Our First Week

Thank goodness for Labor Day and a little bit of time off so I can write our first blog post. I will get better as we go along, but here goes nothing for our first post. Let's start with July 31st. What a day! I don't even have words to describe just how heavenly that day was. We were married in the Manti temple just like I had always wanted and later that evening we had a beautiful reception at my Grandma's house just like I had always dreamed. The day went by so fast and we were so grateful for all the support we had from our family and community. Then off we went!

We went to the Manti Inn for the night and we were the only ones in the whole place. We made it out with Dustin only breaking one of the planks on the blinds when he was trying to open the window. :) It was a really nice place and we had a homemade breakfast waiting for us that morning. Then off we went to SLC to the Crystal Inn. We had dinner at Cracker Barrel one of our favorite restaurants. The only mishap there was Dustin locked the keys in the car. So, while he was calling the locksmith... I took a nap. :)

Then early the next morning off we went on the airport shuttle to SouthWest Airlines and took off to California. That was nice and the plane took us straight to the shuttle which took us to our Carnival Cruiseship. We had a good burger as soon as we got on the ship and then we walked around the ship and found our room. We had 2 cute little portholes. Only mishap there was Dustin's wheel on his suitcase broke (not by him, by the cruise workers who deliver your belongings to your room. :)

The next day was the best! We woke up early and the ship had made it to Catalina Island, about 20 miles off the coast of California. We took the little speedboat out to shore and went snorkeling. That was super cool! There were all sorts of orange, blue, red, and brown fish swimming around the reef. Only mishap there was Dustin didn't put his hand in a fist when they threw out the fish food and his finger was almost eaten by a fish. :) We had so much fun! And it was the perfect temperature in Catalina so we layed out on the beach and worked on our tans. It didn't go very well since we were using SPF 85. Then we headed back to the boat for a while so I could go to a fancy spa session with a full body exfoliation, body wrap, scalp massage, and hour full-body massage. Dustin waited patiently and watched ESPN. Now that we were fully relaxed we headed back to go parasailing. Talk about fun. It's like you're just floating in the air. We took off from the boat and sailed up on a rope that was 800 feet long. Then we slowly started falling until our legs brushed through the ocean and then we took off again and kept sailing. We could see over the cruise ship, out into the ocean, and the whole city of Catalina. When we got back it was time to hurry back to boat. But we had to stop at the candy story (it looked like Willy Wonka) and get some sugared candy.

That night we had a good dinner at the restaurant. That is when my first mishap happened. The waiter was bringing out my hot chocolate (I think I had like 12 cups on the trip) and he was playing a trick that made it look like the cup was going to fall in my lap. Well, I was eating a molten chocolate cake for dessert and it scared me so bad that my spoonful of chocolate catapulted onto my khaki capris.

Next we made it to Ensenada, Mexico. As we were walking down the streets in downtown we felt like we were back in Brazil. We bought a chess set that the vendor said was marble (though we have our doubts). :) We had fun just walking around for a little bit. Then as we were making our way back to the boat there were some horse drawn carriage drivers that were bartering with a man for a carriage ride back to the boat. The driver wanted $10 dollars for the ride and so the man just started walking away and ended up paying $3. Since we were walking behind them another man started bartering with us. I said, "$3 for us too?" He agreed to it and turned out I only had a $5 or $2.5o. And since he didn't have change we got a fancy Mexican carriage ride for $2.50. We laughed all the way back to the boat.

The next day we were at sea just making our way slowly back to California. We played a round of mini-golf up on the top deck and we had fun hanging out on the boat. That night was our last dinner. It was my favorite. I had steak and a baked potato. yummm.... Dustin's favorite part was his Baked Alaska for dessert. The food was great. We had Cinnamon French Toast every morning and just basically lived it up. :)

When we woke up it was already Friday and we slowly made our way off the boat and back to the shuttle. We had a 4 hour layover in the LA airport and while we were sitting there a little bird somehow had made it inside and was hopping his way around the terminal. It was entertaining. What a first week we had. The perfect vacation to start our marriage.