men are from mars, women are from venus

The differences between men and women are kind of funny sometimes, and being newly weds, we're noticing these differences more often. I'm going to try to post once a month a "men are from mars, women are from venus" entry. This month:

Tarin got a new Easter dress! I was so excited, I immediately had to try it on, and pick out which shoes and accessories I was going to wear with it, and have Nathan take a picture. After the picture was taken, I was bouncing around all giddy, and squealed "I am so excited!" and Nathan replied "That's not exciting. Do you want to see something REALLY exciting?!" Thinking that my night was going to get even better with something even more exciting than my fabulous new dress, I of course said "Yeah!"

So Nathan lead me down the hall and showed me this:

Our air conditioning had broken a couple days before and the apartment people came and installed a brand new digital thermostat. I was less than ecstatic. It was much better than the old crappy one we had, and I was glad the AC worked again, but I just couldn't bring myself to be as excited about as Nathan was. He was beaming!

Well, no matter how different we may be, we still love each other to pieces!

when the boys are away, the girls will play

On conference weekend, while Nathan was at priesthood session I had my sister and my nieces over for a little girly time. It was so much fun! Here are the photo high lights:

It wouldn't be girls night with out some ridiculously delicious stuffed crust pizza from Pizza Hut. Mel wasn't as excited about the pizza as she was about the yogurt in my fridge. She loves yogurt. And both of the girls drank up our juice while Jessica and I had soda.

While we were waiting for the pizza to arrive we decided to put in a movie. We were going to watch the final Broadway production of Rent, but since Melody is going through a parrot stage, where she repeats everything she hears, we put in:

Little Einsteins! haha

It's the only children's dvd that Nathan and I have right now.

As you can imagine, Little Einsteins didn't hold the grown ups interest very long, so we busted out the make up and played around.

This is Jessica's ruby slippers inspired look. I love the wizard of oz!
Probably not something you would wear out in public, but definitely fun! Jessica was really excited the fake lashes.

After seeing the big girls playing with the make up, Mel wanted to get pretty too. She sat surprisingly still while I did it all. The whole time I was doing her eyes and cheeks, she kept puckering up and saying "Lips Tarin!" She looked so cute when we were done.


After make up and movie, we busted out our favorite game. Jessica and I have always loved playing Mario Party together. We didn't want the little ones to feel left out, so we gave Mel and Beth wiimotes too- but the let the computer do the hard work.

So we got comfy, popped some popcorn and settled in for a Wii bit of Mario Party goodness.

Cheese!

Mel likes getting her picture taken, but I decided to change things up on her and teach her how it all work from the other side of the camera. I showed her how to push the button and take pictures. Here's a few examples of her work:

Not too bad for a 3 year old first time photographer!

Once Nathan got home, we let him join the fun by taking this picture of us girlies. Then the Stanleys had to skedaddle. It was late and the babies were getting tired. But it was definitely fun while it lasted. We can't wait to do it again!

there's no place like home!

Our apartment is finally starting to feel like a home, and not just an apartment. We love it! It's really awesome- except our upstairs neighbors can be a little heavy footed every now and then.

Our fire place. It will be really neat when winter rolls around again to be able to build a fire. We'll have to have people over a smores party or something. =p

This is the view from the from the front door.
The tv, dvd player/vcr, cable box, wii, xbox, and surround sound- all the fun stuff! And that's our love sack over in the corner- it's so big a cozy! And yes, that is general conference on the tv.


This is our fabulous $50 couch. It's really ultra comfortable- we found it on craigslist, like most of the furniture in the apartment. Nathan didn't want his picture taken.

Here's a view of the living room from the kitchen. It gives a good view of the fabulous french doors that go out to our patio. I love letting the natural light in. The giant mirror on the wall is probably one of my most favorite things that we own. It's so cool- it's a craigslist treasure too- though it originally came from IKEA.

Here is our little kitchen. We've got a pretty little junk collection on top of the cupboards- it's not really "junk," it's just stuff that we both had that we aren't quite sure what to do with. The vase on the counter, Nathan painted for me for Valentines day, and the flowers inside are my wedding bouquet.

This is our dining room table- also from craigslist and our new bookcase. I felt like the bookcase was like the finishing touch to the front room. It feels complete and homey now. The mirror hanging on the wall in the dining room was given to us by Nathan's grandma when we took a trip to St. George after we got engaged.

The hallway- the least exciting part of the house. The first door on the right is the guest room- Nathan wouldn't let me take a picture yet, because right now it's more of a storage room, while we're still trying to find a home for all our things. Across from the guest room is our teeny tiny washer and dryer- the biggest down side to living in an apartment. I feel like we have to wash clothes every single day.

Next to the laundry closet is Nathan's bathroom. He doesn't like the master bathroom because it has a tub/shower. He likes the regular shower in the hallway bathroom- so that's the one he uses most of the time. I don't mind though....

That just leaves more space in the big bathroom for me!

Our bed.

Our giant dresser unit. I have a ton of clothes- so we needed a lot of space. Nathan thinks we even need more drawers than that. =/ Maybe it's time to do a clean out....

So that's a brief tour of our new home! Thanks for stopping by!

Honeymoon Part 4 - Cabo San Lucas

Well it's Saturday morning- you know what that means? Blog time! Not for too long though, we have a lot going on in the Land-o-Lunt today. More unpacking, cleaning, running around, etc.

Today's post is the finale entry in the honeymoon series. Cabo was probably one of my favorite ports- it was more modern and it we did a lot of really fun stuff. We don't have a ton of pictures though, because our shore excursion wouldn't let us bring cameras, and they were trying to charge us $100 for a disc of the 10 pictures they took- we weren't diggin that.

