México

Peak-a-boo

The Arch

Aww.. Lover's Beach..

No comment.

Mmm.. a sparkling ocean..

Our love for "The Office"
(it was a fun restaurant that was located on the beach)

I hadn't been in a hammock for a long time, so this was super fun :)

In the swimming pools, they had fire pits that they lit every night

Sweet beds to lay on!

Aww.. Mexico. This was a surprise vacation! Nathalie, my sis-in-law, invited us to come along with my brother and her to Mexico and we happily accepted :) Thanks Nat! It was so much fun to spend time with them. Libby, who had just gotten home from Taiwan, came as well-- so it was a fun-filled family vacation.

Lately our blog seems to just contain vacations. It's because trips are the only fun things we do ;)
Unfortunately my sis-in-law has quit her job with Delta, so our exotic vacations have come to an end.. but it was super fun while it lasted.. :)

Hawai'i!

We biked down the mountain after we saw the sunrise

We saw the sunrise at Haleakala volcano

Us at a Luau in Maui

Went on a helicopter ride with friends

Napali Coast

Waimea Canyon

Trevor jumped a couple times from this cliff

Poipu Beach, Kauai

We went to Kauai and Maui in November. It was dang fun! It was absolutely beautiful and the weather was so perfect. Some of the highlights of the trip were: laying out on the beach and listening to the ocean, eating a Puka dog (a famous specialty hot dog made only in Kauai) -- yum yum! We also went to Queen's Bath, Wailea Falls, went on a fun helicopter ride that toured the Napali coastline and Waimea Canyon (it was a little scary at first, but it turned out to be awesome). In Maui, we visited Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Kay and stayed with them for a couple of days. They are such great people-- it was so fun to visit them! Also in Maui, we woke up at 2 am to go on a tour of the Haleakala Volcano and see the sunrise. It was beautiful but very cold! And rainy and windy! But as soon as we got on our bikes, it cleared up and got pretty warm, especially the further we went down. It was such a great vacation! We hope we can go back to Hawaii one day :)

TOKYO, JAPAN

This is the Tokyo Imperial Palace where the Emperor of Japan lives

Downtown Tokyo... unique building eh? We thought so too

Tokyo

TAIWAN

The National Palace Museum

Love this happy Buddha!

Celebrating Libby's 25th birthday at this sweet restaurant she suggested. I miss you so much Libby!!

This is at Sun Moon Lake. We first took a boat to get across the lake, then we rode cable cars up over the mountain.. totally fun!

Sun Moon Lake... it was very pretty here

View from the top of Taipei 101

Us with Taipei 101 in the background.. the 2nd tallest building in the world

The Taipei Temple

This was at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall

There were 7-Elevens on almost every street corner.. Trev was happy about that :)

Trevor loved this big drum! If only he could have played it...

We went to Taiwan and Tokyo this past week and had an amazing time! My sister Libby has been living in Taiwan because she is teaching English at a school there. She won't be back until January.. I can't hardly wait til she gets back, I miss her so much!! We were able to be there for her 25th birthday! Yay! It was so good to see and visit her and see what she has been up to. She planned some really fun things for us to do with the help of her friend, Claire (Thanks Claire!). We went to the National Museum that had amazing art and sweet artifacts that have been collected from ancient Chinese emperor's. We also went to Taipei 101. That was pretty cool. It was fun to go at night. The view from the top was amazing. There is a huge mall in the lower levels of the building. Earlier that day, we visited the Taipei temple. We didn't go inside, but we went into the visitor's center and met a missionary from Kaysville and she knew my cousins, so small world. On the way back from looking at the temple, we tried this smoothie drink thing that was shaved ice with mango puree-- that was super yums! We also got a bing-sha (not sure how to spell it, but that's how it's pronounced!) and that was yummy too! The next day we went to Sun Moon Lake. It was really beautiful there. At night it got a little foggy that made everything look even more magical :) There are many temples that surround the lake and we were able to visit them. That night we celebrated Libby's birthday at a fun restaurant. Trevor ordered an interesting meal :) Lots of weird-looking tofu and interesting vegetables.. all of us got a laugh out of it.

After we visited Libby, we flew to Tokyo for a few days and toured around downtown Tokyo and saw more interesting temples and pagodas and visited the night markets-- those were fun! Many Asians repeatedly came up to us and asked, "America?" "USA?" We had to laugh. One Asian man that we became acquainted with, spoke very broken English, but he conveyed that he loves to talk to Americans so he can practice his English. In Taiwan, we definitely stood out and people stared at us but we didn't mind. We only saw a very small handful of Caucasians there.

It was a great experience and we are so happy that we were able to go and visit my dear sweet sister and experience some of Asia. And we are especially happy and thankful to our awesome sister-in-law that got us awesome buddy passes that enabled us to have business class on the very long flight.. Yay!!

Out with the Pool, In with the Grass

So we finally got started on our landscaping. We had a bunch of dirt brought in to bring the grade higher, and got sod and sprinklers installed. Also, we have a bunch of boulders to create a raised bed around the front porch. We've been filling in the various beds around the yard little by little, mainly with perennials. So... lotsa work, but it's starting to look pretty nice.

We ran out of money to finish up the front porch, otherwise we'd show that. No previews! :)