Just Like You

At lunch, Elena was telling us how many kids she wanted to have. She's not quite decided on the number - first it was 2 girls; then, realizing she had left out a boy, she wanted 2 girls and 1 boy... only to change her mind to 3 girls and 3 boys. Fortunately, she has a lot of time to figure that one out.

One thing she was definitely decided on though is that she wants kids. Here's how the rest of the conversation went.

Elena: "I want to be a mommy. A mommy like you."

Me: "That's so sweet. Thank you, honey."

Elena: "I want to be a mommy like you. Not the kind that's all wrapped around."

Me: "Huh?"

Elena: (Illustrating being wrapped up with her hands) "You know the mommies that have wrapping all around then."

Me: "I think you mean mummies."

I wasn't quite so flattered when I realized that "a mommy like you" really meant "not like a 3,000-year-old dead guy."

A Lesson Learned

Well, Sammy now knows not to play with electrical outlets.

Let me start this story by saying: no one got hurt. Thankfully.

This morning, I was helping Elena get ready in her bedroom when I heard a pop and saw a flash out of the corner of my eye. Then I heard Sam burst into tears and I ran out into the hallway to see what happened.

Sam was sitting by the outlet in the hall that we keep a night light in. I looked at the night light and noticed that the back of the night light and the outlet were charred black. I immediately asked Sam if he was hurt. He said he wasn't hurt, but he had scared himself pretty good and took awhile to calm down. I couldn't figure out why it had blown - Sammy said he just turned on the night light. When I pulled it out of the outlet, two coins fell to the floor.

Apparently, Sam had been playing "grocery store," which entailed sticking a few coins behind the night light and turning it on. So I talked with Sam again about the dangers of playing with - or even touching - electrical outlets (which I think he had figured out pretty well by then).

To which he replied: "Mom, can you put all of the outlets up high on the wall so I can't reach them anymore?" Sorry, Sammy. You're just going to have to learn to leave some things alone - as fun as they may look.

No wonder nature gives us slightly more boys than girls.

The scene of the crime

Last night, I took the kids to a Phil Baker concert at the school. Phil Baker is a children's singer from the area (kind of like Raffi). The kids had a great time dancing the night away.

Before the concert, Elena was asking about who was going to be putting on the concert. We have been to see him before, so I said, "You've seen him before. Remember the guy who sings? He's tall with black, curly hair."

To which Elena replied, "We're going to see Ray Charles???!!!"

Look who's 3!

Sam turned 3 on Nov 30th. A few times he complained that he didn't want to be three. "I still want to be 2! I don't want to be a big boy." I don't even want to know what he's going to be like when he hits 40 if he's having trouble coping with 3.

His favorite gift was his toy coffee maker. Sam loves to help me make coffee and tries to do it himself much more often than I would like. I'm shocked our coffee pot hasn't been broken yet. I hope this one will help keep him away from ours a little more!

Sammy continues to be as cute as ever and he makes us laugh on a daily basis. He also keeps us on our toes - if we take our eyes off of him for a second, he is guaranteed to get into some mischief. A friend of ours calls him Calvin because Sam reminds him so much of Calvin and Hobbes. Before he had even mentioned it, that similarity had struck me on several occasions.

For example, we took the kids out to eat at a restaurant last night and told them that if they were good they could get a treat at the end. The restaurant had some of those little vending machines that you stick a quarter in for a handful of candy. They did well and got their treat, but as we were heading out, Seth and I stopped to talk with some friends. When we turned around, Sam was putting another quarter in the machine and getting a new handful. We asked Sam where he got the quarter, and he said he found it. Figuring he had found it on the floor, we started to leave. Then he pulled another quarter out of his pocket and started heading for the machines. We asked again where he got the quarters, and Elena pointed to a table nearby with some tip money lying on it. After we returned the money, we had a nice little discussion about stealing on the ride home.

We also went to story hour with Santa at the library yesterday, and while Santa provided entertainment for the kids, Sam provided entertainment for the adults.

