mexico day 7 and 8

day 7 (tuesday) was our last full day in mexico

we told my dad we wanted a beach day, and that's what he gave us.

again, we spent the day at our favorite spot on the beach.

we did some snorkeling, some eating, some reading, some kayaking, some pina-colada drinking, some sleeping, and some more eating.

funniest moment of the day is when we told my dad we wanted a "jumping" picture on the beach.  he had no idea what we were talking about and struggled big time trying to get us in the air.  

as we were attempting the jumping pictures (and laughing hysterically at ourselves and at my dad), these two little amigos were watching us and laughing at us.  we ended up inviting them to join us.  pepe is the one in the white shirt, and flores is the one in the yellow.

they had never taken jumping pictures before and were more pro at it than we were.

they became our new bffs

that night we got all dolled up and ready for our last dinner at the japanese steakhouse (think tepanyaki).

we decided while we all looked so tropical and pretty that we'd take a few family pictures on the beach

the next day we got up early and got things all packed up.

the gang went miniature golfing while i did some last minute shopping

we made it to the airport in cancun by about 3pm and made it home to logan that night around 1am

we had an amazing time on this trip and i am so glad my dad put it all together.

my family is the bomb diggity and we loved being able to play with them for 8 days straight with no telephone or computer distractions :)

thanks again mom and dad for the trip... you're the best parentals ever!

and that concludes our fabulous mexican vacation

mexico day 6

day 6 (monday) we planned to go to akumal bay

akumal is known as "the place of the turtles" and is a protected ecological marine research and turtle protection area.  

we took the collectivo again, but this time only about 10 minutes south of our resort.  akumal beach was gorgeous with perfect white sandy beaches and practically no one was there.  we had to watch a wildlife protection video before we could enter the water, but then we rented some snorkel gear and headed out to find us some sea life.

we saw lots of sea turtles and sting rays!  not too many tropical fish, but that's ok because we've seen those plenty of times snorkeling in other places.  i've never swam with turtles before (or stingrays for that matter), so it was quite the experience!

that night we ate at the resort's italian restaurant and watched the nba playoffs in one of the lounges.  i guess even on vacation in mexico you can't get away from the nba

mexico day 4 & 5

saturday (day 4) was our first full day of relaxation.  we found our favorite spot on the beach at the resort and didn't leave except to get in the water, get some food, and get some pina coladas.

this was also the day that a few people in our group started feeling a bit sick.  we think it was the fajitas from the mexican buffet the day before because only a few of us were feeling yucky.  lucky for me, i passed up the fajitas.  sadly enough, josh did not.

day 5 (sunday), we decided to head into playa del carmen for church.  well, those of us that felt good enough to go.  my dad did some research and found out how the collectivo (public transportation) system worked and where exactly the church was.  it started at 9 so just to be safe (remember, no one in my family speaks spanish) we decided to leave plenty early so we would make it on time.  well, we were at the chapel much than we had expected to be- like an hour early.  while we were sitting there, we joked about how one of us should go and practice playing on the piano because they'd probably ask us to play.

well, it wasn't really funny anymore at 8:55 when the bishop came up to us and asked if one of us would play all 4 songs for the meeting.  somehow i got chosen to play (instead of my little sisters and mother who can all play the piano and actually have one that they practice regularly).  pretty sure i'm a little rusty anyway, but add a completely full congregation, two songs that i don't know very well, and one song that isn't even in our english hymnbook, and you have one very scary, intimidating experience.  well, the lord was on my side because i was able to make it through the songs ok, even the one i had to sight-read.

it was an interesting experience, and one that i will always remember, even if we have no idea what was said because it was all in spanish.

after sacrament meeting, we decided to walk to the wal-mart to get some pepto-bismal for the rest of our group back at the resort.  we were in mexico while the world cup was going on and it was quite the sight to see all of the men sitting on patio chairs in the electronics department cheering mexico on.  classic.

we also shopped around a little bit on their 5th avenue and bought some jewelry and a few souvenirs.

