Saturday-trip to Coco Cay

Saturday started off with a great breakfast at the lovely Windjammer buffet. They had lots to choose from. I loved all the fresh pineapple.

After we ate, we got ready to go to Coco Cay-the private Island. I was so excited to be on the beach. We went down to the level where you got to board the "tender," or what I would call the ferry to the Island. The line was a mile long, but we made it through and got to sit on the top. I was happy about that, until it was taking a long time to load the boat which was moving a lot. I was getting queasy. It was much better once it started moving.


Here's a view of leaving the boat and getting to the island.

A view from the tender. I really wanted to do para-sailing, but they only had it in tandem, and unfortunately Darin and I were above the combined 375lb weight limit. Such a bummer-I would have done it. Although I did notice that they didn't go as high as I did when I did it in St. Thomas when I was a nanny years ago.

Shots of Darin and I standing int he water-before we actually went in.

Swimming in the ocean!! I LOVE it!! Not so fond of salt water, but you get used to it and you can just float. I don't remember the science behind it, but for some reason you just float. Very relaxing. We also laughed at all these ladies who got these floaties and had a heck of a time getting on them. One lady actually brought a book out there with her. We had considered getting them until we saw that it was actually more work.


While we were swimming, we noticed there were cool fish all around us. We stood and watched them forever, then Darin got the waterproof camera. Here are the best of the shots I tried to get.





And like the boat, we had great food. There was a food area and it was yummy-burgers, dogs, ribs, corn on the cob, cold salads, fruit, cookies, and even lemonade and juice. It was great. After we ate, we went and shopped a bit in the straw market. I almost got my hair braided, but then decided not to.





A view of our ship from Coco Cay.






Some shots of of the food and eating ares.

After we looked around a bit, we laid on our chairs and settled in to have a rest. We were sitting next to these really funny ladies. All of a sudden we heard some laughing and a man walked by in a THONG!! Really- a "man thong." butt cheeks were just a hanging out. It was horrible to see from the front and back. One of the ladies said she was going to take a picture for Facebook. I didn't want to look at it after that.

I noticed that people didn't really care what they looked like in their bathing suits-there were plenty of women in bikinis who must not have consulted any friend or family about who how they looked. When you look at a woman from the front and you can't see the bottom portion of her bikini because her fat roll covers it up, that is just plain wrong. I was happy to see that I was by far not even the largest woman on the cruise. Lots of large people all around. The cruise was very international, and I don't think that people in other country have the body issues that we have here the good 'ole USA. They wear what they want and are comfortable in it. Maybe we should adopt that idea....then again, maybe not!

After we had naps, we walked around a bit before heading back to the boat. Here we are on a dock we found.







After a wonderful time at the beach, we were really hot so we decided we needed to get back to the ship and take a dip in the pool before dinner. We found some chairs and got in the pool. It was so funny because there were 2 pools and they were both salt water. And you just float. Literally. We didn't have to even do any work and we would float around. We took in a "belly flop" competition while we were in the pool. It was pretty funny.

Dinner on Saturday was the "formal" night. People were dressed in a whole range of clothes. Some like us in "Sunday" type clothes, some in dress pants, and some women decked out in actual formal clothes. The couple that ate with us was pretty casual. The were pretty picky about some things at the door, though. Women had to have shirts over bathing suits, men had to have pants, etc. That was nice.

We had a nice dinner. Darin ordered escargots in a nice butter garlic sauce. He loved it. I tasted it-had the texture similar to a mushroom. I always think of Pretty in Pink when I think of escargots, but they were in this little dish that had a hole where each one would sit and was covered in sauce.

Me outside our dining room.

Darin and I after dinner was over. There was a ship photographer that would come around and you could go pick your pics out and buy them. I never did find ours, but wouldn't have purchased them anyhow-they were an arm and a leg. The one from my camera is good enough.



Here's Darin and his tasty snails, and also our fun waiter Marco.

After dinner we went to one of the lounges to watch a "Family Feud" game. I love that game, so wanted to see it. It was fun. We had some late night snacks at the pizza place, then walked around the ship some more places. I wanted to see the lounge that was on the 14th floor-it was the round one with windows all around. It was a bit nerve wracking to be that high up-I have developed more of a fear of heights as I get old.

Then we went to the main theatre and saw another game show called Love and Marriage which was just like the Newlywed game. The newlywed couple was an LDS couple-there were a couple big things that gave them away-first they just looked like it. And her dress was one that had material added where it was low cut, then when she was walking up the steps, she flashed some garments.

Oh yeah, before the game show started, the showed the names of all the newlywed couples, and those celebrating their anniversary. We are a few months early, but our names were up on the screen. That was fun. We enjoyed the show, then went back to our cabin.

Kind of blurry, but we were up there!


