Post-Vacation Randomness

Greetings! We are officially home from vacation and ready to start 2009. :-) I have a few hours of free time, which I plan to spend e-mailing, reading (more on that later), and blogging, so you should have more to read in the near future. But for today I just wanted to give you all a few updates on the things that are spinning around in my head.

• First, "spinning" was not a random word choice--my head is quite literally spinning these days. I just started on a new perscription, and it is making me VERY dizzy. My doctor assures me that it will only last a few days. For now, though, it's kinda like being tipsy and sober at the same time--not entirely without merit. ;-)
• Our trip was wonderful! The four of us went, along with my mother-in-law and her best friend, and two other of our employees. We actually went on a cruise that left out of Miami and then made 3 stops in the Bahamas. The weather was wonderful, the ship was very nice, and we had a great time all around. I was thankful to have a port of call every day, because the time that we were trying to keep the kids occupied on the ship was a little bit stressful. This was mainly because it was an older ship (The newer ones have all kinds of cool stuff for kids, even little ones like ours), so it wouldn't prevent me from taking them in the future.
• The absolute highlight of the trip for me (and for Jon) was taking Grace dancing. Our room and his mom's room were adjoining, so at night we would put the kids to bed and then go to her room (with a monitor)--and most nights she came back for the night before 9PM and stayed there with the kids while we went out. (It was awesome!) Anyway, one night we decided to put Matt to bed and then let Grace stay up with us. We took her to see a live band, and she had a BLAST dancing the night away. It was without a doubt one of the cutest things I have ever seen.
• I would love to be able to share more of our trip with you all... but I have no photographic evidence of our vacation. No, I did not suddenly lost interest in photos and scrapbooking--I actually took TONS of photos. But they did not make it home with me. My camera disappeared on our last day of the trip. I have shed many tears over my lost photos. I am not totally giving up--I plan to call the cruise line today to see if it happened to turn up.
• We came home from our trip to the news that my uncle--my dad's brother--had passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. He and my aunt live in California, but they had just been home to visit shortly before Christmas, and we had them over for brunch one morning. This was completely out of the blue for everyone. Please keep his wife and family (two grown children and two grandchildren) in your prayers.
• I have a new guilty pleasure: the Twilight series. Jon got me the first book for Christmas, and I read it in 2 days on our trip! I thought I was going to lose my mind when I couldn't get the next book on the ship or in port--in fact, I just picked it up at Target today. And I'm already over 50 pages into it.
• If you are one of the many people I have been neglecting for the past several weeks or months... I'm sorry. Please bear with me. In addition to the actual crazy schedule/circumstances that we've had, my emotions have also been overloaded. This has actually been going on for about 2 years now (since Matt was born), but it had started to get worse again in the past few months. I am finally getting help, so I promise to be a better friend and person now. :-)
• I have resolved that 2009 will not be as crazy busy as 2008, but so far that's not working out so well for me. I think that every weekend in January and February are already jammed!
• I am taking some steps to actually make some money this year. I am writing this here not so much because you all care if I am making money or not, but because writing it down makes me accountable--more likely to actually follow through!

OK, I am starting to bore myself here, so if you are still with me, treat yourself to a piece of chocolate! :-) I look forward to sharing more with you soon!

Vacation Roundup--Updated with photos!

Thanks to all of you who have e-mailed asking about our trip! Wow! You guys are really great! So… not that I expect you all to want to hear every detail of our little family life, but I thought I would give you a little summary of our trip.

Well, our vacation actually started the day before we left, if that makes any sense. Last Friday night, we were able to go to a circus here in our hometown, and it was great!!! If you have a chance to see Carson & Barnes, I highly recommend it. I had never been to a tent circus before, and it was such a fun atmosphere! The kids really enjoyed it—especially the part where they got to eat a snow-cone—and Jon and I had a great time too. There were some really cool things there (like some cool acrobats and even elephant rides!) and some really bizarre things (like a contortionist—UGH!), and overall it was just a great way to start our week of family time.

The next morning we left our house bright-and-early-ish J and headed to my parents' house to start our big adventure. This was the first time Jon and I have had a chance to go on a trip with my parents, and it was so great! Not only did we enjoy getting to spend the time with them, but it was really neat for me that the kids got to see them every day for a week. Even this morning (two days after we got back) Matt woke up saying, "Papa? Papa? Papa!"

Anyway, our main destination for the trip was Colonial Williamsburg. However, we rented a house out there, and the house was only available for four nights. So first we went to DC, which is basically right on the way for us. Can I just tell you, Priceline is a wonderful thing??? We were able to get a 4-star hotel in downtown DC for just $75 a night! Yay!!!

