Spring Break in Blanding, Utah (April 2019)

Our family friends are the Bonneys.  Their mom, Tami, grew up in Blanding.  Her parents still live there, on a farm.  They invited us to stay with them for spring break.

The moms drove the kids down in one car, a few days early, while the dads still had work responsibilities.  Here's one of our pit stops along the way.  Blake and Caleb are in the forefront.  Kyle Katie, Mark, Caroline, and Kyler are in the background, under the arch. 

We stopped at one of the family's properties to see the young pigs.  When that family's kids goofed around in the pen, Blake and Caleb decided to give it a try.  They had a blast running around trying to catch them.  This picture isn't very good but Blake is grossed out by the smell in the barn.

We played at the city park.  The older kids played Frisbee.  Caleb and I did some geocaching.

 This was the highlight of the trip, for our kids.  They got to drive and ride on Grandpa Harris's Rhino and 4-wheelers.  They asked for week afterward, if we could buy one.

Blake jumped right on the vehicles every chance he could.  Caleb.......yeah, NO!  We took a ride in the van to another property where the big momma pigs were.  We got to see the baby pigs run away from Grandpa Harris.

This was an "Only in Blanding" experience.  We went to a fundraiser for the high school: Donkey Basketball!  You had to be riding the donkey or attached to the reigns.  What an event!  The boys loved it.

 We stopped at the Bluff history center.  We watched some fun stories told by paintings that talked.  (Kyle was LOVIN' it!)

 Practicing our handcart skills.

 All dads instinctively know how to annoy their children.

Back at the farm, we did some shooting.  Caleb and Wolfie were happy to watch from the window.

I got him to move outside, after a few minutes.  Then, we joined the group.  

THEN, this happened! 🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻

This picture is the culmination of an entire week's effort.  We spent days trying to convince Caleb to ride the off road vehicles.  He got close after we bribed him with a stuffed animal souvenir, but wouldn't ever get in. Eventually, I felt this would be one of the rare occasions I would push him, no matter what.  I picked him up, carried him to the razor and turned on the engine.  Then, he was too scared I'd drive away so he wouldn't jump out.  Jeff got his seat belt on and I took off.  He stopped crying right away but I still don't know if he actually enjoyed it.  We drove around for a few minutes and took this selfie by some Native American ruins.  (You can see the peach colored walls, right above Caleb's head.)

Katie's Dances 2019 Lyrical "Back to the Days of Christopher Robin"

I had to compress all the files to make them small enough to attach to the blog.  After you click the play button, click on the white dashed square on the bottom right.  It will expand the video to full-screen.  That helps to find her in the dance.

This is a dance with Katie's group combined with the older group.  It's kinda hard to keep track of her.  I just look for the blondest girl in the smaller group's parts.

Katie's Dances 2019 - Lyrical "It's a Man's World"

Katie starts of at the front of the pack.  (She is the tall blonde in all but 1 of the dances.)

Keep an eye out for what happens at 1.30!

Katie's Dances 2019 - Hip Hop Routine "Fashion Beats"

Katie starts out on the right side of the middle three girls hunching down.  

Katie's Dances 2019-Jazz routine "Feel It Still"

Katie is on the back row on the right side.

March 2019

We went to the Food Bank to do some service with some friends.  We worked for an hour or so and the kids had a blast.

 We try to get Blake sleeping as early as possible but that creates a problem for Caleb who wants to stay up and read.  Every night now, he has his flashlight and gets to stay up later and read.

Katie had a dance competition in St. George.  I have some videos of her dances and I will try to get them small enough to post here or by email.  One of the afternoons, we had extra time so I found a small playhouse and hoped we'd enjoy a play.  She wasn't happy when I bought the tickets without asking her.  She wasn't happy to see that this play had attendees that were all 60+ years older than her.  She was NOT happy so I told her we would leave during the intermission if she didn't like it.  The comedy was British, it had swear words, and she was miserable.  We took off during intermission, of course.  It is funny to talk about now but was not fun in the moment.  We ended up hanging out with her dance members, shopping for shoes, and getting frozen custard, so the rest of the day wasn't ruined.

We had a great road trip.  We listened to 80's music, chatted about doctrine, boys, friends, and much more.  She loved spending time with her teammates and their team did pretty well in the competition.

Thanksgiving Point opened a  butterfly habitat.  We had a good time.

We had quite a few fly-bys but I was unable to catch those butterflies in the camera frame.

