A Family Babymoon

With the impending changes due next year, we decided to get some travel in before it becomes extra "fun" to go anywhere with an infant/toddler for the next few years.

In November Jeff and I had a weekend away in Vegas without the kids, so for Christmas we asked the girls how they would feel about going on a cruise with us in December for their big Christmas gift from us. They were thrilled at the idea so we planned for an 8 day trip.

It came so quickly and before we knew it, we were getting on the ship. The girls loved all the big staircases (I only let them take the elevator once- because of my selfish desire to burn the extra calories climbing the stairs), having their meals served (without having to set the table before or do dishes after), deserts every night, someone making their bed every morning, the turn down service at night and of course---THE WATERSLIDE!!

Once we were further south the weather was nice and warm, but closer to San Diego, it was a bit too chilly for us adults with the 70-ish weather plus the chill from the wind caused by a sailing ship. However, it didn't deter them one bit.

Before making it to our first port, the ship had to make 2 unscheduled stops. The first actually took 4 hours as the ship had to turn around and go back to San Diego for someone with a medical emergency. The second morning we woke up to find they had stopped again for another medical emergency in Cabo San Lucas. (Yikes! There must have been some real sickies on this ship).

We made it to Acapulco (only an hour later than planned) and it was off to explore the city--the girls first experience out of the country. We took them to an outdoor market so they could shop. They were so fun to watch bargain with the shopkeepers there. Both girls had divided up their money for the 3 ports we were going to stop and had given themselves budgets for what they wanted to spend at each. Of course the wheeling and dealing was customary with the salespeople but the girls were so good about sticking to their budget. They walked away from many a souvenir before each deciding on a pair of earrings (thank goodness they didn't fall in love with some crappy magnet, tacky shirt or any of the other thousand cheesy trinkets that I'd have to look at forever :) After they had made their purchases, we decided it was time to head back to the ship and wanted to walk since it was only a few blocks. The girls experienced a taste of Mexico traffic (sans any traffic signals), the lovely sidewalks filled with trash and the other delights of the big city :).

The next morning we were in Zihuatanejo/Ixtapa. This was my favorite port of the three we visited. It was a smaller town and we had to be tendered to the dock, but I liked the smaller feel. We hired a driver to show us around and take us to see the Ixtapa resort before dropping us off at a beautiful beach. Jeff and the girls played in the waves for hours and I loved just relaxing on the beach. We took a water taxi back to the dock and did a little shopping before going back to the ship.

Our final port was Manzanillo. We took a bus into town and did some shopping. We had an interesting experience with one of the shopkeepers who had trouble with some basic math. It ended up being a good teaching moment for Cara and Natie. The town was definitely small and I didn't find it as charming as Zihuatanejo had been so we headed back to the ship after a few hours and had some fun in the water.

The final two days at sea flew by. We spent lots of time relaxing, playing with the kids and just enjoying the downtime. The girls were such a joy to bring and the trip was just what we all needed. They didn't even complain when it was back to school on Monday. I'm sure it didn't hurt that they had a week of Christmas programs and parties to look forward to.

How Sweet!

Cara and Natie wanted to make us a cake for our anniversary. Banana cake decorated with strawberry frosting and all sorts of candy including Skittles, Pixie Sticks, Kit Kat, Resse's Peanut Butter, Laffy Taffy, and Dum Dum suckers (courtesy of their trick or treating loot).

It was an interesting mixture but was so sweet of them :)

Halloween

I was just going to have them use their renaissance costumes I had made this spring but at the last minute I had a burst of energy to throw together a couple of fairy costumes.

We had dinner with some friends then went trick-or treating together

So much fun, she could hardly stand it.

Girl Time

Yesterday Natalie had a birthday party right after school. Cara had a playdate set up that fell through at the last minute leaving me feeling bad for the poor girl. I felt even worse saying to her, "Sorry about that, let's just go home and hang out while your sister enjoys the party," I decided it was time to go have some girl time with my oldest.

Since I needed one anyhow, I decided to take Cara along to get a pedicure with me. I can never decide what color to pick, so I let her choose. She picked out matching red for both of us.
It was a nice hour just relaxing with Cara listening to her tell me about her day. As I was sitting there with her I realized how long it had been since we actually had some fun time with just the two of us. With me feeling lousy for the last two months, and all the running from one activity to the next and just trying to keep up some days, it had been a while. I love the little moments like this.

Matching toes. Can you tell which ones belong to the kid though?

For Posterity

I posted this on my Facebook page, but figured I'd post it here as well.

I'm Not Dead

In the words of Pink, I'm not dead. True, I've ignored blogging altogether for the past 4 months. It's one of those things that you find you've fallen behind on and you wonder, "Do I try to catch up or just ignore that hole in the timeline and just blog forward?" Well, I guess I'm just going to blog forward or I'd never blog again.


So, just a brief catch up. We had a nice summer that flew by way to fast. We didn't do much in the way of vacation since Jeff couldn't really take much time off work. I worked and the girls spent a lots of time in the desert with Grandma and Grandpa Moody. So I won't say we didn't travel since I spent much of the summer in the car driving back and forth. They had fun spending time with their grandparents, going to movies, amusement parks, swimming and working in Gma & Gpa's yard. When I wasn't driving or working, we spent lazy days at the beach. We even managed to squeeze a quick trip to Utah to visit their little cousins.


As the summer was winding down, I got the shock of a lifetime. Despite my well crafted plans, I guess kid #3 will be coming in April. It was shocking and I'm going to be honest and say I'm still coping with the idea of 3 kids. But Cara and Natalie are soooooo excited and it is fun to watch them. Eventually I'll probably post the video of us telling them just so it's here for posterity.


The girls are settled in school. Cara is in the third grade and Natalie is in second. So stay tuned. I'm going to try and stay on top of my blogging...again.

It Sucks!!

I'm not a big fan of appliances but I feel that if I have to do a job around the house, I want good equipment to make a boring job easier. I've had my Dyson for several years and I'm still impressed. The other day, I was vacuuming and I noticed it wasn't picking up as it normally does. So I quickly checked a couple of the hose areas and I when I opened one area, I noticed this:

Yes, it's a pen! Who vacuums a pen up and 1) doesn't notice it and 2) leaves it in there? Well, judging by the drywall material found with this pen, I have a good guess.

But regardless, I'm still happy that my vacuum really sucks :)