Garden and nasty stache

Dan had a big beard a few weeks ago and he kept it for about a month. I don’t mind the bearded look and I think he looks pretty hot, but I don’t like kissing him at all! And his mom hates it! But he finally shaved and decided to leave the nastiest mustache ever. He kept it for a day and everyone at his work said he looked like a porn star. Sickkkkkk.

An update on our yard. These were about 2 weeks ago and we added some more plants to fill in our backyard flower beds a bit more. You can barely tell, but there are a bunch of Petunias (where it looks like just dirt) so hopefully they fill in and bring some color.

These are all newly planted and already have grown quite a bit. They are looking good and supposedly will get pretty big.

The front gardens are looking good but I definitely need some color! I planted some petunias up here too so hopefully they will be colorful soon now that my tulips have died.

This is my garden about two weeks ago.

The pepper and tomato plants were just newly planted.

This is my garden as of last night and it looks awesome! So many things have just exploded and I’m so excited!

My tomatoes and pepper plant have grown a lot and the zucchini seed I planted a week or two ago has already popped up! I was amazed!

This is a close up of my spinch (middle two squares) and my beans (top four squares). My onions are huge and my cilantro and parsley are popping up like crazy. My peas are also growing really well so hopefully they turn out!

I am going to try to work out a trellis for my tomatoes and my zucchini so they don’t get out of control and take over my small garden. Hopefully it actually works and I’ll post pictures of that eventually. Hooray for gardens!

The Great Debate

 

This is going to be harsh. Just warning you. I’m about to get all political and controversial up in here. But it’s my blog and this is something that has been bothering me for a while now and I want to share my opinion. I realize I may offend some people or infuriate people but I’ve been offended and infuriated myself about it so whatev.

Anyway….gay marriage. Yikes. A hot topic for sure, especially these days.

Here is what I believe in a nutshell: Marriage is between a man and a woman. Period. Acting on homosexual feelings is wrong (as is acting on heterosexual feelings before marriage).

I have an unwavering testimony of the gospel and I 100% support my church and their stance on this topic. I do not pick and choose the things about my religion that I want to support. I believe it’s all or nothing. Obviously I have a lot of faults and things to work on, but I fully support my church and every single thing that my leaders (speaking on behalf of God) stand for. This is not to assume that all leaders are perfect and I realize that there are many in the church who make mistakes. That is not what I’m talking about here. You cannot be a faithful member of this church and choose which parts you like and which parts you don’t. It doesn’t work that way. We are a church that requires commitment and dedication and we believe that the Lord will bless us immensely for following Him and dedicating ourselves to His work.

Now here is the kicker: I think that members of the church who do not support the church’s stance on gay marriage should not be able to hold a temple recommend. During the recommend interview, we are explicitly asked if we support and sustain the leaders of our church. Luckily it is not my decision to make that judgment and the church leaders and the Lord will make the ultimate decision, not me. But the fact that people are actively going against the church is preposterous and outrageous and it breaks my heart. It shocks me to my core that these same people continue to go to church, bear their testimony, etc., but then they publicly support gay marriage and blatantly state that the church is wrong! That is total and complete hypocrisy.

My very dearest and best friend throughout my entire childhood is gay. He was basically family and we spent every waking moment together. We had so much fun growing up and we stayed close throughout high school as well. I never doubted that something was different about him. I always knew he was different but didn’t understand how until later in high school. I was absolutely not surprised when he told me he was gay. He was still the same sweetheart boy that I knew and grew up with. He wasn’t any different than he had always been and he is still a wonderful person that I love being around. I still see him whenever I can and although he knows exactly where I stand, he also knows that I love him and care about him.

Many gay people that I have met and interacted with are great and some are so flamboyant and hysterical and I absolutely love it. I still disagree with their lifestyle but I have nothing against them and enjoying their company. It’s no different than being friends with people who drink, sleep around or don’t believe in God. I can still enjoy their company and respect our differences. I love that people are different and we can all learn from each other. I don’t want to live a life where everyone is exactly like me because how boring is that? And how would I really appreciate the things that I believe are important? They would be meaningless if everyone agreed with me right? So I appreciate the differences in the world and it’s something I have always wanted to experience.

