Show Us Your Life - Honeymoon

Today on Kelly's Korner is Show Us Your Life - Honeymoon. We had an absolutely fantastic honeymoon in St. Croix...The US Virgin Islands. We stayed at The Carambola Beach Resort with our room just steps away from the beautiful beach. The first day of our stay we planned our activities and excursions for the week. We saw plenty of great attractions on the island, had wonderful meals, and plenty of rest and relaxtion on the beach.

We toured the Cruzan Rum Factory, visited the Botanical Gardens, toured a plantation, watched Forth of July Fireworks, went horse back riding, went snorkeling (which I hated), had a wonderful private dinner on the beach and lived it up at the resort. We also took a Sea Plane ride to the island of St. Thomas...what a wonderful experience! While in St. Thomas we traveled by tram to Paradise Point. Paradise Point provides a beutiful view of the island. One of the main attractions in St. Thomas is the shopping which we did plenty of while on the island. One day we took a ferry ride to the island of St. John. Unfortunately, we didn't have much time to spend on the island, but we were still very happy to have a small glimpse of this little slice of paradise.

We do have two funny stories which took place on our honeymoon. The majority of the locals on the island don't speak English very well so at times there was a bit of a communication gap. We had a cab ride scheduled to drive us to board the sea plane to St. Thomas. Obviously, there was a communication problem because the cab driver took us to the local hospital instead....LOL! Another funny story which took place was...One day I had a one hour massage scheduled. While I was being pampered, my husband took a cab ride to the local K-Mart to purchase Cruzan Rum for us to bring home. Everyone told us the rum was much less expensive at K-Mart than the rum factory. Obviously, not the most romantic activity we did on our honeymoon!

We have so many pictures from our honeymoon, however not many are scanned on the computer. Unfortunately, we didn't own a digital camera in 2003 so the picture quality isn't the best. These pictures are just a small glimpse into our fantastic honeymoon. We would LOVE to go back one day. Looking back through our album brought back so many great memories. Life certainly has changed since then...mostly for the better...Thanks to Kyle, our three year old son!

Dinner for Two on the Beach!

St. Thomas

Whim Plantation Carambola Beach Resort Paradise Point...St. Thomas

Relaxing at the resort

Dinner at The Waves in St. Croix

Take Me Out To The Ball Game

Thursday was a very exciting day for The Spence Family. Kyle attended his very first Major League Baseball Game....The St. Louis Cardinals vs. The San Francisco Giants. We had such a fun night and Kyle really enjoyed being in the midst of all the excitement. We sat in our actual seats for five innings, which was longer than we had anticipated. The remainder of the game, we toured around the stadium and let Kyle play/run around the family courtyard area. The stadium where the Cardinals play, Busch Stadium, has only been open since 2006 and the ball park is awesome!

We couldn't have asked for better weather for an outdoor baseball game in July! To top it off our home team won the game....with a score of 5-2. Since Kyle had such a good time, we are hoping to get tickets to attend another game this season! We do have several pictures to highlight our fun family outing! Enjoy!

A Striking Good Time

Saturday night, John and I had a casual date night. As much as we love taking Kyle out and about it's always nice to have a night out sans Kyle. Since our last night out was to celebrate our anniversary we decided to have a low key night...dinner and bowling!

We started the night at 54th Street Bar and Grill for dinner. This is a new restaurant which opened not too long ago that we have been wanting to try. We both had the filet mignon and certainly enjoyed the peace and quiet without having to entertain a certain someone. It is definitely a Kyle friendly restaurant so we will head back with Kyle in the future.

After dinner, we went bowling. In the past, John has been on bowling leagues and he is a very good bowler. I, on the other hand, am a terrible bowler, but still enjoy "attempting" to play. Needless, to say John won all four games we played...I won't even mention scores...it would be way to embarrasing for me! On our way home, we stopped for a special treat....concretes! Yummy! The perfect way to end a wonderful date! Hopefully, he will ask me out again...stay tuned...LOL!

