On the beach

Here are some pictures from our trip to Ty.bee (Chas - it is the Ty.bee island you are thinking about):

This is Husband (2nd from left) and me (far right) with the really incredible awesome couple from England that we met our first night there. Before I go into more details, I need to digress and point out that I just, for the first time ever, posted a picture of myself and a picture of Husband. If you are looking at this and feeling excited because you realize you know us, and my once anonymous blog is no longer such, then PLEASE leave me a comment and tell me who you are. I don't care if you keep reading, I just want to know if someone who knows us is reading this. Thanks.

Back to the picture - the first night we arrived, we checked into the condo and then took a 3 hour nap! We woke up around 8 pm and walked down the beach to the bar and grill that we hung out at the whole time we were there before. This bar is really laid-back, has the most amazing Caribbean and seafood menu, and serves cheap drinks. We spent a lot of time there on our honeymoon, and specifically found a condo that was walking distance to the bar for this trip! We sat outside on the deck, and while enjoying our fried plantains, homemade salsa, fish tacos, and beer, we started talking to the group of four English folks at the table next to us. The couple in the picture, "RV" and "Engineer", are about our age and had just started a year-long RV t.our across the United States! They quit their jobs back in England, rented out their house, and headed overseas! They started in Ta.mpa, and then Savanna.h and Ty.bee were their next stops. It was so much fun to hear about everything they had planned. We were a bit jealous of their ability to just take off like that, so it was nice to live vicariously through their plans!

We invited them to come see the Savanna.h Sand G.nats minor league baseball team with us on Friday night, and the picture above is the four of us at the game. RV had never seen a baseball game in person before, so it was fun explaining everything to her. We had a few drinks with them back at their RV after the game, and saw them for dinner/beer another night we were there. They'll be coming through our town in the fall, and so we're looking forward to seeing them again.

Here's RV and I with the Savanna.h Sand G.nat:

One of the other fun parts of our trip was the dolphin tour we went on. I managed to get a few shots of the dolphins, although it was hard to do!

There were about 40 of them swimming all around our boat - it was so neat to watch how they move in sync with each other, and a few of them even did flips and tail splashes!

One of the other big highlights was all the great food we ate on the trip! Husband doesn't eat seafood, but I love it, and fortunately he'll tolerate going to seafood restaurants and eating the one non-seafood option on a menu. We pretty much ate at only two places the whole trip: this unbelievably good breakfast place (the chef was one of two that cooked for JFK JR's wedding - he did all the breakfast, brunch, and lunches). We ate there every morning (actually, more early afternoon, since we usually didn't make it out of the condo until at least 11 or 12!) and the food was amazing. My favorite was the mushroom, jack cheese, and sausage omelet with sliced tomatoes, grits, and toast- they make all their own sausage, use extremely fresh produce, and it was delicious! The grits were also so good - I was so happy to be in the South and have grits (with lots of butter) served without even asking for them! You can only find grits in Missouri if you go to Cracker Barrel.

The second place we ate at was the bar and grill I mentioned earlier - I had this dish called Escovitch, which was fried tilapia, red beans/rice, pineapple, and snap peas. I have never eaten such light, flaky tilapia - it was so good that I ordered it two nights in a row! We also ate a lot of the fried plantains and salsa. the last night we were there, I ordered a white chocolate key lime pie that was heavenly. It really made me regret not ordering dessert every other night! I can still taste the tart lime blending with the cool chocolate.

We did eat at one other restaurant, where I ordered the platter of shellfish. A bunch of crab claws and legs, shrimp, mussels, clams, and crawfish. I was a little disappointed, because I should have just ordered crab legs/claws, since everything else I can find pretty easily in Missouri. But it was still good.

So those are the highlights of the trip. Husband and I also just really enjoyed being together and not thinking about work, J, the dog, the house, the cars, the bills, etc. It was nice to just do what we wanted and be on our own schedule (although we did miss J and called home at least twice every day to talk with him and check in on him). The sleeping until 11 and going out for beer every night was great too!

road trip

Husband, Trout, and I drove to L.ittle R.ock this weekend for a friend's wedding. Other than Texas, this is where I always thought I'd end up. In fact, there was a time where it was much more likely and certain that I would move back to LR and not Texas. But things change. You meet someone in a bar who's from Missouri, who's family is in Missouri, who's job is in Missouri. And all of a sudden, LR isn't where you call home and most likely never will be.

