Vacation Part Two

We had a lot of fun on the cruise. The girls loved being able to eat ice cream whenever they wanted. I think that was the highlight for them for sure. They ate ice cream for breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack and bedtime snack. I wondered if they would get sick of the ice cream but NOPE! They kept going back for more! This fancy ice cream swan was brought to me by Callen - thanks Bud!

Tom and I had just as much fun as the girls. Do you love our self portrait picture? This was after many takes. I think we need to work on doing SP. I brought my little point and shoot camera and am a little sad I didn't bring my big camera. The pictures weren't near as good nor near as fun to take.

Cassidy finally made a friend (she's a little shy) on the last day. Here they are playing mini golfing on the top of the ship. What a view!

Cassidy and Abby won a free Build-a-Bear and when we went to get them we somehow got three! So we asked Callen if he wanted one (I didn't think he would go for it) and he said SURE! So the girls taught him how to stuff the bear, add the little heart after rubbing it on your head, lips, heart, knees, eyes (we made up all kinds of things to see if Callen would do it and he did!) then dressing the bear, naming it and playing with it. Good times for the kiddos and I thought they were darn cute!

Abby stuffing her bear Sally.

The boys (Cade, Callen and Cooper) taught the girls (Cassidy and Abby) about video games on this trip. They spent a lot of time at Underground Tokyo playing. One night Chris and Monica and Tom and I sat outside and talked while the kids played. Afterward Cassidy couldn't stop giggling about some pattle throwing incident. She would just spontaneously break out in giggles thinking about it. When she went to bed that night the last thing she did before she fell asleep was giggle to herself. I loved that moment. There's nothing better than a memory that keeps you laughing hours later!
Oh and did you know there were Pirates on the ship! Cute little Pirates that I wanted to squeeze and hug and kiss to death! Abby loved the kids area. She had so much fun going there each day for a few hours. She made lots of friends and made crafts, sang songs, played games. This day was Pirate day!

Dad and Abby snorkeling in the blue waters of St Maarten.
Abby saw a starfish and loves to tell you all about it if you ask.

Cassidy was so brave! She went on a Snuba dive with Tom. This is where you share an air tank and go down about 30-40 ft. You don't have to be certified and it's great to get you used to scuba. She was very nervous at first but did it anyway and got to see a sunken ship! I was so proud of her!!!

Mom and Abby hanging out on the boat waiting for Dad and Cass.

Dad and Cass after their dive.

In St Thomas we went to a The Butterfly Farm. It was so beautiful and we saw a lot of different types of butterfly's. We got a tour and learned all about the life span of a butterfly. Cooper was the lucky person of the day and had a butterfly land on his head! We spent almost two hours there! I was in heaven with all the beautiful plants and flowers. I wanted to come home and plant my own butterfly garden! (we'll see about that. St Thomas does have slightly MORE rain than AZ!)

Of course Monica and I had to have a picture in front of the Tiffany & Co store in St. Thomas! Yes, we did go in and look, No we didn't buy anything!

Here is Tom and Cassidy in Porto Rico. We were sad that the cruise ship dropped us off her at 5pm. We didn't want to walk around Porto Rico with a bunch of kids at night so we did a little shopping then headed back to the ship. I was impressed with the architecture of the buildings and how nicely maintained they are. I loved all the colors of the buildings! Pink, yellow, blue, purple, orange. All right next to each other. How come we can't get away with that here? I would love a yellow house with a bight pink door!

Cassidy laying out by the pool. Taking a break from swimming.

Do you love that Abby picked out this chapter book from the ship's library and is reading it by the pool. She's such a funny little girl! We had no doubt that she was really reading it too!
The girls loved the nightly towel animals. Every night there would be a new animal and chocolates left on our beds. Funny how Tom and I never got a chocolate though.