When I lived in Holland, I became much more open to a lot of things. I was forced to question things that I had never questioned before-why don’t I drink or have sex or do drugs? Why do I go to church every week and read my scriptures? What do I think about abortion and homosexuality? Why do I think that? Holland is an extremely open minded place. The Netherlands (aka Holland) was the first country in the world to legalize gay marriage. They have also legalized prostitution and soft drugs (like marijuana). It all sounds so awful and crazy but that place was amazing. It was beautiful and the people were wonderful and kind and welcoming to everyone. I loved my time there and it is something I will forever hold dear. I talked to people who had drastically different ideas and beliefs than me and we shared our opinions over coffee (hot chocolate for me) almost every day! That experience changed me for the better but also cemented in me the truths and values that I have. I don’t think I would feel as strongly as I do if I hadn’t spent time living in the Netherlands and traveling around Europe.

I hope that in writing this, people will have no doubt where I stand and what I believe. I also hope they know that even if I disagree with them on this, I don’t hate or dislike them. Not at all! I definitely have lost a lot of respect for the “faithful” members of the church who are blatantly and purposefully going against what the church teaches. With that said, I am not going to treat people differently just because I feel that way. If you know me at all, you know I love a good discussion and I don’t get upset or offended easily, but I also don’t back down and don’t hesitate to say exactly what I think. I just wish the rest of the country could agree to disagree instead of attacking and harassing the other side. It is unfortunate that it is happening. And as a side note, I don't understand how this managed to be at the forefront of the political scene. What about the state of the economy? Our disgusting national debt? The fact that Congress has not passed a budget since 2009? What about the housing and job markets? And gay marriage has managed to be the only thing people are talking about. Tragic.

But I feel a lot better getting that off my chest. I feel like the other side of the debate gets so much publicity and they make those of us who disagree with them out to be hateful and backwards. It doesn’t make sense to me how they cannot understand that I feel just as strongly as they do about this issue. We simply disagree and that will not change. I am not trying to hurt anyone or cause pain, but my feelings will never change. I believe God has spoken on this issue and I have no questions or doubts in my mind about it. Now I can rest easy knowing that at least those who read this know exactly where I stand.

Mish mosh post

Well my little sissy got hitched a few weeks ago. The ceremony was amazing and I loved that we could be part of it. Being in the temple was amazing and the Spirit was so strong and I am just so happy that she made such a wonderful choice and I know she will be blessed because of it.

I literally got these pictures off facebook and I don’t have any yet but it was great. Except for the minor downpour the entire day…ha but really, it absolutely poured rain and we all got completely drenched. Luckily it was Steph and she is really chill and just had fun. We saw another bride who was PISSSED. Dan and I were dying because we were sure her husband was trying to figure out how to un-do the marriage! Yikes. But things turned out great and the reception was incredible and she looked gorgeous.

I’m so glad Steph found Andrew and so glad to have another boy in the family (Dan loves staring into space while Steph, me and mom talk our faces off). They are so in love and I just pray she has as much joy in her marriage as I do because it’s a wonderful thing to be blessed with! Love them both.

Last weekend when it was super warm, Dan and I decided to do a little hike in the morning at Antelope Island. It’s literally about 10 minutes away from our house (we have lakefront property, don’t be jealous), so we jetted over there on Saturday morning. We knew there would be bugs and lathered up the bug spray, but we underestimated the biting gnats.

I started to get concerned when we stopped at the visitor’s center and saw other people come in with small black bugs covering their backs. I was a little horrified. We didn’t noticed bugs while walking to our car, but we decided to drive around for a bit before doing our hike. We stopped at a place that had a tall overlook about half a mile up a hill. Just a small walk up the hill, right? Well, only a few steps later, we noticed the swarms of bugs trying to kill us. They didn’t bite but there were tiny gnats everywhere. We were swiping at them and speed-walked up the hill. We stopped for about 10 seconds to take the picture above then turned around. They were everywhere and it was like a horror movie. We started to run and ended up jogging back down the path (at least we got a little exercise right?). Suddenly I noticed a HUGE snake in the middle of the trail and I almost fell over because I stopped so fast. I was gasping because I was so freaked out and probably inhaled half a pound of gnats. The snake was easily a few feet long and at first I thought it was a rattlesnake, but it didn’t appear to be. Still freaky and that would be the third time since we’ve been married that I have been inches away from stepping on a snake while on a hike/run/etc (the other two were rattlesnakes!).

