March Misc. Photos

The pool's open!  Come on summer!!

Eden: Balancing Her Life

I gotta brag about Eden again here for a minute.  This young lady is incredibly driven and hard working.  She's doing awesome at a new school this year, taking her grades and classes seriously, making new friends, and learning to play the cello too.  She is also balancing all her medical stuff with so much patience and acceptance, and now she is a working woman making all kinds of money playing her harp.   She did 8 shows in the month of March!  I tell her often that she needs to give herself a break sometimes to just be a kid and play and break rules and waste time, but she doesn't seem too interested in any of those things.

She had her annual sleep study.  Dad is always her sleep study buddy.  These two have the routine down and though they get woken up pretty early, they both sleep pretty good there.    The results this year weren't great.  She did this sleep study without her CPAP machine and her total sleep disruptions and apnea episodes per hour is going back up.  This indicates she is having more obstruction of her airway, which is not the progress we are hoping to make.  Fortunately, she likes sleeping with her CPAP so that's not going away any time soon.  This will be helpful data for us to take to Cincinnati next month.

I love going to these harp shows with her!  The residents are so sweet and grateful she is there, and Eden is learning to talk with them in a more comfortable way for her.  It's really sweet to watch.  

Sometimes it seems like some of the residents are asleep, but then I'll notice them tapping their toes, or moving their hands to the music.  We have also been to a couple memory care centers and she will have a resident or two who will ask her the same question over and over again, and she just answers it with such grace and love, over and over again.

At this show, this woman was still in her room when Eden got started.  As Eden's show progressed, I noticed her slowly wheeling herself from her room, then into the main living room, and she was spinning in her chair back and forth like she was dancing to the music.  After Eden ended that song, she said hello and welcomed her to the show, then as Eden began to play again, she wheeled herself up really close to Eden and then she finished the show right next to her.  Eden was so sweet and talked with her one on one for a bit.  I love observing Eden grow and learn, and make friends with the residents who are so loving to her.  

Her fingers are also starting to get a little tougher.  She had some raw blisters at first that are now starting to get a little calloused.  The fingers of a real musician!

Eden - I love you.  You have a beautiful soul, and amazing drive to accomplish so much.  I'm so proud of you.  Don't forget to be a kid sometimes though.....  love mom.

Young Womens

 Young womens is the place to be!  Today we did a canvas painting tutorial, and their paintings turned out great.  I'm just so grateful for this time I have to be with the young women, and for all the things we learn together and all the fun we have doing it!

Karly

 This girl - she is full of spirit!  She wants to be independent and responsible like all the big kids, but under certain circumstances, she likes to be the baby who gets lots of help from everyone doing everything for her.  She especially knows she can get to Bentley with her sad, pleading, baby blue eyes.  He always gives in to what she asks of him, and I have to tell him to stop letting her manipulate him!   She keeps us on our toes for sure, but I think we will keep her.  Someone's gotta be the baby, and she is the perfect baby for us. 

I found this sweet self-reflection page in her school folder.  It's neat to me to see how my kids see themselves.  She says she "always": is respectful to the teacher, turns her work in on time, stays in her seat during instruction time, raises her hand, uses her neatest handwriting, and does her best work.  She says "most of the time" she is: respectful to classmates, keeps her desk organized, participates in class, follow rules, arrives at school prepared to learn. And her only answer for "sometimes" is that she works quietly in class and doesn't disturb others.   I would say that all sounds pretty accurate! 

This red sheet is her goal page and her "growth mindset notes" for math group. I love that she wrote a few quotes in each that show what is a fixed mindset and what is a growth mindset.  I need to break this out the next time we do homework and she tells me "I'm never doing this again!"  :)

Cruise to the Southern Caribbean!

It was time for another great spring break trip with the Reidheads!  This time we were off to the Southern Caribbean on Royal Caribbean's Explorer of the Seas.  This was a new destination for us so we were excited to see some new places: Bonaire, Curacao, and Aruba!

We flew into Miami and spent the night exploring the area near our hotel and the cruise port.  We went to a very loud restaurant for dinner.  The energy of the whole place was hoppin'!  Bienvenido A Miama!

