Back from the Bahamas

We are home safe and sound and had a FABULOUS time. It was everything and more than we expected. We stayed at a resort called the Wyndham and we had originally purchased your most basic room with an island view. We ended up flying over night and got into Nassau 3 hours before check in time, but they let us check in early. Then the lady found out we were parents of 4 small children she upgraded us to a SUITE and not only that, one with an ocean view...on the TOP Floor!!! We didn't realize what she had done for us until we got up there. These are the pictures of our views.

After changing quickly into our swim wear we ran down to the lobby, thanked that super nice lady and headed to the beach, snapped these next few pics and then back up to our room to sleep for 7 hours (I know...party poopers but we were exhausted!)

We ended up waking up at 9:30pm ish and going down for dinner, walking on the beach and then back to bed. The next day we spent most of the morning on the beach. I snorkled for the first time, we saw a Baracuda (freaked me OUT!) and found this starfish.

MMMMmmmm...look at my hot hubby! :)

After a wonderful morning we got ready for our dinner at Luciana's of Chicago downtown Nassau. We took a Jitney (what they call a bus) and that was an experience in itself. We got on and the bus was full and they pulled over to pick some more people up and we were thinking where are they going to sit? Well they pop down some seats and soon the isle is gone! It was pretty cool. Before dinner we stopped at the straw market (similar to our farmers markets) and got a few souvenirs for family. That was crazy! Tons of locals trying to sell their stuff in a very tight place with lots of other tourists too. Dinner was great, then we grabbed a taxi back to the hotel. Did I mention that everyone drives on the left side of the road and they are CRAZY drivers too! Pretty fun stuff!

Wednesday we had a snorkel/lunch cruise booked on a catamaran. They took us on a short tour as we passed Paradise Island, they pointed out famous peoples homes like Oprah, Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan to name a few. Then we got out to this reef in the middle of nowhere and snorkeled for about 45 minutes. It was amazing! I've never seen colors like that in my life, the coral was a beautiful aray of different tropical colors and the fish...there were TONS! Then they took us over to this private island and those who paid more $$ got to do some water sports while the rest of us swam and sun tanned. This is a pic of one of the 700 islands in the Bahamas that just so happened to be across from the beach we were on.

Beautiful white sandy beachs and clear turquoise waters...PARADISE!!!

On the catamaran on the way to the snorkeling destination...sorry pics are a little out of order here for some reason??

On the private beach after snorkeling...there is the catamaran behind my hottie husband :)

So that was pretty much our entire Wednesday. Thursday was a beach day. Just chilled, swam and chilled some more. We were told and heard about the famous "Fish Fry" on Awrak Cay (close to the harbour between Paradise Island and Nassau) so we went on down to try out the world famous Bahamian specialty...Conch (pronounced Conck). There were about a 7 or 8 little restaurants but our cab driver told us the best one was Goldies. So that was were we went. I don't eat seafood but I tried some of Davids cracked conch and it was really good, rubbery in texture but the taste was good. David thought it was awesome, so take his word because he's the seafood lover.

The cracked conch...we also tried the conch fritters a few days earlier, they look like deep fried chicken balls and they tasted good too.

On our way back we found a fruit stand and bought some fresh mangos and a local fruit called a Saprodilla (dilly for short), which look like an oversized kiwi but were suppose to taste like cotton candy. They were very mushy and they kind of tasted like cotton candy...interesting. The mango was delish!

That evening we ate at a restaurant at the hotel, Moso, which was an chinese restaurant and they gave us these ginormous serving utensils...here I'm just messing around with them. :)

Friday, our last full day, so we spent it on the beach. On our way down to the chairs we nearly stepped on this little guy.

Can you see him??

June is their rainy season, so everyday there was one really good hard rainfall for about 20-40 minutes and then it would clear up and be super hot and muggy again. This is a pic of the massive rain/lightning storm that came in that afternoon. Makes the water look REALLY blue!

