It's official

He is walking!!!

Day 4: St. Maarten

The color of the water at St. Maarten was amazing!

 We only had a couple of hours to shop around so Haley and I hit as many stores are we could but not really buying anything.

The colors of the water and the buildings were constant postcards. This is the stuff that makes my soul smile. I am positive that Heaven looks like the Caribbean!

 After shopping we got on a snorkel/ beach tour boat. The boat was really fun, the beach was fabulous but the snorkeling was the worst I have ever seen (or not seen). I guess the current was too strong so the water was FULL of sand. You could not even see the person next to you.

Even though it is so beautiful and heaven-like, the people here are C R A Z Y. Milk is more expensive then rum, so they drink a lot of it... you can tell.

Day 3 at sea

We had a fun day swimming, watching Tiffany play bingo and eating too much.

Tonight was formal night and Ryan asked Uncle Eric to help him tie a bow tie. It seems that the young boys are just starting to appreciate good style. Several of the boys at our church have started wearing bow ties too.

Dinner with my man

Grandma Bonnie with the kids (minus Keaton that was home in Oregon)

Little after dinner swimming while most people we at dinner or shows.

Day 2: Princess Cay

 Once we got off the ship we did some paddle boarding and snorkeling. I let Ruby and Lucy get acrylic nails for the trip (bad choice I know) and when Ruby was putting on her fins one of her nails bent back and pulled half of her nail off. That combined with the salt water was really painful! Ruby was a trooper and said "I'm not going to let this ruin my trip". We put tape on it to hold the nail down and she headed over to get her hair braided with Lucy.

Haley stayed at the beach to swim but kindly obliged when I begged her to pose for me so I could snap this shot without it being obvious what I was doing.

I can't tell you how much fun we have had with this photo!

Day 1: On the ship

As soon as we got on the ship and got to our room Ruby and Lucy ran and sat in the window for a long time and talked about how that is their favorite thing to do when we are in the room

I found this photo from the 1st cruise we ever took (5 years ago). I think its funny how similar these photos are, the girls are just twice the size!

We are all a little exhausted from the red eye flight and all the excitement. At dinner Lucy was having a hard time staying awake, we all felt exactly how she looks.

Thanksgiving family reunion

How do you get 7 kids and 5 adults from three different states across the country... not easily. Eric, the girls and I drove from Medford to San Francisco to fly out on a red eye with my Sister's family. We left at 12pm our time and arrived in Florida at 8am their time. My mom left the day before and flew from Salt Lake to Florida and spent the night. We met up with her on the ship. 

Although I had ear plugs and sleep aids for everyone, we were still exhausted when we got off the airplane. Ruby and Jacob are HUGE fans of the TV show Gator Boys, so we took the kids to go on a airboat gator tour and watch a Gator Boys show.

The Gators were scary close but the airboat was a blast and the scenery was really beautiful.

 After the boat tour we went to the Gator Boys show. Ruby was a little star struck when she saw Chris. She kept whispering "That's Chris, he's on he's on the show".

She and Jacob both got to hold a baby gator and Ruby even kissed it on the (taped) mouth. As soon as they handed it back to Chris, the gator urinated a ton and Christ said "Oh no- gatoraid!".  We all cracked up!

Then it was off to meet up with Grandma on the ship.

Cecilia

We lost our favorite chicken today to a golden eagle. The circle of life sucks :(

42

Eric is 42 and awesome as ever!

Since Eric says his favorite cake is wedding cake(white cake, white frosting) the girls and I have a little tradition of making him a wedding cake for his birthday. I had heard about an amazing bakery and decided to order a small wedding cake from them. It was sooo yummy!

But my girls kept saying "I can't believe we gave dad a cake with pink flowers!"

Happy Birthday Babe!

Making progress

Keaton is not totally walking yet, but he will take 5 or 6 steps now before he falls down.

Soon he will be running. He is growing up too fast!

Eric's spider

I always get a call about 5 min after Eric leaves the house. Sometimes he is calling to tell me something he forgot to or reminding me of something that needs to be done. This morning he called to tell me about a beautiful spider web just before you drive out our gate. I don't like spiders at all, but I went to see it. I just stuck my phone down into the grass (I did not want to get close to it) and took this photo.  I can;t believe how beautiful it turned out... but I still don't like spiders!

Our new worker

The girls and I were outside raking leaves and Keaton crawled over to a rake and used it to help himself stand up. Then he proceeded to walk forward pushing the rake! We were all screaming "he's walking" and taking pictures. Then he just dropped back down to crawling. I know we are super close to have a walking little man. We are also close to having an extra set of hands for yard work!

Rogue dog show

Today we went to a local dog show. It was the first time we have been to a show on dirt, but overall it was a really fun show and Ruby and Penelope did great!

Penelope won best bitch, best of winers and best of opposite sex. 

Jaime showed her for three of the shows and Ruby showed her for one.

Ruby and Ms. Jaime (Penelope's breeder)

Watching Ruby in the ring today it hit me that she is not a little girl any more.

She looked so pretty and confident.