A moment to myself.....

All right, I finally have a moment to myself, so I'll try to update you on the last 2 weeks.

On November 22nd I left our home at 5:30am to drive to Fresno with the kids. There, Sami met us to get the kids. We all had a nice visit with Grandma Ackerman before she left. Then, Sami took the kids home with her and I spent the night in Fresno. EARLY the next morning - like 5am - I went to the Fresno airport. After 2 long flights, I arrived in Orlando at 5:40pm, surprised that Steve was still at the airport! His flight had arrived at 3:40pm. Well......he was not very happy. They lost his luggage. He flew out of Las Vegas - arrived at the airport 3 hours early, and flew DIRECT - NO STOPS to Orlando. His luggage (we later found out) went to Omaha. So, he was crabby and I was ready to vacation. After some food to cheer Steve up, we took the shuttle to La Quinta, where Elise & Les, Angela & Darrel were waiting. The rest of the crew arrived shortly thereafter, and voila, a vacation begins. We got Steve's luggage the next morning, thankfully, before we had to go to the cruise. We boarded the "Soverign of the Sea" that afternoon (Friday). There were 14 of us all together: Mom & Dad, Angela & Darrel, Steve & me, Elise & Les, Danny & Amanda, David & Jackie, and Benjamin and Weston. Weston is a dear friend of the family who came along to room with Ben. He was a delight to travel with, and we were so glad he agreed to come.

The cruise was amazing - as always - I highly recommend it for vacation....although, I recommend at least a 5 day cruise. We spent one day in Nassau, Bahamas and snorkeled and went on a large catamaran sailing ship. We spent one day on a private island called Coco Cay. A few of us (including Steve & I) went scuba diving and snorkeling. The highlight of that dive was a sea turtle! Cool! The beach was lovely, and we rented a small catamaran and sailed for a while, too. The weather was perfect and it was a great day! We returned to Florida on Monday morning. Since we weren't scheduled to fly out until Tuesday, my dad took me running (we also ran before the cruise, and worked out sporatically on the cruise). We ended up running around a lake - it was a beautiful run - we got caught in the rain, but it was so humid and I was sweating so much a little more water didn't really matter.

Tuesday Steve flew home to Las Vegas, and I flew back to Fresno. I then drove to Fremont to get the kids. Daniel was the one who asked for me the most, and he was glad to see me. Kenneth just kept playing and acted like it was no big deal that I came back. Caitlin, however, wouldn't come to me at all. She held onto Sami like she was a life raft. It took her about 10 minutes to forgive me and come over for loves. She came over VERY SLOWLY. We had a great time playing with cousins for a while - then went to McDonalds together before the kids and I headed to Lafayette (closer to Oakland).

There, we stayed with Missy & Darin for 2 days. We had a wonderful time renewing friendships and the kids had a great time playing with MORE cousins! The cutest thing about them was that Daniel (due to his underdeveloped speech) called Gilbert "Dilbert". I thought that was pretty cute. Missy took us to an amazing play place and the kids got 2 prizes! (They thought they had died and gone to heaven). Missy has a great toy room and the kids loved disappearing in there. She also has an adventurous back yard and the boys had a great time exploring. We got some Boudin Sourdough bread (I brought home 8 loaves to Steve) and Missy got Caitlin lots of DARLING clothes (thanks, Missy!). It's so fun shopping for a girl!

Anyway, after a fun-filled 2 days, we loaded up on Friday and drove home. It took 8 hours exactly. We only stopped once, and I only had to give Caitlin benadryl. :) Considering that was the part of the trip I was dreading, it went fairly well.

So-that's our trip! It was great - every piece of it.