X and I just got back from a weekend get-away up in Reno for our 3rd anniversary. Since it wasn't a milestone year, we thought we would just do something simple. More of a "back to the basics" kind of thing. And it actually ended up working out perfectly with a work-sponsored event as well. We had a great time, and here are some of the highlights from our trip:
Fortune cookie from P.F. Chang's
We started the first night off right at P.F. Chang's. The fortune cookie for X said that we would enjoy doing something different over the weekend. We weren't sure exactly what it was going to be, but we figured we'd know what it was when we saw it.
Saturday morning we woke up and headed over to the nearby "Trampoline Bounce House" where we thought it would be cool to dive into foam pits and run into the walls. Then we showed up and it was full of rowdy kids for birthday parties and such, so we decided against going in. We were probably a little too old in the first place.
We had lunch at an Indian buffet. Sadly it seems like nothing can compare to our favorite Indian restaurant up in Logan (Tandoori Oven), so we're going to have to make a special trip up to Logan next time we are in Salt Lake. Fortunately my little sister is still in school up there with her husband, so we can see them while we are up there and justify the trip.
After lunch we decided to let the food settle so we headed to the local fun park and did a round of mini golf.
X's Go Kart - "The Snail"
K.C.'s Go Kart - "Slick Trick"
We also did a round of Go Karts on the road and slick tracks. X's Go Kart was SO SLOW and I ended up lapping her twice. But I let her pass me in the end so she didn't feel as bad. The slick track was much better and she managed to stay in front of my pursuit the entire time.
We headed inside a nearby casino where we were surprised to find a "Cat Show" taking place. We laughed and mockingly said that it will be just like a Dog Show. We were right. I had no idea people actually professionally show their cats, but we saw a whole conference center full of them! We enjoyed watching some cat judging and walked through to see all the cats on display. As we were leaving we walked past the entrance where we noticed it said $5 entrance fee that we didn't see on the way in. Oops.
Then we headed to the indoor arcade in the same casino and had fun playing Dance Dance Revolution, Skee Ball, and ended up winning the jackpot on a couple of the ticket reward games. Maybe I should take up gambling since I'm so good at the gambling arcade games! We gave our tickets to a family with some small kids who needed a few extra to get a bigger prize.
After the arcade we went outside and X surprised me by saying she wanted to go on the Sky Coaster. Now this really shocked me because X is really afraid of heights. I knew this would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something like this since she normally would not consider doing something like this. I told her that if we were going to do it she would have to pull the rip-cord since I wanted her to be able to say she did that too. She didn't want to agree to that at first, but she finally came around. Here's our video of the adventure:
We met up with some good friends at Texas Roadhouse for dinner before we all headed over the local Minor League Baseball stadium. It was GE Night at the Aces game, and we had a good time cheering for the home team.
They had a special promotion called the "Gelato Lotto" where if the Aces won the game and had more than 7 runs everyone wins a free scoop of Gelato from the Atlantis Casino. They ended up winning 14-9, so we ran over to the casino and ate our HUGE scoops of gelato while we watched a couple of people lose over $2500 playing black jack. Good times!
Last year I blogged about the Cruise Lifestyle Challenge we were doing with my family and X's mom for a year. The challenge officially ended October 1st, and everyone had a good amount of success with completing their goals.
I ended up losing 55 of the 60 pounds I wanted to lose! Unfortunately I couldn't find a "before" picture (not sure if I even took one), so I figure an "after" picture won't be worth much without something to compare it to. Instead, here's a picture of 5 lbs. of fat, so you can just imagine what it looks like (and feels like) to lose 11 of these :)
I also successfully completed a year without sweets (minus the once-in-a-lifetime desserts I was able to try in Israel, Egypt, and Jordan). I had hoped it would be relatively easy to stay away from sweets after a whole year without them, but unfortunately Halloween proved this to be incorrect. At least I feel like I'm eating a lot LESS than I used to! Here's to keeping it all off - until the cruise at least!
NOTE: For the most satisfying viewing pleasure, please read this blog directly from my website (not from Google Reader or another RSS feed). The before/after images won't work otherwise.
