20-30

This is late, but I told myself I'd finish, so here are my Thanks-giving #20-30:
20- Vacations, especially when they're REALLY needed.
21- Beautiful places on this earth that are a treat for the senses.
22- The Gospel of the church I belong to. It brings so much hope and peace to me, especially when I'm feeling the most down.
23- Decorations. They can really warm up a space; even if I'm not very good at it, our house looks a lot homier now.
24- The beautiful sky that seems to go on forever sometimes. It always amazes me when I have the chance to sit and stare at it's vastness.
25- Hot cocoa. It's a nice little chocolate fix, and it's nice to get warmed up.
26- A washer and dryer. I can't imagine having to do laundry in the winter the way they did "way back when".
27- Our dependable car. Even though I don't get to use it that often, I'm glad it's a good, safe vehicle to get us around.
28- Cupcakes and other treats that are a little pick-me-up when I'm having a bad day.
29- Learning new things. How else do we grow and know how to do stuff?
30- Ella. She's the answer to so many prayers and is so much more than I ever could have hoped for. I'm so lucky I get to be her mama.

Hawaii!

Ok, so here's the deal: Jer and I went to Hawaii last week with almost his whole family, the problem is is that we are horrible at actually getting many shots of us on trips we take, we usually stick to taking lots of pictures of the kids and the scenery. We're doing better, but this trip we actually ended up taking WAY less pictures of everything, so you'll just have to deal with what I post.
When we left Salt Lake it was snowing, so that made us extra excited to get to Hawaii and enjoy the warm weather. We arrived on Maui on Sun. Oct 12 at night, and boy were we exhausted from our flight-although it was the best one so far. There were screens on the backs of all the seats and we could pick just about anything from the menu to watch for free. It was awesome!
So after gathering all our luggage, getting the rental cars, and picking up some groceries, we went to the hotel. It's the Marriott Maui Ocean Club (I think), and it's beautiful there. We made some sandwiches and then crashed. The only problem is is that just about everyone was waking up around 3 or 4 am because of the time difference (4 hrs behind us), so it was hard to sleep in (not counting Jer, he is a master at sleeping in).
I won't bore you with the details of each day, so I'll summarize instead. Every day we basically would hang out at the pool, then go to the beach, or vice versa. Then at night we'd go somewhere different for dinner. One night we went to Whaler's Village and saw a free hula show after dinner, another we went to a luau, etc. A few of the days we went to beaches away from the hotel so we could either snorkel, or watch surfers. My favorite part was riding/jumping in the waves, it's so much fun I could do it for hours!
Jer and my last day was a day before almost all the rest of the family, so we went and watched surfers, ate at a yummy organic pizza place (Flatbread in Paia), and headed to the airport with his sister and her family (they had to get back early). We were sad to leave before everyone else, but at the same time we got a head start on the long ride home, and this time we didn't even get the screens :( It was actually a really rough ride home because we were on the emergency exit row, and the seats don't go back AT ALL, and did I mention this is like a 5 hr flight and it was the red-eye? All of this equals exhaustion.
We finally made it back to Salt Lake at about 8:45 am (we stopped in LA both ways), and my wonderful brother, Rich, came and picked us up. It was sorta surreal to be home, but so nice at the same time. Once we got home Jer went to bed, and I unpacked and started some laundry, then took a lovely nap myself. The bed at the hotel was nice, but there's nothing like your own, and it was heavenly.
So, that was our trip, and now here are some pictures.
Don't mind how shiny I am in them, my skin has issues with humidity.

This was on the way to the luau
This was after the luau

Beautiful Hawaiian sunset

Us with the diminishing Hawaiian sunset
Hanging out with the fam watching the surfers. Notice my awesome fashion statement of glasses under my sunglasses.
These are just some of the many surfers that were out. It was a wonder they weren't running each other over there were so many.
This guy brought his dog surfing with him, it was so cute and fun to watch!
And since Jer is so on top of things, he recorded the dog surfing for your viewing pleasure...

Cruise!

Above is a view from the airplane.