This moment, I took 10 pictures right in a row when I saw a butterfly coming right for us.  I caught their reactions but not the insect.  Dangit!

 Here, a butterfly was flying right towards the boys.  You can see it in their body language.

I believe this is when they were looking at a giant tarantula.  

20th Anniversary Cruise

 We took a 6 day Caribbean cruise with our 2 couples/best friends.  We flew into Fort Lauderdale on Saturday.  Sunday morning, we walked too many miles in uncomfortable shoes to go to sacrament meeting.  (4 of us paid for an Uber on the way back.) 

We boarded the ship and started the fun and eating frenzy.

Our first stop was in Nassau, Bahamas.  One friend did research and we boarded city bus line #10.  It cost us $1.25 per person.  We got the local route with all the local music and passengers.  We got off on the public Goodman's Beach.  It was free and rarely did we have to share our space.  We used our personal snorkel gear to practice our skills, laid in the sun, ate lunch we snuck off the boat in our backpacks, and had a blast enjoying the beauty of that beach. 

We took the bus back into town to do some souvenir shopping at their Straw Market.

The Queen's Staircase was a highlight and I'm glad we got to see that.  I also took a photo in front of the Brazil Embassy.  For 20 seconds Josh and I were both on Brazilian ground.

Our second day was on Carnival's private Island in the Bahamas.  We got off the ship as early as we could and walked all the way to the end of the beach.  Our reward was a spot that had 3 hammocks, plenty of beach chairs, shade, and no one near us.  The water was perfectly calm and clear.  The sand was like powdered sugar.  We practiced more snorkeling, napped in the hammocks, and just sat in the water for hours.  It was the ultimate paradise and we had a blast.

Our third day was in Grand Turk.  We did a chartered snorkel tour.  Our first location was a shallow reef.  It was quite windy but the waves weren't nearly as big as our Miami snorkel disaster.  We then went to the Grand Turk Wall.  It is like the "dropoff" in the Nemo movies.  The ocean floor drops from 20 feet to 7,000 feet.  I was pretty hesitant to swim close to it, but staying on the boat and getting sea sick sounded much worse.  Having all my friends around me made it much easier.  We saw 2 puffer fish, a barracuda, and tons of other fish I can't identify.  

We were pretty burned from baring our Utah skin for 2 straight days so Jeff and I wore our long sleeved swim shirts, and I tied a ponytail holder on the neckline to cinch it tighter.  The life jackets rubbing on the sunburn was a miserable feeling.

 We tried to catch every sunset from our friend's balcony.  We joked, philosophized, teased, and enjoyed every minute.

 Chad wrangled me into doing a karaoke song with him.  We chose "Sweet Caroline" because we thought we'd be familiar with the words and tune enough to get through it.  We had plenty of help from the audience which was kind.  Singing a song made for a man's register was rough.  The higher octave was almost unreachable and the lower octave wasn't much better.

 These three and their matching hats! 😂💙

Our fourth day was in Dominican Republic.  We took a tour to the Damajagua Waterfalls.  They are a series of waterfalls and natural water slides that run over limestone rocks.  I was one who pushed for this excursion because I knew it was something I'd never get to do again.  Upon arriving to the first jump, I wished I could turn around.  However, walking all the way back through the jungle would be embarrassing, so I jumped! 

 The second jump was the tallest.  Over 30 feet.  Tifany and I chickened out and had to take the shameful walk down the staircase.  Afterward, we both had zero regrets about that decision.  We heard a few people hit the water with loud smacks and the guides would swim over to check on the grimacing tourist.

The photos aren't the best but what can you expect from a water drop filled lens trying to catch such fast motion.  Here's Jeff jumping down the highest spot. 

Here I am doing the next drop that was about 15-20 feet. 

They came and sang a song for us to celebrate our anniversary.  They gave us a cute chocolate dessert.  It was adorable but gross.  It tasted like a chocolate gummy bear with rubbery chocolate frosting.  

 Our last day was at sea.  We watched a movie, attended the shows, ate, rested on the deck, ate, laughed, ate, and ate some more.

We returned to port and had a few hours before the Thomases flew back to San Antonio.  We did a few sealings in the Fort Lauderdale temple.  Jeff and Tami started a cold that day (Ken, Tifany, and I would get it the next day) so we mostly rested in the hotel room and watched MASH episodes.  We did go to a beach during sunset.  Jeff looked exhausted but he was so sweet to come with us.