Our Last Free Flights

By the time Mark was out of school for his summer break, we had 2 weeks left to fly for free. We crammed in as much as we could before the flight benefits ended. This is what we were able to do before all the flying fun was over:

We got to watch Emilee graduate from the University of Utah. Yay for Emilee! We are so proud of her!


After Emilee's graduation, we went to dinner to celebrate.

It was really fun but became even more worth it when I saw the biggest burger I have ever seen. Cory was obviously happy with what he ordered.

On Mother's Day we got to eat two great dinners a couple hours apart with my mom and the Caldwell side...


And Mark's mom and the Baker side.
Risa made these aprons for all the girls. Aren't they cute?!

After Mother's Day, my parents flew back to Florida to spend the week with us. On the first day, we went to Kennedy Space Center. This was one of my favorites because we learned so many things!


We got to feel like real astronauts...

See real astronaut space ships...




Meet real astronauts...well almost...

And my Dad and Mark got to take a ride on the moon!

Pretty great trip if you ask me.

To finish this section off, I posted a picture of my parents touching the same moon rock. How romantic. :)

Our next stop was the Everglades. We saw baby alligators, big alligators, turtles, lizards, fish and birds.


Here's Mark with a turtle. (If you can find it)

These are of me, my dad, and mom with the alligators that were swimming.



This alligator was my favorite because its stomach was so huge. Either this alligator ordered what Cory did or it had to have been pregnant.

We thought this bird was pretty cool. You could tell it was getting nervous when the alligators swam by. It finally decided to fly away and Mark got it on camera. Good job Mark!

We were lucky because we got to the park during dinner time. The alligators were snapping all over the place. Each time one would snap you could see a group of fish scatter everywhere. Hopefully you can still see the alligators since this video is such poor quality.

The next day we went to Key Biscayne near Miami. It was really fun because we could go out pretty far and only have the water up to our knees. My mom and Mark spent most of their time snorkeling.


On the last day, we drove down to Key Largo. We got there just in time to take the last glass bottom boat ride. We saw tons of parrot fish, a turtle, a shark, and on our way back a couple of dolphins.

The ride out there was one of the best parts. We were bouncing all over the place because the water was really choppy. I was loving standing at the front of the boat and flying around until we splashed way down into the water and I got soaking wet. My hair tells the whole story in this next picture.

The ride was fun but I think what topped it off was listening to 60s beach music that was playing and then looking over at my dad's crazy hair while the wind was blowing it. He looked just like "the Fonz" from the "Happy Days". See a resemblance?

Unfortunately because it was so windy people starting getting sick from the rocking. My dad actually ended up throwing up because of this. As you can see my dad's got his sick face on while he's holding up his barf bag and a peppermint in this next picture. I was a little jealous when I came up to the top of the boat and saw they were giving everyone free peppermints. Of course I acted like I was sick too so I could get one.

After dinner in Key Largo, we went to see the original boat from the 1950's movie "African Queen". I think this was the only thing that could have inspired Mark and I to watch this movie after. It was pretty cheesy but at least I still felt special that I had seen the actual boat that was in the movie.



Our vacation was so fun that when it was over I was a little disappointed because it made the airport job that much sadder that it was coming to an end. Oh well, all good things come to an end, right?

Kitchen Pictures

I am finally giving into the requests I have gotten to post pictures of our condo. I originally wanted to wait until the whole condo was finished but since it has taken a lot longer than I imagined, I'll just post room by room as it gets done. When we bought this condo from an old couple, I thought that it wouldn't be that difficult to fix up. I figured that after replacing the carpet, the light fixtures, and painting there really wouldn't be too much left. Boy was I wrong. Little did we know that it had mold, the entire place had been wallpapered, ripped half-way off, and then painted over, and that it hadn't been cleaned in what looked like to be 20 years to me. It was disgusting!! What made it all worse was that before Mark started his first year of Dental school, all we had gotten done on the place was 3/4 of the kitchen which meant the rest of the condo was pretty much up to me to fix until Mark had more time. Well anyways, luckily that is in the past and we are almost all finished. All we have left to do is finish stripping the wallpaper off one of our bathrooms, hang up some decorations, and tile the balcony. Hallelujah!
Here are the before and after pictures of our kitchen:

Notice how in the before picture that the grout in the tile is black. That's not because it was supposed to be black like I had thought the first time I was there, it was because it was filthy. I scrubbed every little crack twice with acid to get it clean. Obviously, not a great memory-- especially when the cleaning water was black after I had cleaned just one crack.

I Love Birthdays!

Unfortunately in April, I (along with 160 others) was laid off from my airline job because of the economy and poor management in the company. Although I was pretty disappointed that all my future traveling was coming to an end, I was able to get in a couple last trips before my benefits ran out. After flying home for a couple days for my sister Ang's birthday, Mark gave me an early birthday present and let me take a trip to Boston with my Mom. This was seriously one of my favorite trips! I loved every second with my Mom-- our slaphappy early mornings, the amazing New England clam chowder, our duck walk, our interesting shuttle rides, the free boat ride-- it was all so much fun! I also had no idea there was so much history in Boston. All those cloudy memories of what I half learned in 5th grade became so much clearer after this trip. I loved learning for real this time. Here are some of my favorite parts:

We mostly saw the sights on the Freedom Trail. This is in Boston Commons where the trail began. I ate the most amazingly good sandwich from a deli across the street. I will forever love pesto because of this sandwich. Mmmm!

This was the coolest old cemetary. We saw so many famous graves including those of Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Robert Treat Paine, people in the Boston Massacre, and Benjamin Franklin's parents. It was so neat!

Paul Revere's Grave

Here I am in front of the gravestone for Samuel Adams and the men who died in the Boston Massacre.

The Old North Church where Boston was warned that the British were coming.

Faneuil Hall

Paul Revere's House

Red Coat keeping guard ;)

Boston Harbor

We got to walk through the city park that the storybook "Make Way for Ducklings" was written about.

Of course we couldn't miss going to the place "where everybody knows your name". :)

Site of the Boston Massacre

Bunker Hill Monument: This was when I knew I was really out of shape. To get to the top you have to climb exactly 294 steps. I could barely feel my legs after this because they were so wobbly. I guess it was a good thing we only had one more place to walk on the Freedom Trail after this because I seriously couldn't make it much farther than that.

View from the top of the Bunker Hill Monument

USS Constitution

Last of all, I don't want to leave out the fun I had at home before I went to Boston It was so fun to celebrate Angelee's birthday with my family. Happy Birthday Ang!

I was blown away at how big some of my nieces and nephew have gotten. They are so cute and so fun to play with. I can't wait until I can play with all my nieces and nephew again.

My sister Katie was nice enough to take some family pictures while we were there. She is a great photographer! Here is one of our favorites.