Catching up

We’re so far behind on blog posts it isn’t even funny.  I’m hoping to catch up over the next couple weeks.  Life around the Simons house has been crazy.  Haley’s learning something new every day.  Which is exciting.  yet scary. 

Trey’s getting into everything.  He just had his first birthday a couple weeks ago.  So he’s officially one.  We had to get outside and get his one year old pictures.  We got some great ones. 

When Haley turned 1, Laura went to portrait innovations and got some pictures made.  They turned out pretty good.  Nothing to write home about, but not bad either.  They had this prop.  It was a block with the number “1” on it.  She wanted to get the same shot of Trey, so much to my disagreement, she took him.  Well, the pictures came out bad.  Mediocre would be putting it nicely.  So there you have it.  I hope she learned her lesson.

Happy Birthday, Trey!

Trey is ONE!!  We had such a fun weekend celebrating Trey’s birthday.  I cannot believe he’s been in our family for a year!  It has been the best year yet.  The joy and happiness he adds to our family is indescribable.  He is constantly smiling and is getting quite a sense of humor.  He loves life and is content wherever he is…especially if big sister, Haley, is around.  Thinking back over the past year I have a great sense of accomplishment for myself in learning to juggle life with two kids and a great sense of pride in how well Haley has handled the adjustment of sharing EVERYTHING!  She loves her brother so much- constantly letting him know with hugs, kisses, laughter, and encouragement as he hits his milestones.  They are already such great friends…I look forward to that relationship getting stronger and stronger.  (And for those of you reading this that have several kids, let me live in ignorant bliss thinking they’ll always want to play together and be friends!) 

We had a dinosaur party for Trey (T-Rex, as we called him this weekend) and it was fun.  I loved getting the decorations ready and trying to make his day special…even if he is a little to young to know what a great party he had!  The Simons, Murphy’s, Nana Clack, KJ, and my parents were all in attendance.  Friday night we had a little cook out and ate dinosaur cookies for our dessert…made by Haley and I!  Saturday was the real party and since the pork took a little longer than I planned, we opened presents and ate cake first!  Trey had a great time watching Haley and Seth open all his presents and show him what he got.  He just smiled and laughed at all the commotion.  We’ve already started playing with all the new toys and reading the new books.  Trey wasn’t feeling that well on Saturday so he took a time-out to rest with Dad on the big chair.  That didn’t stop him from eating his cake.  Haley helped show him the good stuff- ICING.  She helped herself…as an example, of course! 

It was a special day and gave me pause to reflect on the blessing of both my kids.  I am overwhelmed that God has loaned us these amazing people to teach, love, and encourage.  Every night when I check on them before I go to bed I thank Him for the amazing gift Hayden and I have of parenthood and for these incredible individuals.  What an amazing year!

Fun Weekend

We had a great time this past weekend.  Friday started out with me swinging by Red Box on the way home and grabbing two movies.  We watched most of one of them…Sherlock Holmes.  It was pretty good.  I also managed to start laying some of the backsplash that we’ve needed to put up for about three weeks now.  It’s looking pretty good.  Once I get it finished, I’ll have to post some pictures.  It wasn’t too difficult to lay the tiles thanks to help from my lil helper, Haley.

Saturday morning we were up and at em.  I went on a short bike ride with a group and was back home around 10.  After devouring a bit of food, I took a nap.  We spent Friday afternoon at a Mickey Mouse birthday party for the Little’s kids.  A great time was had there.  We rounded out Saturday night by having some great friends over for cards.

Sunday was pretty typical.  Church followed by an awesome nap.  After a bit more backsplash work and finishing up Sherlock Holmes, the weekend was over.

Zoo Day!

Last Friday we went to the zoo.  Laura and I got back from St. Lucia around midnight Thursday night, so I took the day off on Friday.  We made great use of the great weather.

Laura packed up a picnic lunch and off to the zoo we went.  The kids seemed to have a great time.  I really enjoyed it as well.  It was awesome hanging out with the family and taking the time to just enjoy the outdoors.  I’d better get my fill of it…I’m sure it will be 95 degrees every day before we know it.

Trey is growing like a weed.  He still hasn’t really learned to crawl.  Even at nearly one year old.  However, he is cruising around the coffee table and reaching out and cruising over to the couch.  I’ve got a feeling he’s going to be walking before he crawls.  He’s starting to get a lot more vocal as well.  Its funny to listen to him lay in his crib and practice his words.

St. Lucia – Full Update

Well, we’re back.  What a fantastic trip!  It was so nice to spend some time with just the two of us.  Relaxing and enjoying each other’s company.  In the fast world that we live in, we don’t have much time to do that.  Between church, work, kids, friends and general commitments like keeping up the house, it becomes easy to neglect spending quality time together.

