The Nomads

G-H-E-T-T-O Fabulous

2012-01-24T15:57:00.000-05:00

You read it right, we are G-H-E-T-T-O...Fabulous!

Once upon a time we went on an early morning walk with Grammy around the neighborhood. We had heard rumors about the neighborhood xeriscaping and, there was the proof! The landscapers were taking out beautiful, luscious green lawn! Pondering out loud, I said to Grammy, "wouldn't that be nice to take that beautiful grass and put it in our backyard." Next thing I know Grammy is going over and asking, not very effectively in English to Mexican laborers, if we could have the grass. I don't know if they knew what they were saying but they told us that we could come haul it off tonight.

GOLD!

That night, with many curious on-lookers, we began our first of 13 and a half horrible, wet, heavy, dirty, bug-laden, loads of sod. If I had known at the beginning what I was getting myself in to I might not have done it. But Jake knew, so shame on him! Looking back it was worth the rash that covered both of my entire arms, worth the shaking and quaking and not knowing if I could lift one more finger let alone a 75 pound roll, worth all of the jealous passer-byers, worth pushing others out of the way after they caught on to our brilliant idea and tried to steal our grass, worth 2 days of being covered in mud and probably ruining Grammy's vacation, worth it all because.....

OUR FREE YARD IS SO BEAUTIFUL!

The funniest part about this is--a few weeks later they put back the grass from where we took it out. I guess they had mistakenly taken that section out. Oh well, their loss our gain!

**Grammy, was it worth it to you? I am so sorry, but it was your idea:).

Fall...Yes, I am Writing About Fall

2012-01-20T16:18:00.000-05:00

I am officially writing about our Fall activities in the month of January-what gives?

Grammy came to visit us in October and we had so much fun together!

We visited the pumpkin patch:

We took her to the Aquarium and Botanical Gardens:

We baked, and ate, Fall cookies:

We used her for slave labor:

And she smiled the whole time...until we all broke down and cried from exhaustion!

We LOVED having you here, Grammy. Thank you so much for coming!

Finally, He is 5!!!

2011-11-18T15:19:00.000-05:00

The birthday countdown has finally come to an end! Man, this one was so anticipated! We did a little pre-birthday bash with Cooper's preschool and the Tasker/Vickers family...

But, for his actual birthday on Saturday we had a packed day. I am really working on forming some traditions in our family so here they are as well as some birthday fun!

Decorating/running-through streamers in morning.

Early morning hot balloon viewing.

Balloons with money in them.

Sprinkle pancakes.

Buying gifts with birthday money.

Indoor pool with THREE slides!

Candy-gram of love!

Our gift to Cooper- a much needed new bike just his size!

What a birthday! I think he felt special, how about you?

For journaling purposes:

Cooperman, here are 5 things we love about you on your 5th birthday!
1. Your sweet brown-toothed smile.
2. Your willingness to serve and help around the house.
3. You still give me loves--probably not for much longer, but for now you still do.
4. You love to scratch my back. Makes me smile all over.
5. You are faultlessly obedient.

We love you to the moon and back buddy!

Love/Hate Relationship

2011-11-15T15:18:00.000-05:00

Which one loves and which one hates?

Hates it so much he threw it up and then sat with it in his mouth because we didn't know it. Nasty!

Give me a treat or I'll trick ya, ARGH!

2011-11-11T17:34:00.000-05:00

There has been a pirate theme prevailing at our home. Cooper insists on being a pirate for halloween. Sure, that's fine, I don't have to buy anything. Let's encourage that one. I love watching the kids talk to each other all pirate like and sword play. Man, sometimes having 3 boys is so fun. Sometimes.:)

A Future Beckham?

2011-11-08T17:15:00.000-05:00

Probably not but it is sure fun to watch Cooper play soccer for the first time. We play in that league that doesn't keep score and everyone gets trophies but you know this mom and dad are counting every goal! Cooper scored 4 goals at their first game--2 for his team and 2 for the other! And he smiled the whole time! It's so funny to watch the parents on the sideline get frustrated at the kid's lack of ability but every kid of the field smiles the whole game. They don't care...therefore I/we shouldn't care. Oh, but that's hard!

Becoming Like a Child

2011-11-04T15:20:00.000-04:00

That's what we are told to be like, right? Our super fun buddies, the Cardon's, threw a back to school party like I've never been to before. It was so fun. My favorite part: Cooper lost all of his inhibitions and totally let loose. It was so sweet to watch him abandon himself to fun.

Sweetness encompassed.

Doing Illegal Things and Stuff

2011-11-03T16:36:00.000-04:00

Apparently it is against the law to have any open fires these days here in ABQ. We like to live on the edge a little bit, though. So we set up a tent in our backyard (since we can't go out camping without a fire!) and lit up our little chimenea for a smore roast. It was worth all of the risk!

Cousin Time

2011-11-01T16:09:00.000-04:00

We are so, so excited that the Tasker family has moved here. They are not so excited, but us, we are thrilled! Jenn took a little T.O. from unpacking, etc., to join us at the aquarium and botanical gardens.

This dude has some serious dental issues.

Van Gogh's in the Making?

2011-10-31T15:28:00.000-04:00

I have been really impressed with Cooperman's artistry skills. He called me outside to show me something. He had taken this tiki mask thing and replicated it on the sidewalk. Look at the details on that thing....and I promise I was not out there and took no part in it. Pretty much amazing. Yes, I know I am biased.

Cooper tried to teach Luke how to do it....he has a year to catch up, right?

Utah for a While

2011-10-28T16:22:00.000-04:00

At the end of the summer we got to spend a few weeks (well, I was there for 3 weeks and Jake was there for about 3 days!) in Utah.

First up, an incredible Hutchings family reunion! We stayed at the coolest cabin, with the coolest family, and did some really cool things.

Cool, huh?

Then Jake left and I was on my own for a while so what else to do other than take the kiddos to Brianhead by myself? Not the brightest idea I've ever had but we survived.

Then we headed up to Sundance cabin with my mom and dad and the Sedgwick family for a little R and R and Education Week!!

Wooh! I am tired again just looking at the pictures. But, seriously, priceless memories.

Minute to Win it

2011-10-25T16:23:00.000-04:00

I have an issue with parties. I love to go to them and I love to have them. This one was particularly fun and entertaining!

I mean, who doesn't love to watch a pregnant lady break dance?

Who doesn't love to put panty hose over their head and swing their noggins?

Who doesn't love to string pasta on to pasta? Don't we all?

Too bad only one couple could take home those incredible prizes. Totally jealous, Matt and Chelsie. I kind of want that belt back.

The Death of the Big Black Thing

2011-10-24T11:04:00.000-04:00

Who knew that sprinklers on a trampoline could be so darn fun?

Or that wrestling each other for hours on end could result in no crying if done on the trampoline?

The big black trampoline knew.

Sadly, our big black thing probably has about one more week worth of life in it. We inherited it when we moved in our home here and spring by spring it is coming apart, rapidly. We are mostly grateful that those spring-loaded rockets haven't hit any innocent bystanders but we will be sad when your final day comes. See ya later sucker--move over for Mrs. Hammock! Boo-yeah!

Full of hot air!

2011-10-22T10:51:00.000-04:00

We had so much fun going to our very first Hot Air Balloon Fiesta in ABQ! It was so much cooler than I thought it would be. We went to a look-out Saturday morning to see the morning ascension. So, so cool.

Then that night we went to the Night Glow. The best part was seeing the hot air balloon go up from the start. It's amazing to see the process and also to see the magnitude of the actual balloons. Such a unique thing to take part in!

I WANT YOU

2011-10-18T16:08:00.000-04:00

I WANT YOU to come visit us.

Okay?

Jewkes in da House!

2011-10-16T16:01:00.001-04:00

We had such a great Jewkes family reunion this year. It is not an easy feat getting 50+ busy, independent Jewkes together but Grandma and Poppy never fail to make it happen! It was so crowded that our family was relegated to the trailer outside of the house--I'm telling you, Hutchings are bound to end up in trailers wherever we go!

Our first "official" reunion was at Banning Mills, GA. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

Luke with cousins Jonah and Oliver.

Beautiful scenery and even some rock sliding by brave Lucy.

Hiking with Poppy.

Cooper with cousins Oliver and Lincoln.

A 6 hour tree canopy adventure. So fun!

The 1st Annual Talent Show. Definitely a night to remember!

THEN...if having a fabulous reunion wasn't enough...we also had THE FIRST ANNUAL JEWKES COUSINS CAMP. Oh my gosh! You had to be there to see how incredible it was. Many, many, many thanks go out to the Sedgwick family that organized (and did most of the work) for it. It was so fun to have the cousins focus on getting to know each other.

All of the original siblings made a banner representing their family.

Cooper's "cousin buddy" London.

We were in charge of the Treasure Hunt of Pirate Poppy Redbeard and his lovely wife Mistress Becky.

What "booty" they all got!

Planted our first cousins camp tree.

Making treasure/memory boxes.

Coolest massive family tree ever.

The relay race ended with a surprise water balloon bashing.

So many cute little ones at one table!

The cousin participants (everyone over 5).

Jim teaching some skills.

Best friends. Makes me happy!

And it all ended with a BANG. Best memories! Thank you so much!

Back Again

2011-10-15T17:10:00.000-04:00

Now that we are living all by our lonesome over in ABQ (besides Tasker's nearby) we are going to try really, really hard to blog more.

A quick update: we live in ABQ, we LOVE it!, Jake is still trying to get into dental school and will be taking the DAT this next semester, Cooper just turned 5 so now we have a 5, 3, and 2 year old for 2 more months...instead of a 4, 3, and 2 yr old), and I can't think of anything else.

I am going to start back from where we left off according to our camera.

I was in charge of planning our anniversary this year (#8 woot, woot!). I love surprises and I knew if I didn't keep it under wraps then no way, no how was Jake going to participate!

Yes, ladies and gents, I took Jake to get a pedicure! Am I the best wife ever or what? He was a good sport but I knew with every swipe of the cheese grater thing on his foot he felt like a little bit of his manhood was being stripped away. Dead cell by dead cell. The cherry on top: the lady who did Jake's feet asked him if he wanted his toenails painted of which Jake loudly rejected. Well, she got bored because I wasn't done and proceeded to paint them anyways. I thought I saw smoke coming out of Jake's head! Then....the other cherry on top...she started buffing his fingernails! Jake came out of that place shiny from toenail to fingernail! He informed me that he would prefer not to ever do that again. I had to try, right? Oh, it was fun!

Our Destiny

2011-04-21T17:29:00.001-04:00

Why is procrastinating so easy for me to do? I dunno but here is my first official post from Albuquerque--it won't be great, but it's something!

For those who know my darling hottie of a husband, Jacob Dean, you just might know that his family's heritage is very closely associated with trailer parks. Thus...we truly believe that it is Our Destiny to now be working in a trailer. Yes, you heard it right, Jake is helping to manage a mobile dentist trailer. Awesome, huh? Those Hutchings just can't avoid trailers-it is too deeply engrained in the blood! I wish I had a sweet picture of it, but I don't. Just believe me-it is AWESOME! He loves it and has been learning A LOT about managing, about the dental industry, and about bachelorhood (for 3 months at least while we closed on our home here). I'd like to say he's happy we're finally here with him-but I'm guessing most nights he's wondering why he didn't enjoy the peace and quiet more while we were away!

On the other hand, I am finally learning what it's like to actually have 3 small kids and have to take them everywhere with me. I had it way easier than I realized. Somehow getting a grocery cart to contain 3 bodies plus tons of groceries is no easy feat! And let me tell you-my grocery carts contain all 3 bodies because this momma doesn't do crazy kids monkeying around the store. Call me anal-I call myself anal. It's okay.

Thus--because all of my analness and Jake's figuring out work and school and such-our family has officially adopted a new mission statement-CHILAX! It's a cross between chill and relax. I have issues. Control issues. They are bad. I often find myself chanting "chilax, chilax, chilax" just let them get dirty. It's actually been a huge success (at least for this week).

Anyhow-we are happy here and think we will really, really love it. Our last few weeks have been filled with this kind of stuff:

I don't know why I don't have any pics of Jake. Note to self-hold the camera sometimes. Anyhow, I will try and update more but no promises since I have a string of breaking those kind of promises. Thank you for all of your updates (I do check those) and we love you guys!

