Our Crazy Couple of Months!

 I haven’t written in a couple months because our life insists on being crazy busy. We have not been home for a weekend in what feels like forever! This will probably turn into a novel so I apologize, but this is our life!!

The first trip we went on was a cruise that we spontaneously decided to go on with Brandon and Brooke Major and Jenna and Addison Gines. We honestly decided to go and book the trip all in one night a week before we were to leave! Craziness. It was a Mexican cruise that left from LA with Carnival Cruise lines. We drove in two vehicles down and stayed at Jenna’s family’s condo in St. George. Her brother lives there and is hilarious. The boys had a good time beating the last level in the Mario brother’s game on WII. So ridiculous. We then drove straight through to LA and got on the boat!! It was honestly so fun. We ate a TON (Alex gained 18 pounds!!) and enjoyed playing cards and doing as many activities as we could. We met two really fun young couples who were at our dinner table with us, and a funny tongan. So funny story; we were having lunch at the buffet area and i fell asleep... so natually everyone thought it would be funny to leave me. Well this big tongan guy saw what was going on and decided to come cuddle up to me!! i woke up thinking it was Alex and was very suprised when it wasnt haha good joke guys...

Anyways, our first stop was at Catalina Island where we walked around and saw the shops and walked up to this old temple? I think it was a temple, but anyways, it was surrounded by a beautiful walk through a garden full of every possible plant that grew on the island. It was really pretty. Weather was a bit chilly and overcast majority of the time, but comfortable. I was silly and laid out on the deck with my leggings folded half way up my calf. I found out later that it had made a perfect tan line across the middle of my calf! Looked great when I wore shorts, or when in my skirt the following Sunday. Embarrassing.  The next stop was at Ensenada. This was probably our favourite stop. We first walked around the flea market and Alex bought himself a hammock (he’s very proud of it) and I loved bartering and got the best deal of the day! One man told me I was a very tough girl ;) Alex loved that haha for the afternoon we rented a golf cart and got all six of us on it and just cruised around! We didn’t read the rule book and decided it would be a good idea to go up a way steep hill to the top of the island. Well it stopped half way and the boys had to push it up the hill while I drove haha the way down was just as adventurous as we feared the brakes would go out and had to zig zag across the road the entire way down hahaha it was great. We then broke the rules again and drove it down on the beach where we ran into this ten year old boy who was offering rides along the beach on his horses. Alex and I took him up on his offer and rode along the beach. It was so fun! He had a full sized horse and then a smaller mule and at one point he made Alex and I ride together on the small little mule haha it was honestly so funny. We loved it. By the way, for anyone who doesn’t know, Alex is absolutely in love with horses! So I was really happy he got the chance to do that J we then had a day at sea and it was done, time to go home.

 But we first stopped at the pier, walked down to the beach and ate some real seafood in LA. We left that afternoon and stopped in Vegas and walked along the strip. Brandon had never been so it was fun to see him all excited about everything. We were then supposed to drive to St. George and spend the night but Alex was driving and decided that it would be better if he just drove the entire way home!!! I was so mad. The rest of us didn’t want to sleep in the car all the way home but he just figured he was doing us all a favour by getting us home earlier haha what a boy… So that was our cruise in a nut shell! Such a good spring break J

The next weekend we went to Arizona and met up with my parents, Emily and her friend Carly. It was so nice to be in some hot weather for a while! My parents have a home in a retirement community just outside of surprise. We went to three of the March Madness games, so fun! First two games were the sweet sixteen rounds and the last was an elite eight game. We loved it so much, it was so nice to spend time with my family, and Alex and I both love basketball so it was beyond fun J The rest of the time we lounged in the pool and hot tub, went to a spring training baseball game! I found out that Alex knows a ton about baseball so he could tell me exactly what was going on and why they were doing such things, it was cool to see him like that. We went to the hunger games haha just a good time all around. I love my family; they are so fun to be around! Even though it was only a couple day trip I had been excited for literally months.

The following weekend was General Conference and so we went down to Salt Lake and watched it at Alex’s mom’s house. Blake and Lindsay who had just gotten engaged came down and so we got to hang out with them a little bit. Alex got priesthood session tickets for him and his Dad to go which was way fun for Alex, and so Blake went with them and Lindsay and I just hung out around temple square. It was really fun to catch up. Alex also had a mission reunion that weekend where we went to a temple session and then had dinner at the church. The Lindleys are part of our family, and so it is always nice to visit with them.

