Keep flying time!!

I realized the other day that we were already past the 5-month mark of waiting. In fact I didn't even think about it until a couple of days after it had passed! I just hope and pray that time continues to move along as we wait for our referral. God's really been using this time to show me what kind of woman and mother I want to be. I remember, when I was a little girl, on days that I would wake up early and come upstairs I would find my mom reading her Bible and praying for the people on her prayer list (written down in a notebook). Sometimes I would cuddle up with her while she finished her Bible study, and looking back on that it makes me realize that I want to be that for my children. I want to be a prayer warrior for my children, and a woman who seeks God's will for my life. I have changes to make in order be this, but thankfully God doesn't ever expect me to have this perfected, He just wants me to desire Him.

This morning Dave and I were talking with each other about a news story I had read about a family who does "Frugal February" every year. In February they don't spend any money on groceries, eating out, clothing or entertainment. Pretty much they just pay bills, and continue their charitable giving. They only eat food that is in their cupboards/fridge, bake all of their bread, and make dry milk to drink (ew). They find activities to do that are free like test driving cars. They did allow themselves one night of ordering pizza with change they found in a change jar sitting around the house. I thought that was such a cool idea! I would love to try that some month. Dave and I run to the grocery store nearly every single day to pick up items for supper. I know that we could save money by planning better. We are thinking that we need to take advantage of the library offers in town of free tickets to different museums in the Twin Cities - especially now before the kids come home!

On Sunday we are going to a Philippines Cultural Event in St Paul. I am so excited to go to this!!! We are going with a gal that I met through my Ya.hoo adoption group and her family. Her son is singing with the kids' choir at the event, and I can't wait to see what all of this entails! I have no idea what to expect, which is a pretty fun way to go into it. I will definitely blog about it when we get back. Then the next weekend, we are going to a U of MN seminar about international adoption issues - risk factors and effects of institutionalization, infectious diseases and known medical conditions, country-specific medical issues, research on children adopted from orphanages, development and attachment issues, and post-adoption parenting strategies. Two weekends in a row of adoption- and/or Philippines-related activities. How exciting!!

I will now leave you with a before and after shot of Gus's most recent spa day (a.k.a. the groomer):

(We believe in extreme close ups in our family)

The end of the cruise

I think Dave and I are finally over our PVD (Post Vacation Depression), it's hard to get back into the swing of things!!! We both got sick last week, and are finally starting to feel better. Yay for feeling better!! Now the warmer weather can kick in any day - this afternoon Dave thought I told him it was going to be 70 degrees tomorrow. Wishful thinking, I guess!!

Thursday morning we woke up in the Ocho Rios, Jamaica port. It was another beautiful day, and the view outside our ship was gorgeous as well. There were pristine white houses and mansions on the hillside where our ship was docked. We had bought an excursion through Carnival to do a garden tour and the Dunn’s River Falls adventure. We headed over to meet our group and get loaded onto our bus. Our driver was Howard (Howie), and our guide was Marguerita, who was very knowledgeable and gave us an interesting history about Jamaica and its geography. We went to the gardens first, and we both enjoyed the beautiful plants and flowers. Quote of the day: “Rach, can you believe that these are only ANNUALS in Minnesota?? These are PERENNIALS here!!!” (Can you guess who that quote is from? Hint: He is posing like a goon in the doorway picture)

Our view of Ocho Rios from the dock where our ship was

The Cool Cool Runnings boat

Our tour guide at the garden tour (I forgot her name - oops), and some pretty plants. Dave knows the names of each and every one of them.

The namesake of our last puppy...
Dave and I posing in front of the falls at the gardens
Crazy peacock

After finishing at the gardens, we walked around a Jamaican shopping center for about half and hour, then we were off to Dunn’s River Falls. You can’t go to Ocho Rios without visiting this place, there is nothing like it in the US! I don't have any pictures of this printed yet, as we used a water camera to get these pictures. Let's hope they turned out!!

There was a guy leading us up the falls, and another guy videotaping us the entire way up the falls. These guys are amazing because they can just run up the falls at full speed WITHOUT FALLING DOWN. It’s crazy. There were probably 1000 people on the falls that day, it was so crowded, but our guides did a great job guiding us up. At the end of the climb they told us that we could purchase the DVD of us climbing up the falls for $40. We thought that was pretty steep, but our dinner friends mentioned that they would split the cost with us if we would be able to copy it. We jumped on the chance, and purchased the DVD. The company was recommended by the cruise line, so we thought we would get a good quality product – WRONG!! The actual footage of our group climbing up the falls was a whopping 1 minute 48 seconds. Criminey. We are attempting to get our money back, mon.