This year for Halloween we were in San Francisco for "Nevada Day", so we didn't have a lot of time to carve our pumpkins, but we still had a fun time picking them out at the local pumpkin farm and furiously trying to complete them before our trip. Here are our results! (Reminder: hover over the pictures to see the before/after images)
"Nightmare Before Christmas" Jack Skellington Pumpkin
"Despicable Me" Minion Pumpkin
Unfortunately when we got back from SF on Halloween Eve, our pumpkins were a little wrinkly, but nothing that a quick bleach bath couldn't fix!
While in SF, we went to a 49ers game, which was AWESOME! Check "Professional Football Game" off of my bucket list!
As a side note, if you have ever wanted to find out what it is like to eat a meal as a blind person, try out Opaque - Dining in the Dark. It is a "Blind Dining" experience where you basically get to eat a full 3-course meal in a pitch-black room! It was totally the most unique experience! They have locations in San Francisco, L.A., San Diego, NYC, and Dallas.
I stumbled across some pictures from our Honeymoon back in 2009 and realized that I hadn't ever posted about them. Since I'm still dragging my feet on sorting through all the pictures from Egypt, Israel, and Jordan, I figure posting these might be a good stalling tactic for this week! :)
X and I were married on May 20th, 2009 in the Salt Lake Temple. We decided to do our reception the night before (at "The Point" at Huntsman Cancer Institute) which made things SO much easier - the day of our wedding was tons less hectic, and we were able to leave right after the ceremony and luncheon. Definitely the way to do it in my opinion! We decided to do a smaller honeymoon up in Park City for a week, and then for our first anniversary we'd do something bigger and better.
Since our reception was the night before, no one ended up decorating our car. Luckily my car was dirty enough for us to manage it ourselves!
We stayed our first night at the Stein Erikson Lodge, and had dinner at the Glitretind Restaurant. Since dinner was included in our Honeymoon package, we decided to be adventurous and try new and expensive things we wouldn't have tried otherwise. Our 3-course meals included raw elk (sliced paper-thin), foie gras (duck liver), quail, peanut butter and banana crème brûlée, and the most random flavors of chocolate truffles - including curry!
We spent one afternoon at the Utah Olympic Park. We found out they give free upgrades on ride passes if you are on your honeymoon! :)
X practices her form on the luge
I couldn't bear to watch
X enjoying a ride down the mountain
I'm not sure if I was enjoying this or not...
Before going down the zip-lines
Waiting for the gates to open
I smiled to trick X into thinking I was going to let her win in our race down the lines
Of course we couldn't leave out the "Alpine Slides". We'll never forget the little girl in front of us on our first run who rode the brakes the whole way down. We would literally wait a few minutes in hopes she'd be at the bottom by then, and then catch up to her in like 10 seconds! Fortunately they let us ride again for free.
I snapped this shot when we were waiting for the slow-poke
We had our good friends Mike and Suzanne out from Utah for Memorial Day Weekend and we had a blast being good hosts for them. You can read about all we did in their very complimentary recap of the weekend. So if you've ever thought about coming out but didn't know if it would be worth it, see what you think after reading what they had to say!
Last month X and I spend two weeks with her family in the Holy Land. I've been so busy since getting back that I haven't had a chance to blog about it yet, but I hope to get on it soon. With over 700 pictures to sort through, it is going to take some time, but I'm going to try to do it in chunks so it isn't such a massive novel of a blog.
Several people have told us about a free tour of the Jelly Belly factory in Northern California, so on our way back from our trip to San Francisco we just couldn't resist stopping to check it out. We're both pretty inquisitive in regards to how things are made (we love watching shows like "How it's made") so we figured this would be pretty awesome. We weren't let down!
Outside the Jelly Belly factory
X standing in front of the creepy Jelly Belly mascot
All of the pictures inside the Jelly Belly factory are made out of (you guessed it) jellybeans! Most of the pictures are made up of over 10,000 individual jellybeans!
A jellybean buffalo nickel
Three jellybean presidents
Two Jelly Bellies (after we ate all those jellybeans!)
