Swan Lake on the top of Fort Rodney

Having never been part of a ballet, it was very fun getting to learn a little bit of a ballet number and get the guys laughing at us.

The best part of the hike (and the dance) was getting to spend time with Tiffany Clinger and Sandy Tarwater. I've known both of their husbands for several years now, but had never had the chance to meet Sandy and have only spent a little time Tiffany.

The hike up to Fort Rodney

On Valentine's Day we went on a great little hike up Fort Rodney. Fort Rodney was a US fort built in the 1700's. IT was absolutely gorgeous. The first picture is us by the lime kiln. The second shows us and the resort for the first level of the fort. Then the third is Scott coming down from the fort. The last picture shows the beach on the back side of the resort.

It was such a beautiful location, even though the resort wasn't amazing and the food was less than ideal. We had some nice alone time and some time getting to know some people that we worked with, a little better.

The boys and their toys

Scott and Steve went sailing several times during our few days on the beach. I went with them twice. The first time was great and we did one trip the three of us and the second trip Tiffany joined us. Now the second time we went, didn't go quite so smoothly. The winds were blowing and the water was rough. Apparently a little too rough. The two of them were team steering- which turned out to be a bad idea. The side went up and the three of us went in. We couldn't get it up so the resort water sports group sent a boat out to help us. I let the guys head back on their own and I rode the boat.

Here you have Scott and Steve watching the boats in the bay.














Here you see the race between Scott and Doug against Steve and Don. Steve and Don kicked Scott and Doug's fannies.

Some of the beautiful boats on the bay

I would love to have a sail boat. This blue one was my absolute favorite.
















This isn't a boat that I want, but I love the photo.
















This is the kind of boat that Scott likes the best.
















This last picture is of a boat that was used in the Pirates of the Carribbean movies. Or so they say :)

Shallow Dive in St Lucia

Before they would let us do a deep dive, the resort required we do a shallow dive. We did it in the afternoon on Wednesday. It was a beautiful dive, and we got to see some fun sealife. Scott did well with his first real dive. He ended up really liking it. Somehow I don't think I'll go 8 1/2 years between dives again. He was the photographer for all of the dives that we went on. He did a great job and captured some great images. We still need to figure out some underwater techniques- maybe get a bright light so that we can get the colors to show up better. You'll see a difference in the pictures from this dive versus the pictures from the second and third dives.

What the girls did while Mom and Dad were in St Lucia

The girls had so much fun while we were soaking up the sun. They laughed and played harder than they do on a normal week. Fortunately, Ivy avoided a fever episode until after we got home. Here are some pictures of their activities while we were gone.

Jade and the 'puter and My little cows.

Ivy sleeping and Jade playing Ratatoulli.

Crashed for the night and showing off her handmade Valentine for Mom.

Triumphantly climbing up the slide and making a sign to welcome home Mom and Dad. Jade did all of the lettering all by herself. She also painted herself without any help!

It's so good to be home, and we are really lucky that Grandma and Grandpa were able and willing to watch the girls. We are really lucky to have such a great family.

There was only one thing that went wrong while we were gone. Grandma E suffered a heart attack on Tuesday. Fortunately, she was able to get to the hospital on time and she had an angiogram that cleared it all up. She's still really tired and suffering from a couple of other ailments. She is such a strong woman who keeps on winning the battles.

Leaving for St Lucia

Scott and I have not taken a trip together for quite some time. I kept thinking that we hadn't done anything alone since we went to Jamaica. I'm wrong on that. We went out to Kentucky while I was pregnant with Ivy. We went to Nascar and the horse races with Josh and Lisa. So it's been 2 1/2 years. It's been awhile, but not as long as I thought. :)

As we were leaving, the girls were anxious to get on their trip as well. We had to ask Jade to come back in the house several times. Ivy was in such a great mood because Grandpa and Grandma were there to get her.

So off we were to St Lucia on Sunday the 10th of February.

Snowing, Sledding and Silliness

It's always a challenge to really pull of a family activity when there are 4 couples to coordinate and 8 kids to juggle. Somehow, we actually pulled off a very fun sledding activity the weekend before the Andrus' moved to Malibu. The snow had been piling up and the roads where scary, but the sledding hill was ideal.

