Good-Bye 2009...Hello 2010...

I can't believe that it is 2010!!! Where did the time go? Christmas and New Year's has already come and gone and now it starts all over again. The holiday's were great. I was lucky to be off of work the week of Christmas so I was able to hang out with everyone.

Heather had everyone over to watch the Boat Parade on Balboa. It was fun. The night before we had a "girls only" sleepover. We had dinner at Fashion Island and then went back to Heather's and hung out (I of course fell asleep!). The next day in the afternoon we took the ferry across and walked to the Balboa Pier and got shakes at Ruby's and then headed back for everyone to come. We decorated the outside with lights and ornaments. Lisa organized dinner and we had soups, salad, hot chocolate, hot apple cider and a bunch of deserts. Cory and I went and saved our spot on the sand. It was a lot easier then saving our spot for the Rose Parade!!! Lisa even brought a smore maker so the kids could have smores! It was neat watching all the boats all decorated. The only bummer was getting off the Island when it was over. It took some of our family over an hour just to get off the island!!???







































































We went ice skating during the day on Christmas Eve and Hillary and Emily came down to join us. Then Joe and I spent Christmas Eve night at Disneyland which has become a tradition of our for the past 4 years. It was the year anniversary of when we got engaged so of course we had to go to "our spot" and reminisce!!! I had to reinact some of our pictures from that night too!!! We also go to Disneyland on Christmas Eve for my grandpa's birthday!! It was his FAVORITE place! Afterwards we headed to my parent's house. The kids were reinacting The Nativity with hand puppets and then Joe and I gave the kids some pajamas for Christmas!

Shauna, Doug, Jaden and Bradli stayed with Joe and I for a couple of weeks. It is a blast having them here. Bradli sure loves Joe and can't get enough of him. He is pretty attached to her too!! Bradli will not sit still with ANYONE..unless it is Joe!!! They would just hang out together on the couch and watch TV! It was fun having the kids here for Christmas morning, it made it so much more fun. We actually got a tree so they would feel at home. It was fun watching them open their gifts from Santa. Afterwards we went to my parents for more presents, then off to Joe's grandma's house and then finished the night at Mike and Shauna's.

I got a late night Christmas present of getting sick and was sick through the New Year so I wasn't able to go to the Rose Parade this year :( I did feel better the day after and the whole family went down to Balboa and rode bikes down to the Wedge. My mom and Lisa both got beach cruisers for Christmas so now I'm not the only one with one! We had a blast cruising down to the Wedge. I think Doug thought he was in the Tour de France because he was going crazy in his surry! It was fun having the whole family together at Christmas. Matt and Brooke were able to come for two weeks too!!

Well, I am sick again :( This time it is a sinus cold which I have never had before. My sinuses are sooo stuffed up it is driving me crazy. I am hoping I am better by tomorrow so I can go and celebrate my Grandma's birthday!!! Here are a few more pictures from the holiday's just hanging out...

"A Year of Blind Dates"

My friend, Megan Carson, just published her first book, "A Year of Bind Dates". This book is a MUST read. Megan wasn't having the best luck finding "Mr. Right", so she decided to join a dating service. She was set up on several blind dates. You will not believe the things she went through!! You will even find yourself relating to some of her stories. I went and saw her today at her book signing and found out how she ended up writing this book. She told me that she would just blog about her experiences and a publisher found her blog and asked her to write a book! You can only find it on Amazon.com right now. The official release for the book will be in January.

Those of you who know me know that I HATE to read. I read this book in one day. I couldn't put it down!! It is sooooo hilarious!!!! And the fact that I could picture Megan during all these dates and knew some of the places she mentions in the book since she grew up in Mission Viejo made it even more fun!!! Trust me, this is going to be a huge hit!!! Grab it now while you can!!!

Check out her website: www.megancarson.com

FINALLY...Our Caribbean Honeymoon, Part 2 of 3...

Sorry it has taken me SOOOOO long to update this....I have been avoiding downloading all the pictures on here! I hate that they all download backwards from the order you put them in. But here you go...

Our third stop was Georgetown, Grand Cayman. This is where we were going to swim with stingrays. The water in the Grand Cayman is the most BEAUTIFUL water I had ever seen. The water was as clear as drinking water with a light turquoise color to it. We took a boat out to the middle of the ocean. The funny thing was it was only like 3 feet deep in the middle of the ocean!! There is a huge sandbar. As soon as we got to Sting Ray City a TON of sting rays appeared. It was awesome!!! We got to swim with them, pet them and even kiss them!!! It was the coolest thing!!! Afterwards we went snorkeling along a reef right by the stingrays. The snorkeling was pretty cool. We were told to stay away from the edge of the reef because it drops to 6000 feet over the edge!! Of course, I was curios and "accidentally" wandered over to check it out but kind of got in trouble and had to come back!!

After that we headed back to the shops and did some shopping and had some fish and chips at a cool restaurant right along the water. All of the restaurants along the water had ladders that went straight down to the water so you could snorkel and then climb up and get a bite to eat!! It was pretty cool!!






















