a very long vacation! part 1

We will call this part 1 of the very long vacation. Part 2 will be in the next blog entry. Watch for it in the next couple of days.

Greg and I have been looking forward to this vacation since we booked it last February. We took a 7-day Caribbean cruise on the Carnival Legend with the whole Schwake family. We took off on Saturday, December 13 and flew down to Tampa. Both Greg and I were mildly sick in the days leading up to our departure. Greg had a sinus infection and I even stopped at Minute Clinic the day we left to make sure I didn't have strep throat. Meredith had her 15-month well baby check-up two days earlier so all looked good with her. The day before we left, she developed really bad diarrhea. I was terrified to bring her on the plane because she was going through eight poopy diapers before we even left for the airport. How the heck do you change a diarrhea blowout(s) on the plane?!? All was well though - her diarrhea miraculously stopped long enough for us to get to Tampa! Then it started up again and didn't go away for the next two days. We ended up making an emergency trip to Publix to buy more diapers!

The vacation was great overall but it wasn't relaxing at all - even though I had a lot of help! It was somewhat difficult having such a small child on the ship and our activities on and off the ship were extremely limited. I have yet to decided whether cruising is for me or not. I am experiencing prolonged 'land sickness' which is when your body doesn't adjust to being on land. It's been almost two weeks now since I've been off the ship and my world just won't quit rocking. I'm dizzy a lot, the walls move, and I have a lot of trouble keeping my balance. I can't stand up straight as it feels like there is a force pushing me in another direction. I am a bit sick and my ears are messed up so I'm **hoping** that when I get over this illness, I will be better. I have read online that this can continue for months and years in some people but they say it's rare.

We had perfect weather. It was sunny and hot each and every day!

That is our ship on the left, docked at Cozumel. The ship was gorgeous - state of the art!

There must have been six other ships docked the day we were there.

Here is another picture of the ship - taken from one of the pool decks.

This is Meredith, Aunt Jennifer and Grandpa Schwake at the buffet.

Meredith got her $300 worth of food, that's for sure. If there was one easy thing about being on a ship with a toddler, eating would be it! Finding food for her never posed a problem no matter what time of day it was.

This is one of the towel animals we found in our room after dinner.

Here is another. It's a walrus and we loved this one because we call Meredith a walrus sometimes when she has double snot trails coming out of her nose.

Meredith didn't have much room in our stateroom but she did play a little. She loves her phones nowdays. "Hello, Hello - can you hear me?"

"Wah! No one wants to talk to me!"

My absolute favorite picture from the trip!

Stop #1 - Grand Cayman Island

This was the view from our balcony.

Do you like the picturesque cranes in the background?

We took a boat out to Stingray City Sandbar. It's a sandbar where the water is about waist deep and the stingrays come to feed there.

This was taken from our boat. As you can see, the waters are vey shallow and they swim right up to you!

That's me in the middle of this picture holding on to a stingray! I even kissed it. You can see another one in the bottome right corner of the picture. It's the dark spot. They just swim right up to you and brush your legs.

Stop #2 - Cozumel

I really liked Cozumel and wish I had some more time there. We took a cab to Chankanaab Park. It's kind of an eco-park with a great beach area, nature preserve, and they also do the dolphin discovery there.

There were all sorts of shops on the pier but I didn't get much of a chance to shop because we had to get Meredith back on the ship for a late lunch and nap.

This is Meredith, Uncle Chris, Grandma Schwake and Aunt Jennifer looking over the dolphin dicovery area.

Meredith took a nose dive on the concrete and gave herself one heck of a fat lip!

This is the lagoon at the park.

The view of the ocean from the lagoon.

We relaxed at the beach for a while.






These creatures were everywhere around the lagoon. This particular one was hissing as people walked by.



Meredith got sleepy as we were heading back to the ship and fell asleep on uncle Chris.




Stop #3 - Belize City


Belize didn't offer too many baby friendly activities so our choices here were very limited. The rest of the family went on trips to visit ancient Mayan ruins but they were long trips that required lots of walking and we just couldn't do that with the kiddo. So, we opted to do a beach day. We spent the day on Bannister Island relaxing. I really wanted to see the ruins and am disappointed that I had to miss out on that.






It was a little foggy the morning we docked in Belize but here is a rainbow I saw from our balcony. You can barely see it, but that is the mainland and Belize City in the background. Because of all the reefs, the cruise ships have to dock about five miles offshore and be tendered in. Those are tender boats coming to take people to shore.



Here we are at Bannister Island!

Meredth was kind of afraid to walk in the sand.

Sorry to subject you to this picture of me, but I really like this picture. Meredith wouldn't walk in the sand unless she was holding my hand. And she's not a hand holder.



She loved this swing.





And last but not least, she fell asleep - yet again.



