we're scrambling to get ready

Christmas snuck right up on us this year. I refuse to start Christmas festivities until after Thanksgiving is done, so I blame Thanksgiving for my Christmas unpreparedness.

We usually like to go out and chop down our own real tree. And I stuck to that plan for

quite a while this year, till we looked at our schedules realistically and realized we wouldn't have a weekend off till Christmas...and we wanted to have our tree before then.

So we got down our old trusty "liberal tree".

I actually don't hate it this year, I'm not really sure why. All I know is, every time I look at it all I can think is how much I love it.

Capri wasn't helpful at all in the decorating process. Oh, she was helpful in getting the decorations out of the box, but that's about all. Otherwise, not so helpful. The hat Capri is wearing is one I bought several years ago as a tree topper, because I couldn't find a star I loved. Aiden took possession of it when he discovered it two (three?) years ago and proclaimed it his "Christmas hat". This year, it was too small for his gigantic head. So we gave it to Capri this year, and got Aiden an adult sized hat at Target that should hopefully fit for years to come.

 His favorite tradition is wearing his Christmas hat while we decorate (and any other chance he gets). He also enjoys watching all of his favorite Christmas shows (The Polar Express, Charlie Brown's Christmas, and Frosty the Snowman...we need to get the Grinch) as much as he can get me to allow, and drinking insane amounts of hot chocolate. This boy loves Christmas. He wrote his letter to Santa and mailed it, called and left him a voicemail, and then we actually went to see him. Hopefully all of our bases are covered.

Aiden's never really been scared of Santa, and has always been more than willing to sit on his lap. Since Capri is much more snobby (and a lot more scared of strangers, especially men) I was kind of looking forward to getting one of those kid-screaming-and-being-held-on-Santa's-lap photos, but it never happened. She just sat there on his lap, totally cool with it. This girl seems to thrive on being unpredictable.

I forced the kids into their Christmas hats again (luckily Capri thinks wearing hats is hilarious) after the tree was all decorated (a few days later) to get some shots of the two of them in front of the tree. What an ordeal. Of course Capri wouldn't cooperate, and Aiden gets frustrated when things won't go the way they're supposed to.



I'd just get her to sit for a minute, and right as I got to the camera to take a picture, she'd be off again.

Another fail...



And close enough!! Good thing they're cute!

See? Can you see why I love the tree so much? Sigh...

The last few years I just get to the point where I am just wishing Christmas was over with already, because I'm tired of being stressed out about what to get who, how much money is being spent, and what shopping I haven't got done yet. This year, I'm still stressed, but I am not letting it get to me. Whatever shopping doesn't get done, oh well. We'll all live through it. I'm tired of being so stressed out about things that don't really even matter. So this Christmas we are going to be reflecting on the reason that we are celebrating. It's not about the presents, or how much money we spent. It's about being grateful for our Savior, his life, his example, and his sacrifice. We love him, and we are so thankful to him.

this is totally random...

These are a few pictures I've snapped of Capri lately.

Things she does that make me smile, or laugh right out loud.

Like her love of cell phones. Anything resembling a cell phone goes right up to her ear,

 and she says "eh?" Then proceeds to chatter for a while.

I'm certain that if we gave Capri my cell phone Christmas morning, she would be happy with

that, and only that. That's just not going to happen though.

Sometimes, mostly when she is mad and crying, she sticks her finger in her nostril.

I swear, it comforts her. A lot of times she'll just be sitting around, and the finger just goes right in there and hangs out for a while. I laugh every time, cause come on, that's funny.

day seven-at sea

This last day on the ship was spent doing our favorite things, things that we wanted to do one last time, and getting pictures of our favorite parts of the ship.

One of my favorite things to do throughout the cruise, was go out on the outside deck on deck four, and just watch the ocean go by. It was cool to lean over the side and feel the spray, watch the waves come off the ship, and stare off into the nothingness. As far as you can see, nothingness.

