Happy (Belated) New Year!

Yes, we are still here. Yes, it's the middle of January and I haven't posted for a month (gasp). Yes, we've been busy.

We ended 2009 by spending some wonderful time with Dave's parents, his sister Lori and her husband Andy, and grandma Niecia. We even had a short visit with brother Jeff and his wife Noell. We celebrated Christmas together, ate cinnamon rolls, played boat (thank you Andy...no one plays boat quite like you), grandma ironed almost every piece of clothing we own that might possibly ever need ironing (thank you Grandma...you know how much I despise ironing), Dave and his dad did a knock out job fixing the door handle of the van (it is still in tact, by the way), tried on the Dutch costumes carefully made by Dave's mom (so, so cute), built snowmen, drank hot chocolate, and just hung out. It was wonderful.

Dave and I rang in 2010 with my mom's side of the family in Florida. On New Year's Eve we ate pizza, watched old family videos, and eagerly anticipated our upcoming cruise on the Carnival Dream. (Did I mention this was a kid-less cruise for the Engbers? I love you boys, but Yipeeeee!) Dave's mom stayed with the boys the whole 10 days we were gone. She is a saint, honestly. Thank you, thank you, thank you, mom! Despite our chilly time in Florida we had an AWESOME time cruising the Caribbean with 29 relatives. We made stops in The Bahamas, St. Thomas, and St. Martin. Beautiful blue green water, hot sun, snorkeling, kayaks, sitting in the sun (even if we were wearing sweaters and/or covered by a towel), making pirate jokes (What's a pirates favorite kind of socks? Arrrrrgyle!), rum punch (none for me of course), catamarans, and warm chocolate melting cake, all made for some great family memories. We had a wonderful time and if we didn't miss the boys so much I think we might have stayed forever. My mom is already trying to think of a way to get us all to work on the same boat. Just think, free living, free travel, free food (and lots of it). I'm sure we would never get sick of being on a boat all the time! I will make a slide show of pictures and post them soon, after we do the virtual picture swap.

We are now home and settling back into reality. We are anticipating a job interview for Dave, to see if his role as Interim Athletic Director will be a permanent position, and also looking forward to our 20 week ultrasound on January 26. The boys play with GeoTrax every spare second of the day and it has been a great winter distraction.

Pictures will be coming soon and more frequent posting from this mama. Time to get the kiddos to bed and enjoy a quite night while Dave is away. Happy weekend everyone!