Gooseberry Campout

We had a great campout with our camping buddies from June 23-26. We camped somewhere we'd never gone before, Gooseberry Campground up Fairview Canyon. It was really beautiful.

We got to use our new trailer for the first time and I absolutely loved it! It's great to brush your teeth without having to spit in the woods.

The scenery was amazing. There were bluebells everywhere. The weather was terrific and we saw lots of wildlife.

Our generous friends shared their four wheelers with us. This was my first time on a four wheeler. It was more fun than I thought it would be.

We of course ate well. We decided to call our dinnertimes Camp-O-Rama instead of

Chuck-O-Rama because we all cook and then share buffet style.

We got in a few games of cards and the kids played Mafia for a long time one day.

Nathan performed The Jaberwalkie for tradition's sake and we sang around the fire like never before. Thanks Jon for bringing your guitar.

It was so fun to share the beautiful outdoors with our neighborhood friends the Crimans, Daniels, Farrers, Wrights, Jones and we even saw the Freemans who were camping not too far away. What a great Campout!

Strawberry Days 5K

I ran the Strawberry Days 5K this morning. I had two goals. 1. Jog the whole thing. 2. Run it in 35 min. or less. I did jog the whole thing and my time was 34:19. I didn't even have any knee trouble. My next running goal will be the Manila Elementary Fun run in September. I hope to keep jogging all summer to be ready for it. We're doing a mini-marathon-2.62 miles. Should be fun.

Happy Birthday Kevin

Kevin turned 46 on Tuesday. Happy Birthday. We love you!

More Roatan Pictures

Some pictures of Kevin, Michael, Scott and RaeAnn in Roatan

Some of our Bananarama friends

The Dolphins at Anthony's Key

The beach in front of Bananarama

Roatan Friday June 11th

I'm feeling a bit sad tonight because I know I won't get to get up tomorrow and put my diving stuff on and head for the boat. What a great week we've had. We have gone diving 16 times this week. I filled up my dive log book and will have to get a new one tomorrow from the dive shop.

Fortunately Marco felt well enough to dive with us this morning, but he went home after our two morning dives to rest up. The other dive masters and boat captains want to watch the world cup tomorrow so they wanted Marco feeling good to cover the diving tomorrow so they can watch the game.

He took us to Spooky Channel for our first dive because it is a deep dive of 92 ft. It's called Spooky Channel because you go through swim thrus with cloudy visibility and low light and it really is kind of spooky. You could definitely get nervous if you didn't trust your dive master. It was a good experience although I don't think it's my favorite kind of diving.

After a real quick stop at BananaRama we headed back out to another dive spot called Hole in the Wall. This was another swim thru dive, but it was much shallower and full of light. It was really very beautiful.

Lunch at the deli again and then off on another dive with a new dive master named Sophia. She was amazing. I think I liked watching her as much as the fish because she floated along so effortlessly and elegantly. I doubt I'll ever be as good a diver as her, but I'd sure like to try. We saw two big crabs on this dive. Lots of needle nose fish and the biggest Grouper I've ever seen. He must have been 4 feet long at least.

After getting a bit of sun on my legs I came back to shower and get ready for dinner. Scott, Michael, Kevin and I headed down the beach to a place called Bite on the Beach. It had really good food and when we were done eating we looked down and people were feeding a Barracuda and 3 Morey Eel. I've never seen eel not in their hole. It was very fun to watch for awhile.

When we got back to BananaRama we were standing on the beach and the power went out and suddenly everything went dark. It was kind of cool. A few minutes later the generator started up and everything is back to normal.

I'm excited to see the kids tomorrow, but other than that I could sure stay here for awhile. I really love this place. I hope we are able to come back soon.

Adios Roatan

Roatan Thursday June 10th

Just another day in Paradise. We woke up early as usually because it's so light we can't sleep in. After laying around for about an hour we decided to walk up the road a ways and see what we could see.

At the end of the road is a place called Infinity Bay. We did our snorkeling and night dive right in front of it. We walked through and were real impressed. It's condos that you can buy or rent by the day or week. After lunch Kevin, Michael and I decided to walk down and have a tour. They are REALLY nice. Maybe when we come back here with the kids someday we'll try and stay there and dive with BananaRama.

