back in april {taylor's sharing chapel}

Way way back in April, Taylor's first grade class had their day of  Sharing Chapel.  Each grade level gets one month a year to share their talents, quote scripture, and perform for their families and the rest of the elementary classes.  

 

This year, Taylor and her friend Ellie, sang Amy Grant's "Thy Word".

 

 It was seriously precious hearing those two sweet voices singing 

"Thy word, is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path..."

It never fails, I get teary eyed listening to these kids sing praises to the Lord and memorize scripture.

And just like that, first grade is over.  We are enjoying our summer so much!  It feels so good to not be on that strict school year schedule.  But things are about to get b.u.s.y.

Hopefully I'll get my big camera out a bit more this summer and get over this writer's block of not knowing what to blog about.  Because goodness gracious, otherwise my blog is going to turn into a health/fitness blog, and we can't have that can we?  

I kind of want to roll on the ground laughing at that because it's so far from the "normal me" than I can even imagine!  But hey, that's where I am right now.  So thanks for sticking with me as I shared some of my journey.  And thanks to those of you who texted, emailed or left me FB comments/messages of encouragement. I never ever want to come across like I'm saying everyone should do what I'm doing.  No way HOSEA!  Believe me, I sat there and didn't care one iota about this kind of stuff ever before.  But for those who have reached the point that you are ready, wanting, and needing change...I hope that little ole', bad habit, Pepsi drinkin', ranch dressing douser, batter lickin' me, can be an encouragement to you just like others were for me.

And in case you were wondering...I made it. 

5 days of raw foods only.  Fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds.  I didn't starve, I didn't just nibble and snack. I ate more food this week than I have probably ate in 1 week in my entire life.

I never thought I'd do it.  It was more mental than anything.  But I'm learning that I can be more disciplined about food than I ever thought I could be.  And that is going to be a life-changing skill.

 I've never been so excited to wake up and eat eggs or oatmeal.  Heck, I think I'll be having both.

the exercise part {and some thoughts on sugar}

Before I get to the exercise part, I wanted to tell you that day 4 of the 5 day raw challenge is almost over.  I WILL MAKE IT!!  I honestly didn't have high expectations for myself.  I've never in my life ate this many fruits and veggies in one week and when I heard that day 2 was the hardest, I didn't expect to get past that day.  Day 2 definitely WAS the hardest.   I had a detox headache all day long.  I felt queasy, learning that I needed to eat a lot more than I was. It was a looooong and hard day.  But I made it.  And since then, I have felt pretty good.  This is the hardest and most disciplined thing I've ever done with food.  I've had greens for 9 of the 12 meals I've eaten this week.  There were meals I choked down my spinach and kale salad and even today, I couldn't even swallow my smoothie (which was really pretty yummy!), but I didn't give in.  My lifesavers  have been guacamole, salsa, watermelon and cherries.

In the beginning of the week I dreamed of my 2 cheat meals this weekend.  As the weekend gets closer and closer I've thought less and less about steak and cheese fries and more and more about eggs and oatmeal.  Seriously, who am I!?  Changes like this in my mind set makes me believe that anyone can do this. I can totally see how this trains our brains to think differently about food.  I can almost guarantee if I do go crazy with the cheat meals, I'll more than likely pay for it.  I don't want to screw up everything I worked for this week.  

So moving on...

 For the 90 day clean eating challenge, we get daily points for working out for 20 minutes or more.  This part of the challenge alone could have killed me a few months ago. Not that working out for 20 minutes would kill me, but just making a routine of this and figuring out what I could successfully do without late night gym visits again.

Last year (or maybe it was earlier this year) a friend from my hometown posted on Instagram that she was participating in the Bikini Body Mommy Challenge.  I didn't pay too much attention to what it was.  I've never had any luck doing any types of workout routines from home.  But in April, she posted that another challenge was starting.  This time I was in.  And I told a handful of friends about it and they wanted in too.  That's what REALLY helps.  To be able to check in with friends and complain about mountain climbers and burpees.

