Brett and Tiffany

Part 2: Let the Move Begin! Road Trip - Minneapolis to Phoenix

2011-12-16T13:59:00.000-07:00

Our entire purpose for driving through Roswell was to go to the International UFO Museum there. I have always that it would be fun to go and it was finally a possibility without taking us too far out of the way. The whole town is alien themed which is really fun.

The museum was actually very interesting and you could spend hours inside it reading through all of the material. There is a large timeline in there with all of the newspaper clippings and posted personal accounts along the way. They had an Area 51 section, UFO Pictures section (both identified and unidentified pics), etc... There were also some fun exhibits just to take pictures of.

The next stop was at the Billy the Kid Museum in the hills where he resided most of his life. I learned a lot of interesting things about Billy the Kid.

We then came across the World's Largest Pistachio at the McGinn's Pistachio Tree Ranch. They had all sorts of pistachios to taste test and they were delicious. They even had Pistachio Brittle.

Our last scheduled stop for the trip was at White Sands National Monument. We had a blast playing around here. It had rained a bit that day so the sand was freezing cold and still wet but that didn't stop us. We had long jump contests off the tops of the dunes and took lots of photos.

- - -

Let the Move Begin! Road Trip - Minneapolis to Phoenix - Part 1

2011-12-09T16:53:00.001-07:00

The move begins... We drove one of our cars out to Phoenix last week. We made it more of a road trip and planned a lot of stops along the way.

We stopped and saw Liberty Jail in Liberty, Missouri. They have rebuilt the jail and it is housed inside a large granite building. A Sister Missionary gave us a brief history of the jail and the events that led up to the prophet being in the jail, and then there were a few recordings to listen to as well. It was very interesting and we were so glad we stopped! It is always helpful to be able to put things from the scriptures into perspective.

Our first night was in Kansas City. We stayed in a Courtyard Marriott in the Plaza District. Every building was lined with lights and it was a really fun area. We went to a Christmas play that night called the "Christmas Spectacular". It was a quartet and they sang a huge assortment of holiday songs. There was a childrens choir that would occasionally come out and chime in. It was really fun and nice to get out and do something after a day of driving.

Missing State Sign: Oklahoma (They were doing construction and there was only one lane and it was baracaded, hence, nowhere to pull over and take a picture)

We stopped in Tulsa, Oklahoma and had lunchat Kilkenny's Irish Pub with some friends that recently moved there for grad school. I had a hamburger that had pesto, cream cheese, and goat cheese on it and it was delicious! We stayed in Oklahoma City that night at a SpringHill Suites Marriott.

I love holiday lights. :)

We pulled off the freeway and onto Route 66 to go to the Devil's Rope Museum (Barbed Wire Musuem), but unfortunately it was closed! The town really was like a ghost town and we were the only ones on the road the entire time. It was just like it is in the movie Cars, it was quite sad.

We stopped in Amarillo, Texas to have lunch at the Big Texan. We both had steak and it was delicious. If you can finish a 72 oz. steak in under 1 hour, you can have it free, but neither of us tried.

We stopped at a couple thrift stores to find ties for Brett's collection and saw the below sign. Really? Hilarious.

Right outside of Amarillo on Cadillac Ranch is where the pictures were taken below.

We continued on to Roswell, NM that night and stayed at a Fairfield Inn Marriott. We saw some cotton fields along the way and they are really neat!

New PHX Contract Area Manager Announced

2011-10-25T10:48:00.002-06:00

The Customer Service Department would like to congratulate Brett Whitelaw as the new contract area manager for the US Airways PHX operation.

Brett started his SkyWest career in CDC as a cross utilized agent in 2007. In 2010, he was promoted to contract supervisor for our MSP hub. Brett has made a significant contribution to the continued success and improvement of that contract operation. He has also successfully built relationships with our contract vendors and has supported the needs of all SkyWest departments involved with that operation.

Brett graduated with his MBA from Southern Utah University and brings a wealth of knowledge and skill-set to the contract team and SkyWest as a whole. He will play a vital role with our newest code-share partner, US Airways! Brett is excited and energized to take on this challenge.

He and his wife will be making the move to PHX just in time to enjoy the beautiful winter weather!

Brett's Newest Money Saving Idea

2011-10-23T13:43:00.000-06:00

As many of you know Brett loves saving money. He comes up with many various plots and schemes to maximize value in all different avenues of life. In fact, when we were in Cedar City a couple months ago, we took a couple girls from our old primary class out to dinner (with coupons, of course). For an after-dinner-activity, we went to the grocery store and Brett created a game for them. Of course the game was based on prices and value. He would tell them what they were looking for, for example the lowest priced bag of chips, and the first one to find it and bring it back would get a point. He taught them the difference between price and value. They had to learn how to find the cheese that was the best total value, not just the lowest priced. Okay, now that my point is demonstrated I can tell the rest of the story.

This all leads up to our newest money saving method. We decided early on that when we travel, we won't buy lots of random souvenirs that will eventually just clutter our house (besides the occasional shirt, hat, or skirt that is), we would only buy a magnet from each place we went. They are generally always under $5, don't take up a lot of space, and are still a fun memory of all the places we have been. Some of our magnets we have collected from various locations are shown below.

It all started when we were recently in St. Croix and didn't like any of the magnets in the gift shop at our resort. We thought there would be a shop at the airport where we could find something better. We arrived at the airport and quickly found that there was not a gift shop there. We were sad, but just decided we would have to come back some day and get a magnet then. A couple weeks later, I was scrapbooking our trip and Brett saw the hotel key card we had saved. He realized they are about the same size as our magnets and the wheels started turning. He got a marker out and made what turned out to be a cheaper, but really neat magnet for St. Croix (shown below). It's now one of my favorite magnets.

He was so excited because he realized he doesn't even need to spend 3-5 dollars on a magnet anymore. He can just make his own! Don't worry too much though, if I see one I really like, it will still end up on our fridge. But it sure is nice to know we don't have to stress about finding the perfect magnet anymore. We will always have a backup plan.

Touring Minneapolis...Our Current Hometown

2011-09-25T13:19:00.000-06:00

We decided to take advantage of having a couple days off in a row together. The first day we went to the Como Zoo and observatory (Free), rode the carousel (also happened to be free the day we were there), had burger, fries, and a shake, and went to the dollar theater to see Transformers. One of our favorite animals at the zoo were a pair of brown bears that were swimming and playing. They were so cute! Our other favorites were the spider monkeys and a little baby orangutan. The baby orangutan was being a little show-off by climbing to the highest tower and swinging from the beams.

The second day we had off we went downtown. We had lunch at the 508 Bar and Restaurant (we had a buy-one-get-one-free), strolled the riverwalk while taking pictures of all the bridges, toured the Mill City Museum (also had a buy-one-get-one-free for this), then finished the night off with 35 cent wings at the 8th Street Grill. The Mill City Museum was very interesting. We learned a lot about the history of the city and the flour industry. They also had a fun exhibit where we could practice shifting the flow of a river by building dams, etc.... We had a good time.

St. Croix - U.S. Virgin Island

2011-08-09T09:36:00.001-06:00

Annaly Bay

This last weekend we got to go to St. Croix. St. Croix is owned by the United States, so they use the U.S. Dollar and speak English. The only quirky thing is they drive on the left side of the road, even though the cars are still designed like ours with the driver on the left side. Apparently, the accident rate is super high because of this. There is a U.S. Naval base there as well.

We were only there a couple of days, but it was a beautiful island and one we would definitely go back to. We stayed at the Renaissance Marriott Carambola Resort which is situated on the north side of the island. Marriott acquired this property 8 months ago, and it is truly a unique property for Marriott. Most of the Marriott properties on the beach or high rises with tons of rooms, but this one was made up of villas. There were about 4 villas in each building and each villa has a living room, screened-in patio with furniture and table, fridge, sofa pull-out bed, and a lot of space.

We went on a hike to Annaly Bay, which starts right from the resort. We got to hike through the jungle, the grassy hill-top, and eventually made our way down the other side of the mountain into Annaly Bay. Annaly Bay had a natural tide-pool, which the ocean feeds during high tide. Our favorite part of the hike were the hermit crabs all over the hill-side. As you would walk, the hermit crabs would get scared and go into their shell and start rolling down the hill-side. When they got rolling too fast, they would come out of their shell briefly to try and slow themselves down by grabbing onto something. It was rather comical to see a shell come rollind down the hill-side over the trail every 30 seconds.

On the hike out from the bay we saw an old looking structure decided to hike up to it. We got to it, but still don't really have any idea what it was used for.

The hike only took a few hours, so we still had the rest of the day to play on the beach. We tried to go snorkeling, but the ocean was really choppy so the visibility was not great due to a lot of sand being kicked up in the water. We gave up on that pretty quick and decided to boogie board on the beach instead. The waves were the perfect size to catch and we had a ton of fun.

Later this evening after we were both thoroughly worn out from boogie boarding and hiking, we built a sand castle.

Our last morning there we decided to give snorkeling another shot. We had seen a sting ray on the first day we arrived and snorkeled, but the 2nd day wasn't good at all. Hopefully the 3rd day would be a charm. The visibility was much better, but still not completely clear. My favorite part of snorkeling at this location was all of the neat plant life. There was bright purple and yellow kelp and a large unspoiled reef.

It was a short trip, but we were just happy to have the opportunity to go and see this beautiful island!

Miami - June 26-27

2011-07-24T19:29:00.002-06:00

Brett and I both had two days off in a row, so we decided to make the most of it and head to Miami for a day. We got in around 1:00pm and picked up our rental car. We drove to the hotel, checked in, dropped off our stuff, and headed to Miami beach. We stopped and ate a pizza, then headed for the shore. It was a cloudy, somewhat rainy day, but still 85 degrees and wonderful. We played in the water, laid out, built a sand castle, and just relaxed. Since it was threatening rain, we basically had the beach to ourselves.

That evening we went back to our car, and noticed there were a lot of tables being setup outside the restaurants. We then noticed a sign that said 'Culinary Event Starts Here'. Intrigued we found a tent and learned that there just so happened to be an event called "Taste the World on Two Blocks" starting in 15 minutes. What a great find! It was $15 each and you were then given your 'passport' and would go to each restaurant and get a taste of a different kind of food. They would then stamp your passport and you would proceed to the next stop. It was so much fun! They had a few different traveling bands to listen to while eating too, it was a really great time. We were completely stuffed afterward.

The next morning we got up and went to the Holocaust Memorial near Miami Beach. It was really intense and sad, but a wonderful reminder of the horrors that took place. The sculptures were very realistic and provoked strong emotions.

We went back to the beach to see it one more time before flying out. We walked on it for about 30 minutes, then headed back to fly home. A quick trip with much needed relaxation.

Cancun, Mexico May 14-17, 2011

2011-07-18T14:22:00.004-06:00

After spending two days in airports trying to get to Kauai to join B&C and C&J, we gave up and chose another destination. Cancun, Mexico! We arrived there in the late morning, checked into our hotel, and immediately took advantage of the free shuttle our hotel had to the hotel zone. We spent the day on the beach at the Marriott there and even took a nap under the straw huts to recover from all the flights. We took the free shuttle back to the hotel that evening not quite ready to venture out on our own, since we didn't have any real plans for our back up destination. We relaxed at our hotel and made a game plan for the rest of the vacation in Cancun.

The following morning we woke up and took the bus downtown. We found a church and went to sacrament. We then proceeded to Isla Mujeres. We scootered from the church to the ferry stations and took the ferry across the water. It was a beautiful day full of sunshine. Our main goal was to find some great snorkeling spots. We rode our scooters to the south tip of the island, looking the whole way. Apparently, all the beaches are privatized and you have to pay to gain access. We weren't satisfied with this and just kept riding. We made it to the south tip and continued up the east side of the island until we found a somewhat rocky cliff shoreline. A mile or so up the shore, we could see a small family on a little beach and were determined to find it. We followed some pathways behind some houses and eventually found the way down the rocky cliff to an awesome little private beach. We were dying of heat at this point and immediately got in the water with our snorkeling gear on. We found a few fish, but nothing spectacular. The best snorkeling is on the West side of the island where the reefs are protected from the rest of the ocean. We still had a great time though and had fun on our beach. There were some neat formations there.

Hunger took over soon and we packed up our gear and hopped back on our scooters. We got snacks at little shops all along the way and eventually got back to the main part of town. Here we ate tamales from the street vendors and ice cream.

We took the ferry back to mainland and began the search for the bus to get back to the hotel. We went to the spot we were dropped off and saw a lot of buses that had similar places, but none that were exactly the same. We hadn't written down the exact name though, so we weren't 100% sure. After about 30 minutes, we decided to get on the bus that we thought was ours. It went the right direction for about 8 miles, then turned off the main road about 4 miles before our hotel into a small run-down community. Brett and I looked at each other with concern right when it turned off the main road. We decided to stay on the bus because we decided that it must wind through the community and then continue on down the main road. We went up and down streets for about 15 minutes, winding all around until we were the last ones on the bus. I was mentally keeping tabs of which way the main road was, just in case. We pulled up to the main square and the bus driver told us to get off. He said the bus was no longer in service. At this point, we really had no idea how far we were from the hotel, it was dark, and we were in the middle of this poor community. We got off the bus and rode as quickly as possible back to the main road. We were both a little nervous and just kept riding toward the hotel while we tried to decide what to do. We watched for another bus, but none ever came that would stop. We ended up just riding the entire way. It took us about an hour of hard riding because the street was quite busy and we couldn't ride continuously. Needless to say, when we got back to the hotel we were exhausted and relieved to be back.

The next day we planned on going downtown again, but this time to explore all the shops and restaurants. Before leaving, we sat outside our hotel and watched for the bus that would bring us back to avoid the previous nights adventure. We saw it, wrote down the exact wording on it, took a picture, and hopped on one to go back downtown. We walked up and down all the streets and ate quesadillas, tacos, tamales, taquitos, enchiladas, etc... We loved it. We went to the grocery store and bought all sorts of cheap pastries too.

We hopped on a bus and went to see the 'El Rey' ruins in the afternoon. They were really neat and there were iguanas everywhere! We literally saw hundreds of iguanas. We took a lot of pictures and played around on the ruins until they kicked us out at closing time.

We ate more food downtown, then at about 7:00pm we decided to head back to the hotel before it got too dark. We saw our bus and tried to flag it down, but the driver said it wasn't in service. Twenty minutes later we saw our bus again, tried to flag it down, but the driver wouldn't stop or even look. Thirty minutes later we hadn't seen another one of our buses. You've got to be joking right? Frustrated, we got on the same bus we had gotten on the previous day and just got off it before it exited the main road. Once again, we rode the scooters all the way back to the hotel.

The following morning we woke up and laid out by our pool at the hotel, had one final feast of delicious mexican food, then flew out that early afternoon.

Memorial Day

2011-06-06T12:17:00.000-06:00

Brett and I both had Memorial Day off, which rarely happens in the industries we work in since they are both open 24/7. We took full advantage of the day! Our first stop was at the Fort Snelling National Cemetery. This cemetery is so big! We got online before we went and found out that there is 1 Whitelaw buried there, and 27 Lindstroms. We looked up the section and number they were in and found one of each. It was neat to go there on Memorial day and see all the flowers everywhere. There were graves from World War I, World War II, Vietnam, Korea, etc.... We were glad we went.

The next stop was Minnehaha Falls Park. We went with very low expectations for this waterfall considering there are not any mountains around, so really, how big could it be? We were pleasantly surprised though. I mean, it's still not comparable to most of the falls back home, but bigger than we had imagined. We got some shakes from Dairy Queen and walked around and enjoyed the scenery.

