Bahama Cruise

 Nathan and I went on a 5 day Bahama cruise mid-November with his company.  It was a relaxing time away just before our lives got really crazy, but I'm not sure I'm a cruise kind of person.  We were on a smaller, older cruise ship, so there wasn't nearly as much to do on board as I had expected.  I was also bothered by the swaying of the boat and sustained a rough injury my first hour on board that dampered my spirits the first few days.  We loved seeing the Bahamas though.  We want to go back there for sure with the kids, only via airplane.

 The infamous Atlantis resort.  We bought an excursion package so that we could check out this huge resort for the day.  It is as amazing as it is in the commercials!

 Beautiful Atlantis!

 Baby sea turtle at Atlantis!  They had sea turtles all over the grounds.  Do you know how hard we worked to see sea turtles in Hawaii and they have them everywhere in the Bahamas?!

 This was sitting out the sun all day does to you.  You think you are King of Atlantis.

 One of my favorite Bahama sights - Bahama police.  They do not carry guns, but are all over the place.  There has been recent hostility towards tourists in the Bahamas, so we had to be very careful when we were outside the resort and dock.

 Looks safe, right?  All of the buildings are painted bright contrasting colors.

 Key West, Florida.  It is amazing how much safer we felt with our feet on U.S. soil.  Still tropical and warm, but much cleaner and safer than Nassau!

 Downtown Key West.  We took a trolley tour of the whole island to learn about the historical buildings and where the best places to eat were.

 This is where "A Streetcar Named Desire" was written!

 Outside Ernest Hemmingway's home.  We did not take an actual tour, just peeked through the fences.  We were lucky enough to spot a descendant of one of Hemmingway's cats in the garden.

 The Southern Most Point of the continental United States.  We didn't get off the trolley to take a picture up close, so this is as good as it gets.

Back on the ship.  This is the top deck where we enjoyed sunsets and lazy afternoons reading books.

Random Catch-Up

There was a period where my camera wasn't working and/or the memory card was full, so the only pictures I took were on my phone.  Not the best quality photos, but they are better than nothing from the three month period that is missing from our blog life.

 Toughing it out at our annual check-ups.  Poor Ash was the unfortunate one this time around :(

 Posing under the rainbow outside swim lessons.

 Nathan's favorite dish at a local Mexican restaurant we love.

 Owen had a great first year of flag football thanks to his great coach, aka Dad.  He is asking for tackle football next year though.  Not sure we are ready for that one.

 Halloween fun at preschool.  Dallin is the SWAT guy in the front row.

Pumpkin carving a couple of days before Halloween.  Everyone designs their own and this year everyone carved their own pumpkin!  It gets dark way too early in the fall!

 Pilgrim Dallin.

 Dallin has recently become very fond of drawing.  This is an example of his drawings.  He draws something similar to this almost every day.  He especially loves drawing swords.

 

Ashleigh and Ella saw the new Annie together over Christmas break.  Ashleigh thought there was too much singing in this version.

We Have an Eagle Scout!!

Trenton is officially an Eagle Scout!  He passed a brutal 1 hour and 20 minute interview process with a panel of Scout adults tonight for the final step on his path to Eagle.  We are incredibly proud of him and everything he has done to accomplish this major award.  Only 2% of all Boy Scouts earn the Eagle rank, so this is a really big deal.  There are so many steps to get here that it is easy for teenage boys to say forget it.  When we found out we were moving, Trenton decided he wanted to try and finish the work he had started months ago to earn his Eagle before we moved.  And I said, sure, what's one more huge thing to add to our lives right now?!  Trenton really stepped up and did an amazing job getting all the work done in a very short time period.  We had to jump through several (big) hoops to get to this point tonight, but it's so wonderful to see Trenton so happy.

 Trenton with his Scout Team leader who moved mountains to get Trenton ready in time.

Trenton and one of the nicest men we have ever met.  He single handedly runs a Native American museum and park north of Cincinnati with little state funding because it is his passion.  The museum is built around ancient mounds built by Native Americans here in Ohio.  Trenton went on a field trip here in the third grade, so his Eagle project allows more students to continue visiting the park for years to come.  Trenton made more than 50 spears and 10 bone tools for the museum to use for educational groups.  Each spear is said to last two years for use with students.

 A few pictures from the days spent building the spears.  Trenton recruited over 40 volunteers to help him!  An added blessing was that Nathan was able to be here for the project.

Congrats, young man!  You definitely earned it!  Notice all his merit badges on his sash?  He only needed 21 to earn his Eagle award, and he has 31!

My Four Rugrats

 Nebraska, here we come! 

Aren't they the sweetest?

Pictures with Santa

Santa visited the kids at our church Christmas party.  I cannot believe I took my children to a Christmas party dressed this way.  I was in a total fog this week though as I was dealing with Nathan being gone, showing our house, finding a house, blah, blah.  I didn't do too well juggling it all in the beginning, so things like finding nice clothes for my kids to wear wasn't even on the radar.  Clean clothes and food for them to eat was it.  In fact, one of the reasons I dragged us all to the party was so I wouldn't have to worry about dinner for one night!  Dallin told Santa he wanted Paw Patrol toys.

 I wish I knew what was being said here!

Dallin loved decorating cookies at the party.

The one day we did dress up for Santa pictures, I was disappointed to find that it costs $25 to get a picture with Santa at the mall.  No thank you, so we took a free picture with the reindeer behind Santa instead.  Santa did at least let Dallin sit on his lap, so it was worth the trip to the mall.  We spent our money on Cinnabons and pretzel bites instead on the way out.  Much smarter way to blow some money I think!

 Dallin also visited with Santa at preschool during his Christmas program.  Dallin told Santa he wanted a football because he couldn't think of anything else he wanted at the time.

 Dallin's Christmas program.  He played the part of a wiseman and had to say, "My gift was gold"  as he sat down gold at Jesus' feet.

They also sang several Christmas songs.  Everyone seemed to like the songs with the bells in them the best.  

Where has the Time Went?!

Holy heck!  It's been three months since my last post.  I feel like I have lost three months of my life.  It has been a whirlwind couple of months thanks to my husband's crazy job antics!  Hoping to get back on track now.  We shall see.  Here's a few of the things we have been up to the past few months.

 Weekly swim lessons an a new indoor swim school.  The best swim school ever!  It has been so much fun to watch Dallin learn to swim over a 10 week period.

 Love the awesome goggles!

Here he is swimming!  Really swimming, on his own without any flotation device.  10 weeks and my 4 year old can swim!