After that weekend we went up to Alex’s families cabin for Easter with his Mom, Richard and Shaylee and Jeff. Alex sold in Pocatello Saturday while I hung out with the family and we decorated Easter eggs with his nephew Carter. Jeff tried to one up my eggs but failed… Shaylee, Jeff and Carter ended up coming with me to pick up Alex later that night and we went to Lava Hot Springs, one of our favourite activities! When we got home Cindy and Richard had deep fried a turkey and it was delicious! Next morning we hunted for eggs with Carter and went to the small ward there in chesterfield. It was a great weekend; I really enjoyed spending time with his family J

The next weekend we packed up on Thursday and went to Zion’s National Park with our group! The Gines, Rio and David Grange, Nick and Lauren Hancey, Hayley and Jerry Axtell and Amanda and Trent Hagman. We all headed out at different times and we went with the Hagman’s late Thursday night and stayed in Provo and left early Friday morning. When we got there we met up with the Gines and Granges and went on a small hike and then explored around! It is so pretty there, I couldn’t handle it! I love camping so much. But unfortunately it rained that night and so us girls just stayed in our tent and put hair wraps in each other’s hair while the boys explored alternate hikes in the rain. We slept in the same tent as the Hagmans and it sucked! It rained and stormed all night and the tent ended up flooding and Trent kicked a hole in the tent haha funny, but brutal.  And to top everything off, we woke up the next morning to snow!! In April!! Killer. But we made the most of it and were joined by the others who came in the middle of the night. We went on a couple different hikes which were really super pretty. The red rock looked really cool with the white snow sprinkled on it. A very unique experience we are told. But when we were done hiking we decided it would be smart to go into St. George to hangout for the night. Half of us packed our stuff and decided to stay the night at Jenna’s condo because of the tent situation. Such a good idea haha so we went to St. George and Rio called up her grandparents who lived close by and we got access to a heated pool and hot tub. SO nice haha then just played cards and watched star wars. I was so confused the entire time though. I had never seen star wars before, and we didn’t watch the first one and so I just thought it was stupid. Jenna’s brother didn’t like me saying that haha oops! Oh and Hayley is a chef so she made us ribs and peach cobbler, soo good. We were spoiled. So we slept well and went back to Zion’s on Sunday and went and climbed Angels Landing. That was a really fun hike, but I am a FREAK! At one point it gets pretty steep and so they have a chain that is bolted and goes all the way to the top. And so it was pretty slippery because of all the snow that was up there, and anyways I was SO nervous that everyone else around me was going to slip and fall to their death! I wasn’t nervous for myself, I was completely fine doing it, but at one point, this old man was climbing back down and slipped a little, well, I started hyperventilating…I couldn’t have anyone in front of me because if they slipped, even the slightest, I would freak out! It was horrible. But overall, the hike was gorgeous and so fun, I loved it! It was really neat because we were able to go on hikes where there aren’t normally waterfalls and on some, there were five or six just streaming down a huge mountain. So cool! So I definitely recommend to anyone who likes hiking to go to Zion’s Park. It is well worth the trip J

So that is our CRAZY life! Not one weekend where we have been at home… horrible I know. The rest of the week is still full with school as we only have two and a half weeks left till we come back to Canada! Alex’s mom is coming up this weekend to help me deep clean while Alex goes up and helps Rich fix up the cabin. Then Cindy and I will join them up there for the rest of the weekend. Another weekend gone!

My life doesn’t seem to relax for even a moment. It has been very eventful and fun J I honestly wouldn’t change a thing, except that maybe my immigration papers would have NO MORE PROBLEMS and that they would go through smoothly and quickly! But I am so grateful for the friends that I have made and for a husband that I absolutely adore! We have so much fun together, every day he makes me laugh and I can’t handle it haha we definitely fight and pick at each other but that’s what we do! Whenever I am grouchy he will start grunting and saying how he is just so mad, and repeats it over and over till I start laughing. What a terd! He has established a very good means of diffusing my anger haha

So I am sorry for the late post and that it is soooo long! But Alex is at soccer and I just got back from a relief society party with nothing else to do for the first time in months!! Which I am very grateful for.