The next stop was lunch at our favorite Chinese Restaurant called Golden Wok. It is about 5 minutes from our apartment and has some delicious $5 lunch specials. We got the General Tso's and Garlic Chicken 'To Go' and went on our way.

We stopped for a brief nap at home, then switched the car out for the scooter and went to find some disc golf courses. The first course we went to is a 9-hole course and was at Moir Park which sits right above 9-mile river. There is walking paths, barbecues, and picnic tables all along the river. We played a round then went down to the river.

We made up this little game where we would try and skip the discs off the water from one side of the river to the other side. Brett was much better at it than I and consequently, I had to retrieve my disc downstream that didn't quite make it to the other side. The water was quite pleasant which was surprising. We are used to the rivers always being ice cold because the water is coming straight from the mountains. Not the case here.

We went for a scooter ride around a couple more lakes on our way to our last stop which was Lake Cornelia Park, which has an 18-hole disc golf course. We finished the night out at Arby's for dinner.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin - April 27, 2011

2011-05-29T18:03:00.000-06:00

Brett had to do some training for his job in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Neither of us had ever been there before, so we decided to make a small trip out of it. I got to relax in the hotel the whole day until Brett got done with his training. We took a bus downtown and explored. We were really craving mexican food and found the perfect little authentic restaurant. The food was so good and exactly what we were looking for! We stayed the night and flew back home in the morning.

Barcelona, Spain - March 2011

2011-05-23T21:24:00.005-06:00

We flew to Barcelona on a Wednesday night and arrived the next day in the morning. As we were sitting on the plan getting ready for takeoff, passengers started lining up in the isle with their cameras. Apparently there was someone famous sitting 2 rows in front of us. It turned out to be Lionel Messi, the biggest soccer player on Barcelona's team. Because we spent most of the long flight watching movies and eating food, that meant we had to spend a lot of thursday resting and relaxing since we didn't sleep. It was nice just to spend a day hanging out near the hotel. We stayed at the Barcelona Airport Renaissance.

The hotel had paddle ball courts. Not knowing how to play paddle ball, we played using tennis rules. We had a great time and wish that there were more paddle ball courts in the U.S.!

These are brand new paddles. The first day we were there we played with some that the hotel had that were in pretty "rough shape." The concierge felt really bad that we had to play with paddles that had paint chipping off, so he bought some brand new ones for us to play with the next day. Later on our first night we walked around the suburb "El Prat" where our hotel was located. We came across a pizza shop called Telepizza, and ordered some yummy pizza, garlic bread, and coke. My Spanish is really rough, but I got the point across and the food came out how we wanted it, so I suppose you could call that success. We also stopped at a small little market and bought some cookies, juice, and fruit for the morning. On our way out of the market, we saw someone get some fresh baked bread from a gentlemen in the back and decided we needed to come back the following night and get some for ourselves!

The 2nd day we were there we got up and took the free shuttle downtown that our hotel offered. We were dropped off in one of the Plazas, then walked, walked, walked, and walked some more. We looked at our walking route for the day and estimated it at about 20 miles.

Upon arriving to Spain, we found that our camera had decided to stop working, so our first stop in the city was to find a camera. We found a camera shop a few blocks from where we were dropped off and bought a camera with a european plug. They didn't have any with our type of plugs. Oh well, what can you do? We weren't about to buy an instant camera to save memories from Spain! In all honesty, it is probably one of the nicest cameras we've had and we are rather enjoying it. So not all is lost.

Our main destinations were all of the Gaudi architecture. We saw a lot of neat cathedrals and what not along the way, but really just wanted to see the Gaudi buildings.

The first Gaudi building we saw...

Another Gaudi building...

La Sagrada Familia was the most intricate building I have ever seen! Gaudi designed it and it has been under construction since 1883 and will not be finished for another 20 years or so!! This is not surprising at all once you actually see it. Every single aspect of the builiding was 100% ornately designed.

After walking and walking and walking we took the shuttle back to the hotel and were soooo tired. We had zero energy left, but loved paddle ball so much that we just had to play. We went and played for an hour or so and completely overdid ourselves. I fell asleep for a couple hours, but woke up very hungry so we made the jaunt to the Telepizza and got ourselves some more dinner. I promptly fell asleep when we got back and woke up about 12 hours later. When I woke up in the morning, my entire body was sore. I guess that's what happens when you work at a desk!

Our last full day in Spain we went down to a larger grocery store and bought some more juice, cookies, chocolate, and food for a miniature picnic. We had the picnic on the lawn outside our hotel, then took the afternoon shuttle downtown. Our goal was to explore the beaches and see some of the buildings at night all lit up. The beaches were packed since it was about 70 degrees and sunshine. We took our razor scooters this day and rode all over the beach walks. We found a little crepe shop and bought one with dulce de leche. So yummy!

We found lots of fun sculptures, my favorite being a giant rope/web/playground. I jumped off of the playground to get a neat picture and actually broke my big toe when I landed. I was super glad I had the scooter because I was having a really hard time walking. This is the picture...

Luckily the picture turned out pretty cool or I would have been extra mad about the injury. We had dinner at a restaurant on the beach. It was a buffet and had plenty of crab legs and other seafood for Brett.

We didn't get to play paddle ball on our last night there since I hurt my toe. So sad. The following morning we got up and went right to the airport and flew back home. Luckily we got business class so I was able to just put my foot up and stay off of it which I think really helped it. When we got into Atlanta at 1:30pm we instantly knew it was going to be tricky getting out on a flight. There were volleyball teams everywhere! We tried all sorts of flights throughout the day and watched them all fly away without us. Finally at 11:00pm we caught a flight to Omaha, slept in the Omaha airport, and caught a flight to Minneapolis at 5:00am to make it back in time for work that day. Needless to say, it was a rough night at work, but it was totally worth it!

Washington D.C.

2011-03-24T14:10:00.002-06:00

February 16 was a great day in Washington D.C. ... Morning flight to D.C. Lunch at Moe's Southwest Grill, the Washington Memorial, the Holocaust Museum, the Vietnam Wall, the Korean War Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial. Then a late flight back to Minneapolis. :)

NYC

2011-03-23T14:11:00.007-06:00

We had two days off in a row the first week of February and decided to take a little trip to NYC. We flew in and met our friend who is living there. He took us to a fun place called Vapianos for dinner. I had some delicious pasta and Brett had Pizza. We then went for a stroll down to see the empire state building and Times Square. We got some real New York Cheesecake in Times Square and it was so good! While strolling the streets we found a shop that had 20 postcards for $1.00! We never buy postcards, but that deal was too good to pass up so we bought 20. Little did we know, we would turn the corner and find a shop selling postcards 30 for $0.99! We felt jipped and laughed about it all night. After all our adventures we took the train back to our hotel near the airport, then flew home the next morning.

Birthday Time

2011-03-16T17:12:00.000-06:00

Brett got me the flowers that reminded him the most of Spring so that I could maybe feel that I still have a Spring birthday, even though there is still mounds of snow outside. I had a very relaxing day. We went to church in the morning, then Brett made me a very delicious breakfast for lunch, with homemade biscuits. I read some of my book, took a nap, and then watched a movie. Brett made me corned beef and cabbage for dinner, one of my very favorites.

The New Apartment

2011-03-15T16:57:00.000-06:00

I finally took some pictures of our new apartment... Enjoy :)

Minneapolis, Minnesota: The move

2011-01-01T16:33:00.000-07:00

After several weeks of commuting back and forth from Minneapoliss to Utah for work, Brett and I finally locked down an apartment, packed up all of our things in Utah, and made the drive East. We left the Monday before Christmas and drove 1500 miles over a span of 2.5 days.

We unloaded our U-haul and rode the lightrail downtown in order to attend the Jazz vs. Timberwolves game in Minneapolis. Brett has always wanted to go to a Jazz game and it is funny that we finally attended one in Minneapolis! We came home to an apartment full of boxes and slept on our mattress on the floor. We both worked the next few days, so not much unpacking was done initially.

We have finally had a few days off and are mostly unpacked. The new couch and kitchen table are due to arrive next week. We are so excited to finally finish getting our apartment setup!

It has snowed almost every day since we've been here. For the first two weeks the temperature never rose above freezing so the snow just keeps piling up. It never has a chance to melt like it does in Utah. They haul it out of the city with dump trucks and have large snow melters to melt the snow into the river! All the snow banks by the roads are anywhere from 5 feet to 9 feet high which makes it hard to turn while driving due to lack of visibility. A couple days ago, the temperature finally rose above freezing and the melting began. It even rained which cut all the snow banks and piles in half. Unfortunately, the weather turned cold the day after which led to sheets of ice covering all the roads and sidewalks.

Yesterday after I finished work, I went out to my car and there had been an ice storm. My car was covered in 1/4" of pure ice! It took me nearly half an hour to scrape my windshields off to drive home. Fortunately though, they are really good about salting the freeways before the storm hits, so the freeways aren't too bad. What an adventure!

Here's a quick snapshot of the snow we've had here in Minneapolis the last few weeks... :) Happy New Years everyone!

Germany

2010-11-09T14:04:00.000-07:00

After a fairly quick flight from Egypt, we arrived in Germany in the morning. We took a train to the main Frankfurt station and then switched to another train that took us to Wurzburg. We had a few hours to kill until his parents could come get us (they had an appointment) so we hopped on our razor scooters and strolled the town. There was a cathedral on almost every block and they were really ornate and beautiful. We went inside a few and got to see some really old tombs as well as the beautiful artwork.

After we met his parents, they took us to see the church, meet the missionaries, and do some shopping. They showed us the nifty shopping carts there, coolest idea ever. The shopping carts are attached together in the stall and you can't get one out unless you put a euro in it. When you return the cart, you get your euro back and WhaLa, no shopping carts left all over in the parking lot. Genius! They then took us to their apartment in Rimpar where we ate some bratwursts and cheese for dinner and then Brett and I promptly fell asleep after being awake for approximately 24 hours.

The view from Chandler and Cheryl's apartment in Rimpar

We woke up late the next day, but still had plenty of time to go tour a castle and meet some members. We drove to Wurtheim and parked nearby the picturesque little town with a castle towering above. We climbed loads of stairs to get up to the castle, paid our euro to enter, then explored the day away. This castle was in ruins and was really cool! Parts of it were overgrown, but we were still able to see the underlying structure and picture it in it's prime. We went up and down a ton of stairs and Brett's Mom (being a math teacher and having a passion for numbers) counted just exactly how many. I forgot the exact number though unfortunately, because it was a lot!

After touring the castle, we went down and explored the town of Wurtheim. It was a classic small German town with narrow cobblestone streets, cathedrals, plenty of great food, and plenty of shopping. I absolutely loved it. We went to visit some members that live not too far from Wurtheim and they were a delight. It was fun to be able to meet the people Chandler and Cheryl write home about.

We had a traditional German dinner that evening at Chandler and Cheryl's castle in Rimpar where they live. It was small in comparison to the castle we toured earlier, but still really neat. Pretty much every town has a castle in Germany. I can't remember the name of my dinner, but it was similar to chicken cordon bleu. Brett had potato dumplings, red cabbage, and some sort of beef. They were both yummy.

The next day we decided to tour some places in Wurzburg that Brett and I didn't get around to the first day. We first took a tour of The Residence which is a huge mansion where all the Bishops used to live. It was so beautiful inside. The paintings and artwork were the most ornate I have ever seen, but we weren't allowed to take any photographs inside :( . The Residence was surrounded by acres and acres of beautifully landscaped gardens which we had a good time exploring.

We then toured the castle above Wurzburg. People actually still live in this one, which was a little different. It was surrounded by vineyards on all the steep hillsides. In all the castles , there were so many entrances to tunnels that were blocked off, I just wish I could go through them and explore them all! I was thouroughly intrigued and would just stare into the blackness through the gates trying to imagine where they led. This castle offered a beautiful birds eye view of Wurzburg.

After a long day of walking, we ate dinner at a chicken place in Wurzuburg that one of the members manages. We got to meet him, and eat some delicious fried chicken. This chicken place is actually located on one of the streets where Hitler marched his troops during the war.

We proceeded to drive to Frankfurt this afternoon where we did some sight seeing. On the drive into Frankfurt we had to take a Ferry at one point across the river. We were lucky enough to get an ice cream truck on the ferry with us and took full advantage of it. We took some pictures of the Frankfurt Cathedral, listened to part of the mass, walked through a street fair, and ate some bratwursts. At the end of the night Chandler and Cheryl dropped us off at a hotel so we could fly out early in the morning back home.

We had so much fun in Germany and had a great time visiting with Brett's parents and meeting all the people they write home about. All of the little towns were picturesque, tucked in small valleys, with a river flowing through it, and a castle towering above. Loved it.

Cairo - Day 3

2010-10-05T15:15:00.001-06:00

The last day, we slept in and then went to see some mosques. We were flying out that night so we decided to take it easy. We walked around, took some pictures, tried to go in a mosque but they wouldn't let us because of Ramadan, and enjoyed the day overall. That evening we once again got a free Ramadan meal on the street. This time it was rice, tomato based sauce, meatballs, potatoes, celery, and flat bread. We were so worried we would get sick from it, because the conditions were anything but sanitary, but sometimes you just have to do it anyway to experience the culture I guess.

Our 2nd Ramadan meal on the street

A few pictures of the Marriott... It used to be a palace, then Marriott bought it and turned it into a hotel so it is kind of a famous building in the area

This is what the streets of Cairo actually look like once you get off the main road, although there is generally even more garbage than this on the ground

It is hard to see, but the little green guy in this picture is running. It was really funny. He would start at a walking pace, then go faster and faster until he was running. It was legitimate too, because if you don't run to get out of the way on these streets, you will get hit. It's like Frogger, but with real people.

We caught a taxi to the airport and got ready for our 1:00am flight that was completely open with plenty of business class seats left. Yay! Well almost, anyway. It' s time to board and all 25 of us non-revs are waiting for them to call our names to get on the plane, when an agent comes over and announces that NOONE will be getting on the plane. Delta had taken a load of cargo, so they had as much weight as they could carry. I wanted to cry. I was so done with Cairo and ready to leave. Luckily, Brett was amazing as always, and had bought some Lufthansa ZED fares (standby on another airline) to Frankfurt before we left, just in case.

We shortly found out that our Lufthansa flight was in another terminal. As we attempted to exit the security area of the current terminal we were in, we ran into some more problems. They had apparently escorted the group of standbys out of the terminal that didn't get on the plane, but we had stuck around just to make sure they weren't taking anybody (occassionally they miscalculate something and end up taking a few still). After realizing they really weren't taking any of us, we tried to exit and they wouldn't let us. We were then told we would have to pay some fee, etc... We were getting the run around again! Catherine finally found an employee who told us to come with him and he would get us out. We followed him through a back employee door, through the back of the terminal, around where a bunch of employees were working in a warehouse, and finally out to the street! It was crazy! This trip just wasn't ending. We finally found out which terminal our flight was going to be in and found a bus that would take us there.

Once we arrived in the other terminal we got checked in and waited for the flight that was supposed to leave at 5:00am. We were told there were no seats, but that we could wait anyway to see. As everyone else boarded the flight, we just waited and finally a supervisor approached us and asked if we were getting on the flight. We told him we were standbys. He then told us there were no seats, but then asked what we did for the airlines, Brett told them he is a ticketing agent for Delta. The supervisor then told us he would ask the Pilot if we could fly in the jumpseats and he left. 5 minutes later, he came back and told us we had approval to fly in the jumpseats if we wanted to. We told him that would be fine (we would do anything to get out of Cairo), thanked him a hundred times and proceeded to board. The flight attendants started showing us how to unlock the cargo doors, etc... all the safety stuff we needed to know since we would be sitting in the jumpseats that blocked the doors. We actually ended up getting real seats due to some passengers not showing up and arrived in Frankfurt, Germany a few hours later. Finally.