At one point, Sam got up and gave the girl sitting next to him a kiss on the top of her head. Then he proceeded to go around the room and kiss every little girl there on the head. Once he had handed out kisses to all the girls, he looked around the room and started walking over to a little boy (about the same age as Sam). I don't know if he was planning to give him a kiss or not, but this little guy was not about to take any chances. As soon as Sam got near him, he immediately stiff-armed Sam. I wish I could have caught that on camera - we all got a pretty good laugh watching them.

Later, the librarian was reading about Santa, and she came to a picture with Santa holding his list of Good Boys and Girls. She asked, "Do you think you're on this list?" To which Sam yelled out, "Not me!"

We love you, Sammy! Thanks for brightening our days.

How do they know?

4 days out of the week, we have to be up and out of the house by 8 - 8:30. Somehow our kids almost always manage to pick these mornings to sleep in to the point where we have to wake them up at the last minute, throw some clothes on them and grab breakfast to go. And we're usually late.

The other 3 mornings of the week, we are generally able to sleep in as late as we want. On these mornings, without fail, the kids always seem to wake up an hour or so earlier than on the other days. Whether we keep them up late or put them down early, whether we tell them it's a sleep-in day or not, they almost never sleep in on Monday, Thursday or Saturday.

If Seth and I happen to stay up extra late the night before, they bump it up even earlier.

From the sounds of it, this is a pretty universal occurrence among kids, and I want to know why so I can fix it. But I guess this will just remain one of life's great mysteries.

Fortunately, they're so lovable, it's hard to stay annoyed for long.

"Look, Mom! I'm a Y."

That's what Elena said to me the other day after making this pose:

Jophes

That's what Elena called the play we went to this weekend. Marshall High School put on Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and we brought Elena and her friend, Ana to the show. There was a row right in front with just 2 seats so they were able to sit all on their own to watch the show. We sat 2 rows back, and watching them was almost as much fun as watching the show. The kids did a great job - as a bonus, our next door neighbor was the narrator and a friend who I used to babysit was Joseph. That actually made me feel a little old, but then I ran into my old babysitter and my kindergarden teacher, and them mentioned how I made them feel old, which made me feel a little younger :)
Here are the girls before the show:

And about 3 minutes after the show (we hadn't even gotten out of town when I took this picture):

Updates

We've had an eventful last month. Here are a few of the highlights:

First the kids both had the chicken pox. Elena had them first, and Sam came down with them 2 weeks later. We really only had one rough night with Sam; other than that they hardly complained and rarely itched. My most memorable moment was when Sam was up in the middle of the night because his pox were bothering him - especially all the spots on his bottom. At one point he, whimpered to me in the most pitiful voice imaginable, "Mommy, my booty-butt hurts." I couldn't help but laugh.

Here's a picture of Elena reading a book to Sam about chicken pox when he came down with them.



In other news, Sam potty trained himself in pretty much one day. We hadn't really been pushing him because that hadn't helped at all with Elena. I was planning to hit it hard once he hit 3, but he beat us to it. Ironically, he trained himself at exactly the same age I did (1 month shy of 3) and he did it the same way - just decided on his own he was done with diapers. Yay! This is the first time in 4 1/2 years I haven't had to bring a diaper and wipes with me everywhere I go.


Around the same time, Seth's dad had a triple bypass surgery. We were able to take the kids down to Sioux Falls to visit him while he was in the hospital. I'm happy to say the surgery went well and he is recovering nicely - although I know it's hard to him to suddenly go from a such a busy life to a full stop.


Lastly, we welcomed our new nephew, Noah Thomas, into the world on Nov 17th. Seth's brother Jason and his wife, Tina, had their 5th baby - we now have 10 cousins living within one block of our house! Sorry I don't have a picture of the wee one - you can click on Tina's link on the side bar of my blog to see him (her's is the Stay Salty blog).

