Cruise recap - sea days

We got home Saturday evening after 8 days in paradise.

(on our way to Miami before our cruise)

7 days in the sun, food whenever we wanted, pepsi whenever we wanted, beautiful beaches, indescribable scenery, amazing relaxation, great company.

Our homecoming was quite a downer.

After not missing any KState's tournament games on our trip - they were playing this last one while we were in the air. So we landed in Wichita and dashed to find a TV, only to watch them lose. 

Then we walked outside to 40 degree weather - I was still wearing flipflops and my toes about froze off.

Welcome home.

Thank goodness we had two little ones that we missed SOOO much to come back to, otherwise, I think we could have turned around and headed right back to the Caribbean....in our dreams.

This was our first cruise, and we LOVED it! 

I was nervous about motion sickness, so I wore one of those patches behind my ear just in case, and I didn't get sick at all. From what we heard, the waters were rough!  We could feel the movement pretty much all the time.  The waters may have been rough, but the weather was absolutely perfect the entire time! 

Our boat left from Miami...

I was in awe even LOOKING at our ship, let alone being on it.

It was so fun taking this vacation with friends and family.

Thanks to Premier Designs for making this trip possible!

Last fall I worked HARD to earn the trip free for myself and very very close to free for Dave.

So we had the privilege of going on the cruise with some of our Premier "family".

And real family too - as Dave's sister does Premier also.

(me and my sister-in-law, Stefanie)

We were so excited to board and look around!

We were on the boat for several hours before it actually left Miami. 

We watched as the shore of South Beach became smaller and smaller until there was no land in sight.

It took about an hour for us to be surrounded by beautiful water stretching to every horizon.

We explored the ship a little bit, signed up for some excursions, met up with more of our Premier "family", made reservations at one of the speciality restaurants and started what we would do more than anything else on the trip - laying in the sun and eating!

This is where we spent most of our time on the days we were at sea.

Loved this clock!  And it was SO very true - I didn't wear a watch or carry my phone the entire time.

I was pretty impressed with our stateroom - bigger than I thought!  It was a balcony room so we could look out over the water or leave the door open to hear the waves anytime we wanted.

And of course we took our KState gear so we could cheer on our Wildcats from the ship!

Our group also consisted of a few KU fans - which unfortuneately for them - they didn't have to worry about watching anymore games after that first night!

I think one of the hardest parts of the trip was laying in the sun all day and then having to go back and take a shower and get all dolled up.  There were several nights I just about opted to put my sweats on instead.  Man, getting ready at 6:00 every evening is a lot of work. But I guess that's the only way to have good pictures to show - b/c I surely will not be showing many swimsuit ones!

One of the best parts of this cruise was getting to enjoy time with these lovely ladies...a huge reason I love Premier so much.

There were 11 of us total that came knowing each other and spent much of the time together.

We sailed for a day and a half - eating, relaxing, eating some more, laying in the sun.

I probably could have continued the entire 7 days doing just that.

But Dave was quite ready to port and change up the scenery a bit.

Stay tuned for pictures from the Dominican Republic, British Virgin Islands, US Virgin Islands, and Bahamas!

coming soon...

I have about 400 pictures from our cruise to sort through.

Don't worry, I won't share them all.

I'll probably break them up in different posts.

So stay tuned if you care to get a glimpse of our Caribbean vacation.

I had plans of getting caught up on housework, office work and life in general today.

But instead I have 2 kiddos, who I missed terribly, needing my undivided attention - so I'm off to cuddle and play!

outta here

7 days worth of cruise attire....check

Passports...check

Camera....check

Clean house...pretty much check

Schedule for who is wathching the kids and what they should know....check

3-6 inches of snow in the forecast for our area...check

OFF to Miami and then to the Carribbean....CHECK!!!

We're out!

my poor babies

More of a glimpse of what part of our February looked like, since I got way behind...

2 year olds with the flu is such a very sad sight.
He didn't want to move from the bathroom floor.

This went on for a few days....

And then the other one joined in too...

It stinks to have sickness in our house for a week - and it REALLY stinks that it seems like it takes us 2 more weeks to fully catch up and recover.  Bye Bye February.  Oh my, March is almost gone too. 

purple

Pretty much the whole month of February got away from me. So I'm catching up on some other pictures I never posted.

We had a nice little 6 hour getaway to our college town.
Ahhhhh, the place Dave and I met.
It's always so fun to be there and think back on all the memories as we drive around.

We made it just in time to grab some dinner at our favorite place in the whole world - Coco Bolo's!
We filled our tummies and then headed to the game.

For part of the game, I was bummed  - "man, we sure didn't pick a good game to come to"
Nebraska was SO ON.  I think they hit 14 of 21 3-pointers.  But it seemed like they weren't missing ANY.
I think at one point K-State was 9 or 10 points behind. 

