Mexico & California for the Mr. & Mrs. Part 2

 Yes, we were too cheap to actually buy these photos of us from the formal night on the cruise, but at least we have pics of the pics. LOL. That is my old prom dress. I was very proud to be able to fit in it again after 11 years and four pregnancies.

Here is us in Ensenada, Mexico. I love the shops they have all over.

 Our first stop was La Bufadora. Way cool.

Justin liked it so much he posed on the cliff side. 

Here it is. Proof that I actually held a wild cat. I actallu held a jaguar! It was incredible! My heart was beating so hard the entire time.

Then, we got to ride horses along the beach. Gorgeous!

Here is another pic of a pic that we didn't buy. They charge $30 for those things. 

Mexico & California for the Mr. & Mrs. Part 1

Me and Justin went on a trip to celebrate our ten year wedding anniversary.We flew in an airplane out of Provo.

This gaudy staircase was one of my favorite features of the cruise ship we stayed on.

Here is our view of Catalina Island from the ship.

We rented a bicicle built for two. That was quite an experience. Good team-building exercise. 

I loved the flora on the island.

All ready to snorkel.

Justin wasn't too keen on the whole snorkel in cold water on a somewhat windy day idea, but I had a decent time checking out some orange fish and some black and white striped fish, although I did get tangled in some kelp and about had a heart attack trying to get out of it since I was all by myself and Justin was on shore. All in all, Catalina was fun. 

Seeking out new life and new civilizations

Yes, that was a Star Trek reference. We LOVE Star Trek!

The characters, the missions, the discussions, the romance, the action, the adventure, the moral dilemmas, so intriguing! I had only seen a few minutes of one TNG episode when I was ten. I thought Trek was only for nerds and geeks. But my honey grew up watching it. His dad and brothers like it too, but we like it the most. In fact, come to think of it, we are the biggest Star Trek fans I know. ha! I dream about it often, I dream I am in the Star Trek world, it feels so real.
We have watched every single episode in order except for the last season of The Original Series. To those of you that have only seen the newer Star Trek movies with Christopher Pine, you are missing out! The newer movies are set in an alternate universe, and the cinematography, the cast, the characters, the stories are not even close to being as deep and thought-provoking as most of the television show episodes. Most recently, we have been re-watching "Enterprise".

Which aired in 2001-2005, it's the most recent Star Trek tv show. We have even started showing some of the episodes to the kids, it's TV-PG.
Oh, yeah and we like to dress our kids up like Spock.

In April we have tickets to Salt Lake Comic-Con, which will have most of the Star Trek: The Next Genergation Cast! http://saltlakecomiccon.com/project_category/star-trek-the-next-generation/
 cool! Don't worry, tons of nerdy/geeky pics coming.
One last confession. Yes, we named one of our kids after a Star Trek character, Wesley Crusher.

Miss Francy Makes Friends

It's crazy how different my kids are. Francesca, who seems to have taken on the nickname of "Francy", loves making friends. It's in her nature. First of all, she has built-in friends who happen to be her brothers. When they are at school she loves chasing Conrad around. When Conrad is napping she begs and begs me to play with a friend. She loves playing house, dress-up, my little pony, barbies, & dolls.

I think she is used to being surrounded by people, so that's where she is most comfortable.

Her BFF is definitly her grandma, my mom. He and my mom are so similar it's uncanny. From their petite size, to their feminine nature to their love of rolls and of playing in water, they are two peas in a pod. 

She is a lot like a sparker. ;)

I wanted to add that she also adores Justin's mom as well. 

I love this girlie girl of mine.

She makes me laugh and cry and smile all at the same time.

Making the Trek Northward

Another huge life changing event I wanted to update the blog on was our move. Yes, we moved from Springville to Lehi. We actually moved from Springville to Farmington to Lehi, but more on that later. It all started in the spring of 2012. We had originally planned on staying in Springville for 5-10 years, but Justin's job's kept bringing him north. First with AtTask, they moved from Orem to Lehi. Then he got his current job with EMC, which is located even further north in Draper. The commute was terrible, especially because there was a huge construction project happening directly along his commute. He was not a fan. Not just becasue of the hassle of the drive, but because it took him away from the family for an extra 1.5-2.5 hours a day, depending on traffic and weather. He even tried carpooling, which helped. But eventually after praying about it and going to the temple about it we decided to start making plans to move further north. Another motivation for moving further north was being closer to our families. So, since I was pregnant at the time, we decided that we would improve our house the best that we could now, then right after having the baby we would put our house up for sale. Fixing up our house was fun. Here are some of the projects:

New floors.

Front porch and landscaping project.

large amounts of priming, painting, and more tearing out old carpet, and installing new flooring. (this is the old carpet)

Our house went on the market when Conrad was one month old. We had about 3-5 showing a week. Here is the house blog I made: http://housewithcharm.blogspot.com. this whole time, we started looking at houses, which was very exciting. 

I wanted to look in the Salt Lake Valley, but Justin wanted to stay in Utah Valley. After realizing that not only is SL about 10-15% more $, but the yards are typically smaller, especially in the neighborhood I wanted to be in, (Daybreak). We signed the papers to build the home we are now in in September of 2012. We sold our Springville house just in time, closing in November of 2012.