Drummer Boy

As promised last month, here is a shot of Sam joining the band on the drums:

Halloween Fun

The kids had a great time on Halloween, including the weeks leading up to it. Elena was set on being a skunk, but Sam was undecided until the day of Halloween so they had a lot of fun going through all of our costumes in the meantime.

Here they are Halloween morning, sporting a few pirate accessories.

These were taken a few weeks before Halloween when they discovered a bag full of wigs and some old glasses:

Ready to go trick-or-treating with friends, Ana and Toby. We have a train, a fairy, a leopard and a skunk.

The girls were having so much fun, we decided not to seperate them, and they had their very first sleep-over. Ana changed her mind momentarily around 9:30, but then realized she could have Life cereal for breakfast if she stayed. I don't think Ana slept too much being in an unfamiliar bed, but they made it through the night and had a great time!

The things you learn at storytime

I love the way kids will surprise you with both the things they know and the things they don't know.

Something Elena didn't know:
Tonight while we were reading books, one of the stories had a character tell his sister to stand on her head. As she was listening, Elena started to stretch her leg up, trying to put her foot on her head. I didn't think much of it since she's always moving, but soon she asked, "Why did he tell her to stand on her head?......You can't stand on your head." I realized that what she had been doing with her feet before was her trying to literally "stand on her head."

And something she did know:
The next story was about Jonah, and Elena asked why the fish was rainbow colored. I told her that the guy who drew the pictures probably wanted to make the story look really pretty so he made the fish lots of colors. To which she replied: "The illustrator did that?" Yup. And thanks to my 4-year-old for the reminder that "illustrator" is so much easier to say that "the guy who drew the pictures."

1:39:09

That's how long it took Seth to run his 10-mile last weekend at the Twin Cities Marathon. He was hoping to run it in under a 1 hr 40 min, which would have been 10 minutes a mile, and he just made it. Being someone who only runs when being chased or when chasing others (I do a lot more of the latter), I was pretty impressed.

I was really impressed, however, when we were able to watch the 1st 8 marathon runners finish their race just 34 minutes later. Did I mention they started at the same time as the 10-mile runners? We watched 4 guys cross the finish line at 2 hours, 13 minutes. Unbelievable. Honestly though, I think the most impressive runners of the day are the people who can't run as fast, but kept going for 7-8 hours to finish the run. Ouch.

We had a great weekend in the cities, staying with Seth's brother, Craig. The kids loved having Uncle Craig come along with us to the children's museum and eating out at a couple of wonderful restaurants - that's one thing we're a little short of here in Minneota :)

Saturday night, we especially had fun visiting some of our more musically talented friends who had a get-together with several of their musician friends. In one living room, there were several guitars, a banjo, a bass, a fiddle, a mandolin, an autoharps, a piano, a harmonica, an accordian, tin whistles and a bongo drum. It was so great to be able to listen to such talented musicians. Sam even got a chance to play the drum for awhile - after that, he decided he wanted to be a drummer for halloween.


Above is a shot of Seth and Turtle Sam at the science museum. Below is Elena making a music video at the museum; stand back, Beyonce! (Whenever we watch this Elena asks me, "Why were you laughing, Mom?")



I'll put up a video of Sam playing the drums later - it's not working today.

Dragons

All children become more difficult when they are tired, and mine are no exception. But lately, Elena has been getting far beyond unreasonable when she's short of sleep. When she's well rested, she's an absolute delight. When she's short on sleep, she has the ability to turn herself into a fire-breathing dragon.

This morning she woke up at 7:00, so I was bracing myself for at least a few tantrums. The trigger? Seth asked Elena, "What do you want for breakfast? Do you want oatmeal?"

At this Elena flung herself onto the floor in tears. Completely mystified, we asked her what was wrong. She was finally able to get out between sobs, "Daddy stole my words!!!!"

That's a new one. Let's hope she gets more reasonable before she's a teenager.

Fortunately it only took a few minutes for her to turn back to being sweet.

