Cruisin' With The Riches

Let's begin by acknowledging the fact that we are completely spoiled and indebted to my in-laws for this fabulous trip. (As well as many others.)

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!

Jesse and I spent 4 weeks apart while he traveled for work prior to our trip (essentially all of July), so it was thrilling to be reunited again. 

Of course the days leading up to it were crazy while I worked three days, managed my two hooligans and my mom's dog I watched for the month, and packed up everything for our respective trips; the boys to my parents and me and Jesse for our cruise. 

We survived the packing and journeyed down to St. George on a Friday as early as we could get going, which of course wasn't overly early. It wasn't a bad drive, although I've had better. 

Our stop in Beaver was a little rocky. The boys needed diaper changes and I had to use the restroom, so unfortunately I had to take the kids into the gas station with me to take care of business. It had been raining so while I was griping their wrists for dear life so they didn't run wild, they were jumping through all the puddles spraying all three of us with dirty rain water. But we finally made it into the gas station and I pinned Briggs down to change him while I threatened Ian not to move. We then switched roles and after chasing Briggs down back out in the gas station, I herded them into the bathroom so I could take care of my business, and not 20 seconds go by before the door was opened and I was hollering at my children "CLOSE THE DOOR!"

This is why we don't go places.

Anyway, after everything was taken care of and we somehow made it back to the car and got strapped in, it was time to let the dog out for a potty break as well, so I parked over by some weeds and let her out, and of course the first thing she does is run through a belly deep puddle. Ugh. So then continued our journey with a wet dog in my car. Luckily she dried out fairly quickly.

I dropped off the boys, who by the way, just said "BYE!!!" and wouldn't even give me a kiss before I left. (They have way too much fun at Grandma's house.) And off I went to Vegas to meet my sweet husband.

Then about 12 hours of traveling later, we finally made it to Puerto Rico.
(And just to prove I still had no idea of where I was going, I am pretty sure I said I was glad we made it to Costa Rica.
Obviously I need a geography class.)

We met up with a chunk of our group and headed to the boat.
Oops, I mean ship.

Our first stop on Sunday was St. Thomas.

We had a nice Sunday Devotional on the ship, and then hoped off to visit the butterfly sanctuary.

We of course went as a matching pack of red shirts so as not to lose anyone.

The butterflies were beautiful.

I especially liked this table they set up for them to have a snack.

Can you spot the green butterfly above Jesse's head?
Camouflage in action.

The little kids took some time to fish with leaves in the sanctuary.
I don't know how they come up with these things, but it's rather awesome.

Well, now that it's been like 2 months since we cruised, I can't quite remember, but I think we had a formal night the evening of St. Thomas. 

 

Our next stop was St. Kitts.

We hopped on a bus and headed off to a black sand beach. 

 Our bus ride took us to this overlook for the view

It was rather windy up there. 

 And this might have been my favorite thing up there.

Well besides the actual "fun donkey."

Oh and here's the donkey's friend monkey from the ledge too. 

And then we hit the beach.

 Which happened to be on this particularly steep slope.
I might have laughed out loud when I walked down to it. It caught me off guard.

 My brother-in-law was awesome and participated in a soccer game on the ship.

He then still had the energy to play with the three youngest kids on the trip.

Our next stop was Aruba and we went to a gorgeous beach there. 

The water was so blue and clear, and it was just breath taking. 

My BIL and SIL rented some paddle boards for an hour or two and let us all take a turn. It was harder than we anticipated to stand up and paddle, but we sure had fun sitting and paddling.

Our last stop was Curacao. 

Jesse and I went out with my sister in law and her family and took some family pictures first thing in Curacao, and we had a blast. Curacoa was beautiful, but this was quite possibly our favorite part of the day.

 

We took a bus tour around the island and enjoyed the bright colorful town. 

 These four ended up being rather matchy matchy that day.

And our bus tour, might have put a few people to sleep. 

Our bus driver took us to the outside of this aquarium place to see the seals (or sea lions? I can't ever remember the difference. Jesse says it has something to do with ears.) And it was beautiful. 

One cute little nephew dropped his shoe over the edge and a worker had to get it out for us before it was eaten and lost forever.

Luckily they were also willing to scoop out the stuffed turtle our niece dropped down there as well.

