Mike and his gallon of water.
Our attempt to go to the temple…so sad it was closed!
Mike coming in at the finish line.
Proof that my husband has good taste. 🙂
My mini landscaping project.
Where I buried Noodles the snake. R.I.P. Noodles. You are missed.
Silly cat enjoying our overgrown backyard.
What I want to be for Halloween. Hermione from Harry Potter.
I went to the Brittany Spears concert with Christa.
Good times!
Even in New Mexico they have RULDS2 license plates….
Mike reading is mountain bike magazines…we’ve been all about the mountain biking lately!
Liznote: I let the second place girl go ahead of me and could have totally gotten her!
Anyway, we rocked it and had a lot of fun!
The things I am noticing about myself while I am here in Vegas…
1. I bought a Miley Cyrus shirt from Wal-Mart hoping none of my students have it.
2. I am taking the Flinestones Gummi Vitamins because I can’t handle the big horse pills.
3. Inside the bathroom cabinet at my mom’s house is a whole collage dedicated to NSYNC and Paul Wasilewski that I made at one point in my life.
More to come…
So I’ve been slacking on the blogging due to the fact that we have had a lot going on. So I decided to sit down for a second between errands and give you a quick run down.
Making dinner is hard to do now that I am working, but for some reason the other day I really wanted to try and make sushi! This is my attempt. It actually tasted pretty good. I learned how to make yum yum sauce too!
It’s been raining a lot here in Cruces. My hair has been acting up with all the humidity. The other day we had an amazing rainbow out front of our house.
I have been decorating a lot around the house. Mainly I have been hanging curtains and getting the downstairs down. My next project is our bedroom.
The first stop on our cruise was St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. I had been there before, but I was really excited to show Mike St. John (a sister island). St. John has a beach that has been rated as one of the world’s top ten beaches and I was dying to go back. Trunk Bay is my favorite place I have ever been!
We took a taxi to a ferry and then another taxi to the beach. The fun part is that you drive on the other side of the road (due to the fact that the island used to be run by Britain). We went snorkeling at Trunk Bay and had a blast! We saw turtles, stingrays, lots of fish, and coral (which I accidentally ran into and cut my leg!).
We came back to St. Thomas and Mike was so excited to see iguanas in the wild!
At Trunk Bay with Mike
The view from the taxi
Inside the taxi
Welcome to St. John!
Our sign picture right off the ship.
The view of St. Thomas
Mike on the ferry!
Our first iguana sighting.
So I attempted to mountain bike race this weekend. I hadn’t planned on it but I thought it would be fun to give it a try! Mike and I left Saturday for Albuquerque and went to the temple. We then switched into our bike gear and did a practice run of the beginner loop of Cedro Peak. I was loving it. It was really fun to ride through the woods and it didn’t seem bad at all. There was one part though called The Hills of Death…and I had to walk it up, but I kept thinking that even that wasn’t bad. I felt pretty good too because the beginner loop was only seven miles and I usually end up doing about eight when we do the Dona Ana’s back in Las Cruces.
Boy was I wrong! It is so different when you race! Don’t get me wrong, it was fun, but it is so much harder! At the starting line you have to push your way through bikes and when we turned off the road the first person got stuck so we all had to hop off our bikes and run around them. I was flying downhill trying to keep pace and not have people pass me. It flustered me a little to the point where my front wheel hit a big rock and then I went flying over the handle bars with my bike landing right on me!
After I regained composure…I was good. Even though a god number of people got in front of me, I still kept pushing. What seemed like an easy ride before was really hard! I was breathing a lot harder due to how nervous I was! The only people that passed me were pro riders and a couple men, which was fine with me, because they were not in my category! Haha..
When I got to the Hills of Death I was beat…I made it up a little and then jumped off my bike and started running up the hill. One mile later I was able to hop back on and get my bike up the mountain. It was so hot! While I was running up, I made it up to this guy in front of me who was resting under a tree, but as soon as he saw me he started running again! (I seem to have that effect on people!). After that, it was all down hill!
I made it to the end in fifty three minutes and I was good to go. I got first out of two people in the 19-29 category and got the prize for second place over all for the women’s beginner division. I got beat out by a 12 year old girl…who made it in 38 minutes. She seriously rocked it.
Lots of fun and very hard work! I think I’m going to race the Farmington Race and Gallup too.
Wearing our cool championship shirts!
My battle wounds!
Mike at the starting line…
At the starting line…
We had a lot of people in and out of town. Dad and Georgia started the trend whn they helped me move my stuff here.
Mike and I had our Las Cruces reception on July 11th. It was fun to get dressed up again!
I got a job at Zia Middle School. I’m a little nervous about teaching eighth grade, but we will see!
The Barrow Family had a mini reunion and had a lot of dinners and hanging out time!
Jen and Wayne came down to visit for the reception and we got to take them around Cruces, Cloudcroft, and White Sands.
Mom came out Fourth of July weekend and hung out with us. This picture makes me laugh!
Christa and I went to the Albuquerque Temple and had a good time! It was so nice to go to the temple!!
A week from today Mike and I will be flying to San Juan, Puerto Rico for a seven day cruise!! I have been dying for a vacation! We both have! We like how there are so many ports so we can explore the Caribbean. Here is the order of where we are going.
San Juan
The first day is quick because we get in at 3pm and have to be to the boat quick. As soon as we get ont he boat, we can leave and go explore San Juan. I’m excited for Mike to have his first cruise experience. This is the day we do muster and pretty much explore the ship!
St. Thomas/St. John (Trunk Bay)
I’ve been to St. Thomas before on a family vacation. When we went, we took a ferry over to trunk bay in St. John. This is a picture of it. It is one of the most beautiful beaches I have evr seen in my life! We plan on going here and snorkeling for a while..maybe some snuba too! 🙂
Dominica
I have never been to any of the rest of these ports but I am superexcited about it. Some options for us are Trafalgar Falls and Emerald Pools, Jaco Falls, and Hot Springs. There is an option to go on a tour of the island for only twenty five bucks…but we will see how we are feeling!
It was highly recommended to just explore the beaches here. They do have a shipwreck snorkel and also you can rent scooters for five bucks! I have a feeling it will be a chill day here. All the reviews keep saying how wonderful the beaches are here.
St. Lucia
They have rainforests here and ziplining is the thing to do! I really want to do this and if I can get a reservation for it we will. They also have bike rentals here.
Antigua
We want to rent some ATVs here and go around the island. Also the reviews said that snorkeling was the thing to do!
St. Kitts
So this is where they say that mountain biking is the best. We hope to try it out just to say we have mountain biked in the Caribbean. Also, I guess the people here are really pushy about buying things, so we are prepared to fight them off!
Then its back to San Juan, where we will spend the night and enjoy the sites! It came so fast…we hope it doesn’t go too fast!
bikingcouple.com 