There's no place like home

I finally took a picture of our new house. It is starting to feel more and more like "our home."

Here is a sample of the inside. The dining room is one of the few rooms that is mostly unpacked and was clean enough to take a picture. As you can see the house is full of beautiful woodwork, and we get lots of sunlight throughout the house.

In other news, this past weekend was Boxelder Bug Days in Minneota. The weather was absolutely perfect, and the kids had a great time. There were lots of friends and family in town so we gave about 8 tours of the house over the weekend.
Here are the kids in their costumes for the kiddie parade:

Brainstorming

Elena has been going through ideas of what she wants to be for Halloween this year since last Halloween. At the top of the list are: a skunk, and elephant and Dora (with Sam dressed as Swiper).

As we were driving in the car, I was trying to come up with ideas that we could easily make with what we already have on hand. We have a gray-haired wig so I asked her if she wanted to be an old lady for Halloween. She wasn't a big fan of that idea; she promptly rejected it and started to make new suggestions.

Pretty soon, Sam (who I had forgotten was listening) piped up from the back and said, "Mom, I want to be a lady for Halloween."

I guess we'll just wait and see....

Changes

We've been keeping busier than usual these past couple of weeks. During the week that we sold our old house, bought our new and moved everything over, we also went to my cousin's wedding in which Elena was the flower girl, Elena started her first day of preschool and our newest nephew, Reed Riley, was born.

The move went well. We had many, many helpers for which we are extremely grateful. Our parents were a huge help, and we even had a couple of high school boys that we know call up and volunteer to help out when they saw we were moving. It still kind of feels like we are living in someone else's house, though. I'm looking forward to when we're all settled and it will feel more like our home.
Elena has loved living in the new house - there are lots of kids in the neighborhood for her to play with. Sam has had a little harder time - he still tells me he "wants to go home" on a daily basis. He loves playing with all the neighborhood kids, but he's missing the comfort and security of the home he knows.

Ben (my cousin) and Becky's wedding was a blast and Elena absolutely loved being a flower girl. She's the perfect age for it - old enough to be aware of what's going on and really enjoy it but young enough not to be self-conscious about it. They had planned to have her come and sit by us for the ceremony after walking down the aisle, but Elena wanted to be a part of the whole thing so she stood up with the bridesmaids until the end.

Dancing with the bride...

...and with the groom.
Sam also put on a little show during the ceremony. He and his cousin, Alex (same age) made a dash for the center aisle right in the middle of the wedding just before the vows. I was able to catch the back of their shirts and yank them back, but not without almost everyone noticing. Fortunately they are cute enough to get away with that kind of thing without anyone getting annoyed :)

Elena, Sam and Alex.

Elena has started 1/2 days at preschool twice a week. She would like to go full days I'm sure, but she wouldn't see Seth much with his schedule. We'll also be starting a Montessori based preschool at our chuch called Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. I will be one of the catechists (teachers) and Elena will be in the class. Add to that dance classes for Elena and the high school religious ed classes I will teach in the evenings, and we are going to be pretty busy this school year!

First day of preschool (we have to be up a bit earlier than normal - thus the tired faces)

Anyway - that's what's going on in our neck of the woods. Pictures of the new house to come.

The difference between boys and girls

I wouldn't consider Elena a girly-girl. Her favorite color is green (pink and purple are much farther down the list); she hates having her hair done; and currently dresses are only worn on very special occasions. Still, I would say she's far from being a tomboy. Sam is pretty much your stereotypical boy, but he has no problem throwing on a dress if that's all he can find in the dress-up box.

We don't really designate much in our house as "just for boys" or "just for girls." Elena has just as many bats, balls and golf clubs as Sam (although hers are rarely touched and Sam would play ball for hours on end).
Sam plays dolls with Elena (although he usually gets quickly distracted with figuring out how the buckles work on the doll's carrier).
If Elena gets toe-nail polish and Sam wants some, I'll put it on him (Seth's not a huge fan of this, but he tolerates it :)
I've read books about trucks to Elena since she was little, but she rarely asks for them again, and I had never heard a real "truck sound" in our house until we had Sam (if I did, it came from Seth).