We weren't allowed to take pictures on the actual manufacturing floor, but we were able to see the whole process. Unfortunately we went during the weekend so nothing was actually running, but it was still cool to see all the machinery and each stage of the jellybean. We also got to try out some of the new flavors they are working on, and also some of those horrible trick jellybeans (think earwax, dog food, and rotten egg). With all the free jellybeans that you wanted to try, who wouldn't love coming here? We would just recommend if you are interested in going that you go on a weekday so you can see everything in action!
Ever since we got back from our cruise in May, we have been DYING to go on another one! But we didn't feel like we could just freely spend the money - we felt like we had to EARN it. So we started brainstorming ides of how we could use another cruise as motivation to get something done. We ended up settling on losing weight - neither of us have felt motivated enough to really work hard at it since we got married! And as part of the deal, we decided to invite my family and X's mom and sister (none of which have been on a cruise before) to go with us, with the deal that we would cover the cost of the cruise if they also made a list of goals and got them accomplished in the next year. What better way to help inspire change, but also to let people feel like they owned the changes they were making to themselves?
I've always heard that if you write your goals down you are more likely to get them accomplished, and if you make them public you are even more likely to accomplish your goals! So here are my goals for the next year:
Lose 60 pounds by:
Exercising at least 2x a week for 30 minutes
Not eating any desserts, candies, or sweets (except for the rare "once in a lifetime" chance to try something new)
Walking to get the mail every day
Only eating one helping at meals
Not drinking any soda or sugary drinks
Read the Book of Mormon and pray everyday
And here are X's goals:
Lose 18 pounds by:
Exercising 4x a week for 30 minutes
Eating slowly and stopping when satisfied
Read the scriptures everyday for at least 10 minutes
Read the entire Old Testament by reading 2+ chapters each day
Pray every morning and evening
We start tomorrow and go until next October. Wish us luck!
X and I spent out last weekend together in San Francisco before she moved back to Logan to finish her last year of school. The bay area is only 4 hours away from our house, so it makes for a quick and easy weekend getaway!
On the way to San Francisco we stopped by Mountain View, CA to visit my friend Mike who got a job working with Google. We were able to visit him at work and he gave us a tour of the Google campus. We arrived around noon and Mike was kind enough to treat us to lunch (it was easy enough for him since all the food is free...)
This is a famous Google Chrome bike. They have these and other Google bikes available for anyone to ride around the Google Campus. X just couldn't resist!
After our brief stint in Mountain View, we headed north to San Francisco. We checked into our hotel and went out to explore the city. We ate at a fresh seafood restaurant for dinner and enjoyed walking around the city. The next morning our first stop was Fisherman's Wharf:
We accidentally jumped on the wrong trolley and ended up on the other side of town. It turned out to be a one-way ride, so we had to pay another full fare to get back to where we had parked!
We loved the seals/sea lions at pier 39. It was pretty funny watching them fight and try to push each other off the end of the floating docks. It wasn't warm or sunny at all, and there were plenty of other floating docks to move to, but they all seemed to want to share the same one.
We couldn't find out what was wrong with the one on the left. He stayed frozen in that position the whole time we were there...
We also drove down Lombard street!
30-minutes later we decided it was one of those "once in a lifetime" experiences
Later that afternoon was the main event for us in San Francisco - I had surprised X with tickets to see Wicked for her birthday! She was pretty excited to spend the entire weekend with me, but I think she was more excited to see the show!
This wasn't the first time we'd seen the show - we won the raffle in New York for front-row seats back in 2008 - but this time we were a little further back and we enjoyed being able to see the entire show without it being right up in our faces. After the show we found out that Wicked was only playing in San Francisco for another week or two before ending its run, and that ticket prices had skyrocketed for all of the remaining shows - luckily I had purchased our tickets right before the announcement was made and didn't have to pay an arm and a leg! (just a leg)
After the show we drove out to the Golden Gate Bridge (our show was a matinee, so it was still light after we got out) and watched the sun set on the city from the bridge. A note for anyone who hasn't ever driven across the Golden-Gate Bridge - it is free to travel north across the bridge, but it is $6 to travel back the other way (cash only, of course). You've been warned!
