Checking For Eggs

My parents got some chickens the other day. A friend of Shane's built this mobile chicken coop so they don't have to worry about foxes getting to the chickens. The girls where so excited! (Heidi spilled something on her shirt...just to explain the half naked kid.)  :)

 Natalie was the first one to get to check for eggs. Dad made the rule oldest to youngest. :)  The eggs are too far down for their little arms so he had to hold Natalie by the feet and stick her in head first! She didn't care though...she just wanted to get the egg and put it in her basket!

 Then the other day Heidi was at my parents house so she got to have her turn.  Dad did the same thing and stuck her in head first. We kept telling her to hold on tight so she wouldn't drop the egg. That little girl had a death grip on the egg! I am so surprised that she didn't crush it with her bare hands. Dad had to pry her little fingers off the egg which then made the egg fall to the ground. :) Thank goodness for all this rain we've been having cause the ground was super soft and the egg didn't even break.

 I think my girls have something against smiling for the camera!!

Sisters

 

 Heidi hasn't been feeling well lately. Her allergies have been crazy! She woke up with one eye swollen shut a couple days ago and yesterday she woke up with two super puffy eyes. Her nose and ears are clogged and her eyes are running non stop. The poor kid! I'm taking her to the doctor today to see if they can give her anything to make her feel better. Anyway...this morning Natalie was trying to cheer her up. It was so sweet! She told Heidi to come sit next to her while they watched a show and then put her arm around her. I just had to get a picture of the sweetness. :)

Also...I've been in a super baking mood the last few days. We had a whole bunch of bananas that we kind of forgot about so I made a couple loaves of banana nut bread. I don't actually eat the stuff but my kids love it and so does my family. And it's super easy and uses up all those mushy bananas! My special touch is to add cinnamon and sugar to the top. When the bread comes out of the oven I put butter all over the top and then sprinkle on the cinnamon sugar mixture. Then I throw it back in the oven and broil it for a few minutes. Just till it's bubbly.  It makes the top nice and crunchy and tastes amazing. I don't eat banana nut bread but I do like to steal little bites of the top. :) The other nice thing is it makes the house smell amazing!

Proud Mommy

So the girls each drew a picture for James yesterday cause his birthday is coming up. I was very impressed with their pictures. 

 Natalie drew a picture of her and James together. Heidi drew a spider. (top right) Pretty good for a 2 year old I think!

Then Natalie wanted to write on hers so I wrote on a piece of paper and she copied what I wrote onto her paper. I showed her how to write some of the letters on my paper but only helped her with one of the letter e's on her paper. I think she did awesome! But she is my kid. :)

Natalie's First Soccer Game

Natalie had her first game last night. She did so well! The Y didn't have the soccer shirts ready for their first game so they were just supposed to wear dark blue. We had Shane's jersey from when he played soccer at the same age so I had her wear that. So cute! Hopefully we will get their jerseys by the next game. :) 

She is so much better this year. Last year she was nervous and shy. She would cry every time some one would take the ball from her. She also spent most of the time playing in the dirt. 

This year, on the other hand, is the total opposite. She is loving it! She was all smiles while she was chasing the ball and trying to get it from the other team. Or her own team. :) She still likes to look at the sidelines and wave while she is running...she isn't that great at keeping her eye on the ball! But she does have a much better grasp on the whole idea of soccer. 

She was so excited to start playing!

Her shirt has Shane's name on the back :)

 Natalie loves her coach. She runs to get a quick sip of water and then runs right back to the coach.

Throwing the ball back in

 Trying to take it from the other team

 She totally made us laugh while we were watching her

 She was laughing and squealing...having a great time

Waving to the fans

Half time...she just wanted to keep playing

Heidi keeping herself entertained 

Going for the ball

 

 My Silly Girl!

Our Cruise

We had such an amazing time on our cruise! It was so relaxing and so much fun. It was the greatest thing to just be a couple and escape from reality for a while. I took so many pictures! I honestly have no idea how I'm going to figure out which ones to put on here! Just so you know this is going to be a massively long post with a ton of pictures on it. I promise to edit!  If you are only in the mood for the short version...We had a great time. The islands were beautiful. We ate great food. We did a ton of cool things like snorkel, learn craps, rock climb and play mini golf on top of the ship. We were totally disconnected from everything and it was wonderful. I can't wait to do it again and would highly recommend it to anyone! :)

Now for the long version. :) We flew into Puerto Rico on Saturday and got the chance to walk around a bit and see the city. Our hotel was awesome...dinner not so great. The next morning we got ready and went to our ship. We were going to drop off our bags and tour Old San Juan but once we got on the boat we didn't want to leave. We had so much fun exploring the ship and seeing everything there was to do. We found the frozen yogurt machine and I was good to go! I didn't get my bags in time to change for dinner so we just went to Johnny Rockets. It was really good!