I recently bought a box of antique cowboys and Indians for the kids at a garage sale. The only reason I got it was because it included a horse and detachable rider that I knew Sam would love to play with (he loves horses). Anyway, they haven't played with them much - Sam will occasionally have the people on horses run around, but that's about it.

The other day, Elena pulled out the box and decided to play with them. And what does a little girl do with a set of cowboys and Indians?

Well...they do make a great rainbow.

Moving!

The reason I haven't updated this in so long is because the last 2 months have been tied up with putting our house on the market and getting a new home. We're just waiting on the appraisals, but as long as they go well, we should be moving at the end of the month.

Fortunately our house was only on the market for about 6 weeks before we got an offer, and our offer was accepted on the house that Seth has had his eye on since he was a kid. It's quite a bit bigger than our current home. While I will miss the coziness of this house, we could really use the extra space to accommodate for Seth's in-home office. Not to mention we hope to have more kids and are seriously considering homeschooling.

At one point this summer I started to have second thoughts about getting a bigger house, the minimalist in me thinking we could just cram all of our kids in one room for awhile longer. Afterall, we have a great back yard with tons of room for running, playing and gardening throughout the summer.

And then I remembered about winter. It's funny how quickly one can forget in the summer about those 6 months of the year we Minnesotans spend cooped up inside. All day. With excessively energetic children. Some extra running space would be nice. The next 4 weeks will be filled with packing, followed by who-knows-how-many weeks of unpacking - so my blog posts may be few and far between but I'll do my best to keep everyone posted.

I overheard the following conversation today:

Elena: You are a jellyfish, Sam!

Sam: And you are a peanut butter fish, Elena!

It took me a couple of seconds to catch the connection.


This is completely unrelated, but here's a picture of the kids in front of Grandma Mary's irises.

Learning to "Read"

It seems one of the kids says something every day now that just cracks me up. Elena had another one the other night. We met for our marriage enrichment group, which happened to land on our 7th anniversary. One of the other couples was nice enough to bring a cake for us that said, "Happy 7th Anniversary."

Elena saw the cake, and when I told her it was for our anniversary she asked, "Does it say 'Happy Anniversary' on it?"

"Yes, it does." I replied.

Then she said, in a somewhat shocked voice, "I'm learning how to read from a cake???"

Ice Age

I love how kids say things that are close to what they mean, but not quite right. Elena is getting to an age where that doesn't happen as often, but they still pop up once in awhile. Here are some recent examples:
- Yesterday, she asked me to get her a "place mattress" to go under her plate.

- She calls our back yard the "back yarden."

- Skunks are "stunks" (I'm not sure whether the pun is intended or not)

- And my favorite was when she recently said she wanted to play with Ice Age. I didn't know what she meant and asked her who or what was Ice Age. She said it was the neighbor's dog.
The dog's name is Sage.

7 Years!

As of today, we've officially made it through the "7 year itch" with hardly a scratch. Happy Anniversary, Seth!

The Power of Advertising

“Advertising may be described as the science of arresting human intelligence long enough to get money from it.”

We make an effort to limit the amount of TV our kids watch. We are especially careful to keep them from watching commercials since watching them is a complete waste of brain power.

This morning, however, I turned the TV on to see something and Elena saw one commercial. It was for a dog hair brush that was basically a mini-vacuum which sucks the loose hair off a dog. After watching the commercial, Elena said:

"Mom, we should get one of those for our dog." After thinking this statement over for a few seconds, it apparently dawned on Elena that we don't have a dog. Then she said, "We should get a dog so we can get one of those brushes."

And that's why we don't watch commercials.

