Labor Day Visitors

A few weeks ago month Ryan, Melanie, Jordan and Anne came up to visit us. Our house was still more in boxes than out, but most of our furniture had arrived the day before at least there was somewhere for them to sit and sleep!

The first day of their visit was spent laying sod and bark. Totally what you'd like to do on your vacation, I know! We'd planned to pay someone landscape it for us, but Ryan insisted that it'd be a quick and easy thing that we could knock out if a few hours for a fraction of the cost so that is what we did. Ryan might have been regretting that half way through though! ☺ It looks great and we really appreciate all their help!

For the next few days we made our way to all of the usual Seattle tourist spots. We took a cruise along the waterfront, went to the Locks to see the boats come through and spot some salmon swimming up the ladder, brunched at the Space Needle, shopped and people watched at Pike's Place Market, and last but not least...won some money at the horse races!

We had so much fun with them up here and hope they come back soon...because you know, we've been wanting to plant some trees and shrubs and like their free labor the best. Oh yeah, and we kinda enjoy their company too. ☺

Wedding and then some

Last month we made our way down to Utah for Anne & Jordan's wedding. It was the first time in years that our entire family was together at the same time...no small feat.

Our first family sighting was outside the temple. We tried to keep from melting hung out in the shade until the lovely couple made their appearance.

After the temple was a luncheon and then the reception. It was great to see a lot of people that I grew up with that I hadn't seen in years...and as always, the extended family.








The remainder of our stay was a mix of kids swimming, family bowling, movie & lunch with the girls and a lot of relaxing.










It was so much fun spending time with everyone, and as usual it went by much too quickly!

Ship Time

This was a long cruise! We were on the ship for 15 days, six of those days were spent at sea. We did manage to find a way to pass all that time.

I spent a lot of time in the movie theater, Rob only spent a little time there...he preferred napping or the gym over movie watching. Crazy guy. We also logged a lot of domino playing hours. In the library, by the pool, in our room, everywhere we went, we had our trusty dominoes.

The nightly shows were just so-so. We went to a handful of them, but more often than not skipped them. We went to a few of the day shows, The Newlywed game being one of them. We were selected to come on stage and participate as one of three couples. It was half fun, half embarrassing. The mortifying part is that it was taped and they played the embarrassing portion on a loop on every single television throughout the boat for the rest of the cruise. Thank you, Holland America.



The actual pools on this ship were a tad lame, swimming-wise, but they were prime people watching spots...and also the scene of our epic giant size chess and table tennis games.




I let Rob suck me in to spending too many hundreds of dollars playing BINGO the last week...we never won. Not even once. I was SO close one day, but someone else shouted BINGO! when I had just one spot left to get. It was sad.



Each night we'd come back to our room to find a towel creation on our bed. These guys were my favorite two. I think he's supposed to be a ninja. Or a monkey. I dunno.

We docked in Florida and stuck around there for a couple days, but I failed to take a single picture. Really, all I did was watch hours upon hours of Royal Wedding footage while Rob caught up on his sleep. We are super exciting people.

Overall, it was a fabulous trip, glad we went, made lotsa memories. Good times.

Okay, now I'm done. Promise not to bore you with anymore vacation photos. ☺

Cartagena, Colombia

Cartagena was probably our favorite stop. We've actually talked about going back here...one day just wasn't enough!

The first place we visited was the amazing Castillo San Felipe de Barajas fortress, which is right on a hill, right in the city. It was massive!

We had some time restrictions that didn't allow us to go through the entire fortress, which was a big ol' bummer...it really would have been awesome!




We made our way to the walled off colonial part of town and took a horse carriage ride though the streets.




It was definitely the old part of the city, but they did have a Hard Rock Cafe and a Benetton, naturally. ☺



All the colors and the architecture was stunning. We were instantly drawn in the second we arrived.



We did a little shopping, picked up some good ol' Colombian coffee for the people back home and headed back to the ship for a few days of sailing before we reached Florida.

The Panama Canal Crossing

Going through the Panama Canal is an all day process. There are three locks to go through, and a big lake.

We started through the first part of the canal at around 6:00AM. Keep in mind, we'd gotten back on the boat from our Panama excursion at about 1:00 the night before. I think you can tell by my face that it was too early to be up and so excited about anything.

But, it is the Panama Canal, so of course we got up and joined the rest of the ship out on the decks to watching the passing.

We have locks at home, so we weren't as in awe of the process as everyone else, but it really is amazing to watch.





They are adding another set of locks...here's a glance at the construction of it.



We retired back to our room for a little power nap and wardrobe change {it got way hot way fast!} before we came back out and found some lounge chairs to camp out on for the rest of the voyage. Our ship was so wide, there were only a few feet of clearance on each side as we went through. And here is where we get our first view of Rob's favorite purchase, his hat. ☺



The passing was really pretty. There were a ton of this little islands scattered all over throughout the lake.



We just sat out on the covered deck all day and watched the scenery float by...and played endless games of dominoes, our favorite pastime.

And that was the crossing of the Panama Canal. We have now officially crossed that off our list of things to do before we die.