I swear I didn't forget about blogging life. I don't think I could ever completely stop blogging. It is basically what got me sanely (well, relatively sanely) through my adoptions. Life has just been, well, busy lately.
So in order to get caught up, I think I'll attempt to recap life as it was - a month at a time. Since we left off on Tatiana's Gotcha Day at the end of March, here's my attempt at April's events.
With Easter and all it's celebrations at the start of the month, we kicked off the month with lots of fun. We made special Easter treats for school and welcomed in Spring Break.
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| Treats for school - inspired by Pintrest |
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| Getting ready for Easter! |
The Easter bunny arrived with much excitement this year. Alex missed Easter last year, so technically this was his last "first". I am not 100% sure he still understands it all, but under the tutelage of his big sister, he figures it out pretty quick.
The weather was super crazy and unseasonably warm which got us in the perfect mood to take off and fly south the day after Easter. Much to mama's dismay, we had planned our vacation time frame before this year's school schedule was published so we based it off LAST year's schedule - which, as you can guess wasn't the same this year.
Last summer, my good friend Yvonne (another single mom) and I were bemoaning vacations where you return almost as exhausted as you were when you left. We had the idea to cruise on a cruise line featuring a kids club so we could balance fun times with the kids and adult time to relax. For budgetary reasons, we choose the Carnival line - and then we found a ship leaving out of the Port of Tampa - which would be close to my dad and a LOT less congestion than Port Canaveral.
We timed the vacation to leave after Easter, spend 3 days in Bradenton with Gramps and then off to cruise world. In addition to Yvonne and her kids, we were also going to be joined on the boat by more friends: the famous Rhonda and her daughter Megan; my dear friend Angie and her neighbor Lorraine; Jeanette, the woman across the hall from me in the Vlad Inn during Tatiana's adoption and her daughter Sophie; and finally another Vlad family: The Bendlin's - Alex, her husband Jason and their son Victor.
Time with Grampa was as it always is: TOO SHORT! We had a BLAST! Both Tatiana and Alex had their very first ocean experience: the Gulf of Mexico. We went to Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo and spent some great time with Grampa & Gramma.
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| Feeding the giraffe's at Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo |
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| Alex and Grampa playing on the beach |
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| Little Miss Water : Tatiana |
After we left Grampa, we were off to the boat. Minus one rough, rocky day at sea, we had a BLAST on our cruise. The kids LOVED the kids club, but we also had a blast exploring the ship and staying out late dancing til midnight! We stopped in Cozumel, Mexico and had a great day swimming with the dolphins and hanging at the port. It was great to catch up with good friends and relax! I left feeling like I would cruise again in a heartbeat - which is a good thing, because we're planning on attending a very large Russian adoption reunion cruise next summer!
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| Swimming with the dolphins |
We returned home mid-April ready to get back into the swing of life and prepare for the last months of school before summer. My mother however, had other plans for us! We got home on a Monday and the following Friday she entered the hospital with a variety of different ailments including a broken hip and eventually a broken arm, both that required surgery. It ended up being a 6 week journey of two hospitals and one rehab facility, and pretty much a good chunk of why life has been so hectic!
Next up.... May. And hopefully it won't be May 2013 before I get back to post again!
1 comment:
Thanks for the update!! My blog seems to be falling behind too - not enough time in the day!!
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