Whirlwind

(It won’t hurt my feelings if you skip all the boring details and go straight to the pictures. I basically wrote about everything for family history/journal purposes. It’s a lot, I know. But I really wanted to be able to remember what and how I felt during this time. Beware, this one’s a novel.) November was a whirlwind of events, if the title (of this post) didn’t give you any bit of a clue. Our first adventure of the month was our cruise. And my thoughts…Well you’ll just have to read ahead, now won’t you? November 11- around 6am- Chris, Clay, Cody and I left on a plane for Florida The cruise (with my side of the family) was leaving on November 12th ,out of Fort Lauderdale; so we had planned to get down there a day early-just in case we had any hold ups. Unfortunately before we even got on the plane, we ran into our first snag. Earlier on in the year, I’d say around May, is when I booked our flights to Orlando. Do you see the problem yet? You guessed it. The cruise was leaving out of Fort Lauderdale, and we were flying into Orlando. If you aren’t familiar with the state of Florida, let me fill you in. Orlando is about 4 hours NORTH of Fort Lauderdale. (In my defense, I’m not really that stupid. I recall a certain father of mine suggesting we all fly/drive into Orlando and we would all rent a van and drive down to Fort Lauderdale together. Plans of course changed-were forgotten-however you want to word it, hence the new plan to rent our own car.) Luckily enough, I realized this about a week before we left, so I was able to find and rent a car for us to drive down to Fort Lauderdale. So after spending all day traveling and eating airport food with 2 crazy and cranky kids, we finally arrived in Orlando-only to get loaded up in a rental car and drive south 4 hours. Sigh. That was just the beginning. We finally arrived in Fort Lauderdale around 9pm that night. My cute, sweetheart of a cousin Amy, let us stay with her and her family. She and her husband have two babies (yes I said 2!). Mackenzie is 18 months, and Arianna is 4 months (?). So for her to let me and my 3 walking disasters called “boys” into her house was so kind of her. It was so good to sit and catch up with her. (We practically grew up together-I grew up with all my cousins just a stone’s throw away. It makes me miss being so close.) The next morning, November 12th, we were up early… of course, with 4 kids under the age of 4, there is no sleeping in. After visiting a bit longer, we packed up and headed out to meet up with my family and go to the port. We got to the port exceptionally early. Mom and Dad said there were going to be thousands of people getting on the ship and so the line was going to get CRAZY. Oh and it did! We waited in line forever, just to get our passports and ids inspected-only to wait in another line to get on the ship. After a couple hours of waiting, kissing on babies, picture taking, DS playing, potty breaks, a box of Cheez-Its, and a bag of animal crackers, and a suitcase full of bottled water-they finally opened the ship for boarding. The first two nights (Nov. 12th & 13th) were spent at sea. And boy did I get sea sick! It’s crazy, cause I spend all summer on a boat/tube at the lake-and the second I get on a cruise ship I can’t even hold down my food. So a majority of the trip I had to wear these tacky “pressure point” bracelets. Pushing on the pressure point in my wrist relieved most of the nausea that I was feeling. So weird! While at sea we spent our spare time eating, at the pool, at the Flo Rider (built in surf/boogie boarding water machine), eating, the rock wall, dodge ball tournaments, eating, sleeping, and oh yea-eating some more. The kids spent a lot of their time in Nursery or age appropriate classes that kept them very busy. Cody wanted to crawl around and play with toys-so he never wanted to be in the stroller walking around with me and Chris. We would drop him off in the nursery and he wouldn’t even look back-sad. Our second day, Dad scheduled a character breakfast for us. We got to have breakfast with Alex (the Lion), Gloria (the Hippo) and King Julian (the Lemur) all characters from the movie Madagascar. The kids LOVED it, and were completely mesmerized. That night, before arriving at the port in Belize, they held what’s called “The Captain’s Dinner”. It’s where everyone gets dressed up (in formal wear), gets their picture taken, and sits down for a 5-star(?) dinner. If you’ve never been on a cruise before-let me tell you. There are photographers everywhere. They’ll take your picture no matter what the occasion or lack thereof-then in your free time, you can go down to a lower deck, look through all of your pictures and decide which ones you want to purchase. Pretty great idea-if the pictures weren’t so pricey. Anyways so we all got ready, and waited in line for our picture to be taken. Mom and Dad were first, then Chris, Clay and I (told you-Cody was in nursery) and then Steve, Erin and Jayde. When it was Steve and Erin’s turn, Steve got down on one knee and proposed-in front of everyone!! Fortunately the photographer got it all on camera. Unfortunately, I did not. Everyone was clapping and hootin’ and hollerin’. It was pretty neat to witness it. Steve had asked for permission from my dad several months ago, and we all just kind of figured it was going to be an “o by the way..” type thing. But he made it super special and the