After the storm we decided to go parasailing. The most awesome thing we did by far. So we got on the boat with 10 other people, two other couples and a family of 6. One couple went first and then the family of 6. So by then an hour had passed. So the boat driver took those people back in and then it was our turn. They had some troubles getting the shute out and untangled, so after another half hour the driver felt really bad for making us and this other couple wait so long so after apologizing to us David made the remark, "don't worry you can make it up to us" (being sarcastic of course) and "I like to get wet". Now our driver dips everyone in the water before bringing them in the boat but he managed to DUNK David 3 times, and he loved it of course.

Where did David go??

WOOOOOO HOOOOO!

Now it's my turn. We went up pretty high, a great view of the Islands.

Me way back there and that is our driver. He was a hoot!

When he would dip you he would call out "here sharky sharky".

Now after we were done he called a "water taxi" (aka a seadoo) to come get us. And no the boat did not stop...we jumped from our moving boat onto the moving seadoo. It was soo fun! I felt like I was in a James Bond movie or something. So we got a free seadoo ride out of it too.

Friday night we went on our last excursion, a dinner cruise on a triple deck catamaran. We cruised around the harbour, ate some amazing food and then had some entertainment. Here is a pic of the bridges from Paradise Island and Nassau.

Yah, we got some sun that day.

This is Atlantis, a huge hotel/resort on Paradise Island. If we ever go back we want to take our kids and stay here. They have a huge water park and an aquarium. Sweet!

Some of our enertainment. His name is Action and he IS the limbo king! This guy did things I didn't even know were possible!

Saturday morning we packed up, said goodbye to the Bahamas and flew home. We had a great time but were glad to come back and see our beautiful kiddos. Thanks again to David's parents and sisters for watching the boys and to Dash for watching my babies. We really appreciate it!

Going, going....almost ready to go!

Only two more sleeps before we head out to the sunny beaches of the Bahamas!! We couldn't be more excited. So while packing I noticed that we had some pics on our memory card so I thought I'd upload them and share a few before we head out.
Here is proof that Hailee does have hair, quite a bit now, just really fair and thin. I even got it into a pony tail a few weeks ago for church. She's definately turning into quite the little girl.

While visiting the in-laws Auntie Laurie managed to rock a very tired Kaleb to sleep. Doesn't he look so comfortable! They sure are cute when they sleep.

A wonderful surprise to come home to! We spent the May long in Edmonton with David's family and when we got home it was starting to snow. Well, the next morning we woke up to this!! Crapy Canadian weather! It was all melted within a couple of days, but still annoying.

We took this after Kaleb had some spaghetti. I should have taken before pics. Man was he covered from head to toe. That's why we just threw him in the sink for a quick rinse down. He loved it!

Our kids have been sick the past week, get it all before we leave I guess, and Aidan ended up missing his last day of preschool. He was sooo sad! But we stopped by a few days later to say goodbye to his teachers and they had a few things for him, including this t-shirt that he got to decorate with fabric paints. He did such a good job drawing shapes, writing his name and writing the entire alphabet (only needing my help for G, K and S - which he just drew backwards). He's sooo smart and excited for Kindergarten in the fall.

Since the kids all saw Aidan decorating his shirt we had to have craft time. These next pics are of the kids letting their creative juices flow! (Love Hailee's pig tails in this pic!)

Yes, those are duck scissors....you know you want some too! We have shark ones too.

Kaleb enjoying watching the fun with mom...my assistant supervisor/drooler. So cute!!

Well, the next post will be of our wonderful trip to the Bahamas so please make sure to check in in a week or two!

Say What????

