Busy Memorial Day Weekend!

Boy am I tired. It was a Memorial Day weekend full of yard work and visits. On Saturday we planted the pots and weeded and replanted some of the flowers in all the beds. Emma 'helped' take the dirt out and spread it all over the sidewalk and managed to put at least some in the pot. She did the same with the cocoa mulch but she sure had fun doing it. After Emma woke up from her nap we went to Agnes' house for a barbecue. It was a nice to see everyone, chat, have a couple of drinks, eat some barbecue food, and chill. Emma kept us busy playing badminton or at least she tried and we ran around with balls. She saw the opened pool and wanted desperately to get in and was not happy we told her it was too cold. She also tried her first cupcake with all the sugary frosting which she liked...gee maybe it is true what they say that the kids will be like their godparent of the same sex. At least Polish people say that. I don't have a sweet tooth but Agnes and apparently Emma sure does...

On Sunday we cleaned the house a bit or at least got to the floors because we were tired and it rained a bit we didn't get much accomplished. I played with Emma and read her a lot of Polish books. After her nap we went to see her other Godparent, Rysiek, Adam's brother. It was Alina's birthday a couple days before so we celebrated that. Emma had fun watching TV and playing in the basement with her godfather. She didn't eat much...

On Monday we planted the rest of the vegetable garden and managed to plant some flowers up on the hill. We will see if any of them come up. We even tried some pumpkin but it's really dry up there so who know if anything will come of it. Emma of course 'helped' out a lot mainly to stomp on the dill and tomato plants which managed to wildly spread across my entire garden like weeds. We dug some out and gave some to my neighbor and Adam took some to work for people who garden. We planted cucumbers. Emma put the cucumber seeds in the holes and helped me cover the holes. She also enjoyed walking over the just planted areas....We also planted zucchini, tomatoes, eggplant, cilantro, mint, and some parsley because the plant died over the winter and did not come back this year. I put it near the other herbs such as the lemon thyme and rosemary and dill that come back year after year. The lettuce, spinach, salad mix, and radish are all coming in nicely. Some of the radish is big enough to eat already and so is the spinach. The salad and lettuce need more time and the snap peas got a ways to go. I also sprayed the roses, peonies and flowers for mold and spot conditions since one of my roses is definitely affected by something of that nature. Adam sprayed year long weed/everything killer on the rocks by the porch and the sidewalk. Emma helped to spread the mulch, ate and went straight to nap since it was after 2 PM and she usually naps right after 1 PM. She has been going to nap late this whole weekend! After she got up we went to our neighbor's house. Ula had her baby last Tuesday and Emma enjoyed watching the baby sleep and the older baby ( a 3 month old Kevin, Ula's brother's son). We had some barbecue and talked. It was really nice warm dry weather day. Perfect memorial day. I even got some sun. I went home to give Emma a much needed bath as she got quite dirty planting our garden. She didn't eat much this weekend and what she did eat was really not healthy. Lot of hot dogs, snack food, and sweets but unfortunately that was all that was available during barbecues. We had barbecue 3 days in a row for dinner. She did manage to eat some fruit for breakfast at least. She also went to bed late around 9:30 PM which is about an hour later than usual and slept most days until close to 9 AM. That's what long weekend are for right? Overall we had a good time and got a lot accomplished althought there is always more work waiting...

After the Trip

After the trip, Emma took some time adjusting to her schedule again and is still not fully adjusted mainly because she was ill for 3 days and I went to Wisconsin for 5 days for training. She developed a fever the day we left Jamaica. She already felt warm on the plane and when we got home she had a 101F. She had a fever for two days and then the fever broke on Friday but unfortunately she also started vomiting. We took her to the doctor and it was just a virus but with this whole Swine flu we wanted make sure. She only vomited that day and was better by the evening and things took a turn for the better and we never gave her the prescription for the vomiting. That was Friday and we just chilled on Saturday not doing much of anything really since she still wasn't feeling that great. On Sunday we went to church and spend a little time before Adam took me to the airport at noon to go to Wisconsin. My sister was taking Emma to daycare in the morning since Adam was gone before she got up. My mother-in law, who stayed with Adam and Emma, got her going in the morning and made them dinner each night. Emma wasn't asking for me the first couple of days and I though she didn't really miss me. She would ask for me and they will just tell her I was at work and she wouldn't ask again. To be honest it hurt my feeling a bit. I really missed her and as it turns out she really did miss me as well. The last day before I came back is when she really had a hard time and kept asking for me. When I got back home Thursday night she just kept saying "Mama" over and over again and touching me and laughing almost like she couldn't believe I was really there. It brought tears to my eyes. She cried out that night screaming for me and Adam went to her and it did not help at all. I went in and just said I was there and she went right back to sleep. I guess she wanted reassurance I was really back. She really missed me and wouldn't let me do anything without her for a couple of days. Today she finally got a little better. I am glad I didn't stay longer and was able to take Friday off to spend more time with her even when I ran errands she was still with me and I think that helped. We spend more time together today even though I am really not feeling well. Adam worked this morning and helped out a lot when he came home. I really didn't do much this afternoon mostly because these pain killers make me really woozy. He was a great help. It took her a long time to fall asleep tonight. It was well past ten and I kept hearing her talking. It's now 11:40 PM and I haven't heard anything coming out of her room but Adam didn't come out either so I think he fell asleep. I better go get him...

