The Brevard Zoo

We went to the local Brevard Zoo a few weeks ago. It is pretty small, but we were actually pretty surprised at how many cool things they had there. We got to see some monkeys, African cats, a bunch of birds, alligators, and a whole lot more. The whole zoo was beautiful. There were plants everywhere, it didn't even feel like a zoo. It was especially fun to feed the giraffes and see the three bald eagles they had (don't worry, they didn't cage them or clip their wings, they were rescued birds that cannot fly and would not survive in the wild).

This photo is dedicated to the loving memory of Steve Irwin.

Why we are loving Florida!

Okay..I am SO behind on our blog. I need to get up a post about The Kennedy Space Center, Halloween, the rapid growth of my stomach, and our trip to the Zoo but there is no time now. Those pictures will be coming soon but for now I just thought I should share some of the things Bryson and I love about our new home (besides Bryson's wonderful job that he loves!).

First of all, we have all of our windows open and our sliding door open wide in the middle of November and it feels wonderful in our apartment. Our place does not even have a heater. There is no need. We can use our apartment swimming pool all year long! Here we are in the pool last week:

Another thing we love: it is beautiful here. Everywhere I look there is something green or some beautiful bird flying by! I was driving our sister missionaries around a neighborhood here and saw a flock of wild peacocks! They were just roaming around. It was amazing. And there is no such thing as an inversion here!! :) I am so grateful for this beautiful world the Savior created for us.

We also love our ward here. All of the members are so welcoming. It is very different to be in a non-BYU ward but we love it. We have a lot more responsibilities but I really feel like I am really serving in the church. There are so many opportunities to serve those in our ward and also to help the missionaries. Bryson and I have been introducing ourselves to all of the investigators. We had a family home evening with one this week and we try to go teach lessons with the Sisters whenever we can. It has been such a blessing for me to have more opportunities to share my testimony.

I am so grateful for all the blessings we have. We are sad to be so far away from family and we miss you all but we are enjoying our new home.

Pupusas

Since we visited New Orleans in July, Bryson has had the craving for more Spanish food. He really wanted some Pupusas- a delicious stuffed corn tortilla from El Salvador. We had tried to make Pupusas before, but we didn't use the right beans or cheese. This time, with the help of our favorite Salvadoreño, Luis Chicas, we made a pretty good Pupusa. Yummy!

Cruise

To celebrate our second anniversary (which happened last month), we went on a cruise to the Bahamas. It was just a short little three night trip, but it was tons of fun.

Bryson left work early on Thursday, and we hopped up north to Port Canaveral and got on our ship, the Carnival Sensation. The ship left Port Canaveral Thursday at 4 pm and headed off to Nassau. We made it to the Bahamas around noon on Friday and stayed at the port there until Saturday morning. Then it was back to the sea to return to Florida. We had an amazing time. Here are some pictures:

The Ship

Here is a map showing where we went.  It is crazy how close the Bahamas are to where we live.

It was awesome sitting out on the deck and looking at how vast the ocean is. We saw some jellyfish at port canaveral, and we think we saw a dolphin jumping one night.

We had a lot of fun on the ship. They had shows and trivia games going on all the time that we really liked to go to. Especially with our good luck this trip (Bryson says it was all skill -no luck needed). There was a guy the first day who was talking about the best places to go shopping for jewelry on Nassau. And at the end they had a raffle for a Diamond and Saffire necklace. I kind of wanted to go but we got caught up doing something else but we walked by at the very end of the show and decided to go in. We put our names in the raffle, (only one, the people that were there the whole time got two tickets per person) and guess what? I won! After that we just kept on winning things. Bryson got called up to the stage to compete in a trivia game and he was so good! He was so far ahead the host decided to put him in time out for a few questions so the other contestants could catch up. But he still won, the other contestants were put to shame by a guy wearing a Ninja Turtles t-shirt (thanks Jan, for the t-shirt that made Bryson a cruise celebrity)! After that we won two or three more trivia games. Here is the proof of our winnings:

(Don't worry, we traded that wine in for two cans of Sprite!)

 For anyone who is thinking about going on a cruise our advice is: always eat in the dining room! The food is so good. Way better than the buffet food. We went for breakfast lunch and dinner. Of course we were stuffing our faces so much we only got around to taking one picture there. :)  We also took advantage of the 24 hour ice cream!

   

In Nassau we did not have any excursions planned. We just figured we would walk around and check the city out. Turns out this was a good plan because it decided to pour while we were there and most of the beach excursions were delayed or canceled. But we had a great time in the rain. The infrastructure in Nassau is not very good so all the drains clogged up about 10 minutes after it started raining.  The streets turned into rivers. 