This was up at the top of the boat as we were leaving Miami.
It was such a fun cruise and we were so glad we could bring the girls. The cruises we have done before were nice and we had a lot of fun but we always worried about being away from the girls. This was the best of both! If we wanted to be alone, we sent them off to kids club, if we didn't we just hung out. Mostly we all had a great time together and isn't that what a vacation is supposed to be?

Ratings:
Carnival Cruise Line
*
Porto Rico
*
St Thomas
*****
St Maarten
***
(one more post to go - Florida and Burn Notice pictures!)

Va-Cay #1 - Florida

We arrived in Miami Wednesday. The flight wasn’t bad. We had a layover in Houston Tx. When we flew in to Houston I thought to myself, “wow they sure have a lot of bright blue pools here!” then as we got closer to the ground I realized that it was the roofs of houses that had bright blue on parts of it. I asked my seatmate what they were. He said they were tarps left over from the damage of the last hurricane. Ike was it? How sad. Wasn’t that last year? And people still don’t have their roofs fixed?

After we arrived in Miami it was late. We were tired. The girls were amped. Isn’t that how it always is? Parents are exhausted – kids wound up? I don’t think that us renting a convertible helped matters. They were beside themselves. Now we all want one - they are so fun!

Thursday was spent sleeping in (till 11am!) Then we went to the pool. We noticed there were a lot of beautiful Latin girls in bikinis all around the pool. About 15-20 in fact. All young and beautiful. Hmmmm this was not very good for my self esteem. We got in the hot tub and found out they were here till May for a Latin Reality Pagent Show on Univision. Nuestra Belleza Latina. There were 75 girls but now they are down to 40. It ‘s on every Sunday night. I’ll have to tune in to see the winner. The girls were so friendly and nice it was hard not to like them – even though they were so darn beautiful. We even got to see them do some filming! My purse and shoes might be in the shot. I was hiding in the hot tub. No way was I going to be filmed next to those beauty queens!

Friday we went to Gator Park early in the morning. The girls were dying to see some alligators and we aim to please so off we went! I searched a bunch of different airboat tours to the everglades and decided on Gator Park because they have a live alligator show and other scary animals to look at. Snakes, lizards, turtles and a lot of alligators in all sizes. The boat ride was fun and we did see a lot of alligators hanging out in the sawgrass. I have to admit, the alligator wrestling show was the highlight of the trip to Gator Park. The guy was sooooo funny and he really did wrestle the alligator! He put his hand in his mouth and jumped on his back and got his head and did all kinds of crazy stuff. I wonder how much he gets paid. Not enough!

The kicker……? He let us hold an alligator about the size of Abby!! Oh yes he did! Tom was first, then Cassidy then Me. Abby didn’t want to and I don’t blame her. It was as big as her. I would have been a little apprehensive too! Tons of fun I tell you! I could have done that show again it was so good. I highly recommend it! It also wasn’t very expensive. $42 for the four of us to go on a boat ride, see the alligator show, hold the alligator and walk the park to see all the animals.

(Do you like how I'm holding it like a baby?)

Friday I spent a good amount of time being a spy and trying to find the location of my favorite show Burn Notice. I knew they filmed in Miami and since I was in Miami I just couldn’t let the opportunity pass me by. So I searched and searched and found a location. I also found out they have have a contract that says they have to film in Miami. Miami hasn’t been on the TV map since Miami Vice and they (the City) want to have their name in lights again. I’ll say it’s in lights! Burn Notice is the Best Darn Show out there if you ask me! We love it! And it was a unanimous vote – Saturday we were off to find the Burn Notice Set location!

Saturday we woke up, ate breakfast of oatmeal and bananas in our room. Instant oatmeal is the perfect in-your-hotel-room food. You use the coffee maker to heat your water, the coffee cups to hold the oatmeal and the coffee spoons to stir and eat! Saves time and money when on vacation! That is….if you like instant oatmeal. We then headed to the Wholesale Mall that was next to our Hotel. This is similar to the LA Fashion District but not as good. Lots of shops with wholesale items like jewelry, purses, clothing and such. The girls and I got earrings, sterling silver hoops for $3 and $5. And Cass got a bracelet for $4. I was too excited to go on my Burn Notice adventure to want to shop for anything more. We then put the top down on the car and off we went in search of Michael Weston and Fiona.