New Office

A couple of month's ago John's office moved to a new location. Kyle and I received the grand tour this weekend. I enjoyed the tour and it was good to see where John spends countless hours per week "makin' the bacon". Kyle's favorite thing about Da-Dee's new office was the phone. Kyle loves to "talk" on the phone and is extremely animated when he does... he really believes he is carrying on a real conversation! He also loved exploring and wanted to play at all the desks. I really hope no one noticed anything out of place when they arrived to work yeaterday...LOL!

Happy Birthday!!

Today is John's birthday! Unfortunately, for him it was an ordinary day at work, but he was able to come home this evening and celebrate with his little family. He was greeted at the door with a bag full of birthday cards and a few gifts. John was pleasantly surprised since our new kitchen was his birthday gift. Inside his festive bag, he unwrapped cologne...Eternity and Cool Water and a new book. Kyle and I also took him out to dinner this evening to Red Robin. It's always a good decision since the restaurant is very Kyle friendly and holds his attention long enough to enjoy our meal. We hope you had a wonderful birthday...Kyle and I love you very much!

Quality Time With DaDee

On our recent trip to New Orleans, John and Kyle were able to spend some quality father/son time together while I was visiting with friends. They spent the morning at Audubon Park in the Uptown part of the city...across from Tulane University. Audubon Park is a gorgeous park with many tremendous beautiful oak trees. John and I spent plenty of time at this park while we were dating since it was very close to where I lived. We have many memories from Audubon Park...hours talking getting to know one another, planning parts of our wedding, and planning our honeymoon. I would have loved to join them in visiting the park, but it is important for the "boys" to have time alone and bond.

Kyle looks as though he is pondering the meaning of life. Sometimes puddles are just more fun.

Checking out Audubon Park

New Orleans French Quarter

Last night Poppie came over to our hotel and spent some quality time with Kyle while John and I went on a "date". John and I went to the French Quarter for dinner and we ate at The Gumbo Shop, one of John's favorites in New Orleans. We had a delicious dinner which consisted of...seafood gumbo, barbeque shrimp, crawfish etoufee (my entree), and a combination dinner with jambaylaya, shrimp creole, and crawfish etoufee (John's entree). The food was fabulous! The food is one thing I miss so much since moving from New Orleans. It was such a special treat to have some "true" New Orleans style food.

After dinner we walked around the French Quarter and headed to Pat O'Briens and also to the Cat's Meow, an extremely fun karoke bar, for a cocktail. We had such a nice, relaxing, "quiet" evening out on the town. Thanks so much to Poppie (my Dad) for watching Kyle!

John and I in the courtyard at Pat O's

Who Is My Spouse?

After doing some more blog hopping, I came across another interesting questionaire...everything you have ever wanted to know about my wonderful husband!

1. He's sitting in front of the TV, what is on the screen? Sports or Poker 2. You're out to eat; what kind of dressing does he get on his salad? Blue Cheese 3. What's one food he doesn't like? Peas 4. You go out to the bar. What does he order? Bar–Beer, Restaurant Bar–red wine 5. Where did he go to high school? Clinton High in Clinton, MS. 6. What size shoe does he wear? 8 1/2 7. If he was to collect anything, what would it be? Baseball Cards 8. What is his favorite type of sandwich? Ham and Swiss on Rye 9. What would this person eat every day if he could? White Cheddar Popcorn 10. What is his favorite cereal? Raisin Bran 11. What would he never wear? Sandals 12. What is his favorite sports team? St. Louis Cardinals 13. Who will he vote for? McCain/Palin 14. Who is his best friend? Besides his wife, the guy responsible for introducing him to his wife 15. What is something you do that he wishes you wouldn't do? Wear earplugs 16. How many states has he lived in? Three…Missouri, Illinois, and Mississippi 17. What is his heritage? French and English 18. You bake him a cake for his birthday; what kind of cake? Chocolate 19. Did he play sports in high school? Tennis 20. What could he spend hours doing? Playing on-line poker

If anyone would like to play along, please leave a comment so I can view your responses.

