Running On Empty

Disney Cruise Day 2

After puking my guts out for most of the night I was not too excited about going to breakfast! However, it was our day to go to the special “Character Breakfast” where all of the Disney characters visit each table for pictures and autographs. Before the trip I purchased a small sony cybershot—which I found out after the trip takes CRAPPY indoor photos (most of the character breakfast)—I am so glad I took my Rebel on the trip too. I figure I can print everything in black and white if I have too. I didn’t eat much because after the character breakfast I took the kids to the Oceaneer Lab for fun-filled kids-only stuff!! Jeff and I had reservations at PALO the adults-only 5 star restaurant on the ship. It’s at the very back of the ship, top deck and the view was amazing. I tried Caviar!! It wasn’t bad, but not something I had to ever have again. The buffet was huge—a full seafood display with salmon mousse, crab legs, shrimp, lobster – you name it they had it. Then the eggs to order station—pure heaven. Pizza Station—awesome!! What’s great about their pizza’s is they are on flat bread so you don’t feel super full after eating. We ordered ½ sweet pizza (w/mango & berries) and the other ½ was blue cheese and grapes. It sounded good until it arrived—the smell of the cheese was a bit overwhelming for me, but Jeff loved it.  They had a specialty—stolen bread w/berries and cream. OH MY GOSH. I have to learn to make this bread. It was fabulous!!!  After all of that came the desserts—check them out:    As Rachael Ray would say: YUMMO!  I also tasted the apple flavored champagne. Not so great…but still fun!

Since this was a day at sea, the kids and I then visited the pool. Jeff was off to the adults-only Cove Café (coffee bar by the adult pool) I loved how the kids pool was shaped like Mickey Mouse and had a waterslide!  Surrounding the pool were many, many delightful things (all food/drink related of course!) Pluto’s Dog House served hot dogs, burgers, fries, chicken strips, and tacos. Pinocchio’s Pizzaria had pizza available 24-7. Topsiders Buffet was a cool little place where you could help yourself and sit outside or have a nice indoor-window view of the ocean. Goofy’s Galley served very tasty fruit and healthy sandwiches and salads. I ate here everyday—it was very nice to sit by the pool and eat the best fruit ever. I love fruit—I just don’t like preparing it so it was so nice to have it ready and accessable! Also to our delight was a 24 hour drink station. We brought our own 64 oz. cups from home so we could fill up on ice-water or diet coke and be set! There was also tea, milk, coffee, lemonade and hot chocolate. I did say all of this was by the pool right? NICE!!!  Finally, our daily treat was the 24 hour self-serve ice cream station. The other kids/family pool was the Goofy Pool. We like that too because of the ariel movie screen that played great shows while we relaxed.

 

After hanging out at the pool today we had to get ready for “Formal Night” we didn’t go too over the top fancy, but I am very happy I finally have some beautiful family portraits I didn’t have to take! (I will scan and post those later this week) Ryan was so excited to wear a tie. Dinner was at Parrot Cay – and our service was just awesome. A little slow, but loved the attention to detail and how our servers went out of their way to make the kids comfortable. Towards the end of the dinner our assistant server dropped an empty bowl of soup next to Ryan. A little bit of soup ended up on his pants and he was devastated. Jeff took him to change and our head server came over with a little ticket and said to send everything out to be cleaned and they would take care of the bill. I was very impressed! 

We went to the DREAMS show tonight, came back to our room and saw the great towel animal made by our stateroom attendant, ordered Mickey Ice Cream Bars from room service and hit the sack! 

At 2 a.m. I woke up queasy and puked again. Lovely. Tomorrow: CABO SAN LUCAS!

Oh, yeah— many, many people have been telling me how much they love my sparkly-flip-flops! THANKS BETH!! 

Disney Cruise DAY 1

It's been a very busy and fun summer--highlighted with our fabulous Disney Cruise to the Mexican Riviera!!! It was incredible. I really mean it. Our family hasn't ever taken a family vacation (we've done mini-weekend trips) but nothing major like this. It was very expensive, but very, very worth it. We've even been talking about doing a 14 day cruise somewhere in a couple of years...because really, you don't ever really get "into" your vacation and relax until 1/2 way right??  Okay..enough blabbing...here are some pictures:  DAY 1--boarding the ship, sail away party and the fun begins:

DAY 1 Report:
We arrived at 10:30 and somehow ended up in boarding group 10--people arriving after us were boarding first. Not sure how that happened but it didn't hamper anything--the whole process is seamless and quick. We ate lunch at the buffet in Parrot Cay that was really good.

We were in our rooms by 2, strolled around the ship and headed to deck 10 for the sail away party--which was so much fun! After that we headed to dinner (early 5:45) and the evening shows. Ordered mickey ice cream bars and went to bed.

I did not drink on the cruise and on the first two nights I also got sick--middle of the night sick. On night 3 I took dramamine before going to bed and never had another problem. THANK GOD!!

Day 2 report tomorrow....lots of amazing photos to come (including swimming with dolphins!!)

Happy Mother's Day Month!