Wedgies Are Booty-ful

2011-02-06T22:11:00.000-05:00

Don't you agree that wedgies are booty-ful? Lukey has had a hard time figuring out how to put his underwear on.

Crazy thing! I decided that I way too tired of changing a 3 year old's stinky bums. After Lukey pooped in his diaper last Tuesday I threw the diaper in the bucket and said I'm done and so are you. Undies from now on!

I didn't really think it would work, but it actually did. He has never had a night-time accident, he only pooped twice in his underwear (sorry Claire and Mom who were watching him and had to clean him up), and had only a handful of accidents. Potty training should not have been that easy.

However, "easy" is not a word I typically associate with our Lukey-more like fiery-so this feels nice. Real nice. And what a luscious booty, right?

I Miss My Family

2011-01-31T00:00:00.000-05:00

Let me just say that it SUCKS not being with your family. I have been in Albuquerque now for about a month, and besides the wonderful surprise visit from Emily last weekend, I have not seen (not counting Skype) my family in that time period. Not only that, but I will not see them until March probably! We are purchasing a home that we got at a great price, so we are waiting for that to close before I get my family back. I am currently living at my realtor's house...how many of you can say that? I live on one side of the house and they live on the other. It has been a good situation though. Anyway, I just wanted everyone to know that I miss my beautiful wife, and my 3 rambunxious kiddos. I love you Emily! I am so looking forward to getting you back to me!

our house

An Escape

2011-01-17T13:10:00.000-05:00

We escaped! Not for long...and not very far (>2 hrs)...but

we escaped to Lake Arrowhead.

But first we went to Tellus Museum in Cartersville.

I'm not a huge fan of dinosaurs but you can't help

but enjoy a dead T Rex. Can you?

Look at them jawrs!

Digging for treasure (fossils) was definitely the fave part.

Then we went to Lake Arrowhead. So much fun! We had 17 of us in a 4 bedroom cabin/house...oh, and some scorpions kept us company.

Looks like fun, huh?
It really was. Especially for the guys who spent the only free day we had there GOLFING! All stinkin' day long while the womanfolk watched the chillens.
Happy New Year's!

The next day it rained all day so we took a 45 min drive to find a playland. That's desperation. But the real amazing thing is that this is the first McDonald-made hamburger that Jason Allred has ever partaken of! He's got germ issues. We are all so proud of you, Jason.

L O V E

2011-01-12T20:24:00.000-05:00

This is what love looks like to me:

Isn't it beautiful?

Santa is one fat dude...and dudette

2011-01-09T09:36:00.000-05:00

Our Christmas started out as they have all of my life. We read and re-enacted the Christmas story. I don't know if it would be Christmas without bringing out the old bath robes and finding our Arab headdresses. I love it and I especially love Luke's enraptured look here.

And that is why Santa is one fat dude and dudette...because he (and she) ate all the cookies! Seriously, that's one tradition I could do away with in the upcoming years.

Since Mom and Dad flew to Colorado we had to make do with our very own Allred sleepover! It was great to have some family with us to make the day crazier!

On a serious note, the best part of Christmas for us this year was our TOTAL surprising Secret Santa. Some family "somewhere out there" took us in! They totally surprised us by leaving a HUGE package on our front door on Christmas Eve night. It contained 2 outfits, a nice jacket, and a toy for each of the boys. Then it had a very generous gift card. It's a humbling experience being on the other end of the Secret Santa stick--but much appreciated. It definitely made me want to change the way we go about our future Christmases. Secret Santa--wherever and whomever you are--we are grateful. Thank you.

Him, Him, and Him

2011-01-07T10:01:00.000-05:00

Jake had a birthday...and we love him.
Baby had a birthday...and we love him. Maybe now that he's 2 we should stop calling him "baby". Or maybe not.

Lukey had a birthday...and we love him.

I would list all of the wonderful things about each of my boys, but let's be honest, getting a post up is a big enough accomplishment. I don't want to set up any expectations for myself.

Just know that I love them all, dearly.

Today

2011-01-06T21:46:00.000-05:00

Today I woke up and had a mysterious pain in my left knee. I must have torqued it yesterday. I had a wee limp.

Then I twisted my right ankle. I had a wee bit more of a limp.

Then I got a shot in my booty (don't ask--and no, it's not in vitro) and it hurt like a bee sting for about 2 hours. I had a wee bit more of a limp.

I looked ridunkulous.

Today, I would have qualified for a handicapped sticker in my front window....and trust me, those are hard to come by.

Hazards of Living in the South

2010-12-01T13:25:00.000-05:00

First off, my kids are drinkers. Big time. You put a cup in front of them or a treat, and they'll pick the cup first.

So...I watch Claire's kids on Friday's. Lincoln had a Thanksgiving program on this particular Friday so I packed up my 3 kids to go listen to them sing and then eat lunch. Well, the singing was less than fabulous but that COLD fried chicken lunch looked A-MAZ-ING! Let me tell ya!

So...I turn around to check on the kids while I dish their collard greens---and WHAT THE CRAP?? All 3 of my kids are downing--and I mean chugging--some sweet tea! Who gives kids sweet tea? Especially without asking the parents? That would be like giving little kids a can of Coke without asking. At least, it would be like that to me.

I quickly ran over (losing my place in line, mind you) and rescued their tender souls from further breakage of the Word of Wisdom. I repented for them later that day.:)

SWEE TEA=THE SOUTH like DIET COKE=MORMONS

Anyhow--I came home and told Claire the story and she was aghast! She had no idea they served sweet tea there and quickly realized that her kids had probably been drinking it for 2 years now. She's got some major repenting to do for them! :)

Raw Hot Dog Fever-Finale!!

2010-11-29T22:18:00.000-05:00

This one's long, but it's the end and remember that this is also our journal!

I feel like I need to put a reminder in right here. This is for my journal purposes so this next section might get a little boring because this is what happened to me, no one else was around me for about 75 % of the day on Tuesday. So, for those of you who are reading this, and you are the type of person who would rather go and lay down on a lounge chair and read a book by a pool (my wife), I am sorry. But for those of you who don’t like to do that (me), you may want to pay close attention!

Ok, back to the story: A few minutes later the deck erupted in cheering and shouting. “What’s going on?” I thought. Then I saw them…our heroes in blue jumpsuits…the United States Coast Guard. You would have thought we were at some kind of concert, with the women going crazy to see the stars of the show. Several of the women were jumping up to get their picture taken with our young “saviors”. It had been one day! (I think I figured out who the “hoarders” were!) People were starting to go nuts! I truly believe that some people thought that we would starve to death, or worse!

Speaking of worse, I have a confession: I did think that the reason the Coast Guard and U.S. and Mexican Navies were surrounding us was to keep us safe from the pirates. Becky thought that I was crazy, “Why would pirates want to take over a cruise ship?” Well, maybe the fact that there are a lot of people on board that had a bunch of vacationing money (that was probably never spent!), plus, there was a jewelry shop on board (Duty Free!) with probably hundreds of thousands in merchandise, plus the power that the pirates would get from their peers for overtaking a very big ship! Yes, I was a little frightened, a little crazy, but frightened. Now I do not want anybody to think that I let these thoughts consume me by any means, actually maybe that’s why I hung out on the open deck so much…to make sure that I could see the pirates coming!

The crowds are starting to really gather now by the pool on the Lido Deck, good thing we got the front row seats! After waiting for a while, the Coast Guard, along with some of our ship’s officers were starting to unravel the “CAUTION” tape so that nobody would encroach on the drop zone. We sat there for about an hour and then there it was in all of its glory! The helicopter, making its dry run to make sure that everything was good for the drop.

John (you guessed it) the Cruise Director got on the intercom and said that he was very sorry, but because they care so much for the safety of their guests, he needed to have us leave the area, because it was just too dangerous. I think that this announcement made more people mad than the announcement that the cruise was officially over. I couldn’t believe how irritated people got over this. Not me. I needed to find a good place to watch it. Off I went to “my” deck, the open deck under the life boats on deck 3. I liked to think of it as my deck because I was literally the only one that was ever out there.

To my luck, the helicopter’s path of travel was straight at me and then right over the top of me! I was stoked! And the most exciting part for me is that I had my camera! Sorry Emily, but I am taking pictures of this! (I think I already established that I am a nerd, right?) Not only was the helicopter with all of the supplies hanging from its underside right there, but the U.S. Coast Guard ship was just off the starboard side of the boat for me to take some good pictures…nerd alert!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

So, during our wait on the Lido Deck for the helicopter drops, apparently the tugboat had arrived and hooked up to the bow of the Splendor. As fun and exciting as it was to wait for the helicopter, I got really frustrated when I got down to “my” deck and saw that the tug was already hooked up. I missed it! Another photo opportunity had come and gone, and I missed it! I love to see things that I have never seen (like the Panama Canal and how it works), and watching a tugboat hook up to a gigantic cruise ship would fit that category. Yes, I was sad. Of course I lived, but I was sad nonetheless.

Tuesday was really a day of very interesting things happening. For me a lot of things that I had never seen before were all right there waiting to be witnessed for the first time: an aircraft carrier, a helicopter drop, a tugboat, a Coast Guard ship and helicopter. These are iconic things in our nation, and I was now a huge part of it! As crazy as that sounds, I truly feel that way. I was in heaven for a lot of that Tuesday afternoon. I also realize that it doesn’t take a lot to keep me entertained. This day was so exciting for me, so much so that I still considered this cruise a vacation, unlike everyone else in the family that I was there with. I felt like a little kid again. I don’t understand how someone could just sit by a pool or on the beach all the time when there are things to be seen. To each their own I guess. Had everything gone according to plan, and the ship never had broken down, it would have been just another cruise—a fun cruise no doubt, but this was a vacation that will never be forgotten!

Well, I never saw any pirates, nor did I ever find my wife that entire day! I did keep running into Gary and Becky, and Jim and Jennefer, and they would always ask me where Emily was. I always replied, “I don’t know. I haven’t really been looking for her. I’m pretty sure that she is reading somewhere.” Now, I can be honest. I had been looking for Emily, pretty much all day, not hard, but I had been looking for her! I went to every area that I thought she would be in, but never once was she where I thought she would be. I was about 100 % certain that she was reading somewhere on a comfortable lounge chair, but I also knew that she didn’t want to be disturbed by me and all of my exciting pictures, so, had I found her I would have made sure that she knew I wasn’t seeking her out, but I kind of was. I know, stalker, right? So, I would make my rounds looking for my wife, unsuccessful, I would go back to deck 3 and find a little study time, then I would make my rounds again. I got to see a lot of the ship doing this, and I saw a whole bunch of people. A lot of these people were in their bath robes (provided by Carnival in every stateroom). This had become the “official” cruise wear on the Splendor, as it was never much higher than 60 degrees, and there was a constant breeze, and nobody brought anything that would keep them warm.

*You can see the bath robes...and how much our boat was rocking by the pool splash.

While looking for my wife, I came across a couple of people that had just been laying in the hallways. One was an elderly man, and there were a few people around him, I found out that he had slipped on some water that had fallen onto the tile floors from the ceiling. Yes, there was water dripping from the ceiling! I was told that it was condensation from the air conditioning not working, but I don’t know if that was a correct assessment or not. It was really sad to see all of the elderly people on the ship, because they had to use the stairs. If you have been on a cruise, you know that there are typically a lot of older folks, in scooters, and walkers, etc. and this cruise was no different (well, it was in the fact that there were no elevators!) So, most everybody aboard ship got a chance or two to help someone take their walker, or scooter down (or up) the stairs for these folks.

This is a great time to mention that for the most part, the passengers on the cruise were very cordial about this whole disaster at sea. Nobody seemed to be struggling, nobody was screaming at anybody else, it was just a unique experience that we were all in together, and everybody seemed okay under the circumstances. I could only imagine what it would be like to be on a cruise where it was the opposite!

