A Surprise Vacation!

So 3 little angels from Utah decided to make a last minute trip out to Michigan for a 5 day visit. They were my 3 little angels because they saved me from my mundane "I think I'm going to kill myself if I have to suffer one more day of pregnancy sickness" life! I found out last Tuesday that they would be arriving 2 days later - short notice, but such a welcome surprise. So my mom, sister and niece arrived on Thursday and we started our super fun vacation the next day.

The thought of hang'n out in my little apartment for 5 days was enough to motivate me to make arrangements to head up to Mackinac Island for the weekend. I was excited to take my sister and niece up to see a Michigan landmark (I took my mom up last year). We got a big suite with 4 queen beds - right on the beach - sweet! We decided to stay in Mackinaw City and ferry over to the Mackinac Island the next day ('cuz it's so much cheaper!). We decided to bike around the island's 8 mile perimeter on Saturday. Oh my holy hannah - it was so hilarious! In fact, the whole weekend was hilarious - we were on the verge of peeing our pants the whole time! Here are some pics from our adventure:

Heading off to the island on the Star Line Ferry -
hotel in the background.My kids loved the
20 or so minute ride. We saw a couple of huge
freighters, fishing boats and such
on the Lake Huron passageway.

Our safe arrival on the island.
Off to rent some bikes...

One of our many stops along the route.
We were quite a sight - some pregnant lady pulling
a toddler, a brave grandma that hadn't been on a
bike in 30 years and a bunch of kiddlins.
You'll notice my sister isn't in any of
the pictures - that's just Jenny.

I made some lady take our picture by this rock
(we took a picture here the year before).
I needed a pic with my sister in it!

This picture is to prove to those of you who haven't
seen melately....I am oh so large! Can you
believe I'm only 12 weeks along in this picture??
My mom and sister kept teasing me
the whole trip that I had twins in there. Scary!

Ok, you're going to think we're a bunch of freaks,
but this is why Jennyand I were on the verge of wetting
ourselves all day. So like I mentioned before, my madre
hadn't been on a bike in a very, very long time so as
soon as we loaded up at the bike rental office, she had
her first spill. She got back up like a trooper and headed
off. Next injury came at our next stop. Sydney said,
"Grandma don't crash into that rock wall." No sooner
did she say, "I won't," that she ran straight into
the wall! Again, she shrugged it off and took off.
Her next accidentleft a mark (see below).
Mom was bringing up the rear and shortly after take
off Jenny heard a crash and started
laughing. Camryn said, "I think Grandma crashed!"
I immediately pulled over to save my mama. She
eventually came riding up with blood oozing out
of her arm - all with a smile. She was making us
laugh so hard - what a trooper! Just to top
her day off, when we went back to the hotel's
beach, a seagull pooped on her head!
You could say she had a bit of a crappy day!

Our hotel was beach side and right next to ferry.
The highlight for the kids was waiting for the
"huge" waves to form in the wake of ferries passing
by. We all enjoyed just hang'n out on
Lake Huron - absolutely glorious!

We couldn't leave without swimming in the pool.
Grandma even jumped in - not in
Christian style of course!

So we made it back to home base - after eating an
authentic German lunch along the way.
I absolutely refused to stay
in my jive-town apartment all day, soooo once
Joel got home from work, we took a couple of
canoes down the Huron river.

Oh my - we had so much fun! The ride was absolutely
beautiful. I was so glad to have my manly Joel
with us because at one point we had to get out of the
canoe and drag it down a bunch of steps just to
put it back in the water.
My mom got injured again because Jenny was
laughing so hard, she dropped the big heavy canoe
on my mom's toe. Nice. It was all bloody (see below),
but she just kind of said, "I'm ok!" Joel had to get
out and drag us part of the way - a low river.
Here are some pics of our river adventure:

This final picture is for you, my sister. See, you can't
escape the camera! You shouldn't try so hard to avoid
being in pictures because someone
will inevitably post a great big one of just YOU!

So, what did I learn from this vacation? I reminded myself that my family rocks, that the state of Michigan is absolutely beautiful, that girls just want to have fun, that JD thinks his auntie Jenny is hilarious, that Jenny's OB stories are freaky and that I love vacations!

Thanks for coming out my little angel babies!

Happenings around these parts...

