Reading The Comics

After swimming lessons, Sunday afternoons Makayla takes her shower and spends time reading the comics. I thought she looked cute sitting there so I snapped her picture ... I got the response "Mom, Really?"

Happy Mother's Day

It was a great Mother's Day weekend and I was terribly spoiled! Friday night, Dwight drove to Northfield (over an hour round trip) to get me a Casey's Taco Pizza for dinner and we watch We Bought A Zoo.  Makayla was so eager for me to open my gifts, she wouldn't let me wait until Mother's Day. Makayla made me a wonderful book at school ... she makes the best books!

My mom is special! I love when she sometimes comes for lunch at school and she makes the best lunch.

My mom is special! She is AWESOME at cooking yummy food and she cleans the whole house.

My mom has a beautiful smile! I make her smile when I give her a big hug and kiss.

Mommy, I love you
For all that you do.
I'll kiss you and hug you
Because you love me too.

You feed me and need me
To teach you to play.
So smile because I love you
On this Mother's Day!

Marvelous
Outrageous
Terrific
Happy
Excellent
Remarkable

Dwight got me a digital picture frame for work, it's an 8" and holds up to 800 pictures.  I've been wanting one for quiet sometime. So please send me some pictures! Also, I was joking last week how lovely Dwight's car was smelling so he got me the same air freshener that he has. Silly boy!

On Saturday, Makayla helped me scope out a few locations for some up-coming photo sessions. She was extremely happy that they were parks with monkey bars. SHE LOVES MONKEY BARS! Her hands have become so calloused ... I don't remember my hands being that bad.  Below are some pictures of her showing me her moves.

We grilled up some meat that had been sitting in our fridge: ribs, chicken and steak ... these will make some great meals for the week, can't wait! Spent a lot of time outside and then went on a long bike ride to feed the returning ducks and geese. Came back home to eat a big bowl of watermelon before heading to bed early.

Sunday morning the alarm went off around 4:30 am and got ready to volunteer our time at Mall of America for Race for the Cure.  We were assigned on the west-side, first level of the Mall. We greeted everyone, gave directions and talked with families. Met a lot of amazing and strong women!

After our shift was over, Dwight took us to Old Country Buffet for a Mother's Day brunch and then it was back home to take a nap. Makayla curled up with me in bed and we fell asleep right away. I slept 2 hours and MK slept 3!

A very relaxing afternoon/evening with swimming lessons, preparing dinners for the week and doing a little cleaning. Makayla informed me tonight that it was one of the best weekends ever!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day!

The Craft Room

The only area of the house dedicated to crafting, which is ironic because no crafting is ever done in here because of the mess below. Actually, this picture was taken last month when I attempted to clean it. I only lasted an hour and ended up being defeated. So, it looked a lot worse than this.

It's Clean! I took me over 5 hours to complete it, but it's clean. Even Mister is enjoying the space. He can now lay on the table.

Now, I have a few projects to work on. Including this watering can that my sister sent for my niece's up-coming wedding.

In The Break Of Rain

In the break of rain, God produced the most amazing rainbow!

Happy Cinco De Mayo

It rained and stormed all day Saturday! Makayla was invited to her best friend's birthday party early in the afternoon, she was excited because the party was at Manic Ceramic. It's a paint your own pottery studio. After the party MK was so board she asked if her friend from school could come over to play and have dinner with us ... sure why not!

We had a fun Cinco De Mayo dinner planned and MK was happy that her friend, Lauren, could come. The girls are shown here toasting their margaritas ... OK, it's only lemonade.

Cooking Inspiration

One of my New Year's Resolutions this year was to do more cooking, especially since we have this grass fed beef stocked in our freezer. I stumbled on to a cooking show a few months ago on the Food Network and fell in love with her style of cooking ... simple, easy and not afraid to use beef. Plus, she loves photography ... we were meant to be! Her name is Rae Drummon and is known as The Pioneer Woman.

So far the family favorites are (each one is linked to the recipe):
Big Fat Bacon Sliders (this is Dwight's favorite)
Beef and Bean Burritos
Perfect Pot Roast
Barbecue Chicken

I love her recipes so much, I went and bought her latest recipe book so I can make notes and mark pages. I find myself losing pages if I print them off the Internet and I don't really have an organization to my binder. Any suggestions would greatly be appreciated!

