The Caribbean and Me

We booked our summer vacation about a week ago.  I'm sort of insanely excited.  We'd been discussing all sorts of different ideas for where to go this year, but we realized it was really important to go diving since we're totally Scuba certified.

So we decided to book a cruise to the Caribbean.  How cool is that?  We figured the Caribbean has such things as the second biggest reef in the world.  That should work for utilizing our scuba certification.  

Ever since we booked it, each night when we lay down for bed, the last thing I say to Robyn is, "Remember how we're going on a cruise this summer?"

Robyn is probably excited to go so that I will stop talking about the fact that we're going to go.  But I'm excited for about a million other reasons.  I've taken the liberty of travelling to the future and photographing some of the awesome things I'm excited about.

Scuba Diving

At this current moment, the only place I've ever been diving is at the Crater in Midway where I was certified.  I hope to dive a few lakes in Utah before this summer, just to practice, but then I get to dive in the real ocean!  We're thinking we'll probably go diving in Roatan, Honduras.  I hear that's an excellent place.

Climb a Mayan Pyramid

This is on my bucket list, so I'm super excited to do it.  I'll probably do this in Belize, but maybe in Mexico.  Maybe even both!  You probably couldn't tell that my head was sticking out of that little doorway at the top.  For your convenience, I have magnified it for you.

Eat Delicious Food

Our cruise last year was loaded with delicious food, and this one will be no different.

Visit a new state

This is the map of the states I have visited in the U.S.  You'll notice that Texas is white, meaning I haven't been there.  The cruise leaves out of Galveston, Texas.  We'll fly into Houston and have one night to explore a little bit.  Texas will turn green on the map!

Look how precious we'll be in Texas.

Read Lots of Books

We'll have three days at sea, which is plenty of time to catch up on some good books.  And, according to this future picture, the bed on the ship will look exactly like my bed at home.  Crazy, huh?

Spend Quality Time With People I Love in Beautiful Places

We're going on the cruise with Robyn's parents.  We've gone on trips to their house and stayed with them, and they've traveled to stay with us, but we've never actually been on a trip together.  I'm super excited for that.  And it won't hurt that there will be crystal clear water, and beautiful beaches.

Now that you've had a glimpse of my future, are you as excited as I am?

She Will Catch Up

I haven't shared one of my dreams with you in a while.  I had a pretty good one the other night.  The time has come for you to once again plunge into my unconscious mind.

I haven't talked a ton about it on this blog, but anyone who has spent any time with me in person knows that I'm going on a cruise to Alaska pretty soon.  This may be due to the fact that I refuse to stop talking about it.  I'm doing my best, but it's very difficult.

Anyway, the dream was a clear prediction of the future.

I was on a boat.  The boat was bouncing up and down with the waves.  I looked around and realized that I wasn't on the cruise ship.  But I knew that I was on my Alaska vacation.  I very quickly realized that this was some sort of ferry that was taking us to the actual cruise ship.

This "ferry" was actually a pretty small boat.  It was maybe 20 feet long.  There were probably ten or 12 people on the boat.  I didn't see any luggage or anything.  Perhaps that was located in some sort of cargo hold.

The first thing I realized as I noticed the violent rocking and bumping of the boat was that I wasn't sea sick.  This made me really excited.  I figured if this overly motion filled boat wasn't giving me any problems, I definitely wouldn't have problems on the much larger and more stable cruise ship.

I looked around and saw all the members of my family that are going on the cruise with us.   But then I realized there was someone missing.  My sister-in-law Delta was not there.  Her husband, Zack was, however.  I asked him where she was.

"She slept in and wasn't ready when it was time to go.  I didn't want to miss the boat, so I left."

"What?  How could you leave her?"

"Don't worry, she said she'd catch up."

If my brother wasn't concerned that he went on vacation without his wife, I suppose I shouldn't be, either.  Nevertheless,  I was kind of distraught about the whole situation.  How was she supposed to catch up?  Was she going to fly to our first port?  Was she just going to swim after the boat?

I pondered this for a few moments when what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a miniature boat and a precious Delta.

She's so good, she can go at breakneck speeds and her hair doesn't even blow.

She had suddenly appeared, speeding across the water.  Her personal watercraft zipped back and forth, showing off her jet skiing prowess.  She pulled up next to our boat, standing up and steering with one hand. Suddenly, she did some sort of a James Bond move where she flew through the air and landed safely on our boat.  Her PWC drifted away with no pilot.

She came and sat next to Zack.  They snuggled, and looked at me like nothing unusual had happened.  It would seem this sort of thing is completely normal in their marriage.

Zack gave me a look that said, "I told you she would catch up."

I looked at Robyn, she looked at me.  We both shrugged, and we all lived happily ever after.



Okay, dream interpreters.  What does it all mean?  I think it's pretty much just a vision of the future.  What do you think?

The Skinniest My Wife Has Ever Seen Me

This morning I stepped on the scale and had a happy moment.  The little viewport said 270 pounds.  That is an important number for 2 reasons.  The first is that the last time I started dieting was in 2011.  I lost about 20 pounds and got down to 271, then I had a relapse and remembered how much I like eating more than I like exercising.

But this means I have officially surpassed the success of my previous attempt.

