FHE Pumpkin Carving

J A C K - O - L A N T E R N : a carved pumpkin, turnip or beet, 

associated chiefly with the holiday of H A L L O W E E N. 

This year we were fortunate enough to carve pumpkins with the Garlicks!

It was seriously such a fun time! 

We had them over for dinner, then we went to town on our pumpkins!

First, Michael and I had to meet at the pumpkin patch up the street. 

However, we don't have any children, so the classic pumpkin 

photo shoot was just of my dear, adorable husband!

Just look at those eyes and tell me he isn't perfect!

You can't. 

He would be upset if I didn't post the picture of myself as well...

Sooo...

P U T  O N  Y O U R  R E A D I N G  G L A S S E S!

I really wanted to do something amazing this year, but my mind isn't very creative... 

(Michael will be giving the creativity gene to our kids)

So I settled with something simple and super ridiculous!

Michael Garlick did the classic jack-o-lantern, 

and Michael Linley's pumpkin turned into a super freaky face! 

Jill ended up painting her pumpkin! It turned out so totes cute!

                Michael Linley's                                                              Mine

                Michael Garlick                                                         Olivia Garlick

 

This was Jill's adorable pumpkin!

 Then Olivia met her own little pumpkin! 

T O T E S  S U P E S  A D O R B S!!

St. Maartin

S T.  M A A R T I N

On St. Maartin, we spent a lot of time touring the island.

It was such an interesting tour too because half of the island is French, 

while the other half is Dutch!

We ported on the Dutch half of the island and got a tour guide who knew more about the United States of America than we did!

She would stump us on questions a lot!

This was the first stop on our tour! Pearl, our guide, told us that the water behind us wasn't as clear as it can get! On that particular day, the ocean was pretty stirred up, but you could still see a chip in your toenail polish! So gorgeous!

Stop #2 on our tour! Behind us is where a lot of famous people keep their 

M I L L I O N  D O L L A R yachts! 

Pearl was telling us that is where Victoria Secret and Bill Gates keep their Yachts!

You can rent them out but it would cost you $350,000 A  D A Y!

This ship was wrecked in the middle of a hurricane in 1995 

and they have never taken the time to dig it out!

 Although we didn't want to go the nude beach, our tour guide 

pretty much forced us to stop by this one for a moment. 

On this side of the beach, clothes were required

B U T...

On the other side of this sign, clothes were optional!

Although we were super uncomfortable going to this beach, it was probably the prettiest beach of them all!

We honestly didn't see that many old people!

Other than 2 fat older men, that was about all we saw thank goodness!

These 2 pictures are pictures of the beach we did end up hanging out at most of our afternoon!

Michael and Shawn found 9 sand dollars here!

That was probably one of the highlights of our trip!

How often do you find a real sand dollar from the bottom of the ocean?

Our last picture taken on the cruise! We were sad to leave, but so happy we did it!

We highly recommend going as a young couple before starting a family!

Day 5: St. Kitts

S T.  K I T T S

Basically while on the islands, we made it a point to spend most of our days at the beaches. It would be nice to be able to tour every island but let's be honest, the beach is where it's at!

On St. Kitts, we spent most of our day at the beach snorkeling our lives away!

This kid loved seeing everything in the water! 

My favorite part is that his back is still a lot tanner than his front! 

After we spent some time at the beach, we walked around the shops for a while hoping to get a better feel for the culture of this island! We got a couple of souvenirs and headed back to the 

C A R N I V A L  V A L O R!

On our way back, a native threw his pet monkeys on me demanding I pay him for a picture!

Although normally I would have been furious, the moment they jumped on me, the biggest smile crept across my face! They made me so happy! 

So, more for my sake than yours, I will post every picture we paid for!

When they first jumped on me, the one on my shoulder ripped my earring out of my ear and tried to eat it! It didn't hurt or anything, but it definitely shocked me!

