Say Goodbye

For those of you who don't know yet, the health care reform bill passed yesterday. I am borrowing this from my sister's blog because I completely agree and couldn't have said it better. She always backs up any claims she makes with links so follow the link if you want to see the numbers for yourself.

*54% of Americans Oppose the current health care bill

*41% of Americans favor it

*45% of Americans Strongly Oppose the current health care bill
*26% strongly favor it

*57% of Americans believe that if the current bill passes, health care cost will go up

*only 17% believe it will actually lower costs

*54% of Americans believe the current bill will hurt the quality of care

*Roll Call (a mag on The Hill) reported that 100,000 phone calls per hour were made on Friday in opposition to the bill

IE: The majority of Americans DID NOT want this bill to pass, but it still did.

For those of you who were apathetic to this, enjoy the health care you have chosen for yourself. With everything in me, I fought this.

Things you have to look forward to with the passage of this bill:

*Millions of unborn babies killed on the tax payer's dime. (I bet you didn't know that was in there, Mormons.)

*No more private loans for education purposes. (Yes, it's true, in a "health care" bill. The government now controls who gets loans for school.)

*Mandatory purchase of health insurance.

*Increased taxes.

*10 years of taxes for 6 years of service. (Oh THAT's how it is budget neutral, eh? Nevermind the fact that government never comes in on budget--the 2010 cenus is already over budget.)

*Nevermind the liberty we have lost....

Bienvenidos A Miami

For those of you who didn't know, and even for those that did, I spent last weekend in Miami on a girl's weekend getaway with just my sisters and mom! It was of course a blast. I would have a blast anywhere with these ladies, but a beach is extra nice. ;) Here are a few of my pics from the trip. I forced myself to take pictures because I find myself taking fewer and fewer pics when there is a family get together because all my sisters take such stellar pictures (like the one above is Holly's) that mine pale in comparison so I just snag copies of theirs afterward.
After making my boys some delish banana bread for a miss-me treat, I took off Thursday afternoon. We all arrived pretty late Thursday night and stayed up even later talking and making our hotel neighbors and, most notably, the front desk man angry at us because of our noise. Sorry guys, this is South Beach. So we slept in way late and had breakfast, at lunch time, at a restaurant on the Ocean Avenue!
Breakfast was delish and especially fun as they kept playing "our jams" on the loud speakers, causing us to rock out, dance and sing all while we ate. Once again, we were the rowdiest ones around, even on South Beach. All in a days work for a Neal girl.
Unfortunately this was the only day we went to the beach as day #2 was cold and windy. It was even a bit chilly this day as evidenced by our clothing; or evidenced by us not just being in our swim suits that is. It was still 70-75 degrees which was especially heavenly for everyone living in cold states= everyone except me because I had the privilege of coming from and going back to a home with about the same temps. Anyone jealous?
To show absolute evidence that we were really relaxing on this trip, the normally very engaged and busy Neal girls looked at crappy celebrity gossip mags and gave our expert opinions on everything about everyone elses public life and called women ugly that in all reality are prettier than us all. ;)
South Beach is so unique! I absolutely fell in love with all the art deco styled buildings! This is the best shot I got of them. South Beach has done an amazing job resisting any new or modern development styles since it exploded in the 1920s and 1930s. So quaint!
Here we are having a delish (and I mean delish) lunch at dinner time.
That evening, after showering and getting dressed, we went out for a delicious Mediterranean dinner and Ghiradeli's chocolate sundae. We would have shopped all the cute shops but had a schedule tour of the Everglades the next morning and needed to get back early enough to get our carefully guarded sleep.
My first air boat ride! I have only seen air boats on movies before, so I was delighted that we got to ride in one for our everglades tour.
Great shot. The tour guide/boat driver was showin' us all his awesome air boat maneuvers to the delight of, almost exclusively, me and my sisters.
Here we are out in the middle of the slowest moving river (the Everglades is a river) in the world. So cool!
Of course everyone on the tour wants to see ALLIGATORS so the tour guide made sure to stop in areas where he knew he would find one of the extremely territorial animals. Scary, right?
After the boat ride, we went for a presentation on alligators. Tourists love alligators. This little guy was a feisty one and the man running the show was obviously enjoying the excessive squeals and screams from the group of six women so he made sure to spend extra time scaring us with the baby alligator. This picture is a new classic.
And of course he wrestled a big alligator, i.e., jumped on it's back because it can only see out to each side and tucked his closed snout under his neck so he could tie it shut because it has weak jaw-opening muscles and then pushed its eyes closed so he could jump off because it instantly relaxes alligators when their eyes are shut. Phew! I know about 5 times more than I ever did about alligators before the trip!
You know we all held Larry, the 3 year old alligator, for $3 each!
I almost wussed out when I saw how big he was, but when will I ever get the chance to hold one again? Maybe never!
Another really great shot. It was surprising how heavy he was, which is what Holly is thinking, I'm sure! And cool to the touch too because he is cold blooded. And very soft and smooth, not slimy at all. I'm glad they let us touch him during the presentation as well because I was so freaked out when I was holding him that I hardly remember it.
Melanie held Larry too but I was filming her with her camera and didn't get the shot.

That is the end of my photos for the trip. But we did go out again that night for delish Mexican food after which poor sick Holly and my mom went back to the hotel. Natalie, Melanie, Heidi and I went out to the most exclusive dance club in South Beach where we had to wait 45 minutes before Heidi finally charmed one of the bouncers to let us in. So funny how it all works. Once we got in we were, no exaggeration, the first ones to hit the dance floor (which was why we were there anyway, silly!) and started the party for the night. We danced a couple of hours, got some great shots on my mom's camera, and then left once things started getting too crowded and too crazy, read: too drunk. Our only celebrity siting at the club was a pseudo-celebrity: one of the Millionaire Matchmaker's millionaire men, who happened to think Heidi was pretty great.

Sometimes Discouraging

Sometimes being a parent can be discouraging. I, for one, have always been very diligent about teaching Cameron new things. You know, things kids are supposed to be learning like words, shapes, colors, counting, body part names, etc etc. I tried teaching him baby signs for six plus months before he finally consistently used one. Here's what's discouraging: Cameron never learns from me, at least he acts like he doesn't, and seems to learn everything from either Tyler or TV shows. In fact, he is VERY receptive to both! The other day I was in the kitchen when I heard him in the next room count to five with Dora. I was amazed! I told Tyler and he says, "Oh yeah, we've been working on counting." Mind you this was only my second week of work which meant Tyler had only spent about 2 or 3 periods of 4 hours each alone with him. And in that time he learned how to count, more or less, to 10 on his fingers. What?! Don't get me wrong, I LOVE to see Cameron learn and am seeing it may be a blessing that he and Tyler have time alone together now. But it can be discouraging to feel that no matter your efforts, your child seems to be deaf and dumb regarding what you specifically are trying to teach him. It's probably only just the beginning.

And here's what else: disciplining. No matter what the bad habit, when I try to discipline Cameron he only does in more! It's been the case with almost everything, with hitting, biting, swinging pictures on the wall, and now screaming. The more I try to curb a naughty habit the more he does it. And believe me, I've tried plenty of methods. For example, he has been screaming very loud lately and I am trying to help him realize he can't scream inside, and tonight I started more diligently enforcing the new rule. So what does he do? Screams on and off for the first 50 minutes of Wall-E. So how has he stopped other bad habits? I have finally just ignored them and looked like a bad parent in the process. Nice. I wonder what all this is going to mean when it comes to potty training???

So what do I do about all this? Pray that my next baby will be a sweet, receptive and communicative little girl!