Thanksgiving...Mexico style

Our Thanksgiving wasn't a normal Thanksgiving since it isn't celebrated here in Mexico. My dad and his girlfriend came to visit and we had a nice time. Good food...not turkey...good company, and we went to some fun places. We don't do touristy stuff unless people are visiting and there is a lot to do and see around here.


We went to Lake Chapala which is less than an hour out of town. It is a cute little place up in the mountains and the lake is huge. They also have this lovely little pirate ship in front of the church...random. This is Zach trying to do the Captain Morgan thing in front of the ship...also random!
Me walking down the boardwalk trying to avoid the paparazzi!
The cute little boats on the lake. Tons of them...and tons of guys trying to get you to take a ride too!
Dad and Debra eating our amazing lunch by the lake. First time having molcajetes...delicious!! Kind of like fajita stew with cactus leaves, shrimp, chicken, steak, peppers, cheese...and of course wonderful tortillas. Seriously...I am thinking about making a trip back alone just to eat!
Us outside of the Gran Catedral in the city center of Guadalajara. It is a huge, beautiful church with squares full of people, vendors, and fountains on all sides.
Taking pictures of eachother taking pictures through the eyes of a big snake sculpture downtown.
Outside the Jose Cuervo tequila factory in Tequila, Mexico! There really is a town called Tequila and it is adorable. Tequila originated in the state of Jalisco in the mountains around Tequila where the agaves grow. The Jose Cuervo factory is a beautiful complex and the tour is quite interesting!
Being birds by the Jose Cuervo bird...Cuervo means crow in Spanish!These are agaves...future tequila! The are huge and weigh between 30 and 40 pounds each!

We also went to Tlaquepaque for some shopping and ate and ate and ate! The Jalisco food staples are delicious! If you don't believe me come for a visit...we are great hosts and tour guides!!!

A Long Bit Overdue! Long Post...

So...now that we have been residents of Zapopan, Mexico for almost 4 months...it is beyond time that I post a little something. Life here is pretty great! We really love it. Everyone we have met has been friendly, more than willing to help, and extremely interested in us and what we are doing here. We have gotten pretty used to standing out with our blonde hair and blue eyes. It doesn't even phase me to get stared at when i am at the grocery store and mall anymore!

We love our house here...it is big and bright and we have gotten it pretty well decorated!

Zach is studying a lot and doing fabulous in all of his many classes. He has met some great people and is really enjoying everything here...he would like a little less studying though!

I am about to start my fourth level of spanish classes and feel about 20 times better about the language than I did when we got here. The classes have been really great and I have met some really cool people from lots of different countries! I love having new friends...and many of them don't speak English, so it forces us to communicate in spanish!

With some of my level 2 friends on our trip to Tequila.

We also love our ward here. Our bishop and his family have been very welcoming. Zach is on the high council...kind of crazy...and I am the music director in relief society. My calling is helping with my spanish, but makes me really nervous!

We have done some fun stuff...

A Chivas soccer or futbol game with a couple from our ward! So fun...and we are going again this weekend!!

Zach tried to learn some salsa with some friends at our stake's Dieciseis fiesta...it was funny!

There are some great waterfalls just on the edge of town...seriously less than 30 minutes from our house and that is because of traffic! We live in a cool place!

Zach conquered them...I have noticed in recent photos that this is his new favorite pose!

This past weekend we went to the oldest ruins in Mexico that are about an hour out of town with our bishop and his family. Way beautiful and way cool...for more of these pictures see my facebook!

We love Mexico so far! Life is great!! We are excited to come back to Texas for a few weeks at Christmas and visit. Let me know if you want any cool Mexican candy or regalos!! I need to stay on top of this...updating this much takes too long!! Hasta luego!

Moving to Mexico

Next Friday morning, we will be leaving the United States and driving off with our car packed down with as much as it will hold! We are headed to Guadalajara, Mexico for the next few years and are so excited for this new fun experience and to live someplace totally different. I am sure it will be a big shock at first especially for me with the whole language thing, but I am so excited!

So until we get there and settled in...Adios from College Station, Texas! And Guadalajara looks pretty amazing to me from what I have seen, but as soon as we are there and settled I will post some good first hand photos!!

Bahama Vacation!

The end of April Zach and I took a wonderful cruise to the Bahamas! It was kind of a late graduation celebration, an early anniversary celebration, and one last vacation before our big move! We drove all the way to Florida...which was our first long road trip with just the two of us. The 24 hour straight through drive to Utah with 6 people and 2 dogs in one car is not something we like to think about!

We left from Port Canaveral, Florida and stayed in a great place there the night before with free parking and shuttle that took us to the cruise terminal...defintaley the way to go to avoid $20 a day parking at the terminal!

Since we took a Carnival cruise for our honeymoon and I had been on some previously...we were both past cruisers and had our gold card instead of the normal blue one, so we felt special from the start.

