SEVEN YEARS GOOD LUCK!!

Ever since our cruise in January, where our excursion to Sting Ray City got cancelled, I have wanted to do this.  A bunch of students got together and was given a discounted rate so I went.  Its amazing how these sting rays just come up and put their wings on you.  They give you squid to feed them and they just suck it out of your hand like a vacuum.  The of them feel like sand paper and their undersides are really soft.  Anyway, it was a great time.  I am still sad that everyone missed out on it during the cruise.  It definitely would have been the most fun thing we did.  After playing with sting rays we did some snorkeling along the barrier reef.  It was great.  We saw a huge five foot electric eel, some conchs, some huge parrot fish (about the size of my torso) and a bunch of other things.  The great thing about this reef was that it was mostly all still alive.  When we snorkeling in Key West most of the reef was dead.  This was much better.  Anyway here are the picks.  

You get seven years good luck for kissing a sting ray.  Hope its true!!

Orientation and of course....some snorkeling!!!

So its official class is now in sessions, however I did find some time to play today.  This morning we had to get up at 5:30 for orientation.  It was pretty good.  Most of the faculty and administration spoke.  They just explained the school and where we need to go to get help.  Then we had lunch and back to orientation.  It lasted over eight hours.  After orientation we decided to walk back to the residence hall.  Its about 2 miles so it was a pretty good walk.  Since it was still going to be light for a while we decided to go snorkeling.  My room is located right on the beach so its pretty awesome to walk right outside and go.  My roomates parents decided to get new snorkeling gear and donated the rest to me.  So now I can go all I want.  We spent and hour just swimming around and getting a pretty good workout.  Pictured below are my shell findings on the beach near my room and the fish that we saw while we were out.  There were plenty of other kinds of fish but I don't know what their names are...yet.

(The mouth is lettuce from the BBQ they had tonight.  

Clownfish

Nassau Grouper

Angelfish

Trumpetfish

Blue Tang

Parrotfish

Paddletail

Sergeant Majors

This is a triggerfish.  We saw a huge one.  My roomate said that he has never seen one as big as the one we saw today and he has been snorkeling for hears.  It was about 2 feet from head to tail and 1 foot from dorsal to belly.  We had to go around because we think we angered it.  It started to do a defensive dance and apparently they attack and bite when provoked.  Crazy enough as part of the dance you could hear it jaws snapping underwater.   It was awesome. 

Fireworm

The Turtle Farm!!!

Today was a really fun day.  I was able to go to the Turtle Farm.  Its the only place in the world where they breed turtles.  They have released over 31,000 turtle into the ocean since the 80s.  Its a great place to do something unique because they let you pick up the turtles (the little ones anyway).  Most of the turtles on the farm are really big.  Some are over 4.5 feet long.  We also bought turtle food.  It smelled like dog food, which it might have been.  When you hold your hand over the water all the turtle come over to get the food and then they reach out their necks and chomp it down.  Its also really cool to see them breathe.  They gasp for air when they come to the surface and blow water out their noses.   I guess they can hold their breathe for twelve hours.  Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pictures.   

Items in my purse for the bag tag:

1-Coupons (Laralee and I went to the women's expo yesterday.)

2- 4 pens (I can never find one so I have to keep several in there.)

3-Vitamins filled with cow bile to help my stomach problem (I diagnosed myself with a gall bladder problem.-- Laura Taylor RDH ha ha.)

4-Acid reducers

5-Ibuprofen

6-Ice Breakers xylitol mint packs

7-Water botttle

8- Heart shapped make up bag full of "the dog and pony show" touch ups.

9-Camera and case (camera in my hands when taking the picture.)

10-Spry mints and gum

11-Hobo wallet (every woman should have one.)

12-Keys

13-Nail file

14-B and B lemon sparkle lotion (Bryan's favorite.)

15-B and B warm vanilla hand sanitizer

16-Sponge that I got from the women's expo

17-Change

18-Bleaching trays

19-Socks (when I go to to the movies my feeth get cold.)

20-Sucker that I got for the women's expo, saving this for Jackson

21-Ahmm ahmm what every girl has in her purse (I was instructed to include everything in the bag tag.)

22-Earings

Bag Tag!!

I have been bag tagged by my sister to take a picture of everything that is in my purse, no cleaning allowed! I have a huge purse because I like to carry lots of stuff in it. Bryan's parents gave me this purse for my birthday and it has been the best purse I have had because I can fit so much stuff in it... and it's cute.

