August.....nooooooo (or yes?)

I hate August. It's because I live in Florida and August is always unbearable here. So when July hits and I start thinking about how close we're coming to August, I always start to cringe (although this July has been hot enough to compete w/ our typical August so how much worse could it get?).

It's also a likely time for a hurricane to hit and it seems to drag on w/ no holidays...just long, hot, miserable days.

This year, however, I have a reason to look forward to it. Billy and I have booked a Caribbean cruise that leaves August 29 and doesn't return until Sept. 6! Our 10-year anniversary falls on Sept. 5 and we decided we would really make it special. Since we never had a honeymoon, or even a real wedding, and since we beat the odds of making it this far when many people thought our marriage would fail, we are thinking we deserve the celebration.

Sadly, we're not taking Myles with us. I struggled badly w/ this decision but Billy really wants this to be our (very) late honeymoon. Who knows...maybe I'll get pregnant again! :)

We've booked an ATV shore excursion in Cozumel, a white water rafting trip in Costa Rica and a sightseeing tour of the Panama Canal and Panama City in Panama. So here's to NO hurricanes in the Caribbean that week.

Getting creative

One of the reasons I've slowed down my blogging is that I have decided to take up scrapbooking. I'm sure those people who know me are laughing right now as I am not a creative person when it comes to that type of thing. I'm creative at work, like with new ideas for events, promotions, headlines, etc., but about as bland as can be with fashion, decorating and other similar areas.

What started this is that I was going through photos on the computer recently and realized just how many amazing things we've done with Myles. And although they are documented in iPhoto, if our hard drive blew up, all of the proof of those memories would be lost. I was actually shocked to see all we've done!

So now I'm trying to start organizing it all through scrapbooking. If anyone has ideas, please share! I'm completely lost!

I'm a new aunt!

My brother and his wife welcomed their first child last night, Riley James. He was a big boy (almost 9 lbs) and is completely healthy. This is the first niece/nephew on my side of the family and I am so excited to meet him. We plan to make the 2-hour drive Saturday.

I've not been blogging (or reading) as much lately due to pure busy-ness. I've been much busier at work for the past couple of weeks and we seem to have a lot going on at home as well, between kids' birthday parties (FOUR since mid-June) and spending time w/ friends.

I also haven't had as much inspiration in the topics area so that hasn't helped. I guess I'm in a bit of a funk, heavily questioning about my career path, still dealing w/ the miscarriage and the never-ending string of pregnant friends (as much as I hate it, I always wonder why me), struggling to properly parent an increasingly difficult 3 year-old and not feeling like I'm really doing anything (work or parenting) particularly well these days.

I guess we all go through these times. Let's just say I can't WAIT for this awful 3 year-old stage to be over!

Vacations w/ kids are hard

I learned this lesson over the weekend. We took a last minute trip to Mt. Dora, FL for the long holiday weekend and joined two other couples. Four kids were there in all, each under the age of six.

While I had a fabulous time and definitely want to do it again, I learned how difficult it is to take a vacation with a child. We've never taken Myles anywhere other than Atlanta and to the Florida beaches, where I always have loads of family around to help keep him entertained.

A lot of the entertaining fell on me over the weekend and when Sunday night rolled around and I was facing another workweek, I felt tired and stressed. Totally not relaxed.

On a positive note, this helped make our decision for our 10-year anniversary trip this year. We're going alone. It will most likely be the last trip we take without Myles until he's old enough to tell us he's not going. But since it's such a special occasion, we're going to do it. Now we just have to decide where to go!