Happy 25 Years Mountain Ridge!

The boys' Jr. High celebrated turning 25 this year.  As part of their celebration, they invited back some of the basketball players from the past 25 years.  They tried to get at least one player from each team.  They invited all the past players and coaches out onto the court during half time of a basketball game to snap a picture with the current team.

Jaxon is on the back row on the left.  McKay would have loved to have been there too.

Jaxon Goes to Preference

Jaxon was asked to Preference by a foreign exchange student from Italy that is in his Spanish class.  I found the following on our front porch one afternoon:

The sign roughly translates to: "Having you as a date to Preference would be like having beer for Christmas."  That was about the funniest thing I had ever seen, especially in Utah County!

 Jaxon all dressed up and looking sharp for his Preference date.

 Jaxon, his date Giorgia, Kennedy and her date.

 Jaxon and Giorgia

Jaxon's face here is priceless.  I don't think he knew what to think!

Señorita Taylor

McKay and Jaxon had the most awesome Spanish teacher, Kathy Taylor. To them she was Señorita and she was much more than a teacher.  She passed away suddenly after receiving surgery and it was quite a blow to the kids.  It was quite the blow to me because I know how much my kids love her.  The school put the following video together as a tribute to her:

One of Señorita's last requests was that her funeral be held on a school day so that the kids would get out of school early to be able to attend.  That would be her last gift to her students.  It was an amazing funeral.  She wanted a speaker at her funeral that would just tell jokes.  So her brother got up and told a bunch of jokes.  They had two students get up and read just memories of her that the students all shared.  Another passed student got up and shared what made her such a great teacher.  The funeral was short per her wishes.  After the funeral she wanted to have a party for all who attended.  So they delayed taking her to the cemetery and invited everyone to stay for pizza and other treats and also to put together jigsaw puzzles which was a favorite thing of hers. 

 

They brought out hundreds of puzzles and just about as many pizzas and everyone stayed.  There were a lot of students there that also stayed.  It was just what she would have wanted.

Mr. Smith is the Spanish teacher at the Jr. High and came to support Señorita and all her students.  Our family loves Mr. Smith.

They displayed many of the items from Señorita's classroom.   Many of these items have a lot of memories for McKay and Jaxon:

The trophy that McKay and Jaxon helped win last year at the language fair.  McKay was so honored to be able to deliver this trophy to Señorita.  It was definitely one of the highlights of his senor year.

Fifth Grade 80's Day

I think he pulled it off pretty well.  He looks a lot like his brother did when he mastered the look as well.  Can't touch this!

Girl's Cruise Vacation

Man I love my sisters (sister-in-law included).  I love to be with them and my mom.  Sadly it doesn't happen often enough.  But when it does happen we make sure we have a great time!  This time around we decided we needed to get some vitamin D and head somewhere warm to escape the winter blues.  We settled on a cruise through the Bahamas.  It was a great time and did not disappoint!

Ship life:
Our cruise was 5 nights/6 days and most of that time we were at port.  We didn't spend a lot of time on the ship during the day.  But when we did, we lived it up.  We ate a lot, played cards, read books and soaked in the sunshine.
 

Boarding the ship.  We flew into Miami the day before and stayed in a hotel not far from the airport.  Then we took an Uber to the ship port.  We were ready to have a great time!

Shortly after boarding, Juli, my mom and I snuck over to Caprice and Debra's cabin and decorated their door with a large Wonder Woman decal.  We were very secretive about it.  Then we knocked on the door and hid to see what they would think.  Debra opened the door and said, "How embarrassing!"  But they laughed and kept Wonder Woman up all week.

A little of what we did on the ship.  We loved lounging around and relaxing.  We visited the dance clubs at night and got our boogie on.  We enjoyed the gift shop where they had cutouts for you to get your picture taken with and also good things to buy.  We enjoyed the food on the ship as well.  However, none of us partook of the roasted pig.  We mostly ate off the ship during the day and in one of the specialty restaurants at night.

When we went into our cabins at night we were always met by a friend made from towels.  These are some from our cabin and Caprice and Debra's cabin.

 Juli, my mom and I with our cabin monkey.

Day 2: Florida Keys

This was one of my favorite places to visit.  It is such a quaint little place where you can just roam around.