ring was GORGEOUS! Way to go, Steve! November 14th- we arrived in Belize. I was so excited to get on land-not only to get my bearings-but to explore this foreign country. (side note-I’ve never been out of the country, much less the U.S., unless you count the Canada side of Niagra Falls. P.S. I don’t count it.) Because the cruise ship can only get so close to land, we had to get on a little boat/ferry that takes you up to the dock. After getting off the ferry, you were right in the middle of all the little touristy shops and restaurants right on the waterside. We decided to walk past all that and go into the city. Note, the city was outside the customs gates, meaning, once you left the gates not only were you on your own-unprotected-but you needed your passport/id/cruise pass to get back inside the gates. We walked into the city and my heart broke. The poverty we walked into literally tore me apart. There were stray dogs everywhere-skinny, with matted fur, homeless people sleeping on the ground and nearly every bench we passed, barefooted children, with worn out clothes. There were panhandlers galore and it was brutally hot. After walking half way into town, Dad stopping every few feet to make sure everyone was together and white knuckling all our belongings (for fear that we’d be mugged), we decided to go back to the ship. I wanted to cry. I felt horrible seeing how hard these people had it. I felt lucky and truly blessed to live where I live, and have what I have, but I also felt guilty for the same reasons. It made me want to hand out every dime to my name and every morsel of food I had on me. (But I knew in doing so, we’d be mobbed and pummeled, not being able to help everyone.) It was a very humbling experience. I’ve never been so happy to get back on the cruise ship and back to my nausea. The next morning, November 15th- we arrived in Cozumel. It was BEAUTIFUL! We again, loaded onto a smaller boat to take us up to the dock. My expectations were nothing-having been extremely disappointed the day before with Belize. (My thoughts: “Why would such a poverty stricken country be a vacation stop for a cruise?” Didn’t seem like much of a paradise to me.) I was happily surprised. Walking off the dock, you again walked into the touristy shops and restaurants. We did some browsing, and I got my hair braided while Dad rented a van. We had signed up for an excursion on one of the beaches, but we needed a way to get there. So we all piled into a 15 passenger van and by use of a very simple map (picture of the coastline and a few landmarks), made our way to Playa Maya (?)Beach. Once there, Dad took Clay and Jayde into the ocean to play on a bunch of water trampolines and inflatable playgrounds. Mom watched the babies (Ayden and Cody) while us big kids-Evan and Jannelle, Erin and Steve, Chris and I went snorkeling. Now keep in mind, I am deathly afraid of deep, large, open water but it’s never stopped me or held me back from swimming in the ocean or lakes, etc. It’s just one of those things that I bite my tongue and ignore the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and just do it. (mostly out of fear that my husband will think he married a wuss and think less of me.) I. Had. A. Blast! It was so neat to see all the different colored fish and coral. Some of the bigger fish would swim right up to you! Our guide found a star fish and brought it up to us so we could touch it. He would dive down deep and pound on the ocean floor and manta rays would come up from under the sand and swim away. The water was so clear, you could see all the way to the bottom (scary) and forever out and away. It was such a neat experience. After we got back to the shore, we ate at the Mexican Buffet that was steps away from our lounge chairs. Best ribs ever! I seriously had a couple plates all by myself, and even Clay had quite a few. While we ate, there was a little kiddie pool that we let the kids splash around in. Mental note: Cody is fearless when it comes to water. Need to get him in swimming lessons stat! Afterwards, we shopped for some souveneirs and then headed back to the port. Chris and I bought a statue made out of fish bone (painted black) of two faces looking at each other. Very cool. We thought it was so cool we bought one for Amy and Diego for letting us stay with them. All in all, great time in Cozumel. November 16th and 17th – we were at sea, heading back to Fort Lauderdale. During those two days, we went to the Icecapades, played Bingo, watched a pirate show put on by all the kids, did some more Flo Rider and the Rock wall, a little more dodge ball, played around a little bit in the casino. Dad and mom took the kids miniature golfing, and to the library. Chris did a lot of football watching on the huge big screen tv they had set up outside by the pool bar. Steve paid for all of us girls to go get pedicures. So sweet of him. Let’s see, the morning of the 16th, we ordered room service for breakfast in bed and watched the sunrise from my parents’ balcony. The morning of the 17th, my dad scheduled us for another character breakfast. So we took the kids to go see Shrek and Fiona. There was so much to do. The night before we docked in Fort Lauderdale, we were given the option to check our luggage and retrieve it when we got off the ship which could take up til noon. OR, you could choose to not check your luggage and just walk off the boat, suitcases in