Our Jamaica Trip.

We had a blast on our Jamaica Trip. I will post some photos and when I figure out how to add videos from my camera I will add that too but it may take me a while since I don't have much time.
Emma did great the entire trip even though she was getting all 4 of her molars! She did great during the day but got up several times at night. She was a bit scared on the plane at first when we hit turbulence but quickly overcame her fear and was fine the rest of the trip. She didn't complain even though it took us over 12 hours for the entire trip before we were in the hotel room. When we arrived at Beached Boscobel they were having a parade that also had Sesame Street Characters and Emma just could not believe that Elmo was there in person. It's the only character she really knows because she doesn't watch much TV. She got to know more during this trip though. Our room was pretty big and nice enough. You could tell it wasn't new but it was clean and well kept. The resort on the other hand was very nice. Nice pool area, nice water park, nice but small beach (a bit of seaweed the first few days due to storms). They had great food at the buffet and the adult only restaurant. The other restaurants were also good but not spectacular. There were also activities throughout the day. At least two things featuring Sesame Street characters. Usually a stage show with music which Emma loved. They also had a nice Reggae band at the buffet which Emma joined on several occasions to help shake things up. Emma's favorite things on the trip were the beach and the water park. The beach was basically a huge sandbox with a water element. The last two days she finally went in the water and got quite comfortable in it. The water park was also a joy. She was scared to go in at first but once she did she didn't want to get out! The water park had three slides that you could take a small child like Emma and go down the slide with them. Emma was a bit hesitant at first but once she tried it she loved it. She went several times with both me and Adam. She even went underwater a couple times when going down the slide because my footing slipped and I went under holding her. She was under for what seemed like eternity and I was terrified she would freak out. She was a bit shaken but once the water was out of her eyes she was fine and didn't even want to get out of the pool. The last day we went to the pool she went down smaller kid only slides all by herself with us at the bottom to catch her of course. I found that to be very impressive since she was only 25 months old. She kept wanting to go over and over again. I was very proud. In the pool, she kept thinking she could just let go of me and swim on her own. She stayed in the daycare one day for a couple hours as a trial for the next day when we went to Dunns River Falls which are these falls you climb so you can't take a young child. She did fine both days and got to see the Sesame Street Characters and take pictures with them. The trial day we spend in the larger pool where we floated on mattresses and drank at the pool bar. It was nice to have some adult time. We also went to the Dolphin Cove where all of us petted the dolphin which Emma was scared of and would not touch. She loved it from a distance and like it when when he splashed her but up close was a bit much for her. We bonded more as a family. Emma learned more Polish and got a bit more brave. It was definitely a great vacation which was too short. But good times always go by too quickly. I would definitely go for at least a week and a half next time. If you do excursions which we did two of, and count in the two days of travel, you only get 3 days at the resort really which is not nearly enough time to enjoy everything the resort has to offer. We did do some kayaking, some sailing and at the dolphin cove we went snorkeling but there were more activities offered that we did not have time to do. We definitely all felt we could stay longer! But now it's back to reality. I am very glad we went. There were so many bad things that happened before we left for the trip that I felt really guilty for going. Sort of when you know so many people around you are having a hard time and you just go up and go on vacation. However, we had planned it way in advance and had no idea all these things were going to happen. The trip really helped I think. We did relax and enjoy ourselves. On Sunday night, when we went to dinner to the adult only restaurant and Ewa stayed with Emma, we talked about this. We both teared up talking about Andy, my grandfather, Paula but also agreed it's things like that that really make you aware how precious life is and how we should enjoy it because you really don't know how long you have together. Life is unpredictable and we don't want to have regrets that we didn't do this or didn't go there. This is why we went on this trip and why we will continue to do things to enjoy life as much as we can....