Hakuna Matata

Most of the time I like to post about things that James and I do together or stuff going on in our life but I guess this one is a little bit different...
Let me start out by confessing something about myself...I am a worrier...a lot of times a BIG worrier...sometimes I even worry about how much I am worrying about things.

I have definitely worked hard to try not to do this so much and am lucky to have a great husband who always helps me to look at the bright side of things (usually by singing me a verse from the song Hakuna Matata from the Lion King)...but it still is a struggle for me. When I get home each day after school I guess you could say I have the habbit of checking updates on blogs and on facebook first thing. Today when I read our pastor's blog (www.stevenfurtick.com) I was really hit by one of his posts on this subject. I think that with the economy and life the way it is right now the "worrying syndrome" is probably effecting a lot more people then ever before so I just was moved to share what he had written about the topic because it really made me think...

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” -Matthew 6:3

"God supplies all the strength we need to do all that He’s called us to do.But He rations this strength much in the same way He rationed manna to the children of Israel.He provides sufficient strength each day for the challenges of that day..and that day only.This strength doesn’t carry over from one day to the next. You either use it, or lose it.And He will not give you enough strength today for the confrontations, obligations, and challenges of next week, next month, or next year.That strength will be deposited in your account precisely when you need it- not a moment before.
If you’re stressed and overwhelmed today-check your strength supply.I’ll bet you have enough to get you through this day.And that’s all you need for now."

I think that what paster Steven has written here is SO true and the fact of the matter is that I (we) only need to focus on the things that are happening right here and now and just trust that everything else is going to turn out OK...and that ultimately the "plan" so to speak is not up to me so it's just a matter of knowing that He will take care of giving me the strength that I need for today!

Snow Day!

James and I woke up several times in the night last night and were excited to see it snowing outside! Our school district decided to wait until about 5:30 this morning to make the call that we weren't going to have school but we were happy with the choice even if it did come late! We decided to sleep in until about 10:00 and then James got up and made us banana pancakes to eat while we watched our 44th president, Barak Obama get inagurated into office. After that we went outside and did everything that you could imagine to do when it snows...we built a snowman, had a snowball fight, and made snow angels! After that we came inside and warmed up with some home made hot chocolate that one of my students gave me this year for Christmas (thanks Georgia)! Last but definitely not least we are going to attempt to make some snow cream! After that I think that we are just going to finish up by doing a little relaxing around the house, turn on our fire in the fireplace, and just enjoy our day off together!

We are making "How To" books with our students right now so we thought we would take some pictures of each step to show them! "First you roll the 3 balls..."

"Next you give it a face and arms."

"Last you give it buttons, a hat, and a scarf!"

Making snow angels...

Here is our bowl of snow ready to make snow cream! We made sure to take Melissa's advice and stay away from the yellow snow!

AJ also enjoyed getting to play in the snow! When we first opened the door to let him out this morning he came right back inside and wasn't to sure about the snow but once he went out he loved it and ran around like crazy!

AJ was up to his usual tricks and found some sticks to dig up in the snow!

Last but not least this is just a picture of our University of Tennessee well in our back yard that we got as a wedding gift...thought it looked pretty neat in the snow!

The Final Port: Roatan, Hondurras

OK so here are some pictures from the last port that we went to on the trip which was Roatan, Hondurras. I have to admit that when I found out that we were going to Hondurras I wasn't all that excited about it...I guess because I didn't know very much about the area. When we got there though I COMPLTELY fell in love with it to say the least. It has beautiful green trees all over the place and that amazingly blue water that you only see in the movies. When we were there we went on an excursion called pirates, birds, and monkeys. It was really neat because we got to see a lot of the island on our bus ride to the park where the excursion was and then we got to go for a hike (and cross a scary swinging bridge over the water) that lead to an area where there were a bunch of Macaw's (a type of parrot) and they would come and sit on your shoulder. It was really neat! James and I had a lot of fun with this...until one of the birds decided to say hello to James by giving him a little peck on the head...whoops!

After we left the areas with the birds we went on to visit the Monkey's! There were several different types of monkeys that we were able to see which was pretty neat. These guys would just come up to you and climb up your body and sit on your shoulder and jump from person to person! It was kind of hard to get a good picture of them sitting on you because they were so active but I think that we got a few good ones! One of the things that they warned us about before going in there was that the monkeys will steal things from you and if they steal something from you then they really think that it belongs to them so not to try to take it from them and they will eventually get bored with it and give it back.

Here I am with one of the howler monkeys...he just kind of sat right in my arms

Yep, the monkey climbed right on top of his head!

One of the monkey's stole a bottle out of James's shorts pocket and they took it up in the trees to play with it!

I have to say that I literally begged James to let us stay in Hondurras as we were getting back on the boat. My plan was that we could quit our jobs and just move into one of those cute little huts on the beach and become professional scuba divers and live a nice happy life together on the beach. Well as I'm sure you can tell he said no and made me come back home but hopefully we will be able to go back there and visit some day! Here are a few more pics from our stop here that I thought were pretty neat.