Then, the man who so generously forced them 

upon me placed the monkey on my head. I was beyond thrilled!

 He wanted to be in my picture...

I didn't pay him for this one... O O P S!

I just wanted to keep them! I was so amused!

They even had on newborn diapers! 

A monkey in a diaper?

Probably the cutest thing E V E R!

Day 4: St. Lucia

S T.  L U C I A

St. Lucia was such an adventure! Although we didn't book any excursions with the ship, we still all really wanted to Z I P  L I N E.

This was definitely my favorite adventure we had! 

They natives kept on making fun of me because of my strange comments!

It was so fun!

We have tons of videos, but for some reason they didn't transfer from the Gibbs computer.

So enjoy us in our gangster gear:

It was so fabulous! We took N I N E different zip lines right over/through the 

R A I N  F O R R E S T!

My favorite part of all the days was walking out of the ship for the
 first time and seeing the island we were!
H O L Y   G U A C A M O L E! 

Seriously some of these sights are straight up breath taking! 

St. Lucia was definitely one of my favorites to wake up too!

I mean, L O O K  A T  T H A T  W A T E R!!

That night we came home to our usual towels folded in crazy characters, but this night we came home to our favorite characters of the trip!

We got H A N G I N G   M O N K E Y ⇡

&

Katie and Shawn got 

S E D U C T I V E  R A B B I T ⇣

After dinner that night, we went to the dance club where we spent the night dancing to the best of the 80's!

This may have been Michael's favorite thing we did on the ship!

He L O V E S 80's dancing! 

The first song we listened to was something they don't play at Area 51, but as soon as they played a song he was used to, it was right back to his normal dance moves! It was like a switch in his head! I loved watching it happen!

General Conference October 2013

General Conference weekend is a big weekend for most L D S members. 

For our family, this conference was extra special!

My sister, Juli and her boyfriend, Jeff decided to tie the knot a few weeks prior and although my sister isn't one to have all the attention, she had a little family B B Q. 

This meant that 2 of my sisters would be able to travel back to Utah to celebrate! 

I love these ladies so much! 

Most of mine and Michael's time was spent bouncing between family conference traditions. 

It is surprisingly very difficult when both parents live less than 5 minutes apart!

We were able to spend the first session with my family, then run to Scera Park for the 

S E M I - A N N U A L  R I D I N G  U L T I M A T E  F R I S B R E E  G A M E. 

Oh no, they don't mess around either. 

(Sorry for the poor quality)

Then it was back to my parents house for the BBQ!

We were able to see so many family members we haven't seen in so long, and even got to do a special musical number for the beautiful couple. 

I  W O N T  P O S T  T H E  M U S I C A L  N U M B E R  F O R  F E A R  O F 

 S C A R I N G  O F F  A N Y  P O S S I B L E  R E A D E R S!  

YOU ARE SO WELCOME!

...but here is a picture of Mike playing badmitten...

:)

No he is not posing... I am just awesome at capturing the moments that matter most!

Hooray for time with family, and for hearing the words of the prophets! 

Hair

Mikey always explains to me how long, luscious, and beautiful his hair was in high school, and I do not think that i
 understood the reality of it until a friend posted this picture of him on facebook:

H E  I S  A  L I O N!!

Look at it! It is huge! 

It has now become his life goal to convince me to love the locks... I'm not so sure it is going to happen! 

I will admit that that hair is pretty impressive!
If nothing else I am happy our kids will have our thick hair!

Day 3: Barbados

B A R B A D O S

Barbados wasn't my favorite island. I would by lying if I said it was.

It was really pretty, but the natives were so overwhelming, you had to walk forever to get some peace and quiet!

Today we got off the boat and headed to find a taxi. 

Right from the beginning you are bombarded by taxi drivers screaming at each other trying to get their vans full! It seriously felt like we were fresh meat and they hadn't eaten in weeks.

Although the taxi ride was stressful, this view made up for it.