That evening was the second elegant evening, so we got all dolled up again and ate dinner. We watched a dancing/singing show that night that was a tribute to the Beatles. We had so much fun singing along to the songs, and then we headed off to bed.

On Friday we had another sailing day, and it was great to just relax in the sunshine all day long!! We meant to go play bingo one last time, but decided our tans were more important and stayed out on the deck all afternoon. We ate lunch in the dining room (I discovered that I liked doing this waaaaaay better than eating at the buffet). There we met a couple from New Jersey, and a guy from Central Washington. He explained to us that he lives in the desert part of Washington state. I didn’t even know that there was a part of Washington or Oregon that wasn’t rainy!! It was fun to chat with all of these people. That evening we ate our last dinner with our tablemates. By that evening I was having a hard time eating my supper. We spent so much time eating this week that I felt like I couldn’t eat anymore. However, I was able to fit in one last Chocolate Melting Cake (my absolute favorite dessert on the cruise).

Our favorite place on the boat (during the daytime)

Lucie (our phenomenal waitress) singing a song, I guess she blinked a lot b/c I don't have an open eye picture of her

Our cozy room The tiny tiny (but very efficient) bathroom

After supper there was a show with the “Carnival Stars”, and we watched fellow passengers who had won karaoke contests perform as different stars. Some were hits, and then some were misses. The guy who was Elvis forgot the words, and then spoke them instead of singing them. It was pretty funny. We headed to bed after that so that we could wake up bright and early to debark in the morning. We were feeling ready to be home that night (although not ready to face the cold weather!!), and see our Gus.

On Saturday we ate breakfast at the buffet, and then waited in our room until our floor was called to get off the ship. We headed down to get off, and had to go through customs. We waited in a loooooong line, and the guy scanned our passports. We got through in record time, and the customs guy even WINKED at me J We got a kick out of that. Once out of customs, we waited for a bus to transfer us to the airport. We waited for another long period of time for that bus to come, then waited in a very long line at the airport to get our tickets. We got on the flight with no problem and were happy to get off the plane in an almost warm Minnesota!!

Goodbye CRUISE!! We miss you!!!!

PVD

This week Dave and I decided that we are suffering from something called PVD - Post Vacation Depression. We had an AWESOME time, and we spent more than enough time relaxing in the sunshine. I've never experienced anything like it, but I'm exhausted and lethargic at times. I want nothing more than to eat an entire acre of Chocolate Melting Cakes (a favorite on the cruise), and lay in bed all of the time. I feel like a crazy lady!!! If I can't handle coming home from vacation, I worry a bit about coming home with our child/ren after the adoption. Doc, get some happy pills lined up for me!!

Okay, I promised we'd share more stories and pictures from our vacation, so here are the next few days of our vacation:

Monday morning we woke up to Cozumel, Mexico! We had breakfast in the dining room that morning with some people from Upstate New York, and enjoyed hearing about their previous vacations. We headed out to the shopping district shortly after breakfast. It wasn’t what I expected, it was very touristy (and tourist trappy). We started walking back toward the ship in hopes of finding a beach that we could go to and lay out on. We ended up getting sucked into a schpiel about a vacation package that you had to pay a lot of money for that I didn’t even really fully understand. We were supposed to be able to hang out on their beach for free with free food, drinks and snorkeling for the afternoon just for listening, but they never ended the sales pitch and we ended up walking out of it. With aching feet from our long walk, and growling bellies, we went back to the boat, ate lunch and laid out on the (almost empty) swim deck. I took a nap, and then we headed back into Cozumel for supper and drinks. I found a beautiful bracelet and Dave did a good job bartering and we got a GREAT deal on it!! Cozumel was not our favorite vacation destination, and we were excited to move onto the next adventure.

Dave posing outside of the Cozumel Hard Rock Cafe. It was too early in the morning to go in - sorry Colleen!!

Dave loved the beautiful flowers...

The view of our cruise ship from one of the windows of the resort with the never-ending sales pitch This is the restaurant where we ate supper in Cozumel - they had the best guac EVER!

Me posing with my margarita on the swing at the bar in Margaritaville

Dave and I posing (me with a salesguy grin - weird) outside of our ship at night

A towel animal that was in our room that night - we think it was a puppy??