Stop #4 - Isla Roatan (Bay Islands, Honduras)
I think this was my favorite stop. It was beautiful and was not commercial at all! We took an excursion on one of those boats where you sit about 5 feet below the water and you can look out at the reefs.

This was the view from our balcony. It's a little dark - it was about 8:00 a.m.




Another view from our balcony. If it were a little later in the day, you would be able to see all the reefs that go right to the shore. Don't ask me how they get the ship so close to shore.



Meredith loves fish so she enjoyed looking out the window.



This is the view you see from the windows.




After the boat ride, we stopped at a popular dive village called West End.



Another picture in West End.

We walked around for a bit and visited some shops. If you think the potholes are bad in Minnesota, think again. We drove through biggest potholes I've ever seen - on a bus!

On the way back, we stopped at this cameo factory which is the last one left in the Americas. They had some beautiful handcrafted jewelry made of pearls, shells, and coral. I **almost** bought something but then decided not to. I'm kicking myself now. It was a turquoise blue necklace with matching earrings made of some sort of shell.

Meredith, of course, fell asleep at the cameo factory.

But then came to life once we went outside to get back on the bus.

And finally, one last view of the ship from the cameo factory.

happy holidays

Meredith had her 15 month appointment on Thursday. She weighed in at 22 lbs. 5 oz. and she was 32.5 inches so I've got a tall little girl! She actually lost a few ounces over the last three months and the doctor said it was likely due to the fact that she has been ill CONSTANTLY with ear infections, pinkeye, stomach viruses, colds, other viruses, etc. She is doing great and an 18 month appointment is optional for us so it may not be until she hits 24 months that I have an update! That seems so far away and she'll be such a big girl then.

I won't be updating the blog for a couple weeks now so I just wanted to add a few holiday cheer pictures. I hope all is well with everyone and have a wonderful holiday season!

Enough of this, Mom!

thanksgiving 2008

This year was Meredith's second Thanksgiving and I am happy to say that it went much better than her first. For those that don't remember (or know), Meredith went through a period when she was 3-6 months old where she would scream whenever she was around groups of people. This year she was hapy as a clam - except when she saw Grandma Schwake walk outside. That generated the closest thing to a tantrum that I've seen yet. I was also really nervous because she is at that stage where I avoid bringing her into stores because nothing goes untouched so I was afraid that Robin and Irene's house would be a wreck after she manhandled it but it was really okay (phew)! She did great and I don't think anything was broken or messed up. Thanks for having us over and it was great to see everyone!












On another note, watch for a whole lot of holiday cuteness coming your way very soon! I'm not going to spoil it until I mail out the my Christmas cards but I'll post the cuteness for everyone on my next update.

baldies have bad hair days too

I've been waiting ages for Meredith to grow some more of that sweet, angelic, white hair and I think finally we're making a little progress. She has what I call a skullet - it's actually a couple inches long in the back while the front still needs a little work.

Check out that ear overhang...think she gets that from mom?!?

I know these pictures are crappy. It seems like all my pictures these days are crappy since I never see any natural light anymore. It's dark when I go to work and it's dark when I come home so I guess I'm just going to have to settle for a winter of shadowy flash pictures or blurry pictures.

On another note, Meredith has been ill the past week. I had Friday off of work any while I was giving her lunch, her eyes started oozing out pus and gunk so I called the doctor at approximately 12:52. They told me it was probably pinkeye and that they were booked for the whole afternoon but they had a last minute cancel at 1:00 so I said that I'll be right there. Now - I hadn't showered, washed my face, or brushed my hair. I was wearing a crappy sweatshirt and workout pants and no over the shoulder boulder holder (sorry, I don't want to write that three letter word to keep the weirdos away). I looked fabulous. I left the house in such a hurry that I forgot the diaper bag too and of course Meredith pooped in the car on the ride there. So there I am sitting in the waiting room looking like a million bucks with a snotty, crusty, stinky kid. I was mortified (I had to ask the nurse for a diaper and wipes so I did finally get her changed). Anyway...she had developed pink eye in both eyes and an ear infection in both ears. Poor little thing...this picture breaks my heart.

But she managed to get a smile in even when she was sick.

She seems to be back to her old self now. And alert the press...her nose **seems** to be less runny. Keep your fingers crossed that it will stop because after constantly wiping her nose for the past nine weeks, we're about ready to lose it. Our whole house is caked in snot it seems. Every night, I see a nice shiny film of snot on my work clothes on the shoulder and by my knees. Please, oh, please make it stop!

my little smartypants

We had a very mellow weekend this week. Meredith has just turned into a nut! She is so goofy sometimes when she tries to twirl around until she falls over or when she will walk backwards across half the room to sit on our lap.


She is so smart too. Today I had my hands behind my back for no reason and she marched up to me and ran behind me and demanded to see my hands because she thought I was hiding something.


