Speak Your Mind... or Don't...

*Post Edit* Thanks guys! I totally agree with the not saying anything, or maybe, I dunno acting genuinely happy for the other people, no matter what. I had a great conversation with a lady that knows our situation- and is related to someone else in the company- and she just thought it was so great that we got to have the experience- it was SO refreshing to have that conversation instead of the aforementioned awkward one :)

I don't know if this ever bugs anyone else, but it sometimes gets to me, so let's discuss the following...
We discussed instant gratification in Sunday School and how things are so available all the time, the effects that that can have on your kids, etc... So later, as we're leaving, somebody asks Steve and I where we've been since we're so nice and tanned? I reply that we had been in Mexico and the person responds back "Talk about instant gratification, I had to wait until I had been married 25yrs before I got to go there!" But this isn't the first time someone of that generation has made comments to me about how they didn't get the things we have or go the places we have until they were married for x amount of years, etc... At first it was funny, but now it's getting old. It sometimes makes me feel like people just assume that because we're young we don't work hard or don't deserve to enjoy some luxuries along the way. That being said I also feel like people say it to point out how lucky we are or how grateful we should be. And we are extremely grateful for everything we have been blessed with, I just didn't think that we would have to broadcast that gratitude to the whole ward in order to avoid the weird comments, ya know?
Any thoughts, bloggers?

And About That

I've had some good discussions the last few days about parenting and the mindset you need to have in order to do it somewhat well ie. harboring your sanity in the midst of the chaos. I'm learning a lot about myself in the process and some things have always been there, they just now have a useful place to come out. So here are the 3 that have been on my mind this week.

1. I know my limits for this particular time in my life. I guess for every stage of life I've had a tendency to know my limits. I think sometimes it's hindered me, but for the most part it's been a good thing. No broken bones ever... knock on wood... As a parent I have pretty decent boundaries as far as controlling myself in order to save myself, ya know? Next year I might be more adventurous, but as for now my kids are stuck with a little less fun I guess. I am lucky that Steve's job is pretty flexible in the winter months that drive most people crazy. A lot of our winter fun involves a 1:1 kid:adult ratio, it works better for me than 2:1 because Kalea does not listen to me. I am trying to find a solution to that problem, I'm thinking just more of she and I doing things without Brynlee around so she has my full attention and gets used to listening to me outside of the house. In some ways I feel guilty that I'm not willing to push myself more, but at the same time, if/when I do, the kids and Steve suffer. So if we don't attend every event or venture out for as many walks or do as many activities as we can, it's only to save my sanity. Selfish maybe, but so far it's working.
2. I am starting to really organize my life. As a child my mom would probably never describe me as very organized. As a teenager neither would my friends (Tara have I ever sufficiently thanked you for helping me clean out/organize my closet? Seriously, thanks). As an adult Steve wouldn't consider me bad at it, just unmotivated. Okay, but that's as far as stuff goes, when it comes to activities/outings, etc... I like to be organized and have things planned in advance. I am finding that when it comes to taking the kids anywhere my brain compartmentalizes every part into neat little boxes. I guess it helps me deal. Good, this means on some level organizing makes sense to my brain! This is now spilling over into the stuff area of my life. For example, we inherited a huge filing cabinet around Christmas time. Nobody knows this but I feel like I've finally "arrived" at adulthood now that I have one of my own... I am such a geek sometimes. This means I now have a place for everything paper...EVERYTHING!!! I bought tupperware containers the other day to store my prego clothes- yes my baby is 14mths old and I am finally putting those ugly maternity clothes away, don't judge me. I guess I have an affinity for big plastic containers too, weird... I don't know if it's the organizing or just having fun new "toys" to help me organize, but we're on a roll at our house. Baby steps to loving being organized, yay!
3. I don't like to be misjudged. I was talking with a friend the other night about how because of my calling at church I sometimes tend to not say or do things for fear that people will think I'm only doing it because I know what "the problem" is. Or if I do say/do something I find myself thinking "Oh gosh I hope they don't think I did that because I know..." I would honestly just rather not know anything and be able to do nice things just because and not have to worry how people take it. I think I've been that way forever, not just now.