I was not too confidant that the tarps would hold all the rain.

 When it really started to come down we took refuge in an ice cream shop. Here is the view we had from there.

After the flood waters receded enough for us to leave the shop we continued to explore the city and we came across a pirate museum! We couldn't pass that up. They had all sorts of information and pirate artifacts. I learned all sorts of things. Like that there were women pirates and pirates didn't bury treasure; they just spent it all once they got it! It was a great find. 

On our last day of the cruise we mostly just relaxed. We played a few games of mini golf, read some of our books, and chilled on the deck. 

Crazy wind hair.

Even crazier hair!

I won the first game but I have to admit Bryson won the best 2 out of 3. And he won't let me forget it!

Although I wish they could sometimes, vacations can't last forever. We are back home now, cooking and cleaning for ourselves.  

And just for fun, here is Bryson after they dilated his pupils for a laser eye test his work had him do:

Florida Life So Far

First and foremost, here is the pregnant belly side shot everyone has been asking me for. As you can see, I am starting to show a little bit now.

I am way behind on my blog posts with moving and Bryson and I starting new jobs so here is a recap of everything that has been going on since we moved to Florida. We made it to Melbourne on August 4 and Bryson's company Harris put us up in a beautiful hotel right on the beach. We had a beautiful view of the beach from our balcony. We started looking for a place to live right away and it was so stressful! The first 10 places or so that we looked at were tiny and most smelled like cigarette smoke. I was beginning to think we were just going to have to live in the hotel. But then on our second day of searching we found a few nice places. Then came the hard part, deciding which one to pick. We narrowed it down to two places and finally after a lot of changing our minds back and forth we went with a nice two bedroom loft place that was about 5-10 minutes from Bryson's work. I was so relieved when we signed all the papers! Once we had found a place to live we had a few days left at the hotel so we could relax. Here are some pictures from the hotel.

Our balcony and the hotel pool.

Taking a walk on the beach.

Here is Bryson on his first day of work. He was a little nervous but very excited.

So Bryson had this old pair of board shorts that he loved that was passed down to him from one of his brothers, who knows how old they were. I was always telling him he could buy a new pair if he wanted but he loved these shorts. Well here is what happened to them in the first week we lived in Florida! We had to add a new swim suit to the list of beach supplies we needed to buy!

While we were still in the hotel, we had a day at the beach with our friends, the Vorwallers, who we met at BYU. They are both from Melbourne and came back for Graduate school at the same time we moved out here. I was so glad that we knew someone in the area already! We went and had dinner at both of their parents homes and I even got hooked up with a job connection!

Maybe one day we will be as tan as the native Floridians. :)

Here are some pictures of our first lessons in body boarding! It was so much fun we definitely added body boards to our beach supply list as well.

Finally the time came to leave the hotel and move into our new place. The only problem was we still had no furniture! Or any of our stuff for that matter. The moving company was supposed to deliver our things that week but they got delayed in Utah so no furniture for us. Thankfully we had thought to bring our air mattress in case this happened so we at least had a bed to sleep on in our empty apartment.

Eventually our stuff made it to Florida, thank goodness! I was really starting to miss our kitchen table! I spent the first week or so unpacking and getting our apartment in order. Here are some pictures and a video tour of the new place. We really love it here so far.

Once we got all settled in, I contacted my friend's Mom about a part time job teaching ESL to foreign students that are going to attend University in the United States. I went and checked out the classes and it seemed like a great place to work. I started teaching afternoon classes on Sept 12 and am loving it so far. I teach basic sentence structure to a beginning class and Creative Writing to an intermediate class. It has been great so far. The students are from all over the world so it is interesting to see such a mix of cultures in one classroom. But it is perfect for me. I like teaching and it gives me something to do while Bryson is at work. And it doesn't hurt that I am getting paid to do it! The semesters are only 4 weeks each so it is really flexible about when I stop working, which is perfect! Because I am only teaching afternoon classes I get every Friday off which works great with Bryson's schedule. He gets every other Friday off so we get lots of long weekends. Here are some pictures of one of our weekend getaways at the beach.

Well that is about it for now. We are loving our new ward. Everyone was so welcoming. We have made lots of new friends. And the ward is putting us to work. Bryson got called to be the 2nd councilor in the Elders Quorum and I am teaching the 12-13 year old Sunday school class for now. This last weekend we drove some of our youth up to Orlando for a temple trip and I was able to bring some of our family names. It was wonderful.

I am hoping these pictures will make everyone want to come and visit us soon! Love you all!