best line of the day:

mexican jewelry store owner to my dad (wearing his long sleeve white church shirt in 100+ heat/humidity):

"amigo, are you loco?!  go buy a tee-shirt next store, you crazy gringo"

and so we did

and he changed in an alley way

and he was sooooo much happier!

the rest of the day was spent being lazy on the beach and with dinner at the resort's steakhouse.

mexico day 3

our 3rd day in mexico started off with another early morning

so early, in fact, that we saw the sunrise over the ocean

i think it was worth it

my dad arranged another day of visiting the mayan ruins.  this time, we were going to ek balam.  a site about 2 1/2 hours away from where we were staying and a place where very few tourists go because of its distance away from the coast.  we were picked up by 2 returned missionaries that work for alma tours and traveled with another family from georgia to ek balam.

on the way there, we traveled through a small mayan village of about 3,000 people who actually had an lds church house right in the middle of their town!  the rm's told us that the book of mormon stories correspond so well with the stories the mayan's have been told from their ancestors that teaching them the gospel is easy.  we were allowed inside the building for a mini tour and we even got to meet a cute little mayan lady outside.

when we arrived at ek balam, there was a mayan lady who handed us this weird looking creature for us to take pictures with.  we still have no idea what on earth it was.

i can't even tell you how amazing these ruins were.  this site was huge and had some amazing mayan art and architecture here and is an active archeological site.  again, our tour guide connected so many of the ancient ruins, statues, and carvings to the book of mormon and the gospel.  it was such an amazing testimony building experience that brought the book of mormon stories to life.

 the city has a wall that surrounds it, but they believe that it was not for protection, but rather was built for ceremonial purposes.  the arch that is shown is called a mayan arch.  it was used extensively in mayan architecture.  the entrance actually sloped upward toward the arch because you always walk upward toward the temple.  this is symbolic of entering higher, more sacred grounds.  

ek balam had a ball court, just like other mayan ruins like coba and chichen itza.  one thing that our tour guide showed us was a circular rock structure that current lds archeologists believe to be their baptismal font.

this is the temple (el torre) and the largest structure in ek balam.  we were able to climb to the top of the temple (on some of the smallest and steepest stairs you ever did see) and got quite the view.

this shows the temple facade including the mouth of ek balam, called the black panther or black jaguar.  this was absolutely amazing to see.  there was a lot of symbolism carved into the facade including symbols used in our temple ceremonies.  there was also a painting on the wall that depicted several darker-skinned people surrounding a light-skinned instructor.  these are mayan stories of three white men who would travel around together and try to teach the people about God.  

i thought it was interesting how they found this facade- the mayan calendar is 52 years long and a new ruler would take over as each calendar turned.  the new rulers would add new construction or "layers" to the temple, making it bigger and better and covering up the prior temple.  when the archeologists were excavating this part of the temple, an entire wall came down revealing this un-touched facade.  here they found the opening to the tomb of the ruler of ek balam and the doorway is made up of a jaguar's mouth with fangs all around it.

these are pictures of the ruins where the priests and their families would live.  the area where the priests lived was inside the first outer wall and there were usually two walls.  the temple is inside of the innermost wall.  the two walls create three areas- symbolic of celestial, terrestrial, and telestial glories.

the rest of the plaza is surrounded by high structures- two of the biggest ones are still un-excavated and covered by the jungle.

after spending a few hours in the hot hot sun, we headed to another fabulous cenote to cool off.

we also headed back to the same little buffet we went to the day before for round 2 of yummy mexican food.

a little giveaway

feeling lucky?

head on over to 

{sassy blossoms}

to enter the awesome giveaway!

hurry, giveaway ends tuesday, august 31st!

because i grew up a ute fan

i applied to the u way back in the day and got accepted

but going to usu just felt... right

it was a good choice.  i still say that being a student 8 years later.

but my family (immediate and extended) are all still die-hard ute fans

i even have a cousin who is playing on the football team this year.

so a ute onesie only seemed fitting

{find it here}

in love. part deux

after reading the comments from my last post (especially katie's, haha), i found it necessary to do a "part two" of my "in love" series.