As we left for our walk we met Marco who had us all set up for our diving, but informed us that he had been sick all night and wasn't going to be able to take us diving today. He went home to sleep so he could come back and take us tonight on our night dive. We had a freelancer from England named Neil as our dive master. He did a great job, but we missed Marco because we've all gotten so comfortable with him.

He took us to a place called West Bay Wall. It was a wonderful dive. I was really relaxed and we saw beautiful corals, fish, lobster. There was a spotted eel that posed for the camera, but unfortunately the underwater setting wasn't on so I don't think the pictures are too good today. We also saw a really big puffer fish, but we were responsible divers and didn't bother him to get him to puff up. I did watch him for about 5 minutes as we floated along.

After a 1/2 hour surface interval we headed the opposite direction to a place called Gibson Bite. It was a nice wall and we saw great stuff. We saw another turtle, but because the camera wasn't set correctly the pictures didn't turn out too well. We also saw two drum fish hanging out together and two lobsters hanging out together.

We got back and had some lunch and now I'm going to go get a little sun while Kevin has another snooze. See if I can get some reading time in.

Our night dive was another incredible experience. Marco was feeling well enough to take us. It was just us four with him again which is nice for a night dive. We went to the same place in front of Infinity Bay, but even though we were in the same spot it was like a new dive with all the stuff we saw. Lobster, lots of different kinds of shrimp, cool starfish, five lion fish hanging out together. We turned out the lights again, but didn't see the string of pearls quite so brightly, but they were still there. Then we swam in the dark again, but not for as long. We were down for 72 minutes, but it felt like 20 minutes. It was really fun. I'm glad Marco felt up to taking us tonight.

After cleaning up we went to the Thirsty Turtle and had some ribs. One of the girls came over to introduce herself because Carolina the waitress told her we were Mormon. Her name is Daphne. She remembered us from church. It was fun to visit with her. That's 3 employees we've met that are LDS.

We're all feeling a bit sad that tomorrow is our last day to dive. We've had an amazing week. I can't wait to add pictures to these posts to illustrate our week. It's been fantastic.

Roatan Wednesday June 9th

We had our last Advanced Certification Class today. Wreck diving. After finishing with the classroom we headed to a dive spot called El Aguila which is a cargo ship that was purposely sunk for divers. It used to be in one piece, but apparently, Hurricane Mitch broke it into 3 main pieces a few years ago. It was a deep dive. We were at 108 ft. at one point. That means we went pretty fast at the back of the boat and ended at the front that was about 55 ft. At this point we saw quite a few huge Grouper. I guess St. Anthony's Key (another resort) feeds them and they love to hang out for a free meal. One even let us pet him. It was pretty interesting. Then we went through a pretty coral area to finish the dive. I really enjoyed it.

Our second dive was at Pablo's Place. It's the only dive we've had with any current and it wasn't much compared with Cozumel. We saw great stuff here. A barracuda swam along with us for quite awhile.

Our third dive of the day was a place called Tabyana. I finally saw a drum fish here. We saw another turtle and hermit crabs, flounder, shrimp and lots of fish. One thing I thought was really neat was at a sandy spot I could see where a sting ray had laid and left it's impression in the sand.

We were officially Advanced Water Diver after the wreck dive this morning. We'll get the paper work done and get new cards in the mail. I'm glad to have gotten it here where we could have such incredible diving as we certified.

Later I went and sat on a lawn chair on the beach and finished my first book of the trip. Yes I've only read one book. I know that's not much for me, but I've been busy DIVING! While I sat there one of the cats that hangs our here came and curled up next to me for a little siesta while I read. It kind of made me miss Bastet. That's what she used to love to do.

Roatan Tuesday June 8th

What an amazing day of diving. I love diving in Roatan. We started off the day in the classroom finishing our deep water chapter. Then we headed out to a place called Black Rock to perform our skills.

