Heading Up North

Today was a busy day of getting ready to go up the cabin for Memorial Day weekend. A lot of thought and packing goes into taking a 2 and half year old and 11 month old away for a weekend. I can't wait to get there, and see Stephen on the little ATV again.

I also took the kids to their new day care today for a tour. I can not believe the amount of paperwork I have to fill out. There is at least 15 different papers per kid, all of which are basically the same in a different format. It should be interesting the first week, I feel bad for the teachers there. Two of which I went to high school with- what a small world.

Alrighty, I am going to finish my glass of wine and hit the hay. I have a long day of traveling and appointments before I even get to the cabin.

Best Trip Ever...

I uploaded more pictures from our trip onto flickr, so check those out. Here is our trip in a nutshell:
Day one: Chaos, flight from Midway to Ft. Lauderdale, shuttle to the ship, embarkation process (which went pretty smoothly), wonder around the ship to figure out where everything is, get lunch, wait for our luggage to get to the stateroom (wait to see if we were successful in smuggling booze on the ship, we were!!), leave port, eat drink, enjoy!
Day Two: Breakfast, arrive in Freeport- Grand Bahama Island, disembark, get rental car, drive along the coast looking for secluded beaches and snorkeling sites, get rental car stuck in the sand, go to Deadman's Cove-Paradise beach to snorkel and taste grilled conch- delicious, head back to town to wander around the straw market for Dads rasta hats and coconut drinks, back to the ship, hit up the buffet, shower, got to dinner, continue to eat and drink all night.
Day Three: Breakfast, arrive in Nassau, get rental car, drive all along the coast to see where we wanted to go, stopped at Clifton Park (got some amazing pictures of the cliffs), snorkeled at a few beaches, spent most of the afternoon at Gordman's Bay (where we saw the starfish) snorkeling and sleeping on the beach, fish market for more fresh conch dishes, wandered through the straw market to get souviners for the kiddos (got offered some doobies...no thanks), back to the ship, buffet, shower, dinner, more eating and drinking.
Day Four: My favorite day... Great Stirrup Cay (cruiseline's private island), spent all day on the beach, snorkeling, and hiking all over the rocks and cliffs. Robin saw some giant baracudas and immediately got out of the water, we stayed on the beach side after that. A very relaxing day filled with sunshine, snorkeling and drinking. Back to the boat for more food, entertainment, and drinking.
Day Five: Got kicked off the boat by 8:45am to get on the shuttle again to go to the airport. Sat in the airport for 4 hours, flew home after a 45min delay, then drove another 3-4 hours home. It was great to see the kids again, all were very excited to see us. We got Stephen a Bahama shirt that he wants to wear everyday. He calls it his "obama shirt."

It truely was the greatest trip I ever went on, we will definately be cruising again!!

Were Baaaaack...

Great Stirrup Cay, Norwegain Cruise Line's private island:

In Nassau at Gordman's Bay, the biggest starfish I have ever seen:

I took this pic while standing on a cliff about 30 feet high looking down. The water was probably 5 feet deep. That is how clear the water is here.

At Freeport harbor, Grand Bahama Island:

Unfortunately we made it back from our cruise. It was by far the best vacation I have ever been on. It was just long enough for me to miss the kids, but we still came back to early in my opinion. More details and pictures to follow, I am in the middle of organizing and order my photo book from shutterfly. Here are just a couple pics.... I will post more when I have more pics up.

Little updates

• No more diapers for naps. Stephen has stayed dry in his undies all week during his naps!
• Farting is apparently funny. Stephen tooted the other day, I responded with "What do you say?" Stephen looked at Daddy and said, "Ha Ha!"
• 10 Days till vacation
• Aria will only nap in our closet where it is pitch black and silent. Is it some form of abuse to let your baby sleep in the closet?
• I am down 5 pounds and bikini ready!
• When Aria gets really excited she bounces on her butt on the floor and can scoot a few inches.
• I am so sick of puzzles and coloring. I guess I will just have to deal with the mess of playdoh, maybe even painting today (I am feeling adventurous)

All set to go

I have officially begun my countdown to the Bahamas. I got my haircut, brows waxed, clothes are set aside ready to be packed, snorkeling gear purchased, passport received, and a new swimsuit. All that I have left to do is get a waterproof camera (or case for our digital camera) and my spray tan a couple days before we leave. I don't have the time to waste laying in a tanning bed every day for three weeks to get a base tan (yes it would take that long for me). Robin has spent the past couple of days researching the islands we will be stopping at and has everything planned out. I made sure to find the best oyster bar in the area to stop at to. All I can do now is hope and pray that we don't get a massive snow storm the night/early morning of Jan 25th/26th that would cause flight delays, and ultimately missing our cruise.