6 a.m. & Being a Mom

I swore on my life not very long ago that I would not/could not ever get up and work out at 6 a.m. So now that I have done that, what happens? I guess I'm never swearing on my life again!
Anywho, I'm learning lots through this process of challenging my mind/body. This morning was a way different experience than last week when I went to a class in the evening, with a buddy, in a more crowded room. This time was very early, by myself, with about 15 other people. The room felt way hotter than last week. It was really hard to focus, my mind was trying to think about all the things I had to get done today, and it wasn't as meditative (is that even a word?) But I conquered the worst part of the whole thing by actually getting up before 6, making sure I had a decent snack and some water beforehand and I made it through another class. Pretty awesome.
I'm starting to notice how hard I am on myself. The instructor even made the comment "Lighten up guys, smile, it's just yoga". I think she said that just for me, at least that's how it felt. Also, smiling helps relax your face which helps you breathe easier, but that's beside the point :P Anyways, in general I hold myself to a pretty high standard of performance I guess... no it's true. So when I'm focused on how "bad" I'm doing I fall out of posture, and today instead of just sucking it up and being persistent and pushing the negative thoughts out of my head, I found myself paying too much attention to them.
The internal battle begins. In hindsight, and for future reference I did some poses today really really well that I could not do the first night without falling out, so that's amazing progress already. If exercise has the potential to be addictive, I may have a problem. No, really. This is the best workout I have EVER done and it's "just stretching". Ha.

It was also great to jump in the shower before my girls were even out of bed and then have them SO excited to see me when I emerged from the bathroom. They were SO happy this morning, it was great. I took them out to Mom&Tots at our church and they had a pretty good time. I think Kalea enjoyed all the space to run, although I wish she would stay in the gym so I don't have to worry about her getting outside and into the parking lot(she can and will do that I'm not just being over protective).
Brynlee loves just watching kids, let alone running around with them, so she was happy for the most part too. As a Mom, it's fun to watch them play and see how they interact with other kids and get a glimpse into how they deal with different situations/personalities... That being said, it's also hard to see your child trying so hard to interact with other kids, when those other kids aren't being very nice. She'll learn pretty quick who she wants to spend time around and who she doesn't I'm sure, but today it was hard to sit back as much as I did and watch. I'm glad she's not old enough to really understand what was going on, but I really hope that she doesn't have to deal with stuff like that constantly for the next few years. Ugh... So that almost negated all of the positive side effects of my morning yoga session :) I am pretty sure we left today more for my own sake than for either of the kids! Ha! Love being a mom...
*Post Edit* "She" as in Kalea, not Brynlee. Haha

Jumping Into the Deep End... And Liking It

I am not a huge risk taker. In fact, I am a huge big baby when it comes to things that scare me, for example, I hate no knowing how deep water is, and thus I will not jump into water if I don't know the depth... It made for an interesting "first time snorkeling" experience.
Anyways, last night I took a dive into the deep end of yoga- nice analogy, right? I went to my first Bikram yoga session. According to my brother this is, "the worst, hottest, craziest yoga" that I could ever go to and now I am considered "crazy". I went, and I was scared and it was hot, but you know what? I LOVED IT! YAY! This is a huge big deal mostly because I think I expected it to be really horrible, like deathly horrible but it wasn't. Kudos to my imagination for being so good at worst case scenarios :) There were a few times where I took a little break on my mat after doing the first series of a pose, but I did every single one once. I am super proud of myself, kind of in the way that I was proud of myself for getting through childbirth, no really, it's that same kind of euphoric, wow I can do that sort of feeling. There was quite a bit learned last night, not just in the physical poses and contorting my body into ridiculous positions, but in the "self talk" arena. Overall it was pretty positive, there were a few times where I caught myself thinking "what in the world, yeah right" and I'd lose my balance, but then I'd just refocus and breathe and voila, done. It was pretty awesome. A word about the heat. I am not one to sit in a sauna/steam room for very long, the thick air gets to me. I don't know if my vacation helped me in this area or not, but the heat in Bikram wasn't as thick as I expected- partially because the class wasn't as packed as it could have been. I will say I didn't particularly enjoy the floor being so hot to step on in certain poses, but I got used to it. And the sweat... Oh boy... I don't think I have ever in my life sweat like that, it felt like the first time every pore of my body was working. That being said, it felt amazing, and it wasn't gross I just ran a marathon sweat, it was definitely a cleansing feeling, I don't know how to explain it. So all that being said, I will be going again and I'll probably write more about it in future posts, and I might be crazy for liking it, but Bikram seems to be just what I need right now.

