LOTS of stuff!

I have severely neglected blogging.   I have started printing the blogs I write into books- it's such a great way to keep the memories and pictures!  I really want to get back to it, so I'm catching up on all that's been going on since January.  

On the day we came back from Aruba, Brian turned 40.  He didn't want a big hoorah, so we had a little party for a few family and  friends.  His shirt says "It took 40 years to look this good!" Ha! 

In February, Hudson turned 9.  He is super into emojis, so he requested a cake with a devil emoji (I don't know why).  So I did my best. 

We took him and a friend (and Reed and his friend) to a place over in Weatherford that has a bowling alley, arcade and movie theater.  Good times were had by all. 

In late February, we got ourselves a new mule.  We have had an old golf cart and then an old John Deere gator to do chores and run around here on our land.  They didn't work well, were sometimes hard to get started and were kind os a pain.  This mule has been AWESOME.  It has two rows and can seat 4-6.  We use it almost daily to get us around out here and it's super handy.

On Spring Break, the boys and I (Brian had to stay and work) drove down to Galveston for a few days.

We found a condo close to the beach and had a great time doing whatever we wanted.  It was pretty chilly most of the time, but we had fun!

The boys and I went on a dolphin watching tour. We almost froze to death, but ended up seeing a ton of dolphins.  It was awesome.

It was a fun, relaxing trip.

This dog.  Oh my.

He has fit right in with our family.  I love seeing the boys run around with him outside.  He is such a sweet puppy.

Hudson and went on our first Mother/Son trip at the end of March.  Here we are, bight and EARLY (about 6:00 a.m) at the airport for our flight to Kentucky.

 We flew into Louisville and rented a car.  Hudson was so excited it had a Texas license plate (which I thought was super odd).

We drove to Mega Cavern and got ready for our underground zip line tour. 

He had been wanting to zip line for s long time, but hasn't been old enough.  This place let younger kids do it as long as they weigh enough.  I was worried he would get scared, but he LOVED it.  I was the one struggling at the end.  They platforms got higher and even though we were underground, it was freaky.  I'm glad we did it though.  We went back to our hotel and took a nap for a bit. Then we saw Beauty and Beast at a nearby theater that had recliners.

 We slept hard that night and got up the next day to go to the Ark Encounter.  We had to drive a little over an hour and then hop on a shuttle bus from the parking lot to the Ark.

We spent the next few hours walking around and checking it out.  It was SO fun and I highly recommend it!

We drove back to the hotel, had a pizza delivered for dinner and watched TV.  The next morning we got up and returned the rental car and checked in for our 9 A.M. flight.  It was delayed, then eventually cancelled.  The next flight was at 8:00 PM (yes P.M.) and had a connection in Charlotte.  So we sat in the airport for 12 1/2 hours.  Hudson did this most of the time.

We got on our flight and with our connection were planning to land in DFW at midnight.  I had a sweet friend offer to let us stay at her house in the metroplex instead of having to drive home.  I was thinking i was going to take her up on it.  We landed in Charlotte and out connecting flight left in 10 minutes.  From another terminal.  I looked at Hudson and said "Get ready, we are going to RUN."  And we did. Turns out, we never would've made it anyway because the flight was shutting the doors as our other plane was landing.  No more flights out that night, so the airline gave us a voucher for a hotel and booked us for a flight the next morning.  We got up early and got back to the airport to head home.  We were absolutely beat.  The flight home:

 We had such a great time!  I love these trips with my boys.

 On april 30th, Reed turned 13.  I can't believe I have a teenager.  He's a sweet kid and such a blessing.

 My latest favorite picture of me and my hubby.  

School let out and Reed dyed his hair blue.  Why not, right? 

We had our first swimming day of the summer yesterday and came home exhausted and a little sunburned.  After dinner we made cookies and played with the dog in the tank. Looking forward to a fun summer with my family!

Aruba

Brian and I spent last week in Aruba.  Henson's invited us on another trip and it was the first since the whole debacle on the plane home from Costa Rica, so Brian endured some ribbing for that.  He drank plenty of water and was well rested, so no problems on this trip home. :)    We left VERY early Tuesday morning and spent a good majority of the day traveling.  Once in Aruba, we had a couple of hours to rest up and then had a welcome dinner.  We were in bed fairly early that evening - it was a long day!  I didn't take as many pictures on this trip as normal, but still got quite a few.

