Holidays Part II

OK, this may be another lame picture-less post. We are getting really good at forgetting our camera for everything.

So anyway, it's been a holly-jolly Christmas! Mandee's parents came down from Seattle, despite the horrible weather up there. Between all the cancelled flights and hazardous conditions, they were lucky enough to have had their flight scheduled in between one of the lulls in the weather up there.

We met up with them Christmas Eve for the Mandee's extended family's open house at her grandmother's. There was lots of good food, and we watched a movie that Chelle had put together about Grandma's Christmases many, many times and said hi to some of the uncles, aunts and cousins.

That evening, we spent the night up with Camshaft's parents and spent the evening hanging out and playing games there with the whole family: Mom, Dad, all the siblings, their spouses, and the niece and nephews. The nephews were pretty wound up. At one point Brennan stated that he couldn't stand not opening a present for one more minute. Hilary finally relented and let them open the watches that they have been given. We think they were hoping for something a bit more exciting, like a video game or a toy, but when Camshaft asked if they would give him their watches, their answers were in the negative.

By 8:00 the next morning, the wrapping paper was coming off of presents at a frenzied pace. The boys were definitely the most fun to watch. Decker was very enthused about a LEGO Batman game he got and Brennan was excited by pretty much everything he got, tools, a castle (That we spent 2 hours trying to put together), and a treasure box, complete with the requisite pirate plunder.



We spent the rest of the morning playing games, eating everything in sight, like Christmas ham and sweet rolls, and enjoying our time with family. In the early evening, we braved the conditions and headed to Ogden to Chelle's house, where we had Christmas II and opened all of the presents that we had given and received from Mandee's family.



The main activity of the evening ended up being watching Mamma Mia. The reviews were very mixed. Mandee loved it and Camshaft did a lot of eye rolling and sighing.



The ride home ended up being a white knuckle ride. By the time we got out towards the west side of Ogden to get on the interstate, the weather was awful, but we made it home, slowly and surely, just in time to go to bed and get ready for another fun-filled day in Mt. Green. We mostly did more of the same, played with the boys, and played games. We also broke out the new Cooking Mama, which everyone enjoyed.



Saturday was the big party with Mandee's family. They all headed over for an all-day party, where we spent the bulk of the day playing Rock Band, which Mandee's parent's had gotten us for Christmas. Too bad we don't have pictures, as we all pretty much made fools of ourselves. We also busted out Cooking Mama and Loaded Question while enjoying Mandee's pulled-pork sandwitches. Good times were had by all.

So anyway, there's our Christmas activities. Hope everyone had a good one as well. Here's to a happy 2009 for everyone.

Holidays Part 1

Yes, we know. We have been slackers. We keep putting off posting, because we are afraid we will foget something that we did.

But we'll just post what we remember and let it go at that.

It's been a fun month. The holidays are gearing up. Thanksgiving was a blast. After spending the night before with Mandee's incoming family at our house, we ended up at Mandee's aunt Julie's house for the big meal. And we do mean big. There were like 35 of us there. We ate and ate and ate and then went over to Chelle's house to visit with her new beau's family and with each other. The next day we ended up at Camshaft's parent's house and spent a nice afternoon with his family. We've been lucky to see them quite often and especially enjoy going up there when the niece and nephews are there. Heidi is so cute, Decker is so fun to play with and talk to, and Brennan is so funny.

We also made a trip to Temple Square with Mandee's parents, down from Seattle, and siblings to see the play "Savior of the World."
It was very well done, with a large cast and a very cool, modular set that they could transform into about everything. We enjoyed it very much and were glad it helped us keep focus on the most important aspect of the holidays.

After a meal at the Lion House and the play, we saw the lights at temple square and then headed down to Mandee's grandparent's house and stayed the night there. Here's a couple of shots of us at temple square, one with just us, and one with Mandee's whole fam (We stole from Chelle and Holli):







That weekend was also Mandee's birthday. We had a great time with everyone, and Mandee finally got her big mystery birthday present that Camshaft had been holding on to for about 5 months, a Nintendo Wii. It's been fun so far, although we've probably been spending too much time playing Lego Star Wars

Another highlight was going to the Scrooge: The Christmas Carol musical at the Washington Terrace Playhouse. We went along with Holli, Chelle, and Victor and had a good time. It was quite the production, and their big finale of the year, with a huge cast and lots and lots of musical numbers.