We had a great time in our nation's capitol, even though we weren't there for very long. We only hit a couple of "attractions" but they were all so worthwhile. We did get to see one of my very favorite things there, which is the WWII memorial. It was just as beautiful as I remembered it, and the four of us (Jon, the kids, and I) enjoyed sitting on the edge of the fountain with our feet dangling in the water. We also checked out the Native American Museum and some absolutely beautiful gardens by the Smithsonian Castle. Oh, and we found a fabulous place to eat near Chinatown. If you are ever in that area, head straight for Clyde's! It is AWESOME—a very nice place to go on a romantic date or for a more formal dinner, but also very kid-friendly.

On Monday we headed to Williamsburg and our house with the indoor heated swimming pool… or so we thought. We got to the house and headed straight for the pool. "Oh," we thought, "we must need to turn the heat up." But alas, it was no use. The boiler was broken. And unfortunately, it remained that way for the duration of our trip. Those of you who know us "in real life" may start to think that we have some sort of "heated pool curse" after the OBX fiasco last year… I'm starting to wonder about it myself. J So anyway, that was a REAL bummer, because I don't think the air temperature dipped below 90 degrees the entire time we were there! It was unbelievably hot and humid… OY! Jon and I ventured into the pool a couple of times, and the kids loved to play AROUND it—you know, by tossing in balls and such that they expected us to fetch for them. J But that was about the extent of our luxurious pool time. Oh well.

But the "historic triangle", as they call it, was very, very cool. And you are talking to a girl who is NOT into history. At all. We didn't get to see much of Williamsburg, to be honest, but I enjoyed what we saw, and I loved Jamestown and Yorktown. The museum at Yorktown is one of the best I have ever seen, and we loved getting to see the artillery demonstration and learning about the medical practices of the day and… so many things. And I feel like there's still so much more to see! I can't wait to go back—but maybe in spring or fall, when it's a little cooler. J

Some of my favorite memories of the week, though, are just of the time together. Watching Matt explore and play in a shady spot in Williamsburg, while everyone else was on a tour of the governor's palace. (He absolutely did NOT want to sit for that!) Seeing Grace just cling to her daddy, so happy to have him all to herself for a week. Making smores in the fire pit in the backyard. Playing cards with my parents after bedtime, which we haven't really had a chance to do since we had kids. And even just having time to myself—the few days that we did get in a nap time, I was typically the only one who didn't nap, and it was wonderful! I read, I prayed, I even exercised.

And now we're home, which has also been good. We had to check out of the house on Friday morning, and Jon and I drove straight home, pulling in around 10 PM Friday night. It made for a long day of driving, but it has been so nice to have the entire weekend at home before getting back to reality on Monday morning. We all overslept this morning, so we didn't make it to church, but we are enjoying time with the kids and getting the house back in order.

Here are a few highlights of the trip. Enjoy! (The pictures are a little small for my taste, but I'm not sure how to do it any better... But if you click on the slideshow below, it'll bring it up the picture you clicked on a separate window that is bigger. Then you can click on "View Album" and see all the pic or a bigger slideshow from there.)

I'll get back to my regular posting soon! :-)

Some questions I am pondering...

Vacation is almost over! I am sitting on the couch of our rented house in Virginia while my parents are reading and my wonderful husband is putting sweet Gracie to bed. (Matt has been down for a few hours already.) We leave tomorrow, and as I reflect on the past week I have come up with a few questions...

• Why is 75 such a perfect temperature for air, but not for a swimming pool?
• Why do children who normally go to bed at 8:00 and get up at 7:00 STILL manage to get up at 7:00, even when they've gone to bed 2 hours (or more!) late?
• How did colonists survive these temperatures without AC?
• Oh, and how did they survive without--gulp--wireless internet?????
• How many times can one person listen to "Cedarmont Kids" sing "Behold, behold, I stand at the door and knock, knock, knock" in one sitting?
• When is our next trip???

It's been a nutty week, and not everything has gone according to plan... but it has been a great time of togetherness both for the four of us, and for us with my parents. We have seen some neat things and shared some good times, and I love each member of my family even more than I did when we got here.

I look forward to talking to you more about the trip! :-)

It's time!!!

Have you ever been so busy doing mommy things that you don't have time to be a mommy? That's how I've felt all this week... I've been doing laundry and dishes, cooking and cleaning; working hard on this moms' conference; getting some planning and prep done for MOPS next year; and the list goes on. I have countless times heard, "Mommy, will you play with me?" And just as often I've replied, "Honey, Mommy really has to do some work right now. I'll play with you as soon as I can." Ugh.

But now, it's time to just be the mommy. For the next week we will watch movies and play tag and color and talk and play "Larry Boy" (which, as Gracie describes it, is a game where "we just run around and don't catch anybody"). :-) It's time to love on my children and my husband and think and enjoy. Aaaaaahhhhhhhh. I'm breathing more deeply just thinking about it.

Well, I hope to check in with you all this week, but no guarantees. If not, I'll talk to you when we get back.

Have a blessed week.