We parked and started the long trek across the bridge. We only walked to the halfway point so that in the end we walked the "entire length" of the bridge.
As I thought about living alone for the next year...
After I found out that we had to pay $6 to get back across the bridge...
After the bridge we stopped by a nice BBQ place for dinner and then Ghirardelli Square for dessert.
This beef rib was as large as my forearm!
Apparently this is how chocolate is made
All in all we had a great time and look forward to our next trip together!
After my graduation we spent a week down in Salt Lake City saying goodbye to friends and family and tying up all the loose ends before we moved to Nevada. Then we drove to California for our CRUISE!!
That was our boat - The Carnival Splendor - it was HUGE! I couldn't believe how big the boat was when I first saw it! There were 13 floors above water that we could access, and we couldn't imagine how many more were underwater in order to keep that thing from tipping over!
Our cruise was a week long and we visited Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, and Cabo San Lucas in the Mexico Riviera. Our first night X got a little sick because our dining room was in the "aft" of the ship and it was rocking a little more at the back of the boat, but we were able to get her a sickness patch and move our dining location to the center of the boat and everything was smooth sailing from there.
Our dinners were crazy good; we always had tons of options to choose from. Each night we were able to choose an appetizer(s), main course(s), and dessert(s)! It was a great opportunity to try something new, or a little bit of everything. And they always had live music!
This is the filet mignon that X got on one of the "elegant nights" (where everyone gets/has to dress up for dinner). Some of the other dishes we enjoyed were lobster tail, ribs, salmon, shrimp, red snapper, and of course the pizza and ice cream that were available 24/7.
Each night we had a fun towel animal waiting to greet us after dinner. Here were some of our favorites:
Our ports of call were AWESOME! X and I had both been to Mexico before so we already knew of some of the things we wanted to see again, but there were also new things that we decided to try out.
Puerto Vallarta
We did the "Extreme Canopy Zip-Line Adventure" in Puerto Vallarta. We'd heard from several people that this was something that we wouldn't want to miss out on, so we decided to buy tickets through the cruise line to make sure we had our seats reserved (note to self: never buy tickets through a cruise line in the future - on shore its almost half the price and very available).
The excursion started with a 15-minute boat ride to this small beach and dock. Little did we know we still had a lot of ground to cover in a variety of modes of transportation. You can tell we had no idea because we are still smiling.
The next leg of our journey took part in these Mercedes Benz trucks that drove us wildly up the side of the mountain. We were still smiling in this picture because the truck hadn't left yet, but we soon discovered as the driver left that he must've forgotten we were in the back of the truck because we were bouncing all over the place. Luckily the seats were heavily padded!
Once we reached the destination for the beginning of our adventure, we got all dressed up in our gear, but we noticed that we didn't see any zip-lines. They told us to sit on these benches and wait for our next ride. In this picture we finally saw what we were taking up the rest of the way... MULES! As you can tell in this picture, X and I were less than enthused. :) All joking aside, it really wasn't that bad. The truck ride up the mountain was fine, and we enjoyed ourselves on the different legs of the journey. We weren't allowed to take our cameras on the adventure, but they had their own photographer and she just happened to take that picture when neither of us looked very happy.
Here we are on our mules. My mule was really slow (a combination of the fact that he was really old and he probably didn't like what he was carrying). I didn't know this at first, so I waited for X so we could ride up together, but her mule ended up darting past me and I rode up the rest of the way alone at the back of the pack. The worst thing was that mules are very gassy animals, so being at the end of the line I got the full wind of all the other mules in front of me. So glad I waited! :)
These were our guides on the adventure. They were so crazy, and they made us all laugh.
Here we are on the 1,000 foot long zip-line 200 feet above the ground!
Here's us repelling down the side of a WATERFALL! What an experience!
Here is us doing a 100 foot free-fall repel next to another waterfall.
And here we are racing together on the last zip-line. I totally won!
We had such a blast on our adventure! Even though we probably overpaid for our adventure, we still had so much fun and would totally do it again!