I literally felt like that must be similar to what hell feels like except maybe hotter and you just can’t stop running; you have to run forever and there are bugs and huge snakes everywhere.
Luckily things were much better inside the car. We drove around the island and it really was beautiful. We will try to come back in the late fall when it’s still warm enough for a hike, but cold enough that the bugs are dead!

We bought a grill a few weeks ago (can’t believe we have gone so long without it!) and we LOVE it! We have been grilling up a storm and I have made pizza on the grill a few times too. It has always turned out well but we made some last week for the Jazz vs Suns game and it was just life changing.

Honestly, it turned out amazing and just perfect! I made the dough from scratch (not that hard at all) and then we did alfredo sauce, asian bbq chicken (marinated overnight), mozzarella, red onions, mushrooms and cilantro. Whoa. It was awesome! So so good. The exact recipe I used is here. Go make it now.

Here is a little update on my garden. So far, I have planted: red onions, white onions, green onions, parsley, peas, cilantro, carrots, and spinach. I still plan on planting: tomatoes, peppers, basil, lettuce, cucumber, beans, garlic, celery and zucchini. You can see my onions on the top right and they have grown a ton. They are looking good and there are a few others things popping up slowly. I have no clue what I’m doing so hopefully things go well!

I’m also really happy with our yard is looking and excited for more plans for the spring and fall. This is the side of the house and I still want to fill in more but the small hosta plants will also grow a lot and it’s looking really good.

This is the front of the house a week or so ago and it already looks even better now. I planted a ton of tulips in the fall and they all popped up and I’m loving them! I plan on adding a bunch more tulips, daffodils and lillies this fall to look forward to in the spring!

Our backyard flower gardens are still pretty bare so we are going to focus a lot on those and slowly keep filling things in. am excited to see how things come together and how much better it looks when all the plants grow a lot bigger (they are barely coming in right now). There is still a lot of work to do, but I’m really loving it so far!
When we moved in, the yard was a disaster and I really thought we would have to tear out the grass and start over. But we a lot of hard work (mostly by Dan), it has come back and now looks awesome. Our grass is thick and green and last week we ate dinner with Jon and Julie and the boys on the grass! That is something we never thought we could do and to have nice grass is such an awesome thing!

Gardening and a new project!

Last fall I decided I wanted to plant a garden and because I’m a crazy person, I kind of became obsessed with it. I tend to focus on something and get a little obsessed with it for a while, and then I either move on to something new, or stay interested but not as obsessive after a while. Food storage is a good example of this. At first, I was really obsessive and focused on it, but now I have scaled back and I’m still very interested and continuing to focus on food storage and emergency preparedness, just not obsessively!

Anyway, I decided to do square foot gardening and I read the book about it by Mel Bartholomew. It was really interesting and I got really excited. I learned a lot and planned a lot in the fall/winter and I was ready to go when spring came! Our backyard neighbors (we don’t have a fence behind us yet) have a bunch of raised square foot beds and they do great so I asked them a lot of questions too. I used the site My Square Foot Garden a TON and it is an amazing resource. I basically read every single article on the site! I wrote my garden plan and even posted it on her site for a guest review and got some feedback which was helpful.

We decided to start small and see how things go this year. Dan built me two beds that are 4 feet by 6 feet each. He used 2x12 boards and it was pretty cheap for everything. We stained them and moved them to the yard where Dan had pulled up some grass. We put down a weed mat and then mixed our own “Mel’s Mix” which is 1/3 vermiculite, 1/3 compost and 1/3 peat moss.

