Our Honeymoon!!!!

Well, our honeymoon came to an end, we got home about 1 am this morning and woke up to reality! It is difficult not walking the beach drinking coffee this morning! We went to Aruba for a week which was such a beautiful place wish we could move there! Not sure our skin would appreciate being so close to the equator- Aruba is 19.6 miles long and 6 miles wide. Their primary language is Dutch, thankfully most everyone also spoke english! We did not do any research so it was a learning experience! Suprisingly, we were part of the very few who were from the West Coast. We met alot of fun people, mostly from the east coast and alot of visitors from other countries like Venezuela and Europe, so the diversity was extreme and made it very interesting! The island is known for it's safety, it is not affected too durastically by weather, and the natives are very friendly, unless they are driving ofcourse then it feels like New York. We did not know what any road signs meant, so we got honked at for going down one ways, not pinning it as soon as the light turned green, and not driving at top speeds thru residential roads- stop signs, well, they dont exist, street names and signs, they are few and far between, in dutch and not printed on the map! For a small island, we managed to get lost quite a bit which only provided us an opportunity to expereince more inland :)

We went on a jeep safari one of the days we were there. It was a riot! We were lucky and had the most fun jeep group out of the four! We had a couple from New York driving, yes, the Arubians took our money then asked which customer wanted to drive lol, at least they drove the leading jeep! We made sure to get our money's worth by four wheeling it hard and hitting every standing water puddle on the ride.

We went to the California light house which was really cool. The lighthouse is named for the U.S ship - the California - which sunk about two years previous to its construction in 1910.

The Alto Vista Chapel also went down in our books! The chapel was built in 1952 on the site of the original, and first, Catholic church built in Aruba in 1750 by a Spanish missionary, Domingo Antonio Silvestre. The bright yellow chapel is reached by a winding road lined with white crosses marking the stations of the cross. It is a special place for peace and contemplation, surrounded by the Aruban countryside.

Aruba has a couple of historic natrual bridges. The first natural bridge, was one of Aruba's most popular attractions. The bridge was a formation of coral limestone cut out by years of pounding surf, and was one of the largest of these types of spans in the world. This bridge collapsed in Sept 2 of 05', but we were fortunate enough to see two smaller natural bridge formations. This was really cool to see the water smash against the rocks, beleive it or not, the beach we went to most of the time was so calm, like a lake!

The collapsed bridge

On top of one of the two smaller natural bridges

We then went to the Bushiribana Gold Mine Ruins. "Regarding the ruins’ history, Alonso de Ojeda was a Spanish explorer who made his way to this remote corner of the Caribbean and laid claim to the territory for Queen Isabella. According to tradition, he christened the place “Oro Hubo”, which means that there was gold there. The Spanish seemed to believe that the climate was too arid for cultivation, and they found little evidence of the infamous supply of “gold”. Over the course of 150 years, Aruba became a hideaway for pirates and buccaneers. Bushiribana is the name of the ruins of an old pirate castle that still stands (barely) today. The year 1824 was when they finally discovered gold near Bushiribana. In 1872, the Aruba Island Gold Mining Company built a large smelting works at Bushiribana, for gold that was being mined at Seroe Plat."

Not sure why we went to the Ostrich farm, but we did. These creatures run 45 mph, and are probably the weirdest looking things on the planet!



 We went snorkeling in the natural pool, which is a unique formation of rock, volcanic stone circles a small depression, creating a tranquil pool known as "conchi" or "Cura di Tortuga,".  My camera died here so I didnt get very good pictures of this cool structure as well as the cave we hiked in.

 We became professional beach bums, soaking up the rays, and towards the end of the trip, we were both peeling pretty good. We may look like zebras for our wedding!

Aruba is not a cheap place,but we managed to score a meal on a peir and watched the sunset - it was amazing!

We rented a paddle boat for an hour, it was insane how shallow the water was. We were at least 400 feet from shore and it was five feet deep!

There were a ton of iguanas and blue lizards!

And I thought all coconuts were brown!

All in all, Aruba was a success. Thanks to all who helped us get there! We appreciate it and hope to return sometime in the future.



Our Beg. to the New Technological Era

Ok, so everyone and their mothers and brothers and sisters now have blog sites, so I figured we should jump on the bandwagon and do our own! I figured this would be a good way to keep in touch with long distance relatives, but I cant promise Gray will ever figure out how to post a blog!

We just got back from Vegas for Grays last supercross race for the year- It was so much fun! Friday I finished my last day of Nursing school and then we left as soon as I took my last test. Gray did really good, he rode 450's and made the night show. We missed the main but hopefully that will change next year! He got a third place start in his heat which was awesome! It was the hottest day of the year for Vegas, so it was a change for all the Utah riders, coming from Salt Lake SX which was in the 30-40's then Vegas which was high 90's! All of the riders from Utah did really good, Landon Powell made the 250 main for the West Coast and Bracken Hall was slightly short of making the night show, all three Utah riders looked really good!

As far as our life goes now.... I just finished school and will be graduating at the end of the month. I am continuing to work home health and teaching CNA classes on the side. I am hoping to get into the Respiratory Intensive Care Unit Residency in June, so cross your fingers! It feels so good to be done with school, and I am sure Gray agrees! It's been a long four years and I know if he dealt with me thru school, we can get thru anything! :) I can't thank those enough who have helped me get thru college and helping me graduate with honors-

We leave on our honeymoon next week. We seem to do everything backwards!  Honeymoon- then get married :) We are going to Aruba! Yae, were so excited! Thanks to my grandparents for letting us have their time share! It will be nice to finally have a vacation that does not include a motorcycle! I am bitter sweet about leaving my baby Bently with my mom for the month! I am sure she is ready to give him back lol and I sure am ready to take him back! He probably wont want to come home! He has been in doggy heaven cruising the beaches of Lake Powell, playing with my brother's dog Haus, and Im sure my dad is slippin him foods he would never in a million years get here at home!

As for summer, Gray and I have our work cut out for us as we try to landscape our yard by ourselves. It seems like we put all of our free time into our house yet there is a never ending list of things to be done! Gray plans on training kids for mx this summer again, which we cant wait to start riding together again! It seems like I havent been on a bike in forever, so it will be nice to touch base and go back to our roots :)

Welp, I think that's enough babblin for the first blog- Thanks momma for watchin Bently, we'll post pics after Aruba! Have a good day!