  Another favorite, was the cupcake cupboard. I wandered past this cute little place at least daily. The cupcakes were $2.50, so we hadn't ever gotten one, we just looked at them. And drooled a little. On the last day, we each got one. 

  They were pretty amazing. I got red velvet, and Kenny picked chocolate vanilla. Yum.

  On the last day, they had a demonstration on the Promenade of the kitchen, dining room, and housekeeping staff and the cool things they do. They each demonstrated their skills, from crafting desserts, to folding napkins. From folding towel animals, to sculpting art out of fruit. This guy was pretty amazing. He did awesome ice sculptures, and fruit sculpting. At each meal they had fruit sculptures displayed all over, and today we got to see him do his thing.

  See how cute? It's all fruit!! (And vegetables.)

Another of my very favorite things, was the self-serve soft serve ice cream station on Deck 11, right by the pool. I may or may not have had an ice cream every day.

  Probably the place we hung out the most, besides the buffet and the pool, was the flow rider. 99% of the time, it was Kenny that was doing the wave riding, and I was sitting, and watching, and reading. It was actually really fun to just sit and watch people do it all the time. Especially the ones that were really good at it.

  I had already done it once, and it hadn't ended well. I wasn't planning on doing it ever again, but it bugged me that I had no photographic evidence that I had done it. So I did it one more time, and I threatened Kenny to within an inch of his life that he had better get at least one picture before I crashed.  I had set up all the settings so that he just had to take the picture, but by the time it was my turn, the sun had come out from behind a cloud. So the pictures are a bit....bright.

  I did so good! All I wanted was a picture. But after I got down on the boogie board, and I knew Kenny had been able to get a picture, I didn't know what to do. I wasn't crashing, and I wasn't going to crash on purpose! So I tried to get up on my knees. That had ended it pretty well for most people, so I tried. And then I was on my knees! So then I got my balance, and let go of the board. And then I was doing no hands, and wasn't crashing. I was a total rock star!  Finally, I didn't know what else to do, so I let my board turn sideways so I would crash. It wasn't pretty, but I accomplished my goal for sure! So fun.

 After boogie boarding, they had the flow rider open for stand up surfing, which Kenny hadn't tried yet. It looked significantly harder than boogie boarding, but he really wanted to at least try, so he did. It didn't go really well, but I was able to get one picture where he was upright, and was not holding onto the hands of the real surfer that was helping him.

  Something we did a lot of was head out to the very front of the ship on deck five. It was pretty cool to stand at the forward most point of the ship with closed eyes, it felt like we were flying. We did NOT do the Titanic "I'm the king of the world" thing, but it was tempting :)

  I swear we did not wander around the entire time in our swimming clothes, but it seems like it, because it's all we are wearing in all the pictures. 

  The skies against the ocean we incredible to look at, I couldn't get a picture that was equally amazing.

 These are the people that we ate dinner with most nights. Mike and Adrianna from Florida, they were so nice. Kenny and Mike got along pretty well, and Adrianna and I had a lot in common. They were the only couple we met and got to know that were younger than our parents :)

Over all, we had a great time and would not miss going again if the opportunity presented itself again. It's great to be home now, but we definitely had a great time while we were there.

day six-at sea

  I didn't even take my camera out of our room this day, so there are no pictures. Sorry :) So there might be a lot of boring words...You may skip this post.

  We slept in this day, and didn't even bother going to get breakfast. We just lounged around. I read, and Kenny watched TV. We finally got around to leaving the room to get lunch, then went to play in the pool and watch the belly flop contest. It was pretty fun to watch, but there was no wondering who was going to win. There were several guys that were on the medium to large side, and then there was a man who had to be at least 400lbs, with a belly apron that hung almost to his knees. He had it in the bag before anyone even started.

  Other than that, we hung out in the pool and by the pool. I bored Kenny practically to tears. I sat around reading, while he just sat. Eventually of course, we ended up heading to the flow rider. We always seemed to end up there, either just to watch, or for Kenny to play. We went and hung out at the flow rider at least once a day. If it was open to anyone, Kenny participated. If not, we just watched the private lessons. I think it was day three that I tried it once, just to say that I did it once, and to get a picture to prove it. I didn't even last long enough for Kenny to get a picture. And when I "wiped out" my top came down a little...so I vowed to never do it again. It was easier to just sit and read while Kenny played. Best of both worlds.