I drilled screws in the top of the boards and used string to make my squares. This helps with planting so I can plant certain things in each square. Some squares I will plant several seeds and some squares will have only one. For tomatoes and zucchini, I will cut some of the string to make more space since those plants need more space. We will also be adding some trellis supports for the beans, tomatoes and zucchini so they spread up instead of out. This will save space and hopefully go well!

This year I’m planting the following: peas, beans, onions, carrots, cilantro, parsley, garlic, basil, peppers, tomatoes, zucchini (only 1 plant because they take over!), spinach, lettuce, celery, and cucumbers. I have no idea what I’m doing so it could be a total flop. I have planted a few things that can handle the cool weather and my onions have already started popping up so that is exciting! I will continue to update with some garden posts and hopefully we will have some fresh vegetables to enjoy in a few months!

And my next big project is to start working on an extra bedroom that we haven’t touched since we moved in! It is going to be a future nursery (no I’m not pregnant…) and I figure I might as well get started with paint and some other things since it’s going to be very gender neutral and I just can’t handle the nasty purple and green walls with fairy stickers everywhere! I have a lot of big plans for this room so I’m glad that we can take it slow and hopefully it will look great! The room below is my inspiration picture and I love the colors and everything about the room.

Below is my inspiration board with some ideas that I like. I’m going to do white board and batten on the bottom 2/3 of the wall. Instead of the tan grass cloth wallpaper, I’m going to paint the top part of the walls a pretty blue/green/gray color. There is also an awesome big arched window that I love but I’m not quite sure how to cover it yet. And I’m going to have Dan make me some built in bookshelves and a window seat on either side of the window! I am really excited about that.

    

Dan has already peeled off the horrible fairy stickers and patched and sanded the walls. I have picked out a paint color and I started ripping out the baseboards last night. I’m going to start painting tonight! Hopefully it all turns out as great as I’m hoping and I’m excited to get started!

UPDATE: I found a few pictures of the future nursery in it's current state. Brace yourselves.

Some things

This is going to be kind random because I have several things I wanted to post about and I’m doing it all in one post!

My besty Shelley came to visit from CT a few weeks ago with her precious boys and I was so happy to see Wes! Holy smokes, look at that face! He is so adorable and I loved seeing them. Shell and Bre came to our house with their 4 kids and we had a great time. I’m stealing some pictures from Shelley’s blog!

Brielle and Thad ran around in the yard and played before it got dark and luckily I have invested in a toy box for the times when we have kids come over so they were pretty entertained. It also helped to have their favorite cartoons on TV too! (I love Comcast OnDemand!)

We had a yummy dinner and just chatted. It was so nice to visit with these girls and I just love them so much. We have been friends for so long (since I was in 7th grade!) and I will always love them. I adore their cute kids and seeing them as moms now makes me so happy! They are wonderful moms and I’m so glad we got to spend some time together.

Dan kept them entertained and got them really really hyper. He does that with kids a lot.

Brielle loved wearing my earrings. It was so adorable and Breanne put them over the top of her ears and she walked around really carefully so they would stay on!

Holy Wes.

The picture above is a late Christmas present that I sent Shelley some time in January. I made her some subway art with my silhouette and I forgot to take pictures so she sent me this! I had Brian send me a bunch of their addresses and cities they have lived in (a lot), and I mixed them all up and made a stencil with my silhouette. Then I painted it and distressed it a bit. I think it turned out great and I might make one for us with places we have lived and traveled.

I just have to post a few rants and raves about pinterest. First of all, I love it and think it’s a great idea and I use it all the time!

Here are my rants:

• When people pin things without checking if the link goes anywhere or if it’s a legit site/recipe/etc! They just pin it and never click on it so when I actually do, I find out that it goes nowhere!
• When people pin 10,000 pictures of super freaky buff/skinny women with quotes about working out really hard. Very dramatic.
• “healthy” recipes that are not healthy
• I hate how pinterest randomly doesn’t work and I have had one of my entire boards just disappear. The pictures and links are gone but the board is still there! This has gotten better but I think the site grew too fast for them to maintain very well.

