Ok, Ok...Enough, Already!

If I hear one more comment about the sad state of my blog....I'll......I'll........I'll cave, and write an entry just so you have something to read! :) That's how much I love my friends and how weak I am to nagging. It is my cryptonite (spell check?)...ask my mom.

Ok. So here is my awesome blog entry to make up for the past...5 months of silence.
Here is a joke from Nate (my 3 year old). Ready? It's a good one!

Nate: Knock, Knock.
Hanna: Who's there?
N: Banana.
H: Banana, who?
N: There is a banana on your head and underwear too. The monkey on tv wants your banana. It is NOT a yellow banana...it is weird, like, a blue one. haha. Blue banana on your head with underwear! (hysterical laughter)

Get it?! Get it?! No? Hmmm....that's weird.

Ok. How about a short story? It's a good one. I promise. I'll even give it a title.

The Red Crayon Tragedy

It was a beautiful Friday morning on the Caribbean island of Sint Maarten. The tropical breeze was blowing in through the windows. Our heroine (person, not drug), a gorgeous, intelligent, kind-hearted stay-at-home mom, was finishing up her last chore of the morning...laundry. Little did she know that in the very next room, her nemesis (aka 3 year old son) had hatched a plan. A very evil plan. It was an all-out assault on her laundry. The weapon of choice? A red crayon.

In the past, he had already tried applying crayon, marker, paints, food to various articles of clothing but had only been able to inflict minor damage. This time, however, he wanted to annihilate the laundry. It was an ingenious plan. Sneak in a crayon...get it past his sick, darling mother, make sure that it makes it into the dryer with the clothes most needed by the family.

The heroine, not even suspecting foul play, opened the dryer and out dropped a crayon wrapper.
Ominous music begins to play...crescendo...music swells...scene darkens.
Close shot of heroine's face, as she shouts in slow-motion, "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!" Lots of face contortions and slow motion frantic movements...maybe she claws at the dryer in vain or something. Use your imagination...the more dramatic, the better.

Time out. Sorry. I guess this isn't a short story but a screenplay? Well...no...screenplays are pretty complex. How about a synopsis of a screenplay. Haha. Ok. Time-in.

Of course, the heroine is too late. This is a tragedy, afterall. The entire load of laundry is ruined. RUINED~~!!! Every single piece of clothing that she pulls out of the dryer has melted crayon drizzled and hardened all over it. How does one crayon do so much damage? Well...the villain is crafty and uses a jumbo crayon so that there is that much more wax to spread around. White shirts that the heroine's husband adores are now overall pink with concentrated blobs of red wax here and there. School uniforms that belong to the older son look like they've been tie-dyed. Cute tank tops that actually flatter the heroine are now unrecognizable.
Crying commences...hysterical, snow-angels on the floor, full-on temper tantrum crying with wails of "Why?!! Whhhhhhyyyyyy??!!" accompanied by angry fist-shaking at the heavens. Continues for about....oh, just a wild guess, 15 minutes? That sounds about right.

In this last scene, the heroine is sitting in a pile of ruined clothes and shaking her fist at the heavens. "As God is my witness, I will never forget to check the pockets again!!" (think Gone with the Wind, Scarlett O' Hara. Sorry, I am from Georgia) Tears stream down her face....screen fades and music crecendos. End credits roll.

As in all tragedies, the hero learns their lesson but it's too late. You know, like in high school English class when you're studying Shakespeare and you want to grab Romeo by his floofy collar and just, SHAKE him. Sigh. Anyway, this red crayon play is just so tragic! I almost feel as if that very thing happened to me a few days ago....WAIT! Maybe because it DID! Yeah...sigh. My life is tragic.

Well, actually, it's not that tragic because after I stopped crying, I remembered Google. So, I googled "How to get melted crayon out of clothes" and got sent to a few different sites. If you ever need a good formula for removing crayon...email me :) I had to borrow Oxyclean from a couple of friends, and run the washer about 5 times more but I got most of it out except for a few greasy spots along the seams of my shirt and a few pinkish/orangish spots along the seams of a couple of Daniel's shirts. But, I consider us very, very lucky. It was a 'learning' experience....or something like that.

Ok. Am I good on blog entries for another 5 months? :)

Heartwarming Scene...
With all the press about bullying and knowing how mean kids can be...I have been worried about JT at school. He is the THE youngest kid in the grade 1 class and he is so much smaller than the other kids that it seems likely he will eventually be left out of games or told he is too little to play. He seems to be making lots of friends and having a great time but a mother never stops worrying. I know that adversity will only make you stronger, but as a mother, it is always hard to see your child sad or upset.
This morning while we were waiting for his teacher to take the kids to class, JT and I watched the older kids play soccer in the school yard. Some grade 3 & 4 boys were running around and having a great time. JT shed his backpack and handed me his lunchbox, and said "I'm going to play too." I nodded for him to go ahead, but inside, I assumed the boys wouldn't include him and that he would probably just head back. I struggled in my own head, trying to find a way to make this situation into a lesson about resilience, when I saw a heartwarming scene...
JT has a friend in his class named Tommy who he talks about often. Tommy is a good head taller than JT and fits in well with the older kids. That is probably why I didn't notice that he was playing soccer also. Tommy ran over to JT who was standing on the fringe of the game and asked him if he was waiting to play. When JT said yes, he grabbed onto JT and pulled him into the middle of the game. While the boys were organized into teams, JT just ran around aimlessly chasing the ball. He had no idea what he was doing and was helping no one. After a bigger boy, made a goal, the game paused for a brief moment. Just then, Tommy said, "Hey! My friend JT never got passed the ball. Can he have a turn?" At this point, I worried. But the older boys just passed JT the ball, showed him where the goal was (a place against the curb) and gave him pointers on how to shoot. They cheered him on and let him try several times. Once he seemed to get the hang of it, the game continued, but Tommy put his arm around JT's shoulders and guided him over to me. "JT's Mom, did you see JT's goal?"
Yes, I did. Thank you for reassuring me that little kids can be so very thoughtful and kind; that despite all the stories about bullying and negativity...most children are sweet and caring. That even though my little man is a little fish in a sea full of bigger ones, he will be okay. Hopefully, in the future, JT will remember how hard it was to step into a game without the assistance of a friend, and maybe one day, he will be the one to reassure a friend. I hope so.

