Backing up to June. . .

ARUBA!

We stupidly planned a trip to Aruba with my family leaving 1 week after I was due and hoping the baby was early since none of my other babies have been early. Obviously there was no way I would have any complications of any kind since I already had two perfect deliveries and two perfect babies. We had bought my plane ticket as transferable on the very "off chance" I didn't go. So when Drew was breach and C-section was the choice, the trip was doomed.

I really had thought that I would have been just as happy home with my baby while Ansen had the girls even if they were in Aruba without me. I could sleep, recover and be ready for 3, but as the trip got closer I got sad thinking that I would miss watching the girls swim and see all there was of Aruba and Ansen might miss the first smile or something sweet of Drew. Sunday night I went to bed and 2 hours later I woke up and my water broke. I was 11 days early and while I was devastated I had to have a C-section for sure, I realized that there was a chance of going on the trip after all. And then the blood clot canceled the trip. We still took a shot and the first stop leaving the hospital -Costco for a passport picture and then the Passport office. I got the OK to go from the Dr on Thursday, packed for all 5 on Friday and left on Saturday morning.

We had so much fun! All 3 kids were champs on the plane on the way there, but had a huge melt down from Olivia on the way home (Ansen and I became those parents-threatening everything, promising everything and bribing with everything while we tried to muffle her crying. It felt great.) Aruba was amazing and completely relaxing (minus the iguanas). We spent most of our days swimming, sleeping, reading, and relaxing. Drew received lots of incredulous stares, and made us lots of friends when they people came to look at the tiny baby and his crazy parents.

HIGHLIGHTS:

Church-Wow! Such a tiny ward and a tiny chapel. Half the ward speaks English and half speaks Dutch. They had translators for everyone. Same gospel though.

The LAZY River-We spent everyday, all day, in the lazy river. Or reading, sleeping and enjoying by the river
The Van-My dad ended with a huge, huge shuttle van and we ended up with the only thing we know . . . a Taurus. (Sorry Mom, I know it's a bad pic of you and Ryan-that's your own fault.)

The LAME hats-They gave us Aruba Marriott hats and Ansen and my Mom were legitimately excited about them (we ended up with 2 in our closet). Water slide-Hours spent on the slide as with the other water slides we've vacationed with. It doesn't get old I guess. We could not get Olivia to try, but she loved watching. Airport departure lines- I wish I had a picture of the masses of people leaving the island EVERY weekend. The lines at the airport were miserable and it was one after another. Also, we'll not forget, BARELY making the flight out of SLC. We only got on because we used Ansen's Gold Medallion status to check in and some how they escorted us to the front of security because we had a stroller. You'd think in Utah they would care less. They were paging us by name when we finally made it to the gate.

Snorkeling at Baby Beach- I "opted" to stay at the hotel with Drew and Liv and watch Ace of Cakes while the rest went snorkeling. Ended up they didn't see any fish, waited FOREVER for the public bus and my dad went snorkeling with his wallet so he had to air dry it on the side of the road . . . A tall, skinny, white man waving dollar bills at passing cars, desperate for a ride . . . quite the sight I heard.

Oh, and it was HOT and MISERABLE (or so I heard) waiting for a bus!

Orangastad- Let's see . . . public bus, Ryan was offered drugs 3 times, Jeff 2 times, Ansen and Lisa only once (me notta, I guess with the baby I looked clean), Hotter than anything I can describe, not much too see, but there was a Baskin Robbins . . .

Look how tiny my baby was!

FOOD-Of course, always a memory for us. So, first there was the horrible milk that was way expensive and then went bad in about an hour. The first person to open the milk in the morning got good tasting milk and then as we all eventually made our way over to mom and dad's kitchen the milk got progressively worse until water with cereal sounded appealing. And then there was the gallons on Dt. Coke we went through (to be clear-my mom did not drink any) and the special treat my dad got for himself-Malta. I can't even remember now how we described what it tasted like, but it was horrible. It's what he used to drink on his mission in Venezuela so he loved it and even saved some to bring home. And as always the chaos at mealtime in the kitchen created lots of laughs.

And this isn't the right picture, but we all sacrificed for a night out on the town at Brazzill Grill. Ryan, Kendall, Mom, Dad, me, Ansen and Drew went to the Marriott timeshare presentation while Lisa and Jeff babysat . . . for 3 hours. We got some gift certificates to dinner, which we thought would cover it all, but turns out it's a little pricer in Aruba to get so overly stuffed and sick from an all you can eat buffet. Anyway, it was a night to remember.

And so in the end . . . we had a great family vacation, I almost finished my Sudoku book, Addison learned to swim underwater comfortably, Olivia just plain got in the water, and we came home relaxed and so ready for 3!