Welcome Baby Acadia!

I'm very excited to announce the birth of my first niece, Acadia Belle Brace.  She was born today, February 9, at 12:55 pm weighing in at 7 lbs, 8 oz and 21 inches long.  She was named after Acadia National Park which is in the great state of Maine, the state in which she was born (Bangor, Maine to be exact).  Acadia, I'll be forever grateful to you for holding off to this week so that I could enjoy a vacation!  As it is, she was born nine days early as she wasn't due until the 18th.  Giving birth the second time is clearly much easier as Camille only pushed three times and out she popped.  She's all well and healthy so happy times.  I'm still waiting on a report as to how Camden received her.  I'm sure he has no clue what he's in for.  Of course, I've been talking about the event all day with Calleigh and Aubree and I told them that "Now Camden has a sister just like you."  But Calleigh keeps insisting, "No, we're having a brother."  I can't get her fixated off the new baby just enough for her to realize "Oh yeah, I have Aubree."

Obviously we've been back from the cruise for a number of days but it's just been so busy in the evenings, trying to catch up on work and other things.  But I would be happy to reminisce about those wonderful three days.

The northeast, or rather practically half the country, was struck with storms on Tuesday and Wednesday so as I had mentioned previously, I was on the edge of my seat as to whether my parents would get away or not.  Fortunately they had no problems at all.  Our ship left on Thursday at 4 pm out of Port Canaveral with boarding starting at 12:30 which happened to be the same time my parents arrived.  We got Elaine to take the girls and go pick them up so we could be there around 12:30.  We rolled into port and the first thing we saw was the new ship, the Disney Dream.  Next to it, now paling in comparison, was our boat, the Carnival Sensation which was built almost 20 years ago.  No matter.  Honestly, there wasn't much that could get me down about this voyage.  It could have rained the entire time and I still would have been happy.  I won't go into play by play of all that we did but needless to say, much of the time was spent doing nothing but lying there reading a book which if you know me well enough, you'll know that this is absolutely one of my most favorite things to do right up there with going to yard sales.  Friday we made our one stop in Nassau, Bahamas which I must say, visiting once would be perhaps more than enough, but this was probably my fifth time there and way more than we needed.  We did decide to hike down to the beach though for a bit and then after a late lunch, went into some shops to find some things for the girls.  Because of Sabbath, most of Friday night and Sabbath was spent in our cabin or the dining room.

We had originally been scheduled for the early dining option of 6 pm but upon learning we were seated at a table of ten, we changed to the 8:15 seating in order to get a table to two.  Yes, we felt like being anti-social.  What can I say.  Hey, the way I see it, how often is it just the two of us anyway?  It worked out much nicer to have the later time anyway because we ate lunch late because we ate breakfast late.  I was very pleased with the food and Duncan swears the Indian food he had on the last night was the best meal he's ever had on a cruise.  I, of course, did not partake of the Indian food, but that's just me and my pickiness.   What I did partake of each night, and what seriously may have me cruising only on Carnival for the rest of my life, was the warm chocolate melting cake.  It is just too delicious for words.

Friday night was the formal night and what a pair we made.  I looked like a raccoon of the worst sort.  I was a major numbnut and didn't put sunblock on my face in time.  I was sitting up on deck while we were coming into port and with the wind and fairly mild temps (it wasn't cold or anything but it wasn't that hot), I didn't realize how much sun I was getting.  So I ended up as quite a sight to behold.  The only thing that could possibly distract someone from my cartoonish appearance was the fact that Duncan was wearing flip flops with his suit.  He had been talking with a colleague on the phone while he packed and as he later admitted, it was a big mistake.  He made a few errors in judgement with his packing.  Oh well.  As I said, nothing could put a damper on things.

That's the Disney Dream in the middle with our boat on the right and the Norwegian Epic on the left.  

Yes, I'm having two desserts.  I couldn't give up on the melting cake but the suffle was too good to pass on.   Actually, baby Grodack said he really wanted it so I had to do it. 

Our room.

So we had a great time pretty much doing nothing.  I thought about the girls a lot but I didn't get depressed or anything.  Calleigh certainly wasn't depressed when we left.  She stood outside the front door with Grandma waving vigorously and shouting "See you Sunday."  I'm sure that helps since if they had been all sad and depressed, I would have felt very bad.  But I knew they were in good hands with my mom and obviously that made it a little more exciting anyway, getting to be with someone they don't see often.  But I'll tell you, driving home Sunday morning almost had the feel of Christmas.  I couldn't wait!!  The trip was exactly what I needed and it was just the right length.