Before we left the boat Marco had us perform some intelligence tasks. We had to tap the numbers 1-20 in order on his dive slate. (They were not in order) He timed us and wrote down our response times and then after got down to 100 ft. we performed the same task while he timed us. We were all usually a couple of seconds slower. When you get to deep water (between 80 -100ft) you get slightly drunk from something called Nitrogen Narcossis. Sometimes people act really weird and you really have to watch your buddy carefully so they don't do anything dangerous. I thought Scott and Kevin were acting kind of Narced when the got all kinds of excited over stuff we had seen before. Scott kept trying to pull a shrimp our of it's hole and Marco was taking off so I grabbed him to make him follow. He was probably fine and I was being a bit paranoid. Maybe that's my way of getting Narced. We didn't see a ton of stuff because the dive was just to test our deep water skills, but It was still fun.

We came back to the classroom and worked on our Navigation chapter. Then we went to the beach to try out our skills on the beach first and then headed to a place called the Treehouse. Here we went down to about 40 feet and did our compass skills. It was pretty fun to figure out how to measure distance and heading underwater. Then Marco "tried" to get us lost and kept asking us where the boat was. We did see a sting ray hiding in the sand which Kevin got a picture of. Then Marco chose me to get us back to the boat and I had to lead everyone back.I was able to do it with no problem.

We didn't dive in the afternoon so we decided to walk down to the market and deli down the road for lunch. We had yummy sandwiches and looked around at the souvenier shop for a while and then headed back to the resort where Michael and I laid out and then studied our night dive chapter and Kevin and Scott had a little snooze.

We made ourselves a quick sandwich and headed back to the classroom at 5:45 for our night dive chapter. After finishing a great briefing and getting our gear ready, we headed down the beach to the dock Kevin and I snorkeled at on Sunday and geared up to go. It was a place called Infinity Bay. We swam out a ways and then Marco had us finish getting ready and we headed down with our lights on. We swam through some great coral swim thrus and saw a whole different reef than you see in the day. The fish life and coral life is very different at night. The coral is actually more colorful and beautiful. We saw lobsters, sea anenomes, star fish, sea cucumbers fan corals, neuterbraes and much more on the wall. While we swam back over the wall, Kevin saw an octopus. He got a couple of pictures of it. They are rely cool to see at night. After we got over the wall, Marco had us kneel the bottom of a sandy area and turn off our lights. About three minutes went by and then Marco slowly turned us around and there was an amazing string of glowing pearls. It was amazing. But the adventure in the dark wasn't over yet. Our eyes had adjusted so we could see each others outlines. When Marco hit his tank we all started swimming in single file behind him WITH NO LIGHTS. As you kicked up sand little lights would spark and you could totally see the person in front of you. We swam like that for about 10 minutes. It was a real rush. When we got back to the swim through, Marco turned his light back on and we headed out the way we came in. It was one of the neatest things I've ever done.None of us wanted it to end. It was our longest dive yet at 70 minutes and it felt more like 15. I can't wait for our next night dive on Thursday.

Roatan Monday June 7th

Did you know it gets light at about 5:00 in the morning in this part of the world. It doesn't look like I'll be doing any sleeping in on this trip which is just fine by me.

Today we did three dives. Our first dive was at Canyon Reef. There were beautiful swim thrus that I would have really enjoyed if I had hooked my air to my BCD correctly and could put air in without blowing into it with my mouth. It made it a bit difficult to relax, but about 1/2 thru my weight evened out and I was able to relax more. We saw amazing things. Two morey eels, a really big spotted eagle ray swam by us, lobster and wonderful fish and coral. We ended at another dive spot called Fish Den.

Our second dive was at Blue Channel. Another great dive. We saw another Spotted Eagle Ray, and amazing fish and coral and saw 3 adolescent spotted eagle rays that were really cool.

We came back for lunch and studied for our Fish ID dive while we ate. We headed out and dove at Turtle Crossing which I finally figured out the perfect weight to keep me neutrally buoyant and I was able to totally relax and look for the fish I was suppose to find. Michael pointed out a turtle to me and we saw a really big lobster. We also saw two squid. That was the first time any of us had seen squid.

Roatan Sunday June 6th

Today has been a great day. We woke up very early because the sun was up at 5:00am, but we had gone to sleep pretty early so I didn't notice being tired today. We lounged around for a couple of hours and then started getting ready for church. We met Scott and Michael for breakfast around 8:00 and then met Joel who drove us to church about 20 minutes from Bananarama.

