A Peek At Our Life

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Nature in my yard!

I have been enjoying my little gardens this summer. This is the first year I planted flowers from seed and I have been thrilled at how well they have done! They have done much better than the seedlings did that we planted in previous years. So I am showing you some of my favorites!

I love the colors on this marigold!

This Cosmo had this moth on it and I was able to get a picture of it.

This was a cool 2 colored cosmo. They normally don't split like that, the ends would be a lighter shade of pink, like the previous picture, so I thought it was neat.

One morning we went out on our porch and found this cicada. Pretty cool huh! It makes lots of noise here at night. The kids think he is really ugly, but I haven't really had a chance to see them up close before. I have heard them all my life because they are very prevelant here in the south, but haven't really seen them!

Amazing!

I know... You'll never believe it.. I'm 35! I had a birthday! It was a pretty quiet day for me. I got my presents in the morning and the kids gave me my birthday cupcakes in the afternoon. Kathleen baked them for me. We ate them at snack because the boys had twilight camp and wouldn't be around for dinner. But I made myself a good birthday dinner anyway!
Chicken Enchiladas!

David lighting the candles for me!

Happy Birthday to me!

Peter's 9th Birthday

Peter turned 9 on July 17th. He is such a fun boy.
He wanted ribs for his birthday, so Michael made these very delicious ribs for dinner.
I haven't ever heard of a boy wanting ribs, but Peter did!

Birthday ribs!

Peter and David made the birthday cake all by themselves!

I love it when the kids grow up!

Happy Birthday Peter!

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Nart Gun

I took Jared to the store to buy himself a "NART GUN". Translation is: Nerf Dart gun. David and Peter got one for their birthdays, so he wanted one for his own. He had some money, so off we went to Target.

The selection was easy, he found the gun he wanted and off we went to the cashier. Jared was very proud of himself as he handed her the $20 bill for his gun. It was only $9.60, so the cashier handed him back $10.40. A nice crisp $10 and shiny coins. Oh Jared was in heaven! "Mama, I GOT MONEY!" he cried loudly! A Nart Gun and Money... Oh what happiness! He exclaimed loudly his joy the remainder of the drive home.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

St Martin/St. Maartens

Another few picture of the pilot boat. This one in St. Maartens.

Pilot boat pulling up to the ship.

Pilot getting ready to board

Pilot boat leaving

View from the Harbor

There were cargo ships being loaded. We enjoyed watching them all day

Cargo Ship

We went ashore at St. Maartins and found a lovely little beach with pristine white sand. We hadn't worn swimsuits, but let the kids play it the water anyway. It started out as wading... but that didn't last long. It was fun and they were thrilled to finally be able to play on the beach. We had forgotten the camera on the ship, so I am unable to show any pictures of it. Carina did however come off ship on this island since she was finally feeling better!

St. Thomas Island

As we saw the Island of St. Thomas, one of the first things we saw from the ship was this abandoned fort and mansion. It totally caught my fancy and imagination. I loved it. I wish we could have explored them.

The fort

The Mansion

St. Thomas was beautiful. You are going to get lots of pictures of scenery because that is what we took! We went ashore and did some shopping in the morning, but mostly just enjoyed the view.

We pulled into St. Thomas in the morning. It was so pretty.
There was a nice sunny haze over everything.

Cliffs at St. Thomas

This is a pilot boat. It was so cool. The boat would speed up as we came into the harbor than match the speed of the ship. It would pull up next to the ship and the local pilot would jump over to our cruise ship to drive it into port and the boat would speed away.

Pilot getting ready to jump across

Boat is pulled up next to the ship and the pilot is boarding.

Then the pilot boat leaves.

Beautiful sailboats in the harbor

View of the harbor

View of all the houses on the hill.

Naussau

Our first stop on the cruise was at Naussau. It reminded me a lot of the French Quarter in New Orleans with the way the buildings were set up and the smells. We had a fun visit to a pirate museum with Laura, Nick, Sam, and Jacob.

The light house at Naussau

This is a picture of our ship in port at Naussau. The Carnival Glory. It was enormous!

The Theodosis' and the Aldrichs' walking to the pirate museum. (Carina was suffering from major seasickness, so she opted to stay on board ship during this stop in Naussau. We missed her)