Fun in the sun....

My mom and all her siblings/spouses had planned a cruise to the Mexican Riviera last fall and a few weeks ago my aunt found out that she was not going to be able to make it. I, of course, was more than happy to squeeze in and take her place. My work was gracious enough to allow me to start work a week later, so I headed to meet my family aboard a big ship.

Kylee and I polished off 3 ice cream cones just waiting

for the ship to take off

We went to Lover's Beach, got some serious sun,

snorkeled in Cabo

We visited the Predator set in the jungle in Puerto Vallarta

We also visited the zoo which was unlike any American zoo where they tell you not to touch or feed or hardly look at the animals! The animals were barely in cages and you could buy bags of peanuts and vegis and fruit to feed them. We got really up close and personal....it was almost scary how close we got to the lions and tigers if you ask me....Kylee and I jumped in fear a few times.

We enjoyed the beautiful sunsets....and crazy ginormous waves

and we ate a lot....really a lot. I tried all sorts of new food like lamb and duck and beef wellington. No wonder they say the average weight gain for a cruise is 6 pounds! On our second to last night on the ship, my cute Grandpa Stoddard told us how 63 years ago on that day he had asked my grandma to marry him. The waiters even surprised them with a cake and sang them "let me call you sweetheart". I am grateful for such a wonderful example of enduring love. It was really fun to hang out with my family and makes me think that living a little bit closer to them wouldn't be so bad!

Dryer malfunction vs mother nature.....

So for the last few weeks our dryer has just not been functioning well and I was at a loss for why. I checked the lint pocket and the dryer connection and everything was fine. It was heating up but it just wasn't drying the clothes like it usually does. Yesterday I went outside to shake a rug and happened to look over and saw that there was all this stuff hanging out of a vent looking thing (I am sure this is the technical term for it!) and thought, perhaps that is the dryer outlet.

I yelled to Chris to come and investigate (I didn't want to be attacked by a bird after all) and this is what we found.....

Needless to say, the dryer is working really well today and a sad little bird is now homeless.

Calling for help......

So in order to settle this "little disagreement" that Chris and I had yesterday afternoon, I pose this question to you:
Can a reclining sofa foot rest support more than one set of legs? (keep in mind that the two sets of legs that I speak of are long-john skinny and myself!) One of us has this totally irrational fear that more than one set of legs will cause the entire sofa to break and collapse....

**Chris told me that all my "cronies" would vote with me (perhaps that is because I am the rational one!)

That's NURSE Linzi, thank you very much

I just wanted to congratulate Linzi on finishing nursing school yesterday. I'm so proud of her reaching this accomplishment, and have been incredibly impressed with how hard she has worked over the past few years to achieve this. I'm also amazed with how much she knows...it's been fun to learn from her as we've studied together. She is going to be an amazing nurse, and you would consider yourself lucky to be one of her patients in the future (not that anybody wants to be a patient). Anyhoo, way to go Linz...I'm so happy for you!

This is how I imagine her graduation ceremony in June...I'll post some pictures then.

You know your husband is a med student when...

Your fruit goes from something to snack on to something to perform surgical procedures on...

I mean, human, banana, what's the difference right?

subliminal messages.....

My mom sent us an Easter package....I think she is trying to get us ready for parenthood or something, you know, keep a plant alive, hatch a fake chick in a cup of water....am I on the right track?

Third Annual Cake-off

So Easter weekend we went up against Kathryn and Dave again in our annual cake-off. Chris and I went into the competition very confident in our design....we were going to attempt a bunny actually standing up this year (inspired by Twinkies I saw at the store that I thought we could use as feet and hands). All seemed to be going well until we started frosting...and then the head started becoming a bit wobbly. Then we lit the whiskers on fire and, well, our bunnies face fell right off!

We had to admit our defeat, those Dodd's really pulled off some great cakes this year. Their cupcake chicks were my favorite. Aren't they so cute.


As you can see, Chris does not do well with losing....he had to eat his sorrows away.
Until next year Dodd's....we have some design tweaking to do!