Our Honduran Adventure

We spent the first two weeks of this month in Honduras. I think that this post may end up being a bit long- so you can just look at the pictures if I get too detailed for you. First off- as a disclaimer with the pictures- before we left for Honduras Brad told us to look as ugly as possible. No make-up, straighteners, blow dryers, and we were to wear frumpy clothes. All for our own safety. I went so far as to go to the DI to buy some ugly clothes. So please ignore the uglyness in the pictures. Good news is- we didn't get robbed, raped, or kidnapped while there! Yay!




To start off with, I'd like to state some things I learned about Honduras:




1. Most cars, or more specifically taxi's, are too crappy to have seat belts in them. I have no idea how some of those cars got us from point A to point B




2. No matter how poor of a Honduran you are- you always have a TV. Even if you have cardboard boxes as wallpaper, you still have a TV in the room




3. Honduran food makes my tummy sick, and makes me spend lots of time in the bathroom




4. Red lights are used more as a yield sign




5. Everyone listens to the same crappy music where every song has the exact same beat. Kinda got sick of that.




6. The people are very warm and giving.




So, here's what we did:




July 5th- We left the wonderful USA and spent all day traveling. We flew into San Pedro Sula at about 7:30, went straight to the hotel, and called it a night.




July 6th- We took a 4 hour bus ride to Copan. It was such a cute little city. We got there a little late to see the ruins for as long as we wanted to, so we explored the shops, and ate a local restaurant. A guy convinced us to go horseback riding in the morning to the ruins.




July 7th- We woke up bright and early, to meet the horse people. We had the cutest little Honduran guide, who took us up a mountain. He was in such good shape, at 58 years old, he walked us up and down the mountain with no horse. He said everything in Spanish, so Brad interpreted for us, as he educated us about cows, and rocks, and fruits, and whatever else we saw on the way.



Here he is trying to talk to Stephie. We didn't understand much when he talked to us though.

On the way up, this was one of our views. SO SO GREEN! It was gorgeous. When we got to the top of the mountain there was a little town up there. The people that lived in this town are closely related to the Mayans. As soon as we rode in, a few of them came up to us to try and sell us their dolls. We bought one made out of corn husks. The guide informed us that our horses needed to rest, so he'd take us to the "hospital". We thought it was kinda weird to take us to a hospital. So we walked along a trail in the jungle for about 15 minutes. Pretty soon we came to a pile of rocks. That's what I thought it was at first- but it was actually Mayan Ruins! You could see a frog carved in those rocks. Our guide went on to explain that this is where the Mayans would take their women to have babies.
He sat down in the birthing spot and reenacted having a baby. It was pretty much hilarious. Then he said if that spot didn't work cause the legs couldn't spread far enough apart, they'd sit on the frog head. He then had me sit there to reenact it all.
He had us pull out the corn husk doll to be the "baby". We were all laughing pretty hard, as he coached pretended like I was having a baby, and pulled out his hat to catch it. Afterwards, we rode our horses back down the mountain, and to the actual ruins park. It was so amazing to see! Here are just a few of the pictures we took:

This was their ball court
This is the mother of all the pyramids there, that they are renovating. Every step has hieroglyphics on it, so they have it all covered to protect it. They are still piecing it back together.
Here is brad in the tunnels inside some of the ruins. We weren't supposed to go in because we didn't pay for it. So we got yelled at afterwards.
A view from some really tall ruins.
This is the residential area, where people lived
An alter beautifully carved
Overall the ruins were amazing. It's something I can check off of my bucket list. After the ruins we went on the longest bus ride ever to Tegucigalpa. It took about 9 hours. Who knew you could spend so much time traveling in such a small country?



July 8th-

The next morning we were off to find a local family, one of the places Brad stayed as a missionary. Our plan was to stay a couple nights at their house. Plus, they currently have 4 kids going to BYU, so we hauled a big suitcase from their kids down to give them. We looked forward to not having to lug that around anymore. After a few tries, we finally found a taxi that was willing to take us to their house. Their house was across the city and not easy to get to. Brad was really hoping it wouldn't rain, because this family lives up a really steep muddy hill. When it rains, it's like driving up a hill in snow. Just as we were getting to the hills, of course it started to rain. The taxi did pretty good, until one part. There were like 3 cars stuck on this super steep hill, and a couple cars coming down. I was praying no one rolled into each other. After spinning out the wheels a few times, he reversed and we went to the bottom of the hill, waited for traffic to clear out, then took off as fast as he could. Now remember how I said the taxi's are super crappy cars without seat belts? So it was quite the experience. After that we finally made it up! I think if I were a taxi driver there, I'd avoid that part of the city like the plague.