Laura tagged:

Diane

Lorie

Amber

Meg

Mandy

Stephanie

Show what's in your bag and there is no cleaning allowed!

Strolling Down Seven Mile Beach

Well I didn't really have much to do today except explore the island a little bit. So I decided to go for a walk down the beach. It was really nice and the sand was so soft. I even walked down by where we played when we came here on our cruise. It was just nice to be out and enjoy the sun and the cool ocean breeze. The water here is really clear and blue and the temperatures are in the 80s and 90s.

On my way back from the beach I was walking by this hedge and I could hear some rustling. Looked over and there was this 3 foot iguana sitting there. There are lizards all over the place as well as softball size crabs.

To finish out the evening, I had dinner at Calypso. It is also located on the beach front. I guess its the best restaurant in town. Anyway I had the Calypso chicken, calamari, and Toffee spongecake. It was yummy.

HOODOOS!!!

Sunday, Laura and I decided to go another drive. Another place that we have been wanting to see is Bryce Canyon. So we packed up the car again and took off the other direction to Cedar City. We had a blast driving through the mountains east of Cedar in order to get to Bryce. It was a really nice slooooowww drive but worth it. Once we got to Bryce we got out took pictures drove around and left. I don't think I would do it again just to see them. There wasn't that much to see but if you were to hike around and it would have been pretty cool. I think the highlight of our trip though was driving home. On the way back we decided to head towards Kanab instead of taking the pass back over to Cedar. To our surprise it was awesome. Its a road that leads down and very country style canyon with lot of horse and ranches with white fences. Once we got about twenty miles from Kanab there was a turn off to Zion's National Park so we decided to go through Zion's instead of Kanab. I was really pretty to see Zion's around sunset because of the way the light hits the rocks contrasted against the shadows. Anyway here are some pictures of us at Bryce.

Grand Canyon...Are you really there?

Saturday Laura and I decided that it would be fun to drive to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  We packed a lunch and some hiking shoes in case there was a trail to hike on.  The Grand Canyon is about 140 miles from St. George and the drive is pretty cool.  (Even through Colorado City).  I have never been to the Grand Canyon so I was really excited to see it.  Unfortunately, when we got to Jacob's Lake there were sign's posted that the North Rim of the Grand Canyon was CLOSED.  I was so bummed out.  Maybe one day I will find out if it is really there.  Anyway, I decided to keep going and we ended having a very scenic and fun ride to Page, Arizona where we stopped to get a Rainbow at RD's drive-in and Pizza at Strombolli's.  It was really good.  We headed home over the Glen Canyon dam and just enjoyed the drive.  

I was trying to hide the sucker for the picture but instead it looked like I was scratching.  Then the posing started and this is what the picture turned out to be.  

Angels Landing

Today we hiked Angels Landing in Zion's National Park. It was such a nice day. It started off with a little adventure though. By the way, In and Out Burger just opened here in St. George and the wait is about an hour just for a hamburger. Anyway we went there right when it opened this morning so we only waited ten minutes. To continue....the adventure...We have been to Zion's several times but usually we just drive around and get out when we want. We have never really done a real hike in the park. When we got to the park we bought our pass and drove in like usual. We knew that we were going to be hiking Angel's landing so we turned left to head up the main road into the park. After a while we noticed that there weren't any other cars on the road and there were people walking around everywhere. There were only buses on the road. We started to feel like we were doing something wrong but we kept going anyway. We started looking through the packet of info that we were given at the gate and on the last page of the newspaper they gave us it states that as of April 1, 2008 private cars will not be allowed in the park again until the fall. Thanks for telling us. We were wondering why everyone was staring at us as we drove by. Anyway, we drove all the way back to the entrance to get on the bus like everyone else and luckily we didn't get caught. The rest of the day was perfect as you can see.

The top of Angels Landing

The warning signs before the ascent

The head of the trail

Falling off the face of the mountain (actually pretending...)

Tons of switchbacks

You can see the trail below...it over 1,000 ft to the top

The trail back to the bottom is in the background

Cheesecake Factory AGAIN!

I don't know how we WILLINGLY get dragged into going to the Cheesecake Factory everytime we get around one but we do. Its too good to resist. We went with Wes and Saun for brunch. Thanks for the invite guys. We are greatful for you guys.