Michael's "necklaces"

Michael LOVES things around his neck. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as he can drape it around his neck and wander around. It started from a set of Isabelle's dress up beads, and has continued on. He had these pajama pants around his neck for a few hours one day. It's so weird!

The dog collar, this is on him a few hours at least every day. He gets mad if Isabelle buckles it, (usually because she is then wanting to treat him like a dog), but he loves the jingle as he runs around the house. And here is my parental disclaimer...yes, he is highly supervised with what I let him KEEP around his neck. So far, he hasn't tried anything too dangerous.

Buckethead

Isabelle loves to put things on her head lately. I'm not so sure what brought this about, but it seems like all day, I see buckets on her head. She runs around, ie runs into things, all day and just giggles. The imagination of a 3 year old never ceases to amaze me!

Reverence

This time a few years ago, I remember struggling with Isabelle in learning to be reverent. Learning to fold her arms for prayers and be appropriate for church. Everyone said the first is the hardest. Sure enough! One night at dinner a few months ago we all sat down to dinner and Michael sat there with his arms folded, no prompt needed, waiting for the blessing on the food. He often puts his little head down and it melts my heart every time I see it. He usually keeps his arms folded for almost the entire prayer. He is really good in church (part of that is he actually gets a paci and I let him have it the whole 3 hours.) and is just in general so reverent at the appropriate times. Even now we still struggle with Isabelle and her attempts at being reverent, but Michael has learned anyway.

A Little Piece of Heaven

Did I mention the fact that I'm a HORRIBLE picture taker?! How is it I have 9 pictures of animals erected from towels, and yet I went to the most beautiful beaches in the world, 10 pounds thinner than my wedding day, and I have ONE picture of me in a swimsuit on a gorgeous beach?....I'm so lame! Anyway, here is my attempt to capture our amazing cruise.

Good bye, Tampa! Let's get some hot weather!!!!

Our ship had putt-putt golf. We had a good time with it. I won the first round and then my true putt-putt skills kicked in and I usually lost by at least 5 strokes from that point on.

Our first stop was Grand Cayman. Mike went on a 2 tank scuba diving tour. His mom went on a submarine ride. Mike's dad, Sharon and Joe, and I went on a beginner scuba thing. It was AWESOME. Mike has been wanting me to get scuba certified since we got married and he was excited I would get to try it. We saw some really cool stuff, along with tons of amazing fish! After all our excursions, we all met up and walked 7 mile beach. It was just as beautiful as all those pictures that look fake. Crystal clear water, perfect sand, palm trees. I couldn't stop staring in utter amazement of the beauty on this Earth.

Next stop, Roatan, an island of Honduras. We had a blast here. We took a taxi to a beach and did some snorkeling and saw a sting ray and a gazillion fish. We really had to swim forever to get to where the snorkeling was good, but it was worth it. Mike and I only brought carry ons for the cruise so we didn't bring our snorkeling fins...we were EXHAUSTED! Luckily the water was perfect for floating. You could just relax and stay on the top of the water which saved me. We then took a taxi to another beach which was GORGEOUS and did much more snorkeling. Here we saw 2 sea turtles!!!!! Along with another gazillion beautifully colored fish. We took the taxi back. The ride was quite long so we got to see the country side. It is such a beautiful place. We also saw a monkey! On the way back I realized I did a horrible job with sunscreen and the entire backs of both my legs were lobster red. I've never been sunburned there, all I have to say, PAINFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stop 3 was Belize. We have no pictures from there because we did cave tubing and didn't know what to do with a camera, so we didn't take one. (This one I actually have a good excuse for). It was really cool. We rode a river through some caves with bats in them. It was the low time of year so the current was very slow and we got to do some good paddling, and keep our butts up in lots of places, but it was gorgeous and really cool. It was a long drive out to the caves so we got to see lots of the land there too. I love driving around and seeing how people live. I find it fascinating. We barely made it back in time to catch the last boat back to the cruise ship.

Last stop, Cozumel, Mexico. So, here's a funny story. We decided to do some walking that day. Not a problem. We're in good shape and don't mind saving some money. It didn't look that long on the map so we started walking. We walked, and walked, and walked, and finally made it to the main square and did our souvenir shopping. (Turns out it was about a 3 1/2-4 mile walk) We wanted to make it to a beach so started walking back really fast. Made it back to walk the other direction to find a beach which looked like just a few measly kilometers on the map. Well, needless to say, another 2 1/2 miles later, we found nothing but rocks. After asking around we found there was no walking distance to any beach worth sitting at. So we decided to head back to the cruise ship.

This is us, giving up, touching the water, and declaring it a bust of a beach day.

The funniest part, was once we were almost back to the ship (yes, that's it in the background) we found this made up sandy palm tree with beach chair thing and all had a good laugh. So much for walking well over 10 miles! It was a fun day nonetheless. We enjoyed the long walks with Sharon and Joe and Mike's parents. This is Mike's "Are you kidding me?" face.

