The Cruise in Retrospect

If I had to express how I feel about the cruise, I'd simply say this.

I had a fabulous time.

I was pampered.

I was cared for.

I was relaxed.

I rested.

I enjoyed myself.

That said, I could take or leave the cruise scene. I enjoyed not being responsible for food, cleaning, or childcare for a week. But we don't drink, we don't gamble, we don't care which man has the sexiest legs or the best belly flop. We don't enjoy suggestive humor all that much, and we were never really into the Beetles. And who knew that karaoke is really just an excuse to get drunk and make an idiot of yourself?!?!

We don't have money to island hop in search of the best deal on diamonds or tanzanite, so shopping isn't really our bag.

Renting a boogie board and some fins is more our speed. Playing frisbee on the beach is fun and relaxing. Watching Caleb roll around in the surf and sand is entertaining, and taking Hailey to have her hair braided by an island local suits us just fine. Touring an old military fort is educational, and shooting the breeze with the family is great.

Snuggling in a hammock grove with my sweetie is cozy, and the combined sounds of the ocean and the swaying palm trees is enchanting.

Riding ATVs up mountains and back down through sub-tropical forests is awesome, as is sampling the various native fruits and foods of a certain sulphurous island. Snorkeling around a tropical reef on a rainy day is amazing.

The color of the sea is positively alive. I am addicted to it now.

I am pretty sure that I could live comfortably on the beach where Mary and Harley got married. I hope we get to return and revisit some of our destinations someday. Meanwhile, I have tons of pictures to enjoy and remember.

(non) chocolate covered

I don't have much to say these days. I admit that I have been cheating shamelessly on Blogger, with the suave, debonair Facebook.
How can I resist such appeal of posting in short, choppy, third-person-sentences, from the comfort of my cell phone.
I suppose I could splurge and add internet access to my cell phone package, but where would that leave my darling facebook?
Meanwhile, Caleb offered me something today that reminded me of this joke:

A pastor goes to the hospital to visit one of his church members.
As he is sitting there, he spies a bowl of peanuts, and helps himself.

After he leaves, the patient scowls to his wife,
"You know how long it took me to suck the chocolate off of those?"

So, thanks for the offer, but I'll pass on the pile of almonds you have extracted from the almond kisses, but thanks.

Look What I'm Learning To Do!

Rambling Rosie

We're back from the land down under. No, we didn't go to Australia. Florida is technically under us. But, now that you mention it, we did go to Japan... I came to a conclusion while we were there.

I love camping.

I love it.

I love taking the camper out and making the beds, putting out my pink flamingo decorations and lights, and playing house in the great outdoors.

I love Disney World.

I love it.

I love seeing the characters and sharing things with my kids that were part of my own childhood, and meant something to me, growing up.

But I don't love the camping-Disney World combination.

Camping is work.

Disney World is work.

There is no down time when you do both together.

I think it would have been better if we had a couple of extra days to just enjoy the campground sometime during the week, instead of running and running, just stopping long enough to sleep, but not sleeping long enough.

Each park really needs at least two days to explore properly. Hailey wanted to wait in lines and get autographs, but I didn't let her stand in all those lines. There just wasn't time. Thankfully, she got all the princess autographs at her Cinderella breakfast. Otherwise, we'd still be in line.

We did ride most of the rides we wanted to ride, and the lines were not bad at all. In fact, we only needed fast-passes for one ride, which we ended up not riding. We had no wait at all for the Tower of Terror. Which, come to think of it, should have told me that I wouldn't like it. I have an extreme fear of heights. I don't like ladders, ledges, or even standing on chairs. Now I know why. I really, REALLY hate the sensation of falling. The first time we rode the Tower, I didn't make a peep. I was too scared to scream. I used every ounce of my strength to hold on to the handles beside my chair, to keep my behind in my seat. Yes, there was a seatbelt, but I wasn't taking any chances.

If you noticed, I said, "the first time."

We rode it twice.

Why? you ask. Good question. I don't even know.

