Turks and Caicos 10 year Anniversary Trip Part 1

On December 21st, Taber and I will have been married for 10 years! We decided to celebrate a little early though since we didn't want to leave the kids during the holiday season, so a few weeks ago we said goodbye to our responsibilities and flew off to the lovely island of Turks and Caicos.

When we were planning our Anniversary trip we thought of a lot different options, a cruise, New York, Europe since it's so close. Then last year our friends went to Turks and Caicos (an island in the Caribbean I had never even heard of before) and when they came back and showed us the pictures I was like, "Duuuude...That's where I wanna go!"

We had a direct flight from Boston so everyone on board was leaving the cold and heading for blue skies. As a result they were all very excited and chatty. When the island finally came into view we looked out the window and were greeted with a rainbow spanning across the turquoise water. (You can kind of see the rainbow in the picture.) When the captain said we had arrived at Turks and Caicos everyone started cheering. It was awesome.

 We flew through customs, took a cab to our hotel, swapped our winter clothes for swimsuits and less than an hour after landing we were sitting on the beach and pinching ourselves to see if this was really real!

The island turned out to be just what I was hoping for, warm turquoise water and white sandy beaches, + hot guy to share it with ; )

We spent the week just enjoying each others undivided attention. It was so nice to actually have full conversations without being interrupted by "the fruits of our romance" : )

 We spent a lot of low key time reading on the beach. I finished 2 books, probably the first 2 books I've read since becoming a mother of 3. : )

When we weren't on the beach we would check out bikes from our hotel and cruise around the island. 

 One day they didn't have the beach cruisers so we had to take the tandem. Tandem biking is harder than it looks! I'm glad we tried this after we'd been married for 10 years and not on our honeymoon. Definitely requires lots of patience and communication!

We also did lots of snorkeling since there was a reef directly in front of our hotel. Taber was smart and bought some snorkel masks and flippers before we left so we didn't have to pay ridiculous fees to rent them. There were lots of awesome fish and one day we even saw a pretty big barracuda.

 The beach is such a difference experience without the kiddos.  Don't get me wrong, I love taking our kids to the beach, but it was just a nice change to be able to play too : )

In fact, the kidless beach freedom made us a little hyper : )

Woopee!

I guess we took a lot of jump pictures. 

We were excited ; )

 Usually we'd wrap up our beach time when the sun started setting.

Then we'd shower and get all dolled up to go out to dinner. 

This is another thing that's really exciting about a vacation without kids. You can go to fancy restaurants, at any hour of the night and take as long as you want to eat your amazing food : )

 It's usually such a huge deal for us to get a babysitter and go out to dinner alone. In fact, I think we've only done it once since having Cam! So yeah, going out to eat every night was the coolest!

This collage is an ode to all the yummy food we ate on our vacation. 

Just thinking about it brings a tear of happiness to my eye. :)  

(p.s. all the cool people take pictures of their food, trust me. )

 And speaking of food, everything was ridiculously expensive on the island so we hit up the local grocery store to get stuff for lunches so we wouldn't spend our entire life savings on meals.  Even the grocery store was crazy expensive though! Can you guess how much the few items in our cart cost? I will seriously send a goodie care package to whoever guesses the closest! 

Okay, well this post is already getting ridiculously long so I will pause here and save the rest for another day: )

"Collapse Complete"

That was the headline of the Sports Section Saturday morning after the Boston Bruins sealed their place in the hall of shame as only one in 3 teams EVER to lose a series after being up 3-0 after game 3. I don't know how they choked so bad but we were there to witness the final meltdown in game 7.

The house was packed, the fans were on fire. I have never been in a more fiesty and pumped up crowd. They wanted to send the Flyers packing and they were thirsty for blood!

At the end of period 1 the Bruins were up 3-0! The excitement in the arena was electric.

We were dutifully playing our part as fan wanna-bes, sporting Bruins t-shirts and waving our rally towels with hardcore devotion.

But things went sour very quickly. Philly scored twice and the Bruins fans started getting antsy. When a third goal was scored tying the game, a fight broke out in the stands next to us with a Boston and a Philly Fan slugging it out. The whole arena turned to watch the fight and then began chanting "LET HIM STAY! LET HIM STAY!" when the security guys were escorting the Boston fan out.

The fans rallied around their team for one last push. People were up on their feet, screaming, stomping, cheering those Bruins on to end. But Philly scored again and somehow the Bruins went from this score:

to the most pathetic and dismal loss I've ever witnessed. When the final buzzer went off everyone started booing and throwing their towels on the ice. People were throwing their beer too which wasn't cool when it started raining down on us. As we were leaving I heard more potty language than I have in my entire life. On the way out we saw grown men close to tears yelling things like,

"41 games of my *bleeping* time and *bleepity bleep* money! What a waste!"

"I'm Humiliated! *bleeping* HUMILIATED!"

It was sad.

Guess that's the benefit of just being a wanna-be fan. : ) Despite the doom and gloom around us were still in high spirits. We had a babysitter and we were in Boston on a Friday night! Heck yeah!

We hailed a pedicab (I've always wanted to ride one!) and weaved through the game traffic to the Omni Parker House hotel, birthplace of the very first Boston Cream Pie.

While thousands of dejected Bruins fans were drowning their sorrows in beer, we were happily enjoying this marvelous creation.

When all was said and done I learned a few important things from our evening in Beantown.

1) Boston fans are passionate and they mean business. Don't mess with them or their teams or you might get punched in the face.

2) Pedicabs are awesome, and pedicab drivers deserve every penny you pay them because they work HARD!

3) If coming out here to visit us isn't enough incentive for you, at least come for the Boston cream pie. Amazing : )

Move over Edward...

