Month: June 2009

Friday Fun, Relationships

Having Dad Around Just Adds Up

Karen

Not just DADS, but MEN, too!
Not just good DADS, but good MEN, too!
What exactly is Dad Blogs?

Dad Blogs is a site based on the vision of two dads with one goal in mind — to make the internet a better place for Dad Bloggers. Dad Blogs was born out of necessity. Both of the creators of DB were tired of browsing through parenting blogs and being assaulted with page after page of feminine ad campaigns and badges for mom blogging networks without ever seeing a male alternative.

Actually, I had assumed (because I just now read the about page – I’m a dweeb like that) that the Dad Blogs’ community was all about edifying dads in general.

But building a community of Dad bloggers is good, too. 🙂

So, now I’m confused. Is it okay to brag about the dads in my life? I hope so, because that’s what I’m going to do.

(I’m a bit of a rebel like that. *smile*)

I think men get a bad rap. And I think dads get an even worse rap.

And by bad rap, I mean this whole crazy notion that it’s not necessary to have a man in one’s life in order to have children.

Perhaps it’s not necessary in the mother’s life, but it sure as hell is necessary in the child’s life.

Once again, it’s all about what is good for the SELF and not what’s good for OTHERS.

I can’t tell you how sick and tired I am of this attitude, people.

Now I’m talking about normal situations – where the woman has chosen to have the baby without involving the father. Or has chosen to exclude the father in someway, whether that’s a physical exclusion or an emotional exclusion. I’m not talking about situations where the father is abusive or detrimental to the overall family unit. Or where the father has decided to reject the mother/child. (His loss)

That’s an entirely different ballgame.

No, I’m talking about the general assumption that fathers are somehow an afterthought — that they don’t really matter in the overall scheme of things. As long as the WOMAN is fulfilled and satisfied, then screw the dads. And the kids? Will be fiiiine. Don’t worry about them.

That ideology makes me grind my teeth in irritation.

Fathers are important to children. They bring insight, balance and a unique perspective that is necessary for children to absorb. It’s taken me years of reconditioning my way of thinking to believe that, but after 19 years of marriage and two boys later, I’m convinced my life, and my boys’ lives, would not be what they are today if Kevin hadn’t been in the picture.

And he nearly wasn’t. But that’s a story that must never be told.

There I go, off on a tangent again. Can you tell the topics I’m passionate about? I apologize if this seems all “in your face”, but there are just some things that I think need to be said.

Let me give you an example of how important Kevin is to my boys and how NOT having him around would have changed their lives – and not for the better.

Grade cards came in the mail yesterday.

Kevin had come home for lunch (he’s so good about eating leftovers for lunch everyday – me? Not so much. But then again, I rarely eat that much for lunch anyway) when he handed me two envelopes addressed to the boys.

(I have no idea why he does this – I guess because anything to do with the kids is somehow my responsibility. Wait, that bit of sarcasm was unfair. If he had kept, and opened, the envelopes without telling me first, I probably would have gotten annoyed with him. The man can’t win. See how difficult we are to get along with sometimes, ladies?)

I held my breath and opened them.

I don’t know why I always get so nervous whenever I take a peek at the boys’ grades. The school district has this nifty (and totally cool, I might add!) online database where I can access my sons’ grades and assignments at any time so there is rarely an unpleasant surprise when it comes to grades anymore. But still … I’ve lived through too many last-minute disasters to completely relax, I suppose.

No surprises. Well, there were a few classes that I wasn’t sure how they did on their finals, but the overall results? Not bad. They could have done better, but what kind of mom would I be if I didn’t feel the urge to push them juuuuust a bit more?

But considering they handled their classes, on their own and with virtually no help from us, is saying quite a bit.

They are so much smarter than I give them credit for.

There is one exception to this subject praise, though; Math.

The boys have had to have help with Math since 1st grade – when they were first introduced to Calculus.

I kid. But not by much.

And that’s always been Kevin’s department because when God handed out the ability to analyze equations and solve for X – I was too busy curling my hair to have received it.

In short – I. Am. TERRIBLE. At. Math.

Go ahead, tease me. My guys do. And they are fully justified.

I can honestly say, and with absolute certainty, that if Kevin hadn’t been around to help these boys with their math over the years, my children would have ended up on the IEP program.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But I know, in my heart, I would have helped put them in that situation simply because I lack the intelligence to help them in this one area.

