Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day Weekend we spent in Utah with all the fam. We had so much fun just being with everybody. It was a quick trip but I am so glad that we got to go!

We spent a lot of our time at the Robinsons swimming. Even Diz got in for a swim. And after a long day Liv enjoyed a massage from Grandma Wendy. :)

When we were with the "Browns" we also spent our time outside. Jann has an awesome back yard filled with wonderful grass perfect for soccer and gymnastics.

Besides it being Labor Day it was also Aubry's first birthday! I can't believe that it has already been a year! She is still just a tiny thing at only 12.5 lbs but she is crawling and bearing weight! So we thought an exersaucer would get her on her way to walking! She loved it!

It was another great visit and look forward to the next one!

Sisters

Last weekend my wonderful sisters and darling niece flew down for visit. It was so much fun having them here! We spent most of our time just hanging out and talking. Chet said we were like hens because we were "clucking" so much! Here is a recap of our fabulous weekend:

The first order of business was lunch. I took them to a very popular place here called Flying Star Cafe. They have lots of yummy food but their breakfasts are to die for! However none of us got breakfast, either way it was delicious!

Friday morning after I took the kids to school I came home and got Jann so that she could go for a run. That meant Linz got some quality time with Aubry before her morning nap. Isn't she the cutest baby?!



Chillaxin with Auntie Lindsay



When Jann got back from running we put Aubry down for a nap and headed out to the pool for some relaxation time. It was so nice to just sit with them and relax. Usually the pool is filled with kids and the dog so it isn't very relaxing. When Aubry finally woke up we were still sitting pool side so Jann brought her down so she could swim too. Jann forgot Aubry's bathing suit but we figured she would be fine with just a swimmie. She loved it!!! 



Aubzy and Auntie Lindsay skinny dippin' Swimmin'



That night we took them all to dinner at an authentic Mexican restaurant in Corrales called Casa Vieja. It's a little tiny hole in the wall that is inside an old church (from like the 1800's). And supposedly the church is haunted by the priests that are buried in the walls! How creepy is that?! It's a good thing their food is amazing or I don't think I would eat there. ;)



In the courtyard at Casa Viaja



They are famous for their green chili chicken enchiladas. They are huge! So Chet and I split one and Jann and Lindsay split one. 



The great debate: Red or Green





Dessert! A fresh doughnut plate! Seriously the best things I have EVER eaten!!!



Dinner was amazing!

After dinner we headed home to put the kiddos to bed. After all the kids were sleeping the adults headed out to the hot tub for a little more relaxing.

Saturday was much like Friday in that we spent lots of time by the pool and eating lots of yummy food.



You can't enjoy sitting in the sun without some liquid refreshment. Hard to tell we are sisters. ;)



Love my sisters!




Auntie Linz  and Harris




Linz attempting to throw Liv




Jann getting a tan while reading on dad's her Kindle

 When we were done swimming we got ready to go to dinner at Tucanos for Chet's birthday. One of Chet's birthday presents was a gaming table with ping pong, air hockey, and pool. So while some of us were getting ready the others played some games.



Some serious competition. Just look at the concentration on their faces! ;)

 Dinner was so yummy. I love Tucanos!



Awwwww



During dinner Aubry grabbed the lemon from Chet's water glass and started sucking on it. She didn't quite know what to think of it. But it was sure cute to watch.

Tucanos is right in the heart of downtown so on the walk back to the car Linz wanted to stop and look at one of the fresco's on the side of the building.

On the way home from dinner Jann was dying to go see the Rio Grande. She didn't think that seeing it from the freeway was good enough so we drove to a park that has a walking path to it. It was a pleasant walk except for the mosquitos that were eating us alive!

Halfway down the path it ended and was just sand so to make sure we were headed the right way Chet pulled out his iPhone and checked the GPS.



Multitasking



We made it!
(I know, I should have put pink on)



It was a fun and relaxing weekend and I am so grateful that my sisters would take time out of their busy schedules to come down here and see us. Thanks guys! Love you! 

There and Back Again

We recently went home to Utah to spend 16 days with our family. We played a lot, laughed a lot, ate a lot and relaxed a lot. It was sooo nice!

We had a very smooth drive getting there. It went by so fast! I think it went by so fast because of all the cool stuff that there is to see along the way. Our first major sighting was Chimney Rock. There is a road that you can take to get closer to it but we were anxious to get to Utah so we just stopped at the trail head to take a quick picture.



