Jenna's Birthday

I have the most amazing family.

For my birthday they traveled from Utah all the way up to Idaho Falls to celebrate with Kevin and I. My little niece came and traveled all the way from Lehi. She did awesome for being only 1. They got here later in the afternoon and so we went out to dinner. I chose to go to Big Juds. This restaurant is out in the middle of nowhere, and it is delicious. 

We got two of their HUGE hamburgers to split. They were as big as my little niece.

At Big Juds you can get two hamburgers that are bigger than this one if you can believe it.

Between the 6 of us, we ate both of these hamburgers. It was so fun. Lydia wanted a big bouncy ball out of the quarter machine. It is so hard to not give her everything that she wants. She is just the cutest little girl ever. 

Here are some more pictures of us enjoying our delicious meal. 

After dinner we drove back to our apartment and ate some cake. For the last 10 years of my life at least, I have always had a cheesecake for my birthday. This year was no exception. 

Kevin got me those awesome birthday candles 

I am so grateful to have such a wonderful family that cares so much about me to travel all the way up here. It was a wonderful birthday. 

Cruising Around

             When Kevin and I were first married, we did not have a bunch of money (like most newlyweds). So we went to Salt Lake City and had a wonderful week of going to the zoo and stayed at Little America. It was wonderful, but since we have been married we have been saving all of our change and extra dollars to go on a vacation. We finally saved up enough money to go on a vacation. When I graduated we decided to take our spring break and go on a great vacation! We went on a cruise!!!!!! We flew out to Long Beach, CA on a Monday Morning.

Waiting at the Long Beach Airport

We took a taxi over to the cruise boat which was exciting, but I found out that I hate taxis. The first reason is because they are SO expensive. It cost $30 just to go around 10 miles. Second, I felt so awkward that someone random could listen to my conversation. Not because we were saying anything private, but because sometimes I say embarrassing things and weird things and just talk about lame things, but I love it. But I couldn't talk for some reason with a weird stranger in the car. So instead of talking, we just took a picture of me in a taxi cab.

                                        

 We got to the cruise area and were able to check in 4 hours before the boat left. It gave us some time to find our room, eat on the boat, and explore this huge boat. (This is us about to get on the boat).

 

This boat was HUGE! I cannot imagine going on a very expensive and new boat. This boat is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, boat in the carnival fleet of boats. It was still amazing to me. There were at least 12 floors. Our room was on the 4th floor (that is the lowest floor to the ocean that you can still have a room on.) This means that we walked so many stairs. We defiantly did not gain much weight because we decided to always take the stairs. We were on the 4th floor and breakfast lunch and dinner were on the 10th floor and if you wanted to hang out in a chair or play mini golf, you had to walk up two more floors. We got our exercise in.

Leaving Long Beach

                                         
               The first night Kevin and I got sea sick. That was lame. So our next pictures and stories will be about Catalina Island. This was probably my favorite stop. It was such a cute place and so fun to see the culture. When I say culture, I mean that almost every single person drove a golf cart for their main car. The apartment complexes that were around, had parking lots made for golf carts. It was hilarious. We saw car seats for babies in the golf carts. It made Kevin and I so happy. Here are most of our pictures of Catalina.

 

*Random Fact*-I found a flipper while I was climbing onto this rock, then as I was coming back I also found a face mask. 

    While we were at Catalina we rented a golf cart -we wanted to fit in with the community- and drove around the island. We only had an hour before they started taking more money for us so most of the pictures above are taken while we are driving so that we could get back in time. Below is our golf cart we rented, and our map. I didn't realize I took the picture of the map, but I feel like it looks really creative, so I will show you.

 

One of the funniest things that Kevin and I found ourselves doing on the cruise was asking, "is this free?". You can survive on the cruise without having to pay anything extra, but you can purchase many things that cost extra on the cruise. While we were on Catalina, we went to a little beach. There were these beautiful white beach chairs. It just looked like paradise. We walked up to a lady and asked, "are these free to sit in?". She said no! They were $30 a chair!!! Ha ha, so we had to sit on the rocks! It just made us laugh, but the rocks were fairly comfortable.

 

Catalina was so fun! We loved every minute of it. Our next stop was Ensenada, Mexico. Ensenada is close to California  so it is somewhat Americanized, But it was still so fun. We went and walked around the market and people kept trying to barter with us, even though we didn't want to buy anything. We also went on a ghetto carriage ride. It was so funny, but it was nice because she told us all about what was going on and what was the cool stuff to do there. She took us to the beach. It was so windy and kinda cold so we did not play in the water, but it looked beautiful. Here are pictures of Ensenada.

This is us pretending to drive the carriage

 

We loved the cruise, Kevin just keeps wanting us to go on another one. It really was so fun! Here are just a few final pictures of things on the boat.

This was probably the one reason I left our room, was so that when I came back an awesome towel animal would be on the bed

Even the dessert was fancy

 

 Don't forget to smile!!! 

This was a tree we found in the Ensenada Gardens

 

Birthday Wishes Can Come True!

         My birthday came and left this year, But I have to admit that is was probably one of my favorite one so far. It was my first Birthday since Kevin and I have been married. He made this one so special. The start of the day was boring. Work and school. After my last class Kevin came and picked me up. As we were driving home I was trying to convince him to let me go Study for my anatomy and Physiology class. I usually always study on Tuesdays, but Kevin told me that I HAD to be home and 5:00 because it was my birthday and I wasn't going to study and do lame things on my birthday. As we drove into our parking lot I saw a blue car that I usually do not see. I jokingly asked Kevin if my Dad was here. He told me no. So I just brushed it off. As we walked in the door my family jumped out and yelled, "SURPRISE". and boy was I surprised! It was such an amazing gift from my family! We went out to eat at a little (and when I say little I really mean little) diner in Saint Anthony. We came home and ate delicious cheesecake. Cheesecake is my most favorite cake. I think I have had it for the last ten years of my life. (I even made this one from scratch.) We didn't have any candles so I had to blow out a lighter!

It was so funny and so wonderful! The day was just fantastic! I enjoyed every second of it. I am so grateful to my wonderful Husband who cares and loves me so much to take so much time to plan a wonderful party. And for my parents who came up to celebrate for 2 hours then left to drive home. I am so loved and feel so special. What a wonderful day! I hope this year is as good as the last! Here is a picture of my wonderful family. (Jacob is taking the picture. That is why you can't see him!)