McMardi Gras

WARNING: This blog post is not for the faint of heart or queasy of stomach. This past Saturday night, Jake (my roommate) and I embarked on a challenge. This challenge was epic, It was gigantic. It was really stupid. We ate fifty McDonald's Chicken McNuggets each in one sitting.

The idea came from McDonald's recent promotion of 50 McNuggets for $9.99. While watching the commercial we decided it would be fun to try and eat all fifty. Originally, there were more of us who wanted to try the challenge. In the end, it was just me and Jake. (PS- Thanks to Sarah for sitting through this and taking all the pictures. It takes a real friend to endure watching something like this in person.)

Here are all the McNuggets next to the sauces we ordered. Mark ordered 50 for himself but has ate them sporadically over the past few days. Smart man.

I think this picture marks the beginning of the challenge. Jake seems to be eating a McNugget, while I am texting someone. Guess I got off to a slow start.

Here I am eating McNugget #1. These were simple and carefree times, right here.

Jake was focused and tore into his first two boxes like a madman.

Since we started the challenge at about 1:45 a.m. I called upon my good friend Diet Coke to keep me going through the night. With all the boxes open, you get a good sense here of the mess we got ourselves into.

Jake made his way through the third box by trying out some of the sauces.

This McNugget was probably somewhere between #11-13 for me.

Soon enough, the weight of the challenge began to set in.

And it was not pretty.

After finishing my second box, I started to get my doubts.

I started to get sad, too.

So I decided to do some lunging...

...and stretching...

...and some twists. That seemed to help me get through the thirties.

Meanwhile, Jake's final box had brought him to the couch. Lesson #1 of the McNugget Challenge: The last box will always bring you to the couch (or worse).

Eventually, Jake arrived at McNugget #50 after just an hour into the challenge. (I was somewhere just past halfway at this moment.) On his face you can see the joy, the relief, the regret, the sickness. It's all there.

Here are McNuggets #32-33. I started eating them two at a time to get through the thirties.

Here is Jake, once he finished. A picture is worth a 1,000 words. I don't think I need to say much else.

Me with a mouth full of Nuggets, probably around the end of my fourth box.

Soon enough, the challenge sent me to the couch, as well. It got really late and Sarah went home so there are few pictures of my last box. That is a good thing. That final box was about as low of a moment as I had ever had. Each Nugget tasted like a poisonous sponge doused in grease. I needed three or four bites and a sip of water to get each one down. Somehow, I had to finish.

Finally, at 4:00 in the morning, there was only one McNugget left to eat. #50. That cursed wench. Did I savor it? No, I did not.

Here I sit with my prize. A golden wad of fat and cholesterol. I finished the challenge, and I suppose I feel semi-proud. But not really proud.

The five empty boxes of the finished challenge. My advice to you: DO NOT TRY THE MCNUGGET CHALLENGE!!! EVER!!!

Hawaii Trip Recap: Day Four- Maui Again

Maui Wowi!

I really just wanted to say that.

Moving on...

Day 4 began with a trip to Lahaina when we happened to see this big dead swordfish. Of course, being a tourist, you have to get your picture next to stuff like this. It's the law. Now when you looked at the picture above, you may have thought to yourself, "Cody, that does not appear to be your family. Who are you standing with?" Well, I'll tell ya. This is the Thacker family (minus Mom and Dad) and they are in definite need of a Paper Badge shout-out. My actual family had one extra person than seats in their rental van and the Thackers had one extra seat than people. So I rode with them. The entire trip. And it was awesome. They adopted me into their family and we did like a million awesome things on the trip that my actual family never did. So there. To sum things up, I had a great family vacation, I just spent it with a different family than I was planning on. Go Thackers! You guys are great!!!

In Lahaina, we sailed out into the ocean in the ReefDancer, a submarine-ish boat which is kind of like that Finding Nemo ride in Disneyland. Only it's real. It is the perfect alternative for anti-snorkelers like myself.

This is what our boat looked like on the inside. Yea tank tops!!!

This is what it looked like when we looked out the window. Yea unknown fish!

There were two scuba divers who would find creatures and bring them up close to our window...

...like this little sea urchin.

The best part of the whole ride happened when one of the divers brought this seven-legged octopus up to the window.
It was really cool. We also saw a few turtles, but I was never able to get a picture of them.
Suddenly, just when things appeared to be going so great, the heptapus attached himself to the diver's face. The diver tried his best to pull the beast of himself, but it was too late. He was doomed. We watched in horror as the heptapus slowly began to suck the diver into his cavernous belly. It was in that moment I remembered something I learned in Mrs. Bowter's fourth grade class: An octopus is your friend until the bitter end, but beware of the heptapus, an enemy to all of us.
Okay, back to reality. Here I am posing next to my trusty steed, the Yellow Submarine.

I took a few shots of the surrounding area from the boat.

Que lindo!
I could make up another story about this sunken ship, but this post is already becoming the longest blog post ever made.
Here I am @ Bubba Gump's doing my best running while sitting pose.
View from Bubba Gump's. Second only to the view from BK Lounge in Logan.
And here I am standing in front of the view. Hey there, champy.

Next, we visited the Iao Valley and Needle Point. The Point is being covered by a tiny branch in the picture. (I am a GREAT photographer!)

Here is it up-close and sans branch.

Look what else we found! Rafiki's tree! Major success!
Here I am with one real sister and two adopted sisters standing in front of the Need. Can you tell which sis is which?
Maui is really really pretty. Like wowi pretty.

