The Cruise!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, MOM & DAD!

50 years and counting...

As previously mentioned, my parents have their 50th anniversary this month. To celebrate they wanted to take a cruise with their adult children and spouses. It was fantastically fun, we loved the beaches and the sun and sand - but the best part was to be together and talk like Hubbard talk. Lots of fun and laughter and good natured teasing all around with a sprinkling of politics here and there.


The day we left the sun was shining and there was a nice breeze in the air. That breeze turned into a gusty wind that blew the whole week and caused 10 ft swells on the water. The day we were docked, but at night when we were cruising you could feel the water moving beneath your feet. It took several days to get my land legs back!

Jesse borrowed his dad's binocculars and spent a lot of time enjoying the view. The houses around the port in Miami were extravegant and huge and make everyone go...'ooooh, aaaaah'.

One night we took some pictures - ours didn't turn out great, but everyone promised to email what they got. This is one of mom and dad with their kids.

Here we go!

A giant chess board at one of the ritzy hotels at the first port.

Maybe something we can do in our own backyard!

The first day we decided to just look around and see what we could find.

We found a very pretty spot to stop and lounge on the beach.

Here I am being brave and posing for a picture in my swimming suit! While at the beach we ran into my brother Mark and his wife Debbie. We spent the afternoon with them and had a great time just hanging out and spending time together. The water was cool, but not cold. After that we did some suvenior shopping.

The second day we found a beach that didn't have public access. The beaches are all public, but some of them aren't accessable because of the private property surrounding the beach. There was a restaurant and rental shop that we paid to gain access to the beach ($5) and it was away from the tourist crowd and Jesse got to do some snorkeling even though the water was still rough.

That day was spent with Kathy, David, Brent, and Mom & Dad. After beaching we hit the huge straw market there (we were in Nassau) and bought some more souveniers for everyone. We had a great time and too much sun.

The third day we were supposed to stop on Norwegian's private island. They don't have a port there for the ship to dock on, so the plan was to shuttle/ferry the passengers on smaller crafts. Unfortunately the swells were too large to do that safely, so we spent the day cruising around. We found some cards, played games, and talked and enjoyed each other's company some more. By then I was getting anxious to talk to the kids. We didn't have cell service from when we left Miami and the still getting over strep throat made me worry a little while we were out of contact. It was nice to get away, but definitly great to be back in contact the next morning.

The next day (Friday) we deboarded and Mom, Dad, Brent, Karen & Jason all left for home. Kathy & James, Mark & Debbie, and myself & Jesse spent the day together while David & Kelli enjoyed the sights of Miami on their own. We went through the Everglades and down to the Keys. I'll make another post about that.

February

February was mostly just pushing through 'til the end of the month. My parents are having a 50th Anniversary soon. To celebrate they took their adult children (and spouses) on a cruise. Before we left the kids all came down with strep throat. We got them all meds and took the kids to Utah to spend the week with their cousins while we were gone. Lots of planning and arrangements to make, but definitly a great vacation and refresher for Jesse and I.

January

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Spencer has found his nose!


(I don't know why I can't rotate this picture) - Keltsy is my helper. She loves to help me anyway she can and is always the first to volunteer.

Isaac has been excelling in school. Here's a picture of his school award ceremony they do every quarter. He got straight Es (the same as As), that jacket is his favorite one that he got as a hand me down. He wore it all winter, even indoors.

January was a fun month, we moved. I'm glad that's done and it definitly feels more like 'home' than our rental did.

Nov/Dec

November and December were quite busy for us. We went to Utah for Thanksgiving, our first with extended family for a long time. It was great to see everyone and catch up from just few months previous. I love living closer to everyone and although I know a lot of people have 'in-law trouble', my in laws are awesome and I feel like a real part of the family amongst them. We also found a house to buy...originally we were outbid on the home, but the people didn't respond to the bank (it was a foreclosure) so we ended up with the one we wanted after all! It is an amazing house, had everything on our wish list, more than we could hope for. We closed just before Christmas.

My nephew got married in December, he's the first of the grandkids to get married so all those who could make it came. It was fun to see everyone and get some of the Hubbards together for the holidays. It was sweet to be in the sealing room and feeling all the love being poured into the two getting married - such a fabulous experience.

Summer Pictures

When we were in Utah this summer, Jesse's family had a reunion and we had pictures done. I just got them and love how they turned out!

