Christmas 2014

We spent Christmas at home this year and had a great time.  The kids are at fun ages and I enjoy making these fun memories with them.  The main gift they got this year was stuff for Dave to build a playset in the backyard this spring.

Zander with Santa at the ward party

Haylie with Santa at the ward party

Getting these guys to pose for a good picture is impossible!!

Haylie's 9th Birthday

For Haylie's 9th birthday we invited a few of her friends to the Desert Wave Pool here in Price for an afternoon of swimming.  Everyone had a great time and it made me wonder why I have spent so much time decorating and planning activities for birthday parties when the wave pool was an option.  I was only slightly paranoid that someone's kid was going to drown on my watch!  I think that is what has deterred me before.
I feel extremely blessed to have Haylie in our lives.  She has such a unique personality that most people don't get to see because she is so quiet around people she doesn't know well.  She has amazing ideas that I can't even begin to think about coming up with.  I love her more than words can say.  She is such a blessing to me.  I look at her and wonder where the time went when she was my chubby little baby.  It goes in the blink of an eye!

Bahamas Cruise

Dave had a stroke of good luck and won a cruise to the Bahamas for 2 from Maverik (a convenience store that we frequent).  It had to be used by the end of 2014 so we quickly made arrangements for the kids to stay at my mom and dad's house and then booked our cruise for 2.  We went in November right before Thanksgiving.  This made it nice because after the cruise we stayed at my parents' house for Thanksgiving and only had to make one trip.  We dropped the kids off and stayed overnight in Brigham City on Wednesday night.  On Thursday morning we flew to Orlando where our port was.  We were on the cruise until Monday morning and then flew back into Salt Lake on Monday night.  It was such a fun time!  Our first stop was in Nassau, the capital city of the Bahamas.  The weather was rainy and windy so the shore excursions we had planned on were canceled.  Instead we ended up on a tour of the city that was pretty uh...shall we say authentic!  The driver, known as Dr. Phil, was hilarious and the family that got in the taxi with us was great to have along too.  We got to learn some of the history of the country which was pretty interesting.

The next stop on the cruise was Coco Cay which is an island in the Bahamas that is privately owned by Royal Caribbean.  Again, the weather wasn't cooperating so our snorkeling excursion was canceled.  We were able, however, to book ourselves on an excursion to visit and hold some stingrays which was really cool.  We also got to spend some time on the beach while we were there.  

The weather was so rainy and windy that the ship was rocking like crazy!  Even the people who worked on the ship said that that much movement was really unusual. It made me pretty seasick the first night we were on the ship.  Even worse was that after we were off, for about 2 weeks afterwards I felt like I was on a moving boat.  It was exhausting!  Thankfully, the sensation slowly went away with time.  Overall, it was a wonderful time.  I am ready to go back in spite of  the seasickness!! Here are some pictures that I took.  I will have to get Dave's pictures and add them sometime too.

Relaxing on the pool deck

The view off of our private balcony in our suite.

This and the pictures above are shots inside our suite.  Maverik treated us pretty good!

Baskin Robbins in the Bahamas! 

One of our towel creations.  We thought a hanging baby was kind of creepy until someone clued us in that it was supposed to be a monkey!!

The Enchantment of the Seas

Another shot of our ship from the tender headed to Cococay.

Swimming with the Sting Rays

Beautiful water and sand!