There were a lot of banana trees here and we also saw them in Costa Maya...I thought they were pretty cool looking!

While we were there we found some coconut trees by the pool that we layed out at...too bad we couldn't quite get one to bring home!

This is a picture of the hut that we could have lived in...looks like fun, right?

One final picture as our boat drove away from the island...hopefully we will see it again someday!

Port #3: Belize...Scuba Diving!

Well we didn't get to actually see much of the city at our 3rd port because this was the port where we tendered (anchored) out at sea and took boats to our excursion or to shore. The cruise ship could not get close enough to the shore because of the reef that they have in Belize. This was the stop where we decided to do our scuba diving because it is the 2nd largest barrier reef in the world (next to Australia). We unfortunately didn't see any turtles or sharks or anything like that but we enjoyed ourselves to say the least. It was absolutely beautiful under water there, just like a colorful garden but with fish swimming through! Our pictures that we took (with the cheap $15 underwater camera that we bought and will probably never use again) definitely did not do the scenery justice. We were dissapointed in the pictures to say the least but it was still neat to have memories of the things that we saw. There were a ton of tropical fish, coral, sea fans, and tubes and unfortunately you can't see a lot of the fish in the picture because due to the lack of color they seem to blend in. Anyways here are a few pics that we did like from the trip that we thought we would share...hope you enjoy and we promise we will try to get some more colorful ones next time!


This is a picture of a "Sea Cucumber". The dive master that was with us went down and petted it!

Here is one of the snapper that we saw swimming...there were a ton of these around

Right in the middle of that plant you can kind of sea what is called a fireworm...not quite sure what it is but the dive master pointed it out to James when we were diving so I thought I would get a picture of it!

This is a pretty cool picture of James that I took when we were swimming

My attempt at a self portrait

After that failed attempt we had someone else take our picture for us which seemed to turn out a bit better!

We hope that you all are enjoying the pics from our trip, I will be back next time with picture from Roatan, Hondurras (my favorite place) where we got to play with some really fun animals!

Port #2: Costa Maya

The second stop that we made on the cruise after leaving Cozumel was in Costa Maya. When we were there we went to visit the Mayan ruins of Kohunlich and spent most of the day there. It was neat to learn a lot more about the Mayan culture and way of life. We also got to see a lot of the country side in Costa Maya which was very sad looking at all of the run down houses there because of the last hurricane that they had. The port where our ship went into had just been rebuilt and this was the first time that our ship had returned since the hurricane. We learned that a lot of the streets have speed bumps on them so that merchants can have time to come up to your car and try to sell fruit and other things to you. We could have gotten two pineapples for $1.00 on the street or 20 oranges for $1.00. I think a few people were tempted by the deals but unfortunately for them the cruise ship (and US customs) doesn't allow you to take any fruit from the islands that we visited. Here are a few pictures of the ruins that we saw!

We made it to the top!

The first honeymoon update!

Well we have so many fun and exciting things to post about that James and I decided we would turn it into a couple posts and add one for each excursion that we did on the trip. So here is our first one! The first stop on our trip (after spending a day at sea) was in Cozumel, Mexico. This was definitely the biggest shopping stop on our trip and we had fun bartering with people and bought a blanket, a bag, some pearls, and a few maraccas! After shopping for a few hours we met up with our group for the excursion where we were going to go swimming with some dolphins! It was awesome! We worked with a dolphin named Romulo and we got to swim with him, have him push us on a boogie board, and also ride on his flippers. I had wanted to swim with dolphins ever since I was little so I was thrilled to say the least! Here are a few pictures that we took..they didn't turn out the greatest because they were taken with one of those disposable waterproof cameras but we had a good time none the less!

A picture of us when we first got on the cruise ship wearing our "United We Ride" shirts!


James surprised me by having the room decorated for our honeymoon and they also brought us a cake that it took us the whole week to eat!

James getting a kiss from Romulo!

Me holding Romulo and getting to pet him!

I thought this was a neat picture...couldn't get it to turn sideways though!

Romulo and one of the other dolphins putting on a show for us!

A Quick Post From Sea...

Hey all we just wanted to come on real quick and let everyone know that we are having an AMAZING time...in the last few days we have seen and done more then we could have imagined including swimming with dolphins, scuba diving at the 2nd largest barrier reef in the world, and playing with monkeys! We are now leaving one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, Roatan Hondurras...I made James promise me today that we could move here someday...i'm sure you would all come visit us, right? Anyways we just wanted to log on real quick (the internet on the ship is $0.75 per minute) to say hi to everyone. We have taken a ton of pictures and will update with those as soon as we get home. We have two more days at sea and then we return to Ft. Lauderdale on Thursday and should be driving home that day! Hope everyone has had a safe and fun new year so far!