Happy Cooking!

Back From My Life Break

I blame life for the lack of blog posts. It seems like we have been so busy, even my camera has been neglected so I hope you don't take it personally.

Since being promoted at work I have been spending a lot of time there and now there is no escape at home because I was branded with a company blackberry. So, that is enough about full-time work ...

In part-time work ... photography business is starting to pick up for the year. Now that it's getting nice out, despite all the rain we've been getting, people are thinking about pictures. Part of me wishes I had an indoor studio right now but that is on my "new house wish-list". I have two clients scheduled for June and have been talking to a few other to set up dates. I also have been freshening up my social media pages and I'm working on a few advertising pieces.

Let's see over the course of the last few weeks I have had a sprained ankle because I slipped with my high heels on and then last Sunday I spent in the ER. Thankfully, it only ended up being the stomach flu and later I found out that a few other people at work had it too.

Well, enough about me ....

Makayla is doing great! She had her first sleepover a few weeks ago, Harper came to spend the night. Of course it rained so we took the girls to the arcade. They had a great time playing games, picking out prizes and running around. Though when Harper woke up Sunday morning she didn't feel well, when I took her temperature it was 102 degrees. We had been trying to schedule this sleepover for quite sometime but it seemed that something always came up. First Harper had 5th disease and then it was lice, we don't have very good luck.

Makayla is officially done with GodZone until the fall. She has almost read the entire bible, we have about 20 chapters left and then she gets a t-shirt for completing it. We truly value all the programs they offer and we've made some good friends over the years.

Makayla is almost done with school and then we will officially have a 2nd grader on our hands. The last day of school is the second week of June, I can't believe how fast the year has gone by already. She is currently learning about plants and geometry. She has been writing a ton of books lately and her illustrations are amazing. I don't think I was even drawing this well at her age. She is a talented little girl. I hope this is something that she continues to do throughout her life.

We've also been trying to do a little spring cleaning in Makayla's room and the craft room. We are almost done so I'll have to post pictures when we finish. Last Saturday, before I got sick, I spend 5 hours in the craft room cleaning ... YES 5 HOURS! It was so bad that Makayla would just throw her craft stuff in the door and then shut it ... we eventually couldn't even open the door, that's how bad it was. We will now have rules and consequences for breaking those rules.

Happy Easter

I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last blog post, yikes! I've always kept up on family happenings but this is crazy!

Makayla had spring break a few weeks ago so every morning she hung out with me at work until Dwight was done with his shift. He would bring her home and then she would hang out for a few hours in the afternoon by herself while he went to bed. During this time she wrote two books, yes wrote AND illustrated two books while on spring break. I think we have a future writer on our hands. She was reader of the day last week at school and she brought one of her books to read. Her teacher held on to it so show some staff members.

Makayla is shown above doing crossword puzzles during breakfast ... all she needs is a cup of coffee!

We were also able to meet Nana and Papa in Clear Lake last weekend. The weather man's forecast wasn't exactly right, it was cold and rainy so we didn't get a chance to have a picnic like we planned. We hung out at KFC, ate lunch and played Sequence until it was time to go.

I was officially promoted to Employee Health and Safety Manager so I've been putting in a lot of hours at work. I have been slowly training my employee in all the communication projects I am currently working on as we fill his other position within the company. My director has signed me up for supervisor classes and have been learning how to approve his time card, etc. I'm looking forward to diving in to safety!

As the announcement came out about my promotion at work, on Thursday I slipped and fell on my way to the restroom. I walked on it all day thinking everything was fine. It did hurt a little but by the time I got home it was unbearable. Took off my sock to realize the side of my ankle was as big as a tennis ball. Dwight and Makayla drove me to urgent care to find out that I sprained my ankle. I need to wear an air cast for 2-4 weeks, follow up with my doctor in 2 weeks and keep my foot elevated and iced for a week (depending on the swelling). It's finally now starting to feel fine so hopefully it will heal normally.

I can't believe Easter is already here! We spent Saturday decorating the house, eggs and planned for our Easter lunch. We also ventured out to see Mirror Mirror, funny movie. MK gave it two thumbs up!