This is what greeted us when we went in our cabin:



Thanks, Cassanova!!

Cruise trip Thursday and Friday

I woke up Thursday morning with a list a mile long! Clean the house, do laundry, finish packing kids and myself, get a few groceries to take my friends house for kids, send out a few emails, arrange to have lawn mowed, and on and on.

I got a good start on it, then got a horrible phone call at about 10:00 am. A recorded message from American Airlines telling me that my flight for that evening had been cancelled and I was rescheduled on flight on Friday...that would get me in after the cruise left port.

I freaked out. I panicked. Darin was gone and I didn't know what number to call. The waterworks were going strong. My sweet Jordan came and gave me a hug and told me it would be ok. Luckily the number from the airlines was on my phone. I waited and waited and finally got someone on the line. I was able to get on a flight at 3:30. I immediately called Carla and asked to bring the kids over about 5 hours earlier. She said of course, so I got on with my work.

I felt bad since I was not spending any time with the kids, but I was trying to get the house ready so the house could be shown over the weekend.

I finally got everything done, got the kids to Carla's and got to the airport. It was so nice to casually go through the airport by myself!! No chasing kids!!

I made it to Miami with no problems and hung out in the hotel until Darin got back from his reception.

Friday
We woke up and had breakfast in the hotel-which was quite pleasant with out having to wrangle children- then drove around Miami for a while. It was interesting to see the city. We drove through "little Havana" which was interesting. I noticed that the buildings were all very light in color-mostly in the orange range of color. Spencer would have loved it. I also noticed that they like to have gates and hedges between all the houses.

We made our way to the cruise ship and waited in line to get on. I was so excited. Could hardly believe that we were actually there!! It took a while, then we finally made it on board. It was so weird to think that it was actually a ship-seemed like a huge building. There were 14 floors on the ship! And it was the smallest ship in the whole of Royal Carribean's fleet. And we were told it was twice the size of the Titanic, which was weird-the Titanic seemed so huge on the movie.

Here I am walking down the big hallway leading to the entrance to the ship.



I know our room, cabin, or stateroom-whatever you would like to call it, would be small, and I was right:) And the bed was up against the wall, and guess who had to crawl in and out-yup, me. After we found our room, we hurried up to the buffet, called the "Windjammer" to get in lunch before they closed. Holy food. What people say about cruises is true. They have lunch, then they have "snack" about an hour later, but it is more like another whole meal!!


We were in room 5011 on the 5th floor. We were on the main hall, which was way better than the tiny little hallways to the inside. We didn't have a window, but the ones on our floor just looked at the lifeboats anyhow.

A view of our room, or should I say cabin. Our cabin steward was named Cassanova. He was excellent.


We walked around after that, then went to a "first time cruisers" meeting. It was interesting. That is actually where we learned the facts about the ship. We were on one of the decks and the clouds looked pretty ominous. Soon it was pouring down rain, so the welcome dance party had to be moved inside. We watched a bit, then went back to our room to get ready for dinner.






Are we going to cruise right into a storm?

Yes, we would go right through a storm. Can you see the rain. It was pouring down.

I liked the flag blowing in the wind.

We were assigned to a dining room called Moonlight, and sat at table 305. The first night there was a funny couple from Silver Spring MD and we got along great. But they were somehow separated from their family, so we had a different couple the second night. They were from Philadelphia and it was the first time they had been anywhere outside of Philly-first plane ride as well. They were funny-you could tell they hadn't gotten out much. But they were nice and we had 2 nice dinner with them. Our waiter was Marco from Mexico, and his assistant was Nikolina from Croatia. They were excellent.

After dinner, we went to the "Welcome Aboard" show. It had the "Royal Carribean Singers and Dancers," and then a really funny comedian. We really enjoyed ourselves. The theater was pretty cool. We walked around a bit on the upper decks, then called it a night.

getting very discouraged.

We've been dealing with getting our house ready to sell and getting it on the market since January.

We have now been on the market for 8 weeks.

No offers.

Nothing.

I've watched friends sell their houses and buy new ones.

I sit and wait.

and clean,

and wait.

and clean some more.

Getting very discouraged.

But on a good note, the cleaning lady comes tomorrow and I go to New York on Friday!

People laugh when I tell people....

that Landon is like the kid in the movie Home Alone. It is true, I promise.

Let me explain.

The kids have been going to bed late since we have been out of town so I was determined to get them to bed earlier. I had a great plan. I made dinner earlier so they could watch their favorite cartoon. I had the boys in the bath by 6:15 and in pajamas by 6:40 or so. We brushed teeth and sat down to read books while Jordan had her bath.

After about 20 minutes of reading Frannie K. Stein, Landon rolled over in his bed and went to sleep!!! Yay!!

Then I had Spencer asleep by about 8:30 and Jordan by 9:00.

