Facing the Fear

 Ok Let's Talk: Scuba Diving

Want to know my top 2 biggest fears?

1. Bees (I literally get tourette's when they fly by me, I don't do it on purpose. I can't help it)

2. The Ocean aka open water, being submerged, being stranded, drowning, sharks. ALL OF IT

So what am I currently doing? Getting scuba certified. Am I crazy?

Let me start from the beginning of this madness. I have always had a firm no-getting-in-the-ocean-past-my-shins policy. As I think I have previously stated, I watch a lot of Animal Planet. A LOT. I can spew off some of the most random animal facts you can think of. For example, are you aware that the gestation period of a possum is between 16-18 days and when they are born they only have like, one eye and a claw? I think you get the idea of my random animal planet facts.

I have also been to my fair share of aquariums. One of which was the Baltimore Aquarium, which is one of the best aquariums in the country, and I learned about a small octopus that camouflages itself in very shallow sand right off of the beach and it's so poisonous that if you step on it you will literally be dead in 5 minutes. That began this said "no-getting-in-the-ocean-past-my-shins" policy. Luckily, those are only off the coast of Australia. Anyway, my point is this: all of this learning has freaked me out to actually get IN the ocean.

However, during Easter, Chris' uncle who is an avid diver showed us a few videos he made of him, Chris, Kamille, Heather, Christian and the rest of the diving clan while they were diving in Mexico. As I watched I was intrigued by the clear water and the fun that they seemed to be having so I, so bravely, informed Chris that "That actually looks fun, I would do it". That brave statement lasted about 10 minutes until Chris had the brilliant idea that I actually should get scuba certified so that I could go with him and his brother when we go to Cancun in a few short weeks. Insert foot in mouth. So yesterday we went to the scuba office and officially signed up for the week-long class. After signing the paperwork and initialing next to statements such as "we are not responsible for any underwater injuries" and "you are aware of the possible underwater complications" blah blah blah I came across an incredibly nice, albeit, white trash lady who was talking about her first diving experience. She nonchalantly told me that she ruptured her eardrum the first time she descended. Again, what was I thinking signing up for this?

So, I bought some very expensive, but apparently necessary scuba goggles and I'm currently going over all of the online classes before we meet next Monday and actually start doing the water part in an underwater crater (which actually sounds terrifying in and of itself)

Here's to hoping that I wont:

A. rupture an eardrum

B. have a panic attack

C. keel over due to sheer terror

D. All of the above

Cheers because I'm facing the fear!

Our 6 Month Delayed Honeymoon

Ok. Let's Talk: Honeymoon excursion

Chris and I just got back from our (much needed) honeymoon! We left from Miami on a cruise to Nassau, Coco Cay and Key West and let me tell you... it was GLORIOUS. Instead of giving you a play-by-play description of our honeymoon, I'll just give a quick outline of our first vacation together...

South Beach: The highlight of South Beach was scoring a couple of tickets to the Miami Heat/Boston Celtics first playoff game! It was such a fun game to watch, we got to see Dwayne Wade, Lebron James, Chris Bosh, Rajon Rondo and..... SHAQ! It was incredible
What I failed to capture on photo was the crazy man accusing Chris and I of being zombies and the other crazy, fat dude wearing literally nothing but a thong, lace unitard. Sorry, guys better luck next time.

Day 1: Nassau, Bahamas

We went on their infamous powerboat adventure to a secluded island in the middle of the ocean. And when I say secluded I'm talking, riding on a boat going 80 mph and it still took us an hour to get there. Despite the extremely bumpy ride for an hour (see my incredibly cute picture below) we got to the island where we fed the indigenous iguanas, stingrays (I'll get to my stingray story in a minute) and reef sharks. I also feel compelled to explain this picture: I'm NOT crying, but I'm partially laughing while at the same time trying to brace myself for the giant waves that hit us in the face every 10 seconds or so, hence, the raincoat.