  There was a pretty cool climbing wall on the ship too, as well as a tennis/volleyball/basketball court. We didn't use any of those at all. There was a casino that we only walked through sometimes because it was convenient to use it to get from the front of the ship to the back. On deck five was the Royal Promenade, where there were several shops, but we didn't spend much time there because all they sold was liquor, jewelry, perfume, and wine. And, of course, ice cream and cupcakes.

  Since this was our first cruise, we didn't really have any idea what it was really going to be like. I've heard from people that it's the only way to travel, and it's amazing, etc. I'm not going to lie, it was nice to get away and having nothing to do. And for what we got for the price we paid, I feel like it was worth it. But will I ever travel by cruise again? I don't know. Probably not. If I do, it's not going to be seven days, unless there are at least three or four stops and cool things to see and do. We had five "at sea" days, and that was at least one too many. Our ship was huge, one of the 50 biggest cruise ships that exist, but still, a ship is only so big, and there is only so much to do. We were constantly saying to each other "what do you want to do now?" I am glad we went. It was nice, and fun, and relaxing.

  Another thing we did a lot of all week, was eat. There was the buffet, which was open almost all the time. It started at 6:30am for breakfast, which went until 11:30 when they seamlessly switched it to lunch till 3:00, and that's when the "afternoon snack" begun. At like 5:15, it closed for a brief time while they got ready for dinner. Then dinner went from 6:15 to 9:00. Besides the buffet, there was a Sorrento's pizza place, a cafe, a Cupcake Cupboard (which I was SO excited about, but then we found out that the cupcakes cost extra...) a Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream place (that cost more too), and a Johnny Rockets. Besides all that, there was free 24 hour room service (which I'm sad to say we didn't take advantage of like I would have liked.) Most nights we went to dinner in the dining room, at the time we were supposed to. But there were a couple of nights we didn't feel like it, so we went to the buffet or Sorrento's, and one night we ate at Johnny Rockets.

  On the sixth night, there was a Comedy show that we were excited about. We went early enough that we got good seats, but as soon as the comedy show started, of course it got very uncomfortable, because the comedian was making very dirty jokes, and using very foul language. So we left. And went to bed. The end.

day five-St. Maarten/St. Martin

  I was determined to do SOMETHING fun at St. Maarten, because this was our last chance. After this, it would be all boat. Don't get me wrong, the boat was huge and had tons of things to do, but let's face it. After four full days on that ship, we had already done everything there was to do multiple times. We were starting to get very stir crazy on that ship.

  We hadn't planned anything for St. Maarten, since we were doing excursions on both of the other islands, but you know by now that things hadn't been working out for us so far. Back when this vacation was still in dreaming mode, I pictured myself sitting on the beach sipping a fruity slushy drink. Thus far we were five days into our trip and hadn't even seen a beach. So my goal for the day was to get to a beach.

  We arranged a tour of the island that would eventually take us to the beach and feed us lunch. The tour guide was very nice, and knew a lot about the island. Half of the island is owned by the Dutch, and half is owned by the French. Everything from one side to the other is different, even the spelling of each side, and how it is pronounced. The Dutch side is spelled St. Maarten, and the French side is spelled St. Martin. Clearly I think the Dutch spelling is more fun. We learned that a lot of people that live on St. Maarten have two cell phones, one for each side of the island. To call from one side of the island to the other is an international call, so those who have to call from one side to the other frequently have a cell phone for each side. They even have their own governments. One side has a governor, the other, a mayor. 

They had round-abouts all over the place, and in the center there were always

multiple statues that conveyed some meaning.

The views, even from the bus, were incredible.

Here is a view of the ship from the bus. This shows how gigantic the ship was.

See that little baby ship in front? My ship totally dwarfs that ship.