Jer and I went on a cruise Feb. 23-28. This is the cruise that Jer got me for Christmas that we went on over my birthday. It was so much fun. We went with my college friend, Joanna, and her husband, Chris. Joanna and I have been on a cruise together before, and we were both really looking forward to going on another one with our hubbies instead of my parents. We even went and got cute matching pedicures a couple of days in advance.....french tips with a little white and blue flower on each big toe with a little sparkly thing in the middle of the flowers-fancy us. We left on the morning of Fri, Feb. 22, flew from Salt Lake to Atlanta, then after a 2 1/2 hr layover, flew to New Orleans. Long day of flying, but it was so fun to get to Louisiana for our first time. Once we got off the plane and gathered our luggage and Chris (he had different flights from the rest of us J name people), we got in a taxi and went to our hotel. The Marriott convention center hotel was... WOW. It was beautiful and big and the beds were oh so comfy. Joanna works for Marriott, so she hooked us up big time. After dropping off our stuff we walked around town, found Bourbon Street, got accosted by some street performer/shoe shine dude, saw a bunch of drunks, and realized we were in the midst of a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah, so we left that area, found a nice restaurant, ate, went to the hotel and crashed.This is the street our hotel was off of, just past the palm tree is one of the entrances to the Riverwalk Shopping Centre, it has great views of the Mississippi River.

The next day (Sat, Feb. 23) we got up, walked around, went to Decatur St. to Cafe Du Monde and got their famous beignets (basically scones with lots of powdered sugar on them) so yummy. Here's Jer enjoying one :

After this, we checked out of the hotel and went searching for where to get on our boat. We were pretty excited to get the vacation started.
We explored the ship a bit, ate lunch and went through the necessary training for in case of emergency. Jer goofed off a bunch with his life vest, it was pretty funny.Our first day after boarding the ship was my birthday (Sun, Feb. 24), a day at sea, formal night, and the fancy midnight buffet. Sadly, the food wasn't as good as it looked, but it was fun to see.





The next day (Mon, Feb. 25) we stopped in Cozumel, Mexico. When we got off the ship, we didn't really have any plans, but as we were walking, we were approached by a snorkel/glass bottom boat salesman, and we got a deal (compared to what the people who booked the excursion through the cruise line paid). We got all we could drink beverages, snorkel gear, glass bottom boat, and 2 snorkel stops in beautiful water for $45/person (the people who booked through the cruise line paid about $73/person). It was fun, but I got stung by mini jellyfish (luckily it cleared up after a couple of hours) and I got really worn out so I chilled in the boat while most everyone else was checking out the fish. After that we changed and walked around town.



The next day (Tues, Feb. 26) we were docked in Progreso, Mexico. We didn't really have any plans for this stop either. We walked around, took a 20 min. tour of the town (for just $2/person), stood on the beach, and went back to the boat. Progreso is a really cute and quaint town, but the main attractions are the Mayan ruins about 3 hrs away by bus. We didn't go that route this time, though it would have been pretty cool.



That night we sang some karaoke, it was fun. Through a strange turn of events, Jer and Chris were dubbed "the bad husbands", though they redeemed themselves by singing some karaoke too. I'd post the video or pics, but the video won't post and the pics are really dark.

The day after that (Wed, Feb. 27) was another day at sea, and boy was it rough. The ship was rocking like crazy and it was chilly outside-everyone was inside filling up all the space making everything crowded and uncomfortable, so we napped, watched t.v. and read in our room most of the day.

Our waiters were awesome. They were funny and friendly. Our head waiter was Muhameed from Turkey and our asst. waiter was Dewa from Thailand.
The next day (Thurs, Feb. 28) I woke up feeling absolutely horrible(I'm still sick, and so is Jer)- sinus infections are nasty little things. Luckily it was the day of debarkation and we traveled home, it was so nice to be back with more space and our own bed.

If you want to see more pictures and hear more of the trip, check out Chris and Joanna's blog entry.

We had a great time and I think we both needed that for our sanity with the next big thing coming up - my surgery.