I remember Tuesday night we had a big family meeting, and we did it in the “Gold Pearl” Dining Room. As we walked into the room, we were overtaken by a smell of rotting food. It was such a nasty smell, I can’t even describe it. I kept looking over at our group, and everyone of us either had our shirt up over our noses or hands covering the noses. Occasionally someone thought they would be tough enough to remove said shirt or hands from their nose, and every time this happened you would hear them say, “Oh! That smells so bad! Luckily for us this was one of the only rooms large enough to accommodate all of us reasonably comfortably, now I know why it was vacant! This was the room that the crew was eating in, and it smelled like even they were doing the same thing as us passengers—hoarding and ditching their food!

It was while we were all here in the “Gold Pearl” that John came back on the intercom and told us a few things. 1) How Carnival was going to “take care of us”, this was the most anticipated announcement all day! He said that they were going to reimburse the cruise, and also the travel to and from Long Beach (this is when cheers were heard from the entire ship), he also said that they were working really hard on getting everybody home safe and quickly. 2) Due to us having drifted 60 miles, the sea conditions being what they were, and they not wanting to have us deal with customs in Mexico, that they would instead be taking us to San Diego, CA in place of “Enchilada” Mexico! Again, cheers erupted. 3) Tomorrow (Wednesday) morning we were going to do things differently with the feeding of the starving millions. Instead of all of us going to the Lido, they would be opening, in addition to the Lido, the “Gold Pearl” and the “Black Pearl”. Again, cheers! Gary was very quick to point out that they actually listened to him, I mean why wouldn’t they listen to one of their Gold Status cruise members? Gary had gone to the Customer Service desk and talked to them about the lines and that tempers were beginning to flare, and they needed to figure out a way to calm everybody down. I am going to highly doubt that it was from the efforts of only my father-in-law, but he doesn’t know that, and why would I want to rob him of that sense of pride? 4) He also mentioned that because we were going to San Diego in lieu of Ensenada, we would not be getting in until Thursday evening sometime, but he would keep us posted. They were still working on all of the logistics of all of this, and that he would keep us updated on what their corporate (“the beards in Miami” as he called them) decided to do with us when we got to San Diego.

*We hung out outside our rooms a lot!

We were all very pleased by these announcements. I mean just being able to go to some place other than the Lido to eat, was worth taking an extra day to go the States instead of Mexico at this point. This is pretty much how Tuesday ended, we went back down to our cabin, grabbed our books, and read. Emily laid down in the little hall on her tummy on the floor with a pillow at the threshold of our cabin door, and I sat in the chair that we we placed in the hall. This was done this way so that we could actually see what we were reading. It was about this time that everyone’s cell phone and ipod’s, and ipad’s batteries were dying, as they were using them as lights in their cabin with no way to charge them.

Day 3

Wednesday Nov 10, 2010

It was so hard to sleep on this ship. Usually on cruises you sleep like a baby, and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that there is an engine that is constantly humming, with a little vibration, and for some reason that just knocks you right out, and it is easy to sleep until 10 or so. This cruise was an exception. No engine=no humming or vibration! We slept so bad! We would wake up at 5 or 6 every morning, it was becoming a nuisance. I got up and stood under the freezing cold trickle from our shower head to wash my body, then I got dressed and ready for the day. I grabbed my back pack with Chemistry books, and of course the camera!

We made our way to the “Gold Pearl” for breakfast. It was amazing…no lines! That was the first time since we…well nevermind, this was the first time we didn’t have to wait in line on this entire cruise (check-in included)! We got to the line and noticed that there were wraps, Pop Tarts, juice (thanks to the US Navy)—it was almost like a normal breakfast—then we sat down and realized the wraps had meat in them. “I didn’t think they could cook meat because the power was out?!?” It wasn’t cooked, it was hot dogs! Raw hot dogs! Not only that, but they were mixed in with a little mayo, and cheese. I must have been starving, because it was actually kind of good, I had 2 or 3 of them! Once Emily knew it was hot dogs, she quickly set it down and said, “That’s disgusting. I’m not going to eat that!”…so, I did! It was so nice to finally have something besides a sandwich for breakfast!

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While at breakfast, Jim told us a funny story from that night. Apparently there were these two Japanese women who were right across the hall from Gary and Becky, they were being very loud and obnoxious at around 1 o’clock am, and this lasted I guess for quite a while. They were talking very loudly to each other and yelling, and as I mentioned before, cruise ships are not known for their thick, sound-proof walls, so this entire conversation was pretty much heard by everyone in this vicinity. Jim shouted in Japanese to please be quiet, and Gary shouted in Japanese, “Bakka!” which apparently is a very strong swear word in Japanese. How Gary knew this word? I don’t know if anyone actually knows, but my guess is that either Jim or Jason taught it to him (my bet is on Jason). Anyway, immediately the women were quiet, and apologized through their door. Jim, being the wonderful son-in-law he is, heard Gary shout this word, and went over to the ladies’ room and told them not to pay any attention to the old man who yelled that, he is a bit senile! The women told Jim that both of their husbands died, and they were terrified of water (they were in a cabin with a window), and the water kept splashing up and hitting their window, which was freaking them out. They said that they needed to yell at each other to try and make each other fall asleep. So, they told Jim how sorry they were, and invited Emma and Madison over to show them how to do origami after breakfast in the morning, which was the highlight of the Japanese ladies’ trip (that’s what they told Jim anyway).

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*A funny description of our trip from Emma and Madi plus you can see how dark it was at night time!

Sometime during the wee hours of the night, another little tugboat had met up with us, so we were now being hauled at a whopping 7 knots (~8 mph) towards San Diego! I think that the passengers today were finally realizing that this trip, “the cruise from hell” as some were calling it, was in fact going to end. They got some decent food in their bellies (raw hot dogs and Pop Tarts), the cruise’s crew members were finally holding little activities in the smaller lounges. It actually felt like a normal cruise (well, almost).

After breakfast, Emily went off to go and read or work out or both, and I did my thing of studying and then trying to find her. Again, I found the rest of the family, but never did I find my wife! When she wants to, she can disappear…actually, even when she doesn’t want to, it’s amazing! Again, the Coast Guard, and the Navy were encircling us, making sure the pirates didn’t get us (at least that’s my story)! There were also a few other visitors as we were getting closer to San Diego, container ships, more Coast Guard escorts, etc.

You could tell that this day of the cruise was definitely the most energetic, and entertaining. The passengers were all a little happier, the crew was happier (I think that is because they had their structure, and organization back a little, plus they had to get back in their uniforms!) It had been very chaotic up until Wednesday. The crew really didn’t know what to do the first couple of days; I don’t think that they prepare very well for this type of emergency!

The rest of the day was actually quite boring, not much happened, just walking around the boat, and watching people do their thing. Most everybody was laying down on the lounge chairs reading or just trying to get a little sun, braving the cold weather. Later that night we heard the beep preceding the announcements, it was John again, it went something like this:

“Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please. As you know, Carnival is doing all they can to make you happy, and to make sure that you get home safe. I want to let you know that the ‘beards in Miami’ are working very hard to get your travel plans so every one of you can get back home. While you are sleeping, we are going to slide under your door your new travel arrangements. Please do not go to the Customer Service desk to try and find out what your plans are, they do not know. If you need to change your plans for any reason, we will have three or four telephone lines available on the ship in the morning, or if you can wait until we disembark you can do it at the pier. Please be patient, but until then, have a good time!”

That night we (Gary, Becky, Jim and Jenn, Emma and Madi, and Emily and I) were all standing out in the hall just mingling, wondering how in the world we were going to pack in the pitch black. As we were discussing what a nightmare it would be to do that task, one of the staff members (activities staff, dressed in full Carnival warm-up gear) walked by us. Gary was very quick to get her attention and have a little chat with her on the ignorance and the horrible way we had been treated. He also asked her if she could provide a flashlight for all of us so we could pack in the morning. She said that she would be happy to, but she could only come in and shine the light to make sure we had everything because she had to share her light with everyone else too. She was very polite, and then she added that if we needed anything else to go and talk to the Service desk. Who would have thought that this nice comment would have brought my father-in-law into a rage of how incompetent the service desk people had been, and how he had been treated. “I think that German that works in the office is a Nazi!” That is pretty dang close to the exact words used by Gary to the nice activities lady. Needless to say, she was pretty speechless, and the rest of us were trying to tell her that Gary didn’t mean that. That was one of the more awkward times on the cruise!

I don’t know if it was the Nazi comment or what, but not too much time had passed and we had a lady from the service desk walk by, and we asked her for a few things to see if they would be able to get for us, like staying in San Diego for a couple of days, and to fly out of San Diego if possible. She said she would try, she just wanted us to write down our info, so we did and she was off to save the next upset customers.

I need to say, that given the circumstances, we were treated amazingly by the staff of the Splendor. Can you imagine what it would be like to try and make 3500 people happy during the worst possible vacation ever? They did a tremendous job! Of course there were things that we asked for that didn’t happen, but in the end it all turned out just fine! That being said, it was time to go to bed. So, we got into our reading positions on the floor and in the hall. Read a while, then went to sleep.

Day 4

Thursday Nov 11, 2010

For some reason, during this entire trip that cursed internal alarm clock of mine was set to go off right at 5 am, and no matter how many times I would hit the “snooze”, I could never get back to sleep. Our final morning on the ship was no different, except that during the night we received our flight plans to back home. So, I turned on the camera (this is what we used for light), and grabbed the paper that was on the floor and read it. The light I was getting from the camera wasn’t too good so I went out in the hall to make sure that what I read was correct. That is when I saw Jim. He was all dressed, and was coming from the direction of the stairs to his room. He said that he had been on the phone with Carnival to try and get things all worked out.

My plans showed that Emily and I were to leave from San Diego airport on Friday and 1:40 pm, non-stop flight to Atlanta, and Carnival was going to put us up in the Hyatt. Not too bad, except that Jim said that when he checked his info (on the phone) he said that mine was not what was printed on my paper, but Em and I were going to stay in the Embassy or something like that, but Jim changed that for us to be with them in the Hyatt. Just then Gary came out of his room to join in the conversation. He had the same info that I had on my paper. He was not satisfied. He wanted to leave on Saturday, which was actually a good idea, why not drag this trip out another day? Since I was going to be on the same flight with Gary and Becky, and to make it easier on those who were to pick us up, we needed to get on the same flight as him.

We walked through this door that was marked “Employees Only”, that was right next to the Customer Service desk. I was thinking to myself the whole time, “I hope that the German is not working! I don’t think Gary could deal with a “Nazi” at 5 in the morning!” Luckily for Gary the German was not in, and we went right to the phones and called the number. However, the phone that I picked up was not working, so I just sat there next to Gary while he made the arrangements for us. He did get us on a flight on Saturday, for 1:40 non stop for San Diego, and we were staying in the Hyatt for 2 nights! I was actually very excited about this arrangement.

While Gary was on the phone, there was another couple in there trying to do the same thing we were doing. One difference though, they were supposed to be travelling on the Carnival Splendor the following week as well! That’s right, 2 weeks on the same boat, to the exact same places! I couldn’t do it. Anyway, needless to say, they were not happy campers. They told me that they were going to go after Carnival. I honestly can’t fathom why people would do such a thing. If there is some mechanical issues on a plane, it gets fixed and people don’t sue. There was a mechanical issue on a boat, and people are already talking suing! Granted the problem was a little bit bigger on the ship, and it happened while we were in the middle of the ocean, with pirates all around us! Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to sue!

After all of the arrangements were finally set in stone (it was now about 6 am), I went outside to see what was happening. To my surprise there was a tugboat that looked like it was tied up to us. The captain of the tugboat was out on his deck (which was about 10 feet lower than my deck #3 location, where he was talking to some of the passengers. I remember them asking the captain of this tugboat if we were on the news, his reply—“Oh yeah!” “Just the local news?” they asked him. “No, this is pretty much world news!” Wow, it wasn’t until just then that I realized I was famous!!! I thought to myself that I would be getting interviewed left and right when I got off the ship. News choppers would be flying around us, and I would make sure that I was outside so that I would be seen! I had to get Emily so she could come be famous with me!

I went back down to my stateroom, where Emily was actually awake (well, she was not sleeping in a pitch black room) and told her the great news that we were going to be famous because of what the tugboat captain said. “Why would this be a huge story?” she asked. “I don’t know, maybe because pirates could have attacked us!” I replied. To this she put me in my place by saying, “You’re so dumb!”