So I'm now on week 5, or maybe it's 6, of the Bikini Body Mommy Challenge 2.0.  You can find her on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and her blog.  And it's FREE!  She'll post her daily video on Facebook, YouTube and you can even sign up through her blog to get it emailed to you.  It alternates between cardio days and strength days and the only equipment you need is a set of dumbbells.  It is so easy to fit a 20 minute workout into my day.  Even if it gets late, I still find myself getting it in before I head to bed.  In just 5 weeks I've noticed changes in my body.  And my hubby has too.  That's always the best when someone else can tell.

 This picture was day 1.  Dave was sick and I made him turn around so he couldn't watch me.  I'm sure I was a bit painful to watch.

My kids love it too.  They get pretty upset if they find out I did it without them. And sometimes Taylor turns it on by herself and leads her brothers.

You can start anytime.  You can pick up on the current day's video, but if I were you, I'd start at the beginning.  Each week changes, and gets progressively tougher.  You can find the entire list of videos here on YouTube.   That way you can start at Day 1 if you want to.

But here's what I'm most excited about.  I used to think that I could overcome my food habits by working out hard.  But that led to some frustration.  I worked out so hard last spring and didn't really get anywhere. I saw some changes. But there wasn't really any weight loss. I got in a good routine of running for awhile, and I hardly saw many changes to my body at all.  But you read it in my last post, that ever since I eliminated a lot of sugar and processed foods from my diet, I have seen the biggest changes to my body.  I am closest to my pre-baby body (but still far away) than I've been in 7 1/2 years.  I am FINALLY convinced (and am about to get even more convinced) that food is where my focus needs to be.  I need to exercise too, but food comes first!  Food will get me to where I want to be. And it was so fun to read this blog post from a friend that's been on this journey for the last year, it will REALLY inspire you!  I am finally convinced that SUGAR is the biggest culprit to all of us moms (and really everyone) who think we will have to live forever with these mommy pooches.  Diets don't last, the shakes and pills get expensive, we workout like crazy and it's still there.

I learned yesterday that in 1900 the average American consumed 10 pounds of sugar a year.
by 2010, the average American consumed 156 pounds of sugar a year, that's the same as 50 teaspoons a day.  Something is obviously wrong here.

This isn't just the chocolate bar you grab, or the pop you order at lunch, or even the gatorade that we are tricked to thinking is healthy, or the dessert you have after dinner. While those are obviously full of sugar, that's the sugar we usually KNOW about.

 But, I've learned there is SO much more.  We consume tons of added sugar into things we don't even realize have sugar in them.  I won't try to explain it all to you, just watch this.
It's everything you grab from your fridge and pantry that comes in packages and bottles, from your ketchup, salad dressings, that "healthy" cereal for breakfast and jar of spaghetti sauce.  Sugar is everywhere. Even in the things with labels that make you think it is a "health food".

When I'm all done with this challenge, I know my eating habits will be forever changed, they already partly are. But when I make the choice to enjoy a cupcake or have ice cream with my family, I want to know that it was the only sugar I ate all day long.  I want to know that I chose that sugar.  I don't want my body to have been fed sugar all week long that I didn't even know about.  That ultimately wreaks havoc on my body.  I want the control in my hands.  Because that will be how I can get the results I want.

Do you have any other good workouts that are free?
I'll finish the BBM challenge while my clean eating challenge is still going, and will need something to continue.  I could always start repeating some weeks, but I'd love to know if there are other awesome things out there.  Or if you are doing BBM too!

raw week.

Okay, so RAW WEEK started today. And yes I was freaking out.  I'm  the gal who needs a nightly plate of nachos.  Or who loves to make brownies or chocolate chip cookies at 10pm at night and indulge with my hubby.  I would add my daily/nightly Pepsi also, but I gave that up in April.

But this is also the gal who is ready to get her body back. And to feel better all around.
If I keep doing what I'm doing, I'll keep getting what I'm getting.  (seems to be something I've been hearing a lot of lately).

So the deal is that we attempt a 5 day raw challenge.  If at any point we want to stop the raw challenge, we then just begin the clean eating challenge.  I honestly cannot believe I'm really doing this.

So this week it's veggies, fruits, more veggies, raw nuts, and more veggies. 

I'm not really sure how this "non" veggie girl is going to do.

