Christmas is Here at the Bell House

Santa Claus came to our house a couple of weeks ago. The city of Grain Valley has a group of volunteers that drive around in Santa's sleigh house to house in Grain Valley on Saturdays starting after Thanksgiving up until Christmas. They have police escorts and everything! I was excited this year as Cora did not scream as much as last year when Santa came to our house! Plus we couldn't have asked for a better day as the weather was perfect!! Poor Santa Claus and Mrs Claus was probably hot! Santa Claus also gives out toys to the children from his sack after they sit on his lap and tell them what they want for Christmas. The girls each got a bear from him. It was cute because Kayley was like, "I have never had a real teddy bear before, how did Santa know!?" I always worry that they are going to expect Santa to get them what they have asked for all year right there instead of on Christmas morning. So far that connection has not hit thankfully!

We also put up our Christmas tree a few days later. The girls were so excited to get it up. We waited until Nick got home to put it up as it's always been a big thing in my family to put the tree up together as a family. My Dad's cousin has always given us (my siblings) a handful of ornaments each year for Christmas and now she continues that tradition with our own kids. She always puts our names on them so we know which ones are ours. So it is always fun to open the ornaments each year and reminisce on all the memories and now that my girls are a little bit bigger this is their favorite part. We had a lot of fun putting it up and it's getting more fun each year as the girls get bigger and get more excited each year about Christmas.

Here's our finished product! It's small, but it's our tree! :)

Last of our gymnastics

The girls' gymnastic class is officially over now, but we had so much fun doing it! They are both really good at listening to instructions from the teacher and doing the moves. We were really impressed. They both were the best behaved students in their classes. Here's a fun video of Cora doing one of her moves...I sometimes think she was meant to be a monkey! It's cute! We now know that they both enjoy this and are good at it, so we might do it next year with Kayley as she won't start school for another year and a half.

Grandma Edna

For those of you who know people in my family have probably already heard or read about this, but I haven't gotten a chance to blog about it yet. About almost a month ago now my Grandma Edna passed away, rather unexpectedly of a heart attack. It was a bitter sweet passing for me. For one I was super glad that we got to see her in September only 3 weeks before she passed on our way down to New Orleans. I was so glad for this visit as I now have the assurance that hopefully for sure Kayley will and hopefully Cora will have some remembrance of her. However as I was gathering all the pictures I have of Grandma (at least digital ones) I noticed that I regretfully don't have any pictures of Cora with Grandma or Grandpa for that matter! I was going to take a picture of them with Grandma in September when we were visiting her then, but I didn't think about it until right before we left and Grandma had been in the middle of taking a nap. We had to wake her up to say good-bye...I didn't want to shove a camera in her face as she just woke up! But, Cora does have her own special connection with Grandma with her name. We had originally decided on Cora's name based on the fact that it was Greek (Nick is part Greek) and then as we decided on it, Grandma informed us that she had an aunt named Cora...so it's a family name after all!

With Grandma's passing I've had many great memories come to mind as well as happy thoughts. I remember at Grandpa's funeral, the saddest part for me was to watch Grandma say good-bye to Grandpa at his casket. I could also hear the saddness in Grandma's voice everytime I talked to her on the phone. When I heard of her passing, my thoughts immediately went to the thought that she is now with Grandpa and the happiness they are sharing together!

