Saturday, December 13

Arrived in Florida. We were able to pretty much get right on the ship. We took a self-guided tour of the ship, most of which I never saw again. The ship is sooooo huge. It was decked to the hilt for Christmas! The ship was amazing. We started sailing at about 430pm. So awesome! Our luggage was supposed to be hand delivered to our rooms. Mine arrived pretty quickly, but Josh's never arrived. We kept asking about it and they kept telling us that "it's still on it's way." OR "It's down at the front desk." OR "It must have been delivered to the wrong room and until that guest reports it, we won't know about it." We got a little worried, but what can ya do. So Josh ended up eating his first meal in the dining room in his sweats that night. It wasn't a "formal" night, but usually NICE casual clothing is required. We all got a chuckle out of that, but were still concerned about his LACK of luggage. We were originally assigned to have our dinners in the Botticelli Dining room (pretty ironic, get it, BOTTicelli :) ), but they didn't have us all sitting at the same table and were unable to accommodate us at one table there, so we were moved to another dining room ~~ the Davinci Room. We were kinda bummed about that at first, but turned out to be AMAZING. We had a GREAT waiter who catered to us, made us laugh, brought us "specials" every night and we had a BLAST! After dinner, we went to the "welcome show" which lasted about an hour, which honestly, I don't remember much about. I think I actually slept through a lot of it ~~ not because it was boring, but because I was a little sleep deprived at that point. When we arrived at our room that evening, we had a message from the ships security stating that they had Josh's luggage. It had been confiscated because he decided to pack a pocketknife! HELLO!!!! It was too late to get it that night, so we went to bed.

Arriving in Florida

Docking the ship

The Piazza (foyer)

Our room

The buffet room

Ft. Lauder dale/shipyard

A couple of the pools

Putting green

A view from the top

Kids area

Jessica and Kristy

A view of the bay

A passing PARTY BOAT

The Welcoming Entertainment

Decorated for Christmas

Where we were supposed to eat.

The "parting party"

Away we go ~~ a view from our

balcony room!

A look back at Ft. Lauder dale

Friday, December 12

Dropped the kids off at the Stapley's at 6pm. Thanks Catherine and family for making the week possible! We arrived at the Salt Lake airport at 10pm, energies high! Flight took off at about midnight. Flew into Atlanta at about 4am, had a 4 hour lay-over and then flew into Ft. Lauderdale, arriving about 10m. Flights went well, although not much sleep happened.

There were nine of us in all:

Robert (Josh's dad)

Josh and me

Jason and Meridith

Ammon and Michelle

Kristy

Jessica

All I Want for Christmas is a Real Good Tan!

I think I got it! We just got back from an amazing week in the Caribbean. I don't have all our pictures yet since we had 9 photographers and we are still working on compiling them all, but I will do my best to give a rundown of the week.

BON VOYAGE!

We are headed to the seas of the

Western Caribbean to soak up some rays!

Enjoy the snow for us and well see

you the week of Christmas! Love ya!

@#&#%

Maybe it was the 3 LONG days in a row at work. Or the STRESS of trying to get FOUR kids ready for a week WITHOUT us. Or getting all the Holiday STUFF done before the cruise. OR trying to make sure I don't forget anything for the cruise. Or just plain STUPIDITY, BUT, SERIOUSLY, who knew the TREE would be the WORST part. After THREE HOURS, a few hundred CURSE words, RIPPING the tree apart THREE times, trying every COMBINATION of cords, I FINALLY got the tree STANDING with ALL the lights ON. My arms are scratched beyond compare, my BLOOD PRESSURE is through the roof. BUT the DANG TREE IS UP!!!! Hopefully the decorations will go more smoothly.

HAPPY FREAKIN' HOLIDAY!

THANKSGIVING DAY WEEKEND

We spent Thanksgiving in Moab. The weather was rainy on Thanksgiving, but then warmed up. We ate a yummy Thanksgiving dinner at Red River Cafe. It's kinda weird eating at a restaurant, but the no clean-up part was GREAT!!!! The rest of the weekend was spent jeepin' (for Josh and kids), shoppin' (for me), movie watchin' (again, me), and just bummin' around. The last night, Landon woke up sick about every 2-3 hours. Sooooo fun! Then, by mid-night, I was a little nauseous and spent the next day sick. Cullen ended up getting sick the next night too, but everyone else made it out safe :)

The Thanksgiving Day Restaurant The CrewThe Feast
The Motel
Cousins! (and Aunt Diane)

The Jeep ParadeOops! Bryan tipped!

The Rescue Crew

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

So I really didn't plan on responding to my last post for a few days, but I think my friend Michelle may have an aneurism if I don't post tonight, so ~~~ NO I AM NOT PREGNANT ~~~ NO WE ARE NOT ADOPTING AGAIN ~~~ it is merely an attempt to fit in with all my friends who have pregnancy tickers on their blogs ~~~ and a way to see if people really read my blog ~~~ and to see if I could get anyone to fall for it. SOOOO ~~~ it is all made up. Sorry to all of you (mostly Michelle~~Tiffany thanks you for the early morning phone call!) for a day of stress, unanswered texts, phone calls, etc. But it did make a very amusing day for me. :)

Thanks to my second work wife, Bobbi, for the suggestion!

It is nice to know that all of you care.
And just in case you all need reminders of the surgery

that I had a couple of years ago ~~~

IT REALLY IS A BEAUTIFUL UTERUS, ISN'T IT?!?!?!