Cairo - Day 1 and 2

2010-10-05T14:42:00.001-06:00

After our little day trip/layover in New York we flew to Cairo, Egypt. We got to see the pyramids when we flew in which was really cool.

From the airport we shared a taxi with another lady to the Marriott. Upon talking to her, we found out she is also a non-rev passenger and works for Delta in the Tucson, Arizona airport. She grew up in Bolivia, but lives in AZ now, and her name is Catherine. She flew there alone and didn't even have hotel reservations! So we got her a room at the associate rate at the Marriott since I'm allowed 2 rooms at that rate. She ended up being very fun and we did all of our activities together for the next couple days.

Our room at the Marriott was fabulous, as always, with a beautiful view of the Nile River which our hotel was right next to.

That evening we took a walk downtown to find some food. It was a little weird because the shops and everything were closed and we didn't know why. Finally, a local stopped us on the street and ask us what we were looking for. We told him we just wanted food and he explained that it is Ramadan and none of the shops would be open for another hour or so. He then took us to his friends shop where we got to see a papyrus making demonstration as well as some beautiful papyrus paintings. We finally found a little shop open that had some of the street tacos, so we got some of those. We relaxed that evening in the pool/sauna/hot tub at the hotel.

This is the view of the Nile from the downtown area. All the lit up boats give river cruises.

The next day we decided to cram it all in, so we got up early and went to the Egyptian Museum. On the way there we met a kid named Osama (hahaha, makes me laugh every time) who was a local and spoke Spanish as well as Arabic. Him and Catherine started talking and he came to the museum with us and was kind of a tour guide. The museum is where they hold all of the artifacts, mummies, chariots, gold, huge statues, etc... that they have taken out of all the different tombs. This place was HUGE! There was so much stuff in there. Unfortunately no pictures were allowed, but the mummies were our very favorite part. On one of the mummies, the toe part had come unraveled slightly and we could see the toes!!! They were black and curled up, it was disgusting.

We went back to the hotel to grab our Camelbacks to take with us to the pyramids, then headed out. Osama was still with us since Catherine had invited him to come with us to the pyramids as well. He found us a taxi for about $4 that took us all to the pyramids, it was about a 15 minute drive from the hotel. It cost us $10 each to get in to see them.... Oh and Brett brought his Student I.D. card so it was only $5 for him. So ridiculously cheap!

Notice the guard sleeping in the shade toward the bottom of the pyramid... hahaha

At the pyramids, you can just wander around and look at them all you want. To go inside the great pyramid you have to pay extra, and get there early because they only let in 100 people a day and it is first come first serve. So.... we just viewed them from the outside. Normally you can go inside the smallest pyramid for free, anytime, but it happened to be shut down and under construction when we were there. Sad. We walked all the way out to it, died of heat, and then it was closed. We were very disappointed.

The whole troop. Catherine, Osama, Brett, and Me

We made our way to the Sphinx finally, red faced and worn-out, but it was worth it because it was really neat.

At this point, we were starving and really wanted to find a great local place to eat some food. Up to this point Osama had been great. He was really funny, helpful when taking pictures, saved us a lot of money with taxis and snacks (they always charge tourists more), and we were really greatful for him. We planned on giving him a big tip when we got home because he had saved us a lot. If it weren't for him we were going to just take a tour from the hotel to the pyramids, which was about $75 a person, because we were too nervous to take a taxi and the bus system was completely innavigable. There were no bus routes, no bus maps, the buses didn't have numbers, etc... We would ask people and they would just nod and say yes, yes, yes, yes. But after we finished with the pyramids Osama started acting a little different.

We were sitting down at a little shop drinking juic/pepsi/water that we had just bought when this little buggy thing came by. Osama insisted that we take a ride in it. We really didn't want to and told him no, we just wanted to eat somewhere. He kept insisting and insisting and we kept saying no. Then he said he would pay for it, so we finally agreed. (Egyptians are SUPER pushy and do not give up. I'm used to having to say no 2 or 3 times before people leave you alone, like in South America. But, for example, Egyptian taxis will follow you for miles and you have to say no a good 20 times and eventually just start ignoring them completely.) Anyway, we ride in the little buggy and get out and Osama tells us we can get food in this little shop. We enter the shop and it is a clothing shop. We are a little annoyed, but don't want to be rude, so we looked around for a bit, didn't buy anything and left. Catherine tells him again that we really just want food, so he takes us to another shop, we go in, and lone behold, no food. Just perfumes and more of his friends. Once again, to be polite, we cooperated. We listened to a little presentation on all the different oils and perfumes which would have been quite interesting if he hadn't lied to us and we weren't so hungry!

We finally got out of there and demanded that he take us to a place with food. We walked a few blocks and he actually took us to a restaurant this time, finally. They seated us and we asked for menus. He said they don't have menus they just serve the best chicken in Cairo. As he described the food to us, it all sounded very American and expensive, which isn't what we wanted. We wanted local food. We asked him the prices and he wouldn't really give us a definitive answer. We were not down with that, so we left, to his irritation. We decided at this point that he was probably trying to make commission off us somehow to make his day worth it, since he was starting to act shady.

We told him we wanted to get a cab home and he said we couldn't catch a cheap one there we need to walk a few blocks down the street with him. Once again, we were way uncomfortable with him at this point and what he was saying didn't make any sense. As Catherine was trying to tell him that what he was saying was unreasonable, he started getting angry and said that we didn't have confidence in him and we could try and catch a taxi, but we would see that he was right. As all this was going on, Brett flagged a couple taxis down, negotiated prices, and got us back for the exact same amount we got there for. Osama didn't come with us because he was upset.

One of the mosques we saw on the drive back to the Marriott after our long day

The whole situation really was too bad, because we were planning on giving him a great tip at the end of the day for all he had done. But instead, he decided to try and make money off us in a shady way, which made us mad, so he got nothing!

By the time we got back to the Marriott we were beat and just super glad to be back safe and in one piece! We relaxed for a while then went back out to find some dinner. We walked down a new street by our hotel and once again it was Ramadan. They fast all day long.. and then there are tables setup all over the city, down alley ways, right in streets, on sidewalks, everywhere. And at approximately 6:00pm all the shops close down so everyone can prepare for their "breakfast". At about 7:00pm all the food starts coming out and everyone eats. We were walking by a table right at this time when they invited us to eat with them. We tried to pay, they said no, and we decided to go for it. It was the local food we had been looking for all day. It was super good! Rice, with a tomato based sauce, cilantro, shredded lamb, potatoes, and flat bread. They even got us each a bottle of coca-cola. We tried to pay them 2 or 3 times more, but they said it was a Ramadan Celebration so we could not pay. The first free thing in Egypt and it was something we expected to pay for! Haha. We found a yummy dessert shop nearby and got some cake.

Ramadan on the street with the locals. The best food we had eaten the whole trip!

The dessert shop. This was the first shop we found that looked clean like you would expect a shop serving food to appear. It reminded me of any bakery you would find in the states and the desserts were delicious!

New York, New York

2010-08-30T18:18:00.000-06:00

After our red-eye flight from Denver to New York, we had 12 hours to kill before our next flight. So, of course, we took advantage of it. We got our razor scooters out and took the subway to Lower Manhattan, where we first saw the Statue of Liberty. Of course, we were too cheap to pay to take a ferry to go right to it, but got some pictures from the shore. We took our scooters and then rode them all the way up to Central Park and saw everything along the way. We saw the New York Stock Exchange, the Brooklyn Bridge, Ground Zero, Wall Street, Times Square, the Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building, Radio City, NBC Studios, Carnegie Hall, etc...

Brooklyn Bridge

Times Square

We both took naps in Central Park - we were SO tired after our red-eye flight.

We have really loved taking our scooters with us everywhere because we are able to see so much more than if we were walking. We never would have been able to walk that far and would have had to spend more taking the subway. We really have saved a lot of money by riding our scooters all over rather than taking public transportation, renting a car, or taking a taxi.

Brian Head

2010-08-05T22:39:00.000-06:00

On Monday July 19th we went up to Brian Head for our nephews birthday party. We mountain biked the trail called Bunker Creek. The temperature was perfect up there and the scenery was gorgeous! There were many beautiful overlooks. The trail is 12 miles long and starts at Brian Head Peak and ends up at Panguitch Lake.

Brett caught a Horny Toad

After biking with only one minor crash for me (Yay!) we went back to George's Ski Shop where there was a large dinner waiting for all of us. We mingled with family and friends, hit golf balls up into the hills with a bat and/or old golf club, threw a huge dead log off a cliff, and had a great time. :)

It's so nice to be able to get out and enjoy the beautiful place we live in!

1st Crop

2010-07-04T12:56:00.002-06:00

Last week was 1st crop out at Brett's family's farm. We always go out and help as much as possible. I usually get to drive a tractor that is pulling a chopper and a wagon and go down the winrows and pick up the hay. This year though, two of Brett's nephews started working and learning how to chop, so I got to learn how to haul. I drove Chandler's truck since he is on a mission. Brett is so patient with me as I learn all these things. He gives me all the time I need to learn, never lets me do anything I'm uncomfortable with and always ensures I'm okay. I super appreciate it because otherwise I may be intimidated to go out there with him. Thanks Brett!

Hauling consists of hooking up to a wagon that has 25,000-30,000 pounds of chopped hay in it, and hauling it to the cuber that is a few miles down the highway road. Once you get to the cuber, you pull the wagon onto a huge scale, write down the weight, then pull up to the specified dumping spot. You then open the back doors to the wagon (carefully, so the hay doesn't fall on you), hook up the hydrolics to the wagon, and let it unload. Once it is unloaded, you shut the doors, unhook the hydrolics and pull the empty wagon back to the farm. Repeat. We did this for 11 hours the 1st day, then for about 5 hours the last day.

Alaska: May 27-31

2010-07-04T12:36:00.000-06:00

As we flew to Anchorage the sun hung right below the horizon the entire way making for beautiful skies. We flew over the Chugatch Mountain Range, and made a broad turn over the inlet. When we turned east we could see the moon just above the horizon behind us and it was shimmering off the water. So beautiful! It really was a spectacular flight and one of the best scenic landings I've ever had. It was approximately 1:00am when we landed and Ray, Aunt Sue, and Aunt Janice picked were gracious enough to stay awake and pick us up from the airport.

Thursday morning we awoke to chatter in the kitchen and a fine breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, and homemade honey and jam. Aunt Janice took us for a tour of Anchorage and we went to lunch at the famous Sour Dough Mining Company. We all had delicious food and enjoyed the free soft serve ice cream. We later went to the ULU Factory to see how the knives are made and how to properly use and take care of them. We played bacci ball at Suzette/Aunt Janice's home and had smoked salmon for a snack. Aunt Janice prepared a yummy beef stew and Jim brought some prawns.

Thursday night/Friday morning Brett and I went to the airport to pick up Brittany and Cory at 1:00am. We saw a moose in the median and were pretty excited to see one, since they all kept saying they are all over the city. We were pretty proud of ourselves for finding our way to the airport and back on our first day there. But remember, it never really gets dark which helps a lot.

Friday morning we loaded up the RV and left for Seward where we had a tour boat waiting for us to go see the Kenai Fjords. The views on the way there were amazing! There were so many perfectly clear reflections of the large mountains in the large lakes. We wanted to stop and take pictures, but were in a time crunch to make it on our tour.

The Tour = Sea otter, orcas, blue whale, seals, mountain goats, bears, porpouses, bald eagles, etc.... We stopped to have lunch on a Fox Island and then continued on to see the Kenai Fjords which are steep mountains that go straight down into the ocean and one of the glaciers as well. So beautiful! I really wanted to see whales and was completely thrilled. I couldn't take my eyes off of them. Our captain recorded the calls our pod of whales were making as they swam by and then let us listen and it was truly magical for me. I really loved it!

We drove up to Grandpa Stoals cabin on the Kenai river and arrived to stuffed smoked salmon and beer battered halibut that Jim made for us. The halibut was my very favorite.

Saturday morning the whole family took us clamming. This was Brett's favorite part of the trip. We all bought licenses, took a drive down to the beach, got down in the mud, and went for it. It was so much fun to spot a tiny hole/impression in the sand, dig down, and pull up a huge clam! It was equally exciting every time. There were also a plethera of bald eagles on the hill side behind us. Seriously, a plethera. In one picture we counted 14. I counted up to 27 when we were driving down the beach, but there were way more than that, I just gave up counting.

When we returned to the cabin they taught us how to clean the clams, so we made an assembly line of sorts, and got the job done. Suzette made clam fritters and breaded clams for us that evening. Jim also grilled up ribs, chicken, and bratwurst. So good! We felt like we were constantly eating on this trip. It was meal after meal after meal, and we loved it.

We spent the rest of the night visiting and fishing. Lots of fish were caught that evening by everybody, the biggest being a 6.5 pound trout.

Sunday morning we stopped at Crazy Susan's to check it out. This lady has a store full of stuff, that should be thrift store priced, but are really expensive in actuality. She had really fun dresses too! We took the drive back up through Anchorage, relaxed at Jim's house for a bit, then drove to the Big Lake to their other cabin. We took a tour of the lake on a boat that evening and got to look at all the large cabins and the beautiful area. We had sandwiches dinner.

Monday morning we had muffins and cereal for breakfast, then played a few games of cards with grandma and grandpa while we waited for it to warm up. After Jim finally convinced us to go in the water that had previously had ice in it two weeks before, he took us water skiing. Brett got up on Slalom his first try. Jim took him through a cove that was smooth as glass and he loved it. I got up on two skis and dropped one, but didn't last too long. We got to take the jet skis out too. We went out on the tubes later and at one point literally flew at least 5 feet in the air. Brittany and I didn't let go, we were the only two that survived that go around. Surprisingly, the water really wasn't that bad either. Mom grilled us up some polish sausages that evening and they were yummy! Perfect to top off a day of fun.

We just had so much fun and were so grateful for the chance to get to know that side of the family. Their hospitality was outstanding and would be hard to parallel. The constant sunlight was very hard to get used to and it never failed that at 11:00pm, one of us from Utah or Idaho would say, "What time is it? 11:30pm!!!! I can't beleive it. It feels like 4:00 in the afternoon." It made it very hard to go to bed, and to be honest we didn't ever go to bed before midnight that I can recall. There's no reason to go to bed when it's perfect temperature, light, and the fishing is good. That's basically the story of Alaska in the summer. Late nights, perfect temperatures, never ending sunlight, and way too much fun!

Aruba Vacation - Part 2 a.k.a Chicago

2010-06-02T19:17:00.001-06:00

We arrived in Chicago Saturday evening and caught a flight to Salt Lake City. We got in at about 11:30pm, where Dad, Jacob, and Sydni were waiting to pick us up. It was Damien and Danielle's Anniversary so they stayed in a hotel downtown and all the kids stayed at Dad's. We played with all the kids Sunday morning - went on a walk, watched the rest of the Tooth Fairy Movie (they fell asleep while watching it the night before), played in the backyard and had a great time. Dad and Mondo took us to brunch at Squatter's and I had the best taco salad I've ever had! It had strips of beef, super good dressing, guacamole, etc...

We went back to the airport at about 4:00pm and caught a flight back to Chicago. We stayed in a Residence in Marriott near the airport. We met Mom, Jesse, Grace, and Grant at the Lincoln Park Zoo on Monday morning. It was really fun to spend time with them and see Grace and Grant's excitement with every new animal we saw.

This polar bear was so cute! He was showing off the entire time we were there. He would swim a few loops and always come right next to the glass. He would then get out of the pool, rest for a moment, then dive back into the pool as deep as he could. All the kids, including us, loved him!