Why raw??  Lots of reasons...

It will detox my body, get a kickstart on weight loss, get my body ready to DO THIS, help me start to develop a taste and desire for veggies, and give me a jumpstart on having energy and feeling good.
And now that I've completed day 1, I'm realizing that it is going to make clean eating seem like a breeze!!!

I chopped tons of stuff on Sunday.  Which made it so much easier to have things ready fast for smoothies, salads and snacks.

So today's menu was pretty simple:

Smoothie for breakfast:  spinach, kale, banana, strawberries, blueberries, pineapples, carrot, chia seeds and ice cubes.

Snack: Carrot and watermelon

Lunch:  Well, lunch is when things turned bad...

 It looks good, I know.  But I tried the mixed power greens (mizuna, chard, kale, spinach).  There was something in there I didn't like at all.  I doused it with salsa, which I think will be my saving grace this week for my salads. But I had to swallow almost every bite with water.  Tomorrow I think I'll stick with spinach and kale.
I used this recipe for the salsa.  The Gracious Pantry is the best place I've found to get any clean eating recipes.

Snack: handful of raw nuts and cherries.

Dinner:  Same smoothie as breakfast just BIGGER, but this time I did the power greens in it, and I didn't taste them at all!

Plus I made sure to get all my water down (half my body weight in ounces) and got my workout in.

What are my thoughts on day 1?
It was doable.  I felt full most of the day. I had a few people that made comments about me being hungry all day, but I was surprisingly full.  But I ate big servings.  Because when you're eating fruits and veggies, you can!  I will save the power greens for smoothies only, and tomorrow I'll be dousing my salad with guacamole also.  I had greens for every meal.  First time in my lifetime.  It's a mental game.  So much of this is training my brain and thinking of food as medicine, what my body NEEDS, not what my body wants. 

To end a day knowing that I put nothing but good stuff in my body feels pretty good.

 I have no clue how long I'll make it.

Wednesday I'm hosting a lunch and playdate for a bunch of my Premier girls, I will be making them yummy ham and cheese sliders.  I've had this planned long before I knew this would be raw week.  So yeah, if I make it past Wednesday, it will be a miracle.

I was smart today.  I put together roast, carrots and potatoes for my family in the crockpot last night so I don't have to prepare a dinner tonight while I'm trying to stick to my raws.  Now if only I can be on top of things the rest of the week.  Then we'll all get on the same menu for the most part.


I've had a lot of people ask me if this will be a one time challenge or if it will be offered again.  YES! It will be offered again.  Probably one in the fall and then again in the winter.  So if you're thinking it's something you want to do, just watch for announcements, I'll be sure to let you know. And start changing some habits now, it will make it much easier! The challenge is based out of Ohio/Indiana, but there are teams from a handful of different states. There is tons of support and learning involved in the challenge, plus coaches that can answer all of our questions and help us on this journey. We aren't given a meal plan but are given ideas.  We are being taught how to just eat clean.  Buy whole foods and not processed.  A good starting point for me was just figuring out how I could take our normal meals and make them clean.  I would never realistically be able to follow someone else's meal plan/recipes for the long haul.  This is about learning how to do this for more than just a few weeks or months.  If you're at all interested in the next challenge, let me know and I'll start a list of people who want to know when the next challenge starts and try hard to make sure you know about it.

I won't continue to post daily about this challenge, I know that would annoy some of you greatly.
But I will try to update you from time to time.   I have one more post about something else I'm doing for my health that I'll tell you about in the next few days.

Bring on Day 2 of raw.

some changes

So I wanted to tell you about some changes that I'm making to get healthier.  Mostly to hold myself accountable.  But also because I'm getting a lot of questions and I figured I could explain things better here.  And, because I know that there are probably some of you out there that are exactly where I was, stuck in your ways and not caring too much about changing habits.   I'm not trying to persuade you to change. I just want to say that I was right there.