So you wanna hear some exciting news??? David and I are going to the Bahamas in June!! YIPPIE!!! So I guess it's more exciting to us. We were originally planning on going to Portland this June so that David could attend a seminar at WSCC to get his continuing ed credits and to visit some of our awesome friends that we are missing a TON! Well, David found out that he didn't need to attend the seminar, that he had sufficient enough credits for the year...which was code for we don't need to go to Portland. Well needless to say I was pretty upset. We had been planning and saving for this trip for the past few months and I needed a break from the daily grind. I haven't had a day off from my amazing job of full-time mommy since I became a mommy (5 years now)! I don't know if it was because I was having a bad day or week but I just broke down. David, being the amazing husband he is, realized that if we weren't going to Portland we still needed to go somewhere so I could have some much needed vacation time, just the two of us! So we looked into Puerto Vallarta because his parents had a time share there and basically that was what we could afford (what we had saved up for our Portland trip). We were supper excited and started looking into flights and what not. Well it so happened that that evening on the news was the good ole H1N1 flu outbreak (swine flu). Oh goodie!!! Being the positive person that I am (note the sarcasm) I began to give up on the idea that David and I would ever be able to get away. Well, David and I began looking at other possiblities. We just randomly searched different affordable possibilities and that's when the bahamas popped up! We just booked our trip this last Monday! We are so excited. This will be our first time to go on a trip together....well ever! And our first time away from the kids without one of us to be there to watch them. I'm a little nervous about that but my excitment is doing a good job covering my nervousness.

Another thing that happened, yesterday, Aidan was jumping around on the couch and mis-calculated his landing, bounced backwards and cracked his head on the base corn piece of our couch. He has fallen a lot and I didn't think it was that bad until he stood up crying and holding his head with some healthy red oozing fluid flowing through his fingers. Yep, he was REALLY hurt. He cut open the back of his head, about an inch long gash. Luckily my in-laws were here, so I ran Aidan to the ER and proceeded to wait two hours to see a doctor! He ended up getting it glued together instead of stitches. Only our second trip to the ER. Not bad for having a bunch of high-energy boys!

And of course it wouldn't be a blog entry worth stopping by and checking out without pics of our adorable amazing kiddos!! I love these kids soo much!

Thanks for stopping by and sorry again to all of our Portland friends (especially the Youngs) that we won't be able to see you next month! We miss you all very much!

True Happiness comes in small packages

My ode to Kaleb! I love this little man soo much. After having our daughter I thought we were done having kids, maybe because I had been pregnant or nursing for the 3 years previously! When I mentioned my thoughts to my husband, he calmly replied "no I think there is one more waiting to join us." My first reaction was not pleasant and it actually took some persuasion on David's behalf to finally convince me otherwise...and I'm sooo glad he did. I don't know what I would do without this little guy in my life! Everyone of my kids makes my life better in some why or another, this little guy just makes me smile! He is soo happy and carefree. I've never heard another baby giggle as much as he does. I am so blessed to have such amazing kids, a wonderful wise husband and many many more blessings than I can count. So take a gander at my adorable baby boy and you too will see why he makes me smile everyday!

Oh, and he is pulling himself to standing now....ya I'm busy!

TRUE LOVE!!!!

Happy Birthday Hailee!

Here she is....our adorable 2 year old! Today is her actual birthday but because David's day off is Wednesday we celebrated with a little party for Hailee yesterday and fun was had by all!

I asked Hailee what kind of party she wanted, her options were Dora, Butterfly or Princess. Guess which theme she chose...Princess! And that is what she is, our little princess!

Some of her cousins were here for the party and she invited her two best friends. When everyone was here we had them each make their own crowns with adhesive "jewels". They loved it...yes even the boys! From left to right: Miya, Elizabeth, Hailee, Aidan, Isaac, Zoe and Xander.

Princess Hailee!

King Xander and King Aidan

Mommy and her little princess and of course her cool shades she got for her birthday. She was quite spoiled and got some fun new toys to play with. Thank you to Hailee's friends and cousins for the wonderful gifts!

And my pride and joy....Hailee's princess cake! I was so excited when I found this idea on youtube that I just had to try it. I was quite nervous about it but I think it turned out pretty awesome! I think I took as many pictures of the cake as I did of Hailee! :)

Here is Hailee blowing out her candles. She loved the cake....and so did everyone else.

After all was said and done the kids all had a blast, I know because everyone of them told me and almost all of them had naps afterwards...we wore them out with all of the party fun! We love you Hailee and are so proud of the beautiful little girl you are growing up to be! And good job on doing so well with your potty training!