Bienvenue à Saint Martin!

We stayed at the Radisson.

The first adventure was to visit Pimel Island. It's about a 10 minute ferry ride from St. Martin.


We went snorkeling.


Out of the 5-or-so beaches that we visited, our favorite beach of the vacation was on Pimel Island.


Here are some random buildings in the thriving metropolis of Marigot.



The clear, blue, pristine pool at the hotel (we did not spend enough time here!)

At Orient beach Adam went parasailing. He is getting to the boat by jetski.

He's way up there in the air...and I'm way down here on secure ground!

Adam navagated the narrow streets of St. Martin like a well seasoned European driver! We rented a car and we definitely got our money's worth.

The airport is extremely close to one of the beaches. We watched some airplanes land and take off while swimming.

This is Baie Rouge. We were told it was a prime spot for snorkeling, but Adam's treasure was finding this cave in the rock. He loved swimming through it.

Pictures of St. Martin from one of the highest points on the island.

Fortunately the only day it rained was our last day there. We spent the day driving around seeing random sites.

Although it was on Adam's list of things to do, we didn't quite get around to enjoying the nude beach, so instead we just took a picture by the sign.

A sunken ship.

One Year Anniversary

Happy one year anniversary! We celebrated our one year in the best way possible. Today we were sealed in the Las Vegas Temple. We were honored that so many of family and closest friends were able to share in this sacred experience. We are blessed to have such a support system! We loved seeing everyone and catching up and we can't wait until the next celebration! Now we're off to Saint Martin!

Down by the river!

Saturday took us down to the Colorado River for stake youth conference. At 6am we drove 45 min to an old mining town in Eldorado Canyon. You would never believe the history of the mining that occurred down there in the 1800's. It was a wild west gold rush town no law and at one point a gold mine that was producing more gold than anywhere in the US. The longer we live here the more we learn about cool Nevada history.

We had a bit of a heat wave this weekend with temp around 108. The river water was really cold because it was below the dam. Canoeing on the Colorado was definitely the highlight of the day. The youth had a good time and no one had heat stroke, no one drowned and no serious injuries, so it was a big success.

Mom is in town and we decided to take her out on the town. We started out with some good eats from Memphis BBQ. We then joined our friends in downtown Henderson for dueling pianos. The city put on a free concert in their amphitheater. We rocked out to the classic Bon Jovi, Billy Joel and others. Tonight it is pizza and wings for the b-ball game. Good weekend so far.

Sin City Sumo

Check out the bodies on these guys. This was not our typical Friday date night. Usually we stay home to wrestle around in our underwear. This week we went out to watch others do it. We went with another couple to dinner and sumo wrestling. Our neighbor is the promoter for this event that had been in the works for quite some time. They even had some of the scouts selling tickets as a fundraiser.

We had a good time watching these big guys slap each other around. There was also some pre-game entertainment where the ref jump roped with three people on his back. We also had good eats, in honor of the nights events, we ate pizza, wings and a burger at Johnny Mac's. Hopefully by next year we will be entering in the event. There actually was one wrestler who was only 180 lbs. He did really well wrestling but also real well at looking creepy with a crazy twisted moustache and pimples on his bare butt. It was a fun night that left us with a lot of images that will take us a long time to get out of our heads.

Kickball

We finally remembered to take a picture! Tonight we had a joint youth activity, so both Adam and I went (Adam is YM secretary and I am YW first counselor). Adam, being more athletic, represented us in the kick ball game as I chatted with the ladies. We are enjoying getting to know the youth in our ward and finding that they have so much vim! I find it actually refreshing to see this other side of students outside of the classroom...where we all know that they can test the limits of anyone's patience!

Busy Bennions

This week was quite busy for us. I was relieved to have a successful National Honor Society Induction ceremony. It is a fair amount of planning for everything to go off right during the one hour ceremony.
It was nice to get back to our monthly ward temple night. Although there was not many there this time we really enjoyed the session. It makes us excited for our upcoming sealing.
On Friday night I was with the young women for a sleepover. We had pizza, shared some stories and took the girls out on a t.p. raid. Adam went with our neighbor on a guy date to Pole Position Go-Kart racing. With karts that are electric and go up to 45 mph, he said it was a lot of fun. He thinks that racing could be a good back-up career.
Iron Man 2 was my choice for our weekend date night. Adam would have prefered Robin Hood, but we both thought Iron Man 2 was entertaining. Unfortunately, we do not have pictures to post. We will need to get in the habit of taking more pics now that we have something to do with them.