A good laugh

I promise these are the last pictures you will see of our trip. We just got these the other day from our underwater camera. These are of our snorkelling adventure in Grand Cayman. I thought these would make you laugh!






We continue to be busy this week. I have started working 3 days a week now as the preschool is needing more aides. I have also been meeting with several doula clients lately too which keeps me running. Oh yah, I still cook, clean, raise 2 kids, wash clothes, and grocery shop! And somehow I manage to make it to the gym a few times a week too. No wonder I can't stay awake when we rent movies anymore.

Kenny is really busy renovating our basement. He is building a bedroom down there where our couch used to be. I'll post pictures as he goes along. He constantly amazes me with his ability to build walls, do wiring and figure out tough angles! He is very good at that kind of stuff. Of course, that is all in his spare time away from work, running the youth center, preaching and leading worship at church, being a dad, and shovelling snow (which has been happening a lot lately)!

Now the time has come to organize Ethan's birthday. He is a Valentine's Baby! He wants to go to the pool with some friends this year. We'll see how tired we are after that! Should be fun!

A photo journal for you!

The temperature warmed up enough so that the snow became the perfect stickiness for a snowman. We are just above zero now which is much more manageable!


Here is a picture of how much snow we have had lately. If Ethan's feet were flat on the grass the snow would be up to his waist!


Last night Brayden was tested in Karate and was moved up to a yellow stripe belt! He's excited about that!

Here are some more pictures from our trip

Kenny jogging on the beach in Florida. We tried to stay fit while away... and managed to gain only a couple pounds.


This is a picture of the pool area on our ship. There were a couple pool areas but
this was the main one. We never really hung out there but it was cool.


In Grand Cayman, we went to the Tortuga Rum Factory where we tasted some world famous rum cakes!


Grand Cayman is famous for Pirates. Can you guess which one is the real pirate??


Here is the Grand Atrium in our ship. As you can see, it goes up several stories

Snowed in!

Well, reality has fully settled in... we are no longer in the Caribbean! We are in the ARCTIC!! Oh wait, no, we are only in Enderby! AHHH! WE have had huge dumps of snow in the last week since getting home. I don't think I've warmed up yet! Honestly, I have not seen this much snow in a really long time. I keep thinking that the snow will stop falling but it doesn't! So, the kids are loving it, the dog is loving it, and I am looking for last minute Mexico deals on the internet! Too bad the bank account is empty! But it does inspire me to start saving for a family vacation next January.

Speaking of family vacations, have any of you noticed how many Disneyland commercials on on TV these days. Honestly, I see about 5 every day (and I watch barely any TV)! This would be all fine and dandy except... my kids see them too! We have had a daily discussion about why we won't be going to Disneyland until Ethan is about 8 years old. Both my kids know that if we went right now they would not be tall enough to go on all the rides. I even showed them on the internet that they need to be about 46" to ride everything. And yet, when the commercial comes on, all I hear is "Mommy let's just go right now. We won't be upset if we can't go on space mountain". Yah, right! Although, Sun, sand and surf does sound fairly appealing right now...

And the vicious cycle continues in my mind: it's too cold, let's go away, oh we can't because we're snowed in! And being snowed in is too cold, let's go away.............................

Miami

The first 3 days of our holiday were spent seeing the sights of Miami. We stayed just north of Miami Beach in Sunny Isles. Our hotel was right on the beach. That beach stretched for miles!

We checked out the Bayside Market on our first night which was really cool. And lucky me, I stumbled upon Bath and Body Works annual sale! YIPEE! I was like a kid in a candy store! We hit an outlet mall as well and found some great deals. One night we went to the Art Deco district of South Beach. It was fun to walk the streets and see the nightlife.

Although we really enjoyed our time checking out Miami, we both felt that it was not the prettiest city in the world. It didn't even come close to comparing with San Diego. But there were some very amazing parts of the city and the coastline is beautiful.

Here is Kenny relaxing on the beach. Our hotel is in the background there.


While in South Beach, we found this AWESOME streetside Italian restaurant. It was a dining experience to say the least. The waiters would sing in Italian while they served people. And the food was so good! I felt like I was in Italy!


We literally stumbled upon this tatoo shop. You may recognize it because it is the location of a popular TV show on TLC called Miami Ink. We have never even seen the show but thought it was cool to be there. Kenny thought about getting a tatoo while we were there but I managed to talk him out of it!!


Here is some of the Miami skyline from our ship before we sailed away.

