Charity's Crazy Beautiful Life

The rainy season is OVER, so come visit!

Today was beautiful...the weather was great, the skies were clear, the water was gorgeous!! A switch to what we've been dealing with lately - which has been lots and lots of rain! So, when we woke up and saw blue skies this morning, we decided to head to the beach. This is one of my favorite pictures from today with Craig, Allyssa, and Daz out wave jumping while Colby is collecting hermit crabs in his bag. And can you believe that this is a straight out of the camera shot? No editing. This is precisely how beautiful the beach was today! 

Yes, you got me! I've decided to campaign on this blog. To post beautiful island pictures to entice you to come visit us. Can you tell I miss you!?!?!!! (Just don't come during the "rainy season", you'd be mad at me!!) Lucky for you and me both, I think the rainy season is behind us for another year!

Hope to see you soon!!
Love,
~Charity
 

View Tease

Ok, I only have 5 more minutes until my "lunch break" is over and I have to get back to painting my house. It's so hard to be motivated to unpack, paint, and decorate a house when the weather is so nice and there are so many things to do and see on this island! Case in point; what we did yesterday. Which I don't have time to post about right now. So I'll share a few pictures of the view from where we were yesterday instead. ~Enjoy

Both of the East China Sea.

 

This is the Pacific in the distance. We could see them both from where we were standing.

Beware: this post talks about puke! (But only a little.)

Today, my friends, I could share with you about my day...about how I took the kids to Hannah Montana: The Movie, how we all liked it, and how it was much better than I thought it would be. Or, I could tell you about how I attempted to take the kids to Saturday Night Mass. How, after being there for five minutes, Daziel told me he was sick to his stomach and puked at the back door as we were hurriedly trying to find him a bathroom. My poor boy! Or, I guess I could tell you about how Colby decided to join Daziel and now both of my boys have been sick all night long.

But no -- no, no, no. I won't do that to you. I won't go into those gory details. Instead, because neither of those topics sounds exciting or enticing... (And because I was missing my husband and going through pictures from when we were in Wisconsin and happened upon some funny pictures that are much nicer than talking about puke!) Today I share with you this:

 

And yes, this is how we -- we who lived in the South for almost four years-- dressed in the freezing cold Wisconsin weather while we were there.

Did I mention that while we were there we stayed with Craig's sister, Tracey? His happiest sister?

 

Well, yeah, ok, she is his only sister...his only sibling for that matter.

But just look at that smile. Doesn't she look happy? She's always smiling! No joke, Tracey is one of the smiliest (is that a word?) people I know.  Especially for pictures. Which makes me smile, and laugh, because that is SOOO the opposite of her brother. Oh, I'm not talking about the happy part. Craig can be a pretty jovial kind of fella. He just doesn't ever smile for pictures. He could be in the greatest of moods, but when a picture is taken, his smile disappears. Which means that we have a ton of pictures where Craig looks -- mad and annoyed. Which again, makes me laugh!  

Do you see Tracey's daughter, our niece? That's Mariah, and her red hair is for real! I think she is one of the cutest red-heads I have ever seen! 

   

On one of those cold, February evenings while we were visiting in Wisconsin, we took the kids out to play in the snow. Which kind of excited Craig and I, who had both grown up playing in the snow. It excited the kids too, because we hadn't seen snow in years!

 

Then our nephew, Matt, got out his four-wheeler.  Which enticed Craig to get out a four-wheeler. And what do you do in the snow with a four-wheeler? Well, you pull a kid on a tube, of course!!

  

Which of course enticed me to take pictures of that kid on the tube. But these pictures, they just didn't do. So, I climbed on the back of that four-wheeler, held onto my beloved camera with one hand and tried to hold onto my beloved husband with the other.

 

Hold on, Colby!

 

Aaaah, Craig, slow down....

yes, I know he's smiling...but I'm falling...

No, he didn't slow down or stop whipping around just because I was sitting backwards on the back of that four-wheeler. He didn't slow down for Colby either.

 

So we lost him.

Which means that Colby wasn't smiling any more.

  

So Craig did what any good father would do. He consoled his son.

Then asked, "Who's next?"

Gosh I miss him!

Gosh I miss that butt!!

(Ok, ok, sorry! He's been gone for a month.)

Mostly, I'm glad that I didn't have to talk any more puke tonight!

Merry Vacation -- Day 1 & 2

Ok, so we got here and originally were going to wait until the 19th to go to Disney and wait for Craig's sister and her family to arrive (they flew in on the 18th). But we got word that they might be delayed due to weather, so we went ahead and started our Disney adventures yesterday...the 18th.

 

And of course we started out with The Magic Kingdom. Please excuse Colby in any pictures...if he doesn't look happy...it's because he gets moody about getting his picture taken. He is having a blast, though.

We all are. It's been two full days of parks and we're having so much fun. After doing about half of The Magic Kingdom yesterday, we decided to take a different route and do The Animal Kingdom today. We have seen and done so much already! Rides, shows, pin trading, safari's, character autographs, and have spent time with family.

 

And Craig has found his favorite ride...a roller coaster that has made him a lover (he's not been a huge fan of them before today)...

 

A ride all about this mountain. A pretty big mountain, right? Well, it's a pretty big ride too. And I heard it was pretty stinkin' cool! I mean, Craig wouldn't quit telling me how cool it was. I didn't find out for myself.  You see, Colby and I didn't ride it. I mean, somebody had to stay back and take the pictures...right?

Can you spot them?

 

How about now?

 

So yes...we're having a blast...we hope your days have been just as merry.

