Heaven

It's hard to be sitting here in the cold and wind and think back about our vacation. It was a piece of heaven so relaxing and so much fun.

We dropped the kids off at my parents and headed to the airport. Our day was very long and we ended up making an unexpected stop in Chicago. While in the airport we ran into some longtime friends of my parents. They ended up on our flight on the Chicago segment but it was good to see them. From Chicago we flew to Orlando, and played quite a few games of UNO. I won't say who won more of the games but we had lots of fun. We made it to Orlando and Jason was able to see a few minutes of the football game, and then we got on our plane and flew to Ft. Lauderdale. We got our luggage and our rental car and headed to get something to eat. Found our hotel and watched a movie and went to sleep. Monday we got up and got ready to head down to Miami. It was Jason's birthday so what better way to celebrate than to get on the ship. It wasn't the warmest day but we spent some time exploring the ship and of course ate some food. Jason did ask that I didn't make a big deal of his birthday I wanted to get some of the waiters to sing for him but I did respect his wishes. I do love this guy though! Hope he had a great birthday!! We decided that on this cruise we weren't going to have anything planned and just decide what to do when we got there. We got off the boat and headed towards the beach in Freeport. Unfortunately a cold front was moving through and the water was anything but nice. It was super windy and all the snorkel places we tried had canceled all tours that day. It was a bummer, we were going to rent bikes and go for a ride, but seeing how people were driving we quickly decided it wasn't the best idea....unless we wanted to leave our children parent less. So we just walked around the island and came across this ship, which we were told was used as the Black Pearl in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean. We explored and took a few pictures, then went and had fun walking through the market.

Wednesday was probably our most favorite day, we went to the cruise lines private island and went and did some snorkeling. The water was cold and the first place we went snorkeling was a disappointment. So we spent some time soaking up some sun on the beach. Jason sure loves the sun! I sure enjoyed it unfortunately it didn't last long. It was nice while it lasted. After spending some time in the sun we hit another spot snorkeling. It was amazing and we saw so many fish, a stingray and quite possibly an eel. We never found out what exactly it was because I made Jason stop poking it with a stick. He is such a kid....one of the many reasons why I love him! I got super cold while I was watching Jason try to coax whatever animal it was curled up under the reef. So I headed out of the water while Mr Fish continued to explore the reef. In fact he was having so much fun that he just snorkeled all the way back to the main beach while I hiked back.

Our last port was at Nassau. It was overcast and not that warm. We walked around and found some gifts for our kids, and then decided to go try to find a snorkel trip. We succeeded and got a little boat and headed for a spot by Athol Island. We saw all the famous houses on Paradise Island on our ride to our snorkel spot. We jumped in the water and wow it was chilly. But it was a great spot to find some sea life. We saw lots of fish and were successful in seeing something we haven't seen before. We could only handle about 45 minutes in the water and then headed back to shore.

We had a great time people watching on the ship, and still am amazed at how much people like their drinks. They sure are fun to watch, although can be really loud.

This vacation was so relaxing and much needed, can't wait till the next one.....guess I should start planning now!

Spaghetti?

I think he got more on the floor than in his mouth.

Watching

Jason and I like to put our kids to bed around 7:30-8:00ish. We enjoy the quiet time and usually end up vegging on the couch. Tanner asked why we could watch TV while he had to go to bed. I replied that he needed his rest to grow and get stronger. He didn't really like that answer but he really couldn't do anything about it. Well he did do something about it, and continues to....most times he gets caught, sometimes he doesn't. One time we were watching a movie, can't remember which one little did we know Tanner was up at the top of the stairs watching, Jason asked if he liked the movie and Tanner loved it. But he said my arm is a little sore from leaning on it!

Many nights we threaten with the wii, we threaten shutting his door and turning the bathroom light off. But sometimes nothing works he just wants to watch TV with his parents....or maybe he just wants to stay up :)

Dance Recital

We had the honor of watching Paige and Kylie dance in Alice in Wonderland. They performed as a dragonfly, mone rath, baby clam, and hedgehog. I was so proud of my girls. This was Paiges' first performance and I was a little unsure if she would actually go on stage and dance. She loves dance and can't wait for her class every week, asking each morning if it was dance day. But when I drop her off she is so timid and since I can't watch her I wasn't sure if she really danced in class. I was so happy and I will admit a little teary when she walked on stage for that first time. This was Kylie's 2nd performance, she danced 1 time in Arizona and she was a little nervous about dancing in front of many people. But she sure didn't act nervous she did great. She danced really well and looked like she was having so much fun.

My favorite part of the show was when Paige came out in her hedgehog outfit, as the Queen was going to play crochet. Paige was nervous about having the queen holding onto the flamingos, she didn't want to be hit and stood watching instead of doing her somersault. She did this both nights and refused to do her somersault. But a soon as the flamingos were gone she did her dance. She also decided that she needed to "pick" her wedgie out on stage in front of everyone!

The show was great, the costumes the dances, I am so glad that my girls are able to have this opportunity to dance in a clean environment, and to learn how to dance and express themselves. It also didn't hurt that they show wasn't longer than an hour! I am also so grateful for family that comes and supports us, the girls loved having an audience.

Another Kylie funny, the first night we went and got ice cream at the BYU Creamery after the show. It was fun because Grandma and Grandpa joined us, but Kylie wasn't too happy that she got ice cream instead of flowers and let dad know that she needed flowers from him. So Saturday night Jason got the girls flowers, but they didn't have any roses so he got them very pretty red carnations. Kylie was happy that she got flowers, as was Paige but the stems kept breaking. She said I don't like these flowers I like roses better! Wow we are in trouble!

Christmas Eve part 2

We had a great Christmas Eve. We spent the evening with Robb and Celeste. We ate the traditional Headrick Christmas Eve dinner which was finger foods, and of course shrimp. We stuffed ourselves with yummy food, and then sang some songs, read from the scriptures and acted out the birth of the Savior. Kylie was going to be Mary then became a little shy and opted to be a donkey instead.

After we wrapped up our scripture reading and story telling we let our kids open a present. They were a little disappointed that it was just pajama's, but ran to put them on so we could go outside to see if we could hear Santa's sleigh bells. We waited about 5 minutes which felt like hours because it was so cold and we heard the bells! The kids were excited and Tanner ran fast back into the house. Kylie on the other had started crying she wasn't so sure about the whole thing. But it sure made the kids want to go home and get to bed so that Santa would come to our house. We got all our things together and headed home, got Santa some cookies and milk and the reindeer some carrots. The kids fell asleep in record time we were all excited for the big day and Jason and I were in bed at 1...not too bad!