But being thankful that Kevin was around to help with math goes WAY beyond actually working the problems — I’m grateful that he taught them patience, perseverance and the importance of applying certain applications to real-life scenarios.

So those decent grades in math? The ones they earned all by their lonesome with only minimal help from dad this year? Is largely due to the lessons that Kevin taught them.

It all goes back to the different perspective thing I wrote about earlier.

Kevin is such a great father, in so many ways – both large and small – that I simply can not imagine, I cannot fathom, what sort of life the boys would have had without him in their lives.

Children miss SO MUCH when dad’s not around.

(word count: 1075)

karen1

Summer Fun

Summer Fun Activities: June 12th

Karen

Are you ready for some fun ideas to keep your kids busy this next week?

Here are five ideas to get the creative juices flowing (and please, take these ideas, build on them, make them your own, use them as a springboard for bigger and better ideas):

Day One – Take your child on a field trip – take him/her to work with mom or dad. Even the most mundane place is fun and new to a child.

Day Two – Count the number of steps it takes to walk to the corner with your child.

Day Three – Have your child look for bugs. How many different kinds of bugs can he or she find? Size? Color? (Here are some handy homemade bug traps: Bug Inhaler | Bug Hotel | Lady Bug Inn

Day Four – Have your child list all uses of math around the house. Take him/her shopping and have the child keep track of what’s being purchased – great lesson about budgeting!

Day Five – Cut pieces of paper into shapes and paste them in a quilt pattern with your child.

Crafts for the Kids (by age)

Featured Craft of the Week:
Toddlers
Dot Stamping

4 to 5 year olds
Artwork Jewelry (or use Shrinky Dinks!)

6 to 8 year olds
Flour Children

9 to 12 year olds
Bottle Buds

Here is a fun activity from the book, “A Lithgow Palooza!”:

groovy-face2 Starry Night

This palooza directs our gaze to the sky in search of the art and poetry there.

arrow-right-side What to do:

Explore the nighttime sky and find the art in the stars. Translate what you see into images and words.

Take a look at Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night. This famous painting isn’t an exact representation of the stars, but an expression of how they made van Gogh feel.

What do you see in the stars?

Start with a little stargazing. Choose a good viewing place and time: a clear night far from a city. If you live in a city, save this palooza for when you’re on vacation, or hop in the car and drive to where the city glow won’t disturb your view.

Turn off all yard lights and inside lights, then go outside with a pair of binoculars. Let your eyes get used to the dark while you’re setting up — it can take up to ten minutes for your eyes to fully adjust to the darkness. Spread a blanket on the ground, lie down on your back and look up.

You’re seen stars so often that you stop noticing them. Try now to really look at them. Let the sky full of stars wash over you and surround you. Think about the stars in relation to your five senses. What do they look like to you? Jewels? Pinpricks of light? Observe how they’re grouped, how they shine. Note the words that come to mind about what you’re seeing.

If stars were music, what would it sound like? Something light and tinkly, from the high end of the piano? Or complex and dramatic – a symphony of sound? Do stars have a scent? Have you ever tasted anything that reminds you of stars? If you could reach up and touch the stars, what would they feel like? When you get back inside, jot down any impressions you had while looking at the stars and any words that describe them. Think about colors, shapes, sounds, tastes, textures; use nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs.

Try writing some poetry about the stars. Start with a simple haiku, a non-rhyming poem that has three lines and seventeen syllables. The first line has five syllables, the second line has seven syllables, and there are five syllables in the third. Look at your star word notes and see if there are some that seem to connect well. For example:

Bright stars glimmering
Against the dark sky at night
Are smiling at me.

Your turn. 🙂

Dear Diary

Dear Diary: You Should Have Known

Karen

dear_diary Dear Diary:

You should have known. You should have known that putting any kind of restrictions on me would backfire – pronto.

Here I was, consistently writing and posting, day-in, day-out, sometimes twice, even THREE times a day, just cranking out the word count when BAM – I had to go and put a restriction on myself by posting that dad-blasted 1,000 words a day button in the sidebar.

Now, I feel OBLIGATED to write 1,000 words a day and guess what?! I’m completely blank. Not one word, not one letter, not even a DOT of an idea is forming in my head.

