Michael and Roquel's wedding 11.8.2008

I know it's been almost 2 weeks since the wedding, but with moving and trying to find jobs it's been really tough to update my Blog as often as I'd like. Michael Corral is Alex's first cousin. His mom and Alex's mom are sisters and they are just 2 months apart. Michael and Roquel are so perfect for each other. They are so madly in love with each other and we just want them to know that we wish them happiness and love for a lifetime! We love you guys! Here are a few pictures from their wedding day at the Logan, UT temple.

Playin with the kitties. . .

Maya, my parent's cat, had her second litter of kittens 3 1/2 weeks ago and they have started to walk EVERYWHERE! There are 4 of them: 3 dark and one white just like Maya. They all have pretty blue eyes like their mama too. Maya moved them from the box to under mom and dad's bed last week. Caleb just loves to see them...not HOLD them, just see them and let them crawl on him.

My New Car!

So...it's nothing fancy, BUT it's cute and gets EXCELLENT gas mileage! In fact, on the way home from Ogden where we bought it, it got 40.1 mpg! It is a 2006 Ford Focus, 20K miles, 5 Speed, Maroon, tinted windows coming soon, CLEAN title, and a steal of a deal! I LOVE IT!

Making a Cake with Caleb

Can I just say how much I L-O-V-E my nephews! Between Lucas and Caleb I don't know which one makes me laugh more! Parker, Heather, and Caleb came home to Burley for the week for job interviews so Alex and I have had a lot of time to spend with Caleb. Since we last saw him in August 2 1/2 months ago, his vocabulary has increased by like 200% no lie! He says the funniest things and sometimes with the funniest attitude (which isn't always good, but cute). Mom asked me to make a cake for Sunday dessert and I figured hey, why not have Caleb help me? It would be great bonding time! Sure enough Caleb happily accepted, drug a chair over to stand on, and said "You Help Me?!" He helped me crack the eggs, measure the oil and water, and stir it all up with a spoon and then with the electric mixer. He kept looking up at me and saying "You Help Me?!" I couldn't stop smiling! I love that kid!

New Hair Color

So I needed a change....I've had the same hair color since before I moved to Hawaii 7 months ago! I am now a dark DARK brown almost black and I love it! What do you think?

Garrett's last High School football game

I am so glad we were able to make it to Garrett's last football game of his High School career. Garrett is my little brother, #1, baby of the family, and it's his senior year. He is no lie the star of the football team. He makes almost EVERY tackle, and the radio announcers can't stop talkin about his skill! He has the biggest heart of anyone on the football team and he deserves some serious compliments! Aunt Jo and Uncle Ted drove all the way from Willard, Utah so watch him also. It was so fun even though Burley lost 49-13.

A day with Lukie Tookie

After our week long trip in Puerto Penasco, Mexico, it was finally time to make our way back "home" to Idaho. We got to thinking that it would be faster and BETTER to go through Las Vegas so we did. Of course we couldn't just drive THROUGH Las Vegas without stopping for a visit with Robyn, John, Lucas, and Tibo! We got to their house Sunday night at about 11:00 PM. Fortunately they were still awake because they had just gotten home from their softball game a few minutes before. Robyn asked that since we were gonna be in town until Tuesday morning if we wouldn't mind babysitting Lucas instead of taking him to the day care all day Monday. Are you kidding me!?! We NEVER get to see that kid so we gratefully accepted! WHAT A DAY! Alex and I learned how to prioritize our time...enough said. Our day consisted of playing ALL morning long, putting Lukie down for his 2 1/2 hr nap, feeding him mac and cheese for lunch, giving him a bath, dressing him, playing some more, hittin up the mall, wrestling with Tibo, taking another nap, and playing some more! He is such a handful now that he's walking but it was so fun to see his personality shine through! He loves his Uncle Alex and Aunt Jayne! His favorite thing to do was pull up my shirt so he could see my belly button and then tickle me! It was the cutest thing ever!!! We love you Lucas and can't wait to see you again next time!