Singing Sammy

For those of you who haven't seen Sam in awhile, I thought I'd share with you some of his singing talents:

That's one I haven't heard before

Elena and Sam had strawberries and cream today as a treat. Elena finished hers before Sam had gotten his and was trying to talk Sam into sharing his with her. Here is how their conversation went:

Elena: Sam, can I have some of your strawberries and cream?
Sam: No.
Elena: Please?
Sam: No.
Elena: Pretty please?
Sam: No.
Elena: Handsome please?
Sam: No.

(In Sam's defense, the only reason he kept saying "no" was because he didn't have the strawberries yet - and for a 2-year-old, the only logical response was "no" since he had nothing to share. Once he had his strawberries, he gladly shared them with Elena...not the cream at the bottom of the bowl, however.)

Three

That's how many times I've slept through the night in the last 4 1/2 years - twice I was out of town without the kids.

I'm not a fan of the cry-it-out method so Sam still comes in to sleep with us sometime between 3:00 and 5:30 in the morning every night. Since we don't have nightlights, he usually can't find his way on his own which means I have to get up and help him. Elena sneaks in with us occasionally, too, but she's quiet about it and we usually don't notice.

It's not so bad really, and not sleeping through the night is a sacrifice I'm willing to make for my children - I love having them cuddle with us in the morning. But still, a solid 8 hours sleep would be nice once in awhile. Last night I came so close.

About once every month or two, Sam will sleep straight through the night in his own bed. Also about once every month or two, Elena will wake up crying for me from a bad dream or she'll urgently need to go to the bathroom and want help. In such cases, I usually have to be up for a little while to calm her down and get her a drink. Seth can help her, too, but I still lie there awake until she's back asleep....plus, he takes a lot longer to respond.

Unfortunately, those occasional nights when Sam sleeps perfectly and the few nights that Elena wakes us up always, without fail, land on the same night. I think they plan it ahead of time when I'm not listening. Last night was one of those nights. Fortunately, I have a loving husband who lets me sleep in until 9:30 when that happens so I really can't complain.

The joys of carpeted steps

Now that the weather has finally warmed up enough to play outside, here's a glimpse of what the kids have been doing to burn energy in the winter:


(I've tried joining them, but this is extremely painful as an adult)

Time for Pretzels!

Lent is upon us once again. Did you know that if it weren't for lent, we wouldn't have pretzels? In the very early Church, it was common for Christians to abstain from all animal products throughout the season of lent, and so the need for very simple meals and snacks arose. The story goes that in the early 7th century, a monk made Lenten bread of water, flour and salt, then rolled it into a pretzel shape to look like the prayer position of folding one's arms across the chest.
Growing up, I loved making pretzels during lent with my family. Unfortunately, the last time I made them was over 4 years ago. It's a time-consuming project that requires undivided attention at times....I can't imagine why that might have been difficult for me during the last few years :) This year, I was finally able to make them during Sam's nap with Elena's help. She did a very good job of folding all the pretzels - I was impressed with how quickly she was able to make them into the correct shape.

Here she is, showing off the goods. And then we quickly gobbled them all up.

Costa Rica

I just realize that I started this post awhile back and never finished it.

We had a full day in Costa Rica, and we all had a great time. I lived there for a summer in high school, and it was good to be back. the kids spent the morning at a local playground and played with a little girl from town while I talked with her Grandpa. He recommended we see an animal rescue center just outside of town (and even escorted us to the bus stop down the street to make sure we knew how to get there), so after lunch we headed there with the kids.


The kids had a lot of fun at the rescue center. It was kind of like a zoo only all the animals there had been abused, injured or orphaned. The center nursed them back to help and released them back into the wild when possible. A few of the monkeys, after spending their entire lives on leashes, would not allow their leashes to be removed. They would frantically try to put the leash back on if it was taken off.

The kids enjoyed seeing the animals and petting the monkeys. My favorite part was being able to walk through the rainforest.


At one point I asked Sam if he wanted to hold my hand. He said, "No!" and ran ahead to the girl giving us the tour and grabbed her hand.