So, a rundown of the trip!  We stayed at Jalousie Plantation.  Jalousie is a resort that is situated in a bay right between the Pitons in St. Lucia.  The pitons are basically mountains.  St. Lucia is known for the Pitons so we opted to stay somewhere that would be memorable.

There was a fair amount of remodeling that went on while we were there, which really worked out to our favor.  The first room we had was about mid-way up the resort.  It was one of those “garden view” rooms, but we did have a small view of the ocean.  All of the “rooms” are little cottages.  They have vegetation surrounding them and are spread out so you feel like you are in a house in the middle of no where.  Here’s a shot of the inside of our room.

We asked about upgrading to a full ocean view when we arrived, but the didn’t have any rooms available.  We were able to switch rooms after a few days though.  We almost didn’t switch because we didn’t want to re-pack.  But we did…and it was worth it.  Our second room had an AWESOME view of the ocean.  It had a dip pool out back (the first one did as well).  We spent a lot of time in the dip pool just watching the ocean and watching the sun set over Petit Piton.  Here’s a view from our pool.

We spent most of the day down at the beach.  The beach was a little rocky, but there were really cute huts to protect from the blazing sun.  St. Lucia is close to the equator so the sun is intense.  There were little flags you could put up when you were hungry or thirsty.  When your flag went up, staff ran over to assist.  Really, what more could you ask for?  We could hardly believe that this was the site we’d see every day for the next 5 days.  Here are some shots from the beach.  The first one is a rainbow we saw one morning while having breakfast in the Bayside restaurant.

There were some pretty neat activities at the resort.  Snorkeling was fantastic.  In fact, many of the other resorts and cruise ships used the snorkeling area at our resort.  One of the other fun activities was sailing a Hobie Cat.  Laura and I had never done it so we got a quick 30 minute lesson one morning.  We took the Hobie cat out twice after our lesson.  It was a lot of fun and made me want to get one!

Probably our most surprising part of the trip was a hike up Gros Piton.  Gros Piton is the taller Piton that it situated to the Southern side of the resort.  It is taller than the Petit Piton, but is much easier to hike.  I say it is easier to hike, but don’t think it was easy.  Quite the contrary.  It may have been one of the more difficult things I’ve ever done.  I didn’t get much sleep the night before and Laura felt queasy at breakfast so she didn’t eat much.  Both of those things were stacked against us.

The hike was a little disappointing.  Possibly because we have such a phenomenal view of the Pitons from the resort, the hike up just didn’t provide much more.  The hike was only about 2 miles, but it took us a full two hours to make the climb.  We were literally climbing up boulders on the side of the mountain.  Coming down was a little faster, but not by much.

Our tour guide up the Piton was Luciano.  He was a Rasta Man.  He spent a good bit of time telling us about life.  He asked us what spirit we had in us.  We told him we had the Holy Spirit.  He said he had the spirit of nature.  Very interesting dude.  He LOVED to talk.   Here are some photos from the hike.

The day after the hike, we were in a little pain.  Nothing major, just some sore muscles.  We decided we should get a massage together.  It was my first time to ever get a massage.  I thought it was going to be awkward, but it wasn’t.  I’ll probably get another one before I die.  Doubt I’ll get another next week. :)  The location of the massage was awesome, though.  They even had mirrors at 45 degree angles on the ground so that when you were face down, you could see the ocean.  Nice touch.  Here’s a picture from where we got our massages.

All in all, our trip was a blast.  Probably the worst part of the whole thing was that we didn’t discover the best dessert on the island until the next to last night there. (it was a soufflé)  But we were able to knock back three of them before we left.  The food was great.  The weather was great.  The company was great.  We knew the kids were in good hands with my parents towards the beginning of the vacation and Laura’s towards the end.  And now…back to reality.  We’re definitely coming back refreshed.

St. Lucia!

We’ve been looking forward to this week for over 6 months and it is finally here!!  We are officially in paradise, spending the whole day outside near the beach.

The plane ride was slightly (3 hours) delayed in Atlanta, but I guess it’s hard to complain when your are so thankful they found the broken part BEFORE take-off over the ocean!  Leaving the kids was hard but we are excited they get to spend quality time with both sets of grandparents while we are gone.

Driving through St. Lucia was an interesting experience. Our driver was much more careful than I expected, but I was car sick by the time we got here.  We saw a lot of locals and their ways of living. Each time I see poverty like that I feel my eyes open.  It almost made me feel guilty for coming to stay at such a nice place when the people outside the gate are selling crafts in their front yard, out-house or walking the family goat.

