Sunday, July 25, 2010

Lately...

Okay, so we still have one or two cruise posts left to do. I apologize for the lack of updates. We really have been busy.

Since we've been here in Houston, I got a part-time job mid May working at a local gym working in the kids room. I know, it's a little cheesy, but I have really enjoyed it. I really think it's an important position at the gym because it allows parents to have their "me" time and it's also their time to better themselves and to set an example to their kids. It's really important for them.

Jon started at Deloitte on the 12th! So far he has been really enjoying himself. This last week was a little rough (65 hour work week) but he came out on top. I am really proud of him. Fridays are his favorites. He get free kolaches. If you've never heard of them.. know this... they are very unhealthy :-) It's a is a type of pastry consisting of fillings ranging from fruits to cheeses and/or meats inside a bread roll. AKA: a glorified pig-in-a-blanket. I've never seen a fruit kolache yet.. but I have tried the cheese and sausage one. It was really good. Jon will happily treat anyone who visits to a kolache :-)

Jon and I have also been in the process of buying a home. In the beginning of June we got a phone call from our realtor about a sale going on with some spec homes (brand new, never been lived in). It was a 2 day sale and she wanted us to come check it out. We were a little leery about it and we didn't really think that we'd find anything worthwhile but we decided to go anyways just to get an idea of what we both liked.

When we got to the community we learned that the builder was lowering home costs by about $25,000 and was including all sorts of things: $5000 towards closing costs, all appliances, sprinkler system, garage door opener... things like that. We saw quite a few houses and there was one that we absolutely fell in love with. We then learned that if we were interested, but wanted to think about it a little more (that would be sort've our 'option period') we only needed to put down $100 vs the normal $1,000 that you'd expect. So, if we backed out, we'd only be out $100. We felt it was worth it and decided to do it.

We spent that next week praying about it and going to the temple. We also went around with our realtor and we looked at other properties in the area (new and older homes). We both felt really good about our decision to go with the first house and we decided to start the process. It has been an exciting time. We were approved for the home and now we are just waiting for everything to fall into place. We are scheduled to close this Wednesday the 28th!!! I am SO excited! We will have pictures once we get settled in.

Our plan is to paint on Thursday and Friday and then on Saturday we are getting a truck and we will be moving all of our stuff in. It's going to be like Christmas. All of our stuff is still in boxes from when we moved out here still and I can't remember if we got rid of this or that. It'll be a lot of fun to open up those boxes and start to get the house in order.

More updates to come!! For now, here is a picture of the house :-)


Monday, July 5, 2010

Grand Cayman Islands

**Jon started this post a while ago and now that he has started work- he wasn't able to finish this. so, I have taken over and I went ahead and finished it :-) He can make edits later if he wants to.**

The cruse was full of so many wonderful experiences and memories, but I must say, my favorite shore excursion without a doubt was in the Grand Cayman Islands


Just look at this heavenly blue ocean! Does it get any better than this?

For this excursion we took the Moby Dick Tour to Stingray City. Sound like a magical fish city? Well it basically is.

Similar to the Jamaica excursion, this tour had two parts. We began by taking a boat out to a coral reef and snorkeling around looking at the different ocean life. One of our tour guides says he has made a special relationship with a local moray eel and coaxed him out of his cave to show us all

I know...we should model. It should be a crime to look this good
(note: Crystal's vest is kids sized hehe)

This is the moray eel!! It was amazing!
-Crytal Edit: heh, I love that my in-laws had a nice underwater camera. Jon's face is just priceless! "Did you see that??"

The 2nd part of our trip was to Stingray City. This is seriously a must go place if you have the chance. It's a sandbar that boats pull in to and you are able to get out the boat and get into the really warm water and you are pretty much swimming with the sting rays. This was by far our most favorite experience!


These creatures were just so massive!! They were so friendly too.

We had to make sure we weren't about to step on any of them!
At first it was a little weird to have them just swimming up next to you!

Clyde coaxing some in after feeding them some squid.

They say that getting a kiss from a stingray gives you 7 years good luck!
Pucker up!



All of us- this just shows how huge they were!!

We cannot wait to come back here! It will be a while before we will be able to again. We are really happy we were able to experience this. Heh, we did see that Deloitte has an office there... maybe we'll relocate someday ;-) Who am I kidding?? It's so expensive to live there! We'll just have to make sure to make an excuse to go down there for business and we can both go together!