And here are my raves:

• Tons of recipes that I’ve made and liked:
  • honey lime tilapia
  • banana blueberry bread
  • parmesan baked zucchini
  • oven baked asparagus
  • breadsticks
  • asian bbq chicken
  • pf chang’s lettuce wraps
  • sweet potato fries
  • yogurt drops
  • orange teriyaki salmon
  • parmesan roasted potatoes
• Things I’ve actually done :
• New workouts: tabata, running on an incline, the 100, some great arm work outs
• Great cleaning ideas: vinegar (cleaned showerhead), stove top, how to whiten whites (really worked but it’s a lot of effort)
• Actually using the board to plan my Halloween party and upcoming bedroom design
• Guide of how to pluck your eyebrows

And finally, I wanted to do one more update about losing some weight recently. When we went on our trip, I had been tracking my calories and changing my eating habits for about 6 weeks. I was glad I had already started before we left so it was easier to stay on track while we were in Puerto Rico. I was really nervous that I would get home and have gained all the weight back, but I only gained 1.5 pounds and I lost it and a little more the week we got home. I think the fact that we were active while we were there as well as the habits I had been working on before the trip helped a lot too. And we ate pretty healthy while we were there but I did have a lot more treats and desserts than usual and I’m glad that I did!

So far I have lost 18 pounds in about 3 months. I have almost dropped 2 sizes and I’m 2 pounds away from my goal weight but even more importantly, I want to get to my goal pant size! I took some measurements back in December and compared them to now. Here are the inches I have lost so far:

Calf: –.5”
Thigh: –3.25”
Hips: – 2.5”
Waist: –4.75”

I’m really happy with the changes that I’ve made with my lifestyle and eating and I don’t feel deprived at all. I don’t feel like I’m on a diet because I don’t want to just stop doing this and gain weight again. If I gain weight in the future, I will be okay with it and it’s not something I want to obsess over. But I feel really good and healthy and I’m proud that I have done it! It’s something I will continue as a lifestyle change and whenever I get pregnant (yes I do want to have kids at some point!), I want to have a healthy pregnancy and continue exercising regularly, eating healthy and gaining a healthy amount of weight that will hopefully come off easier when I have a baby because I took care of my body!

Puerto Rico Episode 4

This is the final installment of our Puerto Rico trip. Tragic, I know. But it has been super fun for me to relive the trip while editing and posting the pictures!

We left off on Wednesday where we visited Old San Juan. We wandered around a little longer and went back to our car. It was really busy and touristy in Old San Juan. The cruise ships dock there so there were tons of people, which I didn’t really love. I like a little more of an authentic feeling and not being around a lot of tourists, even though I’m a tourist myself! I have always had the most fun doing things when it’s closer to what the local people are doing and not trying to make things exactly how I would expect them at home. That is why I really loved Puerto Rico and specifically how we did it!

Anyway, we headed across the island to the west side where we rented a condo in the tiny surf town of Rincon. It took about 2 1/2 hours to drive and I (of course) took a nap for a while but it was fun to see more of Puerto Rico. Once we got to Rincon, finding our condo was kind of a trip. The roads are crazy and really steep and windy since Rincon is kind of on the side of the mountains. It’s so easy to get turned around and so hard to get your bearings there! We had some trouble but finally found our condo and we were really happy with it. I found it on vrbo and it was nice with 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a huge wrap around balcony. I also asked the owner to waive the cleaning fee ($75!) and he did so that was nice. It was a good location and about a 5 minute drive to the beach.

The picture above is the view from our balcony. It was nice to be up high and have a view of the ocean. It was gorgeous and a little more breezy on this side of the island. We walked around the area near our condo and then drove and got some groceries in the center of the town. The guy from the grocery store was so nice and pushed our cart all the way to our car to help us! We didn’t know if we were supposed to tip but we did because he was such a sweetheart. He was helping Dan with his pronunciation of “azul” and it was funny.

We had dinner at a small pizza place that looked a little sketchy but turned out to be a dream. We talked to an American guy who was eating alone and he was such a doll. He was telling us how good the pizza was and it was super cheap too! He said his wife died a few years ago and when he talked about her, he had such a tenderness and love for her that it made me so sad for him. But he was so happy and nice and said he comes to PR often and is trying to buy property there and his son has been helping him look. When we said goodbye to him, he gave me a big hug and it made me really happy.