Well there was no point in trying to fall back to sleep now, with my dreams being crushed! So, we grabbed the camera and went out to see what we could see on the deck for a few minutes before going to grab a bite to eat in the “Gold Pearl”. It was such a beautiful morning! Happy Birthday Becky! What a way to celebrate your special day, Pop Tarts for breakfast! We could finally see land too, that was a plus! Our tugboats had done their job—though the hard part was coming up in a couple of hours for them. We made it to the “Gold Pearl” and got our serving of some kind of raw hot dog something or other mixed with some kind of bread and cheese, and our Pop-Tarts and juice. We sat down and noticed that there was a tugboat directly behind us, right below where we were eating. It appeared as if this tugboat was “ramming” us! It would hit us, back off a few yards and then hit us again and again.

The remainder of the morning was spent between the starboard and port side of the Splendor on deck #3 (the majority of the time on starboard side since that is where the boats carrying the news people were!) The Naval Complex of Coronado was on the starboard side. There were hundreds of fighter jets, and three or four aircraft carriers here, it was awesome! This is the base that the USS Ronald Reagan is stationed, and also the submarines that were apparently around us too! I didn’t find out about submarines surrounding us until we got to shore. It was just an amazing scene, US Coast Guard choppers flying around us, news choppers, lots of US Coast Guard boats and ships, the personal boats being used as platforms for camera crews—I guess we were pretty big news!

It was such an amazing feeling to be pulling up next to the pier! Watching the tugboats get in position to gently nudge us in to our final stopping place was incredible! You could see the tugboat captains (all four of them) ready at all times to make the slightest adjustment in speed, or direction. The people that were on the dock that were at the ready to help tie the monster cruise ship off were teasing us with the flashlights that they had attached to their fluorescent vests, making everybody aboard the Splendor chuckle a little (under our breath, we were cussing them out for teasing us!) When we looked to the front of the pier, at the road, there were all of the cameras! Hundreds of them! It was like a scene from a movie.

We were finally in our resting place, and the pier crew was getting the gangplanks hooked up to the ship, right below where we were standing. Standing next to these gangplanks anxiously waiting to hop on board was the CEO of Carnival, Gerald R. Cahill. He boarded the moment the gangplank was touching the ship, I don’t think it was even attached at this point. While he was boarding, our buddy John was saying that we should be disembarking in about an hour. The pier workers needed to get ready and so did the Splendor crew for trying to get the 3500 passengers off in an orderly fashion. The previous night we were given disembarking numbers, we were given #7 (of 32, I think). So, we were to be among the first ones off the ship. John told us that as soon as we got off, we were to head over to the buses that were going to take us to our hotels.

As John was talking, Emily and I decided that it was probably a good time to go and start packing so that we didn’t miss our disembarkment number. John then handed the intercom over to Mr. Gerry Cahill. “I want to first of all apologize that this happened on your vacation, and I want to apologize for the fire…” I didn’t hear much after that, “Fire? What is he talking about?” Apparently our gut instincts on Monday were right! There was a fire, one with flames! We later found out that said fire took three hours to put out! Three hours! No wonder we were such big news! It crushed my heart, but apparently pirates weren’t even that big of a deal! Whatever, I still think it was because of pirates that we got the US Coast Guard and Navy, and the Mexican Navy!

Well, there really isn’t much left to tell, other than disembarkment number 7 was called, we pulled all of our luggage, plus a few extra Diet Coke’s that we hoarded, went down the flight of stairs to Deck 1, walked the gangplank, boarded the bus headed to the Grand Hyatt of San Diego where we would spend the rest of our trip. We got to the Hyatt and lo and behold…another line! “Oh great…here we go again!!!”

**This next video's really long but it was really quite neat to take part in the docking procedure and see people excited to see us!

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Raw Hot Dog Fever-Part 3

2010-11-22T11:21:00.001-05:00

...And it still continues??? (don't worry, we're nearing the end, sort of)

Sometime in the evening, our buddy John came on the intercom (nothing new by this time), and I remember he had a somewhat serious tone to his voice (this was new), and said something like this:

“Ladies and gentlemen, this cruise has officially been terminated! We are unable to locate the problem, and more importantly fix the problem. We have called for tugboats, which are on their way to get us if we can in fact not get our going under our own power. These tugboats are going to take us to Ensenada, Mexico where we will provide transportation for you back to Long Beach. The tugboats will be arriving between 1 and 4 o’clock am, so hopefully when you wake up in the morning we will be on our way to Enchilada, I mean Ensenada, and we should arrive late on Wednesday.”

As soon as these words came from the speakers, I looked over at Emily who was getting tears in her eyes (which is very much unheard of), so instantly my heart began to melt. She was SO looking forward to getting a break, she had had a very difficult last couple of months and just needed a break, and this was the absolute worst thing that could have happened to her. Even though this announcement was pretty much inevitable, it was really hard to hear that the cruise was over, yet it was only beginning.

John did come back on a few minutes later and told us that Carnival would take care of us, he wasn’t sure how yet, but he knew they would, and he would let us know as soon as he found out how they would make right. He also said that they were still trying everything they could to get at a minimum the toilets up and running again. This is quoted from his blog:

“Our engineers are as I said working hard, especially with the toilet system as we know how important this basic need is……………… and let me tell you our engineers are number one………. in the number two business.”

One positive thing about this cruise was honestly the cruise director and the announcements that he gave. It was such a huge relief to be updated, and to have a little bit of comedy throughout the trip. He was always adding stupid little remarks and jokes, yes some of it was a little unnecessary, but I need to put in my plug for John Heald, I would definitely go on a cruise with him again. In addition, I will put in my plug for the captain; he did a great job in keeping us safe. The only thing I wish they would have done different (but I understand why they did it how they did it) was to tell us that there was an actual fire. We didn’t know that there was a fire onboard until we got off the boat. Emily disagrees with me, but oh well.

Now that that is out of the way…after this announcement we decided to go back down to the room and get ready for a family meeting. I have to put this because it is so funny, so here it goes. I will say that one of us, I won’t say which one of us, really had to go number 2. Our toilet was full (but whose wasn’t at this point?), and we had already been using the shower and the sink to do our #1 business. Believe me it sounds disgusting and gross, but it was all we could do other than go in the toilet and have it slosh onto our bathroom floor and have it smell up the whole room. So, the aforementioned one of us went into the bathroom with an ipod as a light, and did their business into one of the supplied “feminine product” bags. This bag was then put into another bag which was put into a plastic Target bag, wrapped up, and taken with us on our way to the family meeting, where we were certain we would find a garbage can so we could dispose of said plastic Target bag which contained unmentionables. About ¾ of the way to the meeting, we decided that there were no garbage cans, and an executive decision was made to leave the Target bag on one of the evacuated bar countertops next to some other piled up garbage! I know…GROSS!!!

**Like my bath robe? New fashion statement! Someone had to carry the "bag" around because someone else was too embarrassed! Desperate measures!

This story was quickly spread to the entire family at the family meeting. I guess that this is as good of a time as any to say that this was a Henninger Family Reunion cruise (Emily’s Great-Grandparents), there were 46 cousins on the ship if I remember correctly. Not one of them didn’t cringe in disgust as they were told the story of the bag of unmentionables, however, it did get a lot of laughs. Now being able to look back, it probably wouldn’t have hurt to hold it a little longer as the toilets (well, ours anyway) started to work again! The majority of the family reunion-ers were without toilets until Wednesday night, because they were on deck #1 and in the back of the ship. I guess it is a good thing that we were all family!

**You see us but we couldn't see anything in that room. Literally, could not even see the hand in front of your face. Jim's using the strobe lights for vision. (I know I've already put this picture but this seemed like a better place for it!)

I also need to mention that because there were no lights whatsoever in our staterooms, we had to open the door to allow any light in, and even that little bit of light was from the emergency lighting from the hallway, that barely made it in to the room, but it is all we had. We became accustomed to leaving the door open for everything—changing clothes, going to the restroom, etc. We became very non-chalant about life on deck #2. Everybody that was interested in reading in their rooms had to put their chair outside the room in the hallway just to be able to read. It would have been great to use a cell phone or something to use to light things up, but the problem is that the batteries would go dead a lot quicker and there was no way to charge them with no power onboard. Jim even used his life jacket strobe light to provide light (I don’t know about you, but strobe lights just remind me of Chuck E. Cheese’s, and this was no Chuck E. Cheese’s!) I became very grateful for the little things in our normal lives that we take for granted—electricity and running water to name a couple.

**We wore grooves in the carpet outside our room. It was much less outhouse stinky down by our rooms than upstairs.

That pretty much brought Monday to a close for us passengers on the Carnival Splendor, it ended pretty much the same way it started—eating sandwiches, no lights and more importantly, no toilets (for the majority of the passengers)! We finally went off to bed in our pitch black room, anxiously anticipating the tugs to arrive so that we could get this puppy back to functioning facilities!

Day 2 (Only Day 2?? I know, but from here out it's rather monotonous so not as much to talk about)

Tuesday Nov 9, 2010

After a horrible night sleep, we awoke at around 6 am again. You see, we live in the Eastern Time zone, and on the cruise we were in the Pacific Time zone, and plus Saturday night (the 6^th) we moved the clocks back an hour, so this was now a 4 hour time difference, so my body was telling me it was 10! Way past my normal “sleeping in” time of 8. I don’t know where I was going with this, so…

Like Monday, we heard the annoying British voice of our buddy John, say something like, “Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen, I am sorry for waking you up again, but I need to let you know that the tugboats did not make it last night, there were two coming to tug us back, and one of their engine’s failed on the way out to us. So we should be seeing a tug in here sometime around 10-12 o’clock this morning.” I remember thinking, “Why does this not surprise me?” I don’t think I was the only unsurprised guest either. We were now just kind of taking everything in stride, “whatever”. He also informed us that breakfast would be on the Lido yet again, big surprise there, “whatever”.

**Jake took about a hundred pics of all this stuff!

Breakfast in the Lido, this was becoming way too familiar…walk up seven flights of stairs, stand in line for an hour and a half, grab my sandwich, eat my sandwich, leave all of my garbage on the table, and go and walk around the ship for a couple of hours until it was time to stand in another line for yet another sandwich at the Lido, blah, blah, blah. Emily and I made our way up the stairs, wondering if we should just jump ship now and maybe wait for the tugboat to come and rescue us, or take our chances in the Lido. Well, we took our chances with the Lido, and believe when I say that the meal was the exact same as yesterday’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner…fruit, sandwiches, cereal and milk (chocolate milk if you got really lucky!) So we stood in the line, but there was something different today, everybody seemed to be looking outside at something…

I twisted, ducked, tried to get a glimpse, and finally I saw it. Off of the port side of our stranded luxurious hotel (that was not quite so luxurious anymore) was a helicopter! “What was a helicopter doing way out here?” It was just there hovering around us and probably laughing at all of the stranded, vacationing cruisers (I know I would have been laughing). It looked like a military chopper, the dull gray color, with the star with the three stripes on either side of the star gave it away. It continued to circle us and pass over the top of the ship. I pulled out my camera and took a couple of photos (OK, I took a lot of pictures, I was bored, and what else was there to do on a stranded ship?) Emily always makes fun of me for taking a lot of pictures, “What are you ever going to need 10 pictures of the same thing for?” I always respond that it doesn’t matter because it is digital and it doesn’t matter, but the real reason is that I am a nerd, and when there is something that I see that I think is cool, I take way too many pictures of it. Just picture me around the Panama Canal (Emily saw that first hand, and she fell asleep!)

**We are so cool. Period.

Sometime while we were feasting, John came back on the intercom system, this is one of those systems that stayed on the back-up generator power for these exact type of situations (yet for some reason they didn’t think to put a flashlight in every stateroom for these exact situations…idiots!). Anyway, he told us that the U.S. Coast Guard had arrived sometime during the night, and they will be circling us and escorting us back to Enchilada. He also mentioned that the Mexican Navy was out there and that the USS Ronald Reagan was on its way and would be here shortly. The USS Ronald Reagan is the newest and greatest aircraft carrier that the U.S. Navy has. He told us that they were bringing us some supplies, like fruit, toilet paper, you know the essentials.

