Home Life

Well, another year has come and gone, and I’m trying to stop counting the birthdays now.  From now on, they will just be anniversaries of my 30th birthday!  🙂  Most of my birthday was spent at church and in meetings, so I didn’t get to spend much time with the family, but we did have a fun dinner and little family party together tonight.

For dinner, Brittany shoveled the snow off the patio, fired up the grill and cooked burgers for me!  That was very sweet, considering it was about 20 degrees outside.  They also bought me a wonderful raspberry cheesecake ice cream cake from Coldstone that was absolutely wonderful!

As part of my birthday present, I got to watch the entire Super Bowl!  🙂  Sarah actually was excited to watch it as well and she stayed with me the entire time!  It was fun!  We especially loved the commercials.  They are always a hoot!  We liked the Doritos and eBay commercials the best!  Unfortunately, the Colts lost to the Saints.  🙁

Today Kirstyn turned BIG 11! She now recognizes herself as an official TWEEN! Wow! It’s hard to believe how fast she’s growing up! We had a party for her and she loved her cake! This time (from the picture) you know her dad didn’t make it for her! 🙂

We had a birthday party for her with the family and it was good to have Grandma and  Grandpa Hobbs there.  Zachary spent a ton of time in the basement decorating it up with his personal birthday touches which was really funny!  Kirstyn got a woven purse from the Bahamas as well as some nail polish from Del Sol which we also picked up on our trip.  It goes on clear, and then when you go outside, the UV rays turn it a dark shade of pink!  It’s actually pretty cool (we have a bag that does the same thing).  She got a bunch of cards and other gifts from family, and her Primary teacher even gave her a large vase of yellow tulips!  🙂

Happy Birthday Kirstyn!

Today we docked in Miami, packed up, left the ship, went to the airport and flew home.  We were excited to see the kids, but VERY sad to leave the warm weather.  It’s hard to believe that we lived in shorts for the week and then we would be back to bundling up the next!  🙁

We got VERY lucky and things timed perfectly in getting off the ship and getting home.  We got to the airport with 6 hours to spare before our flight took off, so we asked them if we could fly standby on an earlier flight.  She said yes, and told us that we could go at 12:55 instead of 3:45!  We got our standby passes, went through security and headed to our gate.  In looking closer, the boarding time for our flight was at 10:25!  We went to the front desk, asked if they had called our name, and they said yes and gave us our boarding passes for the 10:55 flight!  We were in shock!  That is the shortest amount of time either of us had EVER spent at the airport.  We arrived just after 10, got through security at 10:20, boarded at 10:25, and were off at 10:55!  🙂  What luck that the ticket agent selected the wrong (and earlier) flight which she probably thought we wouldn’t make!  🙂

We ended up getting home at about 1:30 and were able to surprise the kids when they got home.  It was great to see them and we had a great talk with them about our trip and how much fun we had.  We gave them their presents and they were pretty excited.  Zach and Ben got shirts and flutes, and the girls got necklaces.

We’re still adjusting to the cold and are sad that we have to bundle up again!

We are excited to be back to see the kids, however, but deep down inside, we can’t wait to get back out and go on another cruise soon!  🙂

Today was the most relaxing day of our trip (and unfortunately, our last day in the islands)!  We anchored off shore of Great Stirrup Cay, the cruise line’s own private island, and tendered to shore.  The water was so clear and the day was beautiful (sunny with a slight breeze)!

We explored the island, found a remote beach, relaxed, and enjoyed the morning away from the main throngs of people.  We came back to the main beach in time for lunch and enjoyed BBQ and all kinds of great food!

After eating, we enjoyed watching volleyball, a great limbo competition, the water, and more food.  There was a small Straw Market there as well and we picked up a couple of last minute things there.  The rest of the time, we enjoyed hanging out in a hammock and enjoying the day!

At about 3, we decided to beat the tendering crowds back to the ship.  When we got back, we cleaned up, and went to our final dinner at the Crossings main dining room.  Our seat was at a window, right at the very back of the ship, looking out over the ocean, which was beautiful!  The food (as always) was great, and the desserts were even better!  We actually ended up getting 2 desserts a piece!  🙂

While we were waiting for the main entertainment event of the night, we went to the ship’s atrium and shopped, listened to some great live music, and hung out.

