Cabo San Lucas, Day 1

Our first port was Cabo San Lucas. I've been to Cabo before, but don't remember it. When I woke up and looked outside, it looked like Phoenix (or Scottsdale) with an ocean.  

When rented a private boat and 2 guys to drive it for a great price.  We found the boat easily and there was this cute Sea Lion. They called all the sea lions Poncho, so that was his name.

I think he even waved to us.

The got us all drinks right away and we were off to check out Cabo.

A pic of me to prove I was there.

Dak and Ryan having a beer.

They would feed the fish some bread and man, they went crazy.

The rock formations in Cabo are amazing.

This is the famous arch.

These girls were enjoying the boat.  They had cool music playing. The weather was amazing. Truly it was just perfect.

And these sea lions were enjoying the sun too.  They smelled so bad.

This sea lion was the misfit all by himself.

The kids all looking cute and enjoying life.

This is where the rich and famous vacation.

The kids rode up in front like this the whole time.  We were looking for whales, but didn't see any.  That was fine as almost every morning off the cruise ship, we'd see dolphins and whales.  It was so cool. 

Then, somehow, Ryan and David spotted something in the water.

Was it a whale? Dolphin? Shark?

It was a sea turtle!

And Emily was in heaven!  One of our guides held it while all the kids got to pet it.

Then, he swam off. We have some super cool underwater shots of the turtle, but Dak has them still.  The guides took pics on a go pro and gave us the SD card. So, those shots will come later.  It was really just animals, but some good shots.

Bye, bye Mr. Sea Turtle!

Here's our boat.

Then, we went snorkeling.  We snorkeled last year in the Bahamas, but it wasn't deep open ocean.  It was just a few feet of water that we could stand in. This was a whole new experience.

All the kids took off with David.  They did so well.  It was a little scary, but they are such troopers.

Here's Dak and Josh.

After our 3 hour tour was over, we walked around a bit and looked in the stores.

The day of the dead stuff is really cool.

And it was Spring Break, so Miss Cheeky as I call them, were out in full force.

We got real Coke from Mexico. They use sugar, no high fructose corn syrup.  YUM!

We were all famished, so we got right on the ship and hit the buffet and ice cream station!

This cruise has an overnight in Cabo, so we were back at Cabo the next day for a beach day!

Cruising to Mexico

Oh boy, was this trip a blast!  Food, friends, fun....what's not to love.

I'm going to have to break this down into a bunch of posts or you will get about 200 pics. First up, cruising itself.

We got on the cruise ship so easily.  It was maybe 45 minutes of processing and there we were, hitting the buffet.  By the way, we all did a weight in this morning.  It's not pretty.  Noah may be up 2 pounds, but he's seen 52 pounds before on the scale, so I don't take it as cruise weight gain.  Ben didn't gain anything.  He doesn't stop moving, so that helps.  Emily was at 4 pounds.  I'm at 6.5 and David is at 10.  Yeah, we ate salads for dinner tonight.

In any case, it was fun to indulge. Everyone hit the hot tub right away. My camera still had on that blue effect.  Good thing I noticed after this photo or the all of my pics would'v been this way.

The water was a bit cold, but that doesn't stop these kids.  It's just ocean water that they pipe in.

We hit the water slide as soon as we got moving.

There was a bit of a learning curve and because Noah was so light, he would get stopped.  But, by the third or fourth try, he was flying down.

Noah learned, swim shirts held you back, so off it went, and your belly was the better method.

The girls braved the pool. 

This was our balcony view.  We tried a "partially obstructed view". We knew it meant the lifeboat was out the window and that you wouldn't be able to see down, just out.  It saved a few hundred dollars, so we went with it.  We won't do that again.  It wasn't a bad view. I just prefer no boat in my view.  And if I'm paying $3500 for a cruise, I will spend the extra $200 and get the view I want.

Emily loved all the towel animals that they leave in your room every day.

Some of these are out of order as I switched cameras often.  Oh, but none are phone pics as I forgot my charger in the car in California.  And David's phone uses my charger too.  Oops.  Oh well, it was actually nice to disconnect and not even thing about my phone. We only had wifi a few times at ports and what not, but not much to do with a dead phone.  

Anyway, here we are at a seaday brunch.  It's so yummy.  

Here's a day at sea and us all lounging.  

One day, a guy did an ice carving on the lido deck. It was a Native American Indian.  I'm convinced this is the easiest and quickest one to do as I've seen it on three cruises so far. Not that it looked easy.

Here we are heading to dinner.  I'm convinced mine and Emily's hair just needs to stay in a braid the whole time.  Our hair in ocean humidity is just a frizz ball.  Next time, I will grow out my bangs some, so they can be easily pulled back.