More incredible views from the bus. (You can see the reflections on the glass...)

We actually stopped at a look out to get these shots. It was so beautiful everywhere

you looked. Just incredible.

 A coconut tree! I've never seen one before. Looks just like a palm tree :)

  We stopped for an hour downtown to shop. There was a pretty nice, fancy shopping mall right there, but the guide said that the prices were pretty steep, so we chose to spend our time at this little flea market. There was most anything you could think of, and at pretty great prices, too.

I was in love with all the colors.

  An iguana! I was hopeful that this picture would appease Aiden when I came home without an alligator. He was pretty confident that I would be able to find him an alligator, and bring it home for him. A baby one. He told me if I couldn't find one, he would be okay with a baby dolphin. But I'd better not let an alligator eat his dolphin. He also was really hoping we would see a volcano. I just didn't want him to be disappointed with what we didn't bring home for him.

Also, a sunken ship. The tour guide said that this ship sank one of the massive hurricanes in 2007.

  And then we got to the beach!! My favorite part of the day. We had a yummy barbecue lunch at a little place right off of the beach, and then we just hung out at the beach for about three hours. It was heaven! We took some pictures of the kids on the beach, and us on the beach. We swam in the ocean for a while. We relaxed on the nice beach chairs in the warm sun.

  After a little while of hanging out on the beach, (and local merchants constantly trying to get us to buy stuff from them...seriously, they came right up to our beach chairs and tried to talk us into buying everything from henna tattoos to music to dresses to jewelry.) we decided to take a walk down the beach. The beach was on the French side of the island, so clothing on this beach was optional. When we got there, most people were wearing, at the very least, bathing suits. The ones that we noticed were missing articles of clothing were in the ocean, so we couldn't see anything. And we tried to ignore them. But as we walked down the beach, we came upon this little rock barrier that we climbed like stairs, onto a new area of the beach. Right away, we spotted two gigantic white buttocks. Both of us said "oh my!" at the same time, and as we turned around, our eyes spotted no bathing suits on anyone...We then headed back to our safe beach and stayed there the rest of the time.

I wanted-no, needed-to have a fancy drink to sip on the beach. I asked Kenny go get me something fruity, slushy, and non-alcoholic. He did a great job. The one he back with was so yummy. In my head it was in a fancy cup too, but sometimes you have to pick your battles :)

I even let him try it :)

 

   After our time at the beach we headed back to the ship, and saw a few more sights along the way. Several more round-abouts too.

  Later that night there was a magic show that boggled my mind. The guy that performed was a contestant on America's Got Talent, and he totally blew my mind with the tricks he did. I'm pretty gullible anyway, but still.

  There were a few more shows/events that were going on later that night, but we went back to our stateroom to hang out till then, and I fell asleep and could not be woken back up. I hope someday Kenny will be able to forgive me for that... :)

day four-St. Thomas

  This is the day we finally got to stand on land. We arrived at St. Thomas at around 10am, and disembarked the ship shortly after that. We had booked an excursion for today which would take us by boat from St. Thomas to the island Tortola to swim with the dolphins. I was more than a little excited about this day.

 
  We went outside right after we got to the island, and WOW. It was so humid that as soon as we stepped outside we were wet. It took me so long to get this one photo of us in front of St. Thomas, because my lens kept fogging up. I'd wipe it with a cloth, and within a couple seconds it was completely covered with condensation again. Luckily there was a lady that was willing to take our picture, so I wiped the lens off, and then we took the picture fast before it had time to fog up again. This is one of the many reasons there are only three pictures from this day.

  We disembarked the ship, and since we had about an hour to kill before we were supposed to meet for our awesome dolphin swim excursion, we went and walked through the shops right by the pier. When it was time for us to meet our group, we headed over. By this time, it was pouring rain pretty good, but up to this point it hadn't really been a huge deal since I had happened to pack an umbrella. As soon as we got back over to the ship, however, it started to rain harder and harder and harder till it was in torrential downpour mode, and I was getting pretty worried about keeping my camera dry. I had the umbrella pretty much protecting my camera, but my camera bag was still getting pretty wet. Thus another reason I didn't get it out to take any pictures. It didn't really matter that we were getting wet, cause we were wearing our swimming clothes.