I didn't get any pictures of this area, because apparently it wasn't the best area to be pulling out a nice fancy camera. The family said we could go outside as long as we didn't carry more then 2 or 3 limps on us (like 15 cents). I guess the area had gotten worse since Brad had lived there, and the church hasn't sent gringo missionaries there for a few years. It's a little nerve racking if the church won't send their gringo's there.....




That night we took a taxi down to Centro to go shopping. The dad of the family accompanied us so that we could find our way back.




July 9th-




This was the day we rented a car. We took a taxi to the airport, got our car, then went for a ride. The first stop? Valle de Angeles. A beautiful town about 45 minutes out of Tegucigalpa. This is where we did most of our shopping. Poor stephie was really sick at this time though, so she sat in the car for most of the time. After a couple hours there, we took another drive to the city of Danli. Bradly's first area.




We were so happy to see there was a Chester's Chicken there, the only American restaurant in sight. My tummy had had enough Honduran food. We visited so many wonderful people in Danli.
This is a picture of Brad in front of a house he helped build as a missionary. The family had 2 or 3 similar looking houses on their property. I also go eaten by mosquitoes here. Still hoping Yellow Fever isn't in my future.
This is another family of a bunch of girls that all loved Brad.




After spending a night in Danli, We went back to Tegucigalpa, where we went to Applebees! I got cleansed there- it was the best meal of my life.

July 11th- After spending another night with the Tegucigalpa family, we spent the night with another old house of Brad's in El Siteo- in the outskirts of Tegucigalpa.
This is a picture of their Pila. The city will give them water like twice a week, they fill it up, and thats what they have to use until they get water again. After going to church, the family took us up to the Picachu Jesus statue. It was so beautiful!
This is all of us, minus the dad of the baby, he was taking the picture. The city of Tegucigalpa is behind us.
This is the famous statue that looks over the entire city.
There were beautiful gardens around the statue, including bamboo!
As we were wandering through the gardens, we suddenly realized it was going to rain any second. So we started basically running for the car. Just as we got to the car, it was a downpour! As we drove down the mountain, there were rivers of water running down all around us. It was pretty crazy.

July 12th- This day was a traveling day. We took a bus from Tegucigalpa to La Ceiba, then took the ferry up to the island of Roatan. It took almost 12 hours total.
Brad on the ferry eating a sandwich. Bad idea- he threw it up an hour later. That was one bumpy crazy ride.
We spent July 13-15 on the island, and is was so beautiful! We had the opportunity to go snorkeling and sea kayaking, and really had a blast. We were so freakin excited to get back to the US when it was all over though- we were both really missing our baby too. So in the end I at least learned to be very grateful for all of the riches that we have in this country. A couple days ago I was taking Isaac on a walk through the neighborhood, and I looked around and thought how there is nothing like this neighborhood in Honduras. Beautiful sidewalks and roads. Everyone has a lawn, and a good sturdy house with AC. We are really so blessed.

Crazy Summer Madness

OK, so as many of you already know, we have had a crazy summer so far.

First off, we went to Virginia on a family vacation with the Larson's for Christelle's graduation. It was so so fun! Here's a few pics of the trip:

Ferry Ride at Busch Gardens

Smithsonian Dinosaur

Virginia Beach

Picture with Grover at Busch Gardens

Washington Monument when we drove up to DC

On the train

Crazy scary fun roller coaster

We got back from Virginia on Father's Day night. Tuesday night it was time for Brad and I to go to Houston in search of a house-leaving Isaac with his grandma's. Our plan was to leave at midnight on Jetblue standby buddy tickets to JFK in New York, then fly from New York to Austin, then drive 2 hours to Houston. Reaching Houston at about 2 to 3 PM the next day. Using standby tickets this was the cheapest fastest route. Still a huge trip though. So the day we were supposed to leave, things were not looking promising as far as getting on the JFK flight. Unfortunatly Jetblue only flies to 2 destinations from Salt Lake, making it easy for the flights to fill up, and harder to get on standby.

So we decided a plan B trip would be to drive all night to Vegas, and get on a plane there at 7 am, cause it's easy to fly standby from Vegas. Plus my grandparents just bought a house down there, so we'd have a place to park our car. Before we jumped to plan B, we thought we'd at least show up at the airport to see if there was any chance of someone dropping out, and us getting on. We went to the airport around 9, checked in, and started the waiting game. As it came closer and closer to boarding time, we got more and more nervous- wondering if we were going to have to make a long 6 1/2 hour drive to Vegas that night. Finally it was time to board... but they weren't handing out standby seating assignments yet. As the plane was boarding we went up to the ticket man to see if we were gonna make it on. We got a smile, and he said, "you guys will make it"!! YES! We made it on, and we didn't have to drive all night.

So needless to say, by the time we got to Houston the next day, we were positively exhausted.