Makayla has been involved with an afternoon class for a month now, every Thursday.  She has been taking paper craft creations and this last week created two chicks to decorate the house for Easter. We also received cards from Granny Kay, Great Aunt Betty and Cousin Jill, Josh and Andrew.

The Easter Bunny came and delivered a bunch of goodies to Makayla. We played a game of Clue before lunch and it took us 1/2 hour to explain it ... she is starting to catch on, in fact she won the first game she played!

After Clue, she helped prepare lunch by getting the carrots ready. She has been doing a lot of stuff around the house lately. She normally unloads the dishwasher but she now puts the dishes away. Making sure the cats have fresh food and water, helping set the table and cleaning up after meals. She has always been very responsible and happy that she can have a little bit more responsibility around the house.

Last Couple Weeks

What has been going on since we got back from vacation?  We have been trying to get back in the swing of things. We got back from vacation on Thursday, March 1 and we kept Makayla home from school that Friday. For that first week back Makayla was a pistol. She didn't want to listen, she didn't want to do her chores, she really didn't want to do anything besides crying, yelling, stomping and slamming doors. I'm calling that post-vacation depression, if that isn't something it really should be!

It wasn't until last Friday, she was a happy little girl again and I have truely enjoyed not yelling at her! Maybe the show we saw at the Orpheum theatre in Minneapolis turned things around that night. I scored some free tickets at work for Shen Yun. Dwight and Makayla came to the Mall for dinner and then we hopped on the light rail to downtown Minneapolis. We walked about 4 blocks before reaching the Orpheum. I wasn't sure how Dwight was going to like the performance but in the end he loved it. So the Swanson Family experienced a little culture and liked it! Shen Yun productions draw their inspiration from China's 5,000 years of civilization. Values such as compassion and loyalty, kindness and bravery lie at the heart of traditional Chinese culture.

It has been crazy at work since I've been back, I left for vacation in great mood. I had my annual review and I got a higher raise than normally given and we talked about a promotion. My current position, Employee Communication and Wellness Specialist will now become Employee Health and Safety Manager and I will be managing one employee who will handle all the communication. Very exciting! I started at the Park back in 1997, HR in 1999 and now this year will be my 15th year with the Mall. When I started in HR, I assisted in safety but when we merged with the Mall that role went away. I'm excited to get back into safety but I realize I have big shoes to fill. The former safety manager left because of health reasons and she had been in that role a very long time.

Thursday night I photographed a wedding.  I offered my services to a coworker of mine, she had thrown together this wedding in just a few short weeks. It was a very small (only 30 friends and family) wedding. She really didn't have a set plan in mind for pictures, I was just there to capture what I could. It was a challenge, the kids didn't want to look at the camera and lots of family members were trying to take pictures as well, so they had stepped in front of my lens. Other than that it was such a fun wedding!

Makayla jumped rope for heart on Thursday afternoon! Thank you to all who donated money! She was able to raise over $100, she exceeded her goal!

Friday, we took Lady in to see the vet. She hasn't been doing very well, can't keep her food down and now possible losing control of her bladder. We pulled MK out of school just in case something seriously had to be done. Lady has been losing weight, she is only at 6 pounds. The vet says she is just a small cat and she has a small bladder. They ran some blood tests for urinary track infection and diabetes and thankfully all the tests came back normal. Her teeth are really bad, this is something that has been an ongoing struggle since we adopted her. It's too the point that her body is now eating her teeth and eventually they will fall out and her gums will repair itself. She's not in any pain, more annoying than anything. We could take her to get her teeth done but the vet said we are looking at $1,000. Yikes! The vet gave us prescription cat food for her but she didn't like it so he said to continue doing canned food. So far she has been doing great! Friday night Dwight went to play cards with the seniors so Makayla and I hung out, went to the pet store to find some cat toys and priced out food for Lady.

