I WASN'T MURDERED

This past weekend was my big Orlando getaway. The last time I blogged was from the Denver airport on my way out of dodge. Any of you who know me personally, know that I have been sharing this excitement for months now. Most people who are not bloggers have just been skeptical that somehow, someway I was going to be murdered. Better yet, some of you have even thought that I'd be taken to some far off land where my kidneys would be extracted and sold at market value. I'm here to tell you that I survived Orlando 2011 and I am already marking my calendar for Orlando 2012.

I can not even begin to tell you how great it is to be in a room full of other women who really "get" it. With women who do not say dumb things like "she's really great for me" or better yet "we are SO bonded, he really opens up and talks to me"..... WHATEVER!! The insight and camaraderie of the 68 women bonded us instantly. No one cared if you were short or tall, thin or fat, gay or straight, single parenting or co-parenting, rich or poor, had adopted locally or internationally, had 1 or 14 children, home schooled or public or private schooled, are vegan or vegetarian or a carnivore, are a working mom or stay at home mom, blog or not, are atheist or a pastors wife, old or young, or any other combination you can think of. NO. ONE. CARED! It was enough to know that we are all fighting for the same outcome; to raise happy healthy humans. That alone was enough to bring us together like soul sisters.

We ended up with 7 different villas with an average of 10 women in each house. In my villa alone we had close to 50 kids from all over the world. China, Haiti, Ethiopia, United States and Russia to name a few. With 6 kids I looked like child's play compared to the women who are raising 10 or more children. I am now aware that I am not the only women who drives a giant pimped out van for her everyday ride. We laughed so hard we cried and cried so hard we laughed. We shared our innermost thoughts (none of which you'd really like to know) and our everyday struggles. We let down our guards, kicked off our shoes (and suits), ate until our bellies were full, and let each other into our private worlds. It was amazing, it was refreshing, it was a welcomed unforgettable time. I am not speaking for everyone, but for me, this is one of the things that I will forever remember as a "game changer", another item checked off my bucket list. No, I don't have "Travel across the country and meet up with 67 women you don't know" on my list, but I did have "Let my guard down, open up and meet people who don't fit in the worldly box", and I did just that. I will forever be bonded to these women who are fighting my same fight, who will tell me to "get up" when I fall down.

Here's a peek at how much fun I had:

Now, obviously, this is NOT real. This is henna. But......................................

This one, on the other hand, is real. It was my first tattoo and I am loving it. I am planning on adding a different little item to her representing each run I run from now on. It is on my lower back.

So, I'm back. A little more colorful and a lot more fueled for these six kids who wear me out!!

The Day Has Come!!

Well, today is the day. As I write I am sitting in the Denver airport, ready for my flight to leave in just one short hour. It seems like I have talked about this. Thought about this. Dreamed about this. Worried about this. Facebooked about this. Even blogged about this for months, and now the day has arrived. I am headed to Orlando until Tuesday to spend time with 67 other RAD moms from around the country and even Canada. I am a little bit nervous and yet, uncharacteristically, excited about this adventure. I have bought in, backed out, and bought back in countless times during the many months I have waited for this day to arrive. To say this is perfect timing for me to be doing this, would be a stretch....a downright lie even. After moving across the country twice in one short year, living in my parents basement for the past two weeks and taking possession of our home just one day after my return; this is definitely NOT the most convenient time. Guess what? I really don't care! This is for me.

So, I'm off on my adventure. I'm expecting lots of booze, much laughter, ugly crying, and many good friends made.....oh, and Josh.....no plans for tattoos this trip!

Colorado Fun!

Thought this would be the best way to share some of the highlights of our trip.

Enjoy!

This free scrapbook customized with Smilebox

I AM NOT DEAD!

I know many of you think I am dead. Had it not been for my facebook updates you'd really be worried. Just to confirm......I am alive!

We always get extremely busy at this time of year. We are overloaded with plans for summer and thoughts of swimming pools, hiking, camping and now BEACHES!! It's no different this year, except that we live in a vacation hot spot and are witnessing all kinds of tourists on vacations that we so desperately are grasping at taking ourselves. Our weekends are filled with last minute school projects and honestly everything takes us about twice the amount of time to complete just because we are in the "lazy days of summer" mode. I am one of those crazy moms who loves her kids being at home. I look forward to school breaks and days off with as much anticipation as I look forward to Christmas.

This is also the time of year when all the sports seem to overlap. Right now the only one not participating in some form of activity is Kayela. That leaves Emma in soccer, Kaidon in tennis, Mihya in guitar, Graysie and Mikael on swim team, little time for mommy to breath, and the gas budget going up immensely! I love that they have their "thing" and I get to slow down and watch them excel. It helps me point out their uniqueness and focus on them individually, so I can't complain. Plus, they sleep really good which is always a bonus.

In the past couple of weeks we've had out of town guests (again!). Amanda, Graysie's birth mom, and her husband and kids came to visit for a week. We went to the strawberry festival, made strawberry jam, made more bows for our girls, dropped the ball on our blog, shopped, walked the Ravenel bridge and pretty much just hung out and visited. I will only speak for myself when saying that I stayed up way too late most nights and got up early so I was wiped out by the end of their visit. I hated that they had to go and the week seemed to go by too fast, always does when we have guests.

Kaidon has gotten spoiled by our new neighbors. He has adopted them as his second home and family. He loves their son, Ryan, and would be perfectly content to stay with them for eternity if we'd let him. He has been boating with them several times and comes home with some great stories. Actually, one day we were all in a depression because Kaidon was on their boat watching the blue angels! We were not! We thought about grounding him just because we were mad, but then we realized that would not help our pleas for him to spend time with us. Glad he has made friends, even more glad that they are great people!