But some other fun memories that I have of my Grandma was going over there almost every Sunday after church to play with cousins. Grandma would always make us tuna of some sort with tomato soup (no stranger to me as this is what the Felker's ate every Sunday too!) But Grandma made the best tuna melts, which we never got at home! We would also have cousin sleepovers and Grandma would willingly sleep out on the couch with us so we wouldn't get scared in the living room. It also didn't take much begging from me to have Little Cesar's Pizza at Grandma's house! Yummy!! I remember when I was younger and Grandma would take each grandkid shopping for their birthday. I remember walking the old mall in Sikeston with Grandma on my birthday and enjoying that special time with just her! I also remember going to McDonald's with her every now and then. When we'd go she'd let me get a happy meal if I wanted, but oftentimes I would want to get a chicken salad so I could be like her. After we were done with our meal I remember her often letting me get an apple pie. When I would get to spend the night at Grandma and Grandpa's house by myself I got to sleep in their bed. Grandma would sleep in the middle so she could be by Grandpa and I would sleep on the outside. Grandma would always put a chair next to me so I wouldn't fall off...I would often end up in the chair when I woke up! Grandma also had her special stash of trident gum and candy (chocolate!) She would often let us pick out some gum or some candy. Grandpa would often go to the store to buy us some food while we were there and come back with all the different kinds of foods....some funky type foods too...Grandma would always roll her eyes and always say, "Oh Daddy!" Grandma also loved the Cardinals...I remember her always drinking Diet Coke in her cardinals cup and she didn't like ice in it. She and Grandpa would also let us have our own pop...my favorite was purple crush at their house. Grandma and Grandpa were also some of my biggest fans at my sporting events in high school. They would come to pretty much all of my home games and almost all of my away games. If for whatever reason my mom couldn't make it, I would ride home with them and talk to them about my performance. I hope they knew how much I really appreciated this support from them. Sports were a big part of my high school life and it was difficult at times to not have my Dad there to watch me as sports were his passion. To have the support of them meant so much to me and I hope they know how grateful I am to them for that! One of Grandma's favorite desserts from fast food was the frosty from Wendy's. I remember coming home to visit once and Nick and I went to go get her a frosty...she just loved it so much that we thought of her and brought that back for her! There are other many memories of my Grandma, she was a wonderful Grandma and I will miss her dearly! However I am so glad that she has been able to be a part of many important stages in my life, single and married.

Grandma and Grandpa got to go to my wedding in 2003. They were both their during my sealing. My Grandpa of course was known by his black cowboy hat and his mustache...which Grandma teased him saying she wouldn't kiss him unless he shaved it off. Grandpa would reply, "why do you think I grow it out." They always had a teasing way of showing affection towards each other.

They also got to meet Kayley almost right after she was born. Grandma kept saying she was so beautiful and said she was going to be the next Miss Sikeston! She also kept apologizing for giving Kayley a double crown. I'm glad that Kayley has one as she can say she has a double crown like Grandma Edna.

Grandma and Grandpa also got to come up for Kayley's blessing. Grandpa was able to stand in the circle and that was such a neat experience for me to have both of them there for that great moment in mine and Nick's life...and Kayley's too! :)

We also got to go visit them a couple of times down in Memphis after they moved in with the Hathaways. What a blessing they were to them and our family! They took such great care of them! This was during the time when Grandpa was growing out his hair for locks of love. Another teasing moment for Grandma and Grandpa!

Grandma and Grandpa also came up to Columbia a few times in addition to the blessing weekend. This was just a random visit I believe. I can't remember what they were up here for, but we got to go visit them at their hotel.

Another visit later the following year also in Columbia. Kayley didn't quite know who they were so it was a bit overwhelming for her and Audrey, but we are glad they got to visit with us.

Then, of course this is during the dinner after Grandpa's funeral. I should have thought to get pictures with her then of us, but didn't think about it as there were so many cousins there and so much going on it slipped my mind!

Then these are pictures of Grandma's funeral weekend. We had so much fun getting to catch up with so many cousins we hadn't seen in a while and our kids got to play with their kids! It was tons of fun! These first two groups are of all the kids swimming at the Drury Inn. Almost all of my family were staying there, but even the ones who didn't stay there bombarded the pool and the Drury people probably didn't know what hit them! Check out Nick's attire for getting the girls to swim!! :) Jack, Mary, & Andrew were the only brave ones...well Jack and Mary were the ones in the freezing cold pool water...Andrew enjoyed the nice hot tub water!! :)

More swimming at the pool...

Taking Nick, Kayley, and Cora to Kirby's for the first time! It was good, but a little more expensive than I remember it being...I guess that's just b/c I'm an adult with my own finances now instead of relying on Mom and Dads! We also toured a bit of Downtown Sikeston at the Train Station/Museum. Carrie Yanson had quite a bit of items there on display from Yanson's Jeweler's. It was neat to see that part of Sikeston/history and to show Nick and my girls. We also got to see Carrie's new dog Liberty...who was so cute and sweet! I'm sure she's much bigger now! We also got to see Mrs. Johnson and got a picture of all of us and Mom with her. She was our maid/babysitter when we were younger. She was almost like our third Grandma to us and us to her. Her whole family is really special to our family!

Just some other fun pictures of the event. All of the Sargent cousins were there except one and her husband and one of our cousin's husband was also not there, but everyone else was and it was so neat to get everyone together again! I wish it could have lasted longer!