At about 2:00pm we went our separate ways (Brett and I on the L-Train to get back to the airport, and Mom, Jesse, and Kids to go pickup Cori from his interview and get Cori and Mom to the airport). Brett and I, Mom, and Cori met back up at the airport, checked-in for flights, and went to our gates. Cori flew to Phoenix for another interview. Mom, Brett, and I flew back to Salt Lake City. Brett and I stayed another night at Dad's house.

Tuesday morning Brett flew to Phoenix to go golfing with one of his friends and I flew to Cedar City to get back for work. Brett flew into the St. George airport Wednesday morning where I met him. We cleaned the condo for Mom in St. George an headed back to Cedar.

What a trip! We flew about 11,000 miles in 11 different airplanes.

Aruba - Part 1

2010-05-20T19:57:00.002-06:00

We flew into Aruba on a Monday afternoon and headed directly for the bus stop to take us to our Marriott Surf Club Hotel. Whilst waiting for the bus, we met a nice gentlemen that worked as an immigration officer at the airport. He talked to him for a while, and he offered to give us a ride to our hotel from the bus station which was where our transfer point was. We happily accepted and he took us there in half the time it would have taken on a bus. He wouldn't accept tips either, he was just giving us a ride to be nice. Brett often gives people rides from the airport in Cedar City to their hotels/St. George, so it was nice to get a similar favor in return.

We arrived to the Marriott Surf Club and as always were astounded with the humongous pools and intricate landscaping all over the property. We took a walk on the beach, returned to our hotel to shower and get money for dinner, but promptly fell asleep due to the appx. 24 hour trip we had to get there. We didn't have any alarms set and slept for about 15 straight hours! Can you believe that?

The next day we awoke and we were starving! We hadn't eaten anything except for small snacks for about a day and a half. We went out to eat for breakfast and then got ready for a day of adventure. We decided to go see the lighthouse on the north end of the island, then planned on snorkeling at multiple beaches on the way home. The plan was to catch a bus to the lighthouse, but we walked and walked and walked, and never saw a bus going our direction. We ended up walking the whole 3 miles.

We got smoothies (mango for Me, pina colada for Brett) up by the lighthouse took some pics and headed to the sand dunes near by. The northern coastline was smothered with large boulders and it was fun to watch and listen to the waves crash into the rocks. The weirdest part of Aruba is the fact that it is actually very much a desert. There were cacti everywhere!

Why is there a humongous cactus in Aruba? I don't know...

Does that look like I'm on an island in the Caribbean? No way! I may as well be walking with my snorkel gear into the desert hills of Utah! LOL

The first beach we snorkeled at was Arashi Beach. It was very mild waters and we saw a few neat fish, but nothing too spectacular. The second beach we snorkeled at was just down the shoreline and we saw a turtle, octopus, multiple starfish, swarms of fish, etc... This was our very favorite beach! We came back to it later to spend more time there. That evening we took our razor scooters down to the market to buy food for breakfast the next few days, and to buy some snacks. We ate dinner at a Thai restarant and the food was very good.

On Wednesday we relaxed on our beach in front of the hotel for the better part of the day and then took a tour out to see the Antilla Shipwreck. We got to ride out on a pirate ship and they took us right to the shipwreck so we could snorkel all around the 400 foot carrier that was now submerged. The ship was so big and really eery! They then took us to a snorkeling spot closer to shore where we saw lots more fish and starfish. We sailed down to another spot close to the shore and got to swing off of the rope swing attached to the boat. I did a backflip off the rope swing and had an old man on the tour with us tell me several times that I won the prize for best trick off the rope swing.

Thursday we knew we had to go back to our favorite beach, but this time we were prepared for no bus transportation to get there. We took our scooters, snacks, and snorkel gear, and headed out. Scooters make the trip at least twice as fast, compared to on foot, so we will probably always pack them with us on our vacations, we love them! We always take a lock and lock all of our stuff up while we are both out snorkeling.

Seahorses do exist!!!

We found so many starfish that we thought it would be fun to see how many we could collect and get a picture of them all together. We collected 23! We had to be fast because the starfish didn't like being next to each other and would be quite spread out every time we returned with more to add to our collection.

We also built a huge sandcastle. The Aruban sun is very strong, so even if you have put sunscreen on multiple times, you'll probably still get burned if out in it too long. We both got burned building the sand castle, but had a great time doing it. The final product was inspired by the Mayan ruins in Mexico.

Thursday evening we moved hotels to the Renaissance Marriott located in the town Oranjestad. We decided to switch hotels because the Renaissance owns a private island that only guests are allowed to go to and we just had to see it! Plus, it is always nice to move our base and see new things around a different hotel. There were private boats that shuttle guests to the island every 15 minutes. The hotel built a canal underneath the road, into the hotel where the boats come right in and pick the guests up. Crazy, it was so neat!

This is the canal that comes into the hotel. The lobby is right next to the boat down there.

The main square in Oranjestad

We came across a restaurant called 7 West and ate an all-you-can-eat dinner of ribs that evening (ironically it was the cheapest dinner we could find at $15 a plate). Food on the island was quite expensive at the restaurants ranging from $25 to $40 a plate. We asked the same restaurant if they had any specials the following day, which they did. All-you-can-eat sushi for $15. Needless to say, we returned so Brett could get his sushi, I opted for a different dish of beef garlic tortellini pasta. So delicious!

We went to the island Friday morning. The island has two beaches, flamingos, iguanas, a restaurant, a spa, and a gift shop. There was a shipwreck right off the coast of the island that we were able to snorkel to and see as well. We were still burnt from the adventures the previous day, so we didn't spend too much time in the sun as it hurt! We instead found chairs in the shade of the palm trees. As said earlier, we returned to the 7 West for another delicious meal that evening.

Saturday came all too soon and we flew out that afternoon. The Delta flights were full, but luckily SkyWest has an agreement with United Airlines that allows us to fly standby on their planes as well. That plane had a few seats left so we flew on United to Chicago.

St. George Adventures

2010-04-30T18:07:00.001-06:00

This semester Brett and I had one of our classes in St. George on the Dixie State Campus. We had to take it down there because the class in Cedar City was already full. We were kind of bummed at first when we found out we would have to drive down there once a week, but it turned out to be my favorite day of the week! We both arranged our work schedules so we were able to drive down to St. George either Sunday night or early Monday morning. We would often spend the whole day Monday there, and then occassionally stay until Tuesday morning.

The condo has been getting rented out a lot the last couple of months as well, so it worked out perfectly that we could get it cleaned each week while down there as well.

One of the days we went mountain biking it was freezing cold, windy, and rainy! I convinced Brett, Derek, and Melissa to go because I really wanted to but I'm pretty sure we all got colds afterward. We were soaked to the bone and covered in mud, which was super fun, but still really cold. :)

This humdinger of a snake tried to get me.... I was minding my own business looking at the petroglyphs, stepped around the corner of a rock (right where his head is), luckily looked down just in time to see his head start rising off the ground. I jumped a mile in the air, my stomach curled, and I ran! Brett and Derek just stared at me wondering what I was doing and then hurrily grabbed the camera to take pictures of him.

The weather in St. George is always at least 10 degrees warmer than in Cedar City, so Monday's turned into our golfing/mountain biking/hiking days. If we didn't have too much time we would just take our clubs to Green Springs Golf Course and practice for an hour or so. On the days we had more time we went mountain biking by ourselves or with our friend Derek that lives down in St. George.

One of our favorite trails to bike is the Green Valley Loop, also called BearClaw Poppy Trail. It's a fun 11.5 mile loop cruiser, although if you do the full loop you do have to ride on the road part of the way. All the pictures with the petroglyphs are from a trail called the Anasazi Trail which is about 6.6 miles total out and back. You have to ride to the top of the plateau and then get to ride back down. So it is a lot of work at first but is worth it in the end.

We got to golf the Sand Hollow Golf Course because we got some discounted passes. We golfed 9 holes on the Links Course which is designed after the old English walking courses with stacked stone walls and all! We had a great time.

Spring Break 2010

2010-03-28T22:45:00.019-06:00

Brett and I got to spend the weekend with Mom & Ray for my birthday. We went shopping, went to the movies, and ate great food! On Monday Brett and I went mountain biking on the Green Valley Loop in St. George which took us about two hours. On Tuesday, Brett went golfing with a friend at Sand Hollow and I went for my own little mountain biking adventure in the hills behind the condo. On Wednesday we headed back to Cedar City and went skiing and snowboarding at Brianhead.

Brett used to go snowboarding a lot, but also knows how to ski really well. I grew up skiing and have always wanted to learn how to snowboard just for fun, so Brett was patient enough to spend 3/4 of the day trying to teach me how to snowboard. After the day was over, I was shaky and hurt all over. I felt like I had just completed the first week of training back with the track team at the University. But, I had to redeem myself a little, so I switched into skis and flew down a few runs right before we left.

Brett showed off some of his snowboarding skills I had never seen before and I got to be the photographer. I realized that I have always taken for granted the ability to go wherever I want and as fast as I want on skis. I don't really remember all the learning years and am so thankful my parents took me out to learn when I was young!

Meet SUU's new Graduate Senator

2010-03-12T21:00:00.004-07:00

Senator, Graduate Studies

Brett Whitelaw

Brett has officially won the election and is going to be the Graduate Senator representing all graduate programs at Southern Utah University next school year starting in the fall. Nice work Brett, I'm proud of you! Another add-on to the resume...

United Arab Emirates: DUBAI

2010-02-20T11:30:00.045-07:00

(Brett Writing) It was time for another vacation. We left on Saturday February 6th. We flew from Cedar City to Salt Lake, to Chicago, then to Atlanta. We spent the night in Atlanta and Tiffany got to try "Waffle House" for her first time. For anyone who's been there before, it wouldn't be unusual to hear that she had chili on her hash browns at 10:30 p.m. We took our razor scooters with us, so the next day we tried them out all over the city. Our plane didn't leave until 8:30p that night. We weren't fortunate enough to sit in first class, but we did get the very back row with just us two. 15 hours later traveling at speeds up to 700mph we arrived in Dubai on Monday evening. We stayed at the Renaissance Marriott Hotel for the first three nights. and the JW Marriott on the fourth night.

Tuesday Morning we went to the world famous water park called "Wild Wadi". Which is next to the world famous Burj Al Arab Hotel. Because it was too cold for the locals (about 80 degrees) we had the park to ourselves. No waits for any ride. There were Three main attractions we did, a water slide that is "a speed slide that hurtles you at speeds of up to 80 kms per hour, cascading a breathtaking 33 metres," a wave pool that you go boogie boarding on, and a tubing ride that shoots you uphill multiple times then shoots you downhill in slides. Think of it like going tubing down a river with waterfalls, but backwards.

Later that day we saw the world's tallest building Burj Khalifa, followed by a late night lobster buffet in our Hotel. Well, it was much more than Lobster, but that's pretty much I (Brett) ate. Actually the buffet had anything and everything you could have wanted to eat.

Wednesday we took our razor scooters out on the town. FYI, no one outside of Utah knows what a scooter is. In Atlanta and Dubai we would get constant stares of curiosity from everyone. As we would ride by people would frantically get out of the way like we were on a speeding bike or something. Sometimes when we rode slow the locals would stop us and ask "where you buy that?!" "How much?!" as they pointed to the scooter.

We got to know the streets and the metro stations well that day. We found the oldest building in Dubai, aka, the Dubai Museum. It used to be a fort to protect the city and had some pretty neat history.

The Dubai Museum is actually way bigger than it looks like from the outside. It costs about 60 cents (USD) per person to get in. There's a few things in the courtyard area, but then you go underground and it's huge. Room after room of history stuff, Dubai history and also Middle Eastern history. 40 years ago there was nothing in Dubai. They make it seem "so long ago." We packed up our stuff and went to the airport to catch our flight home that evening. Unfortunately, the United flight had been cancelled because of snow back in Washington D.C. where it was supposed to land, so all those passengers got booked onto our Delta flight, which in turn left no room for us. Luckily, the Renaissance agreed to give us the room at the same rate for a couple more nights. We also got a room for some other stranded standbys.

Burj Khalifa, The tallest building in the world

Mmmmm... Sweet and Sour chicken w/flat bread and an Arabic "Mtn. Dew."

Thursday (Tiffany Writing) we slept in, then went shopping at a nearby market. They had some great deals and really cute clothes. I got a long skirt for $4 and two t-shirts for $2 each. Brett got a nice belt for just a few bucks. We grabbed some chicken tacos for about 50 cents each from one of the street vendors and they were the best ever. They are a lot like the ones in Tijuana. We moved all of our belongings to the JW Marriott where we would stay our last night, because the associate rate was no longer available at the Renaissance.

(Brett Writing) We went on the Dhow River Dinner Cruise that night. They call the boats "floating restaurants." Once you see how many dinner boats are on the river, you conclude that the river is pretty much only used for dinner cruises now days. The dinner cruise included a Buffet, dancing (dancing = guy dressed in various funny costumes dancing up and down the isle with incredibly loud music followed by no one clapping because they're so angry that the music was so loud) as the boat goes up and down the river once, then followed by going in circles in the river to take up more time. It was really cool though to see the buildings along the river all lit up at night. We decided to not even try to fly home this day because the flights were still oversold by about 30 paying passengers.

Friday (Tiffany Writing) We ventured down a few blocks to find the clock tower that is a well known landmark in the city. The night before on our way to the dinner cruise we passed it and realized it was closer than we thought! We had a great lunch of sweet and sour chicken, pictured earlier in the blog.

Our last tour was the Desert Safari and our very most favorite part of the trip. Thank goodness we got stuck or we would have never experienced this! We were picked up at our hotel in Toyota Land Cruisers and sped through the city and out to the desert where we arrived at a sea of sand dunes. There were about 6 Cruisers in our caravan and to be honest we weren't expecting much. Just the usual tourist paced going up and down sand dunes. I thought it was going to be so laid back I even took off my seatbelt when we pulled into the sand dunes. What a mistake that was! After briefly pausing to plan a course of action with the other drivers, our driver gunned it and we went straight up the side of a dune, got air, and Brett and I both hit our heads hard into the top of the jeep as went flying down the other side,. It was crazy! They would never allow such things in the U.S. No safety restraints, no waivers, no warnings. It was just like a theme park rollcoaster, but with no guarantees that you won't die. I couldn't stop laughing and my stomach was in knots, I even get motion sick just like on a rollercoaster. We were flying, sliding, and cruising! The cruisers drive so close to each other that it's scary, I wouldn't even drive that close going 25mph on a straight road. And not only that, but there were little sand buggies with Arabs in them all over the place. I have no idea how we didn't crash into someone. Our caravan finally stopped up on top of some dunes for some picture taking. After a brief rest everyone hesitantly and excitedly climbed back in the cruisers for the last half of the journey back out. Our cruiser got stuck several times and scared the begebies out of me at least a dozen times as we slid sideways down the sand dune because we couldn't make it straight up the face. It was interesting to watch the drivers navigate the dunes and use the bowls to sling shot us around and up and over. What an experience!

After completing the ride, they drove us to a large camp in the middle of the desert where we got to ride camels, go sand boarding (just like on the snow, but on sand), try on traditional dress, eat dinner, and watch some traditional dancing. All of the women were invited up on the stage for the last dance, and I was one of the brave few who went up and tried to learn some sort of belly dance. What a fun day!

We went to the airport that night and thankfully got a seat on the plane, and not just any seat but we got Business Class. We had sleeper pods, all you can eat food, and all you can watch movies.Needless to say it was a great flight home.

