Am I an Old Lady??

I've always been told my whole adult life that I have a Mary Poppins purse, but I never realized until today just how bad it was. I was looking for lotion and realized I have a whole pharmacy in there! I just barely cleaned out my purse AND I'm not even a mom yet! Do your purses look like this too??

- rolaids

- neo sporin

- ibuprofen

- pamprin

- girly products

- cough drops

- decongestant pills

- 3 different lotions

- chapsticks/glosses/etc

- q-tip

- travel tissues

(not to mention the flashlight, multiple electronics cords, gum, mints, calculator, pens, headphones, ipod, wallet, bobby pins, etc. that are hiding in there too!)

I'm so Vain, I Probably Think this Blog is About ME!

I finally got the pics back from that fun little photo shoot I did at the beginning of March. I had a total blast doing it! However, I'm not one of those people who puts a professional picture as my profile picture and expects everyone to tell me how good I look. Blech! I just threw up in my mouth a little. BUT, I am slightly reluctantly putting some on here because you asked, because it's my blog, and because, really...what else am I going to do with them?? Mother's day presents?!
OH! And the photographer who organized the whole shoot is Shellee Draper from St George. She is amazing!!! We've actually become new bff's. :) She did Mark and Laci's wedding and we loved her. She did such a great job! We loved how the pictures turned out and she and her husband were a lot of fun to work with, as well as very professional and organized. Check her out here!

Hola! Su Casa es Mi Casa?

Captain's Log:

Sat - arrived a couple of hours early, boarded the ship, and wandered around; booked an excursion and found out my card was blue and not gold NOT because I am Canadian, but because I am a first time Carnival cruiser. Who knew? Ate 3 desserts at dinner, went to the opening evening show, danced? and slept.

Sun - layed out on deck and people watched for approx 7 hrs, only left for brief moments to get more food, napped, went to the Formal Dinner night, danced? and slept.

Mon - got up early and went on a wicked fun zip line excursion! seriously, I felt like I was on a Real World/Road Rules challenge and I kicked butt! zip lines, rappeling, rock climbing, bouldering, ladders, rope bridges, swinging bridges, hiking, super long zip lines...so much fun! Was nicknamed "Ginger" and "Sabrosa" by the local workers; ate everything they offered at the end of the exursion. Walked around in Cabo, ate our weight in ceviche, guacamole, and shrimp tacos, walked on the beach, laughed at Emily when she fell getting into the water taxi, napped, skipped dinner bc we were still so full, got ice cream cones, went to the hypnotist shows and watched Missy become the star of the show and a ship celebrity! danced at the deck party, slept.

Tues - slept in a little, went to shore, attempted/paid to snorkel but didn't do it bc of the jelly fish, laughed as the little asian posse on our water taxi fell in the water getting off the taxi at their insisted location of Lover's Beach, chased down the water taxi to leave that beach early, didn't even try to barter for a cheaper banana boat ride bc we were so excited; 4 grown women on a giant inflatable banana, laughing hysterically and getting dumped in the ocean off a huge wave that the boat pulling us took a jump off of; walked around and bought cool earrings, ate super bomb tacos al pastor, back to the ship, went to the "R" rated hypnotist show and watched our friends make fools of themselves, danced, slept.

Wed - back at sea, super windy and rocky in the morning, went to the dining room for breakfast, read sitting in a window, napped, read, ate lunch, went to the Newlywed/Oldywed Show, played bingo, napped, ate dinner, sang karaoke, went dancing, slept.

Thurs - got up at 6:30am with the rest of the foreigners for immigration, came back to the room and slept, ate breakfast, left the ship, said goodbye to San Diego, Mexico, and the big ship, and drove home. ROCKED for the next 3 days and felt land sick!! Amazing trip though!

Dirt Biking and Easter

Yes we did watch Conference on Sunday and the boys did make it to the Priesthood session Saturday night...but we may have had a little fun during the Saturday sessions and are now going to make up for it. So worth it though! Thank you internet! I haven't shared personal pics for quite a while, it seems, so here are some pics of our wonderful Easter weekend! My bros came home for the weekend, so we took the dirt bikes out, dyed eggs, watched conference, and ate a little (early) birthday cake for Michael's birthday. It was soooo much fun, but we all got sunburned and looked pretty awesome with our burned faces and farmers tans at the end of the day. Don't worry - I wore long sleeves so as not to mess up my tan lines for the cruise. Very important, I know.

Mom met us out there and brought us lunch

Michael looking pretty hard core

Me and Daniel

(oops, did I forget to mention I have a new boyf?)

We even got Mom on the new 125!

Laci's the luckiest lady to get that for eternity

Better

No really, I swear he likes taking pictures with me...

Birthday cake after Easter dinner. We're a totally normal family, aren't we??

Guess Who?

Guess who's going here...

On this...

In this many days??

This guy!!

Don't tell Anyone!

It's true. I'm an undercover hopeless romantic. Not the roses and fancy dinners and princesses in castles kind of romantic, just a girl who loves a good love story. I have to admit that as much as I sometimes like to play like a boy, at the end of the day I am a girl. I looooove love stories and I just finished that Pioneer Woman blog story that I mentioned in my previous post. It was so cute and I love love love that it is a true story (and it's being made into a movie). After I finished the story, and finished giggling and sighing all at the same time, I had a few thoughts.

-Does everyone who's found their "one" feel like they have a love story?
-Is it more like a personal fairy tale?
-Could everyone essentially write a story like this where they tell their tale of when they found their love?

Because when I think about it, I think about how fun the beginning of a relationship is. How you get so excited to see each other, how you can't get enough of each other, how you get the butterflies and the emotions that you try so hard not to give in to, but you just can't help it! How you love everything about their face, or the way you fit into their "nook," or the fact that you spend hours together doing nothing, but you're totally satisfied. And how can you possibly make those feelings last for 50 years??

There were choice phrases from the story that I looove and I was just hoping that it's true that we all get our own personal fairy tale. I don't want the knights in shining armor and white horses kind of thing. Bleh. But I'd take a good "hiney tingle" or something like this: "...daily, he poured pitchers and pitchers of affection and love into all the divots and dings and craters that California and James had created. Filled them up with a rich, thick syrup…with a sweet, soothing salve. A month in the arms of Marlboro Man and every void in my gut was filled, and then some." That's how all you married people feel, right? Right??

Team Ryan Hess

I don't know how many of you have been following Ryan's blog, but he is a friend of mine from college. He was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma on my birthday last year. He went into remission a couple of months ago, but the cancer is back. They are organizing a 40 day fast for Ryan.

I wanted to pass the information along to anyone who would like to participate in this fast for my friend. He's an amazing guy and we want to see him beat this and raise his beautiful family!

40 Day Fast:

For those of you who are not aware of how this works, one person prayerfully fasts for one day and then the next person starts where they left off. This way there is a continual fast going on. We are going to start this on the 1st of April. So let's say 7:00 PST the night before our day until 7:00 PST of our day. We all understand that some of us can't fast, but I think there are enough of us that we can continue this.

If you are interested, please email me at teamryanhess@gmail.com so I can send you the link to sign up.
PLEASE feel free to let people know that may be interested...