Cruisin'

Not sure I would ever call myself spontaneous.  I like to walk the course before I run it and find exactly where the uphills are so I can plan accordingly - like I used to in high school cross-country.  But, in life, walking the course ahead of time is impossible and every once in a while you have to do something to shake things up.  So, when the opportunity to go on a 7-day cruise with Andy's parents presented itself, we decided to jump on it.

And, as luck would have it, life further showed us what "shaking things up" is all about when we were surprised with a tax bill from Uncle Sam a few days before we left.  With that news in tow, we boarded the ship and set out to prove that when life hands you lemons, you throw those lemons overboard and order a pina colada!

We cruised to Nassau, Bahamas, St. Thomas and St. Maarten and soaked in as much sun as we could handle.  We couldn't have been happier to spend the time with Andy's parents and experience three places neither of us had been before.

The end of a hike in St. Maarten

I was in St. Maarten for one day and they named a beach after me!

A sunset at the end of the day in St. Maarten

And really when life starts handing you fruit that you didn't ask for, is there a better place to deal with it than on a beach - or boat - with your family?

Showering.

The last few weekends have ushered in full-on preparation for Baby Caley.  The focus was on showering – showering with gifts, advice and love as we anxiously await his or her arrival.

I have been blessed with aunts and uncles in my own life that feel more like friends or a second set of parents and it’s them that I want to honor with my own role of aunt.  I hope to be fun when life gets too serious for this little Caley and I hope to be a listening ear when loneliness takes over.  I want to see his* eyes light up when I walk in the room and to hear his stories when he can’t find the words to tell his parents.  But most of all, I hope to show him another side of his mom. 

I hope that through me he gets to see the beautiful friend his mother is.  I hope that when he hears my sister and I laughing way too hard over a bottle of wine and the Dixie Chicks blaring in the background, he sees the person his mother is – fun and good-hearted.  And when she isn’t listening well because she is busy or she snaps at him far too quickly, I hope I have the patience to remind him of how successful his mother is outside of their home too. 

And when my sister fights with this little one about hairspray or going places he shouldn’t have gone and doing things he shouldn’t have done, I will tell him about the tears that ran down his mother’s face as we showered her.  I will tell little Caley that while we showered his mom, she showered her Little Foot with the warm, anxious love of a new mom.  

*I am defaulting to calling the baby a "him" in this piece for simplicity!