Makayla was supposed to have a sleepover on Saturday but we found out that her friend Harper had lice so they had to cancel the sleepover. She cried and cried, poor thing. This is twice that Harper has had to cancel, I'm starting to think that it wasn't meant to be. We kept Makayla very busy on Saturday. We started the morning off by going to Trader Joes. At Christmas time, Jenn and David got us some Honey Apple Butter from Trader Joes and we ran out. We ended up picking up a lot more than the Honey Apple Butter, isn't that the way it goes? After shopping we took Makayla to her favorite craft store, Art Scraps. It took her an hour to fill a few bags. Dwight then took us out to lunch at Pizza Ranch and from there we went to the park to play basketball. It was a hot day so we came back and took showers. Grilled for dinner and then watched Pirates of the Caribbean 2.

Sunday morning, another beautiful day! Dwight took MK on a bike ride and then played at the park with the neighbor girl. I was able to get the house cleaned and actually was able to clear off the dinning room table, it had a ton of vacation stuff on it since we got home. In the afternoon I took Makayla to her last day of swimming lessons and she PASSED! Finally! She didn't want to do softball this summer but wanted to continue with her lessons so I signed her up for the next level which starts on April 1.

Family Vacation - Day 7 Heading Home

We woke up to a screaming alarm at 6am, looked out on our verandah to find our ship docked in Florida. In the picture above, all the baggage is being taken off the ship.

We then packed up the rest of our bags and headed to breakfast, we would not be coming back to our room so we had to take everything with us. Milton was already waiting for us to arrived and served us one last time. We said our goodbyes and then proceeded off the ship. They located our bags, went through customs and then boarded the bus to the airport.

We waited about an hour before we could check in with Sun Country and then a few more hours before our flight. Our flight was three hours long, so by the time we got home it was around 5pm. We checked in with the cat sitter and both kids did great while we were gone. It was the end of vacation, it went by so fast. We had such a good time that we can't wait to go on another!

Family Vacation - Day 6 At Sea

We woke up sad, knowing that today would be the last day on our Disney Cruise. The first thing on the agenda this morning was to see the grand entrance of the Disney Princesses. I stood in line 30 minutes prior and glad I did because the line ended up extremely long.

Snow White

Bell from Beauty and the Beast

Cinderella

Tiana from The Princess And The Frog

Aurora from Sleeping Beauty

Dwight had to say good-bye to his dear old friend, the Eye Scream window. He is the one that ate the most ice cream on the trip ... at least 5-6 times a day!

Makayla solved the mystery of the missing puppies at the Midship Detective Agency. She is shown above activating her badge: Agent Number 566. The book had a map of the cruise ship that shown the interactive paintings that gave clues to help narrow down the list of suspects. The book also had a list of suspects, who their sidekicks are, hobbies, favorite quotes, obsessions, last seen and last known crime. The detective agency had two mysteries to solve and no matter how many times you did it, it was different.

We hadn't done much exploring around the outside of the ship and as we were walking around outside, we ran into Captain Mickey.

They had a few different areas with shuffle boards so we decided to check it out. Makayla wasn't strong enough to push it to the other side so we made up points if she got it in the middle. We had a fun time learning.

After shuffle board, we went to Shutters photo gallery to check out the pictures that were taken of us. We ended up purchasing one of Makayla and Minnie (mine turned out really blurry) and one of Dwight and I at formal night. Pictures were a little spendy and I can't believe the amount of people making purchases. We headed back to our room to start the packing process. Our bags needed to be outside our room door between 8-10pm tonight and they would be waiting for us before we passed through customs.

While I packed, Dwight took Makayla to see Disney's Believe in the Walt Disney Theatre. Genie from Aladdin and many of Disney's most beloved magic makers take a father on a magical journey to show him that anything is possible if you just believe.

After a fun 2 hours of packing, we got ready for our last dinner aboard.

As we headed to dinner, we caught the sun setting. It was such a beautiful day at sea! Makayla had drawn some pictures in the afternoon to give to our server and beverage server along with our tips. They were very appreciative of Makayla and her pictures.

Tonight's dinner was in the Animator's Palate again, featuring dinner of the Pacific Rim Cuisine. We will also be having breakfast here in the morning at 6:45am, we need to be off the ship by 9am. For dinner Makayla had to start a Pineapple and Melon Fruit Cup, for the main event a Pepperoni and Mozzarella Pizza and a sweet finish Rich Chocolate Fudge Cake with Chocolate Sauce.

As we ate dinner, we were entertained by Crush.

