Never A Dull Moment

Yesterday, I decided to take the girls to the park before picking up Aidan because we had 30 minutes before he got out of school and I didn’t want to go home. About 10 minutes into playing at the park, right when I settled onto the bench in the shade and dialed my mom’s phone number, Maya had another plan. She was bending over taking her shoes off and when she stood up she was wet up to her neck. My mom answered her phone and I said, “Hi mom, I’ve gotta go.” Maya was wearing a jumper and had completely soaked it. I didn’t have enough time to go home and change her but I couldn’t leave her in the car. I stripped her down, wiped her with wipes and then started digging through the van, praying for clothes to put on her. I found her zebra pants and one of Arabella’s tank tops, so that is what she wore!

I just thought it was funny how I actually though I was going to have a good 20 minutes to just relax in the shade. Teach me to try to take a break!

Aidan’s 1st day of school & other happenings…

Today was the big day! The big day that I’ve thought about and had such mixed feelings about for quite some time, and guess what, it was awesome! Aidan has done nothing but ask if he could, “go to school to get an education” for the past year. Then finally the big day comes and he’s not so sure if he wants to do it after all. He went and he LOVED it! I, honestly, loved it too.

(night before school preparations)

It was so very nice to be able to spend some time with just the girls, doing girly things. After I did a little bit of cleaning I painted the girls toe nails for the 1st time! It was so cute to see how excited Maya was about the sparkles on her toes and then asked for sparkles on her fingers:D Arabella wasn’t too wild about it because she didn’t like the sitting still part, it was fun though.

(I love those cute little fingers and toes!)

When it was time to pick Aidan up from school the drama began. Aidan was so excited to tell me that he went to school and got an education but as it turned out, Maya also wanted an education! She did not want to leave! I had to chase that girl all over the school. Around the playground equipment and through the sand. It was quite the ordeal with me chasing Maya and Aidan & Arabella chasing me. I was not too happy with her when I finally caught her. Tomorrow i’ll be sure not to let go of her hand.

Now for the “other happenings” part of this post. We discovered a very strange fear that Maya has. Yes, fearless Maya is not completely fearless after all. Her fear? Feathers. It is so out of character for her. This is the girl that will touch worms, lizards, jump off of or climb anything, squish spiders with her bare hand but put a feather in front of her and she freaks!

This is the part where you see what horrible parents we are, well mainly Rich. He has a sick obsession with scaring our kids which actually drives me crazy, like REALLY crazy. This video is a little long so you don’t have to watch the whole thing but you’ll get the gist at the beginning. Oh and one more little disclaimer…please excuse Aidan’s really bad haircut. It wasn’t me this time, it was a friend :)

Oh, I almost forgot to mention another 1st today with Aidan. Today Aidan called me Jessica. Ahem, excuse me my 4 year old son? I was quick to correct him. Yesterday he called his daddy, Rich. Don’t know what’s going on with him but suddenly he’s too cool to call us mom & dad. I don’t think I’m ready for this whole “growing up” thing.

Cruisin’

At the very moment that I am writing this Rich & I are on a CRUISE!! We were so lucky to have a week off before Rich starts his next rotation and decided to take advantage of it. It was the perfect opportunity to cross off one more thing on our Florida “To Do” list. We have two of the greatest friends that were willing to watch the kids for the week. Aidan is with Lucy. I’m sure he is in heaven since Ella, Lucy’s daughter, is pretty much one of his favorite people. Maya  and Arabella went with Holly who has 2 kids of her own that are the same ages as the girls, not to mention the fact that she is pregnant! Yeah, she has her hands full! We are so grateful for such awesome friends that are willing to help make this happen for us.

So, here we are! The 1st day we familiarized ourselves with the ship and the food deck:D We went to dinner and met some really fun people. There are 3 other couples at our table that have quickly become our friends. Today, day 2, we docked at Key West. Talk about a fun day! Rich and I rode a wave runner around the entire island with a group. It was seriously the most fun I’ve had in a long time. An hour and a half out on the ocean on a wave runner with Rich…it was a really great time.

We spent the rest of our time on Key West just running around and enjoying the unique atmosphere of such a tiny island.

We had our 1st Chonch ever. They were soooooo good!

 

Back on the ship it was “elegant night”. We got all dressed up and joined our new friends for dinner and then we all went to a show. Now I understand why they always make fun of cruise ship singers (cheesy)!

What’s in store for tomorrow? Cozumel!!!!

Day 3:

Today we will be docking at Cozumel. We are still a couple of hours out so we decided to just chill for a while. We slept in until 9 this morning and then Rich dragged me to the gym to make a little dent in the thousands of calories we’ve been eating. We both ran 3 miles…of course he did it in half my time. Then we had some scrumptious breakfast. I could really get used to this kind of life. Rich is living his dream of going down the water slide while I’m sitting in the shade blogging and videoing him.

Ok, so it’s now day 4 but I’ve gotta write about how incredible day 3 was in Cozumel.

