Caeden's birthday and other stuff

I guess before we have the baby I should post some of our other pix or I'll never get to it!

Caeden's third birthday was last Saturday the 9th. I was on partial bed rest so my mom came down to help with the party. We wanted to keep it really simple so we just invited the 3 kids he has playgroup with, Max, Sofie and Ashley. I love how easy parties can be for little kids. We did a treasure hunt with clues hidden around the house and the final treasure was in the bathroom sink, Caeden thought that was SO funny and keeps talking about it. I contributed by reading pirate stories:
We colored pirate pictures:
Here are all the kids pretending to be pirates... except for the girls, they weren't so into it.
Trey got a strange rash on his whole upper body that turned into hives. The doctor didn't know exactly what it was, so we just gave him allergy medicine and it went away.
And Caeden fell and got the biggest goose egg we've ever seen on any of our kids, and they hit their heads a lot! It filled up with blood within a couple of minutes and it stuck out so far from his forehead! Obviously it didn't hurt for long!
Hopefully soon we'll have pictures of baby Aspen to post! I'm trying to enjoy what might be the last few days of my last pregnancy, feeling the baby move and all that, but mostly I'm too miserable to enjoy it much! I've learned what it's really like to be an insomniac and I haven't eaten a real meal in a couple of weeks because my stomach is so squished I just feel gross all the time. I have restless leg syndrome and "pins and needles" in my lower legs and veins popping out on my upper legs... all new things for me. With that, frequent contractions, heartburn, headaches and congestion, when I wake up in the middle of the night I just can't get back to sleep. Plus I've been kind of anxious about the baby being premature, but it looks like the medicine and partial bed rest has worked well enough and I'm 36 weeks tomorrow and physically ready to go so my doctor said not to worry about it, I can have the baby anytime. Hopefully my body cooperates, I'd love to have the baby this weekend or next!

New Car & Cancun

Yep, we joined the minivan group last week. We were going to wait until after the baby was born and deal with splitting up the family in two cars since Marisa goes to church early each week anyway, we don't often all need to be in one car. The last few months at the office have been so good we were able to go ahead and get the car now. We kept the Passat for me to drive to work and we're keeping the Jeep for scouts and hauling things that are dirty (to help keep the van clean).


We love the minivan's comfort and convenience. It feels like we're driving around a bedroom with so much room. The kids are so excited as well and by keeping them spread out, there is soooooo much less fighting and problems on drives. We tested it out on a drive to Tacoma on Saturday to see the Monster Truck Rally with the Chapmans.


While making our Best of '09 post we remembered that we didn't post all of our Cancun pix. We had the pictures on two different compact flash cards and didn't get around to uploading the others for a while. Here is the rest of the original post....

We rented a car and drove to Chitzen Itza. We drove from there down to Playa Carmen and used the GPS to take a short cut that wasn't shown on any of the printed maps. Needless to say, the people weren't used to seeing a gringo drive down their roads through the jungle. It was a pretty cool drive to see the heart of the country side, and nice to save some time!

This is a cenote at Chitzen Itza.


They were starting some new digging around the base of the pyramid that more closely dates the BOM times. That will be exciting to see what they find.



Marisa waiting on the dock for the ferry to take us back to Cancun after spending the evening in Isla Mujeres. Our FAVORITE place in all of the Mexican Riviera.

Eating at an Argentine steak house on Isla Mujeres.

North Shore beaches on Isla Mujeres. The area was so beautiful and peaceful. Because it is off the mainland a ways, the North Shore is at the right angle to have the sunset into the water, something you don't get in Cancun. There weren't very many people around, the water was bath tub warm, almost no waves, white sand...can you say HEAVEN! Holy cow, we want to go back there bad!




When we first go to Isla Mujeres we talked down a local guide to take us around the whole day for $15 doing sight seeing, snorkeling, etc. He took us to a place that had a shark you can hold. It was a nurse shark I think, bottom feeder, not white boy eater thank goodness!

Snorkeling around a sunken ship in some shallow water.

Eating at a little place on the road back from Tulum. Just a house that sold tacos on the side of the road. The looks I would get for speaking Spanish was always funny. They didn't expect that from a tall, white, USA guy.

Our lunch on Isla Mujeres.

Snorkeling in Yal-Ku. It is where one of the few above ground rivers (fresh water) meets the ocean and tons of sea life comes there to feed. My brother went there a few years ago on his honeymoon, but it sounds like they have made the place much nicer so go back if you've been before, it was pretty cool.

Chillin' at the hotel in Cancun.

Waterfront at our hotel in Cancun. My prescription sunglasses fell out of my velcro pocket in about 20 feet of water. It was so clear, and the sand so white that they stuck out and we were able to find them! Well, Marisa found them first and dove down and got them.

Can't wait to go again!

Favorite Pix of '09

Yep, there are a lot. These are our favorites from 2009. Some for the moment and some for the picture itself. You don't have to look at all of these, this is for us and my mom. I know she will look at each one ;-)