Puerto Penasco, Mexico

Our time in Maui came to an end...but not the fun! We flew from Maui to San Diego where we picked up our truck that we shipped back. Fron San Diego we drove to Phoenix, AZ where we met our family and friends who were taking us to Mexico! They had to drive through Phoenix anyway so it worked out perfectly! We left our truck with Alex's good friend Kyle who lives in Mesa, AZ right outside of Phoenix. The drive to our beach house in Puerto Penasco, Mexico was about 3 1/2 hours. Not bad at all! We had such a splendid time! It wasn't as beautiful as the beach in Maui but it was nicer for the single fact that we could actually ENJOY it without worrying about work or whatever. We were there for a whole week with Alex's distant cousins and family friends who he used to work with in Utah County. The whole week was pretty much just leisurely hanging out at the beach, snorkeling, swimming, and enjoying each other's comany. My favorite thing to do was lay out in the beach chair for hours at a time in the heat of the sun and read my "Twilight" series book. I officially read the entire 2nd book during the week! YAH! We went into town a few different days and went shopping at the flee markets. It was alot of fun. When we went snorkeling we saw TONS of small and big sting rays! Who would have thought there we so many! Alex's cousin Brian tried catching one and it stung him on the thumb. Regardless, he caught a few and let the little kids take turns touching his belly where it's harmless and safe. We saw GIANT hermit crabs walking on the ocean floor also that were pretty cool. All in all, it was a great way to relax and be with the people we love. Enjoy the pictures!

Twilight Series

I have really gotten into reading the past couple months. It all started with a LONG plane right to Salt Lake City when we came home to visit in August. I had to have something to keep me from getting bored out of my mind and figured a good book should do the trick! I ended up getting "Nights in Rodanthe" by Nicholas Sparks and can I just tell you how AWESOME it is! When the movie came out last month, I made Alex take me to see it on opening night and the movie was so wonderful! A must see in my opinion ;) Nicholas Sparks is also the author of "A Walk To Remember" and "Message In A Bottle". So....he just came out a little bit ago with his latest book called "The Lucky One" and it was even better! I read the whole thing cover to cover in 2 days between work and chores. Yes it's only 226 pages but that's quite an accomplishment for me with how busy I've been with work lately. Now I'm REALLY on a reading frenzy so I decided to listen to like 80% of female book readers and most importantly my sister-in-law Heather and bought myself the first book in the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer called "Twilight". So far I have only read the first 10 pages but it seems interesting enough. I have to be honest, I am soooo not into fantasy stuff like vampires but I'm willing to give it a shot. I think I may just be surprised. I am normally into books about love, mystery, or sports so we'll just have to wait and see! Thanks Heather for the advice on the book and if I really enjoy it and read the other 3 books in the series, consider this a thanks in advance!

2 YEARS!!!

October 10, 2006 Alex and I have officially been married for 2 years today, October 10th. I can't believe how fast time has flown by. Seems like just yesterday we were living in our first apartment...Wow! I figured this was a great opportunity for me to just express my love and thankfulness for Alex in my life. He is a great person inside and out. He cares alot about me, my feelings, and our future together. I love him with all my heart. Although ALL marriages have their differences, I can honestly say he's my better half without doubt. Thank you Alex for being my prince charming and putting up with my girly ways, even when it drives you nuts! I cannot wait to spend the remainder of my days with you and hopefully bring beautiful children into the world (SOONER THAN LATER!!!) You will be an outstanding father. Love you hunnie! Can't wait for the years ahead of us! Honeymoon Cruise- GuatemalaFamily Pictures- August 2008

Mom & Dad came to paradise for a visit!

Mom and dad came to Hawaii as part of the celebration of their 30th wedding anniversary which was July 27th. They came for a total of 9 days and it was jam packed with activities, shopping, eating, and beaing beach bums. The main things we did together while they were here were Pearl Harbor and Polynesian Cultural Center in Oahu. During the week they went on a snorkeling cruise and parasailing by themselves. There were lots of pictures taken so I'm going to post just some of the best ones.

This first picture is us hiking to one of the waterfalls on the Road to Hana. Refer to one of my previous posts to understand exactly what that is. Alex and I did it by ourselves not too long ago for the first time. This was our second time with mom and dad.

Next is a picture of us feeding the peacocks on our picnic, also on the road to Hana. They were freakin me out and getting a LITTLE too close! We had this picnic in the arbetorium (not sure if I spelled that right). It's a gated 10 acre "park" persay of nothing but plants, trees, and wild birds like the peacocks. It was sooo gorgeous! Everything was labeled so you knew exactly what kind of plant/flower it was. Very cool and only $10/person!