After arriving in Atlanta the fun was over as we thought we would be stuck there for days. It snowed the night before and every morning flight in and out to everywhere had been cancelled. I've never seen so many people in an airport before! People were lined up and down the terminals on the floor and every seat was taken. After trying to get on several flights to anywhere (Salt Lake, Phoenix, Denver, Texas, etc...) and being numbers 94 and 95 on the standby list (not even close to making it), we decided there was no chance of getting anywhere on Delta. We made our way over to the United terminal since we are able to fly standby on United as well. Our first try was a flight to Denver and somehow we made it, we were the last two passengers and they shut the door right as we stepped in. Once in Denver we caught a flight to Salt Lake and then a flight to St. George where we had a car waiting for us.

What a trip...

Midnight Sledding

2010-01-06T16:59:00.000-07:00

A couple of days before school was to begin again, it had just snowed about 6 more inches. We decided to have a last hurrah and go sledding at approximately midnight. There is a hill within walking distance from our front door, so we suited up, pulled our sled, and had a great time. We love the fact that we are in a point of our lives where we can do such spontaneous things and we try to take full advantage. After sledding we turned our christmas tree lights on, cuddled up, drank hot chocolate, and watched a movie.

Thanksgiving

2009-12-05T20:32:00.000-07:00

Brett and I had a lovely Thanksgiving with Brett's family here in Cedar City and this is the dish Brett prepared as an appetizer. It is called Capri Salad. It is made with tomato slices, mozzarella slices, a touch of fresh basil garnish, drizzled lightly with olive oil.

Brett's Birthday: San Francisco

2009-12-03T19:58:00.001-07:00

This is a very late post, but better late than never right? Brett's birthday was on October 19 and we just so happened to not have school on that day, which was a Monday. It was Harvest Holiday (also known as the opening weekend of the deer hunt).

We still had to work for part of the weekend so it was another quick trip. We flew out of Cedar City Sunday afternoon and arrived in Oakland late that night. We caught a shuttle to our hotel and promptly fell asleep. Our original plane had a mechanical problem, so we had to switch planes, and arrived much later that night than planned. Monday morning we got up and toured a fortune cookie factory. We had planned to tour a couple of factories, but one of them was no longer open (there was an eviction notice on the door!). They wouldn't allow us to take pictures inside, but it was very interesting to see how the cookies are made. Did you know they put the fortunes inside the cookies and fold them by hand!?! There were only 5 workers and they make 50,000 cookies a day. I can't imagine folding cookies full time.

After the fortune cookie tours we found a few thrift shops for Brett where he found some more ties to add to his collection. From here, we headed on over to San Francisco to have lunch and enjoy the city. We had lunch on Pier 39 again. Brett had crab chowder in a Boudin sourdough bread bowl, and I had a roast beef sandwich on Boudin sourdough. We picked up a box of sourdough loaves from the Boudin Factory to bring home for Ray and headed on our way.

The old arcade on Pier 39

We went down Lombard Street, visited the Coi Tower and went to the new park below the bridge. At this point we were out on a fishing pier and it began to sprinkle, then rain, then pour, then down pour, and then it was just a sheet of water coming down. Brett and I ran to the nearest building, attempting to jump over the huge puddles along the way and shield our faces from the water, but by the time we got to the building we were soaked to the bone. There wasn't an inch of clothing on us that wasn't completely soaked. We laughed and browsed the store while waiting for the rain to blow over. It just kept coming so we decided to make a break for the car anyway. The streets were flooding all over, and they blocked off a lot of roads because there was too much water. It was really neat to see San Francisco in the rain, and to see all the water pour down the steep roads. We had a blast. I so love the rain and this particular rain was really fun!

We went to Japanese Town to try and go somewhere we could walk inside for awhile since the weather wasn't cooperating. We found Mochi Ice Cream for me, since it is my very favorite. We found a couple more thrift stores and headed back over the bridge to Oakland where we stayed. It took us 3 times as long to get home as it took us to get to San Francisco because of the unanticipated traffic over the bridge. We forgot to take that into account. When we finally made it back to Oakland we had dinner at a Korean Barbecue and it was delicious. We told them it was Brett's birthday and they said they would bring out his free dessert. We expected the usual one serving size piece of cake or something, but what Brett got was much different from expected. The owner brought out this humongous dessert with fried bananas, fruit, ice cream, fudge, etc... that could easily be for 5 people. We were shocked!

The birthday boy with his dessert. (The flash ruined the detail of the dessert!)

We slept in and flew home Tuesday morning around 11am. It was such a fun time and perfect timing in the middle of the semester to get away for a couple days.

Seattle Sculptures

2009-12-01T15:05:00.004-07:00

I can't remember the exact date, but it was in early October sometime. We just needed a break from school, so we went to Seattle. This quick Seattle day trip was full of visiting sculptures all over the city and surrounding areas. Brett found out about this 'Troll' that was created to minimize graffiti under the freeway. After trekking out on the buses to see the troll we went back to Pike's Market and had lunch.

We strolled through the Olympic Sculpture Park where there are many sculptures as well.

All pictures due to Brett's artistic photography

After strolling through the park, the markets, eating great food, and having fun taking pictures, we trekked to find the hammering man. This is a giant statue that hammers all the time (supposively anyway, his arm didn't move whatsoever while we were there.)

After walking miles and miles, we were both tired out and road the bus back to our hotel. We snagged a bite to eat on the way home at Chipotle, one of Brett's most favorite places to eat. And of course, we stopped at a Goodwill on the way back to the hotel to obtain some more ties for The Collection.

A snapshot of the lives of Brett and Tiffany 10-22-09

2009-10-24T14:44:00.000-06:00

Tiffany's Day:

7:45am Wake-up, get ready, eat a bowl of cereal, grab an apple and granola bar for lunch, Brett drops me off at school
8:30am Meet with accounting group and finish the group portion of the test
9:30am Go to the business computer lab and study for Accounting test while watching the stock market for our investments class
11:00am Graduate Assistantship time. Work with Professor Steed doing grading, research, etc...
1:00pm Go back to business computer lab and study more for accounting test and put powerpoint slides together for a group presentation in investments
2:00pm Meet Brett and investments group and run over presentation
2:30pm Go to investments class, give presentation, listen to lecture
4:00pm Apple and granola bar were not enough for lunch, so Brett takes me to Arby's and I grab a sandwich, then he drops me back off at school.
4:30pm Go to Living Room on campus where there are comfy chairs and eat my Arby's sandwhich
5:00pm Go back to business computer lab and study more for accounting test
6:00pm Meet a potential employer on campus and discuss future career options.
7:00pm Go to electronic learning center and study more for test and get everything set up.
8:00pm Begin online accounting test.
9:30pm Accounting test finished! I can finally leave campus after being there for over 12 hours. Start walking home. Brett catches me before I make it, picks me up, and we go to our apartment.
10:00pm Eat spaghetti and sourdough bread for dinner while Brett and I talk about our day.
10:30pm Watch Conan O' Brien's late night show, get backpack ready to take to work at the Marriott the next day, get ready for bed.
11:30pm Go to bed, and sleep. zzzzz......

Brett's Day:

7:45am Wake-up, get ready, wait for Tiffany to get ready then drop Tiffany off at school, go to work at the Heritage theater.
9:45am Drive to Airport for a SkyWest Meeting
12:00pm Back to the Theater for work, two hours to write a one page investments paper of a topic that no one understands, and revise a 10 page paper for the Hospitality program that is due tomorrow.
2:10pm Go to School and meet with the group for a presentation that will be presented at 2:30.
2:30pm Go to class, give presentation, listen to lecture.
4:00pm Take Tiffany to Arby's to get a sandwich (because she cannot go all day without food like I have to), drop her off at school, with barely enough time to drive back to airport for my evening shift. (I have to change into work clothes after I clock in since I don't have time before)
6:30pm Drive back to heritage theater, open downstairs recital hall for the Orchestra of Southern Utah rehearsal.
9:30pm Lock up entire heritage theater and festival hall, make sure every single person is gone. Drive home, pick Tiffany up from school on the way home.
10:00pm Eat spaghetti and sourdough bread for dinner while Tiffany and I talk about our day.
10:30pm Watch Conan O' Brien, finish accounting homework that is due at midnight, turn in homework online, get ready for bead.
11:30pm Go to bed, and sleep. zzzzz......
Next day: 7:00am Wake up and do it all again.
(This wasn't just one busy day; it's every day. The following day (friday) Tiffany and I worked 22 hours collectively along with me going to school for 3 hours)

Belize

2009-10-23T11:20:00.002-06:00

We arrived to Belize and immediately took a water taxi to the island of Ambergris Caye to a town called San Pedro. They packed us in like sardines on the water taxi and the boat splashed everyone a lot (especially this poor little girl in the back corner who was soaked!). We arrived to the island and immediately checked into our condo that Britt and Cory had found for us.

San Pedro was much different from Grand Cayman. Grand Cayman prides itself on being just like the U.S. with drinkable water, great accommodations, etc... San Pedro, on the other hand, is definitely a Central American country. There was a lot of poverty and no regulations whatsoever. Boats zoomed all around the docks and the entire island which made it hard to snorkel without high chances of getting impailed by a boat. However, there were neat things to be found off the shore of San Pedro like Conch Shells, so we just assigned one person to be the lookout for boats at all times while anyone was snorkeling.

A little octopus

Belize is a neat country in the fact that their official language is English and they accept U.S. dollars everywhere. Belizians all speak English and Spanish which makes it a perfect place to work on learning Spanish.

Our first whole day in San Pedro we went snorkeling and found conch shells with hermit crabs still living in them! Britt and Cory went on a snorkeling trip where they saw sharks, stingrays, and a plethera of fish. Unfortunately, our under-water camera was on the wrong setting for them so all their pictures were blurry! While they were on their tour, Brett and I walked all over the town, toured a little museum, read books, and took a nap on the beach under the palm trees. Most relaxing day ever. We ate at our favorite food booth called "Erika's Fast Food" and loved it so much we ate their every single night we were on the island! These booths are open from 7pm-6am. It was really strange there because all the kids on the island would be out playing at or past midnight to really late hours. (Probably because it was too hot and humid during the day?) That first night we were there was a popular festival and the music was booming until wee hours of the morning.

The next day, the island was barren because everyone had gone back to the mainland after the completion of the festival. We wandered the market, snorkeled more, swam around our dock, and went to see the crocodiles a sundown. It was a good 3 mile walk to the crocs and then we all walked back up the beach to the serene sound of the waves.Notice the crocodile in the background with no fence in between us!

And then we come to our sick day. Our great local food got the best of Brett who spent the day in between the bed and the bathroom. I stayed with him and just read out by the pool most of the day. Britt and Cory carried through with our original plan for the day and rented bikes. They rode up and saw the northern part of the island.

We took the water taxi back to the mainland of Belize where our tour guide picked us up and took us cave tubing. My very favorite part of Belize. We hiked up through the jungle and tubed down the river through several mile long caves! It got pitch black so we wore head lights. When we came out of the last cave it was pouring rain. Let me run that by you one more time. We were floating down a turquoise blue river, in the warm pouring rain, in the middle of a jungle. I was in heaven. At the end of the river, there was rope swing that we played on for a while. Best day ever!
Our tour guide took us to our next destination, which was the Trek Stop. Our lodging for the next two days... little huts in the jungle. We chose these huts because they were super cheap, and they were within walking distance of the Mayan ruins called Xunantunich. That evening we were all tired so we just stayed around our huts, ate dinner there, and played darts and scrabble.
We went to Xunantunich the next morning. This was Brett's favorite part of the trip. The ruins were large and since we were in Central America there are no ropes that don't allow you to climb up to the top as there would be in the U.S. Therefore, we climbed all over them and the views of the ever-extending jungle were spectacular. There were guards armed with machine guns all over the ruins and we asked some of them why because we couldn't figure it out. Apparently, there are bandits from nearby Guatemala that cross the border and come to the ruins to rob all the tourists. All the locals told us to not cross the border because it was too dangerous. This was unfortunate because the famous Mayan ruins of Tecal were not very far across the border in Guatemala.We played frisbee golf on the only official frisbee golf course in Belize, which just happened to be at the Trek Stop. It rained, what's new when you're in the jungle? So we had a few very muddy games, but had a blast.Rain drenched, mud covered, and thoroughly worn out we took the public bus back to the airport and flew out the next morning homeward bound and pleased with another successful vacation.

Lecture from Professor Steven D. Harrop

2009-10-12T13:41:00.007-06:00

" Bad outcomes are different from bad decisions."

- Professor Steven D. Harrop

Brett and I are really enjoying our investments class with Professor Steven D. Harrop. Last week we had a lecture that did not just apply to investment strategies, it applied to life. When talking about improving our decision making process Professor Harrop mentioned these 3 steps that can help us improve our decisions.

1. Become aware and knowledgeable of our own biases.
2. As we become aware of biases, get input from others that do not have the same biases.
3. Engage in research to offset the bias.

Grand Cayman

2009-09-28T16:24:00.015-06:00

For our last trip of the summer we had originally planned to go to Paris. About 2 days before we were to leave, Brett's co-worker got stuck there for a week trying to come home, and the flights were not looking good for us either. So we made a quick change of plans and decided to go to Grand Cayman and Belize instead.

When we arrived in Grand Cayman we walked a good 4-5 miles to the Marriott from the airport carrying our packs on our backs. We were soooo tired and vowed we would definitely be paying for a taxi back to the airport because it was much further than we thought when we had mapped it out on google. Once getting settled into our room with a garden view (complimentary upgrade), we walked about a mile down the beach to the grocery store to pick up some lunches and snacks for the room. We stopped at Thai Orchid for dinner. If you haven't noticed, we love Thai food! On almost every trip there is a Thai restaurant involved at some point.

We had avacado, asparagus, cream cheese, sushi for an appetizer (no fish involved there), and it was amazing!

That night we went snorkeling off our beach and got a feel for the 85 degree water, as well as an awesome picture of the sunset (at top of page).

The next day we went down to the biggest city on the island called George Town. We expected it to be crowded, but there were no cruise ships in that day so we had the place all to ourselves. It was kind of eery because it was so deserted, but really fun at the same time because the snorkeling was amazing. We got to snorkel at the Ship Wreck of the Cali which was really neat to look at. This day was really surreal. The water was perfect blue as seen below, we were snorkeling with the ocean and town to ourselves with turtles, fish, crabs, etc... It doesn't get better than that.

This school of fish followed us for about an hour while we were diving around the shipwreck, they were very playful and fun.

That night we watched another gorgeous sunset while reading, eating chips and salsa, and lounging in the lawn chairs. We then took a couple mile walk down the street to see what was down there and walked back to the hotel down 7-mile beach on the sand. It was dark, but the sound of the waves coming in was so relaxing and the faint light from each resort dimly lit the waves as they came in.

Our last full day in Grand Cayman we paid Captain Marvin to take us to Stingray City. They picked us up from our hotel and took us to our boat that we rode out to the sandbar. This was my very favorite part, we got to swim with lots of stingrays and hold them and kiss them! They were all over and it was so much fun! Plus, the boat ride was beautiful with the clear turquoise water all around.

When we got back from Stingray City we went snorkeling off our beach again, but explored further out this time. We found some really cool fish that we did not see before. That is why we love snorkeling so much, because every time we go we see something different, even if we go in the same spot. We ate dinner at a barbecue place down the road and got wings and hamburgers. The food on Grand Cayman is SO expensive, even in the grocery stores, so we limited what we ate and just splurged a couple times.