Unfortunately, it was 2 seconds of bliss before we were surrounded by people asking to rub aloe vera on our bodies! We ended up ignoring them and getting on our snorkeling gear as quick as possible! They told us that if we swim out pretty far, we would be able to see S E A  T U R T L E S! 

So we did, and were able to see 3 of them! 

They were my favorite thing to see while snorkeling!

Such magnificent creatures!

Upon our arrival back at the beach, 

Shawn told us that if we walk a little ways down, 

we wouldn't be surrounded by so many people. 

So we did and basically had our own private beach! 

If you ask Michael what his favorite part of the trip was, he would tell you it was snorkeling! We couldn't keep this kid away for more than 10 minutes! He loved it so much! 

His back was the only thing that burned from being above the surface of the water most of the time! He was like a little kid! Cutest thing ever!

 Finally some peace and quiet on our own little beach.

 This is where we would spend the majority of our evenings. 

We had given up on the shows at this point and were completely content spending our time here!

Basically if we weren't dancing at the club, we were disturbing the peace with random outbursts of frustration!

Day 2: Sea Day

D A Y  A T  S E A

After such an adventurous day on St. Johns, all of us were looking forward to a day to sleep in a little bit. Lucky for us, we had booked rooms on the inside layer of the ship meaning we didn't have a single window in our cabins. 

It could have been 1:00 in the afternoon when we woke up and have absolutely no idea. 

Needless to say, with the rock of the ship and the completely undisturbed darkness, sleep came easy.

Day 2 was our day to stay on the ship.

We were traveling to the most south island (B A R B A D O S) we were to visit on our trip this day.

We slept in a little, got breakfast, and headed to the highest deck for some miniature golf.

Yep. M I N I A T U R E  G O L F. On a ship. In the middle of the ocean.

Crazy right??

This is just on the deck of the ship... Nothing but open water for miles!

I can definitely see why people thought the world was flat!

Once we got up there, we heard they were doing a "H O L E  I N  O N E" competition.

Michael and Shawn both entered, but neither of them made it very far!

The first guy to hit made it in with ease...

He looked like he was retired and had tons of time on his hands to golf though.

Although Michael and Shawn didn't stand a chance, it was still fun to participate in some of the onboard competitions! 

Bless their little hearts...

After a not so competitive competition, we headed down to the lobby to play 

S C A T T E R G O R I E S with some fellow shipmates. 

The worker leading the game was from the United Kingdom and had such a thick accent! Katie and I found it to be so entertaining!

He was really fond of the term "S Q U A S H Y." 

We were also drinking smoothies that I guess looked like alcoholic beverages because he kept telling us to remember to keep it clean like we were going to use inappropriate answers... 

We were the least of his worries. 

The drinks we were drinking though were generally made for little kids, 

but look at how cute they are:

Once Scattergories finished, we continued on with Charades. 

It turned out that only the 4 of us wanted to play so naturally we picked boys vs. girls.

G I R L S  W O N  B Y  A  L A N D  S L I D E!

It wasn't even a competition really, but they boys put forth a valiant effort! :)

Then it was up to the Lido deck where they did the hairiest man competitions. 

They used the term S A S Q U A T C H  to describe this man, but personally, I don't think the term does him justice!

I give you our winner...

That evening was our first fancy evening on the cruise ship. We had a couple, but I only took pictures from the first. O O P S!

This is a picture of us at dinner! 

They served us the most expensive meals on the fancy evenings!

I got to eat Lobster again! YAY!

All throughout the cruise, they ask you to take probably 1,000 pictures. 

We generally turned them down because they would place people in the 

M O S T  A W K W A R D  P O S E S  E V E R!!

Here is our version:

T O T E S  S U P E S  A W K S

We ended our night in the dance club where we went absolutely crazy!

We ended up clearing the dance floor.

I guess everyone was so impressed with our moves that they didn't feel worthy to share the floor with us! :D