Scripture Subway Art

I spent last week working on a project that a few of my family members helped me with. They wanted to see the final product so I figured I'd post it here to share with you all.

I was sitting in church last Sunday when the idea came to me. On Monday I got on Pinterest and found a tutorial. What did I do before Pinterest? Spent a lot more time searching for things I guess. Anyway, I should give the credit to this blog post. It was a great tutorial and it worked out well for me. By Friday evening this was hanging on my living room wall.


The idea was that as we walked out the door we had these great quotes from favorite scriptures to read and take with us. I'm not sure if it will help at all but I love the way it looks. I also love having some of my favorite scriptures phrases on display.

I am not really a creative person and even when I do come up with good ideas, I rarely follow through with them. Well, this time I did and it actually worked out. Now I think I may have to try a few more things.

YS Falls (The End)

This is the last post from Jamaica. (FINALLY!!)

YS Falls was also one of my favorite places. We were only able to stay for a few hours and you could easily spend all day there. There are seven different waterfalls with pools at the bottom that you can swim in. We didn't actually swim in the falls pools because they have two other pools at the bottom that you can swim in and they are better for kids.

One of the falls. There is a trail along the side of the falls.

Just lounging in the sun.



They have 5 different zip lines set up that Chris, Eli and I did. It was really fun. Eli wasn't scared at all and really enjoy it. Isaac was upset that he wasn't big enough to go but he got to hang out in the pool with Grandma and Grandpa and choose something from the gift shop so he was fine.

This place also had the best gift shop. Unique things that were reasonably priced. We tried to buy an awesome wood vase but their credit card machine wasn't working and we didn't have enough cash on us. Still kinda bummed that we missed out on it but oh well.

If I go back to Jamaica YS Falls will definitely be on my list of places to visit.

Port Royal

We spent a day in Kingston and Port Royal. Port Royal was a safe harbor for pirates and a shipping center back in the day. There was an earthquake in 1692 and half of the town was suddenly under water. Chris and I were hoping to dive here and see the sunken town but we couldn't ever figure out how. You had to have special permits and we couldn't find anyone who knew anything about it. Maybe next time.

This is what is left of the fort there.

Chris with a beloved cannon. (Not this cannon in particular, just cannons in general.)

Keenyn wandering.

Holding up the tree. It was huge and more than 100 years old.


Our group. It was really hot this day and there wasn't a lot of shade. Cool history though.

Keenyn with a drink doing more wandering.


The Giddy house. This house is left from the earthquake but it is obviously tipped.
The boys trying to get to the other side. As soon as you stepped into the house you automatically walked to the low side. It was hard to walk straight. It was pretty weird.

More pictures to show how tipped it was. It really was like a fun house mirror or something.



More cannons. There were a lot of them. Most of them aren't original, they have been borrowed from other forts in Jamaica.

Another reason why Chris loved Port Royal, no one could try to sell us anything.

A Navy cemetery outside of Port Royal.

This day really made me realize how much effort our country puts into restoring and honoring our history. We have much to be grateful for in this country.

There aren't any pirate artifacts left. I guess the English destroyed everything years ago that even resembled being from a pirate. They wanted to totally get rid of them. I guess I can't blame them but it's sad to not have anything from that part of history.

Treasure Beach

We spent two nights in a cottage right on the beach here in Treasure Beach. It was probably my favorite part of Jamaica. If I ever go back I will go to Treasure Beach and just stay there. The boys all loved it of course. They played and played and played and still never wanted to leave the beach.









The view from our front door. It was great. I could sit on the porch while Keenyn slept inside and still watch Eli and Isaac on the beach.

We had beautiful sunsets.





We went on this boat to a sand bar. Turns out it was a real bar built on a sand bar out in the ocean. The boys snorkeled out there and had fun.


There are more pictures here if you want to see them. I guess there are a few pictures I didn't get from my Mom because I don't have these ones.

Jamaica Misc.

These pictures didn't really fit into any other post but I still wanted to share them.

Us at Discovery Bay. Christopher Columbus discovered Jamaica and this is where he first sailed into the island. Keenyn was asleep in the car. The picture below is also Discovery Bay.



Driving through Santa Cruz. This is Jamaican driving at it's finest.

This is one of my favorite pictures ever. Makes me miss his long hair.

Early morning skyline from the back door of our room in Junction. It's not edited at all.

Grandma and Grandpa Smith

One of the boys very favorite things about Jamaica was seeing Grandma and Grandpa Smith. They loved having grandparent time again. Keenyn warmed up to them quickly which made Grandma especially happy. Here are some of my favorite pictures of the boys with their grandparents.

Black River Safari

I left most of these pictures big on purpose. I figured you can see them better that way. Sorry for the words on some of them.

We went on a Safari on the Black River. It is a swamp area that has crocodiles. I guess the crocs are all throughout Jamaica but there were a bunch here.


They had some crocs inside the building and Chris was daring enough to hold this small one.
The view was amazing.



The biggest croc of the day. That thing was huge.

The guide let Eli and Isaac drive to boat. They did awesome and loved it.

This guy was spear fishing. In the same river we were looking at crocodiles in. Brave man. He had a bunch of fish in his canoe.

There was one point where you could get out and walk on the Mangrove trees. It was really cool. I was surprised how strong they were. I stepped on one about two inches in diameter and it didn't move at all, totally solid.


This is one of the best things we did on our trip. It was a lot of fun, totally relaxing, and low pressure to buy anything. The guide was great and was one of the times that I actually wanted to give a good tip. If you ever go to Jamaica, I'd highly recommend this trip.