Everyday with Aliyah

She seriously makes us laugh constantly.  Who knew a two year old could have so much character!

Here's Aliyah doing her stretches...she learned this from Dave--not that he stretches like this, but that Aliyah knows that dad does stretches and this is how it translated.  Looks pretty good to me!

Aliyah also loves to read books.  She memorizes books within the first few times of hearing them read. She'll entertain herself for quite some time looking at and reading the books aloud. 

One of our favorite pastimes this spring was to fly a kite.  We get pretty good winds and have a nice grassy area outside our home.  Aliyah likes to chase after the kite's tails, hold the string...and run around not paying attention to the kite at all while we hold it. 

 One day while Aliyah was holding the kite a cute old Asian couple walking around the neighborhood took pictures of Aliyah!  It was funny to see them SO interested!

Right after this picture Aliyah let go of the kite.  It was carried by the wind to the other side of our building!  A tree caught the string and we were able to get it down.  

It's the small things that make life so enjoyable!

Thanksgiving Point--Tulip Festival

The end of April we went with our good friends to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point.  It was a BEAUTIFUL day.  We loved being outside, enjoying the warm weather, and visiting with friends.

Loving the water 

and Daddy

Looking for fish

Beautiful Flowers

To be a child...

Aliyah's got it made...

She gets to drink the milk out of cereal bowls that are bigger than her head

and wear a dress day and night...always, no matter what...because she is a princess.

This is her singing Cinderella's "A Dream is a Wish"...but it's just snips not the sounds but I think it's still cute to watch her mannerisms.

While We Were Away

Aliyah got to play with cousins ALL WEEK long.  Here are some pictures of her on Easter.

 

The Easter Bunny left her Cinderella slippers and necklaces.

  And the girls of the house

We were so excited to see Aliyah after being gone for 6 days.  The journey home was rough--delayed flight which made us almost miss the second flight--but we eventually made it.  When we picked her up I think she was pretty excited, but she wasn't excited to come home with us.  She was perfectly content staying and playing with cousins.  At least we knew that she had fun and was well taken care of!

It was a wonderful vacation-much needed. But there's nothing like being home.

Cruising--Day at Sea

It was nice that we had our Sea Day on Sunday and that it was Easter.  The cruise only does a religious gathering on holidays, so we were able to have a inter-denomination meeting.  The cruise director said a prayer and spoke first then opened it for others to come up and share.  It was cool to see who went up and what they had to say: there was an LDS woman, a Catholic woman who shared a prayer, 2 women sang, a big tall African American, and Dave.  He was amazing.  He started out by talking about leaving Aliyah and apologized if he cried while talking about her.  One woman behind me said, "that's okay baby!"  He went on to talk about how it is through Jesus Christ that we will be able to return to live with our Heavenly Father and connected it to our returning to Aliyah.  There were a lot of people "amen"-ing the things Dave said.  He even shared a scripture from 3 Nephi.  He was the only one to get people crying.  The Spirit was strong.  It was such a great way to feel the truth of the gospel.  So proud of Dave...I guess he couldn't resist a pulpit!

We actually had a number of opportunities to talk about the church throughout our vacation: a man sitting next to us on one of our flights, our dinner table friends who were Jehovah Witnesses and the inter-denomination meeting.  We love those opportunities!

The rest of the day we slept, relaxed, and ate.  We enjoyed our last dinner with our dinner table friends and then decided to go do Karaoke with them.  Dave was a good sport and went up to sing with me...to keep with the spirit of the day we sang...Don't Stop Believin'...see the religious connection!?

You have to admit that Dave and I have some mad dancing skills....

 and that we are really good at looking...cool!

This trip was just what we needed to stay sane!  We were grateful for the time to be able to focus on each other, catch up on sleep, eat lots of food, meet wonderful people, and see incredible places.  

Cruising-Cozumel, Mexico

 We debated for a good long while what to do while in Cozumel.  We ended up doing a cruise excursion that took us to the Mayan ruin of Tulum.  We loved it.  We were able to see a little bit of the culture and history but also got to go to the beach.  We were AMAZED at the water--so clear and incredible blues.  We had a quick ferry ride over to the mainland and a 45 minute bus ride before getting to Tulum...so a bit of traveling but well worth it!

Tulum was built on a cliff and the main building acted as a light house.  

Here's looking to the beach below...

 and looking up at the "light house" building from the beach...

Look at the different blues in the water...seriously so beautiful!

Tulum!

Cruising-Key West

Our first port was at Key West.  Dave and I did some research and found that we could save $140 by not doing a cruise excursion to go parasailing, but by going directly to the company. We were glad we did it!

Here we are waiting for our turn.  You can see our cruise ships "tail" in the far distant background.  

Please note our AWESOME burns on our arms...we are really cool.

And going up...

...getting dunked...

 ...enjoying the BEAUTIFUl view...

 ...the landing...

Seriously, so fun.  It was even better that we got to go up together. It was cool to see where we were and the beautiful water that surrounded us.

After parasailing we walked around Key West.  We debated going on a number of tours, but after looking at lines and price decided to just enjoy the town.

Here we are at the southern most point of the United States.

Then on to get some Key Lime pie.  Dave and I are big fans of Key Lime pie (it was served at our wedding luncheon).  So we were looking forward to it.  Dave got the classic pie, which was pretty darn good.

 And I got the Key Lime pie on a stick dipped in chocolate...it was amazing.  

We walked back to our ship, had lunch and enjoyed the afternoon basking in the sun reading books.  

Before dinner we went to change and found the "housekeeper" dude had left us this little towel creature...wearing my sun glasses.