The End of Our Florida Trip

The Wednesday before we left, we went to Daytona Beach. My dad had to work, but the rest of us were all able to go. It was a beautiful day at the beach. The waves were fun, too bad the boogie boards didn't always cooperate.

The ladies laid out when the guys played our latest obsession, the bean bag toss game called Cornhole. It's a fun game where you have two boards about 25 feet apart from each other. Each team has 4 beanbags and you try and throw the bean bags into the hole. Sounds easy, totally isn't. Although, my brother has seemed to master it. I can't even tell you how many games they played together. Josh was determined to beat Mikey at least once.

The Bartlett ladies love their sun. So much that we never learn our lesson and put on sunscreen. The youngest Bartlett lady put sunscreen on her body, but forgot her face. I did the exact opposite. I put it on my face and wore a hat and let the rest roast. When we got home later that day, we realized how much sun we all actually got. My body was beat red, thank you cubicle job, Tara's face was really red, and my mother was red everywhere. We didn't care though, well, we did a little because it hurt. We knew that is a couple days, it would be a nice tan. Of course it was a nice tan, until we all began to peel. I love when I feel though, I know sounds sick. I like peeling the skin. I know there are others out there that love it too!

The next day, Josh and I went to Disney Quest. It's Disney's version of an arcade. There are tons of arcade games, but then there is also virtual reality games. One fun game was paddling through the jungle. You really paddle your way through. You go in this inflatable raft and the "water" inflates around that. It moves you all over the place like water does and you have to paddle your way around the river. If you don't paddle, you don't move. We also did a virtual roller coaster. That's right, JOSH did a roller coaster!! We got to build it ourselves. The man told us we put 2 flips in it too! Josh even enjoyed it. I was so happy that he did it. Our favorite game was the Pirates of the Caribbean. You go on a pirate ship with cannons and shoot the other pirate ships to collect their booty. It's in 3-D and it's intense. Josh and I were all alone on out ship. We put it on auto pilot and went straight to the cannons. We had three each and went to town on those pirate ships. We collected a bunch of booty. ;) We were named Kings of the Caribbean. It was the second highest level, which we thought was pretty good considering there was only 2 of us and you can have up to 7 people per ship. Josh would be mad if I didn't mention the virtual reality game that let us fight our enemies with light sabers. Oh yeah, we fought off comic book villains with our amazing light sabers. It was a lot of fun. You work as a team to fight them all off and get points. Ask Josh who got the most points. (BTW.....it was me!)

After we finished running around the arcade, we decided that we would have a nice dinner to celebrate our anniversary since we didn't do that yet. We asked my brother Mikey if we could visit him at the restaurant he works at, Emerils. That's right, Emeril Lagasse's restaurant. The food was AMAZING!!! The service was AMAZING!!! We started with an amuse bouche. It was salmon with a great vinegar. Then, we had escargot for our appetizer, yummy. Our dinners were fantastic. I had Chilean sea bass that was to die for!!! If you go there, get that!! For dessert, we ordered chocolate souffle, it was good, but then my brother surprised us with banana cream pie.......it was out of this WORLD!!! I have never tasted such a great dessert. Josh and I immediately stopped wanting the souffle and devoured the pie. Then, it was time for the bill. My family always plays, guess the check, we make everything a game. Josh and I knew that we went all out for this meal and we really wanted to do that. I guessed around $120, Josh guessed high 90s. We opened the check and there was nothing there. We were so puzzled, the I just realized that my brother paid for us! I started to cry. I couldn't hold it back, kind of like right now, I can't write about it without getting teary eyed. We told him he needed to charge us for something because we only had a card and we wanted to leave a tip. BTW, at Emerils, every table had 3 servers. Like I said, amazing service! So, Mikey took our card and handed back out new check. It was for 1 cent. He is so adorable. It was so thoughtful of him to do that for us. It really meant a lot to us, especially me. It's really a sweet thing to see your siblings growing up. I just wished they all lived closer so I could see it more often.