What We Loved About Our Trip

Since all the pictures are already on Facebook, everyone already knows what we did, but now I get to tell you what we absolutely loved, in no particular order...

1. The warm hug of humidity when the flight attendants opened the door of the plane.
2. The Christmas lights around our resort, just like in the movies!
3. The way the sand at our beach felt like powder.
4. How you could walk out into the ocean for such a long way before it got chest deep.
5. The sound of our bird friends in the morning, or anytime, their black birds are way less annoying than ours are.
6. The swim-up bar(virgin drinks obviously) and the reactions from the bartenders' everytime we said "no alcohol" ie. Pretend you are hearing my mexican accent... "no alhol? c'mon, little alhol, is nice out, relax... no? okay no alhol" :)
7. Hanging out with our Boise State friends and getting to experience a bunch of really fun things with them ie. being "lost at sea" on the catamaran; zip-lining at crazy heights; night-time ocean frolic(steve and james, angela and i were way too scared to get eaten by a shark or something) crazy cab rides; bartering with Mexicans who think we're "el cheapo", getting mistaken for Angela's mom, etc...
8. Laying in the sun and doing absolutely nothing else.
9. Eating whenever we wanted- although it made us sick.
10. Making up our own "fun schedule" with all the activities that the resort had to offer, there was only one day when we didn't really do anything.
11. Being child free for a little bit (it was very timely for the kids and for us to have a break from each other, it sounds horrible, but I think sometimes everyone needs a break)
12. Swinging/falling asleep in hammocks and not being freezing cold

13. Soft serve at the beach snack shack, wish we had found that way sooner, although it's probably better for the weight loss plan that we didn't!

I think that's basically it. We had some really really fun times together and with Steve's co-workers. It's really great that Steve works with so many people that I actually know and had been connected to back before we were all married. In that sense the whole vacation seemed more like the movie Couple's Retreat and less like being on vacation with people that you just work with. Oh and minus the weird yoga guy... boom...

Flight Attendants

Good morning birdies. Outside the sliding glass doors in our personal paradise.

I had to HAD to write a shout out to our flight attendants- not that any of them are reading blogs these days. I'm assuming that they don't have time for things like that when they're busy "securing the cabin" etc...
We had fantastic flight crews on both flights, and by fantastic I mean they actually seemed happy to be flying with us. Except for the one time when one of them literally made me wake up one of our friends to remove his big headphones, just in case he gets all tangled up and chokes himself??? It was a really strange request, since our friend is in his 20s and has survived this long.
Anyways, reasons our flight crews (west jet if you're wondering) were awesome:

1. When a random Chinese lady got blocked going back to her seat by the flight crew distributing drinks, and chose to practically sit in my lap, every single one of them laughed so hard they had tears in their eyes. I have to admit, it was pretty hilarious, she didn't say a word or even look at me, she just made herself comfortable and well, we were all very entertained.

2. When Steve made me fill out all the customs stuff on board and said something to the effect of "I got married so I'd never have to do this" (ha ha) they all gave me their condolences, including a HUG! It was pretty funny, and no I don't have issues filling forms out, in fact, I really enjoy the process and I think my writing is neater, and that's important on some weird level, right?
3. On our flight home we had a "trainee" who was very purposefully reading his script every time he had to make an announcement. Steve and I know this because we were sitting in row 1 for that flight, so we had access to all the "behind the scenes" of that flight and it was VERY entertaining. His trainer would say, "Okay, this time don't say that cheesy beginning part" and every time he would use the script she would die, it was hilarious.
4. Ha, on that note, the female "trainer" had some awesome mishaps during the fasten your seatbelt/how to inflate life vest demo, that we were all in stitches for the first 10mins of our flight, it was epic.
5. When we were waiting for our baggage with the million other people waiting for baggage at 2a.m. our lovely flight attendant came running over to a little girl and gave her the stuffed puppy she had left on the plane- she didn't have to ask whose it was, she knew exactly which little girl the puppy belonged to. Amazing.