When it came to anything health and food related, I would say I was just simply uneducated and didn't care all that much to be educated. I didn't care what I was eating, as long as it tasted good.  I do like to workout.  But I can count on one hand the number of months I've consistently worked out in the last 10 years. I got in a 3-4 month routine of going to the gym last year, and I felt AMAZING and saw some changes in my body.  But 1-2 hours at the gym every night just wasn't feasible to continue for the long haul.  The phase wore off.  That workout phase was the first time since college I had done much, other than train for 3 weeks one time for a 5K.  And with that phase, for the first time I actually wanted to eat better.  I was working hard to look decent in my swim suit for our 2 vacations last year.  And when I work out, I am motivated to eat the right foods.  The minute I stopped working out, I started eating crap again.

I wasn't really finding anything that would work for me, exercise or diet, for more than a short period.  Everything always wore off eventually. I'm guessing I'm not alone in that. 

This year started a new journey to become healthier.  At the beginning of the year I attended an essential oils and clean eating class.  Both of which left an impact on me and nudged me into changes.  Before this, I hadn't really heard the term "clean eating" all that much.  Mostly because I didn't care.  I had my stubborn opinions about food.  But to put it simply, this is what has stuck with me...
"80% of the way we feel has to do with the food that we eat".

Hmmm??  Well I know I don't feel the best most of the time.  I don't ever feel like I have much energy. I seem to get sick pretty easily.  And we just finished the worst winter ever with sickness in our home.  Now, I realize that could be our stage of life.  Little kids who are in nurseries and preschool classes, and who bring all the yucky germs home.  I realize it may not all be in my control and that we could take every precaution possible and still get sick.  But, I am willing to do what I can with what is in my control.  And then ultimately, I'm ready to not only feel better, but also feel better about myself.  It's no fun at all feeling like a frumpy mom, trying to hide her body all the time because of baby weight that I've been dragging around for several years.  And let's be real...wearing a spanx cami every single day of my life is just no fun.  And when it's 100 degrees outside, it's pretty much miserable.

So here's the deal on clean eating...
Everyone you talk to may give a different explanation. Some forms of it are pretty extreme, and cut out things like dairy and meat completely. And clean eating is not the same as paleo.  Some versions include only eating fresh picked produce (which means you better have the ability to grow all your own food).  I'm totally fine buying my food at the store.

What I like about clean eating is that to an extent, you make up the rules that work for you and you are comfortable with, but the basics are always the same.  And it's not a crash diet.  And I don't want a diet that makes grocery shopping impossible.  I pretty much never leave this town to get groceries, so I need to be able to get everything here locally, and I'm finding that to be completely doable.  It's not meant to be something you just do for a short time.  It's more about a lifestyle change than a diet.  That's great for me.  I don't want a diet that I end up quitting after a month or so and then go straight back to where I was. 
Based on my cooking, grocery shopping and eating habits, I was in need of a lifestyle change.

I don't feel like I have to commit to "all clean, all the time".  I'm not going to stress out on holidays and times I'm out with friends.  And realistically, even at home, things are not going to be 100% clean.  But what I've noticed already, in the last 6 months is that I think differently about food.  When I'm eating the yucky stuff, but the oh so good stuff, I think about it.  I know it's not good for me, I know I can't fall into a habit of it.  These are not things I used to think about.  When I grocery shop I automatically read every label.  I can't even help it anymore. I don't care about the nutritional facts.  I just care about what's in my food.  If the list is long, with a ton of things that I can't even pronounce, I know it's overly processed and full of things I don't need nor want in my body, or my kids' bodies.
Once I started educating myself and actually learned what that extra stuff in our foods does to us, it was hard to ignore it.  It’s scary to look at an ingredient list and realize you wouldn’t want to breathe in or touch most of the chemicals listed.

Clean eating for us is eating whole foods as close to their natural state as possible. It's stopping myself from grabbing all the convenience foods and just making things myself when I can (like salad dressings, sauces, using my own seasonings, etc).  It's been about changing some of the things we used on a regular basis to the cleaner version. And about not eating out so much. They aren't changes that are just going to last a short time, they are changes that will continue.  I really felt like this was a good explanation for me...

So Monday I'm starting a 90 day clean eating challenge.  I'm participating in the challenge with about 200 other people, all placed on teams for accountability and support from a handful of different states.  The challenge includes coaches available to answer questions and help us learn how to do this, including a doctor specializing in natural and functional medicine and clinical nutrition, clean eating classes, and a community of support to help us keep going.