I'm fond of this town. And of Arkansas. I lived in Arkansas for four years while I was in college, and spent two of the summers living/working in LR. I also spent alot of time going out in LR (we lived only 30 minutes away in college) and I worked at an internship in LR during three years of college - so I was there a lot. I've been back to visit quite a bit - not so much in the last few years unless we've had a wedding or party of some other event, but before I met Husband, I was going back to LR on a fairly regular basis to see my college friends, my then-boyfriend (who later became my ex-boyfriend), and just to get back to a place that felt like home.

It still feels like home - as we drive into the city, I almost feel myself getting lighter. My mind clears, and I feel so happy seeing all these places that are mine. I think that's why I love LR and Texas so much - in a sense, everything there belongs to me. Here, in StL, there is very little that is just me. It's all either Husband's, because he grew up here, or ours, because I've only been here with him. It's his memories that are around us all the time - his friends, his stories, his old hangouts, his ex-girlfriends, his town. Or it's our memories - our first date, our first house, our town.

But I go back to LR, and it's my friends, my memories, my old job, my old apartment, my old hang-outs, my favorite restaurants. It's the places I went when I was trying to figure out who I was, what I wanted to do, and who I wanted to be with. It's the places that somehow contributed to me ending up where I am now - in a life I very much like - and thus places that have significant importance and nostalgia for me. And sometimes, when I get caught up in a rut of being me now, I long for the time when things were less serious, has less depending on them, and when I was more free. And I miss the people that know my stories and know how I got to where I am. These people are the ones that know how much I love and value and treasure my current life, not because I tell them or because I act like it everyday, but because they saw me before and knew what it took to get here. I don't have to explain things to them - and they don't to me. I know their stories too.

We drive by the minor league baseball stadium and I remember the night I went there with friends for a game, and I was walking to get beer and hear my name called out. I turn around, and my college boyfriend, who I dated for two years, was sitting there on a date. We had only broken up a few months earlier (and it was hard), and I'd only seen him once or twice since then, and seeing him then, on a date, just left me speechless and frozen - I couldn't move. I don't know how long I stood there, until all of a sudden, one of my guy friends came running up to me, threw his arms around me, and proceeded to drag me a way, all the while holding my hand and making it look very much like we were together. For some reason, that was the turning point where I got back on with my life after our breakup - I realized in those moments standing there that I didn't like this guy, didn't like what he did to me, didn't like how he made me feel, didn't like how he had monopolized me when we were together, and that I much more enjoyed being with my friends and being myself. And after that, I knew I would never again give a guy so much power over me - that I would never again ignore my friends for a guy, or ignore myself for a guy. Especially not a guy that was so wrong for me.

We pass by the hospital where I spent most of my college free time and summers working - this is the place that introduced me to research, and more specifically, research with children who had chronic illnesses. This would become my passion and led me to graduate school. Even thought I eventually left my graduate program, I will always be in a field where I am able to work with children who have chronic medical and psychological disorders. I will always be involved with my local Children's Hos.pital, in some way, and research will always be my passion and my way of explaining the world and looking for answers. I owe all this to the time I spent at the hospital in LR and the people that mentored me there.

We drive towards our hotel, and in doing so, pass the area where my ex-boyfriend lived (the one I dated my senior year of college and my first year of grad school, plus some on and off time after that). I see his old apartments through the trees, and I remember the night, shortly before I left for grad school, where he made me dinner - nothing fancy about the dinner, although I could still tell you everything we ate and I can still remember how good it tasted - but we sat outside on his porch overlooking the trees, with a cd playing in his apartment - James Taylor Greatest Hits - and I remember feeling so peaceful, so happy, so complete. But at the same time - it was so bittersweet. We only had a few more weeks together, and I knew then that this was not the right guy for me, that even if we had good intentions for what would happen to our relationship after I left town, we were not going to last. He didn't want to make the sacrifices it would take for us to keep going, and although I wished I could be the kind of woman that would throw everything out the window for love, I just couldn't for him. We tried our best, but it just didn't happen. Eventually, a few years later, I would make similar sacrifices for another guy, but this guy was the right guy (and he did become my husband) and he was willing to make sacrifices for me and to choose me first. And the reason I knew that the man who would become my husband was the right guy to make those sacrifices for was because of that night on the porch- I was so in love and felt so loved and so enjoyed being with my now-ex-boyfriend, but it still wasn't everything. And I think that's how I knew when I did find the right one.