After we finished our sandwiches we went down to our room to try and get ready for the day. When we had successfully put all of our clothes on backwards (I’m just kidding of course) we went to what would become my favorite place for the remainder of the cruise—deck #3, starboard side open deck, directly below the life boats. It was the only place on the ship where there weren’t 1000+ people. It became my little paradise on the ship. Anyway, there we could see the USS Ronald Reagan approaching us, and as it got closer we could see all of the jets and helicopters on the deck—Awesome! Yes, I took a few pictures.

This was the last time that I saw Emily all day! She decided to try and make this a vacation anyway, she literally disappeared (I very unsuccessfully tried to find her several times!). So, I was now all alone, and her mistake was leaving me with the camera. I know that I take a lot of pictures, but believe me that if I didn’t hear my wife’s voice in my head before I took any picture, “Jake, why are you going to take a picture of that? I will just delete it when we get home!” I would have had a ton more pictures, and now looking back on it, I wish that I would have gotten a lot more pictures, especially from the beginning of the trip (the check-in lines, and picture lines, oh that would have been great!)

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**The aircraft carrier got to close to us. It was really a neat sight to see. They were taking pictures of us as we were taking pictures of them. I wonder if the air force guys are writing as cool of a blog as us??

So, what do I do, now that I am all alone? Background story: I am currently in the process of taking some pre-requisite science classes so that I can apply to dental school. I am at this moment taking Chemistry II, it is not the most fun I ever had in college, but it is okay. During this trip I missed a full week of class (3 classes and 1 lab), so I knew that I was going to have to try and teach myself a full chapter from the book as I had a test the day after I was to get back. OK, enough of that. I had every intention before the whole melt-down to study for a couple of hours every day in the stateroom at the desk they provide, but the events of early Monday morning changed that! I constantly found myself asking myself, “Should I go study now?” The answer to this question right now was, “Yeah I probably should, but then I might miss the helicopter dropping supplies.” My mind was made up…forget Chemistry! I had to take pictures of the helicopter! Off I went to Lido Deck, this time in excitement!

I made it in plenty of time, thank goodness! I actually ran into Gary and Becky, they had illegally taken the lounge chairs that the crew had stowed away 5 minutes prior to clear the area for the drop, and they were lounging. One minute hadn’t passed by before one of the crew members politely asked them to put the chairs back because they needed the space for the drop. They complied. We found a couple of chairs that were around a table that nobody was using, and snagged those and got front row seats for the main event scheduled for the day!

...To be continued...

Raw Hot Dog Fever-Part Deux

2010-11-20T19:07:00.001-05:00

The Saga Continues....
As John is in the middle of this, the first of several hundred announcements that day, the lights all turned out—utter darkness. A couple of seconds went by, then they came back on, and by the time John was done blabbing about the smoke, the lights went out for good. I kid you not at the exact moment the lights disappeared, I was kicking my legs over the bed to go and take a shower—I never actually stood up, just got the legs over the edge. So, needless to say, everybody on the boat at this time now has a big brown spot on their pants, with no way to clean it up! This cruise couldn’t have been scripted better by the best Hollywood writer! What a cruise!

John got back on the intercom a few minutes later to tell people to get out of their cabins and go to the open air, of course that is if you were smelling smoke. We didn’t smell smoke (we were in the front of the ship, and the fire was in the back), but with no lights, and our adrenaline pumping at full speed, what else were we going to do? Try to go back to sleep? I don’t think so! So I grabbed my camera, and Emily and I were going to the open decks. Emma and Madison were awake and standing in the hallway trying to get Jim and Jenn to come out with them, but they were on vacation, and you don’t mess with Mrs. Tasker’s sleep while she is on vacation let me tell you! As I walked past their door I could hear Jenn saying “Aagghh, just leave me alone, I am trying to sleep!”

*All the crew in life jackets...but not the passengers??!!

Emma and Madi decided to tag along with the cool adults to go and scope out the situation. We went all over the upstairs area, deck #9, 10, 11. The closer we got to the rear of the ship, the worse it smelled (I guess that makes sense with just about anything). The two girls even followed us to the “Adult Only” area, and they were very hesitant to do so, we told them that this was a little different situation than normal, that nobody there really cared how old they were, and they were welcome to sit on the comfortable lounge chairs. Of course they did get some dirty looks from some of the really old people who have never seen a kid before, because all they do is hang out in the exclusive “Adults Only” area. We were as loud and obnoxious as we could be, just to make their stay a little more fun!

**Our "evacuated" sign. One thing you hope to never see on a cruise!

After about an hour Em and I decided to go back down and see what the rest of the family was doing. To our amazement Jenn was out of bed and out in the main lounge area of the ship on deck #3, “Our cabin boy made us get out! They said that we had to evacuate all of the rooms! Aagghh!” This was true. Cruise Director John came over the intercom and told all of us to get out of the staterooms, we didn’t need to grab our life vest, but we needed to get out due to smoke. It wasn’t very comforting though when we saw the entire crew in their life preservers and not one of the passengers! Now I wish they at least would have made us try to put on our life jacket that previous day during the practice evacuation, that way I at least would have known where to find my life jacket!

**Sitting in the pitch black. We had to use the strobe lights on the life jackets to see anything in our rooms.

While we were semi-comfortably sitting on the couch next to the piano in the main lounge, John kept saying things on the PA system like, “We still don’t know what the problem is, but nothing works, no water, no toilets, no lights, no…” you get the picture. Nothing worked! He also kept telling us that they were getting closer and closer to finding out what the problem was. He would say over and over, “I repeat, there were no flames, it was a flameless fire, a ‘smoke’ fire.” Right, that makes sense because smoke would completely knock out an entire ship’s electricity and engines! “Whatever, John! You ever heard the phrase, ‘Where there’s smoke, there’s fire!’” (That quote makes perfect sense now!).

**The Hoarders gone wild!

Have you ever seen that TV show called “Hoarders”? That is what happened during meal times, starting with breakfast on Monday morning. Cruise Director John told us that the crew was working on making some sandwiches for everybody (3500 passengers), and that the crew (1000+ more people to feed) was going to be passing them out. He also said that for the time-being the sodas were free, at the bars. Now, back to “Hoarders”, the sandwiches finally came, and people were grabbing as many as they could, “this might be the last time we get food on this boat!” Yes, sandwiches were disappearing off of the trays as fast as they were brought down the stairs from the Lido Deck. Then something funny happened, we got the sandwiches in hand—two pieces of white bread, with a piece of lettuce, and anything else that would fit between two pieces of bread: ham, or a tomato, or cheese, or corned beef, or my favorite, beets! Yummy!

When Gary and Becky realized that this was the meal for the morning, they said, “No way!” They were taking their chances at the Lido Deck! They were going to try and steal something else, what else?—anything else! 45 minutes later, we are chowing down on a scrumptious sandwich, and here comes Gary with a tray full of fruits, cereal, and milk…wow, it actually worked! “Where is Mom?” The answer to this question is generally, “I don’t know, she was right behind me.” This time was not much different, but Gary replied in addition, “she went to find some cream cheese for her bagel.” Reasonable I thought—who wants to eat a cream cheese-less bagel? So, another 30 minutes pass, here comes Becky, and you can tell something is wrong by the look on her face. 10 paces from us, toting a tray practically overflowing with fruit, cereal, and a bagel, she says “How can they not have any cream cheese on this whole ship?” She had gone on a mission, and she does not give up easily when she is determined, and she was determined! Unfortunately, she was not successful locating the spread for her bagel.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

**You have to watch this video! It's so funny!

“They are going to have to do something for us. This is not right! They can’t keep us on this boat for much longer under these conditions!” This was stated by the patriarch of the family at around 9:30am while we are still semi-“relaxing” by the piano. Keep in mind, we had about 12 cans of Diet Coke and another 4 cans of Sprite Zero, amongst fruit out the wazoo, and 6 individual boxes of Cheerios and Froot Loops—Yeah we were struggling!

Seriously though, what do you do when not a single toilet on a cruise ship works? The answer is easy: Just go, but don’t flush! Boy did it get nasty! We would be hanging out watching the pool—because the pumps weren’t working to get the water into the pool, which would have enabled us to get into the pool—and one of us would have to go. We would then leave the comfort of the lounge chair to the public restroom right by the Lido Restaurant. It probably would be best for me not to get too descriptive right here because the other 3499 passengers on the ship had the same idea, doing all of their business in the public restroom, and not their cabin—need I say more? Just imagine…nasty! (Ask Emily if you want the REAL nasty, true details!)

Our good buddy John came back on the intercom to announce that lunch was to be in the Lido, and not to have everybody go at the same time, but try to spread it out. “Spread it out? Not when this might be my last meal ever!” Again, everyone had this same thought process. I kid you not that we waited a good 1 ½ -2 hours in line to get our beet sandwiches! I will also like remind you to think of “Hoarders”. Again, the closer you got to the front of the line, the slower it would move, also like the lines at the very beginning of this non-vacation vacation, everyone was allowing anybody that was semi-related to them to just jump into line and get their food—“no problem, sure, why not?”

I need to mention at this point something else about feeding time—it seemed as if none of the crew was there to pick up the trays. It was quite sad to see that on some of the trays, those “hoarders” who thought they were never going to see food again that grabbed 10 sandwiches each, decided half-way through their meal that they probably would see food again and decided to leave their sandwiches sitting on the tray. Not having anyone there to clean them up, and no garbage cans to throw them away in, yes, these sandwiches began to rot, and soon the aroma of those lovely rotting sandwiches began to permeate the air. So, in addition to the toilet overflow smell, we now had rotten sandwich thrown into the mix. “Ugh, will this never end?”

Keep in mind that all of our meals were on the Lido Deck (deck #9) and we resided on deck #2, remember that there were no elevators, so the stairs were now dedicated for the use of everyone! Old people in wheelchairs, walkers, scooters, etc included. That also meant that the crew needed to use stairs to transport the food, dishes, and garbage. It was great, the left side stair case was now permanently the crew’s “passing” chain (this literally became their “home” for the trip, they had little piles of food and trash next to them on every single stair!), and the other side was for us “spoiled” guests, thankfully we were not part of the crew. These stair cases also became the natural line formation for all of us waiting to get our sandwiches from the Lido. Are you getting the picture? Stairs and sandwiches became our life, and if one person on that cruise gained weight, they had some secret stash of jelly beans, or Blow Pops!
To be continued....

Raw Hot Dog Fever-Part 1

2010-11-18T21:45:00.001-05:00

To answer all of your questions--

Yes, it's true! We were on that boat!

Stinks for us, huh? Was it my dream vacation? No! Was it a memorable vacation? Yes!

More important--

Will I ever eat raw hot dog again??

A resounding NO!!

**But the cooked ones are still at the top of my list.

Since this blog is also a quasi-journal I am going to use Jake's (YES--this is Jake's) journal entries and just add pictures. I am going to do this is 2 part because: 1. It is long 2. He hasn't written the second part yet:)

I realize most of you will probably just look at the pictures, but try and read it because Jake did a really good job on it--it's really funny and totally true!

**before we lost power and our vacation

Carnival Splendor

Sunday Nov 7, 2010

Location: Long Beach, CA. The time: Noon. Registration Line: Hundreds of people. Frustration level: Maximum.

“What is going on?” “Why are we outside?” “Why are there so many people already? We are like an hour earlier than the early check-in time.” Just a couple of the questions we asked each other. We have been on cruises before, and this is nothing like the check-in process at the other ones we’ve done. Maybe this is just the way that Carnival runs their operations—pure chaos. The poor lady behind us was carrying a big white vinyl bag we correctly guessed contained her wedding dress. We would later find out that she was on her way to have a destination wedding, bad way to start your wedding vacation, in the cold November Long Beach cloudy weather, in a line with what seemed like a thousand people in front of you.

We heard through the “grapevine” that the reason we were outside was because the US Coast Guard was performing a routine yearly inspection of the boat. Was this true? No idea! We never heard from anyone wearing a Carnival name tag the reasoning behind the madness.

The closer we got to the registration desk, the slower we seemed to be moving due to everyone and their dog allowing their family, friends, and strangers in front of them. This only added to the stress levels. Keep in mind that Gary is with us, getting more and more anxious with every passing second, increasing the tension levels of everyone travelling with him. After what my legs told me was 2 days of standing (actual time-2 hours), we finally made it to the cordoned area of the registration desks. At this exact moment, here comes Jim and Jennefer strolling up to make their way with us. Why not, everyone else let their families in line, right? It just makes me wish that it was me who just strolled up and didn’t have to endure “shopper’s leg”!