You see, every occasion that celebrates me get's it's own month.  Not sure when it started but everyone around here has caught on - even the kids LOL!   We got great news this morning--my counsin Matt --who is a twin-- and his wife gave birth to TWIN BOYS!  I'm so happy for them--and to think he's carrying that gene, I think it's very cool.

Today Katie and I did a 3.2 mile race and I really enjoyed spending that time with her and seeing how much she loves to run.  We're not sprinters by any means, but we did run quite a bit, and walked too. We did the whole thing in about 50 minutes.

April was a crazy-busy month. Ryan moved up in Karate and now has his orange belt. This included a night of showing-off for the parents and celebrating. He also had a class musical "How does your garden grow" where he was one of four WEEDS - and he got to RAP. So, so funny! Katie went rock-climbing at an indoor place for a friend's birthday and was a total natural. The girl has no fear at all. We're finishing up Spring soccer - yesterday the ball she kicked toward the goal was ONE inch away from scoring. UGH--so close...the REF had to make the call and he said "NOPE" Did I mention Jeff was the REF yesterday?  At least he's fair!  She also had a musical in April "YO LEONARDO" and all 5 of the second grade classes performed together. Katie's class represented the art of sculpture...it was awesome and so fun to see her and all of the friends she's growing up with do so well.

Here are some photos.... have a great week :)

For Angie

Please keep Angie and her family in your thoughts and prayers - Monday is going to be an incredibly awful day for their family.  Sweet blessings to Audrey Caroline...

I finally did it!

After about a year of planning and a few days of second-guessing myself - I did it. I cut 13 inches of my hair off...and will be donating it to Locks of Love. Working everyday with families who have sick, dying children is hard and often times you feel a little bit hopeless. Well, today I felt great! (I almost cried when I heard Melissa - my awesome stylist start cutting).

Okay...on to the pictures!

The first ones are obviously the before shots..

and during the cut:

and the finished look:

I'm very happy with it, and actually think I should have gone a bit shorter.

Looking forward to 10 hours of scrapping tomorrow!

Happy Spring

You know what that means right? Yes, we're getting closer to summer! We've been incredibly busy here. Cleaning house and de-cluttering, school projects, planning a couples weekend HERE in a few weeks and just trying to juggle it all. A few weeks ago Barney Saltzberg came to our school as the guest author. Oh my--he's funny and his books are awesome.  Go get the music CD - my kids love it and I actually like to sign along.  His "Be With Me" song is my favorite. You can hear samples on his website under the music link. He also sings "Where oh where is my underwear" funny, funny stuff. In honor of his visit all of the teachers and kids had "crazy hair day" (he has a book named this). Here's a couple pics of the kids:

Katie also caught another lizard in the backyard. This guy is HUGE. He sticks around too--she plays with him everyday.

We've also been eating and selling these:

Ryan also loves his new sport:

Happy Easter!

Photo Share

I was organizing my studio, printed photos and my computer photo files this weekend. Boy that was a long process--but it feels good to know where everything is and put away.

This month has been busy, here are just a few pictures I wanted to share:

First, we have the best fingersandwiches EVER - made by Nora, for our sorority rush party (note the bread matches our sorority colors!). I provide the house, she brings good food and does the dishes (we swear it's our way of having to get out of doing the small talk thing with everyone). It's good to be an alum!

The picture above is of the 120 young women that were here!

Ryan and his American Girl Doll--one I won at a charity auction. The bidding was fierce--this one lady and I kept going back and forth. She finally asked me if my daughter really wanted it and I told her Katie already had one but my son wanted one of his own. She loved it--and let me win!!

Ryan at his class patriotic play.

Katie got to play the xylophone during her class valentines day show and was named student of the month for February!!

we also went to the Living Desert and got to catch butterflies...good fun. On a sad note, my friend came home from work the day before valentines day and found her husband. He somehow died--at age 53. It was/is devistating news.  On Valentines day roses were delivered to her -- from her hubby...how incredible is that? The service is Saturday. We're very, very sad.

Snow day!

What a fabulous day (minus the 3 hour traffic jam up the mountain) we had in Big Bear. The kids have never been sledding and our very dear friends invited us to their cabin for the day - it was a beautiful, warm day and we spent it all in the snow. One scary part of our day was Ryan's first sledding run--he got off course and slammed right into a tree. Luckily he turned the sled at the right time and he was protected by the sled. Poor guy--he was freaked. I held him for a good 20 minutes and then made him get right back on the sled with our friend Ron -- just look at the fear in his face:

But, he soon got over the fear-- and had a BLAST:

Here are just a few more shots from our great day:

The Month of Love

Yay! I'm still very happy about how well the crop went last weekend. It took me a couple of days to recover and I also spent a few days taking care of Kate--who is never sick. She even missed 3 days of school this week.  I wasn't able to get a thing accomplished (scrapbooking wise) at the crop, and I've been itching to create ever since. I was able to make this in the last couple of days for an upcoming class I'm teaching at Collective Journey February 23rd. Class kits are available if you can't make the class...just drop me an email!

Oh yeah...big congrats to Laura for winning the TARA WHITNEY photoshoot. She is one lucky girl!

January - is almost over

where does the time go?

We're going to pack up a lunch and head outside today. Exploring and doing a bit of this:

I'm ready for summer already...bring on the sun, please!