Many, many of my memories in this town are related to this guy. I could go on and on with stories and good thoughts of the time we had together and the things we did together. And when I'm back in LR, I do often think about him and remember what our life was like together. He expanded my horizons and gave me so much - he introduced me to foods I had never thought to eat and now love (sushi), he introduced me to some of the music and artists that I couldn't have made it through the last few years without (Lucinda Williams, James Taylor, Tara MacLean, Charlie Mars Band, Eva Cassidy), he taught me how to relax and remember to take time to just do nothing, he gave me my first cat, he forced me to learn football and the ins and outs of the game - which resulted in me becoming a great fantasy football player, and later, after we broke up, it was his memory and the trying to forget him that led me to run my first (and only) marathon. There's so much more - too much to write down - but it all comes back to me when I'm in LR. And I love remembering all this - not so much because I miss this guy and want to be with him - but rather because I love the person I am now because of all these experiences. And I love that it is this person that attracted my husband and brought him to me. So I am very, very grateful.

I usually take some time on the drive home to remember some of the things that went wrong with this guy, and why we aren't still together, because otherwise I think it would be too easy to "romanticize" the memories of him and think that it was all just so wonderful. And there are lots of good reasons why we aren't together and why he wasn't the right one for me, but even in remembering those stories, I see pieces of who I've become.

And then we get back home - to the place that may not have my past or all my stories - but does have the hope of what will come. And there are so many good memories here, too. But every so often it is good for my soul to remember how I got here.

all kinds of things

There's a lot going on right now, as we're trying to head out of town tomorrow, so I'm just going to make this a random post of everything that's on my mind right now:

1. I decided that I'm switching around what I use to refer to my husband and baby because I keep slipping and find myself writing out their real names - instead of J. for the baby, I'm going to start using his actual nickname "T.rout", and for my husband, I'm also going to use his actual nickname, which is "Husband". Real original, I know. But this really is what my nickname for him is - and he refers to me as "Wife". This started when we got engaged, and we were so excited about being engaged and getting married that we referred to each other as "Fiance" all the time. So obviously when we got married, we couldn't use that nickname anymore, so it evolved into "Husband" and "Wife". It makes our friends and families laugh to hear us talking to each other because we really use it all the time and we use it both as a term of affection and then when we're irritated with each other, we use it more sarcastically. It works for us! And as far as the baby's nickname, we always thought we'd call him "Baby" as his nickname (given the whole "Husband" and "Wife" theme), but then shortly after he was born Husband was working on a case that involved a t.rout f.arm. We talked about trout all the time because of this, and at the same time, J. was nursing and would make a fish face whenever he wanted to nurse - so it was a natural extension to call him "T.rout".

Bottom line of all this - instead of J. and H., it's now T.rout and Husband. Should be easier for me to keep track of when I'm writing.

2. I really, really like our new playgroup. We switched days, because there were too many "big" kids (i.e., 2 year olds) in the Monday group and I worried too much about them running into T.rout and hitting him, etc. (which happened almost every playgroup). We go on Thursdays now, and it's a calmer group, with parents that actually keep an eye on their kids during the playtime. T.rout loves it - especially when I let him sit at the table with all the big kids and practice drinking out of a regular cup.

3. A professor I had in college, who I really admired, is sick with cancer and recently was moved into hospice care. They've given her 2 weeks to 2 months. She is an amazing woman, who effortlessly (or so it seemed) was able to balance her life as a mother, wife, friend, and professor with grace and beauty. She provided such an image of what it means to be a faithful Christian in all these roles, and did so with such encouragement and love for everyone that came in contact with her. She has three young kids; I can't imagine what this must be like for them and for her. And it's hard to imagine why it would be her time to leave this physical world - she has touched so many lives (it's amazing to read all the tributes that have been posted to her on her CaringBridge site) and I can't understand why she wouldn't be given the opportunity to continue to do so. But as one of my friends, who also knew her, said about the situation "I still trust God even when I don't understand Him, but please, Lord, help my unbelief." It is hard to know she will be gone soon, but she will be healed and we will see her again.

4. We leave tomorrow for a trip this weekend to L.ittle R.ock for one of my college friend's wedding and for my college reunion - we actually aren't really going to any of the reunion events, because most of it is on Saturday, which is when the wedding will be, but we are going to go up to campus Sunday afternoon to eat lunch and walk around. They've done a lot of new construction, so I'm excited to see what it looks like. And I'm really excited to see my college friends - only a few of them have seen T.rout since he was born, so it will be fun to have them meet him. And a few of them are pregnant with their first kids, so I can't wait to see them pregnant! I also love going back to LR as I get to eat at one of my favorite Mexican restaurants!

5. My car is in the shop for repairs (and I'm hoping it will be done today so I can get it cleaned before we leave town tomorrow) and I have a rental - a big, silver Dodge Caravan. I don't think I'm the minivan type. I feel silly driving it; like I'm playing "dress-up" and pretending to be a mom. Oh well. At least it's only (hopefully) for a few more hours and then I get my Jeep back!