Tuesday was a sailing day, and Dave and I laid out on the sun decks A LOT that day. I went to the talk about what to do in Grand Cayman and Ocho Rios, and then laid out on the sun deck a little longer. After lunch I took a looooong nap, and Dave played bingo. After that it was off to supper. We were pretty boring that day. We even stayed in our room after supper and just watched a movie we had brought along with us. It was I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. Dumb movie, two thumbs down.

The beautiful sunrise that Dave woke up extra early for The next towel animal - we are pretty sure this one was a bunny

Wednesday morning we woke up to Grand Cayman outside!!!! After eating a romantic breakfast in the dining room (we finally got a table for two and the waiters thought we were honeymooners, we didn’t correct them!!), we got in line for the tenders that would take us to the pier in Grand Cayman. The line was crazy long to get on the tenders, but it ended up going pretty quickly. We got into Grand Cayman, and oh what a difference from Cozumel it was!!! The beaches were tons more beautiful, the people were kind and never pushy, and the architecture was GORGEOUS! Dave and I caught a bus to the Seven-Mile Public Beach, and spent the entire day alternating between lying on the beach and swimming in the crystal clear blue waters of the ocean there. The water was the perfect temperature, and was shallow for a long ways out. You could see the bottom of the ocean no matter how far out you were. I was in HEAVEN. I think Dave got a little bored, but I LOVED going between laying out in the sun on the sand, and floating in the ocean. Oh how I wish we lived on the beach in a warm warm climate. I would totally be a surfer girl.

We took a tender back to the boat, and once back in our room I realized I made a huge mistake that day. I forgot to put sunscreen on my arms. I remembered to put it everywhere else except for my arms. I was fried, and with some very weird-looking sunburn lines because of where Dave had put sunscreen on my shoulders. Oh well, I guess that is the price I pay for forgetting to put on sunscreen on that gorgeous day. We ate supper that evening, and then watched part of Harry Potter under the stars. There was a lunar eclipse that night, so we enjoyed lying on the boat deck while watching the eclipse. Later that night we watched a juggling act and a comedy show, then hit the sack.

Dave and I on the tender to get to Grand Cayman

Dave and I on the beach in Grand Cayman (aka Paradise)

Dave waving to me from the ocean On the tender back to the cruise ship

A pirate ship that we saw on the way back, this was one of the excursions we could have taken (we had to take this one for our nephew, Kyle)

The towel snake that greeted us that night in our room

Harry Potter on the big screen. This is the Lido Deck on this boat (the slide on the left-side was tons of fun!)

Our failed attempt at taking a picture of the lunar eclipse

Cruisin'

Cruising is definitely the way to vacation!! Dave and I had a fantastic time on our cruise, and did a phenomenal job of relaxing (if I may say so myself). It's honestly been a little hard to try to come up with what to eat since we got home, because all of the food is so easily within reach on the cruise!!

I tried to journal as we went so that I wouldn't forget anything, so I think I'll just copy that into this blog a couple of days at a time. Enjoy!

Saturday, February 16, 2008
We woke up at 3:15 this morning, and I remember glaring at Dave thinking that he was just waking up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and turning all of the lights on. Not so, he was waking up so we could get ready to go to the airport!

We parked at Michelle and Brent’s house and a taxi took us to the airport for $20. Ugh. It was only 6 miles away… Anyway, so we get to the airport with no jackets (HELLO – we are going to the Caribbean!!), and the Hobbit travel rep tells us its 45 minutes to wait inside to get our boarding passes, and only 15 minutes outside. We decided to buck up and wait outside in the freezing cold (without jackets, mind you!). It ended up only taking 10 minutes, although an old man behind us kept muttering, “Ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous”. I wanted to turn around and say, “Then wait inside, crabby pants!” But I was in vacation mode so I just giggled and waited.

We got to our gate and waited to board our plane. An older couple came and sat next to me while Dave was off “reading a newspaper”. The wife brought the husband a cup of coffee, and here was how their conversation went (in VERY Minnesotan accents).

Old Woman: Oh, I wonder where the people waiting for this plane are going? Maybe they are all going on a cruise?
Old Man: DAMMIT this coffee is hot.
(They are both quiet, then after another 2 minutes)
Old Woman: Wouldn’t it be nice to go on a cruise? It says this flight is going to Miami. I bet these people are going on a cr--
Old Man: (interrupting Old Woman) DAMMIT this coffee is hot. Who would make coffee this hot?
(They are both quiet, then after another 2 minutes)
Old Woman: Well, I am glad that we got here early for our flight (theirs left AFTER ours, and we got there early for our flight. They must have gotten there like 3 hours early). I wish we were going on a cruise. That sounds like a good ti-
Old Man: (interrupting again) DAMMIT, who would make coffee this hot?
Old Woman: Well here, let me pour some of my cold water into your coffee. Does that make it better?
Old Man: Ahhhhh, that is much better.