Well, this sucks rocks.

Tough. I will trudge forward. I am a professional (it says so, right here on this fancy piece of paper) and I WILL persevere. I will do what any professional does when he/she gets too overwhelmed with self-imposed responsibilities – I will ignore you.

Button? What button?

Anyway …

I had lunch with Kevin yesterday. I love going to lunch with him. It gets me out of the house. It’s our private time.

And I get to bask in his dressed-up-professional-handsome glory.

*sigh* I miss dressing up to go to work every day.

We ate at Qdoba. I had my usual grilled veggie burrito (my favorite! I’d marry it if I wasn’t already married!) and he had his usual … er … burrito (damn, the name escapes me right this minute).

He talked about work. I listened. There could be some big-time changes for him in his professional life and I’m not sure how I feel about that. On one hand – wow. The responsibility. On the other hand – wow. The responsibility.

Of course, if I wasn’t aware that I had the Internet looking over my shoulder, reading this entry, then I might be able to go into details, but suffice it to say – it’s a good thing we are people who can roll with the punches.

Just sayin’.

We talked about our cruise. Duh. It’s coming up fast and we’re really excited. The kids are excited – I think. It’s hard to tell what is up with them right now seeing as how they’ve turned into these video game/computer zombies. They have been glued to their seats ever since school got out and it’s really starting to bother me. Do they really not have any other interest other than video games/computer?

And why does that bother me SO much? After all, they are only living by my example considering I’m on my computer so much of the day blogging, writing and oh yeah, working.

*sigh* Perhaps I’m uncomfortable with them being on their games/computers so much because when I look at them, I’m really looking at an aspect of myself and I’m thinking I’m not liking that aspect very much?

I don’t know. That’s too deep for me right now. I don’t want to think about it.

So, the cruise thing. Yeah, we’re excited. And I think it’s affecting Kevin’s attitude because he’s just been so … on edge lately. I think it’s largely due to the fact that he knows he’s about to have an entire week off, in the sun and fun and that food will be available to him 24/7 (food is always SUCH a big deal when we go on vacation. Not to me, but when you have three boys …)

I remember I always used to sort of hate vacations when I was working – the anticipation of going just threw me off rhythm for weeks beforehand and then I had such a sucky attitude for a few weeks afterward because HELLO!? Who wants to come back to work after having so much fun WITHOUT it?

So yeah, I can understand his attitude and I’m trying to adjust by walking on eggshells.

And we BOTH know how much I hate walking on eggshells. Been there, done that – caused major problems.

After lunch, I went shopping.

It was an accident, quite frankly. I had just dropped him back off at work and I was thinking about the cruise when I realized, with a jolt of surprise, that I only had a short time left before we had to leave and *gasp*, I didn’t have anything to wear for the formal nights!!

I believe I mentioned, (didn’t I?) that the only party dresses I own are the crushed black velvet kind?

Right. Think Elvis painting.

They’re terribly dated, immature and quite hideous, now that I think about them.

So, um, yeah, picture this – a 43-year old woman walking in with her dashingly handsome husband and sons dressed to the nines in their dress slacks and ties and me – a walking Elvis painting.

Gag me with a spoon.

I’m sure I would have been part of many funny, memorable vacation moments for a lot of folks.

So yeah, I panicked. I dropped by Dillards – just to take a quick look.

I should have known it would be an expensive quick look.

I was impressed by the sheer number of dresses to look through. They had devoted an entire corner of the store to party dresses so right off the bat, I became dizzy. Where do I even start?!

So, I did what I always do when I go shopping, I started with the mannequins. I figure if the mannequins have on something that I like, then chances are, the surrounding clothes might be a good place to start.

And I wasn’t disappointed.

I tried on several dresses and quite frankly, I was very pleased that I fit into my size so comfortably. All of the working out had definitely paid off. Granted, I hadn’t actually lost a size, but at least the size I was comfortable wearing was loose on me – and that’s all I had really been going for anyway.

I knew, as soon as I tried it on, it was THE ONE. It fit perfectly. And it was classy, yet flirty. And I felt pretty in it. And I LOVED the cowl back – so sexy.

I bought it.

I couldn’t remember if our cruise had one or two formal nights, so I came home, looked it up on their website – two formal nights.

