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About Me

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I was born in Mesa and lived in both Arizona and Utah. I attended four different high schools and moved back to Mesa my senior year. I love to travel and explore; I studied abroad in England, Scotland and France and had a blast. Music and writing drive me. I am a hard worker, when I am motivated to be. I am a passionate girl who loves people. I love friends but I also love my quiet time. Most importantly, I love to Love. I am a writer, an educator, a learner, an explorer and yes, a Mormon. I am blessed and I love my life. I am currently serving a mission for the Lord through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Italy until January of 2016.

My motto

My Motto
Love and Be Loved

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

STEMSS CRUISE EL, Mexican Riviera Cruise- Puerto Vallarta


 Day Five Wednesday, March 14, 2018
Today was a great day. An enlightening day. We booked an excursion for today going to the Yelapa and Majahuitas beaches and snorkeling, where I expected thoroughly to see more wildlife, like birds, sea turtles and whales (my two biggest hopes!) and so on. We saw a whale briefly, and fish and jellyfish while snorkeling. We also saw lot's of iguanas about, and we did, in fact, see a couple blue-footed booby birds on an island in passing. But the tour just really focused on entertainment and fun. They fed us lunch on the boat but not any local food. The tour guide named Pablo was from Mexico and was so familiar with the area, which was a nice touch.

As we walked through the small village up to the waterfall, we passed a kid running down the path carrying a list. He stopped the kid and read what the list said- a drink and just a list of a few items to buy from the store. He read it to us, gave the list back to the kid, and the kid ran back on his way. It was like a movie! So casual and the kid thought nothing of it. We also passed some little kids with shells set up selling with a cute little song for $1. Culture. So very cool to see. It was a good mix reminder of Ghana and Italy for the both of us. You used to be able to climb up past the waterfall, but several years ago there was a huge rock slide and it is closed off beyond the falls.
As for snorkeling, we had to jump in the water from the boat and it was absolutely freezing! It shocked me and kind of took a while for me to calm down and actually breathe. We did see some jellyfish, and cool colored fish swimming around. We couldn't go too far out as the water got thicker and foggier. (Also- the pollution in the bay was awful. There was a distinct ring around the whole sky.) I enjoyed the snorkeling but I wanted to see more. We got to kayak for several minutes and then decided to go back to the catamaran (our boat) and eat lunch. Shortly after we moved on anyway. On the way home, we saw some fins in the water so it was either dolphins or like manta rays. We did see a school of fish swim by. And lot's of birds. On the way to snorkel in our spot, we did see a few Blue Footed Booby birds on the islands!!!

I think that if you are going to visit a place, you need to immerse yourself in that culture/lifestyle and leave your own behind temporarily. If you are going to live there, then there definitely needs to be a merge that takes place. On the tour, they were really focused on having fun and partying with music and drinks on the boat, but I really, really had hoped to focus more on the wildlife. Still, it was a worthwhile adventure today. After looking in dozens of shops looking for the perfect dress i wanted, we ended up buying a shirt from a lady and as we got chatting we asked for the best food to eat, and she called a friend to deliver food and we ate outside. A quesadilla with chorizo, al pastor, and carne asada, and beans. Absolutely delicious. Weston loved it. By the way, it was his birthday! Then we asked about taxi prices and she gave us what it should be. They bought us a coke and gave it to us before we left. Sandra and Gilbert (Berto). Nice people! Weston told them he would find them on Facebook. Perhaps we'll come back to visit them. It was just great to mingle with the locals and see how friendly they were to us.  That was a lot of fun for us and I think Weston loved it. We got to check out some of the Malecon and El Isla Cuale. An 11 hour day... we came home at 7:15 to the ship, showered, and were supposed to go to the shark tank activity but did not as we were late... instead to went to get a Clue and a free art show thing, showing Salvador Dali's art film.

Sunday, March 25, 2018

STEMSS CRUISE EL, Mexican Riviera Cruise- Mazatlán

Fun fact: Mazatlán means "place of deer" in the Aztec language. License plates in Mazatlán feature a tomato, the area's leading agricultural product and principal ingredient for tasty salsas.


