Swap a Smile: April 2014

You know, there are just so many things we as parents try to teach our children. Let's see, today, for example, my children wanted to know what "swollen" means. It happened to be so handy that my oldest daughter could demonstrate swollen with her emergency elastics (she always has hair bands around her wrist because a girl just never knows when they might come in handy). She showed how red and "swollen" the tips of her fingers could get after squeezing the blood out. You know, this is the kind of discussion that occurs in elementary-age households across the country.

Apparently, I have missed the boat on teaching my children swear words. The other day, my daughter excitedly showed me a story she had quickly whipped up. She narrated it at the same time I read the story. Just to give you a full picture: in addition to the already plethora of "shit" endings, she has a tongue thrust and pronounces all of her /ch/ as /sh/.

I think I'll quietly put this story aside. I'll just keep it in her "special" things box. It is very special indeed ;-).

Ladies and Gentlemen, girls and boys, welcome back to America :-)

By this point in our trip, our kids were very comfortable checking themselves in and out of the child centers, our room, the ice cream bar . . . .savvy? Every day before this our son begged and begged to just be allowed to "explore the ship".

So we let him.

Honest.

He had an id bracelet and room key, and we had our cell phone so we just left him on the boat. And, he will tell you that was the best move we've ever made. He had a complete blast. When I asked him what he did (maybe four hours), with a huge grin on his face he reported, "I went up and down the stairs thirteen times". Then I asked him if he had any ice cream and the grin came back - with a sheepish, "Yes". He also spent time in the child center. He will definitely tell you this was his favorite part of the cruise.

Meanwhile, we were having a little key lime pie.

We found a beach and enjoyed swimming and relaxing. It was another beautiful, sunny day. I loved talking with Darren. The girls were so much fun. It was just a great vacation day.

So, the significance of these pictures are that our oldest daughter became ecstatic when she saw the name of this museum; Mel Fisher. Apparently in one of her series, there is a character named Ruth Rose who goes back in time. We heard about Ruth Rose's adventures a number of times, in fact she is probably like family :-).

I honestly can't remember being reunited with our our son, but he was so excited to have been "grown up" and allowed some independence.

We enjoyed the last night of entertainment once again. I looked at all of the fancy pictures taken of our family that would've cost $250 dollars (in the ship's library) and then went to bed around midnight.