But it got better.
K-State made just enough good plays to pull it off in the end. 
It wasn't all that pretty.
But it sure would have STUNK to lose to NU who was 1 and 12 in the Big 12. 

Nebraska's coach slammed the ball down and got a 'T' called on him - that was fun!

It was such a fun atmosphere.

The student section NEVER looked like this when were attending K-State.

Dave even leaned over and said "these games are much more enjoyable than the football games"
Okay - seriously?
Have you BEEN to a K-State football game??
Oh yeah, he has.  But not in true purple pride.
And RARELY as a college student did he go - instead he sat at home watching his Sooners play.

But if he thinks these basketball games are more fun, I guess maybe we'll just have to go to MORE games next year!

*************************

Last week we had our Community Life group over to watch KState and KU - which didn't end like we would have liked.

But it was a fun night - and we even had a yummy KState ice cream cake!

I'm pumped for March Madness this year and can't wait to fill out my bracket - I think I'll take the Cats all the way to the Final 4!

cars party

Do you ever have so much on your plate that you don't really even realize how much it is consuming you until it's over?

ahhhhhhhhhhh....and then you can breathe.

I feel like I've had these consuming feelings for the last month or so.
This past weekend was a BIG weekend - one I had been preparing for for awhile.
I helped coordinate a marriage retreat for 12 couples in our Sunday School class.
We had never done anything like this before - we started months ago from the ground up.
I can't wait to tell you about it - but I'll catch up on a few other things first.
When Sunday came - I crashed. HARD.
Saturday night. I went to bed at 9pm - and got 11 hours of sleep.
Sunday afternoon I slept for several hours and when I got up I still felt like I had been run over by a truck.
I couldn't even function, was SO tired - mentally, emotionally, physically.
Thankfully I have a wonderful husband who allowed me to be pretty pathetic on Sunday.

Man, you'd think I've been through some horrible, stressful situation in my life.
But it was nothing horrible at all - it was ALL good! Awesome stuff.
Things I was very grateful to be a part of.
I guess my brain and body just go into overload sometimes.

And I obviously got very behind on my blog.
So I need to catch up on the last few weeks.

I'll start with our little guy's 2nd birthday on the 28th.

His party was all about Lightning McQueen - from Disney's movie Cars.  He's just a tad obsessed.

We had a yummy lasagne dinner - my first time ever to make lasagne - thanks to a yummy recipe I got from a friend!  I am a little embarrassed to admit I had to call a friend to explain the oven-ready noodles to me.  It just seemed too easy that you just put them in the oven, hard, straight from the box - but I guess that's why they are called "oven-ready".

We watched a video of his pictures and then ate cake!

I used the Lightning McQueen cake pan - and had my first experience of using tips to cover the entire cake - man, my hands were tired. It took an extra trip to Walmart for more red coloring to get a RED racecar and not a pink one. I was so worried it wasn't going to look like Lightning McQueen when I was done!

We even had race car party favors..

This picture just makes me sad because he looks like such a big boy.

As always, he was very much spoiled by friends and family with gifts...what a lucky little boy.

Papa D. and Mima gave him a fireman's outfit - complete with a bunker coat, overalls, boots and a hat!

We were so lucky to have Aunt Rebekah here this time, she doesn't always get to make it for birthday parties.  She ended up getting sick while she was here - and as sad as we were that she was sick, we were glad to get her for a whole extra day because of it!

It's funny that as much as he loves cars and balls, and he is all boy - we can't seem to keep things like pink headbands away from him!

We had so much fun celebrating our baby! I think I'm still in shock that he's really 2.

Here are some more snapshots of his day...

(thanks to Laura, I used a template she made for Photoshop to put this collage together quickly!)

We are thankful for this little guy.  He is a blessing to us everyday.  As sad as it is to see him grow past the baby years, we are excited to see him grow up and develop such a sweet, loving and ornery personality! 

This past year I purchased this book.

One way I am trying to use it is to choose a "theme" verse that I will focus on each year for each of my children.  My plan is to pick each year's verse around their birthday, as another way to celebrate them and thank God for them.

So this is the verse I chose for Mason this year...

Be assured that from the first day we heard of you, we haven't stopped praying for you, asking God to give you wise minds and spirits attuned to his will, and so acquire a thorough understanding of the ways in which God works. We pray that you'll live well for the Master, making him proud of you as you work hard in his orchard. As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work. We pray that you'll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul—not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us.

Colossians 1:9-10 (The Message)

Happy 2nd Birthday Mason!

Cora's day

However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him."

1 Corinthians 2:9

Thinking lots about this little girl today.

And her dear sweet family.

Today, Cora would be 2.

Praying so hard for Jess and Joel as they face this day without her.

Happy Birthday Sweet Cora!

Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

Hebrews 11:1