Here are two of the real sisters. They are wowi pretty too. Finally, my real sisters, my adoptive sisters, a friend of a sister, my second Mom and I all posed for a picture in front of the Needle. (Who is a mountain, not a sister.)

Hawaii Trip Recap: Day Three- Maui

Day 3 of my Hawaiian adventure began with our ship arriving on the beautiful island of Maui. We were able to spend two days on Maui, and boy did we make the best of it.

Here me, Ty, Nika, and Shalane wait at the port for the rest of our party to arrive.

We went to a singles ward in some Hawaiian town. The parents got all of us kids to pose together in our church clothes! (L-R) Shalane, Nika, me, Bria, Amanda, Chyenne, Sage, Chalis, Colton, and Ty in the middle.

...and a close-up too!

After church we decided to hit up the beach. For some reason, I decided that a blue polo shirt was my best choice for beach wear. Really, Cody, really?

This was my view from my beachside towel. This picture does not do the real thing justice. Not even close.

That night, we were treated to a special Polynesian dance show on our cruise ship. Similar to the show at the PCC, we saw dances from Hawaii, Fiji, Somoa, New Zealand, and Tonga. The dancers were very entertaining and loved to use volunteers from the audience...

...including this guy. He was chosen to hula dance with this cross-dressing hula beauty. After the show, he came up and talked to our group (you'll see why in a minute). He became one of our cruise ship buddies and we shared a touching man-hug on the day our cruise ended. No lie. Me and this guy right here hugged it out.

At the conclusion of the show, the dancers each brought up a lucky person to learn and perform the hula. Chalis and Colton were called up and here they are learning the dance. They gave us literally thirty seconds to learn it. I say us because I got called up too.

Chalis stole the show by "pulling a crunk" and taking the hula to a whole different level.

Now for me.

I was selected by the hottest of all the girls performing. Instead of using all my charm and skills and rocking her world, I froze.

She tried her best to show me what to do. It wasn't any use. I couldn't do a thing.

When I had my moment in the spotlight, I got low to the ground and did an impersonation of either a surfer or a bald eagle. Either way, I don't think you could call it the hula.

Hook shot!

As my partner (I never learned her name cuz I was just too darn nervous) led me back to my seat, my face said it all: I sucked.

But a really hot scantily-clad girl grabbed my hand and danced with me for two whole minutes! Sweet!

Hawaii Trip Recap: Day Two- Pearl Harbor & Bon Voyage

My last post was a little short and uninformative. Since we got home, I have been pretty much depleted of all energy. (Blame it on jet-lag, lack of sleep, or the amazing amounts of fun I had) That shouldn't be a problem anymore after I slept through all my classes today and just totally relaxed to recover from the vacation. I live a hard life. So from now on, you get to see what I see, live what I lived, experience what I experienced! On to day 2!

My dad and I began the day by visiting Pearl Harbor. It was a pretty surreal experience, for sure. Here I am sitting on some sort of gun-thing. (See, I learned tons!) Some random guy came up to us and spent a good five minutes explaining how this was the best gun ever made.

Here is a submarine that you could walk through. We didn't.

Is this a bomb or like a little baby plane? My friend, I just don't know.

The long white structure on the right side is the USS Arizona Memorial, which is built directly above a battleship sunk during the attack. On the left is the USS Missouri, another battleship that was in the harbor during the attack.

Inside the memorial are the names of the over 1,000 members of the Navy and Marines who were killed in the USS Arizona. Most of the bodies were never recovered. At the bottom left, there is a smaller list of Pearl Harbor survivors who choose to be buried in the Arizona. Being in this room, I felt such a strong peace and gratitude toward all of these brave men and women.

Part of the Arizona that can be seen from the Memorial. After the ship was attacked it took less than nine minutes for it to sink.

There are similar markers like this one that show were all the U.S. ships were during the attack.

It is impossible to see it in this picture, but there is still oil leaking to the surface from the ship. Every thirty seconds or so, we could see a decent amount of oil bubble up. The crazy thing is that the ship sunk over 68 years ago! Wow.

After Pearl Harbor, we loaded ourselves and our things into our home for the next seven days, the NCL Pride of America. Isn't she a beaut?

We were met by our director, Doug. This is a terrible picture but I could not leave him out. He was a gem.

I took a few pictures of Honolulu.

My brother and I marked our departure by playing a intense game of giant chess. I was the white pieces and he was the black pieces. As you can tell, I kicked his butt. That is what big brothers are for. He consoled himself by cozying up to my queen. How cute.

Hawaii Trip Recap: Day One- Oahu

250 min for $100 (.40 per min) 100 min for $55 (.55 per min)

Pay as You Go: $0.75 per minute

That right there was the price for internet on our Hawaiian cruise ship and the reason why I haven't posted on the blog for more than a week. But, never fear, I took a plethora of pictures and I am excited to share them all with you. To spread out the joy and wonderment, I will split things up by days. Starting with Day One...

Here is the (almost) entire group posing for the first of many group photos. My sister Shalane lives in Hawaii and just met us down there for all the fun and festivities. She also was able to stay in Hawaii when the rest of us came home to freezing butt-cold Utah. What a snob. (jk Shay. I'm just bitter.)

We started off our trip with a five hour flight from Salt Lake City to Honolulu. Nika and I busted out our red to mark the occasion.

Bria did what she does best. Strut the stuff.

Ty did what he does best. Look weird.

We hit up the show @ the PCC.

Great Job PCCers!

The highlight of the show was the fire dancers. They were great. Here's a clip:

Not a bad day, but the fun was only beginning.