Cruisin'- Day Two

Today was a day at sea. We hung out in the room for a bit, ate breakfast at Triton's, then hit Animator's Palate for a scrapbooking craft. It was pretty weak, so we just grabbed our Disney paper and left!

We played a little shuffleboard (and Marla learned that it can be dangerous to play without shoes), then went to see Cars 2 in 3D at the Buena Vista Theatre.

 After the movie and lunch, the kids headed to the lab to make flubber. They had so many fun activities for the kids!

While the kids were playing, we enjoyed some quiet time on deck....

Then it was time for ice cream, a stop at the arcade, and origami animals at Studio Sea!

 This was our first formal night, so we got all dolled up and headed to dinner at Triton's.

Raka always had fun games to entertain the kids (and the adults!). In this one, you had to move 3 crayons to make the fish swim the other way. Rose amazed Jackson by pulling a magic hair out of his head and making a paper move. He thought it was the greatest!


After dinner, Jackson and grandma went to rest in the room while the rest of us went to WaveBands to see Bronkar Lee, vocal percussionist. Lincoln loved his beat boxing!

After the cabaret show we all met up for the Golden Mickeys show. Jackson didn't rest in the room, and thus fell asleep during the show (which he did almost every night!).

he's almost out!

A cute little piggie was waiting for us in our room after the show. The kids crashed, and Matt & I watched movies and ordered cookies and milk from room service.

Cruisin'- Day One

We just got back from an amazing vacation! We took the three older kids on a Disney Cruise to Mexico. Matt's parents came with us, which was super fun! We've had this vacation planned since March, so when November arrived I couldn't believe that we were actually going.

We dropped Landon off at my parents house for the week (tears- from me, not Landon!) and drove to Barstow, CA where we spent the night at a super nice Hampton Inn. The next morning we picked up Rich & Marla from the airport and headed to the ship!

We arrived earlier than our scheduled time, but they let us right on (after we got the kids registered and their wristbands attached).

When we walked onto the ship they announced, "Please welcome the Holbrook family!". The kids loved it! The ship was decorated for Christmas, which was so great. We had our first meal at the Beach Blanket Buffet, checked out our room, and spent some time exploring the ship.

We took the kids to see the Oceaneer Club and Oceaneer Lab. They loved it and were excited to come back and play.

After spending some time in the kid areas, we discovered shuffleboard, which quickly became one of the favorite pastimes on board!

We explored more of the ship, and then it was time for the boat drill where we lined up tallest to shortest and learned from the fabulous Kat that we were "Excellent!".

After the drill, we headed up to deck 9 for the Adventures Away party as the boat sailed away.

After we were on our way, we got ready for dinner in Parrot Cay, where we met our servers Raka and Rose. Jackson experienced his first of many Mickey Bars. Our servers were fabulous and so great with the kids. They always had sprites ready to go when we arrived (and all that soda did a number on the kids...no dinner was complete without multiple trips to the bathroom)! Unfortunately Rose hurt her back on the second day and was replaced by Doulson, who was also great.

After dinner we saw the All Aboard: Let The Magic Begin show in the Walt Disney Theatre. It was the first of many fabulous shows.....Disney really knows how to entertain!

When we got back to our room a little elephant was waiting for us and the kids loved him! We totally crashed. I couldn't even stay up to watch  Harry Potter (they had first-run movies playing all day every day on the TV, so we eventually got to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Green Lantern, The Smurfs, Captain America, Cowboys & Aliens, Kung Fu Panda 2, Zookeeper, Thor, and Prince of Persia).

New Record

WOW! It's been awhile.....

We've been off having fun on a fabulous vacation and I am still trying to get back into the swing of things around here. Stay tuned for some picture-laden posts about our adventure! Here's a sneak peak:

In the mean time, enjoy this picture of Landon....

He now holds the record in our family of youngest to get stitches. He slid off the bench at church and hit his head on the hymnal holder. After consulting with a nearby church-goer, who also happens to be a great friend and nurse, it was decided that he needed stitches. I ran him to the urgent care while Matt stayed at church with the other kids. Two stitches and some tears later we made it back to church- just in time to teach my lesson. Whew!

I took the stitches out on Friday and he's as good as new!

Here are his 18 month stats:

Height: 31 1/2 inches

Weight: 23 pounds

He's still a little guy- 20th percentile.....