One amazing trip in less than 100 pictures

Last week we went on a long awaited trip to Florida. 

This is a trip we have been planning for a very long time.  Nearly 3 years to be exact.  When we got back from our trip to Disney 3 years ago, Kristi said she wanted to plan a trip with us so we could all go when her youngest was a bit older.  We told her we could go after Sandi was done with school (at the time she hadn't yet started) so it would be the late winter of 2014.  

The growing pains of school, daily sacrifice, feeling rather poor and then finally graduation and a return to the world of regular paychecks and before we knew it, March 2014 was upon us.  

You can imagine just how excited all four kids might be for a trip they have waited this long for.  As we watched Sandi's grandfather get worse each week, we became very unsure it would be a trip we would even go on.  Postponement wasn't possible until the fall (Sandi's vacation lottery makes last minute switching nearly impossible) and we had to come to terms with the fact that we might not board the plane to sunny Orlando.  

But life has a way of working out and within the span of 48 hours we had attended a funeral, grieved and connected with family, and were belted into a plane heading south. 

Our family, Kristi's family and Sandi's parents made 10 of us total and we rented this beautiful, enormous house with its own pool and hot tub.  The house had 6 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms and gave all the families room to spread out and operate at their differing rhythms all for less than $100 per night per family.  This was definitely the way to go for us.

I mean, to have your own pool!


We packed it all in.  We had 6 days in Florida, it was summer- hot and we had theme park tickets burning a hole in our pockets (and our wallets....).   We went to Disney's Magic Kingdom, Busch Gardens, Sea World and Discovery Cove for a total of 5 of the 6 days.

It was fun with a capital F.  So I should say it was Fun.

The four kids (with Ella wearing Sandi's Go Pro camera)

Kristi, Mike, Brevan and Makenna

I just love this one.  The girls are mad at the stroller intruder.

After the first day of parks (Magic Kingdom) our kids were both whining and complaining.  They were hot, they were tired, they wanted to leave, they wanted a balloon, a better lunch, a colder drink, a less childish ride, a less scary ride, and on and on.  It felt like a personal kind of torture, paying all this money to go to what most people deem the happiest place on earth and to be shuffling disgruntled children.

I took this deeply personally.  The amount of money we had spent, the hours of planning, packing, researching and strategizing, the build up of this coveted family time, and the fact that it is so important to us to have children that aren't spoiled and expectant.

That night we had a family meeting with the girls, a Come To You-Know-What meeting if you will.  We explained all that we had paid and sacrificed to bring them on the trip, all the extra hours of work to pay for it, the missing school, the waiting in lines for rides for them, not us.   We told them they could miss the rest of the week of parks and their cousins could go without them.

The profound reaction of our children was the biggest gift I could have gotten.  They were truly remorseful.  Watching them apologize and amend their behavior that night and for the rest of the week was one of the highlights of my parenting journey.  Maya made us each a picture as an apology. I have seen a transformation in their sibling relationship since we took their toys away two months ago and we put everything on the chopping block if they didn't straighten out.  But now I got to witness a new level of taking accountability and turning whining and complaining into gratitude and appreciation.

It goes to show you that there is still a place for a solid threat (as long as it's not a bluff) in today's parenting.   The remainder of the week with the girls was just fun.  They didn't complain about anything, even going to bed 2 hours before their cousins, and they were helpful and gracious.

Feeding kangaroos!

For us this trip was about dolphins, dolphins and more dolphins.

(I would like to briefly add here that I had so many conflicts going into this trip and paying money to support parks that keep so many animals, especially mammals, in captivity.   I almost opted out on my own but didn't want to miss this with my family.  We talked about opting out as a family.  There were lengthy discussions, the painful viewing of the documentary Blackfish and the acknowledgment that neither decision would feel good.  In the end we decided to focus on the benefit to our kids to get to see so many animals and sea life up close that would otherwise be totally inaccessible to them and to educate them as much as we could.  It was painful to see animals in captivity, especially dolphins and Orcas who I consider to be sentient beings, but it helps me to know that they were born in captivity and that they are well cared for.  I also believe that seeing them up close makes the human race better custodians of the animals of the earth.  At least that's what I like to think is happening.)