For our last night on the boat, we went to the final variety show on the ship.  They had singing, dancing, more comedy from Joe Bronzi, and a hillarious skit from the Cruise Director and his staff.  We then had a late night snack and then went to bed.

Today was a great day!  We woke up and after our exercising (my walking around and taking pictures and Angela’s running) we ate breakfast and left the ship to explore Nassau!  What an interesting city!  We took a self-guided walking tour of the city and it was very interesting.  We are very lucky that we didn’t get hit by a car because when you are outside of the main shopping and tourist area, there are not many sidewalks!  😐

A very interesting part of the walking tour was the Queens Staircase.  It a set of 65 steps carved out of a natural limestone wall by slaves between 1793 and 1794.  The Queens Staircase is 102 feet tall, and was so named in honor of Queen Victoria. It led up to a fort that overlooked the city and the bay.

We also saw Fort Fincastle, Parliament Square, the National Art Gallery Museum, and a bunch of other sites with very different architecture and color.

After completing the walking tour, we checked out the downtown area and did some shopping.  The Carribean is known for it’s sale of gems and jewelry.  We They have very good prices, there is no sales tax, and everything is duty free!  🙂  In addition to some miscellaneous souvenirs, we picked up some gemstone bracelets and necklaces.  We also purchased a set of Tanzanite earrings and a necklace for Angela.  Tanzanite is a very precious and valuable stone that is growing in value every year.  There is only one mine left (in Tanzania) and will be closing soon.   The blue stones look wonderful on Angela and she is very happy.  It took awhile to talk her into getting them, however…  Happy Anniversary!  🙂

After shopping, we were dead tired and so we went back to the boat, had lunch, relaxed a bit, and then went back out to the Straw Market to haggle on some more gifts!  It’s really tiring to walk through all those rows of people selling their wares and have them not let you alone!  🙂  Everything is “hey pretty lady” or “hey daddy” or “how much you want for my stuff!”  Angela is really good at haggling and got the things we wanted for nearly 80% off of the original price!  🙂

We then relaxed for awhile downtown, got back on the boat and had dinner in the Palace Main Dining Room.

After dinner, we were entertained in the theater by ship’s production c0mpany, where the production of the night consisted of a list of Broadway hits.  They were REALLY good!  After we listened to that, we laughed at a game of Family Feud in the ship’s lounge.  It was funny to see complete strangers come together as “families” and see what they had to say!  🙂  After that we went to bed, completely exhausted!  What a GREAT day!

When we woke up this morning, we got dressed and went for a walk/run on the boat’s outdoor track.  Naturally, I walked and Angela ran!  🙂  While walking, I took a bunch of pictures of the sunrise, the port, and the ship.  It was very nice to go outside and smell fresh sea air, not full of pollution!  🙂  After Angela worked up a sweat and got in a good exercise, we ate breakfast at the buffet and got ready to go ashore to explore Freeport/Lucaya, Grand Bahama.

The port is actually nothing much more than an industrial park where many cargo ships dock, load up, and refuel.  We went ashore at about 9:30 or so and took a cheap cab ride to Lucaya, where the main beach, resort, and shopping areas are.  We wandered around the shops for awhile and purchased hematite necklaces for the girls.  Supposedly, this semi magnetic mineral has healing qualities.  🙂  There are many gem and jewelry shops there, as well as a straw market where you haggle with the locals on price.  This is Angela’s specialty!  🙂  We got the neclaces for more than 50% off the asking price!

After wandering around the shops for awhile, we walked over to the beach.  It was a wonderful day, partly cloudy, with a slight breeze and 74 degrees!  We walked around the beach for awhile, and then pulled up two beach chairs on a remote part, and relaxed.  We took a short nap on the beach and thoroughly enjoyed it!

After enjoying the beach and getting burned a little bit (oops!  🙂 ), we went back to the shopping area, had some conch fritters for lunch, wandered around for another hour or so, and then took a cab back to the ship.  They were having a big splash and belly flop contest there at the pool when we got there which was actully pretty funny!  What people will do for a bucket of beer is astounding!  🙂

We set sail for Nassau at about 5pm.  We went down to the Crossings Main Dining Room and had a wonderful dinner of fish and prime rib.  The desserts were awesome too!