So anyway, that's all we can think of at the time. Things have been good and we are looking forward to spending the holidays with friends and family. Thanks for all your love and thoughts this holiday season.

We hope everyone has a merry Christmas and happy holidays.

The Wedding Pics

So they are finally here!

We think we will just let the pictures tell the story:























Sorry the format is off. It just doesn't seem to format well.

Thanks again everyone that was there for all your love and support. We wished we could have taken a day to spend with each of you and we miss all of you that we don't see as often as we would like.

Mid November Update

Well, we have mixed feelings about posting without any pictures or anything else very interesting. But some people are starting to complain because we haven't published anything in the last few weeks, so here goes.

Really, we haven't really done anything very out of the ordinary for this time of year. We've slowly been getting our apartment and all of the usual activities that come with moving into a new place and getting married entail. Our Christmas shopping is almost done as well.

For Halloween, we went to Chelle's house and fended off the trick-or-treaters while watching a silly movie called The Orphanage. The night after, we went over to Mandee's extended family's Halloween party and had soup and played games. Our Team Ninja ruled at the "Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader" game we played in.

We also went and saw the play Aida at the Washington Terrace playhouse. Mandee's cousin Kelland and his wife Ashley were in it. It was quite a departure from the typical Terrace play and was a tragedy instead of the silly stuff they usually do, and because of that, it was Camshaft's favorite play that we have seen so far at the Terrace.

Not too much else to tell besides a trip to the Olive Garden (lasagna and chicken maranara) with Chelle and Holli and a visit to the movie theater to see the newest James Bond flick (mixed reviews, but generally entertaining), we've been slowly settling into some semblance of normality again, while still trying to tie up a few loose ends from the wedding and getting the apartment in order.

Hopefully, there will be more to tell with Thanksgiving and Mandee's birthday the 29th!

The Pre-Halloween Festivities

So hopefully after this post we will mostly be caught up, except for the actual wedding, but it may be a bit before we get those pictures. We're in the process of picking them out and getting them printed and whatnot.

Anyway, last weekend was a good warm-up for Halloween. Friday night, we headed up with Camshaft's fam and went to the Pumpkin Walk in Logan.

For those of you who have never been, it is a really fun (and free) activity that the community puts on every year where people make displays of famous scenes out of mostly pumpkins along with other vegetables. For example: Noah's Ark and Batman.

Michelle and Patrick helped out with the Pumpkin Walk, as Michelle's parent's help organize the event, and were part of the creation of a Sword in the Stone display.

We also caught two Jedi knights at the festivities.

This is just a small sample of the fun things at the Pumpkin Walk, but it should give you an idea as to what goes on there. It's a fun family evening.

Afterward, we also got a chance to see the Heidi and the boys in their halloween costumes.

The next evening, we went on the Ogden Ghost Tour, another great activity for anyone interested in the history of Ogden and is not easily spooked. We had been last year and enjoyed it, but this year we brought our camera and got some... interesting... photos. We won't go too into detail here, because we know some people are sensitive about that sort of thing, but there was some strangeness to be had along with all the history of the area.

Anyway, Happy Halloween everyone!

To Seattle! (The Open House)

Well, after the cruise we are and were still staying busy. So after being off the plane from Tampa for only 5 days, we headed to our open house in Snohomish with Mandee's sister Holli and her Grandma Child in tow.

There's actually not much to tell, we arrived up there in good order and hung out at Mandee's parent's house Friday night and Saturday. Mandee's cousin Kerry from Canada and Uncle Lynn from Hawaii cane and were part of the festivities for most of the day. They gave us some serving platters that everyone was jealous of. They even got used at the reception (the rotating platters below, along with a view of the goodies).



