How's the new year treatin' ya so far? :-)
We're staying busy here, as usual! :-)
I'm working on early early spring cleaning around the house, got a new bookshelf a few days ago for the piano room where the kids hang out to play, set up a new reading area with lots more space. Love watching the kids sprawled out on the pillows/giant stuffed animals reading to themselves or each other. Does this retired reading teacher's heart good! :-)
Big news so far--we're going on a cruise in August! I can't wait! :-) It's the biggest luxury ocean liner *in the world*, called the "Allure of the Seas" from Royal Caribbean. DH and I took a honeymoon cruise when we first got married (4 days, 3 nights, then another 3 days in Florida back then) and we loved it soooooo much, we've been wanting to go on another one since then but of course so much has happened over the years and we either didn't have time to go, or financially we had other things to take care of (Australia/India trip).
This time it was my turn to choose the vacation, and when Kate Gosselin tweeted a few weeks ago that she was going to host a cruise(AND a personal tweet from her inviting me and Maya to go! :-), I thought, how cool is that! Not really thinking about going at all, but thinking, I'd love to meet her and my fellow cyber BFFs from Twitter in person! ;-) Checked out the travel agency site, then the RC website, and saw that the prices were doable for us! It's in August, the absolutely hottest month of the year here in Texas (thank GOD for air conditioning!) for 7 days, 6 nights, so that's perfect. A couple of ports we'd visited before, some are new to us.
Bazillion activities for the kids to see and do? Check. Cool engineering stuff for DH to ogle over? Check. ;-) Time off for me and DH? Check! ;-) Then the travel agency offering a dozen or more activities with Kate? KEWL. Maya and I were talking about all the fun stuff they've got planned and she said she would love to meet Kate too...later on was telling DH about the cruise and he rolled his eyes at first about meeting Kate (not a celebrity person unless it has to do with sports, LOL), but when I described the ship and activities he really started to listen, and he told me to check into the pricing and airfare, which turned out to be a deal we couldn't beat! ;-) How much would round trip tickets normally cost a family of 5 from Texas to Fort Lauderdale, Florida? Cheapest we could find was $1260, not counting baggage fees, taxes, 9-11 fees, etc.! YIKES!! :-O
DH quickly checked his miles on our credit card, and was surprised at how many he had...all that traveling he's done all over the world has added up! Using just a *portion* of his miles, our entire family's roundtrip airfare comes to...are you ready for this???
ZERO dollars. $0000. NADA. Free flights for all of us, plus he still has plenty of miles left for a free round trip ticket in case he needs to go to India in an emergency! Beauty mate! ;-) And THANK YOU, JESUS! :-)
He's had some deadlines the past few weeks, so late hours at work, so we hadn't had a chance to sit down and compare prices with a cruise without the KG stuff until last weekend. He was pretty much sold on the idea of the cruise itself, and the ship...after we got comparable prices from a different travel agency, there was only a couple hundred dollars difference! Even he was surprised, because he thought celebrity cruises cost a lot more. He said, call Charlene (great travel agent sponsoring the cruise who really worked with us to get a great deal for the whole family!) and make this happen! Turned out the 'cheaper' price was $1575 per person. The travel agency's rate came to $1660 per person! Of course, only Maya and I are going to the Kate activities, by my figuring that came to about ~$35 or so per event. We've gone to book signings and shows that cost a whole lot more than that! Thanks to God for working this out for all of us to have a great time! My family gets a vacation, we get to meet Kate (God willing)and her "Tweeties" ;-) and Kate gets to earn some extra income for herself and her family. Win-win all around!
Now to get myself back in shape...NOT that I want to wear a bikini, LOL. It's been a long journey these past 17 years, too much extra weight due to all the autoimmune issues/Hashimoto's, infertility meds, miscarriages, pregnancies, surgeries, etc. Can't wait to be able to stretch without hurting, and to run in a spring fun run with Maya! With this extra weight dragging me down, it's hard to do all the physical things I want to do.:-( Waiting to hear back from dr. about b/w from a few days ago, we had a nice talk about the best way to lose weight (I originally wanted to try Medifast, but he said why spend all that money on something you can do yourself? True!) and it's early but I think the suggestions he gave me are working, I'm a couple pounds less than I was earlier this week already! And now much more motivated to lose weight instead of just being a mom for the kids; looking after myself for a change and I feel pretty good about losing even those first few pounds! :-)
My goal weight is to get back to where I was when we were married in '94, and when I got to go to India for the first time around 140-145 lbs. That's where I felt my best, and where many of my clothes are waiting for me in the closet! Looking forward to heavy duty exercising again at 24 Hr Fitness too--I finally have feeling in the nerve endings around the surgery/C-Section scars and I can actually tuck in my tummy for the first time since the twins were born and do basic stomach crunches! Not much, but it's a start. One step at a time, one day at a time! :-) Haven't decided if I want to hire a trainer or not yet though, to help me reach these goals.
Here's a picture from our Indian wedding reception, one of my favorites, not full length, I need to find my picture album with the rest for my goal pic. I also need to find my album from our honeymoon cruise, a couple of those pictures will be my goal pictures too! :-)
Okay, breakfast and catching up time is over, got some laundry (as ALWAYS!) to fold and put away, then a bunch of paperwork/mail sorting...looks like another spring-type day here, gonna take the kids to the park in a little bit and let them run amock there as they are wont to do, LOL. We so love our big park in our front yard!
Again, all the glory to God for all the blessings He has bestowed on me and my family! :*) And as always, praying for those who have not done well/are not doing well with their lives and need God! Praying they find Him soon. :*)
By the way, here's the links to the travel agency for the Kate Gosselin cruise on the "Allure of the Seas"... http://www.kategosselincruise.com Maybe we'll see you there in August! :-)