Chimney Rock

We saw several more places that we wanted to go see (Ship Rock and Angel Peak) but didn't stop at any until we got to Wilson Arch in Moab. (I have always wanted to go to Moab but it just not at the top of the list.) We did get out and attempt to climb up to Wilson Arch but we all had flip flops on which made it difficult on the slick rocks. I think that we will have to move it up the list and go back and do some hiking when we aren't in flip flops.



Wilson Arch

When we got to my sisters house we had some yummy Cafe Rio for dinner and then went for a walk at the nature preserve behind their house. When we got to the end of the path the kids wanted to throw rocks into the creek. They did that for a while until I showed them the culvert that went under the trail on one side and come out on the other. Then they started playing "Pooh Sticks". The littles thought it was so fun to see which branch would come out first.



Pooh Sticks

On Tuesday Chet had to go to work all week in Vail so the kids and I stayed at Lindsay's at night and Jann's during the day. It worked out great. We were able to spend lots of time with everyone that way.



Chet in Vail.
He actually did work very hard while he was there. Meetings from 7 am to 9 pm except on the last day when they got to play.

On Friday Chet left Vail and met us at the SLC airport and we headed to Disneyland! We had so much fun there because my dad came and so did my sister and her family. The cousins were so excited to do all the rides together. I was just happy to be with my favorite people at my favorite place. :)



The cute cousins waiting for Buzz



Everyones favorite ride Tower of Terror.
I love this picture! They all look like they are having so much fun.

Big Thunder with the Bigs. LOVE these kids!


We got to take the Littles on Small World while everyone else went on Space Mountain. They loved it! Aubry "danced" through the whole ride.



Sunday we were at the park by ourselves. It was a lovely day and we got to do all of our favorites.



My favorite ride, Splash Mountain. This was Liv's first time in the front. She was soaked before we even got to the big hill. She said it was scary but AWESOME!



Big Thunder is probably Liv and Harris favorite ride in Disneyland. Liv thinks it is funny to scream as loud as she can on this ride. I'm not sure why but it is pretty funny.



They had this cute photo spot outside of Toy Story Mania



On Saturday we took a break from Disneyland to go to Sea World. It was about 20 degrees cooler there than at Disneyland. It was so nice!



The Bay at the back of Sea World.



I know that I have said this before but Harris LOVES Shamu. He lights up when he gets to see him. I love to watch Harris watch Shamu. It brings tears to my eyes because of the joy it brings him. I hope that he always feels that way!



I have also said before that Harris' favorite show is River Monsters. He is fascinated by the enormous fish that the host, Jeremy Wade, catches. Needless to say, besides watching Shamu, the new Rivers section was Harris favorite part of Seaworld. The tank has 8' alligator gar, 6' red tailed catfish and will soon have arapaima. All of which have been featured on River monsters. We just sat and watched them all for about 30 minutes. The best part of that was when a little 3' alligator gar tried to take a bite of one of the giant silver dollars right in front of us! Harris thought that was great because we could see the gar's giant teeth.



The fish at the top is one of the giant Alligator Gar. You can't tell from this picture but that gar is between 8 and 9 feet long! The black fish with the white stripe actually has a red tail and thus is called a Red Tail Catfish, and he is about 5 or 6 feet long.

 We ended our day at Seaworld with another Shamu show, it was a great way to end a wonderful day.

After a very fun weekend with my family in Cali we headed back to Utah to be with Chet's family. It was a lot of fun for the kids because their cousins from Arkansas came to Utah to visit as well. We spent most of our time swimming in Papa and Grandma Wendy's pool but we did make time for a trip to the Dinosaur Museum and bowling at the new Jack and Jill's in Lehi. Chels and I even sneaked away for a little Anniversary Sale shopping. :)

Liv has always loved to dance with her Papa. It's not exactly dancing. It's mostly Chet Sr. holding Liv while he twirls and tosses her around.  On this trip Liv discovered that they could dance in the pool. It is really cute to watch them although Papa is usually exhausted by the end of their "session".





Papa and Liv "dancing" in the pool.




Harris "dancing" with Papa, Liv and uncle James waiting for their turn.

 We had a great time at the Dinosaur Museum. I mean who wouldn't have fun seeing giants, damming a flood and digging for fossils.



Liv is apparently going to be eaten by the Carcaradon Megaldon while Harris sits idly by...



All the cousins and uncle James trying to stop the floods.