hand, at 7:30am. We chose the latter. We figured all that time wasted, waiting for our luggage and then trying to find our luggage would be a nightmare, for us AND the kids. Lucky for us, we packed somewhat light. We were able to push our stroller, two carseats, two good sized suitcases, a backpack, and my purse/diaper/snack/activity/anything that wouldn’t fit in our suitcase bag right off the boat. Granted we had to wait in line with everyone that had the same idea-but it was well worth it. We took a cab to the airport, rented another car, met up with my parents again to drive back to Orlando. My grandparents, and a few of my uncles live in Orlando, so we figured we meet up with them for a short dinner and visit, since we wouldn’t be back down for Christmas. Again, it was really good to see my Uncle Tom, my cousin Taylor, and my grandparents. Clay fell in love with Grandpa (his great grandpa) and Memaw. After we left their house, he kept asking when he was going to get to see his “old grandpa and grandma” again. Most of the time Clay has a hard time warming up to people, especially family that he doesn’t recognize or see all the time. So for him to just open up and love on my grandparents whom he’s only met twice, was very special for me. I’m sure it was very special for them as well. After spending some time with them, we all drove to a hotel for the night. The next day, November 18th , was the day we had to fly back home. We had a little bit of time to spare before we had to be to the airport, so we went out to lunch and then Dad took us to a little marina that he used to go to as a kid. You could fish, canoe, and kayak in the water. There was an old (looked to be out of service) bridge that my dad said he and his friends use to jump off of into the water. There were people throwing sticks in the water for their dogs to fetch and it was just a really neat little place. We spent some time there, fishing for little minnows with a net, and dipping our kids toes in the water. The babies loved that! Afterwards, we said our -tearful- goodbyes and we headed to the airport. Mom and Dad, Evan, Jannelle, and Ayden drove from Texas-so they were on the road headed back to Texas. We got back into Salt Lake around 10pm that night. What a difference coming from bright, sunny 80 degree weather, to foggy, freezing, snowy weather. Bummer, but good to be home. We had a great time on the cruise. HOWEVER, the next time I go on a cruise….I am going WITHOUT my children! It was very hard to relax when you are worried about where your kids are or who they’re bugging. Sunday the 20th, we had a small get together for Chris’s 35th birthday (23rd) and Cody’s 1st birthday (21st). Mostly family and a couple friends came. Nothing huge. Come on, we just got back from a cruise!! We had some pizza, and Chris made Cody a killer Cookie Monster cake. Cody loved it, and dug right in! We did some presents and then called it an early night…for the next day, was back to work-at least for me. Chris actually had that whole next week off. He was going to be off Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving anyways, and he had some extra vacation time he needed to use, so he utilized it. It was nice. There were a few things he was able to get done around the house, like hanging our Christmas lights, putting up the baseboard in my salon (that’s been sitting there since he laid the tile last year), putting up blinds in two of our downstairs bedrooms, and fixing a couple loose boards in our living room floor. Thanksgiving was…small and humble this year. Ever since I can remember, Thanksgiving for me has always consisted of (what seems like) every possible living relative I can think of, nowhere to sit, leftovers by the mounds, and games, games, games. This year, Erin and Steve had Thanksgiving in Florida (where they live)with Steve’s side of the family. Evan and Jannelle had Thanksgiving with my parents in Texas (where they both live), which left me to have Thanksgiving with Chris’s side of the family out here in Utah. Now normally that’s still a party in itself and I love Chris’s family. Chris has 2 brothers, a step brother, and two step sisters-so it’s always a full house around the holidays. Not so much this year. Most of Chris’s siblings were elsewhere for Thanksgiving. So it was Chris and I and our boys, his brother Brian, and his parents. It was a little lonely-but nevertheless the ambiance was still that of thanks. I am grateful that at least I have loved ones close that I could share this holiday with. A week later, Chris and I shared our 5 year wedding anniversary. In my mind I’m thinking, “whoa that seems like forever”, but on another note I feel like it was just yesterday. It takes me back to before we were married. In case you don’t know “Our Story”, here it is.  (I told you this post was going to be a long one!!) Before Chris and I started dating, the end of January 2006, we knew of each other. I say that because we didn’t actually know each other or talk, but we had seen each other several times. I was working in a salon (Bikini Cuts) and Chris’s friend Britney was working there with me. He would come in every now and again to get his haircut from her. I was incredibly shy around him, because he was so attractive, so normally when he came into the salon I would go hang out in the break room until he left-for fear that I would embarrass myself around him. At one point, Britney had been trying to set Chris up with our receptionist that worked with us. I was secretly sooo jealous. But later I found out that the receptionist had stood Chris up a couple times. Britney apologized and then tried to set him up with someone else…me. At first he refused, stating that all of her friends were flaky and he didn’t want to date anyone like that. But she finally convinced him to give it a try. The first time Chris called me to go out, I had tonsillitis, and was so sick. But he let it slide. The second time he called to ask me out, I had just had a wisdom tooth removed. I didn’t think he would ever call me back but alas he tried one more time. Our first date, he took me up to Park City. The Sundance Film Festival was going on, so we decided to go check it out. After browsing a few art galleries and seeing the enormous lines to get in everywhere, we decided to head back towards our own neck of the woods. It was snowing really bad and we wanted to make sure we got back to the valley safely. Due to a couple very bad high school experiences involving cars and snow-I am terrified of driving in the snow-well it’s mostly the sliding in the snow that gets me. I hate not having control. So driving through the canyons to get home and sliding all over the roads in his big Dodge pickup truck, scared the living crap out of me-which made me cling to him like stink on poo. Now you are probably thinking, “yea right, just another excuse to get close to him” and he was probably thinking “o cute, she’s scared”…but honestly I don’t think I breathed the whole ride down the canyon, I wanted to cry so bad, but I was trying to hold it together. He thought it was hilarious. I thought it was traumatizing. (He later down the road found out that it was no joke…I really am a big fat chicken when it comes to sliding in the snow. I can’t even enjoy brodys in an empty parking lot, it’s so bad.) Anyways, once down in the valley we stopped by the bar Chris worked/partially owned-The Republican. We met up with Britney and played some table top shuffle board and pool. I think it may have shocked him that I didn’t need help holding the pool stick and that I could actually play. Beginning of February I moved into my own apartment, and he helped my dad move me in. From then until around June we dated exclusively. But around June/July-ish I thought I wanted something else. I thought I wanted to move to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to be with/around some old friends. It would be a nice scenery change and I didn’t see Chris and I as anything more than just dating. So, why not? I was able to get out of my lease for nothing, so I packed up and moved back to my parents place til I could find a job and a place to live back east. For the next two months, I was back and forth from Utah to PA. I had found a job, and put a down payment on an apartment. I believe I was scheduled to move sometime the beginning of September. Anyways, I tried to break it off with Chris early on in June, when I had made up my mind to move East. I had told him that I didn’t see us going anywhere. I felt like we were always going to be exactly where we were right then. But Chris was persistent and wanted to know everything. He knew something was up because I had moved back in with my parents. When I finally told Chris that I was moving, he was furious. He was so mad, I don’t think he talked to me for a couple days. I tried to make things as easy as possible for him-but he wasn’t having it. I think sometime in July Chris’s mom reached out to me. She asked if I would go to lunch with her. It was there that she told me Chris was falling apart. He had completely broken down and wasn’t sure what he was going to do with me gone. The talk went well, but not well enough to change my mind. I returned to PA just after that to finalize some things, and was in a very bad motorcycle accident. I was riding on the back of my friends’ bike, headed to go meet up with some other friends. We were going about 45 miles around an “S” curve when the bike slid out from under us due to some miniscule amounts of gravel. We slid on the motorcycles side for about 40-50 feet before crashing into a guardrail and being thrown another 30+ feet. Neither of us were wearing helmets or leathers. I got some major road rash on my left side, arm and shoulder and one of the pegs from the motorcycle left a gouge in my calf. But no life threatening injuries. My friend only had minor bumps and bruises. It was at that moment I realized I had a whole butt load of guardian angels protecting me. (Fyi- this incident is the reason for my Manai symbol tattooed on the back of my neck meaning “Protected”.)I also realized I was not where I should be. So after about a week I cancelled my plans to move and stayed in Utah. Chris and I obviously got back together. And in late September we found out we were pregnant with Clay. Our original plan did not include marriage. We were just fine with being boyfriend/girlfriend/baby. Our parents however were not. They pushed and pushed us to get married, and so we did. December 2nd 2006 was the day. And the rest is history…. I now know that I am where I’m supposed to be, with whom I’m supposed to be with. It’s been a fantastic 5 years Babe, and I couldn’t imagine being with anyone else. Here’s to many a more 5 years. I love you! See next post for the corresponding pictures....