Hickman Hotel

I'm not saying it's the best hotel around, but it was free. I had family come for visits in July! My cute nieces and nephews were fun and it is always nice to see family cause they all live far away. First my brother Michael and his family came for the 4th.

Sophie, Levi, and Kionah. (Couldn't get her picture the size I wanted and gave up)

Some fun fireworks. Alita, my sister-in-law was the ring leader for these. Good times!

The kids playing in the dirt, in the hot Utah sun.

Next my sister and her 3 kids came, accompanied by my nice mom. She is always there to help.

Here is Lucas with a milk mustache.

And Jacob, with his mustache.

Grandma reading to the kids and them loving it.

Lucas loves motorcycles and Uncle Jim gave all the kids a ride. Here is Lucas taking his own ride.

Our cute neighbor Ashley let us borrow her kids and pool to play with. Here they are having a water balloon fight in the pool.

They loved playing together and became good friends in a matter of days. Then the Hotel closed and now it is quiet and boring again. But so glad everyone came to visit.

Back in the OC for a visit

CALIFORNIA! This is how my trip started off. With a girls lunch at The Corner Bakery. It has been too long since I have spent time in California with some of my favorite, amazing friends. Cori, Jen, Stephanie (Sydney on my lap), and Lynnley. It was fun to catch up and just hang out. It was less fun when Sydney peed down my leg, but thankfully I was wearing black pants so you couldn't see the wet spot after I drenched them in water. Then I went with Cori to get pedicures, a given when in California.

Then there was shopping. Another must do in California, especially since Ann Taylor Loft was having a sale. I love that store. Jen, Julie, and I also enjoyed breakfast at Sugar Shack and a few hours relaxing on the beach, time hanging at their house, a movie and dinner. I seriously miss that place. People complain about the traffic, but it was so nice to drive there for me cause people drive. They know how to use their gas peddles and no one watched speed limits. You just go, unlike drivers in Utah, they drive me bonkers. Jen fought getting her picture taken at first, cause it looked like Ann Taylor Loft threw up on her (her words), I just look at it like they are getting a free model for marketing.

Then there was lunch with some of my friends from my old school John Marshall. Jenni, and Catherine are so fun. We experienced some great people watching and as always there were tears of laughter. I love these girls.

At some point I forgot to take a few pictures to document more good times, such as, dinner at Lynnley's, thanks, it is always fun to hang with you. And my friend Beth got to bring home Baby Colton. He has been in NI CU for 6 weeks, but he is home now, doing great, and I got to go visit him. He is adorable.

I miss so many things about California...but mostly I miss my good friends. It's always fun to go back and pick up like no time has gone by. Thanks for making time to see me, it was so fun.

Exciting

I will start with the more spiritual side, before I move on to the worldly side.
My mom came to visit last Wednesday so we could go to Women's Conference at BYU. They pack as much as they can into that conference...so much so that you have to pack a lunch cause you don't have time to stop for one. It started Thursday morning with an opening session, then there were back to back classes. We skipped the last class and service project so we could eat lunch at 2 and get some shopping in. Then we were back that night for a great concert. There was Micheal McLean, Hilary Weeks (who sang one of my favorite songs), Alex Boye, Dallyn Bayles, Mercy River, and the Fab 5 dancers from America's Got Talent. It was amazing. Friday it was back to classes, but this time we made it to all of them and scarfed down half a sandwich in about 2 minutes before a class. Honestly, I haven't been before and have never really even thought about going, but things like this are always so good and uplifting. It leaves you wanting to be a better person and that lasts for at least 5 seconds till I am bad mouthing the driver in front of me as we drive out of the parking lot. Listening to the speakers, their inspiring stories and examples of faith was touching. It makes me want to be closer to the Savior and be more positive and a better person. Getting that to translate into my life is another story, but I am a work in progress.

Along with the spiritual, my mom and I had lots of fun. We found some fabulous deals of clothes....you can't pass up a shirt on sale for $5-10. We would scan the clothes and laugh about the price, saying "it's ridiculous NOT to get it for this price." We ate Cheesecake and avocado egg rolls, two times. Went to a soccer game, bought a car, and made a cool rap video. My brother posts a rap video on Facebook every Friday. So I wrote the rap, (my first time participating) and my mom was free and crazy enough to rap it. Cause that is just how much fun she is. If I was more savvy I would download it onto my blog....but it took us hours to figure how to get it on to Facebook....so go to my Facebook page if you want to see it, and you will want to see it. Good times!