 

On Thursday we had surfing lessons and we ended up loading some surf boards on our tiny car and following the rest of the group to the beach. I’m so ticked that I didn’t get a picture of our car with the boards on top! But Dan is obsessed with surfing so he was beyond excited. Our guides were really nice and fun and there was only 3 of us in the group so we got more time with the instructors.

 

The beach was good for beginners and had small waves, but I was still really nervous. I’m a good swimmer but waves make me really nervous and I just don’t like getting pounded by waves and the salt water is sick! But I ended up getting up on my board a few times (even though I got slammed in the head by my board one time!). Dan got up a lot and did awesome. I wasn’t interested in going all day like him, but I loved watching him surf and just enjoyed the beach.

I kept putting on sunscreen, but I felt like I was getting burned (and I did) so I put on Dan’s shirt for a while! We had a little snag when the other woman in our group got hit in the face with her board and broke her nose! She was covered in blood and had cuts all over her nose but she was way tough! She was alone and our guide had to take her to the hospital.

We walked on the dock and watched some other surfers on the big waves. Dan is below in the green/yellow shirt on his surfboard. The instructor kept saying he was a pro surfer! We ended up getting pretty sunburned and Dan got all scraped up on his chest and stomach. I couldn’t believe how red my legs were that night and even my toes were really sunburned! We really lathered up in aloe vera and luckily my burn didn’t last too long and Friday was overcast so I was okay.

Below is a video of Dan surfing. He was doing so great and I was really happy to get a video of him getting up! I love how he gave our instructor a high five when he was finished.

 

We stopped at some fruit stands on the way back and got some fruit then went back to the condo and cleaned up and then walked to a sweet lookout point where we watched huge waves and tons of surfers. Rincon is really popular with surfers and they even have a lot of surf competitions there during the winter. The lighthouse is El Faro lighthouse.

The look out area was gorgeous and we just sat there forever watching the surfers and enjoying the views and sounds of the ocean. I also read my book of course!

Below you can see some black dots and those are all surfers. There were probably over 100 surfers out there!

I had heard about a yummy Thai restaurant so we set out to find it which was an adventure. We got lost a jillion times and we had no idea how to find it even with directions and GPS. The streets are crazy and so confusing! But we finally found it and it was worth it! It was up on the hill and the views were awesome. The dinner was delicious too and it was so relaxing to enjoy a good dinner and sit outside high above the ocean and enjoy the views. We just loved it. We came back to our condo and watched a movie and nursed our sunburns!

The sign below says “Entering danger zone”. We saw these signs everywhere and it kind of freaked us out!

On Friday, Dan wasn’t feeling too well because he was extremely sore and sunburned from surfing and he didn’t sleep well. So we slept in and relaxed at the condo for a while. We had a big breakfast and I read my book and loved the breeze and the views. We walked across the street to this great coffee shop called Banana dang and had the most amazing smoothies and bagel with cinnamon and sugar. I loved the smoothies so much that I emailed them when I got home to see if they would share the recipe! I think the secret is that they used agave and soy milk. I have yet to try it but I’m sure I will eventually. We make smoothies a lot and they’re good, but that smoothie was amazing.

When Dan was feeling a little better, we decided to go find Steps Beach. This was harder than expected because it’s so un-touristy and the beach ended up being at the end of a tiny bumpy road with only a few cars parked haphazardly along the sides of the road! It was amazing that this awesome beach was just right there! Once again, we were the only ones on the beach! We went under a big tree (sunburn recovery) and I read my book and Dan rested. The waves were too big to snorkel but we watched tons of tiny crabs all over the beach!

Below is a picture of Steps beach and the arrow is pointing to the cement steps that are on the beach. I don’t know how or why they are there, but it’s pretty random to see!

After a few hours on the beach, we went back to the small city center and got some ice cream and sodas and just wandered around. It was so quiet and cute and there were a bunch of old men playing dominos! We went to a few shots and got some gifts and souvenirs then went back to the lighthouse to watch the surfers. We had frozen pizza for dinner at the condo and just relaxed for the evening. It was a quiet day, but really wonderful to relax and have a day to chill. That’s why we go on vacation right?!

