Belize--a little Heaven on Earth!

Finally! I am blogging about mine and Brad's amazing vacation to Belize.
We flew into Belize city and took a very small "puddle jumper" over to the island Ambergris Caye (pronounced "key"). There is one main city on Ambergris Caye, San Pedro. This city has basically 3 streets. To go to most of the resorts or accommodations on the island you take a water taxi and head up North. What a beautiful island.

This first collage is some pictures around the island. We walked up and down the beach from our resort about 1/2 hour each direction, a couple of the pics are right in front of our resort so it is actually OUR BEACH which was Gorgeous. Remember: if you want to see any of the pictures more closely you can click on the picture to bring it into full view. :)

Here are a few of Brad and I when we were getting ready to go diving. We had our own personal dive master, Carlos. He was fabulous. He was born and raised on the island. He told us a ton about he island and the dive spots and all sorts of interesting stories. One of the most interesting stories he told us was that the name "Ambergris" means "vomit of the whale" because mother whales used to hang out up by the island when they were pregnant with their young and they would vomit. Well, the vomit was a black greasy substance that would accumulate on the beach -- and that is how the island got its name. The whales have since been scared off from all of the tourism. But I thought that was an interesting story. The other pictures were of us snorkeling in the park in Shark and Ray alley. You can see a few manta ray in our pictures.

These pictures are of our darling bungalow that we stayed in. We stayed at a resort called The Matachica which means small palms... it consists of everyone having their own little bungalow. Inside the bungalow you have your bed, a closet and a bathroom. None of the rooms had a TV or telephone. It was so nice. If you click and enlarge the pictures you will see that they are darling little places. We started out in the Kiwi (they are all named for their color) and they upgraded us to ocean front for our last few days of our trip -- which were spent in the Tangerine. The bottom right picture was taken from our Tangerine rooms front door, that is how close to the ocean we were. It was such a quiet and relaxing time, we could honestly sit on our beach and only see 20 people all day long.

When the sad day came that we had to come back home we went back to the town of San Pedro. I got a kick out of their airport. Check out these pictures of their baggage claim and their runway and the bottom right picture is where you wait until it is your turn to get on the plane! Such a simple place, and oh so wonderful. The other 3 pictures were taken during the 15 minute flight between Ambergris Caye and Belize City. Along Belize there is the worlds 2nd largest reef so the water is pretty shallow and there are several islands. It was a very pretty flight. You can tell how shallow the water is from the pictures. It was such a great vacation. I had such a super time with my husband, I really love the person that he is when we are away from all of the stress of work! :)
Are we going to go back again? You better BELIZE it!!

First Tumbling Meet: First Place!

So far so good! On January 31 Abby had her first tumbling meet of the season and she did awesome! She ended up taking FIRST PLACE in both events that she competed ~ tumbling (floor) & trampoline. What a great way to start the season.

Top of the podium for Tumbling routine

Abby, Alexis & Coach Dana

Top of the podium for Trampoline routine

Proud Mom!

AbbyJade in action.....Great Job ~ We are so proud of you! ♥

All Decorated Up!

Usually the weekend after Thanksgiving is spent decorating our house with all of our Christmas decorations. It generally takes a full day to get it all up, so I like to get it up right after Thanksgiving so that we can enjoy it for the full month of December, because come January 1- I am usually ready for it all to be down and put away and ready for the New Year! This year I went to Ogden with my sister to grab a few things on Friday. Brad spent the whole day putting lights outside on the trees, etc. It looks so awesome. I was so thankful that he did that for me while I was gone.... because I know he did do it for me. (He really doesn't care as much.) Saturday I spent the whole day getting the inside of the house done, except Brad and Abby helped with the tree. It is always a wonderful feeling when it is finally done. Hoooooray!

Our Christmas tree is prelit, but we always put a few extra strands of decorative lights on it. It is super pretty all lit up at night. Love, love, love it!

Last year I made this cute Jingle Bells, and I also love snowmen.

Santa

Our Nativity Set.

