Health Warning!

When Emma was born she sucked her thumb. Much to our dismay, she sucked her thumb until Kindergarten. Then when Kaidon came along he too sucked his thumb although his habit was a bit harder to break and he sucked his thumb well into his second grade year. Mihya was our good girl and didn't suck her thumb....no, she sucked her two middle fingers up until her second grade year too! Thing was, before Josh and I had kids, we'd see kids walking around sucking their thumbs and we'd verbally say "when we have kids they will NEVER suck their thumbs!" Guess God does have a way of giving you grace for those that you never imagined you could relate too huh?

With all the thumb and finger sucking going on in our house, I must admit I am a bit anal about the hand sanitizer. Yes, I always have a bottle on me. Bath and Body works used to carry a product just for kids that was hand sanitizing wipes and I swear to you, had I known they were going to stop carrying this product in their stores I would have bought cases of those things. They smelled great and didn't burn the kids hands when they had dry cracks (which, when you use hand sanitizer as often as my kids do, tends to happen often). I'm always very aware of dirty grimy handrails and other items of concern when out and about with the kids. For some reason though, when we were in Costa Rica, my guard was down.

So, Josh and I had met some friends and decided to do a city tour with them in Costa Rica. We all four crammed into a taxi and were on our way. We saw the rain forest, banana plantations, a beautiful beach, and cocoa bean farmers (trust me, I knew what I was doing when I decided a long time ago that I didn't like chocolate) and just the way of life for Costa Ricans. Well, when we were driving from one location to another we saw two little boys on the side of the road holding some wild creature. Our friend, Monica, asked the taxi driver what they were doing. He told us they had a sloth that they were letting people take pictures with for a "donation". Monica and I, in unison, said "stop the car, I want to hold a sloth!". Josh and Monica's husband, Nick, looked at us like we were crazy and both said they would take our pictures. Monica went first while Nick snapped a few pictures of her and then she passed the sloth off to me. I guess I was missing Tait an awful lot because I picked that sloth up and coddled it like a baby. I looked at his sweet little eyes and his crooked smile and I thought it was adorable! I pet it and couldn't believe how wiry it's hair was. I did get Josh to pet it with one finger but it took much coaxing. All the while, the little boys watched me nervously and in my head I was thinking "these poor boys live in such a tough environment that they actually think I am going to steal their pet!" I was almost sad at that thought until it was interrupted by our cab driver who said "lady the boys said to keep the sloth away from your body....they say didn't you see its claws?" It was a pretty funny moment just because I had assumed this was their pet and instead it was a wild creature they pulled out of the trees for some quick cash!

Back at the ship later that afternoon we told some friends in the hot tub about the experience and all of their reactions were "oh, we saw those boys too but I just kept thinking of all the germs that thing would carry!" Funny, how away from my kids I had turned into a reckless person who forgot all about germs! Since then, every person I tell the story of the sloth to has the same reaction. I don't know, I guess I wasn't in protective mom mode.

I have no regrets though. It's one of the things I am most going to remember about our vacation. Now, if you see me twitching uncontrollably or some weired growth appears in the middle of my forehead and I can't communicate with the doctors can one of you just pass this information along so I can get the proper treatment?

"You can dress her up, but you can't take her out!"

I never had a wedding. I never wanted one either! Even as a little girl, when most of my friends were dressing up and having their Barbies get married it never crossed my mind. It's funny to me that all of my girls already talk about their weddings. They have planned in great detail what flowers, colors and what dress they will be wearing. They have planned what their groom will say and what he will be wearing too. I sit back and laugh to myself often about how different they are than I am. To this day I've never regretted not having a wedding! It never crosses my mind that I missed out on anything because I really don't feel like I have. As a matter of fact the thought of planning for months, spending money I'll never see again, dressing up in a too tight white dress, walking down an isle in front of my parents friends and family, saying things that are only meant to be heard by my husband without laughing or messing up and then entertaining the crowd afterwards really just doesn't hit the top of my "to do in this lifetime" list. I know, I know this is a big dream for some, I'm just saying NOT ME!

Although, I did love homecoming, prom, dressing up for galas and fundraisers, and of course one of my favorite parts of our cruise was getting all dolled up for dinner each evening. Funny thing is, I can get all dressed up but I still just can't help but feel sorry for Josh. Seriously, I don't have a grown-up nerve in my body. As hard as I try to act sophisticated and mature I just can't pull it off for very long. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty clumsy and even fell down the stairs one day...I just happened to be holding a drink too, which made the effect even greater and the bad thing was that I hadn't even had a drink yet, so unfortunately I was too sober to really think it was funny. Good thing is that Josh is pretty used to me falling since I do it on every vacation at least once. Every evening I would whip out an elegant up-do and put on my fancy dress and yet every evening on the way back to our room I couldn't help but say "JAACCK....JAAACCCKK" in my raspiest distressed voice. I'd burst out laughing and a few times I even kicked off my shoes and ran down the hall to our room. I thought it was funny all eight nights of our cruise.

I just can't help but wonder if it ever gets old for Josh. I mean really I wonder if he ever just gets sick of not being able to have an adult conversation. I don't know, maybe in some strange sort of way, he appreciates being able to let his guard down and just answer to my S.O.S. calls of "JJJAAACCKK" down the hallway of our cruise ship. Maybe he's ok with the fact that I'm all dressed up and shouldn't be allowed to leave the house.

Anyway, here's some of my favorite dressed up pictures of us. Keep in mind while you look at them that Josh can be dressed up and taken out.... and.... well.... I can just get dressed up:

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Back to Life...

back to reality! OH MY GOSH, did we ever get spoiled on our two weeks away! Josh and I had such a great time reconnecting and just catching up with each other. We were lazy and warm and it was SO perfect. Now, back to -9 degrees is a little shock on the 'ole system but we missed the kids (or at least that is what we are telling people so they don't question us as parents)so it's good to be back? well, not really but it sounded convincing didn't it?

So, we left the day after Thanksgiving for our little adventure. Our first stop was Fort Lauder dale, Fl. where we stayed just one night. We wanted to be sure we gave ourselves plenty of time to not miss our ship so we really didn't do much there. Just hung out and geared up for our time away. We boarded our ship on Saturday around noon and were one of the first ones there (not too eager huh?) We were so early they didn't even have our state room cleaned yet. We got ourselves acquainted with the ship and ported out at 4:30 p.m., Sunday we had a sea day, Monday we were in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, Tuesday we were at sea again, Wednesday we were in Santa Marta, Columbia, Thursday Cartagena, Columbia, Friday a sea day (we love the sea days best of all! We can be lazy and no one questions why we aren't doing anything!) Saturday we were in Costa Rica and Sunday we ended in Colon, Panama! PHEW! What a great time. We stayed in Panama City, Panama for an extra day and then on to Orlando for the night and back home. The hottest day we had was 112 degrees and the coolest was 65 degrees (a cold front in Florida on our first day...hmmm...that is MY idea of "cold").

I have way to much to post (like lost luggage...TWICE! holding a sloth...way to close for the owners comfort, dressing-up and falling down, trading for an apple...oh and so much more!) to get it all in, so I am going to drag it out over several different posts so you all can get the full effect of our trip. I will then be able to post a ton of pictures and lots of gory details...probably so many details that you'll all be begging me to stop!

Here's some pictures to get started! Enjoy!