Cuteness

Toward the end of last week, I made the not-so-long (if you don't get lost) trek to meet Miss E.Claire and visit with Cam, Heather, and Jason. Here are just a few pictures (because there are so many more).

The Late Show with E.Claire

E.Claire and big sis, Camryn

Tonight, Jeff and I went to Abbeville for Grayson's first birthday. Grayson is my sweet friend, Hannah's, youngest.

Big sister, Claire, slam-dunking on her brother's new basketball goal. Each shot was followed with jubilant clapping and an "I did it!"

Cute cousin Peyton sippin' on her Capri Sun.

Birthday Boy Grayson enjoying his cake.

Baby Love

We have been inundated with babies these days. From college friends to high school friends to church friends to old friends, we have been seeing photos of, visiting, holding, and buying gifts for lots of babies. And I personally am loving every minute of it.

This July officially marks 3 years of Jeff and I not preventing pregnancy (after 3 years, I am tired of saying "trying"). The first year was okay. A few tears here or there, but no real worries. After some testing, we started on some fertility help, but after a miserable 3 months, we decided we were done with that.
I was furious. This stuff was supposed to work! I was supposed to be pregnant and I wasn't month after month! I was very angry with God. Had He seen how great my husband was with kids? No problems with a fussy one or even a dirty diaper. And me...the only jobs I have ever had involved children. I mean, I practically raised a set of twins that I babysat for. Were we just not good enough?

After much prayer and buckets of tears and still no baby, I am completely content. God has taught me several lessons through all of this. The biggest one for me is the realization that He is in total control. I remind myself of that daily (sometimes hourly, especially when I don't like what's going on). He is laying out what is best for our family every second of every day. How can I be unhappy about that?! He has also taught me that He picked the most perfect person to walk beside me. Can't say much more about that guy without tearing up.

With all of that being said, God is giving us a little nudge to open ourselves up to different options for enlarging our family. Fostering, adopting, and fertility treatments are all on the table at this point, and I feel like God is saying, "Go ahead. I've got it all figured out."

Top 12 Things I Love About a Cruise - Part 2

Picking up where we left off...

6. Towel Art and other bedtime stuff
I loved coming in to our stateroom after dinner to see the bed turned down, our "Fun Times" telling us the next day's activities, our chocolates, and our towel animals. Can you guess the animals?

animal 1

animal 2

animal 3

animal 4

1-walrus, 2-jazzy rabbit with sunglasses, 3-chillin' by the pool rabbit, 4-elephant

5. Crazy games and activities.

Our cruise included two full days at sea. This means there are tons of activities to participate in and/or laugh at. We watched people do sound-bite trivia, minute to win it games, and so on.

Guys on one side and girls on the other. You guessed it: Time for a heated game of Battle of the Sexes.

Ladies cheering "You can't do that!" when the men are caught bending the rules.

4. Music and other spontaneous entertainment

There was no shortage of music on this cruise. Every kind you can imagine folks. And I loved the random acts of entertainment, even when it happened in my stateroom.

The Fantasy Band, my personal favorite group on the ship

Some reggae dudes, my personal by-the-pool favorite

One of our table-mates dancing with Sherwin, our waiter. All of the waiters and assistants danced for us one night in the dining room. I had a hard time keeping my seat because I love to kick up my heels.

This would be Jeff's impersonation of a fly (this is also the entertainment in my stateroom).

This guy and another guy randomly popped up on the ship to break dance. They were known as the Fun Force. Both of them had tried out for So You Think You Can Dance and made it to the third round. They were very entertaining and I loved how they seemed to just pop out of thin air.

Our ship had two water slides and this was the first thing Jeff wanted to do once we were settled into our stateroom. Woooo hoooooo!

3. Jewelry

You can get some amazing deals on jewelry in the Bahamas, and it is the real stuff (we have the papers to prove it). Two words folks: duty free!

Blue and white diamond earrings. These actually uncoil and become a dangling earring with the blue diamonds at the bottom.

This ring has blue diamonds on one side and when you separate the two bands and flip them over, there are black diamonds on the other side.

2. Midnight buffet

This had to be a separate entry from food because there is nothing like having a piece of pizza, a chocolate ice cream, and a hot chocolate at midnight after laughing your head off at a comedian, watching a great show, or shaking your groove thing. I deleted this picture accidentally, but I will upload it later.


