Ok...I'm going to warn you that this is going to be a very long post! I haven't posted in a long time and we also went on vacation about a week and a half ago. I just now got to posting pictures. I kept thinking that I wasn't taking enough pictures throughout the vacation and then I got home and realized I had taken over 300 pics...ok for some of you that may be nothing, but to me it was overwhelming to finally get them organized!! :)
Anyway, for our vacation this year we found a really good deal on a cruise through Carnival. Yes we did take the girls and we had a blast! We cruised on a 5 night cruise out of New Orleans to Progreso, Mexico and Cozumel, Mexico. We decided to drive down since it would be cheaper than buying 4 tickets, plus we have lots of family on the way that we got to visit along the way, which was great! So here's the run down...
The first day actually started after Nick got off work and we hit the road making it to Grandma Edna's/Aunt Michele's house really late. We actually forgot to take pictures with Grandma, but it was a great visit. We did however stop on our way out by the temple for some pictures. The girls were excited to see the temple up close.
The next day we left Grandma's and got to Jan and John's late in the night/morning. The kids were expecting us to get there on Friday after school and we surprised them and were there Friday morning instead! They were excited and got to play hookey and take us to the beach. We had so much fun and got lots of sun! Surprisingly Kayley was our beach baby and Cora was not. This was the first time they both had been to the beach and we were sure that Kayley would like it for only a bit and Cora wouldn't be able to get enough of it...it was complete opposite! Kayley kept chasing the seagulls and saying, "Hi Scuttle!!" She had a great time with her cousins as did Cora.
After the beach we stopped at a really cool military helicopter museum...don't remember the name. It had just barely closed for the night but we did get to see the cool helicopter/planes. It was cute b/c all the kids wanted Nick to lift them up to see what was inside, so plane by plane, kid by kid, all the kids got a peak inside the planes. Then later that night we all went out to eat at Applebee's. We also got a great surprise that night with Cora who ended up throwing up. We went to sleep and hoped for the best as the next day we were scheduled to board our boat!
Well, as you can see from these pics below, we did get to board our boat, but only after a few not so fun experiences. Cora woke up at the Sander's house and took two bites of cereal and ran into the bathroom to throw up. But, we were headed to New Orleans anyway in hopes of no one else getting sick as we all know how much you get to eat on a cruise ship! We did NOT want to miss out on that with being sick! :) So, right before we boarded the ship, we headed to Walmart for a few last minute items and in the middle of the shampoo aisle Cora lost it out of her pants! Nick dashed her to the car to change and clean her up, while Kayley and I frantically searched for a spill station after we put our buggy over the accident so no one would slip on it. We got it all cleaned up and then decided to hit McD's thinking it would take a long time b/f we got on the ship. Cora was sitting at the table waiting patiently and then lost her cookies this time all over the table. I took her to the bathroom this time only to find the bathroom being cleaned!! Urgh!! So we again headed to the car for another change/clean up. After it was all cleaned up, we were finally headed to board our ship.
Note to anyone thinking of cruising...you get VIP boarding if you're boarding with kids...so we didn't have to wait in ANY lines!! It was so nice to walk right up and check in! Well with the scare of H1N1, everyone had to fill out a sheet saying if anyone in their party had had diarrhea or vomiting in the last 24 hours...I freaked out and asked Nick what we should put b/c obviously Cora fit both of those categories. We had to put no so that they'd let us on the ship. Then once we got on, we hung out in our room for a while at least until we shipped off. We weren't worried it was anything contagious by the way as no one else felt bad or anything. We were almost for sure that this was just too much sun from the previous day at the beach. Well, all was well for the rest of the day and she only had one more diarrhea accident that night in her bed. After that, no one got sick and she was better throughout the rest of the trip...Thankfully!! :)
That first night we had a nice and exciting dinner as the girls had to learn how to eat/act at a fancy dinner! Cora's face describes how I felt that night, but it was really good and we had the best cheesecake for dessert and the best hot chocolate...which we ordered everynight after that! Back in the room the girls were way excited about getting the cool towel display! Kayley was way excited about being a big girl and sleeping on the bunk bed! She is growing way too quickly for me! Cora loved her special comforter bed on the floor underneath her. She still flails too much for me to be comfortable for her to sleep on a bunk bed.