So Grandpa and Joel braved the movie theater today with 7 kiddos! And lucky me gets to have a break. Sweet! Anyway, we've been having a fun and busy time here. I can't believe I haven't taken a million pictures by this point. I think I'm just feeling sorry for myself.

I'm so nauseated that I don't even like to swallow my own saliva. So gross I know. I want to throw up all of my misery, but NOTHING WILL COME! I keep thinking if I could just get rid of this feeling for like 5 minutes, it'll make my day. But no. I dry heaved twice this week and it made me so happy afterwards - I felt normal! I brought a bunch of clothes that I thought I'd be able to wear with my expanding waistline. Um, yup they're too restrictive already. Maybe I'm having twins...I say that every time I get pregnant! So I've resorted to wearing Joel's scrubs everyday and not showering. Ahhh, it finally feels like I'm pregnant. I am so freak'n hot!

Anyway, enough whining - trust me you'll hear more later. Now for the fun things we've been up to:

JD and Camryn and Christian are in heaven playing with Tyler and Erin and Sophie - like every day. JD and Cam ask each morning if their cousins can come over and play. JD and Ty have been playing Grandma's video games all day - it's making me crazy! The rest of the kids like to play dress-ups, jump on the "jump-o-line" (trampoline in Camryn language), and swim in the little play pool. Oh and eats lots and lots of popcasicles (Christian's version of popsicles).



These pics were taken at the BBQ at Matt and Brit's house. Josh and Melodie's fam was there too. So fun! Little "Dellarooni" warmed up to Uncle Joel pretty fast. Her funny faces entertained us all weekend in Cedar City.

We had a fun weekend in Cedar City in the middle of the "wilderness" with Joel's brother Matt and his family. Brit's family has this adorable little cabin in the mountains. I've always refused to camp until my kids are older, so they didn't know what to do when we got there. I took them on a walk and showed them how to collect and throw rocks - like true "wildernessers" do. In fact that was my answer for every question my kiddlins asked:
"Mom why am I wearing dirty underwear again?"

"Because that's what you do in the wilderness."

"I don't want to eat this hot dog - it fell in the dirt."

"It's totally fine, this is how you eat in the wilderness."

"Mom, I don't want to drink this water straight from the river - it's not even clean."

I didn't even have to say that's what you do in the wilderness to JD. He happily sipped away once he believed me that the water from the river was much MUCH cleaner than the water in Michigan.

Brit's Grandparents drove up the canyon and cooked us pancakes and sausage one morning - how cute - they're like 90 too! Our evenings were spent sharing hilarious stories around the campfire - yes, we gossiped about you (just kidding). I think we got spiritual too at one point. Joel must've been searching for the barking spiders by that point - right Matt & Brit? Anyway, I know that Brit took some pics, so will you email them to me s'il vous plait? I left my camera in my purse. In Gammy's zippy car. In Sandy. Ugh I hate it when I do that!

I haven't even gotten to the most interesting stuff of all: Joel's job searching trips. I'll have to wait until the next post for that one. My mom is waiting patiently for me to finish this "blog stuff" so that we can go shopping. So sayonara until next time.

Road Trips

Ahh, the family road trip: the open road, the fresh air, the peaceful...

When are we going to be to Utah...

What? Camryn, we've been driving for like an hour,
and we're going to be driving for like 4 more...

Lotsa tees, lotsa tees...

Yes, Christian, look at all the pretty trees...

We're going to hit downtown Chicago traffic...

Hey, do you guys want to watch a movie???

Watcha Nemo, watcha Nemo, watcha Nemo!

Why don't we try one of the new ones I bought...

We're gonna hit Chicago at rush hour...

I'm bored with driving, when are we going to be to Utah?

Umm, Camryn are you not getting
that we're stuck in this car for like...

Mom, tees, lotsa tees, lotsa tees, lotsa tees, lotsa tees

Yes, Christian, LOTS OF TREES, WOW, GREAT, NEAT....

Find a happy place, find a happy place...

Well, we've made it out of Michigan, just 6 more states to go...

Find a happy place, FIND A HAPPY PLACE...

Oh boy kids, look, it's Chicago and look at all the pretty cars...

Find a happy place, find a happy place...

Why are you crying Heather?

Daddy, what's wrong with mommy?

I'm just so happy, I can't wait to drive back home!