The very last stop on the Road to Hana was the Seven Sacred Pools. It is an ancient myth that if you swam in all seven pools, you would be healed or something so hence the name. Pretty sure this was the highlight of dad's trip! It's not ocen water although the seven pools flows into the ocean, so it wasn't salty or anything. After swimming around for awhile dad and I got brave and climned the rocks about 20-30 feet high and jumped off! First time I had ever been cliff jumping so it was pretty awesome so do it with my daddy!

As you can imagine, the beach was one of the top priorities for this vacation ;) We went snorkeling together for 3 days straight when Alex and I got off work at 3:30 PM. It was perfect because everyone had pretty much left the beach and it wasn't too hot. Because of that ALOT of fish we visible. We go to see sting rays swimming about 100 yards away. We also got to see the usual schools of bright colored fish, a puffer fish eating another fish, beautiful coral, sea urchins the size of soccer balls, and....SHARKS! ha ha just kidding!

We had to show mom and dad what eating in Maui is "really" like so we ate out every night pretty much at a different restaurant. The night we got back from our Road to Hana trip we took them to Cheeseburger in Paradise. It has the best burgers! The thing that made the night for my dad was the live entertainment! In fact, since we got their right at closing and we were their very last table, the entertainer stayed later just for us and sang nothing but James Taylor songs for my dad! That guy got a pretty good tip to say the least. It was so funny because my dad was SOOO into the music that when the waitress came to ask him what he wanted to eat, we had to tap him on the shoulder and say "snap out of it dad we need to order!" It was so yummy. A few other places we ate we BJ's Pizza, Bubba Gumps, and Cool Cats. BJ's was my dad's second favorite place because there was live entertainment there too. This time instead of James Taylor music, it was a really cool guy from our ward actually playing the ukaleili (don't know if I spelled that right either). He even sang 2 Primary songs it was so awesome! I ended up buying his CD he had for sale.

The last 2 days of mom and dad's vacation was spent on the island of Oahu where Honolulu is. They couldn't spend all that money coming to Hawaii and not stop at Pearl Harbor or the Polynesian Cultural Center. To say the least, Pearl Harbor was a very neat experience. To see oil still leaking out at a rate of 2 quarts a day for the past 67 years really put the whole thing in perspective. Reading the wall of names of those killed on the USS Arizona alone was really really sad. If anyone goes to Hawaii, it is a must see.

At the Polynesian Cultural Center, we walked all around an outdoor 42 acre musuem type deal and learned all about the 5 Polynesian cultures: Tahiti, New Zealand, Tonga, Somoa, and Hawaii. Each village had their own show, all of which were very fun to watch. There was a canoe pageant where all the 5 cultures did a dance on a flat top canoe while it moved throught the stream. It was very entertaining. We went to an award winning luau where we got leis, entertained, tropical smoothies, and all you can eat pig, rice, salad, fish, etc. The lady that hosted the luau asked for all those on their honeymoon or celebrating their anniversaries to come up on stage. Of course mom and dad went up and they got to dance to a Hawaiian wedding song. It was so cute.

Before we went to the airport we walked around Waikiki Beach and did some last minute shopping. We were all so exhausted we didn't end up swimming at all, just lounging around.

After a long 9 days and action packed hours, it was a bitter sweet goodbye. Mom and dad were exhausted and we were ready to get back to "real life". Thanks mom and dad for the visit! Alex and I can't wait to move back home and see you on a regular basis! WE LOVE YOU!

Family Pictures

So we totally took these family pictures while we were in Idaho for a week, but I barely got the CD with all of them when my parents flew into Hawaii to visit us this week. My apologies! They turned out super good. Before these ones, the last family pics we took was when I was in 7th grade right before Parker's mission! Now I'm 20 and going on 2 yrs of marriage. Man does time fly! The first one is the whole family with all 3 in-laws and the two grandsons. Lucas belongs to Robyn & John and he just turned 1 on August 23. Caleb is the son of Parker & Heather and he just turned 2 on July 25. Then of course we have my sweet Alex. The second picture is just Alex and I and I think it turned out pretty dang good! :) Last but not least, the "original Lyons Crew". Next time we take another family picture, there could be a few more "additions" and possible another in-law or two. (Hopefully we don't go that long again!)