Disney World or Bust

We’re on the road -  headed to Orlando for our Christmas Disney World vacation. And I mean that literally.  We are sitting in our van and are on the road. Oh do I love technology!

 

The kids aren’t bored…they’re watching a movie.  I’m not bored…I’m blogging.  We used to travel (car travel) a bunch when I was a kid. Back then I would have never thought that when my kids were the age I was then they would get to watch movies while traveling...who woulda thunk!  And I used to be against the whole DVD player in the car idea, but not anymore. Now, we don’t turn it on every time we get in the car. For that matter, we usually don’t turn it on.  But for long trips, it’s nice. Real nice! 

You know what’s not nice? A husband who drinks a lot of coffee.  Especially when said husband has a weak bladder. 

I’m not joking when I say…my husband is worse than a child being potty-trained! He has to stop to pee SO much it’s unbelievable! (Isn’t this a medical condition?)  In our family, it has kind of become a joke. Especially because it “hits him fast” so most of the time he has to pull over on the side of the road.  Like today...

 

No folks, that's not BIG FOOT you see hiding in those trees...

 

Really. Seriously. I am now calling this syndrome the "I Can't Hold It While Traveling Syndrome."  Prime example – it was the summer of ’05 and we were driving from Fairchild AFB, WA to Montgomery, AL because of our military move to Maxwell AFB.  I was driving the van filled with our children. Craig was driving his truck filled with all of the things they refused to pack for us (candles, cleaning supplies – hey, that stuff is expensive to replace), the stuff I refused to let them pack for us (sentimental keepsakey kind of things), and our dog.   I think we were somewhere in South Dakota when Craig got on the radio (yes, I said that correctly – back then he refused to have a cell phone so we used walkie talkies to talk to each other. So Craig got on his radio and told me,

“Charity, I’m gonna have to use the bathroom soon. How are you guys doing?”

I looked in the rearview mirror at my four children and said, “Hey kids, your dad has to stop and use the restroom. How about you? Anyone else need to go to the bathroom?”

They all looked at me, even a recently potty-trained Colby, and said “Nooooo.”  Why that response? Because we had stopped so many times already that day for potty breaks.

"So, I got on my radio to Craig and said, “The kids are ok. But I  guess I could use some gas, so why don’t we stop at a gas station to kill two birds with one stone."

“Ok” he answered back, “I’ll stop at the next one.”

We got lucky – not five minutes down the road we saw signs for a gas station at the next exit.  So Craig goes to take that exit and abruptly pulls over to the shoulder of the road and stops on the off ramp. What was wrong? I thought maybe he was getting a flat or there was something wrong with our dog or – and then I see Craig hopping out of his trucking and running to the passenger side where he proceeded to pee on his tire – yes – just like our dog. (There’s a reason why they’re called man’s best friend.) He hurried and hopped back into his truck and drove to the gas station that was only about 100 yards away. 

When we got out I said, “Whoa, what happened back there? Just a little further and you would have had a bathroom, dear.” 

He replied, “Yeah, I know, but it hit me fast --- I really had to go!”

It’s funny, too, because he’s not usually this way. Only when we’re traveling. I’m not sure why. Surely it’s something psychological. I kind of feel bad for the guy. Luckily, he can just go pick a bush, or a tree, and then we can mosey on along our way.  And yes, I stock up on hand sanitizer when we’re traveling.  

Only a few more hours and we’ll be in Orlando. Hopefully not too many more bathroom stops before then. (Can I call them bathroom stops when the peeing happens on bushes and tires?) I can feel the excitement in the car…Disney World, here we come!

Springin' for McWane

Howdy friends, I've surfaced for air!

Can't you tell?  What?  This doesn't look like a "surfaced" sort of picture? (Yes, that's me on the top right.) Ok, so, life totally carried me away for a week.  A whole week, and I didn't even realize it.  I saw how carried on and on comments were getting on that last post, and I said to myself, "self, what in tarnation is going on here!?!"  Then, I looked at the date of my last post... then looked at the calendar, then did a double-mint double take, and was astonished - a week!  I left you for a week?  How could it have been an entire week?!?  I'm so, so sorry! I've been...(ah, gasp, you are all still so very, very important so please forgive me)...

busy, blah blah blah, with Half Off Book Fair, blah blah blah, and a Family Fun Night, blah blah blah, and Allyssa's first Softball game, blah blah, which she won by the way, blah, and a Boy Scout Camp Trip, and T-ball practice and Kilz paint spilled all over my favorite black jeans and the hall of school, blah blah blah, and midterms, blah blah blah, and trying to find some other crazy beautiful lunatic to step up for PTO president next year, blah blah blah, and appointments - tons and tons of appointments - which are just plain blah!   But I can tell we've been missed, look at the comments from the last post!  So, I figured I'd do you all a favor and pull y'all up out of that there gutter you've found yourself slinging mud from.  (You all sounded just the way Craig looked in those pictures, by the way.) So, in the spirit of springin' y'all out of a gutter, (which sounds so much like springin' y'all from the slammer -- which I just have to laugh at because that's how I am) I opted to share a few pictures of something we did over Spring Break!  No, we didn't go nuts and visit the Looney Bin...

I guess this isn't a good picture to try and convince you of that.  So, yes, you may still think we're nuts.  But these were all taken when we went to the McWane Science Center in Birmingham.  Check 'em out!

By the way, these pictures are prior to the new camera.  Can't you tell the difference?  I sure can!

And then these kids wanted to dig...

and we just couldn't pull him away...