Iron Chef... Top Ramen

Last week Ty and his friend Eric thought it would be so fun to have an "Iron Chef" cook off with our friends.  They talked Jen and I into taking around two packages of Top Ramen with an invitations to come.  The one rule:  The "secret" ingredient Top Ramen MUST be used in your dish! 

All week we joked around with everyone, and not one person would reveal what they were bringing. It was so fun to watch the kids try to bribe other kids into telling them what their family was bringing. We found out that most of them were either sworn to secrecy or their parents just wouldn't tell them!

As everyone arrived the unveiling began!  It was so exciting to see the foil come off the dishes as each representative placed theirs on the table.  We laughed, cheered and laughed some more!  As everyone filled their plates and started to taste these amazing creations, silence fell over the room.  Because we were our own judges, you could only vote for ONE dish and it couldn't be your own, the decision was difficult.  So many different dishes and they were all FABULOUS! Pulling in 4 votes, the Poston's won the contest!  Their salad was so good.  It had a little surprise kick that was so yummy! (Lemon Grass... who knew?!?)  They were so excited and couldn't believe it.  As the winners they will now host the second Iron Chef night and they will get to pick the secret ingredient.   We had such a fantastic time and cannot wait for the next one!

                The traveling trophy...

          

            Did you know that Top Ramen could be so fancy?

               Poston's winning dish...

Our creation. It is pork medallions with a hoisin sauce and shrimp wontons. MMMM!

    Peabody's delicious and pretty salad.

   Gallup's Hot and Spicy lettuce wraps.

 Brotherson's spinach dip and deep fried macaroni and cheese balls served with marinara sauce.

Brotherson's bribe.... gone in 15 seconds!

Hales salmon hobo dinners... the surprise is inside!

                              SURPRISE!

                         And the winner is....

Happy Birthday Jaxon and Happy Mother's Day!

To start off I can't believe our baby is 6! Time just goes by too fast.  This year was a "special" birthday, Jaxon's birthday was on Mother's Day.  This "special" day meant he got to sleep over in mom and dad's bed so he and mom could have breakfast in in bed... together! YAY! 

  

Jaxon was pretty excited to open his presents, he wouldn't even eat his special breakfast! (That is until all the present were open, put together and being played with!)

He was really excited... he got EVERYTHING he wanted... he started throwing wrapping paper and jumping on the bed!
Happy Birthday Jax Man, it was AWESOME sharing your special day with you!!!

Jones Family Caribbean Cruise

Can I just say we are so lucky... we have the Rockinest family! We all went on a family cruise and it was the cruise of a lifetime! 

Here we are dancing on the the deck at the sail away party. Check out my cute Grandma... this is before she got sick!

Muster station drills are always a favorite!

Here are all the girl cousins that were able to go on the cruise.  We are so cute!

My hot husband on elegant night! 

Water slide fun on the ship.

We were lucky enough to have our dinner seats right at the back of the ship. It was an amazing view every night for dinner.

Karaoke night was a blast.  It's pretty crazy what you are willing to do in a gigantic room full of strange people when you have of fan club of 22 members! Thanks for cheering us on guys!

Elegant night on the deck watching the sunset.

Did you know it takes talent to make a winning ice cream cone?  We had lots of practice... every night when we met everyone at 11:00 pm for ice cream!

It was a much needed getaway for us. We got to spend every moment with each other. It was so much fun.  We can't wait to go again!

Key West

Ahhh... the lovely Key West!  It was filled with fun shops and great people watching! It was a little bigger than we expected so we rented scooters to make sure we were able to see everything! We ate yummy Key Lime flavored treats, even the unexpected delicious key lime barbeque sauce! In fact, Kimmi and I had to buy a bag of Key Lime cookies, that were $14, just so we could use the bathroom!  SERIOUSLY! 

One of my favorite signs! This was on the door of Kermits... the BEST key lime shop on the island!

Highly recommend the scooter rental! 

We had lunch at a fun restaurant on the beach.

Grand Cayman

Grand Cayman was so much fun. We visited Sting Ray City.  Total blast... well actually... a little scary! We went in a boat out into the middle of the ocean to a reef where the sting rays live. You can touch and feed them. For those that are VERY brave, you can kiss them! I was VERY brave... I reluctantly kissed one! I better get the 7 years good luck they promised if you kiss one! 

Even Little Grandma went... she stayed on the boat and watched us, but she went! 

 Ty's special new camera is also waterproof.  He was able to take a bunch of pictures while snorkeling.

              It was so nice to be back on the boat!

We had lunch at a little restaurant on 7 mile beach.  Here we are in the beautiful ocean with our sea shell we found while snorkeling.

Jamaica

I think Jamaica might be my new favorite place to vacation.  It was gorgeous! The people were so nice... very laid back!  We went on a river trip which was not like any river trip I've ever been on.  It was more like a river float with three mini rapids!  It was so much fun and absolutely beautiful. 

                                              Our group

 

              This is such a great shot... it explains EVERYTHING that 

              Ty did on this trip! You got it! Took pictures and video of 

               everything with his new camera! Thanks babe!  

                                                

                  Here is one of the "rapids"!  We were laughing 

                          when they told us to hold on!

                                            Gorgeous!