She said the word banana today. This is a big thing because Meredith doesn't say any words besides Mama and Dada really. As I was giving her breakfast this morning I asked her if she wanted a banana and she repeated banana three times for me. And it was very clear! I'm so proud of her.


I know she knows hundreds of words. Heck, I can speak whole sentences and she understands. If I ask her if she wants to take a bath, she will go running to the stairs. She can point out at least twenty animals in her animal book. She can point to all her body parts. I could go on and on but I'm done bragging. I'm just waiting for the day where all these words that I know she knows will come out of her little mouth!


On another note, since it is cold now, we tried on our winter coats and stuff. Isn't she cute?

pillow talk

Meredith has been on a pillow craze lately. It started a few weeks ago when she saw her friends Owen and Ethan having fun jumping around in a stack of pillows. She was having a great time playing with them and joining in. We decided it was time to introduce a pillow to her so we bought her a big and small one of these

from a kiosk at the Mall of America. What a perfect first pillow - they are so soft and of course, washable. She seems to really like them and I've seen her cuddle with the small one we put in her crib and she takes nose dives onto the large one that we keep downstairs for her. Not to mention that she has started to tear off all the pillows on the couch to play with too. She's a pillow freak - just like her Mom.

trick-or-treat

What to do with a toddler on Halloween who doesn't even know what the heck Halloween is? Last year we were scrooges and took the baby and went out for dinner and pretended Halloween didn't exist.

This year we (okay, Greg) actually carved a pumpkin that had seven teeth, just like Meredith. It also had her initials MC carved on the side. I wish I taken a picture because now the poor pumpkin has no teeth because they have all rotted off.

On Halloween we got Meredith all dressed up like a chicken and took her to Mall of America. Grandma Schwake and Auntie Jennifer joined us. We had a good time and I've never seen so many cute little kids in my life! I was grinning ear-to-ear smiling at all the cute little babies, toddlers, and kids all dressed up in their Halloween best. There were a few costumes I questioned and I seriously don't know what goes through the minds of parents letting their 5 year olds dress up in costumes that look like they are intended for adults. I noticed this when I was out in Las Vegas a couple weeks ago too. There was some sort of trick-or-treat event going on at some of the hotels along the monorail and I saw some costumes I wouldn't let touch Meredith with a 10-foot pole. No pun intended either.



I think she is the happiest little chicken ever.

We managed to stop by a few stores to get some candy.

Checkin' out my loot.

After a long day, it's nice to have someone to carry you.

Last but not least, birds of a feather flock together...Meredith thought the matching cat costume was pretty funny.

savoring the last nice days of the year

As I sit here on the computer printing pictures of Meredith for me to take on my trip to Las Vegas tonight, I couldn't help but share a few more pictures from our glorious weekend.

only a mother could understand

Ever since Meredith had an ear infection almost a month ago, her nose has been non-stop snotty. He cheeks and nose and lips are raw from all the wiping. Before I was a parent, I never understood how parents let their kids run around with snot all over their faces and, well, now I understand. I just can't make it stop. There are boogers everywhere. When she wakes up they are all over in her hair, it gets all over her shirt during the day, and all over me when she gets clingy and rubs her face on me. Pleaaaaase, oh, pleaaaaaase make it stop! I could attach a bunch of snot filled pictures but I'll spare you.

Last weekend we spent the day at Aamodt's Apple Farm. I had my battery on my camera all charged up and ready to go and by golly, we brought the camera but no battery so no pictures. That place is really nice but a complete zoo to get out of - I think traffic was backed up for at least a mile down the road. Glad we got there early. But I took home some tasy Haralsons and Honey Crisps and have some delicious apple bars in the fridge just calling my name.

Today I met up with a friend of mine and her daughter Erin, who is about 4 months older than Meredith. We headed down to Belle Plaine to go to Emma Krumbee's. It was fabulous - I can't wait to take Meredith there next year.

The girls!Erin wanted a hug.
I'm shocked there's not a snot trail in this one.

Right away, she ran up to kiss the donkey. You can see her puckered lips here.


And of course she was so proud of herself after drawing all that attention from kissing the donkey.

There was this huge hill with a tube slide built into it. She kept trying to run up the hill and of course she can't go up a hill yet so she kept tumbling down and landing on her back every time she tried.

The girls both picked a pumpkin.

Meredith has started doing some new things this week. She now sits like a big girl. It's funny because she will just plop her little butt down where ever she pleases like in this picture. She decided she wanted to sit next to Tabitha in her bed.

Meredith also started a new form of babbling. Instead of just saying da-da-da or ba-ba-ba, she now says something that sounds like this: jibba jabba yabba dabba. Maybe she is getting ready to start speaking all those words she knows. She amazes me every day with all her knowledge.

Well folks, I'm headed to Las Vegas tomorrow for the week so it will be another week or two before I update the blog.