I was scared to commit, I really was.  And I almost didn't do it. 90 days is a long time.  It would have been a no brainer had it been 30 days.  But what I realized is that 90 days will help change habits, and not just pick up changes that will last a month and then fall back into old routine.  90 days is enough time to see huge changes to overall health, when 30 days is about the length of time someone may barely begin to see changes.  After 90 days, I will know how awful I felt before.  It will give me the chance to 100% prove to myself how food affects my body and the way I feel.  That's what I need.  I need the proof.   Weight loss isn't the #1 goal with clean eating.  But those that have been a part of the challenge before have definitely dropped major poundage.

I'm not going into this cold turkey.  There is actually no way I would be able to do that.  We've been eating much much cleaner since January.  And guess what!?!  If we want to simply make this about weight loss (which it is actually way more than that), I'll tell you that I am about 8 pounds lighter than I have been for years.  Last year, even when I was working out, my body changed, which was great, but the pounds didn't seem to go anywhere. I completely contribute the number on the scale right now to the changes I've made in my food since the new year.  No calorie counting, no crash diet.  Just eating cleaner.  And that's without adding the workouts in.  I've only started working out again in the last 5 weeks.  So I'm super pumped to see where I can get when I have both the food and the exercise going for me!

 So I've had about 6 months to baby step into this.  Baby steps is what I need.  We slowly switched our white rice and pasta for brown.  We slowly stopped using the cheap maple syrup and brown sugar in our oatmeal and switched to honey or real maple syrup or no sweetener at all. We slowly stopped opening the cupboard to look for snacks, and instead are learning to grab fruit and other healthier snack options. We slowly began putting more veggies on our plates. I am NOT a veggie eater, so this has been a challenge.  I stopped drinking pop at Easter and hardly even think about it anymore.  And we very very slowly transitioned off cereal (even the "healthy" stuff is full of sugar), something I honestly didn't think my kids could do.  Next question everyone asks...what in the world do your kids eat for breakfast then?  We eat eggs, oatmeal and smoothies.  That's pretty much it.  On weekends, every once in a while I'll make whole wheat pancakes.  I would have said you were crazy to think I could get my kids off cereal, they ate it every morning and pretty much every night for a bedtime snack.  But they did it!  And it's really been so neat to watch them learn to make better food choices and take pride in the choices they make.

I am the only one in my family 100% committed to the 90 day challenge.  I know there are going to be times I'm just not going to be able to keep it clean for everyone all the time.  But because we've been working to this point anyway, they know they challenge is coming, they know they will be participating too, and they are all for it. They just begged to have more cheats than the 2 cheat meals I get each week.

We'll have several trips during this challenge and I just told myself I'm not going to stress.  If I don't have good point days during those trips, it's ok.  But getting back on track when I get home is what will matter.  I'll fail some days I'm sure.  But my goal is to start each new day fresh, do better than I did the day before.  This if for the long-haul, not just something trendy and short-lived.
After the challenge is over, I know I won't be as hard core as I will have been for the challenge.  We need cheat meals, treats, even cheat weeks. But I have a feeling after experiencing the results of eating clean, it will be hard to go back.

It's crazy the responses I've gotten already as I've approached this challenge.  Some people think it's crazy.  They roll their eyes. But that's okay.  I probably would have been one of them a year ago.  Some people don't get it, don't understand the whys.  That would have been me too.   Some people automatically define it as impossible.  I would have felt the same way had I not taken the last 6 months to slowly get us here.  And some have just wondered why not just eat clean on my own, why participate on a team, in a challenge.  I have been mostly eating clean on my own for the last 6 months.  But for me, the team, the points, the support, the extra education, and motivation of a challenge is what will help me go ALL IN.  And going ALL IN means I'll get to experience all of the results that I don't necessarily experience when I'm just "mostly" eating clean.

I want to know what feeling good really feels like.  It seems like we just learn to cope with the way we feel sometimes.  We think it's normal.  We don't realize how low on energy we are until we experience what energy really feels like.  We don't realize how bogged down our immune systems are until we strengthen it.  And we don't realize how many health issues we deal with on a regular basis that are completely connected to the foods we eat.  I'm ready to care about it all, and I'm ready to make changes.

