Our First Anniversary

I'll start this out by saying that I work from home. For our first anniversary, Andy showed up at our doorstep on Friday at lunch time with our bags packed and he handed me a note. The note essentially said that he would be whisking me away for a three-day adventure somewhere out of the country and that I had 5 minutes to pack anything else I would need. The note had a list of items he had already packed. We got in the car and I figured that we would head toward Mexico, but we got on the freeway heading north. I thought maybe we'd go to the airport and go to Utah or something...but Utah technically doesn't qualify as out of the country. As it turns out, we ended up heading toward the Long Beach harbor to board a cruise ship headed toward Ensenada Mexico.


Neither Andy nor I had ever been on a cruise, so it was a very interesting experience. We have decided that cruise ships are essentially floating Las Vegas hotels. They have casinos, activities, drinking and tons of FOOD!!!! Needless to say, we didn't drink or gamble, but I think we each gained about 10 pounds.

When we got to Ensenada, Andy had arranged for us to go on a Mexican cooking adventure. We went to a local restaurant called Mango Mango (my favorite fruit) where a guy named Jesus ("Hey-sus") taught us how to make pico de gallo, tamales and tortas. Of course I found it was particularly humorous to receive cooking instructions from Jesus--and I about lost it when Andy sneezed and Jesus said "Bless you!". However, I was rather disappointed when, at the end, Jesus tried to get us tourists to buy souvenir shot glasses, coffee mugs and beer glasses. Shame on you, Jesus. However, the food was fabulous and I loved watching Andy cook.

For anyone who has been to Tijuana before, Ensenada is very similar. Lots of shops and bars and a great place for people watching.

Sunday was a "day-at-sea", so we spent the day attending various seminars, shows and we spent a lot of time relaxing...oh and eating. The nice thing about a cruise is that you are encouraged to try all kinds of things and if you don't like it....who cares?!? Try something else. We also went to the nondenominational church service--which was an interesting experience. We ate dinner each night with some girls from LA and Bakersfield (Monique and Keisha). They are best friends and were a lot of fun! We even entered a Family Feud game with them one night and won a medal.

On Sunday, our anniversary, our room had been decorated by the stateroom staff. The staff is also quite famous for creating animals out of rolled-up towels. One night there was a bunny on our bed and the other night there was an elephant. At my encouragement, Andy karate chopped the elephant.

All in all, we had a wonderful time and it was so nice to just have time to spend together. With work, school and church responsibilities, it was a good change of pace for the both of us.

Halloween 2006

I rather enjoy Halloween because it gives me the opportunity to come up with some pretty funny costumes. This year's costume was sent to us by my sister, Paula, who found the Spartan Cheerleader (SNL) costumes at a garage sale and thought Andy and I would enjoy them. We certainly did. We attended a Young Men/Young Women Halloween dance (I am the Mia Maids teacher) and were able to do a couple cheers for our adoring fans.

I have decided to post some pictures from our honeymoon as well. Sorry this one is sideways. This picture was taken on the beach in Kauai. Andy had arranged for us to go on a scavenger hunt where we had to go to various locations, complete various tasks and get clues for the next task. It was a lot of fun!! The final location was on the beach where we were served a gourmet meal just before the sun set. It was wonderful.
This is us on the beach in Kauai. We just finished having dinner on the beach. We roasted marshmallows over a small camp fire too.
Andy had arranged for us to take a helicopter tour of Kauai. It was absolutely amazing. This was something I have always wanted to do! I have always loved the mountains in Hawaii and the Na Pali coast is just breath taking!! We had to reschedule the helicopter tour a couple times due to rainy weather that week, but the clouds parted just long enough for us to go on the tour. Because of all the rain they had gotten that week (and the month before we arrived) there were hundreds of waterfalls!! It was so so so beautiful!!!
This is the view from where we stayed in Hanalei. You could see a couple waterfalls in the mountains off in the distance--that is, whenever the clouds parted long enough for us to get a good look.


This is us at the Coco Palms resort. This is where Elvis filmed most of Blue Hawaii. After hurricane Iniki in 1994, the hotel suffered from a series of financial problems including insurance issues and it eventually closed. The island is still recovering from hurricane Iniki. We had gone on a tour that took us to a variety of places where movies were filmed on Kauai. We saw where they filmed parts of Jurassic Park, 7 Days and 7 Nights, Blue Hawaii etc. The cool thing was that each of the places where movies were filmed were absolutely beautiful locations.

Wedding Pictures

I've been wanting to post some of our favorite wedding pictures online for quite a while and finally decided to create a blog. I'm not really one who keeps a regular journal, so I hope you enjoy whatever gets posted.