If you want to see our Christmas post, click on older posts.
10 years ago Denver and I were married in the Mesa, AZ temple. We started our anniversary off by going on a run 2 mile run together. It was fun to talk about our wedding day while running. The rest of the day we spent with the kids playing. We had a special dinner at home (with the kids).
We knew that being in the Azores for our 10 year anniversary we probably wouldn't be able to do much so we celebrated our 10 years in August and sailed away...
We dropped our kids off at a couple of sisters homes in Utah and left for a 4 day cruise to Mexico. We left about 1am Monday morning and drove all night and morning to make it to Los Angeles, CA to get on our Carnival cruise. We were soooo exhausted when we got on the cruise. We could feel every movement on the water and felt dizzy at times because of it. I don't recommend starting a cruise off tired, but we saved money on flights if we drove so we did it.We got one of the inside rooms. We knew we wouldn't be in our room much so we didn't care what kind of room we got.
We ate TONS on the cruise. Show us free food (obviously not free because we had to pay for the cruise, but it wasn't additional cost) and we're there. We had room service, pizza open 24 hours, fruit and salad bar, desserts, ice cream 24 hours and then our regular scheduled meals. We ate too much. If we cruise again we plan on exercising on the cruise so we can eat our fill and not feel fat.
Our first stop was the Catalina Islands.
We took a boat like this little blue and yellow one from the cruise ship to land.
In the morning we rented a golf cart to explore the island. It was beautiful and got us really excited to be moving to the Azores. I thought that this would be what the Azores was like, but I was very wrong. Catalina Islands are more desert-like and Azores is more farm like. Also, it got really hot while we were there and it doesn't get that hot in the Azores.
After the golf cart excursion we went back on the boat for lunch. We left again to the island and rented a tandum bike. I've always wanted to ride a tandum bike. We rode up a hill (which was extremely hard to do and super exhausting, even or especially with two) and viewed a landmark there. Our camera batteries had died so we didn't get any pictures. The way back was downhill and we cruised. What took us 15-20 minutes to get up took us 5 min or less to get down.That night was our formal dinner night where people dress up.
We ate dinner with this wonderful lady and her granddaughter. She was such a doll. She said that if we were ever in the area again to come by and see her. She was a cutie. We were glad we got such good company for our dinners.
The next day we docked at Ensanada, Mexico. A very poor place from the looks of it.
There was a costco there!!!!
We took an excursion to La Bufadora, which was a blowhole. It was amazing to see the water calm and then all of a sudden explode with a burst of water.These selling areas were lined up on the streets near La Bufadora. People kept yelling, 'amiga, amigo, I have what you're looking for'. Once I said, 'sorry, but I don't have any money' and the reply I got was, 'no, don't be Mexican, you have money. I have what you're looking for'.
La Bufadora (the blowhole)
this guy was our tour guide. He was hilarious!!! The greatest.
right when the blowhole exploded. it was pretty amazing to see in person.
Oh, the bus ride. The driver was crazy! A few times I thought we were going to go over the edge. It was a long, finger nail biting ride. Here are some shots we got on the bus.
This buffet costs $135.00 pesos. I think the exchange rate was $11.00 to $1.00 or something crazy like that.
We walked the streets a bit. Lots of very small children were selling little candies or gum while the mother sat on looking. I thought it was sad.
A stop sign in Mexico. All the stop signs here in the Azores and in Portugal say "stop".
Getting on and off the boat took some time. We had to stand in line and then show our passport and ID. If we took anything off or brought anything on we had to get it scanned. Great safety precautions.
Another picture in Mexico.
On the cruise, our housekeeper (? not sure what they are called) always left a animal shaped towel. One of the activities on the boat was to learn how to fold them. We went to that class. We even bought the book so we can fold our towels awesomely (:
Denver's bulldog
Our elephants
This seal was left in our room after our housekeeper came in to make our beds and leave fresh towels.
A frog made by our housekeeper.
Thursday on the cruise was an at sea day so we didn't get off once. There were a lot of activities going on throughout the day. We did a lot on the cruise. I'm surprised how much we could cram in in 4 days. This was when we started missing the kids. We didn't get cell phone service on the cruise (unless we wanted to get charged international or roaming fees) so we were not able to call them. We knew they were in good hands though.
Our last dinner on the cruise.
Our waiter was great.
We played a lot of cards in the evenings.
For dinners we had 5 choices to choose from. It was so hard to decide. Usually I ended up choosing 2 so I could try both. Denver wanted to try all of them so he sometimes got the other 3 and he tried mine. It was fun to not have to cook or clean up for 4 days. This post is reminding me of how fun it was. We'll have to go on another one sometime.
We docked on Friday and got off the boat before 10. Our friends from Philly, the Griffits lived in LA so we stopped and said hi. Angie Clayton (another friend from Philly) was visiting so we got to see her too.
We drove back to Utah all day Friday. More friends (Justin and Kari Marsh and fam) from Philly moved to Parowan, UT so we had to stop and find them since Parowan is such a small town. We found the only Dental Clinic there and got his number from the building so we could stop and say hello.
While we were away, Sterling missed us the most. When we called the kids 2 hours before getting back, Sterling said "Mom, will you come back?" He didn't like to be away from us that long.While in Utah, we had to go down memory lane and see BYU. We went to the bean museum, a place I visited many times with Maelie when we lived there. We hadn't been to Provo for 5 years so none of the kids really 'saw' the bean museum. They liked it.
We met up with Lindsey Ayers, a friend from Illinois who was going to college there.
And then on to Wymount, our old stomping grounds. We went to building 3A number 130.
The kids sitting in front of our parking space.
The balcony. Ours was to the right of us. I did go through and peak inside. I was reminded of how SMALL they are!!! We live there with 2 kids!!!! We had great times there, even though it was tiny. It was great to revisit and show the kids. Time flies!
This is the first anniversary we've had without Denver being in school! He is done! 10 years of school, 3 states, out of the country and 4 1/2 kids later... we're still in love!