Our final stop was to Cozumel, Mexico. This is the stop I had been waiting for our whole trip. This is where I would get to fulfill a long lifetime dream of SWIMMING WITH DOLPHINS!!!! It was AMAZING!! I don't have any pictures of us actually swimming with the Dolphins because I still haven't developed the pictures from our underwater camera. We swam in an enclosed area in the ocean. We had about 10 people in our group and we took turns doing about 10 different things with the dolphins. We got to lay on a boogie board while the dolphin pushed our feet, we held onto the fins of the dolphin while it swam on it's back and took us for a ride, got a kiss from it, hugged it, held it, danced with it and a bunch more. It was absolutely amazing!!! Right as we got out of the water it started to poor rain!!! It felt awesome because it was like 100 degrees with humidity. We timed our swimming with the dolphins perfectly. The groups behind us had to do their swim in the pooring rain which didn't look too fun!!!

After we swam with the dolphins we went and had some lunch. The place where we swam with the dolphins was in this huge park. It was amazing and absolutely gorgeous. There was a ton we could do there. You could swim in a regular pool, a salt water pool or go in a spa. There was even a bar in the pool!! They also had AMAZING snorkling!! The was soooo clear!! I had the best time even though I snorkled by myself. Joe stayed with our stuff to make sure no one stole it!! There were tons of fish with all sizes and colors. The water was so clear that when Joe took pictures of me you could actually see the fish in the pictures. Afterwards we headed back to the port area and did some shopping for our neices and nephews. We then boarded the ship for our last time until we would be back in the USA :(


































I promise not to wait this long to update the final days on the cruise and our few days at Disney World!!!!

Our Caribbean Honeymoon, Part 1 of 3...

We are back from our Honeymoon and we had an AMAZING time!!! We flew into Orlando the day after wedding, Sat. We stayed in Orlando over night and then we headed to Cape Canaveral to board the Freedom of the Seas cruise ship. This is the biggest ship in the world, but next month, Royal Caribbean is introducing their new ship, the Oasis of the Seas, which will take the title as the worlds largest cruise ship. You could see Kennedy Space Center from the port which was awesome. We wanted to take a tour but didn't have enough time.




We got onto the ship pretty early and immediately started to explore our new home for the next week. The ship was HUGE!! The 5th deck was called the Royal Promenade. This is where they had all the shops and restaurants. It was sweet. We were on the 6th deck, so we could just walk down the stairs and were at the Promenade. There was a pizza restaurant and a little cafe that you could eat at whenever you wanted. There was a Ben and Jerry's there too that you had to pay for. There were a ton of shops but they were the kind of shops you don't really buy anything from, unless you have a lot of $$!!





We headed to the top deck, 12th deck, to check out the pools and get ready for the "sail away" party. We got a Virgin Pina Colada and watched as we sailed away to our destinations.






We then explored some more of the ship and found Joe's sanctuary...the Video Arcade!! What more could he ask for then to be able to play Guitar Hero on his honeymoon!!! He just couldn't resist :) We also found Johnny Rockets, the miniature golf course and the rock wall.







That night we decided to have dinner at one of the Specialty Restaurants, Chops Grille. We had the best Fillet Mignon!!! We then headed back to our room and enjoyed the gorgeous sunset and view we would be having the next week from our balcony.






Monday was a day at sea, so we had the whole day to lounge around and do whatever we wanted. Of course we ate all the time!! We wandered out to the front of the ship for a while and then spent some time lounging at the pool. That night we had a formal dinner night. It was fun to get dressed up and get treated like royalty. When we got back to our room, we had an elephant waiting for us made out of a towel. Every night they would leave us a different animal.












Tuesday we stopped at our first port-Labadee, Haiti. I was a little concerned about going to Haiti, but once we were there, I was more comfortable. Royal Caribbean owns it's own private cove on the island so the only people there was us and a few locals. We took a tour on sea doo's along the coastline and then went parasailing. We then went swimming and then walked around and listened to some locals bands and shopped a little. The water was an amazing turquoise color and soo warm!!






















Our second stop was at Ochos Rios, Jamaica. This was Joe's favorite stop mainly because this is where we went ZIP LINING!! It was AWESOME!! We went on 9 different courses and it was a blast. I wasn't scared at all and got pretty brave that I would do a running start and jump off the platforms!! We zip lined through a rain forest with a river below which made it even more incredible!!!!! We had a little hike to the course once we got suited up and a bit of a hike back when we were done. You can't beat hiking through a rain forest following a roaring river!!! Afterwards we had to get some Jerk Chicken which was sooo good!! We then stopped by the beach so I could collect some sand to bring home. I decided to collect sand from every island we went to as a souviner. Joe then wanted to stop by the Harley Davidson store and then we headed back to the ship.


































This is the half way point of the cruise. I will post our remaining stops in a few days...too many pictures to post tonight!! Stay tuned for the rest...

WE FINALLY DID IT!!!

Friday we FINALLY got married!!! It was the most perfect and beautiful day of my life. I can't believe it has come and gone. I wish that day and night wasn't over and could go on forever!! We were lucky to have gorgeous weather at the Montage for pictures and the weather at night was perfect. We are now heading the Cape Canaveral to get on our cruise ship to set sail for the Caribbean. I cannot wait for a week of pure relaxation and some fun adventures. But most of all to spend time with my perfect new HUSBAND!!!!!

See you in a week........

P.S. If anyone took any pics that day and night, please post them!! I am DYING to see them :)

Just 4 Days To Go!!!

Engagement Favorites...

Here are some of my favorite engagement pictures...