It was especially nice for me to be back in Costa Rica - even if it was only half a day. I studied there for a summer when I was 17, and I remember how friendly everyone was. Our visit was no exception - we had several people go out of their way to help us. The telephone line was down at the animal rescue center and they weren't able to take our credit card. We didn't have enough cash on us to cover the tour, and they let us go through for less than half price.
We tried to get cash later and weren't able to get money from an ATM. A local woman walking down the street saw we were having trouble, walked us into the bank and asked around at several desks until they were able to tell her the problem (they only accepted VISA, which we didn't have). She then gave found out the closest bank that would accept our card and gave us directions there.
I'm thinking I would like to return to Costa Rica for a longer trip in the future....

Look who's 4!

"Is it my birthday today?" Those were the first words out of Elena's mouth yesterday morning. She was pretty excited when I said yes. We spent the day preparing for her birthday party - just our 2 local families total 30 people so our birthday parties are big even without inviting friends. It was a very full house, but we all had a great time. Plus, it was warm enough that the kids could play outside for awhile.

In the evening, after most of the guests had gone, Sam played his first April Fool's joke on Seth (Elena was too tired to pitch in). I went into the bathroom with Sam and told him to yell out "Daddy, I pooped on the floor!!" I was holding Sam to make sure he wouldn't run out, so when Seth came toward the bathroom and saw Sam's head up about 2 feet higher than it should be, he thought Sam was covered in poop and had also climbed up the door. He came in and looked at us with a very confused face until Sam yelled, "April Fools!" Good job, Sam.

The Ship

For the last installment of our trip, I have a few pictures of our adventures on the ship. The biggest highlights were the dancing, the food and the pools. They had ballroom dance classes available - although we only made 2 because they kept landing during naptime or breakfast - and plenty of opportunities to dance.

One night, the kids were the only ones on the dance floor, and the band played this special song just for them. The kids went up and requested it with another band later, who also managed to play enough bars to keep the kids happy.

Sam, once again, was famous on the ship by the end of the trip. It seemed at least 50% of the crew members and guests knew him by name. Not only was he well-known for his high-fives and hugs, he was also widely recognized for his limitless energy. One man suggested to me that I rent Sam out to people who want to burn off some of the weight they gained on the trip: not a bad idea....

The ship had a few nice areas for the kids. There was a small play area and a splash pool that they could play in (as long as the boat wasn't rocking too hard). There was also a room for 3-7 year-olds where we could drop Elena off. She loved playing there with the other kids and she brought home a lot of crafts! Sam could go as long as we stayed with him, but he was pretty jealous that he couldn't be left there with Elena. Here she is with the babysitters our last night on the ship.

I don't know what we would have done without Seth's parents along. They were a huge help with the kids, and it was a lot of fun having them along for our vacation. The kids loved having Grandma and Grandpa along, too!

Next stops: Columbia & Panama Canal

After Aruba, we spent a day touring Cartagena, Columbia. Highlights were touring an old Spanish fortress and the former home of St. Pedro Claver, who fought for the rights of the African slaves in the 17th century. He baptized over 300,00 slaves in his lifetime. Adjacent to the house was a chapel built in his honor where we could view his remains.
Then we ran back to our cab as quickly as we could so we wouldn't miss the ship (they don't wait for anyone) - we were the last group on. Phew!



Next we were able to witness the workings of the Panama Canal. Our cruise ship is the only one narrow enough to fit through the canal. It was really interesting to see how the locks worked. Basically, the ship needs to go from sea level up 85 feet to the elevation of Gatun Lake so it can pass through to the other side, where it is then lowered. We went through 3 locks, where the ship is enclosed and then gradually raised with water until it is high enough to move onto the next lock. It's hard to describe here, but here are a couple of pictures of the neighboring ship before and after the water in the last lock has been raised. (You'll notice that our ship is also higher in the 2nd picture)