We settled in right at sunset and love our cute room.  We’ve got a plunge pool right outside our door and can see the ocean (not real well) from the patio.  We can see one of the Pitons from our bed.  We had a really nice dinner at the Great Room- awesome steak!  Then we had coffee and dessert at the beach-side restaurant.  We couldn’t wait to see this place in daylight!  However, I got really sick at 3am and was up and down till 11am this morning.  Hayden ran to get me some tums and pepto as soon as the gift shop opened…I was watching the clock!  Luckily I felt better around 11am and we hit the beach!  We stayed there until about 4pm.  We ate, took advantage of their snorkeling gear, and explored the resort.  Our list of things we’d like to do this week is growing!  I think we’ll snorkel several times.  We talked with a couple who went on a paid snorkeling expedition and said the reefs at our hotel were the best they saw…saved us some money there!

My favorite thing about this resort are the incredible Piton mountains that are on either side of us.  Even though the water is beautiful, I’ve found myself looking up a lot more than looking down…they are majestic!  (especially coming from flat land Memphis)

Ready to See My Buddies

Ready for the fam to get back.  Laura and I are going on a trip soon and she realized that her passport was expired.  So, she took the kids and headed south to New Orleans to walk the passport through the process.  I got positive confirmation today that she’s officially got a valid passport!  Woo Hoo.

On the way to New Orleans, she dropped the kiddos off with my parents in Jackson.  From what I’ve heard, they’ve had a ball.  I’m just excited to get them back!

How cute is this girl!

Shiloh

Yesterday I got a chance to do something I’ve never done before.  I went with Lance Tabb, Larry Little and Chad O’Neal to Shiloh, TN.  This past week marked the anniversary of the battle of Shiloh and there were demonstrations this weekend where the actual battle took place.  It was really interesting talking to some of the guys that did the demonstrations.  Some of the cool things I learned were:

• The South won the first day, the North won the second
• There was a pond called “bloody pond” that actually took on a red color from all the blood that was in it.
• There were right at 110,000 people involved in the Battle of Shiloh…it lasted two days.
• About 3,500 soldiers died in battle.  About 16,400 were wounded.  About 3,800 were missing.
• There was a significant loss of life in the 2 days of battle considering only 4,000 lives were lost in the American Revolution.

One of the more interesting demonstrations was the artillery.  In one skirmish, there were 75 canons involved.  If you’ve ever heard a cannon fire, you know it is unbelievably loud.  It was said that the noise could be heard from 50 miles away.  We learned that during the heat of battle, one canon could fire about 3-4 times per minute.  With 75 canons involved, that means the loud booms occurred about 3-4 times per second.  Truly amazing. 

We were able to see some pretty neat action and we also saw some interesting characters.  I never knew so much Confederate flair that could be worn at one time.  We also saw a UT fan that was rocking some bright orange shoes.

He is Risen!

Happy Easter!  What a great weekend we’ve had.  Laura and I actually got to go on a date Friday night.  We haven’t been on a date in a while.  We started out at Firebirds and went to pick a movie afterwards.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a movie we wanted to watch unless we wanted to stick around the theater for 45 minutes.  So, we went to Wal-Mart and called it a night.  We did manage to watch about a half hour of TV before turning in.

Saturday morning brought spring cleaning.  We decided that if we had items we hadn’t used in over a year (and they weren’t “kid” items that we may need again), we’d get rid of them.  We’re going to list some of the stuff on Craigslist this week and what doesn’t sell will go to Goodwill.  Good riddance!

Haley and Trey were up this morning and ready for Easter.  They both seemed to enjoy their Easter baskets.  We decked them out in some duds that a friend’s grandmother made for them and we were off to church.  We even managed to have a little time to squeeze in a few pictures before the service started.

Right now the kids are napping and we’re getting ready to hide eggs.  Should be a blast!

Easter at OLPH

This past weekend we went to the Bunny Breakfast at OLPH.  The kids seemed to have a ball.  Especially Haley.  I think she’s finally getting this egg hunting down pat.  It took her a little while to realize that you don’t have to open every egg as you are putting them in your basket.

Once she got it, she was running to get eggs like a madman.  She’s been asking us to hide them around the house.  I’m not sure whether she is just enjoying it or she wants to get in plenty of practice before this weekend.

We’ve been LOVING this weather lately.  We’ve made it a point to try to get outside for a walk or just to enjoy the weather every day.  It is amazing what sunlight will do for everyone’s mood.

Trey has been talkative lately.  He doesn’t have many words down yet, but one thing he does have down is barking.  If a dog barks, he barks right back.  It is pretty cute to watch.  I think he said “Maroon” yesterday.  That should make papaw really proud.

Haley and Trey are getting along very well.  I have really been enjoying watching Haley love on Trey.  She is puffs up so proudly when she tells people that Trey is her brother.