 On our last day in Utah we took some family pictures with Chet's family. Which was our second attempt because on the first attempt Harris got really sick and was throwing up most of the night. Fortunately he got better and we were able to get some cute pics. Besides posed shots Wendy wanted wanted some candids as well. She decided that a water balloon fight with 200 water balloons was the perfect way to get those candids. Everybody had so much fun. Harris got Chet smack in the face and Liv, being the only girl, took quite a few shots as well. It was a blast to watch.



This pose was Chet's idea. He said it was like Splash Mountain. It's kinda silly but it turned out pretty cute. 




Uncle Nate got Liv good with the water from the balloons that popped in the bucket.

We had a great time in Utah and Cali with all of our family. I am so grateful that Chet is able to provide us with the ability to travel often. It makes living far away from everyone a little easier knowing that it won't be long until we get to see them again.

Vacation 2010 pt. 3

So, Jaime asked me to do wrap up her 3 part blog.  Jaim did our trip to the Keys as well as our cruise aboard the Norwegian Sky and I will be blogging about the last leg of our trip, South Beach.

Last year, when Jaime and I went on vacation we were lucky enough to stay at the Marriott South Beach and just absolutely loved it.  The hotel is beautiful and the amenities are fantastic, including access to the very south end of South Beach which is the most beautiful beach in the continental USA.  When we came back again this year we talked my sis into staying there with us.

I know how weird hotels can be about check in times, so when we ended up disembarking from the cruise earlier than I thought and were in South Beach at 10:30AM, I thought we would just have to make do and wing it.  The Marriott was extra awesome to us and gave us our rooms right away and upgraded me and Jaime to the concierge floor with an amazing room that had a gigantic deck with beautiful views of the city as well as the beach.  The deck proved to be a great place to hang out.

When we got all checked in, everyone decided that it was nap time, so I headed down to the pool.  I mean, I can nap at home, right?  I definitely can't enjoy tropical weather at home...

Anyway, once everyone was awake we enjoyed a beautiful time on South Beach.  The water was ridiculously warm, too warm in fact, and we had fun swimming around trying to find cooler water currents to sit in.  We had some great sunshine and good fun too.

We went in around dinner time and got ready for the evening.  We decided to splurge on nice sea food and went to a restaurant called Quinn's.  Quinn's had amazing food, and I enjoyed some of the biggest and best king crab legs I have ever had.  I was even feeling generous and let my little sis try a bite.  Just watching her expression as she ate the king of all seafood was well worth it (my sister is a bit of a foodie).

The next morning I woke up extra early for a sunrise swim, one of my very favorite things to do.  It was so calm and so amazing.  I will live somewhere with great sunrise beach access someday.

With that, we packed it up and headed to the airport to finally be heading home!  At this point the vacation felt like a very long one, all legs of the trip felt like their own vacation (Keys, Cruise, South Beach) and we were ready to see our kids again.

Well, mother nature had other ideas for us. 

We made it out of Miami just fine and had to fly through Atlanta.  We arrived in ATL at 3:00PM for a quick layover to catch a 4:30 flight to ABQ.  That flight was delayed and changed to a 7:30 flight.  Lame!  So, Jaime and I did a thorough tour of the ATL airport.  And then we waited some more. 

As we got to our gate, nearing the time we were supposed to leave we saw that our flight (along with many others) had been postponed until 9:30.  We checked with Delta and it turned out that we were waiting on a flight from DC and it hadn't left yet because of lightning in the ATL area.

At this point, Jaime and I were exhausted.  You can only spend so much time in the ATL airport.  We watched a couple of shows on the iPad, read, walked some more...

We sat there some more and around 8:30 at night the lady at the gate announced that our flight still hadn't left DC and wouldn't be there until 11:30 or maybe later.  At this point I decided to capitalize on my platinum status and give Delta a call.  I calmly explained that I understood it wasn't their fault but that there was no way I was going to spend another minute at the airport.  Delta took care of me and put Jaime and I on a flight the next afternoon (first class I might add, thanks Delta!).

I logged onto the internet from my phone, found us a great rate at the Marquis Marriott in downtown ATL and we decided to call it a night and enjoy a 4th leg of the trip, Atlanta!!

Jaime and I spent some time in Atlanta a couple years ago and really loved it.  The Georgia Aquarium is the largest in the world and is worth going to Atlanta for by itself.  Jaime and I took the opportunity the next morning to spend some time there enjoying all they had to offer, especially the 6.5 million gallon tank that houses 4 whale sharks!

