#20 It Wasn't as Bad as I Thought

Blogging can be an activity that some enjoy and others despise. For me, I didn't have the greatest attitude towards the idea of writing a blog. I am a pretty private person that doesn't necessarily like others knowing what is constantly happening in my life. But as I've participated in the creating, writing, and maintaining a personal blog, I have opened up and found myself enjoying it. I'm not a fan of writing in general, but the idea of writing about anything I had a desire to write about helped. I also enjoyed the aspect of making the blog visually rhetoric. I think that was my favorite part. Being able to go back and add pictures, revisit those memories, and help the reader feel what I'm writing, was a great experience. All in all, I found that writing the blog was not as bad as I thought it was and I ultimately enjoyed the blogging process.

#19 A Friend and Leader

     When I was in the Young Men Program in my branch in Marshfield, Wisconsin, I had an awesome leader. His name is Steve Taylor. He was a powerful influence in my life and really made me think about life's decisions. Still to this day, he is a good friend and role model for me.
     We have always had a love of basketball in common and I think it is why we are such great friends to this day. For one young men's activity, we planned a temple trip to the St. Paul Temple. As an important factor in this trip, we went to a NBA Basketball the night before we would attend the temple. We spent the night in a hotel and had a "guys night." As a result of this experience, I feel that we all become closer and got to know each other a bit more. It was a great experience to have fun and spend quality time with guys my age with powerful leaders. We enjoyed the game, goofing around at the hotel, and the temple the next day. In fact, even young men who weren't worthy to attend the temple came. It showed me the powerful influence that I could one day have in the lives of young men.    
     One Sunday, he told me, "You need to ask 'why?' in the gospel. You need to question, seek, and obtain answers for yourself." This has always stuck with me and I don't think I'll ever forget it. It was a powerful lesson to me about the importance of seeking divine guidance to my questions. This has helped me receive personal revelation throughout my life about important decisions I've had to make.
   

#18 Human Anatomy

     Before the semester started, I had my doubts about how I would do in Human Anatomy. When I decided to put my efforts into applying to the BYU Nursing Program, I knew that taking this class would be one of the first requirements. I knew from many people that this was a hard class. I had many reservations about taking it and of course, I wanted to do well.

   An important part of taking this class was to study my brains out. After several weeks of classes, studying, quizzes, working, etc., I realized that I wasn't allowing myself enough study time. I didn't score well on one of my first tests and it really disappointed me. After much contemplation and discussion with my wife, I decided to quit my job at the end of September. This was a big decision for me because I enjoyed my job, being a basketball official for BYU Intramurals. However, I just couldn't work the long shifts and still have enough time to study for my quizzes and tests. I am happy to say that as a result of this decision, I have excelled at anatomy. 

    I have learned so much throughout this semester about the human body! It has been a great experience studying the different parts of the human body and how everything works. It has strengthened my testimony and amazement of God's power in creating everything in this world and how everything comes together to work. 

#17 Cruising in Mexico

On Saturday, we were to port in Ensenada, Mexico. Unlike in Santa Barbara, we actually pulled right into the harbor, so no tenders for today. After another great breakfast at the buffet, we went down to Deck 5 to get off the ship. It was really weird at first, being in a different country. Everything was mainly in Spanish and we had no idea where we were going. We were afraid to ask anyone for fear of them not being able to speak English.

We walked around for ages, it seemed like. We had a map of the downtown area, but it wasn't very good. The "shops" that were supposedly to be a great shopping area disappointed my wife. Instead, we tried to find the beach. After walking around some more, we finally decided to just head back to the harbor to ask for directions. We came across a taxi driver waiting for customers and he pointed us in the right direction for the beach. However, he offered to drive us because it was about 2 miles away from where we were. We decided to save the money and walk because the weather was nice and as we had eaten so much on our cruise, it would be good for us. Wow, he wasn't kidding. It really was 2 miles away...and we walked, and walked, and walked. Eventually, we found it! And it was totally worth the walk!

It was very different from Santa Barbara because there were actual waves here and we watched some people trying to surf. I went swimming in the ocean; the water was cold, but I got used to it after awhile. Besides the surfers, we were really the only ones in the water. The waves don't look too big in the picture, but they were rather intimidating. It was an incredible experience to be able to swim in the ocean. It was crazy as I was getting pushed around by the water as the waves crashed down and the water then receded back. We stayed at the beach for a couple of hours, then decided to start our journey back to the ship.

Overall, our cruise was great and I'm really glad we decided to go for it! For a long time, we were so indecisive about whether we wanted to do it or not. Finally, my wife found a great deal for Thanksgiving week and we decided to go for it. I'm really glad we did because it was a really cool experience. Again, there were a lot of "firsts" for me on this trip. I had never really gone on a vacation before. It was my first cruise, my first time in California, my first time to Mexico, my first time seeing the ocean, and my first time at the beach. The food was so good and the service on the cruise ship was great too! We might go on another honeymoon next year!