We got a hotel room, and crashed. The next day our first day of house shopping began. I could go on and on with the details of our house search- but I'll just write it all up in a nutshell. The first day we looked in northern Houston, a little farther away from Brad's school with a grumpy realtor. The second day we looked and condo's and apartments as a plan B in case we didn't get a house in time. The third day we looked in Southern Houston, a little closer to the school with a really good realtor. It ends up we liked a house in Northern Houston the most, so we decided to put an offer in the the good realtor. We decided to offer 6,000 bucks less then asking price (which is alot when you are dealing with a house as cheap as this), expecting a counter offer. The next day we got a call from our realtor saying our offer had been accepted!! We were so excited! We are going to get a house! The house we chose has been basically completely redone- so it will really feel like we are moving into a new house. So we officially had a successful Houston trip.

Other then house shopping, we did a few more fun things in Houston- I'm having too much trouble posting pics, so you can look at facebook for that. :)

So the following Monday came around- the day we were supposed to go home. We got word from Brad's mom that there was no chance of flying into Salt Lake on standby and there wouldn't be for days. Ugh.. not again. So plan B- fly into Vegas. So we drove our car back to Austin, jumped on a plane to Long Beach, then finally got into Las Vegas where my grandparents were nice enough to pick us up and let us stay with them. By this point, as you can imagine, I was missing my little boy so so much! It was so sad to see the plane leave to Salt Lake from Long Beach, and not be able to get on it. At least we'd get to see my grandparents new house. We ended up spending a day and a half in Vegas- then finally started the long drive home. 7 hours later we pulled into my parents driveway, and I could finally see Isaac again! I ran up to greet him, and he looked at me like I was a stranger, wanted nothing to do with me! It totally broke my heart. When Brad approached him, we was just fine with his daddy- but he seriously didn't even want me to hold him. We finally figured that he was mad at me for abandoning him or something. I think nothing breaks a mother's heart like her child not wanting her after not seeing each other for a week. So I'm slowly getting his forgivness back. He'll now let me hold him, but still doesn't want to give me "loves" or anything. It's even more heartbreaking to think that I have to leave him again on Monday for Honduras :( We'll be gone for 11 days, I don't know how I'll handle that. Plus this last week that we've been seperated, Isaac has grown and learned so much! He is basically running around now- when we left a week ago he was barely able to take a few steps. So I'm sure I'll miss so much in the next couple weeks too.

Ok, I'm done complaining about being seperated from my baby. Over-all we had a wonderful trip, and we got a house! We are so dang excited- and life is good. Brad, me, and my sister Steph will be in Honduras from the 5th-16th, so I'm sure I'll have some fun stories to tell then. Happy 4th of July everyone! Thanks for reading my novel- ha ha. This turned out a bit longer then I thought it would.

Learning to walk

Isaac is seriously so so fun right now. He's a little sponge that soaks in everything around him. he is learning things so fast! For instance, last week we were at church, and he was babbling and being a little too loud during sacrament meeting. So Brad looked at him, put his finger up to his mouth and shushed him. What was Isaac's reaction? He shushed him back with his finger to his mouth! It's so fun to see him imitate everything we do. :) He probably doesn't understand exactly what shushing means, but he's quieter when he's shushing us then when he's talking ha ha. He can now show you where his ears, eyes, toes, mouth, and belly button are. About half the time he gets his nose right. He has a little toy that says "blaa", so he likes to yell "blaa" back at it. His first word is poop- and he's trying to say many other words. Since we live with birds now, he takes special interest in them. Everytime we go outside, he'll look for the birds, then do sign language for "bird" when he hears them.



At breakfast I always put cheerios on his tray for him to snack on, and he always drops some on the floor. Of course the bird is right there on the floor waiting for them, then Isaac enjoys watching the bird eat his cheerios. This morning, Isaac tried eating his cheerios by sticking his head down to the tray, and eating without his hands. I then realized that he was trying to eat like the bird! What a funny little boy.

Finally, Isaac is learning to walk, and doing quite well. For quite some time, he's been walking along furniture, and while holding onto our hands. He's always been scared to take a solo step though. Then on Sunday night, he was super tired, and super wired and hyper as a result. He started playing this game where he'd stand up all on his own, then we'd clap for him, then he's sit or fall down. He got such a kick out of us applauding him, that he'd stand up over and over again. I think he finally found out, it's not so bad to fall down after all. The next day, we visited my mom. When we were in her front room, I put him down on his feet, and he surprised us all by taking about 10 steps! He wobbled around like a drunk man, but he seriously walked 10 steps all by himself! Here's a video of him taking a few steps later that night:





So, he is finally learning to walk. He still wobbles around like a drunk man, and falls after a few steps, but I'm sure he'll get the hang of it soon! His biggest problem is that he's just so anxious to take off running, he forgets that he has to keep his balance :) I think he's going to be a handful when he does get it down....