The morning of departure, we considered getting a taxi as we had promised ourselves we would, but we just couldn't do it. We couldn't fork out the 8 dollars, when we could easily walk and pay no money. We had already done it once and survived, right? So we walked the long trek again with the weight a little more evenly balanced in our packs, but man that was a long walk! We died, again. Seriously, I can't believe the things we do to save money sometimes ;)

We got on the flight back to Atlanta, walked some more to another hotel, and quickly scrambled to find a way to get Brittany and Cory to Atlanta (because they had been stuck in Salt Lake City trying to get a flight all day). We ended up routing them through Omaha where they had some adventures of their own (you'll have to ask them) and they met us in the Atlanta airport the next morning.

Portland, Oregon

2009-07-16T14:01:00.009-06:00

We arrived in Portland early Tuesday morning and checked into our rooms at the SpringHill Suites Marriott. After getting settled into our rooms, Brett's parents treated us to a great lunch at "Salty's", a nice seafood restaurant right on the river. I, of course, didn't order any seafood, but had a delicious primerib au jus sandwich. Brett got a large assortment of seafood that had been fried and enjoyed every bite.

We golfed 18 holes with our friend Jared at the Heron Lakes Golf Course that evening. It was a beautiful course with a lot of water and Blue Herons flying from pond to pond. They were so graceful and fun to watch. I guess that is where the course got its name.

That night Brett's parents wanted to have dinner at "Rheinlander", a German restaurant that we were originally skeptical of, but turned out to be a great time. The food and service were excellent. Our waiter and a gentlemen with an accordian treated us to all the classic songs from "The Sound of Music" as well as many others we knew. Everyone in the restaurant that knew the songs sang along and we had a great time, some guests even danced as well! After dinner we went to see the Portland, Temple which had very unique and pretty architecture, it was very different from the Utah temples.

Wednesday morning we got up early and went to golf another 9 holes, this time at Broadmoor Golf Course. This course had old, large trees lining all the fairways and was just so green and beautiful as well.

We then went to tour the Pendleton Factory which was really neat! They make all sorts of clothing out of wool and we got see how they make the yarn, dye it, spin it, weave blankets, etc... In their retail store they had so many cute clothes I wanted - too bad I'm still a poor college student! We went downtown for lunch and ate at The House of Louie, a chinese restaurant and had way too much food.
On our way to the airport, we got caught in major traffic and cut it way too close to making it on our flight. Brett always makes us leave with plenty of leeway time when getting to airports in case things like this happen, and usually we arrive with plenty of time to spare... but we had no idea traffic was going to be at a dead stop on the freeway at 4:00 in the afternoon. We luckily still made it though!

Del Parson

2009-06-23T17:48:00.000-06:00

I had the wonderful opportunity to sit for Del Parson while he drew a portrait of me last week. He is very delightful to talk with and we had some great conversations for the 3 hours while I was there. He starts every drawing session off with a prayer which I thought was very admirable.

Apparently he thinks he needs practice drawing portraits so he ocassionally has people come in so he can practice. He told me I have a 'great face', which coming from him made my whole week. Here is the end product...

1st Anniversary

2009-06-21T13:32:00.002-06:00

May 31 was our first Anniversary and I can hardly believe it, time has gone so fast! Although, we have done so much and been so many places together that I also can't believe we accomplished all that we have in one year. Here's a brief recap of the many places we have been in just one year (not counting local trips in Utah)...

Vancouver Island

Louisiana

Atlanta

Alaska

Idaho

Uruguay

Argentina

Las Vegas

Los Angeles

Seattle

San Francisco

Hawaii

Unfortunately, I was still recuperating from pneumonia so we just had to stay home from a planned trip to Nauvoo with the family, as well as for the weekend of our first anniversary. Brett was really sweet though and got me a salmon colored rose and some new dangly earrings that I have been wanting (and they are real silver so they won't hurt my ears!).

On Saturday, we went to the park and had a small picnic on a blanket and just enjoyed the fresh air and sunshine while listening to the breeze blow through the trees above. There is no sound more calming for me than leaves rustling in the breeze, I just love it! It was really nice for me to finally get out of the house I had been couped up in all week while sick, and enjoy the fresh air. On Sunday, Brett made homemade chili and we drank soda out of our wine glasses we got for our wedding and had an enjoyable evening at home watching a movie together.

Our goal for the upcoming year and years beyond is to have an official family home evening every week. We feel like we already do because it is date night about every night for us, and we often read the ensign and new era together. But, we would like to have one official family home evening every week where we sing a hymn, have a lesson, do an activity, and have a treat. :)

Church Callings

2009-06-14T17:14:00.002-06:00

Brett and I just received a calling to be primary teachers together. We have been assigned the 9-10 year old Valiant class and will have about 5 kids that come regularly. We'll have to see what we can do about the rest that are currently inactive. Next week will be our first week teaching and we are really excited!

Hawaii

2009-06-09T21:34:00.002-06:00

Brett and I got to take a much needed vacation immediately upon finishing school in the first of May to Hawaii. We spent 5 days there and loved every minute of it. We used my employee benefits from Marriott and got to stay in 2 fabulous hotels right on the beach.

We decided to brave the public transportation once again, because renting cars is just too dang expensive(Especially since we are under 25 years old)! And paying for parking everywhere you go on top of the rental just adds up way too much. But it turned out really well, we got everywhere we wanted to go, and saved A LOT of money. Public transportation is not too bad once you get the hang of it.

The first two nights we stayed on the West shore of Oahu at the Ko Olina Beach Club Resort by Marriott.

Views from our hotel room on the 15th floor

My good friend from high school Jada Quigley is going to school at BYU Hawaii so she was kind enough to show us some of the more local spots around the island. She took us to a beach close by our resort to go snorkeling, and this was the best snorkeling spot of the trip. There were literally hundreds of fish, big and small, swirling around us and they were all so colorful! Unfortunately we don't have pictures of them, because we forgot our underwater camera on this particular venture. We then went up the the West point of the island to Ka'ena Point State Park, where we played in the waves on the beach. The water is so much powerful than you realize. I got slammed into the sand a couple times, one of which knocked the wind out of me and which I'm pretty sure I cracked a rib. There was a sharp pain every breath I took. It hurt enough that I had Brett give me a blessing when we got to our hotel, and thankfully the next morning it was just sore and tender, but no more sharp pains!

The 2nd place we stayed was at the Marriott right on Waikiki Beach. What a change from the other resort! In Ko Olina we had the lagoons and beaches practically to ourselves, and at Waikiki we were sharing the beach with our thousands of neighbors. Needless to say, we didn't spend much time on Waikiki and ended up going to the North Shore where Jada took us to snorkel Shark's Cove, see Turtle Bay, cliff jump on Waimea Beach, etc... We had a blast and are officially addicted to snorkeling.

We hiked to Diamond Head Peak, which is the top of a volcano where they had lookout points during world war II. This is the view from the top overlooking Waikiki Beach.

Leonard's Bakery is a famous little bakery near Waikiki that makes donuts called Malasadas. It is a donut filled with fruit cream. Our personal favorite was filled with mango cream. We walked a good 2 miles to get there and we loved it so much we walked all the way there again on our last day in Hawaii.

Snorkeling

Giant turtle at Turtle Bay

This shaved ice has ice cream in the bottom and it was amazing!

Cliff jumping... that splash in the water is from me :)

Waimea Beach... I was standing up taking pictures of these waves that were taller than me, and then sprinting away so I wouldn't get pounded by the water. The ocean is so powerful! (If you look closely at the first picture of the waves there is a person inside the wave about to get smashed into the sand.)

Spring Break - St. George

2009-04-02T17:00:00.000-06:00

For Spring Break we decided to do something a little different from the usual and not fly anywhere. We went down to St. George and stayed in the condo for a few days instead. We had a really great time relaxing the week away. Traveling is fun, but also very stressful at times when flying standby, so it was really great to just actually relax for a while. We definitely needed the break from school.

While in St. George we slept in everyday, shopped, ate great food, golfed (Brett got me clubs for my birthday), went fishing, went road-biking, read books in the sunshine, and swam in a friends pool. It was a perfect spring break.

We took our road bikes down there and biked the "Snow Canyon Loop", which is an 18 mile paved bike trail that runs all the way up through the Snow Canyon State Park and around. It was a gorgeous ride, relatively flat at the beginning for about 10 miles, and only had one big uphill, which we did have to stop for a break in the middle of, but was a downhill cruise for about the last 6 miles. Seriously, we didn't have to pedal for about 6 whole miles, and sometimes I was going so fast I would get scared and have to put on my breaks! We were cruising! We had a blast.

Life Update

2009-04-02T12:10:00.000-06:00

So it is finally official. I am not going to run track this year anymore, and am probably done running competitively forever. But, good news, I'm not going to have surgery either. The prognosis was that I have a lot of tissue damage in my feet and all the ligaments and tendons are stretched out. This is what is causing me the pain when I run. But since the tendon is not ruptured, and it only hurts when I run, the doc doesn't think surgery will really help. He said if my feet were hurting me in everyday activities, he would definitely do it, because he has had great success with that. But, he hasn't really had any success with the surgery helping an athlete get rid of the pain at that competitive level.

I asked him what would happen if I kept running, and he said it would still hurt all the time, but wouldn't be doing any damage if it didn't hurt TOO much. Well, how much is too much and what is happening if it hurts too much? He said if it hurts too much, then that means the tendon is probably tearing and could possibly rupture. If it ruptured, they could then do surgery. But if it only tears, he still didn't think it would be worth it to try surgery. So basically if I ran.... I was going to hurt all the time, and if it hurts too much I was going to be damaging myself for years to come, and there was only a fix if the tendon completely ruptured! Not a great prognosis.... So the final decision is - no more competitive running for Tiffany. But ever since we decided that everything has been going really great. I have finally been able to move on with life and realize there is more to life than running and getting medals. To satisfy my competitive drive though, I'm currently taking up the sport of golf since it is low impact, and that seems to be going really well for me.

Not running has also given me the chance to concentrate on school much more than I have ever been able to in college and it is really nice. I am learning a lot! It's amazing how much more you learn from a class when you don't miss 1/3 of all the sessions. My grades are going to be great and it is kinda fun to be back at the top of all my classes like the good old high school days. I have also been able to dedicate some time to studying Spanish again which is great, because I'm determined to be fluent someday. Scrapbooking has also been a current past time, which has been a big 'to do' on my list since we have been able to go so many fun places.

I took the GMAT in the beginning of March and have been accepted into the Masters of Business Administration program here at SUU. I will be starting that degree in the fall. :)

We got the travel bug, again... Seattle, Washington

2009-02-16T18:46:00.001-07:00

Brett and I were getting the travel bug and just needing to get out of town, so we went to Seattle for the Valentines weekend. It was a really fun trip and great to get away, even if it was only a couple days.

We got to Seattle Friday evening and put our stuff in our hotel (Fairfield Inn-Marriott, very cheap, thanks to my benefits from my new job at the Marriott here in town), and then took a stroll down the street to a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant for dinner called Herfy's Teriyaki Burger. We generally like to find the little ghetto, local places, because they are different and fun. We haven't been disappointed, yet, knock on wood. I had a hawaiian beef teriyaki burger and Brett had teriyaki chicken and beef with rice. It was really good!

We just hung out the rest of the evening in the hotel - swimming, watching movies, and just relaxing, which was really nice. Saturday we slept in, ate a free deluxe continental breakfast, then headed downtown on public transportation. The day was gorgeous, sunny skies - light jacket weather. We did some shopping at Ross, where I found a new backpack, and two pairs of shoes, and Brett found a nice new shirt. Continuing our journey, in one of the local shops, I found an extremely cute hat, and I've always wanted one like it, so I got it and I love it. We spent the whole day just wandering through the markets, shops, piers, etc.... What a fun city! In the markets, they throw the fish and sing and yell, and there were all sorts of fresh flowers, fruits, vegetables, etc... The entire market and shopping center was just jam packed with people, but the atmosphere was great. Everyone had flowers and chocolate, and it was just really fun.

We ate lunch down on the pier in the warm sunshine, where Brett had clam chowder in a bread bowl, and I had Chicken 'n chips. (I almost got halibut since it would be fresh and I might like it, but then decided against it and just stuck with what I know). We got some pretty cool pictures of the hoards of seagulls flying everywhere while we were eating. They were not shy and would come right up to us and practically eat out of our hands. In fact, Brett was about to let one eat out of his hand and I said, "Whoa, be careful, he might bite your finger!" So he just left the pieces of bread on the railing after that. That is officially the second time I have saved him from getting his finger bit off by an animal. The 1st time we were in Argentina at the zoo and he was about to feed one of the monstrous neutra-rats with orange teeth!

After downtown we went and saw the space needle, then headed back to the hotel. We flew out Sunday morning, got home late Sunday night due to much waiting in the airports because of holiday travelers. We then crashed immediately upon arriving home, then both got up early Monday morning to work. Which is why we had to come home Sunday instead of Monday.

And now we are just trying to get caught up with homework and housework before school starts tomorrow, and real life starts again! Traveling is so much fun, but it is kind of hard because I momentarily lose motivation to do anything else, least of all homework, and just want to travel all the time! Brett is much better about keeping caught up while we travel. He does homework in the planes and airports, but for some reason I just can't get myself to do anything but relax while we are away.This is the huge park w/ lake and swimming area that was right across the street from our hotel. It would bethe perfect place to have a barbecue in the summer.

Scenery from our front door

2009-01-30T15:37:00.000-07:00

These are just a couple pictures I took from our front door last fall that I thought were pretty cool.

Bring on the rain!!

My Graduation - Special Speaker!!

2009-01-30T14:57:00.000-07:00

Okay all, I will be graduating with my Bachelors degree this May. Wahooo!!! So just to let you know, the commencement ceremonies and the day I walk with my school, will be on Saturday May 2nd. And we have an extra special speaker coming to the commencement ceremonies - President Monson! SUU will be giving him an honorary degree, and he will be speaking as well. So whoever wants to come down that would be great, and we can make a fun family weekend out of it with hiking, picnicing, etc.... (I know graduations aren't really that exciting, having attended a plethera of siblings graduations myself. So if you just come down and hang out with us the rest of the weekend, that is okay.)

Next update... I have been training with the track team all fall in hopes that I would be able to compete in the outdoor conference championships that we are hosting in Cedar City this year. But.... Unfortunately, I have officially hurt my foot AGAIN. I was hurdling and the exact thing happened as when I hurt it last year, just not quite as bad. I was very frustrated because I did everything possible to prevent it, my arches were taped up, I had my custom orthotics in my spikes, etc.... But I guess it just wasn't enough. There is just too much pressure being put on the tendons that wrap around my arch, so they begin to stretch out and eventually tear.

I tried to just walk it off for a couple weeks, just hoping the problem would disappear or something, but Brett finally made a deal with me that if it hurt by certain x date still, I had to go to the podiatrist. Well, long story short, my foot still hurt so I went in to have a chat with the doc yesterday, and this is the outcome. We are basically at the end of the road of options for treating it. We have tried everything known to man, we had hoped last year's experience of 7 months of crutches, a boot, and no running, had given it enough time to heal, but alas, it was apparently not. The only option really left - is reconstructive surgery for my feet - they want to reinforce my arch and repair my tendons. I am still in the process of praying and deliberating over the decision, because it will require about another 6 months-1 year of recovery time, at least. I am going to go see another podiatrist to get a 2nd opinion before I make any decisions though. But basically, I just want to be healthy again, so I'll probably do whatever it takes! Anyway, I'll keep you updated.

Brianhead - Skiing

2008-12-28T15:27:00.000-07:00

Over Christmas break, we had the opportunity to go up and ski a day at Brianhead. We had a good time even though the resort is very small. That's the first time I have been skiing since I went while in Chile!

Brett after a little tumble - and yes, that is exactly how he landed :)

Our red car being dwarfed by all the trucks and SUV's

We took a little brake in the middle of this ski run when we found this log....I just had to climb it.