Yesterday we all went boating with some friends. We had such a blast. Ironically, we drove to the boat ramp where we piled our giant family into the boat with coolers, towels, and anything else we'd need to survive the day and then proceeded to boat right past the front of our house. We don't have a dock so it's the only way to do it, but it just seemed a little strange when technically we should be able to be picked up at our front door. Maybe our neighbors across the street will let us hitch a ride from a friend every once in awhile at their boat dock? Wonder what it would take to work out that deal? I'll look into it and get back with all of you on that one. We had a blast on the tube and boat and to prove I am going to have another birthday and am not getting any younger, I am very sore. Josh however is not because he wouldn't dare be out of control on a tube.

Next up for us? My parents are coming to stay the week next Tuesday. It just happens to be my birthday (even at age 30-something my parents can't miss my birthday). It will be my dads first time to see the house and our surroundings. I'm thrilled to be "tour guide Ambyr" for the week again. The kids will still be in school so we will have plenty of time to do adult-exploring-touristy stuff before they come home and take all the attention away from me...Oh...I mean...get to spend time with their grandparents.

I'm planning to get the heck outta dodge in August. I've heard it's close to the temperature in hell here at that time so I am not wanting to subject myself to that one. I'll be spending as much of the month in Colorado as we can before school and sports start back up. I'm hoping to see everyone and taxi the kids all over town to get in as much friend time as possible. I say that now, but I'm not sure how long I'll survive without Josh so I'm leaving it an open-ended trip. It's one of the few benefits of taking the 27 hour drive across country with 6 kids.....we have the freedom to come and go as we please, no deadlines or flights to catch.

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!

Gettin' The Heck Outta Dodge!
The van is packed and ready to go. All the headphones, Ipods, and cell phones are charged. The refrigerator is bare. Dogs have their designated homes to visit. The mail has been put on halt. The hotel rooms are calling our name!

Yes, I did say roomS, plural. Ya see, I refuse to get a 2 or 3 bedroom suite. Reason being is that it turns out when you have a kitchen and a washer and dryer, it no longer feels like a vacation to me. Even when I am booking the hotel rooms and their is the little disclaimer saying that their is no guarantee the rooms will be adjoining, I secretly hope they are on opposite ends of the building! Now THAT would be a vacation. Just think, I'd have 3...maybe 4 kids to handle? Piece. Of. Cake. Although my luck would be that Josh would hide out alone and I'd be hanging out with all seven kids anyway.

Their is the exception to my "NO SUITE" rule and that is when we take our annual Fall trip to Disney World. We typically stay at Saratoga Springs resort and go for 2 weeks. In that case, I like to have the 2 bedroom roomy suite to leisurely cook breakfast in. I know the day ahead will be packed with non-stop fun!

This trip, however, is going to be nothing but leisure and the thought of having to cook, clean and have a washer and dryer calling my name just makes the whole word "leisure" lose it's umph! We are road-tripping it for the first time (actually the kids keep reminding me that we did drive to South Dakota. Does that really count though? It's only a five hour drive!) We are really looking forward to the whole experience and are going out of our way to make this not just any "road trip".

First stop is about five hours away from home. We will be stopping at Arches National forest for a small mile and a half hike. I am sure by the time we get there the kids will be more than eager to get out and move. Not to mention my ADHD hubby! Once we finish that little adventure we will be driving another eight hours and staying the night near Zion National Forest....in a hotel...do not panic, we are not crazy enough to camp out on our already psychotic "vacation". Early the next morning we will be hiking the narrows, basically a really narrow canyon that you hike through in mostly water. It is supposedly beautiful! It is about a six and a half mile hike so it will take us a few hours to get through, but hearing our friend talk about it, I know it is going to be worth it! Once that feat is accomplished we are heading to Corona Del Mar for some beach fun (about another nine hours)! OK, OK I will confess we are doing a couple days of Disney while there, but it is not the focus of this particular trip!

We are so eager for this fun-filled family memory building experience. My parents are flying out and spending 7 days with us and flying back home. Big wimps, couldn't handle the thought of a road trip with seven kids. Actually they could've probably handled the kids easier than they could handle Josh and I and all our quirkiness! (who knows we may end up in a whole different sate by the time it's all said and done) Oh well, all in all Saturday morning can not come soon enough for this brood!

Reprimanded!

Josh and I have been married for almost 14 years. I have not lived under my parents roof for 15 years, and yet I am still being reprimanded by my dad.

Last weekend my dad took Kaidon fishing with him up in Wyoming. Kaidon is a boy scout at heart and my dad was a boy scout so they have a really unique bond (being that Josh's idea of "outdoors" is a massage on the poolside in Hawaii). They fished until they had enough stories to tell to last a lifetime. We've heard about a hawk flying down and snatching a fish right out of the water, we've heard about them using the wrong bait, they didn't miss the over flowing hobo baths, one fish they caught spit out it's eggs and the fish Kaidon caught gets longer each time he holds his hands out to tell us how long it was. Although I packed Kaidon several clean outfits he wore the same thing each day. They had a GREAT time!

Then, I get this email from my dad on Tuesday, it says:

WENT TO THE BLOG TO SEE A PICTURE OF KAIDON & FISH ? NO KAIDON NO FISH !

I cut and copied the above straight from my dads email. He said nothing more, nothing less. He wrote all in caps to let me know the severity of my crime. I actually didn't even realize my dad read my blog. I truly am wondering if he really does or if he just went to "check on me" to see if I was giving this fishing trip any justice at all. I've always been very compliant so....here are some pictures of Kaidon and his Grampy's fishing trip. ENJOY!