Cruise Ports

 Our Cruise made two stops. The first stop was at Catalina Island. The kids enjoyed playing in this park while the Dads rented golf carts for us to tour the island.

The golf carts were a lot of fun. We got a kick out of the Rental Place chasing us down across the island to tell us that we couldn't hold Tyler on our laps and that he needed to be in a toddler seat. 

Here is the view of our boat during our scenic drive.

 After we were done with the golf cart, the kids wanted to play in the water a little. It was too cold to go all the way in, but they all went in far enough to get the bottoms of their shorts/capris wet. You can see our cruise ship in the background.

 The other stop was in Ensenada, Mexico. Danny and I did not have fond memories of Ensenada from our previous visit, so we were hesitant to even get off of the boat. However, we had gotten the kids passports and as a result, we wanted to actually use them. We also wanted them to see what it is like to be in another country, so we got off.

There were really bombarded with picture opportunities as we got off.

 We managed to find a driver who ended up being a tour guide for us too. He took us exactly where we wanted to go. Brian and Maryn had done the research for Ensenada and we went along for the ride. We first stopped at this Civic Center/Museum. It used to be a hotel and casino. Now it is a convention center. There were some vendors right outside of it, so we were able to buy the girls a souvenir- a bracelet with their name on it. We then toured the place with our hired "tour guide."

After the Civic Center, we had our driver drop us off at Costco. We were interested to see how it differed from our Costco. We found that it was the same apart from the labels in Spanish and things appearing to cost a lot more. We pointed out to the kids how we could buy a shirt for daddy for $300. We did stop in their food court and pick up a delicious mango smoothie(something different from our Costco) and a Churro(not different-Although Alyssa declared that it wasn't as good as Disneyland's churros). After Costco, we made the scary walk across the street to the Walmart to see how it was different. Not much difference there, either.  We were glad that we didn't get hit as we crossed the street as it is kind of a fight for the right of way between cars and pedestrians, no matter what the traffic light says. We then waited at the McDonalds for our driver and let the kids play. We enjoyed making our own excursions and taking things at our own pace at both places.

Cruisin to Mexico

Last week we went on a four night cruise down to Ensenada, Mexico. Danny and I had done the same cruise 10 years ago, but it was the first time that our kids got to go on a cruise. We ended up getting a room with a balcony and we were so glad to have it. The only scary part was the thought of Tyler going overboard. We held him with a death grip any time we were out there. Here we are in the port at Long Beach, waiting for the boat to leave.

The room was pretty nice inside too. So much bigger than our inner cabin from our previous cruise.

Here is a picture of Ashley up on the top deck while we were still in the port at Long Beach.

 One morning after breakfast, Tyler and I wandered out by the pool to find it had been invaded by these towel animals. So cute. I like the one in the background climbing up the chair.

Our dinner waiter liked to fold napkin animals for Tyler, as well. Unfortunately, they did not entertain him for very long. Dinner time was probably the hardest time on the cruise with kids.

Ashley loved going down the slides in the mini water park on board. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't warm enough to really enjoy it, but that didn't stop her from trying. Alyssa liked the hot tub a lot better than the slides or the pool, just because it was so much warmer.

We were at sea the day of Ashley's birthday. We were up early enough that day to catch the sunrise.

 At the same time of the sunrise, we could also see this rainbow in the other direction. It was a great way to start a special day.

 After watching the sunrise, we went into our room and let Ashley open her presents. It was hard coming up with gifts that were small enough to pack in our bags, but we managed.

 That morning, we went to a towel animal folding class. Ashley folded this little dog.

 The highlight of the cruise was probably when this girl got up on the stage during one of their shows. It was a Hasbro Game Show featuring Yahtzee bowling and Operation Skee ball,  We had watched previews for this before going on the cruise and Alyssa had said she really wanted to be part of it. So as the time for the show arrived, we made sure to get there really early to get good seats. They pulled 4 random people out of the audience who were able to answer the "Guesstures" clue correctly. She was the forth one to do it.

Here is the video of  her playing Yahtzee bowling.

Her team ended up winning and therefore got to pick a monopoly card to have a shot at winning the big prize-A bunch of Hasbro games.  She didn't win, but loves her monopoly key chain that she won as a prize.

