Scuba Adventure

 Before we even set foot in the Bahamas, we scheduled a day of Scuba Diving.  We found Stuart Cove, the best Scuba Place I have ever encountered.  They came to the Hotel and picked us up.  It was on the other side of the island, so it was cool to drive through the non-tourist parts.

Our First Dive was a shipwreck dive.  There were three separate ship wrecks, all of varying sizes.  We went down almost 100 feet under the water.  We came around the bow of one ship and there was a nurse shark just hanging out.  It was slightly unnerving, but too cool to be bothersome.  We got to explore all around the boats, but stayed on the outside of them. Our second dive was the James Bond dive.  Two James bond movies used a sunken airplane and ship.  These ended up being really cool dives because we got to see a lot of beautiful coral and sea life.  We also got to spend about 30 minutes exploring the ocean all by ourselves.  After that we went back to the shop to eat lunch.  In the mean time we heard about the shark feed dive and decided we had to do that.

So, on the shark feed dive they take you down to what they call the Arena.  They have you all sit in a circle anchored down by a rock.  The dive master is wearing chain-male (sp) and feeds the sharks right in the middle of our circle.  These are Caribbean Reef Sharks.  The females are bigger and of the ones we saw they got up to about 8 feet long.  At first they would swim by us and occasionally brush up against our bodies.  It was thrilling!!

Then when the feed got near us they were full on bumping into us almost knocking us over.  You have to keep you hands tucked in close because right before they bite their food they "close there eyes" and eat by sensation.  They will bite where they feel the movement, so if your hand is moving...it might as well be counted as gone.  These sharks got up close and personal!

These are pictures Grant took with our camera as the sharks were swimming around us.  It kind of gives you an idea of how close they are.

 It was an absolutely incredible adventure.  After the feeding we were given a little time to look for a sharks tooth that had fallen out.  Grant was the only person in our group that found one.

 Scuba diving is a blast, but put sharks into the mix and it is virtually unmatched!!!

Bahamas

Grant won a trip last year from Toyota and your choice vacation spot was the Bahamas.  Any vacation that involves a beach is ideal for me and this did not dissappoint! We stayed at the Atlantis resort which was UNREAL!!! I want to go back, and it was so easy to get there I am sure we will try and make it happen some day.  The resort had it's own private beaches, so it was never crowded.

 This was my view one day as Grant and I hung out and read our books.  You can see my little tootsies at the bottom of the screen, yep that was literally my view.

 This was the view from our room.  The beach was  right out the door.

 There were also amazing pools all around the resort (which was on 112 acres of land for the record.)

The resort also had aquariums and a pretty fun water park.  We spent a couple afternoons just playing at the water park.  It had a mile long "lazy river" that actually had some pretty serious waves and rapids.  You could go on some rides off of the river without ever leaving your tube.  There was one ride that involved a 70 nearly vertical drop off that takes you under a tank of theses sharks:

 This is the top part of the drop off, the picture does not do it justice, but the water you see is filled with sharks and the tube goes under and through that tank.  Pretty intense!

We spent time just walking up and down this beach searching for sea shells (and found some pretty cool ones).  When we were not walking the beach we were in the water playing around and snorkeling.

While there we took a Catamaran cruise to the middle of the Ocean and went snorkeling.  Grant went Deep Sea fishing (which unfortunately ended up being kind of a bust).  We had a couples massage (Grant first massage ever).  We got to swim with the dolphins.

Grant ended up getting bit by one of the dolphins two times.  The first time it just nipped at his hand.  The second time it bit his foot and tried to drag him down in the water.  It left a little mark, but did not break the skin.  He ended up having to fill out an incident report and felt like the biggest nerd.  That was our first morning there, but did not ruin our fun at all.  I actually got many a good laughs from it.  We also went and explored the local market and town a bit.  We spent a whole day scuba diving (but that deserves a post all it self.)  It was virtually the prefect vacation.  We were able to play plenty and relax enough too. A full week alone with my man 24 hours a day...HEAVEN!!!

Cleaning the house

You know what makes cleaning the house more fun (at least for me)...Turning on XM Radio, possibly turning it up a little loud and dancing along as I scrub toilets, dust and mop.  I have to say cleaning was kind of enjoyable yesterday as a shook it.

Art Award

Our school is amazing for so many reasons.  One of those is that they make sure we have the arts for all kids to enjoy.  We are only able to have a part time art teacher, but every classroom has a mom volunteer to do art an the weeks that Mr Parsons is not at our school.  At the end of the year a school wide art show and contest is held.  This year Miss Jamison was selected for second place of all second graders.

 She did her piece "The Fancy Kingdom" all by herself.  She loves drawing and doing crafts so much, it was so exciting for her to win an award.  She also got a goodie bag of art supplies she carries around with her almost always.

This girl has really broken out of her shell this year and we are so proud of who she is becoming.  Awesome job my little Fancy artist!!!

MS Run

Our Elementary school does a fun run every year.  They call it the MS run (One of the teachers had a husband diagnosed with MS years ago and they have been doing a run for years to raise awareness and funds for a search for the cure. That man died this last summer.) So this run is a two mile run and it is a big deal.  First and second graders have to have an adult run with them if they want to leave their classes.  This year Mammy ran with Jamison and I ran with Caleb.  

Caleb was so excited for the run.  We talked strategy, and our goal was for him to run the whole time and not have to walk.  We were so excited (I think he was a little nervous, his heart was pounding right before we started.)  I had to pull him back a little sometimes so that he did not run too fast too soon.  We slowed it down on the uphills and sped up a little when it was downhill.  When we neared the end he was getting side cramps, but when we were almost there he kicked and I had to sprint to try and keep up with him.  He ran the whole thing in 17 minutes and 7 seconds. To get a feel for how amazing this is let me give some added info.  So all first graders through fifth graders do this.  Grant and I figured this was over 400 kids.  Caleb (Our little first grader) got 21st place out of the whole school.  he was just seconds behind his friend Payton (also a first grader) but no other first or second graders were even close.  I was so proud of him, and he had a blast.  It will be fun to see what he can do as the years go on!

What are they teaching in Sunbeams these days?

On Sunday as we are we are eating dinner we go around the table and have the kids tell us what they learned at church that day.  Last Sunday Mique was so excited about what she learned she did not wait until dinner.  She came up to me and said, "Mom today at church we learned about the birds and the bees....and uffer stuff."  It took about all I had to not totally crack up.  I am pretty sure her teacher would want her to remember the butterflies and worms and insects too.

Colorful

Mique, oh Mique...you are, something! Life is never dull with you around. You are full of personality, that is for sure!!!! This weekend your aunt Amy kept saying how cute you were and how colorful life is because of you. You can be quite a challenge for me (always saying you are hungry, even though you just ate or just refused to eat, your constant whining and crying, your torments to your siblings, your demands without a please or thank you, your telling me "NO" way too often, your insistence that you cannot do something even though you did it swimmingly the day before, your need to always have someone with you even to sit next to you to eat breakfast....yes you try my patience! Sometimes you make me want want to use colorful language.



But it is true, life without you would not be complete. Your many faces make me laugh. Your giggle, well it is unmatched. your determination will serve you well some day. You are beautiful, and those eyes.....oh those eyes! You are my little Miquey moo and I love you to pieces, colorful pieces!!!!