Friday, November 4, 2011

The Color Orange

This time of year when someone says orange you think Halloween, right?  In Austin, you associate orange with the University of Texas Longhorns.  I should clarify...we're not referring to any orange, we're talking burnt orange.  So Ryan's parents came in town a couple of weekends ago, and my boss hooked me up with his sweet football tickets again.  We all planned to go to the game together.  The night before the game, I joked with Ryan that we had to get his parents burnt orange shirts.  He laughed and thought it was a ridiculous idea. 

Saturday rolled around.  I was super busy preparing for a talk I was asked to give in church the next day, so Ryan and his dad went to the store to pick up a few things for Sunday's dinner.  Y'all know what happens when you send the guys to the store.  They call every five minutes asking where to find this or that and if this ingredient is the same as that ingredient.  I was impressed when they managed to come home with everything on the grocery list.  I was even more impressed that they came home with a special treat.  To my surprise Ryan's parents walked out ready to go to the game in burnt orange shirts.  It was so cute and I must say the color suited them well.



We spent the weekend grubbing at lots of yummy restaurants and even went home shopping.




Of course we were not home shopping for ourselves.  It was more or less showing Ryan's parents what they could get in Texas.  This house was bananas.  It was a waterfront property on the lake.  The back had the most beautiful old pecan and cypress trees.  I fell in love!

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Chappell's Welcome #7

The same weekend we were all having fun at the BYU game, the Chappell's welcomed baby Ebby into the world.  Later in the month I went to Dallas for Ebby's baby blessing.


Ebby in her beautiful white blessing dress


The Chappell Clan!

The weekend was also filled with birthdays and football.  We celebrated my mom's birthday and Boston's birthday.  We even got to catch Boston's football game. He is the team superstar!





Devon kept wanting Boston's helmet.  He cried until he got to wear it.  The only problem was that when he put it on he was a bit top heavy and couldn't stay balanced.

Cougar Blue

My brothers, dad and Ry's dad came in town for the BYU vs. Texas football game.  I stayed true to my alma mater and wore cougar blue to the football game.  Ryan and I bought season tickets to the game through the graduate program; however, my boss offered me his 50 yard line row 40 tickets and I couldn't pass them up.  I invited my dad to sit next to me since he is the biggest cougar fan known to man.  While BYU didn't win, it was still fun to share that memory with my dad.


The gang before the game in front of the BYU bus with my dad, Aaron, Gavin, and Aaron's friend.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Cancun Part 2

And part two comes a month and a half later.  haha.  We've been busy, what can I say?


While we were in Cancun we took one day to not be beach bums and go tour the ruins.  We woke up at the crack of dawn, so we could squeeze in Chichen Itza and Tulum, the Mayan ruins.  We took a personal tour with Helaman.  






Chichen Itza

I swear each of these ruins photoed was a temple that had sacrificial altars.  Lots of deaths occurred at Chichen Itza.

They're finding there is still a ton to excavate underground.



The market area where you get heckled.  Ryan hates souvenirs, so we walked away empty handed.

A colorful traditional Mexican town we drove through on our way to Tulum.

A classic church in the middle of the town square.

Tulum.
Tulum was my favorite because everything was open and in one central location...not to mention it is right of the coast.



The Mayans chose the most amazing location to build a temple and live.  Right off this amazing crystal clear water.

All the locals swimming down below.


On the way back to the hotel, Helaman stopped off at this little ice cream stand.  When I say stand, I'm talking an old lady with a couple buckets in front of her with a tarp overhead to block the sun and rain.  She made the ice cream herself.  It was amazing.  We got lime and coconut.  We fell in love with the coconut ice cream.  I tried making a batch when we got back home.  Mine wasn't nearly as good.  Go figure!

Overall, we had a great trip to Cancun.  It was so beautiful and relaxing.  I'm so thankful Ryan and I were able to celebrate 5 years together in such a fun place.  

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Cancun Part I

As an early 5-year anniversary celebration, Ryan and I took a trip to Cancun.