Like I said, "Ahh, the family road trip!" Who's idea was this anyway? Grandpa's?? Joel's?? Ok, I admit, it was mine. It was my plan all along, "C'mon kids, lets pile in the burb for days on end so that mommy can just focus on serving all of you. Oh, and I'll get an extra gold star for being nauseated the whole time!" Sounds great eh? Well we made it through the 6 states and are now enjoying the fruit of our labor: family time. Sweet!



What?? We have to drive back???!!!!! NOoooooo!



Driving Day Uno: Poor Joel couldn't sleep (he was on call the night before) - he just wanted to get on the road. Poor Heather didn't sleep much either - ahhh, the joy of pregnancy. Anyway, so we picked up JD from his last day of school and were off towards Chicago. We had this brilliant plan to bypass Chicago's rush hour traffic, but our plan was foiled when the toll booth worker informed us we missed our freeway. Crap! So we got stuck right smack in the middle of downtown Chicago traffic. But hey, the nice thing was we got a fabulous view of the Sear's tower - for like an hour.



Driving Day Dos: Well, after a night in Rochester's FINEST hotel establishments, we had higher hopes for day two. We just didn't think it could get much worse than the day before - ummm, wrong. We began the day learning a valuable lesson about GPS Systems: You can't trust those things. We took all of these back roads to Madison, instead of the freeway. Nice. Once we joyfully connected to the freeway, we discovered something very very very sad. So apparantly the flooding in the Madison area caused enough of a problem to shut I-90 down. So the whole world got diverted onto this little 2 lane highway for 3 lovely hours of bumper to bumper traffic. Nice. We finally made it to a cute hotel (with a water park!) in Sioux Falls by day's end.




Driving Day Tres: We basically drove across South Dakota on day three. I noticed that South Dakotans like to advertise via road signs. Actually, they're obsessed about it! You're laughing if you've driven through it. We kept seeing signs for this Corn Palace joint in the middle of nowhere. By the 100th sign Joel and I were convinced that we couldn't leave South Dakota without seeing the "Corn Palace." So it's like this big building with lots of murals made out of, you guessed it - corn. It was hilarious! We decided after that little side trip to ignore the enticing advertisements (especially freak'n "Wall Drug" with their sign every 5 miles!

The whole reason we decided to travel the northern route to Utah was to see Mt. Rushmore. We got there and loved it. I hadn't been there in years and it was fun to show Joel and the kids a part of Americana that I think is pretty cool. It was also gratifying to take Joel to see some of the Founding Fathers up close - on Father's Day no less.






Driving Day Cuatro: Since it was pouring rain in Rapid City, we took the kids indoor mini-golfing and panning for gold. JD thought that was pretty cool. We drove to the Crazy Horse monument just to turn around and leave (after a picture of course) - they wanted $27 just to go inside - Wow! We kind of kept driving and driving that day until we crashed in Rock Springs. Camryn kept asking when we were going to be at Crazy Horse. Funny girl. Joel and I decided we didn't like Wyoming after Joel got a ticket for speeding. A highlight for us was making a quick stop at Martin's Cove where JD got to pull his bro and sis around in a handcart.

Driving Day Cinqo: Yes, we drove for nearly five days! What was supposed to take 28 hours, took 32 instead. Dahang! Joel and I kept swearing up and down that this would be the last road trip we ever take. Crap, we have to go back?!

It's so great to be here with family, so I guess it was worth it.
My kids are in heaven playing with all of their cousins.
Anyway, that is the first chapter in our cross country trip.
I'll keep posting as life continues in this desert called Utah.

Our 2nd Honeymoon

Peurto Vallarta, Mexico

Joel was lucky enough to get bombarded with a very interesting case of "Awareness" last summer. Because of the nature of the case, Joel had to present it for an M & M meeting. After that, he and 5 other residents got chosen to present their cases at the annual UofM Anethesiology Convention in Peurto Vallarta, Mexico. (Laaaaaa! - that's me singing praises of joy!) Since Joel got invited, that meant that I was invited too! So after the elation subsided, I started getting stressed out over what to do with our 3 kidlins. We had never left our kids for more than one day, so this was pretty scary for me. There was never a question of whether or not we would go, it was just a question of what to do with the kids. We asked family and no one could :-( Finally, our good friends Mike and Tanya stepped in - so it was a go. Joel and I realized that we had a lot of preparatory work ahead of us: Updating our Trust, updating our Will, getting passports etc.