After dinner, Milton showed us his last magic trick. The kids couldn't do it by themselves so it required help from all the grownups.

After dinner we took some pictures of our group and Makayla and Tyler spent the rest of the night riding the Aqua Duck and swimming in the Mickey pool together. Both of the kids had such a great time and it was sad when the goodbyes were said.

As we walked back to our room, we ran into our stateroom host. She gave Makayla a huge hug and thanked her for the picture she drew for her. As we opened our door, we found a stingray laying there. We enjoyed the view from our veranda one last time and we crawled into bed.

Family Vacation - Day 5 Castaway Cay

After a late night watching War Horse, it was very hard getting up in the morning. Dwight and I were able to get ready for the day while Makayla still slept. Even when we stepped out on the veranda, all the sunshine didn't even phase her.

We were already docked at Castaway Cay (cay pronounced key) when we awoke. The view from our veranda is below, it was very beautiful with crystal clear water.

Makayla eventually woke up and we headed to breakfast over looking Castaway Cay. Mmmmm, bacon, watermellon and donuts ... what could be better? That's a breakfast of vacation champions!

On our way off the ship, we ran into Aladin, who was just finishing up a meet and greet.

Makayla was very eagar to get our snorkeling gear, we couldn't walk fast enough for her. We found a nice spot on the beach and laid out our towels while Dwight picked up our snorkeling equipment. MK was already busy picking up sea shell after sea shell, the beach was full of them.

Our equipment came with flippers, life jacket, goggles and the mouth piece. The ocean was a little cold but it didn't take long for us to get used to it. I tried to help Makayla but she didn't like the taste of the salt water. She was in there for no more than 5 minutes and she had enough. Dwight on the other hand took to the water but he eventually called it quits because he couldn't get used to the flippers. The staff was pretty adamant about wearing all the gear. At least we tried something new.

So instead, we went swimming. We bought a water proof camera to take pictures while snorkeling so instead we used it while we were swimming. We still have a few pictures left to take on it before we have it developed.

Dwight is shown above snorkeling, can you find him?

After time swimming, we headed Cookie's BBQ for lunch. They had hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken strips, BBQ pork, chips, beans, potato salad, coleslaw and much, much, much more. MK is shown above with a gigantic cookie.

After lunch we did a little souvenir shopping and watched the crab races. When we got back to our chairs, Dwight was packing up our snorkeling equipment to turn it in and he was surprised when he picked up his flipper to find a sand crab. He hung out in our space for a while until Makayla scared him and scampered off.

We didn't spend too much time on Castaway Cay after lunch, we decided to go back to the ship to ride the Aqua Duck for the first time. We figured it wouldn't be as busy since everyone was on the island. We were right, the Aqua Duck didn't have a line at all. It was a lot of fun and Makayla enjoyed going on it over and over again. Dwight and Makayla are shown below riding through the Aqua Duck. MK also took advantage of the Mickey water slide that she could do all by herself.

After a fun day in the sun, we headed back to our room to shower and get ready for dinner. We weren't too badly burnt, though I do blame Makayla and Dwight for not getting my back good enough. I had streaks of burnt skin on my back.  After we got ready, we played a round of mini golf, Foosball and finished up in the arcade. As I was relaxing outside the arcade, Tyler's dad asked Makayla if she wanted to play mini golf with Tyler ... of course! So, she played another round before dinner.

Dinner was in the Animator's Palate: Pirate Menu since it was pirate night! To start, Makayla ordered the Sunken Honeydew Melon Boat, for the main event was Strings of Mozzarella with Scarlet Red Tomato Sauce and for the sweet finish a Swans favorite Raspberry Cheesecake and Raspberry Sauce.

Milton asked the Tyler and MK if they thought they could perform his trick and Makayla actually did it, she was very proud of herself!

After dinner, we headed back to our room to change clothes and found this pirate monkey towel hanging from the ceiling. He had chocolate gold coins for his earrings, super cute!

We then proceeded to Deck 11 for Buccaneer's Blast. Makayla found Tyler right away and Tyler's dad so kindly bought the kids light up sabers. We enjoyed the show from Captain Jack Sparrow and the dance party afterwards. MK was getting very tired so we called it a night. Tomorrow, we will be at sea all day.