Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Thank You Shutterfly




If you know me, you know I love Christmas cards! My cards always have a picture of the kids on it. ALWAYS! So, when Shutterfly offered to send me the first 50 free I jumped at the chance. It took me forever to find the perfect card because there are tons of great ones to choose from. But again, if you know me, my favorite place to be is the beach. Most of my past cards have beach pictures on them. Key riding a radio flyer down a snow white sand hill, Key and Andy in red trunks with red buckets full of sand, etc. I tried to get Robbie to make us a sand snowman and he said it couldn't be done. Now that I've actually seen one I realized he was just being lazy!!! Maybe this summer... Anyway, as I was saying, I found the perfect card for us. Because a perfect Christmas would be a tropical one.
Check out the dozens of different designs. I know you'll find one pefect for you.
And if you have already decided upon your cards and have them in the mail I'll try not to be jealous. You might want to check out Shutterfly's great selection of birthday invitations: Birthday Cards and Birthday Photo Cards, Birthday Party Cards, Birthday Note Cards Shutterfly


And don't forget to order your 2011 calendars. If you add great pictures of the kids the grandparents would love to get one for Christmas!
Photo Calendars & Custom Wall Calendars, Personalized Desk Calendars Shutterfly They are super easy to customize. You can add all of your own events so you'll never forget a birthday.
Merry Christmas friends!!!



Saturday, November 13, 2010

In the News

So cruise ships are in the news again. Usually they make the front page due to a rotovirus or a norovirus. This time, fire in the engine room. My sister, who lives in California, was on a cruise this past week. Thankfully, not the disabled ship though. She sailed out of Florida.

I've been on a cruise. It was my first, last and only. I cruised with some friends, who discovered just what a stick in the mud I really am. They were great, and had lots of fun. Me? Not so much. Cruising is, most decidedly, NOT for me.

We went on a cheap cruise, for just four days (thankfully!). Maybe that was it? But it was awful, just awful. First of all, the whole ship's decor was tacky. Swirling red and purple designs on all the carpet. Carpet that didn't just cover the floor but all the walls too. It was enough to make you sick in dry dock, much less out on the open seas.

Our room was approximately 3 feet wide by 5 feet long. Three of us shared this room. I included the bathroom in the above measurements. I'd never seen a combo sink/shower/toilet until I arrived. I slept (fitfully) on the top bunk. And when I wanted to roll over, I climbed out and flipped over and then slid back into place. My suitcase was at the bottom of my bed so my legs could never fully extend. Lovely. One good thing about our room though, was that we had a tiny window to let in some light. The rooms across the hall looked like caves and I am seriously not sure I would have survived in one of those. If we paid extra for that window it was money well spent!

Most of our time on board was spent waiting. We waited in the hall to get to the elevator. We waited outside the elevator to get on it. We waited on another floor to eat. We waited to disembark. We waited to get back on the ship. And every single cough I heard or railing I touched screamed ROTOVIRUS.

Because there were SO MANY people on this ship. A virus smorgasbord - no wonder you hear so much about this on cruise ships! I can only describe it like this: think of Black Friday at the mall, about 10am. Then, imagine someone locking the doors and sending the mall out to sea. That is what if felt like on that ship. People were everywhere!

Things to do on the ship were limited if you are a stick in the mud. The main activity was drinking large quantities of alcohol. I don't drink. It helped if you smoked and gambled too. Neither for me, thankyouverymuch. Oh, if you were a soccer fan you could watch it on TV, but you'd have to know Spanish to understand the announcers. In fact, I didn't find any English speaking channels at all. I felt very disconnected on board. No current news was available unless you paid some crazy amount of money per MINUTE to get online. I decided to remain uninformed of current events.

One day I signed up for an excursion. I decided to go feed the sting rays. I am a diver and had seen pictures of a place called Sting Ray City where you go out and swim among them and feed them bread and are able to pet them in the wild. I was really excited. Well, let me tell ya, this wasn't even close! The excursion was to start at 11:30am. I got up bright and early so I could get some shopping done in town before I joined my group. When I opened the room door I realized I was trapped. Hordes of people jamming the hall, waiting for an elevator to get off the ship. Uggh! I barely made it off in time to get to my excursion. Seriously! And what took so long to get off the boat? We were all forced to have our pictures taken with a fake parrot sitting on our shoulders! I am NOT KIDDING.

Then we took a small boat over to Carnival's private island. We were fenced in on a small portion of the island. The sting rays were fenced in as well. We were required to wear old life jackets and stood in waist deep water while the trained sting rays swam in a line past us, grabbing pieces of fish from our hands. Not the brush with nature I had envisioned. Then it was lunch time. I ate a $6 hot dog. Then I sat on the beach until it was time to go back to the ship.

