WHERE HAS MY ENERGY GONE

Here recently I have been making myself crazy. I have 100's of things I want to do and I tend to get nothing done.

This summer I have my garden again, the weeds are keeping me extra busy this year. I truly love working in my garden but my energy level is very down these days so I am not doing as much as I need to.

I really want to fill my flower beds with flowers again this year like I did last year. Instead, I have planted nothing by way of annuals (my lilies came up and are over grown) and we are growing weeds like crazy. I spent last weekend cleaning them out but still no drive to put some color into them even though I very much want to.

Then their is the house. We managed to paint the front porch but that was out of necessity. We had carpenter bee's drilling big holes through our wood. For years now we have said we are going to side our house, since we plan to side we have done nothing to the house by way of upkeep. A lot of the paint had peeled off and carpenter bee's (look like bumble bee's) love unpainted wood. They drill these perfect holes that are about as big as a dime. This is really not good for the structure of a home so we painted.

I also very much want to put a new front door on, rip off our rotten front porch and fill the 100 year old well that is in my front yard. Visually, I have big dreams for the exterior of my home this year. If I can't muster up some motivation it will be fall soon and nothing will be done.

Does anyone have any recommendations for boosting ones energy? I could really use some help and motivation.

In case I don't get around to it, EVERYONE HAVE A HAPPY 4th of JULY.

VACATION 2010

Summer vacation is one of those things we just love. This year the weather was extra hot but we still managed to get out every single day and enjoy the sun and water.

Here are some pictures that just bring a smile to my face.

This watering whole slowly filled up as the tides came in. The little ones had a blast with this one.

We jumped off the side of the pool so many times my poor arms hurt from all the catching and lifting to do it again.
Botany Bay is this beautiful run of beach that is preserved by the State of South Carolina. It is covered with lots of beautiful shells that are protected by the state. You can't take any from the beach. I think it is OK because it makes the beach so beautiful.

This child climbed every fallen try along our beach front walk.

My youngest wanted nothing more than to see Dolphins in the Ocean. Every trip to the beach the question was raised. So a trip on a boat tour was a must and yes we got to see Dolphins. See this smile, it was because he saw them.
Luke got to go fishing in the ocean with his grandpa and daddy this year.
I really don't want to say much. I think the photo's tell a great story of our vacation and all the fun we had.

WATER FUN

While on vacation it is the water that we seem to love and enjoy so much. My husband and I both would love to relax in on the sand in the sun with a good book but we have come to the reality that this is not going to be an option for many years, unless we take a vacation with out the boys.

My boys truly love the water. Last summer by the end of summer Luke was just getting a little comfortable with putting his head in the water. He went to Latchkey all summer and once a week he got to go swimming. It literally took all summer for him to get comfortable in the water.

This summer our vacation was the second time he was in a pool. This child blew us away. First with going under water, second taking a little instruction from us and he was swimming around the pool by day 2. AMAZING!!!!

Here is a little video clip of him enjoying the pool.



Now it is time for swimming lessons. No more waiting around....

The bad part about his new found love for swimming is he doesn't want to go to the sitters with his little brother for the summer. He wants to go to latchkey so he can go to the pool all summer. I don't blame him but it will cost me more money. I told him he had to give the sitter a try for 3 weeks and then if he doesn't like it I will consider switching him back. Now all I am hearing is "has it been three weeks yet", throw in a little 7 year old attitude with that and you get the idea.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Now my little guy was all about the ocean. Forget the pool, lets go to the ocean. You couldn't call it the beach either, it was the ocean and had dolphins and whales.

Anyway here is a little clip of him enjoying the waves with his daddy.




He would crack us up when he would say in Spanish "salto" as the waves would come. This word means jump, thank you Dora the Explorer for teaching my two year old a little Spanish. The funny part is I always have to ask my seven year old what that meant. I don't think he say's "salto" here on this video.

The North vrs South

Remember my extra busy week last week?

Yep, it was really busy sitting on the beach in South Carolina.