They did the game show again on Ashley's Birthday. Imagine our surprise when she made it up on stage, too! She got to play Connect Four Basketball. She ended up scoring the winning shot for her team, so they also won. However, her hamburger Monopoly card didn't win the big prize, either. She was just as happy with the Monopoly key chain.

This is a video of her first shot. I wanted to upload the winning shot, but the video must be too large to upload. In the other one, you can hear the whole theater cheer when she gets four in a row. This video gives you an idea of what she got to do.

The cruise was a lot of fun, but by the end we were ready to go home and get back to normal again.

Disneyland and California Adventure

The kids all loved Disneyland, as we suspected they would. We went to California adventure the first day. It was more crowded than  we would have liked, but with the help of fast passes, we were able to do almost everything. My only two regrets of the first day being that we didn't manage to get a picture of Ashley with "Jake" and the second being that we didn't get the girls into the Frozen Sing Along Show. It was just so crowded since it is so new and we ran out of time. They did enjoy having their cousins and their grandparents there with us. 

Ashley and Lydia on the tram ride into the park

 I love the look on Tyler's face here. Pure joy.

 Even though Ashley didn't get to meet Jake, she still got to see the Disney Junior Show and meet Doc McStuffins. She loved the show and meeting Doc.

 On the second day, we went to Disneyland. It was just so much more crowded than California Adventure. However, we still managed to do everything that we felt the kids should experience. We did end up sending the dads home a little earlier with the sleeping/tired kids and the mom's stayed with the older kids to do a couple more rides and the fireworks show. After the fireworks, they created a fake snow over the crowd. Here is Alyssa in the snow.

 Grandma and Grandpa joined us for half of the day and were a huge help when they took Tyler off of our hands for about an hour. Grandma got this picture with Tyler and the Genie. You'll notice Tyler is as far away as he can get. He doesn't like any Characters getting close to him. He was the same way with Santa.

 The cousins together with Danny. They got along so well and had so much fun together.

We wished we had had an extra day in between the two parks to rest, but overall the kids did pretty well. Tyler refused to nap both days and as a result, ended up being pretty crabby towards the early evenings. He fell asleep in my arms both nights as we were finishing up for the night.

Photo Shoot

I attempted to get some new family photos done in order to update pictures for our parents and to send out a Christmas Card. The parents got the pictures, but the Christmas Cards did not get sent. The pictures turned out really well. Here are a few of my favorites.

 

 They did a really good job of hiding my pregnant belly as you can see in the pictures below.

Unfortunately these will be outdated again, come May, but at least we can enjoy them until then.

Christmas Happened

So I decided it was probably time to move on from the Halloween post considering we have said goodbye to 2014. Christmas happened in our house, even though I was far too busy the past 4 weeks to document it. I took the kids over to the mall to ride the train and visit Santa.

 I made them matching jammies, as usual, to wear for Christmas morning. They are sure lucky to receive so many presents. They loved them all and we even managed to get them to obey our Christmas morning rules(i.e. No waking mom and dad up before 6:30, and Do not go downstairs until we tell you it is okay). Christmas morning went much more smoothly this year than last because they obeyed the rules. Their big gift this year was two days at Disneyland before going on our Cruise.

 This little sweetie turned 9. We celebrated by going to the Japanese Steakhouse for dinner(one of the only places open on Christmas and it is one of her favorite places to eat). She got to stand on the chair and "Shake her bootie." We failed to get a video of it. After dinner we came back to the house for presents, cake, and ice cream. She got a lot of doll accessories to go with her "Our Generation" doll.

 Ashley loves her big stuffed dog and insists that her dogs are part of the family. For Christmas she got a puppy that looks exactly like this stuffed dog. Sometimes it is hard to tell the fake dogs apart from the real Casey.

 This isn't really Christmas related, but I found this cute picture of Tyler and couldn't resist posting it. He loved Christmas and caught on really fast to the idea of opening presents. His big gift this year was a train set that he loves to play with.

Oh, and our biggest news of the season is that we found out we will be having another little boy, due in early May. We are so excited for the new addition he will be to our family and that Tyler will have a little playmate in the coming years.