On Wednesday, our first full day, we slept late and ate a leisurely breakfast.  We had booked  a UTV island tour with 2 other couples we knew.  It was a blast.  The UTV's were super fun.  They would go pretty fast and we were all kinds of terrain - the main road with other cars, rocks, dirt road,  a muddy, potholey road... we had mud all down our sides when we were done.  

Aruba has a lighthouse.  Who knew?

We spent a lot of the time right next to the coast.

A church that was built in the late 1700s, then destroyed, then rebuilt in 1952. :)

I didn't get a picture of us in our UTV, so this one of Logan and Mandy will have to do. :)

Gold Mill Ruins

We stopped to do some diving - there was a little cave that you could crawl down a ladder and scoot across some rocks (as the waves were coming though and splashing on you) and dive into a more calm pool below.  We didn't wear swimsuits and didn't want to be wet the rest of the time, so we watched from the top cliff.

We stopped at this beautiful beach and took some pictures...

and even got a rainbow in this one!

Our UTV kinda acted weird the whole time, and we quickly found out why.  Brian went to start it and the temperature gauge was all the way to hot.  As you can see, there was a huge puddle of antifreeze under it and so we had to hop in another one and continue the tour.  

Here's the line of UTV's (our sad little broken down one is up on the right).

We had a great day!  We got back after dark and were muddy and gross, so we showered and went out for a nice leisurely dinner. 

Thursdays we took a submarine ride.  I was a little leary with my claustrophobia, but I looked online at the pictures of the inside and decided that I would go for it. We met at the office across from tour hotel and took a little ferry boat out to the "dive site".

The water was gorgeous.

There was already a little boat out there.  The sub would "pop" up ( I got a video, but it's taking 100 years to load, so never mind) and then we would sandwich it between our boat and the little boat.  We lined up on top of the sub and the people in side would get on the ferry and we would go down in the sub.  It was a well oiled machine - I think they did it like 8 times a day.  The inside of the sub was fine - almost like being in a little plane.

We saw fish and shipwrecks -  it was fun and definitely worth doing.

Brian filmed some of it for the boys on hid little camera.:)

We went down pretty far. 

We did some shopping in the nearby shops in the afternoon.  Our hotel had stores on the first floor, but they included Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Carolina Herrera, Gucci, etc.  Uh, no. This girl needed a good 'ol souvenir shop with keychains and magnets and t-shirts. :)  

Brian and I stopped in an Archeology museum just a couple of blocks from the hotel.  Not great, but it was free, so who's complaining? :)

We ate dinner that night with 3 other couples in a yummy steakhouse.  My appetizer soup came in the cutest cast iron mini dutch oven thing.  I took a picture and everybody made fun of me.  I'm guessing this is what old people do. :)

After dinner we visited out in the open air lobby and i noticed i got some bug bites.  I had tried a new smelly lotion and I think it attracted all the bugs.  I woke up the next morning at 5:00 clawing at bites my legs.  There was no going back to sleep, so I went downstairs to the Starbucks and got some coffee.  I sat out by the pool and enjoyed the morning view.

After I finished my coffee, I went to the 24 hour casino.  Yep, I was the joke on the trip.   I had been to the casino on and off by this point everybody was making fun of me. I knew there was a casino, so I took $100 to gamble with.  I did the penny slots, and by this time, I had lost it all but $8.  But as I was playing, I won $100, so I ended up winning everything back and called it quits. :)

After Brian got up, we ate breakfast and got ready to do some snorkeling.  We headed out to the hotel's private island.  They had a ferry that  you can take from the lobby.  The island has two beaches and rock "walls" that keep the waves calm so its almost like you are in a private lagoon.  The water is beautiful and there are flamingos that you can feed on the beach!

I snorkeled a little and then we had lunch at the restaurant.

The view was beautiful.

Lizards and iguanas everywhere.

After lunch we decided to do some more snorkeling - there was a shipwreck about 100- 150 yards past the rock wall of the lagoon.  Leaving the wall messed with my psyche.  When we were in open water, every Jaws movie scene came to mind.  I sucked it up and swam out there to see.  I didnt stay nearly long enough because my fear got the best of me.  But what we did see was really neat. (Pictures stolen from Logan and his fancy waterproof phone case)

Friday evening was the farewell cocktail party and hors d'oeuvres.

The sunset was stunning.

We ended up going to dinner after with Logan and Mandy and chatting for a couple of hours. 

I always buy an ornament on vacation to hang on our memory tree.  This one is definitely one of my favorites.  

Brian and I had a wonderful time.  Life can quickly get us bogged down with the day to day, but when we have time to get away and reconnect like this, it always confirms that he's my best buddy and there's nobody I'd rather be with.  :)