The fun began during our flight to Cancun, and I'm not referring to your typical in-flight entertainment of movies.  The pilot warned us before we took off, that we'd be flying thru a tropical depression and that if it got to bad, we'd divert and land elsewhere.  Well about 30 minutes outside of Cancun, the plane dropped drastically.  You know one of those drops where you wonder where your stomach went.  The pilot got on the sound system and told everyone to take their seats.  He told the flight attendants that they did not have time to prepare the cabin, but that we were making our final decent.  We felt a couple more drastic drops.  Drinks were flying all over the place.

As you can imagine, everyone was looking around thinking what is going on?  Sitting next to Ryan was an Italian couple and they were anything but calm.  The poor guy was trying to comfort his girlfriend, but due to the language barrier they were getting more stressed because they couldn't understand the pilot's message.  I turn around and the lady in the row behind me was doing her holy prayer thing.  I look the other direction and another woman has her hands on her head with her head between her legs.  Within a couple of minutes, we had cleared the "black" clouds and we could see land and water.  Everyone on the plane was relieved!

We went to our hotel and unpacked as the tropical storm passed.  That evening we walked down to La Isla where all the shops and restaurants are on the Hotel Zone.  The Hotel Zone is exactly what it sounds like.  It is an island filled with hotels.  Literally the beach is stacked with resort after resort. We stayed at the Le Meridien which was like one hotel down from the Ritz Carlton, so it was a great location.

View from our room

This is what we looked like pretty much every day of the trip.  Kicking it on the beach, RELAXING!

Anyway, back to La Isla.  We looked for placed to eat and landed upon a restaurant called Chocolate City.  It sounded like a total winner!  Let's just say it was interesting. The food was below average.  At each table there was a TV.  (Who goes out to dinner with their family and watches TV, isn't that exactly what you are trying to get away from?)  But that's not even the bizarre part.  The strange part was what they were playing on the TVs.  They were showing these pranks that people played on football players back in the early 90's.  And these pranks involved SNAKES.  So while eating, you get to watch SNAKES.  Oh what joy!  How brilliant is that?  I lost my appetite.


We went back to the hotel and swore that we were only eating at restaurants we had heard of which meant we ordered a few Papa John's pizzas!

That night we got a great nights rest.  We slept with the sliding glass door open and listened to the waves.  The next morning I woke up early just as the sun was rising.  It was beautiful.  Ryan of course could not comprehend why on earth I would wake up that early given it was our vacation and I could sleep in.  It's not like I set an alarm or anything.  My body just wakes itself up early.



The next couple of days, our schedule consisted of eating huge gourmet breakfasts that the hotel comped.  Then we'd let our tummies settle for a bit while we got ready for the day.  We'd work out or play tennis and hit the beach.  What more could you ask for?  I just love love love the water in Cancun.  First of all it is warm. Second of all it is clear.  And Third of all, the waves are not big, so you can enjoy floating around.  Ryan and I had a blast swimming in the water for hours.  In the evening we'd swim in the pool.  The hotel had three infinity pools that dropped down to the ocean and the top pool was heated.  So it was like swimming in a hot tub!

Our morning breakfast view!


An afternoon shower while swimming.



One of the things Ryan and I found most surprising was that there were a lot of foreigners.  Since Mexico borders America, we assumed that Cancun would be full with mostly American tourists.  Boy were we wrong.  There were people from all over the world.

Cancun Part II Coming Soon!

Saturday, July 16, 2011

4th of July 2011 - So Cal

We made it to California to celebrate America's independence.  How did we celebrate?  We hit up the beach, played tennis and ate lots of yummy food.

Mitch brought his paddle board to Dana Point Harbor and we all took turns paddling away.  We were all surprised by how easy it was.



Kait & Micah


Sunday night we went to the Lundquist's for Sunday dinner and smores.



Monday we fought the crowds at the beach and came back to the house for dinner.  We watched the Dana Point, Laguna, and San Clemente fireworks show in the jacuzzi from the patio.  It was nice to get away and flew by all too fast.

A Wonderful Birthday

Ryan knows I love birthdays and he pulled through with a great birthday weekend.  

It started with a poolside bbq with friends.







That night Ryan took me to Trulucks and we got these amazing desserts.
Chocolate malt cake with Amy's ice cream.

A chocolate gift bag filled with sour cream pound cake, fruit, whip cream, and a hot fudge sauce.


Sunday, Ryan made me breakfast in bed.  It included french toast with homemade syrup and fresh fruit.


Thanks to my husband, friends, and family I had a great birthday!