Our Ship - The Carnival Imagination

We had 2 1/2 days at sea where we got to explore our ship, lounge around, and be a part of all the activities on board. Our ship seemed so huge to us and yet it is one of the smallest ones they have! We had an inside room (no window) which was fine with us because we were never in our room! We spent most of our time laying on beach chairs on the deck. Kenny was reading John LeCarre and I read the newest Ted Dekker. We loved eating breakfast and lunch out on the patio watching the endless horizon of sea and sun. Each night for dinner we got dressed up and went to their gourmet dining room. Kenny also tried his hand at Poker one night and almost won the putting contest on the ship. Of course, me with my terrible sense of direction, barely knew where I was going on the ship at any given time!

We loved the fun atmosphere on Carnival. Not a lot of white hair on that ship! The age range was about 25-45 years old so we fit right in. We would definately sail with them again. We had so many belly laughs on that ship! It was a riot!

Our first ocean sunset


Our daily ritual of lounging on the deck.


One night was formal night where we dressed up and the captain of the ship came out to meet everyone


Everyday we ate lunch on the patio. It was an amazing view!


Our daily "after lunch" cocktail

Grand Cayman Island

This island was a huge highlight for us. We fell in love with Grand Cayman. It is so beautiful, so clean and the people are wonderful. We went to the nicest beach I have ever seen... Seven Mile Beach. The sand was so soft and white and the water was crystal clear blue. We put our snorkels on and the first thing we saw was a stingray! Cool! We spend a lot of time walking along the coastline before lounging on the beach which was fun too. After that we took a taxi back into town and met up with a snorkel tour. they took us out on a boat to a huge reef called Cheeseburger Reef and also to a wreck called the Wreck of Cali. It was so awesome to see this huge ship underwater with fish all around it.

We did some shopping and then headed back to our ship. It was so hard to leave. We could have easily stayed another week! It has become our mission to go back there with the boys one day. It is one of the most amazing places on this planet.

On our walk along the beach we could see our ship (the closest one) and another ship. Kenny is that tiny speck on the bottom right corner of the picture!


Can you tell that we are in heaven?? This is Seven Mile Beach!


The beauty of Seven Mile Beach


We hope to go back to this sign one day

Jamaica

Our second stop was made in Jamaica. It was so hot that day! We stepped outside onto the deck and were frying in minutes (all this at 8:00 am)! We had been off the boat for about 30 seconds when all of a sudden this man came running off our ship and barrelled through the crowds of people. Another man and a security guy were chasing him. He ended up knocking down an old lady before getting caught. Apparnetly he was a crazy man who was trying to escape his parents!!

Anyhow, after that we took a shuttle bus (our driver's name was Horn!) up to Dunns River Falls. They are these beautiful falls in the jungle that flow down to the ocean and you can climb up them! It was so much fun. After that we met up with Horn again and he took us to the shopping area and to the beach.

I don't think Jamaica is a place Kenny and I will go again. It was absolutely beautiful and we had so much fun there, but there are a lot of seedy people there and TONS of pressure to buy things. Even while we were on the beach there were guys coming around trying to sell stuff. I think if you go to Jamaica, find a nice resort and just stay there!


Getting ready to climb Dunns River Falls


Getting wet!


Getting really wet!


The beach where we went (Kenny stayed with his family in the tall yellow hotel when he was 13 years old)

Back in the Great White North

Ok, we had an AWESOME trip! It was one of the BEST trips we have ever taken. I sit here trying to figure out how to summarize it without writing a novel, and I can't. There were so many great things about it. We loved cruising... I mean, we really loved it. As we were driving in our taxi to the Port of Miami on the day we were to begin our cruise, I began wondering if the whole cruise idea was a really bad one. You see, I have some issues. Issues like... fear of heights, fear of deep dark water, closterphobia, and motion sickness! All of those things have the potential to be present on a cruise. However, I am happy to report that no issues plagued me while we were cruising. We loved everything about it. The ship was huge and beautiful (and we had one of the smallest ships in the fleet). The food was out of this world. We were treated like royalty. It was far superior to an all inclusive resort. There was so much stuff to do on the ship but there was also tons of opportunity to just lay around.

Now we are back to reality. Today our reality is about minus 20 degrees! Enderby rarely gets this cold but of course, it has managed to break cold records just in time for us to return. Our tanned skin is shriveling up in protest! I think I shivered for 2 hours last night after getting home. But it was SO good to see the boys again. We love getting away alone and we both think it is very important to our marriage. But we sure did miss those handsome boys of ours. The reunion was sweet. And it was so good to know that all went well for my parents as they took care of our kids. Thanks Mom and Dad!