There's a new vampire in town

Sorry though, he's taken ; )

On Saturday we attended a fabulous Halloween costume party thrown by some of our good friends, the Baldwins and the Tedjamulias.

We spent the evening playing games, bobbing for apples, and even had a dance off at the end. I think I burned at least 1000 calories dancing : ) Thank you to our lovely hosts for such a fun filled night!

The Tedjamulias as Mario and Princess Peach (aren't they adorable?)

I didn't get the chance to document everyone's costumes, but here are a few. Love the couple's themes!

A Favre FHE

A few months ago Taber bought us some tickets to a Vikings game. At the time Brett Favre wasn't even a blip on our radar. Well then of course he signed on to play with the Vikings and suddenly our tickets to the Vikings vs. Packers game became a pretty hot item. We thought about selling them but at the end of the day I thought, "Geez, if people are willing to pay that much to go to this game, it must be worth going to!!" So we held onto the tickets and I'm SO glad we did.

This was my first NFL experience and HOLY COW!! I've never experienced football like that before. I mean, I thought the cougar fans could get intense but those Vikings fans are C-R-A-Z-Y!! Case in point, this guy I'm standing with in the picture below. Notice the NFL tatoo on his bicep. Yeah, these fans are intense!!! The stadium was sold out and the fans were on their feet the whole time, cheering and booing with every play like it was a rock concert. Of course they were all pretty drunk from the tailgating which made for some pretty colorful moments. : )

Here's a pic of the concourse jam packed with all the fans. We went the wrong way to get to our seats and it took us almost 40 minutes to navigate the crowd. Good thing we came early!

Once inside we got pretty excited when we saw that our seats were on the third row. We had an awesome view of the field and in the second picture below you can see good old Favre, number 4, getting ready to make a play.


Can you see the excitement in Taber's eyes? I'm telling you, that stadium was buzzing with energy. The rivalry between the two teams, the legend on the field, it was all the makings for a great game.

Also kind of cool, right below us was a VIP section on the field and a bunch of players from the Minnesota Twins were sitting there. They went on to win a big game tonight in the same Metrodome!

The Vikings had an awesome game with some great plays and emotional moments. We bonded with our seat mates, jumped, cheered, screamed, yelled, sang, danced and just had a really good time. Favorite quote of the night: When we were walking to the stadium, an insanely drunk guy at the tailgating party was staggering around, shouting in heavily slurred speech, "We'll take Brett Favre if they don't want em!" Heck yes we will! I know I haven't been a big NFL fan in the past but things are changing because I've finally found my team! Skol Vikings!!

p.s. Many many thanks to our amazingly kind friends Patrick and Maria for coming to our house to watch the girls all evening! We love you guys!!

Dating

I think it goes without saying that Taber is hot. And well, not to brag or anything but he totally asked me out last week! What can I say? I'm a lucky girl; ) We hang out quite a bit (marriage kind of has that effect on people) but when he sees me, it's in the morning when I first wake up, bed head, morning breath, no makeup, blah! Or in the evening with frazzled mommy hair, kid food, fingerprints and drool all over my clothes, certainly not looking my finest. So yeah, dates are always a good time to remind him (and myself) that I actually DO have other clothes besides my workout pants and t-shirts and that we are not only a great mommy/daddy team, we are a great couple!

He took me to a Twins game, tickets courtesy of his boss who is always so generous to hook us up. We doubled with our friends Cameron and Wendy and had a great time chatting, laughing, and being couples. We've gone to a few games before with the girls but the game looks a lot different when you're trying to entertain a 3 year old and keep a 1 year old from putting every scary germ infested thing from the bleachers into her mouth. (special thanks to my dear friend/life saver/angel of a neighbor Kara, who watched the girls for us even though she is due with her baby next week! Thank you for making our date night possible!)

We had great seats (thanks again to Taber's boss) finally made it to the 7th inning stretch,(never done that with the kids) and the Twins won! I would definitely say our date night was a huge success.

Extra bonus: The boys even treated the ladies to some ice cream (well, they gave us their wallets and told us to go get some) Good enough for me!!

A great way to start the weekend

Summer in Minnesota is a big deal. I mean you figure it's cold 8-9 months of the year here so when it warms up for bit people aren't going to take that for granted. I guess that's why at General Mills they give their employees half days on Fridays during the summer so they can enjoy the warm weather while it's here. Half day Friday's started a couple weeks ago and we are loving the little head start on our weekends!

Yesterday we took advantage by getting together with another couple from church who also works for General Mills and going on a double date with them to the St. Paul Temple. It was great being able to get down their by 3:30 and being done early enough to go out to dinner and still be able to pick up our kids in time to get them to bed.

We really enjoyed the temple and eating such good food in such good company. As we drove home I told Taber, "that was a great way to start the weekend!"

Random side note: Two different people at the temple asked if Taber and Patrick were brothers. Teya has also mistaken Patrick from behind for her daddy. I think if we got Taber some sweet glasses like Patrick's they could totally pull the brother thing off!

Timberwolves Date night

So one of our New Year's resolutions is to go out more often as a couple, without the kids. It gets a little tricky sometimes since Brinley is still nursing and of course, babysitters cost an arm and a leg these days (seriously, what ever happened to the good old days of a dollar an hour per kid?)

Still, a goal is a goal, so on Saturday night we got got a babysitter and headed downtown to watch the Timberwolves play the Milwaukee Bucks. Taber got some sweet tickets from work so we were sitting with a bunch of hardcore fans who have season tickets, go to every game, know every player, and loudly give the coach, players, and refs their input on the game. I had a blast and couldn't help but get caught up in the passion of our seatmates. By the end of the game I was jumping up and down and must admit, even without the kettlecorn I still would've gone. ; )


For Highlights of the game click HERE: (It was a close one!)