Crap. Would it be tacky to wear the same dress again?

I went back out to Macy’s to see what they had.

I was disappointed as their selection wasn’t NEARLY as grand as Dillards, but I did happen to find another dress, totally NOT me but one I liked instantly.

Isn’t that strange?

Well here, I took a picture of them.

dresses

The black one has a lace bodice and a cowl back:

Isn’t that sexy?!

And I know, the flowery one – totally not me. But it’s linen and I thought the black strip on the bodice and skirt made it seem more dressy and I really wanted something cruise-y feeling, hence the tropical flair.

When I showed Kevin, he wasn’t all that enthused. But I was elated, I felt comfortable with my selections (well, I am still wondering a bit about the flowery one) and he totally popped my bubble by taking a look at the size.

WTF?

That made me mad. What difference does it make what size it is?! I’m an Amazon woman – get over it!!

I don’t know why he insists on making me out to be this petite woman – it will never happen. It’s physically impossible.

But after cooling my heels for a bit, I started thinking about it. I think he was just curious because he wanted to know my size and weight. After all, my size and weight are more closely guarded than state secrets.

(Which, now that I think about it, aren’t really all that closely guarded anymore, are they).

I modeled them for him and when he saw them on me, I think he actually liked them a bit more. I honestly think one of the biggest reasons he wasn’t too enthusiastic about my dresses was because I had to spend money in order to buy them.

And ya’ll KNOW me, I don’t LIKE spending money either, but when it comes time to enter that dining room, and he sees how all of the other women put me to shame on what they’re wearing and that I will at least look halfway decent, I think he’ll get over the sticker shock.

I do feel guilty though. And trust me when I say, I’ll wear these dresses every chance I get and will likely not buy anything else like this for another ten years (which was the last time I bought any sort of party dress).

Now … to find some dress slacks for the boys …

(UPDATE: I returned the flowery dress. I just didn’t think it was formal enough. So now … I’m on the hunt for another formal dress. Aargh!)

(word count: 1433)

Life

Bracing to Take Them Off

Karen

I wasn’t going to post today, but then I saw that funky 1,000 words a day button in the sidebar and started feeling guilty so …

Here goes another 1,000 975 words.

The only time I left the house yesterday was to take Dude to his dentist appointment. Well actually, Dude DROVE us to his dentist’s office. When I told him he would be driving, he huffed and rolled his eyes like I was asking him to go out and dig up our backyard so I could plant a garden or something. Yeah, driving yourself around is SUCH an inconvenience, wise guy.

(*snort* And as if I WOULD plant a garden. I’m a wussy girl when it comes to getting my hands dirty).

I have to say, I’m getting pretty sick and tired of Dude acting like driving is the last thing he wants to do. Granted, I GET the fact that driving is not exactly high priority for him right now, but guess what DUDE, it’s called life and you’ll participate in it whether you like it or not.

I had to get that off my chest.

So, Dude drove us to the dentist’s office. And he was pretty sloppy about it. I don’t know if it was because he just didn’t want to or if just wasn’t paying attention or what, but seriously, his turns were so jerky I’m surprised my head is still attached to my shoulders.

And I know he can do better because when we drove to Willard to see his cousins and Jazz was in the back seat, he drove perfectly. He anticipated traffic, his turns were smooth, his stops were precise, but not jerky – he did great.

And I’m assuming he did so well because he had Jazz in the car with him.

Apparently, being a good driver is not as important when plain old MOM is in the car. Pfft.

We get to the dentist office early, he signs in and they call him back within five minutes. As I’m sitting there, flipping through an old something-something magazine (I can’t remember the name of it) and reading about *Jon and Kate, I’m thinking to myself:

Now how do I tell these people that enough is enough and it’s time to remove Dude’s braces? It’ll be three years in August and when we started this whole process we were under the understanding that it would take no more than 30 months, tops. I don’t want the kid to start his junior year in high school with braces. Take them off already!

So there I am, stewing over my fumes while waiting for Dude to get done and I’m still mentally working the problem over in my mind, turning it every which way, trying on different scenarios, offering various options (picture solving a Rubic’s cube and that was the state of my mind at the time), when Dude comes walking out.

And he’s smiling.