The reception was very nice. Mandee's mom made a very nice spread. Lots of the people from the Snohomish area that knew her family from church and work came. By Sunday afternoon, we were on a plane for Utah once again. These quick weekend trips are fun, but exhausting. Good times.

Cozumel and Tulum

Our last stop was to the Mexican island of Cozumel. But we had barely stepped off the boat when we were whisked away to the city of Playa del Carmen and then quickly walked to a bus where we started our trek to Tulum.

It ended up being fairly far away, and we even made a stop at a workshop where they work on reproductions of Mayan artifacts. It was very cool, and we wished we could have spent a bit more time there, because before we knew it we were back on the road again.

The actual site of Tulum is a half mile or so from the bus stop and behind some walls, so after a short walk, suddenly we were there. The city was a major port for the local people from about 1200 AD to 1500 AD and was called "Zama" back before being abandoned.It was quite the site, and much more had been uncovered than at Altun Ha. It was also extremely hot and humid, so we were both sweating like crazy, and it was very crowded. But it was worth it.

The city is dominated by a huge temple called "El Castillo," as seen from the distance above. It was the main site of worship for the Mayan and Toltec people that lived there, complete with human sacrifice and whatnot.

We had two other favorites. One was the Temple of the Frescoes, which was supposedly a fertility temple, where women would go worship when they wanted to get pregnant. It has a lot of cool carvings on the outside (and inside supposedly, but we really couldn't see those), including a cool carving of the Descending God (the main god of this area, left), and a carving af what they say is a baby holding it's umbillical cord (right).

The other cool spot was a structure called the Temple of the Wind. Our guide claimed that it was built as kind of a look out post for hurricanes; that when the wild would blow fast enough to be hurricane strength, that the whole building would act as a whistle that could be heard for miles. Luckily there were no hurricanes, so we couldn't experience it firsthand.

The whole city was also surrounded by a big wall, which some argue was primarily built as protection against hurricanes, while others state that it was like any other city wall. In any case, it was cool to see, especially considering some of the passages in the latter part of Alma in the Book of Mormon when they talk about the people of the Americas buiding great walls.

Tulum was beautiful, built right on the beach. The waters were very pristine and blue. It would be the last stop on our cruise, but would be one of our favorites. It was such a great and fun trip, just being able to relax after the last few hectic months. We enjoyed it immensely and would recommend it to anyone.

We'll leep you posted when we the wedding pictures back, and whatever else we can scrounge up from our ongoing adventures.

Belize

So our next stop was Belize City, the largest city in Belize. After a bus ride, we arrived in the Mayan ruins of Altun Ha. It was awesome. Our bus load was the first group there, so there was almost no one there while we took pictures and walked around. The coolest part about it was that it was occupied between 250 BC and 1000 AD, making it contemporary with the events that took place in the Book of Mormon. Who knows what might have happened here during those times! It's fun to imagine. They even let us climb this temple. Here's a view Camshaft standing on the main pyramid with his back towards the main plazas of the old city and one of Mandee facing the opposite direction with her back towards the jungle. These buildings were not only temples, but they also buried some of their priests under them. In one dig, they found a striking jade mask that the government of Belize keeps under lock and key that they consider one of their national treasures.

After leaving Altun Ha and making a short stop at a local restaurant, where we ate some local beans, rice, and chicken, we got on a boat and took a leisurely cruise down the Wallace River back to our boat. There was tons of wildlife around there, including howler monkeys (we saw so many, maybe even a whole barrel-full. We decided to name them all Patrick), several types of water birds, crocodiles, a variety of iguanas, bats, a crab, and manatees (they would just pop up out of the water for 1 to 2 seconds, so we couldn't actually get pictures of them). Here's a few of the shots:
The manatee area was the last stop. After sitting there watching and waiting for a few minutes, some ugly rainclouds snuck up on us. Our driver decided that we needed to get back to the ship ASAP, and gunned it full speed. Then the rain started. It was an absolute downpour. We were pelted so hard that we couldn't even look forward. It almost felt like hail. We were soaked from head to toe, but it soon stopped, and we made it back to the port safe and sound, quickly getting on the boat to dry off and get some rest. It was a full, but super-fun, day.