We got off the ship and were immediately bombarded by people asking us if we wanted to rent a scooter. After a few minutes we decided that we would rent a scooter for $30 for the whole day and we were off! It was so fun scooting around the island.

 

Rich had booked a snorkeling adventure for us which turned out to be private! It was awesome having a boat and guide all to ourselves. Carlos was our guide and he was super nice. Our captain, Jaime, didn’t seem all there but he was nice too:) We went to a couple of different sections of the reef and the first, Santa Rosa, was where I discovered my love for snorkeling. I’m not even exaggerating…I LOVE SNORKELING! We had been 3 times before but for some reason I couldn’t pressurize and it just wasn’t very enjoyable to me. This time I completely fell in love with it after I figured our the whole pressurizing thing. Carlos asked me if I was going to go down and I decided I would give it a shot. My 1st try I went all the way down to the bottom which was about 30ft. and I felt such a rush! I enjoyed every single second of our 2 1/2 hours of snorkeling, except for the 15 jelly fish stings that I endured. It didn’t seem quite fair that I got stung 15 times and Rich didn’t get one single sting! I’m so excited that we still have another year in Florida so that we can keep going snorkeling.

Rich is like a fish in the water. Even the fish think so! From the the second he jumped in the water he had 2 companions. Two little fish stuck my his side the entire time we were at the 1st reef. If he was down deep, they were right by his head. If he was just snorkeling at the top, they were by his lower back. We were there for 1 hour and they did not leave his side. It was sooo cute! Wish we could have kept them. Lots of pictures coming soon from our under water adventures!

After snorkeling we went for a bite to eat and then on to some shopping. Cozumel made me miss Mexico so much. As a kid we would go to Mexico at least once a year. Now, it is just too dangerous to go visit. I miss my grandpa, aunts, uncles and cousins. Hopefully it will get cleaned up soon so that my kids can enjoy the same experiences I did as a kid in Mexico.

(my pharmacist)

When it was time to leave the island we didn’t realize how late it was and had to run what felt like a mile to me but Rich said it was only a 1/4 mile. We made it on and they closed the door behind us. They were waiting for us! It was awesome! Our day on Cozumel was such a rush. From riding a scooter to discovering my passion for snorkeling to booking it to get on the ship, it was all such a rush!!! We were both just smiling from ear to ear all day. Then, after a day of playing hard, this is what we come home to:)

 

I think we are now converted to cruising. You don’t have to worry about ANYTHING on a cruise. All of your meals are made for you. You can get room service 24/7 and every time we go back to our room it is clean with mints on our bed! Seriously, this is what I call a vacation.

We are now on day 4 of our vacation and our plan for today is…a whole lot of nothing. We slept in til 11 and now we are just hanging out. Rich is reading and I’m blogging. We plan on going to bingo at 3, dinner at 6, the comedy club at 8 and then we’ll just have to see what we decide to do.

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Ok, so our vacation is over and we’ve actually been home for a couple of days now. I have to admit, I really enjoyed my alone time with Rich. Our stress-free personalities came out and we were like kids again, without a care or worry in the world. I am happy to be back home with my babies, even though they’ve already given me a headache;) So, here’s what we ended up doing on our last day…bingo at 3~we didn’t win:( Dinner at 6~So much fun!!!!

 

 

Good times with new friends.

Every night after dinner, music would come on and all of the servers would start dancing. It was awesome.

After dinner we all went to a show. Then, Rich and I did this:

It was a beautiful and relaxing last evening on the ship. We watched the sunset and chilled on the deck. I loved every single second of our cruise. I gained 5 pounds and I don’t regret a single ounce. We are already dreaming about our next cruise. I know it won’t be any time soon but it’s nice to dream. One thing is for sure. We did a lot of BOTH of these:

Happy cruisin’ everyone!

Aidan’s Birthday Party!

This year Aidan was SOOOO excited about his birthday. That made Rich and I get really excited about it and we wanted to make is a special and memorable experience for him. I think we pulled it off:D Because we wanted to make it special we invited his closest friends so that it would be a more intimate experience.

We started the party with a delicious lunch, hawaiian haystacks.

(Two of my best friends, America & Lucy. Love them!)

Then, my favorite part was singing happy birthday. Aidan has been dreaming about his 4th birthday for months now. He’s been talking about making a wish and blowing out the candles and everybody singing the birthday song. It really was one of the best moments ever, and I got it on video!

He was very specific when requesting his birthday cake. It had to be an ice cream cake. He loved it.

After the cake we opened presents. He has some really great friends that got him such good gifts! Airplanes, helicopters, transformers, a crane, a dry erase activity book with lots of markers…he was in HEAVEN!

I just HAVE to post a pic of one of the party favors that we gave out. I had this idea months ago but lost all motivation to do it…until the night before the party right around 10pm. So, I stayed up until 1:30 making these mini crayon rolls for all of Aidan’s little friends. Why did it take so long, you ask? Because I am a sloooow sewer:)

It was a fun and successful party. I had a fun time with so many great friends that have become like family.