The next day was our first day at sea. We had tons of fun playing in our water park/water slide! Unfortunately the girls weren't tall enough to slide down them and you weren't aloud to ride double..so they just got to watch Mommy and Daddy slide down them. But they also had a fun sprinkle part too that they played in.
We also enjoyed the mini-golf at top of the ship. The girls started out trying to use their clubs, but they both resorted to just walking over to the hole and dropping their ball in. It was fun though and awful windy!
That evening we went out and watched the sunset. We came across a really pretty rainbow. Then we walked around and got pictures of the boat and then got ready for our fancy night of dinner all dressed up! I was hoping that dinner was going to go a lot better than the first night...and it did as Kayley really liked pretending to be a princess at dinner...she pretended she was Ariel eating dinner with Prince Eric for the first time being a human. She was pretty cute. She even wanted to use the fancy wine glass to drink her water! :) She started to show us how Ariel used her dingle-hopper (for those not up to speed with Ariel, this is what Scuttle calls a fork) and we stopped her so as not to get any weird looks!
Then once get back in the room, there was an elephant waiting for the girls. They were pretty impressed with that one!
The next day was our first port of call in Progreso, Mexico, which is a small island off of Mexico. We had to take a picture of the girls' prized possessions of the week...Einstein & Baby so they wouldn't take them on the island so as not to risk losing them. All the people on the ship noticed them on the ship and would all ask them girls what the dog and baby's names were. In fact, one guy who we would often run into on the ship, we ran into him on the island and he asked the girls where Einstein was. It was cute!
The first part of our port we walked around the town to get the whole Mexican experience...it was interesting and HOT!! You had to really watch where you were walking as the cars really don't watch at all for people or kids!! It about made me sick to think how some parents were not holding their kids' hands. I guess the kids learn to watch out, but still! It didn't take long for me to get tired of this, so we headed back to sign up for a Mayan ruin tour.
We went with a group on a tour bus to see some Mayan Ruins. The girls were of course the talk of the bus as it was only a group of about 15 people or so. They had some pretzels to snack on and everyone was teasing them about sharing pretzels with them, even later in the week on the boat, they were still asking Kayley and Cora for pretzels. But, the Mayan ruins were pretty neat and apparently we went to the poor mayan's ruins. We were told that the shorter the door, the poorer the group of people. These doors were pretty small! The two pics on the bottom are (R) the female building/Moon (if I remember right) and the (L) male building/Sun...I might have the sun/moon part backwards...but they faced each other...can't remember much else past that. That probably had to do with having to do the tour with kids!
This was the girls favorite part of the tour...and I'll admit mine too! We went to a resort that was located on the beach and it had a really cool pool. The girls only lasted for about 2 seconds on the beach...even Kayley, who was way excited about the pool. I should have gotten just a picture of just the pool, but I didn't think of that until after the fact. It had a big part in the middle surrounded by 6 smaller square sections with about 1 ft of water with chairs in that part. You could sunbath and get wet very easily all in one, but of course with kids you can't enjoy that...but the girls loved the 1 ft part and loved playing around in it. Cora had to be reminded quite a bit where the shallow part b/cm not shallow as she slipped under the water pretty quick, but no worries we got her up quickly and she was fine! Part of the problem was for some reason Nick did not want to swim so he just sat at the side with his feet in the water, while we "Non-bumps on a log" people enjoyed the swimming!
These are pics of our boat while we were walking back. We were very impressed with Kayley as towards the end of the day, she did very well on walking for a long distance. We really missed not taking our stroller with us, but you live and learn and we'll know to take it next time!!
Then that night we had another great dinner with a surprise dance from our waiters! Our waiter is in the bottom picture the second from the left. Hasam was his name and he was from Turkey if I remember correctly. He was working there until he saved up enough money to go work in Vegas. Apparently people who work on cruise ships work about 6 months at a time with only a few days off during that time. I can't believe how people do that, especially when they have a family as did Hasam...but it must be pretty good money!