Day Four Tuesday, March 13, 2018
It's about time for bed and I just don't quite feel like writing at the moment. We watched Wonder, the movie, tonight. I enjoyed the book of course and there were many more details than the movie; the movie really skimmed through a lot of it, though still enjoyable to watch. There is a dive-in movie screen with pool chairs in front of it, the pool in behind, and the roof slides open to let the sky in. There is also a theater on the opposite end of the ship, meant for shows and performances. We are on the Splendor, and each ship is slightly different with different things or designs.
This morning was a good start. We got breakfast and were all ready to go just a few moments before leaving time at 8, and we ended up having to wait a few minutes anyway. We went on a group tour/excursion about an hour bus north of Mazatlan to a small town in La Chicayota, Sinaloa. The we were off to the beach to visit Las Labradas. Labradas means carvings, and we explored the petroglyph's on the rocks on the beach there. Our tour guide (I think his name was Pablo, I can't remember!) turned out to be an oceanographer. He is a scientist! He was born and raised in Mexico and went to university to study such, and speaks fluent English. We were really lucky to have him. We spent a good hour or so on the beach, exploring the south part and then the north. The basalt rocks came from a volcano hundreds of hundreds of years ago, and carvings are about just as old. Water, wind, and people touching the carving help them disappear so they really focus on preserving them. They even had a live working scientist camp set up on site at Las Labradas. One thing I noticed is that further up shore, the sand is much more coarse (like sea-shell sand) where closer to the water it is very fine sand.
After the beach, we drove back into the town of La Chicayota and the Corono family made us all lunch. It's a really small town, maybe only 200 people live there. The family owns a little (little) store and it's right by the community center. Running water while we were there was down; they had issues with plumbing in the whole town, but they did have a toilet. Anyway, the family cooked us wonderful food- tacos with carne asada, al pastor, shrimp, and marlin, and then there were beans and rice and cucumbers and homemade drinks. Delicious. It was a wonderful experience to interact some with the people. Weston absolutely loved it. It was such a real, non-tousisty, authentic experience.
It was through a tour place but the guy worked with ONCA. See this website and see a picture at this website https://www.instagram.com/p/BgZJVA7lfdl/ 

When we got home, we had a little nap, cleaned up, had dinner at the buffet (they have almost the same food as the diner does for dinner, you just don't get waited on), and then watched our movie as I mentioned.







pueblosamerica.com says the following, "In La Chicayota (Chilacayotas) there are 56 dwellings. 100.00% of the dwellings have electricity, 97.87% have piped water, 78.72% have toilet or restroom, 55.32% have a radio receiver, 87.23% a television, 76.60% a fridge, 44.68% a washing-machine, 14.89% a car or a van, 2.13% a personal computer, 0.00% a landline telephone, 65.96% mobile phone, and 0.00% Internet access."

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

STEMSS CRUISE EL, Mexican Riviera Cruise- Cabo San Lucas

Day Three Monday, March 12, 2018
Tonight the boat is rocking quite a bit, but today we set anchor in Cabo San Lucas. I was really tired waking up this morning. We had a mini session about culture this morning and got introduced to the scavenger hunt for the day on culture. (I didn't do so well on it, but some of the pictures were taken for it). We ate breakfast and came back to get ready. Karen so kindly got us stickers that we had to have for the tender boats. Cabo is a tender port, meaning the ship can't go all the way into port because the port is too small- and we board boats to get to and from shore. We got sticker number 1, group 1, but we were still getting ready when they called for us at 10:30 and then we got off a bit late and I just got grumpy. However, we finally got there and it was fine. The first sight getting off the boat, and returning to the boat, was a military man walking back and forth carrying a huge machine gun. Welcome to Mexico! We wasted $8 on a taxi-bike ride to downtown- we walked around a bit. My goal is to buy a nice dress at some point, and maybe a blanket (though I could just as easily get either at home). Prices were ridiculous! They were charging USD for everything and it was crazy. Or maybe I misunderstood. We gave up and walked all the way back to the beach, after completing the scavenger hunt.