Bethany asked if we wanted to go again. I said I didn't know. Hailey wanted to go again, so I asked Chris if she was going again. She said, "Sure, why not?"

Why not?

WHY NOT???

Because I need my heart to slide back down from my throat to my chest!

And I need clean pants!

But it's all good. I'm just glad we got to see a few of the shows while we were there. Finding Nemo and The Beauty and the Beast were exceptional. The 3D shows we saw were fun, and Shawn got to be "That Guy" in the Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor show.

They gave Shawn and me each a pin that said Happy Anniversary on it, so everywhere we went, people wished us Happy Anniversary.

Caleb got to go through Jedi training and now has his padawan certification.

Bethany and I got our faces painted.
Hailey and I had breakfast in Cinderella's castle.

We learned what pin trading was all about, and spent WAY too much money on pins to trade. (whoever thought up that idea was a genius!) Pin trading brought my son closer to his Auntie Chris, which brought joy to my heart and tears to my eyes.

The campground was really nice, with the exception of how close each campsite was to the next. There was really no privacy, which wouldn't work for regular camping. Disney World camping was fine, since we didn't spend much time at the campground. and neither did the other campers. The pool was fabulous, complete with a gigantic water slide. The kids loved it. We even roasted marsmallows one night at the outdoor theater, where Highschool Musical 3 was playing.

Score!

Let me just brag for a minute on my darling daughter, will you?
She's not a great test taker.
There have been many pre-test meltdowns in our classroom.
Today was not any different.
But she wants something from me, so she stifled it, for once.
And she scored a 99%!!!

Now I will brag on myself momentarily.
Caleb's grandmother signed him up in the Lego Brickmaster Club early this year.
He watches the mailbox like a hawk, because he gets packages every other month.
He hasn't received one in quite some time.
I emailed them yesterday to ask what was up, and this morning they apologized, fixed his messed up membership, shipped the mailings he has missed, and extended his membership for
Five extra mailings!!! (That's ten extra months!!)

SCORE!!

Lego Obi Wan Kenobi cake

I made Caleb a cake for his birthday party.

I posted this on facebook already, so you may have seen it.

Before I made it, I mentioned that I was going to go jedi on a cake and try to make lego Obi Wan Kenobi.

There were a couple "May the force be with you" comments, but my friend Jeff quoted Yoda. "Do or do not. There is no try."

Be amazed. Be very amazed.

Double digits

It doesn't seem like it has been ten years, but it has.

Ten years and eight months ago, I was lying on the bathroom floor bawling because I was going to have another baby. These were not happy tears. Oh, no! These were panic tears. Hailey was only six months old, at the time, and she was.... high maintinence. I thought God must have been out of his ever lovin' mind, because if a positive pregnancy test was his idea of a joke, then I clearly didn't get the punch line.

I was scared.

Three and a half weeks later, I had a change of heart in the form of cramps and bleeding. I knew I was miscarrying, since miscarriage rates run high in my family. But when I saw his tiny heart beating on that ultrasound that day, I decided I wanted this child. I still had a bad attitude about the timing, but I didn't want to lose him. By then, I had decided that he was a boy, and settled on his name. (good thing he wasn't a girl! I don't know any female Calebs.)

The rest of the pregnancy went smoothly. Mostly, I was busy with my baby girl, and the time flew.

At my last doctor's appointment, when he scheduled me to be induced the next Tuesday, I didn't pay any attention to the date. I was just so over being pregnant. But later, when I called my sister to tell her, I realized that my son would be born on her son's tenth birthday.

Ten years ago today, I went to the hospital and met my son. It wasn't until I saw his face that I fell in love with him.

He is my delight. He is my heart. He is a pain in the hiney, and I will never be the same.

The randomness of a boy's mind

Caleb had a friend over for the afternoon yesterday.

This is a friend I like to have around.

You know the kind... respectful, funny, kind, sweet, but all boy.

Caleb asked him, "Will you remember me forever?"

**I thought, what a sweet question!**

J said, "Yeah, why?"