1. KARAOKE

We ended most every night with a good hour of karaoke watching (too chicken to participate). We heard some great stuff and some not so great stuff. We witnessed some random people singing together, a few back up dancers, and some great sing-a-longs.

R-E-S-PECT...find out what it means to me.

This act was a family affair with sons backing up their father.

I do not remember what this guy was singing, but the guy in red felt the song needed a little Irish step dance to make it complete.

Top 12 Things We Love About a Caribbean Cruise (Part 1)

Jeff and I just returned from a cruise to the Bahamas. We decided early on to make a Top 10 List of funny things and things we loved from the cruise. Come to find out, we could not narrow it down 10 so here is the first installment of the Top 12 Things We Love About a Caribbean Cruise.

12. Braids, mon.
I love how people feel the need to get their hair braided while they are in the Caribbean. I think that adults can have their hair braided in an appropriate way...a few braids here or there. Children and teenagers can have one or one hundred. Totally appropriate for them. Grandmas should have zero. This grandma, however, felt the need to go all out. Jeff snapped this close-up. Enjoy


11. Fun shows
During our cruise, the Fantasy Cruise Dancers (I kinda made that name up) put on two shows. We also had two comedians and a juggler. All were very enjoyable and it was fun to hear some clean comedy. I only have this one picture because I apparently didn't hear them say that we couldn't take pictures the first night. I heard it all the other nights.

10.FOOD
Do I really need to even explain this one?? If you have ever been on a cruise, then you know the food is amazing.

We thoroughly enjoyed the DIY Mongolian buffet bar. You picked your veggies, told the chefs what meat and sauce you wanted, and voila, they cooked it up into a delicious stir-fried bowl of yumminess.

This was from the Caribbean lunch buffet. For someone who started his life as a very picky eater (actually had to be bribed to eat), Jeff will try anything now.

This was from the formal night. We had lobster tails and shrimp. Jeff wanted another lobster tail and someone else at the table wanted more shrimp, so the waiter brought two complete plates. Jeff ended up with three lobster tails!

9. Naps
Jeff and I enjoyed naps in the room, naps by the pool, naps anywhere and anytime we could find a place to nap. This is Jeff waiting on me to finish getting ready...squeezing in a nap.

8. Meeting people from ALL over the world.
I love to meet people from other places, and then ask them a gazillion questions.

This is I Putu (yes, that's his name) from Indonesia. He was our room steward and took wonderful care of our room and us.

This is Villya from Indonesia and Sherwin from the Philipppines. They assisted us in the dining room. Sherwin works for seven months at a time and then goes home for two months. His wife and 7-year-old son live in the Philippines. Can you imagine only seeing your family every seven months?

Meet Alam, the magician, from India. His nametag said "table entertainment," but I thought that was weird. He was one of my favorite people because I could not figure out his tricks.

Meet Luke and Amanda. There were part of the fun team who lead the games and activities for adults on the ship. They sat down with us after a midnight deck party and let us pick their brains for an hour. Luke is from Ireland, but moved to New Jersey when he was 16 so he does not have an accent at all! He would like to be a cruise director one day. Amanda is from Canada and sounds just like Rachael Ray. She would like to go into broadcast journalism. They told us all about what life on a ship is like.

7. Big Dance Parties

What is not to love about a big dance party!

This is a blurry picture of the 287 person long conga line.

Me doing the electric slide with TONS of other people.

Entries 1-6 will follow soon!

Fourth of July Faces

Here are some pictures from the Fourth of July Celebration we had at church.

Tracy, Gabe, Ben, and Stacy watching the fireworks

Sweet little Crosby

Brock and Crosby (Crosby wasn't too keen on the fireworks)

Noah wasn't too keen on the noise the fireworks created

Terry and Tracy

Kelli and Allen

Emily and Grayson

Alyssa (hammin' it up)

Eli is very excited about the 4th...or maybe just the ketchup...it's hard to say.

Sweet Faces

My niece and nephew during a sleepover


Jeffy and Buggy (whom she always refers to as "your husband" instead of "my uncle")

WE LOVE (FREE) BRUSTERS ICE CREAM

Ollie's "cheese" face

Hannah and me~We have not seen each other in 10 years and met back up again at Music and Arts Week at Lake Junaluska, NC. She and I have both vowed to go back next year.