Next there is the material side to the weekend. I traded in my Acura TRX, which I LOVED and upgraded to this. A Lexus RX, which I am sure I will also love. It is used, but practically new and we got a good deal, so we couldn't pass it up. It was actually hard for me to let go of my Acura, it's been a perfect car. But I have been thinking about and looking at cars for months and when this came along I had to act. Thank goodness for Jim and for men that are able to negotiate and not get taken advantage of. I just turn it over to him cause they fill me with all sorts of nonsense. We liked our car sales man at the beginning, but in the end he is a car salesmen, just like the rest of them. You just have to laugh at the lines that they feed you, like "I had two other people want to buy that today." "Oh, you are really getting a great deal, I sold one like this for this much more and it didn't have.....blah blah blah" But he was personable and he had a guy drive it up to Logan for me, so that was nice.  It is so quiet and it drives nice so far. It's mine now! it looks gray in these pictures, but it is Bambo, which is a tan, green mixture.

And that was my exciting weekend!

Sun & Fun

Going to Mexico saved me. I might have repayed Mexico by taking the Swine Flu back to them....but the warm weather and ocean moisture helped me feel better. A week and a half before we left I was pretty sick. Started as the flu then a bad chest cough and respiratory problems. I lost my voice and displaced ribs all over the place from coughing so hard and so much. I'm kidding about the swine flu, I don't think I had it, but I did get an inhaler, along with some other things from the doctor. But thank heavens for warmer places that aren't dry enough to suck the life out of you. Here we are so excited to be there.

We went with our friends the Robbins to Cancun. Glad to report that we are still friends after the vacation, I mean, there is always the risk of the friendship not holding up to 24-7 time spent together. But we had a great time.

It started off with us flying the red eye to Mexico. We got there at 4:45 in the morning and had to wait for the Mexican border staff to decide to come to work. No workers were there to let us in the country for half an hour. That is how they roll down there. WOW, is all I can say.

So first thing on the agneda was to take a nap. Then to town for supplies. Then to the pool to relax.

We spent a lot of time reading by the pool and drinking pina colodas. Even without alcohol we were there for the 2 for 1, happy hour. Oh yeah!

 

We made the boys take a pilates class with us. Natalie and I got massages while the boys played golf and had a horrible scuba diving experience. We played beach volleyball and even did water aerobics...if you can call pelvic thrusting in the water while waving your arms ridiculously in the air aerobics, but we went with it.

Matt got pulled over by the cops and had to pay them off, but totally worth it for the picture and the cop smiling and waving wildly at us when we passed him again.

We went and learned lots of interesting things about Tulum, some ancient ruins. I'm pretty sure I've forgotten it all, but it was interesting stuff.

We played lots of cards at night....I am cured of wanting to play hearts again for a long time. The last night for me was brutal and I got a little grumpy. Got even grumpier the next day at the airport when they took away my favorite tweezers and searched me three times. Honestly! And I have always taken those tweezers and have never had a problem. Not happy about that!

Over all it was a great trip. I soaked up the sun and vitamin D never felt so good. We did take a few to many pictures in our swim suits....let's be honest....those are never as cute and it's better not to have proof that you didn't look as good as you wanted to in a swim suit. It was a fabulous trip. Thanks Matt and Natalie for ditching your kids to hang out with us over Easter.

Two things I HATE!