I did it!! Total success......or so I thought.

4:00am arrives. Landon crawls into our bed all awake and happy. Darin had enough of him not going to sleep and took him back to his bed. Then all of a sudden the hall light was on, then our light was on. We sent him back to his room. (The details are blurry...I forget, but this is the 'jist of it.)

Darin checked on him and came back to bed. I asked what he was doing and Darin said he was on his bed eating. Nice.

Then our light flips on again and I send him back to bed. I hear something in the kitchen so I go check. He was on the floor by the kitchen with a sippy cup, Hershey's chocolate syrup and 2 jugs of milk.

I ask him what he was doing and he said "making chocolate milk. " I thought about getting my camera, but just didn't have the energy. I then look in the sink and there is a favorite water bottle filled with suds, then I notice my hand mixer with the beaters in it!!! It was not there when I went to bed. The dish soap was on it's side.

I ask him what he was doing and he said "I tried to clean the cup."

What? He was going to use my hand mixer to clean a water bottle!!!

Prior to this he had gotten a big Costco size bag of veggie straws and had gotten the scissors and cut the top off-only after climbing up the shelves to reach it!!!

See-this is why I call him the "home alone kid." He can totally take care of himself. The only thing that does worry me is the microwave-I've caught him trying to put things in and turn it on. I think I could leave for an hour and he would be fine.

But, independence is good, right? At least I know he'll be able to take care of himself!

A trip to Burke Lake Park

A while back we spent a great evening at Burke Lake Park. We parked by the marina and had a picnic dinner followed by some hiking and exploring.

Burke is so nice and peaceful. It is so nice to have such "nature" spots so close when you live in the city. The marina was a cool area. We watched couple boats come in and out of the water, fed the geese, watched the different kinds of birds flying around, walked on the dock and hiked the trail a bit. We had a great time.

Spencer and Landon running after a goose was coming after them for some bread.


Feeding the geese and playing in the water.
A goose with a wh1te head. And not shy, either. He came right up to the table to get some grub.

He finally got what he wanted!

And here he is getting more from his new BFF, Darin.

Spencer and daddy on the dock.






The kids and I by the water. It was so calm and serene to look out at the lake.





Landon having fun in the water.



Spencer had a turn wearing the boots so he could go in the water as well. I tried to get Jordan ans Spencer to wear their rain boots, but they didn't want to. Only to end up taking turns wearing Landons's. Well, they are actually Spencer's but Lanny's are too tight.
And last but not least, Jordan had to have a turn, too!!



After we hung out by the water and walked along the dock, we went for a hike in the woods. The kids loved it. There was so much to explore and the weather was great.

Spencer would walk down the trail pointing this stick and would call it his "GPS" and would tell us which way to go.
This is a tree laying on the ground-I thought it was cool.


Another funky tree I liked.

This fallen tree was huge!



Landon loved walking in the mud-as you can see by the look on his face:)

A sleep over in the basement.

On Friday night, Darin wasn't feeling so well and went up to lay down early. I was playing with the kids in the basement-in between cleaning up for the weekend-and realized I hadn't heard from him. I went up the the bedroom and found out he wasn't doing well. I decided to let the kids have a sleep over in the basement. The were thrilled!!! We got all their stuff ready and set the beds up:)

Spencer and Landon taking turns going down under the couch-they were calling it their "lair." Thank you Word Girl.
Spencer checking out the awesome bed mommy made for him!!


Landon getting all ready.
And my beautiful little girl. She actually posed for this picture-"let's do a photo shoot, mommy!"
All the kiddos ready to watch a movie.

Jordan cracks me up. Every time we have a sleep over, she moves into the basement. In addition to the sleep over requirements of sleeping bag, pillow, "blankkie" "dollie" and pillow pet, we also need the snuggie, American girl doll, bag of ponys and pet shops, additional stuffed animals and a huge princess pillow. Now we're ready to go to bed, phew.

the additional "needed" items:
She did remember her Book of Mormon, though:)

After the kids watched the movie a while, I had to make sure they were sleeping. Landon fell asleep during the movie, Jordan right after, but Spencer needed to be settled down. I went back down to check them before I went up to bed.

There's nothing more peaceful and beautiful than sleeping children. I really love looking at my kiddos when they're asleep. For a couple reason: they are so darn cute, and they are QUIET!!

Jordan has been sleeping with this doll, lovingly referred to as "dollie" since she was 1 year old-almost 7 years. Poor thing has seen better days, but she can't sleep without her!
Spencer is just like me-I always have my hands just like this at my face when I sleep. So sweet.
Ahhhh, this is the one I most enjoy to see sleeping-I think you all understand why:) He just looks so sweet and peaceful. Boy does he need the rest after all the craziness he does all day.