Jamaica - Day 2

David woke up bright and early on Monday, day 2, of our fabulous vacation. At 6:00 he headed out to the deck, making a ton of noise on his way out there, thus waking me up. I considered joining him but was still so tired that I went back to sleep until about 7:30. I finally made my way out of bed and joined him on the deck to take in the lovely sight - the ocean!

And all the goats in the nearby field!

Breakfast was at the buffet where we gorged ourselves on omelets and yummy lemon danishes.

We took a morning stroll along the beach so I could get my feet in the water. I can't get enough of the warm Caribbean ocean! Along the stretch of beach where we walked there was a TON of seaweed, so much so that they had workers picking it up. We wondered if the storms they had right before we arrived in Jamaica had caused the massive amounts to wash up on the shore.

We hurried back to our room and gathered our stuff to spend the rest of our day at the beach. We had picked out this lovely spot earlier on our walk.

Not a bad view for the rest of our day!

We both did plenty of reading and napping and soaking up sunshine.

We made a quick trip up to the buffet for lunch where our waitress introduced me to a delightful blend of lemonade and sprite which became my staple drink for the rest of our trip. Then it was back down to the beach for more sleep and sun!
While David slept I decided to explore a bit. These birds were everywhere!

There is something so awesome about crashing waves; I could almost picture pirates coming into this little cove.

I loved watching all the crabs scrambling around the rocks. The strong waves blasting them seemed to have no affect on their grip!

Yes, we are definitely enjoying being together.

I channeled my inner Savannah and collected a ton of shells to take home to the kids.

Although I couldn't take him home with me, this little guy was my favorite!

We pretended to be asleep when the resort photographer came around because we had earlier seen some of the poses he was having the other couples make for their beach shots and there was no way we were going to be that ridiculous. But David couldn't help being goofy for me by copying the "hugging the palm tree" shot.

Watching the sun go down - absolutely beautiful!

Our Day 2 selfie!

After a full day at the beach we ate dinner at the buffet and returned to our room to read and watch Monday Night Football.

Surprise - Jamaica!!

In mid-September I was out to lunch with some friends when I received a text from David telling me to be home by 1:30 so we could make our 2:00 appointment. "What appointment?", I wrote back. "Just be home by 1:30" was all I got. So, I made sure I was home at the appropriate time and off we headed to an appointment that I was to find out was at the post office to get our passport pictures taken. David said he was taking me on a surprise vacation, a week for just of the two of us, in early November. Since he couldn't totally surprise me with the trip because we had needed to get our passports, he was going to keep the destination a surprise but I needed to plan on bringing a bathing suit. I was so excited!!! In reality he could have taken me anywhere but I was pretty thrilled to find out we were going somewhere warm.
I could hardly sleep the night before we were to leave and was up bright and early at 3:30am ready to get to the airport. Dave drove us to the airport along with Xander who sat in the back seat with me and held my hand.
We said our goodbyes and headed into the airport. At check in David typed in our ultimate destination - Montego Bay, Jamaica!!!

We had a short flight to Charlotte where we waited out a 3 hour layover by sitting in rocking chairs in the middle of the airport, people watching. When we checked in for our flight to Montego Bay they asked us if we had traveled to Africa in the past few weeks; the Ebola scare was still alive and well at the time of our trip.
After a 2 1/2 hour flight we finally arrived at the Montego Bay airport. Going through customs was a disorganized nightmare and the customs lady herself was extremely unpleasant but nothing was going to mar my excitement at finally being on a vacation away with my babe.
Finally we were on our way to the resort! The weather was nice and warm though they were experiencing "liquid sunshine" or rain, as we call it. It was just a slight drizzle and had ended by the time we made it to the hotel. This picture shows one of our first views of Jamaica! The country reminded me a lot of St. Thomas - lots of mountains, beautiful beaches, dogs and goats wandering around, and a bunch of poor sections. And from the airport to the drive to the hotel we encountered the famous "ya, mon" from all the Jamaicans we met.