this is josh at last week's impromptu bear lake trip.

just like the cute grandma styled bedroom in the previous post,

this boy also makes my heart go pitter patter

especially when he buys me a cute new ruffly apron in hopes to entice me to spend more time in the kitchen, and when i do attempt to recreate greg cox's caramel brownies and they fail miserably, he still eats the entire pan.  now that's love.

more on our fun summer adventures... but not until i finish my capstone (thesis) paper

my goal was to have it done by the end of the summer. 

and i'm determined to stick to this goal.

well, summer ends in a week and i started working on it about 8 hours ago.

in love

{via}

when i saw this room, my heart went pitter patter.

i love everything about it.... the colors, the antique accents... and especially the headboard!

i will be heading to the antique store this week to scout out some doors.

wish me luck!

'tis the season

football and basketball season are just around the corner...

we are so excited!

to commemorate such a special time of the year, i have some sports themed onesies in the works

a university of utah onesie will be coming soon.

available at

{sassy blossoms}

day 2- coba

**i'm sure there will be way more information in this post than anyone really wants to read, so you have my permission to just look at the pictures**

day 2 (thursday june 10th) was a busy day.

my dad wanted us to see some mayan ruins while we were in the mayan riviera.

makes sense, right?

he actually found an lds tour guide named alma who provides a variety of tours to the various ruins throughout the yucatan.  

alma was amazing- she is lds, from mexico city, and part mayan.  

i can't even tell you how much i learned from her.

she had an amazing testimony of the book of mormon.

she knew so much about the mayan history, archeology, and anthropology.

she brought the stories in the book of mormon to life--

that was a real first for me.

if you ever travel to the mayan riviera- book a tour with her or her family. holy moly.  you will leave a much more knowledgeable person with a desire to dive into the book of mormon and learn even more.  i know i won't even come close to mentioning all the things i learned about the parallelisms between the book of mormon stories and the mayan civilizations, but i will do my very best to give you a little intro and you can go to mexico and get the full experience in person :)

almaldstours.us

the tour started bright and early (7am).  we were picked up and drove about 45 minutes to coba. 

my dad chose coba over tulum or chichen itza because it's not as excavated or reconstructed as the others, it has the highest point in all of the yucatan, you can actually climb the largest structure, the ruins are located throughout the jungle, and because you can rent bicycles and ride through the canopies to keep cool :)

 the civilization of coba dates back to 600-900 a.d. and there were an estimated 100,000 people living in its domain.

these are the rickety bikes we rented for the day.  we were so grateful to have them!  not only did they keep us from walking all over the jungle, but they kept us cool and were fun to race!

one of the first things we stopped to see are the ball courts.  the ball game played an important roll in mayan society and most cities had a ball court, which is basically a corridor of two stoned walls.  the game was played between two teams, using only their hips and elbows to get a rubber ball through a hoop.  there are inscriptions and other pieces of art to show that human sacrifice was part of the game.  

this is what we looked like for most of our excursion- everyone huddled around alma as she related the history of the mayan culture and civilizations to the stories of the nephites and lamanites in 3 nephi.  here, she showed us various stelas.  stelas are free-standing stone slabs with engravings on them.  

she then told us about stela #5 which is nicknamed "the tree of life stela".  the stela was found in 1941 and about 10 years later, m. wells jakeman (chairman of archaeology at byu) created a drawing and interpreted the stone as representing "lehi's dream".  the area where the stela was found was at the crossroads of america- an area where it is believed lehi first landed.  the stela is believed to show the tree of life which represents the love of God, happiness, and eternal life; the river representing the barrier of evil between people and happiness; the rod of iron represents the word of God; lehi is believed to be on the left side of the tree, preaching the word of God to his family; sariah is behind him, supporting him; laman and lemuel both have their backs turned to him; and nephi is believed to be to the right of the tree, heading the words of his father.

if you know the story of the tree of life, it is absolutely amazing to see this stela, which is believed to have been carved between 300-100 b.c.  the timing fits to what we believe is the time that lehi brings his family across the ocean to the americas.