I think I can speak for all 10 of us when I say the highlight of our week was our trip to Discovery Cove.  It is a pocket of paradise in the bustle of packed theme parks.

Discovery Cove is on the pricey side  but I would say it is totally worth it.  You can spend all day there, from 8:30-5, and your admission includes breakfast, lunch, unlimited snacks and drinks (yes, including alcohol).   It might seem prohibitive if you were only going to Discovery Cove but since your ticket includes a 14 day unlimited pass to Sea World and Aquatica (Sea World's water park which we did not get to) and can also include Busch Gardens which we were already planning to visit, it worked out well for us.

(These combo tickets are offered because they are all owned by Anheuser Busch which meant, to Sandi's great dismay, that they only offered Budweiser beer.)

Discovery Cove is very chill and laid back.  The only line you are going to wait in is the buffet.  Whereas Magic Kingdom can hold 100,000 people, Discovery Cove has a capacity of 1,300.  We played in the 85 degree fresh water, drifted down their lazy river through waterfalls and a bird aviary, swam to an island to see Marmaset monkeys and sea otters,  and we even got to snorkel!

For those of you who don't know this about me, I have a tremendous fear of fresh water and animals or monsters that might lurk beneath (too many leeches as a child and too many horror movies set on lakes at a young age).  I don't mean to, but I hyperventilate when I get over my head even though I can, in fact, swim.  Putting my face in the water makes me anxious and gasp for air.

Discovery Cove was a bit of miracle for me.  I learned to snorkel and found myself floating freely with thousands of fish in their man-made saltwater coral reef.  Once I got over the panic of stingrays that are 4 feet across swimming under my belly,  I was able to marvel at the deep caverns filled with fish, each one more colorful than the other.  It was a world of wonder under there!  And each time I would raise my head to clear my mask and look at the surface of the water and think Oh dear, I'm over my head... don't let your legs dangle.  I would put my face back in the clear water and be unafraid.  We even got to snorkel up to a glass enclosed shark aquarium and I wasn't scared (although I did test and retest the thickness of the glass a time or two).  It was unbelievable!

It occurred to me that many people snorkel in the real ocean and that normally I would not be the kind of person who prefers something man-made to something natural.  But I have to say in this instance, I needed to learn in a controlled environment that felt like the ocean but was absent of say, Great Whites.

My personal breakthrough aside, the best part of Discovery Cove are the dolphins!  We went there specifically to "swim" with the dolphins.  (It is actually a 30 minute interaction but it was still awesome, especially since I like the idea of swimming with dolphins but I might have had a bonafide heart attack.)

I'm not exaggerating when I say our day at Discovery Cove was one of the coolest days of my life.


Our dolphin's name was Dixie and she was 40 years old.  She used to be an aquarium dolphin and has been living at Discovery Cove for many years.  She was sweet and gentle, playful and funny.  It was indescribable to be close to her and to watch our girls get to have this one of a kind experience.  (I totally have a thing for dolphins.  I can't explain it but I just feel something deep and profound in their presence.)

Makenna was too young to do this and so she and Mike are not pictured here.

Dixie doing a jump for us!

I needed this trip for the relaxed time it afforded me with my children.   Ella held my hand endlessly, we played a lot, I was very patient in listening to her when she was speaking and explaining why the adorable gibbon monkey at the gift shop was the next stuffed animal she could not live without .  I felt that we were free of all of the tension that has become part of our everyday since she became a tween.  There were no power struggles over homework, eating vegetables or getting out the door.   

Favorite times with Maya were all in the water and specifically underwater.  She learned to snorkel at Discovery Cove and it was so fun to be under there with her as she tooled along, exploring and experiencing this new world.  She was so excited by it all that she would exclaim continuously through her snorkel, using it not just as an oxygen chamber but also as a megaphone, shouting to everyone above about the incredible world beneath.  I would put my mask on just to play with her in her new world. 

