Dear Andy, (not for the faint of heart)

My Dear, Sweet, Loving, Adventurous Andy,

I've now documented several of the injuries you have acquired in your short life span of four years. I don't do this for my own amusement (I'm actually concerned CPS might start calling). But rather I document these injuries so that someday, when your dad and I are old and gray and you're choosing our nursing home, you might remember the craziness we endured during the early years of your little life (I don't even want to think about the teenage years). And I hope you will have some idea of how much money (and worry) we spent hauling you to Instacare for stitches. And armed with this information, we hope you will choose well.

Love,

Your Devoted, Caring, and Tired Mother



(there is a stitch through the fingernail, as the cut descended into the nailbed)

More Cruise Pictures...

...just in case you haven't seen enough...

More pictures from the ship...



Treats from the chocolate buffet... (don't be embarrassed mom...we all went up to the buffet at least twice :-)

Shopping, shopping, and more shopping...





Me, nervous about Pancho's glass bottom boat...

Not so nervous anymore...


My dad, in all his craziness...

And...what we saw when we got home... (thank you Allison)

The Cruise

We've been able to do some fun things lately with the family and I need to document some of them. The funnest?...is that a word?...Ephraim and I were able to take a cruise for our 10th anniversary (a little early). We sailed on the Carnival Splendor (yes, the one that caught fire back in November) out of Long Beach down the Mexican Riviera. Carnival must have gotten things straightened out because we had the time of our lives.

We were able to go with my parents and really had a blast. (I sure didn't realize 15 years ago how fun my parents could be!) We ate, slept, shopped, ziplined, ate, played cards, slept some more, shopped some more, and laid on the beach. We took a glass bottom boat ride to the very edge of the Baja Peninsula. Pancho didn't mention that the glass bottom was a 12 inch by 12 inch piece of frosted and dirty glass. We couldn't see a single thing. I guess that's what you get for a $20 boat ride in Cabo San Lucas. But it took us to one of the most beautiful beaches I have seen...the Sea of Cortez on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other.

Ephraim and I came away from this trip weighing a collective 11 pounds heavier than when we started. It only took having the flu for a whole week after I got home to lose the weight again.


We would often take a nap in the afternoon and come back to our bed looking like this (oh how I miss this)...


I was able to experience this trip with the love of my life...




The beach...

The ship... (where we watched the Academy Awards Sunday night...)

Are we up for another trip yet? Because I'm ready to go again. Maybe with the kids this time. I missed them so much by the end that I could barely stand it!

Back

I know it's been forever since I've posted. But I'm back. Really.

Let me just start with something short and sweet. With more to come. Later.

Because we have been living it up.

My two oldest boys learned how to ride their bikes without training wheels. And we are so proud of them.




(I promise this was not staged. We're not that cruel. And Andy's doing just fine.)