Caribbean Cruise, Cont.

St. Lucia

   The next stop on our trip was the beautiful Island of St. Lucia.  It was on this day that as we talked to the kids, Trenton said to me, "Mom, I can handle you being gone for three days, and now you've been gone for six!  When are you coming home?!"  He's used to dad traveling for days at a time, but I guess having mom gone for that long too was a little too much for him.  ;) 

We had a tour guide in St. Lucia, so we saw quite a bit of the island.  Apparently, St. Lucia is where the show "The Bachelor" was filmed this last season.  It was a beautiful place!  Very lush and tropical.  I think everything grew there!  Almost every tree we saw had some type of fruit or nut growing on it.  Tons of mango and banana trees. 

Had to get a picture of Trent with the perky peaks in the background. ;)

Lots of beautiful sights to see.

 Leaving St. Lucia.

Antigua

The next day, we stopped at Antigua.  The beaches there were AMAZING!  Look at that water!

We spent the day in Antigua just hanging on the beach and at the Lobster Shack that was about 30 feet from the beach.  Looking at that water makes me wanna go back!

St. Martin

Day 4 was in Saint Martin/Sint Maarten, depending on if you were on the French side or the Dutch side.  We spent the morning shopping around on the French side of the island, then headed back to the Dutch side in the afternoon for some more shopping.  (We hadn't done any souvenir shopping on the trip yet.)

With some of the group.  Trent, me, Lisa and Bob in back, Claire and Steve up front.  We bought some amazingly yummy Gouda cheese at this place.

Leaving St. Martin.

St. Croix

  We went on a Jeep island excursion in St. Croix.  I've never been so scared for my life!

We were packed into these Jeeps, and the drivers cruised through the jungles at top speed, nearly missing other cars around several blind turns.

This place was the home of the "Beer Drinking Pig".  This is one of the tourist attractions on the island of St. Croix.  People will pay to feed this pig beer, but it only drinks a special kind of beer.  To bad for us, there was no beer that day. ;)

This was a Rastafarian's house.  It was made out of scraps of metal, garbage, and various other things.

Beautiful, beautiful views in St. Croix!

This is what was left of one of the old sugarcane mills.

As part of the Jeep excursion, they took us off road on some serious 4 wheel drive trails, into this cove.

We spent an hour or so swimming around in the cove.

Love this man!

On our way back to Puerto Rico.

We had such a wonderful time on our trip!  Thanks Trent for working so hard so that we could go on this amazing vacation together!  You're the best!

A Little Catching Up to Do

I am WAY behind on my blogging.  Way.  We'll see if I can get caught up over the next week.

Trent and I got back from our trip to the Caribbean on May 2.  We had such a wonderful time!  We were supposed to get in to Puerto Rico a couple of days before leaving port, but due to some yucky weather we were having here in CO, we missed our connecting flight and ended up in Philly for a night.  But, no complaints, there was a hotel right next to the airport with room service, no children, and a bed I didn't have to make the next morning. ;)

We made it to Puerto Rico the next day.  We got to the hotel, checked in to our room, got our exercise clothes on (we were still motivated to exercise at that point), and went for a run along the ocean.  Beautiful I tell you!

The next day we hopped on the boat and set sail for Barbados.

We had two full days on the boat before we got to Barbados, so we mostly just lazed around by the pool, drank lots of Pina Coladas (virgin of course ;) and did a whole lot of nothing.  Pure bliss I tell you!  I read two books while we were gone.

In Barbados, we went on a catamaran excursion with the group we were on the cruise with.

I love this one of Trent in his snorkel gear.  We saw lots of sea turtles, a sting ray or two, and tons of fish.

I think the highlight for Trent was doing crazy dives, belly flops, and cannon balls of the side of the boat, and just showing off in general.  ;)

 

Here are some of the wonderful people from our group... (left to right) Trent, Chris, Jill, and Chelsea.

Brian (starting on the right), Jonelle, Amy, Claire, and Steve.

Dale, Renee, Chris, deckhand (can't remember his name), Steve and Claire.

Sharon (the amazing lady who planned and put together the whole trip), Jill, and Chelsea.

Lundy and Kit.

Apparently, this hotel here costs a mere 25,000 - 30,000 dollars a night to stay at .  HOLY MOLY!  I couldn't believe it when the crew told us that.  We had a nice little swim in the ocean just down the way a little.  I forgot how much sea water stings the eyes.

Heading back to the boat after a day of fun.  More of the rest of the trip to come later.

The Lengths She Would Go To

There is a conversation that takes place daily in our home between Vivi and I (sometimes multiple times a day).  It usually begins like this:

Vivi - "Mom, I really, really, REALLY want a sister.  Can I please have a baby sister?  Can you talk to dad about it, please?" 

Me - "Viv, we go over this almost every day.  There is a very, very likely chance that if we had another baby, you would just get another brother."

Vivi - "But I don't want another brother!  I want a sister!  A baby one!  Will you please pray for me to have a sister?"

