Cowabunga!

The Cowabunga water park is located off of the 123rd in Draper, Utah. Now that we have a daughter that loves the water and saw that Costco offered discounted tickets, we thought we'd give it a try. While we took some pictures below, Anna really just enjoyed the kid pool and slow current river the most. We were unable to take pictures since we were in the water with her. She would walk and then fall face first and then do it all over time and time again...

Aside from the groan ups wearing swimsuits that they should have stopped wearing 40 lbs ago (myself included:)) and the single people that were too old to be here, I would recommend it to children under 13 and to parents with children. Our next stop will be seven peaks when we get back from the Caribbean in three weeks!


Anna and Alicia are headed down the slide...

Anna enjoyed being held up high above the splash!

Alicia and Anna make a big splash... This was Anna's favorite ride...

Anna wasn't technically tall enough to go down this ride, but I snuck her in... it doesn't look like she is too happy with me! Needless to say, we stuck to the kiddie pool and small slides for the rest of the day...

Midway, Utah

To our surprise, "Hickville" (Midway) did not have polygamists... just a bunch of hicks...

The Bride

In November of 2006, I managed to close the biggest payout of my life! We figured that Moonlight Beach in Encinitas, CA was the most appropriate since we were engaged just a few miles up the coast on the Carlsbad's beach. Although, she was an hour late the the ceremony, she was worth the wait!

Alicia was born in Virginia and raised in southern California. She served a mission in Michigan and to my good luck, ended up moving to Provo after completing it. Although, I lived in Salt Lake, we had mutual friends from Samoa who were determined to find me a wife and to get her away from her previous boyfriend... Finally, in July of '06 Esperanza managed to convince me to go on my 2nd blind date and Alicia agreed to it.

As I pulled up to her apartment in Provo, she was expecting a big Samoan guy and I was expecting a homely Mormon girl. We were both surprised! Since I was somewhat of a drifter from the LDS church at the time and my future wife was a returned missionary, I kind of shrunk inside as I assumed this was another pre-determined misfortune for me living in Utah. To my surprise, she kept saying yes to more and more dates... 8 weeks after dating, we were engaged and about 8 weeks later we were married.

Does it get any sexier than this? A babe and a corvette...

Wedding Night - San Diego - Nov. 17th 2006

Since I was still impressing my bride to be, I figured renting a corvette for our honey moon would help keep the charm illusion up:) It worked and was even more worth it when Hertz made a mistake on our return and only charged me the rate for a regular sized car!

Salt Lake Zoo

Alicia has been encouraging me for some time to take Anna to the San Diego Zoo and Sea World... Me, being the big spender that I am, figured that we should test it at the local zoo first. Yes, 14 month old Anna Raquel's interest would definitely not last a Sea World for more than a few moments. As you can tell in this picture, she is very interested in the animals.

The local zoo turned out to be an economical way to get me in good graces with my wife and have some fun with Anna!

Curls!

Although I have never seen it first hand, Alicia has curly hair and Anna inherited it as well.

First time in Victoria Secret

The only age she is allowed to be here!

Alicia and Anna

Alicia sent this to me while I was traveling to make me miss them... It worked!

Miami

There are not many better places to travel in November than a nice and warm southern Florida. This was Anna's first time in the ocean and as you can tell she slept nicely afterwards.

Alicia and I hope to get a second / vacation home in southern Florida in the next few years to beat the cold in Utah. Of course, once our kids start attending school we will probably have to be more stationary. Nevertheless, we try to make it to Miami a few times a year for now.

My Hat

How long will she be this cute?! Anna loves my hat and doesn't like to let me wear it. We are at her grandmas, where she has found a spare moment from grandparent oogling to make a go for my hat!

Zions

On my birthday, I ended up back in St. George under the promise of gifts from my mother. Well, instead my truck ended up breaking all of their front windows from my "light" acceleration in their rocky driveway and the trip ended up costing me several hundred dollars... In an attempt to distract me they decided to go to Zions since Alicia had never been.

On the way to Zions

Little Anna needed a break from the car on the way up to Zions. She enjoyed a nice cool sippy cup and chasing around the dog of this little shop. And, of course she enjoyed her Dad!