Haiti - our first stop!

I know what you're thinking... Haiti? Seriously? Yep! That was our first stop! This part of the island was not affected by the earthquake and it is Royal Caribbean's private beach. I was happy to find that the ship was bringing a bunch of supplies for the victims in Haiti. But, I admit, we did have mixed feelings playing and enjoying the island while we knew there were people suffering not to far from us.

Here is a picture looking out over the island, isn't it beautiful?

We played in a beach volleyball tournament while we were there. We had a blast! Our team got the gold medal. I guess all the years in church volleyball payed off!

Just chillin with my good lookin' hubby! We were twinners in swim shirts. I got fried the day before and decided I better be careful.

However, I couldn't get enough of the warm sun. The girls all laid in the sun while the guys laid in the shade.

Listening to the locals sing us their songs. They were making out pretty good in tips because we were all worried about how the earthquake may have affected them.

I saved the best for last... Paul and his friend Corey did this amazing zipline that started high up in the mountains and came over the ocean, then landed on a little strip of land. The zipline was 1/2 mile long! Incredible to watch, and Paul said it was worth every penny. I decided I would prefer to spend my money on a spa treatment.

Cruising the Caribbean

Paul surprised me on Christmas with a Western Caribbean cruise for our 15 year anniversary. We left our boys with with my brother Ryan and his cute wife Karen, who did a wonderful job! I actually was very impressed with myself for not worrying too much about the boys while I was gone because I knew they were having a great time.

We had a great time! We had some of our good friends with us: the Bergs, Chappells, and the Mills. This was the first day on the cruise when we all had our warm clothes on still, but by the next morning, we were laying out and soaking up the sun. I couldn't could enough of the warm weather!
The ship was the Freedom of the Seas. It was totally impressive! We are standing in front of the entrance to the Royal Promenade. This was the "main street" of the ship with shops and restaurants on each side. This is where they did the parades and dances as well.
Here we are enjoying the warm weather and catching up on People magazine, yes a guilty little pleasure.

This is all of us on the last night of the cruise with our Waiter and Waitress. They were awesome! Even though I called "Kumar" our waiter, Lumar for half the week and then Zumar for the other half, he was still nice to us. We ate way too well and came home with a couple of extra pounds.
Here are the Dodgeball Champions on the boat! They was awesome and took home the gold. There cheerleaders did a pretty good job cheering them on too.
Here is Paul in his glory getting ready to take somebody out.

The Wave Rider was so fun to watch. Paul did great on it. Infact, they video taped him and showed it on the boat as one of the highlights of the week! I wish I could watch Brady and Karen do this, they would ride some serious rides with their surfing knowledge.

Formal night in the dining room, I wish I would have gotten pictures for you Cory of all the yummy food. You would have been impressed! My favorite was surf and turf night with the lobster. However, Paul obviously can't eat shellfish, he ended up having a reaction and we had to get him some Benadryl.

Our all time favorite treat there was the lava cake. Yum, yum, yum! Our waiter was so nice, that he requested laval cake another night just for our table. I better get going, I have some serious running to do to work off all of our treats!

My next few blogs will be about our stops in the Caribbean ...

New Years Eve countdown!

This is the first New Years Eve in a long time that we weren't in St George ringing in the year. Instead we were at home with a couple of families playing games and eating treats. All of the families left around 10, but the Chappell's stayed with us until midnight. The kids had a great time celebrating the beginning of a new year.

Here they are starting the countdown getting ready to throw the streamers.

One of our favorite new games we got for Christmas is Qwirkle. We played a lot of it on New Years Eve as well as Zilch and Word on the Street. I am so glad we have friends that like to play games as much as we do!

Celebrating Christmas with the Ritchies

We are lucky to have Paul's parents serving a service mission, so that they can come home for Christmas and the summers. We were all able to get together in St George the day after Christmas and do family pictures in front of the St. George temple. This was no small feat. Here is Grandma and Grandpa with all of their grandkids! But, this is already outdated because Paul's sister M'Recia had a baby the next morning.
Here is my little "baby" sitting so quietly for the pictures (this is very unusual).

Paul in a pink snugglie. This was a white elephant gift, and Paul had to try it out.

Logan at the cousin gift exchange with his oldest cousin Allie. She is finishing up her Senior year and then on her way to BYU Hawaii with Grandma and Grandpa.

Oh, and one more nativity with the Ritchies.

Santa found us!

All the boys waited "patiently" to come downstairs while Logan ran ahead and got a sneak peak of all the presents. Talk about some major anticipation!
The boys where happy to see that Santa had stopped at our house (and as Grandpa Edwards use to say, "Santa must have had a hole in his bag at our house, because he left too much!"). They boys were happy to see that they got what they had hoped for. This was our electronic year this year. Bryson got a cell phone, Garrett got a Nintendo DS Lite, and Tanner got an i-pod nano.
Logan got his Diego choo choo train and Mckay was happy to get more Bakugans!

Tanner face is hilarious! Tanner was so excited about his backscratcher. Its amazing how something so little can get kids excited. I love Christmas morning. It is so fun to watch the kids faces as they open their presents. We had fun all day playing games and just hanging out with the family.

Twas the Night Before Christmas...

Garrett has been questioning if Santa is really real this year. He came up with a way to test his theory. Garrett sent a letter to Santa and then never told us what he wanted for Christmas. Pretty smart kid. By Christmas Eve he was convinced Santa was coming and was tracking him close on Norad (online) to see where he was all night. Garrett wrote the note below to Santa and Mckay wrote the note above.

We read a new Christmas book on Christmas Eve and of course got our new Christmas jammies. Then of course, we had to snap some pictures. The boys all slept in one room that night and barely made it until 6 am when they came and woke us up...

Christmas fun with the Edwards

One of the highlights this Christmas was we got to take our older boys to see "Savior of the World" at the Conference center with Grandma and Grandpa. We had fun going to eat at the Lion House first (yummy rolls!) and then walking around temple square and seeing the lights. The production was amazing and really sent the mood for me during the holiday season. This is a tradition I would love to continue.
Cory and Kristen (and their new truck) took all the kiddos sledding, including Ryan! We have found the perfect sledding hill by our house and the boys spent countless hours there over Christmas break.
Grandma Edwards' had her traditional Christmas Eve dinner (on the Eve of Christmas Eve). We had the best lasagna ever eaten by candlelight.

We then performed 1 of 4 nativities this year. We did one with the Edwards, one with the Ritchies, one in primary, and then our family did one for the care center. Notice Bryson in the background being so excited to be part of another nativity?
Here is Karen being the cutest little Mary (with quite the belly). Kristen seemed to enjoy her job as donkey.
I did not realize that not only an angel appeared to the shepherds, but also a cow dressed up as a shepherd. Logan was pretty much in the whole show.

After the nativity, we played some fun games and of course had yummy treats. We missed having our Idahoans and Hawaiians with us.