The only problem is picking which ones

I want to hang on my wall!

My kids are so darn cute!

For awhile I've been wanting an updated picture of just me and Jesse. We don't have any of just the two of us since the kids came along.

Update

This is just an update post, since we've been so busy with life the last few months. In June we sold our house (yay!), Jesse got a job offer in Arizona (yay!), but the job didn't start until August and he had work to finish up in Indiana so the kids and I got a loooong vacation visiting grandmas and finding a home to rent in AZ. During that time Jesse came out for a visit as well, he had a conference in Hawaii to attend - which I tagged along to as well - and we had a very, very fabulous, relaxing, yet still stressful summer. The end of July we moved into our new (to us) home, got the kids enrolled in school and Jesse drove all our junk...I mean...stuff to Arizona. It never ceases to amaze me how much stuff one family can accumulate!

So early August we got unpacked, moved in and school started. Isaac is doing well in school. We've never been big on pushing academics, he has a natural curiousity, his memory and comprehension are sharp, but we just figured we were normal parents proud of their kids accomplishments. His Kindergarten teacher advised us that there's a little more to it than that, so we've agreed to have him tested. I don't know what the gifted program entails, but he's currently thriving in his class and when we get the results of the tests and find out whatever they recommend we'll make decisions then.

Keltsy is our peanut kid. She started preschool this year, her b-day is the end of Sept so she's one of the oldest in her class. She went for a well check up and has dropped to the 2% for weight so we'll probably be going to a nutritionist. She has no interest in eating, but since she's heard the doctor say she needs to eat she's been doing much better. She's thriving in school, has made a lot of new friends. Her favorite game is "puppies" where she pretends she's a little yappy dog and I get to give her commands like, "fetch" and "roll over". Its probably the closest we'll ever get to having a dog.

Spencer is almost a year old now. I call him 'dozer' because he is living life like a bulldozer. If he sees something he wants, there is no detering him from that object. The best is when he's on the floor on one side of the table and tries to get across to the other side. Instead of working his way around the table, he plows right through all the chair and table legs. Its quite an obstacle course under there, but he just pushes right through. He's starting to toddle a little, he can take 2 or 3 steps at a time, but prefers the quicker crawling method of getting to whatever it is that he wants. Although he has figured out how to push the kitchen chairs around, he hasn't figured out that they can be used as a tool to accomplish his goals yet. I'm worried when he does.

Jesse's work is going really well. He loves his new job and is working on two papers from the research he did at Lilly. He is worried about working for NIH funds, he prefers private industry in that way, but he loves the lab he's in and his boss feels similarly to him about certain important point on Alzheimers. I don't understand most of it, but he's happy and thriving, that's all that matters.

I've been busy, too. As I said before, we're renting and the Arizona housing market got hit hard by the housing bubble. Bad for the current residents, but good for people moving in. Houses are affordable here now, so I've been scouring the internet finding homes for us to go see. Our ward is huge, I would expect it to split sometime soon, so it has been hard to get to know people. We have joined a babysitting co-op with a few other families, and have been slowly meeting people and starting to settle in.

That's our quick update, hopefully I'll get some pictures downloaded to show you all how much the kids have changed!

Love is in the air!

February was a pretty busy month for us...as promised here's a picture of our beautiful Keltsy!
She's such a joy to have in our family. She LOVES to color and do puzzles and activity books. She a tiny little kid with no body fat whatsoever - because of that she's always has freezing cold hands and wants to give the baby hugs, making him scream. She does love him so.

Spencer is getting quite delightful. He is already pretending to be shy, smiling and turning his head in an adorable fashion...

I've been super busy trying to scan old photos and film negatives onto our computer. Found this old baby picture of myself that shows off my big Jimmy Neutron sized head...I know where my kids get their round heads from!

Speaking of big heads, Isaac finished his first "read all by myself" book. It's a compilation of the Dick and Jane series. I knew he was ready to read, he has progressed so much this year. We saw his teacher at the school carnival and without saying he was one of her favorite kids in class, she pretty much said he was one of her favorite kids in class. Don't you love those kinds of teachers?

And Isaac took this picture, since I'm not normally in the pictures I thought I'd share one of myself. Still don't like myself in pictures, but I'm sure you're all as curious about me as I am about you... so here you go! My messy hair, post baby weight, make-upless face, but look at that adorable one next to me!