So now, it's our last day in Florida. We slept in and had all our bags packed. We decided that it wouldn't be a Bartlett Florida vacation without going to Universal Studios, so we went. It was fun. We got to do all the rides we wanted to and we were only there for about 5 hours. It's great when you go to the parks when people are still in school. While we were there, we also got to see the shuttle take off into space. It looked like a fireball in the sky! It was cool. Then, we at at my favorite place, Circus McGurcus in Seuss Landing at Universal. We knew it was time time go after that. We had to drive to the airport to make our plane.

It was FANTASTIC trip!! We had such a blast. It was fun to be a tourist in Florida. We normally aren't like that. I love my family and I was so happy to spend so much time with all of them. They mean the world to me. It was great to be able to really say I love you in person to them instead of on the phone.

Miss you guys already!!!

Sea World

While we were in Florida, we got to go to Sea World. Josh has never been there and I went once and there was a bad storm that hit us so they shut down the park. I really only got to see one show. So, Josh and I thought it would be fun to go there this trip to really experience it. We were lucky that Mikey had off that day so he was able to come with us!

We got to see some great shows with animals. We were really curious about the Shamu show. We didn't know what would be in the show since the death of that trainer. That incident really changed the show. The trainers aren't even allowed in the tank at the same time as the whales. The show was still good. It's amazing to watch this huge whale fly up in the air and do a flip.

Our favorite show was the dolphin show. The trainers were allowed to be with them. Dolphins are just so pretty. The tricks they did were so cool. They would throw the trainers up in the air, the trainers would ride them like a surfboard and they did amazing tricks! They even had some beautiful birds as part of the show. They flew around the tank and over the audience. There were a couple times you would think they were doing to nail you in the head. That show was fantastic!

Sea World doesn't have too many rides, but it does have Manta! Manta is a roller coaster that makes you feel like you are a manta ray swimming through the ocean. It was an amazing feeling. Mikey and I went on the ride and there was no one in line. We decided that we would wait for the front then because we knew it would be a fun experience. It was more than fun! That was the coolest roller coaster I've ever been on. It almost made you feel like Superman flying through the sky! It was so much fun we decided to do it again. This time, in the back row. What a different experience. You really get whipped around more back there. It was still fun though. If I had to ride it again, I would wait for the front. You can see everything!! This was when we got off the roller coaster after sitting in the back row.

It was a fun day hanging out with 2 of my favorite guys!

One Year Anniversary

It's official, we have been married for 1 year!! Wow, that went so quick, just like our wedding day.

We really wanted to do something fun to celebrate our one year married to each other. We threw around a bunch of ideas, too bad my passport expired so we needed to stay in the US. But, last minute, we decided that we were going to go to Florida and surprise my family on Mothers Day, which was also our 1 year Anniversary.

We went down there early and really tried to be tourists. We stayed in a hotel right outside of Disney for a great price, thank you Priceline Negotiator! We went to Epcot and Animal Kingdom while we were there. The parts were so much fun, I hadn't done them in about 10 years, and Josh hasn't gone to Disney since he was a little boy.

Epcot was fun! We went on some fun rides and ate some great food. The best ride there is called Soarin. It makes you feel like you are hang gliding over California. It even smelled like pine when you were over the forest and citrus when you went over the orange trees. The World Showcase was wonderful! You get to go from country to country. We ate in Morocco. The food was fantastic!! So much better than we could have expected too. We wanted to eat in Japan, but we were so happy we did this instead. We even saw Davey Jones preform!! He was so much fun.

This was the first time Josh and I ever went to Animal Kingdom. That was a great experience. It was nice that there were more trees there too, It made the park feel a little bit cooler in 90 degree weather with 90% humidity. The Safari was amazing. We did it 3 times!!! We got to see so many animals, and every time it was different. There was one time where an ostrich was running right at us!! It was the funniest thing I have ever seen. The tree of life was really pretty too. It had animals all craved into it. Josh and I really loved the Finding Nemo show. It was like a broadway play. It was so beautiful and fun. I would recommend this park to everyone!!