The second reason is that 270 is lower than my weight was on my wedding day.  That means, I have officially erased the last 4 years of weight gain.  In addition, I am now the skinniest my wife has ever seen me.

Look how cute I was back then

Lest you be confused, I will state plainly that 270 means I'm still a large individual.  I still have a long way to go.  So Robyn and I decided to come up with an incentive program to help us (but mostly me) motivate ourselves to continue striving to be more healthy.

We have a portion of our budget that we use for saving up for toys for both of us.  We decided that account will be the official motivation account.  We both had to devote some of our personal fun money to that account as a buy in for our new motivational program.

The above paragraph is a long way of saying that I don't get Google Glasses until I get down to 250 pounds.  It should be noted that my goal for this year was 250 pounds anyway.  Since Google has said that they will be releasing this fantastic gadget by the end of the year,  I thought it would be a fitting motivator.

Fun fact:  The act of losing weight coupled with the act of buying Google Glasses will make my hair grow back.

I'm hoping that when I buy the glasses, they will allow me to keep my own eyes and not force me to steal someone else's eyes like I did with the badly photoshopped picture above.

There are other goals and rewards set up to help me continue to make progress beyond that point.  But I will write more about those when they are closer.  For now, let's all just get excited for the geek with the super awesome wearable computer on his face, who weighs 20 pounds less than the geek who is writing this blog post right now.

The many moves of Snow Shoveling

As some of you may know, the house we currently live in has the steepest driveway known to man.  During periods of time such as summer, this is not a big deal.  However, there is a little chore I do during the winter that is much more difficult with a steep driveway.  This chore is, of course, shoveling the snow.

It turns out that if a surface is even slightly slippery, that slipperiness seems to multiply if it has any sort of incline.  My attempts to stay upright on my driveway have required me to develop some awesome moves.  I thought I would chronicle a few of these sweet moves, since you're never there to see them.  (Seriously, why do you never come over?)

The first move is called, "Jeff takes flight."  This happens when both of my feet suddenly cease to be underneath me.  I go from vertical to horizontal instantly.  It's quite impressive.

Jeffs were not meant to fly.

The next move I call the "shovel skate."  I do this when I know it is futile to try to stand.  I just point the shovel down the hill and slide behind it, doing my best to remove snow as I go.

I make the shovel skate look good.

Other times I lose one foot, but just before I lose the other foot I put all my weight on the shovel.  Many times the shovel gives out, but when it doesn't I make this excellent dance move.

Have you ever danced with a shovel by the pale moon light?

The final move is the most common.  It would probably be really fun if it wasn't exceedingly painful.  What I do is slip and fall, usually slamming my elbow or knee in the process (and always my bum) then I lose complete control of my whole life until I am at the bottom of the driveway.

I call this, "the slider."

But I have good news (or sad news depending on how much you like to watch me fall.)  I have made a purchase that I believe will save my life.  I bought this fancy little item that can be attached to a shoe.

Aren't they fancy?

Now I can stand straight and tall, due to the improved traction.  I have only shoveled once with these on, but the only fancy move I did consisted of moving snow from my driveway onto a place that is not my driveway.

Now I can feel big and tough when I shovel.

Look what the ability to stand vertically does to a man's ego.

Tracting with Obama

Last night I had a really strange dream.  I dreamt (The editor is giving me a red line under 'dreamt', but I just googled it and it is considered correct, so deal with it.)(The editor also put a red line under 'googled'.  Oh well, moving on.) that I was a missionary again.  That is not particularly strange, it has been ten years since I was a missionary and I have at least 2 or 3 missionary dreams every year.

The strange part is that in the dream President Obama was my Mission President.  One can only assume that he joined the Church before becoming my Mission President.  However, he certainly didn't seem all that knowledgeable about the gospel.  Upon my arrival in the mission home, he wanted to go tracting (going door to door to share our gospel message) with me.  (My real Mission President never went tracting with me, but he would have been much better at it than Obama.)  At each door, he would tell me to knock and do the talking.  After the person answered, I would give my door approach: "Hi, I'm Elder Stockett and this is President Obama.  We'd like to share a message with you about Jesus Christ."  Then, President Obama would always follow up my door approach with, "I'm Barack Obama and I approve this message."

At first, I thought he was super clever.  What a brilliant thing to say, since we've all heard that line way too many times in commercials.  (When I woke up, I realized that I was the clever one since it was my dream.  Booyah!)  After a while it annoyed me.  I was like, "why don't you take a turn teaching once in a while?"

Despite his lack of teaching skills, I was still excited that I went tracting with the President of the United States.  I remember thinking that I really wanted to post of facebook that I was tracting with the POTUS.  But then I remembered that missionaries can't get on facebook.  I wrote a letter home that just said, "I'm tracting with the President of the US."  That's a missionary's version of a facebook status.

After that, the dream got even weirder, and one of the houses we knocked on turned into a restaurant where Mitt Romney was eating, but he was wearing a funny wig.  I'm sure wig wearing Romney would have been a better companion since he actually served a mission in France.  But, missionaries don't get to pick companions.

Okay, all you dream interpreters, what does this dream mean?  Personally, I think it means I've seen way too many political commercials recently.  But, it could also mean I ate something funny before I went to bed.  What do you think?