Caleb: Knock, knock

**I'm thinking, well, that moment was short. He's so random sometimes!**

J: Who's there?

Caleb: I thought you were going to remember me forever!

I had to leave the room so I could laugh hysterically.

My son might be pregnant

Caleb just asked me if he could have pickles with his lunch...

Then he asked for ice cream.

I have to wonder...

So, he wanted to know...

Who got in trouble?




That's what Shawn asked me when he came home from work and saw this:

It was Caleb, by the way. ; )

(Dude, I need to go grocery shopping! Oh, wait! I did that last night.)

This proud momma moment brought to you by...

Last year when the kids took their satandardized (totally a typo, but too funny to delete) standardized testing, Caleb didn't score well on reading comprehension. In fact, he was far enough below average to cause me a little concern. This year he has picked up reading, and has gained a lot of ground.

Tomorrow they are going up to the school for this year's round of tests, so we are doing a little test prep work.

Caleb answered nearly every question correctly on the reading comprehension section I gave him. But halfway through his work I realized I had made a big mistake. I chose to keep it to myself until he was finished, just to see how he did.

I had given him Hailey's pages.

She's in the fifth grade.

He's in the third.

Tardy WW (Who's behind those Foster Grants?)

What's that NOISE?

[Scene] Mom and Dad lying in bed, um drifting off to sleep, hear an unusual sound coming from somewhere across the hall.

*Sound happens again*

Mom steps out into hall.

Mom (using authoritative voice) - What's going on?

Daughter - huh?

Mom - What's that noise?

Daughter - What noise?

*Son's room is mysteriously silent*

Son - It was me.

Mom - What were you doing?

Son - It's kind of hard to explain...

*Mom opens son's bedroom door with a flourish*

Mom - Try!

*Son, lying on bed, points to foot board of bed*

Son - I was standing up there, and just fell back down here.

Mom - That's a bad idea. Go to sleep.

Son - Yes ma'am.

*Mom goes back to bed and giggles with Dad*

[End scene]

Our Own Personal Narnia

Yesterday Caleb informed me that our lamp post looked like Narnia to him.

We have our very own Lantern Waste.

Flarp

Some people are naturally good gift givers. Some, however, generally stink at the art. Shawn, for example, usually ends up spoiling the surprise before the time comes.

But if you are exceptionally lucky, like me, you have one person in your life who is very, very good at giving the perfect gift. This person is probably very thoughtful, and by that, I just mean that they put a lot of thought into creating perfection with a gift. Said gift doesn't have to be especially expensive, it just has to fit the recipient to a T. And by that, I don't mean clothes, necessarily, although sometimes it is clothing.

The perfect gift giver in my life is my sister, and my kids were delighted to get their Chritmas gift from their Aunt Chris. She spent about a month compiling a bag full of little delights for each of them: bubblegum scented lotion and body wash for Hailey, mirrored spy glasses for Caleb, Jolly Rancher flavored lip gloss for the girl, a harmonica for the boy, among all the wonderful assortment in Caleb's bag was a canister of Flarp. In case you don't know what Flarp is, I will enlighten you. It is essentially a can full of farts. And who doesn't like hearing a good poot? Of course the toot putty produced, along with the sound of butt burps, uproarious laughter.

Thank you, Auntie Kiss!

Vote for me!

We had a mock election with our homeschool group yesterday. It was neat, and the kids had fun. After the results were in, I found out my son had voted liberal.
What am I raising around here?
The update went out, and Jenny suggested making a limerick out of the sentence that a boy voted for Obama, and his Momma wasn't pleased.
I took the challenge. Here are the latest results. Anyone else want to give it a try?


The children held an election,
Which would have been close to perfection,
If one boy hadn't frozen,
The wrong candidate chosen,
He wouldn't be facing rejection.

There voted a boy for Obama.
This greatly displeased his poor mamma.
In dismay she asked, "Why,
Would you make your Mom cry?
I think I'll just have to disown ya!"