The next day was our 'free day at sea', which basically meant - we have no plans to stop anywhere and you are completely at our mercy. I ran around their jogging track until I just couldn't take it anymore. Then I showered and headed to breakfast. There were 100 tables open. But you couldn't sit at those. You had to sit with the other folks who came down at the same time you did. So, here I am at a table with a honeymoon couple, several middle aged couples and one REALLY old couple. The old lady had on this low cut moo-moo dress that showed everything she had. The honeymoon couple laughed every time they glanced in her direction. Would it have killed them to give me a newspaper from the day we set sail and let me sit at my own table? Jeesh.

Then it was time to hit the pool. Okay, the pool was about twice the size of our room. No, I'm not joking. Twenty people in that pool and it would have been crowded. And it was a suspicious green color. Not appealing at all. So, I decided to just grab a lounge chair and catch some rays. Well, there were so many lounge chairs on deck that they were all touching each other. You had to start at the bottom, crawl up the chair and then flip over. And you had better like your neighbor really well. It was really hot, but I was hanging in there. Then, the reggae band started. Oh my. I bet folks on the nearest island heard them! I lasted about 30 seconds after they got started. I scootched right off the end of my chair and went back to my room.

The next day was the best day of all. The cruise ended. I have never been so glad to end a vacation in my LIFE. You know that feeling you get when you don't have your car with you, maybe y0u rode with someone else, and you aren't having fun but you don't have the option to leave? That is a terrible feeling. And it started the minute we got on board. I was terribly claustrophobic the whole time. If a helicopter had landed and offered to take the highest bidder off the ship I hate to think how much it would have cost me but I would have won that auction!

So, that is my only cruise experience. I know, I know, I'm the weird one, not you. You had tons of fun on your multiple cruises and can't wait to book your next one. I'll just find a deserted island somewhere (with NO fences or hot dogs!) and live happily ever after.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Food

Dear Goodson Children,
On Saturday night, at the annual Chili cook off, I took 2nd place. 2nd place! And I didn't even try all that hard. I flipped through my homemade cookbook Saturday morning and picked up the ingredients that afternoon. By 5:30pm the house smelled good and we had award winning chili. Viola! Now, don't get me wrong, I am no Julia Childs. But I CAN cook. Decent, edible meals are possible from my kitchen.

One day, dear children, YOU will be the one faced with cooking for YOUR children. And I hate to do it to you but I wish with every fiber of my being that they are as picky as each of you. More so, if that is even possible.

I hope they ask what's for dinner and then cut you off mid-sentence wailing, "Ohhhhhhhhh NO! I HATE THAT!!!!!!" Even if it is something that they have never heard of until that very moment and can't have a CLUE as to what is in it or what it might taste like.

I hope you stand in the middle of the grocery store, surrounded by food, and wonder what you can buy that they will eat.

I hope that when you do find something that two of them will eat that the third gags on it, every single time.

I hope they sit at the table and cry over perfectly good food.

I hope they are eventually sent to their beds with empty stomachs because they refused to try anything on their plates.

I hope your 6 six year old sons weigh 35 lbs.

I hope you have to beg your friends for food ideas. Then realize after the second suggestion that your children are not normal eaters and nothing you are hearing would interest them in the least.

I hope your 4Ker comes out of class at noon SO excited because at snack time he had banana pudding and he LOVED it. And you are SO excited that he ate something and loved it that you drive directly to the grocery store, find the 'Nilla Wafers, buy all the ingredients on the back of the box, rush home and make it for him. Then, as he hesitantly takes a bite, he declares it awful. And you ask his teacher the next day and she says they made instant vanilla pudding, not banana pudding. And it turns out that your son only liked the 'shaking' part of this snack, not the 'eating' part.

I hope your toddlers put one piece of food in their mouth and hold it there, without swallowing. Thus preventing you from adding the next bite. I hope they get up from their nap 2 hours later with that same bite still in their mouth, apparently afraid you'd try to feed them as they slept.

I hope you have to report at every doctor visit that your children do not eat, they live off air. You are not sure how they poop, because pooping would require eating at some point. And the pediatrician, like your friends, tries to give you suggestions. Suggestions that aren't even close to something your child would eat.

I hope that before you leave on vacation you spend a week making a very short list of foods that the grandparents MIGHT sneak into your children while you are gone.

I hope that you are embarrassed when well meaning friends say, "Ah, just let them eat with us tonight, we're just having xxxxxx." Because you KNOW your child would never eat that. So you just say you'd better be getting home.

I hope you go to bed at night wondering if they took ONE bite of anything that day.

My dear children, I will continue to cook good food for you. It is my job. I love you and want you to EAT. Something. Anything! But I am so very frustrated with you right now. I don't want to eat the entire bowl of vegetable beef soup. It starts to get old after the 4th day in a row. And I am leaving your father out of this entirely because if I got started on his picky-ness it would be even less cheerful of a post than it is now. (But seriously, who doesn't eat pasta?)

Anyway, BON APPETIT!

Love, Mom