 It is also the beginning of Highway 1 which was pretty cool to see a mile marker 0.  This road ends all the way up in Maine.

We took a trolley to the main part of town.  Debra and Juli went and did some paddle boarding while Caprice, my mom and I went snorkeling.  It was a little chilly so we rented wet suits.  That was quite a show trying to put those babies on, but we had a good laugh doing it!  Caprice and I got separated from my mom while snorkeling, but Caprice and I saw all kinds of sea life, including a reef shark!  We met back up with Juli and Debra and went and grabbed some lunch at a taco shop that was delicious!  Then as we moseyed back to the trolley we did some shopping.

Day 3: Freeport

We all loved Freeport.  We had a great shore excursion exploring some caves and then kayaking followed by a relaxing beach day.  Freeport is also one of the Bahama locations where Pirates of the Caribbean 2 was filmed.

We had to take a bit of a bus ride and then van ride to get to our tour.  My mom got pretty sleepy and took a power nap on the way.  Once we arrived to the Lucayan Nation Park we saw some awesome caves with fish swimming around in the water.  The water was so clear and pretty.  There are tales of piracy in some of these cave pools.  The pools reminded me a lot of the cenotes in Mexico.

Then we went kayaking down a little stream.  Well, Caprice and I attempted to kayak.  We mostly laughed and laughed as we could not keep that thing in a straight line!  Juli and Debra made it look so easy!  Caprice and I had a good time navigating our way through all the roots of the trees that we were kayaking through.  Those trees had a tangled mess for a root system that came right into the water.  There were many times where we got up close and personal with those trees!

The stream led out and into the ocean.  When we got to the end it was such a beautiful sight!!

We then went and ate a simple lunch on a beach.  This is a famous beach in Freeport.  It was were a few scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean were filmed.  There was also a man made ship hold (bottom right) where they were able to recreate hurricanes to film in.  It was fun to see these things in person and the beach was beautiful!

 The pathway and bridge that led to and from the beach. There was so much greenery that you would never know you were walking over a stream!  It was the same stream that we went kayaking down.

Day 4: Norwegian's Private Island

After a full day the day before, it was nice just to have a relaxing beach day.  We read books, played cards, talked, walked along the beach, ate good food, took naps and enjoyed the warmth of the sunshine all day.

Day 5: Nassau

After learning our tour was to be pushed back (since we didn't book through the ship),  I was one unhappy camper.  But in the end it all worked out.  We just wished that we would have had more time around the shopping area that was at the cruise port.  But we loved exploring and enjoying Blue Lagoon Island.  The tour company made things right for us and provided us with lunch as part of our tour.

We had to take a ferry to the island.  Once we were there we enjoyed watching the dolphins and other sea life.

We were able to handle some of the sea life like sea urchins, sea biscuits and sea cucumbers.  It was neat to see and to touch.  A little slimy too.

 We were able to finally get on our Segway tour.  We loved riding the Segways so much in Sedona that we had to do it again this trip!

 The views were spectacular and the water was beautiful!  We rode to an old tower on the island that was a lookout point for the island.  (I think it was used for some other things as well.  I should have paid better attention to what our guide was saying.)

Once we finished our tour, a large storm started moving in just as we were leaving on the ferry.  You could see a wall of rain moving rapidly towards us (top left).  We were on the top of the boat and not really protected from the rain.  It was a mad dash to try and close the zipper windows (top right) and to stay dry.  Once our ferry let us off by our cruise ship, we did some last minute shopping in the rain.  By the time we got back to the ship we were soaked!

Day 6: Miami and Departing for home

It was sad to have such a great trip come to an end.  Our last night on the ship was pretty rocky and we did all we could to not get sick.  So we mostly stayed mid ship and played cards and watched the NFL playoffs. 

Caprice kept Wonder Woman's legs and put the decals on her luggage.  It made me laugh and will be something I will never forget!  We all bought matching shirts from the gift shop and wore them on the last day.  Debra had an earlier flight than us and in a different terminal so we were sad we couldn't get a picture with her too.

It was such a great trip and I hope that we are able to get together to make more memories before too long!

Once There Was Snowman

It has been a good year for snow.  Kayden had a good time building a snowman with his buddy, Josh.  (Don't you love Kayden's snow clothes?)

Apparently this snowman likes to bake.