The next morning, we had to get up and out early to head to the cruise terminal.  Unfortunately, many, many people in our hotel were doing the same thing and the elevators were not working.  This meant we had to take all our luggage down 7 flights of stairs.  Holy smokes.  It was a struggle, and the kids were champs.  What a way to kick of vacation, right?!

But after that workout, we were especially excited to get onto that ship!

But, first things first, before exploring the ship - we went straight to the dining hall for some lunch!

We had a couple connecting rooms so the kids could be in one and we were in the other.  The biggest bummer of cruises though is definitely the tight living quarters!

After our bellies were full and our luggage was put away, we headed off to explore the ship and see all the fun things in store.

Goodbye Miami!

Karly insisted on her own little photo shoot - she's such a cutie!

We went to the kids clubs to see what they had going on in there, and the girls immediately jumped into the hula hoop contest!

We spent the afternoon by the pool, enjoying the line dancing and all the fun celebrating. Vacation mode in full swing!

We had a great spot in the dining room, with beautiful views of the ocean!

First on the menu on night one was the escargot.  We had some in the group who had not yet tried it, so we had to order a couple and pass it around for any brave souls!

Then we were off to the theater for the first show.

After the show was the departure party in the promenade.  There were big nets of balloons hanging overhead and when the countdown ended, the kids were so excited as they all came flowing down over us.  It was a really fun dance party.

The next morning we woke up to a beautiful day at sea.  We were excited to have a slow, relaxing day on the ship.

The ship even had an ice skating rink, which was so cool!   Who would have ever guessed we would ice skate on a ship on our way to the Caribbean?!

That night was the formal night, so after a day of playing and hanging out by the pool, it was fun to get all fancied up for pictures and a nice dinner.

One of my favorite things about cruising is the options of new foods for my kids to try.  I've been impressed with their willingness to order new and different things. 

Brightin was great at providing our dinner entertainment.

That night we started the first of many "around the world" ping pong tournaments.  It was such a fun way for the whole group to get involved in a some friendly competition.

The kids were always exhausted by the end of the day. They really enjoyed all the laughing and fun of sharing the room and chatting until they fell asleep. I love peeking in at them while they sleep.  

Day three was another day at sea.  Everyone was excited to sleep in and enjoy a day of doing whatever we felt like on the ship!  The kids loved the kids club and spent a lot of time there.

And of course, another day at sea meant a lot of eating.

Here's some of the the breakfast crew! Everyone loves the donuts.  There were a lot of chocolate donuts consumed by this group!

Then we spent the day swimming, playing mini-golf, reading, and trying out the "wave rider" surfing thing.  This was a first time and everyone had so much fun.  It was another great day.

The most fun thing about the wave rider was watching people wipe out.

That night we had some good family game time before heading to the show.  

Day 4 was our first port day!  After two days at sea, we were ready for a change of scenery.  We were excited to explore the beautiful island of Bonaire, a new place for us all!  We loved all the colorful buildings and houses as we were coming up to port.

The Reidheads got off the ship early and went scuba diving, so our family had the morning to explore the island, which is small.  We rented an ATV that could fit our whole crew, and then off we went to see what we could find!  First stop was a beautiful (and nearly empty!) beach where we played and snorkeled.   The water here was the most beautiful and clear water we have ever been in.

It's always fun to find crabs and sea creatures too.  Karly fell in love with all the tiny sea snails she was finding.  She isn't a fan yet of snorkeling, so her and I did a lot of beach playing together.

After our beach time we continued our drive along the coast and came upon some old historic areas with some salt flats, and slave homes still in tact.  That was humbling to see those and talk about that with our kids.

We found another beach to explore along our drive that had good tidepools, and tons more snails and crabs to discover.  I love watching them explore, be curious, and find interesting things.  It's one of my favorite things to just observe them as they are experiencing things.

We also had fun watching these wind surfers.  We decided we definitely want to try that someday.

After hopping back into the ATV, we discovered a large open area along the coast that was the perfect place to let each of the kids try driving.  They couldn't believe we were serious, and this was probably the thing that made them all the most giddy out of everything we did on this trip.  We got the best videos of them laughing and squealing with pure joy.  Often times the comments from the back row were the funniest part!  We also learned we will have more stress with some children driving than others.  ha ha

Then we got a responsible adult back at the wheel, and continued our driving tour along the coast.  We came upon this cool lighthouse, and interesting "statue" built out of items that have washed ashore.