I think Maya's favorite part of the trip was having Sandi constantly in her line of sight.

These four had so much fun together all week long!

Kristi is a bit of an animal charmer and she just HAD to catch the lizard the kids found in the game room at the house.  In order to stay on her it had to sink its tiny fangs into her skin.  

I think the bird was less painful.

Embarrassingly, this is the stuffed animal loot the kids acquired during the week.  I swear they paid for it all with their own spending money, but STILL.

Ella decided to do a report on dolphins for her school work since she missed to a week of school.   She began researching early with books from the library and compiling facts about dolphins.  At times there was some prodding and persuading to work on it before we left for our trip, but she eventually took ownership and ran with it.  She worked on it each day we were in Florida and then for about  7 hours when we came home.  With a little bit of help from Sandi and Tia and I, she made the most incredible dolphin scrapbook that was part memory book and part research report.

I have never seen her work harder on anything ever and have also never seen her so proud of herself.

"This was a dream come true."

showing her grandparents

I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to go on a trip like this.  We certainly worked hard in every way to make it happen but I am grateful it was within our reach.  It was a trip we will never forget!

saying goodbye

A few months ago I was telling Sandi's father how much the last year had changed me, about how I am caught off guard almost daily by something beautiful or tragic or completely pedestrian but no less miraculous and I cry because it affects me so deeply.   I told him that I have come to understand the impermanence of life and how the moment I'm in will never be repeated, how my kids are growing and everyone I love is aging, including myself, and that we won't always be here.

Dwight, ever wise, said to me,  "Well darling, I would say then that you are having a life."

Today my heart is open and bruised and awash in love as I live this life.  We spent Saturday with Sandi's family and saying goodbye to her amazing grandfather.  He has been declining steadily for the past two months and his body had begun to shut down.  We traveled yesterday morning to the Downeast Community Hospital to give our last kisses and say anything that needed to be said.

(I want to just acknowledge my gratitude for what this hospital has set up for families in this exact situation.  They had a sitting room adjacent to the hospital room where the family could gather.  There was comfortable seating, a TV and a table so people could eat.  It was the ideal way to provide comfort for a family keeping vigil and it benefited this family enormously.)

I have had a lot of experience with loss, but not much with death.  I have lost two grandparents and two friends.  In coming to terms with the way life actually works (rather than the way I've liked to believe where I can control everything) I have come to accept this stark, sad and miraculous reality: people are born and people die.  Nothing is stagnant.  It is not possible to escape the cyclical nature of life.  You can not hold on to anything or anyone forever.  Behind every loss is a new beginning, behind every winter an eventual spring.

Last year I read the book Comfortable with Uncertainty by Pema Chodron.  It is about this very concept and learning how to cultivate a deep peace and stillness within, allowing you to surrender to all that changes.  I could see the depth of this work in me as I walked into the expanse of the unknown of death and all that it rattles free in me about uncertainty, loss and impermanence.  I kept thinking of something I had read somewhere: nothing real ever dies.

My most resounding experience of the last few weeks with Sandi's family has been one of admiration, love, privilege and awe.  I have always adored her family but to see their love and dedication to their father, husband, father-in-law, grandfather has changed me.  It is one thing to tell someone you love them.  It is quite another to stay awake all night at someone's bedside and try to settle a confused and agitated mind, to drive 30 minutes to a hospital more than once a day to seek comfort, to turn your lives upside down and inside out to care for a dying man who would otherwise have to be cared for in a nursing home.

I have never witnessed this kind of devotion.  This family rallied and gathered, committing to a round-the-clock schedule so that no minute was left uncovered.   They dealt with some immensely difficult things and cared for her grandfather with the utmost love, patience and attention.  I suppose I knew that this kind of care for a family member existed but I have never experienced it firsthand. I admire each and everyone of them and love them anew.

