Tag Archives: Vacations

Alaskan Cruise, Baby!

Vacations, , ,

So a new year has started! Life is good. Paige recently started a new full-time job (more details to come later), and Josh is busy with school and looking into internships. But in the midst of all this busyness, we realized we haven’t posted our pictures from our awesome Alaskan vacation last summer! Maybe it’s a good thing because it gave us the opportunity to reminisce about a great vacation. Here are some of our favorites…

FAVORITE FOOD TO TRY

Josh: I tried crab, because I’ve never actually eaten crab. The verdict? I’m just glad I stole some of my brother’s and didn’t order it for myself. ;-) Everything else was totally amazing though! I liked having a real plate of different cheeses (many French) for dessert, how français!

Paige: Baked Alaska! A glorious dessert involving ice cream, brownies, assorted toppings like carmel and berries, and glazed cream. How could you go wrong with a creation like that?

FAVORITE RANDOM MEMORY

Josh: In Juneau, we watched a presentation on the Tlingit Indians (pronounced Klink-it for all of you uncultured saps, but the tl and ng really actually make different sounds in the native tongue) to help us better understand the native cultures and their history. Afterwards, the presenter asked if there were any questions. A middle-aged man asked the brilliant question, “So why don’t you just spell it ‘Klinkit?'” “Uh, because that’s not how it’s spelled. It’s difficult for most Americans to say it properly, so we say it like that to help you,” came the presenter’s answer. “But why don’t you just spell it Klinkit?” O my… American cultural awareness at its highest.

Paige: One of my favorite stories was how Josh’s dad’s rules on food changed over the week. When we first got on the ship and went to our first of many all-you-can-eat meals, Dale told the boys, “Whatever you want to eat, you can! You can have dessert first if you want.” Well, a few days and several dozen ice cream cones later, Dale’s new rule for everyone was, “For every ice cream cone you eat, you walk a lap around the deck!” That story probably shows how awesome the food was, and how much of it there was, and how much we all enjoyed it…

FAVORITE EXPERIENCE

Josh: It was great to have everything at your immediate disposal for the entire week you are on the boat. We got to be around family the whole time, and you could do basically anything you wanted at any hour of the day. Watch a movie, go swimming, eat, exercise, eat some more, see a magician, look at the scenery, eat some more. It was pretty awesome. O, and did I mention that you could eat at all hours?

Paige: I loved the fancy dinners each night! I don’t usually think of myself as a classy or fancy person, but I loved the fancy dinners: getting dressed up, eating new foods, three-course meals, fine dining, visiting around the table…yeah, livin’ the high life! (or at least pretending).

FAVORITE THING OVERALL

Josh: Seriously, spending an entire week with the family was just fantastic. I loved being able to almost get to know them again, as it had been a while since we had been together that long. Paige and I also had the time to just get away, and that was absolutely wonderful! Such a great experience!

Paige: Other than the fancy dinners, it was great to just spend time with the Lyman family and get away from it all. It was a wonderful break from the normal grind. We had so much fun talking, laughing, playing games, eating food (and ice cream, lots of ice cream). What a great experience!

Audrey, Paige, and Josh at the MTC

Sending Audrey to the MTC

Big Events,

This week we were privileged to take Paige’s sister Audrey to the MTC. She started her mission and will be serving in the Washington, D.C., North mission. Congratulations, Audrey! We were both way excited to see her and sad to say goodbye, but we’re excited for her and know she’s going to be an awesome missionary.

Audrey, Paige, and Josh at the MTC

We’re excited because this means we now have three siblings on missions. Two of Josh’s brothers (Caleb and Sam) are also serving in Brazil (in different but touching missions). It’s so neat to see the examples of our siblings as they put life aside to serve the Lord, and we learn a lot from them. So we’re excited for Audrey and looking forward to her letters!

Say Hey

Music Video Time!

Holidays, Vacations, , , ,

So it was my sister Audrey’s idea this Christmas to make a music video for my mom–apparently she really likes homemade music videos. Christmas day, after Josh and I opened our brand new video camera (our Christmas present to ourselves, yay!), we headed to the park and shot this amazingly awesome music video. Josh filmed it and (with some help from me) edited it, and it was ready to give to my mom the day after Christmas. After we had all enjoyed a tasty banquet of homemade sushi, my sister Brenn dropped in, “You know what would go great with this meal? A music video.” To which my mom oh-so-perfectly replied: “Speaking of, you guys should make me one!” We presented her with the DVD right then and there, and Mom loved it. Josh and I had a lot of fun making this video with my sisters, so enjoy!

“Say Hey” Ellsworth Sisters Music Video from Joshua Lyman on Vimeo.

Family Comes to Town

Just Life, ,

Last week we had a real treat: the Lyman family came to visit! We had been planning on a weekend of fun after they visited family north of Salt Lake, but thanks to a snowstorm and a broken headlight on the Lyman family car, we got to see them a few days early! The whole family (Mom, Dad, Christian, Zach, and Luke) rolled in to our house around 12:00 p.m. on Thursday for an emergency sleepover, rather than keep on driving in the bad conditions. It was a blast! It was great to have everyone here and visit and talk. It felt fun to have a house full of family, too. And we felt lucky that we had enough space and just enough blankets to (hopefully) sleep everyone comfortably.

And the rest of the weekend was great, too! We had a great time eating pizza and playing games with the brothers, playing around in the park, going out to dinner and ice cream, and even heading to the Quarry for some rock-climbing! It was the first time Josh had climbed in a while, and he and the boys loved it. And Heather and Paige were daring and conquered a few walls, too (despite Paige’s fear of heights!) Oh, and we had another sleepover on Friday night with just the brothers—Sam joined us, too, and we watched movies and ate popcorn. Oh, yeah, good times.

So it was a great weekend! All the fun activities were a blast, but the best part was just getting to see our family and spend time with them. It feels like it’s been since the wedding/Christmas/reception time since we really got to spend time with the Lymans, and then things were so busy! It was great to have a nice, fun, relaxing weekend, and we’re looking forward to our upcoming visit to Colorado!