Then we went snorkling to see the reef... and reef sharks. And let me just tell you how terrified I was. One minute we are feeding fish heads to these nurse sharks and lemon sharks and the next minute I'm told we're going to be swimming with them! Excuse me? I watch enough Shark Week and Animal Planet to know that nurse sharks and lemon sharks are no angels. But, I figure "this is our honeymoon and there are going to be at least 20 other people in the water so all I have to do is swim faster than the slowest person in case a shark decides that fish heads weren't enough for lunch and they also want some human flesh". I do it. I loved it. I would do it again. Did we see some sharks? Sure did. Did I freak out? Not as much as I would have thought. Anyway, now to my stingray experience. Earlier, when the stingray would swim by I would touch it and it was kind of cool and I really liked it... until it came to feeding them. Now, if any of you have ever fed a stingray before, you know that their mouth is on the bottom. So they told us to get on our knees in the water and line up shoulder to shoulder. We each got a piece of fish to put between our fingers and the idea is just to hold your hand under water and the stingray will simply swim over your hand and suck up the fish into its mouth. Sounds easy right? Well, the guide quickly warned us not to make any sudden movements or the stingray will freak out and stab you with its poisonous barb... oh no big deal, it's only how Steve Irwin kicked it! So I'm trying to stay really still but it's a little difficult to be still when the stingray LITERALLY swims up onto my stomach and then tries to swim between my legs. Needless to say I'm squirming while Chris keeps saying "be still be still!" Let's just say that was the end of my stingray feeding.

Day 2: We stopped at the cruise ships private island called CocoCay. We spent the day soaking up the sun and eating lots of food on the beach. We could walk a few hundreds yards into the water and the water would never go above my knees and the water was crystal clear. The water isn't deep and it's clear and warm? Sign me up. That's my kind of beach. The water was beautiful and it was such a relaxing day.

Day 3: Our last stop was at Key West, Florida. I had been there before when I was little and the highlight was swimming and feeding Manatees. Unfortunately, this didn't happen this go-around but we did get to explore the 2 mile x 4 mile island on a trolley. It was so much fun because I didn't realize how much history this island had! Hemmingway lived in Key West! Did you know that? I didn't. Anyway, we spent half the day in Key West and the rest of the day laying out by the pool eating our weight in ice cream (don't judge, if you had unlimited access to ice cream you would eat it every 10 minutes too)

Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was the gist of our cruise and it was a wonderful way to finish off our crazy semester and we're hoping to save up for another cruise in the future!

Blogging 101

Ok. So, I have recently been completely blog obsessed. First it started with Kamille's blog, then I would randomly see other friends' blogs and I would read them incessantly. My first thought after reading these blogs is always "gosh, that's just so cute. I should have a blog." But then my idea quickly diminishes when I sit down at my computer and attempt to compose a thought. What do I have to write about? I go to school and work on a daily basis and I come home to my adorable husband. Pretty typical. This shouldn't be that hard, right? I used to be awesome at writing in my journal, but when it comes to writing a blog I feel like I have nothing to say. So then I thought that maybe I would be more inclined to write a blog if the blog was decorated all cute. Fail. I'm technologically retarded. I'm talking, a complete disgrace to our generation. It took me entirely too long to figure out how to do the basics and I still have no idea how to make this thing cute. I'll work on it. I promise. 

That having been said, it's officially springtime (well, for the rest of the world, Utah seems to be perpetually stuck in winter)

This is what it SHOULD look like.

Instead it looks like this:

Ok, enough of my ranting about Utah's so-called "spring"

So Chris and I have a lot of fun things going on this summer. We just got back from our honeymoon in the Bahamas (I will dedicate an entire post to our honeymoon soon!) we are going to Cancun with Chris' family in a few weeks to celebrate Chris' brother, William, coming home from his mission in Salt Lake, one of my best friends, Nataya, is getting married in California, one of my other best friends, Monica, is having her baby, Sarah and Chad are getting hitched, lots of camping and hiking trips with our friends... and oh yeah, we're moving to Dallas.... peace out Utah. So, my point in informing you of every possible exciting thing that's going on this summer is that I'm hoping that I can finally kick-off this blog thing and actually have things to write about!

Stay tuned....