What we did

Sooooo...this is what we did with all of our fabulous weather last week....











Never mind the fuzzy spot on most of the pictures. Ephraim has now taken over camera duty

Weather

This is really our weather for the next week. I need to be planning some outdoor activities with the kids.

Today
May 21

Partly Cloudy

83°
55°

Sun
May 22

Partly Cloudy

83°
56°

Mon
May 23

Partly Cloudy

78°
55°

Tue
May 24

Mostly Sunny

78°
54°

Wed
May 25

Sunny

83°
60°

Thu
May 26

Mostly Sunny

88°
61°

Fri
May 27

Sunny

88°
62°

Sat
May 28

Mostly Sunny

91°
62°

The tooth

So I've always had this fear of having to pull out a child's tooth when it becomes loose. I don't like to watch it being done and I certainly don't ever want to do it myself. Thank you, Noah, for making the process of losing a tooth a lot easier on all of us.

We took the kids over to a fun babysitting night at the Community Center last night. We sent 3 kids, each with a full set of teeth, and came home with all 3 kids and one less tooth. We didn't even know that Noah's tooth was loose, but it must have been, because it only took an animal cracker to knock it free.

The tooth is still somewhere at the Community Center, which is the only sad part of this whole experience. We hadn't even talked to Noah in detail about the Tooth Fairy (since he's not even in Kindergarten and we didn't know the tooth was loose), so he didn't bring the tooth home with him (nor did he tell anyone that it fell out).

The funniest part is that when we got home, Noah said "Dad, my tooth feels weird. Will you look at it?" Dad's response after looking at the tooth: "Noah, your tooth feels weird because you don't have one."

But, luckily, the Tooth Fairy comes whether you have the evidence or not.



Noah, you are so dang cute with a missing tooth! I can't get enough of seeing you smile!

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.)