BAHAMA COUNTDOWN: 14 Days

In potty news.... Stephen has been doing great!! Just the other night we were out at a friends house and he had on a diaper. He came up to me and said, "Come on Mommy, bathroom!" Sure enough he had to go poop. He has no problem peeing in a diaper, but hates poop. And there have been many occasions that he wakes up without his diaper on and he (and his bed) are dry. He went down for his nap in his undies today, and woke up dry. We have been making great progress lately. We still put a diaper on when we go out, but we are pretty much down to 2 or 3 diapers a day.

Not Much...

It feels like we have been so busy, but when I think about it not much has been going on. With the occasional having another couple over for game or movie night, not much interesting to post about. On New Years we went to a friends house that we haven't really seen in about a year. They have 2 boys very close in age to our kids so that was a lot of fun to see them play together. Aria was a real trooper too. She stayed up until 10ish and was perfectly happy with all the attention she was getting and all the commotion of the boys playing. The adults played Wii (I secretly want one now), so we all had a great time. Stephen stayed up until 1 when we finally went home. And special thanks to Aria, who slept through me putting her jacket on, in and out of the car seat, jacket off, and straight through until 7am. Mommy really needed that.

I have been working too since Robin was off all week. Well, I don't know if you can call googling the Bahama islands that we are going to for fun stuff to do, scooter rentals, snorkeling sites, and secluded beaches really working. Oh... I was scheduled to work on Christmas day (no big deal since we were done with everything on Christmas Eve.) So I get there, and about 45 min later someone else comes in. (Typically at this house there is only one staff person on duty at a time.) So they tell me to go home, "Great I have to call my scheduler first." Long story short, I went home after 45 min, and got paid the entire shift holiday pay. What a nice Christmas present!!

The Bahama countdown begins: 22 days

This is our Cruise ship: The Norwegian Sky

Bon Voyage!

It's offical, we booked our cruise today!!! Robin and I will be going on a 4 night cruise of the Bahamas leaving from Miami in the end of January. Since we never had a real honeymoon or vacation by ourselves this is long over due. We are so excited and a special thanks to Grandma Carol who will be flying out to stay with our kids while we are away!

Great Weekend!

We took the family down to Cedarburg on Saturday for their annual Wine and Harvest Festival. I had a great time. Who wouldn't when you can buy a bottle of wine and walk around the streets drinking it all day. There were tons of little shops to go in, and the usual craft/food stands all along the street. It was around 80 degrees, so we all got a bit sweaty (Again I was glad to have my wine with me!) Lyhna had a blast because there were a couple spots to "mine" for gems along the way. She has quite the collection now. Stephen did really well too despite the heat and being strapped in the stroller most of the time. There were just to many people to let him walk with us, he definitely would have gotten trampled.

After the festival we spent the night at gramma and papa's house.(Probably for the last time, they sold the house) My sister, bro-in-law and niece came over for dinner and nice quality family time. Stephen had a blast running around and jumping with Madisen. There were minimal altercations from Stephen (he is quite the bully these days.) It was great to see everyone, it has been awhile since we all got together. My sister is ready to pop any day. I was secretly wishing she would go into labor that night, since we were already there it would have been mighty convenient. Little Wesley had his own plans though.

Sunday we stopped by my friend Ruchell's for a quick visit. She hasn't met Aria yet, so of course we went over there. It was great to see her too. We definitely don't get to see each other often enough! After Ruchell's we stopped at gramma and papa's "new house." That is were the real excitement took place. After we got the tour of the construction zone, we ended up in the garage. We were just chit-chatting when all of a sudden Robin yells "Stephen watch out!!" I turned to look and in slow motion the old kitchen cabinet came crashing down on him. Robin tried to catch it, but it still crashed down. Luckily the doors opened up and would have missed him completely but I think when Robin tried to catch it one of the doors smacked him. Still, he escaped with out a bruise or scratch on him. I think it scared him more than anything. And with that, we decided it was time to head home where everything is locked up and child-proofed.

It was a great weekend, now I am back to work since Robin is off this week. I am putting in almost 40 hours!! It has been a long time since that happened.

We conquered Mt Olympus

We are back from the Dells and I just got done uploading a bunch of new pictures and videos from yesterday and today. I think Stephen is still a little to young for the big waterparks. He had a lot of fun in the indoor kiddie area, but everything outside was way to big. There were even a couple slides that I got a little nervous on. But it was great. I felt like a little kid again. I had to talk Lyhna into going down slides with me. This was the first real vacation that we have taken Stephen on, and of course Aria too. They had never been in a hotel before. I think we will be going every year from now on.