But anyway...

This is the view we woke up to on Cabo day. We dropped anchor pretty far of the shore, and then took these little tender boats up to the dock.

If see sickness is your weakness, I would NOT recommend these little boats! Luckily neither of us get sea sick, but it was a very wavy and bumpy ride.

This is the view as we coming into Cabo. We had to be up early because we were meeting our group for our shore excursion at 8:00 a.m. Nathan picked the excursion for Cabo, so we did the Canopy Tour. Here is a description of the "Adventure" from their website:

Fast, fun and exhilarating, Cabo Adventure’s Canopy tour combines unique adventure elements with the stunning back drop of the UNESCO protected Boca de Sierra National Park to create the adventure of a lifetime.Fly across a series of incredible Zip Lines through wide open canyons; make your way along the Commando and Burma Bridges before arriving at the Tarzan Swing and unique ascending Zip Lines! Try your hand on our climbing walls and double cross zip lines, experience our 90 foot rappel, then race your friends on the ultimate Tandem Zip line before landing safely back at base camp for a deserved rest with spectacular views over the Boca de Sierra National Park.

I wasn't raised as an out-doorsy type girl, so much of this excursion sound terrifying to me! But I did it because I love my husband, and he assured me that everything would be fine. Since we don;t have any pics, I went to the Cabo Adventures website and grabbed some of these so you could see what we did.

This is the one thing that absolutely scared the crap out of me. It was terrifying. I went so slow and stopped like half way and was so scared I started to cry. Of course, it didn't help matters any when I looked below me and saw 2 big water snakes! But I thought I would be even more scared if anyone else stepped foot on that wire and moved it anyway, so I mustered up the courage to make it to the other side. I had tears pouring down my face- I didn't like feeling so insecure. The other bridge we had to go across I did much better on.

This was a little scary too, but Nathan and I went together. He was my hero and protector- he's a pro at stuff like this and absolutely loves it. Knowing he was just a few steps in front of me, made this bridge way easier!

The thing we did most was zip lines! I actually really liked this! It was awesome because we were up over a canyon and the scenery was gorgeous! The first one was a little rough and I almost ripped my arm off trying to stop- but then they gave me something to put over my shoulders and it was smooth sailing from there. All in all it was a fabulous shore excursion, and Nathan did a great job picking it out. Given the chance I would probably do it again.

Once we were done with the canopy adventure, we had an hour or so before we had to be back on the boat- so we went exploring around the pier. We found a place taking donations for Mexican Wildlife Reserve that had a baby jaguar. It was a good cause so we decided to donate.... Ok, really I just wanted to hold the baby jaguar they had. Honestly, how often in your life do you have the chance to hold a baby jaguar?! He was soooooooo cute!

It was so adorable, he started giving me little baby kisses! His tongue felt like really course sand paper- but it was still cute. I love this picture because it looks like Nathan is thinking "Please don't eat my wife's face"

The hand you see off to the side in this picture is one of the people trying to get him to stop licking me- they were afraid that licks would turn to nibbles. I didn't care- I was just excited to hold the baby!

Isn't he so precious?! I wanted to take him home.

After we were done holding him, he was ready for a nap. He had just had lunch right before we held him, and he was a sleepy boy.

After holding the kitty we decided we wanted to get some authentic Mexican food on our last official day in Mexico- so we stopped by a little place nearby. Nathan got a chicken quesadilla and I got a chicken burrito. I was very yummy! Way better than what they were trying to pass off as Mexican food on the ship! The pictures below are just some snap shots Nathan took while we were waiting for our food.

After lunch we rushed to get back to boat. The boat had to leave at 4:00- it was our shortest day in port- but the funnest!

Honeymoon Part 3- Mazatlan

Our second port was Mazatlan! We didn't book a shore excursion through the ship in this port, we decided to just venture off and do our own thing.

I woke up that morning to the balcony door closing. Nathan got up to take pictures of the boat docking. I can't give you too many details about it, because I went back to sleep- but judging by the pictures it looks like it's quite a job!

Those are some big ropes!


After I finally got my lazy butt out of bed and got ready for the day, we went upstairs and got some breakfast and then walked out on deck and took pictures of the city.

See those buildings way off in the distance in the picture above? We took a taxi from our ship all the way over there to those resorts. Our taxi rides in Mazatlan were a bit of an adventure- talk about crazy taxi! It was fun though, and a good way to see the city.

We spent a few hours out and about, shopping and playing at the beach. The weather was PERFECT for the beach. It was nice and warm, and the water was so perfect. Usually when I go to the beach the water is a bit chilly but not in Mazatlan! I'm glad we decided to go to be beach bums here, the next day in Cabo everyone was talking about how cold the water was and how they were freezing their butts off.

Nathan enjoying the fabulous beach conditions. We spent a lot of time in the water, because it was so nice.

Ahhhh! So relaxing!

We had to take a picture of this, we thought it was so funny. It's the K-mart special store down in the golden zone in Mazatlan. The shopping would have been absolutley awesome if we had, had more money. There were really great stores in the golden zone like Daimonds International and another Del Sol- they were fun to look around. We bought another plate for our collection and found a spoon for Nathan's mom in a shop that was a little more in our price range.

This is a picture of the ship from our taxi. The way the driver was driving I was worried I might never see it again! haha

We finished the day watching the sunset as we sailed away from Mazatlan and headed off to Cabo San Lucas.