Tom did a few face-plants, Grandpa Lou's hair was matted down with snow, Ivy and Harrison ate more than their weight in snow, and Mac went off a jump over and over and over again.

It really is a lot of fun when we get the whole family together and do something outside. Everyone seems to be in really good moods and the games are always filled with giggles and big grins.

Retirement, Dress-up and Wii

The morning Grandma retired, Jade asked if we could make her a sign that read, "Grandma, we're so glad you don't have to go to school anymore." So, that's exactly what we did. With a cute picture of Jade and Grandma visiting an apple orchard.

For Grandma's retirement party, the girls played dress up. They actually played dress up every single time they were together. It is great that the big girls would include Ivy.

Grandma retired after 23 years of working. I'm so happy that she is finally a "stay at home mom" again. She never felt like she was a working mom, even after 23 years.

My mom is an absolutely amazing woman. I think about how she was as a mother to young kids and then as a mother of teenagers. She was always so patient and always took the time with us that we needed to accomplish everything that we set out to do. I trully credit her with who I am today. I love her and am so grateful for her example.

Two Flower Girls

On May 5th 2001 Cass and Dan's sweet girls, Sunshine and Fiona, wore these dresses at our wedding. Can you believe they fit both of my girls at the same time! Guess we don't need to worry about Easter dresses. I've to added a picture of our flower girls to this entry to see just how precious all 5 are.

Ivy's 2

Funny little Ivy had a wonderful birthday party, despite being in the middle of an episode. She really enjoyed having the day(s) be all about her.
We had planned on having the Andrus side of the family over on Saturday night, with Melissa and Kim. Unfortunately, after a very difficult fever filled night, we were going to cancel. But, with the calender being so packed, at the last minute we decided to still have it. By going back and forth, we lost Melissa, but everyone else was able to make it. (The Sanford's joined us on Sunday for our annual fried oyster party).

Ivy got many fun presents that were mostly based on her love of playing make believe.











She had two candles to blow out, but it was a good thing that her sister was there to help.

To top off her birthday filled with toys to build her imagination, We, together with both sets of grandparents, gave her a very cute kitchen. She seriously plays with it almost all day every day. We're going to have to get her plastic pots and pans just to quiet the noise a bit.

Ivy is very tall and average weight for her age. We are so blessed to have her in our family.

What doesn't kill you will only make you stronger...

Work has been absolutely horrific lately. It is the end of the year and we've had over 1.5 million dollars scheduled to come in this last week. The last 820k I've been working on all night. Its 1AM here, and the people I'm working with have been in Raleigh, Mexico City, Baca Raton, Brazil and Shenzen China. It's amazing to see a company rally together to get an order through the system when it means 4 million in Lenovo revenue. This order has been an absolute roller coaster for the past week and a half. We have the order, we don't have the order, the reseller has credit issues, the customer hasn't signed the contract etc etc. So finally today, everyone settled on how to process the order. Unbelievably the Director at Ingram neglected to tell his procurement director to process the order and then he went somewhere in a very dark deep hole without cell phone access. If this one order didn't put LANDesk North America over their number, I wouldn't feel such pressure. As it does- man what a migraine! So now we wait until tomorrow to process or not process. I'm so exhausted! But then, just as I'm getting ready to go to bed, I realize the last EMEA order is missing 2 part numbers. Guess I'm not going to sleep yet.

At least the hours of waiting for this evening to evolve, we visited with Mom and Dad and played Rockband. I was very pleased with myself on guitar and think maybe I should start taking guitar lessons. Okay- not because of Rockband, but because I remember hanging with guys and having them teach me songs. I always really enjoyed it- and gosh, I suck at the piano and had some talent at the cell0. Only I thought it was too boring to keep it up.

Well, back to emails and IMs to track down the EMEA order and a con call tomorrow morning to finalize the Mexico details. Goodness Gracious what I tiring job I have. Jade told me tonight that she missed me tonight- even though I was right there with her. I think new years resolutions won't be hard to make this year- I'll just have to keep them.