It was such a fun week with these folks.
We met daily for devotionals, ate our dinners together, played games, saw shows, ate loads of food, and relaxed. It was so fun!
And Jesse and I completely enjoyed our second honeymoon.

July and August

Alright, I'm behind the times, and this post has been sitting forever, so I'll just go ahead and publish it.
{B}                      {I}

The boys still point out airplanes every time they see them. And instead of just saying Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah when they see them, they can now actually say airplane!

1. Briggs goes up the stairs one leg after another like an adult instead of just double stepping and going up with the same leg. If that makes any sense.

2. Everything is labeled as big/mama or baby. One day I found the boys in Ian's bed with the giant giraffe and a little stuffed giraffe and they just kept saying "Mama Raffe!" "Baby Raffe!" And again the other day Ian had the big giraffe and started walking around the house saying "Baby Raffe... Are you??" Once it was found, Ian played with the mama giraffe and Briggs played with the baby giraffe. Then at some point Briggs hit the big giraffe with the baby giraffe and Ian hugged his mama raffe and said "Watch Out!"

3. Ian puts his sippy cup down the side of his crib between the slats every time he has it in bed.

4. The boys have turned into little helpers (sometimes). They say "clean up" in the most adorable way while they tidy up toys. 

Ian was helping me pack for our cruise and tried on my hat and I couldn't help but love how adorable he looked.

5. I had a rather impressive beanie baby collection when I was young, and my mom has saved them for me and sent a giant bin up with me one weekend and my boys have loved it! One day they got a kick out of burying me in beanie babies.  

6. Briggs is still obsessed with bath time and requests a bath daily. Usually I oblige, and give into the request for bubbles too.

7. They have impressive jumping skills. Briggs can clear a pillow, they can both jump up onto a curb, and they are obsessed with jumping on the tramp.

8. Oh yeah, have I mentioned we got a tramp? Jesse's parents gifted us with a tramp since we didn't take the boys on the cruise. I'm pretty sure we got the best ends of this deal.
{Although this is picture is not our tramp. Ours has an awesome enclosure that keeps the kiddos in. Except for the times we forget to zip it and one of them goes flipping off and lands on his back...}

9. Ian says "Woo Hoo!" to anything that he is proud of or excited about.

10. Ian (and maybe Briggs too, we just haven't seen it) can reach the light switches and turn lights off and on.

11. They are taking off in their language skills. They copy everything we say and don't stop talking any more! It makes for some fun conversations. You definitely become conscious of the things you say because they start coming out of your children's mouths.

12. {B} loves his pillow and blanket and packs both of them around the house on a regular basis. 

13. The boys were lucky enough to spend the first week of July with my parents and it was delightful for everyone. I got a ton of random little things done that I had been needing to do for months as well as enjoyed some alone time with Jesse, and I'm pretty sure the boys were in heaven at Grandma's house. We need to ship them off to Grandma's house every year.
And I know they sent me a ton of pictures but I'm too lazy to dig them off my phone. 

14. We had my parent's dog London for a whole month in July/Aug. She was pretty good although taking her for a walk with my boys in a stroller is a nightmare some days. She liked to walk around lots of poles so I would have to park the stroller and untangle the leash, she had to choose the route we would take and would stop at any given time if she didn't want to go that way, and of course my boys fought over who got to hold her leash. My boys love London and were so cute with her. Briggs in particular loved to play with her and growled while he shook her toys.

She thinks she's a human.

She also loves sunshine and will find any tiny bit of it she can and sit there.

15. They love helping me cook.

16. I had a rough go one day with {B} awhile ago where I had to laugh at how ridiculous my life was. It all began when I changed his diaper in the morning and he did NOT want it back on. Normally I do not let my children run around naked, but they went straight outside so I figured it was no big deal for him to run around naked outside for a little while. That was until I heard a little wimpery cry and found a lovely pile of poop {B} had left and in turn, stepped in! YUCK! So I scooped him up and took him straight to the tub, but as soon as I started the water the power company showed up at our door to pick up our dead fridge. Thankfully the day went uphill from there.

They can give each other a High 5, and it might be the greatest thing ever.

These boys are awesome. 

I love how full our life is with them.