More fun pics...What a great reunion it was! Family sure is a great blessing and I'm so thankful for mine...all of them!!

Halloween 2009 and other events

For some reason I can't stay up to date on my blog...it must be that I'm spending too much time on the computer getting ready for Christmas!! Anyway, here are pics from Halloween and other things we have been up to lately.

As some of you may already know, Kayley is really into Dorothy right now! She loves Dorothy everything. So, we dressed up as a Wizard of Oz family this year for Halloween. Kayley was obviously Dorothy, Cora was the Wicked Witch of the West, I was Glenda the good witch and Nick was the scarecrow. The costumes weren't too extravagant as I was just lucky to get Nick to dress up in general!! :) I did however spend a lot of time (a whole night in fact) fixing Cora's green gloves, which she refused to wear half the time! The wicked witch's skin is bright green so I searched everywhere for green gloves and green socks as I knew if I were to paint her face or skin, that wouldn't go over very well. The only green gloves I could find were adult gardening gloves at Target...luckily the were only 50 cents so if I did mess them up, I wasn't wasting much money. But I made them smaller to fit her hands, which did take literally all night! It was cute though as she would say "I'm going to get you my pretty and your little dog too!" I can't type it as cute as she would say it, but it was cute! So here is all of us at the ward party before Halloween! And of course Cora refused to wear her gloves in this pic, but they are on in other pics below.

These are pics of the Halloween party at Michelle's house. They did a bunch of fun games and here are pics of the cake walk type game and the broom/pumpkin game (not really sure what the official names of the games were, but the kids had fun doing them!

Here's some more pics of the girls' costumes. We went trick or treating with the Carles, I mean the transformer (Edward), the southern Belle (Olivia), The mad scientist (Judson), and Tinkerbell (Katrina). The kids had fun, but we didn't get to go as long as we wanted to as they got hungry fast. But it was fun to do it with friends and family.

Then I have to admit that these pictures are actually taken a whole week after Hallowwen! yes we didn't have our pumpkins carved in time for Halloween, but the kids didn't seem to mind at all! We of course couldn't get the girls to even touch the inside, but it was still fun. Nick told the girls stories with the pumpkin telling it. The pumpkin's name was Harry I believe, but it was cute cause we had the lights off with the candle in it and the girls really thought the pumpkin was the storyteller!

Also a couple of weeks ago we went down to Willard and took another trip to Silver Dollar City. I've never seen it so packed in my life! It was the opening day of their Christmas festivities and it was nuts! We waited 20 min just to park our car! So we had to decide/cut down our plans for the day on rides/shows. We did fit in one ride on the frogs with the girls (their fav ride!) then the living nativity show, then we split and I took Cora on the butterfly ride and Nick took Kayley on the elephant ride, then we met and did the Frosty the snowman show. Then we squeezed in for a spot for the light parade. After the parade was over, the police officer was behind the last light display and behind him was a mob of people, so we grabbed all our stuff and walked right behind the police officer, it again took us 20 min to get out of the park and to our car...but it was fun and the girls had fun so it made for some fun memories!

This month the girls have also been doing Gymnastics. It has been so fun watching them do their classes! Kayley does the class with the teacher and Cora is in parent/tot class where one of us have to be with her throughout the class. The teacher has been great and the girls have loved every bit of their classes. It's cute to watch them get all ready in their gymnastics clothes and get excited to go to their class. Here are some pics of their classes.

Audrey's Birthday Party

Almost 2 weeks ago Audrey had her Dorothy Birthday Party in Columbia. It was so much fun and Sarah did such a great job planning it! Kayley was beside herself with it being a Dorothy party! With me being a doof, I completely forgot about it being Dorothy themed and forgot to have Kayley wear her dress...so I'm not sure how she did it, but she bribed sweet Lauren to let her wear her Dorothy dress. Luckily Lauren is young enough and found another dress-up dress and fit right in with the other cousins that were dressed up! The decorations were so cute! Sarah made a great cake with a yellow brick road on it and a homemade pinata of a rainbow, a painting of the wicked witch, painting of a tinman, a huge apple tree cutout, homemade witches brooms, a cute, cute set up/display of the wicked witch of the east! It was so cute! Here are all the pictures from it!

This is of the decorations and of Audrey's cake.
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!