After hugs and kisses were piled on by the kids, I broke down and cried when we left to catch our flight. I asked Joel to say something funny so that my make-up wouldn't get ruined...he said, "Just picture me naked running on the beach." It worked. I have to say that traveling without kids is sooooo much easier! It was way fun to watch a movie and read a book without any interuptions. Our kids did great with Tanya and Mike - thanks you guys!

Upon arrival, we were bombarded by timeshare solicitors - it was totally out of control! I felt better about the future of our week once we got to our hotel though. First of all, it was paid for - sweet! Secondly, each room had an oceanside view - beautiful! These pictures show what we woke up to every morning. One of us would open our enormous sliding door each morning and let the ocean breeze in. The night we arrived, we ventured into the city with our friends, Mike and Aisa to enjoy some local cuisine (the Mexican food in the East is terrible!) We discovered the funnest restaurant: Pipi's! They made fresh guacamole at your table and served enormous margaritas (virgin of course!). We were so full that night, we decided to walk back to the hotel. It was like 10:30 or something and we had no idea how far away the hotel was. We kept walking and walking and walking...and walking until we found ourselves on a stretch of sidewalk that made us a little nervous. Luckily, it didn't last long and we just kept walking and walking and walking...and walking until hallelujah - we made it to the hotel! That was a little more adventure than we wanted, so we stuck with the $5 cab ride from then on.

On Sunday, the UofM guests were invited to a Super Bowl party in the Resident Director's Presidential Suite - so fun and the view was amazing! On the mornings that Joel went to the conference, I pampered myself by ordering room service for breakfast. I ate it out on the balcony while enjoying the ocean view. I even ventured out a couple of times to read (something I don't get to do enough at home) by the pool.

We decided to go on 2 tours. The first was a humpback whale watching tour. The Bay of Banderas is a breeding ground for the whales during the winter months. We saw (are you ready for this) 10 whales that afternoon! The amazing thing is that we were in a very small speed boat so we were able to get up close and personal with these amazing creatures! We were about 10 feet from them at times - close enough to see the little bumps on their heads AND the little hairs on the baby whale's head! We saw a mom and her calf, 2 males flipping their fins all over the place and a group of 6 traveling together. It was so amazing!


Our next adventure was a Sierra Madre expedition. It sounded so cool: Cruis'n into the tropical rain forest to visit some remote villages - we had to do it. It was so funny though because when we arrived at the office to leave, it was full of old people! We almost left. Joel made me feel better by crack'n a bunch of jokes (that I won't mention!) about the future of our day. I was pleasantly surprised to discover this wasn't a tour designed with the elderly in mind - it was so fun! We drove quite far into the forest with Brad, our colorful guide, to teach and entertain us along the way. Not only did we learn a ton about Mexico's history and culture, but we got to visit some remote villages and have a BBQ on a private beach too! We stopped in a remote village to see the area's (and it's a large area) local tortilla factory. Next, we were invited into a local dona's house (in another remote village) to enjoy some freshly made tortillas and such - wow was her food good! Oh, I neglected to mention that our truck broke down in one of those remote villages. So we had to squeeze into another truck until a new one could catch up with us! Some old man was constructing a new a roof for his abode when our truck broke down right in front of him. He probably thought we were idiots! On the way back to Peurto Vallarta, Brad (the tour guide) busted out a liter of Tequila for all to enjoy. It was so funny because we thought Brad knew we didn't drink because we told him at lunch; however, I think he interpreted that as we just didn't drink hard liquor. So when he brought a pitcher of lemonade for the truck ride back home, we assumed he was being thoughtful. It was pretty funny when everyone made a toast (one of many on the back of that truck) and took a drink - it wasn't lemonade! We discreetly spit it back into our cups and tossed it over the side. We decided to opt for the Diet Pepsi for the rest of the toasts. Everyone was hammered by the time we returned. I knew I wasn't in the States anymore when the tour guide in the truck ahead of us stood up (while the truck was speeding down the highway) and dumped half the bottle of Tequila down his throat. No open bottle rules in Mexico I guess! Anyway, we made it safe and sound and had a wonderful day.

Joel and I ate crickets for dinner too! We went out to a really interesting restaurant with the other residents one night. Nate Harrison ordered crickets and he passed them around. Joel & I decided to be adventurous and eat one. It tasted like burnt popcorn. Yum. Anyway, Joel did a great job on his presentation too so the trip was a success! I think Joel and I are hooked...we definitely need to do this more often! Who wants to come with us next time?