Finally, we get checked in, we got blue Sail Cards. Gary was quick to point out that he and Becky got the gold Sail Cards, probably for his golden status with Carnival Cruises. It is actually because he has cruised with them before, and we hadn’t. I just thought that was kind of funny. So after check-in, we got boarding “paddle” number 12. What? Another line? More waiting? What in the world is going on here? Just get us on the boat already! Luckily the wait for #12 was only like 3 minutes.

Once our boarding number was called, they finally decided to take us in to the building where we should have been checking in since the first minute we got out of our vehicle to check-in. So inside we find…you guessed it, another line! What kind of disorganized company is this? Nobody is answering any of our questions as to why all the lines, so I guess we are stuck with the Coast Guard explanation. The line that we were a part of this time was the line to go through the security screening/metal detectors. Wait time in this line, maybe 20-30 minutes.

Luckily for us, we made it through the security no problem. Once the conveyor belt spit out our items from the x-ray machine, we gathered our belongings, put the shoes back on and head towards…another line! I am about ready to swear just thinking back to the insanity of just getting on a stupid boat! What in the world is this line for? Actually there were about 5 lines of about 75 people each, with each group standing behind a sign with a number on it. We were group number 14, I don’t know why I remembered that number. Again, we had no idea what we were in line waiting for. Let me tell you that the communication thus far by Carnival was horrendous! We didn’t know if we were going to ever get on the ship.

“Group 14! This way please.” On we went behind a door that led to who knows where. Well, we found out to where it led…Pictures! What? Are you serious? What a splendid idea to have the picture taking area after the people have been waiting in line for three hours! Needless to say we didn’t want to smile—we wanted to flip the bird! Well, we didn’t give the “California Howdy”; we did what we were supposed to do…we smiled. With pictures out of the way, it was on to the ship! No, wait…another line!!! What is this line for? We were standing right at the escalator that would take us up to the gangplank to get on the Splendor, but for some reason they had us wait right there at the bottom of the moving stairs. I don’t know that I will ever know why they did this—only a guess as to why…nope, I can’t even guess as to why!

Well, after a few more minutes of patiently waiting to stand on those moving stairs, we made it, to the top of the escalators, finally home free…nope, another line! “You gotta be kidding me?!?” Wow! Who would’ve thought? The line this time actually was the final line before getting on to the ship, this line was the line to take your picture for your Sail Cards, and they had to swipe the card to make sure they worked. Our cards worked, it was finally on to Cabin #2-229; for the Hutchings, this cruise was finally under way! Time: 3:30pm.

The Ship

“I don’t care, we can find them later! I am hungry, we have fasted all day!” These are the loving words of a child referring to her parents as we crossed the gangplank. So, off we went, not to the stateroom, not to the pools, straight to deck #9—The Lido Deck. This is the place that we would get to know pretty intimately over the course of our cruise. Food! We were starving! We got in another line, believe it or not, to partake in the “world renowned” Carnival food experience. This line was the only line that was worth the wait all day, the food was absolutely divine! Some of the best lasagna I have ever partaken of. Yummy!

Upon completing the scrumptiousness of the warm food in our bellies, we left our trays on the table in the Lido Restaurant, and off we were to begin the exploration of the Carnival Splendor, but first to our cabin. Two of our three pieces of luggage were waiting for us outside our door. The blue and orange “old faithful” Mustang Soccer bag that I have had since high school that has been on 90% of the trips I have made since high school, and also we had the nice red “Docker’s” carry-on that I got for Emily a couple of years ago—which she has never used. Emily’s bag of clothes was not there yet. We took the bags into the room, laid them on the bed, and off we went to explore.

This was such a long anticipated trip, a much needed break from the little ones, and from the stresses of the unemployment market. We began to walk around the Lido Deck, the pools, up the stairs to the “Adults Only” areas where there were some very comfortable lounge chairs, we checked out the waterslide where a brave little boy was besting the 60 degree weather frantically climbing the ladder over and over again (he was the only one near the pools). After some time exploring, we decided that maybe it was time to head to the cabin to start unpacking our stuff before they called us to the Muster Stations.

**look closely that kid is sliding down

To get to the cabin, we had to go back through the Lido Restaurant, where a lady asked if we had heard about the luggage. “Oh, great; now what in the world is going on? Do we need to go stand in another line to receive our luggage or something?” These were the thoughts rushing through my head. The lady said, “You didn’t see it? There were like 25 pieces of luggage in the ocean! They had to lower a life boat to pick them up!” Those first thoughts through my head were something like “Oh, CRAP!” we were freaking out! Emily is going to have a wet bag, wouldn’t that just be par for the course on this cruise! Apparently one of the forklifts taking luggage from the pier to the ship had the luggage crate on the forks incorrectly (the crate opening towards the ocean) and he hit a bump, and if you have never driven one of those things, little bumps get accentuated by about 100 times. So, he hit a bump, bounced, and then splash! In went the luggage to go swim with the fishies in the sea! I was seriously second guessing our decision to come on this cruise.

Practically running to the room at this point to see if Emily’s black bag of clothes was wet or dry, we could see it down the hallway, next to the door—all was well. Whew! I wiped the sweat of my brow! We started the unpacking process, and were pretty well finished when we got the mandatory call to go to our muster stations. Something was different about this announcement from the other cruises that I have been on—he said that we did not have to have our life jackets. Hallelujah! Standing in those muster stations packed in like sardines wearing a life jacket gets very claustrophobic and warm. I for one was very grateful for the “no lifejacket” life-saving practice run.

It was about the time we returned to our stateroom that I started to wonder what time it was and what time we were supposed to be leaving Long Beach. Turns out we were about an hour and a half late leaving port. No big deal, we had a full two days of travel before we were supposed to get to Puerto Vallarta anyway, we could make it up. Well, we were finally on our way and our cruise was just beginning. “What was that sound? Was that a baby? That sounded like it was right next door.” Now that noise reminded me of a previous lesson learned on a cruise—the walls on cruise ships are very thin (thanks for teaching us that lesson Grant and Shalie!). Sure enough it was just what we thought it was…a BABY, 3 months old none-the-less! We just travelled 2500 miles to get away from our own kids, now this!

I was lying on our bed, channel surfing, while my beautiful wife was readying herself for our first official dinner of the trip. “Shall we go?” I stood up, maybe a little too quickly, got a little light-headed, and BAM—Blind Spots! For me, blind spots=migraine. I guess I was hoping that it would all just go away. I tried to go to dinner, made it to the elevator, said nope, and went back to the room and waited for some medicine that housekeeping was going to bring to me. I couldn’t even see the little receipt paper where he wanted me to sign! So, that was it for me for the evening, 6:30pm, pitch black, sleeping off a migraine, see you in the morning—what a cruise! Emily continued on in the evening, she even won a cool trophy that had the boat mounted on it, with the words “Carnival Splendor”. Who in their right mind would want to keep a silly trophy to remind them of such a wonderful vacation?

*I will sell this trophy to the highest bidder!:)

**You can see the smoke coming out of the left fin

(This was actually from the diesel generator but we didn't

know that then)

It Happens

“Alpha Team. Alpha Team. Alpha Team. Deck 0, Engine Room.” Those are the cursed words that woke us up Monday morning. “What time is it?” In a very exhausted voice she said that it was 6:00. That can’t be good, calling for the Alpha Team. I kept thinking, “I wonder if Alpha Team to these guys means like the alpha dogs, the big dogs, the awesomest of the awesomest.” If so, why in the world would they be calling for them this early in the morning on the inside cabin announcement system? “This can’t be good!” I remember not being able to go back to sleep, I thought that I would just go take a shower. As I was about to sit up we heard the little beep that precedes the PA system, and John, our Cruise Director begins to talk (this is taken from his blog http://johnhealdsblog.com/):

6:20am
Ladies and Gentlemen. My sincere apologies for waking you up but as you may have heard we have just used an Alpha Team call which is the alert for our fire teams to attend. At this moment the captain has informed me that there is lots of smoke in part of the aft engine room on deck 0. (A side note: I told the guests this in case they thought the engine room may be close to guests’ cabins which of course it isn’t.). Please would all guests remain in their cabins while we investigate and regardless of if there is any more information I will return in 5 minutes with an update. Please don’t worry and I promise I will keep you informed.

Coming up---

The part you really all want to hear about instead of our personal adventures!!

Halloween!

2010-11-18T15:44:00.000-05:00

This is my teaser!! Sorry--I know you are all anxiously awaiting our Carnival Splendor adventure, but in an effort to keep this chronological Halloween comes first. I plan on updating later tonight on our instant fame!

Pumpkins:

How great are they? Yes, my husband is an artist. Too bad they rotted the very next day---dangers of living in humidity!

Okay--because they're cute we'll show you our kids first:
This is the only real picture we got of Luke's costume because he took it off pretty much right after this.
Where's Waldo?
Check out that dragon! Easiest costume ever!

Now.......drum roll please........

Here's the mama and the daddy:

No, that's not Gene Simmons, that's us! We are so cool.

An incredibly fun couple in our ward put on a scavenger hunt halloween party! It was such a blast--thank you so much! We placed 3rd in the hunt but creamed the competition in the costume contest! That's right--1st place baby!

Here's some of our scavenger adventures:

And to leave you with another parting shot of our awesomeness!:)

Wrestle Mania

2010-10-15T21:48:00.004-04:00

I don't know what I would do with a girl. Honestly, I think about that a lot. I like my guys to be "tough". I like them to wrestle. I like them to be physical with each other (I don't mean hurt each other.

Thus, this really makes me laugh and it has become a daily ritual.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

4...2...1

2010-10-15T15:23:00.002-04:00

Someone just turned 4...

and you know what the best part of that is? Now I can say (for 2 months) that I have a 4, 2, and 1 year old and people don't think I'm quite as "loco". Which is cool.

Cooper has been begging us for this cake for the better part of a year. While it looks amazing enough to be on "Ace of Cakes", it definitely wouldn't have been standing for long without Jake's AMAZING engineering skills. (He was so proud of it that I just had to put that plug in for him).

While I know I am all things anti-birthday-party, we did have some of his buddies over to decorate spooky houses and eat sugar (a.k.a. cake and ice cream).

Oh yeah, I guess I should say some things that amaze me about Cooper.

One for each year:
1. He's still my miracle baby...against all odds was this little fella.
2. He is my peacemaker and I couldn't ask for a better personality type to lead the Hutchie pack.
3. He wears underwear. That makes me so happy.
4. He loves to "huggle", tells me he loves me, and makes me laugh all the time.

Little guy, I love ya!

Compliments

2010-09-20T17:08:00.000-04:00

I embarrassed Jake on Sunday. The stake presidency asked me how Jake treated me and I said "He's the cream of the crop," and then went on to expound on what that meant.

Jake was embarrassed that I said that. I'd love to be someone's "cream of the crop." Wouldn't you?

Truly, honey, sorry. Next time I'll practice my speech. Love ya!

What makes a bad mom?

2010-09-16T12:44:00.000-04:00

Does it make me a bad mom if I yelled at my kids for pooping...in their diapers? I know, go ahead and laugh.

BUT

I really did get mad at my two little ones for pooping today. Ethan pooped twice, Luke pooped 3 times (and Cooper 3 times in the potty). I mean, how much poop can a woman be expected to handle in a day?

*I won't even mention my own addition to the numbers because that's gross and this is a family-friendly blog.

Since I'm Grumpy Today

2010-09-14T13:59:00.000-04:00

Since I'm grumpy today, because I'm starting my period and I'd rather have a 9 month vacation from it...I can get away with this photo:
This makes me feel a little better:)

Major Catch Up Time!!

2010-08-02T18:43:00.001-04:00

I don't know why I find it so hard to blog these days. I get so far behind and then it's too much effort to catch up. The kiddos are down for a nap and I really can't procrastinate any longer so here goes:

We have had an amazing and action-packed summer. Blink and you'll miss what we've done:

Science Museums

Chocolate Delights

Sundance Relaxing

Hiking in Gorgeous Places with Lovely Family

Riding Lift up Sundance

Bonding (literally a couples massage) wish SIL's

Cousin Love

Snow in May??