Well, that knocks me back a Rubic’s turn or two. Dude is 16 going on six (meaning he’s still pretty immature) – he never smiles unless he’s trying to butter me up for something or he gets a high score in one of the endless games he takes way too seriously.

I’m instantly suspicious.

And hopeful.

I put down the magazine and meet him at the front desk. The dental assistant who worked on him is standing by and I don’t even give her a chance to intimidate me (as I’ve done in the past by allowing them to talk and never asking my own questions) before I jump in with a firm smile and a “So, what’s the deal?”

I’m afraid I was so determined to get a definitive date out of them as to when we could expect to get Dude’s braces off that I might have been a little … pushy abrupt.

The dental assistant looked nervous (I tend to intimidate people – sorry) before offering a soft smile and a look at Dude.

“Good news!”

I immediately relaxed.

“He needs to wear the bands for five more weeks and then come in for an impression.”

I must have looked confused.

“For his retainer. You know about the permanent bottom retainer?”

I nodded, too stunned to actually see the light at the end of the tunnel to do more than that.

“And then, two weeks later, he’ll get his braces off!”

“Hallelujah!” I shouted at the top of my voice and did a happy jig right in the middle of the lobby.

Oh wait, that’s what I WANTED to do. Instead, I simply turned to Dude and gave him a big smile and a wink.

He smiled back.

My heart swelled and pressed against my breast bone.

So, dates:

July 14th – impressions (Poor kid, he’s got to have a whole mouthful of gummy clay stuffed into his mouth).

July 30th – BRACES COME OFF!!

At least, that’s the plan right now. If they change it, believe you me, not only will YOU hear about, but so will the dentist.

Okay, that sounded a little bitchy and I can assure you, I’m not really like that in real life but dang it, it sounded good, didn’t it?

This is off-topic, sort of, but periodically, Kevin spends his weekends going through old home movies and digitizing the best parts (I hadn’t realized how many HOURS I used to spend taping the boys when they were little. I swear, I have entire eight-hour tapes of them simply being babies – you know, waving their chubby arms and legs, cooing and blowing spit bubbles. I love the tapes, but the sheer mind-numbing inaction drives Kevin bonkers. I don’t know, I was just so FASCINATED by them. I mean, I pushed these little creatures out into the world!!!!!).

Anyway, I thought this video sort of went along with Dude’s teeth drama. In this video, please note how Dude’s new tooth was coming in behind all of his other teeth. And that’s because his lower jaw was very narrow and he simply didn’t have enough room for all of his teeth.

I have the same problem.

So, we took him into the same orthodontist when he was in 3rd grade to have braces put on and his lower jaw expanded (they put some sort of contraption in that I had to crank three times a day so that it literally pushed his teeth outward. Yeah, it was as much fun as it sounds.)

He had his braces removed in 4th grade to allow for the rest of his baby teeth to fall out. When his two upper eye teeth grew in, they grew in too high so he looked like an over-eager vampire on the prowl.

That was stage one – to make ROOM for all of his teeth. We’re ending stage two now.

Hence, the reason he had braces put back on in 7th grade.

My family didn’t exactly agree with my (and I say “my” because even Kevin wasn’t entirely sure he agreed ) decision to put braces on Dude in 3rd grade. But I’m quite convinced it was the right thing to do because if we hadn’t, chances were that all of his permanent teeth would have grown in at all sorts of odd angles because there wouldn’t have been room for them and I’m sure when he finally had to have braces it would have been a much bigger, and longer, process.

So, in a nutshell, I’m trying to say the kid is SICK TO DEATH of braces.

But man, his teeth are going to be nice.

I would also like to apologize for the fact that we paid the kids $5 bucks for every tooth they left under their pillow.

I know. What the hell were we thinking?! But in my defense, all I can say is, we were so excited about them losing their first teeth that we got carried away, but that it was too late, we had already set a precedence for future teeth.

Learn from my mistakes, people.

And Jazz? Is so cute I just want to eat him up. I wish I had taken the time to really appreciate their cute factor when they were that little.

*The Jon and Kate thing. I was going to write a post about how I think people are being way too harsh on them when I happened across this post from Temporarily Me Dot Com and well, she says it so much better than I ever could.

I’d like to say though, I agree with her assessment – we’re ALL Jon and Kate to some degree.