Yearly Appointments

Ok...I have been behind a lot lately on posting...so I'll hopefully be posting quite a few posts to catch up! Anyway, this is a picture of the girls and their yearly appointment back in September. I knew that they would hopefully both be able to get the flu shot, but I couldn't remember if either one of them were due for any vaccinations or not. We prepped the girls letting them know that they might be getting some shots. Nick and I had already put the girls to bed and Nick heard Kayley crying, very quietly. He went in and found out that she was crying because she was scared to go the doctor. So Nick decided to try and pinch Kayley to help her get prepped on how it would feel. That seemed to calm her down at least until we got there.

Cora was first and did great! She only had to have the flu shot and of course cried for that, but she usually cries when the doctor checks her out with the stethoscope and she didn't cry a bit, she even laughed with him when he was being funny. Then we had to do a finger stick to check her lead and she did not even cry the whole time! I was really impressed with her!

Kayley was next. She did fine with the stethoscope, etc part. She also had fun with our doctor as well when he would joke with her. However when the nurse came in with the box of shots she went bilistic! She had to have all of her kindergarten shots PLUS her flu shot! She doesn't start school until a little less than 2 years from now, but they suggested her getting them now as it would be easier to hold her down, etc! She had to have a total of 5 shots! Then we also had to get her finger stuck as well which you can imagine was also interesting as she screamed the whole time!

Needless to say, the appointment went well and all was well with both the girls. They both got to go to the store to pick out a toy for being so brave. Kayley did get to pick out a more expensive one since she was hit with 5 shots at once. Poor thing was limping for about 2 days after the appointment. I felt bad for her. I'm just glad that we are good for another year!

This was another incentive for them to get through the doctor...to be able to see Ashlyn & Preston!

I Love to See the Temple

I am so glad that I got a video of this as it doesn't happen very often anymore. Cora is now 2 and 3 months and just now sleeping in Kayley's room, within the last 2 weeks maybe. My baby is all grown up! But for the longest time we tried to get her to sleep in there every now and then and she would refuse and say it wasn't her room. She wanted to sleep in her room and in her bed! However she would still fight us to go to sleep. So oftentimes during this short period she would request Kayley sing her to sleep. It was so sweet! I hope the video works for you! My girls are growing up way too fast!

Ross's Gator Crusaders

About 2 weeks ago the Felker's came up from Farmington to do a walk for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation with the rest of my family as well as some of the Wright family. This foundation raises funds to find a cure for type 1 diabetes. For those who may not know our nephew Ross Felker was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes about 5-6 months ago at age 10. He has been quite the example in this diagnosis as he gives himself his own shots and sets health goals, etc. He is such a great big nephew and a great example to our girls and to myself! So, he wanted to have a goal of raising $1000 for the race. Well they definitely met that within a few weeks and by the time of the race they had raised almost $4000!! It was very impressive!

So that Saturday we all ventured out to Legends and joined to complete the 2 mile walk! It was so stinkin' cold!! We all bundled up as best we could and braved the weather! The walk went well even admist passing around and taking turns with holding fussy kids! They were so miserable and weren't old enough to understand...it was hard to see them so cold! But after the walk we were able to enjoy some of the free food very quickly and then dispersed to find heat while all the big kids and Stephanie braved the cold and enjoyed the fun games! My kids did not stay so I didn't get any picks of the fun games, but I heard they were the only ones there! They even closed up shop early and the nieces and nephews were upset cause they didn't get to do all they wanted to do! It was a lot of fun and we are looking forward to doing this again next year for Ross! We are blessed to have such a great nephew! :)

Einstein's new buy

Ok...we have learned that we are a bit more couple of dog lovers than we thought! Or at least dog lovers of our dog! We did something that we thought we'd never do in our life and made fun of all the people who would do this, but we bought a coat for Einstein!! I know it sounds crazy, but he really did need it! The poor dog has very thin hair and almost no hair at all on his belly! (We're not sure why as his type of dog is bred to be hunting dogs!) But he would shiver like crazy outside even inside his dog house and then when we'd bring him inside, even after an hour of being inside he'd still be shivering. So we broke down and did the inevitable. But I do have to say it looks cute on him! We call it his Sherlock Holmes coat! All we need now is a pipe and hat to match it! :)

2009 Family Vacation...Cruise to Mexico

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!