Derek and Lindy came to visit!

My younger brother's girlfriend, Lindy works for Jet Blue so they decided to come and visit us for a weekend (you can just up and fly across the country when you get free flights). We were super excited for them to come into town and we had such an amazing time with them.

Their trip got off to a bit of a rough start for them by sitting on the tarmac for over an hour because a tiny screw was missing from the plane. After an hour, they had to change planes. Once they finally got here, their luggage hadn't made the connection. Luckily they only had to wait three hours until they got their bags. Unluckily, when they finally got their bags, Lindy's suitcase was ripped. She also lost a jacket, a necklace, two rings and maybe a few other things along the way. Don't worry though, she didn't let it faze her and I think she still had a pretty fantastic time.

Once they actually got all of their stuff here, we got changed and headed down to the beach. Nothing like the sun and the sand to make you forget a ripped bag and some lost belongings. Tyler was able to take an hour or so off work to join the party. We loved having him there with us! He and Owen pretty much just spent hours playing in the sand.

Collette and I mostly just sun bathed. She is a natural at the beach:

 

See that little speck in the ocean in the picture below?

That's Derek and Lindy. Oh, to be young, in love and have no kids. You can just swim out to the middle of the ocean and make out if you want.

That night we made some sushi and then Derek and Lindy took the bikes downtown Lauderdale for some cheesecake and sightseeing. 

Aren't they so cute? Really though.

Originally we wanted to head to Key West while they were in town but figured since we had been there quite a few times and had never gone to Key Largo, we would hit that up instead. (It also may have been due to the fact that there was a huge motorcycle convention in Key West and we couldn't get a room). On the way down, we played some Truth or Dare in the car. Always a good time. There was Tyler giving Derek a head massage (not an easy task while you are driving). There was also a lot of off-key singing, crazy dancing, and puppeteering going on. We were entertained.

 Anyway, Largo offered everything we wanted on our little weekend getaway. Specifically... snorkeling!

We got out on the boat around 1:00 Friday afternoon and spent all day in the water. I'll be honest, the first day of snorkeling wasn't as successful as the second day. The first thing we ran in to while in the water were about a million jellyfish. They are super slow moving so you can around them but it's pretty intimidating to get in the water when they are surrounding the boat.

  Once Derek and Lindy dared jump in, they swam over to some coral and ran right into one of these guys:

If you're not familiar with this particular type of fish, it's a barracuda. It started following them and they booked it back to the boat. He followed them all the way there but luckily nobody lost any limbs or anything. After that incident though, we had nothing but successful snorkeling experiences.

 We had heard about this place that you can snorkel where there is a big statue of Christ underwater so we decided to check it out next. It was really cool:

I'm sure you're wondering why this statue is underwater. Or maybe you couldn't care less why it's there but we were all wondering. I was hoping it was from a ship wreck or something cool like that but actually it was built to represent peace of mankind by a guy in 1961. When it was built, they wanted it placed somewhere unusual. I guess underwater in Key Largo was the unusual place this guy was looking for.
Super fun day in the water but by 7:00 that night we were starving so we decided to head to get us some grub and then get back to the hotel.

Saturday morning we were meeting up with these people:

 Our friend's, Kim and Bubba

And the Mulcock's

They were heading down to Key West and decided to meet us along the way. So Tyler took them out on the boat to snorkel and scuba dive.

While they did that, me, Owen, Collette, Derek and Lindy played at the beach. Owen is so in love with Lindy. She was a super good sport and played in the water with him for hours on end.

 

Once Ty and the other got back, our friends headed to Key West and we jumped back on the boat to get one last snorkeling trip before heading home. We found an amazing spot and ended up swimming with a giant sea turtle and some super cool fish.

 Look at all of these guys?! Those were just the ones right around the boat. So many cool fish. I may have to invest  in an underwater camera.

We headed back to Fort Laudy  late Saturday night and were so super tired that we just ordered some food and watched the sad sad BYU-U game. Sad.

Sunday we went to church and then it was time for Derek and Lindy to go. They were headed to Nassau for the next few days, you know, free flights and all. We were way jealous watching them walk on to the plane and were totally missing them minutes after they left us.
These are the last visitors that are planning to come see us this year, unless of course, any of you want to come visit us, we would love some Halloween or Thanksgiving guests!