After a wonderful dinner, we went to the theater for a hilarious night of comedy by Joe Bronzi.  We laughed until our sides hurt!  After that, we stayed in the theater for a crazy version of the Newlywed/Not-so Newlywed game.  They had couples sign up and picked 4.  1 had only been married for 2 days, 1 for 3 years, 1 for 15 years, and 1 for 61 years.  We had a great time seeing if our answers matched as well.   🙂

After the shows, we went up to the top deck buffet and had wonderful crepes!  Once we were stuffed on those, we went and listened to karaoke until about 11pm and then went to bed.  What a wonderful day!

Today we slept in, got up slowly, had a quick Burger King breakfast (I know, it doesn’t sound very good, but that’s the only open place close to us that wouldn’t cost an arm and a leg to eat at).  We then packed our luggage and took a short cab ride to the Port of Miami.  We got there at about 11, checked our luggage for on-board stateroom delivery, and sailed right through US Customs to the waiting room to board the ship.  At noon, we boarded and explored the ship and ate a bunch of food (yum! 🙂 ) until about 2pm when we were allowed to go to our rooms and unpack.  What a smooth and easy process.

The ship is very beautiful.  It has 13 decks and has a running track, full production theater, 3 pools, 6 hot tubs, 7 restaurants, a number of bars, a casino, gift shops, many stores, an art gallery, fully furnished fitness room, large spa, and much more.  For first-time cruisers, we were very impressed.  This ship (the Norwegian Sky), it is not as big as some of the other ships, but we found it wonderful!  What we liked was the dynamic of the passengers.  Probably due to the time of year, there were many older folks on-board.  There were hardly any kids (we wouldn’t bring our kids on a cruise like this one – Disney would be the only option), and some that were around our age.

Once our luggage was delivered, we got unpacked rested for a bit.  We had an inside room right in the center of the ship.  We were not sure how we would handle the motion of the boat, but it turned out that in our room, we couldn’t feel a thing.  Whew!  🙂

Our stateroom was very small but had all the amenities that we needed.  We didn’t need much more.  All we did was store our stuff and sleep in there.  We were surprised at how well the the rooms were designed for how small they were.  🙂

After we got all unpacked, we rested for a bit read the daily newsletter they give you about what’s going on on-board, and then went up to the 11th and 12th decks for the set sail BBQ and party at 5pm.

We ate again until we were stuffed sat out on the deck in sun chairs, listened to the live music, did a little people watching, and looked on as we sailed out of the Port of Miami and into the ocean!

Once we were underway and very full again from eating (this is a standard theme with every meal)  🙂 we wandered around the ship some more and figured out where everything was.

At 8:30, we went to the opening show at the theater called “Soul Rockin’ Nights” where the production company on-board performed and sang songs from the 50’s all the way through to the 90’s and dressed up accordingly.  It was a great night of entertainment. During the production, we started hitting some higher seas, and we could feel the boat moving around.  We were nervous for a bit, but we quickly adjusted and even though we could feel it, neither of us got sick and we were fine for the rest of the trip.  We found out that calm seas are 3-6 foot waves, so what we hit tonight must have been larger!  😐  After the production, we went ate some more 🙂 and watched Karaoke until about 11pm.  We were very surprised!  The singers we heard tonight were actually VERY good!  It was quite entertaining and not hard on the ears!  🙂

Today we started our cruise vacation!  We flew out early to Miami and what a nice feeling when we got there!  It was a little rainy, but cleared up shortly thereafter.  Last week, it was in the 30’s there (totally abnormal for the area).  Today… It was in the 70’s and warm!  We were so excited to be out of the snow and cold!

We took a cab to the hotel and got checked in.  We got a killer deal on a room in the downtown Miami Hilton through Priceline so we were able to stay almost within walking distance of the port.  We were very hungry, so we went out exploring to find some food.

They have a great free transit rail system to take people places all around downtown to places they need to go.  We found out, however, that free also means lots of homeless people and others begging for money from tourists after it gets dusk.  It made us very nervous, but we made it through.

We found our way down to a popular tourist place called Bayside Marketplace and ate dinner at Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Company.  The food was great!  I had Mahi Mahi and shrimp, and Angela had a Mahi Mahi sandwich.  The place is pretty famous and is all around the movie “Forrest Gump.”  They have a lot of memorabilia from the movie.  Even at the tables, they have license plates (below) that if you want your waiter to keep serving you, you turn the plate to Run Forrest Run, and if you are done, you turn the plate to Stop Forrest Stop!  🙂

After getting full of fish, we walked around the market for awhile and looked at everything.  There was a lot of Caribbean music playing and it was funny to watch the VERY old people dancing in front of a stage sweating up a storm.  We thought that some of them might actually have a heart attack!

