Mexican Riviera

Well, we've been home a week and I figured it's time to enter a blog about our most recent trip. Tami and I are celebrating our 10-year wedding anniversary on May 15th and decided a fun way to celebrate would be to take a 7-day cruise down to the Mexican Riviera. We arranged for the kids to stay with Tami's parents and drove to Long Beach. We sailed on the Carnival Pride, an interestingly decorated ship to say the least. For those who have sailed on the Pride before, you know what I'm talking about. Rather than post a ton of pictures in the blog, you can go to our photo album of the trip via the link at the bottom of this blog entry. Here's a link to the cruise route.

We sailed for 2 1/2 days and arrived in Puerto Vallarta where we did an awesome zip line canopy tour through the jungle. It consisted of 15 separate zip lines, the highest being 550 feet and over 400 meters long. To hard to describe with words. If you're ever in Puerto Vallarta, be sure to check out the Los Veranos Canopy Tour. Here's a quick video clip of one of the shorter lines that Tami went on.



The tour guides were very funny and they videoed the whole thing but wanted $40 for it, so we opted not to partake in the highway robbery. Here's a clip of one of the ladies on our tour with the camera man filming.



After Puerto Vallarta we sailed to our second port, Mazatlan. Mazatlan was definitely more of a beach town with a very cool boardwalk and beautiful beaches. Reminded me a lot of San Diego. We decided to try our luck at Parasailing. Neither of us have ever done it. It was a blast. The weather was perfect and we got some incredible pictures and video clips. Check these out below.





And here's me as I went up.



We found this little Acuario de Mazatlan on the Internet and decided to check it out. Nice little aquarium. Everything was in Spanish of course. Speaking of Spanish, it was a lot of fun conversing with the taxi drivers in Spanish. We go the inside tour on a lot of places. It's amazing how much I can still remember and understand. I wish I could use my Spanish more often. It'll have been 12 years this July since I got off my mission to Venezuela. We did some of our own site seeing in Mazatlan on our way back to the cruise terminal and we had to ask several people along the way for directions, so it was a good thing I could communicate with them.

Our 3rd and final port was Cabo San Lucas. It was another beautiful day and we took a double decker boat about an hour from the marina and did some snorkeling in Chileno Bay. We even saw some gray whales making their migration north. Cabo really is a desert resort. You don't have the lush foliage like Puerto Vallarta or Mazatlan, but the coastline is something else. Check out the pictures below.

The cruise ship itself was actually a lot of fun. We participated in a lot of the games they had on board, enjoyed visiting with our dinner table friends, relaxed on the upper deck, had our fair share of ice cream cones (how can you beat free ice cream 24/7), played miniature golf, saw some incredible sunsets and more than anything enjoyed spending time together. Hard to believe that it's been almost 10 years. Time sure does fly. The kids had a wonderful time with Tami's parents and sisters while we were gone. They almost didn't want to come back home. The final clip here is of a Mariachi band that came on board at one of the ports and played some festive music while we ate dinner one evening.



There are quite a few pictures in the album. Be sure to read the captions. Check them out here:

Mexico Cruise

Crazy Toothbrush

Last week I had my normal 6 month checkup at the dentist. I look forward to these only because I get a new toothbrush (ok, so that's not the only reason, but a nice spiff). The one I got from my checkup 6 months prior to that looked like it had been through the war. Anyway, this toothbrush they gave me is unlike any other "manual" toothbrush I have ever used. I actually enjoy using it and it does feel like it cleans my teeth better. Kudos to Colgate. So, if I could plug a toothbrush, check out the Colgate 360 available now at your local drug store. For those in the Utah area, feel free to take mine for a test drive if you like :) You know . . . try before you buy.

Provo City Half Marathon

Well, I decided at the last minute this week to run the Provo City 1/2 marathon more as an excuse to do a long run. The race started at 8:00 am Saturday morning. It was actually a very nice morning despite some breezy conditions. Brian, my brother-in-law also ran it with me. Tami was going to run it as well, but decided to just run her own 1/2 marathon on her new treadmill that she got for her birthday this year, which she absolutely loves. She actually ran it in 1 hour 53 minutes, which is pretty good. I ended up finishing in 1 hour 52 minutes. It's crazy how easy it is to just go out and run 13.1 miles. Don't get me wrong . . . I'm pretty sore today, but the actual run itself isn't too bad at all. My knees have been bothering me lately though. The full marathon is less than 2 months away. We'll see if I'm up to it. Worse comes to worse, I'll just run the 1/2 marathon instead of the full. After the 1/2 marathon I came home in just enough time to enjoy the last half of the Saturday morning conference session.

Snoring problem solved!

This last Wednesday, Isaac went into surgery for his TA (tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy) and he was one of the bravest little patients any of the nurses had seen. We had been talking it up all week as his opportunity to have all the Popsicles and ice cream he wanted. You could tell he was a little nervous that morning but was a real trooper. Here he is in the kids waiting room just before the surgery.

They then brought in the wagon to be carted off to the operating room. Once again he was a little uneasy but didn't cry.

The surgery itself is very easy and only takes about 20-30 minutes. We were worried about how he would be coming out of the anesthesia since he was pretty sick after his eye surgery, but he did very well. He was drinking juice and ready to go home within an hour of coming out of surgery. He hardly cried or whined at all compared to a 10 year old that was in the recovery room with us at the same time that made you think she had just gotten shot or something.

Brooklyn and Jack had a pretty good time too, especially since they were able to get their own juice boxes.

In the last 4 days since the surgery he is practically back to normal. He complains of a sore throat of course, but even this morning had a huge bowl of Honey Combs, which are pretty rough. The best part about it though is that he now sleeps so quietly that we need to make sure he's still breathing. He'll most likely not remember the surgery when he gets older, but at least we'll have the pictures to prove it.