As I sat by his side holding his warm hand in the hospital on Saturday as the morphine dripped all I could say to him was I love you and thank you, over and over again.  Thank you for creating this wonderful family, for leaving this legacy behind and for all that I have been given because of it.  If not for Sandi's paternal grandmother and grandfather (as well as her maternal ones) I would not have this life I have today.  Sandi wouldn't be here and so we wouldn't be together and our girls would not exist.

I hugged one of her uncles and told him how deeply I appreciate being even a small part of this truly amazing family and he seemed affronted telling me I was certainly not a small part but an equal and important part.  This is the kind of family I am talking about here.

I cried on and off all day Saturday, my whole person so overcome with the exquisite interconnectedness of life and the gifts that are constantly bestowed on us if only we are open.  Yet, if all life is connected in this elaborate web than I must accept the whole package; as I wept in profound gratitude for this man's life and all that it has given, there is also the staggering loss of his absence.

Sandi and I sat with her grandmother while she talked about his impending death.   Her primary concern was that he was not in pain of any kind and if he would wonder where she was.  Even in parting and facing her life without him, her focus was on what he needed and not the hole of a future without him.

While dying at 87 does not a tragedy make, my heart was splintered to hear her talk about him and to imagine the aching emptiness of life without your partner of nearly 7 decades.   I thought of them raising a family of six, of the back breaking hours of fishing and providing for a large family, of nurturing and caring for so many children so selflessly.  I thought of Sandi and I and how we could only be so fortunate (not in years but in longevity) to grow old together and face each other's deaths.  I know it sounds morbid but it is the truth.

If you are as fortunate as you can be in life, you will end up dying at an old age alongside great love.  If you are most lucky, life will hurt because you will have loved deeply.

As we said goodbye in the hospital, Maya went up to Grampie and gave him a kiss on his hand.  She told him that she loved him.  She cried.  Her compassion and sadness made me proud of her and how she loves.

I sat with Ella as I broke the uncertain news that we might not be able to leave on our trip to Florida (the one we have been planning for 3 years) because things were so uncertain with her Great Grampie.  I held her as she cried for nearly 30 minutes and I hurt for her and was proud of her for letting her heart open to pain so fully.  She grew up a little in that half an hour as she realized what it means to stand by your family when they need you most.

I watched Sandi be there for her family and with her family, as a medical advocate and a gentle presence, and I could see the love that came from her grandfather threaded right through her.

I think death opens doors that are kept shut in day to day living.  It is an opportunity to let your guard down, forgive old hurts, remember what is important.  Death is the biggest reminder we have of the preciousness of life.

I cried so much on Saturday I told Sandi I felt like I needed some Gatorade to replace my sodium loss.   To curl into bed that night grateful to have each other and our girls and praying for a peaceful departure for her grandfather was all I could ask for.  Just minutes after we tucked in the phone rang.  Grampie had let go with a daughter and granddaughter by his side.

Six children, nine grandchildren and eleven great grandchildren.  Our girls had two sets of great grandparents until they were six and nine.  What an enormous blessing.  What a life lived and shared, what a world changed by one man and his wife.

To know love, to be broken by it, opened by it, changed by it, that is the gift that this life offers.  It isn't about achieving goals or accumulating stuff, accomplishing this or looking like that.   At the end of it all, be it the end of a day or the end of a life, all that really counts are matters of the heart: how well did I love and how open was I to love?

At the end of Grampie's beautiful life all I can really say is that I hope I do half as well as he did.   He  transformed me in his life and in his death and for this I am forever grateful.

writing...procrastinating...writing

The other day at our tax appointment, our accountant asked me what my long range plan was.  I think she was speaking in terms of my massage business but the only available answer I had was, "I want to write a book, have it become a best seller and get paid a lot to write."

I think she said, "Wow.  That wasn't exactly what I meant."  Or maybe it was, "Okaaaay."  Or perhaps she just mumbled, "CRAZY," under her breath.

Sandi and I have been talking lately about money, work hours, playing catch up after having almost no income for over 2 years.  We would love to build a house someday on the soonish side but to build the kind of house we would want to build would take, well, a sizable advance for, say, a book.  (Unless we want Sandi to work all hours under the sun which we, decidedly, do NOT.)