I learned some things from the scavenger hunt- awareness is being culturally minded, people-minded. It opens your perspective to learn and see as others do. Sometimes you don't notice things until you look for them. Schools, plants growing out of concrete, military, etc. 
The beach was wonderful. Clear, blue water. Cool water, warm sun. Perfect combination. Clear skies- I think. The caramel colored sand felt like brown sugar under my feet, coarse and grainy. Weston occupied himself with searching for crabs but instead found a great collection of...like abalone... oyster/clamshells.... something very pretty, though not sure if they have a name. He was excited by this and brought three back. I enjoyed the water.  I had a mini panic attack once I got out in the deep water- for no reason! It just happened where I suddenly felt, stuck and couldn't breathe. I sure hope snorkeling goes well on Wednesday.

We came back to the ship about 3 PM to clean up and eat lunch. Pirates pizza- authentic Italian: my approval. Kind of tired-hungry cranky, we came back to the room and ended up taking a much-needed nap. We have not participated in many activities, but there are still lot's to come. Weston submitted his application for Grad school into the 4+1 program! We had dinner in the dining room: Braised Rabbit (didn't look like it), lamb shank with root veggies, and coconut lime cake... different, I liked the cake. I ought to be working on more homework, which is why we came back to the room, but we are enjoying ourselves and the downtime, and I'm enjoying this chance I've created for myself to mandatory write every night. We could have done more tonight like there was the 88 Keys piano show, and comedy shows, but we are so tired. 


Tuesday, March 20, 2018

STEMSS CRUISE EL, Mexican Riviera Cruise- Setting Sail


 

Day One Saturday, March 10, 2018
We embarked the ship early, arriving in Long Beach much earlier than expected. Randy and Kat are cool people; they rode with us over here. It is a rainy, foggy, chilly day. Somebody got hurt- fell on their back or something. We had to wait to embark for an ambulance to take her. We watched them leave and saw blood on her back as the pulled her out of the wheelchair. Then we sat and watched as the ship left the dock... the giant waves, the boats following it. The black, diesel smokestack.
This place is cool.
Already, we have seen so much food wasted. Mountains, and mountains of food. I absolutely hate that. I wish we could teach people not to waste.
We got free lunch and ice cream. By free I mean it is included.
It's cozy. Like a hotel, rather homey. Weston found his cute and cozy little perch in the window seat- it's perfect. He isn't 100% convinced he likes this and all the excess involved with the cruise, but I know he will enjoy it all. We are going to have fun and it's just so fascinating the things we can see and learn.
Dinner was like a dine-and-dash. Three-course meal! Salmon tonight. Yummy. We went to a Clue show as well and it is a mystery throughout the whole cruise as we will collect clues. Clever idea.
It is very choppy tonight, windy ridiculousness and wild waves. Not nausea but just a feeling of dizziness in the head, throwing off the vestibular system. To bed early and we're excited for breakfast.







Day Two Sunday, March 11, 2018
There was a confusion this morning on time... Today is daylight savings time and so most of our phones changed, as well as the app. But when we got to breakfast they said it was only 6:30, not 7:30! So I guess we lost some sleep. I don't even know. The ship stays on the time that we were at when we left no matter what and that's what we go by, but I guess the app didn't keep up.
We had some great PD today. It's always very hard to sit still for so long, and lot's the teachers complained a lot. Mesh of personal ~ professional life = uncomfortable for Heather. I'm OK sharing mine, but it's odd to see others in an unprofessional yet professional scene. We went over the goals of the grant and all the logistics, and I wrote it all down in my "interactive notebook". Karen did what she calls Sciencetelling- we got to choose little Lego buddies and name them, and they will be like our Flat Stanley's for the trip but it was also as a strategy idea for use with kiddos. Mine is named Lydia Claudia Cordilia Renae The Adventurer.
We got to sample some lesson plans as well. The highlight for me, I enjoyed a lot having the guest speaker/scientist/conservation specialist share her story with us! It was way super cool. I have notes written down so I might have to take a picture of them to save typing time. Brooke Bessesen is her name, also a local children's author in Arizona. Really inspiring for me, looking at geography and science as future career possibilities within teaching.
We could feel the boat rocking, back and forth, back and forth, especially in the conference room with no windows. It was warm today, sunny. We got time to hot tub as the sun set tonight, shower, have a long fancy dinner (prime rib) and enjoy the evening. Weston hung out working on some school stuff and reading for the day. Excited for Cabo San Lucas tomorrow!