Boys Monthly Letters

The boys have posted their monthly letters to their blogs. Just click on their links or pictures to the right.

An Early Spring

I am sure that this post will come as NO surprise to anyone who knows Dave. I usually make a post like this every spring. However, this year, spring seems to have arrived a little early at our house. That season where Dave gets the itch for a new toy. Well ... here it is:

Sledding!

We met up with Brian & Carie and their kids and Randy and Sean today up Parley's canyon at Mountain Dell golf course. It was a BLAST! Our boys are finally really old enough to sled without needing to ask if they can go now or cry if they get rolled off. They wanted to keep going when all the adults were ready to call it quits. Kyle went down a couple times and didn't really fuss but when we asked him if he wanted to go again he would just say no and sit on a sled. It was cute.

Our 10 Year Anniversary!

Well we are back and despite not having the best weather we had a wonderful cruise to celebrate our 10th anniversary! This was the first trip we have taken without kids in about 9 1/2 years so we were long overdue. Thanks to Chris, Lizzy, Alena, Rachel, Cindy and Ryan for helping us out with our kids while we were gone. We so very appreciate you all!

Our cruise left out of Miami and went to 4 stops in the Western Caribbean. Our first stop was in Grand Cayman which I have to admit was the big disappointment of the trip. We were supposed to take wave runners out to the reef and then snorkel in a couple locations but because of this cold front that is affecting a huge part of the planet the waters were rough and all water activities there were cancelled. So we ended up hopping on a bus and just doing a city tour which honestly wasn't that great.

This is us in Cayman with our ship, the Carnival Valor in the background.

Our next stop was to the island of Roatan which is off the coast of Honduras and was definitely our favorite country that we visited! It was amazing, very rural, very poor but still clean and just beautiful! There we went on my favorite shore excursion of the trip (it was a close 2nd for Dave, you will see why). We were able to zipline through 28 acres of rainforest from 16 different platforms spanning about 2 miles from 20 to 45 feet off the ground. It was incredible. Ziplining through the lush rainforest, there is nothing like it. There was a light rain that day but we were in the rain forest so it was actually great!

Here we are after we were all suited up.

The guides were so amazing! They took our cameras and took pictures of everyone as they were zipping between platforms!

Okay so I had better explain this one. I was joking around with our guides towards the end of the tour that we wanted to do something crazy. You should've seen these guys zipping around on these like they were just walking around on solid ground. So on the very last platform the guide sending people over asked me if I really wanted to do something crazy and of course I said yes. So he harnessed me to to the tree and told me that I had to wait and go last. After everyone had gone he told me not to tell his boss he was doing this and told me that I was going to go across upside down and he would brake for me. So off we went! It was nuts but it was so scary and awesome! Dave videod the whole thing! It was the best adventure!

Next we went to Belize where again we ran into weather problems. It was pouring rain when we got off the ship. Our excursion was supposed to take us on a river boat up the Wallace river to the Altun Ha Mayan ruins. Because of the rain they cancelled the river part but we were still able to go to the ruins by bus and get a good tour of the city. They city wasn't our favorite but the ruins were incredible. You could just look around and know that the Nephites and Lamanites were there.

Our fourth and final stop was in Cozumel, Mexico where we finally had perfect weather and Dave got to do the excursion he was most looking forward to. We got to take these dune buggy like machines (they are called Xrail Buggies, built in Utah actually) through the jungle. If you know Dave you know why this was his favorite excursion! We blasted through mud puddles and was covered in dust and mud by the end but the smile on his face while driving that thing was priceless!

But it was more then just the Xrails. We went in to a place where there were underwater caves that we could swim in. Yes we were swimming with tons of bats but they stayed on the ceiling of the caves so it wasn't gross or anything. We got to even swim into some underground caverns that were mostly dark but just amazing to see. I have some pictures of that but they are on our waterproof single use camera so I will add them once I have them developed. We were also able to do a little cliff diving there in that cave.

Dave went twice and yes, I even tried it once. I can't believe I did it actually. I am not a big fan of water, of jumping into water especially. I took a step off the edge and immediately started screaming and flapping my arms and legs because I had definitely changed my mind and didn't want to do it! :) Needless to say I did it, once, and that is all!


It was a great trip and we are very glad that we were able to do it. But we are glad to be back home to our boys who we missed and who missed us. Except for maybe Eric, he just seems happy about whatever and didn't seem to bothered either way.