Don't Let Life Get in the Way

Yesterday marked our 9Th year of marriage! We decided to celebrate by waking up really early and doing yard work. I know, doesn't sound too excited, but we really love home improvement projects and well, I have created a BIG one for Bobby this time. Our whole front yard is currently tore up! After the sun was in full force we decided to quit and enjoy the rest of the day doing what we usually do...hang out with our little kiddos.

A couple of days back I was telling the kids about our anniversary and what it meant. We were also going to ship them out of the house that night to Grandma's so we could have some alone time so I was telling them why. The kids were excited about our anniversary and were looking at our wedding pictures. I showed Leah my wedding dress for the first time and she tried on my veil. Very cute! We decided our anniversay would be a good day to show the kids our wedding video and relive the day that brought us to this point.

The kids loved seeing everyone, although it was hard to recognize some people as they were thinner, tanner and younger back then. My grandpa was in the video and it was important for me to see him there enjoying such a great time in my life, as he has passed since then. It really was an amazing day. Everyone we loved was there and everything just seemed so youthful and hopeful. I was only a month out of high school and so many of my classmates attended. Our wedding was essentially a big party with dancing and 2 kegs! All and all, I was either crying or laughing throughout the whole video.

As we watched the video, I was paying close attention to the words that were spoken at the church and during the speeches. On the actual day, everything gets blurred and I love that we have the video to go back and remember and to show our kids.

My favorite thing said was from my dad. I have always remembered the gist of what he was telling us, and have even tried to recreate what he said at other weddings. You know when they ask for everyone to give the new couple advice. I hate that part and I have never been able to say it quite as simply and eloquently as my dad did that day.

During his speech, he made Bobby and I stand up and face each other. He made us give each other a kiss and then said, "Remember the way you feel at this very moment. Don't let life get in the way. Always go back to this feeling and everything else will work out."

Perhaps at the time, those words didn't make sense. Don't let life get in the way. Like I said, we were young and hopeful and it was the most wonderful day of our life. What could get in the way?....

Funny how those words ring more true now. After two kids, the troubles of selling a house, living with our parents, Bobby working long hours, a miscarriage, mortgages, bills, life hasn't gotten in the way of the way we felt that day. Even after 9 years of marriage, my heart will still skip a beat when I hear the garage door open when Bobby has gotten home from working all day.

I have been told often times that I am "lucky" to have found Bobby and have everything workout. I have been told that 1/2 the marriages will fail and the other half are miserable. Some people rush to get married or get married for the wrong reasons. I never know quite how to respond to these comments. I want to defend marriage and the way I feel about it. I am not sure if perhaps, we are lucky? It has taken many years of fine-tuning to get to this point in our lives, but then again is it really any different of a feeling than the day we got married? Not really, maybe even better.

The truth is, I am happily married and if I had to do it all over again I would. Anytime we know someone who is going through a divorce Bobby and I talk about why that happened. Could they not rekindle the way they felt at that moment? Our only conclusion would be that on our wedding day we had no doubts. As young and naive as I was, I didn't have ANY doubts about my happiness with Bobby. And he has told me he felt the same. It was a feeling that no matter what life threw at us, we would make it better together than apart. It may have been that we were just that young and dumb, not to realize that life gets hard and things could, in fact, get in the way. Kids are going to throw tantrums and cry in the middle of our "happy" vacations, bills would mount up, some things were not going to go according to plan, but we wouldn't let it get in the way. Maybe when happily ever after doesn't happen, it is because those doubts were there from the beginning. I don't know, just a theory...

I am not sure if it is just luck, or fate, or foolishness, that makes what we have work. I'd like to think it was that when we said "I DO" there wasn't a doubt about what that meant. We were too young to understand what life had in store for us, but we did understand that we wouldn't life get in the way....

Toy ARE Us!

Honestly, this is what it usually looks like unless we know company is coming!


With another birthday fast approaching, I look at our toy room and dread the abundance of toys we are about to add to the chaos. I'm not sure how I feel about all these toys my kids have. Truth is, we really do not buy them a whole lot of these toys, although I am guilty of buying toys for good behavior, kinda like hush money for them hushing up at the store. They are the only kids on both sides of our family and just accumulate toys and toys and more toys.

Here are the pros and cons to having a playroom.

Pro: I get some free time while they are in there playing. I know if I was in there monitoring the toy situation there wouldn't be such a mess, but then I wouldn't get on some "me" time.
Con: Keeping all these toys in order is a full-time job. They playroom is always in a state of disarray. Often times when company comes, I am rushing to put them all in their spot. All that free time I just listed in the "Pro" section gets eaten up when it takes me two hours to clean it.

Pro: I have established a place for every toy. Every toy has a home and when it is all picked up it looks awesome in there.
Con: If my kids need something at the bottom of the bin, the whole bin gets dumped out, creating the mess.

Pro: My kids are loved
Con: I don't want my kids to get the wrong idea about toys and take all of this for granted. When I was young I had one doll and I cherished that doll. Leah has about 15 and I'm not sure she cares as much for any one of them, as I did for mine.

Pro: The toys, for the most part stay in there and out of the living room. Clean up for me at night is super easy as I just throw any toy back in the dungeon.
Con: Instead of putting them back where they belong, I add to the mess in there by tossing them at the door.

Pro: It is super fun in there, when you can walk in...
Con: Maybe it is a little overwhelming with all that stuff....

Basically, I love the toy room and now that we have one I'm not sure if I could ever live without one. It is so convenient to have all the toys in one spot. I just worry about the effect all the toys will have on the kids. Could too many toys be bad?