This is a picture of our boat from the front. It was huge.

  As we huddled around with all of the other people standing around waiting for their excursions to start, we started hearing each excursion being cancelled, one at a time. By now not only was it raining by the bucketful, it was also lightning/thundering pretty close to where we were. We guessed that ours would be cancelled too, right about the time they announced that the dolphin swim would be cancelled. And with it, our day in St. Thomas was all but ruined.

  We got back on the ship to unload the stuff we didn't want to get soaked, and changed since we wouldn't be needing our swimming clothes after all. We had till that evening in St. Thomas, so we went and walked around for a while. We had no idea what to do, or where to go, so we just wandered. Kenny's sunburn was making him pretty miserable, so we were kind of looking for somewhere we could buy some stuff to put on it. Pretty soon, we found a K-mart. Score! So we went there, bought the sunburn stuff, and headed back. On the way back we went through some of the little shops and bought a few souvenirs for the kids. Then we got back on board the ship and went to eat because by this time we were exhausted and starving. We ate at the buffet and then hung out for the rest of the day, mostly just wandering around the ship. I kind of wish we had found a taxi or something to take us to see something cool, or to find a beach or something so that our St. Thomas day would have been more fun, but oh well.

  That night they had a "Love and Marriage Game Show" that was really funny. The cruise director, Graham Seymour was really funny, and that was a pretty fun way to end the night.

Here's our little bat friend. If we hadn't needed that bath mat the next morning, we would have kept him around a little longer :)

day three-at sea

Day three was really fun.

And really relaxing.

It started out, of course, with a breakfast buffet.

Then we went to the pool for little swimming/suntanning/

(I was determined to come home a little darker than the shade of marshmallow I was when I left.)

and reading.

Then they announced the beginning of the Sexiest Man on Earth contest,

and Kenny thought he'd better enter, to give the other contestants some competition.

Just look at that big piece of man candy right there.

Oh yeah, he's mine. :) 

The lineup. They were looking for ten guys, but only got seven to swallow

their pride and enter.

 They started out by asking the guys each a question, and the question was-

"Why do you think you are the Sexiest Man on Earth"?

Kenny's answer?

"Because I have the lady that can testify that I am the Sexiest Man on Earth."

So then the host, and the cameraman, start looking for his lady.

"Is she here?" they ask.

And Kenny starts looking for me.

Since he had seen me last, I had moved several times the get in a good position for photos.

He looked around for a few seconds, but I didn't want to be on camera, so I hid.

When Kenny couldn't find me right away, the host just laughed.

I am a GREAT wife.

 So then they just got on with the competition.

The next part of the competition consisted of dancing solo,

front and center in front of the judges (middle aged ladies).

Oh yes. These are his dancing skills.

This is why Aiden stands NO chance.

Probably not Capri either, though so far she shows great promise.

After he got done with this move, he was done and walked away.

As he was walking away, the host said

"Wow. I have three letters for you, buddy. S-P-F."

Kenny got a little sunburned the day before, riding the flow rider all day long.

After each individual contestant danced solo, they all converged and danced together for a while.

It was interesting. This competition may have been one of my favorite parts of the week. :)

Unfortunately, Kenny just didn't have what they were looking for.

This is the guy that won. The only guy over fifty, really.

The other guys didn't stand a chance.

After this, we went and got showered and dressed for the ice show.

It was pretty cool, and all of the skaters were pretty amazing skaters considering there were so many of them on such a small ice rink.

There was even an ice skater that did pretty awesome tricks with hoola hoops. 

After all that we headed to dinner, and finally met the people we shared a table with.

I was really dreading eating and making conversations with strangers, but it wasn't so bad.

Right after dinner, Po from Kung Fu Panda was out and about so we got the kids

pictures taken with him.

The end.