(word count: 1419)

Monday Stuff

Weekend Top 5: Monkey See, Monkey Do

Karen

weekendtopfive

Weekend Top 5 is hosted by Kristi at The Wheelz are Rolling

number It’s “Whack a Mole” time at my house!

Please grab a mallet and when you see the little suckers digging yet another tunnel through our yard, please whack them HARD. For every mole you catch, I’ll pay you $50!

*sigh*

It really has come to that. We’ve always had some sort of mole problem ever since we’ve lived in this house, but here lately – wow – it has gotten out of control. I think we’re now hosting a whole colony of moles.

Kevin worked diligently, for several years, to try and catch the buggers and he has caught quite a few, but for every one he caught and killed, three more took it’s place. It got to a point where he just gave up — he wasn’t winning the mole war.

But our yard … well, you can’t walk across it without stepping into soft earth and I swear, it’s like navigating a mine field so you won’t twist your ankle. Kevin has been pulling this roller thingie on the back of the mower in an attempt to flatten the mounds, but still, it hasn’t done much good.

So he finally broke down and hired a mole guy. The mole guy came out last Tuesday and set six traps – and as far as we can tell, half of them have gone off. The mole guy is scheduled to drop by either today or tomorrow to check them so it’ll be interesting to see if he actually caught any.

I’m both hoping he did and hoping he didn’t. I mean, I WANT to catch the critters, but for every mole he catches, it’ll cost us $50 bucks. I suppose it’s worth it to rid of them, but geez louise.

Fifty bucks per mole could get expensive – especially for us.

Kevin spent the weekend watching mole videos on YouTube. He now wishes he had watched these videos before hiring the mole guy because now he has a better handle on what type of trap works best and where and how to set them up. But it’s too late now – we have a mole guy.

I swear, Kevin is turning into that crazy groundhog guy on Caddy Shack. If his speech starts slurring and he forgets to shave, I’m going to be seriously worried.

number4 The boys stayed the night Friday night with their cousins, so Kevin and I went out to eat at Ruby Tuesday’s. We hadn’t been there in quite some time and we both had Chicken Fresco with white cheddar mashed potatoes! YUM! (There’s a picture of the dish in their header).

After dinner, since we were so close to the church where we got married, we stopped by and took a quick picture:

In front of church #2

It’s hard to believe we’re going on 20 years of marriage.

After this picture, we went and did something every couple does at least once a week ………….

…………………

Yes. We went grocery shopping. THAT was our hot night out. Exciting, aren’t we?

(You were thinking of something else, weren’t you. Internet! You make me blush *grin*)

number3 Kevin and I did a little clothes shopping Saturday. I generally don’t like to go clothes shopping with him because I have to take special pains to hide my pants size from him — the man thinks I wear a size 6.

HA! Silly man.

What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right?? 😉

Anyway, I took him to TJ Maxx to look around. He had never been there before. But he found three Hawaiian shirts (which I’m not a big fan of, but he loves them and they ARE outside his comfort zone so I’m all for it) and now, he really likes TJ Maxx.

Yay for me! (This means I can go shopping there without him raising an eyebrow. Actually, he doesn’t give me a hard time about how much money I spend because, well, I don’t spend money. I’m cheap).

I found some khaki dress shorts. I ended up buying a size bigger (SHH) because this particular style looks really dorky around the crotch if you wear them too tight and besides, they’re like 93% cotton, so they should shrink a little in the wash.

I’m really looking forward to seeing Kevin wear his Hawaiian shirts on the cruise; he’s going to look so cute.

I believe we’ve officially reached “middle age.”

number2 I saw this challenge on Inky Girl’s site and was instantly interested (I think her site is down right now, so please check back later, it’s worth a look):

1000words_500w In essence, Debbie is challenging writers to get into the habit of writing 1,000 words per day. And if writer’s are doing that, they have permission to post this button in their sidebar and/or post.

But if the writers stop writing 1,000 per day, then she is asking that they remove the button because after all, it’s no longer true, right?

So of course, I’m going to do this. (Did you think otherwise?) If you see this nifty button in my sidebar, then I’m writing 1,000 words a day – and I’m counting my blog posts in with that total, too. Because after all, I’m writing, so that should count for something.