 I'm ready.  I'm nervous, but I'm ready.  I have friends doing it along, which I know will help so much!
Week one starts off with a 5 day "raw" challenge.  I'll tell you more about that soon.
If you have questions, feel free to leave them for me!

The countdown is on...3 days to go.

some things never change.

 I snapped this picture the other day and the second I looked at it, I just knew I had taken this same shot before. 

May 13, 2014

So I went searching for it.

Aug. 13, 2013

A few things have changed for sure, but some things never will...

 Drubers will always be one of their favorite places, and this will always be one of their favorite spots.  (except for the spot with Papa and all his buddies).

2.5

Today, our littlest one is 2 1/2.  I hadn't been keeping track, but just yesterday Dave and I were thinking about it and we realized today was his half birthday.  5.28.14.

I've been a little quiet on the blog lately.  Not intentionally.  But I ALWAYS have things to say about this guy.  He's something else I tell ya.

When Dave and I left at the end of March for our cruise, he was saying minimal words, and hardly putting two words together.  When we came back 8 days later, he was a total different child. And he's been talking like crazy ever since.

I'll let you find what's wrong with this next picture.

Geesh, I can't turn my back.

 

 This past school year, it was just me and him 3 days a week.  Starting in August, it will be just us two, every morning.  sigh. (that's a good sigh and a bad sigh)

Poor last child, doesn't know how to play alone.

And doesn't want to be with mommy most days.  I'm kind of kidding, but not. 

He's the biggest daddy's boy ever.  As in...

I wake up every morning to him crying for Daddy at the door of his room.  I never know what kind of emotional condition he's going to be in once I open the door.  There have been some mornings he has shoved the door back closed on me because it wasn't Daddy coming to get him.  If he does let me in, the first words out of his mouth every.single.morning. are "daddy home?"  And 5 out of the 7 days a week the answer is no.  This is when it can go 1 of 2 ways.  He will decide to be okay with me.  Or he'll decide to spend the morning screaming and crying because he just wants Daddy.  Poor Daddy gets many calls on his phone, because it's the only way I can get him to calm down many times.

He wants Daddy to get him out of his car seat.  He wants Daddy to carry him.  He wants Daddy to play with him, rock him and put him to bed. And he so badly wants to be able to go to work with Daddy just like Mason.

Now, I'm not complaining.  I love their connection.  And it's a nice break for a mama most of the time.  BUT, when the person he wants is gone 80% of the day, it's a little bit of a challenge.

Hopefully it's a phase, and we'll have lots of fun just the two of us this next year.

 Oh, what a little helper he is.  He liked to try to pick the flowers I was about to buy, he loves to smash the bread in the grocery cart, and he loves loves loves to empty all of my expensive bottles of real maple syrup into his bowls of oatmeal. Therefore ruining the oatmeal. The bottle I have now, was bought by a sweet friend that came with a note that said "NOT FOR GAVIN".  We'll see if it stays that way.

 But he also loves to cuddle on the couch with his mama.  And watch Barney.  And he loves to be rocked and read to before bed.  He loves to dance.  And he sings the "Hot Dog, Hot Dog, Hot Diggity Dog" song and "Lord, I Need You".  He takes off into his Sunday School class better than either of the other two kiddos did, and he loves to wave and say hi and bye to strangers.  I've never had a child who will interact with strangers at all, so I think it may be safe to say this one may be our extrovert.

 His facial expressions are quite hilarious.  There is a lot of personality in that little body. 

Everything is categorized into Mama, Dada, and baby.  Size of fruit, size of trucks, size of bites, size of everything.  And daily when I ask if he's my baby, he says "no, I da mommy, you da baby" or sometimes "daddy baby, I da mama".

And he gives the best hugs and kisses.

He's a pure joy.  I can't count the number of times I've caught one of the other two kids or Dave watching him or listening to him and then turning to me with such a content smile as if to say "he's so cute, I can't believe he's ours".   Of course Dave and I think so.  But to see our big kids get stopped in their tracks, and look at him with eyes of endearment and just take him in...it's just a precious thing to see.