I just bought these stinkin' cute stockings this year. I actually have 2 more , but I haven't hung them up yet. This will be the first year that Brad and I actually stuff a stocking for each other since we have been married. It should be fun!

Fun candy cane candles.

Little Village, it looks super cute all lit up at night.

And that is really about it! A few more things here and there, but I figured I had posted enough! Now, my goal is to get my Christmas shopping done in the next two weeks! Lets see how that goes!

Happy Holidays!

Halloween

Tis' that wonderful time of season again -- Halloween. Brad and I debated if it is even a holiday. But whatever it is, it is kind of crazy. Abby was just sure she wanted to be a leprechaun, so that she is (in case you were wondering).. I asked her. "Why a leprechaun?" and she said, "Because I like the color green." Hmmmm, interesting. She is here with her friend Hadlee, aka: Minnie Mouse and Marissa, aka: A Dead Bride. Yes, they sure have fun costumes as they get older. But, I guess it's all about the candy, as they all 3 headed out the door with a pillowcase in hand.
Now, this is when trick-or treating is cute! Here are the grand kids: Trey as Batman and Krew as Robin. Krew didn't really care, he just wanted to give you a lick of his lollipop. But Trey was wound up pretty tight. Fun, Fun.
We didn't get to see these grand kids trick-or-treating all the way out in N. Carolina. So I stole the picture of Facebook. Here is Dylan as Peter Pan and Sophie as Tinkerbell.... Oh how I love Tinkerbell! I just love it when little siblings stay with the same theme and match.

STINKIN' CUTE!!

Volleyball Girl

Abby just finished up with a rec volleyball league. She had a blast. She is actually quite the little volleyball player! She started out fairly good, but with the assistance of a good pair of knee pads she really improved and was diving and saving all sorts of hits. It was really fun to watch her play, improve and just love to go each week and really have a ton of fun. Now, how are we going to fit this new love in with all of her new activities?? (ha, ha ~ I am sure we can!) Her team did a great job as well. During the tournament they took the only undefeated team to game 3 and the score had to go up to 18 -16 before they finally beat us. (They usually go to 15) Our girls did awesome, and I must mention -- this other team ate their Wheaties! They were 3 times the size of our girls.

Great Job Team Force!

You Gals Rock!

My baby boy is 18!

The craziest thing happened. Tanton turned 18! Wow! On September 30, eighteen years ago I became a mother. At that time it would have seemed like forever before he would turn 18, and here it is. I could not be prouder of this boy, he is such a well rounded, fun young man. Happy Birthday Tanton!
Tanton's step-mom, Marnie, always spoils him with a cake of his choice ~ she does a fabulous job, but I really think she out did herself this time. Here he is with his IRON MAN cake. Real working lights and all!

Girls Weekend...cont.

After such a great day in Yellowstone Park, and getting home so late -- I think it was like 2 am by the time we went out the West Yellowstone entrance and drove back to Driggs. We slept in a little and spent the next day, Saturday, in Jackson Hole. We shopped, and shopped, and shopped...and shopped. This place called "The Round Up" is closing, so they were having clearance on all of their items, well you got it - Ol' Josh sold a pair of cowboy boot to each of us!! What suckers we are! Jackson is fun and we had a great time. Later, we ate at the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar. Marcy and I shared a dish that had buffalo in it..we joked that it was probably the poor sucker we saw as road kill the night before (and how true it probably was!). Our dinner was very good, so was the country band playing. I am a HUGE country music fan ~ Marcy on the other hand thought every song sounded the same, oh she has much to learn. :)

The next morning we got up and after getting ready we stopped by some gorgeous waterfalls that I have never even seen on our way home. They were about an hour North between Driggs and Rexburg ~ called Mesa Falls. Very much worth our detour.

Marcy ended up staying for about a week. We had such a wonderful time. She is just one of the sisters now. It was a much needed fun, relaxed time we all had. She fit in perfectly and we were all so comfortable around each other it was almost scary! Needless to say, we now have a very good, new friend/sister that lives up in Chicago. Now, we just need to plan where our next vacation will be. Hmmmm.