We bought a churro and some ice cream cones for dessert and then headed back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep before getting on the ship tomorrow!  We are SO excited!

Today we picked up Angela’s Mom and Dad at the airport for their 2-week visit!  The kids were so excited to have them come and spend time with us.  When they came in the front door, they were pretty much mauled by 3 excited granddaughters and 2 excited grandsons!  Although we saw them back in June, you would have thought that we hadn’t seen them for 10 years!  🙂

Part of the reason we flew them out to see us is that Angela and I are going on a cruise to the Bahamas next week!  We are VERY excited!  We take off early on Sunday morning to Miami and then return Friday.  We’re going on Norwegian and will sail from Miami and visit 3 islands before coming back.  It’s a short cruise but one that I’m sure we will enjoy very much!  We are very excited to relax and not have to worry about anything!  🙂  Here is our ship (Norwegian Sky)…

We’ll take tons of pictures and post some of them on our blog (when we get back).  No computer usage while we are gone!  🙂  We’ll probably even make a DVD of our cruise!

Well, winter’s here!  Over the last few days, it’s been in the teens and been snowing.  Right now, we have over a foot of snow on the ground but the drifts and piles from shoveling are topping our mailbox!  We are shoveling our driveway at least 3 times a day.  Fortunately the snow stopped this morning and we have a break!  Only 71 days until Spring!  🙂

Happy New Year all!  It’s hard to believe that it’s already been a year!  2009 went fast!  It was full of wonderful activities and it seems like they were yesterday!

We spent New Years Eve Day and Evening playing!  The whole family and Grandma and Grandpa Halliday went down to the Field Museum of Natural History in the morning.  The Grandparents had never been there (only to the Science and Industry Museum) and we all had a great time!  We had to take two cars down there because we take up the entire van with just our family!  🙂  We walked around and enjoyed the museum, ate lunch at McDonalds’s (kids love doing that) and walked more until we were totally worn out!

After coming home, we lounged around and watched movies until it was time for Brittany and Sarah to go to a new years eve party they had been invited to.  While they were gone, the rest of us ate food, rested, watched more movies, made some noise as the new year came and then went to bed!  🙂  We picked up Sarah and Brittany at about 12:30am or so.

Today (New Years Day) we put Grandma and Grandpa back on the Amtrak train and sent them home.  The kids didn’t want them to go and tried to get them to stay!  🙂  On the way back from the train station, Zachary was very quiet and actually teared-up because he missed his grandma and grandpa already.  🙁  He’s such a sweetheart!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Today, Angela and I took the entire day and went out on an extended date!  We had a TON of fun, and it was nice to be together and not have to worry about the kids.  Grandma and Grandpa took great care of them all day.

We started off the day on a great note by going up to the temple.  After our session there, we did a little bit of shopping at the LDS bookstore near there.  We got a DVD and a couple of other things before driving toward downtown Chicago for lunch.

Lunch was absolutely amazing!  Angela likes to watch Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, a show on Food Network where people submit recommendations of their favorite restaurants around the country, and then the show visits them and checks them out.  Before we went, Angela looked up to see where a good place to eat would be and this one came highly recommended from this show.

The name of the place is “Smoque” and they specialize in BBQ.  It really was a dive, but it was BUSY!  The place had holes and scratches in the walls, cement scratched-up floor, old cheap tables and chairs, the front door was worn out, etc.  We couldn’t believe it until we tasted the food!  Angela got a brisket basket with beans, slaw, and macaroni and cheese, and I got a half-slab of St. Louis ribs with slaw, fries, and macaroni and cheese.  It is by far the best BBQ ribs and brisket we have ever had!  🙂 🙂  We would definitely recommend this place to anyone!   http://www.smoquebbq.com.

After that, we went shopping for awhile at the Premium Outlets in Aurora.  We wore ourselves out just wandering about with no screaming or complaining children yanking on our sleeves!  🙂  It was nice to just be together!

After shopping, we went and saw the movie “Sherlock Holmes” at the theater.  It was a really good film.  I probably liked it (actually I definitely liked it) better than Angela did, although afterward, she wasn’t as skeptical as when we first went.  🙂

What a wonderful day!