December Thoughts

I've never been sure who my "intended audience" is for this blog. I'm posting for ...
* Myself, to keep at least some sort of journal that will be fun to look back on in later years.
* The Christensen and Jennings families that live across the country and want to keep up with us.
* Our friends who we don't see so often.
* The random friends of friends who we may or may not have met that do blog wandering.

I think some of my posts are more intended for one target audience than another, but this post (our 100th) will be my thoughts from the past week. So I guess the intended audience is me, the future me, and anyone who cares what I've thought about Decmeber in Orlando.

Christmas time in Orlando is quite a bit different than any other I've experienced. The past 5 years I spent December in Utah with snow and freezing temperatures. It's really easy to get into the Christmas mood there with all the traditions they have up there. With the Lights at Temple Square, Mormon Tabernacle Choir's Concert, Stephen's Hot Cocoa, Playing in the Snow, Family Christmas Parties and bundling up to leave the house ... it's definitely Christmasy.

I've spent the past 20+ years in Arizona on Christmas Day itself. Even though it's not Utah cold, it's normally 50-60 degrees in December and cold enough to need coats and hot cocoa. We love the Mesa Temple Lights, the house lights in our neighborhood, and all the other specific traditions we Christensen kids have come up with over the years.

Here in Orlando we've been starting from scratch here with our traditions. The weirdest part is the weather. When we got back from our cruise it was pretty chilly, highs were in the upper 60s and got down to the 50s at night. For the first time since moving here, I wore boots, long sleeved shirts, coats, sweaters, and we turned off our AC. I was expecting it to stay like that all December, but it only lasted a few days and then got warm again. Earlier this week the highs were in the 80s and I went out Christmas shopping in shorts and a t-shirt. I blasted my Elf Soundtrack CD from my car speakers, but it still felt like I was pretending...

Luckily it got COLD again yesterday ... (and by cold I mean 50s for the high) and I swear with the humidity it really feels colder than that. It's crazy how happy it made me to be cold. Even Tyler admitted it was cold (big step) and wore a jacket!

There are no Christmas Lights up at the Orlando Temple, but luckily we've been able to get our fix in through Disney. Each of the parks does a little something special for Christmas. The biggest display is at Hollywood Studios. We went there last week and were amazed by the millions of lights and the "snow" that fell from the sky. They had the lights choreographed to Christmas songs that was actually really neat.

Last night we went to Epcot, and everyone was bundled up, it was so fun to see!

Epcot holds a Candlelight Processional each night with a large choir, orchestra and a Celebrity Narrator telling the Christmas Story. Last night the narrator was Andy Garcia. We didn't realize how crowded and popular the event would be, even getting there 20 mins early there were no seats. We stood in the back and were still able to enjoy it from back there luckily.

We're planning on going to Magic Kingdom next week where we can see the castle all done up in lights. It's just so crazy to think that next year at this time we'll be doing all these traditions with our 8 month old son!!!
As seen in the above picture, my baby bump is getting bigger every day! I really am showing quite a bit now and the little guy has been moving like CRAZY the past week. Every time I sit or lay down at night he starts kicking or dancing or doing somersaults --not quite sure what he's doing but he's really active. Tyler's been able to put his hand on my tummy and feel him move too, it's been so exciting for both of us this week. In just 4 days we'll be going to Utah and Arizona for the rest of December. One week from today Ashley and Scott will be getting married.

I'm probably going to FREEZE in Utah because I'm thinking that this 50 degree weather is bad .. but I'm excited to be able to spend the holidays in 3 different states this year!

5 months along

OK I realize now that the little baby bumps in the previous posts were pretty much non-existent. I promise I was showing a little bit, but the pictures really didn't capture it. Now, there's NO hiding the bump! Here I am now at 5 months along - only 4 months to go! And there really is a bump!

I went from eating one small meal a day to eating about 5 each day! Now I'm hungry all the time, I'm starting to feel more and more movement inside and I'm only needing to take one Zofran a week or so. The weight gain has begun and we're getting more and more excited to meet this little guy!!

PS - If you think you're sick of hearing about the Tiger Woods thing - try living 5 minutes away from Tiger and where the "crash" took place. We have paparazzi and news reporters everywhere trying to get pictures of him and they're blocking all the roads! And since it's "local" it's even more all over the news and newspapers! He lives in a gated community so they're all just driving around the 3 different entrance gates that I need to drive past to get anywhere around Windermere. And they're all still here a week later --- don't they have anything better to do??

Caribbean Thanksgiving

We had an amazing time on our Caribbean Cruise - we sailed on the Crown Princess which was almost identical to the boat we sailed on for our honeymoon. I didn't get sick which was a blessing and we had great excursions on all the islands. Other than some bad weather the last couple days - the trip was a complete success!!

First 2 days on the boat -

1st stop: Grand Cayman - We took a boat ride out to a sand bar known as "Sting Ray City" where we held, fed, and kissed wild sting rays. They have become tame over the years since being fed by tourists, so they will swim right up to you! It was a little scary at first, but over time we got used to it and I was able to hold one for a couple minutes. We also went snorkeling out on a reef and did a little sight seeing throughout the town.

2nd Stop: Roatan, Honduras - We took a taxi ride to a resort on the west end of the island. We were able to use their facilities throughout the day which made for a really chill day. The highlight of the day was when we rented a kayak and paddled out to a reef to go snorkeling. Some of the pictures below are pictures from the kayak and the view back to the beach.

Here is my "22 week" photo -- you can see there is a definite bump now! It was also accentuated quite a bit since I'm wearing a skin-tight swimsuit...

3rd stop: Cozumel, Mexico - Sadly this day was cut short due to an intense thunder and rainstorm that hit the island around 11 am. We went to Park Chankanaab which is a preserved area where they have snorkeling, dolphin shows, and Mayan ruins. We were able to do about one hour of snorkeling and viewed the dolphins for a bit before it started pouring rain. We waited it out for an hour or so, but it never let up so we headed back to the ship. We're just glad we at least got to do a little something, when many people on our boat had their tours completely cancelled. Cozumel was beautiful, though, and we could see Cancun a few miles away - it's crazy that we were just there this summer.

You can see the clouds getting ready to just DROP the big rainstorm on us!

THANKSGIVING - we spent the day at sea, so we weren't really anywhere on Thanksgiving this year, just somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico I suppose. The weather was still cloudy this day, so we mostly spent time napping, reading, and watching the satellite broadcasted football games of course... There was a formal dinner that night and we got a reservation for 2 so we could spend the night with our little family of 2 1/2. The food was very traditional Thanksgiving and was actually the best tasting we had the whole week.

It was an awesome week & now we have just 15 days before we fly to Utah for Ashley's Wedding!