Wednesday, November 11, 2009

ITS A GIRL!!!

Chaz and I are very pleased and excited to announce that we're having a baby girl! She is to be named Rylee Rebecca Willnauer. Here are a few shots of the ultrasound, which took place on October 27, 2009:




We couldn't be happier about this sweet little girl coming to us in March.

Some great news- Chaz got to feel Rylee kicking for the first time last night, helping this whole "baby" thing to become more real.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

My Dream Vacation

Chaz and I decided that, after working in Alaska for the second time during the summer of 2008, we had done pretty well, financially, and wanted to take a trip. We went to ITALY!!!! Of course, it took some convincing from me, but we finally got there. We purchased our tickets through the BYU Travel Agency in November 2008 and were totally set! My wonderful sister, Lyndsay, let us borrow her amazing camera and this was the first thing I took a picture of:

That's right- the first words I had seen in English since we arrived. The "Blue Moon" was the first stop we made, right on the Mediterranean Sea, in a little place called Donnalucata, in Southern Sicily. The "Blue Moon" is a gelateria, and was soooooooooooooo good!

So good, that Grandpa and I had to steal a taste out of each others' cones to be satisfied. I'm pretty sure we had a gelato AT LEAST every other day. :)

This is the villa we stayed in, just outside of Donnalucata. This is an outside view of the front door and swimming pool.

Here's a view of the back of the villa, with the laundry room showing. The washers in Italy weren't quite the same luxury that we enjoy in the United States... And, if you had a dryer, you were rich. No dryers for us. :)


And this is a shot of the kitchen. It was funny, but the kitchen was never a big area at any of the places we stayed in. But here we were in our first place and LOVING Italy!!!!


While staying in Donnalucata, we made a day trip out to Agrigento. There we found a huge span of Greek ruins. I never heard the history right away... All the signs were either in Italian, German, or Latin... But there were some amazing sights that we saw.

On the way to Agrigento, we stopped to take a picture of this ancient aquaduct. Pretty cool.

And of this cactus... plant... thing. Apparently, people in this part of Sicily used to grow these on the edges of their property to prevent strangers from breaking in or stealing livestock. Pretty smart if you ask me.


My grandpa is a professional picture taker. Not a photographer, but a professional point-and-clicker. Grandma saw this beautiful picture and grandpa got out to take a picture. I told Chaz he should too. Ours doesn't look the same as his, but its still very pretty.



Here we are pulling up to the site of the ruins. The first one we saw was this one, the picture was taken from the road.



And then we got into the park and got to take pictures close-up. The only hazard was that there were SO MANY tourists there that day that we had a hard time getting pictures without anyone in them.

And, here are just some more cool shots of the ruins:












This is actually an ancient cemetary. It was pretty interesting to see.







We thought this shot was especially cool- It has the ruins in the foreground with modern city in the background. Well, as modern as Sicily is, I guess.

It was a fun day trip. I think we had gelato on the way home. :)

Saturday, February 14, 2009

The Crown Princess and Formal Night

The Crown Princess was nothing short of AMAZING! It was about 19 stories high and fit over 2,000 passengers inside, and that's not counting the crew. You'll see in later pictures how big it was. I was still amazed that I got seasick on a boat that big!
Waiting to board the cruise ship.



We got in, now just to find our room...


Found it! D720- our address for the next week.


Kind of small, but for our discount, it was totally worth it!


Mom and Dad Willnauer in the HUGE Princess Theater


And, Chaz and I in the HUGE Princess Theater
A live orchestra played for us every formal night

Awesome staircase... in the middle of a ship?!


Hors'derves (did I spell that right?!) before dinner


With a walk through the art gallery.


Dinner! We ate SO WELL on this vacation! I think I gained a couple of pounds, but its okay. Fresh lobster tail on Thanksgiving day is worth it, I think. :)

Princess Cays

Here we are, on our way to our first island stop- Princess Cays, in the Bahamas. Up til now we had just been on the boat eating and laying out in the sunshine. Time for our first real adventure! :)

On the boat on the way over to the island
Trying to find a spot on the beach.


Here's mom- we just parked and were thinking about going snorkelling...

...

But only Chaz and Dad went instead.


Chaz had to lay out to dry off and be warm...



And I just laid out. :)




Headed back at the end of the day




Grand Turk

This is Grand Turk- Beautiful ocean, beautiful sky, beautiful beach. We even brought back some conch shells from this beach which are HUGE. They've had serious hurricanes in this area, washing all the conches onto shore, making it easy to collect them. :)

Chaz and I went snorkelling. I saw a HUGE ray! No one believes me because I was the only one to see it and when I told Chaz to look it was gone. :( But it was there!!



I LOVE Chaz's mom and her eye for a good shot. LOVE this picture!


Its a dark picture, but I'm making a funny face at Chaz. Its a good one.



The final shot of our stay on Grand Turk. Since this was the last island we visited, we all felt sad, like our cruise was over...

St. Thomas

I got ahold of all the other pictures that were taken on our cruise- here are some from St. Thomas, where we stopped Thanksgiving day.

Waiting for our tour to begin.

Instruction from our Scuba tour guide


On the way to Buck Island- we got to scuba around some really neat coral reefs and a ship wreck. The world looks so different underwater.


Mom and Dad on the way to Buck Island.


A view of our ship on the way back from Buck Island.


We were just about to get back on the ship for our ENDLESS dinner buffet and wanted to take some pictures of the ship. The majestic Crown Princess.


And Mom in front of the Crown Princess.


Chaz was talking to my mom on the phone while were checking out the iguanas. They were sunbathing on the rocks and were probably at least a good 2 feet long. They were so big!

Thursday, January 22, 2009

ST. MAARTEN!!

We went on a cruise!! Over Thanksgiving 2008 me, Chaz, and Mom and Dad Willnauer got to visit the beautiful Caribbean. I haven't gotten ahold of the pictures from the other stops yet, but this is St. Maarten, a half-Dutch, half-French island that is tiny, but beautiful... and WARM! I was sun-tanning while those still in Utah were bundling up!











P.S. I DID get a tan that day. :)











I learned that there is a medical school on the island of St. Maarten... For the next couple of hours I tried to convince Chaz to apply there. It was unsuccessful. :(



This was an awesome fort on the French side. I didn't read any history about it, but I'm standing by a cannon. It was cool.


This is a view from the fort.


Another view.



I found I really actually like cocoanut water. Especially when its around 85 outside.






There was the most AMAZING beach on that island...


Too bad some of the women were topless...


This picture reminded us of Brad Royer. If you know him, you understand. It was the last thing we saw before getting back on the cruise ship.