Ahh me!

I never did get back to post photos of our Shark experience. Here is a picture of one of Jordan's favorite fish... the saw fish.


(Jordan loved seeing this guy in December!)

Life, in general, flies by when you have kids... this seems to be a reoccuring fate for me!
Just wanted to add a few photos and some quick updates for everyone.


(This was definately a highlight for our month)

January has rushed by. Jordan is doing great in school and has picked a science fair project. We spent this past Saturday at a local dolphin research/educational facility watching and asking questions about... you guessed it - DOLPHINS! (Our child is certainly obsessed!) We spent almost 4 hours at a 3 pooled facility... watching the same dolphins over and over again. While it was fun enough for the first hour... the following 3 found me a bit flustered with tending to a little three year old who would have preferred a nap over one more round of dolphins. Jordan, on the other hand, was in hog heaven... or should I say, dolphin heaven. He could not have been happier. During our lunch break we had birds that were extremely brave flying around us, on our feet, under our bench and even almost into our heads on a few occasions. We were laughing about it but honestly I was surprised we didn't get hit by one or two of them as they flew for the trees behind us. They certainly were 'friendly' birds. After lunch we watched the dolphins so more. We were also able to watch a current research project this facility is doing on echolocation. It was really interesting to watch the process of their studies. Jordan was extremely fascinated by it and was even more happy when I explained that their research project is just like a science fair project except on a larger scale.


(Jordan and Jade eating lunch at the Dolphin Facility)
- Note the 'very friendly' birds.... not shy at all.

Jade is amusing. She goes along with the wind at times and then drives a sail full force into at others. She is quite happy to love dolphins, just like Jordan. But I think she is more attached to tigers. She has an affection for them and will often ask me to tell her stories about riding on the backs of tigers and playing with them in the jungle. She's a hoot for the most part :) For the past few months she's started saying, "Ya" all the time. For example, "I'll get it for ya" or "It's for ya" It is really funny because she doesn't use "you" often and she really accents the word, "ya." You just don't expect to hear a 3 year old say that I guess. She's also been busy wrapping everyone she meets around her little finger. I'm not sure if that is good or bad but I can't take her anywhere without at least one person commenting on how darling she is (as she bats her eye lashes at them.) She's a flirt! hah She keeps me on my toes as the following picture will show. She is constantly "exploring" her world and how things work in it...


(Jade 'washing' her hair with HAND SOAP!)


(Jade 'riding' her pony with Piggy and Tiger)


Busy, busy as always, I'll leave you with the thought...
Life never stops... so don't stand still too long.

The beginning of catch up!

So Christmas came and went... and so did New Years and of course the first few weeks of January! haha. So here I am, again, behind the times, writing about "what" has happened! Goodness me!



For starters, Jordan and Jeramis were off of school/work from 17 December. Needless to say that kept me much busier than usual as there is double (almost triple) the work around the house when everyone is home. We also planned several family trips to keep us going during the break. (details to come)

We had a touch of winter weather with temp's dipping into the high 20's overnight. HAHa, I know, pitiful! I feel for all you who actually have snow to hear me say we have "overnight 20's!" I did manage to capture a bit of the 'cold' expressing itself on our grass blades one morning. But in all honesty I hardly feel like we're in the middle of winter here. We spent most of December and even up until now in T's and jeans... with occasional days of long sleeves but rarely a sweater during the day. While I like the mild weather it only makes me wonder how horrid this summer might be! heh. We did have a splendid Christmas day with temps in the mid 70's. The weather was so nice that I almost forgot it was December! The children and Jeramis loved it.



We decided to have a live tree this year since for the past 8 years we've had artificial trees. The kids and I went out and picked one that we liked and brought it home and set it up. Unfortunately... live trees and desert = bad combination. Despite tons of watering and the 'longer life' powder... our tree was pretty much dead by Christmas day. We still managed to leave it up until after my birthday but it was quite brittle... so we didn't use the lights much at all by that point! hah. Despite it drying out it had such a great smell. The scent was strong even when we took it to the recycling center. I loved that aspect of the tree. The needles, that was more of a love-hate relationship!

Christmas was a great holiday for us. The children were very spoiled this year (thank you so much Grandparents, family and friends!) They were also spoiled by a generous Santa. Not only were the children spoiled but Jeramis and I also enjoyed a very nice Christmas and we are still enjoying many of the things we were given. (Thanks again!) On top of all the hoopla, we enjoyed a lovely Christmas Dinner with Brett and Anna and some of their friends here in town. That was a nice end to our Christmas celebrations.

The week before Christmas we spent one day over at an amusement area here.

Jordan loved being able to ride all the rides. He was big enough and so he adventured quite a bit with his 'brave' attempts to ride everything... He loved being able to ride on the 'big' kid rides as well as rides with Jade. He convinced both me and Jeramis to ride on the "splash moutain" ride that left me very soaked and Jeramis, somehow, ended up very dry... how does that work! Jordan and I also rode on the rollercoaster with the 'loop-ty-loops" Jordan didn't want to ride on it... he was a bit scared at the whole idea of loops and twists. I convinced him to go on it and I must say I felt pretty bad when he started crying... he was very scared! But after about 20 minutes of walking around and doing other stuff he started talking about how cool the ride was and that he had been so brave to ride on it. Then he said, "maybe I can do a ride like that again sometime... when i'm bigger." I still think he was a bit scared but all in all he survived it. I thought that was very interesting! Poor kid. Aside from that he won a lot of really cool stuffed animal toys and he was able to play a few games and ride a ton of rides. He is STILL talking about it.




Jade loved the rides. Except the 'pirate ship' that swings back and forth... we almost had a puke attack on that one. She told us a few minutes into the ride.. "I'm going to throw up." Then she proceeded to stick her head into my chest. I made her look forward and told her she was going to be okay and to keep breathing... she turned a bit yellow but thankfully the ride ended before she was able to expel her breakfast and lunch. Her highlights of the day were the 'hot air balloon' Ferris wheel, the carousel and having her face painted like a kitty cat.


The week after Christmas we went to see a local Shark display, celebrated my birthday and New Years and started putting the house back together. I'll write more about these events in another post. I need to download the pictures still!

So come back soon!