I asked her a new question yesterday.  "Vivi, what would you do if you got another brother?  It's not like we could send him back you know."

To which she promptly replied "Well, couldn't we just give him to somebody else?"

Me - "Umm... No.  That would not be an option.  If you had another brother, you would be stuck with him."

Vivi - "But I just want a sister!" 

She is almost in tears at this point.  Then I have to remind her that this is all just hypothetical anyway.

The only reply she has is, "Well, I still want a sister."  

He Never Ceases to Amaze Me

A while back, I installed these handy-dandy locks on both my front door, and the door to the garage.  They have been very effective in keeping a certain toddler I know in the confines of our home.  Until the other day that is.  Yes, that's right folks.  He managed to break the lock.  Literally.  He has tugged, and tugged on that door so many times, the ball part of the lock just snapped clean off.

This is what it looked like before.

And this is what it looked like after he was done.

You see, Preston has had some issues lately about anyone leaving the house without him.  In his mind, this just should NOT be done.  He gets freakishly angry about it.  So much so that I keep expecting him to turn green and quadruple in size.  Anyway... As a result of this mind-set of his, he has had some major tug-of-war matches with the lock on the door any time someone leaves without him.  I think he really surprised himself when the lock snapped the other day.  He went for one big tug, and next thing he knew, he was several feet from the door, right smack on his bottom.  Serves him right I say. ;)  Well, he has been able to escape to the garage again the last several days, so I ran to Home Depot today for another lock.

All fixed.  For now at least.  The last one lasted since August, so hopefully this one will last at least that long.  Maybe I better run back to Home Depot and get a few of these, just in case they decide to discontinue them.  That would be just typical, wouldn't it?

As far as other locking mechanisms go in our house, this one is rather effective as well.  Get one, good, long piece of duct tape, and your golden.  Preston can tug, and tug, and tug on the door, and it doesn't even budge.  Depending on how much we go in and out of this door, I would say we only have to change pieces of tape every week to two weeks.  Oh, the lengths we have to go to sometimes.

Decent/Desirous

We've been working on door manners at our house lately.  Just the typical... knock and wait for an answer before entering a room.  Trenton's door manners are fabulous, but Colson's are a bit lacking.  After Colson barged into our room the other day while I was in the middle of getting dressed, Trent sat down and told him it was fine for him to come in after he had knocked, asked if I was decent, and waited for the "okay", that he could come in. 

While getting ready for church yesterday morning, I heard a knock at the door.  After saying, "Who is it?", Colson responded, "It's me... Are you desirous?"  

Trent and I looked at each other quizzically, and I said, "Am I what?"

"Are you desirous?"

Yep, we had heard the question right.  We couldn't help it... we both busted out laughing.  I think after hearing us laugh, he realized he hadn't used quite the right word.  He came in the room looking a little sheepish.  I asked him, "Did you mean, 'Are you decent'?"

"Oh. Yeah. Are you decent?"

Thanks for the laugh buddy.

Can't Wait!

Just 9 more days, and Trent and I will be here!

I can hardly wait!

Slight Obsession

Cal really likes birds... I mean, really likes birds.  So much so, that one of his favorite spots in our home is right next to the sliding glass door.  You see, we have birds that have built a nest in the eaves of our house, right above the deck, (that is where these poor little things fell from last summer) and another nest in the eaves on the other side of the house.  So there is no shortage of birds flying here and there around our house.

So this is where we find Cal a lot of the day... Staring, staring, staring at the birds.  After a while he just can't take it anymore, and he has to get outside to see them.

He'll stand against the deck railing like this for minutes at a time, his head flitting back and forth as fast as the birds that fly by.  He sure loves birds.

My Little Vivi-kins

I just love the outfits this girl comes up with sometimes.

Spoons... And Other Things

 I used to have 24 spoons.  Over the years that number has dwindled down to 12.  Several years ago, I kept wondering where my spoons were disappearing to.  Then one day, I went to throw something away, and low and behold, there was a spoon sitting on top of a paper plate in the garbage!  One of the kids had thrown their spoon away with their paper plate.  There was a time where pretty much all we used to eat off of were paper plates and bowls.  I kept noticing more and more spoons vanish though, so after a while we switched back to regular dishes.  So, 12 of my spoons are now sitting in a landfill.  The weird thing though... why just the spoons?  I still have all of my forks and knives.  Hmmm...

On another note... The kids and I had a movie marathon the other night.  (It is still Spring break, after all.)  One of the movies we watched was Charlotte's Web.  The one with Dakota Fanning.  Anyway, we were at the part in the movie where Charlotte had spun two of her miraculous webs, and the people kept talking about what a miracle it was.  It was at this time that Colson turned to me and said, "She is a real miracle worker... Kinda like you mom.  Except you don't have eight legs."  Thanks bud.  Although there have been many times I felt like I could use eight arms or legs.

UGH!

I am so over the whole snow thing.