I got a kick out of listening to these two while I was waiting for Dave to finish up his paperwork.

So we finally got down to Miami after a very bumpy flight down. We went down to gather our luggage, and waited for a bus to take us to the ship. The bus driver was something else, let me tell you. I’ve never heard such a racist person over a loud speaker. By the end of the bus ride, none of the Minnesota peeps were laughing at his jokes. We finally got to the boat and waited in a LOT of lines to finally get on the boat (after being told that we were ticketed onto the ship as Mr and Mrs TBA Hobbit – we had to get that changed as soon as we got on board, and found that it was because we booked such a last minute trip).

We were exhausted by the time we got on the boat, but we found the buffet and ate some lunch. We found our way around the boat, and went to the (LONG) boat drill. We watched and waved as the ship set sail and we were finally on our way! We ate supper with our tablemates for the week and had a great time meeting them. It turns out we were all from Minnesota, and all got booked as TBA Hobbit. We also got to meet our housekeeper that night who was from the Philippines!

We were so very tired and argue-y that day that I tried to take a nap after supper, but there was no rest for the weary. I could not fall asleep. We went to a show that night that the cruise director was in charge of, and it was hilarious. We fell asleep pretty easily after that show around midnight.

Sunday, February 17
We felt much more refreshed. We ended up ordering the room service breakfast (yay for free food!!), and ate breakfast in our room after a walk around the walking track (which was extremely crowded – ugh). After breakfast, we laid out on the deck chairs for a good long time and ate lunch in the dining rooms. We ate with a young couple from the Czech Republic, and another couple from West Virginia. We had so much fun talking with the couple from Czech Republic and having them practice their English on us. We got a few words mixed up, but all in all we had a great time talking with them! Dave was amazed that the wife looked almost EXACTLY like his sister, Michelle. We told her about that and what our last name was, and got some good background on what our last name means in Czech – fisherman – and how common it was.

I took a good long nap after lunch, and then we got up to hear all about the excursions for Cozumel that were available. After that presentation, it was already time to get ready for our first elegant supper. We had a great time at our elegant supper, and then got a couple of free drinks at the “meet the captain” party downstairs. We tried to stay up for the comedian at midnight, but ended up falling asleep after watching Transformers under the stars!!!

Here are some pics from those first 2 days of the vacation. I will post more about the vacation in upcoming days.

A self portrait as we sailed away from Miami

The ticketing tent for Carnival as we sailed away
The people from Carnival Imagination waving to us as we depart (if you look close you can see the people waving from the balcony)Mini-golfing on the very top part of the ship (windy but lots of fun!)Eating at our first elegant supper (one of our servers is in the background)

The crazy towel monkey that we found when we got back from our elegant supper. We got a new towel animal every night. Very cute!!

Note to self...

Remember to put on deodorant at 3:00 am tomorrow morning...

(Close to Home comic courtesy of Yahoo)

Stimulating the economy one cruise at a time

We're going on a cruise!!!!

All winter long I've been eyeing up the cruise prices on Hobbit Travel. Dave and I would find great deals, then hem and haw over whether or not to buy the tickets. As soon as we would decide to buy the tickets, we'd call and hear that they had just sold out 1 day, or even 45 minutes before we called. Ugh. So on Monday I checked the website, and saw that the super good deals were back on again. Dave really had to talk me into it, but we finally called and booked the tickets!!

We leave on Saturday morning bright and early (we'll have to leave our house by 4 am). We'll be cruising on the Carnival Freedom for a 7 day/7 night cruise. We will hit Cozumel, Grand Cayman and Ochos Rios. I am soooooo looking forward to WARM weather (if you're wondering how excited I am about this, check out this post and this post)!!!

Some people may be thinking, "You crazy people! You should be saving all of your extra money for the adoption!!!!". That's fine with us if people want to think that. We know how we are paying for the adoption, and we aren't worried about it. God has definitely shown us His provision throughout this journey. Plus, we wanted to enjoy each other on a luxurious "adult" vacation before we become parents. Thank you to those of you who encouraged us to do this for ourselves. We are very excited!! Oh, and thank you to President Bush for the stimulus package he has approved. Although I don't necessarily agree with the idea, I don't mind taking advantage of it.

We'll post pictures and stories when we get back!!!