Happy Memorial Day

So, alot has happened since our last post. First of all Isaac had his first birthday! He had all of his grandparents, and all of his great grandparents there! He's such a lucky boy.

In other big news, we have actually moved! I am officially no longer working at the Plaza Hotel, so we officially do not live there anymore. I have bittersweet feelings about this. I do miss our tiny little apartment that I used to hate- but we've made so many memories there, it's hard not to miss it. I miss living in the heart of downtown, where I could pull out the stroller, and walk across the street to Temple Square. Or walk down the street and enjoy the Gateway Mall. I don't miss vacuuming endlessly long hallways, or trying to make girls clean up their kitchen mess, or trying to stay up until midnight to kick out boys. But best of all, I don't miss trying to sneak into the kitchen when I'm hungry, or out the front door so I don't wake up the sleeping baby in there. That's right, Isaac now has his own room- no more sleeping in the kitchen for him! Overall it's been a nice refreshing change. We are currently in Brad's parent's basement, and will be here until August when we make the BIG move.

Anyways, we have a super busy summer ahead of us. In a couple weeks we will be spending a week in Virginia. Then at the end of June we will be home shopping in Houston. We'll be in Honduras for a couple of weeks in July, and camping at the end of July to the beginning of August. Oh, and I can't forget... We get to see Carrie Underwood on July 3rd. I am SOO freakin excited :) She's pretty much my all time favorite. Then the middle of August is when we will be moved off to Houston.

In Isaac news: He just got in his 6th tooth. He now has 4 on top and 2 on bottom. He is super close to being able to walk. He's taken a few steps on his own, but he usually thinks he needs something to hold on to. At his 1 year appointment, he was a whopping 26 lbs! I don't know how I carry that boy around every day.

As for what we did for today? First, we went out to Copperton Park, had lunch with my family, and looked at the progress at Quynn's house. Isaac had a great time on the playground as the pictures below show. :) Then we went to Brad's grandma's house and had a hamburger BBQ with his family. Pretty much a perfect day. Happy Memorial Day everyone! Here are some pics from the playground:

Isaac swinging:



When we crawled through the tunnel, of course he decided to stop right there, so I had to shove him through the rest of the way before I started to suffer from claustophobia :)

Clapping his hands out of excitement to go down the slide:

Downtown

Back when it was warm a couple weeks ago, we decided to go for a walk down to Gateway. On the way down, we got lunch at the taco stand there, and had a little picnic on the grass. We've been trying to get Isaac to like the grass, but he still is very wary of it. We've gotten to the point where if he is in a really good mood, he'll sit on it without screaming. But he sure doesn't want to touch it with his hands, or crawl around on it. So maybe by the end of the summer, he'll be more tolerant of the grass.

Then we visited the Olympic fountains. Isaac thought that was pretty cool. The umbrella was for the sun, not the water. But anyways, I really like this picture a lot.

And here's the front view. What cute boys I have.

Then just a couple more pictures..... The other day when we were sneaking by Isaac's crib as he slept, we saw that he fell asleep with his foot sticking through the rails. We thought it was picture worthy ha ha.
And finally- last picture- Brad took a picture titled "Spoiled Baby". This is Isaac with all of his toys. But he really isn't too spoiled- Brad just thinks he is.

What's new

It's been awhile since I posted, so i thought I'd choose a few of my favorite pictures out of the camera and put them up! Above is Isaac doing one of his favorite things. He loves to open and close drawers, and he loves to pull stuff out and put stuff in. We left a bag of baby food on the floor for a bit after shopping, so Isaac took it upon himself to put some of it in the drawer. lol.

Next, over spring break the only fun thing we did was go up to Anniversary Inn for a night. We drove up to Logan because they have way better rooms. We decided to go with the "Vegas Nights" room. It was REALLY nice. I think the coolest part of the room was the window. It looked like the city of Vegas!

And here is a picture of Brad "gambling". I took it just because I'll probably never really see him gamble. The room came with this little computer game thing with like 200 games on it. It was pretty cool.

And finally, lets talk about Isaac's teeth. The little bugger is actually just getting his 5th tooth in! I can't believe how fast his teeth are growing in. So I bought him a little toothbrush. I do need to get better at getting into a good habit of brushing his teeth though. It's just so hard to remember he's got them now!

Oh, and here's a video. I hope it works. I just thought it was so dang cute. Isaac went through a snorting phase. He was eating a cracker and snorted just a little too much. He actually snorts all the time while eating, I don't know how he usually does it without snorting his food and choking.

If you leave Isaac alone in a room for 5 minutes....

This is what you get: