previous comedians had gotten off the boat in barbados and st. lucia and there were a few nights we didn't have one there. so we decided to try them. the dude sucked so bad, no one in the whole club laughed at his jokes. too sad. we got up and left about 10 minutes in. we decided we would go to the magic show in the theater. the magician is named rand woodbury. he was actually pretty good and funny to watch. the show was about an hour and a half and great. after the show we walked on all the decks and checked out the mini golf they had on the top of the boat. c* and i went to level 3 and walked out there where the water was close and lit a nice blue. 

then it was time to hit the hay cause the next day was st. maarten and i had already been told we were to be up and going by 6:30 so we could be off as soon as they would let us..

.. are you serious? i'm gonna die ..

alright so before we went on our cruise we booked one excursion. they are kind of pricey and we didn't want to do them every where but we decided that in st. lucia we would go ziplining. i have to admit i was so excited for this day.

since we had zip lining we had to be off the boat and to our meeting spot by 8:30. so we got up early ate in the dining room and went off the boat. I had taken a benadryl and was wearing ice packs to keep my arms cool. we sat down and filled out our forms, you know like safety things and what not. we then were put on a bus and taken to the top of the mountain.


{on the bus}
our bus driver was neat and told us all about natural remedies you could do to solve illnesses and what not. he was very into the homeopathic stuff. kind of fun. it was about a 30-45 minute drive to the top. we got up there and had to get all geared out. pretty cute huh?

after we got loaded up we were split into groups of 10 and given 2 guides.


{cody & i at the base of the zip lines}


{erica and me getting psyched or scared..}


{boys all geared up}

we had to do a test zip to teach us how to stop and all that jazz. i was so nervous. one of our guides linus, (pronounced lin - us, not like the charlie brown kid) told me i had nothing to worry about and he would help me. and turns out i loved it. we spent the next 3 hours zip lining through the rainforest.


{mid zip line, that gear weighed a good 10 pounds..}

we did come to a tarzan swing. yes swing. you were connected to this rope that was being shredded at the top, nice, and told to run and jump off the platform and you would make it to the other side. um, scary i think so. we did watch one good moment though, a woman before us ran clean into the tree on the other side. hilarious.


{what the.. first scare of the zips}

talk about rad. then came the scary  part. the second the last zip you have to repel down a tree to get to the platform. it was about 60-70 feet down. straight down. and here is the catch. you don't control your stop, you hold onto your harness. the person at the bottom stops you. oh and did i mention the platform is held onto the trees by wires drilled into the top of the tree so it shakes when people walk on it. e* and i were terrified. the boys went first and then it was us, e* couldn't do it so i went first, even though i am terrified of heights. i walked up to the hole in the platform and was tied in. the guide told me to sit in my harness and then hold on around my waist. i looked at him and asked, are you serious? he told me yes, and laughed. i got in and before i got any warning i was dropped. i screamed the whole way down and got a nice mouth full of rope fuzz in there. nice. we finished up and headed back down the mountain.


{us after the last zip. i was covered in rope fuzz here}

when we got to port we found a cabbie to take us to a beach. we were also found by a pothead with a conk shell that was in our face, and funny enough another street vendor saw him and walked up and knocked him out of our face and told him to leave us alone. too funny. 

we went to a giant flea market in town. we got a few things including cocoa sticks. straight up chocolate from the tree. smelt so good. after about an hour of walking in there and being followed by a mugger, longer story, we left and went to rodney bay. not the prettiest beach but it was secluded which was nice.

{at the beach}

the boys decided they wanted to jet ski so e* and i just stayed on the towels and let them ride for about 30 minutes, except they didn't get 30 minutes only 20.



 m*'s jet ski broke down in the middle of the ocean about a mile off shore. so cody came back to tell the guy that he was stuck and they still had 10 minutes, the guy told him he didn't and then left to get matson. yep we were robbed our of $40 for  20 minutes of riding. retarded. we got back to the ship and it was elegant night again. so we got all dressed up and went and ate. it was nice. we loved our waiter, seriously rad dude. 

after dinner e* and c* wanted to try roulette so we went to the casino. when we got there cody decided to play again and lost $50 in the first 5 minutes. ahh! we ended up getting more ice and going back to the room since my arms were swollen and itchy! we got room service dessert and watched a movie and called it a night. 

tomorrow we were in.. st. kitts