#16 Pit Stop in Santa Barbra

Friday was an exciting day because we would be going to Santa Barbara, California! Early that morning, we anchored off in near the shore. After an awesome breakfast, we loaded into a small boat, called a tender, and the tender took us to shore.

The tenders were a little sketchy at first, but after awhile, we got used to it. It was just a 5-minute ride over the shore and we set off to explore!

Santa Barbara is GREAT! I could totally live there. In fact, I told my wife many times as we walked around that I would be completely content to live there. The weather was perfect and we walked around the harbor, looking out at the ocean and sand. There was a pier nearby that we walked along, discovering the little shops and restaurants there. We got some really expensive ice cream as we walked on the pier. We walked along the beach. Taking our shoes and socks off, I could feel the cool sand in between my toes. We waded into the cold water and I enjoyed my first time in the ocean.

     After playing around at the beach and in the water, we brushed our feet off and put our shoes back on. We decided to walk up State Street to explore the many stores Santa Barbara had to offer. We found a cool hat store and tried some funky hats on for fun. I saw lots of palm trees lining the street; it being my first time seeing a real palm tree also. This trip included a lot of "firsts" for me as I haven't had many vacations in my lifetime.
     After walking around Santa Barbara for a couple of hours, we decided to head back to the harbor. We loaded back on the tender and it took us back to our mother ship. We went to the buffet for lunch, complete with delicious fresh fruit. We sat right by the huge windows that overlook the ocean below us. It was a great view as we ate our lunch.

That afternoon, I started getting a headache. I think it was because I didn't really drink any water all day. I hung out in the room while my wife laid out in the sun for awhile. When she came back, we both showered and got ready for dinner. This night was a more formal night so we dressed up (it wasn't required, but we wanted to). As we went to dinner, I really wasn't feeling too good. We sat down, ordered our food, and my stomach was hurting. We got our salads, but after only one or two bites of mine, I felt like I was going to throw up. My wife asked our waiter to cancel our food orders and we left. We ran to one of the stores onboard and got Advil and Dramamine for seasickness. After vomiting the little food I did eat at dinner and the medications kicking, I was starting to feel better. In the newsletter that day, it announced there would be an illusionist showing that night. Since I was feeling better, we decided to go. They're called Hawley Magic and they were on America's Got Talent. They were pretty good, but it wasn't really what I expected. There was dancing and a lot of show-casing and I wasn't really expecting that. I thought it was going to be just a combination of magic tricks.

     Anyways, that was day 3 on our honeymoon cruise. It was good, except for the seasickness.

#15 Day At Sea

Thursday was our at-sea day on the cruise, probably because it was Thanksgiving Day. That morning, we had a couples massage appointment reserved for us. After breakfast, we headed to the Lotus Spa. It was my first ever massage. It was strange at first, but really relaxing. We enjoyed lots of time in the sun and pool. In our daily newsletter, I read about a basketball shootout they were hosting that morning. I suited up and set off for the court. Unfortunately, I got second place, losing to a 12-year-old.                            

This was a relaxing day for us as we enjoyed the sun, pools, movies, food, T.V., and sounds of the waves as the ship cut through the ocean. 

As this was Thanksgiving Day, we definitely enjoyed wonderful Thanksgiving meals that night for dinner. Our meal was complete with turkey, stuffing, ham, potatoes, and cheesecake for dessert. We were pretty tired from our day in the sun, but the daily newsletter had also mentioned that there would be a comedian show that night after dinner. We were a little nervous about this because we didn't know him and/or what his jokes might be like. We decided that if he started including cussing in his jokes, we would leave. However, we were ever so pleasantly surprised. This comedian, Derrick Cameron, told us of how he made sure his shows were for everyone, kids included. There was no swearing or dirty jokes and we laughed and laughed. His jokes were mainly about many truths in life. We enjoyed 45 minutes of great jokes, then went to the room. We watched a little T.V. until we fell asleep. 

#14 Hopped off the Plane at LAX

On Wednesday, November 26, my wife and I flew out of Las Vegas and arrived at LAX airport. We boarded a shuttle that took us to the San Pedro LA Cruise Terminal so that we could board our cruise ship. We checked in, went through security, and finally boarded the Golden Princess.

 We found our stateroom, on deck Emerald, room 615. We explored the small confines of our room, dropped our things off, then set out to explore the rest of the ship. After wandering around for awhile, we finally came across the Passenger Service desk and my wife asked for a map of the ship. This was a great help to us! We found the pizza bar, which was my dream come true! We had pizza, then found the buffet, and ate some more there. We explored the many sights of the ship including the 3 pools, 7 hot tubs, the Lotus Spa, the basketball court, the ice cream bar, and many more! Wow, we were in for a fun four days!

We soaked up some sunshine and relaxed in the hot tubs. We had dinner at 5:30 every night in the Donatello Dining Room. The food was awesome and we enjoyed some even better desserts afterwards.

Since we didn't get very much sleep the night before in Vegas (the airport wasn't far away, so we heard planes flying overheard constantly), we fell asleep rather quickly after dinner while watching T.V.