Since being here in Florida I was surprised at how…..shall I say ugly it was. The landscaping was blah, the trees were sparse, no flowers in site. I was shocked really. I kept saying to Tom, where is the lush tropical landscaping? Where are the flowers? Even in California in the bad parts of town people will have bars on their windows, paint chipping off the houses and gorgeous flowers and shrubs in their front yards. I was expecting that of Miami. Not until we got into Coconut Grove did I see pretty flowers and trees. And let me tell you they were everywhere! I loved it!!!! We drove right to the address of the Burn Notice location. We got out and started investigating. It’s in an old building that isn’t used anymore and looks deserted. However we saw the stars trailers, a big semi with a card in it’s window that said Burn notice, a food service truck, lots of production tricks and trailers. (these are the stars trailers!)

We were getting very excited. We walked around the building and saw two guards. We asked them if we could get in and see the set. They said they wouldn’t start filming till Wednesday and to come back. We tried and tried to get them to let us in to see but they wouldn’t. It was deserted anyway, we wouldn’t have seen anyone. We then walked around the whole building all sad but still hoping we would see someone or something. We were just about to round the corner and head to the car when Tom and I stopped, looked at each other and looked to our left. I then broke into a run – yes, I RAN! Right over to the entrance to Michael Weston's loft. You know the corrugated tin gate, the rusted walls. The staircase to the blue door. We saw it and we were all dancing around. The girls were so excited! (they think Michael really lives there) It was all real to them and very fun for Tom and I. You can bet we are coming back after the cruise. We can’t wait!!!!

We then drove through Coconut grove which was beautiful and had big beautiful homes and lots and lots of amazing flowers and gorgeous landscaping! We drove right out to Key Biscayne had lunch then spent the day at Crandon Park. One of the top 10 beaches in the United States. It was sunny, warm, breezy and beautiful. The ocean was shallow for a long way out so the girls were safe while they played in the waves. This was a very family friendly beach. I was afraid to go to the beach because of spring break but we lucked out and were surrounded by families and children. The beach was picturesque with the big yellow lifeguard station, palm trees blowing in the wind and the green blue water stretched out before us. It was a perfect day.

More to come about the rest of the week!

I'm Back

We had a GREAT vacation and I can't wait to write all about it. I have taken over 300 pictures on my little point and shoot camera that I want to somehow make into a video. I have lots to do to get back into the swing of real life. I love a good vacation but then it's so hard to get back into daily life!

Here are some of the highlights from our trip:

Holding an alligator that was a big as Abby
Going to one of the top 10 beaches in the USA - Crandon Beach, Key Biscayne Fl
Seeing with my own eyes the waterways of Ft. Lauderdale aka Venice of the Americas
Shopping in St. Thomas
Snorkeling in St. Marteen
Walking the beautiful streets of Puerto Rico
Watching Cassidy Snuba and Abby Snorkel
Tom winning a "ship on a stick" for playing Name that Tune!
Getting my first tan of the season
Eating fresh cut up fruit whenever I wanted-pure bliss
Driving around in a convertible and wanting one for my very own - the girls do too!
Seeing the Burn Notice set and watching them film on location by the water.
Staying in a hotel with the Telemundo Latino Pageant Contestants (all 45 of them!)
Being lazy and not having to worry about cooking for 2 whole weeks!

and best of all: knowing my Aunt Janet is getting better - slowly - but better every day. This is such a blessing.

There is alot more but I'll have to write the details later. I have been keeping a little journal so I could write it all down on the blog. Don't want to forget this trip anytime soon. We sure are lucky Tom has clients all over so we can tag along with him on business trips!

Check back and I'll have all the details!
(sorry about the spelling - I'm on the laptop and i don't have my super duper spell check machine on this thing!)