After this stop, we rounded a bend in the coastline and immediately hit rain.  It seemed like the grey sky and rain came out of nowhere!  Fortunately, we were on the more dry and empty side of the island so we just bore the wet and continued back to town.  By the time we got back around to the business side, the rain had stopped and we found the perfect local place to grab lunch.

Bentley and Karly stuck with what they knew (they thought).  Turns out lasagna in Bonaire isn't the best.  But Olive and Eden loved their yummy local food!

After lunch we had a bit more time before we met up with the Reidheads for our Landsailing excursion, so we stopped at a cliff diving spot, and then at one more gorgeous beach area.  The color of the water was so breathtaking! 

Everyone got in another round of snorkeling.

This beach was covered in dried coral.  Karly had fun sorting through it and finding cool shaped pieces.

It was so cute to watch as Olive and Karly noticed this huge Iguana.  They grabbed hands and slowly moved towards it.  I'm not sure what their plan was, but it was sweet to watch them whisper and move closer.

Then off we went to meet up with the Reidheads for our excursion.  By this point we had seen the whole island, but also felt so "un-hurried" as we explored and played as we felt like.  It was such a great morning.

Bonaire Landsailing was definitely an adventure!  I felt like we were playing a real life game of Mario Kart!  These karts were completely run by wind and as the driver, we were taught how to pull and loosen the rope in order to tighten or loosen our sail so we could control our speed.  Karly rode in a tandem kart with me, but everyone else drove their own and I was so impressed with how quickly they caught on, and how brave they were to fly around the track!   Everyone's thumbs and hands were a bit sore by the end of it, but it was so fun.  

I was especially impressed by Olive.  This was a tricky thing to maneuver and she did awesome!  I could tell she wasn't having as much fun as others because she was a little stressed about the speed and hanging on tight to her rope, but she did awesome! I think Olive and Rachel were both relieved when our time was up.

Round and round the course we went!  It was really fun to pull the rope tight as you hit a corner and it would really swing you around fast.  So fun!

After landsailing, we went back to the ship to have dinner, and then we finished the night back out in the city for a little shopping and ice cream.

Thanks for an amazing day Bonaire!

Day 5 was our second port day, this time in Curacao!  Today's plans included scuba diving again for the Reidheads, and swimming with sea turtles for the Justices!

Before meeting up for our sea turtle excursion though, we went to a beautiful beach to play for a couple hours.    This area was much busier than our beach yesterday in Bonaire, but it was still so gorgeous with such clear water.  It also had beautiful sand, not coral and rocks so the kids loved playing and digging. They could have spent the entire day here.

While we were there, Karly decided she would practice her snorkeling so she would be more confident and ready for our sea turtle adventure.  This was a brave step, because the previous day in Bonaire, she couldn't get herself to feel ready enough to snorkel.  So we got her all geared up and she headed out.  Brad and I were watching her, and so pleased with how much progress she was making in keeping her head under and exploring more.  We watched as she followed some fish around, and just got the hang of having her head under water for long periods of time.  Then out of nowhere she jumped out of the water and came running to me crying saying something had bit her.  I couldn't see anything at first and couldn't figure out what was going on, and what was causing so much panic for her.  Then within a minute or so, the jellyfish bite started to show.  Poor baby!  And just as she was getting so comfortable in the water.    Fortunately a lady near us on the beach had some jellyfish sting lotion so we got that on there and it seemed to help.  She was so brokenhearted though.  And just like that, our hope for her snorkeling at the turtle excursion was gone.   Poor thing though, she was in a lot of pain!

Then off we went to meet up with our guide for our excursion.  We didn't really know what to expect for this "swimming with sea turtles" excursion, but it turned out to be really incredible. Originally this area was a place where the fisherman would clean their catches and all the fish remnants started to attract a lot of turtles to the area.  Now, the guides are constantly feeding the turtles throughout the tour, so there are many of them.  The tour was a little crowded for my liking, but there were tons of turtles that were completely comfortable with close contact with many humans.  Karly wouldn't get in the water, but that was ok.  There was a beach entry area where we could walk in a ways and still see the sea turtles swimming right around our legs.  Then there was also a long dock that we sat on and could really easily see everyone else just below us as they snorkeled amongst the turtles.  It worked out great.  And again, the clarity of the water made it so easy to see from above. It was so beautiful.