We went to the same vacation destination again this year that we did last year. I have lots of pictures to share and hopefully will do that tomorrow but for now I am just going to share a fun little observation that I picked up on as we traveled. Remember I live in the North and we travel to the South for vacation and as we did I observed some very big differences between the North and South.

1. Personality

• Southerners are so friendly, so nice. People walk around saying hello, smiles on their faces and it is so refreshing.
• Northerners are not friendly, people don't make eye contact, rarely say hello and most the time are walking around with frowns on their faces. Makes me sad!

2. Traveling by Car

• Southerners are very slow, not in a hurry however they drive with a lot more curtisy. Overall it seems to take a lot longer to get to where you want to go but traveling seems to be much safer.
• Northerners in a hurry, a big, big hurry. Seriously we enter the North and cars start cutting you off, driving like crazy and moving very fast down the interstate. Now I must say we traveled much quicker in the North but I am not sure it was the safest of travels as I watched many drivers go and cut off others almost to the point of an accident.

3. Public Places (Bathrooms Specifically)

• In the South, I don't care where we stopped to use the restroom, they were clean. With little kids who potty a lot this is truly a nice thing.
• In the North, well my best advice is stay away from any and all gas station restrooms. I don't know if they just don't clean them or if people in the North are just that gross. Either way, people should know better and be more respectful.

4. Slow & Quick

• In the South, everything takes forever because they are not in a hurry. Going through a McDonald's drive through takes an hour. They most march at their very own pace and their is no speeding them up.
• In the North, everything is much faster. It seems the idea is to get them in and out as quick as possible. Of course this might be why the personality and friendliness is lost in the North.
  

Have you traveled and picked up on these types of things before?

A STORY FROM THE PAST

June 13, 1998 was the date that we set sail on our Caribbean cruise. It was the beginning of a whole new chapter to our lives. See this cruise wasn't just an ordinary cruise or vacation. This was our wedding. Yes, I got married on a cruise ship. We set sail from Miami on the 13th and three day's later on the 16th we got married on the Island of Saint Thomas.

We did not do this alone either. We took our parents, grandparents, siblings and some friends with us. 15 people in total went on our journey with us which made it all that much more memorable.

I remember that day so well. We ported in Saint Thomas where we had to go sign our marriage license, we then went to the beach for about and hour. Here we are getting off the ship that morning. Who would have thought we were getting married in just a couple hours.

After that we headed back to the ship where I had 45 minutes to get ready before I got married.

Nothing fancy for me.... I am a very simple gal and I just had a sun dress (custom made by my aunt) and sandles, fixed my own hair, painted my own nails... you get the idea.

Look how young we look.

We all then met in this beautiful little room on the ship set up for our wedding ceremony. We were married to wedding voes set to the sea (if I can find them I will post them sometime), very beautiful.

This was the room we married in and these are our friends that went with us. Everyone else was family.

After the ceremony we went to another room just for our reception.

I really wanted to get married on the beach and this was an option however my grandfather went with us and he was in a wheel chair so this really wasn't an option for him so we married on the ship instead.

I never had those little girl dreams of a big wedding one day. I am just not a girly, girl. I was not a Christian at this time in my life (sad to say) and I had no desire to get married in a church. I do not like lots of attention and the idea of walking down an isle with a room full of people watching me was terrifying so I opted to get married on a cruise ship. It was this or Vegas. I really didn't want to say I got married in Vegas, seems a bit cheesy to me.

It was simple, very little planning, we pretty much just had to show up. We got a full weeks vacation out of it. The cruise line upgraded our room to a fancy cabin with a balcony while all our traveling friends were down in the lower parts of the ship. It truly was a wonderful event in my life.

Hard for me to believe we will be celebrating 12 years of marriage. Where does the time go...

Funniest part was our friends that went with us said the four of us will go back on our 5 year anniversary. LOL.... we were both pregnant that year so that was out.

Then we said how about on the 10 year anniversary? LOL... again, she had just had a baby and I was pregnant again.

I am almost afraid to declare a 15 year return because a baby could magically appear. Seems to be a pattern anyway.

I know I posted this early but I have such a busy week ahead of me that I am afraid I will not get around to posting it. I didn't post it last year when I wanted to so I wasn't missing it this year.