After playing around on the ship the first day, we went to Freeport. The weather looked like it might rain on us at first but it ended up being a great day!

We drank out of coconuts...mango, passion fruit, and all kinds of yummy island fruits!

Technically the island are British...so there were a few phone booths that brought back memories of my time in England!

I made a sweet new friend on one of the piers...I always love seeing cats and dogs in other countries. They are always the same, but I still like seeing them. So sweet Bahama kitty was sunbathing! One of the many ladies that was harrassing me about getting my hair braided...they wanted to braid everybody's hair...took a picture of us by the beach. One of the few with both of us that is not a self portrait!

Self portrait on the beach in the wind!

We bought a new camera before the trip...like a real nice camera because ours got stolen by plumbers who were in our apartment! That is a whole other story! But I was still trying to learn how to really use it and it takes pretty flower pictures! Hopefully my photography skills will improve if I can ever read through the whole manual on it!

Attempting to be artistic with the camera. I like taking pictures when Zach doesn't know I am taking them!

There were lots of very tall palm trees and a beautiful blue sky as a background!

Back on the ship leaving Freeport...headed to Nassau!!!

Towel animals every night after meals where we ate way too much! I love cruise food!

Docked in Nassau we could see the amazing Atlantis Resort...let me just say if you ever want to go to a nice resort and spend a lot of money....this is the place to do it. We went over there in the afternoon and it was one of the nicest places either of us had ever been to! Maybe after med school we can take our family there!

We spent our morning in Nassau at the beach getting our tan on! We didn't want to take our new camera, so we took an old one which it not cooperating with me. Just wanted to make it known that we did enjoy time at the beach on our tropical vacation!

I could totally live on this little island. Maybe I could take up jewlery making and hair braiding!

Cute Zachary getting ready to get off the ship to wander around the town!

The town was very clean and the people were really nice!

More flowers!

At Atlantis

They have a huge amazing aquarium with pretty much every kind of fish you could imagine, but the pictures don't do it justice.

This is on top of the all the aquariums.

We were docked in Nassau until about 5 a.m. It was cool to be in port somewhere at night!

We loved the cruise just wish it could have been longer! Once we got off the ship and back to our car we were headed to Mobile, Alabama to stay the night but not without making lots of fun pit stops.

Zach loves college campuses for some reason and loves the Florida Gators. So we got this picture at the stadium and he got a hat and shirt.

After our night in Mobile, where we were both experiencing bad sea legs, our second day of driving brought us to outlet malls in Mississippi for me and LSU in Baton Rouge for Zach!

We then spent a few days in Beaumont with my dad to wrap up our week of no work!

Then we stopped in Conroe at my mom's to get our little Chico who we had missed so much! Mom loves to babysit her granddog!

It was a great trip and we wish could do a tropical vacation every month!!

Engageversary!

I realize that is not even close to a real word, but it makes sense to me. Today is the 2 year Anniversary of our engagement. I can't believe it has already been two years!! I wanted to post a little something about the fabulous proposal my husband had for me two years ago on December 15, 2006. It was wonderful, romantic, amazing, and memorable...definitely a good story for the kids! (By the way there are no kids on the way or anything!)

So here is the story of our engagement night.......
Zach and I decided to go out to dinner. We drove by Cheddars...it was packed and so was Olive Garden. Not wanting to wait to eat, we ended up going to Fudrucker's...which is exactly what we did on our first date. I took that as a rare coincidence. After a dinner, with a very calm Zach...we got in the car and he said, "I want to take you somewhere, but first you have to wear this." He blindfolded me and my stomach started with the butterflies...we had already been talking marriage, so then I totally knew what was coming!

After a long blindfolded walk, we stopped and he took the blindfold off. We were at the George Bush Presidential Library. We had been there before and spent time talking and enjoying the serenity of the place. There is a beautiful pond and gazebo with arches leading up to it. On the arches leading to the gazebo there were 3 red banners with gold letters that said "I <3 U".

We walked into the candle filled gazebo and sat down. His hands were shaking and he picked up a big metal tool box. There was a lock on it. He explained that the combination was the date of our first kiss. I thought about it and with shaky hands, turned the 3 dials to the date. It opened. Inside was a smaller wooden box, decorated by my future fiance. It also had a lock...this date was the day we first said I love you. I opened this one to find a ring box. Zach said, "I guess I will take over from here." He got out the ring box, got on one knee, and through a few tears expressed his feelings and asked me to marry him. Through my tears I said yes!

Ashley, my sister, and some wonderful friends were out hiding in the woods. They had helped his whole plan and idea work and were also there to take some great pictures! We have since been back to the gazebo and you can still see wax on the stone pillars. It is nice to have a left a mark on our spot!! Happy Anniversary Zachary...I love you and wish you were home with me tonight instead of at the station! See you in the morning!!This is my favorite picture of the whole night because his smile says that he made the right decision in asking me to marry him! I will always have this to remind him of that...even when I might drive him crazy!