And if you think that’s splitting hairs, then you don’t write many blog posts, do you. 🙂

It ain’t so easy. Believe me.

number1 And lastly …

We finally secured our shore excursions for our cruise in a few weeks. Kevin and I read through hundreds (it felt like it, anyway) of options and finally picked out three things to do on three different islands.

Our first stop: Grand Cayman Islands.

We chose the Cayman Shore Snorkel excursion because we wanted to go snorkeling, but I didn’t want to have to jump off a boat and snorkel in the middle of the ocean to do it (because I’m a big baby and just a teensy bit scared of the water) and this way, we can go snorkeling off the coast, then break for lunch, then go back and snorkel some more before heading back to the boat and getting cleaned up for dinner – which we’ve reserved for the 6:00 o’clock slot.

Note to self: buy an underwater camera.

Next stop: Isla Roatan

We opted for the Pirates, Birds, & Monkeys of the Caribbean for two reasons:

1. It sounded interesting – both seeing exotic birds and monkeys and surrounding vegetation

and

2. Because Isla Roatan scares me.

Let me explain.

When we were researching through these excursions, we didn’t really know a lot about the Isla Roatan. So, we Googled it.

Wow.

It sounds like the taxi drivers are a notch below aggressive. Now this may not seem like that big of a deal to you, after all, some taxi drivers ARE aggressive, but these taxi drivers are so aggressive that the Isla Roatan actually have “tourist police” designed solely to help tourist settle disputes with the drivers.

Apparently, you MUST make it crystal clear to your driver about how much it’s going to cost per person and if it’s one-way or round trip. If you don’t take the trouble to make sure all parties involved are clear on the cost, then the drivers have a habit of gouging tourists out of more money.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t particularly want to spend a portion of our time on the island negotiating fees or having to deal with tourist police, so we opted for this excursion because it sounds like most of the sights are located on the other side of the island anyway and this way, our price is set and other than tip, we’re good to go on price.

If I can avoid confrontation, I’m going to, thank you very much.

Next stop: Belize

We will be exploring Mayan ruins here. Our excursion is called Altun Ha & Belize City Tour.

And the title says it all. We’ll take a shuttle from the pier and explore the city and then we’ll travel to the Altun Ha ruins.

Three plazas and thirteen structures mark the epicenter of this very important ceremonial site of the ancient Mayan civilization.

I think the boys will really enjoy seeing the ruins. We’ll have permission to climb on the ruins, unless it rains.

Let’s hope for good weather.

Our last stop: Cozumel

We chose not to book an excursion on Cozumel. One, because we’ve already spent too much money on the previous excursions and two, we want the freedom to just wing it on Cozumel mainly because that’s the island that Kevin and I honeymooned on and we’re looking forward to re-visiting the place and showing the kids “where it all started.”

We might do a little snorkeling and just laying around on the beach, too.

So that is what we have planned for the islands. We’ll also have two days at sea, so we’ll have fun doing stuff on the boat, too.

I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am for this trip. Not only because it’s the second cruise for me and Kevin, but because this is the first cruise for the boys.

I can’t wait to see how they handle it.

(word count: 1520)

Monday Morning Meme

Monday Morning Meme: June 8th

Karen

All you have to do is answer the questions below either in the comment section, or on your blog. And elaborate! Make these questions show your unique and special personalities. This meme entry will post at 12:01 every Monday morning and will be the first postentry listed on WFK all day Monday. (This is an all-day Monday meme, so please, play all day!)

Monday Morning Meme at writefromkaren.com

June 8th Questions:

1. If you knew of a way to use your estate (and let’s assume you HAVE money to leave), following your death, to greatly benefit humanity, would you do it and leave only a minimal amount to your family? Why or why not?

2. What’s something your parents used to say to you as a child that you promised yourself you’d never say — but now you catch yourself saying all the time? Now tell us something that you say all the time that is uniquely you.

3. List all the things you’d put in a time capsule to be opened in 40 years.

4.

Take the poll, then answer the questions on your blog. So, which do you prefer, gas or charcoal? Do you grill out very often? When was the last time you grilled? What did you grill? Tell us about your favorite grilling memory.

You can also insert this poll into your blog (if you wish) by following the “share this” link, or copying and pasting the embed code located in the right-hand column (scroll down) on this page.

Monday Morning Meme Participants

1. Dawn’s Daily Life 2. Sue 3. Jodi

Learn more about Monday Morning Meme here.

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