Six years ago today...

It is simply amazing to me that 6 years have gone by since the day Mayah was born into our family. I can still remember what a miracle that day was and how amazing having a child in our lives felt to Jason and me. Mayah came rushing into this world epidural and drug free giving us a very clear picture of what a miraculous process it all was. Of course after that little wake up call I swore Mayah would be an only child. But feeling how much we felt for our daughter as she grew, seeing how close it brought Jason and me, and her becoming my best friend only made me want some more!! :-) And more we had...ha ha! I wanted to put up some pictures of when Mayah was born, but those are on my computer back in the states :-( I'll have to add them if I'm really motivated when we get back.

Today started with a big birthday surprise...not a good one though! Mayah was sleeping in our bed last night and bright and early this morning around 4:30am I woke to an "um, mom?" Followed by me waking up and seeing something dark covering Mayah's pillow, pajamas, the bed, and dripping off her face. It was a big old bloody nose. I know this isn't really a big deal or anything, but my kids have never gotten bloody noses and it was a ton of blood!

And now for the BIG DAY...Get ready to think that Mayah is the most spoiled little girl you've ever seen b/c well, I guess she kind of is...at least for today that is!! Ever since I saw that we could do something like this here I was dying to try it...we took Mayah to the ocean to swim with the dolphins!! And since she wasn't going to have a "regular" birthday party this year I figured this would more than make up for that and would be a great way to spend her birthday. Grammy and I jumped at the opportunity as well and went with her. I'll give you one word and that will pretty much sum it up...amazing. We were able to interact with the dolphins by touching them, giving them instructions to perform tricks for us, feeding them fish, and the best part...going for a dorsal tow!! The 3 dolphins that we were working with were named Han, Yan, and Splash. We stayed with Han most of the time, she was the oldest. You might notice from the pictures that they are kind of pink in color. They are a special type of dolphin that turns more and more pink as they get older. So Han was the pinkest one...it actually made it a lot easier to see her swimming in the water. We were also told that there is no scientific explanation as to why this happens. After swimming with the dolphins we stayed to watch the dolphin show where Mayah was picked as the volunteer to go up and play with the dolphins yet again!! Lucky birthday girl!! Then we headed off to the Underwater World for some more aquatic fun where the kids were able to see other sea creatures and play in the "touch" ponds with sting rays and other fish. After we got home we went swimming in the pool, then out to dinner for pizza (birthday girl's choice, of course), then it was off to the theater to see High School Musical 3. It was an amazing day...one I know we'll never forget. Like I said, spoiled :-)

Here is Han painting us a picture.

Mayah taking a turn feeding Han.

Weeeeeee!

Double weeeeeee!

Splash (the boy dolphin) giving Mayah a kiss. We each got a turn being smooched by this little cutie!

They gave her this cute little pink dolphin for her b-day.

And here is her holding a pic of her volunteering during the dolphin show.