The resort we stayed at was the Palladium Jamaica and it was absolutely beautiful! Checking in at the lobby.

Our beautiful villa! For the first few days we were there we were the only ones in the building.

Our room was a junior suite with a huge king size bed, a large tub...

and an amazing view of the ocean!

We dumped our bags and quickly headed out to explore. I couldn't wait to get my feet in the water!

Ahhh, Jamaica! No words can describe the excitement I felt at being alone with David; it had been far too long!

After a long walk on the beach we headed back to our room to get ready for dinner. There were a bunch of different restaurants on the resort but I was starving so we headed to the one that opened the earliest - Mexican. Unfortunately it was nothing spectacular; in fact, everything was pretty sub par. However, we did get a good laugh watching the hotel photographer who went around taking pictures of everyone. He had us, as well as others, pose in the cheesiest poses imaginable. Needless to say we didn't buy any of his.

A picture of a cute little gecko...there were a bunch all over the place.

One last walk after dinner. We explored the pool area and gazed out at the ocean . The sky looked absolutely beautiful - thank goodness the rain had cleared up and we had a spectacular view of the moon and clouds.

Once back in the room I was still feeling cold from the freezing airplane flight so I put on David's sweatshirt, pulled some socks on, and laid down on the bed. Within 5 minutes I could not hold my head up and ended up falling asleep by 7:30 while David watched football. My first night in Jamaica I slept like the dead.

Youth Temple Trip

Earlier this year Elder Andersen, one of the Twelve Apostles, challenged the youth of the church to take family names to the temple for baptism. We introduced this challenge to the youth of our ward in August and for several months encouraged them to take the necessary steps to accomplish this great goal. Savannah joined with over 20,000 church youth all over the world by accepting this challenge and was able to have several names with her as she attended her very first youth temple trip on Saturday, November 1.
We met at the church bright and early for donuts and juice and then headed down to the DC temple while the sky was still dark!

Part of Elder Andersen's challenge was to take a picture at the temple and share it on social media - Savannah and her friend Sydney with their signs.

We had 40 youth from our ward attend the temple and all the names they used for baptisms were family names. The temple workers were amazed by the sheer awesomeness of our youth!

Such a beautiful way to spend a Saturday morning. I'm so grateful that David and I were both there for Savannah's first trip!

Halloween 2014

To start off the Halloween festivities we had what has become our traditional Halloween feast - mummy dogs, bone bread sticks, apple slices with caramel, Frankenstein pudding, bloody drinks, and two new ones: Halloween shaped cinnamon crisps and caramel corn pudding. Quite tasty!

This year's costumes - Savannah went as a nerd, completely disregarding the Greek goddess costume she had begged me to buy her, Xander was the headless horseman, and Noah rocked it as a werewolf.

The kids were super excited this year to be able to go trick or treating with their friends. Noah's special friend Eva and her twin brother Julian joined up with Noah;

Savannah and her fellow nerd friend, Sydney, and Sydney's friend;

and Xander's buddy Spencer.

And they're off!

Trick or treating at townhouses is definitely the way to go - a lot of candy available without too much distance to cover.

The kids had a blast!

Savannah worked hard for that candy!!!

And now it's sorting, trading, and eating time!

Pumpkin Time

It's pumpkin carving time!! The kids' job is to clear out all the guts which surprisingly they don't seem to mind doing.

Bwah Ha Ha!!! Noah's evil laugh as he disembowels his poor pumpkin.

Savannah's face says it all!

Poor Xander - once again he got a rotten pumpkin. Boy, did that thing reek!

Time to design...

and for Daddy to carve!

Pumpkin masterpieces!

The kids also had a blast designing their own monster pizza one night for dinner.

Savannah is now posing as a typical teenage of the day.

Noah gave his monster an olive mustache.