Like Father, Like Son

This is a sweet little post John and I have wanted to share for a long time. It required us to take a little adventure to take a few pictures at a particular location, so this morning was the day!

We went to Greensfelder Memorial Shelter located on the outskirts of Creve Coeur Lake Park. 42 years ago, when John was 14 months old (July '66), his parents and grandmother were at this location and these pictures are displayed in his baby book. We have wanted to go back there to get pictures of our family at Greensfelder as well.

Isn't John a cutie? John is currently about the same age as his Dad in this picture.

John's Mom certainly adores her son...can't you tell? John, his Mother, and Grandmother overlooking the lake.

Household Responsibility

When John and I got married we did everything together... shopping, errands, cleaning, yard work, etc. This continued until Kyle came along and then we began doing things separately. John does help with dishes, laundry, and keeping the house in order. I also help with the outside chores such as mowing the grass. With John working so much lately, I've been attempting to try and get more things done so he doesn't have to worry about taking care of it when he is home.

We have begun to question if we need to divide the work between us...each having our separate responsibilities. This dilema started last week when I attempted to cut the grass. I had cut half of the front yard and needed to take a break. Yep, it was probably close to 90 degrees and it was the heat of the day. I went to restart the lawn mower and no luck. After trying for a few minutes, I decided to check the oil. It seemed really low so I added a can of oil. Thinking, how brilliant I was to think of such a technical fix to my problem, I started the mower again. This time it started..Yeah, I can finish now! No...the mower sounded like it was on it's last leg and had white smoke pouring out of it. I was afraid I would blow the mower up so I quit before that disaster occured. Come to find out I put WAY too much oil in the mower, so when John came home we had to drain most of it out. Not a pleasant experience. So, I may be fired from my mowing duties for now...which might not be a bad thing!

Fast forward to last night. While I was out last night, John was so kind to finish up the remainder of the laundry. John has always done what he calls "bachelor" laundry, meaning he washes everything together..whites, darks, etc. This bachelor load didn't turn out so great. He managed to turn my new white shorts and my new white shirt pink by washing it with a brand new red shirt. (Can you tell we went on a shopping spree.) Needless, to say he isn't very happy that I will be going shopping again to replace my shirt and shorts, which also means I will most likely find more clothes I want to buy!

So, our lesson in all of this...I will be responsible for laundry and John will be responsible for mowing. In my eyes, this isn't such a bad thing since my chore can be done inside where it is nice and cool!

How do you have your household responsibilites divided? Any funny or not so funny stories you have to share? I'm always up for a good laugh at the expense of others...LOL!

E Is For...

EATING

Unfortunately, feeding has been one of the hardest struggles we have had with Kyle. I'm not sure why I decided to highlight this on the blog since it was never an enjoyable time. The pictures below of John and me are probably the only times we were smiling while feeding Kyle. To this day, eating is still a tremendous challenge, but it is slowly getting better. I assume everyone has their major challenge in raising their children...I guess eating is just ours. There weren't many pictures to choose from for this entry, since that is one time of day the camera is far away...LOL.

Mommy and Kyle

November '05 Poppy and Kyle (my Dad)

February '06

Daddy and Kyle

March '06

Kyle eating sweet potatoes. May '06

I'm not sure if he got more "in" his body or "on" his body. 1st Birthday Cake October '06

ABC's of Blogging

A is For...

B is For...

C is For...

D is For...

D is For...

DADDY

Daddy is Kyle's second favorite person in the world, Mommy being his favorite...LOL! Actually, that's not a correct statement because Kyle doesn't favor either one of us...he loves us both equally!

Included are some photos to document John's journey as a Daddy! He is such a loving, thoughtful, and caring Daddy...and husband, too!

Kyle and Daddy -NICU Nov. '05

1st Father's Day - June '06 Rombach's Pumpkin Patch - Oct. '06 Kyle and Daddy in the Smoky Mountains Sept. '07

ABC's of Blogging A is For... B is For... C is For...