Puerto Vallarta

Well, we have been in Puerto Vallarta now for 5 days. To be honest we were a little leery about coming, but Mom and Dad Doyle wanted to come to check on their condo and we thought it would be a good idea to come along. We have been pleasantly surprised about how much we have enjoyed our time here. I don't think I have seen Norm relax so quickly on a vacation! We have enjoyed the beauty, people and slower pace. Our trip to help out Norm's parents has turned into a nice little vacation for us.

We are staying across the hall from their condo in one of their neighbor's condo who graciously offered his place to stay for free - how could we refuse? It is in the historic downtown area with cobblestone streets, lots of restaurants and shops, and the beach only a few blocks away.

Here are few pictures of our condo and the area immediately surrounding us.

Our "outdoor" living room. See the washing machine at the back left?
The dryer is some clotheslines up on the roof

Bedroom

Tiny Bathroom - notice our own little water heater to the right!

View out our living room window towards the beach


Sidewalk by the condo


Found these great stairs behind the condo
while we were out for our morning walk one day


Sand sculptures that we pass on our morning walks


We went on a drive and ended up at these waterfalls where we had lunch and watched the cliff divers. You can see one of them in middle of this picture. He was pretty good!


Us having fun at lunch at the waterfalls.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAUREN! - (BETTER LATE THAN NEVER)

Lauren turned 20 on March 16th. Julie was nice enough to cook the birthday dinner and make a cake as we were traveling home from the Utah Horse Expo in South Jordan, UT. Thank-you Julie!!!

Ty was excited to help blow out the birthday candles

Ryan and Anna joined us for the festivities.

Of course Julie and Jaab were there to join in the fun!
(Someone needed to cook the dinner)

And Maddie is always the center of attention :)
Don't you love the hair?

Kristin and her family were not able to come up - maybe another time!

Happy Birthday Lauren! We love you!

New at Home Adventure

We are home from traveling for a bit and are enjoying our new adventure of having Julie, Jaab, Ty and Maddie as our new roommates! Julie and her family joined ours a week ago as Jaab obtained work here in Logan and they will be rooming with us until they are able to sell their home in Saratoga Springs.

We REALLY enjoy having them here. You have probably heard me complain that I have a hard time keeping up with everything around here - so it is nice to have two extra set of adult hands to help and two extra sets of kiddie hands to love and play with.

It has been so nice to see everyone working together on this new living arrangement. We come home from work and Julie usually has something cooking for dinner! We are able to help watch the kids so Julie and Jaab can get away a little bit. Lauren is sharing cleaning chores and she is the favorite Auntie around here. The kids always want her around and she can get more smiles out of Maddie than anyone. Julie and Lauren share clothes and shoes. And even Tillis (the dog) enjoys having some little ones down at his level.

Here are some pictures of us getting acquainted the first few days

Ty frosting (and tasting) his own cake!

Maddie and Tillis having a little visit

Ty and Maddie getting to know Tillis (He is loving this!)

Arabian Horse Show in Scottsdale, AZ

This is a GREAT Horse show. The quarter horse people think they do things big - they have nothing in comparison to these Arabian Horse owners! And WestWorld is a HUGE facility. I have never seen so many horses all in one place. Their barns are incredible, all decorated and fancy in the front of each barn.

Statues in front of WestWorld


The Nature Society brought birds that are indigenous to Arizona.
I thought this owl was awfully cute!

A few pictures of our booth. We have had a few customers but we could use a few more! We have really enjoyed the weather here and plan to come back again next year.

Traveling to Scottsdale, AZ

Norm and I have become the vagabonds! We have decided (through much cajoling from friends and family) that we should keep a travel-log and let you know a little of what we are doing and where we are going. So, this is not the first trip of the year as we have already traveled to Scottsdale a few weeks ago for the AQHA Sun Circuit Show, but it is our first blog of the year 2009. We returned to Logan for a week and now we are traveling back to Scottsdale for the Arabian Show. We were excited to be accepted into this show as there is usually a 4-5 year waiting list!

In our travels back and forth to Arizona we have often passed by this little turn off called Horse-Shoe Bend, so we thought we would take some time to explore it this time.

This is such a cool canyon. It looks like a horse shoe shape with a river running through the gorge.

Norm sitting way too close to the edge!


Kim enjoying the view

Both of us trying to figure out the timer on the camera. After a few tries at least we got this!

You wouldn't believe it by these pictures but we hit a lot of snow on this trip. Had a small jacknife experience that made my little heart go pitter patter and now we are finally driving out of a huge snow storm in Flagsaff. Lots of cars off the road but it looks like we survived it!