This was our dining room.  We had the best wait staff.  The head waiter was named Taras and he rocked.  He even ran up to the Lido Deck to get Noah an ice cream since Noah didn't want anything else on the dessert menu.  That's going above and beyond.

And Justine here cut Noah's steak for him.

My favorite dessert, the Molten Chocolate Melting Cake.  I had one every night.  

Emily is learning some songs from Phantom of the Opera on piano, so it was cool that this was the picture outside our door.

It was fun to dress up a little for the formal nights. 

These girls are so silly.

The best part of formal night, according to my husband, would be the lobster and prime rib on the menu. 

We went to a show, but by far our favorite night time activity was the comedy acts.  Ben and the girls would sit in the front row.  Before the show, Haley J. (the MC) came out to announce the act and would bring a non alcoholic drink out since it was a PG show.  She'd give it to someone in the crowd.  She gave Ben one...twice!  He shared because he's nice like that.

Oh, and one time, Ben was the hit of the comedy show.  They did an improve with 3 kids, Ben's hand shot up to volunteer.  I wish I had it on video, but you know, some things are just great to experience and not watch through a lens.  This was one of those moments.  Ben got a bigger laugh from the crowd than the comedian.  It was hysterical.

The kids before Cabo.

The towel animals are so cute. Here's a dinosaur.

Oh and these boys.  Basically, every day, David and I would wake up and go upstairs for coffee and breakfast #1.  We usually had two breakfasts. Hence the 5-10 pounds.  Anyway, we'd bring these kids back a huge bowl of bacon, chocolate muffins, 3 boxes of Lucky Charms for Noah, coffee and juice.  No wonder they love cruising.  

That's the majority of my pics from on the cruise ship. Still up...Cabo Day 1, Cabo Day 2, Puerto Vallarta (my new favorite place) and more!

Vacation Day 1

This is the first trip ever that I didn't bring a computer. I figure we can't do anything with it on the cruise, so why bother. So, I'm writing from my phone, and all the pics are at the bottom. So be it.

There were tons of poppies on the side of the road because we had so much rain. Don't mind the dead bug on the windshield. We stopped to get gas and I found a big hunk which was my favorite candy bar as a kid.

I always loved the windmills but they looked even prettier at night. A lot of them have these little red lights I guess so that helicopters don't hit them.

We raced the longest train we've ever seen. We won...eventually.

It was a long drive but we made it.

Nightly Walk

David and I have been taking walks together for over two years now.  Almost every night, we walk the dog for 2 1/2 miles.  It's nice to get some alone time and talk uninterrupted.

We've taken the kids before on occasion, but they are usually just a headache.  Emily rollerbladed a few times and then complained about the rocks and her feet hurting a mile in.  So, we stopped inviting them.  But, David was away for work last week, and I told all the kids to get their shoes on, that we were going to walk to the park.

They were all game.  If we cut through the field behind us, it's only about 1/2 mile to the park.  Anyway, they did great and like it, so I we've taken them a few more times.  Not every time, but a couple of times a week.

This picture makes me laugh as I didn't even know I took it of myself.  I was watching Rocko tear after the boys and David.  We can let Rocko off the lease and he is so fast.  I love watching him run free.

Then, Rocko gets tired, finds a stick and relaxes.  There is a baseball diamond right behind Rocko and it's all fenced in, so we let him run around and chase a tennis ball in there.

They kids play hide n seek and run around.

Look at these two handsome boys.

It's nice to get the kids off of tablets and get them out in the fresh air.

Stan Lee

Ben had to do a book report on a biography this quarter in school.  I asked Ben who he'd want to read about.  He rattled off some people of interest, Stan Lee, Steven Spielberg, Walt Disney.  Then, the teacher said they had to dress up like that person and do a presentation at a Living Museum at school during Read Across America week.  Um, well, all those guys are not that fascinating to dress up as.  So, Ben asked if he can dress up with as one of their famous characters they created.  

I was pushing for him to do E.T., Jaws or a TRex from Jurassic Park since those are all from Steven Spielberg.  But, Ben went with reading about Stan Lee, so he could dress up as Spiderman.

But, this was his poster on another book report he did on Sharks.  He had to make a movie poster of it.  I love his "attention grabbing headline" that he came up with....

In the depths, no one can hear you scream....Sharks!

Ben's funny.

So, here he was at the Living Museum.  People would come up and press his power button and he'd come alive and present a minute about himself as Stan Lee.

But, there was time to goof off too. 

And spin webs....

The little kids all liked Ben's station since he was a superhero.  

It was a cool night.  I got video of it, but it was so loud in there, you couldn't hear what he said.  But, trust me, he did a great job!  :)