Beau and Amy Hitched

Lovin' the Dancin'

Julie and Seth Married

Kodak Moments

Eating at G and G Anderson's--banana cream pie-nuf said

I love Meredith. She makes me happy.

Mourning turning 30. It was rough.

A lot of illegal Bible School for Cooper

Having fun

Cousins visiting and teaching my children valuable things

July 4th in the 'Hood!


More Museums...now they all want to be pilots

Before you complain about how many pictures there are, just know that I spared you about 300 other ones. Digital cameras have really caused my picture-taking to go up. Now I have to scrap them all which is depressing and daunting.

Now I feel much better about myself for catching up on blogland so hopefully you'll see me around more often.

Future Career Options

2010-07-29T14:21:00.000-04:00

What do you think Cooper has the best chance of a successful career in?

A. Truck Driver

B. Florist

C. Artist

D. Jailkeeper

No Joke story. This is Lukey's "time out" spot. Cooper was getting mad because he was coming out of the shower-->a big no-no!

Next thing I know, I come in and Cooper had rigged my mom's crutch up on the toilet so Luke couldn't get out.

Who does that?

I laughed so hard, thank goodness Luke thought it was funny also!

Casting Call

2010-07-06T23:23:00.000-04:00

I just applied to be casted on this show. First time I've ever done something like this. Since I put that the strangest thing about me is that I'm Mormon-I don't think I'll get a callback. I feel somewhat emboldened, however. I also feel annoyed because they asked a lot of ridiculous questions. For example, How would you rate yourself on being able to tempt the opposite sex? I put "1-Never Done It". It made me laugh. Only because it's true.

For the Funnies

2010-07-06T13:28:00.000-04:00

I found this post at Suburban Snapshots Blog and TOTALLY related. I know most of you can. So, for your enjoyment...

Why Having a Toddler is
Like Being at a Frat Party*

*I've never been to a frat party but my mind can paint a pretty vivid picture of one!

10. There are half-full, brightly-colored plastic cups on the floor in every room. Three are in the bathtub.

9. There's always that one girl, bawling her eyes out in a corner.

8. It's best not to assume that the person closest to you has any control over their digestive function.

7. You sneak off to the bathroom knowing that as soon as you sit down, someone's going to start banging on the door.

6. Probably 80% of the stains on the furniture contain DNA.

5. You've got someone in your face at 3 a.m. looking for a drink.

4. There's definitely going to be a fight.

3. You're not sure whether anything you're doing is right, you just hope it won't get you arrested.

2. There are crumpled-up underpants everywhere.

1. You wake up wondering exactly how and when the person in bed with you got there.

Check In

2010-07-06T13:25:00.002-04:00

Yes, I'm here. I just find myself increasingly lazy and the more I procrastinate posting the easier it is to keep procrastinating. Maybe taking this baby step will help me to take a grown-up step. Maybe.

Do Not Assume

2010-05-16T16:23:00.001-04:00

I realize I haven't written a HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY post and figure it's about time to post on my life again anyhow. First of all, I had a wonderful mother's day but I agree with my sister-in-law in that no sane person would ever "schedule" mother's day on Sunday. No matter how pleasant your husband's try to make it, Sunday's are just crazy HARD! Jake did his best and I felt very special. Thank you so much, honey!

On the other hand, it always makes me reflect on my feelings about being a mom. I had one of those "holding my kids and I realized how much I loved them in that aching way you simply can't put into words" moments recently. I don't have those very often but when I do it makes me feel like a mother bear protecting my cubs. It makes me realize how fiercely I defend my role as mother.

We were having a discussion recently in playgroup about having children and how people like to make you feel crazy for wanting to have more than 1 or 2 kids. This discussion made me realize a few things...thus, my sermon:

I remember when Jake first asked me, "You know what assume means, right?" Well...just break the word down and you'll figure it out.

The point is...by assuming something you stand to make a fool of yourself.

I have, in my short life as a stay at home mother, had many people assume some things about me. I get the craziest stares in grocery stores.

I found this list of crazy assumptions on another blog. I adjusted some of them for my life, but for the most part I totally agreed with this lady.

1) My job as a stay at home mom will not be done when my kids are all in school...so please don't assume that it will be. I have no intention of ever getting a "real" job again.

2) Do not assume that I am a stay at home mom due to any of the following:
being lazy, being uneducated, being weak willed (ie. my husband makes me), not wanting to get a "real" job, being overprotective, being controlling or that I have no other choice.

3) Please don't assume that I am dying for the day that I can get back into the work world and get a "real" job. I am doing my "real" job.

4) Please do not assume that my college education is "going to waste" because I don't have a "real" job. My job is "real" and I use my education on a daily basis.
Imagine that.

5) Please do not assume that because I am a stay at home mom, that my schedule is any more open than yours. No, I cannot run your errands, etc, because I don't have a "real" job and therefore must be overflowing with free time that I am desperate for you to fill.

6) Please don't assume that part of my reasoning for being a stay at home mom is because I believe that no one else can raise my children as well as I can.

Actually...this one is true.

7) Do not assume that I watch Oprah.

8) Do not assume that your job is more important than mine just because you get a paycheck.
My treasure is in Heaven.

9) Do not assume that I am "so lucky" that I get to stay home.
Luck has nothing to do with it.
We make sacrifices every day to make sure that I am able
to stay home with my kids.

10) And lastly, don't assume that I want your pity because I "have to" stay at home with my kids. It is my choice and I LOVE it. I love it. I love it. I feel as though I am fulfilling God's greatest purpose for a woman...being a mom and caring for my family.

I fully love my job of staying at home. I love the up's and the down's of being a mom. I love the things that I learn about myself every day. I love the tears of frustration and ache that I shed much too often. I love it because I am learning things about myself that I didn't know. I am growing in ways I did not know were possible or were in me. I am becoming someone different through the little ones in my life. I am grateful for that. I am grateful for being a mother.

I am grateful for the mother who trusted me to raise her son. I hope I am making her proud. I am trying, I am failing on occasion, but I am trying. I love my babies and in the end, that's all that really matters.

Gym Envy

2010-05-05T09:40:00.001-04:00

SIGH...

As I drive past almost any gym, I find myself coveting a membership and green with envy of all those people who have said membership. If the gym wasn't so far away I would actually seriously consider joining one.

For an hour plus a day, six days a week, I work out at home. It feels like I've been doing this FOREVER, and most days it feels like I always will because a gym membership is such an easy budget cut.

Every morning as I start which ever home routine I am doing for the day, I again find myself dreaming of a gym membership. As I crane my neck while running on my treadmill (a very dangerous venture) to make sure no little hands are getting too close, I yearn for a membership with a daycare. As I pick various debris off my back after laying down to do chest flys, I dream of kid-less bench pressing.

As...

the phone rings

my downward dog pose has become a tunnel

middle little man is performing ear-ringing screeches

tiny one uses my plank pose to pull up to standing

jumping jacks ensure me I need to wear a diaper

4-5 poopy diapers need to be changed

I need to break up a fight

I pull tiny one away from DVD plug

I nearly catapult off of said treadmill

middle little man sneaks another cracker

tiny one invades the candy drawer and bites through all candy (wrappers and all)

I push pause for some kind of catastrophe prevention

all 3 kiddies sneak outside one door or another

big one tries to lift weights and drops them on his toes

...I sigh, keep going, and look forward to the day that I can work out at a gym. And, 3 hours later, I am done and feel great for "enduring to the end".

Louisville Top 5 Moments

2010-04-26T20:06:00.000-04:00

We recently took a VERY random last-minute trip with Jake to Louisville, KY. He was going there for work so it was all expense paid--except for the extras. Here's our highlights:
1. Buzz Lightyear driving past Dinosaur World.

2. Holding Mickey Mantle's bat at the Louisville Slugger Museum.

3. Finally having time with just my boys!

4. Seeing the MASSIVE Churchill Downs Stadium. ( That one's for you mom!)

5. Adventuring through the amazing underground Diamond caves with Cooper insisting that he leads the way in the pitch black!

Thank you Louisville! You were awesome!

Yes, We're Still Here

2010-04-21T20:39:00.000-04:00

What we've been up to these last few weeks:

Easter

Making Fun Easter Favors

Pigging Out

Learning How to Eat With a Spoon

Whirly Ball!!

St. Simon's Island

Fertilizer

2010-04-19T21:58:00.000-04:00

Today I changed NINE poopy bums on 2 little boys...and they aren't even sick. What is wrong with my children?

Faith VS. Knowledge

2010-04-18T21:33:00.000-04:00

Some of you may have FAITH that your husbands are awesome....

I have the KNOWLEDGE that mine is awesome.

Now you do too--

That's right, Handcrafted by Jake Hutchings. Amazing, huh? Ya'll can come take a flight anytime you want!

Ha ha!

2010-03-24T08:40:00.000-04:00

Cochlear implants that is! Get ya'lls minds out of the gutter!

We are so excited for mom. She is finally going to be able to partake a little more in the daily life around here. Basically it means she will have semi-normal function of her ear. What a blessing!

NEWS

2010-03-23T21:34:00.000-04:00

My Mom's getting IMPLANTS!

Crazy weird, huh? You'd think she's a little old for that. I guess fake has no age!

Someone Else's Post

2010-03-20T23:10:00.000-04:00

I just saw this post on lecaunplugged.blogspot.com. I was roaring! How true is this? You always think you look so fine until you see yourself through a camera lense...I love digital cameras! Keep shooting until you get just the right angle!:)

Wonder Woman

Yesterday we had our family pictures taken. I was a little surprised to see the out come. It seems that my inner view of myself has been skewed for quite some time. This is how I envision myself... It turns out I actually look a little more like...

It's funny how a few innocent pictures take the wind out of your oh so confident sails. I suppose either way I'm still super. Damn camera...

Like Mother, Like Son

2010-03-16T20:39:00.000-04:00

Do you see a common theme in these pictures?

Look close.

Yep, that tongue is always wagging!

Both Coop and I love to concentrate with our tongues out.

It makes our performance 27% more effective.

Scientifically proven.

Shadows

2010-03-15T16:24:00.000-04:00

Isn't this a cool picture?

This is me and Ethan strolling along.

I was trying to be creative.

It's finally warmed up enough to go outside again.

This is the best time of year in Georgia because

it's gorgeous outside but the bugs are

reluctant to leave their havens so you're not running from

bees and such all day!

We went on our SPONTANEOUS walk. I love

watching the boys cross

the cattle guard-it cracks me up!

I love it!

How To Feel Rich

2010-03-14T21:49:00.000-04:00

There is something about wearing a robe that makes you feel like a

million dollars. It makes me feel like saying--

"Give me what I want because I must

be rich since I'm wearing a robe!"

Jake and I went on a "SPONTANEOUS" trip to Hilton Head

as one of our Christmas gifts from my special parents!

It was the most AMAZING trip. We were totally kid-less for what seemed

like the first time in forever. (Thank you Claire and Jason)

We stayed in a gorgeous and atmospheric

Inn:

You know you're living the high life when you have fancy naked

statues in the pool area:

Then we combed the island shore in search of treasure to become more rich:

( I don't really know what that meant but I just wanted

to use the word "rich" again)

Then we felt uber-rich when we threw caution

to the wind and treated ourselves to the most

AMAZING, SUCCULENT, EXPENSIVE

dinner we've ever had at:

Yeah, we were rich.

But now we're even more poor...

And we don't regret a minute of it!

FINALLY!!!!

2010-03-13T17:05:00.001-05:00

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

March Goal

2010-03-13T16:06:00.000-05:00

March Goal

My goal for this month is:

Be Spontaneous!

I often find myself getting in a rut with my schedule-type personality.

Jake said to me the other day:

"I think I could predict 95% of the time how you would

react in a situation."

WHAT??

That's pretty pathetic.

I want to be less predictable.

Therefore, I bring you spontaneity-every day!!

(If it's planned spontaneity, is it still spontaneous?:))

Here's a few of the things we've done so far:

(a fun new game called Clue where I draw

pics and the kids run to find the next

clue resulting in a fun prize in the end-silly string)

So far we've had a blast!