the nohoc mul pyramid is the tallest structure in the yucatan at just over 126 feet.  there are 120 steep stairs you can climb to get to the very top.  the view from the top is absolutely amazing- you can see over the jungle canopy for miles and there are unexcavated temple mounts peeking above the trees.

that engraving above the door opening is a carving of the mayan god, the "feathered serpent".  they called it that because it had the ability to live on land and in the heavens.

alma finished the tour by sharing a beautiful testimony on the importance of scripture study in the book of mormon, temple work, and the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  

she then sang us a song from the children's songbook and the spirit was so strong.

How could the Father tell the world of love and tenderness?

He sent his Son, a newborn babe, with peace and holiness.

How could the Father show the world the pathway we should go?
He sent his Son to walk with men on earth that we may know.

How could the Father tell the world of sacrifice, of death?
He sent his Son to die for us and rise with living breath.

What does the Father ask of us?
What do the scriptures say?
Have faith, have hope, live like his Son,
Help others on their way.

What does he ask?
Live like his Son.

after spending a few hours at coba, we decided it was time for some grub.  alma took us to a local restaurant where we had a buffet style lunch.  the food was delicious (chicken, pork, fruit, veggies) and the homemade horchata was to die for.  we also gulped down some ice cold coca-cola light.  

after lunch, alma took us to a local cenote.  a cenote is an underground body of water, a sinkhole that was essential to the mayan's survival.  how do you get to the cenote?  you enter through a narrow hole and steep steps that the mayans carved themselves.   the water is a blue green color of unknown depths and there are stalactites of blood red limestone above.  this cenote was absolutely amazing and is a sight that pictures will never do justice.  i have a video of us playing in the water, but that will have to be uploaded at a later time.

that night we had reservations to the seafood restaurant at the resort.  it was delicious and we feasted on shrimp, crab, and lobster.  i also got everyone hooked on the virgin pina coladas- they were to die for!

after dinner we were all exhausted from a full, long day in the sun. we spent a little bit of time walking around the resort, watching the ocean waves crash on the beach in the moonlight, and listening to the musical entertainment for the evening at the amphitheater.

we went to bed early because trent had another full day of mayan ruins planned for friday.

day 3 to come...

mexico in june

we totally went to mexico... 2 months ago.  

i'm just now getting around to posting about it.

the trip was amazing.

my dad organized everything-

think danny tanner from full house

when they went to disneyworld and he gave everyone an itinerary of what they would be doing (that's the same episode where dj imagines seeing her bf steve all over the park and where michelle got chosen to be princess of the day... remember?? )...

anyway,

pretty sure we have our own danny tanner

named trent bringhurst

and while there was no official itinerary, we were on a schedule everyday

up early most days (some 7am days), going here, there, and everywhere

but we're used to good old trent

and we loved everything he planned for us

and all the research he did

and we know had we planned our own vacation to the mayan riviera, we would have missed out on a lot

so, without further ado, i will start the first of many posts about our trip....

day 1:

we left june 9th on an extremely early flight (i think 6:30am?)

headed to phoenix and from there flew to cancun.

our gang was comprised of my mom and dad

older brother, 2 little sisters, 

my uncle bob,

and me and josh.

we were a very excited bunch.

after hours of traveling we finally arrived to the beautiful, sunny, and humid cancun.

an hour and a half later, we made it to our all-inclusive resort (about 15 mins south of playa del carmen).

my dad chose the barcelo mayan for us to stay at and the resort was phenomenal.

tiki huts, water fountains, greenery, flowers, cabanas, hammocks, etc.  

you name it, that place had it.

every detail was perfect right down to to the ash trays.

we felt like we were in paradise.

we wandered the grounds a bit, found our rooms, and got some grub (we were starrrrving)

then, my sisters, josh, and i decided to take a late night dip in the pool

and hung out on the hammocks and listened to the night creatures.

it was amazing and we had only been there for a few hours!

day 2 coming soon....