Now, I am only partly joking here.  Writing a book is something I have toyed with for a long time.  Writing feeds my soul like nothing else and writing a book feels like something I am destined to do.

I began writing my first book when I was eight.  I maybe wrote 30 pages. I started another one when Sandi and I were first together and I was sitting out on the rocks on Beals Island, writing longhand with a pen and notebook.  I worked on it sporadically, at times with more seriousness than others, and I got up to about 150 pages.

Which would have been awesome except it wasn't really awesome at all.

I have about 30 pages of another fiction story I started last year.  It has some potential.  Part of me loves writing fiction and part of me feels like a big faker when I do.  

I said I would write more when the kids were both in school. I said I would do it and not feel badly.  Everything I have read says you need to have a writing schedule.  But I feel like my time is needed cleaning out the house (which still feels like a mess) and doing stuff for the house, for the kids, for our family, tax prep, massage, grocery shopping, etc.   And guess what?  Just like time to care for yourself, there is no time "left over" if you don't carve it out.

There is an exercise I've heard about regarding time.  I think my physics teacher did this in a class once.  You take a big jar and put the most important things to you (symbolized as rocks) in first.  Depending on where you are in your life the rocks could represent school, family, work, self.  Then you put in pebbles to represent the second tier of important things to you.  Lastly you put in sand to represent the things that you care about, but not with as high a priority.  The idea here is that if you put the sand in first, there will be no room for the rocks or pebbles to be put in later.

I would say my rocks are my family, my partnership, being a mom and my own inner journey.  The pebbles are friendship, exercise and writing.  The sand is volunteering, social engagements, fun and having a clean house.

If I make writing is a pebble and I don't put it in before the sand, it will never fit.

We talked some more about getting serious about writing and Sandi encouraged me to find a way to devote 3 hours a day while the kids are at school to concentrated writing.  She also said maybe  I should consider writing more like I do here on the blog, about real things, rather than fiction and that might be the key to finding and sustaining a passion for it.  I think she is dead on.  When I sit to write here it is such a joy and I just write what is in my heart.  There are no rules, no one to impress, nothing to achieve. I just do it because I love it.  (And bless some of you actually read it....)

What would it be like to write a book this way?

I feel excited and relieved. I know how to write like this!  This is not the first time this idea has surfaced.  My mom has said it.  I know of many bloggers who publish books (mostly cook books but still) and that as a reader I gravitate toward real things.  I have also come to terms with the fact that I just may have some things in my own life worth writing about.  God love her,  Sandi even said that she sees me writing me like Elizabeth Gilbert does about her real life experiences and her journey.

(At this point it doesn't even matter if she is lying about that one.  It boosted me and made me feel like it was my duty to write.)

So I'm doing it.  I've sat down twice to write on this project and I have to say procrastination is beckoning me like never before.  Today as I thought about writing, I thought about running an extra mile, doing another set up push ups, cleaning the bathroom first, making a batch of granola bars, going to the school to volunteer at lunch to surprise Maya. I made myself sit down with a cup of tea in the chair and then I found myself checking Facebook and any new deals at Old Navy and finally I had to say out loud, "STOP!  Put it all down and WRITE!"

And I did. I wrote 2 pages.  Then I stopped to tell you about it.  Except I wrote it so I've now been writing for a straight hour.

long lines and little people

Running errands this weekend I found myself in the uncomfortable parenting position I have expecting and dreading for some time - really ever since Maya began to speak and we realized just how uninhibited she is.

The four of us ran into the  L.L. Bean Outlet store.  I offered to wait in the very long line with our return while Sandi and the girls browsed.  I found myself standing in line behind a mom and her daughter.  Her daughter was a little person.

I confess I don't believe I have ever met a child with dwarfism.  To be entirely honest, in our very homogenous area of Maine, I may not have I've ever met a little person at all.

I'm not even sure how to write about this without it sounding wrong or politically incorrect.  Please forgive any transgressions I make in sensitivity; they are born out of my own ignorance and not from any malice, I can assure you.