The next day was our 2nd port of call at Cozumel, Mexico. It had the prettiest ocean water we have ever seen in our life!! Instead of paying to go do any tours this time, we decided to rent a car and drive around the town ourselves. We brought our own snorkel gear and found a beach resort/pool again and made our way to the ocean to attempt snorkeling. The water was amazing and so clear!! Nick went first and came and metioned the water being so clear and the fish coming so close that he could see their teeth. That was not a great idea to tell me as this was my first time to ever snorkel!! I didn't get as brave as Nick and would freak out when the fish got real close, but Nick loved snorkeling and that was his favorite part! Then the girls of course loved the pool at the resort, so we went swimming again.
After swimming and snorkeling, we went to the downtown part of Cozumel and did some shopping. Kayley was most excited about seeing McDonald's here. Cora was asleep while we took her picture there so as soon as she woke up, Kayley insisted on us taking her back to go take a picture and show her McDonalds. A completely different country and all our girls can think about is where is the nearest McDonalds!! :) Then towards the end of our shopping before we went back to the ship, we found a place that gave really cheap massages and I got one...it was amazing!
Then we headed back to the ship. Royal Carribean was also docked at Cozumel while we were there, so I had to get a pic of their boat...I noticed they didn't have a water slide like us...we really liked that part of our boat!! :)
Then we got back on the boat and headed to dinner later in the night. The girls then loved the little lobster back in the room. Nick really liked the lobster we got to eat at dinner!! :)
This is day 7...a day at sea where we had another fun day at the waterworks slide and water park. This day I finally figured out how to go down the slide and actually make a splash! I know it sounds silly...but the first day I kept going to the bottom and I would have to scoot myself down to the end of the slide cause I'd get stuck. I finally kept my back completely flat and got all the way to the end.
We also did a last day of golfing with the girls. They loved being able to mini-golf at anytime! The way home on the boat was a bit more rocky as I think we hit some storm or something...so the top of the boat was SO windy!! It literally was knocking Cora over and I'm NOT exagerrating! We had to hold her hand the whole time and walk her to the hole. So, when we both didn't have a hand, we did literally have her hang on for dear life to the pole. It was cute! We also got to watch one of the last pool games of a group of men and a group of women doing synchronized swimming...it was pretty funny. I didn't get a good pic of the girls, but the men were much funnier. They even held one another up in the air, but I missed the camera on that position.
These are pictures of the inside of our boat all lit up. It really did look neat at night! We tried to get a picture of the girls on the step landing, but there were a lot of people waiting in line to do the same and we decided to nix the idea.
This is the last morning on the ship. At our last stop in Cozumel, there was a guy who made the girls grasshoppers out of bamboo. Nick was worried they wouldn't make it across customs and they would get squished in our suitcases, so we decided to leave them on the boat...so we had the girls take one last picture with them before we left so they could remember them.
After we docked, we decided to spend a day or two in New Orleans as we both had never been there before. We were told we had to eat a beignet, so we headed to the French Quarter to try some. They were pretty good, but not quite what we expected. I was expecting more of a doughnut type, but it was more of a funnel cake type, which is not one of my favorite things. The girls on the other hand could not have enough of them! We got two orders of 3 and the girls ate at least 1 1/2 each by themselves!
Then we just walked around the French Quarter. We actually were right by where we docked and could see the boat from where we were. We felt like we were at a port of call and were dying get back on the boat! It was sad to think they were busy cleaning our room for someone else to use it! The only difference was our boat looked much prettier being on the Gulf of Mexico versus the Mississippi River! :)
That night we were very lucky to have Katrina have us at her house. Our girls loved playing with Todd, Phillip, Grant, and Lucy. It had been a long time since we had seen them and our girls didn't remember them...at least Kayley didn't, Cora hadn't ever seen them. But after we were there for 5 minutes it was like they were all best friends! Then, the next morning Todd surprised us all by being sick. We were worried we were all going to get sick, but surprisingly no one got sick or at least not full blown. Techinally Cora did get sick the day after we got back home 4 days after this time, but it was very short-lived.
So the next day on day 9, Katrina very willingly and unselfishly followed us into downtown and got us in to the aquarium for free with her season passes. Poor Todd had to ride in the car feeling sick, but she insisted on taking us. It was really a cool aquarium and the girls had a great time!