Sweetnesses

2010-03-07T12:41:00.000-05:00

And I smile.

Pants on the Ground

2010-03-05T21:30:00.000-05:00

Looking like a fool with your pants on the ground.

Looking like a cutie with your pants on the ground.

Tacky Me

2010-03-04T19:46:00.000-05:00

No, I'm not dressing up.

This was an honest to goodness outfit I wore.

I know, it's pathetic.

You can laugh. Permission granted.

So This Is Love

2010-03-01T20:23:00.000-05:00

BFF. Forever.

They love each other even more than the super cool circus they went to see together. Now that's love for 3 year old's.

I Know, It's Crafts Again...

2010-02-28T20:26:00.001-05:00

(Check out our cooking blog for the recipe!)

In honor of Lover's Day...

We did lots of fun things.

Can you say yummy fun???

Life is a Bliss Complete

2010-02-27T09:49:00.000-05:00

Wouldn't you agree?

At the time this wasn't funny but I can easily laugh about it now.

One day I'm sure that's how I'll look at all these days.

Now, if only I could remember that in the heat of the moment.

What's This?

2010-02-26T09:15:00.000-05:00

We are so un-used to getting snow that we don't have any snow clothes--especially not coordinating ones. Coop's pulling the punky brewster look and I'm pulling the D.I. mis-match look. We were desperate!

We got about 3-4 inches of snow (these pics are from the beginning of it). It was so much fun! Sledding, snowman building, snowball fighting.

It made me miss the snow....for about 5 minutes.

Eat This AlGore!

2010-02-25T20:45:00.001-05:00

Global Warming, eh?

Right.

The Best Things In Life Are Free

2010-02-24T21:36:00.000-05:00

Real. Genuine. Bed Head.

I wish I had that kind of body.

Monthly Goals

2010-02-04T19:55:00.001-05:00

Okay, my goals for January were to "Be Healthy". There were a variety of them listed, but I did such a bad job at them that I'm not even going to mention them.

So...with fierce determination I introduce February goals:

Be Romantic!!

(This should be a whole lot easier to keep--hopefully!)

1. Make an effort physically: wear make-up every day,

get dressed every day, fix my hair every day.

2. Feel my best: exercise: 6 days a week-without fail, read scriptures

every day, got to bed by midnight!

3. Flirt! Leave 3 messages/texts every week.

4. Be ready with a willing heart:).

5. Get in the mood! I found a new online discreet "boutique"

that I ordered some goodies from--

my goal is to actually use them!

(It's a LONG story, Meredith and Claire!)

6. Plan an amazing Valentine's date for Jake.

7. Make Jake feel appreciated as a husband, not

just a father.

Some of these probably don't make sense to you, but I know what they mean! Wish me luck!

What did you buy with $5?

2010-01-27T21:37:00.000-05:00

I bought these two boxes of "Shatterproof Ornaments".

I bought them from Big Lots at 75% off=$2.75 each.

Then I got a trusty hanger from the closet, dabbed hot glue on each of

the ball's tops, and started stringing.

About 15 minutes later I had...

Next year when I put a ribbon on this it's

going to be GORGEOUS.

Not a bad way to spend $5!!

Honesty: This is Me

2010-01-22T20:24:00.000-05:00

Here is my life in pictures:
Don't laugh. This is all very accurate.
The life of a single mom stinks.

Monday:

Recharged for the week

Tuesday:

Still truckin' along

Wednesday:

Starting to feel spousal absence too profoundly

Thursday:

Just need some space

Friday:

Beast. 100% Beast.

Just ask my kids tonight.

Oh wait, they went to bed early. No witnesses.

Saturday:

Jake's home. Aah.

However, he does go to school from 11-7.

Sunday:

Church makes me happy.

Do it all over again.

Friendship

2010-01-19T20:32:00.001-05:00

Nothing makes me happier than to see my boys becoming friends.

Admit it, your heart is going

THUMP, THUMP.

People often look at me like I'm crazy with my little kids so close together.

I say it's the sanest thing I've done.

Today...

I love you, monkeys!

What? A Craft?

2010-01-19T20:32:00.000-05:00

It's been so long! We did another book project to say good-bye to winter.

Okay, tutorial (sort of). People, this is so easy. Just go get a book off of your bookshelf, think of a craft to go with it. (Or look one up online. My favorite sites are Child Fun, Kaboose, CraftBits, AmazingMoms, or the blogs on the side under My Favorite Links.) It does not have to be fancy. I mean, look at this...it's marshmallows. That's it. Please do it! I promise your kids will start to love reading even more and pick up on essential skills for the learning years. Just do it!

Happy Birthday Luke ( A Little Late)

2010-01-18T20:57:00.000-05:00

Who's 2??

Lukey is!

Or was....

Our middle boy turned 2.

Poor middle child.

Lukey definitely has the most personality of our children.

Thank heavens because middle children sometimes get lost

in the melee.

They have to grow up real fast when another one comes along

so quickly.

We love our Lukey!

We took the whole fam bowling to celebrate #2 turning #2.

Then we got some real nasty spongebob cupcakes from Wal-Mart

clearance aisle to make the famous shove-your-cake-in-your-face picture.

(We did the joint birthday party for Luke and Ethan since

they're too young to really care yet.)
Partake in the goodness:

Lukey is the child that can make me laugh the hardest (and, of course, cry the hardest).

I love you with all my heart you little pest!

"Nice".:)

Happy New Year's ( A Little Late)

2010-01-17T21:33:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year's from the Hutchings Family!!

Bringing the year in

"in style".

There's Your Sign

2010-01-17T21:07:00.000-05:00

Jake recently got an MP3 player to travel with. The only playlist he downloaded from my iTunes:

Who'd a thunk? Certainly not Jake 6 years ago. I love it!

Someday Soon...

2010-01-16T15:03:00.002-05:00

Today I got to lay down and snuggle with my 3 year old when he couldn't fall asleep. Life was perfect. For a moment.

We've all been under the weather here on "The Farm". I'll update soon.

Bragging

2009-12-31T09:48:00.001-05:00

Thought I'd brag. Today I have TWO children who are one year's old...and they're not even twins. How many of you can say that?? I'm so LUCKY!!

Ethan's 1!!

2009-12-30T15:59:00.003-05:00

Exactly one year ago I was stuck in a hospital trying to push a watermelon out of a pea-sized hole. This begs the question...why do the "kids" get to celebrate their birthdays? I think the mother's should be celebrated instead. I mean, I was the one that brought you into this world a year ago.

Anyhow, we love our little dude. Full of smiles, laughs, and overall cheerful thrills! We love you, Ethan. Happy Birthday!

Christmas-TWICE!!

2009-12-30T15:45:00.007-05:00

You guessed it!
We spent our first Christmas together as JUST a family in...
SUNNY FLORIDA!

It was filled with swimming, shell collecting, sand castle building, and (admittedly) a little bit of shivering. Just a little, though. You still need to be jealous that we were at the beach in December.
See our awesome get-up? Nothing like "making do".
We acted out the Christmas story (as well as we could with the little ones) and then built a tent and sipped hot cocoa and munched on cookies while watching "A Christmas Story". By the way, not the cleanest movie ever for little kids!

Christmas morning we woke the kids up (miracle, huh?) and served them Santa pancakes.

Then, check out the mouth gaping!!

Then we came home and did it all again a few days later. Sometimes the excitement needs to be divided up!

We had an awesome Christmas--thanks to all who thought of us--especially mom and dad for letting us go to the condo!

It's Time to PARTY!

2009-12-18T21:35:00.005-05:00

FONDUE PARTY!
Only the best kind of party....EVER!

Then we had a TIMED gingerbread building contest.
This was really a lot of fun. I would totally recommend it.

We gave everyone 20 minutes to do their thing. Everyone came with their own structure and then went to. How cool is mine? (It's the Eiffel Tower) Only thing...dang hard to do much decorating with so many windows. Needless to say...Hutchings didn't take home the crown!

The winner is:
The ark!!
That little thing second to the left.
It's cooler than it appears.

Like our village?

One of our more adventurous white elephant gifts. Jake actually got stuck with our own white elephant-a bottle of Chardonnay and a bag of coffee!

Winter Craft Time

2009-12-18T21:26:00.006-05:00

Since we've finally finished going through the alphabet for craft time, I've decided to take a brief hiatus and focus solely on winter crafts. It's been really fun and every one has a song and movie to go with it which makes the day go by splendidly fast!

First, candy trains! Who doesn't love candy trains?? We read Polar Express, made the trains, played with trains, and then watched the movie...

I could NOT find LifeSavers anywhere!
Loved this one. We read "If You Give A Moose a Muffin", sang "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (moose/reindeer=same thing in my book), decorated yummy "muffins" (muffin=cupcake in my book), and then watched "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

*Notice the drink in the background? That's mine, not Cooper's. Here's your sign: we went out to eat the other night and Cooper told the waitress he wanted a diet coke. That is sad, real sad. And no, he didn't actually get a diet coke! I'm not that bad of a mom!

Our fleet of reindeer:

Today we read a snowman book, sang "Frosty the Snowman" and "Once There Was a Snowman" then made a super colorful snowman. Then we made a snowman for window art.
You see that sad face? Cooper got a hot glue gun burn. Blistered right away. So sad:(.
I got this cool window art thingy from co-op this week. Coolest art stuff! Cooper is really good at them and has 10 x's more patience with me with filling in all the empty places.

Honey Nut Cheerios Christmas Candy Trees! Yeah for sugar!
Just because they're so darn cute!

How cool is this? My mom's buddy made this for her. I love it!

Xmas Gift Sharing

2009-12-18T21:23:00.002-05:00

Okay, I'm kind of proud of these so I'm going to share. I'm giving to Jennefer this year and she is into wreaths. I made these "4 Seasons of Wreaths" for her. Hopefully she'll like them and hopefully she doesn't check my blog...she's never told me she does!
Winter

Fall

Summer

Spring

The Nomads

G-H-E-T-T-O Fabulous

Fall...Yes, I am Writing About Fall

Finally, He is 5!!!

Love/Hate Relationship

Give me a treat or I'll trick ya, ARGH!

A Future Beckham?

Becoming Like a Child

Doing Illegal Things and Stuff

Cousin Time

Van Gogh's in the Making?

Utah for a While

Minute to Win it

The Death of the Big Black Thing

Full of hot air!

I WANT YOU

Jewkes in da House!

Back Again

Our Destiny

Wedgies Are Booty-ful

I Miss My Family

An Escape

L O V E

Santa is one fat dude...and dudette

Him, Him, and Him

Today

Hazards of Living in the South

Raw Hot Dog Fever-Finale!!

Raw Hot Dog Fever-Part 3

Raw Hot Dog Fever-Part Deux

Raw Hot Dog Fever-Part 1

Halloween!

Wrestle Mania

4...2...1

Compliments

What makes a bad mom?

Since I'm Grumpy Today

Major Catch Up Time!!

Future Career Options

Casting Call

For the Funnies

I found this post at Suburban Snapshots Blog and TOTALLY related. I know most of you can. So, for your enjoyment...

Why Having a Toddler is Like Being at a Frat Party*

Check In

Do Not Assume

Gym Envy

Louisville Top 5 Moments

Yes, We're Still Here

Fertilizer

Faith VS. Knowledge

Ha ha!

NEWS

Someone Else's Post

I just saw this post on lecaunplugged.blogspot.com. I was roaring! How true is this? You always think you look so fine until you see yourself through a camera lense...I love digital cameras! Keep shooting until you get just the right angle!:)

Wonder Woman

Like Mother, Like Son

Shadows

How To Feel Rich

FINALLY!!!!

March Goal

Sweetnesses

Pants on the Ground

Tacky Me

So This Is Love

I Know, It's Crafts Again...

Life is a Bliss Complete

What's This?

Eat This AlGore!

The Best Things In Life Are Free

Monthly Goals

What did you buy with $5?

Honesty: This is Me

Friendship

What? A Craft?

Happy Birthday Luke ( A Little Late)

Happy New Year's ( A Little Late)

There's Your Sign

Someday Soon...

Bragging

Ethan's 1!!

Why Having a Toddler is
Like Being at a Frat Party*