  

 

The next day we got up to watch the sunrise. It was so awesome to see it on the ocean! Then we went right back to sleep. Ahh...it was so nice being able to sleep so much! We took a merengue class, watched a Men's belly flop competition and played mini golf. They had photographers on the boat every night so we always got our picture taken before dinner. And the dinners! They were soo good! There were so many things to choose from and everything tasted amazing! :)

 

 

The next morning we were in Barbados. We did a rum factory tour and tasting, a beer factory tour and tasting and then went to a beach bar. The rum factory was so cool. We learned all about the history behind the rum. When it was time to taste it I had a tiny tiny sip of each of the three rums and felt like I got a buzz! When I took a sip it felt like alcohol vapors filled my mouth and throat and burned the whole way down! I am definitely not an alcohol drinker!! The beer factory was fun for Shane. They didn't give you sips to taste, they gave you whole beers. The beach bar was my favorite part. They gave you a rum punch as soon as you got there and it tasted really good. The beach though was really beautiful. The best part was that they were playing American music with a Caribbean sound. When we walked in they played "I'm too Sexy" and then "Free Fallin" and even a John Mellencamp song. It was pretty funny. That afternoon Shane played in a ping pong tournament and got third place. That night we watched the sunset over Barbados...so beautiful!

St. Lucia was next. We went on a 7 hour bus tour of the island. I don't think I would do that again. We were in the bus most of the day and the roads were really windy. Plus they drove on the other side of the road and they scared me half to death! We got to see some cool fishing villages, eat lunch at a local restaurant, see a volcano, and go to the botanical gardens. It was a busy day and we were so tired when we got back. I actually tried to sleep on the way back to the boat so I wouldn't get sick from the twisty roads! When we finally got back I got my daily dose of frozen yogurt from the frozen yogurt bar they had on the ship. That definitely made me feel better! Then we tried out the rock climbing wall. Way scarier than I thought it would be! I kept thinking I was going to slip and slam my face into the wall. Shane tried it too and was much better than me. He was up and down before I even got 2 feet off the ground! That night after dinner we went to a show like the Newlyweds. It was so funny! Shane and I were dying laughing. It was a great day.

The next day was my favorite. We went to Antigua and went snorkeling! It was so much fun. We took a boat to a little private island called Prickly Pear Island. We got beach chairs and umbrellas, yummy food, and all you could drink. I spent most of the day on my beach chair just relaxing. Shane snorkled pretty much the whole time. The few times I tried were plenty for me. It was pretty cool but then I'd laugh at the fact that I was actually snorkeling and get water in my goggles and have to stand up! Oh well...I'm glad I tried it. :) Really it was my favorite day because it was just so relaxing.

 That is the island in the distance

 

 

 

 My favorite picture :)

 

 We sat with the same people every night. Lucky for us we all got along really well

 Blue Cheese Ravioli...so yummy!!

All of us with our waiter...he was awesome!

We had a shopping day next. We explored St. Maarten and went in all the shops. Shane bought cigars and some rum. We had a nice lunch and just walked around looking at the beautiful island. The water here was amazingly beautiful! The rest of the day was pretty relaxing too. That afternoon I got to have a spa treatment on the ship while Shane smoked one of his cigars and took sunset pictures. It was just a nice day. 

 

 

 

 

Our last day of the cruise was spent in St. Croix. We spent the day at the beach with the people from our table. I stayed under the umbrella all day. I went in the water and walked on the beach for all of maybe 30 minutes and I got totally burnt! The sun down there is soo hot! We came back to the ship and had lunch at Johnny Rockets. Shane got up and danced with the waiters after we finished our lunch. It was so funny! Then we went back to our room and crashed. Love those naps!! We got ready for our last dinner on the ship and made sure we took some pictures. After dinner we went to the Karaoke Superstar Challenge. All the winners from the past few nights came together for a sing off. It was really fun. Some of them were really bad but some were amazing. The best was this old guy from Connecticut who was wearing a black wife beater, a black blazer and a bow tie singing "Love Machine." He even threw off his jacket in the middle of the song. So funny!! 

The next morning we got up early and got all our stuff together. We had to wait till we were called to get our luggage and get off the boat which ended up being around 10:30. We waited for two of the people from our table, Josh and Liz and then headed to Old San Juan. We spent a few hours checking out the fort. It was really cool. I'm so glad that we were able to really see the fort. Then we went to a local place for lunch. They had these breaded cheese balls that were fried and then you dipped them in guava sauce. Very good! After lunch our friends headed to the airport to fly home and we went back to our hotel. We got a rum punch and sat outside looking at the ocean, packed up all our stuff so that each bag weighed less than 50 pounds and then went to dinner. We walked to this Mexican restaurant that was amazing. It was right on the water...the waves actually came up to the windows. The food was incredible! A perfect end to a perfect week!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I took this the morning before we flew home. It's from the balcony of our room and I didn't even notice the rainbow till after I took the picture. :)