Dave and I are having such a great summer. It is Dave’s last real “student summer” so we are trying to take advantage of the time off.
Dave finished his first year of medical school at Creighton University; he has really enjoyed his classes. I finished my 1st year of teaching 2nd grade at Bancroft Elementary.
We have both loved what we have been doing, and we have made some great friends along the way! Overall we love our life in Omaha.
The summer began with a trip to Florida and then on an Eastern Caribbean Cruise with our friends Greg and Kami Hall. We spent two days at South Beach, which we discovered was a topless beach. Yikes! We had no idea.
Next was a day at sea as we traveled to our next destination. We spent the day playing games and exploring our huge ship. Dave and Greg entered a free throw tournament… Which neither won, although they came closeJ They had fun. We went mini golfing on the top of the ship, it was really windy so our balls were rolling all over before we could hit them a lot of the time. It made for a very interesting game of mini golf. :) We laughed pretty hard. There were great shows every night. There was dancing, singing, a hypnotist, and magicians. It was really fun.
It was our first formal dinner night. We got all dressed up and beautiful and took tons of pictures. We felt so fancy. It is fun to get dressed up. Dinner was so fun every night. We all ordered a lot of food, but none of us could surpass Greg. He would order 7 appetizers 2 entrees and dessert, pretty much every night. He almost always ate it all too! Haha, we got some funny looks from our waitress. Dinner was always a huge event.
After sailing all day and night we made it to beautiful St. Thomas. This was, hands down, my favorite stop, and I think everyone else’s too. We decided to rent mopeds and explore the island with the wind in our hair. It was so fun! We stopped at Koki beach first. It was amazing. There was a small reef area right off the shore. We saw so many awesome fish there. We bought dog bones (which they sold on the beach) and fed the fish. They would eat right out of our hands! We met a man who had a delicious smoothie shop there. He was from California originally, but lives there now. How lucky! The next beach we stopped at we met another guy who was playing with his son, he told us that his wife is a doctor and she works on St. Thomas a couple months every year. Oh my, another lucky fellow! :) I tried to talk Dave into doing that someday, but I am sure it won’t happen. Too bad.
Our next destination was Puerto Rico. On Puerto Rico we took a tour to the only tropical rainforest in the United States territory. It is called El Yunque Rainforest. We took a big bus to get there. We then got to take a hike through the forest. There is a river all along the trail and at one point there is a pretty waterfall with a small pool area beneath it. We all got in and swam in the pool. We go there before very many others from the tour did so the four of us had it all to ourselves at first. When we were leaving tons more people had come and it was crowded. So we got lucky. On our way down the canyon we stopped at a little local food stand. We had some chicken empanadas and tostones, which we love. Dave ate them a lot on his mission in the Dominican Republic, and I had them last year when we visited his mission. I love tostones. They are like banana fries made from plantains.
The next day was another sea day. We played ping-pong, Dave and Greg entered the tournament for that and did free throw shooting again as well. Kami and I learned a hip-hop dance. We also learned the dance to Thriller one day. They had lots of little dance classes. There was always something fun to do on the ship.
Our last stop before going back to Florida was Grand Turk. Sadly it was the least beautiful of all our stops. But we still had fun. We actually rented a golf cart and cruised, or I should say putted, around the island. Dave found some huge sand dollars in the ocean there. We drove out to see the lighthouse, which was super old. There were signs there that told how the island people used to turn the light off so people would crash their cargo ships. Then the people would plunder the cargo. Crazy.
We stayed in Florida the night after the cruise, we didn't get a rental car so we walked to dinner. While we were eating it started pouring rain. We hung out at Wendy's for almost and hour waiting for a break.... but it never came. So we got creative!
Well the trip was so much fun, and now we are in Utah visiting our families and friends. We have had family parties, spent a weekend at the cabin in Heber, and went to the Manti pageant.
Oh we are also on a softball team with Dave’s friends. We are just about the worst team in the league. It is so terrible, but we are having fun playing.