spring break laziness, a sweet sixteen, and a photobomber



We just finished up with our Spring Break and this pretty much sums it up:

 

 

 

OVER IT. I am absolutely ready for warmer weather.

 

So, our Spring Break was pretty low key and I didn't hate it. We had a couple of things planned, but we did a whole lot of just hanging around. :-)

 

 

Baseball season officially started back. I asked Maggie if she wanted to play T-ball this year, but she just gave me that "deer in the headlights" look and said no. So, while Levi is at practice, Maggie does a lot of exploring. 

 

 

She asked me if it was okay to "cross the sea" and play on the rocks. Ha! I told her that was fine, but in Indiana we called those creeks. ;-)

 

Easter was early this year and fell on the weekend of our break. I LOVE Easter - loooove it! - but there is one little downfall each year. I sing in the choir at church and we usually have to be there for sound check before the sun wakes up. This means that Eric is in charge of getting the kids ready and in their cute little Easter attire (and no cute Easter morning family picture - eyeroll). As the mom of a little girl, this scares me a little bit. But, I've learned I just have to let it go. One thing is for sure: as Maggie has gotten older, Eric has learned to rock a little girl ponytail with a bow!!

  

 

One special highlight of our week was that our niece turned SIXTEEN! That's just crazy to me because she was a baby at our wedding. And, since I'm only 27, all these numbers just don't add up...

 

Anyways, sweet Megan is 16. So it was time to celebrate! What better way to celebrate than a day of shopping?! We had a fun day together. Found some good deals and Megan learned that we had to keep Maggie reigned in. She likes to shoe shop and love to TOUCH EVERY SINGLE THING in Sephora! She loved hanging with the big girls all day.

 

That evening, we took the whole fam to P.F. Changs. We had a fun time, but joked that my kids are just really small rednecks. Take them to a fancy place to eat and they don't know what to do. They are totally happy with Chick Fil A or McDonald's. Ha! Such a fun experience, though!! Happy Sweet Sixteen, Megan! We love you!

That pretty much wraps up our break! Lots of family time and lots of time just playing outside - perfect! Oh, and I ordered a new hat for our upcoming vacation (did I mention that we are going on a cruise??). It came in the mail and I was so excited! Of course, I took a selfie for the bestie and got photobombed. He was proud of himself.
 

 

One more pic, just because they're cute:

What happens in Mexico...

I feel like I need to start this post out with Adele's song.

 

Hello, it's me.

I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet...

 

It's been a while. A long while. My last post was about Eric's 40th birthday...in May. Oops. Quite a lot has happened since then. If you remember, we were living with my parents after selling our house and waiting to build. That plan went awry...three times, and in September, we bought a house, moved in and life has been happening all the while.

 

Before we moved, though, we had a few fun things happen, one of which was celebrating our 15 year anniversary! 15! That's quite a milestone. Fifteen years of wonderful things, horrible things, love, laughter and life. To celebrate, we grabbed the other half of our Core Four and planned a trip to MEXICO! Eric had never flown outside of the United States, so it was a blast to get to experience this with him!

 

Peace out, America. Hello, Mexico!

 

 

 

After a full day of travel, we finally made it to our destination...an all inclusive resort about an hour south of Cancun. It was beautiful. And hot. We went in July, so you can imagine...

 

 

I could seriously post hundreds of pictures of the gorgeous resort, but I will just keep it to a few of my favorites. You're welcome. ;)

 

We explored the resort for a little while the first evening. Being the young and crazy people we are, we went to bed around 9 o'clock due to sheer exhaustion! Be jealous. You'd think that without our insane, early-rising kids around, we would have slept in and had a lazy morning. No. Sadly we were up around 5:00 in the morning, raring to go! We heard no peeps from our friends sleeping next door, so we grabbed the camera and headed off to catch a Mexico sunrise.   

 



 

It was so beautiful there. Breathtakingly beautiful. The water was such a pretty color of blue and even when you were swimming in the ocean, you could see the ocean floor.

Our trip was so much fun! We spent our days at the beach and pool and our evenings eating at new places. 

 

 

One of the things that cracked us up was the word "tequila". It was used just about as much as the word "hello". ;) We would go to breakfast, sit down barely awake, and wait for the waiter to ask for our drink order. "Orange pineapple juice, please." "With tequila?" "Um, no thank you." I mean, at 8:00 AM? Haha!!

Seriously, the views got old after a while... ;)



This was before dinner out at a great Italian place... 

 

 

One of our favorite days by far was when we got to rent a catamaran to take out. BY OURSELVES. Like, no joke, they let the FOUR of us take a catamaran out into the ocean after only an hour training session. And it was only Eric and Matt at the training session. Later, the guys admitted to us (ON THE CATAMARAN) that Eric thought Matt had been paying attention and Matt was sure that Eric was paying attention. Oh dear.