After lots of time with the turtles, we had a very sleepy bus ride over to meet up with the Reidheads at Mambo beach.  It was a great way to lounge and enjoy the beach into the evening.

Then we took our tired crew back to the ship for a good nights' rest!

Day 6 was our final port day - welcome to Aruba!  Today we had a full day of excursions together as a group.   It really was such a nice balance this trip with having our own family time, and also super fun group togetherness too. It was the perfect blend.

The plan for today was guided ATV tours around the island, but first - a stop at a random petting zoo?!  This was unexpected, but turned out to be a huge hit for the kids!  They loved feeling the goats, donkeys, turtles, horses, and even monkeys!

Then we all climbed into our various ATVs.  There was some confusion about our group size so we had some ATVs that could fit a lot, and some smaller ones, so it ended up being a fun mix of passengers.  I definitely got to drive the party car with Eden and Karly in the front, and Olive and Brightin in the back.  We had a blast!

We saw such a fun mixture of landscape on this island.  Some parts were more green and full of plants, but most was more barren like this picture below.  It was so fun to drive along the coastline, and off road a bit up and down the hills.  We had a blast.

During our tour we made a beach stop to play for a bit.  Turns out this was the exact same beach where Rett broke his collarbone in the waves their last time on this island.

The dust from the road was really bothering Karly, even while wearing sunglasses, so she came up with this genius plan to use goggles.  Problem completely solved!

 Another stop along our tour were these old military ruins.  It was really cool to climb around and imagine what life must have been like when this place was new!

Then our final stop on our tour was this cave area where everyone could do some cliff jumping.  Lots of brave and adventurous kids!  So fun.

Then we drove the final length of coastline back to our starting point.  It was such a fun way to experience the island, and see and experience many different things.

That evening back on the ship the kids tried the rock climbing wall.  Those were some strong shoulders!

Day 7 was our final cruising day, and our last day at sea.  After three days of adventures, it did feel good to sleep in, and have a slow and relaxing day.  We did a little bit of everything, and loved it all.

The ship had some pretty good shows, our favorite though was the ice skating show. It's incredible the performance they can put on while on a moving ship.  The costumes were amazing, and the variety was so impressive.  

We also noticed a photoshoot set up with pirate props.  That always brings some laughs.

After showers, the kids always like to leave random notes for someone to find.  Bentley's is usually some kind of comic character, and Eden's are always something about love.  :)

And of course, we couldn't end the party without some more "around the world" competition.  It was sad going to bed that night knowing the cruise was over!

We had one more fun adventure planned though.  Our flight wasn't supposed to leave Miami until evening so we booked a tour on a wind boat through the Everglades.  This was such a cool new experience! 

 It felt so crazy going through water and then immediately through tons of plants.  It was a weird sensation feeling like we were switching back and forth between land and sea.  Those boats glide so smoothly!

We saw a few alligators and stopped to watch them for a while.

The passengers in the front two rows really took it for the team and got a lot of bugs to the face.  This was one of the highlights of the tour for the parents for sure.   We laughed so hard watching them react to their spontaneous hits in the face and they would laugh and squeal and duck behind each other.  It was the best.

After getting off the boat we visited the alligators at the park.

That afternoon we decided to kill a little time at a park near the airport.  Unbeknownst to us, there was a festival going on and the fairy characters were quite a hit.  They visited with the kids for quite some time, and when they kept giving Bentley a hard time, it gave us all a good laugh.

Then we played at the park, climbed some trees, and enjoyed a slow goodbye to our vacation.

We ended up having flight trouble getting out of Miami, but we made it home - late and exhausted, but we made it.  

We are so grateful for the Reidheads for joining us on another epic spring break!  We enjoyed so many new experiences together with friends, and as a family.  And thanks to Brad for all his masterful planning to make it all go so smoothly.  We are truly blessed.