The Wall's meet the Mexican Riviera!!!

Ya know, I just have to say that cruises are GREAT! Keven and I are not huge travelers, but we definitely agree that cruising has got to be one of the best ways to travel!

Get ready for details from our Mexican Riviera adventures!!

Here we are getting ready to board our ship, The Vision of the Seas!

We learned some fun facts about the Vision of the Seas -- when stood up is as high as the Eiffel Tower and contains 70 Statue of Liberties worth of metal. Crazy!

This is the bay area of Los Angelos we left from. Our ship left about 5 p.m. Sunday evening. We had a great time exploring the ship, adjusting to our sea legs, and watching our ship leave the bay area!

We also got a quick chance to call home to check on our baby girl. She was just fine and after that one phone call I decided that we couldn't call home again because Hannah was just fine but it was too hard for her Mommy!

This is our fun cruise group, Keven and I and his parents, Russ and Sharon! We took this picture at the very front tip of the ship.

This is Keven and I playing with our camera on our first real day at sea! We spent most of the day playing cards, reading books, swimming, etc. It's so nice to have relaxing days like that! We had to dress super formal for dinner that night so Kev and I dolled ourselves up a bit.
That night we went to a show in the theather. They had shows every night! This particular night was a group immitating the Temptations. They did a pretty good job!

Our favorite part was our fun friends we made that night, Debbie, Rick, Barb, and Dan. They were teasing Keven and I about not knowing the Temptation songs. After that we just struck this friendship and enjoyed spending time with these guys during the rest of our trip!
Yahoo for the Temptations!

Here are Russ and Sharon on the boat we took to get to Cabo San Lucas. We all had great luck with no sea sickness. But others of our group did not far so well on this little boat ride.
This was taken on route to Cabo. Once we got there we couldn't walk two steps without being offered some type of fun Mexico tourism stuff. One guy convinced me to come to his shop because he said his bracelets were only a dollar. Then two minutes later is decided they were actually 22 dollars. Silly man.
These lizards are all over and the people in Mexico like to use them to earn money off tourists. They let you hold them, you take a picture, then they ask for money. I didn't even want to hold this lizard, as I am not a reptile fan, but this lady forced it upon me while Keven and Russ laughed. I was worried it would pee on me and they assured me it wouldn't. Well, that was a bunch of bolony! Luckily I was quick and it missed me!
This picture is great! This guy with the guitar followed us several blocks until we went into a restaurant. Then he proceeded to sing the Mexican version of "Margairitaville". It was great, especially since we couldn't understand certain phrases he was saying!
We went to the beach, two actually. One where tourists are not allowed to swim and one where they are. This picture was at the beach where they aren't allowed to swim. But don't worry, Keven had to go check it out. The waves don't look too bad here but they were sooooo strong! I went in far enough to have it reach my ankles and it nearly knocked me over! I can definitely see why some of the beaches in the area are just for looking and not for swimming!

Here we are in Mazatlan. We went a tour of the old and new part of the city. The mountain in the background has one of the highest lighthouses in the world.
We stopped at a boardwalk that goes all along the city beach and there we met some "professional divers". (By professional I mean local citizens who do crazy things for money.) There is a a very high cliff with stairs carved into the rock. These men come around asking for a dollar and then dive off the high cliff into the 5 ft. water below. Each night when we came back to our room we had a different towel creature -- bunnies, swans, and even a flying pig!
Each night they had a different triva or relay game. Keven and I grew to be big fans! The first one we participated in was a T.V. Trivia, seeing who could guess a program by it's intro song. We didn't win that night but Keven got an honorable mention for doing a backflip while trying to impersonate "The Fresh Prince of BelAir". The next evening we partnered up with our new buddies in "The Qwest". You had to do all sorts of crazy thing in a very quick manner. This is me sporting very red lipstick, which I had to leave on some bald man's head.
This is one of my favorite cruise pictures! This is our friend Rick dressed up as a lady. He was hilarious!!! I laugh everytime I picture this!
This is Keven participating in a hula hoop contest, which he totally won!!!

This is us with Kev's parents after we won 1st prize in "The Qwest"!!!
This is from Puerta Vallarta. This spot was definitely the most Americanized. Here I saw a Chili's, McDonalds, Domino's, Starbucks, and Hooters.

Keven and Russ went scubadiving so Sharon and I did a lot of shopping. As we were walking around some guy came up to us and asked if we were from Utah. We said yes, then he asked if we were Mormon. We said yes. He was all excited and I was like, "How did you know we were Mormon?" He said that we were the only ones around wearing long shorts and t-shirts. Alright for being modest!