Thanks flight attendants, we loved sharing our flights with you!

Airplane Etiquette

Flowers at Tulum
Just some random thoughts Steve and I had while discussing our flights, enjoy!

1. Why or how is it that anytime a kid walks down the aisle they find a way to kick your feet or hit your shoulder? Without fail, every time, even if you think your appendages are tucked safely out of the danger zone they still manage to make contact, it's so weird/funny.
2. Passing gas while walking down the aisle is equal to just bending over and letting it off in someone's face, therefore you should squeeze the cheeks to avoid being "that gross guy" who did it like, 5 times...
3. Before boarding your flight- smell check. Nobody wants to sit next to somebody with BO nor does anybody want to share conversation with a person who has ridiculously bad breathe.
4. Which brings me to my biggest pet peeve coming home... When you fall asleep on the plane next to a stranger, isn't it more, um, appropriate (?) to direct your face away from them and perhaps not sleep with your mouth gaping open, thus blowing your disgusting bad breathe all over the other person? I thought so...
5. If your kid is violently sick the day before you leave, and is still violently sick when you're at the airport, perhaps it's a good idea to call the travel agent and see if you can get your kid slightly more "well" before boarding a flight with a few hundred other people. And on that note, if your kid is filling up everyone's "air sickness bags" it might be a good idea to take them to the bathroom and save them the stress of trying to heave into such a small target, thus saving the rest of us all of the awesome sound effects :)

Yesterday in Mexico

I was really REALLY enjoying this view...

Sigh... I very consciously took mental pictures like this all week because I knew what would be awaiting us in Calgary would look much more like winter.

Some observations from the week:
1. White sand is preferable to white snow any day of the week- I would know because I enjoyed the sand for 7 full days and I am not enjoying the snow here at home in anyway.
2. A cool breeze in Calgary is not the same as a cool breeze in Mexico.
3. Just because the sun is shining does not mean you can feel the heat from it.
4. Winter in Mexico is more like summer in Calgary.

I will post more photos in the coming days. We did a lot of fun stuff and took lots of pictures, but since we don't have an indestructible camera, I have to wait to get some of the pictures back from our friends, the Fraser's. Their camera was basically the best of all time for this sort of trip and Angela took an overload of awesome pictures, so we'll wait for some of those.
We really couldn't be more grateful to our parents (both sets) and other family members who stepped in and helped make this week so fun for our kids while we were away too. They were both thrilled to see us but I think they really enjoyed all the extra time with other familiar faces. Kalea even had her very first official swimming lesson! We will post pictures from that as we get them as well.
As for us, our week was full of much of what you see in the above photo, sun, sand, palm trees. We had an awesome day at XPLOR zip lining through the forest, off-roading in ATV's and swimming through an underground river. We saw the ruins at Tulum and heckled with some very charismatic Mexicans. We enjoyed a bunch of activities at our resort including beach volleyball, tennis, snorkeling, windsurfing (I can windsurf, yipee!), catamaran sailing, sunbathing, etc... We ate too much and enjoyed the night time entertainers, haha or making fun of them... Our flight home was delayed so we got home much later than anticipated, but on the bright side, due to lack of superior a/c in the Cancun airport, we got to enjoy the warmth for a little longer than we expected to!
All in all it was a much needed break from our everyday routine and a great opportunity to really take some time just for us. In all honesty a week away from our kids was a lot harder than we thought it would be, especially seeing all the cute kids at our resort. We even got a little bored with not having anyone else to be responsible for, it felt weird. But it was great, it let me know that I have indeed become a mother and breaks are good and well deserved and even needed, but I am sure happy to be back at my "job".