Another thing we really liked about our last trip to the A is a certain dessert we got at the Fox Sports Grill called Banana Bread Pudding.  Now this isn't bread pudding made with banana bread, but it is a mix of banana's foster and bread pudding and is almost worth a trip to Atlanta all by itself!  So after we finished up at the Aquarium, we took a cab to get some lunch (and dessert!) and then took another cab to the airport.  (it is much easier to travel like this when you have no luggage, everything we checked had to stay at the airport...).

Once back at the airport, we only had some minor delays and finally made it back home after a 30 hour layover in ATL.

All said, this vacation was one of the longest and best we have ever taken.

Here are some pics from legs 3 and 4 of the vaca...

This was the view from our room at the South Beach Marriott.  Beautiful.  I love South Beach!

 That is me in the water, most people in South Beach are concerned with being cool, I was mostly concerned with enjoying the beach.

At dinner, Chelsie was obsessed with these Popover rolls.  They were delicious!

We came back to the hotel after dinner for desert up on our deck.  Great views of the city (although a tad post-apocalyptic looking in my opinion)

This was the view toward the beach that night.

This is the crazy elevator at the Marquis Marriott in ATL.  There are 47 floors (we were up on 43) and there is an atrium that goes all the way up with glass elevators.  So creepy!

Another view at the hotel.

Jaime and I at the aquarium.  We really do love it here!

Such an amazing place!  It was fun to also pick out all the fish we had seen that week whilst snorkeling.

Whale sharks are so awesome!

Jaim and I spent about an hour just sitting by the giant 60'x40' looking glass at the world's largest tank.  Jaime could have spent all day there but I was getting hungry...

For this!  Oh Banana Bread Pudding, how I love you so!!

Tranquility

Since our vacation seemed to be 3 separate trips all rolled into 1 I thought each part deserved its own post. So here goes part one.

The first leg of our vacation was in the Florida Keys. Which meant that we had to drive from Miami to the Keys which is about a 2 hour drive. The drive actually wasn't that bad. It was very scenic which made the drive go really fast. We decided to stop at a place called Mrs. Mac's Kitchen for dinner. It was a total dive but tripadvisor.com rated their food #1. They catch their fish fresh every morning from the dock in the back of the restaurant! The food all looked so good that between the 4 of us we ordered 2 appetizers and 5 entrees! It was amazing! So if you are ever in the Keys and need a place to eat I would recommend this place.

After we finished our delicious dinner we headed to the resort that we were staying at, Hawks Cay. What a beautiful resort it is! We stayed in one of the townhouses that they have there. It was so cute and fun.

When we went inside to check out our rooms we were surprised to find that we weren't alone! This poor gecko was trapped inside the house but don't worry we caught the poor little guy and let him go outside.

After the catch and release of the gecko we went out to see the rest of the resort (and to find the hot tub to relax in). There are several pools at the resort but we were looking for the adults only pool. Don't get me wrong, I love kids but if I wanted to hang out with kids on my vacation I would have brought mine. :) By the time we got to the "Tranquility Pool" it was dark. We enjoyed it anyways. On the walk back to the townhouse we saw fireflies! I have never seen one in true life. My only experience with them is on the Pirates ride at Disneyland. It was very cool!

The Keys are beautiful, just not what we were expecting. They are much more lake-like than tropical. Meaning there aren't really "beaches" to hang out on. We weren't too disappointed though because we knew that we were headed to some amazing beaches on the cruise. So we opted for the next best thing... the "Tranquility Pool".

We spent the whole day here. The whole day! It was wonderful. It was so hot though we would be in and out of the pool to stay cool. One of the times we were out of the pool, I was laying face down on my lounge chair and heard a strange noise. I looked up to see a giant iguana right under my face! I wasn't scared I know that they are harmless but it did interrupt my tranquility. All that he was really interested in was the last piece of fruit from lunch.

After a very strenuous day of lounging by the pool we needed some nourishment. We went to another highly recommended place called the Sunset Grille. It was an outdoors restaurant right on the water with an amazing view! After we had filled up on more delicious food we headed back to the resort where we called it a night.

The next morning as the girls were getting ready to head to the cruise ship Chet decided to head out back to try some fishing. He didn't catch anything but he sure looked cute trying.

All in all the Keys were very beautiful and relaxing but now I was ready for the tropical part of the trip. The Bahamas!!!