My Birthday was . . . . .

yesterday and I spent it alone.  45 years young!  Now before you think that I was sad to be alone, think again!  I talked to my two sons, and one brother.  My mom and dad tried to get a hold of me, but their telephone number looked like a sales call, and so I didn't pick up, and didn't listen to their message until too late!  (dratted Texas number!!)  and almost 50 people wished me happy birthday on facebook (kinda fun!). 

I spent ALL day cleaning and decluttering my house.  It feels so good today, but I filled our 96-gallon trash can and pick-up isn't until Thursday.  More cleaning will have to wait until then.  I topped my day off by ordering take-out from Olive Garden, and broke with my tradition of having watermelon for my birthday cake and ordered myself a decadent slice of chocolate cake. 

On another note . . . . someone at church handed me a book called "The Introvert Advantage."  I am an introvert.  Throughout the ages introverts have been given a bad wrap . . . . . we are felt sorry for . . . . .we are encouraged to change . . . . . . but we introverts are totally happy in our world!  Can you be happy for us????  In this book, if I only read the preface, the book will all be worth it.  I had several AHA! moments.  I felt validated. 

Here are some points about us introverts that you might find interesting (and probably already know!)

~  there are only 25% of us in the population
~ we love being alone, and this is how we "charge our batteries"  (don't feel sorry for us when we are alone)
~ sometimes when we want to speak, our minds go totally blank
~ when we speak it may be haltingly and can't remember certain words (doesn't mean we are stupid!)
~ often write things down in order to remember the words we want to say
~ despite this, we are surprised when people tell us we are well spoken and concise
~ we need a long time to process things that happen to us
~ we have the courage to say unpopular things
~ when something major happens we need a long time to recover (took me a couple of years to recover from Halley's wedding and two weeks to recover from our cruise this year!)
~ we are often overlooked even though there is a quiet power within us
~ socializing is confusing, we are social chickens and would rather be at home snuggled in bed (with a good book! (I added the book part!)
~ we eat slowly, walk slowly and don't mind gaps in conversation and even being slower paced can accomplish everything we want to accomplish
~ we can often be found doing "lonely" things like blogging, e-mailing, scrapbooking and reading
~ a introvert who is married to an extrovert makes a great combination . . . . tis true! (but there aren't enough of us to go around, sorry!)

I can't wait to read more of this book!

The final days at sea (day 6 and 7)

On the balcony of our cabin . . . . next to Halley and Ryan and Marshall and Donna.

Volley ball bronze medalists.

Trying our luck at shuffleboard, and freezing our tushes off!  Ooooooo it was cold!

Lincoln's mom and his siblings.

The girls.  There were so many camera's flashing you'd think the paparazzi were after us!

gi

The guys . . .

Eating breakfast.

And watching our last sea day come to an end.

And McKay finding the beauty in nature once again . . . . . . out of the airplane window.

This was an awesome vacation!!!

Puerta Villarta (Day 5)

Puerta Villarta was my favorite stop. I took the least pictures here also! DARN! This is what we saw when cruising in to the port. This city seemed the most modern at first sight and more prosperous.

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Another view from the ship . . . .

The entire family went on the same excursion here.  We went snorkeling and then on a tour of a typical Mexican village.  This picture was taken on the boat ride to the snorkeling place.  There were tons of these little islands everywhere.  I've always wondered what it would be like to be able to boat around in an area like this.  Up close you can see that all the white stuff is bird poop.  Romantic isn't it???

Lincoln and McKay

Linc's brother Norman and his wife Lonnie.

Halley and Ryan.

Another view of some islands.

Lincoln's sister Celesta and her daughter-in-law to be, Amy.

Lincoln's brother Marshall (with the snorkel gear) and his wife Donna.

Colorful houses.

I have no pictures of the snorkeling . . . . . and then I left the camera and all of our money on board the boat when we got out to take the tour of the village.  I loved the village and wished I had my camera mightily!!!  This picture I stole off of facebook . . . . The thing that impressed me most is that most of the homes had no windows or doors.  No way to keep out insects, rodents, lizards, people or anything.  What a simple way of life. 

McKay

Stole this one from facebook also.  I liked this one . . . . we were at dinner, always a highlight of the day!

What's this?

My blogger "editor" doesn't seem to be up and running this morning. It won't let me add pictures . . . . . so my post on Puerta Villarta will have to wait.

Lincoln and I did do something kind of fun last night. We had a formal military dinner night out. They don't come around very often and are nice to go to once in a while. It was kind of anti-climatic, after having spent last week dressing up and having great dinners, but-it-was-what-it-was!!

The food was good, it was fun meeting people, the entertainment was totally awesome, (the strolling strings) and it is always great to have a night out with Lincoln.

McKay went to the temple for baptism's last night.

Book club was suppossed to be last night, but I think they had it while I was away at cruise . . . . Is there a new book, any of you book clubbers????? :)

Have a great day!

Mazatlan (Day 4)

In Mazatlan we decided to do a "canopy" tour.  We got off the ship and loaded onto a bus and then had a 45 minute trip to the "forest."  There was a lot of graffiti in Mexico.  I asked the tour guide about it and he said that it was just a bunch of young kids going around painting stuff.  No gang activity . . . . . a BIG FAT HA! to that!  Who was he trying to kid???  (me!)

I guess Mexico is just about to have an election. There were tons of signs up, and lots of people out in the streets campaigning for their candidate. We even saw and heard cars with loud speakers driving around trying to get votes for their guy.

The canopy tour is located on a Tequila farm.  This fence was interesting to us.  It is made up of partly cacti.

Lincoln's mother was super excited to go on this adventure with us.  She is 72 years old and didn't flinch one bit about getting "geared" up and ready to go!