Tropical Storm HANNA

Here I am! I am a Tropical Storm! Luckily, I am not going to affect St Maarten...so yay for me! I hope I behave myself and just rain on the ocean...but I guess you never know what I'm going to do. I tend to be a little unpredictable at times. Looks like I might want to head home to Georgia. I hope I don't turn into a hurricane...I don't want to be remembered for making trouble...

Extreme Zipline!

Daniel and I finally had a chance to do something with just the two of us! We dropped JT off at school and dropped Nate off at a friend's house (thanks a bunch, Ash!) and took off for an adventure! This is something that I've always wanted to try but never had time to do...and I've always been a little nervous about it too. Many of our friends have tried it and I was assured we would love it and that it wasn't scary. It was pretty awesome! I am so happy that I got to experience it. The pictures and even the video don't do the zipping sensation any justice. You'll have to try it for yourself!

All geared up and ready to go! Nervous and wondering what I had gotten us into, we followed our guide to a truck. He drove us high up into the mountain where there were some beautiful views of the surrounding area.

Our first few zips were short and good for practice. It helped us get comfortable with the sensation of hanging from a cable high off the ground. In between ziplines, there is a ropes course that you have to cross to get to the next zip. You are still suspended in between trees and high off the ground...so it was a little unsettling at first. A girl in our group started to cry...(it wasn't me!) but you quickly get used to it and it is super safe since you are always tethered by at least one safety harness. (Don't worry, Mom!)

The next picture is Daniel before a long zip...it is still pretty high up and the view is amazing...

As you go along the course, the zips get progressively longer until...you are doing 700, 800, and finally a 950 ft long zip. The last few zips were super fast and exciting! I wish we had succeeded in filming while we were zipping...but after multiple tries, we gave up. All you can see in those videos are green blurs and our arms or the gear. But, we did get some good footage of each other doing the ziplines...I uploaded to facebook but can't seem to upload here...darn! Once I get it figured out, I'll post it here, too!

Our 1st Week of School and Our Awesome Vacation So Far

We did it! JT finished his 1st week of school and he loved every minute of it. His teacher gave them an 'award' for finishing the 1st week and he couldn't have been prouder of himself. He randomly talks about how much he loves school, his classmates, and most of all his teachers. I am so relieved that he is enjoying himself...I don't know what I would've done if he had come home unhappy (probably cried). It definitely lookes like Hanna worried for nothing as usual!
Where has the time gone?! The 1st week of vacation has come and gone and we are nearing the end of break. It has been relaxing yet eventful for the past week. Daniel has really tried his hardest to spend as much quality time with the kids as he can. He has taken them swimming, to play basketball, they have washed the car, done crafts, played with every toy in the house...hehe...
Friday, Danny treated us to mini-golf followed by an awesome dinner at Skip Jack's. I have to be honest...I wasn't too thrilled with the mini-golf idea. We went at 3:30 and I was so sure we would be miserably hot! But it was a lot more fun than I thought it would be and the boys loved spending time with their Daddy. Dinner at Skip Jack's was a real treat. We went early enough to get the 2 for 1 happy hour special, so we all treated ourselves to Daquiris and Pina Coladas...the boys' were virgin of course! The boys got to watch tons (thousands...maybe hundreds of thousands) of these tiny little fish swimming off the dock...there were so many the water looked inky. The highlight of the day was when the boys got to pick which lobster we were going to have for dinner. They pointed one out in the tank and then the server, snatched it up, weighed it, and put it on the floor for the boys to play with before they took it back to the kitchen. Ok...so here is the problem...I don't think Nate quite got it that we were going to EAT the little guy. When they brought out the lobster dinner, he was clearly disgusted and would NOT touch it, let alone eat it. He was really disturbed and kept saying how the mean men 'broke' his lobster. By 'broke' he means they had split it in half before putting it on the grill...I guess that is pretty gross when you were playing with the little guy just a short time ago! JT made no comment but quietly declined to taste the lobster. Daniel and I enjoyed the lobster just fine! The boys stuck to their shrimp and pasta. Haha!

This weekend, we hit Orient Beach and Le Galion...

Daniel took the boys out to ride some waves at Orient but the wind was really kicking up and the waves were pretty harsh (Hurricane Gustav was passing by far enough away not to really affect us except for some wind and huge waves). Well...the boys were anxious about going out in the big waves because they are pretty seasoned beach-goers and they have been rolled in big waves plenty of times. Silly mom told both of them that it would be fine since they were going with Daddy...I was pretty wrong. They were tumbled around enough where Nate left the water crying and that was enough of Orient for the Oh Brothers! Moms are not always right! Le Galion is just down the street and we spent the rest of the day there. It is much more fun not being out-numbered by your children! Daniel and I were able to take turns lounging around and playing with the kids. I haven't had such a relaxing day at the beach in the looongest time.

The boys swam out to the dock to jump off...it is actually pretty far away but I zoomed in for a picture.

Building Nate a 'bathtub' out of sand...it was quite a construction project...haha

Nate taking a 'bath'