 And then there's this...a 2 year old riding a bike.  I don't know what ages most kids start to ride bikes.  But I know my other 2 did NOT ride this early.  They rode trikes and push toys.  Not bikes.  Bikes are for big kids.  But this baby of ours has decided to skip the trike and go straight to the big stuff.  It baffles me every time I see his little body pedaling all over the driveway.

2.5 is just plain too little to be doing this.

But I can't stop him.

Easter

How was Easter already a month ago?  And how in the world do we only have a few days left of school!?

I'm ready, but not ready.  Our dinner and bedtime is already getting so much later.  And we are jumping into that relaxed summer time mentality a little bit early.

Have you read this blog post, by Jen Hatmaker?  It's hilarious, you may just laugh out loud. I ran across it last year and am starting to see if circle around again. It is so nice to know this happens to most of us moms!  It is so spot on.

So let's back up to Easter. 

We got out our candle wreath and switched our wood figure of Mary, on a donkey (from Christmas) to Jesus carrying his cross.  And we loved listening to this Easter version of Hallelujah while we watched the candles flicker.

I love the anticipation of Christmas, the smells, songs, traditions, memories.  The thought of all the years of waiting for a Savior, and one night He came silently. 

But there is something that goes so much deeper at Easter.  The excitement and joy is hard to even explain.  It's way down deep inside.  Maybe it's because Easter isn't crowded by so many other things, and we can focus more on the actual events and meaning of that day.

Or maybe it's just that this amazing love story culminates to this spectacular climax, leaving us awaiting the next return.

I don't know what it is, but whatever it is, Easter is becoming a favorite of mine.

After church, we ate lunch out together, just us 5.  And had a quick photo shoot before we got home.

I tried to be in some.  But those didn't turn out :-(

I was shocked that they all asked me to take a picture of them alone.  We actually told THEM we needed to stop taking pictures and get home.  Maybe it was a stalling tactic for naptime.

We normally do Easter with Dave's family but his parents were gone this year, so we were on our own.  We ate out for lunch after church, took long naps and then had friends over for Easter dinner.  They didn't have any family to spend Easter with either, so it worked perfectly.

(although I have NO idea why these 2 pictures are not clear one bit) 

I told them to squeeze together and this is what we got.  Couldn't have happened more perfectly.

I don't think these kids realize how lucky they are to have a gate that goes from their yard to their best friends' yard.

And now, here we are.  Almost July 4th.  Geesh.

NYC Cruise {the cruise part}

I took way more pictures in NYC than I did the rest of the trip.  Another nice part of being on a ship in the ocean, means no phone or internet access.  Which means, most of the time my phone just sat in our room.  I wish I had taken more pictures of the things on the ship, but oh well, next time. 

Days 1 and 2 were at sea.  I know some people don't like the sea days but I love them. I love knowing that there is nothing to do other than explore the ship (which is a lot to do) and just relax.  Normally I'd be by the pool laying out, but it was freezing outside.

With all of the chaos and sickness before we left, Dave didn't get the haircut he planned to get before we left.  So we bit the cost and he got one on the boat.  $35, not terrible, but not his usual $10-15.

Our first stop, Day 3, was Port Canaveral, Florida.  The downside to leaving from NYC is that you don't have time to get too far south.  But I guess when you live in Kansas, any beach is better than being landlocked on all sides with flatland for miles. We opted out of the swamp-land alligator tours, and the Kennedy Space Center and decided it would be a good beach day.  We were saving our excursion money for something else!  But it ended up being pretty windy.  After a little bit of shopping, we found The Sand Bar that we had heard awesome things about, and took our time eating some amazing fish tacos and fresh peel-and-eat shrimp.  Just about the time we were finishing up, I spotted  a super sweet gal I went to high school and played basketball with.  She's in a different Premier family and it's always so fun to see each other at Premier events.  A few years ago we promoted to a new level of leadership and walked across the stage together at National Rally. She's awesome and it's been fun re-connecting a little bit!  She and her hubby were dropped off at the Wichita airport at the same time we were.  We were on different flights to NYC but we knew we'd see them on the boat. So it was super fun to see them walk into The Sand Bar and join us.  So our lunch continued for another hour or so. Those unexpected visits are always the best.