My mother reported, I hope truthfully, that all went well.  I know it can be harder than it looks so I'm very grateful she stepped in.  My dad helped too, of course, although he was gone from Friday night to Saturday night to Clearwater where he was holding some meetings.  They went to the Science Center, the mall, Sweet Tomatoes, church, among other places.  I told my mother that no secrets are sacred.  Yesterday Calleigh informed me "We had a lot of ice cream when Gigi was here.  It made us fat."  Yes, I discovered all the chocolate stains this morning when I started doing laundry.  They'll probably be permanent reminders too because I've never had any luck getting chocolate out of clothes especially at this late date.

We made it back early enough on Sunday to join the crew at First Watch.  Since it was SuperBowl Sunday, we had a bunch of people over to watch the game and eat.  Although, in reality, we cared more about the commercials than the game.  It's kindof tough watching it when your team lost in the playoffs.  Nonetheless, we were all thrilled when the Steelers lost since we didn't want Roethlisberger to have as many rings as Brady.  And then Rad and I won $150 (combined) so that added a little extra excitement to the event.

My mother's Aunt Estelle passed away on the previous Wednesday night (2/2) and her funeral was Tuesday morning.  My parents changed their flight from Tuesday morning to Monday early afternoon. So I had a little less time with them than we had anticipated but obviously, understandable.  I guess you could say it was very good timing with everything because they were able to go to the funeral and then Acadia came today so it all worked out.

Yesterday was a bit of a stinky day for me.  The first thing was a trip to the dentist for a cleaning.  So much for a simple cleaning.  First, the hygienist discovered that the wire behind my bottom teeth (I got the wire after I did Invisalign a number of years ago) had broken in one spot.  I'm thinking this is a simple fix but it turns out that they'll have to take off all the brackets to get to the wire and do a new impression of my teeth just to put in a new wire.  But that's not the worst part.  My top tooth, the one with the crown on it (from getting hit with that doggone softball way back when), is moving forward.  Apparently one of my bottom teeth is hitting into it now for some unknown reason.  The solution is to wear a retainer to move it back into place.  You know, one of those things that a teenager would wear after getting their braces off.  But not only that, once it moves back into place, I would then need to wear a retainer at night for the rest of my life.  You could say I'm not very thrilled with this development.  I go on March 2 to start this process and I think my first question will be as to whether I can't just get a wire on the back of my front teeth like I do on the bottom (although this obviously can break).  On top of all this, Monday night I started feeling some tingling on my bottom lip which, as the cold sore expert I am, knew it meant that cold sores were imminent.  Yup, up sprouted two on Tuesday morning.  The hygienist tells me "Oh, he can just zap those really quick with the laser and you'll be set."  It was so off handed that I thought it was just something he could do right then and there for nothing.  Nope.  Come to find out, after I got it done, it's $54 and I had to come back for two other treatments.  The treatment itself is only two minutes long but considering its a 25 minutes drive one way, it's a bit of a hassle.  I guess it's a good thing you have three treatments in total because this morning, they looked worse than yesterday and "they" had turned from two sores to about four.  I say "about" four because my bottom lip is so messed up that I can barely tell where one soar ends and another beings.  My top lip sprouted one too.  Ahhh, the price of fun in the sun.  I am so stupid.  So today I dragged the girls there for my second treatment and tomorrow we go for the third.  I think it may have helped a little but I'll be curious to see the result tomorrow.

After the dentist, we made a stop at this place nearby called "Petty's" that Duncan had gotten a $75 gift certificate for.  It's a deli and market that has all kinds of specialty products like olives oils, sauces, mustards, cheeses, etc.  It was a little overwhelming with two kids in tow so I only spent a little of it and told Duncan we needed to go back because I'm sure he'd love it.  From there, it was on to the "blue" playground.  It was a beautiful day outside and but it's going downhill from here although I've just noticed that the weather has changed from raindrops to just a cloud on Friday so maybe there's still hope we can do yard sales.

That brings us up to now.  Nice to be caught up!  The girls are well.  But I'll tell you, it's darn hard not to kiss them.  I keep going in for one and then remembering at the last moment that I'm a cold sore freak.  Completely off that topic, Calleigh has actually been sleeping in her bed again.  It's been the futon for the last whatever months.  I'm not sure what has brought this on.  She's so excited though about Aubree moving in to her room come June.  At least once a day she been hugging Aubree excitedly and saying "Aubree, you're going to sleep in this room once the new baby comes!"  And then in the next breath she's telling me "We should get BUNK BEDS!"  I definitely don't see that happening (I mean, four is too young for a kid to be on a top bunk I should think) but we'll have to come up with something interesting.

Okay, I'm going to have to end here.  Duncan is bugging me to watch a show!