Here is a sunset from the Vision of the Seas!

This was a parade they did onboard the ship. A staff member represents each nation onboard the ship by parading that nations' flag. It was pretty neat! These were our waiters, Elmer and Debashish. They were singing to us at dinner. They were both super cute and so kind. It was really interesting to learn about their countries -- Elmer is from the Phillippines and Debashish is from India.
Here are our fun friends!! Go Debbie, Barb, Dan, and Rick! Honestly, these were some of the nicest people ever, and we had a blast together! If you go on a cruise, make friends with those around you! It made it so much fun!! We made friends with the people sitting next to us at dinner. They were from Seattle and loved Five Crowns! We also met lots of fellow Jazz fans from Utah!!

That is it!! For the record I would like to write that I was super excited to come home. Loved the cruise, but missed my sweet baby. When we got to our house I ran through the door and Hannah took one look at me and cried. It's like she didn't remember who I was, she wanted nothing to do with me!! Oh, sad was I!! She went to Keven but everytime he tried to hand her to me she would cry and hang around Keven's neck. That was probably one of the saddest stories for 2008.

But no worries, all is well now. It took her about a half hour to forgive me for leaving and now she loves me again. In fact, my non snuggly girl is giving me hugs a lot more these days! And my baby is really a big girl! Keven and I both agree she grew tons while we were away. She can now run, jump, and say bird, & blankie.

4 Days and Counting!!!

It's offical! We leave in 4 days for our cruise! Can you tell we are super excited!!

While we are very excited, we are somewhat sad about our favorite Nanna. We have never left her for this long and this is a long time -- 8 days!!

We know she will be fine. My Mom and sister are coming to take care of her at our house. Plus, Uncle Ray will be here. We keep telling ourselves that she will be getting so much attention that she won't even notice we are gone. I think that statement is more to comfort us then her.

I really have felt good about leaving Hannah, it has just been the last few days that my heart as suddenly taken this sad tugging. Both Keven and I are finding ourselves squeezing in extra hugs, kisses, stories, songs, etc. because of the long stretch we will have without them!

Last night we were playing with our Madsen friends, whom are our heros as parents. Keven asked them if we were still good parents for leaving Hannah on this trip and they said we were still great parents! Thanks guys! We appreicate your vote of confidence!

So with that said, wish us luck! Mexico, here we come! Yahoo for sun, good food, and good times!

It's been awhile..

Wow!! It has been a long while! We have been keeping busy but I have not been a good camera Mom lately. I realized that I took hardly any pictures of Hannah this month! It's like I thought since she was a year old that the picture taking stopped. Well, I am now feeling pumped up to be more dedicated to picture taking!

And here are some of the random happenings of the Wall's from the past week or so.

Dude, who doesn't love Twister!! We had a birthday for the Laurel class at my house a few weeks ago -- hilarious! I haven't played Twister for years but I totally played it up with the girls and I was laughing so hard! It was great!
Here is Hannah after her first fall down our stairs. Poor Hannah! She loves climbing stairs but she has a hard time getting down them. While I was at Young Women's she got away from Keven for just a few mintues and in those few mintues she climbed the stairs and totally fell down, landing on our tile at the bottom. She was pretty scared but within a few mintues she was back climbin the stairs again! Silly girl! She has a bruise on her head, but really I think Keven was more upset then she was! He felt awful!
Yahoo for Maleia's birthday party!! We had a super great time! Hannah met a new friend name Cowan, who is super cute.
These next few picture are great! Gotta love the scramble of little kids for a simple balloon. I was laughing so hard taking these! One yellow balloon and three little girls trying their best to get ahold of it!

This week for Young Women's we made cookbooks for college. I was very excited about how they turn out so I took a picture. Super cute huh!!

Well, that is it! Life is good so we can't complain! We leave to go on our cruise in a week and a half! Gotta love that! Hannah is talking up a storm, I just wish I could understand what she is saying! I have come to recognize "Ray", "Go", "Boo" - for her bear or ball, and "Ta dah". Keven is working hard everywhere he goes! And he has become quite the farmer! I will have to take picture of our garden because it looks great! Keven re-routed our sprinklers and started planting seeds on Saturday. He is offically the cutest farmer I know! I am doing the same old stuff. Love playing Mommy! Finished up the Brighton Manual I was working on and it looks great! I am enjoying gettting to know the new Brighton Staff. Love hanging out with the Young Women in my ward, they keep me very humble. My brother Matt is doing great on his mission! He left for Wisconsin yesterday and we got to chat with him on the phone. He sounds so wonderful and anxious to serve -- how great!!