Christmas time at the Woodyatt Home

As Christmas is quickly coming (Yeah I know less then 2 days) I figured I should start on our Christmas related posts. I was really excited to own a home this year because I love Christmas Lights. I'm one of those where the more lights the better. If I could i'd be the next Clark Grizwold. However Kiera isn't as big a fan as I am of the lights. So we compromised. I could put up lights on the house as long as they were white. I agreed with that so after spending around $120 bucks on lights (85% of which being LED bulbs) and taking a few days the week of thanksgiving all of the Houses lights were up for the Christmas season. All my lights are even set on timers to come on and turn off at certain times. Even when we arn't home. In total there are around 600 bulbs. And I hope to add even more next year.





As Thanksgiving approached we couldn't resist any longer so we started decorating inside the house and put up our trees the night before Thanksgiving. Kiera added many new ornaments to our fancy tree since our theme happened to be in style this year. However our poor little $25 Wal-Mart tree doesn't work as well in our home as it did in our little condo. So we hope to find a new main tree for next year.



And lastly our poor little fun Ornament tree. We couldn't believe how many ornaments we added to this tree since last year. This little tree almost couldn't support all of them. So needless to day that if we replace our nice tree next year that tree will be replacing our little tree. I must say though that this little tree looks much better in our new home then it did in the Condo last year.



MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Final Port of our Vacation. St. Maarten. Part 6

Wow its taken me long enough to finish this recap now hasn't it. We are only going on 2 months since we've been home lol. Anyways this is the last recap of our final port of our cruise so this will be the last blog pertaining to our vacation. I hope you all have enjoyed reading about our trip and more so enjoyed the pictures i've been posting with it. Its diffenitly been a large project putting these blogs together. Anyays on to the blog.

Our final port of the vacation was the Island of St. Maarten. St. Maarten is a very unique island. Mostly because of the cultures found there. The island is very small. However half of it is owned by the Dutch and the other Half by the French. Since this was our last stop we didnt' have anything major planned to do there. Everyone told us to save our shopping for St. Maarten so thats all we planned on doing. As we look back now we really wish we would have taken a tour here as well since we only stayed ont he Dutch side of the island. If we ever go back we will diffenitly tour instead of shop.









The cruise docks are on the opposite side of the bay as the main city on St. Maarten. So we took the water taxi across. It costs a little more to do but it saves a lot of time. Once we got into the city we had a few things we wanted to shop for. I wanted to find a pair of Oakley knockoff sunglasses, Kiera wanted to find a knockoff purse, and we needed to find gifts for our families.

















As I said before many people told us to save our shopping for St. Maarten cause thats where we would find the best deals. This is true for the high end products like Jewelry, Diamonds, and Electronics. But they island has a horrible selection of the cheap knockoff stuff we were looking for. We only found 1 shop selling the knockoff purses and they didn't have near the selection that the shops in Nassau had of them. It was even harder to find the sunglasses I was looking for. But we eventually did in the back corner of a small shop. The only place we found knockoff sunglasses for men the whole trip. After finding everything we needed we continued browsing a few of the shops around. There was a shop called the Yodaguy which is a must stop for any Star Wars fans. The guy who originally designed Yoda owns the shop and has many starwars props and such from the movies on display in there.





After shopping we still had sometime before we wanted to head back to the ship. So we checked out the beach thats right next to the water taxi dock. The waters in St. Maarten are very pretty just as the rest of the waters of the Caribbean were. Kiera also found a bunch of shells to collect and then we found the gold mine of them lol. There were literally piles upon piles of shells in a section the the beach we were at.























After walking the beach and collecting sea shells we decided it was time to head back to the ship and say farewell to St. Maarten. So we walked back to the dock and bored the water taxi to head back to the ship.

























We hope to visit St. Maarten again someday. I'd really like to take a tour of the island and see what the french culture there is like. Tyler and Rachael also went Parasailing while we were on the island. It sounds like fun. Maybe someday we will try that as well if I can get up the courage to do it lol.

Anyways thats all from our vacation. Thanks for reading. Until our next one anyways. Which from the looks of it we might be going on a Western Caribbean cruise come October of next year. I guess we will see soon.

Super late... But better late then never!! Right??

I will Start will Halloween. I had to work that day and Jeff hd to work that night so I went to my parents for Halloween. I love Halloween it is one of my favorite Holidays, it is a huge holiday in my family. My dad goes all out with the decorations and loves scaring the kids especially to teenage kids :) it is very funny to watch and be a part of. I handed out candy and took pictures, so here are a few.



This guy use to be in my parents ward and dressed up for a work costume party and won of course. He put a lot of thought and time into making it look so real. When he came over Kena (my little sister) went to answer the door and came running to my mom and told her there was a scary man at the door lol






















Next... My Grandpa Winward's funneral. My grandpa had a heart atack in July of this year that damaged 75% of his heart. We didn't think that he was going to make it though but he got good enough to go home. He was doing ok for awhile and things started getting worse. He died on October 21st in the afternoon. I got to be there when he took his last breath. He was surrounded by loved ones. It was very sad but I am glad that he isn't suffering anymore. He loved finishing, animals, the church and serving many people. He was a vet and I remember going to the animal clinic and seeing all the animals I loved going to see them. I also remember going fishing with him, it was one of his favorite things. At his funeral there was a sign that said gone fishing and I think that he is doing a bit of that lol he was an amazing person always giving to those in need. He helped a lot of boys go on there missions, he loved missionary work and did all he could to help the missionaries. I miss him tons, I know that he is in a better place serving up in heaven!! here are some pictures of the funeral:




















the men in black





Now for Thanksgiving, we went to Jeff's step dad's family first. It was fun to see the cousins and aunts and uncles we hadn't seen in awhile. While we were there Jeff broke the drink dispenser hand off lol he is always braking something. We also looked through all the black Friday ads while we were there. Next we went to my Grandma Winwards for "dinner". It was an eventful night there. About an hour after we at one of the cousins came up and said that there was a huge mess downstair so we were thinking that they just got all the toys out little did we know what 3 5-6 year olds could do. They got a whole carton of eggs and threw them in the toy room and tv room. BIG MESS!!! is all I have to say. After it was all cleaned up they were watched over very closly lol That night I went with my Aunt Cindy and Crystal to the Parkcity outlets for the black friday sales up there. Cindy was getting stuff for her baby girl that she is having in March and I can't wait to see her :)We had such a blast but it was very exhausting lol I got home at 6:45am and went to sleep. When Jeff got home from work at 1:30 we went out and did some more shopping it was a long day but it is all worth it. Sorry no pictures for Thanks giving it was a good one this year and I have so much to be thankful for: my wonderful husband, family, friends, to have a job, that we were able to get a house, the gospel and the knowledge that families can be together forever!!

Last on Tuesday my Grandpa got sealed to his wife on there one year aniversary. It was so fun to be there and feel the spirt and to see how happy they are. It was a great day. We went to the Olive Garden after to Celebrate. :) well I think I am done now unless I remember something I missed Jeff will remind me and I will be back ha ha but I think this will be the longest post I have ever done or will do.