I often find myself in a similar position out in the world where I don't know if the right thing to do is to ignore a person's condition, difference or disability or to do what my heart wants to do: to reach out, to connect.   When I see a mom with a very disabled child in a wheelchair, for instance, ignoring her and her child feels wrong on every level, but making too obvious an attempt at contact seems odd and could be perceived by the mom as pitying.  I mean, how well does: "Cool wheelchair!" come off?

I have seen moms with kids that have significant mental or physical disabilities out in public and I have observed how other parents will actually turn their back or look right through them.  I go out of my way to hold the door, offer assistance or say something if it feels natural.  If nothing else I offer a warm smile.  

Because, let's be honest, who doesn't benefit from a warm smile that says, hey I'm out here slogging around trying to keep it all together too?

So back at L.L. Bean, my warm smile was quickly followed by easy "mom" talk.   It was a very long and slow moving line and we covered a lot of ground in the small talk range.   Her daughter told me she was nine.  I told her I had a nine-year-old.  I asked her what music she liked and if she was in third or fourth grade.  I commented on the sparkles on her purse.  I learned that her name was Sara*.  The mom told me they were visiting from out of state.

It was what I would want if I were a mother out at a store with a child with a genetic abnormality: to be treated like everyone else.   I wouldn't want to be pitied or ignored.  I would, essentially, not want the difference to become a barrier to living.   

And then the girls came along. 

Maya was doing some heavy staring.  So was Ella for that matter.  In order to make things less awkward and obvious, I said, "These are my girls, Ella and Maya.  This is Sara.  Ella, she is your age."  

I was proud of Ella.  She was trying hard not to stare, trying to take it in.  

Maya, on the other hand, whipped her finger out, pointed it at Sara and said, "WHAT?!  SHE is nine years old?"

Sandi and I worked quickly. I pushed Maya's arm with the accusing finger down and Sandi swooped her away.  I apologized to them.  I told Sara that Maya has a hearing loss and that she wears hearing aids. I explained that Maya often teaches other kids about hearing aids because they don't know anything about them.  This was the first time I was grateful for Maya's hearing loss.  I felt it somehow made the offense of her insensitivity slightly less grievous.  

Sara went over to check out some of the impulse buys and I quietly asked her mother, "I am so sorry. Does that bother her?"  

This opened the whole conversation up and in the next few minutes (I tell you, it was a very slow line) we connected as moms, as moms with kids that need some special consideration in the world and in general as human beings.  She told me that it doesn't bother her daughter too much when kids are curious or insensitive but it does when it comes from adults.   She told me about how Sara did a presentation at her school for Dwarfism awareness month recently.  She does well with her peers.  (This made me feel immensely better knowing just how mean kids can be.)

I felt this indescribable pride for this mother and her daughter to be such brave souls in the world where people do stare and point (people such as my children) and to just go on being who they are.  I was grateful for her openness with a complete stranger because in those minutes of waiting we got to the have the experience of connecting instead of being isolated which is how so many people function in this world now.

I can't help but think that this is always a good thing.

We had a long conversation with our kids about it, of course.  We especially focused on the aspect of people being born into whatever body they are born into, that it matters who people are on the inside and that you cannot know someone by assessing their physical body.  We also covered empathy and how it might feel to be born with a condition that was so obvious to people and that you could not change.

We also had the experience with our girls of watching the Canadian mogul skier, Alexandre Bilodeau and his brother,  Frederic, who lives with cerebral palsy.  If you have not heard of this story please Google it now.  It is the most touching story of a brother's devotion.  It was truly life altering for our children to understand that this man has a perfectly functioning mind but cannot use his body in a normal way due to his CP.    It moved us to tears.

Thank you L.L. Bean for your slow line last weekend.  Thank you Sara and your mom for helping to teach our children an immensely important lesson and thank you for helping me continue to believe that being open and loving is the way to change the world.  You may be small in stature but you have a heart as big as the ocean.

*Just in case it would matter, I changed her name.