It was such a great time, though! Minus the few times that we screamed in shear terror because we thought our boat was TIPPING and were surely staring into the face of DEATH, it was pure bliss!
THAT WATER THOUGH...

Oh how I love these people.

Just some fun, random pictures...

 

Eating Japanese...

At our resort, outside the piano bar...

 

A day of shopping... (Eric's face SLAYS me)

 



And a few more around the beach...

 

 

 

Sadly, our trip came to an end. We couldn't have asked or a better vacation together! While waiting at the airport, the first order of business for our return to reality:



 

As we boarded the plane, no one really was ready to leave our fantastic little getaway behind, but we were looking forward to getting home to our babies. Kind of. Kidding! Sort of...

How appropriate...

And once we were home, all was right in our world again. Love.

 

The selfie stick was created for Eric's 40th!

Oops. It's pretty embarrassing that my last post was in April. We are now in June. But, it's only the second day of June. When you're living at home again and your mom's computer breaks, you just kind of have to go with the flow. (MORE ON THAT LATER! I'm working on a "Reid's...Where are they now?" post!...)

May is always like Christmas for us. It is SERIOUSLY insane. Like, I wanna drink all day errday insane. Eric kicks it off with his birthday on the 7th, Mother's Day, Maggie is the 11th, Levi is the 17th, and I am the 18th. Winner winner chicken dinner. I will go back and post about some of the NON birthday related things, but for now, let's focus on Eric. Because he is FORTY.

This was the big one! So big that we had 3 different celebrations. ;-) Well, 4 if you count his work...

The evening before his birthday, we set off to one of his favorites with our friends and old neighbors - Texas Roadhouse.

Jill was so sweet and made brownies for Eric! The waitress brought out good ol' glasses of milk and dessert was pretty perfect!

We don't get to see these guys too often now, so when we head out together, it's always a great time!

The next morning, on his actual birthday, his office staff made sure to treat him really special! 

Complete with confetti, caution tape, and a homemade carrot cake. They even gave him a kazoo which he made sure to blow in my ear each time we talked on the phone. Oy.

So thankful for the people he works with! They are really great to him. :-)

We also celebrated after church one day with our Life Connection Group from church. I didn't take any pictures (boo!) but we filled up the back room at Kansai. Love those people so much. It's great doing life with them! 

Disclaimer: The pictures ahead are completely awesome and if you try to steal them, we will bring a formal lawsuit against you.

Our last celebration was this weekend. You can't turn 40 and not get together with your old college buddies. My bestie and Paul even drove two hours so they could be here to celebrate with us! Love her! 

Not only did she drive two hours to celebrate, BUT SHE BOUGHT A SELFIE STICK FOR THE OCCASION. What?!

Oh yes.

Eric decided he wanted to eat at Brazeiro's on Fourth Street. Lemme tell you about this place: They have 16 different types of meat. Pork, lamb, bacon wrapped chicken, filet mignon...you get the picture. They bring the meat out on these swords and you just KEEP EATING IT. It is an all you can eat meat fest!

It is what we referred to as a man's paradise. 

They had an awesome salad bar and some Brazilian sides that they brought out (which were phenomenal) but you could barely see past all the meat! 

The ladies opted for the "lite" meal and just did some chicken and sides. 

Once the men all had those glazed over eyes and they looked like they had gotten their fill of protein, the waiter brought out a creme brulee for Eric's birthday! How sweet. :-) 

Then it was time. Time to start with some selfie stick action.  (Yes, I have a new camera. Yes, these are all horrible pics from my iPhone. You can't selfie stick with a Canon.)

We knew how to use it right away. 

And, we were SPOT ON with our pictures. 

Even the birthday boy didn't give us grief about taking his picture. At first.

Finally. A great group shot! Love these peeps SO MUCH!

I think we had plans to go to the movies or maybe even do a bonfire, but since it was a gorgeous evening out and the men had consumed 30 pounds of meat, we decided to hit up the Walking Bridge. More SELFIE STICK. 

How did I get so lucky to have such great friends?

We topped off the evening grabbing some dessert and I can't tell you how happy this picture makes me. It's total blackmail material.

So, we will definitely chalk this up to one of those laugh-until-your-cheeks-hurt nights. So much fun! I am the luckiest girl I know.

Happy 40th birthday, Eric. I hope you will always look back on your birthday with the greatest of memories. Meat, lots of random pictures, and Josh shouting OY when the waitress told us she was from Wisconsin. ;-)