I am not sold on the fact that is it bad or I would get rid of some. Everyone makes suggestions. Put some toys up and bring out later for play. Give them away as the kids outgrow them. Monitor their play so they can't pull more than one thing out at a time.

My questions to these suggestions are what toys do I put up? And where is up? There is no more room to designate to toys. Give them away... I understand and have given quite a few away. But then when babies come over they use the baby toys and it is nice when my friends come with younger ones, they have something to stay occupied. Monitor play. This is a big No!! This is not only the few minutes I get to take a shower, but I feel it may limit their imagination if I make them play with the cars just as cars. Bryce has such a wild imagination and will tie cars to toy people and hang them off the banister to create a movie scene. I don't want to damper that.

I guess if our only problem is a big toy mess, we really don't have a problem. I have implemented a sticker chart for good behavior and the kids only get a toy at the store when they fill a whole line. That seems to be working well. I plan on giving away some toys before the birthday hits to make room for the new toys. Oh well, we will just be the mini Toys R Us!

Proud to be American!

We made our annual trip to Marina Del Rey for the 4Th. The firework show there has become my favorite. We drive the boats into the marina right up to the barge they fire from. The reflection of the fireworks off the water and the way they light up all the boats in the marina is such a beautiful sight! I am in awe of it every time I see it.

Due to heavy traffic, we stay the night on the boat. It's kind of like camping, but we have access to the private dock showers and power. This must have been a selling point for my friend Katie, because she decided to join us, as her boys were with their Dad. I had her at, "Don't worry, you can still straighten your hair!" Although hair was a lost cause with the humidity from the ocean, and wind from taking the boat out.

We FINALLY got to take our yellow boat, Phanie. This was her first trip of the summer and Bobby was stoked to captain our boat. There is a whole story behind "our" boat. This was the very boat Bobby and I grew up on together.

I was Bryce's age when my family first bought her. The back of the boat said "Stephanie." Someone started peeling off the name thinking we wouldn't want that name. My Dad told them to stop before they peeled the whole thing off. "Phanie" was left and it caught on.

My Dad gave us this boat when he bought his magnificent new one. But it really is amazing we have Phanie back. She is like the recycled boat from my past. My Dad sold her to some friends awhile back, who then sold it to their friends. We didn't have Phanie for many years. My Dad actually bought her back from the friends of our friends years later just to turn around and give her to us, after he completely remodeled the inside and rebuilt the engine. Did I mention I have the best and most generous Dad?

The whole history behind this boat makes Phanie very special to me. Now I get to see my kids jump aboard and smile the way I used to when I was little. Bobby let the kids drive at one point and I had to hold back tears. Ridiculous, the emotions a boat can have on ya!

We were trying to come up with new names for her now that she is ours. Although we have always called her Phanie, she has been a different name with all of the different owners. She doesn't have a name on the back now. I thought "Parks Place" sounded cute. Bobby came up with "Sparks," saying it was our name backwards. I had to tell him it was just our name with an "S" on the front. That's what a few beers can do to ya! My Dad, going off of Bobby's genius liked "Sparky." It was hard to come up with something as good as the one she's got, so we may just leave history alone, although it would be cute to give her a name pertaining to our family, as a transition type thing. Anyway....

The trip was a success. The kids behaved and kept busy jumping from our boat to my Dad's. I'm getting better at being less of a nervous wreck and try to cool it as long as they have their life jackets on. This trip marked the exact point at which Bryce is officially a "big" kid, and I officially became the lame parent. There were several older kids at the dock. They were all fishing and touching the dead squid and fish bait. You know, totally gross boy stuff. Bryce was hanging out with them, probably feeling on top of the world with all the comradery going on. My son was fitting in with these older boys. He's such a cool kid. The problem came in when the older boys wanted to go to their dock and not hang around our boat anymore, where I was able to have a watchful eye on Bryce. The boys started walking away. Bryce followed without even thinking to ask or tell me where he was going. This is the EXACT moment I had to realize he had grown up. Does it really happen that fast? With just a conversation like this?:

"Bryce! Where do you think you are going?"

"I'm going with my friends to go fishing"

"Well you can't go by yourself, I'll get your Dad to go with you!"

In the most familiar face, the one I had with my parents once too, he turns over his shoulder as if to say, "Come on Mom! Play it cool in front of my friends. You are embarrassing me!!"

All that comes out is a long "Mooooooommmm!" In a tone that said it all. I embarrassed him by making him feel like a baby. I was uncool and he wanted to hang with his cooler friends.

So, I let him go, as painful as it was to watch him walk a few docks down. I reminded him that he had to keep his life jacket on and he said, "OK, thanks Mom!"

And just like that, my baby was a boy!! Hard to hold back the tears at this realization and I'm not sure I will be able to handle graduations or marriages.

All and all it was a very eventful trip. Bryce grew up, Phanie had her maiden voyage and we all stayed entertained with the commotion on the dock. It was an interesting group of people at the docks this year. We had a sailboat with transsexuals aboard. I don't know if I would have even paid them much attention but my mom told us that one of them just had "'the" surgery and was offering showing off the great job the surgeon did. Everyone passed, but they became the ones to watch. They fought with each other, then had waaaayy toooo much PDA the next moment. At one point, there was a very "Titanic" moment on the bow of their boat. He/She stood on the bow with arms sprawled out. We got whiffs of weed from time to time. Just interesting. It got even more interesting when a boat with African Americans, also reeking of weed, docked next to them. I pretended to take a picture of Katie to snap a shot of their interaction. It was more entertaining than watching the actual firework show. America is definitely an array of different peeps!

Can't wait until next year.