Here is the truth…I hate when I am so busy that I don’t have time to blog right after an event. Ultimately what ends up happening is that I still find it important to include the event in my blog, but it becomes more of a chore as each day passes and brings me further away from the event. So I sit here on a Tuesday night (granted it will probably be the end of the week before I finish my blog) on my couch, laptop on my lap, under DJ (the name of our comforter that I have had since I was 10, which “happened” to be the same comforter that D.J. Tanner from Full House (who I wanted to be by the way) had) and I attempt to write my blog. Justin is out of town and Avery and Emerson have come in my room at least six times in the past two hours since I put them to bed so I’ll be lucky if I finish this paragraph before I fall asleep on the couch.
So October….October 5 Justin and I woke up at 3:45 a.m. to make our 6:00 a.m. flight to TURKS and CAICOS! We had wanted to go away just the two of us for our 5 year anniversary. Well Harper came along and was 6 weeks old at the time of our 5 year anniversary. We figured we would do something for our 6 year anniversary instead. That too didn’t happen as we had just moved and were trying to figure out our financial situation with our mortgage and expenses. Naturally we figured we would do something for our 7 year anniversary instead and when spring came around this year, we actually started planning for it. I had seen pics of Turks and Caicos beaches the past few years and while I knew we wanted to go to the Caribbean for this trip, I thought Turks and Caicos was out of my league. But once we started planning, we quickly realized that Turks and Caicos was the place for us. I even bought a skimpy one piece, if there is such a thing. I’ve reached a point in my life where my time for wearing two pieces is over….the last time I wore I two piece I rocked it…we were in Greece in 2010…I was 30 years old and not once did I think to myself that that would be the last time I would wear a two piece. Since then I’ve been wearing mom bathing suits…yes, one’s with a little skirt portion at the bottom….cute but certainly a mom bathing suit. I feel great about my body now, with the exception of my stomach and my boobs, which I have a lot of excess skin:(. Anyway, I didn’t want to wear a mom bathing suit to Turks and Caicos and while I did bring one bikini that I wore once in seclusion, I found a hot one piece that certainly wasn’t your ordinary one piece. I figured I have many years ahead of me to continue wearing my mom bathing suit.
We spent 5 days/4 nights in pure luxury. Our upgrade to a 1500 suite was more space than we knew what to do with especially considering we spent most our time outside. The beaches were breathtaking. The trip there was actually quite easy and we were at the hotel by 1:00. Justin and I just looked at each other with the same thought, which was “why don’t we do this more often”? Literally once we were there it just seemed so easy.
We spent plenty of time at the beach…
We spent some time at the pool…..there were more kids at the resort that I would have liked and a few of them were being loud and I was trying to relax thus I wrapped the towel around my head (my legs were slightly burned thus the towel around my legs). Justin thought I looked like Aunt Jemima!
We went to the Local Fish Fry Thursday night via the beach! I ate a lot of fish tacos and conch while there.
We went out to eat three times for dinner…twice to the same restaurant which was just a short walk on the beach….once to a sister restaurant of the hotel where we were staying.
We did a snorkeling excursion and saw some of the most beautiful beach scenery that I have ever seen before. It was breathtaking.
And of course we had fun just being silly and trying to re-create a picture that we took on our first real trip together to Mexico in 2007.
While I missed the kids, I was completely okay with being away from them. I knew they were in good hands and it was nice to truly be able to relax, get some good sleep, connect with Justin, and not have to worry about work, making dinner or lunches, doing laundry, putting kids to bed, or doing laundry.
The week after we got back, we met with “Bridgette” who two weeks earlier had done a family portrait session of our family. We had never done family pictures before and while it was pricy, I knew that this was something not only would I not regret, but something I wanted to do periodically to capture our awesome loving family through the years. We ended up buying 20 digital images in addition to the two canvases we bought. We’ve slowly been blowing them up and putting them around the house…our house is truly becoming a home and I love it. Here are some of the images that we purchased (primarily the ones we haven’t put up around the house…yet)!
We had the photo session on our anniversary actually and it was really special….Justin and I have been together for almost 15 years, married for 7, and we have three beautiful little girls. I feel so blessed and these pictures capture our love for life and one another.
In mid-October we took the girls to the Reston Pumpkin Patch, where they had fun jumping in the moon bounce, playing on the slide, going for a ride on the train, and doing funny poses for the camera.
The following weekend in October we went to visit GiGi, which I blogged about separately.
Then the last weekend in October was Halloween! The girls changed their minds on what they wanted to be almost daily, if not more, for weeks leading up to Halloween. I finally let it stop bothering me as I realized they were having fun with it and I realized that we had quite a few dress up clothes that I could work with to come up with a handful of last minute costume ideas.
In the end, Avery was a witch…although she didn’t want to wear her hat, or use her broom. Emerson was Belle from Beauty and the Beast. And Harper was Anna from Frozen. My sister and Gabo were visiting from London and they joined in the Halloween celebration. By the way, they are ENGAGED!!
Halloween fell on a Saturday this year and since we had been so busy the week before, we hadn’t yet had a chance to carve our pumpkins. My idea was to carve them Saturday with my sister and Gabo. There was definitely more basketball and soccer playing occurring than there was pumpkin carving.
Justin carved all three of them though….mostly by himself….
Apparently Avery was less than impressed with his pumpkin carving skills….
She carried a pumpkin…
As Emerson played ball in the street with Lauren and Gabo…
Lauren was practicing her mad basketball skills….I must say I was impressed…I think she is a better dribbler at age 33 then she was at age 12!
The girls got dressed and we took a few pictures of everyone including Ludmilla before she went off to her bar crawl.
We failed to get individual pictures of the girls this year….truthfully I was way less stressed about us getting ready then last year so I don’t know if I really forgot as much as I was enjoying going with the flow and was okay not to try to get them to take individual pictures in which I knew they likely wouldn’t want to take.
The evening was fun….Gabo had never experienced Halloween before and we joked that this Halloween experience wasn’t the norm…he was truly experiencing a 5 star Halloween. It started out with a “dinner” costume party at our neighbors, followed by trick or treating in the neighborhood, where multiple houses were handing out adult beverages, followed by a bonfire in the cul-de-sac.
Here is Joe Dirt himself.
Day after Halloween was November….hard to believe it is November already. Justin and I went out to dinner Monday night with them to celebrate their engagement before they headed to NY and back to London. Girls spent the night at my parents which they love! Tuesday morning Justin left for Nashville and I been playing single parent in the eveningsL. The weather has been gorgeous the past few days…sunny, 70 degrees, no wind….best fall weather a person could ask for. I’ve worked from home the past two days so I was able to manage to take a 45 minute walk each day around lunch time and it was glorious. Being outside in great weather always puts me in a good mood. While I know the cold darker days are approaching, I’m hopeful that November brings more fall like weather than winter weather. And if winter weather is what November brings, I hope we take advantage by making lots of crock pot recipes and homemade chocolate chip cookies!