This was a part with some Nemo type fish. There were two sides of the aquarium and I got on the other side to take a picture of the girls as Cora was really cute as she loves Nemo so much and was so excited! The girls were both very confused and thought I was actually inside the aquarium. It was funny! Then they got to play in the sea anemone (like Nemo's house).
This is where we got to pet a shark and a sting ray. We did actually get Kayley and Cora to pet the shark, but neither one of them would pet the sting ray. The shark was actually bumpy and not soft at all like a stingray. It was very interesting.
This was Flotsam and Jetsam from The Little Mermaid. Kayley was really excited to see these. Then the killer whale display did actually have a blow whole that blew air out every now and then. Nick actually put Cora's bottom right on top of it, but as soon as he got her on there, the air stopped.
This picture on the right was taken for my lovely sister Jan!! She and I tease each other about being stumpy as she and I are the shortest one in our family. So I found her street!! :) The other picture is of the street car in New Orleans. We were going to ride them, but they ended up being a lot more expensive than we thought and our meter on our car was about to run out and we didn't know if we'd get back in time or not.
After New Orleans we drove over to Biloxi, MS in hopes to spend another fun day at the beach. Apparently Biloxi was hit really hard by Hurricane Katrina and it didn't get as much publicity, which is why we didn't know this until we got there. We did find a nice hotel right across the street from the beach, but the beach looked more like a lake. I guess it was a combination of the Mississippi river still flowing in there and leftover debri from Katrina or something. So we did play and had fun building sand castles, but I forgot my camera.
Then the next day we started the trek home by stopping in Sikeston to see Aunt Tootie and Carrie. We didn't get a pic with Aunt Tootie as we left earlier than she had expected the next day, but we had lots of fun visiting with them and Carrie made these cute pumpkins for the girls that are now sitting on our front porch! :)
On our way out of Sikeston we of course stopped by Dad, Grandpa, and Kathryn's grave sites. We had not been there since Grandpa's funeral, so it had been quite a while. They had lots of questions as to who was who, but it was nice as I was sitting there thinking that it is so nice they are all three right by each other. It was really nice to reminisce a little while in Sikeston and on our way home with the girls and show them a bit of my history. I can't wait until they can meet my Dad in person! In fact, last night we had family home evening about temples and how Grandma Jani and Papa Felker were always going to be married and that Mommy and Daddy were always going to be their Mommy and Daddy. Then today Kayley asked me how happy I was going to be when I got to see my Daddy again. I of course told her I was going to be so happy that I would probably cry. But I was so glad that she actually is starting to grasp the importance of temples!
Putting pine cones on the graves.
The last group of pictures!! :) All in all the girls were great for our vacation! It was a total of about 30 hours of driving or so and they were grouchy at times, but for the most part great travelers! The DVD player was a great thing to have in the car, for them and for us too as we played our own in the front seat too! :) But even while we were on the boat on the last night at the fancy dinner a lady came up to us and commented to us about how well behaved they were throughout the whole time we ate dinner every night. We were really impressed with their behavior throughout the trip and will definitely take them again on a cruise...maybe even next year if we get another good deal! :) The girls are continuously taking on a daily basis about going on a cruise again so we are counting down the days till next summer!
The Apple Tree throwing game.
The witch race game.
The wicked witch/melting game with water balloon throwing to melt her. Pin the heart on the Tin Man game. Hot ToTo game as well.
The Rainbow Pinata.
The walking puzzle board...Sarah had each game set up to receive a clue at the end to a piece of the puzzle. Nick was our puzzle board and the puzzle made a picture of the Wicked Witch of the East. She had it by the side of their house just like the house had fallen on top of her like in the movie. Of course Dorothy's shoes were there...so the kids had to go find Dorothy to give her her shoes.
Dorothy is here!! The kids were so cute and couldn't believe Dorothy was actually here! Audrey and Kayley loved it! Kayley followed Dorothy around like a sick puppy!
Then we had yummy cake and then presents! It was a great party! Then ironically that night we went out to eat at El Maguey's with Nick's cousin who was in town and there was a couple that showed up dressed as the Tin Man and the Scarecrow! Kayley was beside herself, but wasn't brave enough to take a picture with them...so I got a pic of them from far away. That's them in the lower left hand corner. It was a fun day!
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