The cruise 2014

Well I'm way behind but better late than never! We've been pretty busy around here but took a week off to have fun on this year's family cruise! This year we had my dad, stepmom, step sister and her husband and children. It was great spending time with them and Anna is really growing up and enjoyed hanging with the big girls :)

Itinerary was Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel.

Jamaica was Ziplining! Ever since Paul and I had done this in Belize we have been waiting for Anna to get old enough to go. She's an adventurer so we went for it. But since we had just experienced a new found fear of an old favorite roller coaster ride at Legoland, we prepped her with photos and gave her an "out" plenty of times before we bought the tickets. She insisted we Zipline! So we did. And she was ah-mazing!!!! This was in the jungle, at a jungle national park, with ravines and tall trees, and climbs and hikes. We got dirty and sweaty and we were so proud of this kid! There was no tandem zipping, she took to the high lines on her own. She was in heaven and it was beautiful! The staff treated her so special as the youngest there. Such great memories! I have more photos we bought from the place but will have to post later... This is the best I got with my iPhone :)


























We had time to hit the beach soon after:




















Anna took these pictures:








In Grad Cayman we visited a sea turtle farm and dolphin encounter. We'd never done either and it was great! But I think I like the sea turtles better :) They're just too cute!














In Cozumel we snorkeled and swam At a local beach resort after watching the rest of the family Zipline there (Anna was too young for that one, ha!)

On the ship, we took a towel animal class and did the ropes course there (surprisingly tough, sheesh!!! Especially for the short ones like Anna! One was so scary she got stuck and started crying so we were able to help her across and she pulled it together and kept going :)































Her pretty dress from daddy from Cozumel.











A great week, we all are wayyyyyy too much, relaxed some, and played a lot. New experiences and new memories, and time with my favorite people. Awesome! So glad she likes adventure and is a good traveler. She asked plenty of questions about what she saw of the local culture/color of each place we visited. Good exposure beyond the walls of clear lake city!



























So grateful!

Happy Mother's Day to me!

Lovely day :)

































She was so excited for Mother's Day all week :) She made me several cards. The one she gave me with breakfast said, "Thank you for choosing me to be your kid. Happy Mother's Day is finally here! I hope you will love your breakfast!"

This little girl loves me sooooo much :) I am so happy she picked me to be her mom!

13 years in this house

Last night I had a dream that we had finally just for real moved out of this house, on to another place, and it was finally, really ok with me.

Not like the previous recurring dreams I always have about us selling this house (either to afford a cheaper apartment-as if these days! Or for a bigger place or for whatever reason). It's a recurring dream I always have had for the past several years: for some reason we have sold the house to move into something different and then realize the horror of our mistake too late. The feelings that come with it are real regret. Sometimes we go back to the house to find that the realtor has totally changed everything we've improved on over the years of living here. Sometimes it's strange to look at the house with a For Sale sign up after we have moved out and then and realize: what have we done? We left awesome neighbors!

All of those memories in that house too! And the great neighborhood we've run through for so many years, and strolled Anna through as a baby. The park we saw upgraded in time for our little girl to play on. The pool I used to swim good laps for NEEMO training, and then later introduced our daughter to at around 2 months old. The birthday parties, the crawfish boils, the hurricane evacuations, Saturday night dinners at our place, kids playing in the back yard, the creation of Paul's clinic right around the corner because we chose for it to be close and part of home. It goes on and on. How could we just MOVE OUT? And just on to a different local neighborhood? Our best friends are just right around the corner. The previous owners lives here for 8 years and had two young sons who are in college now. We bought the house from them and they only moved down the street for a bigger place. Our daughter is about the same age as their youngest was.

I think I have this recurring dream because this house is such a part of us after 13 years here. It is the longest place by far that either I or Paul lived in consistently in our lives since we moved around a lot growing up. With every new memory I am a little saddened knowing that a day will come that others will live here and we won't. For some reason or another. Eventually the energy that we have left behind will be replaced by the new energy of the new owners. Then I snap out of it quickly to just try to enjoy what we have now. But even when living in every moment it's hard to hold on to as you realize how much more quickly time is rushing by. And the move is one day inevitable.