We played lots of games, ate too much, slept, ate too often, visited, almost always took the stairs, went on a pineapple and/or cookie hunt every night around 10:30, and had a blast.

It made me miss Mike's family so much. During the week, everything felt normal, refreshing to be hanging out with people I'm comfortable with, but then coming home and remembering I don't live by them anymore was disappointing. We really enjoy spending time with Sharon and Joe and his parents. It was great!

I also love visiting other countries. Their lives are so simple, yet they are so happy. All of their basic needs are met with lots of hard work and with very few extras. They have a roof over their head, and their family. It's a hard life, but a good one. It makes me remember to be grateful for all the basics in my life that I often take for granted.

Nothing like Going Home

So I'm a terrible picture taker. As in, I always come home from a trip and am confused at the pictures I took. I am horrible at capturing a trip in picture form. I got to hang out back home for a week before the cruise. It was so nice and relaxing. I ate lots of all the things I miss about Texas. Shipley's doughnuts, Whataburger, Blue Bell, BBQ, Mrs. Baird' bread...the list goes on. Not to mention my momma's home cooking. It's so nice to go home no matter what phase of life you're in, home is always home. The older you get, the more "homes" you acquire. I realize I now refer to 3 places as home.

We went to the zoo and the Butterfly exhibit at the museum that my mom volunteers at. We did grandma's "Walking Bingo" which is always a big hit. Michael learned how to throw rocks in the ditch and added "rock" to his vocabulary. Best of all, Mom and I did a puzzle. One of our favorite things to do. I got to see my best friend growing up and took a day trip to visit her house in charming Yoakum, Texas. It was a perfect trip, just too short!

Michael loved the petting zoo, which was really a pen full of goats. He went around and had to hassle all of them.

The big hit was the sea lion show. All three kids were glued. Oh, wait, so were Ashleigh and I. :)

Michael loved these buttons. If you pushed them they made different bug noises (cicadas, crickets, etc) Every time he tried to run away this is where he went.

Isabelle didn't so much love the butterfly thing. She said the butterflies were going to land on her and that scared her. It was kinda funny. You can tell from this picture she was thrilled.

I love Southwest

So instead of one huge blog of my trip, I'm just going to do a few tidbits along the way. I flew to my parent's by myself with the kids hung out for a week, flew to Tampa, where I met up with Mike and his family for the cruise. Then Mike flew back to Spokane and I went to Houston to hang out a few more days and then flew back to Spokane with the kids.

I flew Southwest for this trip. Can I say how much I LOVE them?! Not only do you still get free bags, but with no seat assignments, a single mom with two kids will NEVER have to give up that third seat in a row unless it's the last seat on the plane (which none of the planes were full). I took a car seat to strap a child in. I was planning on switching the kids around as they wanted, but it was so much easier to strap Michael in. He ended up sleeping 2 of the 4 legs of flight (Each leg 2 1/2-3 hours long). It was still as adventuresome as traveling by myself with a 3 and 1 year old sound, but all things considering, it could have been WAY worse!

I thought for sure traveling as the single mom with two kids, I'd get lots of dirty looks,rude, irritated tired travelers, and very few offers for help. Not only was I wrong, but way wrong! I couldn't believe how many people offered to help. I never got on or off the plane completely by myself. Someone would carry a bag, or the car seat or even help Isabelle walk off. I got lots of "Wow you're brave" and "You've sure got your hands full" comments, but no one was rude even when my kids were less than well behaved.

The Spokane airport is so tiny that a TSA agent actually helped me through the security line. Granted I was one of 3 people going through at that time, but she helped get kids coats off, put stuff on the belt, etc. TSA agents are never nice, let alone helpful!

In the middle of one flight, Isabelle had to go to the bathroom and Michael was asleep...what to do? This was the moment I was not totally prepared for. I called for a flight attendant to ask how much longer until we landed and he offered to sit with Michael while I took Isabelle. Who knew? Flight attendants babysit on rare occasion!

Coming back, Mom helped me into the airport to get bags checked and the Southwest agent asked if Mom was assisting me to the gate. What? we both asked. She said with photo id, she'd print something for mom to help me to the gate. AWESOME!!!!! So then I had my mom to help me through the security lines in Houston which was a HUGE help! I was worried about that one. This was even more of a help when hanging out at the gate, letting kids run around and Isabelle looked at me with huge eyes needing a potty emergency. If I had to pack up kids and bags, I'd have had a disaster.

This trip brought back my faith in people. Despite the busy busy, dog-eat-dog world we live in, people are still nice to strangers. I also continue to believe when you prepare for a category 5 hurricane and it's only a category 3, you're pleasantly surprised!