So, our Disney adventures came to an end and it was time to surprise the family. No one knew we were coming so we really gambled on them being home when we showed up. Good thing I know them pretty well and totally called what they were going to be doing, down to who would answer the door. You need to watch this video to see how funny it was to surprise them all!!

Suprising the Family



Suprising Tara

More on the rest of our week later!!

It's been a while....

Wow.....it's been a while! Sorry about that. A lot has been going on and the time just flies.

Our Sealing was wonderful. Even though the weather was a little uncooperative, Tom got some great photos! It's always so fun to be in the city. Thanks to everyone who came to the open house. It was so nice to have everyone over.

So, lots has happened since then. We went to Florida for Thanksgiving to visit my family. Then we got to spend Christmas with both sides of our family. That was really great! We know that is going to just get harder to do again.

Josh's mom and my mom have the same birthday! We wish we could have celebrated with them both, but that couldn't happen, sorry mom. We did get to throw Sally a surprise party at our place for her big 59+1, as she likes to put it. It was a lot of funny to see her get sprayed with silly string when she came in. Also, there was a great roast! I have to say, the Pratt's were the funniest giving her a "Near Death for 60 Years Certificate." Those Pratt's are so cleaver.

The we Winter's birthday!!! She turned 30 this year and we wanted to have a fun night with her. We decided on a Carnivale theme. We had beads and masks and really great New Orleans food! It was fun really running away with the theme! Josh made Winter a great ice cream cake! It was lots of fun and we have some great pics we will have to post!

In between Christmas and now, we've been able to take a couple VT trips. Those were great! The Page family is so welcoming and lots of fun. It's easy to see where Winter gets it from. We also go to go up with our friends Keith and Meredith. That weekend, we got to go snowboarding. Wow, did that kick my butt. More specifically, my tailbone. It still hurt for weeks for me to sit certain ways. But it was a good time. We also got to see the Snowboarding US Open. That was awesome!! Most of the Olympians were there competing. It was so great to see them all. Also, the trips they were doing was insane! I could barely stay up and they were throwing themselves all over the place and landing, most of the time.

It's been a busy and wonderful year for us!!! Well keep you posted on some upcoming events! Also, I'll post some pics from some of the fun stuff we did this year.

~Colleen

Open House FAQ

We have received several people asking the same questions about our open house to celebrate our sealing so we thought it would be a good idea to address these questions publicly.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: Are children allowed or should we hire a sitter?
A: Children are more than allowed, they are welcomed! We apologize if that wasn't clear on the invitation.

Q: What is the attire?
A: Colleen and I will be wearing formal attire (wedding dress and suit respectively), but only ask that our guests where business casual attire.

Q: Where should we park?
A: Colleen and I live in a private community (Harborview) which has limited on-the-street parking. It is recommended that you park in front of the main entrance on either side of the road. It is about a 200M flat walk from the main entrance to our home. If you are unable to walk that distance or need to park closer we will have a few reserved spots in our driveway. Just let us know ahead of time so we can reserve you a spot.

We look forward to seeing everyone in one week!!

What is a Sealing?

A sealing is a marriage that lasts for eternity. In most civil marriage ceremonies there are the words "until death do you part." This means that at the death of either spouse the marriage is no longer binding. A sealing is a sacred ordinance that binds or seals the marriage of a man and a woman for all time and eternity. This ordinance makes it possible to be married forever and not just until death do you part. Colleen and I were civilly married on May 9, 2009 and are anxiously looking forward to October 24, 2009 when we can have our marriage sealed for eternity!

Because of the sacred nature of a sealing, this ordinance can only be performed in the Lord's Holy Temples under the authority of the priesthood. Below is a short video from mormon.org that explains the role of temples in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Wedding Pictures!!

Sorry it has taken us so long to post the wedding photos, but at last here they are! You can click on any of the slideshows on the right or go to http://picasaweb.google.com/josh.francia to view them all.

If anyone has more photos from the wedding they would like to add, send them to us at josh.francia@gmail.com.

ENJOY!!