Christmas 2008

2008-12-27T14:21:00.000-07:00

Brett and I had a wonderful first Christmas together. We slept in until 11:00, got up and found our stockings with santa's presents. My favorite gift from Santa was a Tide Spot Remover Pen to carry in my purse (I always spill on myself)! We then made the biggest breakfast ever! We had sausage, eggs, bacon, biscuits, toast, hashbrowns, and grapefruit. Delicious.

The opening of the presents came next. We were very spoiled with a lot of presents. Brett got me a new guitar stand, a capo for my guitar, piano music (Where are you Christmas by Faith Hill, and What Child is This), battleship (one of our current favorites), a new scripture case, etc.... And those are just a few mentioned of many more we received from everyone. We played games for the next few hours, then went to Brett's parent's house and had a big dinner. His parents were missed, as they are currently enjoying a vacation in Germany, but we still had a great time with everybody else. We enjoyed the rest of the evening with his family, and played the all famous 'Ticket to Ride', that we now have them addicted to as well.

The apron Mom made me... so cute

We love and missed you all and hope you had a Merry Christmas!!!

L.A. Ski Show Dec. 5-7

2008-12-14T15:30:00.001-07:00

This past weekend Brett and I flew to L.A. to help his brother Bob with a ski show there. We left all our homework and studies behind and just had a weekend away.

Some crazy dude on Hollywood Blvd.

The first night we went to Hollywood and had dinner. The next day we drove through China Town and went to little Tokyo. There I was introduced to what is called mochi ice cream, and it is my new favorite thing in the whole world. Unfortunately, then only place they have found to get it from is Little Tokyo. After lunch in Little Tokyo we split up. Bob and Kery went to work at the ski show, and Brett and I went back to the hotel to swim. It ended up getting cloudy and was to cold to swim so we just watched a movie and took a nap, completely stress free. (It was the perfect break before finals week). That evening we walked down to the convention center and took Bob and Kery's place at the booth for Brianhead Ski Resort. It was actually pretty fun, we had a big wheel people could spin and win free lift passes and ski vacations and stuff, so they would get really excited when they won.

Mochi Ice Cream Mmmmmm.....

After the show closed up that night, the producer who organized it all had booked the private party section of "Lucky Strikes", so we went there. They had lots of food, 4 bowling lanes and lots of couches to sit on. We had a good time bowling - I bowled a 187, the result of bowling class still paying off, and the food just kept coming! The waitresses kept bringing plates of chips/salsa, cheese balls w/ marinara sauce, pizza, salad, pasta, etc... It was awesome! Then the next morning, we flew back home.

At "Lucky Strikes"

Our Engagement Story

2008-11-30T21:44:00.000-07:00

I was scrolling through some pictures on my computer and found these pictures taken on the night Brett asked me to marry him. I realized I never posted them, so here they are with the story... I got home from dinner with my roommate, walked into my basement and this is what I found. Brett walked out of the back room, asked me to marry him, I said yes, and then the next thing I know there is live music coming from the back room- two guys (Spencer and Preston) - playing the guitar and singing. So we danced for a couple songs and it was awesome. He did accomplish the element of surprise because I had picked out a ring, but I knew it hadn't come yet... So he got a different ring to ask me with, which is the one in the picture. When my real ring came a few weeks later, we went hiking up the canyon, (once again I was totally oblivious to what was going on), and we got to the top where we could look out and see the sunset. He then asked, "do you wanna marry me still?", and pulled out my real ring. So really I got asked twice. Pretty lucky.

Tutoring

2008-11-24T20:01:00.000-07:00

This semester I have been working with the Hispanic Tutor Center here at school, and I got assigned to help a kindergarten class at a nearby elementary school. There are 6 Hispanic children in the class. Some of them speak perfect English as well as Spanish, but others can hardly speak two words in English. It has been a great opportunity for me to practice speaking Spanish once a week, and not to mention just outright laugh sometimes because the kids are so funny.
The first story I have happened about a month ago. Two boys in the class were coloring some letters as assigned. One of the boys was almost finished, while the other one had pretty much just started. The boy who had just started coloring happened to glance over at the boy’s work who was almost finished. He just stared for a moment then said, “Whoa! You’re speedy, how did you color so fast?” The boy paused and then replied, “Well, I’m superman!” The boy who originally asked the question paused once again then said in all seriousness, “Yah, you are superman.” ‘Superman,’ then jumped out of his chair and yelled, “I’m a Superhero!!!”, as he ran around the room with his arm up like he was flying. The other boy just sat and watched in awe and admiration. It was hilarious.
The next story I have, was just one of those days when I actually felt like what I was doing was worth it. A little girl in the class named Angelina is really behind on her fine motor skills. She has a really hard time writing any of the letters. So one day the teacher had me take her out into the hall to work on writing her name. We played some games with the letters in her name with flashcards first, then proceeded to practice writing. She did just fine until we got to the “e” in her name. She just quit writing and stared at the ground. I then wrote her an ‘e’ to show her how, showed her the flashcard that had an ‘e’ on it, we practiced writing it in the air, but she just wouldn’t try to write it. I told her to look at me and I asked her why she wouldn’t try. She said, “my brain just isn’t working this morning.” I told her we could skip it and come back. After writing the rest of her name, we came back to the ‘e’. She decided to try and write it, but it didn’t look anything like it was supposed to. I then decided to teach her a different way to write it, because the way we all write it just wasn’t working for her. This is how we did it. We start at the bottom of the ‘e’, and then circle up and around until the line hit the line we had already drawn and then we “stop!”. (which I said animated every time.) She thought it was really funny every time I said “stop!” And then she began to like writing her e’s. She even said, “this is fun, my mom is going to be so proud of me when I show her I can write my name!” Ever since that little lesson she writes her name just fine, and it makes me so happy inside to know I actually taught her something that made her feel better about herself.

www.yearbookyourself.com

2008-09-14T21:22:00.000-06:00

The other day one of our friends was playing around on this website when we were at her house and it is pretty fun. You just download a picture of yourself and then you can see what you would have looked like in different years. These were our two favorite pictures.

Me in

1964

Brett in

1970

Argentina and Uruguay

2008-08-06T22:00:00.001-06:00

We're off again!!! We got to go down to South America with Brett's brother Bob and sister-in-law Kery. Every year Bob goes down there to do recruiting for Brianhead Ski Resort so we decided to go tag along for a week. After staying in the Atlanta airport overnight we made our flight down there and even made it on Business Class. Oh so nice, we are definitely spoiled. Big huge soft seats that lay all the way back, real pillow, real blanket, personal screen to watch all the movies you want, constant food: snack, appetizer, main dish, fruit and cheese with crackers, dessert, all the drinks you want, etc.... It's awesome!

Anyway, so after we arrived in Buenos Aires we went and checked in at our hostel. (Originally Brett and I were going to stay in the hotel that the company had for Bob and Kery, but for some reason the hotel got really particular, and decided to make a big deal of us sleeping on the couch in their room, and trying to charge us a ton for it, so we just found a hostel down the street.) Our first day there we went out to Lucia's house (A girl that worked for Bob before) and had a barbecue. It was so nice of them to have us over to their house, and the food was delicious. For some reason the meat down there just tastes so good!

We stayed in Buenos Aires for about 4 days, which was really cool. The city doesn't really wake up until about 9pm. Seriously. Everyday we would go to some part of the city and find a good place for lunch then head back to the center where the two main streets are with entertainers, shops, markets, etc... The town would start bustling as soon as it got dark. People everywhere. One night we went to the theaters and got to see the new Batman movie for just $3, it was in English with Spanish Subtitles, which was kind of fun. I learned some new words.The best pizza ever!

While walking one day we came across the zoo and decided to go in since it was just $5. It was really cool too. There were some animals I've never seen before in there. And my favorite part was that there were a lot of animals just wandering around on the walking paths and grass everywhere. Funny stuff.

A Neutra-Rat - They're huge!!!This little guy is a type of Panda and he looked so cuddly.

We then rode the ferry "Buquebus" over to Uruguay. It took about 3 1/2 hours, and I slept the whole way because it was really early. We arrived in Colonia, Uruguay... the Port City. There are a lot of old ruins here. There used to be a wall surrounding the whole city and only a draw bridge entry. This is a very touristy but fun little town with cobblestone streets and lots of fun little shops. We rented a car in Colonia and drove up the coast close to our destination, 'Punta del Este'. We stayed in a hotel right on the beach for $30 a night in a town south of 'Punta del Este'. Brett and I woke up early so we took a walk on the beach, found some empanadas, and browsed some of the stores, a perfect morning. When Bob and Kery got up, we continued our drive up the coast and arrived at 'Punta del Este', where we we visited the giant hand sculpture in the sand, watched the water crash against the rocks, and played on some playgrounds and sculptures. It was so beautiful in Uruguay and a lot more peaceful than Buenos Aires. Brett and I soon caught a bus back down to Colonia and caught the ferry back to Argentina and flew out of Buenos Aires back home, while Bob and Kery remained in Uruguay another week and visited old mission friends (That is where he served his mission). We wanted to stay with them to see more of the country, but had to get back to work out at the farm because 2nd harvest was starting.Giant hand sculpture in the sand This is the wall that originally protected the port city, this is the only portion that is standing to it's full height still.This is the morning we woke up early and took a walk on the beach.This arena was originally built for bull fighting, but bull fighting was banned shortly after it was finished, and it never got used and has just turned into rubble.The Buenos Aires airport. Crowded.

It was really fun for me to be back in South America and get to practice my Spanish again. The accent in Argentina and Uruguay was pretty hard for me to understand though, but I started to get the hang of it. My favorite thing about South America is that every little town has a plaza and in the plaza is a big cathedral of some sort. The architecture is just so beautiful and I am awed every time.

Traveling is fun, but it does wear you out. Especially flying standby and spending long days and nights in the airports. We finally found us a little wooden game set in Buenos Aires that has chess, checkers, and backgammon combined. It came much in handy in our many hours in the airports on the way home. I'm getting much better at chess too, a game I've never really liked before!

This trip concludes our summer of traveling and I feel so incredibly blessed for the wonderful opportunity Brett and I had to travel and see so much this summer. Although, I will say that I am looking forward to being in one place for more than a week when school starts, and settling down into our apartment with all of our new things we got from the wedding !

The Farm

2008-07-20T23:34:00.000-06:00

I've had so much fun this summer going out to Brett's family's farm. I just love it out there and couldn't be happier when we are there helping. I've always had this fantasy of being a hard-working farm/ranch girl and I'm finally getting the chance to kind of live that fantasy. 1st crop was ready to be cut, chopped, and hauled the middle of June... so the learning began. I've never driven a tractor or anything before so it was all new to me. But let me tell you what, they don't waste any time teaching you and getting you right in there and working. My first day I rode with Brett for a couple hours in their brand new 'Swather', which cuts the field, while he explained how everything worked and taught me how. Then it was my turn.... At first I would just cut a row and then we would switch back so Brett could straighten it all out again. This continued for quite a while, and I was starting to get the hang of it. Then we were about to finish the field, and Brett made me cut whole wheel span which consists of about 13 rows. It was really scary, and every time the row got more and more crooked. When we finished I just had to laugh... You could definitely tell which rows I cut. But, Brett's family is super patient with me and said they all went through it, and I have to learn sometime if I wanna work out there. So hopefully next crop (in a few weeks), I'll cut a little straighter.

I also learned how to run the chopper, and bailer, and how to haul the hay. After they cut they hay, let it dry out, flip over the winrows, let it dry out more, then chop the hay, and put it in wagons. They haul the full wagons about 15 miles to another farm where they compress it into cubes and ship it abroad. Hauling hay is one of my favorite jobs, because I really feel like I'm accomplishing something because no one else really likes to do it, and it is just a cool feeling hauling 10-20 tons of hay behind you, then weighing it, and seeing it for the last time as you dump it out of the wagon.

These pictures were taken at the farm one day when Brett and I were doing miscellaneous chores. We make it fun.

Hiking Volcanoes

2008-07-09T23:54:00.000-06:00

On the road between St. George and Enterprise, on the way to the farm there are several old volcanoes that look pretty neat. Every time we drive by we comment on how we would like to hike up them someday. After a day at the farm, we were on our way home and decided to go ahead and try to get to the top of one. We made it, and the inside was just a huge cavern. It was pretty neat.

Fishing

2008-07-09T08:00:00.000-06:00

Brett and I went out to his farm a night early so we could camp and fish before working the next day. So we got to Newcastle Reservoir and pitched our tent, then continued the fishing excursion. We didn't catch anything that night, but the next morning Brett woke up and went out again and came back with this guy.....

Fairbanks, Alaska

2008-06-27T22:40:00.001-06:00

Brett and I had the chance to go up to Fairbanks, Alaska for about five days (As always we were just tagging along getting another vacation in... this time with Brett's brother Randy and his wife Tara).

You'll never guess what time it is in this picture... Midnight!!! No joke (This is the darkest it gets)

We arrived at about 1 or so in the morning and since Fairbanks is so far North, guess what, it doesn't get dark there right now... So it was light still. There's nothing that messes with your system more than no darkness. The sun goes down for about 3 hours, but it never gets dark or even close to it for that matter. Weird. The flight up was really trippy, because the sun stayed at the same level the whole way.... it never really moved. We thought we were flying into the sunset, which we were in Salt Lake City, but the sun stayed. To sleep, you have to shut the curtains and tell yourself it is late, even though every time you wake up light is coming through the window and you think it is morning.

Geo-Caching

Randy and Tara have found a new hobby in geo-caching. So we did a lot of that up there which was really fun. If you don't know what that is.... You get a GPS and then get coordinates off of a website, and follow the coordinates. Once you get to the point your going to you have to find a little box or container hidden within ten feet of the coordinates. Once you find it there is a paper inside to sign, and sometimes little trinkets if the box is big enough. It is a really good way sight-see and get ALL around town to see things you might not otherwise.

Here is some of the stuff we got the opportunity to see while we were there. One day we drove out to Denali National Park, which had some very pretty landscape. On the way there we got to see a moose with it's baby moose following cross the road in front of us. Another day we went kayaking down a river for about 3 hours and got to see some of the planes take off the water as well as some more gorgeous territory. One of our favorite places up there, was the North Pole. Yep.... we actually went to the North Pole.... well the town that is called the North Pole anyway. But Santa really does live there, I saw him an d his reindeer with my own two eyes. :)

Right: Brett, Mrs. Clause, Santa Clause, and Me; Santa's House

THE "North Pole"

Honeymoon - Part 3 - Louisiana

2008-06-20T23:21:00.001-06:00

Touching the Missisippi River

We arrived in New Orleans, Louisiana early Sunday morning. We then heard from Brett's friend Gordon there, that they were having Stake Conference and Elder Christofferson, the new apostle, was speaking. So we drove to Baton Rouge right away and got there just in time for Stake Conference and got to hear him speak which was really neat. My favorite part was when he spoke to all the Spanish speakers in Spanish for two minutes and I could actually understand what he was saying! I did learn something in Chile - yay!

