Update

Life in Spokane is good. Joel and I have been busy working and spending time with family which is always fun! Joel is still trying to get things up and running with his new career venture and I have been very busy subbing every day! We are enjoying the snow and catching up with old friends. Here are a few pictures from recently:



Pumpkin Patch with Daniel & Alicia



And yes, that is a ginormous tree laying just a few feet from my
 in-laws home! Scary!!

Bon Voyage

 Joel and I have been wanting to go on another cruise for sometime now so when my parents said that they were planning on one this Fall we decided to go for it. We went on a 7 night cruise out of Long Beach, CA to the Mexican Riviera. We stopped in Cabo San Lucas for 2 days and Puerta Vallarta for 1. We had a blast and got to do so many fun shore excursions. The first day in Cabo, Joel and I went on an ATV tour through the grass hills and along the beach. It was absolutely beautiful. We each had our own ATV which was scary for me since I didn't know how to drive a semi- automatic and almost rolled backwards down a hill once but we survived and had a ton of fun!!
FYI- Prepare yourself because this post is going to be jam packed with pictures.

 

 

 

The second day in Cabo, Joel and I decided to go parasailing. I had never been before and it seemed like it would be a lot of fun so we went for it. We had a blast. It didn't last nearly as long as I would have liked but we enjoyed it. When we finished parasailing we met up with my parents at the beach and spent the rest of the day there with them, swimming, sunbathing and shopping. It was way more fun than I could ever tell you about so here's some pictures.

 

 

On our day in port in Puerta Vallarta, Joel, my dad, and I all went ziplining. (mom was not a fan so she stayed on the boat and enjoyed the peace and quiet) This was probably my favorite shore excursion. There were a total of 12 different ziplines through the beautiful canopy. We had so much fun and the views were absolutely breath taking :) Again, pictures will show more than I could ever explain.

 

 

Upside down- no hands! Very Scary!

 

 

The days at port and shore excursions are great but the cruise ship is pretty amazing as well. Our boat had 2 pools, a water slide, like 5 hot tubs, an outside movie theatre, a casino, comedy club, basketball court, mini golf course, and buffet after buffet. We had a lot of fun on the ship as well. Here are a few random pictures from the trip:

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had the best of times! I am so grateful that we were able to go on this trip. A big thanks to my brothers and sister back at home who puppy sat Lucy for us... what an adventure that was;)

We had so much fun and I will always treasure this special trip with my parents and husband :)

 

 

One Year Down!!

Today marks one year that my favorite little brother has been gone on his mission! One year ago today my family drove down to Provo, Utah to drop Tyler off at the MTC. He has been serving a mission in Piura, Peru for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for the past year and will return this time next year!! I cant believe that he has been gone a year already. I miss him everyday and cant wait for this next year to fly by. He is such an amazing missionary and I know the people of Peru have truly been blessed by his service. Keep up the good work little bro, we'll see you in a year!!

One year ago, the night he was set apart as Elder Woodburn

 

 

Moving Day

This post is painful just to write; remembering back on this day makes me cringe.
So I'll give you just a brief rundown... We had been contemplating moving back to Spokane for some time now and although the idea was out there we really didn't make up our mind for sure until like 3 weeks before we were to go... crazy? yes, I am aware! Being off of school, I was home everyday with nothing better to do than pack. So I packed the majority of our apartment. Joel's mom, Ann, came down to visit and helped us pack and move as well which was a huge relieve.
Now this is the painful part, we (and by we, I mean Joel) decided that it would be best for us to get everything packed up during the day on Thursday so that we could get on the road as soon as possible. Sounds like a great plan right? Not so much, we had a few friends who had agreed to come over after work to help us move and doing it during the day would mean that we would be moving it by our self, down 3 flights of stairs, in the middle of the day, in the heat of the Arizona summer, brilliant I know!
 The 3 of us, had a pretty sweet set-up where Ann brought all the boxes to the top of the stairs. Joel brought them to the bottom of the stairs and then I carried them to the truck. We sold a lot of our big furniture on craigslist prior to moving so it mainly was a lot of boxes. It seriously was one of the longest days of my life and there were moments where I thought I might die from heat exhaustion but thankfully we made it and will never have to do that again!
After scrubbing down the apartment and having the carpets cleaned we didn't really have a place to sleep so... (enter brilliant idea #2) we decided to get in the truck and begin our journey. So after working all day, non stop in 100+ degree weather, we got in the moving truck to begin our 12 hr. drive to my parents house in Westpoint, Utah. Keep in mind Lucy has been along for this entire adventure and is very confused by everything but did so well as we were driving. Around 6:00 am, Joel and I both were so exhausted so we decided to just pull over for an hour to sleep. As luck would have it, Lucy decided this would be a great time to wake up...devil dog! We ended up sleeping in shifts so one of us could walk around outside with Lucy. This trip was pure madness but we did survive and surprisingly still even liked each other when we arrived in Spokane 3 days later :) HOORAY!
We are excited to be back in Spokane but will definitely miss all of our family back in Arizona :) Especially these little guys...

 

 

GO San Diego!

 

I feel like we have been non stop going the last few months. We have lived in Arizona for almost a year now and in Manchak fashion have waited until the absolute last moment to actually see some of the sights. This weekend we decided that we needed to go see San Diego before we move back to Spokane in like 3 weeks. So Joel got us each a GO San Diego card; which for those of you who don't know is basically a card that you purchase for a flat rate and then for a specified number of days you can get into about 75 different attractions in San Diego including some pretty cool places. Let me just say we made the most out of our short 3 day trip to SD.
 Joel insisted on me planning down to the minute where we would be each day. So I set to creating our itinerary and on Wednesday night when Joel got home from work we left for San Diego. Thursday morning our adventure really began, and over the next 3 days we visited so many fun places including; the San Diego Zoo, SeaWorld, Knotts Berry Farm, LegoLand, we went kayaking, speed racing, on a harbor cruise tour, and we even made it to the beach. Some of you may be thinking WOW you could spend a day alone at each of those attractions, and you would be right. But we were pretty adamant on getting our money worth and seeing everything we possibly could! We were so tired every night but it was so worth it! We had so much fun and we know that it is little trips like these that we will look back on years from now and remember fondly :)

GoCar Tours was seriously one of the funnest things we did. You get to ride around downtown San Diego in this little mini car and it's a GPS guided tour.So as we drove the little lady came threw the speakers and told us all about the sights as we passed them!

SeaWorld was another favorite. We went there 2 different days actually!

The Wavehouse was pretty awesome. Basically they have created this device that is suppose to simulate a wave so people can experience the thrill and joy of surfing without ever going into the ocean.
 

Joel and I each tried surfing once but decided that body boarding was more fitting for us :)

We really weren't that impressed with LegoLand but decided it would be neat if
 we had kids... so maybe someday we'll go back!!

 

 

One of the most exciting things on the whole trip was
seeing "the beast" again! Joel sold his old Ford truck from
 high school before we moved to AZ so we were both so
surprised to see him again and at In-N-Out of all places!