March Happy Thoughts

1. Well of course I would have to list my fun vacation, can I please go back???

2. Motherhood:

I love being a mom.  That is all there is to it.   Most of the time I wonder if I am doing the best job possible... but don't all moms feel that way? One of the biggest things I would like to work on is being present when I am with her.  It is so easy to get caught up in house work, bills, etc, etc. and it is easy to forget what I should be focusing on a bit more... her. I love being a mom.

3. My new wind shield: Ok, I am actually forcing myself to make this a happy thought because in all reality it makes me very angry.  So last month I was driving down I-15, minding my own business when out of no where with no warning, WHAM.  I hate semi's.  I got a ginormous crack in my wind shield. The adorable voice from the back seat says, "Mommy, look! A spider" (giggling as she points to the windshield). Several minutes later a large crack continued to grow farther and father down the windshield. Of course this month my car was due for safety and emissions to renew my registration.  Ahhh... but look on the bright side, I have a new windshield! Yippy...

Actually the REAL happiness here is that my car passed emissions thanks to my fabulous mechanic of a father! Poor Gertrude (as I call her) seams to act up every March, but thanks to my dad, a new windshield, and a new oxygen sensor Gertrude has another year with me.

4. Happy Birthday to ME!

On March 12th I officially turned 26 years old

5. White chili recipe: Several years ago my visiting teacher made this wonderful soup for me and I have been addicted ever since.  Good old Charmaine, I will forever be in her debt!

WHITE CHILI

1 lb chicken breasts cubed

1 med onion chopped

1 1/2 t garlic powder

1T vegetable oil

2 cans (15.5 oz) Great northern beans

1 can (14.5 oz) chicken broth

1 can (4 oz) chopped green chilies

1t salt

1t ground cumin

1t dried oregano

1/2 t pepper

1 cup sour cream

1/2 cup whipping cream

In a large sauce pan saute chicken, onion, and garlic powder in oil until chicken is no longer pink. Add beans, broth, chilies, and seasonings, bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered for 30min. Remove from heat and stir in sour cream and whipping cream.  Serve immediately.

I love this recipe.  I always make extra because this is one dish where I actually like to eat the leftovers! Personally I like to add more broth and cumin than the recipe calls for.  It is easy to make and yet delicious! But it probably isn't the healthiest  ;-)

6. Baby Beyonce:



7. Wicked:

If I ever wake up one morning with incredible talent, I would like to play Elphaba.  Until then, I can dream.

8. My personal hair dresser:

Kensie loves to play with my hair. She likes to pretend I am Rapunzel. So cute.  She even took these pictures, she was VERY proud of herself.

9. One of my good friends from high school got married this month.  Congrats Kathryn!

It was a lot of fun seeing old friends

10.  

"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths."

Proverbs 2: 5-6

My Escape

I was able to escape for ten glorious days to the sunny land of Florida and the Caribbean sea.  The weather averaged about 80 degrees the entire time!

We started off this trip by going to Disney World.  There is so much to see and do at Disney world and to truly experience everything without killing yourself in the possess you need at least a full ten days there.   We only had 2.5 days and although we did not get to do everything, we still had a great time.

Can I just say I love cruises!  I have only been on two, but they are wonderful.  I like vacationing but in all honesty vacations can be stressful.  All the planning of how to get where, what food to eat, what attractions to see and trying to cram everything in that you want to see and do before the trip is over.  When you get home from a vacation you need time to relax and recover from your trip before you get back to real life!  Now here is the amazing part of a cruise... You are forced to relax!  Everything is planned for you, all the food is taken care of, all you have to do is show up!  I love it.

We went on an Eastern Caribbean cruise.  This Disney cruise was perfect with Kensie, despite a severely sleep deprived child, she had a blast.  I was able to play with her all the time AND just drop her off at the Oceaneer Club whenever I needed a break OR when she wanted to go (which was most of the time, usually when I picked her up she didn't want to leave).  Each cabin had two cell phones that worked all over the ship so if Kensie did want to leave or if the Oceaneer Club ever needed to contact me they could just call.  It was marvelous. Some people think that Disney cruises just caters to children... not so.  We had five adults and only one child but we all enjoyed ourselves. We had the same server each night at dinner and each evening when we got there he had Kensie's drink ready on the table with this written on it, "Mc. Kensie". Ha ha. He also thought Kensie was my sister at first :-)

The ports of call were supposed to be Saint Martin, Saint Thomas and the Disney island, Castaway Cay.

Okay, I am going to admit that I am one of the many guilty parent's who left their child at the Oceaneer Club the day we were at Saint Martin :-)  but she didn't seem to mind.  While Kensie played at the club, us adults when to Saint Martin and went kayaking.  So much fun... tiring... but fun!  I had to steer the kayak because Amy said she was too much of a weakling.  I don't know if it is possible to be more of a weakling than me... but she got to sit in the easy seat anyway.  After kayaking we went to a beautiful beach located at the and of the airport runway.  Seeing the airplanes come and go was SO amazing/crazy (look at the video below)

At Saint Thomas Grandma and I took Kensie to Coral World Ocean Park.  It is an aquarium with sharks, sea turtles, etc.  This island was beautiful and the ride to and from the aquarium was gorgeous.

Castaway Cay:  Amy and Chuck talked so much about Castaway and how wonderful it is so we were all very excited for this part of the trip.  Kensie was excited for the beach.  She kept talking about how she was going to build sand castles. Unfortunately there were two medical emergency's on board which took us completely off course.  One of these emergency's actually actually took us to Grand Turk.  Because of these detours we were unable to go to Castaway Cay and spent the day at sea instead.  Disappointment.  We were all upset but we still had fun. 

Kensie was so sad that she was not able to go to the beach so once we were back in Florida we took her to Cocoa Beach.  We stayed for less than an hour but I am glad we took her.  That girl is fearless as she ran into waves giggling and laughing.  We topped off our last day at Epcot.  I am sad to say that I have been to Epcot three times in the past few years but each time I have only spent a couple of hours there.  How sad is that? 

I am so glad I was able to go on this long needed vacation. Thank you Chuck and Amy for making it possible.  I am obviously not made of money and because of them I saved thousands of dollars (that is not an exaggeration).

 Life is good.  Oh, did I mention I splurged and got a massage? That is all.

Disclaimer: I like pictures! I was told to take a a lot of pictures so here you go! I figure if you don't want to see them then you don't have to!

Disney Vacation Pictures!

747 Landing - St.Maarten