We never made it to the beach that day, other than just walking on it a bit.  So we missed some sun, but we also missed getting stung by the sand the whole time because of the wind. I did happen to get in a picture that made it LOOK like I had been at the beach all day.

 So the reason we opted out of some excursions was to get a couples massage at the spa on the boat. Total splurge, but so worth it to me.  Dave isn't a huge fan of massages, he likes them but doesn't see why I love them so much.  But he was up for doing it with me, as opposed to sending me to the spa alone.  So day 4 started with relaxation.

 And then an announcement from the captain that we wouldn't be stopping at Norwegian's private island that day due to rough seas.  There isn't a port and the only way to get people to the island is by small boats back and forth.  With rough seas, there's no safe way to do that.  But the bright side was that we would head on to Nassau and get in there for the whole evening instead of the next morning.  We had been to this private island before so we weren't too bummed.  We were excited for more time in Nassau.

We got off and ate a local seafood dinner and then visited the Atlantis.  It was free to see the aquarium at night, so total score!

On the taxi ride back to the port, our backpack (carrying our passports) got left in a taxi.  We noticed within a few minutes, but the taxi was already gone.  Soooooo.....
We did what we could for an hour or so that night to try to find the taxi, and decided to continue our search the next day.  We knew we could get back on the boat with just our boat card, but needed to make sure we could get back into the US.

I guess we have a history of losing important things on vacations.  Remember my $700 Visa gift card we lost at Disney World?

It was one of those tough decisions...do we just forget the passports and enjoy the day or try to find them?  We felt like we needed to attempt to find them.  In case they had been turned in or taken to the Embassy.  So the morning of day 5 consisted of a visit with the taxi booth, another trip back to the Atlantis, a visit to the police station, and then a trip to the US Embassy.  We got confirmation there that we would be fine getting back to the US.  So we ended the search and found a beach.

There is something wrong when you notice the lifeguard wearing sweats and a stocking cap.
 The wind was pretty awful.  We laid on the beach for an hour or so, and then had enough.

 We got back to the boat an hour or 2 before we needed to be.  We had really seen plenty of Nassau on our passport search.

This was the view of all the ships in port at Nassau.  Ours is the one on the far right.  I had no idea our ship was that big.

This was our view of Nassau as the boat left.

 Our room was off the very back of the boat, instead of one of the sides.  It was a fun new perspective.

Not sure what on earth happened to the coloring of this one.  Bummer too, because it was probably the only non-selfy picture the entire trip.

And Dave didn't even have to miss much March Madness.

 Ok, so one last thing.  I found some pictures online (and I'm sure there are rules on that, but I HAD to show you a few more things that I wasn't able to get pictures of).

 First, these are the slides I mentioned in the last post that dropped you straight down - so fun!

And one of our other favorite parts of the ship was the ropes course on the top deck.  AMAZING!

But wait, that's not all!  There was a plank!  It was the most terrifying thing ever - but soooo fun!  Dave and I both did it.  They just don't let you take your phones up there so we don't have proof.

It was craaaaazy!

 

And that's a wrap.  I noticed we had a bunch of pictures all posed the same way.  I guess there aren't too many ways to take "usies".  But it was a fun look back at our trip together.  Such a fun week with my love.

 
The last 2 days were back at sea.  One day it was warm enough to still lay out on the sun deck, while Dave took the behind-the-scenes tour of the boat.  Then on the last day it was rainy and cold all day.  The p.e.r.f.e.c.t day to sleep in, eat a late breakfast, go back for a late morning nap, eat lunch, then an afternoon nap, then dinner.  There is nothing more relaxing than doing NOTHING when you know there is nothing on earth else you can be doing.
It was a perfect ending before we were back to reality.

We are so thankful for these trips that we've been able to take because of Premier.  With life and kids, and busyness, and money...trips like these would not really happen.  It is such a treat to earn these trips for free and just pay to get there and for extras.  Premier is so generous, and we are so thankful for these memories and experiences that we've been given.  And always so humbled and thankful for those who support my business.  I just started my 11th year!