Lets start with #1 thing I hate. That would be hackers. Honestly....do you really have nothing better to do with your obvious computer skills? And lets get real for a second....do you think if I was stranded in London I would email people I haven't talked to for YEARS and ask them for money? Let's say I am crazy enough to do that, do you really think they are crazy enough to send it to you without talking to me or something. Do you not think I would call my husband and parents first to be taken care of. Aside from being totally unrealistic, it is a big pain in the ass. Yes, I said it and I mean it. They locked me out of my accounts, yahoo, gmail, and facebook and sent messages from all of them. Jim came home laughing about the email at 6:30am...but he wasn't thinking it was so funny at the end of the day. I had concerned friends give phone calls and text messages. And I had long lost friends offer to send me whatever I needed. Thank you to them. Here are a few (very few) funny moments of the day. When my sister emailed back and asked "where is Jim and why are you in London?" When I talked to her on the phone she said, "I was wondering why you didn't just ask mom and dad, I don't have $1300 dollars." Glad to know the limit of her love for me. haha. It made me laugh. Another friend, Alana emailed the hackers back and told them to go make their own money and quit trying to steal other peoples. I LOVE IT! I think I finally secured all my sites, but it still makes me nervous and I am locked out of facebook again....not sure why. It was such a diasaster. So be careful to all my friends cause now that they have your email address they will try to get you to give them more info so they can hack you. It will look legit, like from a bank, or yahoo or something, but don't give any info out. So sorry to all my friends!!!! PS. the phone number attached to my acccount was from Nigeria. WHAT?????
The next thing I hate is MICE...no sorry VOLES. They have destroyed my lawn. I see them running through my rock wall and through the tunnels in my lawn, as I type. That is right, I see them! Don't think we haven't tried to get rid of them, after I got a little crazy yelling about it to Jim.(Hey, I needed some action taken) I sent Jim on a 30 minute drive to get 2 farm cats. As soon as they got to our house they ran for the hills, not to be seen again. (although the cat food I have outside was gone this morning, so there is hope. Or the mice are eating it) Then Jim got some poison and put it in a few holes and rocks. He also raked our lawn, with mice running for the hills, to destroy their homes. But alas.....I still see voles running around our yard. And there are at least 5-10 dead ones in each of our window wells. Thank goodness for Jim, cause I can't deal with that. Please come back cats...I need you!
That is my rant, I am hoping next week will be better!

Thailand

Nagging works! I have been bugging Jim forever that we needed to go on a trip. So one day a few weeks ago he says, "What about Thailand?" I say sure. He booked the tickets the next day and we left the following Saturday. Cause that is how he rolls and I just take what I can get.
Yes, it is a LONG plane ride to the other side of the world. The culture is so different...they don't try to protect you from yourself. If you do something stupid, you can get in trouble. Glad we didn't have any problems with our stupidity....at least nothing that harmed us.
The weather was perfect. Sunny and 90's everyday. We started in Bangkok and did lots of touristy things. The drivers would always take you to lots of floating markets and jewlery stores, and pretty much any place where the owners gave them kick backs to bring tourists..
Here is us and our friends the Rowlans in our Tuk tuks, being carted around town to all the stores we didn't want to go to.
Here is Jim in front of Golden Buddah. Lots of temples over there, and lots of Buddah.

Here is the Grand Palace. To get in you have to be wearing long pants....if you weren't, you could borrow clothes. Don't we look sexy! Yes, those are elephant pants Jim is wearing. Sad but true, we didn't buy them.
We got to pet monkeys and have them sit on our lap. Then we watched their little monkey show. It was pretty funny. One of their tricks was supposed to be doing addition and subtraction....but lets just say they did not get the answers correct. They might want to reconsider having that in the show.



We fed elephants. I got slobbered on, which was discusting. We need to work on Jim's photography skills. He takes one and they are always when I look horrible. Seriously!


Then we went to a different place and got to ride the elephants. The driver got off and Jim drove the elephant a lot of the way. It was not comfortable for him at all, but he did great. Those Thai people are bendy and small.


We went to this zoo like place. They put on an elephant show and it was AMAZING! I mean, how do you even train an elephant to walk the tight rope and paint pictures. They also played soccer and I was totally in awe. You can also feed the giraffes and get your fingers eaten by monkeys and tigers. Totally different experience than at our zoos. Yeah that tiger wanted me for lunch.





Then it was to Phucket for relaxing. We did some snorkeling, swimming, Thai massages by the beach, and reading by the pool. It was fabulous.


And don't forget the highlight for the men.....feeding the wild monkeys on Phi Phi island. The monkeys loved food, especially cookies, chips, and pop. But I did see them hiss and chase people that were not doing what they wanted them to do. Our friend Stan was like a monkey whisperer. He had one eating stuff off the top of his head and was helping them drink water out of a bottle. Jim on the other hand was making the monkeys work for their food. He had them jumping or swinging upside down to get the food he had. There were so many monkeys. It was also interesting to see the hiarchy at work, first the men, then when they were done they left and the women could come, then last the little monkeys could come scavange for leftovers. The ocean was clear and warm and perfect.





Thailand was fabulous. Now.....where to think about going next?????????