Saturday, October 16, 2010

A one year party...




Brady and I recently celebrated our one year anniversary! yahoo! This is us with our cake. We're number #1.
I didn't want us to forget what number anniversary this was...

Brady's pure excitement of the tradition of the once frozen soggy cake that we had to eat...

Is this what I looked night the first time around??


I don't think he really ate this bite-

Since we spoke in church for the special day, we never REALLY got to celebrate! So because we live so close to Long beach and its port, we thought maybe it would be fun to try a cruise.

I, Sammi, was excited for a cruise! The only cruise I had been on is when I was 9ish. And it was classy. I was a kid then and so I did kid things-which were fantastic. Also, I went with my tumbling group and was with my friends. I didn't get sea sick, I face painted all day every day and I wheeled and dealed for neat trinkets on the beach in mehico. Second to good food and fun games, there was truely classy entertainment. It was us! 9-12 yr olds tumbling across the stage to 'Mmm Bop' by the Hanson brothers. Carnival Cruise Line. --Class. What a great cruise! Of course I wanted to go on another one!

Brady also had a fantastic experience on his one cruise that he went on with his family. His was a little different than mine. He experienced the class of the Princess Cruise Line. I have not been on one so I can't do great explaining but he makes it sound neat. Probably not as classy entertainment though.
After much searching from dear husband, he found a weekend that would work and we snatched it. Gosh we were so excited! (I was so excited that I decided it deserved a new suitcase...seeing that my trashy ones were not going to be up to par for this classy cruise-)

We were surprised to find Las Vegas had met up with Carnival Cruise lines! They joined forces apparently. It was fine. It was flashy and las vegasy!



The entertainment was classified as PG and R. And I think it was the ship made by Carnival in 1978. The color scheme was sea foam green, light pink, and red. And it had those white screens with light behind them...you know what i'm talking about. The opaque ones with a simple drawing on them.
We had a cute little room with 2 cute little port holes for windows. Also our room location allowed us to be rocked to sleep each night by the waters.


This is what you call "dressing on the side please"...our waiter Rummel must have misunderstood and thought i said, "only lettuce please". I look pale.



He's ready to stab that fruit

Twinsies! Matching shades!




DAY IN ENSENADA! We met this nice couple who tried to caution us on being too adventurous on our 'Day in Ensenada". Brady speaks spanish, we have stomachs of steel and we
have taken kick boxing classes at Lifetime Fitness. We could handle it.

Our dune buggy to take to the beachy dunes...


The Beach at Ensenada-
Brady's inventive wife- plastic bags make great shoe shields. I had on my new Last Chance purchase. After all we were in Mexico in the sand.


Sammi's daring husband-raw and barefoot complete with a black toes...probably due to something brave he did for me...



The view of Ensenada. (Notice the sandless shoes...we had someone take this for us and brady whispered to me before we got out. "Sammi, take off the bags". Bless his heart for watching out for my popularity.

Our goal of the day---to get Ceviche from the best ceviche cart in the town. The picture guy told us (told brady in Spanish) that the best BEST place to get ceviche was this particular cart. I had never really had ceviche but I'm easy! I like all kinds of foods from all kinds of countries and made by all different kinds of people. This cart was crowded like it was popular. We pushed our way through and I ordered a regular old 'FISH' order. Who knows what kind of fish but "fish" is pretty standard. Well, they were out. But they weren't out of "MIX". So fine, I took "mix" plate. Brady got "Shrimp" because he is more boring than I am. I went over to the 14 yr old who was delivering our orders. I saw him reach in his little dirty boy hands and pull out an octopus!! a real live octopus! Supposedly it was cooked already by 'lemon juice'. ha ha sure I'll take it. He pulled it out and started to chop it. Actually he more like diced it in large dices. Then he pulled out some snails. Large snails. He diced them. Then he pulled out shrimp and diced them and then squid and diced the squid--all in large dices.

Larger dices than I would have liked. He squirted a squirt of ketchup, squoze some lemon and limes and sprinkled some salt and then mixed it up and handed it to me. All with hands that have been who knows where! But that didn't bother me-really it didn't! Maybe though, it should have. I've been to the Middle East and eaten warm goat milk where they have holes in the ground for a toilet, been El Salvador on Center Street in Provo and not have died. After all, although I was in Mexica, I was only 2 hours away from home! Some dirty little hands and 'lemon juice cooked raw fish' didn't scare me.
Brady's concoction---
My octopus tentacles...and lemon juice with ketchup

Still happy and all smiles...the octopus hasn't hit my intestines yet-


View from the top of the ship


Do we look ill yet?


Very disappointed from the smoothie. It was called a kids smoothie. It was rather gross. I asked him to add banana and he said (in his Indian accent), "You are not going to like it, and then you complain." I promised him I would like it. Ok i would have liked it if he would have made it good! It tasted like the end of a concentrated otter pop. Or a melted Slurpee. The Indian drink guy said with a smirk (still in his accent), "That is how it tastes without alcohol...".












The classy entertainment has gone from young girls backflipping across the stage on blue wrestling mats to a nightly performance of Indian's and Phillipinoes dancing choreography to "Amore". Stunning. (as seen from my facial expression)

In conclusion, Brady and I had a great time on our cruise! Maybe we're not cruise people but it was an great weekend. Since my first cruise experience I have discovered that my stomach is a little bit weaker, its not as fun to wheel and deal as I remembered, face painting didn't exist and I get sea sick. You live and you learn. We are still feeling the effects of the mexican delicacies but we make a good sickly pair. And brady makes an even better husband-of-a-sick wife! We enjoyed each others company and reminded ourselves of why we got married! He is my best friend and I am so glad to have him!

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Ok so this takes a lot of thought and effort to figure out all the nooks and crannys and cool gadgets of blogging! No wonder they teach this class at BYU....its just a shame that the only person in my family (family= sammi and brady) who took the class happens to be soundly sleeping on the couch next to me. So---that could be why the picture is still patriotic. Its okay though! Its such a great background and we will be all set for our nations holidays next year! Perfect.

I really have been meaning to start a blog since april 2009. It was just one more reason why I was so happy to get married...ha ha i could now have a blog! Since we just celebrated our 1 year anniversary and also since we live in California, I thought it would be a great time to start! Yahoo! Happy Anniversary to us! This was our first anniversary and our first out of state celebration.

The day, August 8th, just happened to fall on a sunday. And, that sunday happened to be the first "official" sunday we would attend our ward. Well, we soon found out that here in the Newport Beach 2nd ward, they don't like to waste any time getting to know the newby's. So they asked us to speak! What better way to celebrate! I mean really, we couldn't do many other things special on our first anniversary with it falling on a sunday..so why not speak huh? Right of course! We got it over with and before we knew it we were done! (It was a long talk-preparing weekend.) Phew, now its over! I haven't spoken probably since I left primary and hopefully this is my check mark so that I am covered for the next 70 years.

Then we shared a romantic dinner on the red velvet couch and army table. They are great pieces of furniture donated from various kind people. The army table (our white coffee table) has had many good fights and many great soldiers loose their lives. Thanks to the Allen boys who donated there battlefield. Our furniture doubles as a couch/chairs and a coffee table/kitchen table! Two for one deal! Once i figure out how to upload pictures you'll see our quaint 2 piece furniture set.