We slept in on Saturday and got packed up and had breakfast and left our condo. We went back to El Faro lighthouse again and watched the surfers for a while. We had heard that there were whales around Rincon in Feb/March and suddenly Dan spotted some a few miles out! We couldn’t believe it but we watched the whales for a long time and they just kept coming up and breaching. It was amazing to see whales like that and I’m so glad that we got to witness it! We headed back towards the other side of the island and drove to San Juan where we had a hotel for the night. We couldn’t check in yet (side note: I hate Embassy Suites in San Juan for so many reasons…luckily we got a great deal through Priceline but ugh).

We had a trip scheduled to go to the Bioluminescent Bay on the island of Vieques for Saturday night. The tour started around 4 and we rode a catamaran (the same boat we rode on our snorkel trip earlier in the week) to Vieques. For any Bachelor fans, this is the island that they went to on the Bachelor this season! Yesssssss. It was beautiful and we met some great people on our boat. When we got there, we rode some vans to Esperanza and walked along the water.

The views were great and the balusters below are all over Puerto Rico. I love the simple, thick design of them and they were honestly all over the place so I’m glad I got a picture of them!

We rode the vans to dinner while the sun was setting and we had good conversation with an older couple from Michigan about the church and Utah. They were really nice and so amazed by our culture and religion so it was fun to discuss it with them.

After dinner came the adventure. We loaded up into a super old, rusty school bus that was probably 50 years old. We took about a 20 minute drive down the bumpiest, craziest road ever. There were branches scraping the sides of the bus the entire time and it was literally like we were on the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland! The windshield of the bus was shattered with cracks so getting on the bus was kind of a leap of faith. It was crazy but really fun and there was an adorable family from Florida that we made friends with and they had girls some young girls about age 4, 8 and 9 and they were so funny and cute!

We got to the Bay and got on an open boat and headed out. We immediately saw the amazing glow in the water and we absolutely couldn’t believe it. There are small organisms in the water that glow when they are disturbed and this bay has the highest concentration of them in the world. I can’t even begin to explain it, but it was quite possibly the most amazing thing I have ever seen in my life.

These pictures are not from me because it’s really hard to get good pictures so I didn’t get any. Plus, I was standing there with my mouth hanging open in total shock so pictures weren’t on my mind. It honestly looked like a laser show was going on in the water and as the fish swam away from the boat, they made the water glow and light would shoot out around them as they swam away. It was incredible. Dan kept saying that he felt like it was magic. That was the only explanation we could think of!

We were on the bay for a while and they brought some water on the boat in buckets and we got to play in the water. Our hands were glowing and sparkling and it was just the most unreal thing we have ever experienced. The kids were losing it and I felt the same way! Our guides were great and they told us a lot of great information and we also talked about constellations for a long time which was really interesting.

They recently passed laws that you can’t swim in the bay because our shampoos, lotions, etc can kill the organisms so we didn’t swim, but it was still ridiculously awesome. I will stop rambling about it, but it was life changing and well worth the pricey trip! If we were to go back to PR, we would spend a few nights on Vieques because it looked really awesome.

After the trip, we got back to our car around 10:30 and didn’t get to our hotel until 11:30pm. We checked into our hotel and literally went to bed and got up a few hours later for our early flight! There was a huge line in security and we barely made it in time to get on our flight, but we made it and after travelling for about 18 hours, we finally  made it home. The travel is definitely the worst part about trips and it is exhausting. We had to get up and work the next day too!

Our trip was absolutely amazing and even though it was expensive, we are so glad that we did it. We had so much fun together and it is just something that we like to make a priority for us. We probably won’t be doing a big trip like this again for a while, so we are so glad we had the opportunity to do it. And the best part was that we saved the money for the trip and paid cash for it so we’re not paying for the trip after we’re home! It is such a good feeling to work hard and save money and be able to go on a wonderful trip like this and we are grateful that we were able to do it!