The church looks like an LDS chapel. There was a missionary there from Vernal who spoke with us before the meeting began and many others from the branch welcomed us. It was great to sing the Hymns with the members in Spanish. They had no piano or organ, but a brother would lead us by singing the first few bars and then we would start over and begin. It was fun to hear the little children singing with enthusiasm. After 1 or 2 testimonies I was able to understand at least 80 percent of what was being said because I knew what they were saying and because I had prepared my testimony in writing before I got there. I felt a bit nervous to bear my testimony, but I think they understood most of it. We visited with a family from Lander, Wyo. who arrived to the meeting shortly after it began. The Bills family. The father is a dentist and was here the week before with a big group of dentists who did work on the people from Roatan at the church. The missionary from Vernal said they had church videos and would speak to the people as they waited. I guess that was the price of free dentistry.

On the way back I sat in the front seat with Joel and he practiced his English and I practiced my Spanish. It was a lot of fun.

We got back about 10:45 and changed. Scott and Michael had a nap and Kevin and I went snorkeling. We met them at noon for lunch and then about 1:30 we grabbed our stuff and went to the dive shop to get outfitted.

We only had a 5 minute boat ride to Deep Sea Quest where we dove for about an hour. It was beautiful with nice coral and many medium and smaller fish. We saw a pipe seahorse. They're very small and look like nothing much if you don't look close. This was the most relaxing dive I've ever had. There was no current to speak of and we really just floated along and could look at everything we wanted to. We didn't see any large sea creatures, but I really enjoyed this dive.

After cleaning our gear, we headed out to the beach to relax until dinner. I studied for my Advanced water certification. I think it will be a good thing to get while we're here. We will have to think a bit, but it's about fun stuff so you'll hear no complaining here.

At dinner we visited with Adolfo who is the manager here and also a member of the church. He is a returned missionary for about a year. He served his mission here on Roatan and he is from here. He looks about 16-years-old, but he runs the whole place while the owners are away. They are gone now. They are from Idaho. Louis, the son is a member of the church so the missionaries come here on their P-day to relax and use the internet. We'll probably see them tomorrow.

At dinner time they also had crab races and fire dancing which was fun to watch. The band was very good also. I can see myself spending many vacation days here in the future, but then there are so many beautiful places in the world. I hope to see as many as possible.

Roatan Saturday June 5th

We were up early this morning (4:30am) to get ready to go the the airport and head to Roatan. The airport was really busy when we arrived about 6:00am. While we were in line at Continental, Scott came and joined us. I had taken some yogurt to eat for breakfast and they confiscated it at security.

After a bite to eat at Burger King we headed to the gate and loaded right away. Before long we were in the air and headed to Houston where we met Michael and grabbed some lunch. Then we quickly loaded again and were on our 2 hour, 20 minute flight to Roatan.

Everything has gone very smoothly. We even were able to arrange a ride to church tomorrow with the taxi driver who drives for Bananarama, the resort we're staying at.

After checking in and changing we headed for the dive shop and then the beach. We spent a couple of hours relaxing then ate at the Thirsty Turtle, a bar and grill here at the resort. They had a lady doing live entertainment. She was a great singer and we just sat and relaxed and ate and listened to her sing for a couple of hours.

We headed back to our room to shower (it's very humid and sticky here-I love it) and were able to get online.

We've all decided to get our Advanced Water Certification while we're here because it's only a few dollars more from what we were planning on paying for so WHY NOT?

I tried to add pictures, but the connection seems to be too slow. I'll try again later, but if I can't add them now, I'll do it when I get home.

Can't wait to see what God has in store for us at the bottom of the ocean tomorrow.

Memorial Day

What better way to remember those you love who have gone on before than spending time with the family you love that are still here. Monday we spent a few hours watching John/Glen and Sherri/Sam play in a volleyball tournament at UVU. It was beautiful weather to be at an outdoor volleyball tournament and it was so fun to spend time with the Horsley family that I love so much.

John and Glen

Sherri and Sam

After volleyball we headed to Grandma and Grandpa's new condo to BBQ and swim.

Lots of fun, food and love!