Here we all are, ready to go!  Beautiful harnesses aren't they? 

Kinda pretty . . . . . They make tequila out of the Blue Agave (spiky plants) shown in the picture.

Loading up in our 6-wheeled German military vehicle for a "6 wheel" trip up the mountain. 

Ryan, McKay and Halley

Grandma and Josh listening to the safety talk.  We were kind of disappointed because the rainy season hadn't come yet to this area.  It looked dead, dead, dead and more dead.  A canopy tour without any canopy.  At least there were 9 zip-lines to go down.  It was fun, but ugly!

Grandma was the first one to go! 

McKay getting to go next, and I am waiting for my turn.

There goes McKay!

All of us waiting for our turn.

At the end we had to do a free fall out of this tree.  I told the man to let me down slow.  My family was telling him to let me fall free.  What do you think he did?  Scared me to death is what he did!  Halley had an extra experience here that we promised not to tell on the Internet . . . . . . . . if you remember, ask me later!!!

After the canopy tour we toured the tequila factory and then we shopped while the rest of the group tried the tequila.  This factory had to close down because the Mexican government was taxing it so much that they couldn't afford to run it anymore.  I guess the government decided to be easier on them and now they are back in business.  Is there a lesson we could learn here?  I think so! 

Observation:  There was not ONE Mexican citizen I came across that didn't speak English.  English earns them money in the tourist industry.  Even the children spoke enough English to get by and talk to the tourists.  VERY INTERESTING! 

Another observation:  There was only cruise ship that I saw going to the Mexican Riviera the week we were there.  On our Caribbean cruises there is a bevy of ships going the same direction and stopping in the different ports.  We were the only ship (that I saw).  Royal Caribbean is stopping all cruises to this area shortly after the new year.  The reason:  Crime.  They feel that they can no longer keep the passengers safe.  I am really sorry for the people there.  A lot of lives will be changed when the tourism slows down.  SAD.

Cabo San Lucas (Day 3)

When we were cruising up to Cabo, this is the sight we saw.  These rocks looked like they were covered with snow from a distance.

There were tons of these pelicans.  It looked like they had taken ownership of about everything.  Wouldn't you just love to climb aboard this dingy full of bird #*%$#????  It does make a good picture though!

Here is Lincoln's sister and brother-in-law posing in front of what looks like a statue but is really a guy all dressed and made up in gold.

Some of the flora and fauna.

This ship was sooooo big!  On our first day on board, Lincoln and I walked around exploring.  We didn't see a single soul of the 19 other of our family until dinner time.  It really was too big if you ask me .  . . . . You see the tiny little boats by it?  That is what we "tendered" to shore in.  They held probably 30 people each.

We didn't have an excursion at Cabo.  We just wanted to enjoy the beach.  It was really hard to enjoy because you were constantly being approached by people trying to sell you stuff.  They even came out into the water trying to sell their wares.  They were thick like flies!!!  But Oh! the little kids were so cute with their big pleading brown eyes.  It was hard to say no most of the time.

Halley and Lincoln in the water . . . . the water felt good!

McKay, soaking up the sun!

We thought the beach sand was course here!  If we would have just known what was waiting for us!!!  The next beach was made up of small pebbles!  Bought some Mexican Vanilla here, yahoo!

Cruisin' (Day 1 and 2)

We've been anticipating this cruise for a while, but to appease my husband, I haven't been "advertising" it or counting down on my blog or facebook account.  What good would it do in a so-so neighborhood to tell the world we were going to be gone?  I only told most of the ward members and about 30 piano students, our contractor for the re-siding of the house, and the post office we'd be gone . . . . . . all in all close to a hundred people knew we'd be gone . . . . . . .  

McKay is starting to be a very observant person.  He notices shapes of clouds, and lots of interesting things in the world around us.  He pointed out the Grand Canyon as we were flying over it.

I've only seen a portion of the Grand Canyon in real life.  Just one stop on a scenic overlook.  I know this sounds funny, living so close to it as we did all our lives.  It is an awesome sight even flying over it in an airplane.  Truly spectacular.  It was hard for me to believe the pilot didn't make an announcement as we were flying over it.

We stayed the night in Los Angeles and woke up early and waited and waited to get on board the ship.  We were the first in line.  There were 21 of us who went on the cruise.  These are all our family, below.  Lincoln's brother (in the brown) set up the cruise for everyone.  He could make a living as a comedian.  He kept us all in stitches the entire trip. 

We played a nice game of Phase 10 while we were waiting.  No one cut in front of us in the line.  Such polite people!

The view out of the port of Los Angeles.

It was interesting for me to see the port of Los Angeles.  My dad has exported his hay from this port to Japan.  I could imagine his hay cubes being loaded on to one of these ships, something I had a hard time imagining at the time it was really happening!

McKay, wondering if it is okay to jump in the pool before the ship sails.

Our first day was a day at sea.  It was pretty chilly!  I thought I'd spend most of my time in a swimming suit, but was wishing I'd brought more long pants and a better jacket.  Lincoln and McKay ended up buying a jacket on the boat . . . . ..

A dance class . . . . . we learned the Merenge.  There are quite a few of us in this picture.

Miniature golf on the "sports deck."

I had to put this picture in to remind us of the climbing wall . . . . which we didn't use and the basketball court . . . . . which we did!

The all-important dining experience!  This is what cruises are famous for . . . .  food.  Eating, Eating, and more Eating!

Travis (our nephew) proposed to his girlfriend Amy.  Here they are with the "wait staff" celebrating it with virgin cocktails!

More to come!

P.S.  In case you were wondering . . . . . my bed tried to throw me out of it today.  My world is still rocking!