Mazatlan
Both X and I had been to Mazatlan before, but we were excited to go back and relive some of our favorite memories from our childhood visits.
We went horseback riding on the beach in Mazatlan at the same place X went when she was younger. We loved riding in the surf and enjoyed all the Mexican sun!
We also went parasailing while in Mazatlan. I love X's facial expression as she is taking off!
Here is a video of me taking off. One thing I like about the parasailing in Mazatlan is that they let you take-off straight from the beach! It made it really easy to take these pictures.
Here is a video of X landing. You get to land right back on the beach, but you have to be careful of bystanders on the beach. Watch the last couple of seconds on the video and pay close attention to the lady in blue running/ducking for cover!
Cabo San Lucas
Our shortest time ashore was in Cabo San Lucas since the cruise ship had to start heading back that evening to make it back to California on time.
We decided to go on a snorkeling tour for the day and really enjoyed swimming with the fish! Our snorkeling guide brought some crackers that the fish really liked to eat, so when we stood by him as he crushed up the crackers we literally had hundreds of tropical fish swimming all around us. It was totally surreal!
Cabo San Lucas was our last port of call, and we headed back to California for debarkation. Many of the people we met were headed back to work after the week-long cruise, but we still had more vacationing to do! Heh heh suckers!
After we got off the ship, X and I drove to a nearby beach and spent a little more time on the beach. The water was much colder here than it was down in Mexico!
After a while the wind began blowing pretty hard and we felt like we were in a sand storm! The sand hurt pretty bad so we decided to leave. We drove to our next hotel near Anaheim, CA where we stayed for the next 3 days!
We visited Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure the first two days in Anaheim. We soon discovered that mid-May is THE BEST time to go to California. It's not super hot, and most people are still in school so we never had to wait in line very long!
X's favorite ride is Tower of Terror. As you can see I don't much care for this ride. ;)
We also enjoyed making funny faces (similar to the one we did here) on rides where they take your picture.
Disney's California Adventure had all sorts of construction going on near Paradise Pier. We found out that it was for a new water show called Disney's World of Color. It looks like it is going to be AWESOME! They were supposed to have it up and running by the time we were there, but they were still running tests when we visited. We were sad that we missed it, but we look forward to the next time we visit so we can see all the new stuff! Here is a video of all their upcoming plans:
We are definitely excited!
We also visited Knott's Berry Farm on our last day in Anaheim. They have a few more "thrill rides" than Disneyland has to offer, and we thoroughly enjoyed those.
They also had this crazy horse-riding roller coaster where you get to sit on these horses as you ride! The ride was alright, but it was definitely a unique coaster experience!
After 3 days in Anaheim we drove up to my aunt's house in Ventura where we stayed the night and were planning to drive the rest of the way to Nevada the next day. But... at the last minute we decided to go to Six Flag's Magic Mountain!
Magic Mountain has some of THE craziest thrill rides I've ever been on. Of course I've never been to another Six Flags park or to Cedar Point (someday I will, someday), but we figured that we might as well go since we didn't have any real plans for the weekend in Nevada, and since it was probably the best time of the year to go with the smallest crowds. And it turns out we were right!
X2, the world's first 4th dimensional roller coaster, was something I was excited to ride again. We had come to Magic Mountain with my family back in 2008, but the lines were terrible and we spent most of the day waiting in line (including a 3-hour wait for X2)! We were thrilled to see that the wait for X2 was only 15 minutes pretty much the whole day!
Magic Mountain also has a ride called Tatsu, which is a flying roller coaster (where you are lying down during the ride to get a sense of "flying").
This video I took (sorry for the bad sound and video quality) shows how the seats on Tatsu rotate 90 degrees into the "flying position" for the entire ride. You can extend your hands to feel like you are really flying!
After a fun day at Magic Mountain, we drove the rest of the way to Nevada, and are staying at a local motel until our house is ready for us to move in!
Overall we had such a blast on vacation and on our cruise, and we are looking forward to doing more cruises in the future. The only thing we'd change is to have friends come with us next time so that we have more people to do stuff with. So if you are interested, leave a comment and we can start planning our next adventure!