After Stake Conference we took some pictures by the temple, which we did not get to go in, since I lost my recommend the week of the wedding, and don't have a new one yet.... then went to his friends Gordon and his wife Amber's house where we stayed the next couple days. They have a really fun house with a TON of property behind it and around it. They breed dogs and sell them, so you'll never see a house with more dogs. They had probably 70 dogs on their property! They breed beagles and train them for hunting, as well as many other varieties of dogs. They also had a big swimming pool, pond, and horse corral in their backyard. One day went fishing in their pond, because they keep large mouth bass in there, and they are really fun to catch because they're so big, but then just throw back so you can catch them again. One evening we went to dinner at Ambers parents' house, and had a traditional southern meal. Fried everything. I'm not kidding either. Fried fish, fried potatoes, fried rolls, fried green tomatoes (which are Awesome by the way), fried potato salad, fried fries, and then some squash pie. It was delicious, but I don't know how they eat that all the time. I think I would get sick from all the oil. They were the perfect epitomy of a 'Southern' family and I laughed the whole time I was there, they were great. Another evening we had a crawfish boil. This is the process... They get big bags of live crawfish, dump them into a container of some sort, drench them in salt and water(this is so they throw up all the bad stuff inside of them), let them sit there for quite a while, dump them into a huge boiling pot along with vegetables and seasonings, let them boil, dump them onto a table, and everybody just chows down from there. Pretty crazy, especially for a girl who doesn't usually like any type of seafood. To my credit, I did eat about 20 just for the experience.

The Crawfish Boil

We also got to take a trip out to Avery Island and tour the Tabasco Plant, and tast test everything Tabasco has ever made. I had no idea they made so many things.... all different kinds of Tabasco sauce, salsa, chile, Tabasco ice cream (not my favorite), etc... Who knew? Then we toured the rest of Avery Island and got to see lots of alligators and really pretty jungle area, as well as a reserve of Snowy Egrets.That night we had a traditional crawfish boil.

Our last night there, we went to downtown New Orleans and ate dinner, and walked the famous 'Bourbon Street.' The jazz music and culture part was really fun, but to be honest, there was just so much other junk there that it really wasn't my favorite, and I wouldn't want to go back. It's too bad that such a fun place has become so degraded. Before dinner we drove through some of the areas that were hit by Hurricane Katrina and it's amazing how ruined everything still is.

Overall though we had an awesome trip and are thankful we can fly for free so we can go see all these fun places! We found out though, that even though the plane tickets are free, it is still expensive to travel!

Honeymoon - Part 2 - Atlanta

2008-06-20T22:45:00.001-06:00

After we finished touring Vancouver Island we hopped on a flight to Atlanta to go see and visit some of Brett's mission memories. We stayed with his great Aunt who lives about 15 minutes outside of downtown in a place called 'Stone Mountain.' She was really hospitable, and gave us a comfortable place to stay. Some of the things we got to do while we were in Atlanta were... we went to the famous 'Varsity' fast food place, then downtown we went through the Coca-Cola Factory. We spent about 3 hours there, tasting all the different drinks coca-cola makes around the world, watching a 4-D movie, taking the general tour w/ the guide, etc... We had a blast. We also went up to the top of the Weston Building to view the city, shopped in the 'underground', had lunch in the CNN center, and walked all of the streets. After the day downtown, we went to dinner with President Shmid, the nicest old man I've ever met, who was in the Stake Presidency in one of the areas Brett served in. He took us out to a really good Chinese restaurant and we got to chat with him for a couple hours which was really fun.

We ended up flying out of Atlanta Sunday morning which was not the original plan, but had to because of full flights when we had originally planned to leave Atlanta. So our trip got cut a bit short, and Brett didn't get to visit a lot of families and people he wanted to, which was too bad, but oh well, what can

you do!

Honeymoon - Part 1 - Vancouver Island

2008-06-14T13:58:00.001-06:00

We made it to Vancouver safe and sound, but the airport was pretty stressful. There were tons of people at the airport and all three flights to Vancouver were sold out or oversold. It wasn't looking good at all, but about 3 minutes before they shut the door they called our names and we were able to get on the first flight. The plane was jam packed - completely full. (But in the end, we even got to sit next to each other). We rented our car and then drove straight to the ferry. We had a reservation for the later ferry, but we decided to try for the earlier one and if we got on, then great. We got on the earlier one just fine, and had a two hour ride to Vancouver island, then about another hour drive to our resort. The scenery is amazing here. We love it. The Resort we are staying at is really cool too. Our room isn't the biggest in the world, but it's really nice. The description said "partial kitchen", but apparently here in Canada that means, "mini fridge, toaster, coffee pot, and a dresser drawer of silverware" (not even a microwave) so it looks like we won't be cooking any of our own meals besides sandwiches for lunch. Yesterday was our first full day here at the resort, we had breakfast first (they only do that on Mondays) with a little orientation telling us all there is to do here on the island. We went kayaking the first day, which was a lot of fun. We found lots of little crab shells, oysters and a few sand dollars. The water is super clear here, so it felt weird to be in a kayak, it was like you were floating two feet above the ground all the time. The temperature is perfect. It's a little on the cold side, but you can still easily wear shorts and a t-shirt, with a jacket needed occasionally. We're so glad we didn't choose a hot place.

One day we drove down to the city of Victoria which is on the south tip of the island. It was supposed to be a 2 1/2 hour drive, but we ended up stopping at pretty much every little town on the way down so it took probably at least 5 hours to drive there. Each town has something unique about it so tourists will stop. For example, one town had at least 60 huge murals painted on the sides of all the buildings down town. Another town had hundreds of totem poles. Another town we stopped at - Cowichan had a Maritime Museum and also a s restauran Bay -hop where they still make wooden boats today and let you watch. Really cool. We ate lunch in a littlet right on the bay there, and for the first time ever I ate some seafood I actually liked. Fresh Halibut. It was so good because it didn't taste fishy at all! We finally made it to Victoria, our original destination, found a spot to park, and roamed the harbor city. There is a lot of really neat architecture in this city, huge stone buildings, just beautiful. The parliament building is there and it was pretty cool inside. In the harbor there were a lot of the planes that land on the water coming in and out, so that was cool to watch. We went the castle of Duke ..... (can't remember his name right now) a few blocks from downtown and it was pretty neat too. Overall, Victoria was a very clean city and very enjoyable.The ferry

Castle
Totem Poles

The next day we decided to stay closer to the resort and do some of the more local attractions. It was the lowest the tide had EVER been in that area so we went beach combing on several beaches. We found crabs, oysters, clams, sand dollars, fish, etc.... All sorts of stuff in the pools left on all the beaches. This same day we also saw a sign for some farm, but what caught my eye was the 'fresh cheese curds' written by the name. So we decided to try and find it. We found the farm and it turns out, it is just a normal farm, but that they let tourists come in and wander around wherever they want to see all the animals. They also have signs saying when they milk the cows and such, if you want to watch that too. We petted goats, played with chickens, cows, pigs, etc... and it was a pretty cool little place. In their little store they actually didn't have any cheese curds because they only make them one day a week, but we found some ice cream to get instead. We chose boysenberry and it was seriously the best ice cream we've ever had in our entire lives! You can definitely tell a difference when it is made with all the fresh ingredients. That was the best detour of the whole day.
Another day we went across the island to the West coast to a town called Tofino. This was the prettiest drive I've ever been on in my life. It took about 2 1/2 hours and there were lakes, rivers, green, more green, and it was raining too so waterfalls were cascading off the top of the rocks everywhere. Seriously Gorgeous! We stopped several times just to go hop around on rocks in the river because it was just so pretty. There was also an old growth forest we stopped and hiked around in for quite awhile too, so green! We stopped at one other little town before Tofino and went to an aquarium there. It was a pretty small place, but really neat. They catch everything right from the harbor there, and then release it later. They let us touch starfish, anemones, sea cucumbers, etc.... They also did some demonstrations where they put some of the animals in with their predator so we could see their survival instincts in action. This was one of my very favorite things of the whole trip. In Tofino we ate lunch right near the harbor again, and I ordered my halibut again. We went out to the prettiest beach I've ever seen shortly thereafter, but it was rainy and cold so we couldn't do much. I would love to play there and try some surfing on a hot sunny day though. On the drive back, we saw a black bear on the side of the road and got some good pics.

Barnyard

2008-04-09T09:41:00.000-06:00

Last weekend, I witnessed the real life version of the movie 'Barnyard'. I went out to Brett's farm near NewCastle and visited his brother's house. His sister-in-law showed me all around the house (Brett's brother Rick and his wife Stephanie live on and run the farm now) which included a huge assortment of animals. First, we saw a few cats and lots of dogs, and then a wild sparrow whom they found and raised and now lives in their home just like any pet bird would. Next came the goats. They had two miniature goats who apparently act like dogs - they'll lay on you and love to be petted, etc... Behind the miniature goats pen was a larger pen for the five regular sized goats they also raise. And let's not forget about all the birds. Chickens, geese, ducks, roosters, chickens, and yep, you guessed it, more chickens! With so many chickens they get about 20 eggs a day. And not only white ones - brown ones, white ones, big ones, small ones, and green ones just like in Dr. Seuss's book! But with the chickens came a lot of really funny stories.

First story. The word is out that they have a lot of animals, so people randomly drop off animals to them now. One day, a family that was moving called and asked if they could give them all their chickens because they were getting ready to move. They said yes, and the next thing they know, a U-haul pulls up, they put the gate down, and it sounded like a stampede. A random assortment of about 30 birds, including ducks, geese, chickens, etc... came waltzing down the ramp into their new home. Second story. One day, Brett's sister-in-law went outside to feed her chickens and found a note and a $20 bill taped to the outside of the chicken coop that read, "Nice lady, please keep, chickens cold, they die." And inside the pen were 5 more chickens. Every so often, she finds a few dollar bills randomly taped to the pen again. Third story. There is a duck on her farm that literally thinks it is a chicken. It was hatched by a mother hen and grew up with all the other chickens, and to this day thinks it is a chicken. It sits in the beds and attempts to lay eggs with the other chickens, and it never quacks - it only peeps like the chickens do. Funny stuff.

An Accident -Prone Year

2008-03-10T20:49:00.000-06:00

Never in my life have I been an accident-prone person, but I guess all those years of lucking out are finally at their end. This year has officially turned me into an accident-prone person. It all started when I broke my nose. I was wrestling with my nephew and randomly he head butts me and breaks my nose. I had to wear a nose cast around school for 5 days for that one. The next occurrence happened a couple of months ago at a track meet. I was with all the sprinters jogging around the track at Northern Arizona University the day before our meet. We were just warming up, getting the long bus trip out of our legs, and chatting, when out of nowhere an indoor javelin hits me square in the forehead! It then ricocheted and hit a couple of the other girls as well, but I think I can definitely say I took the brunt of the hit. I went over to the side of the track and the tears immediately started coming as well as a huge goose-egg on my forehead. After getting checked out the trainers decided I had a minor concussion and would not be allowed to compete the next day. A whole trip for nothing, and a bruised forehead for the next week or so! Seriously, what are the odds? Then just last weekend at our indoor conference championships my foot started to hurt in the hurdle finals. I limped on it the rest of the weekend including all around downtown Chicago, and then when we returned I had an MRI and such, and they decided I tore a tendon in my foot. So currently, I am on crutches and will be for two more weeks, and then back into a boot for another unknown amount of time. This all means I am probably done competing for the season which = lame. Seriously, I have never been accident-prone in my entire life, but I guess it just decided to all catch up to me in the past 6 months, what bad luck!

Chicago

2008-03-10T20:45:00.001-06:00

Every year I have run thus far, we have ended up having to fly into Chicago for the conference championships at least once. And every year this is about what happens. The night after we finish competing, it’s kind of tradition to go take the L-train to downtown Chicago to see everything. We usually find somewhere awesome to eat dinner, we then proceed to the Hancock Tower where you can go up 96 floors and look at the whole city from an observatory. It’s beautiful up there! Then at the base of the Hancock Tower is the Cheesecake Factory. And of course, you can’t just pass that up. So we always stop and get a piece of cheesecake, but only after spending plenty of time deciding which kind, of course, there are too many choices! We usually then continue to wander around a bit, just looking at all of the cool buildings and such. But after so long we get tired of getting asked for money by all the homeless people and we head back to the hotel. The fun doesn’t stop there. Some of us go down to the pool/hot tub/sauna, some make up dance skits and make fools of themselves while they perform them and we all watch, some just chat in the rooms, some watch movies, etc… Anyway, the great majority of the team ends up pulling an all-nighter, which is fun at the time, but we definitely pay for it on the plane and bus ride home. It’s pretty funny and really obvious that no one slept, when on the bus ride home it is dead silent because EVERYONE is asleep.
P.S. Brett actually flew out Saturday afternoon to Chicago and went and saw some sites downtown until the evening. (He wanted to come earlier and come to the meet, but unfortunately he's not old enough to rent a car, and we couldn't convince his parents to come because they had previous plans) Anyway, so he met us at our hotel Saturday evening, and he came with us downtown and stuff and it was way fun, then he flew home Sunday morning. Oh the benefits of being able to fly for free!

Free Pancake Day at IHOP

2008-02-12T16:23:00.000-07:00

Today is Free Pancake Day at IHOP all day long! There aren’t any obligations to buy other food or anything like that. You can just go show up, ask for pancakes, and you’ll have an entire short-stack in front of you within minutes. Now, you may be asking why IHOP would be giving out free pancakes if they aren’t going to get anything for it. Here’s the deal. The whole point of the day is to help raise money for the Children’s Miracle Network. Half of all the waitresses tips are being donated to the children, and any extra donations are being accepted as well at the cash register. Pretty cool stuff. So this morning after my first class Janelle, Brett, and I went there and got our free pancakes and they were good!

Tofurkey

2008-02-11T20:14:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I was in Seattle, Washington for a track meet and our hotel was right around the corner from an organic health foods grocery store. One evening, I went to the store to try and find a box of crackers. Seems like a pretty simple task, no? But let me tell you, finding anything in an organic health foods store is quite the adventure. The normal brands you are used to seeing are non-existent and everything is completely different! I found the cracker isle, and couldn't really find anything that looked too appetizing, so I continued on my way. We were walking down the meat isle and came across something that we found rather hilarious; 'Tofu Pups' in place of hot dogs, and 'Tofurkey' in place of turkey. I'm not really sure how Tofurkey is more natural than regular old turkey, but hey, what do I know. Apparently someone is buying it, and I guess I'm just not meant to be one of those people.

Bowling and Betting

2008-01-16T10:54:00.000-07:00

For the first time in the three years I have been at college, I am taking a class just for fun. This class is bowling - it is completely 100% unnecessary for any requirements towards graduation for me. But I will tell you what – it is so worth it! I am only going to be in college once, so I might as well take advantage of it, right? The class is held off campus at the bowling alley once a week - and basically you just go sign the roll and then bowl for two hours. The instructor comes around and gives you tips on how to improve, and that’s pretty much it. You just get to bowl and hang out with your friends for a couple hours, and get some school credit for it. Before we began, our instructor took us back behind the lanes to see all the machines and how they work, which was also way cool to see. How many people do you know that have actually been in the back of the alley to see how it all works? I didn’t know anyone, until I took this class. It’s pretty cool stuff.

The first day of class, we met some other students in the class that were sitting across from us, and we made a bet with them. On our last game, whichever team had less points, had to buy the other team hamburgers. As the game proceeded, it was pretty obvious that my team was going to win. The game finished, and we won the bet. We figured that this was going to be just like every other bet made in college, an empty one. It usually turns out that you are badgering whoever owes you for the rest of the semester, and you usually don’t ever get the prize agreed upon. But to our great surprise, we jokingly said, “so where are our hamburgers,” and they replied, “they are paid for and on their way down here.” We were all pretty shocked, and sure enough our hamburgers arrived a few minutes later. So there we were in class- eating our free hamburgers, after three games of bowling with fellow students and friends, completely satisfied after a day of bowling and betting.

P.S. I just have to throw this in there… another fact that I was reminiscing upon while eating my free hamburger was that I bowled my best ever score – a 175 - and my first turkey ever that day as well!
P.S.S. I totally beat Brett and his nephew Kelby who is also in the class with us. Hehehe